Oct. 31, 2012 - Issue #889-Human Trafficking Problem
The World Is Too Much With Us
Peace {recordings_bands_mg} The World Is Too Much With Us {/recordings_bands_mg}
Suicide Squeeze,
4
There's nothing more annoying than rock-critic math: the kind of lazy, presumptive writer who would see fit to tell you a band is like "Interpol + ABBA" or "Franz Ferdinand – Gang of Four + New Kids on the Block" is the kind of elitist gatekeeper gibberish that nobody ought to have time for.But when it came to Vancouver post-punk princes Peace, the math was, until now, too perfect not to mention. Take the throaty, esoteric singing of Jonathan Richman and tack it onto the twinkling double-guitar lockstep of Television and you have your equation. As exciting as that scenario would be—I mean, could you imagine?—it meant that, because the math was so easy, Peace was simply the sum of its parts. It added up to a lot, but still.
That being said, Peace has smashed whatever mould it fit into and, with the group's second full-length and Suicide Squeeze Records debut The World Is Too Much With Us, taken the pieces and done a hell of a job reconstructing them with scotch tape and staples.
Gone are the band's pretty call-and-response guitars, replaced with buzzsaws that fight each other for space, that layer on top of each other and argue. Their very disagreements are sonically sinister, but brilliantly cohesive in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable. And Dan Geddes's voice rings out over top like a maniac's kiss, separate from yet solidly embedded in the threatening-to-unweave tapestry.
Take, for example, the album's second track, "Fun and Games." Underneath guitars that sound like they could fall out of time with each other at any second rumbles bass and drums desperately trying to keep the whole thing together. The instrumental mix feels gloriously out of sorts, like when you stumble out of a pub and try to find a taxi, your skin clammy and your clothes dishevelled. On top of that comes the lyrics, "It's ... all ... fun and games," shouted with an urgency of purpose, punctuated by syncopated laughter that would make a madman uncomfortable.
The album is not wholly successful. Unfortunately, its back half gives into the temptation of extended jam outs that, far from reinforcing the off-kilter incredibleness of the album serve only to dilute it and let it become boring. But let's just ignore that for the time being, OK? Because even when Peace is bad, Peace is very, very good. vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus
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