Artist Reviews
| Artist: Times New Viking Album: Rip it Off Label: Matador Review By: Dan Kober |
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| Times New Viking’s new record will put-off many people. It will also destroy your ears. It’s not something I can recommend to my friends without warnings and explanations. This record isn’t for everyone, but I don’t want to scare people from finding out what it is all about. Rip It Off jolts me like noisy records from Liars and No Age did last year. The difference is that this record is celebratory and totally life affirming. Less art-damage here. This record revels in its glorious cacophony that has affectionately been called “shit-gaze”. And that term is by all means a hypocorism for “awesomeness”. Despite its roughness, there is nothing half-assed about this record. It’s cathartic, irresistible, and every kind of cool. It doesn’t hold back, yet at no point is it exhausting or vertigo-inducing.
Rip It Off is the Columbus, Ohio trio’s Matador debut and third overall release, after two on the newly resurrected Siltbreeze label. This album eschews any modifications in sound that you’d expect with such a label jump. It has to be one of the noisiest records Matador has ever released. Glad to see the guys who brought us 90’s lo-fi heroes like Guided By Voices and Pavement delivering a band as electric as Times New Viking. Still, this album must be properly served and digested before Times New Viking become your new favorite underground upstarts. On first listen, the production sounds like a joke. The music sounds like someone sent the tapes through the garbage disposal. But this is deliberate and it works. Give it awhile, and play it with the volume down at first. I have a semi-relevant analogy. Anyone who knows me can attest that I like to wear my pants a teensy bit tight. When all of my tight pants were in the laundry, I busted out my old relaxed-fit jeans from sophomore year, and got lots of upset reactions from folks who had previously deemed my choice of pants questionable. My initially off-putting style seemed to have grown on them. Similarly, now that I am past my initial reaction to this album, I find myself becoming emotionally attached to these songs and this endearingly “bad” production style. The band seems to be challenging the listener to drop their entirely selfish expectations of how a record is “supposed” to sound, to listen to the earnest energy behind these songs, and to feel something new. If Times New Viking ditched the blown speakers and toy keyboards for computer effects and clean synths, the results would be upsetting. If they ever do make the big change, now they can at least be proud of what they left behind.
On this record, Times New Viking refuse to surrender the stubbornly lo-fi aesthetic used on their previous releases, Dig Yourself and The Paisley Reich. The exuberant boy/girl vocals of Adam Elliot and Beth Murphy remain irreverent and muddied as ever, and the jagged punk riffs of the group’s past efforts remain ultra-satisfying. The drums are also still barely audible. The record’s one moment of lucidity comes late in the album, in the thirty-something second denouement of “The End Of All Things.” The electric guitar drops out for an acoustic, campfire sing-along moment and [finally!] clear, unmasked vocals can be heard. This is the record’s sweetest moment, and its placement is legitimately funny in how unexpectedly and fleetingly the band finally lets its epidermis show. The overall difference between this album and the last two is in the songwriting. This is the band’s most memorable batch of songs yet. And the songs only benefit from the initially offensive production. Guitars sound refreshingly genuine as they buzz and wail on this album. Whatever grog these guys are serving up, I’m drinking it down. Recommended if you like: No Age: Weirdo Rippers Yo La Tengo: Painful Guided By Voices: Alien Lanes Pavement: Slanted and Enchanted |
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