This sparkling album from the Georgia four-piece formally known as Pinecones manages to veer from straight out, droney but punky rock to summer breeze tunes such as ‘Belief’d‘ yet maintain a linking aesthetic. Right across the piece there’s a gloriously repetitious, driving power such that one’s head becomes quite lost in the looping riffs. The press release mentions chugging and juggernaut in relation to the first track ‘Mr Birdsong’. It’s time they trademarked the neologism chuggernaut and made it their own. It fits perfectly: forceful and rock and roll without ever being overly brash or crass. It’s heavy but finely crafted and no stranger to an intricate tune. As perhaps you would expect from an album jointly produced with Thurston Moore and Randall Dunn.
Touchstones might be a bit of Iggy Pop mixed with some of the livelier moments of Spacemen 3 and some of the more wigged out moments from the Velvet Underground. Indeed some straight up psychedelic jams in the stretched out ‘IHU’. That repetitiousness seems to morph and change through sheer drive and force of will: whilst staying the same the ears play tricks in much the same way some contemporary techno does. It’s thoroughly fresh sounding in the current musical landscape which is quite a feat when the raw ingredients are pretty conventional. Quite a trick to pull off and pull it off they do. Exhilarating stuff for sure with a swagger that’s both more immediate and attractive than introverted takes on the few blokes with guitars and drums model.
Fine skill with melody too. ‘I Am You‘ has a picked top line that could even have been plucked from the Stone Roses‘ more breezy efforts. And yet the brute force thrusting things along would be a bit much for John Squires methinks. It does add to the sense of joie de vivre throughout proceedings. At heart, this is a cheerful, life-affirming record. It may have been produced in Seattle but it’s no contemplative misery-fest. Every track looks outwards and dares you not to enjoy.
Very impressive and by the looks of their US touring schedule they’re quite keen on doing it live. One hopes they will blast over the pond in the not too distant as this record deserves to be heard live. If nothing else, to try and work out how they’ve managed to reinvigorate a sound perhaps in a relatively moribund state and make it quite so vital. Truly a record that surpasses the sum of its parts.
