June 14, 2004

Desert City Soundtrack/Settlefish/Sounds Like Violence

If there’s any lesson that can be gleaned from listening to this unevenly distributed split EP, it’s that what you sing doesn’t matter as much as HOW you sing it. For the last eight years, North Carolina record label Deep Elm has been releasing increasingly infinitesimal variations on the “emo” template. Even though the label’s logo has changed, you still basically know what you’re going to get once you see it on the back of a CD. A bunch of bombastic anthems about any variation of being generally bummed out will be churned out on two guitars, bass, and drums, and fronted by vocalists with slightly more enthusiasm than actual singing ability. Despite the label’s proudly rigid adherence to this template, they’ve escaped most of the critical beat-downs that labels with similar aesthetics have received (take, for example, Pitchfork’s general condescension toward bands on Vagrant or Doghouse). This EP proves why by giving us new songs by three of the label’s best recent signings, all of whom demonstrate that a lot of talent and a little bit of deviation from the norm can make the same old thing sound completely new.

The histrionic Swedes of Sounds Like Violence begin the EP with their only contribution, “I Push You Up the Stairs.” They’re the most generic band of the three, with a chorus that reads as if it’s straight out of the “Emo for Dummies” manual: “I’m dead! It’s because you’re f*cking with my head. You don’t care! You don’t bear to lift up your head anymore. You’re not here! You’re not here anymore. What is there to ignore?” I’m assuming that English isn’t singer/lyricist Andreas Soderlund’s native tongue, therefore he wrote such deliberately clichéd lyrics to keep his linguistic reach from exceeding his grasp. However, he compensates for it by delivering one of the most insane vocal performances I’ve ever heard on record, screaming so angrily that I can’t fathom how he manages to stay on key. He sounds as if he’s spastically trying to writhe himself out of a straitjacket, and his vocal delivery gives power to the band’s otherwise nondescript distorted jangle.

Portland quintet Desert City Soundtrack give us two songs that build a bridge between the “screamo” of Sounds Like Violence and the piano-driven progressive rock of 90 Day Men. “Send Your Soldiers to Do the Killing,” the EP’s most abrasive song, is a brief anti-Bush screed that’s stuffed to the gills with high-pitched guitar feedback and tuneless screaming that’s even more unhinged than Soderlund’s.
“January’s Loss” is a bit more relaxed and stretched-out, relying on melancholy trumpets and a couple of well-placed tempo changes to evoke a sense of world-weariness. Guitarist Mike Casanova mumbles two or three notes at a time, as if he’s too worn out from screaming on “Soldiers” to project his voice any further. This band is the most musically original out of the three, but their songs don’t offer as much in the way of hooks.

Italian quintet Settlefish are the stars of this EP, not necessarily because their songs are the best of the three bands’, but simply because they have more of them. Settlefish have three songs, whereas Desert City Soundtrack have two and Sounds Like Violence only one. Lyrically, they’re the flip side of Sounds Like Violence: whereas Soderlund writes extremely basic lyrics that can’t be misinterpreted, Settlefish front man Jonathan Clancy’s lyrics make absolutely no sense. On “Curse Loosely,” Clancy asks, “Can you dance triple dreams on ashes?” Yeah, dude…sure I can! (Huh? What?) Like Soderlund, though, Clancy compensates for his lyrical deficiencies through the conviction he puts into his terminally hoarse singing. Settlefish also boasts clever and dissonant three-guitar arrangements that suggest a familiarity with American art-rock juggernauts like Juno and Shudder to Think.

The only real complaint that I can make about this EP is that it’s unevenly distributed between the three bands: SLV gets one track, DCS get two, and Settlefish get three. One of the Settlefish tracks (EP closer “Glass Party”) is pretty boring; replacing it with another cool Sounds Like Violence song not only would have increased the signal-to-noise ratio, but would have also brought the EP full circle artistically. However, five good songs out of six is still a great batting average. I recommend this EP to anyone who’s gotten tired of Deep Elm over the last couple of years; those of you who still have an “emo” fetish should have already bought it by now.

---Sean Padilla

Artist Website: http://www.desertcitysoundtrack.com
Artist Website: http://www.settlefish.com
Artist Website: http://www.soundslikeviolence.com
Label Website: http://www.deepelm.com

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