Review Summary: A post-modern post-punk farewell
Over the past few years the post-modern approach to music has become a relative standard in many underground communities. The building blocks of; shoegaze, indie rock, black metal, industrial, noise, folk, post-punk, hardcore, screamo, etc., have all been deconstructed, reinterpreted, and then used to assemble wholly unique LP’s that are familiar, yet, intriguingly exotic in their genre-defying construction. Bands like Have a Nice Life, Mamaleek and Circle of Ouroborus have successfully created linear sounding LP’s while drawing from a disparate array of influences. On their first 2 LP’s, Crooked Necks did a terrific job of distorting the lines between murky lo-fi shoegaze and blown-out 80’s UK post-punk, all rounded out by intermittent black metal banshee screaming. On Crooked Neck’s newest EP, “Faded Fluorescence,” the band’s brand of seasick, psychedelic guitar wash is still there, as well as the sporadic sepulchral screams, but this EP has made a noticeable shift further into icy post-Joy Division post-punk. This shouldn’t necessarily be a surprise for a band who released a Joy Division covers 12.” Crooked Necks effectively utilize that post-punk base, and mesh it with a myriad of bittersweet cold-wave, lo-fi screamo, and noisy post-rock guitar trill-and-squall, to create an interesting EP, that would seem to serve as a wonderful stepping stone to the band’s next stage…if there was one. Sadly, it seems this is the band’s last release and their final stage.
The 20 minute, “Faded Fluorescence,” EP was released in a limited 200 cassette run as well as digitally, and seems like it would have been perfect as one side of a 12” split. In spite of its short run-time, the EP manages some attention-grabbing moments, and hints at the prospect of even more incredible things to come. Despite these successes there is a nagging feeling that these songs are all “almost,” brilliant, “almost,” reaching the ideal mix of catchy, ethereal cold-gaze and lo-fi post-punk bliss. The band’s sound has advanced from the band’s initial post-Frail release, (the highly recommended split with Finnish uber-outsider-black-metal band, Circle of Ouroborus), where it sounded like a combination of a badly warped 1980’s Cure cassette tape, and really pretty, refracted blackened post-punk. The band still preserves identifiable remnants of those sounds, but on the new EP the sound has developed to add a wealth of Buahuas influence to its quavering mix of shoegaze-meets-Level Plane Records guitar storms. Spoken gothic vocals have become a larger presence on this EP, as well as more recognizable indie rock guitar sound. All of this works….but not necessarily to push the band to the next level, but neither does it detract from the blurry beauty of the band’s sound. It’s more like a lateral career move, knowing that the next step is going to be a great one.
The LP begins with, “Tornado Formations,” which is by far the most redolent of the bands previous work, and also where we catch glimpses of what could have been. The song enters with a beautiful, shimmering shoegaze guitar-line that cedes to a nebulous, druggy, swarming black metal-esque guitar glimmer. This shadowy beginning opens to apocalyptic folk vocals, definitely harkening back to the early 80’s UK post-punk / goth bands like Bauhaus and The Comsat Angels. The song takes some unique key and tempo changes before devolving into this psychedelic stew of seething guitar gaze, jabbing Joy Division bass lines, and a pulsing, linear structure. The wonderful washed-out daze of their earlier work blends beautifully with the more structured, discernable brand of smeary, narrative post-punk. It’s the 2nd song, “Shallow Pools and Unused Rooms,” where the EP begins to falter some. Starting off sounding like a shoegaze version of the more recent, Blessure Grave, or, like The Chameleons being played on 17 RPM’s, the song soon erupts into a mid-tempo rocker replete with the mournful screaming of old, only to hastily return to the lo-fi goth-punk the song began with. I am a huge fan of incongruous musical creations, but here it feels a bit un-thought-out as opposed to challenging.
The doleful, “From the Roots,” is a lovely song, with chiming atmospherics and a dark, reverby post-punk vibe. Kind of a beautiful, psychedelic indie rock nightmare of sorts. Like if Guided By Voices was heard and re-interpreted by indie-rock aliens in some galactic, blackened other-verse a million light years away. The short, “Broken into Shapes,” is a post-industrial, depressive post-punk vignette that moves from twinkling guitars and paradiddle drumming to a color-bleeding canvas of dead-pan spoken vocals and hypnotic, clinical drumming. The final song, “And Now I’m Dying,” is the other track that hints at what possibly could have been. It begins with a bonny, narcotic guitar glowering that wouldn’t be out of place on an Explosions In The Sky LP, and builds into a chaotic storm of streaky guitars, echoing, driving drums that culminates into this absolutely incredible vocal chorus. As the chorus ends a driving, cathartic post-Cure guitar tempest spasms around in a frenzy of shoegazey pop enlightenment.
“Faded Fluorescence,” sees a band becoming more comfortable as a focused entity, honing their outsider post-punk collages into a tighter, more approachable sound. But it also feels as if they haven’t found how to impeccably integrate their previous work’s post-modern-wooze of dim outsider shoegaze, into this clearer narrative musical framework. One can only speculate about the future, and what Crooked Necks may have accomplished is pure barroom chit-chat, but this EP serves as a magnificent reminder of the band’s fantastic past, and a forever unknown harbinger of its even brighter future.
