Labels: Hydra Head
Review by: Smith
The latest full-length from Harvey Milk hasn’t received nearly as much attention as their previous efforts ‘Life – The Best Game In Town’, or ‘Special Wishes’, the releases that heralded their return after 8 years inactivity. In my opinion this is nothing short of a travesty, as ‘A Small Turn…’ is a truly brilliant, towering slab of brooding doom that overshadows pretty much everything else they’ve done, bar their benchmark album ‘Courtesy And Goodwill To All Men’ (one of the most startlingly innovative and under-appreciated albums of the ’90’s).
‘A Small Turn…’ is the return of the true Harvey Milk, and at the risk of upsetting the hipsters, it seems to be the absence of Joe Preston that is the decisive factor. I like the pummel of Melvins or the unbridled weirdness of Thrones as much as the next freak, but in recent years Preston’s output seems to have slipped into self-parody (watching the Melvins last year I had to stifle a yawn). Preston’s appearance on second guitar garnered the retiring Georgians hitherto unknown attention and press, but it brought with it a hefty dose of stodgy R ‘n’ R which made ‘Life…’ the dullest Harvey Milk album to date (try comparing it with the mercurial ‘Pleaser’, their other ‘straight rock’ album).
Slimmed down to their 3-piece core, Harvey Milk return without a mid-paced section in sight. The whole album is conducted at an agonising, trudging, snail’s pace. But far from making things boring, this simply anchors the doom-laden heaviness of the songs, which are as varied and interesting as one would expect from the Harvey Milk of old. Perhaps it is the records length – 38 minutes, half that of ‘Courtesy..’ – which keeps boredom at bay. And whilst not quite as all over the place as ‘Courtesy…’, this is their most coherent album. Every song on the record flows seamlessly into the next, creating the feeling of a single monolithic track which is only interrupted by the flipping of sides. Musical fragments appear and reappear throughout, simultaneously disorientating the listener and cementing the album’s themes. The lyrics have the same continuity, each song title utilising the form of personal pro-noun led confessional statements (‘I just want to go home’, ‘I alone got up and left’ etc.). These lyrics are some of Mr Spiers’ most raw and emotionally bleak to date, the lugubrious, despairing atmosphere is all enveloping. The attenuated musical teasing of ‘I am sick of all this too’ is classic Harvey Milk, as is the sudden halting piano solo on ‘I know this is all my fault’.
By not trying too hard to be the slowest, heaviest, or most down-tuned, as a lesser band may perhaps do, Harvey Milk achieve a level of authentic heaviness (in all sense of the word) unrivalled by most other bone-rattlers and dirge-peddlers. The drumming has a minimal, disciplined perfection to it, like the heart beat of a tranquillised behemoth. The guitar and bass combine lithic density with delicate melodic subtlety, aided by unexpected touches like the Hammond on ‘I know this is no place for you’, or the synths on ‘I know this is all my fault’. The overall mix with its reverb-drenched drums has a sense of vast space that feels simultaneously sparse and rich. With the painful, personal lyrics delivered in Spiers’ trademark hoarse howl, the overall sound aches with heaviness, threatening to collapse under its own weight. For an example of this, listen to the way the feedback-riven guitar solo carves its way through the murky monotone bass-line on ‘I just want to go home’, or the way the first chord of ‘I alone got up and left’ hits you like a punch in the stomach before opening out into a amazingly twisted, discordant section. A masterpiece in mature and measured devastation, both sonically and emotionally.