Labels: BeCoq – Drid Machine – Inversions
Review by: Kunal Nandi
Golden Oriole impressed me mightily when I saw them live, being as they were a drummer and a guitarist (both former members of Staer, a band I took waaaaay too long to check out when I was under the mistaken assumption that they were boring, run-of-the-mill noise-rock) locked together, pounding out rhythms relentlessly, seemingly for ages. While the durational aspect of the duo brings to mind bands like Ruins and Orthrelm, the number one aim here is to get you dancing. It’s not four to the floor, but a regular beat you can nod along to is right there, with the duo doing everything they can to play around with it, stretching and forcing and wrong-footing it into myriad odd elastic shapes. It’s suffocatingly poisonous punk funk, vocal-free with a bizarre guitar tone somewhere between bass and trombone, all slathered with some zippy noise FX for good measure. “The Pyrite Wink” is the standout for me, a rollicking humdinger that you may never hum along with.
Golden Oriole
Drid Machine (LP)
Inversions (LP)
BeCoq (CD)