Labels: Modern Radio – Rejuvenation
Review by: Alex Deller
Funny, I had it in mind that this was a dull and arduous listen but I must have been mistaking it for something else, because it’s in fact very much on my wavelength. The first song sounds like a cranky Feelies, and that’s ok. The rest of it is maybe a bit noisier and a bit more awkward. You can imagine members of the band enjoying things like Circus Lupus, Sicbay, Tar and Pere Ubu. The music scuttles and bungees about, doing what it wants while the singer holds court. His style is terse, eloquent, arcane and conversational. As though maybe The Van Pelt were not young and carefree and full of bright … if occasionally melancholy … hope for the future, but crotchety and weary and old, and had seen enough of the future crumble to dust to know that the rest of it wasn’t likely to be up to much. All of this I can certainly get behind. I also just discovered that STNNNG have a split 7″ with the band Signal To Trust. This is something I can also get behind, and also makes stylistic sense in itself while pointing you in the right direction if you went nuts for said band’s ‘Folklore’ record 15 years ago and are now frequently feeling tired, tapped out and like all the best things in life might already be behind you.