Weekly Release Spotlight: A Place To Bury Strangers
Posted on 2/03/2008
A Place To Bury Strangers
A Place To Bury Strangers
[Killer Pimp]
A little noise won't kill you. A little dose of scraping sounds steeped in explosive battery acid pulses won't turn you evil. After all, despite the scary name, for every grimy and guttural guitar tone that shoots into your skull on A Place to Bury Strangers' debut full-length, there's an equal amount of meditative and downright gorgeous atmospherics sheening over the package. Frontman Oliver Ackerman's depressed but bouncing warbling hints at a world of both comfort and anxiety, rolled into one, as if the notion of positive and negative feelings being mutually exclusive is the most ridiculous concept he and the rest of his bandmates have ever heard.
Then again, that seems to be the way things go in their hometown of New York City. Just as in their music, there's always a bleak hustle and bustle on the forefront, but then again, there also has to be time to let go and have a pleasant release from the stress and chaos. If you're not patient, "Don't Think Lover" sounds like a broken demon toaster going berserk, but if you get past the deafening intro, you're rewarded with a cloudy yet inviting hum-along verse. By the next time the muffled snare roll signifies a turn back to the blaring, your ears get excited for this game of sound APTBS have constructed and you're not only willing, you're clamoring to take on the rest of the disc. Whether it's the left channel static in "I Know I'll See You" or the earsplitting percussion in "To Fix the Gash in Your Head," it all plays so elegantly into the pop that is buried underneath it, and still it comes as a surprise every time the trio's instruments explode through the speakers.
Sure, blending cacophony with joy isn't anything new, but the party anthem destructiveness that lies within their Jesus and Mary Chain-for-a-new-generation aesthetic leaps miles beyond the average crunchy guitar pedal or the standard distorted blanket of ambiance utilized by their predecessors. In fact, one of the most advertised pieces of trivia about APTBS is that Ackerman has been known for a while in the indie-rock community as the man behind Death By Audio guitar pedals, creating some of the most distinct modulations for the electric axe around. So it begins to make sense that the closer the listen, the more the band's retro-futurist technique becomes more clearly about the present, and not about regurgitating the success of Suicide, Joy Division, or any other band that is closely associated with dingy Euro-basement imagery.
Written by Chris Polley, Radio K DJ and volunteer.
Stream: A Place To Bury Strangers - To Fix The Gash In Your Head
Radio K Presents Holy F*** and A Place to Bury Strangers at the Triple Rock Social Club on Monday, February 18th. Doors 9pm. 21+.
Tune in Monday, February 18th at 4pm as they'll be performing live on the air!