DON’T
MESS WITH TEXAS – los dias de junio
(CD/LP/download,
Moon Lee)
In the review to Bosch’s with you’s album “never thought it may seem”
I asked what to do with bands that are post-rock bands but don’t actually
play post-rock, and I mentioned Don’t mess with Texas as one of the bands that
also get labelled post-rock. Which reminded me that I had the new record by
this wonderful Croatian band lying around for some months next to my stereo,
playing it again and again but never being able to make my mind up about it.
But thanks to Bosch the central question raised its head and it is: what
about bands that defy the label post-rock but actually play post-rock? Just
as much as, for instance, Isis play a certain kind of post-rock nowadays,
and I stand up with my head straight up and defend this statement, nevermind
how many stoner kids will throw rocks at me. (Yeah, that pun was
intentional).
Not a lot has changed from the self-titled debut album
to this one. The one thing that arises quickly seems to be a new grasp for
larger dimensions and structures in the song, even though that does not seem
to mirror in the track run. Another thing might be a newly found clarity or
sparkling density in the recording sound, which pushes the sound that
important edge further. Don’t mess with Texas still is no rockband in the
traditional sense, just because they don’t write rocksongs in the
traditional sense. It is hard to pin them down, because they do have that
epic melodramatism that the new generation of Hydrahead bands has (if you
deduct the screaming and kicking) but then the keyboard brings in a light
that shines “progressive” all the way. Hey, sometimes it even switches
to piano. And in combination with a new setting on the guitar, that adds
warmth and tone and body to the sound – almost like mid-era Neil Young
sound – I start to think of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band suddenly and then
I have to kick myself for being so weird. I should be comparing this band to
Brahms, for all its worth, because Brahms – to my limited knowledge of
classical music –has also written the most wonderful short orchestra
pieces.
Some stupid indie-rock band said in an interview that I
read on somebody’s toilet that they don’t understand instrumental bands.
Because, as they said: “If you play the guitar, you gotta sing, right?”
Well, wrong. That statement makes as little sense as saying, if you play the
drums you gotta whistle or if you play the violin you gotta dance. The only
statemen that might make sense regarding the pairing of an instrument and
another artistic activity is that if you play the trumpet you can’t sing.
Actually, Louis Armstrong proved the opposite, so we would have to decrease
the scope of this statement to not being able to sing while you are playing
the trumpet. Aside the overall arrogance and ignorance a statement like this
betrays, it is also testament to the fact that people seem to be getting
more stupid all the time. Especially myspace and friends (yes, another
intended pun) has raised bands and people to the top much too quickly and
much too massively, so that a lot of people get possibilities to make
statements without thinking a minute about them.
