GSCHU – a picture you’re not in
(CD – Siluh)
“The end of the world is
near / there’s nothing left to fear.” It seems that Gschu is defining
itself more by what it is not than what it is, and then attributes this to
the times as they are these days. Not a punkband, not a rock band and not a
popband either. Not a one man project anymore as well. Sometimes screaming,
sometimes singing, sometimes soft, sometimes harder. All through the records
thoughts about things lost, about things gained that turned out differently
than imagined and about the changes of things crop up. History is dynamic,
but the human mind and heart long for stability. Even the loneliness is gone
and missed. As in “loneliness, sweet loneliness, where are you now?”
(from “Loneliness”). But these themes are displayed in a lot of variety
all over the album in a nevertheless compact form. Actually, it seems to me,
that inspite of all the reluctance to face the instability of our time and
the reservations towards the so called progress and the culture of
hyperspeed, Gschu have found a pretty good formula to work with it.
The CD actually starts with
the second song for real. The first one “on trees” is the programmatic
intro commented on above. And this second song, “Some might say” starts
with that kind of typical chord changes on electric guitar that is so
idiomatic for mediocre indie-pop/rock from the mid eighties. But before you
can think, aww no, not that again, the song cracks open suddenly and jumps
into a great, explosive, energetic full on guitar-pop-song that drives on a
melody and arrangement that reminds me very much of, dare I say it, the
Smashing Pumpkins. Especially when the guitars go full force sound wall and
the voice of singer and songwriter Alex Tomsits falls into this nasal tinge,
it is the most obvious. Wow, what a start into a record. All Gschu needed
was five minutes to build up attention, a wrong expectation and then to turn
that around, and the have won me over. Was it a strategy? Or deductive
tinkering? Anyway, it worked. I am now officially a fan of Gschu.
Amongst the other bands from
Austria somehow in the same field, from Dust Covered Carpet
via Everton to The Striggles,
Gschu stand on their own due to perfect songwriting. Sometimes it is
probably too close to what you might expect, but as long as they keep the
attitude and arrangements closer to great bands such as The Weakerthans or
Jets to Brazil and far away from the washed down alternative radio rock
stuff that is so exchangeable and meaningless, this is okay with me. In
songwriting that is so deftly pointed at the middle of the road, this danger
is always around the corner. As soon as the artists start to take the
obvious choices in recording and production, as soon as they have some
A&R-guy suggest to add strings or horns or effects or to fly in this
famous producer guy who has also done those other million seller records of
bands that were once good (take a look at the history of Green Day) all
alarms should start to ring. “a picture you’re not in” is far from
these dangers. A good radio station should be playing this up and down.
There are plenty single hits on here, like “Some might say”, “Small
Somethings” or the title track.
