THE STRIGGLES - aloha
(CD, noise appeal)
Ka-Pang! And you are right in
the middle of a fucking noise-rock hailstorm, banging with ferocious energy
like somebody put a jackhammer to your head. Exactly the way it should be.
Damn, yes, noise rock with a big N. Not fast, not slow, but heavy. It is
probably another insider joke that the first track is called “ease it”
and does the exact opposite. Who cares anyway?
“Aloha” is the second
album by The Striggles
who have already been praised as a great noise rock band, rejuvenators of
dirty rock’n’roll, adepts to Jesus Lizard and the whole AmRep-catalogue,
ingenious advocators of originality in heavy rock, and what else. Some of
that by me, I confess, but I am not ashamed of my fandom. But if you find a
band that manages to do some very important things all at the same time, it
is also important to feel the duty to call out in their praise. Things such
as avoiding rock clichés from the everlasting rehashing of the same stupid
riffs or verse / chorus / verse / chorus / bridge / chorus structure to the
everlasting sexist clichés of muscle cars to tits on sticks. Yes, rock
symbols from the skulls to the eightballs are cool, but they also easily
fall into either kitsch or dumbness. Like a Lamborghini covered in Hello
Kitty or a wheelchair with flame painting. Hm, I might think again about the
wheelchair when the time comes, but you know what I mean. The Striggles
avoid clichés and instead try to find something original. That is cool.
Even when on “jack” the go
into high pitched falsetto, which you might take as an ironic stab at heavy
metal singing, a tribute to Led Zeppelin or pure rock’n’roll. I mean, I
like the Eagles of Death Metal a lot. They are a great rock’n’roll band
and very entertaining to watch. They pull off lines like “Shit, goddamn,
I’m a man, I’m a man” with credibility and energy. The Striggles are
different, though, in that they are not as easy to swallow as the Eagles.
But don’t ever mistake either of them for a joke or a fun project. Better
breathe in the energy, swallow and try to keep it down.
Another thing is to keep up
the energy level that noise rock should radiate at all times. I have a
theory that good heavy guitar music (not metal!) comes from places that are
regularly hit by cold weather. Therefore bands have to huddle in their
rehearsal spaces and then turn up the amps in lack of proper heating to warm
up the cellar or whatever space they are confined in. That is why grunge
rock came from Seattle and noise rock from Chicago and the Butthole Surfers
turned boring when Gibby Haynes moved to Los Angeles. (Drugs might have
played a role in that, too, sure, but if you think that heavy drugs are not
available in the countryside you are sadly mistaken.) And that is also why
Austria has quite a fair share of great noise rock bands (do I have to
mention Bulbul?)
and The Striggles are amongst the top.
The third thing is to keep the
balance between standard tricks and new stuff. There is some crazy shit
going on during “naiv” like very low bass frequency humming and weird
slide guitar interruptions, and that is things you may want to pull off here
and there. But a great noise rock record quickly returns to banging the
listener on the head, and so “up to me”, the next song, is as close to Melt Banana
as a male band from Austria might ever get to. (Nothing can beat the
craziness of Japanese noise balls, but this is already very good.) Too much
standard and the record turns dumb and foreseeable. Too much craziness and
you’ll end up with a slab of endless noise and a freakshow in space
frequency. The latter is probably the better to the first, but for noiserock
is still rock, and rock needs to rock. Ask Jack Black, he’ll explain it to
you in more detail.
I admit, I mostly have no idea
what they songs are about. I am able to discern a few lines here and there,
but what do I make of “all those beauties / do their duties” (from
“life is pretty (black)”)? That the songs seem to be about general
discontent with the way things are going in individual lives as well as in
society is a truism even I step away from, because what isn’t? If you have
ever lived for weeks with the bad feeling in your gut that something bad is
going to happen, something you cannot control but which will affect your
live adversely in many ways, and that hung above your head like an eternal
black cloud of black weather, then you’ll know the sentiment. So here is
my advice: Open a beer or two, kick back and let the energy rip through you.
