Beige Banquet – Export/Additive
Genre: Post-Punk
Similar artists: Crack Cloud, Uranium Club, Devo, Marbled Eye
People get dressed up for parties and leave to their engagements looking the best possible way they can. Of course, it would be more interesting if after they’d done their makeup, fitted themselves with their best clothes, and sprayed cologne over their bodies, they would just dump themselves in a bath of paint, or if they’d roll around in the dirt.
Post-punk bands, especially those of a modern variety do just that. Unlike extreme metal groups, for example, they aren’t concerned merely with being misunderstood and disliked. They like to let audiences know that they could certainly do something different if they chose to. They choose not to.
Beige Banquet’s Export/Additive is music so well-designed and so filled with hatred for the world that it could only be made in Britain. Others may have it worse, but nobody is angry with the world as the Brits. Consequently, they are the champions of post-punk for four decades running. And, with the way that the world keeps being run this is unlikely to change anytime soon.
Church Grim – Susquehanna
Genre: Lo-fi Rock, Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
Kids start playing soccer wanting to score goals and dribble. They don’t begin by learning how to foul other players. Or, how to smash the ball out into the stands. That may help you win. But, it’s certainly not something that’s done instinctively. Unless you really hate soccer, to begin with.
Kids learn to play guitar and drums so that they can play like their heroes. They dream of playing solos in front of an audience. They dream of their drum sets exploding in front of a stadium audience. They don’t dream of writing soft pop ballads in order to earn money. They don’t dream of becoming Coldplay. Unless they really hate music to begin with.
Church Grim, on their single, Susquehanna, sound like the kids that dreamed of being poets, rockstars, and mad preachers. Their brand of garage-rock meets Nick Cave’s fire and brimstone monologue is made by people that still believe in the evil, corrupting powers of rock n’ roll. God bless them! Teach your children how to be like Church Grim and hide the Coldplay records as if you were trying to relive the Satanic Panic!
