Luminatrix – China Again
Similar artists: The Stooges, Jane’s Addiction, Peter Gabriel
Genre: Punk, Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
There’s some truth to the fact that nearly everyone is forced to wear a uniform. And it certainly doesn’t stop in the workplace. Unless you’re Dostoevsky scaring off children on the busy sidewalks of Saint Petersburg, you’re probably looking to make friends. Looking and acting a certain way is supposed to guide you toward your tribe and scare off the ones who are not like you.
It’s a strategy that has worked over the years for musicians in alternative rock. This has been, after all, a meeting place for the talented, the weird, or the unloved. Peeking through magazine covers or album artwork of alt-rock musicians was like entering a club for the cooks. It takes one to know one, I guess.
Luminatrix’s “China Again” is an artsy piece of grunge rock that aims its sights squarely on the alt-rock crowds. It’s a tense sound that the band is building, one that stubbornly hints at musical hooks yet evades them. And it’s a musical presentation that brings to mind the genre’s daring innovators. Simply put, Luminatrix make their music hard to resist for anyone who has felt a kinship with the otherworldliness of underground musicians.
Pomegranate – Dumb
Similar artists: Ty Segall, IDLES, Bad Nerves, Fuzz, Meatbodies
Genre: Punk, Post-Punk, Garage Rock
Have all the good songs already been written? That’s what many musicians fear. And, so, they put their big brains to work and try to come up with melodies so clever, arrangements so strong, and vocals so catchy that audiences will simply be unable to resist their charms. But is that where good songs come from?
Maybe those musicians are just asking the wrong questions. Perhaps, for the most part, pop music is all about the feels, the excitement, and the spirit. Maybe, apart from the musicians themselves, people just don’t care as much about bands coming up with the undeniably original musical parts. If that were so important, pop music, by virtue of the fact that there’s so much of it, would now be obsessed with Persian scales and bizarre odd-meter time signatures.
Yes, Pomegranate’s “Dumb” is not trying to change the world or end up getting taught in music school. What they do achieve instead is create an infectious, tense garage-rock sound that immediately raises the temperature of the room and lends some encouragement to whoever hears it. Ramones, The Stooges, and The Hellacopters all had that. It’s a gift that oughtn’t to be wasted.
