
SKLOSS – The Pattern Speaks
It’s a year when most countries have hosted elections. We’ve learned a lot, and because of that, most of us are brokenhearted. But it’s not the politicians or the system pushing behind them that ought to surprise us. That’s never been fair or been designed to work in your favor. You should be surprised by the people all over the world heading over to give their votes. And you should really be anxious about what they might do in the future.
It’s not the future that are the worst off who are the angriest, but the people who are the most bored. People who have nothing better to do on a Saturday night, who are stuck in a cul-de-sac, and who have been brought to a dead-end street by modernity are angry. Give them something to be angry about that doesn’t involve them voting! Give them a great band and a place to scream on a Saturday night! Do this, and we may just avoid the next guillotine.
SKLOSS’ “The Pattern Speaks” is an angry, minimalist punk-rock that soundtracks the city streets once they’ve finally been emptied of people. There are, at least, a couple of things that SKLOSS does really well. First, the duo understands how to really use the dynamics of their vocals/distorted guitar/drums-powered sound to their advantage. Secondly, they offer a direction for all that anger, a place to embrace the dissatisfaction and let out the frustration out into the universe. If punk-rock did nothing else, it stopped a few revolutions from happening.
Notre Noise – Swordfish
The thing about punk rock, heavy metal, or Chuck Berry-styled rock n’ roll was never, really, about the speed or volume involved in playing the music. It was always about chaos. It was something we could depend on, a demented circus show where the danger that we could be torn to shreds at any moment could, usually, be ignored.
Bands trying to recreate the sound of those bands nowadays start by trying to recreate their success first. That’s putting the cart ahead of the horse for sure, because it’s not businessmen and readers of stats that we want making our rock n’ roll. We want eccentrics, people we wouldn’t be able to get along with, people who want to disturb the slumber of the world for purely selfish reasons.
Surely, Notre Noise’s “Swordfish” is a fever dream that could’ve just remained a logged item in the songwriter’s diary or a subject to be brought up with a therapist. But, dammit, they got it down on paper and then got it down on tape. It’s a riot. Tom Waits would wish to have written it, or, at the very least, it’d make him leap across the floor like a toad frog. There’s nothing to be found here but chaos produced with glee, and that’s what we’ll always need. Keep ‘em coming!