|
The Distortions Exploding Teenage Body Part music review |
Discuss The Distortions and all of your favorite musicians in our music forums.
Have you heard this album? Give us your rating above, 5 being best.
The Distortions
Exploding Teenage Body Part
Blank Recordings
|
A fusion of Jakob Dylan (The Wallflowers), Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,
The
Cure and a little tongue-in-cheek Bravery, The Distortions cover all
the
bases. Having recently released their nine-track debut, Exploding
Teenage
Body Part (Blank Recordings, 2005), the Los Angeles trio have combined
all
that glitters into gold.
Track listing:
01 Exploding Teenage Body Part
02 Getting What We Deserve
03 Books
04 Shoegazer
05 Hinterlund
06 A System For Shutting Everything Out
07 The Dogs
08 Mansion
09 Into The Next
|
Enriching guitarwork spliced with some dismal BRMC lines and
forthcomings,
this album puts a unique twist on prior bands that broke through for
their
musical differentiations.
There’s, quite simply, F (vocals, guitar), Ward Robinson (drums) and
Michael
Scott (bass) to complete this band. They’ve reinvented the sound of the
80's
the right way, with some gothic doom-and-gloom basslines, isolated
drumming
and shape-shifting vocals that go from a dirty Bruce Springsteen, to a
sneering Billy Idol, back to those Club roots.
The liner pictures have this band out to be The Cure themselves, and
it’s no
doubt that their influence has shown through in many ways. They not
only
look like the ghastly, forlorn group, but they sound like them, too.
‘Books’
is an especially Cure-filled track, with their household drifting
ensemble
riffs of hits like ‘Just Like Heaven’ and lyrics that are best
understood
when read between the lines to see the entire picture. At times, they
are
even close to reaching ethereal (’Into The Next’).
‘Shoegazer’ is your common mid-90s melody that slows the album’s
overall
tempo to serve as more of a thinkpiece. But the best of the group’s
potential is featured in ‘Hinterlund’ -- a spectacularly smooth track
with
guitar riffs, strum patterns and progressions that I myself am very
fond of.
As a little gift, the band pays tribute by covering Messy, a mid-90s
goth
band that included John Frusciante and Flea (The Red Hot Chili Peppers)
on
‘A System For Shutting Everything Out’, previously unreleased. It's
dominating with its stalking bassline and a riff that’ll get lodged in
the
mind for hours, but makes me question why the original was never put to
disc.
With an abysmal production, as well as a group that serves as a direct
line
to their influences, there’s no doubt The Distortions are going places.
Stroll along into your local music store, pick up a copy of this, and
jump
on the bandwagon with the rest of us.
-Arie Musil 05/05/05
|
