Rating:   4 Ratings     12345  

Nine Black Alps Everything Is Interscope Records

      How unfashionable, really. To, in an age dominated by angular art rock, suddenly turn the clock back to 1993 and put out an album of grunge-punk not heard since Seattle’s heyday. To the scenesters it should be heresy, to the journalists (so swept up in ‘The New Britpop’) it should receive a walloping. Instead Nine Black Alps have found themselves not derided but deified with that most alarming tag: the New Nirvana.

      Nine Black Alps, a four-piece from Manchester, seem all but thrilled at this comparison; it’s not the easiest legacy to live up to. It is, however, the easiest comparison to make.

      Because throughout their meteoric rise, the journos have been ever so ready to point out that singer Sam Forrest has a perfect Kurt Cobain howl; that David Jones pounds out glossy grunge riffs you’d sell your In Utero LP for; that they dress like scruffy street urchins and owe a major debt to Sonic Youth and the Pixies.

      But that’s taking the easy way out, and Nine Black Alps (named for a Sylvia Plath poem) refuse to play an easy game. They are not the new Nirvana, Everything Is is not Nevermind, so let’s take a look at the songs, shall we?

      The music is raucous, vibrant, with thrashing punk numbers and heavy grunge exercises. As a vocalist Forrest is strong without being melodramatic or forced (see the unfortunate Creed era of modern rock history) and the tunes are exquisitely memorable. Opener “Get Your Guns” sneers its way through an arrogant scene (“Too dumb to keep your clothes on/Too cynical to speak) with a raw fury more in common with the punk aesthetic than the typical apathy of grunge.

      In fact, all the lyrics display a healthy contempt for the typical rock’n’rollers; from the “Cosmopolitan” cry of “You’re not pretty enough! You’re not skinny enough!” to “Behind Your Eyes,” with its plea “Don’t you want to be part of the machine?” Nine Black Alps are anything but part of the machine--just take a look at some of the tracks on this CD. It’s positively psychotic, veering from “Not Everyone” and its graffiti grunge to “Unsatisfied” and its Sonic Youth-meets-Bloc Party intro to the pure “Something in the Way” mellowness of “Intermission.” Standout track “Just Friends” coats intense punk with a pure pop sheen, and the result is simply superb. The schizophrenia of Everything Is could be taken as a weakness (not to mention a hazard--it’s as dizzying as a drunken roller-coaster ride) but at the very least it’s bold and invigorating.

      Perhaps the greatest flaw is simply the fact that Nine Black Alps are clearly a product of their influences. From Mudhoney to even Pearl Jam, the music that inspired this band is in every song, sometimes barely hidden (see “Southern Cross”). But seeing as this is simply a debut, it’s understood that this is a band searching for its identity.

      “Everybody is a liar!” Forrest declares on “Everybody Is.” “Everybody has a price!” Disillusioned? Fiery? Electrifying? Sure. The New Nirvana? Not a chance. Nine Black Alps are their own entity, and with any luck they’ll learn to create their own persona before the eyes of the world.

-Emily Tartanella 03/01/06