This album is seriously very good. I shouldn’t like it, sale the name So So Modern sounds post-ironically self-conscious enough to sink a thousand Dandy Warhols and any other Bohemians Like You within a massive radius. They wear hoods live in a 3 year out of date nu-rave way and a cold break down of influences tick the boxes of mathsy post-Foals, viagra 40mg post-emo, cheapest afro,electro blah de blah. But on Crude Futures, the Wellington, New Zealand four piece’s debut transgresses all over familiar tropes to create an immersive, widescreen vision of euphoria.
What is so evident from listening to this album is that it is an album, an actually considered set of songs designed to fit an album format rather than a bunch of tunes slotted together. How old fashioned, how So So Not Modern. Contrariness is rife: on an album impressive for its multi-layered vocals, the single, Berlin, is instrumental. The title here could be a sly nod to Neu! Based around a locked rigid groove that lets the guitars fly around as silvery metallic as prime Kraut. Motion is key. Also, if you want vocals here, leave it a minute and a half for the lead guitar zing to kick in and try singing Here Comes The Hotstepper by Ini Kamoze over the top. It fits perfectly.
Sometimes the emo pedal is slammed down, The Worst Is Yet To Come, a case in point with its torrent of multiple shouted vocals but the rocking dynamics mutate almost imperceptibly into panoramic electronica – an act of musical sorcery.
Familiarity of 2005 riffs and 2007 afro-tinged’ness a plenty? The more I write about this record the less good it sounds: Yes it is post-emo, yes, you can imagine how the singer twists his head nonchalantly into the mic post- Foals as afro tinged start stoppery is precisely laid down. But the catch is that describing comparisons can be, and frequently is a generic act itself.
So So Modern have laid down a densely layered atmospheric animal of a record. An album built on atmosphere, an album that seems to carve sound out of cavernous spaces, pulling huge rhythmic pulses out of chunks of blistering ocean, recalling nothing short of prime Jane’s Addiction. Or if the machinic urges of Neu! were transported into a natural, jagged terrain over the urban dystopia of mid 20th century West Germany.
Crude Futures shouts, but this is not Group therapy, this is not cathartic purging but the opposite: paganistic rejoicing. With hoods. This is global rock, a jungle of widescreen textures meshing with powered up rhythms. Brashness is immediate but warmth of texture leaks through over repeated listening. Not so much a set of songs as different tugs of motivation, surges of euphoria, Crude Futures bypasses all expectations and is one of the best crank up loud album albums in ages.
So So Modern are set to play the Eat Your Own Ears gig at Scala, London on 4th March supporting Errors. The kind people at EYOE have offered us a pair of tickets for one lucky person to win. All you have to do is tell us where So So Modern are from. Send your answer to music@ameliasmagazine.com
Categories ,crude futures, ,errors, ,foals, ,Ini Kamozee, ,Janes Addction, ,neu!, ,So So Modern, ,The Dandy Warhols
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