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Three
more stunning tracks from some Raleigh, NC DIY punk/hardcore kids
turned fuzz-bleached, manic garage pop. The anxious, jittery energy
levels are at a high here as the boys crash through layer after layer
of warbled psychedelic punk bliss. After two of the members returned to
NC armed with degrees in sound engineering, the band was born from the
passing around of
bizarro tape sketches their friend had made here at home while trapped
in the everyday routine
of post-school, southern boredom. The jittery, yet melodic and hooky
tension
created in the songwriting stems from equally intense obsessions with
Ben Waller and Human Eye style weirdo garage as much as it does the
Belle &
Sebastian post-Spector sound. Angular, post-punk guitar drives push the
bored, slack vocals through stretches of gnarled, layered haze creating this perfect brand
of agitated, tape-fuzz psychedelic garage pop. Classy ya'll.
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Independent Weekly (Durham/Raleigh/Chapel Hill, North Carolina):
On their second single for Bull City Records, Whatever Brains reprise the formula of their Mount Whatever platter, recasting songs from their startlingly catchy Soft Dick City cassette
beside a new tune or two. Here, the fresh jam is the B-side, "Saddle
Up," which unreels wiry guitar lines before pulling back for the
chord-bashing, steady rolling lunge that Rich Ivey is so good at
hollering, slurring and staggering through. It sounds more reminiscent
of the cassette's tape-hiss punk-pop than the revived A-side cuts.
"What Happened To All The Destructionaires?" and "Eli Porter, Class of
2005" (previously billed as "Eli c/o 2k5") now wear new suits and
portend a big future. A thick synth pulse beneath "Destructionaires"
adds a new vitality in the form of a chest-pounding brashness. "You
tried and you failed and look what it's gotten you now," Ivey moans.
Then comes the cavalcade. "Eli Porter," likewise boasts a broader,
bolder palette, sounding something like The Arcade Fire ravaged by punk
and sloshed with cheap beer. That is, the too-measured bombast
stretches until it rips like a ratty T-shirt.
- bryan reed
Still Single, Dusted Online Zine:
This
is Ambition, baby – a North Carolina project whipping up serious
cross-genre steam, trying to connect that anthemic huff of that scene’s
prospects of past (big Archers of Loaf thing happening in “What
Happened to All the Destructionaries?,” so sure of itself that it’s
inventing words)
with the unified child’s choir theory of bands that are popular with
the blissfully unaware of today (Animal Collective, Polyphonic Spree,
The Arcade Fire) with a common catalyst of gated Pixies-style chug. The
songs did stick with me though, so they did it right. Electronics
spackle in the cracks between strummin’ hard and table-sweeping
gestures all over the frenetic “Eli Porter, Class of 2005” and no less
throttled title track, and give the songs sort of a cell phone static
quality, akin to the digital victrola that these records have become.
One non-veiled hope to ending this recession is the possibility of one
of these bands doing an Albini recording so we can hear what they’re
really made of. Until then, bottoms up. Really nice job here; a lot of
people will like this.
- doug mosurock
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