Ok so I have been playing Father, Son, Holy Ghost a good bit these last couple of weeks (yes I am aware I have been a bit lazy on the old blog updating front - had stuff to do - ok?!), and getting similarly annoyed at my lack of ability to "nail" where it was coming from, what it was all about etc, as when I listened to Kaputt by Destroyer back in January.
Girls cover a wide range of musical styles from indie rock through prog to almost straight metal and various other things in between. And they are very adept at what they do. But I don't like it. And I had no idea how to explain why I didn't like it until I read part of Simon Reynolds' latest book Retromania. He talks about musicians nowadays suffering from "glutted/clotted" syndrome. In other words because they have such easy/cheap access to a huge history of 50+ years of "rock" music, their influences are so huge they feel they have to fit in as much of it as possible into their music and as such the music comes across as glutted with influences, unable to really make its own unique mark on the world and thus old Johnny Listener gets incredibly confused with what he is hearing. The end result being a dissatisfying listening experience, mainly because there is "too bloody much going on".
These guys are obviously very talented but I just want them to sit down with a snare drum, acoustic guitars and play some of these lovely songs all stripped down. Well specifically Saying I Love You, as it is the only song I really understood. It is a lovely indie ballad mind.
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