If only this was the first album to be released this year to eat an instrument alive. I would have a strong claim to put behind this album, that like nothing else around this album loves and is one sound, one tool in it’s entirety. Thanks to Colin Stetson, all I’m able to say is that “only Colin Stetson can explore instruments so fully.” Make no mistake: people will say that The Men’s peers are the people that have been making rock music for the last decade. I find that a little too easy given how thoroughly the Men have defeated guitar music. What the Men have done here on Leave Home is truly extraordinary. Within forty one minutes, they present a history of the electric guitar from the Sex Pistols on, flowing between disparate styles of Rock Music while maintaining verve and taste.
The dexterity of their sound is astounding. It’s fitting that dexterity has become the thing associated with guitar music over the last decade, where virtuosic guitar treatment enjoyed the broadening of it’s horizons in the wake of Kid A. Guitar bands now eat electronic elements and with it comes the darting fingers of a band like Battles, who occupy the middle ground between Huge Music (we’ll get to this) and Fripptronics. They have been useful in getting to this place.
The Men’s dexterity comes through in how malleable rock music is to the four of them. Chanting flying arena rock, the depths of drone and death, the Original Swagger held within proto-punk/metal, the mad scribbled lines that noise rock leaves- it’s all here. Unless the thing you like from guitars is “soft,” or “peaceful.”
And further beyond just the styles, they have adopted the spirit in a time where it’s been needed. Regardless of the way you vote or don’t, it is clear to see that the last decade of human has been dire turmoil rolling onwards, a dark shadow growing bigger. And how did indie rock respond?
Vampire Weekend. Best Coast. Hundreds of other bands that just make happy music for good vibes in the face of the doom of man.
This was coming. This album has been coming all along. There are bands that have been glancing against the darkness of the modern world with varying success: Radiohead would sit in a corner and rock, occasionally getting up to walk in the park. Constantines had Young in a tight grip, but couldn’t figure out to aim before their thirties hit. Liars create dark and dramatic sisterworlds (an apt title for more than just the one record) to try and show what’s going on. All valiant attempts.
Where those bands and others have images and ideas, in various points of clarity, what the Men have is footage. They have footage of the darkness in the sky and the alcoves where you can still hide, and of the tense passing of time, and of what they think they can do about it: Make Huge Music.
WINNER: “Leave Home” by The Men
WHY:
Fermata over Whole Rest 