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Aug 16, 2013

Vows (2013)


Things I'm reminded of when listening to Slave Vows: how much I wanted to like The Icarus Line before even hearing them 'cause they looked like a handsome death metal band, how The Icarus Line dissed The Strokes when I was still in love w The Strokes and people said 'diss', how The Icarus Line called The Strokes '$ellout$' or something even though The $troke$ always sounded cynically planned if not entirely manufactured (like heaps of good pop!), how Joe Cardamone went all Birthday Party and I stopped paying attention to his band having 'discovered' The Birthday Party/Jesus Lizard/whatever, probably thanks to being 'warmed up' to that shit prior via the much celebrated Penance Soiree which for all of its praise sounded to me, and this is why I liked it back then, like Marilyn fucking Manson, something about how Aaron North was mean to the crowd at their Auckland show, something about mental collapse, how that same year I went to a festival solely to see The $troke$ and $Metallica$ and left permanently suspicious of both epics and hipster apathy, I hear Iggy Pop (inevitably), and Damo Suzuki (surprisingly), and the bullshit rockist figurative-athons stemming from the same born-too-late anxiety that lead to the garage rock revival of the 000s (and helped Penance Soiree reach the ridic audience it did, no doubt) have become the go-to method for describing Slave Vows and what's worse is something like this, but I'm having an operation in 3 hours! and I'm bored and hungry and all I wanted from this, 'cause I don't care whether rock's dead or alive or in the process of being 'saved', was to be excited and engaged, and oh hey this one sounds like Suicide, and it's excited me, but I want it LOUDER, so I'm gonna lie in bed for the next 2 days with headphones and Slave Vows and see if maybe the born-too-late-rs are right for once again, and think about this, as corny as it is, I thought it was defining at the time I left that $trotellica$ festival, for those of us already dead or alone or in stasis who want anything other than music designed to embody this state (they call it ennui!) or avoid acknowledging it altogether (epix), something which impulsively or intuitively breaks from it, in spite of it, having lived with it, and hating it, like it's not some cynical and so profound truth of our age but an inevitable bad luck which maybe real expression can cure: Slave Vows may or may not be just this on an individual level, but it's intended that way and so well worth a shot:

“In previous years I’ve put out records that have been too long, because I’ve been working on them for like four fuckin’ years, and I’ve imagined it’s probably the last one I’ll ever do, so I just put everything on there. But at this point in my life, I don’t really give a fuck anymore. I know I’m gonna make records for as long as I’m alive, so I’m not as precious any more, I don’t care. This thing only exists so we can be happy and do something that matters to us, and to the people who need this as much as we do.”

try / where to buy(?)

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