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This
Austin band has probably the best name in history. That
said, names ain’t shit unless you can back them up with
good music and these guys are almost there. On their
debut recording Austin's Black Cock basically dishes out a hard
rocking version of the post punk modus operandi. There
is a lot of repetition here. A lot of angular
arrangements. A grand presence of the bass and a
prevalence of keyboards that adds quite a bit of weight instead
of softening up the proceedings. The approach takes a
bit of the soul of the equation, and at times makes the
band sound rather robotic and futuristic. One thing is
for sure there is nothing curvy about this music, Black
Cock rock like they write music with an architect scale
ruler.
But the most
divisive factor of Black Cock’s music is not the music itself,
but the vocals of Whitney Lee. She doesn’t deliver a high pitch
wail or a nails on the chalkboard equivalent, but her range can
be just as irritating. In songs like “Starfleet Destroyer” she
almost sings like a spoiled brat, accentuating just the right
syllables. What hooks you is the rest; the bass is repetitive, the keyboard sounds cool and
groovy and yet, the song in question is short enough not to be a mistake.
At their
most dense, atonal and slow (“Crickets”) Black Cock sound like a
deconstructed Throwing Muses. It is evident that this quartet is
adept at experimenting but their no-wave-like walkabouts are
quite disengaging. “45” rings like an unstoppable alarm clock on
a Monday morning. It sounds like Jean Michael Jarre just discovered rock
music. Frankly, I enjoy experimentation as much as the next cat,
but a balance of musicality and that beats the fuck of sole
experimentation nearly every time.
Official Site
MySpace
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