In their own words: "Gods and Queens is a three-piece band from Brooklyn/Philadelphia, who tried in vain to blatantly steal riffs and song patterns from some of their favorite bands, like Hoover, Rodan, Angels of Light, June of 44, Lowercase, Spaceman 3, Lungfish, and lastly, the best band to have graced the planet earth, Unwound... but failed on every attempt." Now, I'm not saying they sound identical to any of those acts by any means, but they've certainly not failed. At all. In fact, their debut release on Robotic Empire (which comes on slick colored vinyl in a gatefold sleeve that also holds a CD of the material) is quite fucking good, and does indeed resemble certain elements of the aforementioned bands' assorted styles. Its seven untitled tracks (What an odd move!?) in 27 minutes and 27 seconds explore an array of efficiently cohesive approaches, from dry, jangly rhythms and moving "clean" passages (which are always just a touch "messy" in terms of tone, and that's a good thing) to pulsing rhythms and more aggressive fare that's occasionally drowned in cascading waves of effects (that thank fucking christ do not sound anything like the overwhelmingly trendy "post-rock" sounds that are becoming far too prevalent in recent years, I don't care what anyone says), alongside gruff singing that really works out well—before closing with a nearly 10-minute beast that builds from faint ambient throbs towards increasingly loud, repetitious riffing with booming percussion and distant, droning vocal textures. They're also one of those bands that makes absolutely fucking excellent use of the fact that they're a trio, utilizing a superbly crisp, natural recording that gives the pounding basslines a very central role, while perfectly accentuating both the cleaner and more melodic aspects of the material and the harsher, noisier outbursts. Great work...
Get It
Gods and Queens (LP/CD)
Robotic Empire (LP/CD)
Interpunk (LP/CD)
Amazon.com (mp3)
eMusic (mp3)
Comments
excellent band, seeing these guys play soon.
11.18.2008 | By Anonymous
Ooooh. This is good. I’m tracking this down now. Didn’t know you were an Unwound fan. So under rated. If you dig them, you should check out Sea Scouts…very Unwound-ey, but not in a bad/ripoff way.
11.18.2008 | By Andy
Note that it was a quote referring to Unwound as “the best band to have graced the planet earth”. While I may indeed commonly use phrases like “...to have graced the planet…”, I myself would not cite Unwound as being one of the best such bands, heh…
11.18.2008 | By Andrew Aversionline
Not bad at all. Robotic Empire seems to be building a rather diverse portfolio of talented musicians. You can definitely hear a strong Lungfish sound, which is ironic considering my heavy rotation of “feral hymns” the past couple of days. Check out Daniel Higgs solo work for a psychadelic journey into that madman’s twisted mind. I’m glad that I’m not the only one whose sick of the “post-” tag. The other day I saw Tragedy listed as “post-crust” which is plain lazy. C’mon people dust off that thesaurus and find a new label.
11.18.2008 | By paul
The vocals get in the way, but, man, is the band good. They totally have that ‘90s feeling down.
11.18.2008 | By Invisible Oranges
As an Unwound fiend I gotta say this stuff is pretty sweet, love the bass sound. On another matter, Andrew, what’s yr. opinion on Harry Pussy? Real noisy shit from the 90s, I think you’d like them but I’m not sure.
11.18.2008 | By Fergus
I’ve never even heard of Harry Pussy. They have one of the worst band names in the history of terrible band names, though of course that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t dig what they do. I’ll see if I can find anything to check out…
11.19.2008 | By Andrew Aversionline
This is damn good! I note that a couple of the members were previously in Versoma (indeed, the band name is also the title of one of the songs on the ‘Life During Wartime’), which was all too short-lived in my opinion. Thanks for upping this Andrew. I’ll definitely be tracking this down.
As for Tragedy being labelled “post-crust”, that’s just fucken retarded.
11.19.2008 | By manisthebastard
Pretty alright stuff. The vocals and overall vibe remind me of a band that guy Brandon from City of Caterpillar would be in, like Malady or Haram, but grittier, musically-speaking. Come to think of it, I don’t even know if that guy’s ever been in those post CoC bands but you get what I mean and it sounds a lot like his singing.
11.21.2008 | By justin
do i hear some sparta in those vocals?
11.27.2008 | By Adrianoso
I love that Versoma EP, but always liked the songs that this guy (as opposed to the Anodyne dude whose name I can’t remember) sang on a little more. I’m digging this a lot, too…haven’t seen it at my main local record store, but I’ll look around more or order it if it comes to that.
Oh, and as a note to Justin which he may or may not ever see, as this post is like two weeks old at this point: Brandon wasn’t in Malady, pretty sure he wasn’t in Haram, but the Ghastly City Sleep is all him and I think he may have played with (but I don’t think sang in?) Gregor Samsa. The CoC LP is one of my favorite records ever, but unfortunately the GCS record (also out on Robotic Empire) doesn’t really do it for me…
Holy shit is this a long comment.
12.11.2008 | By Grist