From the Dallas Observer, November 15th, 1990
Too Many Umlauts
by Clay McNear and Joy Lambert
When you're dealing with a "local" recording, the toughest part is usually
point of reference: do you measure the disc against its peers or against
icons? The news is good and not so good with Course of Empire and its self-
titled debut for Carpe Diem Records, and here's the good news first: Course
of Empire is the best realized and most highly stylized recording of its
particular genre (industrial metal, metallic industrial) to emerge from the
Dallas scene to date, and let's just say it doesn't undermine the group's
claim to the title of Dallas's most promising young band of turks.
But when you start stacking this effort up against some of Course of Empire's
more obvious antecedents (early U2, snatches of bands as diverse as Bauhaus
and The Church, albums like Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, and even, in light
of Course of Empire's inspired time and tone shifts, Metallica's ...And
Justice for All), it just doesn't stack up. Unfair comparison? Not really,
given that executive producer and Carpe Diem head Allan Restrepo has
ambitious plans to market this release nationwide. Not many unsigned "local"
groups receive this kind of special dispensation; fewer still warrant it.
So why knock an act for thoroughly trouncing its spatial (and financial)
limitations, and yet not quite achieving the quantum leap to the next plateau
- for ending up somewhere in the dread middle? Well, considering all the
anticipation surrounding this debut (it was the subject of a "bidding war"
between Dallas indies Carpe Diem and Dragon Street in early 90), you almost
have to, because it simply doesn't live up to its killing hype. Oh, it's
professionally and evocatively packaged, and the production (by the band and
David Castell) is really quite commendable for this level of financing, but
but but but but. I mean, give these kids a few years and some luck, a Swiss
bank account, and a world-class producer, and lord knows what heights they
might attain - they're really that good. But that's just one of the vague
potentialities of the unwritten future. The present is at hand, and Course
of Empire details a could-be-great band in a still-indeterminate stage of
development.
For instance: the decision to lead off with the operatic prologue "Ptah," a
slightly preposterous bit that weirdly (but presumably unintentionally)
echoes Electric Light Orchestra's Elysian "Eldorado Overture," inspires
nothing but a roll of the eyes. Better perhaps to have kick-started this
eponymous beast with to tom-tom crash of "Coming of the Century" or the
spaghetti Southwestern "God's Jig" - songs in the signature like the doe-
eyed librarian who turns out to be a bedroom-eyed Lana Turner.
This is the central point that seems to have been missed here, and that at
any rate is missing. In its grandiloquently ambitious way, Course of Empire
strains to be different, failing to recognize that it already is, and that
too much is way too much in this context. There's too much vague and silly
mysticism ("Mountains of the Spoken," "Dawn of the Great Eastern Sun") and
technological malice ("Thrust"), too little electric taste of blood; too
much casting of spells and too few effective incantations. This album is
overburdened with (and apparently inspired by) literal and figurative
umlauts, and, as the late Lester Bangs would snarl between rolls in the
grave, what the hell does linguistics have to do with rock 'n' roll anyway?
Well, you know, it's different...
That said, let me commend guitarist Mike Graff and co-drummers Anthony
Headley and Chad Lovell for their wildly passionate play (the drumming in
particular is stunning throughout). This trio is the hammering heart of this
band, the fire down below, way down near crotch level. And even in the
confines of the recording studio, which seems to have sapped some of the
power and pathos of Course of Empire in toto these three deliver the slurred
aggression of a Course of Empire live set - which has always reminded me of
a blood-red moonrise, stark and elemental and somehow menacing.
The majority of the 11 songs on this album hint broadly at that kind of
promise, but the few aggravating shortcomings (read; overdoings) are enough
to throw the organic whole out of balance, slightly out of whack. Maybe
Course of Empire is that rare band that should cut only live albums; to be
sure, it's the rare band that could pull it off. Now that would be different.
(
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