33 rebellions per minute
1994
Wrens, SILVER
The melodic style and talent on this debut reminds me a lot of the early Beatles, who did more to expand
pop's melodic reach than any other band in history. If anything, I feel inclined to say that the Wrens do
HELP!-style melody slightly better than the Beatles did. Don't believe me? Set SILVER to track 13 ("Ruth")
or track 15 ("Behold Me"). And if you run shrieking from the room, maybe this isn't an album for you.
Those of you with a detailed sense memory of Sponge's 1996 alterna-hit "Wax Ecstatic" (the one whose
chorus goes "wax essshtatic", not the one that goes "sixteen candles down the drain") can rightly place that
song at the center of SILVER's palette: for the rest of you, that's abrasive, slightly hi-tech
post-NEVERMIND guitar-feedback rock. But you know, I've never been tempted to buy a Sponge album.
Yet I've owned SILVER for four years now, playing it regularly, and never once have I, a
short-attention-span type, felt inclined to stop it before the whole 67 minutes are up. I think what's special
about it are
1. The melodies.
2. The attention to sonic detail. Most distinctive overall is the way this band not only keeps every instrument
(2 guitars, bass, drums) clear and separate in the mix, but the way that even the feedback is sculpted into
melodic lines, and sometimes a second line of feedback joining the mix for a startling 5-way counterpoint,
just like it was one more instrument. But sometimes, too, they do use one more instrument: the low-bass
piano of "Strange As Family" and the tinkly piano of "Learned In Space" and the piano elegy of "William",
some organ somewhere. More remarkable is how well-used it all is. I can say that "Adenoi" starts with an
acoustic guitar solo, interrupts the song for some a capella singing, and closes with a somewhat bagpipe-y
guitar solo, and that looks maybe a bit odd when I write it, but heard, it's much more original than words
like "guitar" or "a capella" can convey: utterly weird and fascinating. "Dakota", which preceded my favorite
Bush song "Comedown" by a few months, sounds like that song with the generic anthem chorus replaced
by some dreamy country-and-MidEastern guitar like I've never heard elsewhere. "Fuzz" is fuzz, and it's so
bloody catchy.
3. A flawless sense of pacing. No other indie-rock group does the amphetamine blast as well as the Wrens
here, on "Leatherside" and "Crawling" and "Behold Me" and "Dust", but it's always set up, and always sets
up something else, giving a thoroughly organic ebb and flow to this irritating buzzing basement recording.
And if you hate noise, you'll hate the record. But if you've got any beginning tolerance, I can't think of a
better ad for the style than this album.
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