1 out of 5

Label: Volcom

Producer: John Congleton

Music is totes subjective.  Obviously.  Even the shittiest of shit bands – like, say, The Beatles – can’t be universally agreed upon as shitty, since at least the guys who made the shit probably think it’s sorta’ unshitty (pending tomorrow’s headline: “Beatles now admit that their music is shitty, regardless of which ones are living or dead or the syntactical correctness of this sentence or even the sense achieved by these last few words are we still in a quote in an aside that’s not part of the review proper”), and oppositely, the best thing on the planet – like the Strawberry Shortcake theme song – is probably disliked by at least one tasteless person.  At least we can call that motherfucker ‘tasteless’ without it being subjective (MOM), but you get my point.  Right?  Or you don’t?  And if you don’t it’s because you too are a tasteless motherfucker?  That in fact I AM THE ONLY ONE WITH TASTE

these are pretty much facts by now, I just like amusing myself by stating them aloud.  in text form.

…Meaning that Single Frame (nee Ashtray) had some hype burbling about their early ’00 stuff, which I haven’t heard, and I’m more than sure that Body/End/Basement has its fans.  Indeed, as filtered through TX-band frequent handler John Congleton’s low-end emphasizing production, the key and beat heavy electro pop has a surface appearance of fun and frenetic, alternating between snippets of synthesized vignettes that pop into punky emo shtuff that was big during those years, The Faint on one end of the sexy tight-pantsed dancey wanks spectrum and then, I dunno, like The Rapture or something leaning more toward the guitarified version of it, but I haven’t really ever listened to The Rapture so who knows.  Why name them for comparison?  Who knows.  The ‘shtuff’ on B/E/B can be structured pretty well – ‘I’ll Lose Your Balance’ keys into a nice heavy beat that explodes into some nice chaos toward its end and ‘Exact Copy of this in the Basement’ makes cool use of a machine-gun drum / key slam as its bridge.  The rest of the songs aren’t horrid, following a similar template as ‘Underground @ Noon’ or ‘Fact About Doors,’ collecting a few doodles that sync quickly into a danceable beat with our singer emoing some repeated chorus for a minute and a half before bam boom end of song.  I don’t hate it.  But one star.  Because I found myself completely unmoved by it.  Completely.  At moments you can hear another Congleton electro-Texas act in here – Faux Fox – for whom I didn’t much care, but compositionally they achieved some songs which had some heft on occasion, and their whole affect felt a bit more realized, regardless of it being obnoxious.  At moments you can hear the sullen indie beats of Chin Up Chin Up, with whom Johnny also worked, but none of the tightness that band employs in their writing.  Mostly, though – and I mentioned The Faint – I hear Saddle Creek.  Which is why I started talking about music being subjective.  I can’t tell you what I’ve got against Saddle Creek.  Maybe it’s Bright Eyes, but I’ve gotten over so many other music prejudices, I can’t really believe that’s still standing in my way.  I tend to follow labels around when they’re centrally run under the assumption that if one or two people are signing acts and I like their tastes…  So the same is true of labels I don’t like.  And even though Creek has bands that SEEM like they should work for me – like Cursive – I can’t get into any of them.  They all – from what I’ve heard – carry a notable emo whine to them which, for me, always adds a permanent layer of remove.  Remove is a killer for me.  Remove combined with whiny poetics of emo is even worse, and combined with the forced ‘creativity’ of these kinds of bands (i.e. listen to us bringing in a folk influence) just makes me wretch and recall every shitty college band who think they’re the next big shitty college band.  (And probably will be.)

Single Frame was on Volcom for this album, which isn’t Saddle Creek, but their track record is moderately cloying, jumping on to a Mountain Dew version of punk rock that gives the devil horns as forcefully as possible while watching X Games.  Nothing on B/E/B feels real, despite it having a thickness to its sound, despite a possibly good combination of punk and synth, it all feels constructed from afar, and it’s not distinct enough to overcome any of that.  So it’s extra offensive.  So it’s one star.  Toodles.