3 out of 5

Label: Skin Graft Records

Produced by: Knol Tate

There are these sides warring within Upright Forms-er Nick Sakes that have ping-ponged him around the no-wave / hardcore scene and… guitar pop. It’s arguably a defining feature of a lot of his projects: winding some headbobbing grooves into otherwise harsh dynamics, topped off with his tell-tale snarl. When he gives way moreso to the pop, though, it becomes less defining and more discomfiting, like he can’t quite get the sound to where he needs it to be, and so keeps falling back on noise and dissonance. This is generally interesting, but in Sakes’ two main pursuits of this leaning thus far – Sicbay, and now Upright Forms – it’s imperfect, as suggested by the description I just wound my way through: Sicbay fiddled with post-rock experimentalism to the detriment of its hooks; Upright Forms is GBV workman rock, except it’s on Skin Graft and Sakes like shouting. There are tracks that stick to doing one main thing and are quite good, with Animositine a best example of the harsher end of the spectrum, and Long Shadow a full stop excellent pop song, with softer, emotive vocals. But almost everything else does the half-and-half dance, kicking out some truly boppy riffs that have to get mathed up and yelled over. And I love Sakes’ classic, raspy vocals, but this is – even more than Sicbay – an example of when I wish the group would sometimes just let the music do its thing, especially when the generally rhythmic nature of the band demands some lyrics that are a bit less oblique and chorus-y than Nick tends to write. Producer Knol Tate seems similarly stymied by all of this: there’s not enough kick or edge to the sound.

Yeah, Blurred Wires is a pretty good name. I accept that what I’m finding a bit off-putting about the genre mixing might be what works for people; I do think there’s something so, so promising about the combo, and I’ll surely be around to see if and when Nick and crew can get it – from my perspective – right.