Nation Of Two, as the name suggests, is a two-piece band that
\nhails from the grunge-capital of the world, Seattle; the lineup
\nreads, Darius Morrison on guitars & vocals and Phil Vignec on
\ndrums & vocals.<\/p>\n
The duo consider Nina Simone as their “patron saint,” a saint
\nwho is defending their “Nation Of Two.” They are also influenced by
\nfeminist activists, and as a matter of fact, there is a track in
\nthe record titled “Dai Sil Kim Gibson” (referring to the female
\nKorean-American documentary film-maker of the same name).<\/p>\n
The strong ardent feminist influences, and the supposedly
\nsuggesting band name could have a lot to do with the fact that
\nMorrison is actually a female-to-male transgender Asian-American.
\nHence, Nation Of Two represents the strength of such social
\noutcasts who bear the courage to defy the system of short-sighted
\nindividuals.<\/p>\n
The duo’s music, having a garage-punk feel to it, resembles that
\nof their Seattle counterparts Mudhoney, and exhibits all the anger
\nof being social outcasts. Their debut record The Kingdom is an
\nalbum of raw emotions and stripped down music: guitars — with few
\nsimple chords and drums — pounded ad hoc, pretty much make up as
\nthe music on the album. The rage of a social outcast shows in the
\nlyrics, as Morrison drones “My blood is not thicker than water; who
\nis my mother\/father\/sister\/brother; and who are my people?” on
\n“Blood.”<\/p>\n
The singing of Morrison and Vignec sounds like an outpour of
\nangry discontentment of two very different types — Morrison
\ngrowls, and Vignec whines — rather than a genuine attempt to sing,
\nper se. In fact, it is discernable from the whole demeanor of the
\nLP that not much planning went into the making of it. Although it
\ncould be argued that unplanned music comes out best, the duo’s
\nsound is so crude that they haven’t even bothered (or deliberately
\nnot wanted) to fix up basic solecisms, making the songs sound
\nrandom and disconnected.<\/p>\n
At many points on the disc the vocals drift aimlessly off-track
\nfrom the music, and the whole song sounds senselessly awkward. Even
\nthe guitars and drums behave in total disharmony with each other,
\nand the music sounds like it has been recorded without rehearsals,
\non the very first take, and put on a disc without having given
\nattention to the flaws made whilst the recording process.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, both Morrison and Vignec are skilled musicians —
\ncertainly much more talented players than singers. With the record
\nvirtually devoid of even the basses, the duo show great promise
\nwith making good use of whatever little they have. Morrison’s
\nhaphazard guitar-lines are original and sincere. Vignec is an
\nexcellent drummer, and his rapid jungle-beat like clatter
\nthroughout most songs, imparts a unique feature to the band’s
\nsound.<\/p>\n
\nThe Kingdom<\/i> seems nothing more than a result of spontaneous
\njam-sessions between Morrison and Vignec, and this is what hurts
\nthe album most. A little bit of thought and effort into trying to
\npolish off the elements that make the record sound drunk and
\nout-of-balance might have yielded much better results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":26925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7110],"rating":[11209],"class_list":["post-38230","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-nation-of-two","rating-rating-e"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38230"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}