Hands down, this is the most interesting rock album of the year so far. If these guys aren\u2019t the heirs apparent to Talking Heads, I don\u2019t know who is.<\/p>\n
Arch but not cold, arty but accessible, dry but pulsating with intelligence and life, Human Performance <\/i>is an indie art-rock album that defies description and keeps you coming back. There is a base template here infused with the cerebral, kinda distant, on-the-go aloofness of the Velvet Underground, Modern Lovers, and especially David Byrne, whose delivery seems to inspire Andrew Savage more than anyone else. They also approach their music with that level of seriousness; the only moments of levity, aside from the flashes of lyrical wit, are the bits of Texas country that seep in unaware and unopposed (you can\u2019t take the Texas out of the man, after all).<\/p>\n
\u201cDust\u201d rolls in and stomps around for a few minutes, kind of like Pavement updated for a New York City obsessed with its cell phones, alternately single-minded and itchy; it\u2019s a great way to start the album. A quick note: The digital edition of this album, at least on Spotify, includes the excellent <\/i>song \u201cAlready Dead,\u201d and it is truly worth hearing regardless of whether you like the rest of the album, so good it is. Pity it didn\u2019t make the finished version, as it would have made this even better.<\/p>\n
Anyway. \u201cOutside\u201d is effortless indie post-punk and the ridiculous, jerky \u201cI Was Just Here,\u201d which is too long at under two minutes, sounds like a 1981 King Crimson sidebar to blow off steam before the recording of Discipline; <\/i>lyrically, it seems to concern a favorite restaurant of Savage\u2019s that unexpectedly closed, something to which we can all relate. The title track and \u201cParaphrased\u201d have similar approaches; get your riffs, get your New York punk attitude, and then pull the Parquet Courts trick of overdoing it. The latter features needless screams and a cool \u201890s alt-rock vibe toward the end, so it\u2019s acceptable.<\/p>\n
Yet where many other bands who make this kind of music now are just irritating and self-congratulatory, these guys somehow manage to be likable. Savage sometimes sings, sometimes yells, sometimes speaks (his Beck-like discussion on \u201cCaptive Of The Sun\u201d fits the rhythm of the song better than sung lyrics would). \u201cSteady On My Mind\u201d is an honest ballad of sorts that gives way to the album\u2019s centerpiece, the six-minute bongo-and-guitar \u201cOne Man, One City,\u201d which brings all of the elements above \u2013 spoken words, Talking Heads feel, \u201870s CBGB-scene feel \u2013 into a song that embodies modern city life more than any other in recent memory. <\/p>\n
After that song, things stay strong, with \u201cBerlin Got Blurry\u201d effectively using subtle Western twang guitars under Savage\u2019s bored-sounding vocals about being lost in another country, not so much direction-wise as culturally on a micro level. \u201cTwo Dead Cops\u201d is a shouty punk tune that takes a real incident from Savage\u2019s neighborhood and reflects on what it actually means, if anything, while the melodic \u201cKeep It Even\u201d is sincere and uplifting, a rarity from such a detached band, made better by a guitar solo from Wilco\u2019s Jeff Tweedy. I can do without \u201cPathos Prairie\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s Gonna Happen,\u201d which close the album with a shrug; subbing in \u201cAlready Gone\u201d for those two would have bumped this up half a grade for me.<\/p>\n
Maybe the detachment helps them deal with being poor and misguided in a crowded, noisy, gun-loving city where the J train rattles one\u2019s skull. There are moments where you roll your eyes at these guys, of course, but they speak to places many of us have been, set to music both detailed and rowdy when necessary. There\u2019s a lot to like about Human Performance<\/i>. Along with \u201cAlready Gone,\u201d this is easily their best album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":32714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9815],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-44484","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-parquet-courts","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44484","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44484"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}