Shock Cinema
(Kanine)
"Post-everything"... hmmm. Well, perhaps for once a reviewer's hapless attempt at categorization nailed it. Brooklyn's Shock Cinema - originally formed in Atlanta three years ago but really only coalescing following the northward relocation of British-born vocalist Destiny Ming Wan Montague and guitarist/melodica player Autry Rene Fulbright II; once there they enlisted Rogers Sisters multiinstrumentalist Miyuki Furtado - bolted right out of the box last year with the Our Way is Revenge mini-album and, true to their name, gobsmacked punters and critics alike, including the one wielding the "post-everything" comment. Yours truly was moved to hail the record as a heady mélange of Slits-meet-Siouxsie vocals, searing shards of serrated strings and volcanic/dubby Can/P.I.L.-type rhythms; I found myself spinning it over and over, in my office, on the jam box on the patio, hurtling down the highway in my car, ears on fire.
Those qualities are retained in places for Shock Cinema's first proper full-length, but Hell and Highwater is a more nuanced and less abrasive effort. On the one hand, the band seems intent upon showcasing its pop instincts: "Infinity" has a dreamy quality, Montague crooning ethereally on the chorus as a delicate piano filigree spirals and a repetitive bassline lulls you, while "Dead Sea" dips subtly into 4AD/'80s goth territory via a dark cascade of keyboards and Furtado's autoharp. Meanwhile, "rock" isn't exactly left by the wayside: "Wax Wings," with its doubletracked vocals, modified Bo Diddley beat and brusque strums spiked by waves of distortion, brings to mind recent CSS, and like that band, Shock Cinema's dancefloor instincts are keen, as evidenced by the thumping, swirling, hypnotic "Mutineers Reconsider" (the song's ripe for a full-on club treatment; Our Way is Revenge included a pair of remixes).
Conceptually, Hell and Highwater was inspired by a short story by Fulbright concerning Atlantis, the Great Flood and the Bermuda Triangle. Lyrics frequently invoke aquatic or nautical themes - the "shipwreck" and "salty air" of "Leviathan," for example, or when in "Dead Sea" the song's narrator observes, grimly, "Now it's me, the Devil, and the dead dead sea/ At the edge of the world, nothing is as it seems." To go along with all that, Montague and Conrad Keely (of ... Trail of Dead) crafted corresponding sleeve designs, like the cover's monstrous squid wrapping its tentacles around a whale and dragging it into the depths. It's a nice touch, in fact, one that compels the listener to pay closer attention to the entire product. Post-everything? Post-art!
Standout Tracks: "Oddfellow," "Wax Wings," "Dead Sea" FRED MILLS
[Photo Credit: Rain Noe]
