Tuesday, July 19, 2011

US Maple - Long Hair In Three Stages (1995)

When your group is formed around the basis of reconstructing rock and roll music and keeping only essential elements id say you have some serious work ahead of you.  For US Maple’s 1995 first full length it was a chance to prove just that.

Recorded by Jim O’Rourke it can certainly be a slightly challenging outing if your not used to squigly guitars.  Not to mention Al Johnson’s crazy vocals that fluctuate between hauntingly soft, to odd moaning then to loud histronics. If that doesn’t sound very rock and roll your right it really doesn’t. After a couple songs though and you’ll really start to get the feeling that beneath everything theres a rock and roll heart pumping.  Even arguably the album’s best song  “Letter to ZZ Top” is an homage to classic rock.

As far as points of reference this certainly has the 90′s guitar rock feel to it however loose it might be.  The math rock term is of course thrown around with this group and is fairly applicable.  Although not as precise or fast as most math groups it certainly holds true.  Royal Trux put in a blender with Jesus Lizard and mixed at varying speeds might put you somewhere near their sound.  Releases that followed would slowly morph them toward more “conventional” structures but no less interesting.  This is one of the best.


Long Hair In Three Stages

3 comments:

  1. this rocks the hardest of all possible rock.

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  2. I could not grapple with their long hair. It was not my thing.

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  3. is it me or does the singing sound like thurston moore?

    ReplyDelete