2015 is a precarious year for rock music.
Barring the naturally long-awaited Sleater-Kinney reunion, only three of Pitchfork’s most anticipated releases of 2015 could be considered rock in anything close to the traditional sense of the word that didn’t involve a full orchestra. Even then, the most publicly noteworthy release on the list (namely Modest Mouse’s Strangers to Ourselves) relies on both the modifier “indie” and the more naive camp of their decades-old following still hopeful for another Lonesome Crowded West in order to earn its place on the list.
With acts like The War on Drugs and Deafheaven dominating discussion of the rock sphere over the last year, fans seem anxious for some grand, polarized shift in rock music — either towards the saccharine chords of the former, or the earthshaking breakbeats of the latter. Danish post-punk group Iceage threw fans of their first two high-energy LP’s for a jarring curveball with their inexplicably genre-less and utterly disjointed 2014 installment, Plowing Into the Field of Love. Even Ty Segall, one of the most prominent names of 2010’s rock music, embodied this trend in his back-to-back releases of 2012’s 70’s headbanger Slaughterhouse, 2013’s Neil Young fan club Sleeper, and 2014’s confused Ziggy revival Manipulator. And while Burger Records certainly addresses this lack of cohesion, only so many bands can be Shannon and the Clams before it gets old.
METZ, one of the remaining Pitchfork rock picks of 2015, seems to adequately address all of these problems — the noisy, post-punk influenced Canadian rock trio’s 2012 self-titled debut LP displayed remarkable energy and flow without relying on either the critic-catered technical prowess of “melodic metal” bands of the decade or the saturated chorus pedals characteristic of indie-pop’s usurping of the rock spotlight. Their full-length followup, METZ II, poised to release in May, shows nothing but promise.
Viet Cong, however, Pitchfork’s other highlighted rock release of the year, shows more than mere promise: their debut full-length, Viet Cong, is easily one of the best albums of the year so far. Hailing from Calgary, Canada, Viet Cong draws on METZ’s noisy garage rock, coupled with the razor-sharp start and stop dynamic of contemporaries Naomi Punk, crafting the sort of Marquee-Moon-with-both-fists-clenched tension only touched with such precision in this decade by Parquet Courts — a notable and tangible influence, and a natural comparison. Singer Matt Flegel belts out raw, emotional lyrics over stimulating and steady bass lines harkening back to Interpol’s Turn on The Bright Lights, and more distantly, its omni-influential predecessor, Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures. Drummer Mike Wallace crafts tense, meticulous, choppy, hi-hat heavy beats, equally reminiscent of Joy Division and New Order drummer Stephen Morris, coupled with the heavy tom hits of Dave Grohl or even Matt Helders. Guitarists Scott Munro and Daniel Christiansen play off of one another almost past the point of comparison — though their affinity for
noise and their rhythmic exactitude bears obvious thanks to such dynamic duos as Television’s Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd, The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Jim and William Reid, and almost needless to say, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo.
The album’s opening track, “Newspaper Spoons,” is arguably its most difficult point, a No Age vocal chant over lo-fi drums that sound like a slowed down Death Grips beat ripped through a YouTube-to-mp3 converter. However, several channels of buzzing Psychocandy feedback enter around the one minute mark, soon followed by Grimes-esque melodic keyboards and an even more Jesus and Mary Chain solo, providing balance and texture to the piece.
“Pointless Experience” follows, with a Carlos D bass line taking center stage over alternating bursts of melodic noise — in dizzying stereo — in homage to Isn’t Anything’s most memorable moments.
The Joy Division/New Order comparison comes to full fruition in the grand crescendo of track three, “March of Progress.” Beginning with a three-minute build up from what sounds like a lo-fi Zach Hill drum solo over a distorted m b v instrumental, the tension gives way to an Avey Tare and Panda Bear style vocal harmony over dueling arpeggiated guitar chords, equally Feels-y. It culminates in a sudden foot-tapping dance beat, driving bass, and wistful major key moans (“What is the difference between love and hate?”) taken straight out of New Order’s Substance.
Next is “Bunker Buster,” an aptly named powerhouse of sharp, discordant guitar chords over a grounded but nonetheless all-over-the-place rhythm section. This is quite possibly the album’s highest point, and frankly transcends most comparison: it can only fairly be called Viet Cong.
Somewhat out of place, a riff ostensibly torn from an Arctic Monkeys Humbug outtake follows, introducing “Continental Shelf,” the album’s fifth track. While those whose brows furrowed at the Matt Helders namedrop above are likely incensed by the explicit comparison to Arctic Monkeys, it’s not ungrounded: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not successfully melded danceable energy with the start and stop dynamics Viet Cong draws so heavily on and brought it to the forefront of the indie rock sphere in the latter half of the 2000’s, a feat which even the more enduring but utterly undanceable Turn On The Bright Lights failed to do. In fact, much of Viet Cong displays the haunting, reverb-soaked production seen on Humbug — notably produced by Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, whose trademark subdued crooning harmonies also bear influence on the album. Moreover, “Bunker Buster” has Josh Homme fanboy favorite Them Crooked Vultures written all over it, particularly in the deliberate and syncopated Dave Grohl style drum patterns. Nevertheless, “Continental Shelf” expands well beyond its Arctic Monkeys hook, featuring brooding, shoegazing guitar lines over the angst-ridden shouts of the verse, and resolving in a barebones but satisfying chorus.
“Silhouettes,” the album’s penultimate track, would almost better suit a comparison to Antics, Interpol’s second album: faster, more vocally driven, and less satisfying for reasons one can’t quite put their finger on. In spite of this, it delivers some of the album’s best dual guitar work, and one can’t help but smile at the nostalgically “Love Will Tear Us Apart” style keys. And in stark contrast to the jagged musical attack of the opening riff, Flegel’s heartfelt moans that draw the track to an end are undeniably moving.
This sets the stage for the album’s dramatic finale, the eleven-minute long “Death.” Harmonizing jangle-pop guitars, an erratic beat, and long, drawn-out vocal phrases continue until the three-and-a-half minute mark, where the song drops to a steady build in volume and “You Made Me Realise” feedback punctuated by melodic chords, and gradually decreases in tempo to a Sabbath-on-acid barebones riff, with no drums but kick and crash, and no notes but root and seventh. Here the Them Crooked Vultures reference bears repeating — comparable in both dynamic, grandeur, and disregard for convention, their eight-minute long “Warsaw Or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up” follows a remarkably similar pattern of tempo change, and there’s nearly as much Homme as there is Banks in Flegel’s mouthy vocals. At eight-and-a-half minutes, a sudden hi-hat beat returns, with accordingly energetic and driven guitar and bass parts, baring their Interpol roots for all they’re worth. What follows can only be called clever songwriting — razor-sharp alternation between bursts of raw vocals and harmonious riffs over ingenious chord progressions guide the song through its home stretch, finally culminating in an orgasmic return to the riff just shy of the eleven minute mark, complete with the album’s most intense and agonized screams yet: “What does deep midnight’s voice contend / Deeper than day can comprehend? / Accelerated fall / An orbital sprawl expanded and swollen.” It doesn’t matter what those lyrics even mean; Flegel’s incomprehensible scream says it all. “Death” serves as Viet Cong in miniature, hitting every point along its dynamic 37-minute path in the span of just 11 minutes, and releasing the tension of album and song alike in its final, rugged refrain.
Every step along the way of Viet Cong’s journey brims with energy, precision, and raw talent. Such an innovative rock album likely hasn’t been seen since m b v. And even with all of its various departures from convention, it maintains near perfect cohesion. 2015 may still be a precarious year for rock music, but Viet Cong stands defiant and victorious, a picture of a rock album in an age when everyone seems to have forgotten quite what that means.