Album: New Language:
Year: 2007
Style: Acid, Prog, World
Similar Bands: Tub Ring, World/Inferno Friendship Society, Cows, Beru Revue, X
"One-Word" Review: Trippy Renaissance Punk
Based Out Of: West Philly
Label: Self Released
New Language: Cover, Insert, Record
New Language: Inside, Lyrics, Record
New Language (2007)
- Phantom Cargo 3:48
- Psychic Studies 4:50
- Hell's Reflection 3:23
- Warm December Days 4:32/
- Inheritor 3:52
- Legacy 3:46
- New Language 3:34
- Stasis 6:42
Album Rating (1-10): 5.5
Member & Other Bands:
Tony Cesa - Bass, ARP Odyssey, Sequencial Circuts, Pro One Synths, Vox (Sgnls, John Denver's Airplane)
Paul Walker - Guitar, Yamaha AM1X, Korg M3R Synths, Insert Layout (Sgnls)
Paul Walker - Guitar, Yamaha AM1X, Korg M3R Synths, Insert Layout (Sgnls)
Monica Pasquinelli - Drums, Cover Art (Vulgar Remedies)
Eleanor Buffam - Electir Viola, Vocal
Steve Roche - Mixed, Mastered, Recording
Erik Ruin - Printing
Sean Fenton - Insert Photography
Unknown-ness: I’ve never heard of this band, but I love the homemade nature of the album cover printed/stamped/sick screened on the cardboard, twice, I believe, because the inside try was blurry. The artwork has a cold, bleak landscape, with a bomb cloud rising into the name. So what kind of music will this be? I’m guessing Indie Rock with a cold edge.
Album Review: “Phantom Cargo” has a distorted guitar riffing through some noteless chords. Then a gothic piano adds a dark vibe, and the song begins to feel like a World/Inferno Friendship Society song. There are competing male and female vocals that are harmonized in an odd way. Later some psychedelic swirling synth sounds are layered over the buzzing guitar, which reminds me of the band Tub Ring. The vocal style is very progressive, like dark crooning metal.
“Psychic Studies” starts off with a fast paced punk guitar hook. A viola is layered over top, and then the male vocals start. They are the same as the first song, singing in cadence with the drums, and occasionally belting out a note at the end of a stanza. Also thrown in for genre-confusing are hard-core/emo screams. But a buzzing organ carries the song on its back. It’s a noise that you can’t tell is there at first, but when you do, it becomes all you hear. There is an earthy, space, new age breakdown mid song with a very dark sorcery, Black Sabbath vibe. The song winds down in this section, before rebooting and kicking back into the chorus of singing and isolated screams.
“Hell's Reflection” starts with a chamber music production of strings, echoing as if a cold, stone conservatory. The feed-back guitar is back to insert a note or two here or there, and the anxious vocals are peppered with one-off screams for emo reasons. But the song still feels like it could be a gothic W/IFS song. It changes gears as it goes further into song, and takes on a driving, Gang of Four vocal quality. The song winds down with quick surges of guitars and specks of stings a final mushroom cloud that gives way to the next song seamlessly.
“Warm December Days” begins lightly with a sad Balkan violin sound backed by what sounds like a mandolin. The vocals are half sun, half chanted to the swaying tempo. It feels very renaissance fare-ish. As it almost loses all musical form, and flirts with bad opera. This reminds me a little of Beru Revue for some reason. It really becomes taxing, and barely listenable in its minimal production.
“Inheritor” starts with some odd moog sounds, squirting up and down. The singing is muted in the background at first, and sounds like the hard core Tub Ring songs. And then female vocals give it a go at the same pace and melody, reminding me a bit of Sleater-Kinney. Eventually they are overlapped together. This is just a quirky, weird hard core version of something I’d expect to hear from Forbidden Zone musically. There is a middle breakdown of fast singing the same phrase over and over again, that melts down into yahhhs. The electronic synths wind down, and the end of the song is full of tweeting and static ebbing and flowing, ending in a flat line.
“Legacy” is a heavy display of Prog. Then both male and female vocals take their own individual approaches of speed and melody, seldomly overlapping, which reminds me of X. It has an urgency and intensity, while using some B-horror movie sound effects and instrumentation.
“New Language” combines Dexy’s Midnight Runners celtic strings with a driving punk rhythm. The buzzing guitar nearly drowns out the female vocals, and is mixed up way to far. The time signature changes, and a slow trudging stomp with wavering synth comes forth, covered with male vocals, sung in a very dark vibe. Then the DMR section comes back, but is drown out by the discordant, random, angular guitar mess. Nothing seems to match up at this point. And, as the other instruments give up, the guitar gets more and more staticy until the song just peters out.
“Stasis” is an instrumental (for 3 minutes) with a slow, reflective tempo created by strings, the annoying static guitar, and a slow, stumbling drum beat. It staggers on and on and mourning guitar solos. The vocals, with an X style of harmony, come on in a high pitch singing style that further adds to the sorrow of the song. Nothing ever really changes or expands from this singular vision of a funeral march until the last minute, the pace picks up and they give you one last bit of punk with an eerie moog effect in the background that has a fake ghost sound, a sound of a Halloween decoration.
“Psychic Studies” starts off with a fast paced punk guitar hook. A viola is layered over top, and then the male vocals start. They are the same as the first song, singing in cadence with the drums, and occasionally belting out a note at the end of a stanza. Also thrown in for genre-confusing are hard-core/emo screams. But a buzzing organ carries the song on its back. It’s a noise that you can’t tell is there at first, but when you do, it becomes all you hear. There is an earthy, space, new age breakdown mid song with a very dark sorcery, Black Sabbath vibe. The song winds down in this section, before rebooting and kicking back into the chorus of singing and isolated screams.
“Hell's Reflection” starts with a chamber music production of strings, echoing as if a cold, stone conservatory. The feed-back guitar is back to insert a note or two here or there, and the anxious vocals are peppered with one-off screams for emo reasons. But the song still feels like it could be a gothic W/IFS song. It changes gears as it goes further into song, and takes on a driving, Gang of Four vocal quality. The song winds down with quick surges of guitars and specks of stings a final mushroom cloud that gives way to the next song seamlessly.
“Warm December Days” begins lightly with a sad Balkan violin sound backed by what sounds like a mandolin. The vocals are half sun, half chanted to the swaying tempo. It feels very renaissance fare-ish. As it almost loses all musical form, and flirts with bad opera. This reminds me a little of Beru Revue for some reason. It really becomes taxing, and barely listenable in its minimal production.
“Inheritor” starts with some odd moog sounds, squirting up and down. The singing is muted in the background at first, and sounds like the hard core Tub Ring songs. And then female vocals give it a go at the same pace and melody, reminding me a bit of Sleater-Kinney. Eventually they are overlapped together. This is just a quirky, weird hard core version of something I’d expect to hear from Forbidden Zone musically. There is a middle breakdown of fast singing the same phrase over and over again, that melts down into yahhhs. The electronic synths wind down, and the end of the song is full of tweeting and static ebbing and flowing, ending in a flat line.
“Legacy” is a heavy display of Prog. Then both male and female vocals take their own individual approaches of speed and melody, seldomly overlapping, which reminds me of X. It has an urgency and intensity, while using some B-horror movie sound effects and instrumentation.
“New Language” combines Dexy’s Midnight Runners celtic strings with a driving punk rhythm. The buzzing guitar nearly drowns out the female vocals, and is mixed up way to far. The time signature changes, and a slow trudging stomp with wavering synth comes forth, covered with male vocals, sung in a very dark vibe. Then the DMR section comes back, but is drown out by the discordant, random, angular guitar mess. Nothing seems to match up at this point. And, as the other instruments give up, the guitar gets more and more staticy until the song just peters out.
“Stasis” is an instrumental (for 3 minutes) with a slow, reflective tempo created by strings, the annoying static guitar, and a slow, stumbling drum beat. It staggers on and on and mourning guitar solos. The vocals, with an X style of harmony, come on in a high pitch singing style that further adds to the sorrow of the song. Nothing ever really changes or expands from this singular vision of a funeral march until the last minute, the pace picks up and they give you one last bit of punk with an eerie moog effect in the background that has a fake ghost sound, a sound of a Halloween decoration.
Stand Out Track: Phantom Cargo
Links:
No.Libs Split 7 inchSGNLS
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