{"id":706,"date":"2012-02-06T04:50:50","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T09:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=706"},"modified":"2012-02-06T04:50:50","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T09:50:50","slug":"album-review-the-chris-alvy-band-art-noise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/06\/album-review-the-chris-alvy-band-art-noise\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Chris Alvy Band – Art Noise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naming an album is no small matter. Choose wisely, and you succeed in distilling the contents of the record into a few words: call it Dark Side of the Moon<\/em>, for example, and we know to expect something a bit trippy. Name it Never Mind the Bollocks<\/em> and you’ve telegraphed to listeners that the music might be a tad abrasive, confrontational. Choose poorly and you run the risk of misdirection.<\/p>\n

I must admit that from my point of view, the Chris Alvy Band<\/strong> has chosen poorly in titling their new album. When I hear or read a title such as Art Noise<\/em>, a few thoughts immediately come to mind. Art rock (a la Roxy Music<\/strong>, perhaps), noise rock, and then The Art of Noise<\/strong>, the 80s Trevor Horn<\/strong> project now inextricably entwined with the Max Headroom<\/em> character in many listeners’ memories.<\/p>\n

But guess what: none of those mental images has the least in common with Art Noise<\/em>. It’s neither particularly arty nor especially noisy, and the straight-ahead power-rock \/ pop-rock \/ power-pop approach won’t remind you of that overused \u201corchestra hit\u201d sample form the 80s.<\/p>\n

No, Art Noise<\/em> is sturdy rock of the sort that will appeal to anyone who digs Raspberries<\/strong>, Jason Falkner<\/strong>, Greenberry Woods<\/strong>…that sort of very high quality, emphasis-on-melody thing. The double-tracked lead guitar licks on \u201cSomething’s Missing\u201d sounds a bit like Pilot<\/strong>, Badfinger<\/strong>, or a Wings<\/strong> outtake. There’s a little lick in the song that I’d swear was lifted from a Klaatu<\/strong> deep album track; whether it was or wasn’t is beside the point: it’s clear that Alvy and his bandmates have absorbed that sort of music into their systems, to good effect.<\/p>\n

\u201cInside Job \u201cswings and swaggers like prime Redd Kross<\/strong>; the song’s infectious chorus and stomping bridge reminds listeners what was so damn fine about bands like Cheap Trick<\/strong> and Shoes<\/strong>. The muted guitar chording on \u201cThe Fall\u201d gives way to a near-anthemic arrangement; it’s exuberant, top-down-driving music.<\/p>\n

One of the most effective qualities about Art Noise<\/em> as a whole is the manner in which \u201csoft\u201d keyboard textures \u2013 strings, etc. \u2013 are employed in the delivery of \u201chard\u201d arrangements. It’s a subtly effective approach, one rarely found in rock records. The mid-tempo yet rocking \u201cLove\u201d is an especially fine example of this; doomy Mellotron-style strings provide a warm melancholy to the song.<\/p>\n

The band rocks hard-n-riffy on \u201cBefore You Burn and Fade.\u201d A tasty guitar solo (shades of Thin Lizzy<\/strong>) and handclaps are among its highlights. \u201cThis is Your Life\u201d ups the ante, and the close-harmony dual lead vocal conjures memories (again) of Redd Kross, specifically their 1993 tour de force Phaseshifter<\/em>. And the band provides further proof that they can rock with subtlety on \u201cBorn,\u201d a dusty, windswept ode that manages to evoke concurrent thoughts of The Beatles<\/strong>‘ \u201cI Want You (She’s so Heavy),\u201d the 21st<\/sup> century stomp of Wolfmother<\/strong>, and the impenetrably weird 80s TV series Twin Peaks<\/em> all at once.<\/p>\n

Don’t hold the title against the Chris Alvy Band \u2013 Art Noise<\/em> is prime melodic rock of the timeless variety. Swimming at the more rocking end of the powerpop pool, the Chris Alvy Band has crafted an all-killer-no-filler winner in Art Noise<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Naming an album is no small matter. Choose wisely, and you succeed in distilling the contents of the record into a few words: call it Dark Side of the Moon, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}