Algiers -- The Underside of Power

oh shiiit

Looking forward to this, but the title is very hair metal/Spinal Tap.

The title is key to the album, and is not a joke.

Oh, I know it's not a joke. It's just funny. Very "The Smell of Fear."

that's a lot of pictures of rappers

There's a reason. (Had a chance to read over some notes all four members wrote up for each song -- they are extremely perceptive and focused, I'll add -- and Fisher's own notes on the origin of the lyric are cutting as hell.)

How does it compare to their debut?

Absolutely next level. This is them building on their strengths brilliantly, taking them any number of different directions.

Can't help but think that Matt Tong made the right decision.

um wow

Okay I'm ready for this

A new snippet from the title track...

https://twitter.com/AlgiersMusic/status/857254074000998401

Plus a quieter moment from elsewhere on the album

https://twitter.com/AlgiersMusic/status/856531455043915776

Mental screwup on my part -- that one snippet isn't from the title track, but another song. Carry on.

YES YES YES!!!

And here we go -- full video for the title track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGZXzmM1smM

Tracklisting:

1. Walk Like A Panther

2. Cry Of The Martyrs

3. The Underside Of Power

4. Death March

5. A Murmur. A Sign.

6. Mme Rieux

7. Cleveland

8. Animals

9. Plague Years

10. A Hymn For An Average Man

11. Bury Me Standing

12. The Cycle/The Spiral: Time to Go Down Slowly

And now that they've announced this, you can kinda guess even further why this blew my mind when I got the first advance:

Produced by Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Ali Chant, mixed by Randall Dunn (Sunn O)))), with post-production by Ben Greenberg (Hubble, Uniform)

this song is amazing... like, it's even more Algiers than Algiers. The Northern Soul thing is amplified but it threatens to be drowned under layers and layers of harsh noise. I fricking love it and it's easily better than anything off the first album (which is saying something)

seriously, this has made my day

And believe me, this is just a taste of the album's real range.

Damn, this song is so good. That bassline, my god...sounds like "Disco Inferno"

holy shit that song's incredible

Nice track.

The song is good enough I can easily imagine it becoming a left field hit and me hating everyone walking around listening to Algiers. (If I'm being honest.)

Personally I'd love nothing better than everyone walking around etc.

I'd feel very happy for the band.

Damn, this song is so good. That bassline, my god...sounds like "Disco Inferno"

― passionate plant-based athlete (voodoo chili)

not sure if you mean the song or the band!

i don't get the notion of resenting the popularity of a band i love. maybe because it's so rare. i'm never going to be like "oh god look at all these bandwagon jumpers listening to the insensible eggs".

I don't resent it at all. But I do get tired of hearing stuff sometimes, and when everyone else is listening to the same thing it (selfishly) impairs my own enjoyment. Like, I can't think of the last time I played Phoenix. (sorry Phoenix)

xp the song (hence the quotes), but lol

Josh, when these guys blow up you can make fun of the song by calling it The Underpants of Power or something

many options available to you. including continuing to listen to them.

I don't resent it at all. But I do get tired of hearing stuff sometimes, and when everyone else is listening to the same thing it (selfishly) impairs my own enjoyment. Like, I can't think of the last time I played Phoenix. (sorry Phoenix)

― Josh in Chicago

man i can't remember the last time i listened to phoenix either. i think i will listen to "wolfgang amadeus phoenix" now. (honestly if they hadn't broken through i probably never would have heard them, considering i didn't mess with "buzz" indie during the time period in question.)

i guess i haven't ever really had that experience, of seeing a band where i'm the only person on the block who knows about them, to the point where i think of them as "my" band, starts getting played in chain restaurants as background music. but i also don't have that sense of possessiveness, of thinking of a band as "my" band.

That said, there is nothing I like better than a good band that gets the success it deserves (like Spoon, Phoenix, the xx, etc., and hopefully Algiers). It's neat when meritocracy works. Though just a few years when the same five or so albums ended up on the top of so many year end lists, I presume for being good albums, many on ilx mocked them and the publications that praised them, but I suppose that's ilx for you.

couple of uk tour dates announced as a warm up to the depeche mode shows:

Jun 06 Patterns / Brighton, United Kingdom
Jun 07 Shacklewell Arms / London, United Kingdom

http://algierstheband.com/

this song is so so good.. I can't believe...

pre ordered the vinyl

i don't like this quite as much as Black Eunuch from the debut but this is very promising

apaprently DM is touring with Warpaint and not Algiers for most of North America :/

i don't get the notion of resenting the popularity of a band i love. maybe because it's so rare. i'm never going to be like "oh god look at all these bandwagon jumpers listening to the insensible eggs".

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Thursday, April 27, 2017 4:40 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't resent it at all. But I do get tired of hearing stuff sometimes, and when everyone else is listening to the same thing it (selfishly) impairs my own enjoyment. Like, I can't think of the last time I played Phoenix. (sorry Phoenix)

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, April 27, 2017 4:50 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

um guys...like i wouldn't really worry too much about having to hear algiers from every passing car this summer

nice song. The chorus has a "Get Ready" sound to it.

apaprently DM is touring with Warpaint and not Algiers for most of North America :/

Yup, that's what I've learned too. Pity, but I can't wait for the standalone tour. (And I like Warpaint so everyone wins.)

Yeah, no big deal, I was just hopeful

I really like Warpaint but they were a muddled mess when I saw them open for Nick Cave

nice series of opening gigs they've got there

this has leaked. holy shit.

Well that's highly unfortunate. (I mean, yes, it is great, but c'mon, a month out?)

New single "Cleveland" is out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xDDCxodgIs

^^^^tune

Keep an eye on this thread Monday.

I like it. Title track particularly.

Weird missing the point apex of the (tbf not really a pan) review: "Algiers have produced a record that is timely and necessary but also scatterbrained and messy."

Well, yeah.

Just the list of proper names and other references in the review underscores the album's achievements: Black Panthers and Fred Hampton, Che Guevara, Camus’ The Plague, T.S. Eliot, Italian zombie exploitation flicks and horror film disco, PiL, Michael Stipe, Walter Benjamin, Jamaican soul, Dominick Fernow’s Vatican Shadow, Geto Boys, Afrika Bambaataa, grime, footwork, Portishead, Wendy Carlos, Donny Hathaway, the Shangri-Las, Delia Derbyshire, Bad Brains, the Clash, Public Enemy, Rage Against the Machine, Fishbone, Dicks. That's one heck of a RIYL.

this sounds like the black keys or something

What in the absolute hell

I think it's fair to call that a pan. There's no unqualified praise for even a single track.

It's a pan only in the not generic 7.8 or BNM sense. Reads to me like a mixed review, no unqualified praise or no. There's also no unqualified dismissal of anything either, is there? Anyway, if I were Joe Wannabuyanalbum, I'd be more inclined to listen to this one based on this review than listen to something more positively received.

yeah but joe wannabuyanalbum only looks at the score these days

idk even if i thought this was an ambitious album that didn't quite pull off what it was aiming for, i wouldn't have slapped it with a score under 6, that's some contrarianist bullshit

Sort of what I mean. If anything, the review (the words) does a pretty good job explaining all the album has going for it, even if the writer doesn't think it pulls it off. That's what the review is for, and why (as silly as numbers are) the review reads (to me) more like a 7.x that explains why it's not higher than a 5.x which doesn't quite nail why its arbitrary number is so low.

First listen to this a few weeks ago damn near blew me away but returns felt like the individual songs were lacking a bit, especially Walk Like A Panther as an opener. Title track and Animals jumped out as being more than just polemic and bluster, but wasn't convinced by the rest.

However, going back to it this morning on the walk to work, it's stronger than I remember. Maybe not quite hitting me as hard as some so far, but getting there. The placement of the two instrumental tracks near the end feels strategically strong to me; it gives enough pause for things to kick back in so you don't feel bludgeoned (even though you are being!).

I think Black Eunuch and Blood are pretty much as good as anything on here, but other than that this is definitely a step up.

Yeah I was blown away and now I've given it a bit of a break and ready to go back to it soon. Still think the title track is an absolute worldbeater. Animals is the one that sounds like Ministry (in a good way) and overall it's really great. There are just one or two tension-diffusing moments towards the second side that aren't interesting enough to keep my mind from wandering.

I'm trying to think of what specific 80s band Mme Rieux sounds like. Not sure how much I like it. There's something just slightly cheesy or obviously melodramatic about that one.

Full video for "Cleveland"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FhcJTqJm98

This is quite an improvment on their debut, huh?

Hymn For an Average Man is a highlight.

Great show last night!

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/20121550_10155331411186136_2391515124569243158_o.jpg?oh=32b6d200ef32ffd0412fd137ded5627f&oe=59F60803

So see 'em live, I sez.

I would kill for them to hit TO but it doesn't seem to be in the cards

Hell, Chicago isn't even currently on their tour schedule.

It's possible they're avoiding places they hit with Depeche? idk

DM is touring with Warpaint in Chicagoland

Nope, Warpaint opening here. So no idea!

xpost!

Direct quote from their publicist when I asked about Chicago: "I know wtf!?"

Bunch of new tour dates. They're playing a tiny square box in TO (the Baby G) and I could not be more excited.

Go forth and rock.

And here's the full thing -- including Chicago, so there ya go Josh

http://algierstheband.com/live/

Yeah, Empty Bottle, nice n little!

I'm both depressed and excited by how small these venues are, the one in TO is like 150 capacity tops

Meantime here's a new tape/download

https://algierstheband.bandcamp.com/

I adore this record, one of my favourites from this year, but I wish it was less compressed. The squished dynamics aesthetic works in some places, but a DR of 5 or 6 doesn't lend itself nicely to listening on headphones.

between these guys, Zeal & Ardor and Here Lies Man, there seems to be a kind of micro-trend in this kind of metal-industrial/traditional black music fusion thing. I'm not sure how good those other two bands are, but why now?

why not now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waiwJ5rW4xw

new single which is a sort of spoken word response to criticism of the band over a free jazz freakout? it's cool

more info from Matador:

ALGIERS have released a collaborative audiovisual piece, “Can the Sub_Bass Speak?”, a new work from the band and production duo Randall Dunn and Ben Greenberg. The new piece pits charged language and free jazz collage by ALGIERS multi-instrumentalist Franklin James Fisher, saxophonics pioneer Skerik and drummer D’Vonne Lewis against a maelstrom of visuals by award-winning filmmaker Sam Campbell and typographer Farbod Kokabi.

Inspired by a chance encounter with artists Moor Mother and Harrga at Wysing Polyphonic in 2018, “Can the Sub_Bass Speak?” contorts ALGIERS’ post-punk deconstruction of racial and class sonic politics into new collaborative directions. “Can the Sub_Bass Speak?” is the centerpiece of a larger web installation thereisnoyear

There are some new UK/euro dates as well

Looking forward even more to the new album now.

Has there been any indication that's forthcoming?

new single which is a sort of spoken word response to criticism of the band

And that goes for all of you punks in the press
That want to start shit by printin' lies instead of the things we said
That means you andy secher at hit parader, circus magazine
Mick wall at kerrang, bob guccione jr. at spin
What you pissed off 'cause your dad gets more pussy than you?
Fuck you! suck my fuckin' dick!
You be rippin' off the fuckin' kids
While they be payin' their hard earned money to read about the bands they want to know about
Printin' lies, startin' controversy
You want to antagonize me? antagonize me motherfucker!
Get in the ring motherfucker! and I'll kick your bitchy little ass! punk!!
I don't like you, I just hate you
I'm gonna kick your ass, oh yeah! oh yeah!
You may not like our integrity yeah
We built a world out of anarchy oh yeah!

xpost -- Per J's post, it'll be a note-for-note cover of both Use Your Illusions.

(Actual answer: I'm not positive it's totally done but I'm pretty sure it is, and there have been quiet rumblings that it's en route -- no idea whether it'll be before the end of the year or not, though.)

enjoyed this, wonder if the whole album will be a bit like it

not heard this yet but i do find 'Whaaa we've been misquoted by the meeja' songs tedious on the whole

i tend to agree but this sounds cool enough and is delivered compellingly enough for me to forgive that

I am listening to this song now and a) it rules, and b) I do not think this is addressing criticism of the band as such

like, I don't think anyone is telling the two white members of the band that they aren't real niggas, like that Chris Rock sketch

the reference of the title btw for those who dont know https://cup.columbia.edu/book/can-the-subaltern-speak/9780231143851

I'm listening to "Can The Sub-Bass Speak?" again and I am impressed with the level of restraint I showed here in responding to the description of the song

one of my tracks of the year, easily, but first time I've read that description and fucking hell

The new album is quite lovely, BTW; my review of it runs next week I believe.

there's really a lot going on in "can the sub-bass speak?" so my apologies for not capturing all its intricacies in a very brief description upon first listen

but ill maintain that critical attempts to pigeonhole the bands music etc. is one of the many things it does address

new long-ass remixes of "Cleveland" just in time for the election

https://open.spotify.com/album/2ttGvriuz92KNvllIjp30A?si=MdXPB0PySj6hTTmaF4blyQ

Oh great, thanks!