New Secret Machines

Saturday night in Chelsea was the first show post-Benjamin (ok, second show-- they did a barely-announced thing Thursday night).

One hesitates to make judgements when the band have obviously had so little time to find their legs. But it was pretty ramshackle. Replacing Benjamin on guitar were two new guys, one on keys/gtr, one on gtr only. I recognized neither (but then, I wouldn't would I?) Benjamin's grandiose, detailed atmospheroics were replaced with a kind of generic post-cure noisepop guitar. Again, I have no idea if these guys are permanent members and if so, how much time they've had to work out parts.

I did, however, have a great time because god damn Josh Garza is a monster on the drums. I could listen to him do his Motorik Bonham thing all night long, and with the guitar element sort of wing-lamed the drumming became the focus. I laughed out loud at the start of four or five songs just at the RIDICULOUS mass of his playing. Was actually hoping this would just be him and the singer/keyboardist guy as a duo. Still think they should consider that.

Several new songs, one of which was real heavy, like Sabbath-1st-song-1st-album heavy (but with purty quiet little chorus).

Benjamin's grandiose, detailed atmospheroics were replaced with a kind of generic post-cure noisepop guitar

this sounds great. but, yeah, the drummer is the whole band for me. when i saw them live, i could feel the kick drum floating past me. it was amazing.

i dunno if we're allowed to talk about this on nu-ilx...?

why wouldn't we be?

i saw these dudes play an hour and 15 min set outside in 90 degree heat and i almost became homicidal

aw wtf man i love these dudes

deezdudes

I really like the first two records and the first ep... but I heard this "atomic heels" song from the new record and it is pretty terrible. I might buy the new record out of loyalty but it really needs to not sound like that song.

anyone hear the school of seven bells album alpinisms (by one of the secret machine's guitarists)? it's much better than anything secret machines ever did (from what I remember).

I've just heard one song... good, interesting, need to hear more before I can form a real opinion though.

huh didn't even know there was a new one

atomic heels is after a couple of listens by far the tritest, most disposable thing on the record, although the second song spends about 3 minutes ripping off the "first wave intact" beat (like daddy's in the doldrums before it) before developing a mind of its own

but after that there are some cool surprises. they don't QUITE stick the landing; the 11-minute closer is certainly uh epic and uh noisy but doesn't have quite enough grace to go with the pyrotechnics IMO. it's still groovy, but no NHIN, and no 1000 Seconds (which I have unashamed love for). the three songs before it (and "have you run out") are all good-level SM fare.

that said i am now listening to "the fire is waiting" (the aforementioned 11-minute closer) and it's actually a lot better than it was the first coupla times, maybe it just loves being cranked LOUD

I'm really hoping it's a grower, because my first listen was just... um.

They still have one of the most amazing rhtyhm sections I've ever heard (Josh Garza - ROCK STEADY) but I just don't like the new guitarist. he seems to play in a way that is really... safe. It didn't excite me like the previous 3 albums.

School of Seven Bells are just... OMG OMG ZOMG everything I've heard by them just seems to have been *made* for Kates. The electronics, the female harmonies, the noises etc.

But I really don't want to compare the two, they're very different things. It's hardly a Spectrum vs. Spiritualized type rivalry.

OK, after a few listens, this is actually very good indeed, better than Ten Silver Drops and probably one First Wave Intact short of being (quite a bit) better than NHIN

One caveat is that although this has revealed itself to be rewarding, it also took quite a few listens to "work". A lot of subtle production tricks this time around, and in fact subtler all-round songwriting (opening and closing tracks aside), placed over a fairly stripped-down, smooth psych framework. Expect some decidedly dicey reviews declaiming the album as mediocre and pointless. Whatever, it works for me. A lot more going on than meets the eye. Much of this comes from the squealing, feedbacking, choppy guitar of the "new bloke", who adds a far more schizophrenic edge to the SM sound (Brandon's now-more-unpredictable keyboard FX have adapted accordingly). It suits them, dare I say it. But it doesn't really work unless you "learn" the songs. Elsewise they sound disjointed, fraudulent and a little forgettable.

But give it some patience. The delicate feedback storm at the end of "Last Believer, Drop Dead" emerges as the gorgeous counterpoint that gives the entire song meaning and thrust. In "Now You're Gone", all sorts of studio wizardry gently massages an otherwise smooth, faceless ballad into a thing of tortured, emotional beauty. "I Never Thought To Ask" has about 8 drumbeats total and they're all perfectly deployed (as well as some awesomely tingly ambient-shoegaze guitar). "The Fire Is Waiting" gets better every time, mostly thanks to all that subtle sound-manipulation going on in the outro. "The Walls Are Starting To Crack" is flat-out awesome, but again it takes a few listens for the weird midsection to click. The three tracks I haven't mentioned are also great, albeit that two of them are somewhat fluffy pop pleasures which I won't make a song and dance about. This leaves "Have I Run Out" which grooves like a motherfucker, in its own idiosyncratic way. I hope I make myself clear. This is going to be dismissed as both incoherent and derivative, both plain and pokey, but its derivations are, I stress, superficial, and its magic lies in its subtle and attainable coherence. Plain grooves mesh with jiggery-pokery, repeat for greatest enjoyment.

N.B. This is nowhere near being either a) my album of the year or b) a jaw-dropping breakthrough in recorded sound. It's a very good, solid record. 8.5/10.

I opened for these guys in 2004, thought they were really nice. Small crowd, because Radiohead was also in town that same night.

I do not like the guitar style of the new guy. I will give it another listen today at work, on headphones, but it really hasn't done it for me.

OK, I'll give you one thing - it's totally a headphones album. It works a lot better, on headphones, in my ear and close-up, rather than played in the background with a million things going on.

I still utterly love the drums - i don't know what it is, if Josh tunes his kick drum a certain way, or if it's triggering a synth sound, but there's this massive sound it makes when it slams in, it's like the sound of digging yr own grave, it's that big.

But I really, really miss the kind of psychedelic... HAZE that Benjamin Curtis used to wrap around everything. This new guitarist is just too clean.

I mean, it's a good solid album, by anyone else, I'd be impressed.

Averaging almost 30 less than fucking Glasvegas and 10 less than Kings Of Leon on Metacritic. I knew this was gonna happen. Understated psych = critic's kicking ground. I see the Dandy Warhols are languishing near the bottom of the heap too.

that's because the Dandy Warhols neglected to get in AN EDITOR on that new album of theirs...

I'd actually quite like to hear the last 2 Warhols albums. I have one track off Odditorium (Love Is The New Feel Awful) and it's actually kinda brilliant. Rangy, murky and playful = what they do best.

I disagree. But this is a Secret Machines thread, not a DWs thread.

Well, what they do best actually = all the great songs off the first record like Genius, Not Your Bottle, TV Theme, Nothing etc. But nowadays I'll take 'em long and explorative, plz.

Back to TSM, I think the new guitarist does a great job. It's not such a swirly, enveloping psych-out as before, but a much edgier, much more vulnerable listen. I like this vulnerability. Perversely, TSM would never have had the confidence to completely break the back of one of their songs (TWASTC in this case), show its vulnerabilities, a few years ago.

I love how you are such an expert on a band's "confidence" levels.

have you ever even heard the first TSM album? Hello, "Marconi's Radio"?

I don't even know where to start with the rest of yr post. Obviously we have different interpretations based on our own emotional projections, but I find it pretty unstable ground trying to second guess artists' motivations based on one's own wants or likes.

(I had the wrong band back above - forget that post.)

Based on the fact that I think all three of their other releases are outstanding, I had to be loyal and pick this up despite hating "Atomic Heels." Based on exactly one listen... the first half of this record is probably the worst stuff they've ever done; the second half of the record may well rank amongst the best stuff they've done.

I didn't have song titles in front of me, but there is a song toward the end where everything suddenly gets kinda abstract for a minute or two before bursting into a huge arena rock guitar solo - that was the first moment on the record where I was really surprised by what they were doing, in a good way. And the last song is pretty fantastic. I have no objection to its length or its repetition. And yes, it definitely needs to be played loud to work.

The first three songs especially have REALLY grown on me after many repeat listens, but I will agree the second half is better. That song near the end is "The Walls Are Starting To Crack", which is pretty mighty.

I'm just glad there was something on the record to reassure me that they haven't lost the plot entirely. My first impression (Atomic Heels) set my expectations so low that I think I was "listening negatively" for much of the record, until "The Walls are Starting to Crack" shooke me out it. I think I'll be able to go back to it and give it a more honest listen the next few times through.

Well I was disappointed the first couple of times too. But even "Atomic Heels" sounds quite groovy now (and yeah I REALLY didn't like that one at first). I genuinely think this might be their best, most consistent record, although these songs don't really top the highs that book-end their previous two full-lengths (the first and last tracks of each album are by FAR the best things on them imo).

Pitchfork review is a sort of 8.0-8.5 quality review, but they give it 7.2. Humph.

Just got back from seeing them tonight. New songs work better live - everything just on the edge of flying apart. New guitarist is OK, but he's too quick going from zero to feedback squeal. Kinda annoying because he's got a great textural Manzanera-esque sound but he doesn't stay there enough. Brandon is playing an eight-string bass now and between that and Garza's drumming it's low-frequency heaven.

Garza really is an amazing drummer.

I thought Brandon had been playing that 8-string for a while!

The new album has been growing on me, but it's still nowhere near as... epic as the other 3.

I'm gutted because School of Seven Bells cancelled their Pure Groove instore last night. Is it time they got their own thread?

Wait, I just realized, I don't think I've heard these guys yet. I should get around to that.

Who? School of Seven Bells? I think you'd really like them. they'd push a lot of yr ethereal girls buttons. Except they're more... warm and inviting than cold and pristine and ethereal. I kind of think of their musical palette being more reds and ochres and plums than ethereal which is all icey blue and lilac.

http://www.myspace.com/schoolofsevenbells

(I know I'll get beaten up on this thread if I say I actually think they're better than Secret Machines, but they're more... KATE than Secret Machines are currently. Kind of like a mashup between Cluster and early Throwing Muses.)

Haha, no, I meant I still have never heard the Secret Machines!

WAHT?!?!?!??!?!

Barrus, you are closer, hit him with something! Hard!

i too am fairly surprised by this revelation

Well I keep hearing their name but they're one of those 'oh right I suppose I should get around to them' bands to me. Lately I tend to listen more to obscure electronic/techno weirdness.

I thought Brandon had been playing that 8-string for a while!

When I saw them a couple years ago he had a EB-2 (or something like it)

Lately I tend to listen more to obscure electronic/techno weirdness.

Don't want to drag this thread OT, but I'm curious to know the details ... Name names? Link threads?

Putting that on another thread would be a good idea, considering this is a SECRET MACHINES thread and Ned has never even heard them.

(grrrrrr)

I too would like to hear more about the electro weirdness. Ned, if yr listening, have you posted a load of these to a recent purchases thread?

I will see what I can do when my brain is not so fogged.

cool!

s/t album very much underrated, underexposed...a real shame, because they've still got something to give

you mean their first ep thing? If so, then very much agree. Loved this. Now here is.. was a major disappointment afaiwc.

nono, i mean their recent s/t album. still haven't heard september 000