music reviews

Attrition
Kill The Buddha! The 25th Anniversary Tour
1/27/09
Projekt Records
www.attrition.co.uk

RATING: BADASS

More than twenty five years in and Attrition are still as brilliantly unlistenable to pop music audiences as ever. Kill The Buddha! documents their celebratory trek through the modern caves of the western world, playing their avant-garde synthetics for sparse audiences looking to be pleasantly disturbed. Attrition’s sound pits the primal against the plastic and haunts in a way which evokes long and blissful contemplation. “Dreamcatcher” has intensely dark beats closing in on operatic howls, “A’dam & Eva” is reminiscent of a postmodern burlesque performed by classically trained robots, and “The Mercy Machine” is along the lines of a dance party for the tortured souls of Dante’s Ninth Circle. Izzy Cihak

***

Living Things
Habeas Corpus
2/17/09
Jive Records
livingthingsmusic.com

RATING: BADASS

Living Things are the perfect example of when failing social revolution can be a pretty solid dance party. Habeas Corpus has them expanding on their brand of The (International) Noise Conspiracy Light political power pop. “Brass Knuckles” will likely be the year’s brashest pop anthem, “Oxygen” drips with delightfully infectious synthetics, and “Cost of Living” has the groove of making love to an atomic bomb. Unfortunately, the band’s grasp on the political concepts they grapple with is still at the Afterschool Anarchist level and their ideas are about as radical as anything that can be heard daily on NPR during an evening commute, but if we’re all fucked anyway (and we are), we might as well dance. Izzy Cihak