Search - Dead C :: Harsh 70's Reality CD

Don't get your hopes up too high

John L Murphy | Los Angeles | 10/18/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Given that I spent more $$ to get a used copy of this very rare oop release than I ever spent before on a single-disc CD, this did not exactly set me on fire once I played it. Still, respected savants like Steven Malkmus anointed this as a holy grail replica, so I figured I had to track it down. It's pretty much dominated by processed noise-rock, if in (except track one) shorter fashion.



Three songs were left off that appear on the vinyl, unfortunately. These may have salvaged what I hear from these eight CD features as too-lazy an attempt at art-rock meets sonic mayhem. It takes too few risks to be noticed or admired. Outtakes from this album, by the way for completists, appear on the wonderfully titled "Peace Love Hope et al." odds-and-sods collection from Shock Records that appeared in 1997/8. I am patient with this type of calculated casualness belying meditated planning, but the results this time for The Dead C don't pack the same concentrated pleasure that I find on their other discs. Repeated listenings have not opened up any light into the murky and half-scratched depths of this album.



The Dead C shone on the earlier, more rough-hewn nearly folk/Eno meets The Fall/Stooges/Sonic Youth/Can attack of their previous Eusa Kills album, or such harmony beneath the disruption on later work like New Electric Music. Instead, the appealing half-hour rumbling saunter of "Driver UFO" gives way to ramshackle songs that fail to live up to whatever expectations that caused me to spend a lot of dough on these songs. If you want to hear Dead C at their best, try the other albums I mentioned as well as Tusk, which probably best blends their disparate influences."