Search - Electrelane :: Axes

Brilliant

M. Fantino | San Francisco, California USA | 05/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Electrelane's Axes finally arrived. It's been out for a week, I can't figure out what the hold up was but I am so happy with it. It is noticably not as catchy as The Power Out, which, probably I will be the only person that misses that. I like catchy. Especially the way that one was catchy. With hooks so smart, if I were a fish I wouldn't mind losing my life to hooks like that. I would snap on. I would take the bait. They could reel me in.



Axes is starker, and more Stockhausen, which is always popular with modern minds, not always mine. It's what John Cale's Paris 1919 should have sounded like, and was so disapointing and boring because it didn't. And it's a lot like that final, two-album leap that Talk Talk made when they transcended everything, when they abandoned pop for good and went free. I hope Electrelane stick around though."

Excellent!

Joerg Colberg | Northampton, MA USA | 05/18/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Lots of people spend their time on trying to find the next "alternative music sensation." Sadly enough, most of those sensations (like, for example, The Strokes) then sound just like all those other bands before them - so it's new faces, but the same old stuff. It's actually kind of amazing (and sad) to hear how little experimentation people - musicians and listeners - are willing to tolerate.



Enters Electrelane, a band that not only on a superficial level - the band members are all women - is quite different from the rest of the crowd. I don't know whether they will be the next sensation, in a sense I don't think so (they're too unusual).



This is their third album, and it's a mix of their first two. If you've read anything about it, you probably saw it's being compared with Stereolab. If a band is like Stereolab if they use organs and have a woman singing then, sure, this is like Stereolab. But it seems to me the "stereo" you want to use for these kinds of comparisons is the one in stereotype.



The album mostly features instrumentals, recorded to sound a tad rough (Steve Albini did the recording), and the sheer variety of tracks is quite interesting. One of my favorites, "Eight Steps" sounds like an Eastern European folk band going nuts. Others feature lots of unusual instrumentations, incl. weird piano riffs and such. It's definitely a very interesting experience, and if you don't like it right away it'll definitely grow on you."

Splits the Difference

WrtnWrd | Northridge, CA USA | 05/23/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Axes, Electrelane's third release, splits the difference between the instrumental raves of their debut and the more accessible post-punk of last year's The Power Out. "Split" may not be the most exact word here; nearly 75% of Axes is given to Feelies-style rave-ups - though without the Feelies devotional concentration or, pardon me, axemanship. Or lyrics - a problem when your instrumentals begin and end with the same basic chords and mid-tempo - fast - faster structures (no matter how much dissonance you throw in for variety). That said, there is still a dirty thrill to be had from the fuzzy rush of rock and roll played live in the studio, with Steve Albini's hands-off recording muddying up the sound. The songs are raw, skeletal, as if the band learned them seconds before playing them, which they probably did, with no time to belabor the obvious similarities as they rush from one giddy crescendo to the next."