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A Frames
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Black Forest
Sub Pop Records
Release: 3/22/2005
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Rated:
Review by:
Lindsey M. Keen
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Who are the A Frames and why should they have your
attention? Is it because they just popped their cherry, hitting
the world with their debut release Black Forest
on Sub Pop? Or is it because this stripped-down band, which
consists of former members from the Cows, Butthole Surfers
and Scratch Acid have come together to give their
neo-modern nod to experimental noise?
According to the liner notes, the A Frames feature Cholera
on bass, Ricketts on the dirty-beat drums and Emphysema
hacking out licks on the guitar and vox. Most of you know
that the band members are actually Erin Sullivan
(songwriter/guitarist), Min Yee (bassist) and Lars Finberg
(drums), all of Seattle, WA, formed in 1999.
With all the new dingy pop-punk wannabes out there, it's
hard to determine who's willing to hang herself with the
microphone cord ala the lash lad of punk, Sid
Vicious. But the ideology of punk is to transcend a message
of rebellion to the children of rock.
"My Teacher" is a translated version of Cold War-era
Moldovan/Russian text in the faint haze of surrealist
allegories. The primitiveness and roughness of "Flies" opens
with the diametrically heart wrenching sounds of bassist Yee
amid the riveting guitar of Sullivan - which speaks of those
smothered in the dark ages, frozen in time. The great
deliberation of "Galena" is drawn from the everyday
scientific data and testing that has corrupted our lives.
"Black Forest II" is a picture of the world without cars,
civilization, movie stars; no churches and no garbage cans,
just a black forest.
May it be the exceptional drum loops from Finberg, the
deranged, yet real lyrics from Sullivan or the hypnotic beats
riding on the verge of cold, low-end undertones by Yee, the
A Frames are pruning the punk scene with a torture chamber
vibe. |
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