Eddy Current Suppression Ring: Promotors of Ambience Themed Jokes

This is the nth version of this thing. I know what I want to say but my fingers tell me otherwise. Writing about music should be the easiest thing in the world since most people can’t shut the hell up about what they’re either listening to or what hot band they’re going to see next month. Within the continuing dialog of music, one always hears the term “hype band”. Goddamn I hear this phrase all the time! “Hype band” is new wordage the hip people use because “sell out” has been hijacked by the trip pants wearing middle school crowd, and god forbid if those bohemian types are caught using the same lingo as pimple faced twelve year olds. It’s been used to describe everyone from Thee Oh Sees to Sex Vid. While I do see some validity in these claims, (especially Sex Vid) most of the claims makers are those greasy collector types who eat their own shit since they literally feed off of trends. Check their message board and eBay habits, and you’ll see what I mean. But I swear, if I hear one of these morons use such words in relation to Eddy Current Suppression Ring, I might have to shove their Jandek albums down their throats.

Besides the usual resentment from the usual music snobs who stalk eBay like sexual predators, I’ve noticed the “you either really love them or hate them” mentality a lot of music writers are presenting in all levels of music media. This argument has come to it’s apex with the release of ECSR’s third album Rush to Relax. Holy shit, quite a few people got pissy and smug when reviewing this one. They accused the band of “inadvertently turned DIY culture into a breeding ground for hobbyists”, and releasing an album that is nothing more than “two ballads made for a man and his woman, two punkers to prove we are still keeping it mad real, and three self-indulgent jams that go for over six minutes each”. These same people go on to suggest that the band do something new while at the same time talk about how they should just stick to doing garage rock numbers, and THEN they accuse them of writing “self-indulgent jams”.

What?

Oh, but it gets better. After all that bullshit, they bitch and whine about how ECSR doesn’t want to be pretentious and therefore makes their approach to music is “pretentious”. Right.

With all of that bullshit being said, I can tell you exactly what they meant by all that. They were upset that ECSR did not make another Primary Colours. Not only did they want another Primary Colours, they wanted a Primary Colours that had slicker production, actual singing, and worst of all, “indie” credibility. Basically, they wanted ESCR to become what the Black Lips are now, and they are cowards for wanting it. The suggestion box is full, and they burned the fucker. Moving on now.

I have to be honest, I was a little worried that ECSR would just rehash their second album, I really did. Luckily, Rush to Relax offers up a lot more than it’s detractors give it credit for. When reading the negative reviews of the album, I found myself liking the so called “negative” aspects of album (ie. Brendan Suppression’s voice. Bob Dylan pulled the same shit yet all you rock critics give him a pass. Well, he did write those pretty words you that you critic types eat up). The longer numbers like “Gentlemen”, “Tuning Out”, and “Second Guessing” were some of the stronger numbers on the album. I could see why so many people would hate a song like “Gentlemen”. It’s kind of sappy and it’s kind of blunt but then again, it IS a love song. Is it more musically valid if it gives you some sort of vague abstraction? All I know is that if I had a choice in either saying “fuck you asshole” or “ your aura is a preconceived notion of arrogance, therefore I detest you”, I would pick the first option. It has nothing to do with maintaining some sort authenticity, it just rolls off the tongue better.

“Second Guessing” is my favorite song on the album. It almost sucks you into this fucked little world. It goes by incredibly quick and you feel like you just came out of a trance, something I thought this band could never do. Fuck, most rock bands don’t even come close to pulling that shit off. “Tuning Out” is another song that gets the job done. For being over six minutes long, it does not seem drawn out at all. If anything, this song puts the mind at ease. I can just listen to this song and not have to decipher some hackneyed inherent meaning or how tortured the artist in question is. I can listen to a song and the artist leaves me the fuck alone. I know exactly what ECSR is trying to tell me and they didn’t even give me a decoder ring.

Also, let’s not forget about the two opening songs on this thing. “Anxiety” and “I Got A Feeling” might very well be two of the best numbers this group has written. Both songs have this indecisive tone about them. They talk about apathy, but you know that there is more on your mind. You know they are mulling over multiple things at once. As always, the music provides a perfect arena for these musings. Eddy Current’s bare bones guitar work produces these sparse little well crafted songs that that just get stuck in your mind. He wants you to think that he can’t play worth a shit but the trick doesn’t work that well. Bullshit guitarists can’t write riffs that stay with you long after the song is over. Current can.

It would be easy to say that Rush to Relax gives you “two ballads made for a man and his woman, two punkers to prove we are still keeping it mad real, and three self-indulgent jams that go for over six minutes each” but you could say that about any album. It’s like criticizing a painter for using a color palette that is identical to another artist’s. In other words, its dumb. This album gives us variety, and you fuckers still whine. Shouldn’t you guys at least give them ambience music props for all the beach sounds at the end? That’s progress, right? No? Well it sounds like somebody didn’t get the joke. For an album chalk full of “long self-indulgent jams” Rush to Relax still only clocks in at a little under thirty minutes(the average album length) if you don’t count the beach noises. What was really funny about the beach sounds was how everyone was so pissed off by it. I thought that part was hilarious, and I’m glad I got the joke. So many did not.