Del Rey - Speak it Not Aloud
(My Pal God)
So two doctors walk into a bar, and the bartender says, “Why the long face?” Get it? If you said yeah, and laughed, then you probably share my sense of humour. But the point I’m trying to make is that you can’t combine two jokes to create one magnificent uber-joke. It doesn’t work. I’m sorry. Music, on the other hand, is a different matter all together. Take a bit of folk and a bit of country, and what do you get? Rex, Sparklehorse, Buellton. Great bands, right? Take trippy psychedelia and noisy pop, and you get early Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev. Emo and Hardcore… well, I’m really pushing it with that last one, but you can see where I’m going.
Del Rey combine the nouveau-jazz/post-rock/whatever stylings of bands like Tortoise and Isotope 217 and mix them in with the crushing crescendo rock of Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, and their ilk, to create some pretty nice music. Well, “nice” might not be a strong enough adjective. Let’s say “great."
Starting with “Jet Above Water," which builds up fuzz and static while at the same time layering on the guitars, and continuing through with “Pastille," which has a pretty ascending chord progression that’s underpinned by a thick bass groove; this is a definite love-child of Chicago p-rock and the Mogwai school of thought. My favourite moments are on “Malvado” I & II, which has got to have one of the most interesting solos built into the framework of the song as I’ve ever heard, yet still retains the groove. How about that?
However, with all good hybrids come new problems. Speak It Not Aloud doesn’t carry with it the same late-night sadness fests that Tortoise, Isotope 217, and Sonna do, nor does it have as much of an emotional catharsis as Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, or some of the Jackie-O Motherfucker catalogue. But I’m being nitpicky. I don’t really think that Del Rey were aiming to emulate any of those bands, and they come through with a standout record in every way: song craft, pacing, production, and artwork are all superb. Only time will tell if they have it in them to make another record this good.
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