Stereobate - Selling Out in the Silent Era
(Distance Formula)
Consider Stereobate to be a more tongue-in-cheek and more
Dischord-friendly version of Paul Newman. They similarly
start where Slint left off, and they similarly don't seem
satisfied just staying in that narrow realm of post-rock
genre pieces. Instead, Stereobate mixes things up as best
as they know how, by throwing in more punk rock, more
Dischord-ian numbers, by creating odd instrumental interludes,
and by, in general, keeping the audience guessing as to what
exactly will come next, that is after they finish their current
mammothly-lengthed song.
After a two minute instrumental oddity to open the album,
Selling Out in the Silent Era, Stereobate launches right into
"Here, Bass," which is like a more screaming, less sexy version
of early nineties Girls Against Boys.
How appropriate that they pulled Eli Janney away from the
Girls Against Boys discotheque long enough that he was able
to mix the album. The bass guitar pounds like a bass drum,
hard and steady, as the guitars stutter, swirl, and sear around
the dual screaming vocalists.
As opposed to that song's aggressive sound and loud vocals,
the following track, "The French Letter," is very light and
delicate, sounding like a Dianogah song. The lead guitar plays
a soft, intricate melody with a few quick twists and turns
before the bass joins in, providing a fast succession of notes
that leads, after a few fake-outs, to a couple short rushes
of swells to full volume, eventually reaching a noisy climax.
The song's epic length allows Stereobate to play with the
listener's mind and ear, using the rhythm of the lead guitar
to tinker with what would otherwise be a somewhat formulaic song.
"Jerry Jones" starts off sounding much like a The Shipping News
song with spoken vocals and a swaying guitar, but that mood
ends quickly as guitars explode, the vocalists intermittently
screaming to great effect as the music similarly starts and
stops. The song continues to alternate between the soft, pretty
and loud, raucous sections, a couple times stammering, trying to
trick the listener into bracing for another explosion.
It's quite obvious that the guys in Stereobate grew up with
early 90s post-rock and post-punk music, and that music is a
large part of why they are in a band today. If the band knows
what they're doing, they totally play up the punk aspect of their
music live, adding a massive snarl and an elitist grin to their
screaming vocals, further emphasizing
what makes them different from all those bands that came before them.
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