From the Shelf: Jim Mcturnan & the Kids That Killed the Man and Ofeliadorme

From the Shelf: Jim Mcturnan & the Kids That Killed the Man and Ofeliadorme

Reviewed by: Christian Hagen

Post-punk, the endlessly developing answer to the brash punk fervor, sought to neither revitalize classic rock sensibilities but rather looked to revive emotion in the milieu of fast songs and nihilism while still retaining a harder-edged, less commercial sound. This is the sound of decades past, revived over the last ten years to some extent, but in the face of a new millennial musical identity, post-punk bands have had to come to terms with the fact that they’re increasingly faceless to the fickle listening masses. For example, Interpol and The Strokes, first pioneers and kings of the New York City indie scene, became obscured quickly by flash-in-the-pan acts and one-trick ponies that promised instant gratification in place of emotional exploration. To say the scene has become dumbed-down is an understatement; the industry has returned to the 1970s not just musically but in terms of its marketing, splintering into increasingly small PR firms and labels, as bands self-release material and their names are forgotten.

It’s a clear commentary on the modern emphasis on aesthetics over substance that young bands like The ACBs manage to succeed sonically by imitating their idols better than their peers, not by being unique themselves. The most different acts on the landscape are given no time to experiment; there is no patience. Between the first and second Franz Ferdinand albums, as well as the second and third Strokes albums, each group did a great deal to differentiate their sound, to find a space that was spiritually and personally fulfilling, in each case shedding, to a small extent, the images the industry had crafted for them. Franz lost the glitzy pop edge in favor of a classic-rock contemplation and romantic fears. The Strokes famously lost their distortion and played with making their sound simultaneously tighter an looser, each track fighting with the tracks around it, creating a collage of chaos from which relatively few people found the pleasure derived from Is This It? or Room on Fire. Sales reflected a public that had already moved on, not to bigger and better things, but to consistency and digestibility. That Vampire Weekend has made roughly the same album twice doesn’t seem to be a coincidence. But heaven help them if they try something fresh the third time around.

Two young bands have recently been circling around the internet that provide much of the post-punk swagger of the last decade and, though it’s far too early to say whether they will see the success of their predecessors, there’s an undeniable energy to their music which could salvage them from the heap of faceless indie musicians.

Jim Mcturnan and the Kids That Killed the Man, despite one of the most unnecessarily long names in music, provide a stirring amalgamation of post-punk motifs into a refreshing, if familiar, package. Joie De Vivre, which the band currently has made free to download on their website, swings casually from uptempo guitar rock to a swirling pop-rock verve, all anchored by Mcturnan’s sometimes lazy delivery. The singer often resembles Jake Snider of Minus the Bear in tone (though not in anger), and the band finds itself a contemporary of several of the last decade’s most exciting post-punk acts; elements of the aforementioned Minus the Bear meet those of The Strokes, The Dead Weather, Queens of the Stone Age, and Arctic Monkeys. The result is a sound that is hardly without precedent but which can still please and surprise.

The harmonies of several of these songs shine brilliantly through the fuzz. “Don’t Count Me Out,” with its simple “ooh-ah” backing vocals, bleeds nicely into the album’s poppiest track, “Goodnight.” “Leviathan” is sweet and self-pitying at the same time. “Make believe the end/is coming down,” Mcturnan moans at the start, while the synths pierce through the guitars strumming to create a sense that something is hanging over everything good there might be to see. The song is possibly the album’s best, as far as its sad-sack material goes.

But what makes Mcturnan’s group so interesting is their play with contrasts. While everything is scratched and lo-fi, the band understands that for every up there is a down. The first verse of “Give Up Suffering” contains this dark-light duality. The song gets off to a fast start, but as on all these tracks, Mcturnan’s voice pulls the song back into control: “Sometimes I have to step outside myself/just to see if I’m still there./Our nights in New York City were the best of times./Yeah, you make me wanna live again./You turn me on.” Classic rock images of city nights and sexual frustration meet decidedly post-punk themes of self-identification and wistfulness.

The song’s most blatant post-punk rallying cry comes on “Down About my Art.” The dual guitar drive, one strumming a few simple chords at a blistering pace while the other sticks to long single notes, gets shaken repeatedly by the stuttering, blistering drum beat. And over it all, Mcturnan coolly, almost lamely, bemoans his station: “I’m down about my art/I’m drowning in the sound.”

In contrast to Jim Mcturnan and co., Italian female-lead outfit Ofeliadorme finds, at times, more in common with late-80s or early-90s alt-rock acts like PJ Harvey and My Bloody Valentine, though their dream-like sound is clearly filtered through the early post-punk work of Interpol. And, much like Joie De Vivre, Ofeliadorme’s All Harm Ends Here explores the upbeat and downbeat sides of their chosen genre, albeit with a decidedly greater emphasis on the dark side. “Ian” floats on a simple guitar and bass line and the unnerving guttural moans of singer Francesca, “Sooo sad/you’re soooo sad.” Then, suddenly and for the first time on the album, the floodgates burst, and Francesca’s moans turn to wails: “You always get as/much as you can.” Dynamic range is the bread-and-butter of the post-punk band, and Ofeliadorme use the quiet-to-loud explosions of their influences to brilliant effect.

Following track “Grow!” uses similar dynamic shifts, but rather than a burst from meek to fiery, the song  transitions from a soft beauty to a lush fulfillment, and what begins as a moderately industrial angst track is quickly invaded by strings and organic energy. The song is indicative of many of the album’s best sounds.

If one term could be used to summarize Ofeliadorme’s sound, it would be “burning.” Unfortunately, the song “Burning” is a melodramatic and discordant mess. “How long do I have to wait,” Francesca asks, “till your eyes see the truth?” Much of the album plays in a soft low-to-mid dynamic, drawing the listener in for some kind of emotional payoff, but “Burning” never feels comfortable in itself; it feels like a song the band wasn’t willing to give up on despite their own apparent misgivings. It’s mid-tempo noise like this that threatens to sink this album, though overall it doesn’t succeed, and the tracks float on.

Despite the momentous crashes of excitement, All Harm Ends Here is still mostly very patient music. “The King is Dead” is a pretty lamentation, but it hardly boils the blood. “The Wizard, The Witch, and The Crow” is a terrific imitation of classic mystical folk storytelling. And while “I Like My Drums” may have a danceable tempo, it sounds as though only one member of the band has the energy to move. All of this isn’t to call the album boring, but for those expecting an energetic rock record, Ofeliadorme allows only momentary satisfaction.

Regardless, All Harm Ends Here is a wonderfully crafted piece of music which, within the post-punk tradition, flies in the face of a cynical rock scene that’s being quickly left behind by the worlds of pop and hip-hop, an album rich in emotion and slowly unfolding in its treasures. The disquiet that builds throughout, the undercurrent in lyrics and music that implies a storm that’s just now passing, meets the sweetness of the album’s closer “Eve,” and is dispelled like magic.

Contemporary music’s short attention span has been written about endlessly, but not yet to its death. Perhaps our focus shouldn’t be on what we’re forgetting, but rather on what we’re ignoring in favor of the quicker hit. Perhaps there was no time in the history of rock and roll more in need of a critical adjustment than the one in which we currently reside. Hopefully with time, we’ll settle into the understanding of our internet ages and find the ability to keep our focus where it should be: On developing the music in front of us, on branching out and giving the universe a chance to reveal the next big thing without forcing one down everyone’s throats. For now, we should all just listen carefully until we’re ready for what’s coming.