Written by: Dave Cantrell

REVEREND GENES – “Space” EP (self-released) 

Post-punk and jangle have something of a twisted history. On the one hand, deep inside the former’s formative bedrock, amidst its cast of angular shadows and elegant brutalism, the latter was essentially persona non grata  (you’ll hear no jangle from Magazine of the Stranglers to name just two) but on the other, once that early wave began to inevitably move across the dark waters and infiltrate the further reaches – most notably, for our purposes here, Australasia – it was subjected to/co-opted by the stylistic reflexes of the local habitat, which is to say, in the case of the Aussie/Kiwi kingdoms, a somewhat sunnier sensibility (which, it could be persuasively argued, would eventually echo its way back across the continents and oceans between them and inject its gentler – if no less vital – energy into the second wave of your eager chancers thus birthing the likes of Jasmine Minks, June Brides, and REM among a thousand others) and it’s to the Antipodes that the newly-revived Triptych Into Darkness returns in the person of Reverend Genes and their debut EP Space.

Self-released last November (sorry, been busy) and the first of three conceptually related outings stretching to 2025 – Time is already set for November of this year – which, at first blush, may make one mutter to oneself ‘Jeez, that’s a long time between EPs,’ believe us when we say that, upon hearing this first one, you’ll fully understand the innate logic in that strategy and in fact, given the quality within, the brilliant care so meticulously given to the material, might well come to the opinion that one-a-year is perhaps a tad too hasty. Rich with hooks and melodies that kick themselves up toward the stars, gifted as a result with an instant addictability, the recording pretty much shines from top to bottom and back again. Oh, and that jangle we mentioned? Yes, forever present all round but driven along with such propulsion and unforced splendor that it results in something akin to pure joy. This is a record for now and every ‘now’ there’s ever been. OK, some deets, as they say.

First up, the instantly engaging “Left and Right,” its dashes of yearning and nostalgia dished up with an unforced verve that nonetheless forces one, via its sharp arrangement and the edgy smooth classicism with which it’s (again, self-) produced, to respond in kind with whatever rhythmic tic is one’s wont (for your author that means your basic full-rockin’ rondo while still seated at his desk). Second up “First Star” with those glorious sudden poptastic bursts that bring the chorus, the track as dreamy as it is driven, driven as it is dreamy, it’s blend of urgency and restraint running the none-finer gamut from intoxicating to lighter-raising jubilant. “Someday” just zooms off the runway first chance it gets, its power pop heart in a tightly-controlled hyperdrive that we’re choosing to call a ‘deliriously impatient patience’ that finds us here at the SEM office caught in that conundrum of wanting a track that, at two minutes forty-three, hews to the rather preordained brevity of the ‘perfect pop song’ to say ‘screw that’ and last for-fucking-ever.

“You and I,” on the other hand, is a deliberate scorcher of a love song rich with the type of regret that amounts to a sighing wisdom, its lyric leaving the unsaid so sublimely implied that actually articulating it would ruin not only the moment but the song’s entire edifice. Lastly, far from leastly, “Wanted to Run,” the swift shuffle of its rhythm track drawing you in before there’s even a second to resist which you’d never do anyway considering it’s as strong if not stronger than all that came before it which is to say take all the kudos thus far harvested in this review and apply them to that final track and we’ll call it good (though to be accurate we should really call it bloody amazing) and – phew! – we’re done and…ready to hit ‘play’ again. And again. And again. And… [grab yourself some Space here]

SURPLUS 1980 – “Illusion of Consistency” (Surplus Industries)

Give us credit or smack us down our small but fervent staff at SEM does do its best to finally get to albums or singles or what-have-you’s that don’t simply deserve mention but outright demand it. Invariably, given the deluge, far far too much ends up neglected anyway (if only each of us had sixteen heads and forty-eight brains and no need for sleep ever), it is gratifying when the opportunity opens up to addres an album from a project that so deserves a moment of editorial attention it would be damn near criminal to not provide it and here then we are with Illusion of Consistency, the latest full-length (released last December) from Oakland’s sharp avant post-punkers Surplus 1980.

So, first off, can we just say no one sounds like this, that no one can quite pull off this level of jazz-infected-yet-punk-as-fuck-which-isn’t-to-mention-engagingly-intelligent material like this band does? I mean, the level of edge-of-the-precipice finesse borders on, if not tramples over, incomparable. Second, can we just say “holy shit” and, after a few (hundred) words, move on? Well that’s the plan, the blueprint if you will, but we need advise it might be wise to understand that plan might get torn to shreds then pieced back together with spit and gumption which, now we think about it given the band at hand here, could not be more appropriate.

Formed by former Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s percussionist Moe Staiano in 2010 and evolving at pace ever since, Surplus 1980 was originally meant to be a solo, mostly studio project enhanced with a clutch of crucial collaborators but, as chance and circumstance would have it, the venture very quickly evolved – as and when necessity dictated – into a dynamic live proposition, versatile, supple and subtly in-your-face innovative, a descriptor author-verified having first discovered them when they opened for the Nightingales on their brief West Coast tour in 2015. Fast forward past that flurry of the twenty-teens during which the ensemble in its multiple forms seemed to lean more toward performance than the studio – it is, after all, the essential crucible of a band’s true strength – past the year 2019 when of a sudden it appeared it was time to make up for that bit of an album drought and not one not two but three full-length CDs emerged from the busy shadows and the collective was thereby set to conquer their particular corner of the world when a certain virus arrived with decidedly different ideas and scuttled every spark of momentum it could find unless, of course, you’re Moe Staiano and you’ve got the creative concept of the ‘exquisite corpse’ in your back pocket.

That method, concocted by the likes of André Breton, Yves Tanguy and Marcel Duchamp a hundred years ago from the parlor game Consequences (think Mad Libs surrealist-style), has each artist contributing their effort be it a drawing or a word or whatever to a finished product without seeing – or in this case hearing – any of the others’ efforts. Thus did our intrepid band leader call in a few chits from such far-flung pals as Fred Frith, Ajay Saggar, G.W. Sok from The Ex, George Cremaschi and scores more whose contributions Staiano then assembeld as best he saw fit and here we sit today with the rather astonishing results.

Past the brief spry intro called (what else?) “Outro Intro” comes the wondrous percussive bauble called “They Don’t Cry Wolf” which, well, think Devo in hyperdrive running after Captain Beefheart’s heart that’s forever chaseable but never quite reachable but as we all know it’s the chase that thrills the ears and thrilled your ears shall be. The following, “Some Few Facts (And One False One), first had us imagining a marching band in frenetic disarray – not an uninteresting proposition, frankly – but swiftly evolves into a sort of divinely controlled mayhem that punches and swings with a ferocity and precision that would make Fugazi lose their shit. Past that, “Last” teaches us, for one, that the pastoral does not always lead you where you think it might but more than that its lyrical content – Staiano is steadfastly hellbent on the words being clearly articulated – strikes a chord that any mortal who would ever question that mortality will recognize (and in fact the track is dedicated to instrument maker/Moe’s good friend Tom Nunn who passed a couple summers ago) and in that sense at least the song is brilliant but of course this whole shebang fits that description so what’s new. Well, pretty much everything here.

There’s the heavy (if deftly)-grooved, covid-driven marvel that is “Don’t Speak Don’t Breathe” that begins innocently enough but is soon spiraling up- and outward into perhaps the tightest such spiral we’ve ever heard; the sly marching cadence and joyous chaos that attends “The J.Allen BART Station Memorial” like a sharp and funky Oakland-styled N’Awlins procession; the six-and-a-half minute closer “Not Again” with its politically astonished central refrain “you’ve been had” anchoring the complexified gist that in itself could barely be a better more exemplary representation of the Surplus 1980 sound ethos if only for the fact it goes past in what seems half its running time while leaving a precision-guided impression that something amazing just blew through the room. And, smack in the middle of all that, the title track. a three minute-and-change instrumental that’s neither respite nor reset but rather a seriously head-nodding trickster of a cut that provides ample opportunity for Staiano’s percussive talents to hold court while, among much (much) else, guest Frith’s guitar hangs some eerie alluring contours from the rafters.

And there ya go. Blindingly good start to finish, startling in all the right ways, we urge you to hit that link below where you’ll find a rundown  of the many insanely talented musicians that helped flesh out what is, in a phrase, a masterpiece of its kind. And what’s that kind? Why, plucky sui generis confoundingly intelligent modern sound design in a whiplashed, whip smart post-punk stylee, of course. We’d hoped to make that obvious but if we haven’t, have a listen (or just buy it) and soon, quite soon, you’ll pick up what we’re puttin’ down, as they say.

GOLDEN APES “Our Ashes At The End Of The Day” (self-released)

We resisted this. Not because we’ve covered Golden Apes extensively or anything – just here and here and that second is a side project – but rather due the fact that, with a band of this consistency, with a history that, over its quarter-century-plus run, has proven them repeated purveyors of a post-punk of such clarity and depth to leave one frequently breathless, carving along their way their own unique emotional niche (no one ‘in the scene’ has quite the sonic impact of Golden Apes) that, really, what could we possibly say that hasn’t been said in this organ or that? And yet, and yet…given exactly that, given the power and unity of purpose the band – in the persons especially of brothers Peer and Christian Lebrecht – how could we possibly not? Thus…

OK, first, let’s just get this out of the way straight off: latest album Our Ashes At The End Of The Day, released this past January, counts as the fourteenth full-length and is as, if not more, remarkably strong in sound and dynamic as anything and everything they’ve previously done, a claim that, to the initiated, will surprise not at all while to those new to this lot may well seem improbable enough to count as hackneyed hype though, to the latter camp we say don’t let stubborn cynicism stand in your way. In large part it has no place in one’s heart when it comes to the arts anyway – though, trust us, we get it and thanks a lot corporate mindset – but in the case of Golden Apes, doubt and hesitation not only have no standing, they’re actually injurious to the soul. There’s too much beauty here, too much depth and darkly sonorous wonder to waste your energy on resistance. Fuck that, and listen.

First cut “Fourteen Rivers” emerges from the glare with a gently alluring, subtly glistening intro before the drums kick in just past the minute mark and the momentum is inevitably set free, the band entire (those brothers Lebrecht – Peer responsible for the music the vox the lyrics and keys, Christian bass – with, in this incarnation, guitarist Gerrit Haasler with Salomon Bosse handling all percussion) joining the quite controlled yet still unleashed fray thirty seconds later before Peer’s, well, peerless vocal lands in the mix several measures later and we’re home again, swooned inside ‘that sound,’ ‘that’ atmosphere, a place of Teutonic grace, the voice nearly cathedralesque inside the overall structure as has been and shall forever be the case and is, along with the arrangements themselves, gothic in tone but human in the moment, the very force that tends to pull Golden Apes time and again ahead of the darkwave pack.

Whether it’s the yearning and expansiveness that marks the title track, the line “don’t look away from the accident” standing out among many standouts (Peer’s no slouch with the pen); how “Shine” pulls one into as dreamy a dark dreamstate as one might dare imagine; “Reflections” reminding that immensity and delicacy can not only coexist but, when blended with such preternatural care as heard here, can bring one to that exquisite place where the joys and fears of living are recognized as the essential twins they are; “All of Her (Totem),” as much as any Golden Apes song we’ve heard, merges the voice with players in such symbiosis as to (as it should) reinforce how much the power of one is inseparable from the other while closer “That Moment I Fell” lands like a monument, as forceful as it is adept, exhibiting a kind of uplifting heaviness that, as a phrase, could not better express the Golden Apes essence.

There’s more but that, as a sampler, reminds what needs mentioning as much as anything with this lot, all those lush complexities spriraling about with both subtety and force beneath the band’s work, a fact overshadowed to some extent by those near-operatic vocals and the overall tone of what might be considered a ‘gorgeous portent’ but is as key as anything to the GA sound – and spirit – as anything. What’s it all mean in the end? Well, a lot, obviously, but among the more salient conclusions is: get this record. Last thing you want to do is invite regret into your life. [you can do that getting and not regretting here] [feature photo by the author, taken in London, April 2023]