I’ve been looking forward to this. I loved their EP, a great debut, and I’ve only heard good word about their liveshows, so this seems very promising. If they follow the chain of other good norwegian debuts this and last year, this is probably going to be a great album, but were my expectations to high?
I think I have to say no, because this looks like a great debut. Their sound is a mix of different bands from the 90s like Yo La Tengo, Guided By Voices, Sonic Youth, Built To Spill, maybe the british shoegaze scene and also their fellow norwegians in Motorpscyho. Richard Myklebust’s voice sounds like a mix of Lee Ranaldo, Robert Pollard and Wayne Coyne, while Linn Frøkedal is a norwegian equivalent to Kim Gordon.
I want to highlight the last song on the album, “Queen of Noise.” A fantastic song. It starts energetic, with something that seems like a mix beetween Sonic Youth-harmony and the energy and speed from a typical Crystal Antlers song. I guess there’s probably other references that fit better, but still, Crystal Antlers is the first thing that pops up in my mind. It starts with energetic riffs, powerful, tight and catchy drumming. When it comes to the singing, it’s like the typical Kim Gordon/Lee Ranaldo/Thurston Moore-singing. It goes about two and half minute with the quick pace-part before they enters a whole new universe. A universe that is closer to Motorpsycho and other more psychedelick alt-rock bands, even a bit post rock-ish and a bit more 90’s emo, where they create a fantastic atmosphere of building tension, noise and quite catchy tonal riffing. It just keeps growing bigger, bigger and bigger, before it at the climax turns into wild strumming, before the groove changes, and it ends with a chaotic cadence.
“Queen of Noise” isn’t a typical TMT-song, but what is? Because, just like Izakaya Heartbeat, The Megaphonic Thrift, manages to make an eclectic album that roams a variety of different genres that many bands have played before, but just like Izakaya Heartbeat, all they genres can be put under one term I would call noisy rock or alternative rock. Because this isn’t noise rock, they aren’t Lightning Bolts, Lasse Marhaug or Wolf Eyes. This is catchy rock with good melodies, but it’s noisy too, full of feedback, overdrive, distortion. But I’m not going to take the parallel between TMT and Izakaya Heartbeat further, since this are two different bands with two different sounds. Instead, I’m going to talk about what makes this a good album.
We start off with the basics; the drumming is great! They are tight, they are groovy. The drums are often the thing that makes of breaks the dynamics of a band, and here they’re good. They are over the top when they’re supposed to be over the top, and they’re almost too silent when they’re supposed to be too silent.
Over to the dynamics; They can go from euphony to cacophony. The point is that they manage to make contrasts that makes the music interesting and makes it stand out in the crowd. And often the contrasts/dynamics also fit their kind of harmony and their melodies.
Their melodies, songs, riffs and chords are also the third reason why I really like this album. They make those harmonies and melodies that most of all remind me of Yo La Tengo and a particular Sonic Youth song, called “Wild Flower Soul,” from A Thousand Leaves. You can hear it on the more quiet parts, and on the guitar solos, which are very Ira Kaplan-ish, especially when they make feedback squeals while hammering like crazy on the Jazzmaster whammy. What I enjoy about those melodies is hard to describe, but I guess it is te feeling I get when i’m listening on them. The feeling of better days and a kind of temporary peace, before it gets crushed by noisy guitar and desperate drumming? What makes those melodies special for me is quite difficult to describe, but I guess it’s because they make me long for something, someone, better days. They also give me a kind of temporary peace, before it gets crushed by noisy guitar and desperate drumming.
So, looking back now, were my expectations too high? If you’ve read the whole review, I guess it’s quite easy to understand that they weren’t too high, but they weren’t too low either. The album turned out pretty much just as I expected, quite flawless, but not completely flawless.