Even though covering In The City was a huge pleasure in every respect, it’s comforting to return back to the meat-and-potatoes activity of reviewing new bands.
One of the many gifts that ITC presented me with, besides a monster cold, tinnitus and a hangover that won’t budge, is a fresh perspective on guitar bands.
That perspective was, natch, a little cynical, but true to these ears: the majority of guitar music has been ‘done’. That is not to say that there is not still endless avenues to explore, but, without exception, all of the four-square guitar ‘n’ songs bands were dull, dull, dull.
It’s only when a band take it upon themselves to go that extra mile, and think of guitar music as a problem to be circumvented to does truly interesting music emerge. And emerge it has in guise of the wonderful Weekend.
Coma Summer is a song of cut-and-thrust beauty, finding as much silken pleasure in the moments where the driving drums take precedence as the times when the feedback howls, and we’re all engulfed in a metallic cloud of dense white noise.
Songs sculpted like this are not easy to make – it took My Bloody Valentine about three years, remember – and so any praise of their songs is of the highest order by default. Weekend have looked at their options, taken the toughest one – and succeeded. Great, great, great.
Glib Comparison: early New Order playing Fußball with My Bloody Valentine.
Photo: Joe Lubushkin
MIDWEEK MIXTAPE // 20th October 2010 | A New Band A Day!