The opposition to the Mamas & the Papas - A mixture of garage, avant, psychedelic-rock
The young Russian band Motherfathers released Kolchak! through RAIG in 2007. Since I’ve heard several good releases from bands on this label (Disen Gage, Gdeva, I Am Above On The Left, Vespero, Seven That Spells), I was intrigued to hear this as well. While this has not reached my expectations, there is potential here nonetheless. There are 20 tracks on the album and most of them short, with the album nearing the 80 minutes mark. At times they are on the repetitive, hypnotizing (sometimes annoying) side. Starting out with noise this goes on to rock and psych domains where it has this garage-rock feel.
The sound is (perhaps deliberately or due to lack of funds) fuzzy and on the low-fi/tech end. At times it sounds like a demo, a sloppy live recording or unreleased material that wasn’t mixed produced properly. But then there’s the occasional improvement in both the sound and the purposefulness of the music.
Some tracks seem like more of a jam session; just playing around and overall taking things with humour and not too seriously (especially given the lyrics). There’s also some punkish and new wave sounds thrown into the mix (track 17, 19). At times it sounds like a free-jazz/improv (18).
I wonder why they didn’t edit some material out; to me it seems like they wanted to get as much as they could onto the cd, regardless of the quality of the music or whether it had any substantial contribution to the album. That been said, there are more than a few good tracks here, there’s interesting improvisation done and some compelling playing (track 7 for instance, they show very well they know to craft a melody as well as experiment with it, despite the silly humorous lyrics).
While I enjoyed listening to the album and I’ll go back to it in the future, there’s nothing here that makes them standout in terms of originality, special characteristics or anything of that sort. I can’t recommend it but I won’t tell you to stay away either. If you like sloppy sounding punk/psych/improv/experimental/garage rock, you might find this interesting. However, there’s not much in terms of musical interest. There is potential in this band, they should exploit it. I can sense a spark under the crude layer; they need to uncover it. I’m interested to hear how they’ll develop.
| Reviewer: Assaf Vestin Added: January 14th 2008 |
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