posted 12/12/2005 (Mon) @ 06:48 pm
>>> Music Reviews
Neon Blonde - Chandeliers in the Savannah (2005)
That prickly sensation you get from being hit in the face with a black cactus
- Black Cactus Killers
- Crystal Beaches Never Turned Me On
- Chandeliers & Vines
- Princess Skullface Sings
- New Detroit
- Headlines
- Love Hounds
- Dead Mellotron
- Cherries In Slow Motion
- The Future Is A Mesh Stallion
- Wings Made Out Of Noise
“Chandeliers in the Savannah” is a very odd animal. It slinks around on a mix of drums, mechanized beats and brooding piano one moment and thrashes with claws to your face the next, like a shrew with rabies. Musically, the album is much the same, melding pop, dance and thrash-rock sensabilities with garden variety insanity. It’s as if you’re listening to an MTV camera man being mauled by said shrew.
I like it.
My personal favorite is “Crystal Beaches Never Turned Me On,” which juxtaposes a throbbing jungle beat against diseased piano, synth and guitar. Lay out a typically damaged-jet-engine Whitney vocal over this, replete with some “ooh oohs,” and you have a truly unique and morbidly catchy tune.
Catchier than the Blood Brothers, every bit as rhythmically and musically informed, and above all else, every bit as trailblazing, Neon Blonde is, hands-down, the finest two piece band since Local H (no, not the White Stripes). That the mass public regards music like this as noise is a compliment. The finest predators don’t rustle the trees in the jungle until it’s too late to escape. So it is with this, the most unpopular (and unyielding) collection of pop music to be released in 2005.
Tags: emo, experimental, hardcore, metalcore, punk, screamo
