Life Is Killing My Rock & Roll

Remember those awful “story problems” your high school math teachers used to stick on the end of their tests? Man, those things used to piss me off no end. And yet, I now find myself posing one of my own:

It is a dark, frosty mid-winter’s night in the heart of Iceland. There is a four-way intersection. From the west comes a car driven by Lux Interior and Poison Ivy of The Cramps, both out of their minds on an unspeakable combination of dangerous drugs and voodoo spells. They weave from lane to lane at an average rate of 96 miles per hour. Jim and William Reid (The Jesus and Mary Chain) approach from the east, at an average of 84 mph; as the brothers are fighting (for no apparent reason), no one is actually in control of the vehicle. From the south, a very confused Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine), wondering what the hell he’s doing speeding down an Icelandic highway at night, travels at an average of 78 mph. If all three automobiles reach the intersection at the same time, who survives the impact and goes on to record a couple of albums?

Answer: Singapore Sling.

From the question above, we may postulate the presence of the following: dark overtones, large amounts of feedback, and a slightly medicated orientation to the proceedings. Perhaps not what you’d expect from a band named after a foo-foo drink, but it describes Life Is Killing My Rock & Roll to a T.

Singapore Sling is Henrik Björnsson’s baby. He writes the songs, sings them, plays guitar, and produced the album. I’ve heard all sorts of goofy descriptions of what the band sounds like. The best I could come up with is “shoegazer garage”, which is admittedly pretty goofy itself. Then again, pigeonholing bands is a loser’s game.

Look, this album is all about dark, dank rock & roll, which life may or may not be killing. What does slow things down, if not entirely dealing the fatal blow, is Björnsson’s refusal to bust out of that shoegazer tempo. It’s a fine line between “menacing” and “lugubrious” sometimes, and Life Is Killing My Rock & Roll steps across that line fairly often, especially toward the end of the disc. Two of the last three songs, “Guiding Light” and “Let’s Go Dancing”, clock in at 6:14 and 6:38, respectively; the tune in between them, “A Little Love”, wraps up in a relatively speedy 5:06. Long and slow is OK from time to time, but as a steady diet it leaves a lot to be desired. I found myself thinking of a friend who’d gone to see The Who play a show with The Grateful Dead, lo these many years ago. The order in which the bands would appear was not announced previous to showtime. My friend figured that since the venue was in Oakland The Dead would headline, being local boys, and The Who would open. In anticipation of such an outcome, he took a fistful of, um, stimulants just prior to the announced starting time. Imagine his surprise when Garcia and Co. took the stage. By the twentieth minute of the first song he was vibrating with rage and screaming for the band to “fucking get on with it”, much to the consternation of the space dancers around him. My reaction to this disc, while not quite so vehement, has a similar tang to it, and I don’t take anything stronger than black tea these days.

Article Author: bmarkey

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