A sorta-new kind of sorta-art rock has come into being over that last several years. Mostly it has flown beneath the radio radar, but there have been a few exceptions: The Flaming Lips, Radiohead and maybe even Coldplay. While it took me a while to warm up to both the Flaming Lips and Radiohead (I still do not 'get' Coldplay), I did come to see this music as an interesting and very welcome alternative (man, I just hate how the word 'alternative' and been forever mangled as a useful musical term) to the non-stop aggression and emotional drabness of 'modern rock'.
So after several weeks of nearly daily listens to Secret Machines' Now Here Is Nowhere, I've decided that this band fits nicely into the trend. Not as weird as Radiohead, a little more rock than the Flaming Lips, Secret Machines know a thing or two about the value of combining subtlety, space and the power chord. I've seens a bunch of reviews mentioning their Pink Floyd similarities. Well, just a little of that might be true. Certainly the tune 'Pharoah's Daughter' has some Floyd in it, especially that two-chord approach to the verse key (Where did Pink Floyd use that? "Have A Cigar?" "Shine On You Crazy Diamond?"). But if you think about it, there are tons of bands in rock history who have used air, transitional passages and odd sounds to link their songs together. Heck, take a look at the list of groups listed on the Secret Machines website: Pink Floyd, Neu, Can, Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, La Dusseldorf, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, The Band, My Bloody Valentine and Spiritualized. So we have elements pulled from psychedelic rock, kraut rock, ambient, art rock and plain 'ole rock.
Now Here Is Nowhere starts off on a pretty heavy note with "First Wave Intact", which is full of big chords and less-is-more rock drums. One thing here that links this band to the aforementioned groups is song length. The opener clocks in at 9:00, definitely setting it apart from the alternative rock set. The next tune, "Sad And Lonely", begins with distorted guitar figure that brings to mind The Who's "905". A brooding middle section gives way to a fairly twisty guitar solo before the song morphs into a spacey transition to the next tune. My favorite song (if it's fair to pick one in this kind of suite-constructed thing) is "Light's On", a paranoid little thing that rocks pretty hard and that might be accused of stealing from Radiohead's playbook (if they were still interested in rocking this hard).
Other writers have also said that they feel the rock world may be at a turning point. I really do hope it turns out to be true, though there's a whole bunch of unresolved issues to be sorted out including: the state of commercial radio, the health (if that's the word to use) of major record labels, the health (that's the word I want to use) of the independents, and what role technology will play in all of this. I don't have any answers here. The Secret Machines do make me feel like something's happening though.
(First posted on Mark Is Cranky)
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Article comments
1 - Tom Johnson
Apropos of almost nothing to do with your actual review . . .
(I still do not 'get' Coldplay)
Thank GOD - I thought I was the only one. Everyone looks at me like a freak when I say "I just don't get anything out of 'em." I read a review or article about the phenomenon they seem to have become and they described them as something along the lines of "weepy post-breakup dormroom music." I thought that really illustrated what bored me so much about them - the melodrama.
It's nice to have someone to back me up.
2 - Mark Saleski
glad i could be of service!
seriously though, i keep hearing all this bombastic stuff about how they're the next big thing and so far i haven't heard 10 seconds worth listening to twice.
3 - Dennis Scanland
A Secret Machines Review