Struction

13 Minutes Of Love And Doom (2004)

Jesse Raub

What we have here is a failed attempt to be artsy noise rock. To tell you the truth, it sounds a lot like a Sonic Youth-influenced Blonde Redhead, and while I love both Sonic Youth and Blonde Redhead, I just really couldn't get into this that much. It's not the music - the music is greatly interesting with dissonance and interesting tempos and chords…but the vocals…the vocals are just terrible. You know that girl from Rainer Maria? And how her voice is just too good? Low and melodic with vibrato, something you'd expect to hear in an opera? That's how the singer for Struction sings, and it sounds greatly out of place.

To give you a better overview of this CD, it is seven tracks, with most of them between one and two minutes. The first couple tracks have really awesome noise intros and outtros, and they're probably my favorite part of the CD. The music is full of spastic guitar parts with basslines that meld into the guitars, so they are almost inaudible. The drumming is inventive and reminds me of Ex-Models. All together, it's not a bad package.

My favorite track is easily "Reverse Vampires Under Negative Rainbows," a three minute opus that focuses on the music and really gives off some noise/art rock vibes via Sonic Youth, but you know, in an original way. Plus, the girl doesn't sing on it, which is always a key bonus. And it starts freaking out into a crazy noisy breakdown. And you know that's always awesome.

To recap, this band isn't half bad, they just need a new singer.