Wednesday, August 13, 2014

CASSETTE REVIEW: Murder Cult “The Bridge” (KIKS/GFR label)


                With the name Murder Cult you would be easily fooled into thinking that this was a hardcore band of the most metal variety.    They look, on paper, like someone that should be playing with Ed Gein, Uphill Battle, CurlUpandDie and those brash, in your face type of hardcore/metal bands that can be rather intimidating.

                Then I remember some odd years ago (More than ten actually, wow) a young band bursting onto the scene called Murder by Death, named after the Peter Sellers movie and not because of their musical style at all.   A friend of a friend was talking to me at a show, I mentioned them and her quick reply was “I don’t like hardcore”.  

                Rather than Backstabbers, Inc., Murder Cult has a sound that is drum machine based with something else that could be wind chimes but I am not entirely certain and it is closer to an older Polyvinyl band such as Aloha or Volcano, I’m Still Excited!!.    The percussion factor is amazing and there is some clanking as well as general sounds like traffic, but somehow within it all is also melody. 

                At times you can hear a sort of medical sound, which is hard to explain with words, and then it sounds like maybe a kids toy is being used for an instrument, though there is also the overall sound of something like water glasses or bowls ala Jay Peele.

                Though this music might be the farthest thing from hardcore music, it does have an underlying theme to it though that could be just as brutal as anything or anyone.   Based on the title of “The Bridge”, I can see someone jumping off of a bridge.   The traffic stops to see, to help and ultimately to rescue this person.

                In a fall that should have rightfully killed him, the protagonist of the song somehow manages to survive, is taken to the hospital and is learning to live life once again, one day at a time.   It is in this way that not only is there an actual bridge but the metaphorical bridge which connects the life before to the life here on out.    It doesn’t really get much more intense than that. 







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