CD Review // The Lautreamonts "Who Are You Wearing" (Oblique Musique)

$8 //
Edition of 25 //
https://thelautreamonts.bandcamp.com/album/who-are-you-wearing //

Dark strings and a rhythm you might find in the jungle open up this CD.    In many ways, this reminds me of The Courtesans if only because it is a certain style of rock unlike which I've ever quite heard before.    There are melodies which can sound like Metric.    Guitar notes continue to twang.   By the end of the first song, "The Adequacy Waltz", the singing blends with some speaking and it becomes such a bit of madness, yet so great that if you are instantly hooked you might never be.

A driving force and layered vocals bring out the power in "Who We Were", while the third song comes through with some screaming to start.    What I find interesting is that as heavy as this gets, as much as it can become distorted, there is still this feeling of those strings we heard at the start.    The way that the two merge, but more so really it's the way that the first quality remains no matter how electric and closer to Marilyn Manson/L7 this gets, that just fascinates me and it is something you need to consider, to appreciate this as more than just your typical rock album.

"The Ones He Wore" is when this gets really interesting based on the lyrics.   The first three songs are definitely songs you should be listening to and paying close attention to the lyrics, but here we have three names repeated as the lyrics.   If you can connect the title with the fact that the lyrics are people, it makes me think of Ed Gein, which is kind of neat, but if you actually recognize the names (or Google them) you'll find this song is something else altogether, which is also that much more of a reason to really not just put this on to be loud and fun to dance around to, but also to learn from it.

The final song is slower and though I don't like to admit this a lot, yes, back when that first Godsmack album came out I owned it and listened to it, though I don't remember any songs from it really except for that one which was on the radio and the song called "Voodoo".  I always liked the musical aspects of "Voodoo" and can feel some of them in The Lautremonts.    The pace picks up at one point and this just has a psych quality to it as well, to go so quickly from just being chill to rocking out but, of course, I love it because I love music which challenges the norm.

Once upon a time I had this review for a cassette by Excessive Visage and I couldn't remember what a song was that I had heard at a place I used to work but they reminded me of each other and as such, both that song and Excessive Visage can remind me of The Lautreamonts.    That song, of course, I figured out was called "I Can Never Go Home Anymore" and is by The Shangri-Las (who I don't think get enough credit) and so it's funny to me how that is a sound from the past, Excessive Visage is more modern and, well, this CD is both in the present and the future of music.