Review : A Place To Bury Strangers : Exploding Head

Artist: A Place To Bury Strangers

Title: Exploding Head

Hometown: NYC

Label: Mute

Street Date: Out Now

RIYL: Top 10 records of 2009

The Hits: 1, 5, 7, 10

Richter Magnitude Rating Scale : Great.1

I get jealous sometimes when I meet someone who hasn’t heard a record that for me is an absolute classic. I am talking the kind of record that changed your life, has lived with you as if it was a partner for so long that you can’t recall when you first met, only that it was love at first site and ever since. I would kill to relive the first time I heard that record but impossible is impossible.

I feel this way about many records, Spacemen 3, MBV, The Telescopes, Jesus and Mary Chain, Loop, New Order, The Swirlies...the list goes on. But these are all bands whose records I know as if I made them myself. We have slept together, traveled the world together, worked together, DJed together, and so on. There are few surprises left in them but that is okay, I love them none the less. I will never grow bored of these legendary releases BUT like any normal human, I crave to meet and befriend a new record that give me goose bumps like these other records once did early on in our relationship.

The problem is finding a new record to live up to the high standards the artists that have come before them. My ears have heard a lot of music in my 37 years so the truth is there are fewer records in the world that wow me from the first listen and it really and truly sucks. As a music fanatic this is a very depressing reality but 2009 has been a kind year. There have been several records that have rekindled that lost loving feeling.

I am madly in love with Exploding Head” by A Place to Bury Strangers.

It is loud, hypnotic, throbbing, and has guitars bursting with all the fuzz and static that drew me to the first round of shoegaze / chainsaw guitar bands from the late 80s and early 90s. In addition to the sonic tidal wave that washes over every song there is the ever important part two to winning my heart and that is buried melodic vocals...melodies where you wouldn’t expect them... true beauty among the chaos of all that wonderful noise.

I can’t tell you how ecstatic I am to have a new record that explodes out of my speakers and strikes me ears in the same exact fashion as some my most beloved records of all time. Far and few between A Place to Bury Strangers is a welcomed addition to my list of favorite bands who have mastered distortion and taken it to ungodly thunderous proportions with just the right of amount of tension and release through the vocals.

All hail the mighty effect pedal and the wall of sound that these men have harnessed to the point of awe inspiring. Rock lives and it is louder than ever.