The Gilded Palace of Sin
You Break Our Hearts, We'll Tear Yours Out Central Control For When We Forget, the opening track of Manchester trio The Gilded Palace of Sin's debut album, is an absolute stunner. After a wash of ambient noise it settles into an unbelievably pretty, melodic guitar piece which sounds like (and I'm not making this up) Explosions in the Sky let loose on Tom Waits' instrument collection. The fact that the opening track is completely unrepresentative of the rest of 'You Break Our Hearts, We'll Tear Yours Out' is one of the many contradictions that make The Gilded Palace of Sin so thoroughly wonderful. Essentially, this is an album of Gothic Americana, made by a bunch of people from Manchester and mastered in New York. Yet at the same it's not an Americana album, filled as it is with noisy synths, industrial drums and walls of guitar feedback. But it also kind of is... Most critically, it does all this and it still all hangs together, never feeling too scattershot or eclectic for its own good. After a couple of listens, you'll slowly start to understand why - this isn't country music in the traditional sense, it's country music made by city folk visiting the country, who are - quite frankly - completely terrified by what they see. The trio use the structures of country and Americana music throughout, but the aesthetics that they use to achieve these songs are the noises of industry. This creates a fascinating fusion, possibly only achieved previously on Tom Wait's terrifying 'Bone Machine'. Which is why you get tracks like Mean Old Jack, an 8+ minute droning piece of blues stomp with a Velvet Underground beat and a Sonic Youth approach of guitars. Over all this, singer Pete Phythian hollers a country-fried murder ballad about a serial wife killer whose "basement was groaning with bodies inside." Its way too long and incredibly single minded, but critically that's the point. Elsewhere the band employs Reznor-style beats on the hard edged Rubbing Up and utilise a guitar sound reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine in conjunction with a banjo on pretty ballad Rose Salvaje. You may never know what's coming next, but it's all so well-produced and executed that you'll stay enthralled throughout. As the closing love song, Home Because You're Here rolls around, Phythian is singing to an intimate partner, telling them that he doesn't care where he lives so long as they're right there. Yet wound into his impassioned vocal is the lyric, "The city smells so bad sometimes/It could make you wretch/Vomit in the gutter/Stains around its crotch" and you can see his city brain drifting out to the country and worlds of mean old men named Jack. Call it what you will - Outsider Country, Gothic Americana or any other goddamn buzzword, ultimately you'll just call this what it is - unique, beautiful and occasionally terrifying music that's not to be missed.  |
Issue 495
Music
