REVIEW: hHead, jerk (IRS);Sons of Freedom, TEX (Divine Industries)
- Johnny Walker
Similarities: Both Canadian bands. Both produced and/or recorded by Dave "Rave" Ogilvie (Skinny Puppy). Both use standard guitar / bass / drums setup. Both bands can be contacted by their fans on the Internet.
Differences: Everything else.
These two releases encapsulate the extremes of Canadian rock, being as far apart in spirit and intent as Toronto is in miles from Vancouver. Unfortunately, the basically bland soundscapes of the former city's hHead, rather than the pulverizing, uncompromising, funky hard rock of the latter's Sons of Freedom, is the rule rather than the exception in the "rock scene" in the Great White North.
hHead's jerk really isn't bad: it just sort of lays there like a faded rug that really wouldn't cause you to take notice one way or the other. What we've got here is perhaps the ultimate geek-rock mix: Rush crossed with Pearl Jam, albeit PJ Lite. hHead comes up with a brand new mutation: Geddy Vedder!
The album's lead-off track, "remedial," for instance, critiques the alienating effects of the educational process, and sports a catchy enough riff and an OK hum-along quality along with some rather mundane lyrics ("I'm stupid I guess / but I'm not trying my best / because this assignment is bogus"). Both Geddy Lee and Eddie V. have written similar diatribes, but they usually invest them with a bit more spirit than is found here.
As the album rolls on, it soon becomes apparent that every song is tailor-made for the new 90's genre of "victim-rock." There's no joy on jerk, and yet there's no real anger or rage either. This is prozac-fueled stuff which neither hits the highs or plumbs the depths: jerk is always polite, typical of the city which spawned it, a place so conservative that the acronym TGIF has there been changed to TGIM (Thank God It's Monday). A couple of times the band threaten to bust out of the fog, as on "gipped," which, with its bluesier atmosphere sounds like a sub-Meat Puppets outtake. But then it's back to the land of Nod for the title track, a real musical dud which tells the tale of another victim--this time a jilted lover--but gets lost in its own inertia.
The song "will," which is apparently some kind of ode to Sylvia Plath, most appositely sums up hHead's problem: they obviously aspire to the kind of feeling expressed in Plath poems like "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus," but they can't summon up the "will" to achieve it. hHead are thus lazy victims who want the payoff without the making the necessary emotional investment. They can't bust out of the confines of middle-class life enough to really feel, and so end up whining neurotically instead.
Sons of Freedom (SOF), in complete contrast to hHead, explore the territory outside society's bourgeois limits with wicked glee. The latest SOF release, TEX, is a rollicking good time spent on life's fringes, with hardly any time spent wallowing in guilt and self pity, but plenty of it spent in a variety of altered states.
Everything that hHead fears to acknowledge, SOF embrace. Not since the mid-70's heyday of Bowie, Reed, Iggy Pop and the criminally overlooked Only Ones has anyone explored the actual world which lies beyond the mere cliche of "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" with the elan of SOF singer/lyricist /guitarist Jim Newton (who, in both looks and outlook, could be the brother of Only Ones leader Peter Perrett). And, as usual, Newton is backed up on TEX by the tightest hard-rock unit in the biz, the "3 Dons" (Binns-bass; Harrison- guitar; Short--drums), who produce a funky instrumental maelstrom which sounds like an amalgam of Funhouse-era Stooges, mid-70's druggie-rock Aerosmith, Killing Joke and even early PIL. This heady brew provides the backdrop for Newton's dark and decadent lyrical obsessions, as he trawls both the backstreets and the hidden recesses of his own psyche.
In contrast to hHead's inertia and solipsism, SOF is a band of experience and action. On TEX, songs like "Sugar High" and "Yer Too High" (catching on to Newton's muse?) function as Songs of the Siren, making you want to go out in the world and do nasty, forbidden things. "Sugar High" especially is pure, unadulterated SOF, freed from the corporate yoke (Tex being a indie release following major label classics Sons of Freedom and Gump and subsequent corporate fuckups), with Newton detailing a stream of consciousness hallucination of joyous debauchery: "Kisses sour / slip on a condom / sex with poison, that's my sin . . . Sugar high." The song ends with Newton going over the top vocal-wise as his band mates exhort him in the background. Would have been fun to be in the studio for this one.
Other TEX songs unite the extremes of high and low, body and mind, sacred and profane, in one unique package. "Heaven," a long-time concert fave, is one of the very finest numbers in the SOF repetoire, sounding sort of like Berlin era Lou Reed trying to rewrite "Stairway To Heaven," dropping all the Celtic tomfoolery and adding a dash of downtown dirt. Sheets of metallic guitar overlay a looping Curtis Mayfield-styled bassline as Newton evokes a scenario which makes you question whether there really IS any difference between religious and narcotic-fueled revelation: "Take a picture of this place / and watch it fade away . . . When you see your past and future blending into one / You're in heaven . . . this is heaven."
Highlights abound throughout TEX's 16 tracks. "Get your God away from me / Or I'll bring him on his knees before me . . . Will I ever come down again?" wonders the stoned narrator of "Yer Too High." No Geddy Vedder here! Meanwhile, the 3 Dons concoct a seemingly limitless amount of rhythms which will have you leaping around the living room in no time. The extended instrumental break in "I Believe," for instance, could be used to define the term "white noise," the intensity building almost unbearably before the song's descending main riff kicks back in. The spooky "Underneath Yer Window" is a nice change of pace, based around a solitary guitar figure and a more r&b styled vocal from Newton. "Best Friend" is likewise rock solid punk-funk built around an irresistible rhythm.
So I guess you know which of these albums I'd buy if I were you. The Vancouverites win hands down. So far, of all 95's releases, TEX, with nary a duff track, has remained glued to my CD changer the longest. As for hHead, well, they'd like to be suicidal but they're only depressed. Which makes them depressing, somewhat like the music scene in the city they hail from. Good night, Geddy Vedder.
And, to contact these bands? hHead can be reached at: hHead@tvo.org while Sons of Freedom info can be obtained at: jimbobo@wimsey.com The hHead interactive press kit can be obtained at the FTP sites that distribute Consumable, included at the end of this issue.
