Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close…
Like most off-the-beaten-path bands I discovered in the mid-to-late 2000’s, A Place to Bury Strangers was an opener for Nine Inch Nails during their combined Year Zero / The Slip / Ghost I-IV tour, and when you’re on tour for five years almost continuously, you find a lot of different acts.
But APTBS (which is how I’ll be referring to them from now on, since that band name is really long to type) was not like the others being propped up by Interscope to buoy their back catalog. These guys were off-label, dark, and FUCKING LOUD.
I first saw them perform at a definitely-legit, totally-well-managed mini-festival held in a parking lot in Baltimore’s Charles Village in 2008. Most of the day was filled with the paragons of twee indie-rock of the day: Chairlift (i.e., Caroline Polacheck before she went solo), Dirty Projectors (eww), etc. But the headliner was APTBS, and while most the crowd was not prepared for the sheer wall of ear drum-shattering noise that followed, I was THERE for it, in the front row, shattering my ear drums.
And to this day, even with all the groundbreaking NIN light shows, perfect Queens of the Stone Age setlists, sweaty Crystal Castles goth-dance parties, and angelic St. Vincent guitar solos, nothing, and I mean nothing, has felt as cathartic and otherworldly as fully surrendering to the sound-assault that was that first APTBS show.
Exploding Head
A Place to Bury Strangers
Shoegaze | 2009
“So why,” you ask, “are we discussing their second album, and not their much more critically vaunted debut, especially when that concert you described was before any of this material was released?” A few reasons:
I have already waxed poetic for many lines about APTBS’ debut, though that article may be lost in the depths of the internet at this point.
This album is the project that APTBS created with all their built-up critical good will, and while it’s much more mainstream in its songwriting, that mainstream…iness was actually quite the risk in a genre that expects you to be purposefully misanthropic.
Stupidly, this album came out in a year that is a nice round 15 years ago, as opposed to the less aesthetic 17 years of their debut.
But the main reason is that, while I loved and adored their debut, with all it’s shambling, dark broodiness couched in a cocoon of guitar fuzz and blown-out drums, and its immaculate, perfect closer, “Ocean,” this second album is:
Clearly designed as one cohesive work.
Showcasing the stellar production that was just simply not available to a no-name, first-time band
The swan song finale to the original line-up that had grown and tightened their sound and songwriting through years on the road and in the studio.
Much of that first album, while brilliant, and speaking directly to a moody 20-year-old, is drenched in the evidence of APTBS’ influences and forbearers: My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Television, Joy Division. This album builds on those influences into the sound that APTBS would own as solely and wholly theirs, a brash, cacophonous mix of cold metallic efficiency and flaming hot energy filmed over by a layer of cranked reverb and enough static to make your ears itch. So get ready.
It Is Nothing
Much of APTBS’ lyrical content is either bland or so soaked in reverb that you can’t understand it anyway. “It Is Nothing,” removes both of those impediments and creates perhaps the band’s most energetic opening, and their most depressing story. Singer/guitarist Oliver Ackermann lackadaisically recounts a relationship that breaks up and gets back together so regularly that the joy and sadness of those events has been reduced to total numbness. “Hope, lust, life, what went wrong? / See? Now it’s all gone / No, no, don’t hold on / Feel good at what went wrong / It is nothing.” Regardless of what happens in life, it’s just one more Vonnegut-esque dismissal of any event as being the randomness of the universe. No highs, no lows, just the endless mundanity of the void, expressed over a fast-driving wind up of a tune, complete with manic, feedbacked guitars and double-time drums.
In Your Heart
A brilliant feature of the new production on Exploding Head is that you can often actually hear the singing. “In Your Heart” showcases that new production style while also flashing the massive Jesus And Mary Chain influence on the band. The often strange guitar wails that have become Ackermann’s signature trick give the song a post-punk revival feel, while Jay Space punishes his drums with non-stop blasts you could swear were a machine. Push your bangs over one eye and dance while staring at the floor to this one.
Lost Feeling
The only time things even resemble a slow down are on the Joy Division parallel “Lost Feeling.” But even at its (only slightly) slower pace, the tribal drumming and bending guitar chords produce a trance that’s more like a bad trip than it is meditative. The atmosphere is relentlessly dark, as Ackermann decries his emotional torture and loss of self. Are the pieces he’s losing recoverable, or are they evaporating on his white-hot guitar strings?
Dead Beat
Exploding Head contains at least three (that I know of) songs that were performed and workshopped live well before being put to tape for this record. “Deadbeat,” is the first of these we encounter, and boy is it a ride. Using an hypnotic and driving surf-rock riff, bassist Jono MOFO powers the song forward through Ackermann’s nearly-impenetrable walls of static. It’s dark, it’s fun, and it’s catchy as all hell, and it’s no surprise it continues to be a live performance favorite.
Keep Slipping Away
APTBS’ not often discussed love of The Cure shows up here on second single “Keep Slipping Away.” The track is shockingly mainstream, fast paced, upbeat, and devoid of their typical obfuscating noise walls. Here is APTBS at their most tuneful, Ackermann crafting a career best guitar riff that will loop through your mind forever once you hear it, while Space and MOFO carry a rhythm section that’s designed for maximum danceability.
Ego Death
The closest Exploding Head gets to sounding like APTBS’ debut album is here, on the mammoth henge of sound and mood that is “Ego Death.” Originally created as the song “Gimme Acid,” and performed for years prior at live shows with no recording to speak of (that’s #2, if you’re keeping track), the track is covered with thick slabs of white noise and feedback. The slow volume build of the incessant drums makes the eventual loudness feel like a religious experience, letting yourself go (apt) to be carried away by the fuzzed-out epic.
Smile When You Smile
Apart from a very, very noisy opening few chords, “Smile When You Smile” is another of APTBS’ more intelligible and poppy songs. It also sees Ackermann at one of his more contemplative (and, personally, more interesting) lyrical points. “Smile When You Smile” contains some of Ackermann’s best lines, like “You can see my heart change with the sun,” and “I feel life when you’re around.” But if you think the boys went soft, don’t worry, instead of a traditional chorus we get a raucous gut-punch of wailing guitars and shotgun-blast drums. This is the loudest love song I’ve ever heard.
Everything Always Goes Wrong
APTBS has produced a few songs I believe to be perfect distillations of their musical philosophy that are also utterly fantastic listens: “Oceans,” the previously mentioned insanely epic closer to their first album; “Drill It Up,” another closer, this time to their immaculate, perfect 2011 EP, Onwards to the Wall; and “Why I Can’t Cry Anymore” from the following year’s experimental (and divisive) Worship.
There are those songs, and there is this one. “Everything Always Goes Wrong” is a brilliant, fantastic presentation of everything shoegaze, noise rock, and post-punk have to offer, particularly when you combine them like this. Jono MOFO’s driving bass lines are complimented by Jay Space’s frenetic, insistent drumming, while Ackermann leads the group on a hyperactive headbanger in the chorus space, his guitars blaring like klaxons awash with reverb and glorious noise. The robotic nature of the finale brings in elements of stoner rock as well, completing what, in my opinion, is a masterpiece.
Exploding Head
Despite its rather gruesome name, the title track is actually one of the more low-key off the album. Jay Space’s dance floor drums come back to support a ripping Jono MOFO bassline. The track gives off major goth club vibes with Ackermann’s depressed, montone delivery of the vocals and another Cure-inspired guitar riff between choruses.
I Lived My Life to Stand in the Shadow of Your Heart
Of all the songs that were live staples long before they were recorded, this is the song that APTBS were known for. I had the pleasure to see it performed many times, and its execution is an exercise in completely disrespecting your instruments. The climax arrives after the final chorus when Ackermann would proceed to shove his vocal mic up to his guitar amp to get extra feedback through the speakers, then play his guitar so fast and furious that the strings broke. This was, shockingly, by design. Once a string broke, he would grab the string and thrash the guitar around until it came completely free. Then, once free, he would thread the string back and forth over the others, like a coked-out hobo impersonation of Jimmy Page’s famous guitar violin. The sound this made was eardrum shattering in all the best ways. The energy, the abandon, the sheer thrill of such reckless hate for a guitar. A guitar he would do this to night after night, year after year, the abusive love-hate relationship written plainly on the Fender Jaguar that’s been glued together and restrung thousands of times.
All of this is to say that, while nothing about this mere recording will ever live up to the transcendental ecstasy of viewing this annihilation of both instrument and listener in person, it is the perfect choice to end the album, and its reproduction here is nothing short of masterful.
Exploding Head was supposed to be APTBS’ entry point into the world of more mainstream rock (within reason), but for a select few, their abandonment of the broody experimentation from their first album left them wanting more. And if I’m being honest, for a while, I was one of them. Where was the abject sorrow and complete disdain for humanity? But by leaning into the ennui side of goth and post-punk, APTBS had actually hit on a collective feeling many of us would only begin to notice years later, as life began to show how monotonous and unfulfilling it could be.
Sorry, that got pretty dark, but the point remains valid. Exploding Head was, emotionally, ahead of its time, and sonically daring. By aiming for a more cohesive sound, the band was able to create an album that was diverse and just plain kick-ass fun while still maintaining the strict aesthetic of their chosen genre. It is an ingenious balance of noise and tune that created one of my all-time favorite rock records.
In the immortal words of Joe Talbot: “Smash it. Ruin it. Destroy the world.”
