Conceptual Review of Eight Track Mind's The Art of Making Noise
By T. Larry Francis
This is why most rock critics suck. Great new albums like
Eight Track Mind's
The Art of Making Noise make us gush all over the place, drop all of our bitter criticism and just give in to the magic of bass-drums-guitar as the ultimate vehicle to get from point anywhere to point everywhere.
Of course, we could blame the lousy albums but that's too easy. It's the great ones that make us wish we were rockers, not critics. At first we resist them, look for all the little flaws like the self-indulgent noise intro or not-so-conspicuous absence of a radio single. But in the end, we just end up playing the disc over and over again on repeat, not wanting to lift pen to paper and cheapen this music by trying to explain it with mere words. What can I say? This is just great guitar rock without all the retro posing. It's stoner rock without all the laziness and paranoia. This is why someone once said "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."
Sometimes, rock critics like to go looking for a concept album where there isn't one. You'd have to ask
Eight Track Mind, but I'm pretty sure this is not a concept album. If it was, and if I was the rock critic who didn't suck as bad as the others, and I got picked to write the liner notes to this as a concept album, it might go a little something like this:
After a noisy intro that fits the album title,
"Friends" (lyrics) kicks in and the first line starts with "Let's start..." I'm a big fan of the first lines of an album somehow "fitting" that spot. Then this one is even better because the first two words make so much sense, but the whole line has this sort of irony about admitting "you're" wrong. Usually, one admits that they themselves are wrong, but this one admits that, actually,
you're the one who's wrong. It kicks the album off with this idea that everything is not how it seems in the world, or perhaps the world is about to be a different place with these songs now in it. After the listener is told to admit they're wrong, their life/world view is shattered as they learn that their friends and the very idea of friends, is just a concept; real or unreal, it plants the seed of doubt that perhaps things are not as they appear. It's a good song with a solid riff and a hook that leaves people singing "you relyyyy on the concept of friends..."
With the second song,
"Passion," (lyrics) Eight Track Mind starts to rebuild a new sonic world for the listener and themselves. They lay down the challenge/question of passion, and display some of their own through the instrumentation. Acoustic guitars and jazzy drums give way to soaring vocals, then electric guitars (solos too!) and smashing drums, and more soaring vocals. Everything is coming up roses in this new world. Wow. This is a great song and perhaps the one I'd play for you if I could only pick one.
As soon as a new world is formed, someone figures "we could rule" and there is the inevitable urge to rise to power as
King & Queen (lyrics) of this visual paradise. Musically, this song creeps in with a guitar and morphs into a semi-catchy rocker that would seem at home on Sonic Youth's
Murray Street. Lyrically, it touches on power as it relates to sexuality, politics/economy, and of course rock stars. At the end, the listeners are invited to get a ticket and follow along.
Once power/rule has been established, "now that I've got your attention," it is declared that
"Eyes See All," (lyrics) underlining ETM's omnipotent rule. They flaunt their rock star status by casually saying, "This is just a stroke of genius," like making great music is so easy for such kings of rock. But after confidently assuming their noisy art will still be mentioned years from now, they flash their ironic, self-mocking side by admitting that their appeal will be questioned.
Like any great rock story, this one flames out quickly. The ultimate rock cliché. Too much too fast. Only the good die young, like the brightest stars in the sky exploding and burning out (not fading away). Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain. We're choking as everything we stand for binds us at our feet in
"Breathing," (lyrics) another track featuring the perfect blend of riff and beat. The song completely rocks, but the chorus and last line hint at the finality of not breathing.
Death has always been a great career move (see Jimi, Kurt, Janis, and Jim Morrison the drunk stripper somehow romanticized into 'the greatest rock poet of a generation').
And once we can no longer breathe, we give up our body and passion and power and existence and ask our friends to be our tomb and set us free in
"Get High on Me." (lyrics) The last lines confirm that we're finally in the place we want to be, free...
The Art of Making Noise then drifts off with an acoustic outro-song,
"Are You Woman Enough to Be My Woman." (lyrics) It feels like the perfect slighty-hungover-yet-hopeful morning after to the rest of the album's strange night.
T. Larry Francis is the founder of the Chip Sandwich Foundation that feeds starving children in Canada. He currently resides in Toronto and is working on the autobiography of Click Livingston.
Listen to The Art of Making Noise >>
