perfidy

Alert fans of my writing (all six of you) may recall that back in November, I reviewed an EP by the New England-based quintet The Beatings titled If Not Now, Then When?.

The band are now set to release their second full-length, Holding On To Hand Grenades, later in January, and everything I said about the advance single is true once again. In that piece, I wrote:

It is not damning with faint praise to say that the Beatings remind me of Mission of Burma; only rarely can a band pursue Burma's post-punk ideal of brittle soundscapes replete with feedback, scratchy guitars, and dry vocals and have it sound any good. Usually such bands just sound like they're ripping off Burma with a little Pixies on the side. But the Beatings have managed the rare trick of appropriating some of the astringent, hyperintelligent sound invented by Mission of Burma but making it sound human, intimate, and alive in a way that Burma never could.

But the Beatings aren't a tribute band. Although they do wear their influences on their sleeves (touches of Radiohead, Pixies, Sonic Youth, and giant helpings of Husker Du is what I'm hearing), this is to be expected for a relatively young band working in a close-knit genre looming with giants. It is really, really hard to find your own voice and write original songs (I should know... I've been trying (and failing) for fifteen years), but four(ish) short years into their career, The Beatings sound most like... themselves.

If greater success eludes The Beatings with the release of Hand Grenades then there is no justice in the world. On Hand Grenade the band combine the spiky astringecy of their biggest influences with a deft melodic sense that makes their best songs refreshingly sweet and tart at the same time. Every song on the album is better than those on their previous EP, suggesting that they are growing quickly as songwriters and arrangers.

Like many of the recent generation of indie rock bands, The Beatings thrive on tension. The Pixies' signature loud-soft dynamic makes up a large part of their DNA, but they add new dimensions to this by-now routine strategy by adding Sonic Youth-style sheets of noise and by using three singers, one male with a brittle monotone that can burst into melodic (almost-)screaming, one male with a high and thin voice, and an occasional contribution from bassist Erin Dalbec who (in the best Kim Deal/Kim Gordon tradition) acts as a burst of sunshine over the grey-blue musical landscapes.

Guitarists Tony Skalicki and E.R. interweave their turbulent guitar lines over powerful drumming from Dennis Grabowski. All bassist Dalbec has to do with so much going on is add drive and punch to Grabowski's drumming; that she is able to add harmonic interest is just icing on the cake. The muscular sound drives the fast songs and keeps the slow ones moving along, and the band create gorgeous textures to go with the turbulent rhythms. I don't think I've ever heard a band before who could sound like Public Image Ltd. and Galaxie 500 at the same time, but I'm glad to have had the chance.

Highlights on Holding On To Hand Grenades include the stately and noisy "Upstate Flashbacks," the driving hookiness of "Feel Good Ending," the chilly resignation of "Stockholm Syndrome Revisited," and the cute little weird vignettes like "Oh Shit, My Phaser's Jammed" and the acoustic "Harry's Wild Ride." The album does peter out a bit toward the end, stumbling with "Pennsyltuckey" and "Villains," which simply go on too long, and "False Positive," which mainly suffers for sounding like a couple songs sequenced before it. Still, out of sixteen songs a maximum of three or four could be considered as filler - an impressive ratio by any standard.

It's not as if Boston's punk tradition needed saving, and it's not as if The Beatings need their talent affirmed by comparison with the greats of that scene, but it's true: if ever the world needed an heir to Mission of Burma, Galaxie 500, The Pixies and so on, The Beatings are it, and on their own terms. Holding On To Hand Grenades is an impressively self-assured statement of purpose that should be the Beatings' entry to the World of Bigger And Better Things.

This album is available from cdbaby.com.