Catholic Guilt - "Postcards from Copper Canyon" - Manic Static Records
There’s something about ambiguity that slakes my thirst when all else has been done and done-again to death. Catholic Guilt absolutely cash in on the situation, sounding best when they’re tucked away beneath your mattress in three layers of bubble wrap and nearly suffocating to death.
I can only imagine what was going on in the rehearsal room — definitely no “proper” studio involved here — when this was baked to a fourth-generation Memorex cassette. Lots of smoke, beads on the mic stand, a drummer who “just likes to jam,” a couple of outdated wah-/etc. peds, a deafmute guitarist that plays by dint of vibration, a couple of junkie singers donning aviators and a hanger-on with neck and face tattoos. Not quite Cave Bears, this is definitely AIDS-core regardless, a thrift-store (in a stylish, rather than cheap, way) drift that’s just as likely to send you to sea as knock you in the cranium and steal your mind-bullets.
Like a lot of tape-jammin’ rapscallions out there, Catholic Guilt hop around, never willing to settle on a lily pad for long. These kidz these days; they’re in such a rush to show everything they can do. I appreciate that feeling of needing to do it all, but it’s almost like Dennis Hopper strapped a bomb to their bass drum and threatened to blow them up if they didn’t switch genres/approaches/instruments every two minutes. Then he stands outside their window holding a knife to one of their mother’s throats. Something like that (am I taking this too far?) … There are a few extended takes that stretch out and kick up their feet, but even then the players are diddling the edges of the possibilities restlessly, locked in an almost paranoid state of flux.
Hell, that’s what I like most. The bands of tomorrow need to be super-charged and ADD-addled if they’re going to keep the attention of wretches like me; that’s a proven fact (in my head). Never learning how to properly produce a record will only help this generation forge a new audio world wherein gray overtakes black and white.
I can only envy those who will be mining music after I’m gone. What will it sound like? Are people from the future going back in time and planting future-audio artifacts for us to find and expound upon? Am I thinking too much again?
(Yes.)
For fans of just about every tape I’ve ever reviewed …
