Thursday, April 08, 2010

Review: Archie Bronson Outfit, Coconut

Archie Bronson Outfit
Coconut
First half: A-, second half: C+

English rock trio Archie Bronson Outfit’s third album, Coconut, drastically breaks from the sound that the group establishes in their 2006 release Derdang Derdang. With an onslaught of reverberating, psychedelic sounding songs, Coconut offers up, if nothing else, a fresh new sound. Syncopated cymbal bashing and psych guitar twanging amalgamate to create an impressive punk-dance vibe and generate some serious synthesizer-backed momentum in the first half of the album.

However, the innovative and overwhelming chaos that resounds through songs like “Shark’s Tooth” and “Magnetic Warrior” becomes overwhelmingly claustrophobic in the latter half of the album. Beginning with “You Have A Right To A Mountain Life / One Up On Yourself, Coconut goes off on a bewildering tangent that nearly countermands the quality of the earlier tracks. The final song, “Run Gospel Singer” manages to round out the album with a little bit of the initial magic, but even its uncommon garage-psych-gospel quality fails to salvage the plodding dregs of the mediocre midsection.  

-- Emma Forster
"Regional Rotations," Wednesdays 2-4 on WGTB

No comments: