*** Glazed Baby
ATOMIC COMMUNISTS
In a way, heavy
metal has always been about the end of the world. These days, the Cold War
threat of self-destruction has been internalized -- from the personal
wranglings of alterna-rock stars to deep-seeded ideological divisions played
out in the nation's heartland. But it's the old fear that
Glazed Baby are
scratching like a scar that never healed. The album opens with an Atomic
Cafe-style Civil Defense broadcast and escalates into annihilation. But the
sirens and static-roar crunch of Ground Zero, the frenzied rush of people and
events, aren't just the context; they become the actual sonic themes and
touchstones. Glazed Baby's compositions are less songs than warped fugues: a
constantly shifting tableaux of harsh, cinematic textures that employ the same
kind of sci-fi-feedback and guitar-as-interference approaches that fellow
Providence natives
Six Finger Satellite
employed on The Pigeon Is the Most
Popular Bird. Subterranean basslines rumble with an apocalyptic whallop,
creaking into an overdrive that at times overwhelms the mix and just lays there
crackling like a downed power line. This dense, acerbic territory has been
covered before, but Glazed Baby orchestrate their chaos with the authority of
true noise auteurs.
-- Carly Carioli
(Glazed Baby play with
Zeni Geva and
Today Is the Day at the
Middle East
upstairs on Friday, May 3.)
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