A Place to Bury Strangers has two great albums, self-titled (2007) and Exploding Head (2009). While both albums are ripe with repeatable hooks I feel they have definitely honed their noise-rock skills in the second album. Riff and lyrics combine in a pop fashion, case in point being the song ‘Keep Slipping Away’, #5 on the album. On a more general note, the ability to syncopate completely saturated-transistor pedals into a coherent piece of rhythm is difficult. I know, I’ve tried. Making noise accessible and relatable is what this band does best. When I listen to the first album I imagine an envelope of television fuzz wrapping itself around my head (think Poltergeist). The feeling is enhanced if listening to the album on vinyl, analog pedals begot analog recording. While some songs do seem to get lost inside themselves, ‘The Falling Sun’, the feeling does not last long as each song hovers around 3-4 minutes.
…and they make their pedals…..
Read A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. A theory — Tony gets a backbone and finds his way back to civilization. Brenda dies in a freak accident. John Andrew comes back as a ghost to haunt Beaver. So plausible.
It goes like This... 