GROOVE ART FEATURE
Combover Beethoven
the slide
by Erik Dionne
There’s a phrase I’ve been saying to myself lately to describe certain art. Certain art that strikes me, that feels so aware of present empires in such painfully universal ways I can’t help but feel it. Aware of the barbarity. The selfishness. The corruption. Power. Art aware of the animal simplicity conducted by arbitrators that onlookers hope is just the appearance of something much more complex in its scope–that must be pragmatic and humanitarian in the eventual, but difficult to witness in the transitional stage we now inhabit – yet isn’t.
The art that cues in on this, that points at the unmasked villain and says its name aloud alongside the title of villain, grants me this phrase: “it makes me hate myself, but in the best way.” The phrase is muttered somewhat facetiously, but the feeling is genuine.
This certain art reveals the associations we have with social immorality and depravity that demands we look at the issue and reconsider our own proximity, involvement, or actions.
Combover Beethoven’s third album, The Slide, has me repeating this phrase, which previously, had been reserved for literature. But really, artists Tank and Unit’s The Slide is literature, and it makes me hate my associations, but in the right way. But would anyone want to listen to that?
I would argue just about everyone should want to listen to that.
“Death Valley” carries forth the pumping bass and re-emphasizes the new-wave guitar tones, familiar yet not simply rehashed. The song feels like a sunrise. Gaining in power, beauty, and movement, like an evermore effulgent landscape with the rising sun over a desert, perhaps. And yet, the increasing light only continues to highlight the corruption and dissociation we carve into ourselves, and dance away, “like it’s nothing.”
The album is beautiful. Pleasant and beautiful. At so many times, it is swirlingly euphoric through its layered euphony. As can be heard in the first track, “All The Way Off,” this collection propels itself from the sonic character which artists Unit and Tank have established through their previous releases: punchy synth loops dissolved into oceans of reverbed guitars and vocals swelling in perfect harmony, yet shaken awake by rattling drums. Their trademark.
New-wave, meets shoegaze, meets synthwave, meets krautrock, among a few others–fans of any of their previous works will be welcomed home and have a place to hang their coats. However, like previous installments, the lyrics reveal this home is one of malfeasant hosts and ulterior motives. All the while, never letting go of the opportunity to remind you that you may have had a hand in the misgiving. Take a look at yourself. This is the first track.
The third track, “Vessels,” reminds me why I love Unit’s writing. Laconic and vivid, he builds towering themes with a series of perfectly placed, concrete images delivered with unique poetic phrasing. Beginning with “Slowly creeps the night / Blood negotiates vein / Though constant is the light / we roll away again,” setting the atmosphere and an image that will later be hearkened to with “to still my beating thirst.”
As the images build and the chorus repeats, this is the experience of the one who has clarity, vision, and perhaps even solutions, but is without the raucous belligerence of those with the most authority, scaled by volume alone. And so they are left to be that onlooker in the darkness where, “hope dared to make an entrance.” Tragic and agonizing, yet, the pleasantly pinging synth, swirling guitars, and rich falsetto harmonies create a sonic warmth that the lyrics do not offer.
Perhaps there will be reprieve in the fourth track, “Paradise Motel”? With a name such as that, yes? But we’re all far too familiar with Combover Beethoven by this point to expect such clemencies, aren’t we? The music is among some of the most soothing on the album, like true reprieve–like a family’s stay at a motel during a road trip. The prosody is perfectly set with almost soporific tones twinkling lightly.
This must be a break from the kafkaesque scene in the previous songs. But upon closer inspection, you’ll smell the bleach, hear the argument down the hall, and see the fresh paint covering up “where some guy freaked out.” I can’t help but appreciate this track as consummate to the album’s perceptions on society: a motel meeting your needs, as cheaply as possible, and covering up the nasty bits with the poorest of veneer, saying, maybe it’s best if you just ignore this (or don’t, we don’t really care).
Combover Beethoven released the fifth track, “In the World of Birdless Flight,” as a single prior to the release of the album, and with great reason. It captures the atmosphere, feeling and tone of the album so succinctly. Beautiful, slow synths, sustained lead guitar notes, liberated backing vocals of oo’s and ahh’s give a sense of scale, openness, and freedom, but the lyrics suggest a perversion of such things. Blending capitalist entertainments or resorts with the absence of nature adds to the dystopian bleakness already heavily (but not heavy-handedly) established by this point in the album. And yet, a serene joy to listen to.
The sixth track, “More Than You Bring,” delivers a brightness and forward vocal presence from Unit that is rare from the duo, and it pierces the listener in a welcome way, adding a new dynamic to this portion of the album. It feels as if we are being spoken directly to. And striking me with one of my favorite lines from the album is, “the stars had been the wages through the ages, but they meant the death of day.” (Quite Shakespearean, if I may).
What follows is an abandonment of the subtlety previous speakers in the album had tread. And each is a punch. Nearly every line is a direct image and action seemingly of a to-do list written by the collective inhabitants of a dystopian, hedonistic society. Each a brutal truth. All bounced along on chiming guitars, fun claps, and upbeat drumming. Why wouldn’t we be smiling?
While the music in track seven, “Scorn,” is as cohesive as any other song in the album–pumping synth rhythm, legato synth leads to carry it along–the vocal melody flows in a particularly clear and beautiful way. Its shifts feel inspired by Irish traditionals, and results in a wonderfully mesmerizing track, especially so deep into the album.
As the track builds, however, the track becomes one of the biggest in its sound. Much more forward guitar work, that dips into sounds of desperation, align more directly with the lyrical content than just about any other point in the album, delivering a powerfully dynamic development of the album’s sound.
Following the scale of the previous track, with big splashy cymbals and swelling vocals, the title track, “The Slide,” offers a more brief but devastating snapshot of mortality. I don’t want to say more because the less you know going into the final couplet, the heavier it will weigh on you.
“So Much Noise,” among the longest in Combover Beethoven’s oeuvre to this point, is a 12-minute epic, providing a sprawling, powerful ending to a devastating album. Tank takes up lead vocals for this song, and what a powerful choice it was to end it in this way. There’s a trembling unease to Tank’s vocal delivery that beautifully, painfully expresses some of the final words of the album. Juxtaposed with Unit’s silky, exacting expression of notes throughout the previous songs, Tank adds to the dynamism of the album’s sound, but also provides a feeling of being emotionally spent–perfectly suited to ending the harrowing journey of observations, truths, and speculations across the 47-minute look at society, humanity, and mortality.
Ending the album in this way–with the raging guitars and pounding drums that build, along with Unit’s backing vocals making a return–creates a grand coda, worthy of the weight of the journey.
Will it make you hate yourself? I truly hope not. However, the precise, poetic words dissecting the abuses and corruptions of our society must make one reflect. As when we are exposed to: our slovenliness, our irrational distaste for mild inconvenience, our acceptance of destruction in favor of convenience, our disassociation from others’ suffering to maintain the perception of our own probity, among so many other flawed methods we take up to preserve our sense of self-virtue–Combover Beethoven’s The Slide begs the question of responsibility through a beautiful, pleasant, desperate, powerful work of art.
SUPPORT THIS ARTIST
FOLLOW ON SPOTIFY
ADD ON APPLE MUSIC