Some critics have called A Place To Bury Strangers the "loudest band of New York City", and I believe it. I have heard as much from the two people I have personally spoken to who have seen them live. Both have commented on how loud it was, and that earplugs were essential. I have never seen them live. I had a chance to see them live in Phoenix this summer, but I declined the opportunity. The basement venue had no seating, and that is tough for a disabled gentleman such as myself. But I really wanted to go.
From what I hear, their live shows are an assault on the senses - long sessions of ear-bursting walls of sounds and broken instruments. Not just sonically, but visually. Their sets include little lighting beyond strobes, color patterns, and smoke machines (seizure trigger). I hear that, by the end of the show, you feel like you are going just a little insane.
Case in point - every year at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, the wholesome, vivacious, bubbly TV personality and chef, Rachel Ray, whose husband is a musician, hosts a free party where she serves her fare and invites musicians to play. I don't know who the marketing genius who scheduled A Place To Bury Strangers to play the Rachel Ray Party in 2011, but it was a beautiful mistake of epic proportions. You can watch it unfold on YouTube. The geriatric, middle class people sitting at the picnic tables to eat Rachel Ray's burgers, looking on in horror as the band, looking like they slept in some dirty alley, scratches out feedback on their instruments when, suddenly, frontman Oliver Ackermann steps off of the stage towards the audience and stand their like a god, guitar hanging from his shoulder, sneering at everyone. Then he grabs his amp while the music drones on and drags it offstage, stretching it as far as the chord will allow to get it closer to the uncomfortable audience, drenching them in more noise. Then bassist Dion Lunaden hurls his bass at the audience, never in any danger of hitting them, but dissolving the barrier even further between performer and audience. Just as quickly he takes up another bass and resumes playing, and Ackermann in turn also hurls his guitar contemptuously at the audience. It is hilarious.
Then, at the 2018 SXSW performance at Blackheart, the band sets up their equipment - not on the stage, but in the middle of the audience, much to the bewilderment of the audience. You can watch it here. This is just an example of how iconoclastic this band is, how they want to challenge the norms of rock performance and even the music itself.
As early as 2012, my friend Tim, one of my music gurus, tried to turn me onto this band. I only remember, because of Facebook reminded me that Tim had posted a link to m y page that went unnoticed. It wasn't until 2016 that I finally latched on. I should have listened to Tim. APTBS has since become a staple in my musical diet. But what do they sound like? A definitive fixture in New York's post-punk revival, they are a fuzzy mixture of shoegaze and noise rock. In the same song, they can be at once ethereal and yet assault your ear drums. Tim told me in 2012 that they were like "an amped up Jesus & Mary Chain". I would throw a liberal helping of Sonic Youth in there, along with a smattering of My Bloody Valentine. And yet their sound is their own - caustic, impressionistic, grating, an explosive heap of metalic pieces lashed together loosely with baling wire. Here is a brief overview of their releases.
"A Place To Bury Strangers" (2007) - Though released towards the end of the decade, APTBS has been around the better part of ten years. Their first album was mostly a collection of songs that had reverberated through the NYC in clubs and on various independently-released EPs. But it brought the sound of the band into the public spotlight, selling only a couple of thousand copies on the first couple of printings, but eventually winding up number 38 on Pitchfork's "The 50 Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time". There are some strong moments on here - "Missing You" with its gashing riffs and dreamy hook, "Don't Think Lover"'s harshness melting into sweetness. "To Fix the Gash In Your Head" is perhaps one of my favorite with its electronic hummingbird-heart beats paired with a wall of sound. The dirge-like "The Falling Sun". "Breathe" is a dead ringer for Jesus & Mary Chain. The dark and danceable "I Know I'll See You". "She Dies" is another favorite, exemplifying the strength of the band, going from somber and crestfallen swelling to a painful roar.
"Exploding Head" (2009) - Their sophomore release is perhaps one of their albums listen to the most, maybe because it is so catchy. The bendy, swirly guitars on "It Is Nothing" gives away to insistent distortion. "In Your Heart" is the primary single and shows how the band can throw together random noises that ultimately coalesce together to make an impressionistic portrait of a pleasant song. "Dead Beat" always reminded me of a foray into psychobilly worthy of The Cramps. "Keep Slipping Away" is the second single and perhaps the most radio-friendly song they've produced, but that doesn't keep it from being a great song. "Ego Death" continues the fixation with Jesus & Mary Chain, but only if they existed in the gravitational pull on the surface of Jupiter, much heavier, much darker. "Smile When You Smile" is a great song, one of their tunes with a Sonic Youth vibe, like one of Lee Renaldo's compositions. "Everything Always Goes Wrong" has a Joy Division vibe, with Ackermann doing his best deep-throated Ian Curtis, and Lunaden's bass heavy and thrumming in a complimentary imitation of Peter Hook. The title song, "Exploding Head", is one of my favorite - a gothed-up surf punk melody worthy of 45 Grave. "I Lived My Life To Stand In the Shadow of Your Heart" finishes out the album with a bang. How can a song be shoegaze and hardcore at the same time? I don't know, but APTBS accomplishes just this. I have seen the live versions of this song where the ending collapses into a jumble of compressed and improvised chaos.
"Onwards To The Wall" (2012) - This 5-song EP by the band is one of my favorite releases by any band of all time. "I Lost You" starts out the set with the band's dominant basslines, the guitair only there to scratch out atmosphere. Perhaps my most favorite songs by APTBS is "So Far Away". It's hard to say why this song stands out. It is wistful, almost nostalgic, with the guitars shadowing the vocals, the whole song set on dreamy reverb. "Onwards To The Wall" is another song with a Sonic Youth feel, but this time Kim Gordon, perhaps because of the unknown female accompanist on the song, or maybe like Sky Ferreira on "Blue Boredom" with DIIV. The music fades out and fades back up on "Nothing Will Surprise Me" with it's frenetic pace. A great release.
"Worship" (2012) - The band's third album starts by laying the foundation of pounding drums and thrashing crashes of guitar noise on "Alone" and immediately contrasts by going nearly muted and sensual on "You Are The One", one of my favorite tracks. But then they crank up the fuzz to eleven on "Mind Control", a song that works on so many levels because of its stroboscopic effects. "Worship" goes dense and murky again, paying homage again to J&MC. I am usually not a lyrics guy, especially when the words are muttered below the threshold of sound as Ackermann does, but the lyrics to "Fear" make me appreciate the song, clear for once and almost confessional. "Dissolved" is divided into two halves - the first smudgy, melty, slow and shoegazey like a plunge into Slowdive, and the second half is jerky and perky like something kraut rock, or like Beach Fossils or DIIV. The pounding beats of "Why I Can't Cry Anymore" are industrial and artificial. "Revenge" is like Deep Purple swallowed shards of glass. "And I'm Up" has hints of the Buzzcocks or the Feelies. The album plunges through the finish line with the aggressive "Leaving Tomorrow". Or in other words, this is a great, great album from start to finish.
"Transfixation" (2015) - This album is my least favorite of all of APTBS's albums. It's not terrible; it's still good, but it doesn't grab me like the others. It is much less shoegaze, and much more abstract, more Dada. Though the same grinding darkness is present, it has more of an jazz feel to it, more improvised. But in a way it works. This is art for the sake of art, as in the song "Deeper", which is like a dull knife scraping the bottom of a steel drum, droning on at a sludge-like pace. Definitely a WTF moment, but there is no arguing that this is art. "Straight"has some sharp bass riffs, but "Love High" is confused and disarrayed. But that is their intent - to keep you off-kilter. "Now It's Over" is one of my favorite tracks on the record, but only because it is so simple - bass and vocals. But don't worry - there is plenty of pandemonium on the rest of the album to make up for it, as demonstrated in the final track - "I Will Die" - where vocals, music, and samples are kneaded and pounded into one continuous pulp of lovely noise.
"Pinned" (2018) - On their fifth, and most recent, album, just released this summer, the band is back in form. They have fleshed out their sound. A lot of this is due to adding Lia Simon Braswell as a permanent drummer after a rotating lineup of drummers. Not only does she bring her feverish percussive abilities to the proverbial table, but her sharing of vocal duties adds a dimension to the band's sound that wasn't there before. "Never Coming Back", the principle single, shows that the band is as raw as ever - two notes on a bass backed by a kick drum, only the dual vocals bringing the song to a maddening pitch - a pop masterpiece. "Execution" reminds us of their penchant for dissonance. "There's Only One Of Us" is the second single, set to a skipping beat and a guitar effect that sounds like a bagpipe. Braswell and Ackermann seem to emote John Doe and Exene Cervenka. "Situations Change" is one of my favorites, the bass tamed and the guitars soaring to the front. It could be a Bauhaus song, Ackermann even sounding a bit like Peter Murphy. "To Tough Kill" unlaces into mayhem again with its two-step beat indemnified by Braswell's spooky vocals. "Frustrated Operator", another favorite, accentuates its post-punk flavor, sounding a bit like Killing Joke. There are a few songs like "I Know I've Done Bad Things" play up the electronica element. But the band is about taking whatever there is and creating sonic landscapes with it. "Keep Moving On" is so catchy that it makes it onto all of my playlists as of late.
I'm not going to just sit here and tell you how great this band blah blah blah. But I will say that they are one of my favorite acts of this decade. And I will make a prediction. In twenty years, no one will be talking about how much of an influence Cardi B or Migos were on them. They will be talking about how much of an influence bands like A Place To Bury Strangers were Mark my words...
