¡Forward, Russia!
Life Processes
Mute Records
By Jose Fritz
It was only about two years ago that I heard a mysterious song named “Four.” Things changed. It was the b-side to “Twelve.” It was difficult to describe at the moment, kind of a dancey and angular post-punk. There was a sense of immediate understanding, coming packaged with some degree of guilt as a music critic for having knowingly dismissed a genre. A single 30 watt desk light hung over that idea tonight adding a little clarity and a little clemency.
By that July they made it to Mercury Lounge in New York and the gig was sold out. I didn’t even get to see them! The gig was legendary. My friends were kind enough to rub it in, gouge it out and then sprinkle with salt. There’s nothing pretentious about their brand of post-punk. It was so damn listenable, that string of Devo-meets At The Drive-in moments. So urgent, so bombastic and spastic, it was just the dog’s bollocks.
The best part is that they knew it. Months before I had my own dance-punk epiphany, Katie Nicholls said in an interview "We're gonna rule the world.” [sic] Confidence proves nothing, evidence is everything. Ninety days later they were embarking on sold-out tours. By the end of that year it was evident that they were out-drawing their headliners VHS or Beta and We Are Scientists. Critics and promoters talk about “buzz building” like it’s a long involved process like climbing a mountain or hiking across a continent, which it normally is. ¡Forward, Russia! skipped every part of the process that makes it gradual. They graduated to headliner before this sophomore record was even recorded.
Give Me A Wall was an accumulation of tracks from different singles they’d put out on their own label, Dance to the Radio. They weren’t all previously released, and most were re-recorded but they’d all been written, all tested out live. Beats, minimalist guitars, handclaps and the yelped mysterious words I imagined being the new lingua ignota of anarcho-capitalism.
Life Processes maintains that same 4/4 diesel engine pace but adds a fuller sense of melody, shifting the balance of power. The bass is mixed down, trading a former similarity to The Birthday Party to a new one with Television. Cuts like “We are Grey Matter” show them in their all.
The array of change is dizzying: from the cosmetic loss of song numbering to their new overwhelming sense of drama. It’s difficult to digest it at one go. It becomes a record of repeated listens. I was hesitant, but knowing the band was so certain of its own future and so right in it’s prognostication I gave them the benefit of the doubt and listened and listened again. Eventually came clarity, another epiphany for ¡Forward Russia!
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