Mr. Gnome
Deliver This Creature
El Marko Records
By Jose Fritz
What band cops to being from Cleveland? It’s a shell of a city. Its own founder General Moses Cleveland left after its christening and never returned and without a father figure, the city languished. Later in its teen years it latched onto Alan Freed as a strong male role model only to face crushing disappointment in his payola scandal, leaving the city naïve and directionless. It couldn’t hold down a job and to this day it remains the poorest big city in America -- yes, worse than Newark. Mr. Gnome is a strange chance for redemption for this lost city of minatory gestures.
Mr. Gnome’s songs feel like those strange dreams you get when you take dextromethorphan before bed. It’s rare for people to become hooked on dextro, but like any other dissociative hallucinogenic drug, it’s possible among a dedicated crowd. While your average co-ed probably only needs 200mg to get the dysphoria rolling, as little as 600mg will cause toxic psychosis. It’s rare that an album, even a very trippy album will have adverse reactions, but anything is possible if you’re already hallucinating.
Nicole Barille mumbles, squeals, and yelps like Bjork but without the Icelandophilia, the anthropomorphic eveningwear or the nipple piercings. It grounds the record, one that otherwise tears off on a strange drugged out Lewis Carroll hallucination. Discursive chanting, handclaps, screaming, acid guitar breaks and wheezing electric hiccups, all of which culminates in a chaotic mantra of hysterical recitations, interrupt the guitar fuzz and hum. I feel a little diminished as a critic not noticing them before.
Trippy, meandering passages connect otherwise unrelated passages. It’s like Portishead without the Neurosis licks and the electronics, or Tool without James Maynard’s dickwad, pugnacious ego. They play the soft/loud dynamic like Nirvana did, but none of them are on heroin. I’m mentioning big bands here but the feel is minimal as they don’t overdo anything -- there’s no arena rock posturing here. It’s all about the small room, maybe a very small room, perhaps the back of the closet or even under the bed.
The album sounds best at night when it disturbs the crickets and calls out to all manner of forest creature to creep to the edge of the lawn. Even now in this oppressive summer heat they are there. The fauna have better hearing than you think. From under the low brush they can hear the 500 rpm motor of the CD player, the clicking of the keyboard, and the compressor on your air conditioner. They know what you’re doing and they don’t approve. They will notice tonight after you lie back and start to drift off, when your concerns fade back and thought slow down. When you’re most calm, unaware and dozing you are also the most vulnerable. Then they will come for you.
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