Live show preview
The Eternals + The Up On In
Wednesday December 6, 2000, Brownies, New York City
The Eternals are a Chicago trio spearheaded by Damon Locks and Wayne Montana, former linchpins for the criminally underappreciated Trenchmouth. With the addition of drummer Dan Fliegel ---a major league rhythmic dynamo who has worked with Tortoise and Brazilian Dadaist Tom Ze ---the threesome retain the angularity of their former combo (e.g. Nation of Ulysses, Fugazi), but remove the guitar bluster and smear the remainder with a thick dub paste. Synthesizers crash-land like circa-’76 Pere Ubu, exclamation-pointing Locks’ vocal mazes, which in turn accent chanted word games. It’s a bracing mix, and live the trio push beyond mere reproduction of their fine eponymous debut album (Desoto Records). Numbers like “Stirring Up Weather” transform into Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry lock-step; shards of noise bloom, then shatter like a hammer on a windshield. In other words, they jam (but not like Phish) well enough (especially Fliegel, whose gradually shifting rhythms are consistently soulful) to make improvisation a feasible live strategy. Like King Tubby channeling Tackhead, The Externals have furrowed their own niche on the Chicago landscape and with a manifesto that currently includes only infrequent live shows, this might be your only chance to get in on the ground floor.
Zach Barocas of The Up On In is, like The Eternals’ Fliegel, a tirelessly inventive drummer working with a trio, though his three-piece favors tight fitting indie rock arrangements instead of loose fitting dub. Barocas (ex-Jawbox), Charlie Bennet (bass) and Ryan Grayson (guitar) weave quality instrumental rock---somewhere between the snaky post-post-surf of Pell Mell and the lo-fi brashness of Uncle Wiggly--- and should make a crisp appetizer for the Eternals’ weightier dub excursions.
Time Out New York, 2000
Showing posts with label Eternals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eternals. Show all posts
7.3.08
Eternals
The Eternals
(DeSoto)
2000
Two-thirds of this Chicago trio played in Trenchmouth, whose angular attack was heavily influenced by DC-circa 1988 (Fugazi, Ulysses), so it is fitting that DC’s Desoto label has issued this debut from Damon Locks and Wayne Montana’s new band. Gone are slashing guitars, inflated are hovering strands of keyboards and viscous dub. In a stark and urban setting, Locks reels off talk/chants indicative of heavy absorption of Mark Stewart’s Pop Group vocals and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s Black Ark creations. Rhythm percolates magnificently throughout ---drummer Dan Fliegel recently worked with Brazilian agit-popper Tom Ze--- and on “Stirring Up Weather”, as Locks intones “ Maybe someday I’ll open the door and let the world rush in” it sounds like Fliegel already has. Montana’s thick bass prepares a nest for synthesizers that crash like the spiritual kin of Allen Ravenstine’s Ubu meltdowns.
While the sonic agenda is clearly organized, The Eternals lacks an equally compelling lyrical plan beyond its’ expression of inner frustration. “I love the city” goes the opening “Billions of People”, “but I hate the city that suppresses the soul”. “Belwilderness” declares “Something is stealing us, are you feeling this?” and titles like “Phase 3 (Of A Never Ending Transformation)” and “The Beginning and the End” indicate the trio is twisted with a kind of fever even they can’t define. Locks senses as much in “Feverous Times”: “Bodies drop from long fever/music’s like a charm so I survive”. And this record survives on the strength of its’ atmospheric and musical charms, which are a darkly invigorating combination. Despite the unresolved turmoil, The Eternals is a very promising beginning.
Washington City Paper, 2000
(DeSoto)
2000
Two-thirds of this Chicago trio played in Trenchmouth, whose angular attack was heavily influenced by DC-circa 1988 (Fugazi, Ulysses), so it is fitting that DC’s Desoto label has issued this debut from Damon Locks and Wayne Montana’s new band. Gone are slashing guitars, inflated are hovering strands of keyboards and viscous dub. In a stark and urban setting, Locks reels off talk/chants indicative of heavy absorption of Mark Stewart’s Pop Group vocals and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s Black Ark creations. Rhythm percolates magnificently throughout ---drummer Dan Fliegel recently worked with Brazilian agit-popper Tom Ze--- and on “Stirring Up Weather”, as Locks intones “ Maybe someday I’ll open the door and let the world rush in” it sounds like Fliegel already has. Montana’s thick bass prepares a nest for synthesizers that crash like the spiritual kin of Allen Ravenstine’s Ubu meltdowns.
While the sonic agenda is clearly organized, The Eternals lacks an equally compelling lyrical plan beyond its’ expression of inner frustration. “I love the city” goes the opening “Billions of People”, “but I hate the city that suppresses the soul”. “Belwilderness” declares “Something is stealing us, are you feeling this?” and titles like “Phase 3 (Of A Never Ending Transformation)” and “The Beginning and the End” indicate the trio is twisted with a kind of fever even they can’t define. Locks senses as much in “Feverous Times”: “Bodies drop from long fever/music’s like a charm so I survive”. And this record survives on the strength of its’ atmospheric and musical charms, which are a darkly invigorating combination. Despite the unresolved turmoil, The Eternals is a very promising beginning.
Washington City Paper, 2000
Eternals
live @ Metro Cafe 12.7.2000
Musicians in Chicago’s “post-rock” scene have been de-centralizing the electric guitar for years, making organs and synthesizers the chief melodic devices in their sound, and when The Eternals, a promising Chi-town trio, played at the Metro Cafe Thursday night, there wasn’t a six-string in sight. Instead, bassist Wayne Montana and drummer Dan Fliegel fiddled with dub and jungle rhythms down until they pushed forward with a rock feel while keyboardist/singer Damon Locks (who, with Montana, played in angular punk-funkers Trenchmouth) chanted and sang with a punk-rockers’ anxious edge .
Locks’ do-the-robot dancing was an enjoyable focal point, but the somber, searching tones of songs like “Phase 3 (Of A Never Ending Transformation)” and “Billions of People” required strict attention to catch the subtle shifts in gradation that is The Eternals’ strength. Alas, strict attention is not always easy to maintain in a chatty nightclub milieu, thus the bands’ more uptempo blasts--including some new material, a galvanizing keyboard duel between Locks and Montana and songs that made Fliegel’s inventive drumming the prime moving force in the Eternals’ attack--were the most successful.
Despite their atmospheric side falling a little flat, The Eternals’ still maintained the kind of authoritative air that should make following their future sound excusrsions pretty fascinating.
Burning Airlines, the stellar DC trio led by former Jawbox guitarist J. Robbins, gave no indications that they were considering abandoning the electric guitar as they blasted into their set later in the evening, which was especially good news considering the trio is planning to record a much-anticipated second album next week.
Washington Post, December 2000
Musicians in Chicago’s “post-rock” scene have been de-centralizing the electric guitar for years, making organs and synthesizers the chief melodic devices in their sound, and when The Eternals, a promising Chi-town trio, played at the Metro Cafe Thursday night, there wasn’t a six-string in sight. Instead, bassist Wayne Montana and drummer Dan Fliegel fiddled with dub and jungle rhythms down until they pushed forward with a rock feel while keyboardist/singer Damon Locks (who, with Montana, played in angular punk-funkers Trenchmouth) chanted and sang with a punk-rockers’ anxious edge .
Locks’ do-the-robot dancing was an enjoyable focal point, but the somber, searching tones of songs like “Phase 3 (Of A Never Ending Transformation)” and “Billions of People” required strict attention to catch the subtle shifts in gradation that is The Eternals’ strength. Alas, strict attention is not always easy to maintain in a chatty nightclub milieu, thus the bands’ more uptempo blasts--including some new material, a galvanizing keyboard duel between Locks and Montana and songs that made Fliegel’s inventive drumming the prime moving force in the Eternals’ attack--were the most successful.
Despite their atmospheric side falling a little flat, The Eternals’ still maintained the kind of authoritative air that should make following their future sound excusrsions pretty fascinating.
Burning Airlines, the stellar DC trio led by former Jawbox guitarist J. Robbins, gave no indications that they were considering abandoning the electric guitar as they blasted into their set later in the evening, which was especially good news considering the trio is planning to record a much-anticipated second album next week.
Washington Post, December 2000
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