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Avg: 3.5 (42 ratings)
- Date Released: May 20, 2008
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Indie Rock
- Label: We Are Free / SC Distribution
Awesome Houston drone gets stoned.
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We Say...
The bulk of Free Gold!, the second record by Houston psych band Indian Jewelry, takes place behind a cloud. It's a sonic cloud, mostly, a big rolling cumulus of distortion and static, though it's not exactly a stretch to imagine that there were a few other kinds of clouds involved in Free Gold!'s creation as well. The songs are heavy-lidded and blissed-out, building to steady, sudden epiphanies: an ascending guitar line wriggles free of the haze in "Swans" and soars triumphantly upward, a sweet synthesizer ebbs and flows across the length of "Overdrive." They're not so good with melodies, it's more about feel. Everything is coils and drones — long, hypnotic jams that thud and buzz and never really resolve. The guitar in "Nonetheless" isn't even playing notes, it's just feeding back and squawking odd tones — all the better to drug you with, my dear. And, sure, "Pompeii" kinda sounds like "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" after an acid bath, but you get the sense that parallel is accidental. The rest of the record is an experiment in stasis. This isn't motivational. This is music to lie down to.
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They Say...
From album to album, Indian Jewelry find surprisingly eclectic ways to express their wild and dense musical instincts. We Are the Wild Beast buried its melodies under heroic doses of distortion, hissing electronics, and ominous attitude, while Invasive Exotics reined in that surface chaos to hone in on the droning heart of the band's music. Free Gold! goes in another direction altogether, focusing on the subtler side of Indian Jewelry's music that crept out only occasionally on their earlier work. Instead of abrasive blasts, the relatively subdued, often lulling textures here give these songs a woozy, hallucinatory feel, even when the drum machines stiffen and the guitars and keyboards turn jagged and atonal, as on "Temporary Famine Ship," which sounds like it's driven by a hive of metal insects and whip-cracking robots. Aside from this song and "Hello! Africa"'s swaggering synth rock menace, Free Gold!'s overall vibe is mostly mellow and hallucinogenic. Many of the album's best moments have the gritty shimmer of an oil slick, whether it's "Swans"' huge drones, which feel as hazy and suffocating as heat shimmer, "Walking on the Water"'s viscous backward guitars, or the gorgeous yet sinister bliss of "Overdrive." The wasabi-like sting of Indian Jewelry's previous weird aggressiveness is missed occasionally, butFree Gold! makes up what it lacks in intensity with variety. "Everyday"'s close harmonies and acoustic guitars are strikingly different than any of the band's previous work, as are the shambling psych-pop of "Pompeii" or the free-falling electronics on "Syllabic Viaagra." With a range from suffocating to cavernous, from jangly psych rock to industrial-tinged rants, Free Gold! shows that Indian Jewelry's music is growing ever more distinctive and sophisticated.
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| 01. |  |
Swans |
3:33 |
|
| 02. | |
Temporary Famine Ship |
2:41 |
|
| 03. | |
Seasonal Economy |
4:51 |
|
| 04. | |
Pompeii |
1:56 |
|
| 05. | |
Walking On The Water |
3:45 |
|
| 06. | |
Too Much Honkytonking |
4:40 |
|
| 07. | |
Nonetheless |
3:01 |
|
| 08. | |
Bird Is Broke (Won't Sing) |
4:45 |
|
| 09. | |
Syllabic Viaagra |
0:46 |
|
| 10. | |
Everyday |
2:53 |
|
| 11. | |
Hello Africa |
4:49 |
|
| 12. |
Subtle Bodies |
0:18 |
|
|
| 13. | |
Overdrive |
4:49 |
|
| 14. | |
Seventh Heaven |
7:58 |
|
14 Total Tracks, 50:45 Total Length
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Credits
- Michael Belfer - Guitar (Acoustic) // Michael Belfer - Engineer // Tex Kerschen - Synthesizer // Tex Kerschen - Guitar // Tex Kerschen - Piano // Tex Kerschen - Drums // Tex Kerschen - Vocals // Tex Kerschen - Drawing // Aaron Farley - Photography // Jimi Hey - Guitar (Electric) // Jimi Hey - Tremolo // Jimi Hey - Melody Arrangement // Brandon Davis - Synthesizer // Brandon Davis - Guitar // Brandon Davis - Percussion // Brandon Davis - Drums // Erika Thrasher - Synthesizer // Erika Thrasher - Guitar // Erika Thrasher - Guitar (Steel) // Erika Thrasher - Vocals
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