Weekend, Jinx
Featured Album
A make-it-anywhere take on 2003 New York
You can take the band out of San Francisco, but you can’t take the — actually, Weekend never sounded that much like a stereotypical San Francisco band in the first place. Their 2010 debut Sports shared aching melodies and cranked decibels with other rising Bay Area garage rockers, such as Ty Segall, the Fresh & Onlys and Mikal Cronin. But Weekend ran their sharply crafted songs through maelstroms of echo and distortion that more easily brought to mind the Glasgow of My Bloody Valentine, or the Manchester of the Jesus and Mary Chain and Joy Division.
Weekend moved to Brooklyn in time for their sophomore album, and Jinx offers their make-it-anywhere take on the ’03 New York of Interpol or A Place to Bury Strangers. Guitar squall and percussive thunder once again help Weekend hit harder than most other bleakly romantic noise rockers, while Durkan’s voice, circles around sparse, repetitive lyrics lodge ambivalent feelings in your head. “We could celebrate/ I wanna fade away,” Durkan offers, conflictingly, on fractured spring breaker “Celebration, FL.” Whether choosing between tunes and textures, East Coast and West Coast, partying and self-destruction, Weekend remain passionately of two minds.
