Customer Reviews

Gather Round & Destroy All Our Records (Dig)

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This CD, (I guess it is The Pulses 3rd release), has a mix of the coolest, strangest Punk-Psych-Pop-Art music, and yet still really ROCKS!! (You won't be dissapointed!) Kind of along the lines of late-70's No-Wave Punk Bands meet 60's Psych-Garage, with Punk/PowerPop overtones. It has some great, unique, & weird instrumentation, catchy Pop, with some really good songwriting! I think this is destined to be a classic, if not now, then in the future. Cool cover art too! Their first 2 releases are pretty good Art-Punk-Pop, (most people think their 1st self titled record is a all time punk-rave!), but this is really over the top, and I think a step ahead!

J.O.

Well, this one just about takes the freakin' cake! I must agree with the sentiments of producer Johnny Sangster, who wrote, via his website, something like "this time around, Jesse's pop songs are poppier, and Shannon's weird songs are weirder." That doesn't really cover it, though. This CD features arrangements that are unique and original without ever losing the "rock" factor that many folks lose when they try to be clever (think XTC or others of that ilk), and songwriting that achieves a level of sophistication hardly hinted at in their earlier work.

The playing throughout this record is impeccable, a fact that is especially welcome considering that this is the least "pure rock" of the Pulses' releases. The bass is muscular and restless, never taking the easy way out, giving counter-melodies and outlining the chord patterns' true intentions (if that makes any sense). The bass does a "whoomp whoomp" in the tune "Ipso Facto" that makes me say "hooray!" EVERY time I hear it.
The drumming is clean and absolutely PURE while remaining at all times propulsive and, like the bass playing, never lapses into cliched vamping. The hits during the "open" portions of "Give Up and Let Their Children Win" (of which more later) are completely unpredictable and yet absolutely inevitable. Genius.
The guitar playing is greatly varied on this release, with much layering of various timbres and sounds...acoustic guitars augment the texture on a bunch of these cuts, sublimely melding with the bass, essentially a textbook for all future releases on how to effectively rock with an acoustic guitar in a band format. The playing is also very smart, with textures sometimes filling the spaces where less imaginative folks might have had a ubiquitous lead break. The sudden appearance of the "squirty" guitar sound (for only two bars!) in "Future Home," attached to a guitar part that parallels the bass, is utterly appropriate and does more for the song at that point than any standard lead wankery could.

So many of the tunes here are standouts, I'd end up with 10,000 words describing their merits if I tried to be thorough, so I'll just concentrate here on the two that really moved me (and I do mean "moved" me) the most.

The title of track 13, "Go Ahead and Jump," might make you think you're in for an ironic Van Halen reference, but instead you get a taut, descending riff offset with slashing minor chords and a beautiful floating section that all programmatically accent the lyrics, and not at all in a corny or obvious way. The lyrics seem to use the idea of the way crowds react to a jumper perched on a high building as a metaphor for the entire human condition, and contain what is, for me, the most devastating lines on this CD, "If you want someone to love you / Then you'd better change. / Keep your wings above you." The music in each section reflects the mood of the lyrics for that section, in an almost (and I know I've compared these guys to this fellow before) Brian Eno-ish way. It's emotionally intense, musically brilliant, and seamlessly executed. Absolutely terrifying and haunting and unforgettable. It made me cry more than once.

The other track that REALLY stands out is one that talks about music and culture and idealism in what is for me the first effective blend in a pop song. Track 15, "Give Up and Let Their Children Win" is a study in the process of disillusionment that idealistic rock and roll musicians go through as they age. To that end, the '60s cultural revolution, '70s punk & new wave, and early '90s grunge are employed as examples of how we who believe or have believed that rock and roll has transformative, transcendent power and who believe or have believed that the cultural shifts that go along with the musical shifts are essential and life-altering and often the only thing in this for-chrissakes-bankrupt world that matters, became jaded. The songwriter here ( Jesse Steinchen unless I am mistaken) REFUSES TO GIVE UP. I have LIVED THIS VERY PROCESS, MYSELF. The lyrics say it all. In the last verse, Steinchen sings about "'91 / the year that it broke" and goes on to explain that "Then they got older, and they discovered / That all of the people who loved one another / Had all been living an awful lie / Covered up with one big smile / Oh when did this start? / When did this begin? / Has it been this way since time began? / Well, I don't wanna give up / I don't wanna change, oh no / I don't wanna change." Well, I don't wanna give up, either, and I haven't, as far as I can tell, and I'm not planning on it anytime soon, and thanks to this song, I remembered why. It's been a very very long time since a song made me feel like this, or even, for that matter, made me THINK in any way. For that alone, Pulses, thank you.

Ultimately, I wish I had a nice sound bite that would sum up why this is the best thing I've heard in 2005, but this music is too complex, too intelligent, and too rich to be in any sense "summed up." Just buy the damn thing and keep these fellows making music. 'Nuff said.

I recently borrowed this cd from my boyfriend and I am totally addicted to it-as is he. You need to get it right now. If you don't love it then you are crazy.