Track 1, Side 1 is short and quite intro-y, but it will nevertheless have you questioning where German Army might be going with their latest LP, Kalash Tirich Mir, because of its Amen Dunes overtones and gentle nature. Those heavenly guitar leads won’t be long for this world, however. This is GeAr at its most impenetrable, locked in a post-Joy Division mode so despondent the fella behind Blank Dogs must be paying attention. I keep listening to this record and failing to find a thread to follow; each one snaps in my hand like a brittle Santa chocolate from five Xmases past, despite the fact that, as always, it feels like the code I’m attempting to crack is dangling in front of me somewhere, JUST OUT of REACH; maddeningly so. Many are attempting to break down German Army’s appeal and it ain’t the constant stream of records (which would be annoying were they not so blessed with post-post-punk intrigue) they pump out, nor any particular tool they possess in their ever-growing shed. What fairly jumps off the Kalash Tirich Mir vinyl is the same audio nihilism that’s enthralled me ever since I started receiving GeAr cassettes wrapped in newspaper like a series of newborn babies whose parents want them to find a better home than they could provide. They care, but they don’t seem like they care, and that cold-shoulder, distant-salesman-father routine appeals to people like me, perhaps a generation of young men who didn’t quite get all they needed from their dads. Am I so far off? HA, see you in therapy. Until then, be sure to snatch this up if you can find it for a reasonable sum (HINT: some kindly soul on discogs is selling a great-condition copy for $13, which is insane if you think about the higher-than-$13-for-sure shipping cost of this nondomestic product from overseas), it’s a key cog in the German Army canon (cannon? FIRE) that could very well be setting the stage for a HUGE offensive that will break through the popular consciousness. It can’t just be TMTers and Wire readers in the know, can it? Let’s change shit, doc. KALASH!!!
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