I sit idly at my cluttered desk, thinking about rain, bridges, tunnels, and really good muenster. My chest is burning like fast-acting gonorrhea, so I dump a gaggle of Tums into my mouth from the industrial-sized tub I bought at SpendCo. Ahh, good old SpendCo, where you can hear people exclaiming aloud, “Man, I can’t believe 10 pounds of thyme is that cheap!” They have those great muffins, too, the variety packs. I prefer to get Blueberry, Chocolate, and Poppy Seed, but sometimes my wifey forces me to substitute Cranberry. Whatever, life goes on. I guess.
Every time my secretary pokes her head into my office door to tell me this or that, I spring into action. Or, should I say, I used to spring into action. I’d shuffle papers around or pick up the phone and talk to a dial tone to pretend I was busy. I don’t even bother now. Normally I’ll just glare at her, stretch my arms over my head, yawn and limply say, “What is it?” while taking off my glasses and rubbing my eyes. She realizes I’m burnt out and waiting for my TMT pension to kick in, and she doesn’t rake me over the coals for it. She’s a good gal, and she wants to see me hang up my crappy career more than anyone. Little do I know I’m about to embark on a treacherous assignment that may just assure I never get the chance to vacation on shiny beaches and lick Equal powder off the titties of Peloponnesian whores. Even the name of the assignment is trecherous: Die! Die! Die!
Normally I rifle through my audio evaluations like a goddamned thoroughbred, using words like “angular” and phrases like “sun-starched euphoria” to convince readers I still give a shitaqua about traditional rock ’n’ roll ‘as it once was.’ But I don’t. I’ve been privy to too many pointless bidding wars, shot down by too many band-aids, heard too many MURDEROUSLY AWFUL major-label debuts... you become numb to the violent realities of reviewing over time, to the point where even a Gaelic chant mash-up sounds redundant. I let the rookies puke in the corner when they hear the new Kaiser Chiefs; to me, it’s just another day, another crime on CD. Sure, I could spend all my time on the fringes of both music and taste, handling cases from Kranky and Load and little else, but they say once you take a case like that you can never come back, and I’m not willing to sell my soul just yet. A small part of me still believes in rock ’n’ roll despite the Augustanas, Bloc Partys, Louis XIVs and Vines of the world. I’m like a devout catholic: I’m not going to let a few ass-rapings — whether perpetrated by UK musicians or pastors — grind my resolve into dust.
As Die! Die! Die! saunter into my office and show me some leg, I remind myself to remain objective. Yes, they’re from New Zealand — as is my mother — yes, their sound is damn-sexy, and yes, they could very well hoist rock to a higher plain someday, but for now, they’re little more than noisy ragamuffins that listened to a lot of Hives, The (International) Noise Conspiracy and Chairs Missing-era Wire before they recorded their self-titled debut. But I must admit, they push all the right buttons. If they were a drunken strumpet at a dive bar, I’d probably wake up in their bed tomorrow morning, smelling of pickled eggs, perfume and Sharpees (don’t ask, I beg you). Their charms are easy to pinpoint. They coat their sound in snot without crossing over the invisible sneer line a la Craig Nicholls. They rely on face-first rawk without sacrificing variety from track to track. Most importantly, they derive influence from obvious wellsprings — punk, post-punk, garage — without a full-out fellatio fest of copy-catting.
And what’s this? A fast-forward rhythm stomp courtesy of Dave Allen/Hugo Burnham? A yelp redolent of Robert Smith and Dennis Lyxzén? A dominant, up-front bass player? A perfect portion of half-electric, half-jangly guitar bursts? Energy, grit and songwriting smarts? Could it be that this band will ignite a once-dormant spark in an old, grizzled scribe? As I ponder these questions, I again put my feet up on my desk and take a sip of coffee, watching the rain drops trail down my window in an impromptu race to oblivion. I realize that these things are circular: Rock ’n’ Roll will reign again, and bands like Die! Die! Die! will be at the forefront. The rivers will run cherry-red with the blood of the non-believers and the pagan rock gods will be publicly stoned in a way Pete Doherty could only imagine. In fact, that fucker’s first. Things are going to be okay again. Sure, the wife made me buy her maxis as the supermarket and that pink, swollen bump isn’t going away, but at least I can remain somewhat faithful to the genre that defined my life for so many years. God gave rock ’n’ roll to me, and I aims to hold on to it for a little bit longer. Retirement can wait...
More about: Die! Die! Die!
