If we're willing to ignore the never-ending subjective battle of opinion-vs.-fact here, I feel it would be valid to inject a semblance of judgment into the genres we create. I mean, I know everything's a matter of one's own taste, but sometimes there's just the need for a little kick in the pants for the thousands of bands out there. With all luck, maybe this would encourage them to step out of their bounds a little more. For example, there could be Generi-Pop (any assortment of bookish indie pop bands glutting the market), IDMuzak (a.k.a. all trip-hop post-1996), or Reprehensible-Steaming-Gut-Churning-Crap (saved for the worst of the worst, i.e. Limp Bizkit and Insane Clown Posse). The most visible of these new genres would by a long shot be the glutted Boring Indie Rock (TM) genre, because boy is there a lot of it. For all the good indie rock has done for us over the years (see the entire 1980s and early 90s), it has, most notably as of late, inspired a lot of insipidly monotonous self-serious swill. Sure, blame it on Slint and the rest of the post-rock nation as I'm sure a lot of you would love to do, but as we've seen from Explosions In The Sky, Rachel's, and hell, even Tortoise, it's possible to create expansive and epic pieces that both work the grey matter and hit you in the heart. But 9 times out of 10, it's the same old "I'm a serious musician, dammit!"-song and dance: ten minute jazz-inflicted bores that for all the technical prowess lack any grasp of intrigue or surprise.
So yeah, as you've probably gathered, Early Day Miners are going to catch a bad one in this review. I'm not terribly familiar with front-person Daniel Burton and his crew, except that I've heard the name and probably given them a listen in my college radio days, and I guess it's unfair to assume that of a band that has a sizable discography, but no clout is automatically going to disappoint. But if you have a lot of readily available records out there and I haven't really heard you yet, there's probably a good reason for that. And while I can't honestly hold Offshore up to whatever standard was set by their many past releases, the album's whole patting-itself-on-the-back, post-rock cocktail stretched over six tunes (the ultimate post-rock cliché!) isn't exactly clamoring to sell the Early Day Miners as a sleeper band worth delving into.
I suppose it says something when I think the record is closing out its second track and I very literally turn around to realize that I'm on the fifth song. When one's record is so insistent on purity and a confused notion of cohesion that I'm unable to differentiate any of the tracks from one another, well sir, isn't it redundant to say we have a pretty glaring problem on our hands?
Opener "Land Of The Pale Saints" works the same monotonous quasi-Mogwai groove that every motley crew of disenchanted guitar geeks creates when they become disillusioned with Metallica and fretboardshowboating. The same distorted riff pounds on for much longer than needed, before "Deserter" and "Sans Revival" waltz in, not as new tunes mind you, but as mere extensions of the same ignorable template set by the opener. And honestly, I can't tell you where one of these tracks ends and the next begins, except that "Deserter" has some typically tossed-off vocals (nothing says indie like a stunning lack of effort!), and the closing of "Sans Revival" marks the end of the record's calculated first half. So, on we go to another three-song yawn fest beginning with the snooze-core Americana of "Return Of The Native" and leading up to easily the record's most accomplished track, "Hymn Beneath The Palisades," which still utilizes a pretty standard Explosions In The Godspeed guitar choir meant to, you know, show us just how beautiful and special it is. Early Day Miners haven't had their backbone surgically removed, it's been torn right out.
Maybe I'm being too harsh on Early Day Miners, but really, when the mainstream is barraging me with endless conformity, I expect a little more from the so-called underground. Wow me, surprise me; I don't care, but at the very least do something unique! You're not being molested by a corporation, so go nuts! Offshore is pleasant, but where is "pleasant" going to get you, especially in a scene that's supposed to be revolutionary? All too often Early Day Miners reminds us of the fallacy that indie rock has dug itself into, where the consumer values of complacency and uniformity have been translated to a free-form model with the pretentious notion that some sort of greater good is being invented solely because everything is "progressive." Give me a break. I'm not suggesting we're all fucked yet, but if we keep encouraging indie labels to sign up ever half-decent schmuck who submits a demo, some of us might actually suffocate from oversaturation.
1. Land Of The Pale Saints
2. Deserter
3. Sans Revival
4. Return Of The Native
5. Silent Tents
6. Hymn Beneath The Palisades
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