Album Details

• Artist: A Place To Bury Strangers
• Album: A Place To Bury Strangers
• Label: Killer Pimp
• Year of Release: 2007
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: charlesmartel on 2012-02-07

The band's name comes from a reference in the Gospel of Matthew but there is little in here to suggest that religion plays any part of the music. An initial listen will suggest strong links with proto-shoegazers the Jesus and Mary Chain and some of their musical decendants, particularly My Bloody Valentine. This is largely due to the fact that the band use a variety of guitar distorting pedals, most of them made, apparently, by frontman Oliver Achermann, to create a sound which has led many people to classify the band as shoegaze revivalists.

Yet, on closer listen, it becomes apparent that such a crude labelling does not work. My second impressions were of a band which resembled the sound of the early Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - another three piece - and the affinity to the cruder garage sound seemed more clear. Yet A Place to Bury Strangers' self-titled debut album is eclectic in its antecedents and defies any strict pigeonholing.

The downside of this is that it is sometimes less than consistent. The opener, "Missing You", combines a noise-laden guitar with a sonorous yet high pitched guitar hook which forms the foundation of the track. Yet towards the middle of the album (at least my version of the album, the extended version), some of the tracks seem to be little more than feedback draped over quasi-funeral vocals. The vocals are another point where consistency forms a bit of a problem. There is nothing wrong in principle with the sort of deadpan delivery which Ackermann adopts. It is one of facets of the album where the similarity to Black Rebel Motorcylce Club is at its closest. But deadpan delivery can only work if the vocalist is prepared, when the situation warrants, to break out into a less constrained style of singing. This Ackermann never rarely does. It is as if in an attempt to sound like Ian Curtis, he ends up sounding like a zombie-movie version of Ian Curtis as he may sing today.

But although the sound is not something which one would expect to have much commercial staying power, it should not be overlooked that, like the Jesus and Mary Chain before them, strip away the noise and the effects and what you have are a series of short (usually) sharp indie-pop melodies. You have to listen, but on tracks like "ocean" and the imaginatively-titled "To Fix the Gash in Your Head" they are quite discernable. In a music world where creativity and pushing the boundaries was rewarded, A Place to Bury Strangers would receive considerable airplay. But in the real world, where the churning out of clones of whatever is selling well at the moment is the order of business, this approach will go unrewarded.

Where this leaves you, then, is an album, in this case extended by the addition of several further tracks, which attempts to tie together a number of strands of music over the past twenty years and present them in a coherent and innovative package. For a debut, it is a noble aim, but it doesn't quite come off. As I write this I have on my wishlist the band's second album, Exploding Head. It may be that there I will find coming to fruition what the band have attempted to achieve with this album.

User Reviews and Comments

on 2008-06-03 dscanland Said:

Uh, yeah. Only the coolest music dude... You should hear Joy Division's She's Lost Control followed up by To Fix The Gash In Your Head. Really, it sounds amazing and you can check it out with today's Distortion podcast. Click "Free Media" then "Podcast".
Not Rated

on 2008-06-03 X_NaStY Said:

Seriously? That's crazy! Maybe I should start checking out these podcasts...
Not Rated

on 2008-06-03 dscanland Said:

Just featured a track from this album on today podcast.
Not Rated

on 2008-06-03 X_NaStY Said:

Just discovered these guys while searching a list of best albums of 07. It's their debut album and already they have a pretty unique sound. Would be interesting to see a follow up and see if they can develop their sound a bit more.
Not Rated