Through
being signed to Sub Pop and with a home page that takes
sideswipes at the anti-rockism of the Constellation Records
scene, I had thought of Canadian three-piece Metz as a
grunge revivalist band.
Which
they kind of are. But seeing them live I was more reminded of the
phrase “standing on the shoulders of giants.” It's like they're
looking back at the history of noisy guitars all the way to the days
of garage rock, able to pick up what they choose along it. Yet none
of this is done in a knowing or citational way, things are simply
picked up for use - the way a differently tuned guitar might be
brought into play. They're actually pretty damn lively
live, playing that kind of music to which you can't stand still, at
one point the guitarist crowdsurfing while still playing.
Perhaps
the most surprising ingredient is noise rock. That may be more of an
inclination than an element, but it's definitely there. We're talking
the imprint of the noise rock scene of the Eighties and Nineties –
Big Black, Live Skull and early Sonic Youth – rather than anything
that came along afterwards.
What
might seem strange. At the time, noise rock was for many of us a
gateway drug into fully-fledged noise. Through it we discovered that
you could dispense altogether with song structures and other rock
elements, and bathe in de-hyphenated, unalloyed, free-form fields of
sound. Myself, I may not have taken to much of the stuff at the
annual Colour Out of Space festival without that
introduction.
Which
raises the question, having made that journey - why bother to go back
now? After all, once you've learnt to swim, don't you dispense with
the water wings?
Yet
I'd argue the opposite – why burn the bridges? It seems every piece
that gets posted here has to feature one of the axioms of Lucid
Frenzy, and this time it's 'in art, restrictions enable'. Pushing the
envelope can have more traction than being outside of it, and
balancing noise against rock give Metz the same advantages it did the
earlier generation. Even the noise acts I rate, such as Merzbow, can
sometimes suffer from a lack of context. Having come on like the end
of the world turned up to eleven, what do you do for an encore? This
kind of noise rock can work on the ears like a sweet and sour does to
the tongue. The noise simply sounds noisier when erupting out of the
tunes, which for their part sound sweeter when placed against the
noise.
Moreover,
Metz neatly incorporate the noise into their overall sound. One
example would be the way the noise breakouts often occur at the end
of tracks. I've always found interminable those extended workouts
bands insist on making into finales, with the drummer going up and
down his kit like he's stock-taking his instruments. They just sound
like those conversations which never quite close - “I'll be off
then”, “okay, bye”, “well see you” and so on. By
substituting fields of noise into those areas, Metz slip the
unexpected into the expected.
In
short, a great live band. Guitars are dead? Nobody told these guys!
The
gig's closer is probably a fairly good example of the blend I'm on
about...
...plus
an optical assault course of a video for 'Negative
Space'...
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