SHIPPING NEWS
Flies the Fields
Quarterstick Records
· With their fourth full-length, this Louisville, Kentucky quartet reinvigorate the tired post-rock genre.
Yes, Shipping News sound like Sonic Youth – that is not a bad thing. Let’s face it, if you pick up a guitar and strum a chord, critics will tell you that you are ripping off one of two bands. If the guitar is in tune, it’s the Velvet Underground; if it’s not, Sonic Youth. Let’s remember that Blonde Redhead spent the better part of their career sounding like Sonic Youth. What those copycats taught us is that you can hold a mirror up to your influences and still find something new to say.
Flies the Field delivers everything you liked about the Louisville scene and packs it into an epic but digestible 45 minutes. The Slint-inspired freakout "(Morays) or Demons" is a great anthem that relies on crashing cymbals and furious power chords, but at just over four minutes, the song doesn’t waste a single second. Alternately the nearly nine-minute "Paper Lanterns (Zero Return)" sounds like Massive Attack remixing Touch and Go records – one of the best ideas ever. Trading in dissonance and analogue hum the way most bands trade in verses and choruses, Shipping News have quartz-precision snare snaps backing pitchy string-bending guitar acrobatics. While this is standard for the genre, where the band really succeeds is in burying hook and melody just below the mumble-sing vocals. With veteran knob-twister Bob Weston at the helm, Shipping News not only redefine their influences, but create a stunning rainy-day mood swing that proves there is new life to be found in a standard four-piece rock outfit – even in a genre as overworked as this.
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