When a rock band turn up with their well defined influences lithely displayed on grungy sleeves it can be easy to dismiss. The accusation of sonic derivation is often used as a stick with which to beat that kind of group – particularly those dabbling in riff-heavy psychedelia. But it’s more to do with deference: not so much deference to other bands as much as to a bygone era – on Construction By A Landslide it’s alternative guitar from the 80s and 90s. This trend of looking back for artistic inspiration is certainly not a recent development, but it’s definitely something that has increased in the last decade.
As Jeremy Usborne once perceptively noted: ‘the internet is gonna be massive’. The internet has changed the way we interact and discover music. In his recent book ‘Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction To Its Own Past’ Simon Reynolds describes, quite correctly, how the process of acquiring music knowledge has changed. In the olden days a pining young music fan would have to engage physically by sifting through the back catalogues of magazines or going out to real record stores. But now access to vast online databases – YouTube, Wikipedia – is almost instant and practically limitless; not only can one listen to old music but learn its context in musical canon. And so with the greater availability of archaic movements it has been easier for those in the 00s to understand previous movements and incorporate their techniques into the contemporary. This propensity to look back has led to mainstream (as in, mainstream of the alternative realm) revivals like post-punk, synth-pop and shoegaze.
The conclusion that Reynolds draws, albeit tentatively, from this general trend is negative – that the preoccupation with a golden past is to the detriment of current songwriters. While there’s no doubting his talent as a writer and muso Reynolds is perhaps too aware of the broader context, largely because he is old enough to have been present in the late 70s and early 90s, whereas many of the advocates of the revival were not. It’s ‘being there’ that is the key – it’s the distinction between mere nostalgia (harking back to a specific era at which one was present) and revival. Ultimately though – beyond all the philosophical trend-spotting crappola – actually liking the original music is kind of important. And I do really like the music that Rotten In Denmark pay homage to.
And so I am biased: I don’t really care whether they borrow riffs from Dinosaur Jr and Dandy Warhols and marry them to Fugazi post-hardcore-esque yowling vocals because it is a combination that I’ll inevitably enjoy. Nor should it be underestimated how much talent it takes to turn those disparate influences into a semblance of sonic integrity. That is the accomplishment that can be levelled at Rotten In Denmark on their Construction By A Landslide EP.
RiD’s bandcamp profile might scream 90s revival, but theirs is a sound forged on the guitar blowouts of late Eighties Dinosaur Jr and the Mark Gardener/Andy Bell combo in Ride. And even further down the timeline of music: ‘Fisher Account’ is a song steeped in sludgy reverence to the structures and vocal delivery of British Invasion bands like The Yardbirds and artists hovering around in psychedelic ’67 and ‘68. ‘Damn Nation’ is a Morrissey sound-alike underpinned by reverbed guitars and ‘Prescription Addiction’ rails against our drug-filled prescription-for-all nation with Foo Fighter attitude and jangly melodies. But the highlight is ‘Feral’ the slow burning book-end. Its rumbles and rasps in a kind of mawkish resignation, condemning the loss of identity in this materialistic society and ends in a raucously growled refrain of ‘It all gets too much/I’m slipping out of touch’.
The question of whether guitar music can actually go anywhere completely new is moot: repacking older sounds should never devalue the piece and styles do change, if only slightly. Journalists can be far too obsessed with spotting overall trends, to be the first identity a fashion and so the death knell has been rung far too many times in the last few years for the guitar, wrongfully. RiD represent the still-healthy soul of the instrument whilst brazenly indicating their influences. And besides who is to know what developments linger around the corner. Remember: similarly brash voices arrogantly decried the death of guitar music in the 80s during the synthpop wave – and then Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Nirvana came along.
Construction By A Landslide is out for free on their bandcamp page right now.
Barney Horner
