Before I even begin, I have to get a massive “hells yeah” out of my system: for the first time in over 10 years, the perpetually underrated Chapel Hill guitar anti-gods of Polvo are recording a new album. Fellow fans of their wobbly-stringed, going-nowhere-fast guitar riffs and opium-den-East meets hot-boxed-West aesthetic, rejoice with me. Admittedly, my expectations are high. Perhaps unfairly so, especially if you consider the fact that every album since their debut, Cor-Crane Secret, has represented a transformative shift in their sound, for better or for worse. Sure, we want to hear what Polvo is capable of coming up with in 2009. But let’s be honest -- if the band were to go back to the rawer, more experimental side they explored on their debut, I doubt anyone would be particularly disappointed.
Cor-Crane Secret is filled with ideas. We hear guitars played like sitars (“Ox Scapula”), rubber bands (“Bend or Break”), and theremins (“The Curtain Remembers”). Metal, hardcore, and Nirvana are fractured and bent into more sinewy versions of themselves on “Sense of It.” Two songs later, “Channel Changer” takes the almost unavoidably twee elements of glockenspiel and Superchunk-style noodling and turns them into something undeniably discordant and manic. The slinkiest Kim Gordon talk-sing songs in the Sonic Youth library are channeled on “In the Hand, In the Sieve,” and yes, about a million other influences and concepts are stress-tested through the band's strained amplifiers. Perhaps the most unexpected part of it all, however, is that all of these seemingly incongruent elements form something remarkably coherent. You have to listen through the feedback and skronk to get to it, but it’s there.
All things considered, it’s easy to see why some of the band’s more dissonant tendencies may have been off-putting in 1992. But it’s that same adventurousness that keeps Cor-Crane Secret fresh. After all, noise-rock is cool again -- the art-damaged variety even cooler. The sonic climate is perfect for Polvo’s specific brand of mismatched tunings and zig-zagging hooks. Whether or not their next album will adhere to the sound for which they’re known and loved has yet to be seen. But truth be told, if all they did was go back to the basics of Cor-Crane Secret, they’d still be years ahead of most rock music coming out today.
1. Vibracobra
2. Kalgon
3. Bend Or Break
4. Can I Ride
5. Sense Of It
6. Ox Scapula
7. Channel Changer
8. In The Hand, In The Sieve
9. The Curtain Remembers
10. Well Is Deep
11. Duped
