Compared to the 80s, the 90s weren't a great decade for straightforwardly aggressive, noised-up indie rock. Indie became less noisy, embracing melody and irony, and noise rock less rock-y, embracing classicism. Six Finger Satellite was a notable exception to these trends. Fusing pigfuck skronk and jittery, skittering keyboards, they managed to remain abrasive without completely forgoing tunefulness and rock strictures.
Perhaps that's why A Good Year For Hardness, their first new album since they reunited in 2007 (discounting Half Control, recorded in 2001 and released earlier this year), is such a disappointment. Largely gone are the spacey post-punk atmospherics that came to define and distinguish the band by the end of their first era, replaced by bombastic hard rock. The synthesizers remain, but they play a decidedly auxiliary role, and they're often more cheesy than edgy. You could see hints of this shift toward relative normalcy on Half Control, which featured the band playing a boring sort of hardcore at half-speed. The band still relies heavily on minimal, recurrent riffs, but without the noise or studio tricks, it comes off as irritating rather than hypnotic.
The most significant change, though, has to be that singer J. Ryan's voice has been pushed to the forefront of the mix. On every other album, it's been impossible to tell what he's been singing. What broke through the chaos was the character of his voice, the way he shrieked and vamped and contorted it into a shape every bit as claustrophobic, strange, and unnerving as the music itself. Here he seems to vacillate between colorless speak-shouting; bored, disaffected sighs; and ill-fitting, fey yelps.
The mix also makes Ryan's lyrics easily intelligible, and, in the process, makes me glad that you could never understand him before. They're completely uninspired, painfully banal, and often laughably inexplicable. They're so consistently bad that it's difficult to pinpoint the worst offender. On "Hot Food," he sings, "On the ceilings/ On the floors/ Signs of living/ Signs of wars/ Bring me hot food/ Bring me love." On "Midnight Rails," he yowls, "Ride rails, ride ride, ride ride/ Ride rails, ride ride/ Midnight rails, gonna ride, gonna ride, gonna ride," then references "MacArthur Park" and Faulkner for no discernible reason.
It's only halfway through "Hearts and Rocks," the second-to-last track, that the album begins to gain any real momentum, when the band actually starts playing with feeling and Ryan sounds like he actually gives a shit. Matters improve further on the last track, "Rise." Spacious and pulsing, like an amalgamation of their previous work and Closer-era Joy Division, it's the one hint here of a possible new direction for the band.
This album could be a mercenary effort to cash in on their previous acclaim. Alternately, the band's failure to recapture their previous chemistry might stem from the absence of original guitarist and electronics wizard John McLean, now better known as The Juan McLean. Either way, it's plainly clear that they've lost their edge, and I'm not sure they'll get it back. Remember them as they were, not as they are.
1. Hot Food
2. Roam From Home
3. Don't Let Me
4. Wilson P.
5. Midnight Rails
6. Half Life
7. Swamp Wanda
8. Broken Brain
9. Hearts and Rocks
10. Rise
More about: Six Finger Satellite
