“We Are the World” the song and We Are the World the band have more in common than you might think. Both are massively off-putting in their own way, albeit unintentionally on the part of the former. Both traffic in absurd vocal theatrics, straining the boundaries of good taste. For both song and band, excess is the name of the game (as is evidenced by live videos of the band floating around YouTube).
That said, the aesthetic on display throughout Clay Stones couldn’t be further from the band’s namesake. There’s not one note top to bottom that could reasonably be called sweet, nor one word a sane person would find uplifting. We Are the World aren’t concerned citizens; they’re art school kids trying to convince you that they’re pop stars in an alternate dystopian reality. Fortunately, they pull that off for the most part on their debut album.
We Are the World assault the listener with the sheer force of their otherness, like Mu on ecstasy instead of weed. Their weirdness is one part Robbie Williamson’s blocky, relentless semi-house production, two parts Megan Gold’s mutant vocals. While the former is uniformly solid, Clay Stones lives and dies by the latter. Gold is a little like Karen O chopped and screwed, not so much singing as performing the lines. When she’s on, she can sell a lyric like “Walk like a woman/ One fish in one hand” better than you might imagine. Even more impressive, when her heavily manipulated voice inquires, “Whatcha whatcha runnin from?” on “Clover & Dirt,” the effect is so menacing that the question answers itself. Unfortunately, when Gold is off, pushing the drama-kid theatrics or the so-pretentious-that-pretension-must-be-the-point lyrics a little too hard, she can sink a track (as on closer “Lord Have Ass”). Luckily, she hits more than she misses.
If Gold’s ability to sell her vocals is crucial to the success of these tracks, that’s because there’s little in the way of melody to help with the heavy lifting. Despite what We Are the World’s press kit would have you believe, “pop” isn’t any way to describe the material on Clay Stones. With almost no traditional choruses, tunes, or even chord changes, that’s like calling a cracker a cookie just because of a few superficial commonalities. Granted that their choreographed live show (courtesy of WAtW’s choreographer member) is more Lady Gaga than Martha Graham, this music is just too weird to be club-ready outside of indie circles. Most of the songs here eschew structure for repetition, switch out recognizable emotion for Martian theatrics, and rely on memorable turns of phrase far more than traditional hooks.
While that’s cool, it’s also a little exhausting. Even as I return to it regularly, I find myself starting Clay Stones way more often than I finish it. About halfway through the album I start to feel like I’m in one of those awful Zion dance sequences from The Matrix, or like I’m in a club that doubles as a fun house. It’s a queasy feeling that’s awesome in small doses and definitely not for the faint of heart. Your reaction to that description is probably a good indicator of whether you should pick up this record.
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