Ian sings with his inside voice, and I imitate a rock critic

It has been a good week for punk in my tiny little world. First the music department brought this tour of Japanese girl punk bands to our campus. You gotta love the tour dates: NYC, Boston, Chicago, LA, SF, Seattle...and Canton, NY. Second, the CD for The Evens, the new band of former Fugazi member Ian Mackay, arrived at my door. Third, I discovered that The Slits final album, Return of the Giant Slits, has been reissued on CD in Japan and is available for import, so I promptly ordered it.

Ian's new album is probably the most exciting development. In some ways he is clearly making a break with his past work. He plays an undistorted baritone guitar (did you know there was such a thing?) and sings mostly with his inside voice. His splits the vocal duties with Amy Farina, who can actually sing melodies. (Former bandmate Guy Picciotto was very expressive, but face it, he had a three note range.) There are places on the album where they actually harmonize. The arrangements are minimal. Amy plays drums. Ian plays guitar. Both sing. There are a few overdubs.

In other ways the album is an extension of the direction Ian was heading with Fugazi. He mostly uses the baritone guitar to switch between playing the kind of basslines Joe Lally played with Fugazi and the kind of strumming patterns he played in that band. The lyrics continue to emphasize local Washington DC settings. "All These Governors" is an anti-establishment call to arms, akin to "Burning Too," "KYEO" "Blueprint", etc.

Farina is a creative drummer who can easily handle the prominence the arrangments give her. She reminds me of one of my favorite drummers, David Narcizo of the Throwing Muses. Both use the toms for more than just fills and like vaguely martial patterns with 16th note rolls on the snare and accents on the kick drum. Both go against the trend of punk drummers in our generation to use deliberately restricted drum kits, as seen in people like Steve Shelly or Victor De Lorenzo of the Violent Femmes.

So, yeah, I like the album a lot.

I'm also going to blog about the japanese girl punk bands, but this is all the rock crticism anyone should have to read in one sitting.