Spleen

Reviews

Spleen II cassette

With members of PUFFER and BETON ARME, and especially being released on Roachleg, I came into this tape with preconceptions. How delightfully shocked was I, then, to have expectations totally subverted by a collection of songs that don’t bludgeon so much as coax you into their plaintive landscape. The group is evocative of a broad palette of influences, from dream pop to cowpunk, and it all works. I’m always impressed by a band that can explore while still sounding confident, keeping to a center that holds strong regardless of what genre they dip into. There’s no one corner to paint these songs into, and that’s what makes the release so potent. On the outright classically rocking “Rien Ne T’empechêra,” you end up with something akin to THIN LIZZY with Bernard Sumner on guitar. I might be reaching, but that’s the sort of abstract pairing the music conjures. All in all, it’s an immensely satisfying and beguiling grip of tracks from some of Montreal’s top players.

Spleen Spleen demo cassette

Roachleg hits the nail on the head with this demo cassette from SPLEEN. The best I can do to describe SPLEEN’s noise is to say it’s a blend of raw punk and deathrock with heavy emphasis on the rock’n’roll part, and it’s all sung in French. This five-song demo rips through with an apocalyptic urgency while feeding upon darkness and simultaneously mingling enough melodic tones and raucous bop to keep things danceable. Nightmarish themes permeate the lyrics which are delivered in a Peter Murphy of BAUHAUS sort of way, but with a blown-out effect and a bit more caffeination. I really dig the song “Advienne Que Pourra,” which roughly translated means “let the chips fall where they may.”