Review by Matthew Hilburn
The oft-used comparison to Sonic Youth doesn't really hold a lot of water, as Blonde Redhead's music has always been a bit less swirling, more spontaneous, and rougher around the edges. Further differentiating them from Sonic Youth is their bass-less approach. In an Expression of the Inexpressible, their fourth release, is as uncompromising as Fake Can Be Just as Good and La Mia Vita Violenta, but this time Blonde Redhead wanted to be produced by someone outside the band. The sound is fuller and more polished, and in the capable hands of producers John Goodmanson and Guy Picciotto (of Fugazi fame), they've never sounded quite as good. Still, Kazu Makino's high-pitched, Bjork-ish vocals can get irritating at times, and the two guitars never quite reach a compelling level of interplay. Blonde Redhead, who sometimes are too clever for their own good, could, in fact, learn a great deal from Sonic Youth, since most of the tracks never come across with much urgency.
Blonde Redhead
In An Expression Of The Inexpressible
[Touch and Go]
Rating: 5.5
On paper as well as in person, Blonde Redhead is about as New York as you can get: two Italian twin brothers and a Japanese woman, whose collective moniker is lifted from a song by NY no- wavers DNA, and whose sound pits Sonic Youth-ish guitars against a vaguely Eurotrash artistic sensibility. Their first two albums on Smells Like Records (which is run by Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, naturally) were mostly dreamy, dark guitar washes with the occasional exploration into no- wave (a Moog squiggle here, a fractured rhythm there)-- pretty decent indie- rock fare by anyone's standards, but nothing to get too excited about. 1997's Fake Can Be Just As Good steered Blonde Redhead in a promising direction; besides having quite the apropos title, it was created under the heavy influence of Unwound, which reconfigured their wall- of- guitar sound into more twitchy, skeletal arrangements.
In An Expression of the Inexpressible picks up where Fake Can Be Just As Good left off. And perhaps, as indicated by the title, Blonde Redhead are heading further into avant-rock territory. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the more listenable tracks are those which recall their early work; "Distilled" briefly revisits the Youth's heady drone, and "Futurism vs. Passeism Part 2" is a bubbly, dissonant drive (though it wouldn't be complete without the added touch of vocals spoken in French-- by Fugazi's Guy Picciotto, no less). "Luv Machine" and "Speed x Distance = Time" are more typical tracks-- slow- paced songs with simple, intertwining guitar lines, high- pitched, panting female vocals by Kazu Makino, and drumming which could charitably be described as "creative." Blonde Redhead strives to achieve a sort of laid- back tension and moody sexiness, but it comes off instead as lethargic and unengaging. The worst offender is the title track, which is little more than Makino moaning incomprehensibly over a one-note bass thunk. Minimalism may work for some, but not this band.
Maybe the reason that I don't warm to In An Expression of the Inexpressible much is simply because I'm not from New York and don't have the background to understand Blonde Redhead's art- damaged aesthetic. Then again, most people on Earth are like me in that respect, and while they could appreciate Blonde Redhead's music, they won't necessarily enjoy it.
-Nick Mirov
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