Thursday 17 July 2014

Xander Duell - Earth On It's Axis - single review

There are plenty of things that can be said to grab ahold of your attention.


When discussing music,the obvious touchstones of comparisons are usually first and foremost... if you like blah blah you will like so and so, and so on.


But when you have already been alerted to the fact that one line of a song is as follows...



“Then in a drunken haze, stabbed her in the parking lot of a TGI Friday’s”



well...


The shock value certainly worker for me.  I load up the soundcloud link and press play.




Thankfully the song works beyond the initial worm on a hook, regardless of the bizarrely violent imagery 'Earth On It's Axis' oozes well-worn and slightly rag-tag pop, it is utterly dreamy in the most jarring way possible.  A beautiful nightmare.


And it turns out Xander Duell has past form.  His debut solo album, entitled 'Experimental Tape No.2, Vol.1', was apparently a misunderstood masterpiece of musical brilliance filtered through a gritty reality that played out in a New York apartment, where Garage Band captured two years worth of drug damaged confessionals.


The lead single from what promises to be a more approachable sophomore effort smacks of so many fragmented musical geniuses that it is frankly quite embarrassing just reeling off the relevant 'sounds-like's yet there really is no greater praise when trying to put into words why you should spare a little of your time to listen to it if you haven't been convinced already.


It is a transposed 'Life On Mars', infused with a Beach Boys lushness, touches of Mercury Rev and even Blue Oyster Cult's 'Don't Fear The Reaper', entwined with the cracked-pop brilliance of Beck and Eels.  All in one harshly enthralling, brazenly awkward and sublimely offensive song.


It appears that we may have just stumbled upon the Chuck Palahnuik of pop.



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