After a full year off from touring and releasing new music, A Place to Bury Strangers are still going strong with their balance of sharp hooks and sonic firepower. Much like the Jesus and Mary Chain's significant leap in fidelity from Psychocandy to Darklands, this five-song EP will likely generate more discussion about its production and mixing choices than its well-constructed tunes.
Onwards to the Wall signals a few significant changes for A Place to Bury Strangers; their move to a different label, Dead Oceans, is an obvious one. More significantly, though, APTBS have taken a step back from the full-frontal guitar maelstrom that has come to define their music, and toward a sort of traditionally hooky, guitar-based rock (still with a bite, of course) readying itself to thrive on the strength of its songwriting. While no more or less catchy than much of their previous work—several cuts from their debut still rank among their most hummable—the de-emphasis on having Oliver Ackermann's guitar at the forefront, cranked into the red at 110% capacity, makes it easier to focus on the songs at hand.
The most memorable moment on this EP is influenced by an addition to the band's core lineup: bassist and vocalist Dion Lunadon provides Ackermann with a foil, and a second voice, to play with in his songs. The title track deploys a call-and-response, boy/girl vocal structure—one of the oldest tricks in the pop songwriting book, right, Nancy and Lee?—fitted within a tense, echo- and feedback-laden framework that builds tension and tempo, with no easy release. Elsewhere, "I Lost You" harkens back to the debut, with its insistent pace and drum machine-esque rhythm section, though Ackermann's guitar is cranked down a few notches from "obliterate" to "incinerate." The most volatile song here is "Nothing Will Surprise Me," which crams an ungodly amount of pitch-shifted, tremolo'd guitar work into three short minutes. "Drill It Up" closes the set with fuzzed-out bass guitar and the industrial clank of the percussion leading the charge.
I'm guessing that Ackermann & Co. will absolutely tear these songs to shreds in a live setting, and at home, the production is solid enough to allow Onwards to the Wall to be cranked up to ear-splitting volumes and sound full of life. Sure, the guitars are set backward in the mix, but things still get fucking loud with a simple turn of the volume dial. The balance has shifted, and it's to the band's credit that they are no longer a walking advertisement for Death by Audio, Ackermann's day job building effect pedals (you gotta admit, the title of Ackermann's first pedal, "Total Sonic Annihilation," was a spot-on characterization of APTBS circa 2007). Instead, Onwards to the Wall sees the band evolving, making smart adjustments to their sound before their next full-length, instead of treading water and repeating their past work.
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