CD Reviews

Red Sparowes

Aphorisms | Sargent House

By DAVID BOFFA | September 2, 2008

3.0 Stars

The brainchild of Isis guitarists Jeff Caxide and Bryant Clifford Meyer (only Meyer contributes here), this Los Angeles post-rock outfit is inspired by Mao Zedong’s attempted eradication of farm-pestering sparrows in the late 1950s, one of many ill-fated attempts to push China’s Great Leap Forward to Communism that brought on only locusts and more death and starvation. This EP is, then, more stoner doom theater than full metal onslaught, with the metal de-emphasis gradually turning to blackened grooves: tuplet-drum-roll-coaxing dropped-D power chords are soon nixed in favor of weighty guitar echoes with damn-near-danceable bass-line-dredging beats. They rock dark: moody pedal-steel waves entwine rumbling bass gristle, the perfect complement to, say, a Neurosis demon incantation ceremony. And they rock slow: Buzzo-like sustained diatonic guitar bends shake and snake beneath charcoal-stained, Crover-inspired tom-tom thwacks. It’s all gloriously radical, but stay away if sludgy rock makes you queasy.

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