Brian Jonestown Massacre

Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?

(A)

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

For anyone familiar with the strange and star-crossed history of Brian Jonestown Massacre, it will be little wonder that their new album was the first album in five years to be accidentally assigned to two different Red Alert writers. For another take on the album, check out Kevan Peterson's review here.

The history of the Brian Jonestown Massacre is long and tumultuous, and I don’t think I have the time or patience to dive to deep into that here, so I shall, for the most part, write under the assumption that you have at least a passing knowledge of the band. But, just to play on the safe side of musical journalism, I’ll throw in a little bit of background clarification.

I cannot, personally, write about this band without bringing up another band. The Dandy Warhols. These two bands have been circling and sparring and throwing jabs at each other, and completely ignoring each other, and getting tired of the whole thing for the last fifteen years or so. If you want to find out more about this, I would suggest that you find, rent, watch the 2004 film DiG! directed by Ondi Timoner.

Both bands released their first official album in 1995, and shared similar, yet slightly different influences, and moved ahead caught in slightly similar, yet different visions. While the Dandy Warhols had formed in Portland in 1994, San Francisco’s Brian Jonestown Massacre had been playing, with a constantly shifting group of band members, since 1990. I probably discovered both bands at around the same time (a random memory guess at 1996), and while I enjoyed the sounds that both bands were creating, I found myself much more often on the side of the Dandys. I saw them play live a few more times; I bought a few more of their releases, and just felt more comfortable with what they were doing and how that affected my ears. Until 2005 came and hit me with Odditorium or Warlords of Mars. That was it. The Dandy Warhols had lost me. I’m not giving up on them yet, but something had changed.

So why not, why not check out what was going on in the BJM camp. What had they been up to?

The songs and vision of lead man Anton Newcombe, in 2005, were found on a small 5 song EP called We Are The Radio. Gentle, psychedelic, surreal folk guitar spaced-outedness. Not sure. Not bad, but still, not sure. Then 2008 hit with My Bloody Underground and you could tell just from the title that there was going to be some kind of My Bloody Valentine riffing going on, perhaps with a little touch of The Velvet Underground. Both the Dandys and the BJM were very fond of wearing their inspirations on their sonic sleeves. I was happy, not overjoyed, but happy. The album was full of shifting soundscapes, from the psych-Stones jams to the shoegaze and noise to the surreal kraut rock car crashes. I’m still listening, I’m still wanting something that will give me a little more of what the Dandy Warhols had lost.

So what do I get? I get Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? and I am quite pleased. I don’t know if the fight is over, or if we are just taking a breather before the next round, but at the moment the Dandy Warhols are down for the count and the Brian Jonestown Massacre are standing in the ring with Anton striking a well deserved victory pose.

We start off with a mellow tripped-hoppy guitar flow that basically gets your head on right for the rest of your listening experience. Then the guitars hit into the second song, and we are rocking with some full and heavy garage-gaze that pushes you through into another dimension. Alongside Anton, we have a couple of founding members returning to take part, like Matt Hollywood and Ricky Maymi, and then the bass talents of Will Carruthers, who has done some time with the Spacemen Three crowd, and that drone is very noticeable and welcome here. It provides a nice balance between the sometimes spastic melodics and the buzzed distortion of the guitars.

The songs, while moving between the rough and edged druggy Rolling Stone noise and more psychedelic groove wanderings, manage to tie in and flow through each other with a solid nod to the hypnotics of the Eastern beat. Dream pop on drugs, shoegazed Bhangra, lysergic dancefloor experimentation. I’m feeling it, I’m flowing, and then with song number six, I am hit over and through the head with a supreme Joy Division beat, covered with a layer of razor fuzz, and I’ve lost control. Combining that instantly recognizable drumming with the lyrics of “I Remember Nothing” is actually the kind of noise genius I was looking for, and didn’t realize. Combine that with the song title of “This Is The One Thing We Did Not Want To Have Happen” and I think Anton Newcombe may be trying to steal my soul. I don’t mind.

The low fuzzy darkness continues into the next song, although now it’s a little smoother, and almost Soft Cell touched in tempo, but there ain’t no Marc Almond here, instead of crooning vocals we get hit by a layer of Black Rebel Motorcycle guitar exhaust, and circles feel like they become complete, and get ready to start again.

“Someplace Else Unknown” continues down the shadowed path of rock and roll, cutting like a slowed down and drugged out Iggy Pop song against an evil Spiritualized beat, preachin’ the blues like a gutter saint, like a skid row poet. Then it’s over, and we move back into some almost happy but still freaked out carnival that makes me feel like I’m looking for the way out in some soviet hall of mirrors, and end up doing the Kalinka with Jim Morrison.

We move through another space mellow vibe, and then suddenly we are rocking out on that dance floor again with “Feel It”, a song that once again hits you with that old Dandy Warhol rivalry, perhaps touched with a little White Rose Movement disco blur, and you realize that whatever was lost was found again, and this band is running with it.

We end, after a long and satisfactory listen, with a ten minute epilogue of sound that ties the whole thing back together to the beginning. This CD plays like a novel, and it’s one I could read over and over again, finding new things within every note.

I did find myself getting a little sonically confused at times, but through it all, The Brian Jonestown Massacre managed to keep a cohesive beat. Regardless of where the songs take you, you know it’s the same band that’s holding your hand, you know it's all part of the same strange and wonderful dream. It’s now it’s new it’s old, and wherever this band has been, they’re back again, and sharing what they’ve seen.