Disappears Reveal Brilliance On New Album
By Jon Graef in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 20, 2011 3:30PM
Insouciance and perfectionism are conceptually at odds with one another. One is cheerful carelessness and the other can make people like Brian Wilson go totally shithouse. (To put it in medically accurate and cultural sensitive terms, no doubt). But no other group’s music achieves a Zen-like simplicity in suggesting the two are actually conceptual kissing cousins than Chicago’s Disappears.
Over the course of two albums—the self-released Live Over The Rainbo, and its glossier studio twin Lux—the micro-scene supergroup has mixed garage-rock swagger and a ferociously disciplined sense of songwriting. Disappears combine sing-shouting, Krautrock’s hypnotically repetitive rhythms, and proto-punk’s snarling guitar tones to create tunes so packed with jams it’s easy to forget they often barely cross the three-minute mark.
Indeed, if brevity is the soul of wit, then Disappears must be some smart motherfuckers. Guider, the band’s third effort overall and second album for Kranky Records, is only half-an-hour long. But Disappears’ creative leap forward on Guider accomplishes so much in so little time that anything else longer would be needless self-indulgence.
On tracks like “New Fast” and the title track, where Disappears do the most with the crackerjack sound they’ve come up with. The first half of Guider is a serviceable, if a bit unremarkable, reminder of what the band is capable of musically.
It’s the last three songs on Guider has the band making good on their NEU! Influences. “Guider” is a propulsive sing-along blast, while the rubbery bassline of “New Fast” and reverb-heavy guitars introduce a newfound sensuality into the band’s sound.
But it’s on “Revisiting,” the closing epic, where Disappears get in a sonic car crash at the six-corner intersection of psychedelia, drone and shoegaze and just ride that sucker out for 16 minutes of rock bliss. Guider shows that Disappears are in no danger of vanishing from anyone’s record player any time soon.
Disappears plays Saturday, February 4 at the Empty Bottle, 1035 N Western, 10 p.m., $10, 21+