Echo
10GeV Records, 2018
http://www.facebook.com/glimrnoise
REVIEW BY: Tom Haugen
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 02/17/2019
If you're a Beatles fan, you may recall that they played their last stadium show at Candlestick Park. Well, 48 years later Glimr set up camp at second base, precisely where Ringo, Paul, George, and John played to a massive crowd. Only Glimr played for exactly no one and recorded it for this project that is both studio and live.
This release is essentially four songs – each a studio and live version – plus some covers. “And My Head Hit The Walkside” starts the unusual listen with dissonant punk and languid vocals and wouldn't be out of place on the Touch & Go label in the early '90s, and it alternates between noisey and droning to sparse and calm. “I Am Filled With Eyes” follows and is a more rhythmic affair that pushes and pulls with experimental tension and builds into a psyche-influenced affair.
“The Burning Tastes Of Clouds” is the swiftest tune here, and starts out as the most accessible with plenty of melody, but it soon seems like an example in improvisation with plenty of guitar fills and at nearly nine minutes, “Trying Ain't Much Of A Living” explores plenty of sonic ideas with ambient repetition and minimal vocals.
Live versions of all of these tunes show up later and they all sound very similar, sometimes with a brighter energy and sometimes a bit grittier, but still very closely resembling the studio versions.
In sticking with the Beatles theme, they cover “Paperback Writer,” which moves from thick and ominous into fuzzed out power-pop, and “Nowhere Man” which starts spaced out before keeping the jangly feeling of the original but with plenty of artistic touches.
You might be asking yourself: what was the point of putting both studio and live versions of each song when they both sound so similar? Well, the better question is what is the point to playing to 70,000 empty seats and making it a record? It's pretty clear that Glimr isn’t concerned with such details and instead just concentrate on their charming and weird post-punk that will resonate with fans of Unwound, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, or even Big Black.