August 2002 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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The Alcohol EPs discover beauty in the dark 5 August 2002
The Alcohol EPs (subtitled: Substance Abuse Is Not Glamorous), released last week on Silber Records, collects three mini-albums by geographically disparate artists sharing a common, stunningly dark aesthetic. Surprisingly, the result is as engaging and pretty as it is depressing. Brian John Mitchell (aka Remora) lives in Raleigh, North Carolina; Jon DeRosa (aka Pale Horse And Rider, previously Aarktika) lives in Brooklyn, New York; and Nathan Amundson (aka Rivulets) relocated from Alaska to Minneapolis, Minnesota. The new album—all 72 minutes of it—boldly explores extreme depressiveness and mindful angst, conjuring art, beauty, and hope out of the sad and the impossible. The colors are, in order, gray, gray, and gray. Remora leads off the album with six exceedingly hopeless ballads, including one referencing the late, great Manchester band Joy Division—but magnitudes darker and more introspective than anything Ian Curtis and company ever created. The Remora set also includes the track Oblivion: six minutes of a single guitar chord that, with subtle overdubbing, grows deep and evocative. The middle of this gloomy musical sandwich: four tracks by Jon DeRosa’s new solo project Pale Horse And Rider, which, as slo-core country, is more accessible than what precedes and follows. His Open Letter To An Empty Bar sounds strikingly like Mark Kozelek on his gorgeous acoustic set What’s Next To The Moon. The Alcohol EPs closes with four previously unreleased tracks by Rivulets, recorded at home and at Crazy Beast studio in Minneapolis. These are lower-fi and more raw—musically and emotionally—than his tracks on the band’s self-titled debut LP out this past January. Even in context here, Rivulets’ music comes across as slow and quiet, although Amundson spices the mix with moments of extreme, almost over-the-top dynamism—including a physical collapse captured to tape—offering more unvarnished honesty than you might be ready for. But it’s clear that Amundson enjoys the humor as well as the gravity in his expression of excess. This ain’t no disco. Four bites out of five. Rockbites ratings 5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying. Check Silber’s Website for ordering information. | Silber Records | | Remora | | Pale Horse And Rider | | Rivulets | | top of page | |
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