The New Loud

The New Loud is a three-piece electro/punk/new wave band from Milwaukee, WI. Their debut EP, Can’t Stop Not Knowing, consists of six tracks, including a frenetic cover of Radiohead’s 2 + 2 = 5. The EP was produced by band member Shane Olivo and displays a tight mixture of electronic elements and natural sounds, layered obsessively, with some songs using up to 80 tracks in the mix.

Liz Phair / Fuck and Run
Without Liz Phair there would be no Tegan and Sara or Sex In The City for that matter. Liz Phair took all the visceral thoughts lying publicly dormant inside the female id and put them all out in the open and she did it as if it was all part of everyday conversation.

Weezer / Tired of Sex
Let’s get one thing straight here: I don’t like Weezer. I like Pinkerton and the Blue Record. Everything after that is spotty at best. That said, Pinkerton is one of my favorite records of all time. Opening with a burst of raw guitar feedback into a drum sound verging on being overdriven into nasty distorted bass, the gritty production really plays up the honesty of the vocal performance as Rivers seemingly sings about something that matters to him as opposed to the mindless kitsch of newer Weezer with tracks about Slayer T-shirts.

The Time / 777-9311
The drum part that opens this track is absolutely amazing — totally original and electronic, but at the same time laying down an unstoppable groove for the whol eseven plus minute song. As layer upon layer gets added, everything fits into place like a puzzle. Despite being a Time track, apparently most of the parts on the song were performed, produced and arranged by Prince. The mid-eighties Minneapolis Funk sound is a big inspiration for The New Loud as it successfully inter-weaved so many disparate elements, including funk, new wave, hair-metal and R&B, to make a wholly unique sound.

Fugazi / Repeater
The title track from Fugazi’s second full-length kicks in with low diving guitars that transition to ultra-gritty high bends that are nearly pure noise, and just before everything doubles over itself with aggro, the chorus busts in, cutting off the distortion, inexplicably leaving clean apreggiated major chords of the chorus that starts with the pop-sensible lyric hook: ‘1, 2, 3 repeater’. I also like this track as it is sonically different from every other song on the record, having a definite bump in the mid-range.

The Replacements / Unsatisfied
Beginning with a lilting guitar intro before segueing into the meat of the song propelled by a lackadaisical rock groove, the simple parts of Unsatisfied combine into a Voltron of melancholy. Riding atop it all is an amazing vocal performance which goes through three stages of emotion, beginning with disappointment leading into frustration and ending with complacency, all chaperoned by varying the delivery of about twenty main lyrics.

Jeff Buckley / Hallelujah
Written by the great Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley took this song as his own and forgot to give it back before his untimely death and so it remains a virtually uncontested example of where the cover overshadows the original. I believe the guitar and vocal were tracked at the same time, a nearly unbelievable feat as the guitar is so flawlessly delicate and dynamic with only one instance of noise from a finger slide through the whole track, not to mention the tour-de-force vocal performance.

The Clash / I’m Not Down
I really like the sentiment on this track — no matter how much you get beat down, keep trying to rise to the top. In the business of having a band, it is this mind frame that keeps you bubbling to the top, while dodging unending debris and falling sediment.

XTC / Complicated Game
I could listen to this song a trillion times and not only would I not be sick of it, but I would also find something new to catch my ear with every listen. The song, recording, performance and production is absolute perfection. The vocals go through a wide range of delivery from delicate to deranged to aggressive and spasmodic, with a dub delay turning the returned vocal track into its own backing vocal. There is not any group of individuals on Earth who could reproduce this exactly as it is on the recording, including the actual group who created it in the first place, and that is what makes it brilliant.

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Tagged as: 777-9311, Complicated Game, Fuck and Run, Fugazi, Hallelujah, I'm Not Down, Jeff Buckley, Liz Phair, Repeater, The Clash, The New Loud Playlist, The Replacements, The Time, Tired of Sex, Unsatisfied, Weezer, XTC