The future of rock is one of those topics High Fidelity types love to debate, because almost every rabid fan, critic, clerk, DJ, and musician has an opinion cast in concrete. For the garage punk, it’s a return to the three-chord mandate. For the turntabulist, rock is already six feet under. For the critic, it’s . . . well, what do my colleagues think?
Two of the most interesting recent visions of rock’s future have been offered by Clinic, who come to the Middle East on June 25, and the Eels via their new albums, Walking with Thee (Domino) and Souljacker (DreamWorks). Both groups see rock evolving into an assimilationist’s art, much as world culture has grown to absorb and mingle the practices of the diverse international population despite humanity’s continuing passion for intolerance and war. The irony of assimilation as the route of the future is that it begins in the past. But of the two outfits, Clinic seem a bit more forward-thinking, having composed a sleek sonic machine from the work of previous generations of futurists and pumped it full of rhythms plucked from today’s electronic dance floor. The Eels have kept their ties to yore cleaner, drawing on blues-derived attitude and composition, stroking the fur of fuzzy old tube amps, and adopting art-rock flourishes. Yet there’s a vein of edgy sound and energy that runs deep enough through Souljacker to keep it leaning ahead.
Clinic are one of 2002’s buzz bands, and they might have been one of last year’s had they not decided to abandon their first US tour for native England after a single show the night before the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks. Then again, Walking with Thee is much better than their previous CD, 2000’s Internal Wrangler. The new disc steps away from the garage drone of Clinic’s past toward a more daring landscape that’s contoured by elements traceable to Ennio Morricone, Philip Glass, Brian Eno, the 13th Floor Elevators, the Velvet Underground, Pere Ubu, and even Mission of Burma.
In these days of low-tuned metal smackdown and grunge recyclers, bands courageous enough to begin an album with a pair of songs as cerebral as "Harmony" and "The Equalizer" are rare. "Harmony" doubles as an update of spaghetti-western soundtracks and a gloriously uplifting pop number cresting on melodies chiseled by melodica — of all things — and singer Ade Blackburn’s high, lovely voice. The mantra chorus, "Fill yourself with dreams," also provides a sense of uplift, despite the cynical undertones in the lyrics and the keyboards, which drone in minimalist repetition. By the time three more songs have passed and the band are tearing into "Pet Eunuch" with punk ferocity, Blackburn raving like David Thomas as the guitars shoot off in all kinds of glorious angles, Clinic have defined themselves as indefinable — just as Radiohead did when rock’s future seemed headed in their direction.
Perhaps Eels mastermind Mark Oliver Everett, a/k/a E, has turned to the past for solace. The pervasive darkness of Souljacker, whose title track is about a serial killer, signals that he’s not a happy fellow. His characters are mostly outcasts, like the "Dog Faced Boy" and "Teenage Witch" of the first disc of this full-length-plus-four-song-EP set. But arrangement details like the mellotron strings and hip-hop shuffle of "Fresh Feeling" are warm and comforting, and that tune’s lyrics show that Everett is not so self-absorbed as to be immune to love. He’s also got a bleak but intact sense of humor, as displayed in the music-biz jab "I Write the B Sides," whose tune darts between chiming, soft-strummed guitar and hellacious bursts of modernist noise. And contemporary beats and sampled sounds surface in the most unlikely places, like the final verses of "Woman Driving, Man Sleeping," an acoustic-guitar-driven song that would sound natural from a folk-rock veteran like Jackson Browne. It helps that PJ Harvey guitarist John Parish is on hand to assist in balancing the mix of old values and new sonics, as he does on Harvey albums. But the early King Crimson keyboards of "Souljacker Part II" and the distorted Bo-Diddley-meets-Henry-Mancini sax ’n’ slide of "Jungle Telegraph" seem as much products of Everett’s own broad but idiosyncratic taste as the noodling sequencer that gargles throughout the EP’s "Hidden Track."
Both Souljacker and Walking with Thee prove that the power of creative will can shape diverse styles into works that are the stronger for the excitement their unlike elements create. If only this kind of art actually were an imitation of life.
Clinic perform at the Middle East on June 25. Call (617) 864-EAST.
