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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Marnie Stern’s In Advance of the Broken Arm
Thursday 14 June @ 13:25:35 |
 
CD REVIEW
by DANIEL MCGRANE
The explosive tunelessness of “Vibrational Match,” with its searing guitars, attention-deficit drumming, and Marnie Stern’s girlish squawk, rushes through the speakers with a blend of youthful urgency and excitement. This first track on Stern’s In Advance of the Broken Arm vibrantly displays her axe gusto while hinting at her capabilities as a songwriter and arranger as well. Starting with a Camptown races fever in the drumming and guitar shredding, the song turns itself on its head as that focus becomes an intriguing trance of a launch pad for the rest of “Broken Arm.” Ultimately, however, this ship gets held up on its takeoff.
Not to say there aren’t gold stars to be awarded for the rest of the album. All in all, the guitar playing is virtuosic and as far as the songwriting goes, Stern finds herself somewhere between Panda Bear and Andrew WK. “Put All Your Eggs in One Basket and Watch that Basket!!!” finds the 31-year-old boiling through a supersonic children’s melody—innocently proclaiming herself “a contender.” “Plato’s Fucked Up Cave” hypnotizes with its dueling vocal lines and dreamy side trips, while “Every Single Line Means Something” and “Grapefruit” feel like Deerhoof-lite, which is hardly a bad thing.">
Where Stern misses, however, is in her songwriting. When she hits the freak-folk melodies and lets the metal guitar blend in, it’s a beautiful marriage. When they conflict, however, it just grinds and “Broken Arm” is far more of a grinder. Tracks like “Precious Metal” and “The Weight of a Rock” get so lost in the song/guitar competition everything sounds gray. On others, Stern mistakes gimmicky herks and jerks for actual song structure. “Absorb Those Numbers” and “Letters from Rimbaud” fly like injured birds, boasting a strong supply of energy but lacking any focus to rally around.
While In Advance of the Broken Arm might not be the best rock album of 2007, as the New York Times proclaimed, it does show Stern as a dynamic performer and promising, inventive force in indie rock.
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