Um
dos primeiros artigos a surgir na imprensa inglesa cobrindo
bandas de Seattle, essa resenha foi escrita pelo jornalista
Everett True (que viajou aos EUA a convite da SubPop) e publicada
no existino semanário Melody Maker. Muitos consideram
que essa iniciativa da SubPop foi responsável pelo começo
do sucesso da "cena de Seattle". O detalhe é
que nem tudo são flores, o jornalista malhou inapelavelmente
o show do Screaming Trees, que tinha acabado de lançar
o EP "Change Has Come" pela SubPop.
Screaming Trees / TAD
/ Nirvana
Pine Street Theatre,
Portland, USA
It seems incredible people still miss the point
of Tad. Most (heavy) rock bands play for the sheer hell of
it, and, sure Tad do that too, but the suffocating density
of Tad's sound emanates from the man himself, his anguish
and his turmoil. And, because of it, Tad play the fiercest,
most unsettling, one-dimensional trash you're ever likely
to encounter.
There's something ennobling about the way Tad
constantly throws himself against the limits of his psychotic
sound; furiously, unrelentingly battering at his guitar. Occasionally,
his songs can bludgeon you into thinking they've surpassed
their structures - the mighty "Behometh", where
the very earth is wrenched asunder, or "Wood Goblins",
claustrophobic in its fluency - but it's the very tangible
presence of frustration, of being the eternal outsider, of
never quite achieving, which gives his songs their worrisome
edge.
People who consider Tad as some joke/freakshow
should look deep inside themselves; he is the revenge of redneck
Americana, howling its distaste at a straight-edged world.
Nirvana, also, are nowhere near as straightforward
as their Sixties roots would allow - Motorhead gone pop, Led
Zep turned punk, 30 years of US soil plundered by guitars,
as plagiarised by this ungainly trio's thunderous whisper.
Their songs - particularly the stunningly harmonic "About
A Girl", and "Blew", from their last single
- have so much wrapped inside them to latch onto; angst, the
idea of never belonging to, small-town bigotry, frustrating
at the mating game, isolation (both personal and geographical),
hopes, envy, despair.
On the other hand, by covering The Vaselines's
apocryphal "Molly's Lips", Nirvana show an instinctive
understanding on the joys of rock'n'roll normally taken to
far greater, more horrendous extremes. Kurdt smashes his guitar
by throwing it into the drumkit at the finale, six-footer
Chris loops around on stage, blind fury on the bass. Nirvana,
in their impotency and overwhelming hatred (which sometimes
verges on misogyny), create a pop noise equalled only this
side of Dinosaur Jr.
And so, after a brief non-musical interlude
from The Legend! (who collected $1.71 from the stage after
the show), including the classing forthcoming Sub Pop single,
"Do Nuts" ("Do nuts/Do nuts/Hey diddle diddle/I
wonder if I can get some nice round do nuts/The ones with
the holes in the middle"), Screaming Trees disappoint,
their shivering rushes of noise dragged down by structures
which are too similar throughout. Mark Lanegan hugs the mike
like a kid who never realised Jimmy Page was uncool, while
the Conner brothers - more than a match for Tad when taken
together - roll around the stage and jump like a herd of bison,
with grisly abandon.
The new single, "Change Has Come",
bristles with psychotic relief, and some of "Buzz Factory"
connects with a venomous power startling to witness, but,
taken as a whole, their abandoned metallic feral cry disappears
into a howling morass of feedback, unwilling to drag itself
any further.
Screaming Trees play like a band on the brink
of self-destruction, but the fruits of destruction are bitter
indeed.
by Everett True
--Melody
Maker, 3 March 1990
Fonte: Saplings.net
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