The Constantines
Kensington Heights
The Constantines can't catch a break, it seems. Saddled with the moniker of being an "art-punk" band, a description that succeeds only in making no sense whatsoever, with the after-effect of not sounding like something anyone would care to listen to, then abandoned by the Pitchfork critics that had not so long begun the same champion-ing process they eventually turned on its head (with admittedly less anti-hype than they directed at similar "you disappointed us, the indie-rock tastemakers" bands like Vampire Weekend and the Arctic Monkeys) and, as if the year wasn't bad enough, 2007 saw the dissolution of their original label. It wasn't as bad as when Stereolab's lead singer went under a bus, but still: pretty tough road there.
What's odd is that Kensington Heights is, regardless of what you've heard, not a bad album at all. It's a developing album, that's for sure--The Constantines are clearly moving away from the more bombastic rock standards they'd toyed with on previous releases, but the ambition here isn't one that's just dedicated to constructing moody ballad work, it's one that's dedicated to exploration, plain and simple, full stop. The Constantines have already proven--with Tournament of Hearts--that they can do a collection of rock standards (that isn't embarrasing) better than bands like Coldplay or post-2000 Pearl Jam. There'd be no reason for them to go any further in that direction, and it's clear that they've gotten a taste for what bands like Angels of Light--who put out the best album of their career last year--do. Kensington Heights is still touched all over by pure Guitar Hero style noodling--"Hard Feelings" is one of those songs designed to make a 13 year old beg for his first axe--but the heart of the album is found in the humbled troubadour climbing on the soapbox stand outs "Life or Death", "I Will Not Sing A Hateful Song" or "Brother Run Them Down."
It's tempting to slight a band that, when the time comes for "experimentation", proceeds to explore what is, inherently, a populist range of sound. To assume that, simply because a group has decided to play with what bands like Led Zeppelin (on the good end) or Creed (on the bad) work with. But besides being snobbish and stupid, the assumption is based on flimsy ground. Any time a band hasn't done something before, doing that very thing is, by definition, experimentation. That doesn't necessarily make it a good thing--nobody is chomping at the bit for Garth Brooks to bring Chris Gaines back, nor are they hoping that Sade's next album is a noise-core odyssey. (Although that last one might be preferable to her depressing attempts to make love songs.) But then again, nobody at record companies--or for that matter, most fanbases--really knows what the fuck they're talking about anyway, if they did, and if bands cared, Radiohead wouldn't have made OK Computer or Kid A. Of course, it's going to be somewhat difficult to heap praise on a low-level indie rock band trying to make a grand rock piece when A) there singer is far too moody and introspective to belt out a "Where The Streets Have No Name" or B) when grand rock pieces are what about 18,000 other bands are trying to make. What makes Kensington Heights so much more exhilarating is that the Constantines clearly grasped this in the recording process--there was no way that any of these songs were going to end up being played during fourth and long at the local high school game--so they decided to sublimate all the impulse for the power chord and bring the volume down. What they did was take songs that could be played loud, that could be played fast, and then they garaged them up, dropping it all into the sort of one-level process effects that bands like Pavement and My Bloody Valentine built careers on. They took what makes "hard rock" and turned it into indie, which worked to their benefit--they do, after all, have a singer who likes to drawl it out, and who has a voice where the speedy refrain would never work.
A big part of what's made some of 2008's music so worthwhile has been the tendency to take the limitations of the sound and break that limitation on the fire of experiment until it became strength: AGF did it with computers and vocal inflection, Girl Talk did it by doing away with the idea of reaching conclusion or providing answer, and the Constantines did it when they figured out they weren't going to be the next Stone Temple Pilots. Their loss wasn't just our gain. It belongs to them as well.
-Tucker Stone, 2008
It's tempting to slight a band that, when the time comes for "experimentation", proceeds to explore what is, inherently, a populist range of sound. To assume that, simply because a group has decided to play with what bands like Led Zeppelin (on the good end) or Creed (on the bad) work with. But besides being snobbish and stupid, the assumption is based on flimsy ground. Any time a band hasn't done something before, doing that very thing is, by definition, experimentation. That doesn't necessarily make it a good thing--nobody is chomping at the bit for Garth Brooks to bring Chris Gaines back, nor are they hoping that Sade's next album is a noise-core odyssey. (Although that last one might be preferable to her depressing attempts to make love songs.) But then again, nobody at record companies--or for that matter, most fanbases--really knows what the fuck they're talking about anyway, if they did, and if bands cared, Radiohead wouldn't have made OK Computer or Kid A. Of course, it's going to be somewhat difficult to heap praise on a low-level indie rock band trying to make a grand rock piece when A) there singer is far too moody and introspective to belt out a "Where The Streets Have No Name" or B) when grand rock pieces are what about 18,000 other bands are trying to make. What makes Kensington Heights so much more exhilarating is that the Constantines clearly grasped this in the recording process--there was no way that any of these songs were going to end up being played during fourth and long at the local high school game--so they decided to sublimate all the impulse for the power chord and bring the volume down. What they did was take songs that could be played loud, that could be played fast, and then they garaged them up, dropping it all into the sort of one-level process effects that bands like Pavement and My Bloody Valentine built careers on. They took what makes "hard rock" and turned it into indie, which worked to their benefit--they do, after all, have a singer who likes to drawl it out, and who has a voice where the speedy refrain would never work.
A big part of what's made some of 2008's music so worthwhile has been the tendency to take the limitations of the sound and break that limitation on the fire of experiment until it became strength: AGF did it with computers and vocal inflection, Girl Talk did it by doing away with the idea of reaching conclusion or providing answer, and the Constantines did it when they figured out they weren't going to be the next Stone Temple Pilots. Their loss wasn't just our gain. It belongs to them as well.
-Tucker Stone, 2008
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