The A-Frames - Black Forest

Genre rock Publisher Sub Pop External Links Sub Pop

Black Forest finds the Seattle experimental punk band The A-Frames continuing to explore themes of alienation and isolation in modern life. "Experiment" begins and ends with a noxious faux test-tone. "One-way mirror on the wall / who's the loneliest of all" asks vocalist/guitarist Erin Sullivan as he describes life in a panopticon wherein every action is scrutinized yet interpersonal connection is impossible. "Death Train" manages to be catchy in spite of itself, somehow inserting simple distorted patterns into the brain, and using a juxtaposition of ugly noise and angelic female singing a la Sonic Youth (and before them the Velvet Underground). "Flies" takes an angular approach with interlocking melodies that could belong to a Jawbox song. "Eva Braun" is a twisted love ballad to Hitler's mistress.

The music of Black Forest does some interesting stuff within the framework that's been set out for this album, a framework of uniformity and conformity. Drums exist to be pounded. The riffs of each song sound like inversions or translations of the riffs of the other songs, which gives the record a consistent atmosphere. The almost universally guttural, metallic, exposed, raw guitar could be described as ugly in the most beautiful sense: it smacks of barely restrained power. Similarly, the singing never turns beautiful except ironically as during the chorus of "Death Train."

It speaks to the vision of the A Frames that this sound works for as long as it does-- it could be tedious and overwhelming in less capable hands. But the album is held together by the recurrance of the "Black Forest" song which appears at beginning, middle, and end, and proposes an apocalyptic vision of the future in which "humanity is erased / black forest left in its place." The songs, meditations on features of modernity like electronics ("Quantum Mechanic"), and on the inevitability of the decline of civilizations ("Memoranda", "Flies"), thus become a laundry list of signs of the impending apocalypse. It's not a particularly new sentiment but the strength of Black Forest is that the vision is interlinked, specific, and detailed.