You know what, before I become fully invested in this review of Brett Netson\u2018s Simple Work for the Dead, I have to address the 17-minute \u201csong\u201d. There\u2019s a point in this wordless dirge called \u201cLupus\u201d (somewhere around minute 11 or 12, who the fuck knows) where all the musical ideas are tapped, and the track becomes a repetitive noisy mess of droning guitar and cymbals, which goes on FOR ANOTHER FIVE MINUTES. There are wars shorter than this song. Jerry Garcia (God rest his soul) would think this song too long. Seventeen minutes? There are simply not enough drugs.<\/p>\n
I expected some surprising twists and turns from Netson, a member of the fine band Built to Spill as well as leader of Caustic Resin, but Simple Work for the Dead is a long road to frustration.<\/p>\n
Instrumental songs with salient pieces become needless shambles, while others (\u201cDeath of Gus\u201d) never get going. On the tracks Netson does sing, it comes with half-hearted attempts, as if his voice was meant to be a mere instrument among the varied cacophony surrounding him. For some artists (Jonsi) this works, but not here.<\/p>\n
There was cause for enthusiasm at the album\u2019s outset, as \u201cPreaching to the Choir\u201d splashes out the gate with big drums and a bellowing chorus. A spoken-word recording near the song\u2019s end gives it an added charge, an element of intrigue sorely missing from following tracks.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s tricky, because the first 30 seconds of most of these songs lure you in until you realize three minutes later you\u2019re hearing the same thing over and over. \u201cSomeone Else\u201d is the only true \u201csong\u201d of Netson\u2019s on the album in terms of construction (so is \u201cMasters of War\u201d, but it\u2019s a Bob Dylan cover), but it too becomes typical and rote. \u201cNational Socialist Shareholders\u201d and \u201cPiss Anywhere\u201d sound like instrumental demos done during an afternoon messing around with GarageBand loops \u2014 weak and unfinished.<\/p>\n
Simple Work for the Dead is not complicated, which is fine (we\u2019re the Ramones ever complicated?), but the album is not catchy or interesting either. There are spots of inspiration, but they\u2019re engulfed in a sea of redundancy, and there\u2019s no reason to listen to it more than once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You know what, before I become fully invested in this review of Brett Netson\u2018s Simple Work for the Dead, I have to address the 17-minute \u201csong\u201d. There\u2019s a point in this wordless dirge called \u201cLupus\u201d (somewhere around minute 11 or 12, who the fuck knows) where all the musical ideas are tapped, and the track […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[474,473],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-brett-netson","tag-simple-work-for-the-dead"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1504,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions\/1504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}