A lot of people is waiting for Tera Melos to comeback to the "Drugs" era, when they were what we would say, today, conventionally math (yes,A lot of people is waiting for Tera Melos to comeback to the "Drugs" era, when they were what we would say, today, conventionally math (yes, event math has become convention these days), weird(er) and heavy(er), very difficult to grasp and a challenge to listen. Patagonian Rats was, indeed, a huge leap for Tera Melos, and not everybody embraced the vocals and the more streamlined sound, with its hooks and pop-rock sensibility. Patagonian Rats has the burden of that struggle: sometimes brilliant, sometimes tedious, inaccessible, anxious to change, to break its own mold. That doesn't make it bad (I really love Patagonian Rats), but it's a conflicted album, a struggling album, an anxious album
X'ed Out strips Tera Melos of that conflict and embraces the joy of not needing to demonstrate anything to anybody. I would like to compare this album to by-, the only bygones LP (Zach Hill & Nick Reinhart, vocalist and guitar of the Melos). By- has a very complex and wild layer of math and noise sounds that drive the music forward. At first, by- it's a chaos, a very VERY alienating chaos. Below that chaos, nevertheless, there's a punk surf noise pop texture of melodies, hooks, epic choruses and catchy verses. The fact is, you need several listens to get accustomed to the chaos. When you manage to do it, you find yourself a very enjoyable album (an album that, personally, I love). But not everyone will spend their ime in trying to go over the first chaotic impression. Patagonian Rats, at times, was cut by the same logic.
X'ed Out goes beyond this, and it really surpasses the complexity/accessibility paradox. Math complexity and just plain hook-driven sensibility are one and the same here. For example, Until Lufthansa is a complex and tight timed track, with a progressive cyclic structure that unwinds at the end, but the first time you listen to it you don't feel lost at all. Also, the album has (weird) ballads, driven by vocals, with purely textural and almost nostalgic intentions. Reinhart, in it's third vocalized album yet (Patagonian Rats and by- before this one; in by-, if I'm correct, he sings on the three final tracks), has gone a long way. He goes falsetto a LOT here, and it sounds amazingly evocative, emotional and weird at the same time, with obscure and disturbing lyrics (On X'ed Out and Tired, there is a voiceless midget).
Bu the thing I love the most is the album overall vibe: naive, strange, nostalgic, creepy, sublime, minimal, volatile. It has a very cohesive sound, a very evocative one as I see it (Reinhart has an obsession with 90's aesthetic, in an early Simpsons and dark-Disney kind of way), and, at the same time, an amazing mixture of styles: Beach Boys (of course), 90's weirdness, jazz, 80's bubblegum pop, California-punk, radio ballads, and so on. On the other hand (but this is for granted at this point) the three members of the band are literally on the top of their games. They're not smashing their obvious virtuosity on your face, no: they are tight, they are smart, they are playful and experimental at the same time. Reinhart shows again and again he's one of the best hooked-driven active guitarists; Latona is tight as hell, going from the slap to the jazz mellowness as he pleases; and Clardy is pure madness, is a magician, is a monster.
X'ed Out is not only a leap forward for Tera Melos. It is true that they sound as cohesive and inspired as ever: tight, interwoven, layered, playful, comfortable, unrestrained, smart. It’s their best album yet, there's no doubt about it. But is also true that X'ed Out is a landmark on post-rock, math rock, post punk, noise and everything experimental rock has done in its already long history. It's a daydream nation, a Spiderland, a Soft Bulletin, a Leaves turn Inside You, a Loveless, a Rock Action, a Panda Park, an American Don, an Ege Bamyasi, a Laughing Stock, a Fear of Music, a Low. That is to say: it's a world of its own. It's inspirational, and it changes a lot of things on how to do experimental rock these days, without being alienating (like Black Pus, for example) or just painfully straightforward (Marnie Stern). X'ed Out is rock at its finest. Period.… Expand
