Volcano - Beautiful Seizure

  by Maarten Schiethart

published: 16 / 3 / 2006

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Review

The next exploration on my plugging course for all things Chicago must the praising of the new Volcano! CD called 'Beautiful Seizure'. Throughout time, bands whose names have included the word "volcano" have proved some of the very best. At one stage Volcano Sons were absolute dynamite. Volcano The Bear then was another contender and now we have just Volcano! from Chicago who are - no less -on an English label. Hefty and leftfield-ish disharmonical as if Truman's Water was running underneath the White House, Volcano! aptly disrupt any (mis-)belief of art-rock you may have cherished in the past. The eruptions from Volcano! -cor! such cliché! - include magmas of new wave acid rock and jazzy punk. 'Beautiful Seizure' continues in upbeat fashion after the first few work-outs and nicely rocks back and forth, completely ignoring the sheer existence of computers and drum machines. From a screaming urge with shrieking vocals to the subdued strumming on snares, 'Beautiful Seizure' gets some of the best of both, but yet definitely not all. During its latter half, Volcano!'s album does loosen up quite a bit and that jazzy outlook on music takes the lead again. From then on, 'Beautiful Seizure' knows no stand out track whilst none of the altogether 12 tracks go under par. Inbetween Volcano!'s spurts, bursts and spasms come moments of tenderness, during which vocalist Aaron With eases his stream of words to at last become somehow articulate. A for effort and B for originality.

Track Listing:-

1 Kalamazoo
2 Easy Does It
3 Fire Fire
4 $40,000 Plus Interest
5 Larchmontt's Arrival
6 La Lluvia
7 Red and White Bells
8 Apple or a Gun
9 Frozen in Escape
10 Before the Suburbs
11 Hello Explosion
12 Pulling My Face In and Out of Distortion, I Blink Too Much