A Place To Bury Strangers - Transfixiation

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 18 / 1 / 2015

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Review

Oliver Ackermann's sonic noise makers hail from New York, and claim to be the loudest band in that city. And I can believe that. Now with only Oliver as the only original member in the band, A Place to Bury Strangers take a different direction for their fourth album, 'Transfixiation'. 'Supermaster' opens the new album, and, sounding oddly restrained for A Place to Bury Strangers, has a Gothic sound that recalls Bauhaus. 'Straight', the first single, is much more punky, with a vocal from Oliver the best side of the Jesus And Mary Chain's Jim Reid. 'Love High' is a barbed wire wall of sonic feedback. Raw as the Stooges and as fresh-sounding as 'Psychocandy', it is a slap in the face to commercial mainstream pop. 'What We Don't See' is as sharp as a new pack of razors, while 'Deeper' is a masterclass of distortion and feedback, everything the Jesus and Mary Chain stood for in their early days transported to New York City. It is a blissful racket of noise to lose yourself in, and not for the fainthearted. 'Lower Zone' starts off with a tribal drum beat from A Place to Bury Stranger's new drummer Robi Gonzalez in the style of the Cure's 'Shake Dog Shake', while underneath guitars weave in and out on this odd little instrumental. 'We've Come So Far' is very loud, but, featuring an audible vocal as well as a female backing singer, is for A Place to Bury Strangers almost a love song, and has completely different angle to most of the rest of the band's work. 'Now's It's Over' is more hypnotic and electro and a break-up song. Raw and dirty in sound, it sounds like a rough demo played at a thousand miles per hour. 'Fill the Void' starts off sounding slow and eerie, before turning up the volume and anger and becoming a total joy of punky fury for Velvet Underground fans everywhere. 'I Will Die' ends the album, sounding not quite right, and distorted in a bad way, but this is nevertheless a great album, full of fury as only A Place to Bury Strangers can deliver.

Track Listing:-

1 Supermaster
2 Straight
3 Love High
4 What We Don't See
5 Deeper
6 Lower Zone
7 We've Come So Far
8 Now It's Over
9 I'm So Clean
10 Fill the Void
11 I Will Die

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/aplacetoburys
https://twitter.com/aptbs

Label Links:-

http://www.deadoceans.com/
https://www.facebook.com/DeadOceans/
https://twitter.com/deadoceans
https://www.youtube.com/user/deadocean