ARTIST: The Karl Hendricks Rock Band
TITLE: The World Says
LABEL: Surplus Anxiety Records
GENRE: Rock
BITRATE: 216kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 48m total
RELEASE DATE: 2007-00-00
RIP DATE: 2007-05-04
Track List
----------
1. I'm Not Crying, Karl 8:01
2. Mediocre Advice 3:25
3. Irony Fails Me 4:24
4. Banned For Life 4:38
5. The Bleedin' Obvious 4:23
6. The Last Uncompromising 3:37
Hardcore Band
7. Underdog Park 5:13
8. The World Says 3:11
9. California In October 11:47
Release Notes:
It's been about four years since Merge Records released The Karl Hendricks
Trio's The Jerks Win Again, and a full 15 since the band's debut, Buick
Elecktra. Now Karl's back with The World Says, whether the local music-scene vet
likes it or not. "If you've ever tried to disappear, then you'll know what I
mean," he sings on the title track. "You keep insisting you're invisible / the
world says you're seen."
This latest outing is a local release, on Surplus Anxiety Records, with album
art by Mike Budai. Hendricks' expanded "Rock Band" lineup features Jake Leger on
drums, Corey Layman on bass, and local guitar anti-hero Alexei Plotnicov
(Midnite Snake).
Rock band, indeed. Over the lurching rhythm section, Plotnicov's and Hendricks'
interlocking guitars range from plinky and sparse to roaring, Crazy Horse-esque
workouts, especially on the epic, nearly 12-minute closer, "California in
October." For much of The World Says, Hendricks and Co. kick out the jams in the
grand style of Dinosaur Jr.'s SST releases, though with less saturated fat --
the jazz-inflected riffs are "Little Fury Things" rather than a "Sludgefeast."
But it's not 1987 anymore. It's not even 1991, when Hendricks kicked off the
first edition of the band. And evidences of this passage of an era don't escape
Hendricks' critical, sardonic turns of phrase. There's "The Last Uncompromising
Hardcore Band," the death of which the narrator watches on TV; "Irony Fails Me"
nails the moment when a person's interaction with the world stops being so much
a sport as it is, um, real life.
But like the opening song declares, "I'm not crying, Karl."