Headdress
Lunes
Rating: 3.5
Label: No Quarter
Remember Neil Young's soundtrack for the Jim Jarmusch film Dead Man? All droning guitars, savagely crude riffs and reverb? Well, Lunes, the sophomore album from Texas duo Headdress is an awful lot like that, but more through independent evolution than imitation. Guitarist Caleb Coy and organist Ethan Cook have created an album that sounds truly monolithic, but not necessarily very original.
Drawing on Western desert themes and the accessible aspect of drone, Lunes is a remarkable thing; an experimental album that's incredibly easy to listen to. 5 tracks and 42 minutes long, it feels brief partly because each song is so simply constructed, largely based off a single riff apiece. "Seethrough" opens the album with a wavering wash of feedback, the kind where you almost start to imagine tonal changes to relieve the oppressiveness of the sound. Eventually more cohesive guitar lines and hints of sharpness through the fuzz start to emerge, but the tone is already set: Lunes is an album that drowns a listener, but in a good way.
The 14-minute "Tip Of The Pyramid" draws the most Neil Young comparisons, parlaying a single, simple progression of notes into an odyssey. It's the kind of sound to drive alone to, or to watch the sun go down with; no kind of action can seem real or necessary with such massive solemnity. Even the vocals, when they appear, are so distorted and echoed as to be unintelligible (frankly, I don't think they could add anything with lyrics). The sound alone is enough.
Cook's organ sound is largely subliminal or heavily treated throughout the album, treated more as the foundation on which Coy's guitar drones. They claim heavy influence from LaMonte Young and his own seminal work, which is immediately apparent; however, the blues tradition that they build from is also undeniable. It's somehow both purely experimental music and heavily traditional: a remarkable trick, to be sure.
Even the shortest track (at just over three minutes), "EEEEE" is heavily soporific. At times it becomes difficult to separate Cook and Coy's work, as it draws the listener into an organic fuzz. More reminiscent of middle-period Pink Floyd than the rest of the album, it never quite takes off as the other songs do, but perhaps this is the penalty for brevity. Final track, "The End" (no, not a psych-Western take on The Doors' song) could almost be a reprise of "Tip Of The Pyramid." The metal influence which is proudly claimed by the duo finally comes to the fore and the stupor begins to drop. It's not violent, only abrasive.
Headdress are attempting something a little new, but clinging to so many influences and touchstones that it's hard to appreciate that. Their musicianship and power are undeniable, but before they can truly have their own voice, they may need to drop some of their history books.
by Nathan Kamal