Hollywood is always lying to you. Those actors? Not their real skin. That lighting? Doesn't actually exist in nature. That big, stirring, extemporaneous speech that drove home the message? Took ten takes and hours of editing. Films can't help but trap reality in a sort of capsule that serves their purposes. I started thinking too much about this a few nights ago after catching some snippets of a James Bond movie during an epic channel-surf session at a friend's house.
The thing that struck me when we dropped in on the chase scene (Bond careening around Moscow in a stolen tank) was how graceful the accidents and crashes looked. There was nothing violent about the impact of the police cars, even as the metal crumpled and twisted and the foley boomed in thunderous Dolby. Stuntpeople even have a term for what they do with cars-- auto ballet-- which fairly gives away just how intricately staged and planned all of these catastrophic-looking events are.
I bring this up because "graceful car wreck" is the best term I can imagine to describe the sound of The Lot Six's sophomore album, Animals. The first time you listen to it, it has the feel of a jumble-- sounds crashing into each other and sections twisting unnaturally into other sections, but additional spins slowly reveal an intricately catastrophic piece of work that stands apart from the stuff other bands in this vein are doing. The Boston quintet's basic starting points seem to be D.C. post-punk and emocore, and maybe some of that San Diego stuff like Drive Like Jehu, with a bit less math. But to this they add a host of other elements that make it infinitely more interesting than most of the third-generation emo and math-rock that litters today's rockscape.
Animals opens with the instrumental "Skrahs", a crunching attack that emits white-hot flecks of guitar that threaten to set the carpet on fire. "All So Nice to Know" and "Freezin' Scene" open solidly, give way like crumple zones, and then explode like airbags and safety glass into shouting choruses full of splintered guitars and smashing drums. It's impressive stuff, but a whole album of it would surely tire, and the band seems to realize this fact, arcing off at the album's midpoint into territory informed by everything from country to early-70s prog.
"My Son" is the first real departure, riding a propulsive cowpunk beat onto a big-skied plain slashed by huge swathes of destructive slide guitar. "Old Bass River Rd." is the aftermath of the accident, a dejected lament on a place from a long-gone childhood, and closer "Took My Place" veers from its disco-punk intro into several tempo changes and thick briar patches of guitar without feeling forced. Perhaps best of all, though, is "The Tiniest Tin", an icy piano-driven ballad that at times has a stately, almost classical feel.
There are times when The Lot Six's tightly controlled chaos gets the better of them, and there are a few spots that lack the invention that characterizes the rest of the album, but these are hardly common enough to kill the record, or even significantly hurt its momentum. The Lot Six have struck an impressive balance of restraint and unpredictability here, resulting in a unique record with a wealth of stellar moments. If only all wrecks could be this graceful.
