On the Old Haunts' first full-length, Fallow Field, the recording process informs the sound to the degree that the two seem inextricably linked. The album draws on tracks from their two eponymous EPs and supplements them with newer material, and the seams show: There are three different lineups playing on the album-- mainstays Craig Extine and Scott Seckington and three different drummersÑand Fallow Field is a hodgepodge, albeit a self-conscious one: As one drummer replaces another, the sound changes noticeably, becoming less confident and distinct as the band struggles to find a comfortable balance of jerky rhythms, garage riffs, sludgy low end, and dark, often defiant lyrics.
Recorded last year, the first six songs are the most recent, with Danny Sasaki of Mocket on drums. His tight, metronomic beats propel the riffs, keeping the songs reined in but allowing the band to make full use of the short running times. At just under two minutes, "Poison Control" is a quick burst of agitated guitars, but tracks like "Clubs as Boots" draw out longer, with Extine howling his fears like Tom Verlaine and Seckington switching between muddy guitar and percolating bass. As "Deflect It" nears its end, Extine shreds the melody to tatters as the rhythm section stoically chugs along. "It's So Scandalous" jitters like the DTs, airing its paranoia in tempo changes and Sasaki's revving-motor beats.
After six songs, Natalie Cox, late of Popular Music, replaces Sasaki behind the drums for a run of four tracks that were recorded in 2002, and the switch is immediately obvious. Letting Extine's guitar and Seckington's complicated bass line lead the way, she rides her high hat throughout the songs, but the real change is in range and instrumentation. Leaving behind the tight, spare punk of the first songs, "The Old World" adds piano and organ to the mix, creating a fuller, more dramatic sound to match the song's gravity. Perhaps the album's outstanding track, it's a quiet hymn to regret and resistance that ends with stark self-loathing: "If I had known what I know now I would have never left this life so slow," Extine seethes. "I was getting old, a child that's grown cold/I shut my mouth and did as I was told."
Even when those ancillary instruments fall away, "Gold Light" still seems larger in scope and sound than the first section, albeit not as elemental. But the tempos slow to a trudge on "Cult Baby", and Cox's section of the album loses steam on her final song, "You Could Never Know", although this may be due as much to Extine's declining songwriting as to her drumming.
For the final two songs, which were recorded in 2003, Chris Sutton of Dub Narcotic Sound System replaces Cox behind the kit. His drumming is harder and punchier, making "Out of Sight" and "Vandal Hymn" sound rawer and more aggressive than anything that precedes them. The section has the feel of an encore, as if recorded live in some smoky club, but it lacks the immediacy of the album's portion of the album and the drama of the second. If you can unspool the tangled chronology of Fallow Field, you'll discover a band in the process of finding itself, arriving at the point near where the album starts-- since these tracks were recorded, Curtis Phillips has taken over the kit from Sasaki, so who knows which of these three incarnations is most representative.
