Drummer Jon Teague and vocalist Daron Beck have been conjuring darkness together for years. After playing separately in a series of heavy Texas bands, they formed the fantastic shape-shifting doom-jazz group the Great Tyrant. The trio finished its sole album, There's a Man in the House, in 2008, but didn't unveil it until late last year via a largely overlooked limited vinyl release. That was too late for bassist Tommy Atkins, who killed himself in February 2010, leaving Teague and Beck to rearrange and relaunch their vicious blend of heavy metal and chamber rock as a duo. Pinkish Black is the debut from their new sans-bass duo of the same name, itself a tender if morbid tribute to the color of the blood-spattered bathroom walls where Atkins' body was found. Still, despite the long-running and tangled partnership of its makers, this seven-track LP feels like a fresh start-- for better and worse.
Pinkish Black revolves around a convincing core identity of dense themes and dark imagery. At their best, these songs are thick, powerful thuds, with rubber band-like distorted bass from a keyboard growling between dynamic drums, teasing synthesizer lines, and vocals that push between operatic majesty and guttural infamy. "Fall Down" is the most systemic and convincing embrace of all of those features, with a sinister swing that recalls vintage Swans. The duo thrusts in the verses beneath lines about inevitable failure, appropriately delivered with the fervor of an apocalypse prophet. In the chorus, there's a sense of relief that borders on Walker Brothers grandiosity; Teague eases back against the drums, and Beck lifts his voice, like a young Bruce Dickinson calling for help from a basement. "Tell Her I'm Dead" evokes a similar whiplash, snapping time and again between a hypnotic, stoner-metal groove; spasmodic Naked City bursts; and a shrieking, knotty drone. Especially here, Teague and Beck sound impressively developed, especially for a relatively new duo. Their tones and timing are excellent, the work of two people who've collaborated long enough to know how they sound together in a room and, subsequently, on record.
But Teague and Beck seem uncommitted to that aforementioned anchor, a symptom that's perhaps a holdover from the Great Tyrant's stylistic sprawls. They pepper these tracks with distractions, as if to provide either a little levity or disruption on a set of songs that gain the most ground when they grind a tempo and tune into it. "Tastes Like Blood", for instance, opens with a piano-and-voice dirge about giving up, creating an unnecessary impasse between the perfectly belligerent "Tell Her I'm Dead" and the song's massive, nearly symphonic coda. It professes Pinkish Black's Scott Walker adoration explicitly, even though the band remains more compelling when that's a surprising accent of prettiness within the mire, not a substitute for it. "Everything Went Dark" begins with a short tape collage-- perhaps a Frank Zappa nod, but nevertheless a pointless hindrance to the genuinely hooky two-minute hit that follows. If the interlude has a purpose, it must be to convince Pinkish Black newcomers that they're more than an Om cover band; the mantric march that opens the album, "Bodies in Tow", might have suggested otherwise.
What's best about Pinkish Black, then, is also what's least successful about the record: It plays like a music-nerd game of Name That Influence, where the proper answers range from Suicide and Rapeman to Gary Numan and Throbbing Gristle. It's a good LP with a lot of great moments, then, an album by a band that exudes promise and, in just one attempt, almost fulfills it. Think of these 34 minutes as a first trip to a cool new friend's house. They try to impress you with their cared-for record collection. The thrill of hearing new sounds, however, will almost inevitably be beset when the new pal overreaches or undershoots, mixing some stuff that doesn't actually belong with songs you've already heard plenty. In the end, maybe it will finally be be the start of something great.
