Imperial Metric proves that I shouldn't give up on anyone. Appliance's previous releases, Manual and Six Modular Pieces, got on my nerves with their blatant conformance to the post-rock blueprint: two parts early Stereolab, two parts Sonic Youth, two parts Tubeway Army-by-way-of-Trans Am, and a dash of Plone/Broadcast bitters. It sounded like a style-mag committee drummed up the concepts, and negotiated to do away with the band's energy to make room for blank posturing.
Thankfully, with Imperial Metric, Appliance have redeemed themselves, an album that, while stylish, never seemed coutured. The band have created a fascinating blend of post-punk dub, primitive electronics, and Soviet-menace nostalgia. It could have been so hokey! But Appliance keep a straight face throughout and their expressionist devices overdriving throughout.
Beginning with a concrète squiggle, "Separate Animals" soon finds its solid squelch groove, as vocalist/guitarist James Brooks growls, "You live on the left/ Your mind is on the right/ The city's full of people/ You're speaking to the speaker." While Brooks develops this bipolar theme, the rest of the band sets the synths to gloomily pound and squirm. If they weren't so serious about it, you could call it camp.
A muted trumpet delivers a twisted reveille call at the opening of "Map of the Territory," and a Jason Pierce-emulating Brooks delivers a darkly blessed warning that "silence has left a hole wider than a mile." Amidst all these mechanical prophecies, Brooks plucks away at a crippled guitar figure tormented by trumpet. "F.L.F. (Precious Bodily Fluids)" is an altogether more peaceful affair, which could be nicely reworked for the glitch-tech crowds that bug out to Herbert's Bodily Functions.
"Land, Sea and Air" rocks back and forth on muscled heels. Here, Brooks' guitar recalls Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant in his vintage Crocodiles era-- though blips and burps attempt to bury him, Brooks is unwavering in his commitment. The instrumental "Comrades (in a Moscow Hotel)" is ironically calming by comparison. But beneath the pads and aloof percussion, there lurks a John LeCarré paranoia.
Appliance lose their footing with "H2O." The track which opens with the same rushing glisten that haunted Björk's "Hunter," but collapses when Brooks sings about the "H2O in his mouth running low" and "on his skin, running dry, running thin." Drummer Dave Ireland gamely tries to distract us from the overwrought lyrics by thumping the daylight out of his kit in a passable homage to Death in Vegas' "Aisha." Unfortunately, the serial murdering character Iggy Pop portrayed on that track wasn't around to round off the effect.
While the instrumental "Skylight" sounds like an Air remix of Public Image Ltd's "Careering," "AM/PM" gives bassist Stuart Christie an opportunity to showcase his Peter Hook-like talent as various analog effects thread around him and Berlin-period Bowie synth washes settle a polluting pall over Brooks' dejected vocals ("Well, I'm falling down/ I couldn't try/ You and me/ It's a fine line"). "Navigating the Nursery Slope" is Electricity-era OMD propelled by Neu!'s signature motorik rhythm.
After the Spacemen 3-style narco-lullaby of "A Gentle Cycle Revolution" and the Augustus Pablo-meets-New Order sound of "Navigating the Nursery Slopes," the album settles into slumberous quiescence with "Where Has the Space Race Gone?," the epitome of Cold War nostalgia. Here, Appliance reference every theme they've developed over the course of Imperial Metric in an eight minute instrumental recalling the second side of Bowie's Low. That icy bliss stills the album at its close, and we leave Appliance certain that they've escaped the foul-ups of their past. By saturating themselves in the stealth-and-bunker, spy-counter-spy politics of the mid-to-late twentieth century, and the skeletal electronics of that wary era, Appliance consummately fulfill their potential.
