Brooklyn-based sextet Effi Briest get their moniker from the classic German realist novel of the same name. Because the group is made up of six women and because the novel concerns a tragic female heroine, it's tempting to read the name choice as a feminist stroke, but listening to Effi Briest gives the impression that it suits the band more for its German resonances than its gendered ones. With its loose song structures, throbbing tempos, and especially its heavy emphasis on hypnotic bass grooves, Effi Briest's full-length debut, Rhizomes, draws a direct line to krautrock legends Can and Amon Duul through post-punk acts like Public Image Ltd. and the Pop Group that themselves were deeply influenced by the psych-era Germans.
Out front, however, vocalist Kelsey Barrett is pure late-70s London, her wandering, atonal yelps and unintelligible declarations readily inviting comparisons to the likes of Polly Styrene and Ari Up. When she's paired with quicker rhythms, as on "Mirror Rim" (which features a neat lyrical gimmick of relying solely on palindromes) or "Long Shadow", Effi Briest come off as perhaps too-faithful post-punk revivalists. It's actually fortunate then that most of these grooves are more ponderous-- when Barrett's voice is evoking the B-52's on "New Quicksand", the band is rumbling moodily behind her rather than attempting to sound proto-new wave. The music's deliberateness is also good for accentuating the true bone-rattling brilliance of some of these basslines, particularly on the opening title cut, the ultra-Can-indebted "Cousins" and the space-rock headtrip "Nights".
Rather than offer a straight facsimile of any one specific sound or era, Effi Briest have expertly synthesized roughly 15 years' worth of brooding, seismic rock, which is no small feat. Still, there's really nothing on Rhizomes that would indicate the last 25-30 years of music ever happened. If I played you just about any one song here and told you it was a lost 70s nugget, you'd probably marvel at Effi Briest's stylistic command, but you'd probably totally believe it was a relic too, and with good reason. Until the group starts acknowledging that Metal Box didn't come out six months ago, their sound will remain somewhat of a dead end, albeit a great-sounding one.
