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Times New Viking

Rip It Off

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Rated

by RyanDaff on 12/10/2007

Hailed as “lo-fi destroyers”, indie-rock outfit Times New Viking comprise guitarist Jared Phillips, drummer Adam Elliott, and Beth Murphy on keyboards. At first, I was hard pressed to discern the number of vocalists, or their gender – although I have since read that Adam Elliott and Beth Murphy share vocal duties. This gender confusion did not arise due to some nicely harmonised, slightly ethereal, gender-bending quality to the singing. No, it arose because the awful robotic-sounding vomits of fuzz and white noise emanating from my speakers, led me to believe that they (my speakers) were in some way damaged. Taking pre-existing notions of lo-fi to the extreme, these guys distort the hell out of anything and everything they commit to tape, morphing what could have been a brash and energetic punk record, into an indecipherable and genuinely putrid sounding mess.

My problems with this album do not lie within its minimalist production. Some of my favourite albums are lo-fi to the extreme, particularly John Frusciante’s ‘Niandra Lades And Usually Just A T-Shirt’, and all early releases by Guided By Voices. Times New Viking’s sixteen tracks on ‘Rip It Off’ rarely surpass the two-minute mark – a move reminiscent of those Guided By Voices albums, and one that seems ideal for a lo-fi release, where, after all, precise production of an individual song is out of the question, and variation of melody is a more pressing factor. Except I adore Guided By Voices, particularly the lo-fi albums ‘Alien Lanes’ and ‘Bee Thousand’, which sound like a band playing to their melodic strengths. My problem with Times New Viking is that I find it impossible to enjoy ‘Rip It Off’, because this album is intentionally lo-fi, and will likely only appeal to the coolest indie kids who like their music pre-sabotaged. And this is, regrettably, the most glaring difference between this band and Guided By Voices, because something the latter never did, was record full albums revelling in their own lo-fi-ness – deluging their music with further obstacles of distortion and white noise.

To put an end to a comparison with another band that was never entirely appropriate in the first place, I will say this: ‘Rip It Off’ displays occasional hints of musical inventiveness and even melodic euphoria, but it hardly seems worth the effort trying to fathom such a self-consciously unapproachable band. Is there anything commendable about Times New Viking? Well, they have a reasonably clever name. That’s about it, though.

by Ryan Daff

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Comments

SORRY YOU COULDN'T PAST THE PRODUCTION :[ LOOKS LIKE YOU AIN'T GOT THE RIGHT GENES OR SUMTING :]

Posted by Anonymous User on 04/05/2008

SORRY YOU COULDN'T PAST THE PRODUCTION :[ LOOKS LIKE YOU AIN'T GOT THE RIGHT GENES OR SUMTING :]

Posted by Anonymous User on 04/05/2008

"...something [Guided By Voices] never did was record full albums revelling in their own lo-fi-ness."

That statement is so absurd that it makes me wonder if the reviewer truly "adores" GBV or is throwing that in to prove he really is hip enough to "get" the lo-fi thing. Ummmm..."Propeller"? "Vampire On Titus"? "Bee Thousand"? "Alien Lanes"? Does this individual actually think that those records weren't made to sound the way they do deliberately???

By the by, you're really missing the boat on TNV. Give it another listen or two.

Posted by Anonymous User on 01/25/2008

You make some valid points, but I gotta disagree dude. I see TNV as an alternative to the prevailing indie rock of perfected, highly produced, inhuman grandiosity that currently reigns supreme. They aren't my favorite band, but, in this case, I like the other side of the coin whether it is contrived or not.

Posted by Ruben_James on 12/10/2007

Downloads

My Mixtape DROP-OUT [MP3]
My Mixtape (My Head) / R.I.P. Allegory [MP3]

Album Details

Year: 2008
Label: Matador
Producer:
Musicians:

Tracklist

1	Teen Drama
2	(My Head)
3	RIP Allegory
4	The Wait
5	DROP-OUT
6	Come Together
7	Faces on Fire
8	Relevant: Now
9	The Early '80s
10	Mean God
11	Another Day
12	The Apt.
13	Off the Wall
14	End of All Things
15	Times New Viking vs. Yo La Tengo
16	Post Teen Drama

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Times New Viking Rip It Off New from: $6.75 Used from: $7.01

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