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Thursday, August 19, 2010

Gross Out and About Lords of Falconry at Neurolux

Posted by Josh Gross on Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 5:31 PM

Josh Gross
Lords of Falconry at Neurolux

Not enough credit is given to a band's name. It's essentially a thesis, a binding idea for the message that band wants to convey. Led Zeppelin is a classic example. Their name came from someone telling them they were so heavy they would go down like a lead zeppelin. The name sounds heavy. So does Black Sabbath. You hear those names and instantly get a feel for what the group wants to say with both their lyrics and their sound. As you do with Anti-Flag, N.W.A. or even Hanson, a name that pretty clear what they are: an unthreatening family band.

And often when a band lacks such a central core to their message, that also comes through in the unfocused nature of their music. A band without a solid name often means they lack a solid conception of their identity, a shortcoming that easily overcomes whatever talent the group might have.

Lords of Falconry, is not such a group. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Their name makes it clear what they are: rock and roll. They relish in that identity with everything from multiple amps strung together like a third-world electrical grid; to the drummer's headband and giant sheet metal cymbal; to their PR which describes their style as "the waltz-like sound of mastodons stomping across the tundra."

The problem is it's just not tremendously good music.

Lords of Falconry made the kind of terrifying noise that would have parents thinking the band might abscond with their daughters for some sort of occult ritual: dead-ahead rhythms and buzzsaw solos so loud I thought my phone was vibrating in my pocket. That fearsome image was certainly aided by the fact that their guitarist and singer looked like a cross between late-era Charles Manson and hobo-era Peter Green. Of course, that might have worked had they switched things up at all here and there. But instead their songs dragged on forever with no changes in flow, riffs or arrangement. It was just pure volume. It was almost as if the mastodons had to stomp across the whole tundra in every song, which got tiring.

The band was definitely terrible, but with a sound equal parts MC5, Iron Butterfly and Lightning Bolt, if they could just move it along a bit, they'd be the best kind of terrible. But what else would you expect from a band that dares to dub themselves Lords of Falconry?

Tags: Lords of Falconry, Neurolux, music