The Gods Themselves Hit the Dance Floor on ‘Pink Noise’
One of my biggest regrets about not putting together a list of the Best Northwest Rock Records of 2014 was losing the opportunity to wax rhapsodic about the self-titled debut full-length from Seattle trio The Gods Themselves (though fate and Band in Seattle allotted me the chance to tangentially rave about the record last February).
Simply put, TGT’s freshman effort was the rock record that most persistently occupied my earbuds and stereo last year. It wasn’t just the ostensibly simple but faultless ingredient list (rock swagger and stomp + post-punk/new wave sprinkles + swirly wah-wah guitar x sparely-addictive primal funk grooves): It was how the band filtered those components into a catchy whole, spearheaded by leader Astra Elaine’s confident and versatile voice. So, yeah, I might have been sort of counting the minutes until they rolled out their follow-up at the beginning of this month.
The overarching good news is that Pink Noise, the band’s independently-released sophomore release, is a strong follow-up that’s proving to be almost as stubborn in its refusal to dislodge itself from the aforementioned listening devices. It’s also, refreshingly, a very different beast than its predecessor. The Gods Themselves was as ragged as it was irresistible, a scruffy and smart punk in a black T-shirt doing her own thing. Pink Noise sees that same punk throwing on some damn snappy pop threads and hitting the dance floor, hard.
Some of the building blocks remain. TGT still rock a three-piece lineup that largely centers around a minimalist guitar/bass-baritone guitar/drum foundation, and the band’s continuing to use new wave, psychedelic smears of wah-wah, and stripped-down grooves to deliver this newest batch of tunes. “Tangerines” lays out the similarities, and the vast differences, as it opens the new record.
As on the debut’s lead-off track, “Last Chance for Love,” Elaine’s best girl-pop singing emerges front and center. But while that song dug into a faintly menacing surf vibe, “Tangerines” is straight-up dance music, with new member Dustin Patterson’s baritone guitar pulsing funkily and Collin O’Meara’s caveman-primal pounding giving way to a high-hat-fueled disco groove (synth strings even sweeten the instrumental break). It sounds a little like the B-52s’ Cindy Wilson fronting the kid sibling of Blur’s “Girls and Boys,” except Elaine’s singing finds an undercurrent of undiluted sexuality amidst the perky hooks.
Pink Noise is definitely a slicker work sonically than TGT’s first record (Stranger Genius Award winner and veteran Seattle producer Steve Fisk provides the mix this time out). Blessedly, this unabashed leap into poppier turf doesn’t feel like another promising band caving in to the whims of the marketplace. Hooks have always figured prominently into TGT’s matrix, they’re just buffed to a finer polish here. And that sheen never comes at the expense of the sensuality that’s thrummed through the band’s sound all along. Dance music is all about getting horizontal, and if anything Pink Noise’s club-ready high points only amplify that connection.
The vocal interplay between Elaine and Patterson contributes immeasurably to the distinctively heady sensuality that frequently dominates Pink Noise. Damion Heitnschel, The Gods’ first baritone guitarist, barked out lyrics with no-bull thuggishness. Patterson, by contrast, croons in a charismatic baritone somewhere between John Doe and Barry White. When he and Elaine trade off blunt lyrical foreplay on the deliciously decadent “Pink Champagne,” you need an air conditioner running full-blast to cool things down.
As befits a vastly different, higher-stakes sophomore effort arriving only a year after the band’s first release, not everything on Pink Noise works. The Elaine/Patterson vocal chemistry salvages the otherwise unremarkable “Higher Places.” And the slowed-down near-goth take on the old Grease soundtrack hit, “You’re the One That I Want,” comes off a lot better on paper than in execution despite Elaine’s and Patterson’s ample fireworks (I blame the song, which—heresy alert, Grease fans—is just too damned wafer-thin to be stretched to seven minutes).
The upside is that everything else works, from the Gang-of-Four-gone-flirty “Love and Television” to the tribal coital howl of “Your Eyes” to the cymbal-driven call-and-response tautness of the record’s awesome first single, “Stop/Listen,” and Pink Noise’s high-gloss coat fits the songs like the freshly-waxed finish on a brand-new Ferrari. If this is selling out, I’m damn sure buying.
[The Gods Themselves open for legendary smut-rap genius Blowfly at the Highline in Capitol Hill tonight. Tickets available here.]
