Flesh Car – Flesh Car
(Robust Lover)
Like many artists maybe finest identified for his or her Nineteen Eighties and ‘90s work, Craig Wedren, the voice behind the spectacularly odd (for indie-rock) Shudder to Think and now the extra improvisational Flesh Car, has been busy of late.
Earlier in 2024, he launched the solo album The Dream Dreaming, which pulls on every little thing from Shudder’s post-hardcore to the artificial squeals and squalls that characterised a lot of his soundtrack work—although his strongest gesture of the previous few years stays “No Return,” the jarring theme he and Anna Waronker wrote for the ‘90s-set horror-mystery collection Yellowjackets. The boutique punk label L.G. Information just lately launched the (to date) vinyl-only 1987, a set of Shudder’s earliest demos and singles tracks. The person is having a second, and Flesh Car isn’t very like any of those earlier than it.
Wedren—identified for his hovering, theater-kid vocals and surreal lyrics—took half in a singular lineup for his second document of the 12 months, becoming a member of fellow composers Jherek Bischoff (who’s labored with Amanda Palmer) on baritone guitar/synths and drummer Jacob Richards (of the challenge BATTERY and elsewhere). In line with the trio, they improvised for a weekend, labored out some concepts, and recorded this self-titled assortment all in a single take, with one concept flowing into one other. It may be loved as one 50-minute hunk or 10 sections-if-not-exactly-songs.
Buildings come and go, and theme emerge (the woozy synth and baritone chords of opener “Being Inside Made Me Go Insane” or the New Wave riff and Alan Vega-vocals on the wonderful “No matter She Makes You” and its scarier coda, “Break the Youngster”), solely to recede, changed by ethereal spookiness (the almost 11-minute drift “Wishing Blue”) or disconcerting atmospherics (“It Tickles,” the principle concept of which is…“it tickles”).
Because of Richards’ hi-hats, “So Discreet” is essentially the most song-like second, however it may well by no means escape Wedren’s spectral presence, whereas nearer “The Listing Goes On” builds on the earlier components for a finale that may be harrowing if not for the groove. It’s a effective return to weirdness for certainly one of alt-rock’s true eccentrics. GRADE: B+
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