ARTIST: The Strange WallsALBUM: Home Is Where You Hang YourselfLABEL: Self-releasedREVIEWER: Matthew J. DATE: 2-3-09

Helmed
by Jon Vomit Worthley, New York City band The Strange Walls combine the
acoustic eccentricities of early death rock with the avant-garde analog
electronics of the first industrial bands. Their full-length demo opens
with "Bully in the Alley," a shout-along acoustic piece that sounds
something like a cross between on of the Virgin Prunes' folk offerings
and The Violent Femmes, with "One Eye Two Eye Three Eye" adding
subsequent synthesizers and rambling bursts of guitar noise as
accompaniment to the nasal twang of Worthley's vocals. The rest of the
album alternates between spooky folk numbers like the rollicking
gypsy-inspired "Skin and Bones" and primitive but effective electronic
compositions like "Black Mould" and "Shitburg Song," both of which are
comparable to the earliest work of the Legendary Pink Dots, right down
to the psychedelic circus organ accompanied by screeching violin. While
at times the band's forays into self-aware surrealism borders on art
school pretentiousness, as on "The Robber Bridegroom," this is by and
large exquisitely weird stuff. "Everybody Disappears" is especially
brilliant, its deliberately twee music box effects and synthpop beat
only adding to the creepiness. While Worthley, guitarist Danya Yushkov,
and percussionist Dandrogynous are amateur at times, this release's
low-fi qualities only add to its charms, and fans of similar
avant-garde death rock acts like The Deadfly Ensemble should especially
enjoy The Strange Walls.


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