Friday, February 15 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
Contributed by: S:M:J63

Label: Badmaster Records United States

Genre: Psychedelic / Post-punk / Grunge

01 Controlled by Voices from Beyond
02 Children of the Unholy Cross
03 Among the Unborn
04 Psionic Sorcery Song
05 Justice for Tommy
06 Changing
07 Silver Fire
08 E.G.G. (Emerald Ghost Garden)
09 Dead Deer House
10 Cre(mate)
11 Asylum
12 National Anthem (For Birds)

Okay, there’s two things you should know – firstly, I am not much for listening to ‘conventional’ music these days, simply because a great deal of it is just simply regurgitated dullness while at the more commercial end it’s just pure unalloyed pap; secondly, and more importantly in the context of this review, that despite Northern Liberties’ music being quite conventional compared to the normal run of my musical tastes I have to say quite unequivocally that this is bloody excellent quality stuff from the quirky Philadelphia trio, starting right from the bright yellow six panel digipak decorated with vocalist & percussionist Justin Duerr’s striking naïve artwork (which continues on the interior with the exception of the band portraits) and on to the music itself. One of the more noteworthy aspects of their music is that they break away from the conventional band structure of guitar, bass and drums, relying on just percussion, drums and bass to build musical pictures of their strange and very much out-of-kilter universe.

It’s slightly shambolic and tinged with madness, but don’t let that fool you for one second – in reality sharpness defines everything on this album, from the tightness of the musicianship to Justin’s imaginative lyricism and poetic imagery. Taking some of the lyrical and unsettling surreality of the seventies’ psychedelic scene and marrying it to a post-punk grunge aesthetic, Justin, his brother Marc and bassist Kevin (no second name given) construct a driving behemoth of a musical vehicle imbued with energy and razor-sharp edginess. To top it all off Justin’s plaintive, nervy and asylum-inflected vocals are the perfect counterpoint to the drums- and bass-propelled backing framework, investing it with even more nervous electricity and lighting it all up with a neon-lit brightness. The world that Justin sings about is a disturbing, fuzzy, out of focus and more than slightly unhinged one, a place seemingly solely inhabited by interestingly pale gothic heroines, fortean phenomena, devil children and misplaced souls still looking for their owners.

Above all though, it’s that tension between the nervy vocal delivery and the dirty self-assured and self-confident powerhouse of the music that contributes to the deliciously electric shiver-inducing frisson of pleasure this album produces and is also the main reason why I like it so much. Personal favourites are ‘Controlled by Voices from Beyond’, ‘Children of the Unholy Cross’, ‘Psionic Sorcery Song’, ‘Changing’ and ‘Cre(mate)’ – absolutely perfect examples of what happens when the alchemy of words and music is handled by masters of the art.

In a world where the musical, cultural and aesthetic tastes of the many are seemingly dictated by the so-called music media and governed by the lowest common denominator it’s always a joy to come across those who are resolutely determined to swim against the tide, just like these folks are doing. What pisses me off most though is that these same people, who have genuine talent and ability in buckets, will never get to the top of the pile where they deserve to reside while the no-hopers get spoon-fed to the drooling glassy-eyed masses and passed off as the genuine article. Ah well, at least there are those of us who are more than discerning than the vast majority it seems….

Now that the whole no guitar pure bass and drums band formula is going into some sort of toddler-like stage we can assess the work of bands like this Philadelphia foursome and used other templates as a point of comparison. Of the most distinctive and that we could probably tag as a flagship band we got Big Business (Here Come the Waterworks), whose latest work has taken a right turn and has improved greatly simply by re-targeting the songwriting towards a more immediate sound. Northern Liberties’ newest recording is somewhere in the middle, not so far to the left as to come off as way experimental, nor too right indented as to come off as formulaic, radio-ready, or to grant the tagging of ‘fucking sell-out’, it works quite well for a few tracks, but then it sort of falls and gets rather bland.

It’s obvious that the main instrument is the bass here, its tone is low (though not lower than say a Kyuss guitar) and clear but it carries the weight of the music making the absence of the six strings quite rightful. There are no riffs here, but notes moving up and down and side to side and drums playing their part, quite conservatively I must say, considering this is a band with no guitars. Brothers Marc and Justin Duerr handle the drums and voice/percussion here, and is obvious that in some parts there is an extra layer of skin beating.

The things is Ghost Mind Electricity comes off strong; “Controlled By Voices From Beyond” sounds like a more no wave and cro-magnon Talking Heads, and is followed by “Children of the Unholy Cross’, another strong cut that is singularly great at crafting a different take of the standard rock format. The absence of the guitars is here not an issue; when the track goes hard, fuck who cares about the fucking guitar? But as we approximate the middle of the album the songwriting gets lazy, hooks vanish and ideas of great bands Northern Liberties might evoke are no more. There is great stuff here, but it just isn’t enough and the songwriting isn’t even. “Changing” lacks everything, it sounds incomplete and uninventive. The sad part is the second half screams for a guitar, which kind of breaks the whole objective of the structure of the band.