US MAPLE
Acre Thrills (Drag City)
Reviewed by Holly Day

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There's no working around it-these guys are absolute geniuses. Lead singer Al Johnson pulls the band through shuddering, stuttering, lurching "songs" that defy categorization, muttering crazylike as if to himself about mothers and jelly and killers and strokes. I've always maintained that people should not experiment with any kind of music unless you've mastered the technology first, and it's so obvious these guys can play just about anything they want. It's honestly impossible to tell where these songs are going, because just when you think you've figured out what chord change is coming next, where a repeated refrain fits into a song, or even the pace of the percussionist, the song does a quick-change and it's something entirely, seamlessly, perfectly new. US Maple makes an art of standing on the brink of falling completely apart without ever doing so, creating tense sonic masterpieces so beautifully charged that you can actually feel the static building up in the air around your stereo.

© 2001 - Holly Day