THE PRIDS
Love Zero (Luminal Records)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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I don't know about you, but I clutched my Bauhaus and Joy Division albums in trembling fear throughout high school, fearful of hip-hop kids - the stallions who, with unsavory bravado, carted out the newest in new metal and lifestyle rock. Their music was my little secrets - dark little secrets at that - kept from the lords of my young suburban peers. After all, were they aware that the editor of their paper and baseball star held fast to subversive goth rock, they might not elect me King of the Prom.

Years later, having come to grips with the fact that I wasn't going to wear that thorny crown anyway, I began a gradual ascension from my self-inflicted exile. As I moved through therapy and took my prescribed baby steps, I noticed that others were celebrating the same renaissance.

Naturally, it begged me to ask myself if I was really alone all that time?

Portland's dark darlings The Prids have created something more than a tribute to those post-punk times in their album Love Zero. Songs like "Panic Like Moths" and "You As The Colorant" are not only colored with witty titles, they're witty modern rock songs as rare as tofu pate at Buster's Barbecue. It isn't a stretch to say that the dense craftsmanship and diverse sound displayed on Love Zero should be the envy of most rockers, rocking right now. The natural comparisons might be made to My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" or Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures," but there are also strong draws to the Folk Implosion on "Artificial Heart Designer" and contemporary Scottish import Idlewild.

Categorizing something like Love Zero is tough; it might be better to sit down for repeated listening examinations and draw your own conclusions. I can say for certain, this album would have been my little secret then; one I might have been brave enough to share.

© 2003 - Erick Mertz