Pounding Drum Overture Wash—a description of track 1 on Of God and Science’s self-titled disc and Early Day Miners’ Offshore. Both work off of tribal rhythm, marching precision, breaking out of dream-like states, emerging with light cast all around the drum set. If you know “The Operation” on Morrissey’s Southpaw Grammar (listen to clip here), you know the feeling—a great anticipation of drum waves before breaking into song.
Think of the Pounding Drum Overture Wash (PDOW) as that feeling you have during a drum solo that comes near the end of a band’s set. You think, “This builds anticipation instead of finding climax. They should let the drummer open the show with this solo.” Of God and Science and Early Day Miners moved the solos to the beginning, let the anticipation come bounding from the pounding tom toms, and Ryan Martino (OGS) and Matt Griffin (EDM) open the door on the two good albums.
Of God and Science
Of God and Science’s brand of the Pounding Drum Overture Wash (PDOW) on “5’7”” is more quick to reign it in (than Early Day Miners), settling into a pop line with an AltCountry core. The effect is like Wilco surrounded by many a different flavor.
“5’7”” as PDOW also provides the album’s spiritual hooks. A lyric like “you’re a sinner/you’re a saint” plays on the Christian doctrine of being simultaneously a breaker of God’s Law but also made holy in His sight through Jesus. When Matthew Dominguez sings, “Who will come to your rescue, darling?/I wouldn’t even dare,” the song seems obliquely to play on Romans 5:6-8 which explains that Jesus is held in highest regard for dying for us effecting our rescue. All this spiritual wash comes rising up out of those pounding drums.
“A Lesson in Decay” is a country ballad with that soul funk downbeat. A crunchy blues guitar kicks in “America’s Queen,” an AltCountry via Cracker type tune with Beatles-via-Smithereens harmonies on the bridge. An acoustic guitar leads off on “Empty Space”—a country nod to be sure—but hit the second verse and it drips and dips with Squirrel Nut Zippers neo-swing. Then it revs up for an electric bridge of triplet patterns—fully realizing the original energy from the PDOW—again led by Martino’s drums, although in a more marching snare fashion.
Early Day Miners
Swayed less by sound and more by the group of CDs that had accompanied Early Day Miners in the mail, I called their 2004 EP Sonograph AltCountry slowcore. I suppose I could admit this as a wrong, classify them as something else, and review 2006’s Offshore under a different heading, but actually I still hear the AltCountry—although it is a dark, orchestral, anthemic, slowcore burning brand of AltCountry.
“Land of Pale Skies” is the Pounding Drum Overture Wash (PDOW) here, and while Daniel Burton is the painter behind Early Day Miners, Matt Griffin’s drums add depth and color to the picture. With haunting precision, the rise and turn of the waves in “Land of Pale Skies” present a patchwork quilt of noise wash which is eventually pulled back to reveal a ghost-like Appalachia violin. With guitar wash leftovers, “Land of Pale Skies” gives way to “Deserter” with its Americana harmonica sounding like Johnny Marr with The The. The drum rhythm now presses forward giving the track an overall sense of Joseph Arthur along with a Daniel Lanois echo mystery guitar ending that again blends into the next track, “Sans Revival.”
“Sans Revival” rides on the back of the same drum, although we’re shifting now slightly as the music opens up into new territories. As Burton sings, “Give up giving up,” the scene is one at the top of the hill, the big moment in the movie, with a drum punch as the epic ends leading to “Return of the Native,” an aural scene created as if to recreate the Northern Lights of Canada.
With what seem to be the same pieces of “Sans Revival” pulled back, Amber Webber’s vocals recall something from Nova Scotia. “Silent Tents” is like an extended play of “Native” and ends with complete wash—like a mid-show overture that’s drum-less until the last track, “Hymn Beneath the Palisades,” a return to the PDOW like closing credits that lands on a heroic tune at last.
Thanks to Of God and Science, Despatch Records, Early Day Miners, and Secretly Canadian for the review CD.
