120 Days has come a long way from their inception in a small coastal town in Norway, when they were called The Beautiful People. They moved to Oslo, lived in a caravan, and stubbornly did their own thing for a good while, refining their sound into something considerably more lush than the promise of their more minimal (but still exciting) debut EP. Now signed to Vice Records, it’s safe to say they’ve moved up the ladder a few notches, thankfully without letting it go to their heads. This is definitely a unique band, that draws on influences in the past and combines them with an original vision, not a clueless bunch of opportunists that would jump on the ‘dance-punk’ bandwagon now that it’s about to fall apart.

Another reason to avoid putting ‘that’ label on 120 Days, is that you can’t really dance to this stuff. I mean, you could, but it doesn’t have the funkiness or spastic angularity of, say, Out Hud or The Rapture. Rather than hi-hat intensive disco beats and punky yelps, you get krautrock motorik and a high-strung croon with a touch of weary resignation. This is music for the survivors of an all-night rave, basking in the gloom of the pre-dawn hours, melancholy and euphoric, haunted by vague memories of hedonistic excess. It swirls around in your brain like a chemical mist, at first alien and intangible, but just sweet and familiar enough for you to take its hand and follow along wherever it may go.

Opener ‘Come Out’ introduces a satisfying pulse of electronic bass, and augments it with a strobing, single-note arpeggio, gliding, crystalline synth and reverb-soaked guitar. The effect is not unlike early New Order getting with the technological edge of Depeche Mode at a rave in ‘89. The ‘pop’ element is not as prominent with 120 Days, though, as they tend to understate potential hooks in favour of a kind of static momentum that suits them well. On ‘Keep on Smiling’, the band goes from an electro-Echo & The Bunnymen into a submerged middle part of droning synths, building to a flowering outro of shimmering electronics riding a steady rhythm towards a chaotic dissolution.

This is one of the major strenghts of this band; constructing luxurious and complex washes of droning melody and evolving textures around propulsive, ‘Transmission’-like beats and basslines. Similarly, on ‘Lazy Eyes’, 120 Days moves deftly through sleek drum-machine pop laced with desperate ennui. A glorious fake-sax middle section breaks down into a plinking ambient techno interlude, before the band sneaks back in with a gradually increasing arsenal of sounds, as singer Meisfjord intones such lines as; “I’ve been digging a hole for myself”, lost in the din of air-raid synths and bewildering echoes. It’s beautiful stuff.

As this - and many other songs – are evidence of, 120 Days do a great job at infusing their monochromatic post-punk with colour and a sense of space. Although, there’s not really much punk about this band except for the hard-working DIY attitude that got them to where they are today. This record sounds more like it came out of a time capsule containing bits and pieces of old krautrock and Factory records, polished to a matte finish, and the ghosts of synths and sequencers of the ‘90s rave era. There are no sharp edges on these songs; instead there is a swirling mist of trebly electronic flourishes, both complimenting and shrouding the austere throb of the bass and drums. The guitar, when it’s there at all, takes a back seat to the rhythm section, providing sweeping, elastic swathes of shoegazer-y noise melody, as on ‘Get Away’. Or it takes a more percussive role, as in what is definitely the most U2-like song on the album; ‘Sleepwalking’. Unlike many of their electronic rock contemporaries though, the ‘electronic’ and ‘rock’ elements of this band are so seamlessly integrated it’s often hard to discern where one ends and the other begins. But in all their futuristic glory, they never lose sight of the human element, as the lyrics convey various shades of longing and fear, as well as a streak of willful escapism.

Vocalist Ådne Meisfjord is a bit reminiscent of a young Bono at times, but I think this is mostly an effect of his voice pushing its range in those moments of desperation, as well as a tendency to flirt with grandiose melodies. I say ‘flirt’ because it never escalates into full-on love-making, as in huge choruses and soaring falsettos. This doesn’t mean the songs themselves can’t soar, though. But the heights they reach are more a result of the combined efforts of the band and the singer, rather than the former acting as a backdrop for the latter’s antics. There is definitely a good deal of drama in these songs too, but it’s not accompanied by the posing and bluster that might tempt a lesser band faced with a formula and sound this potent. 120 Days are too cool to get all giddy just because they happen upon a great melody. Instead, they assimilate it like the Borg into their glowing cube of steel and electronics – albeit one with an actual human heart inside it - and continue their search for more. Let’s hope that search leads them to ever more interesting avenues of expression in the future, and that the comedowns of parties to be will leave them more inspired than drained.

F.G.

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Reviewed By
pitseleh

12-07-2006

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