Times New Viking: Rip It Off
Matador
2008
Rating:


Most bands that make the move to a larger label take advantage of the larger budget and better production values that come with it. In moving from Siltbreeze to Matador (home to Stephen Malkmus, Belle & Sebastian and The New Pornographers, among others), drummer-vocalist Adam Elliot, keyboardist-vocalist Beth Murphy and guitarist Jared Phillips continue to sound like they're recording on a four-track in someone's bedroom, and the album the group has made contains the same level of excitement of a teenage band recording for the first time.

TNV writes indie pop songs that are enshrouded in a cocoon of noise. The Ohio trio's third album "Rip It Off" is as ragged and exuberant as the even lower-fi recordings for Siltbreeze "Dig Yourself" and "Present the Paisley Reich." The band is an in tune with the bare essence of what makes a great pop song as anyone from Buddy Holly to The Ramones, and they know as well as Lester Bangs that rock is dumb, but there's a kind beauty in it, too.

"Let's do something that hasn't been done yet," sings Beth Murphy on "Faces on Fire." TNV doesn't quite do that – the band has been firmly built on a foundation of The Sex Pistols, Black Flag, Sonic Youth and Guided by Voices – but the band uses its influences to create something that sounds more vivacious and original than Blood on the Wall.

As a "Rip It Off" title says, TNV is "Relevant: Now."

The songs TNV makes are fist-pumping anthems of (post-)teenage angst (fittingly, the album begins with "Teen Drama" and closes with "Post Teen Drama"). The very nearly beautiful "The Wait" and its lyrics of freedom, being "old enough to care" and feeling something especially displays the power in the din.

Posted Sunday, January 27, 2008

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/music/times.new.viking/rip.it.off