Land of Kush, Against the Day (Constellation Records)

[Dave Monroe]

Against the Day
Land of Kush
Constellation Records


We need something akin to the original punk revolution. We really need
something akin to the original punk revolution, something that'll come
through, wipe out the bloated excesses of the indie-rock world and
bring rock music back down to earth, like the class of '77 did to
obliterate prog and disco's bloated hold on people's ears.

Don't believe it? If the latest string of self-obsessed art-rock
goofballs hasn't already proven our point, Against the Day, Land of
Kush's first album, should serve to underscore the urgency of a new
rock revolution. In an era when obscenely orchestrated acts are
common, the 30-member ensemble is overblown in its own right. When it
harnesses that sort of manpower in an effort to recreate a sound of a
2,000-year-old Egyptian orchestra, it's clear it's high time someone
needs to bring a safety pin to this art-rock bubble.

Land of Kush's pretense isn't even matched by its competence. Never
quite sounding like the ethnomusicologist's wet dream it thinks it is,
Against the Day sounds more like a bunch of stoners hitting the bong,
dropping a tab and mincing cheaply scored Egyptian television shows
with cheaply manufactured psychedelic rock. If a Patrick Troughton-era
episode of Doctor Who paid a visit to Tutankhamun, this might be what
you'd hear playing in the background behind those famously low-budget
special effects. Electronics and a brass section bolster songs that
put the violin (an anachronism by about 15 centuries in the
pyramid-era sound) and a brass section right in the middle of the
action. "The Light Over the Ranges" and "Bilocations" dabble as an
instrumental and with-vocals tracks, respectively, and serve more as
an ode to the excesses only a giant ensemble and an unmanageable
concept can bring.

Against the Day is concept and arrogance first, music second, existing
less for listeners than for the perverse joy the band's members found
in making it. Throw in liner notes that masturbate about the impact of
Thomas Pynchon's writing, and Land of Kush couldn't be a bigger parody
of indie-era highbrow overindulgences if it tried to be one.

We need a new punk, a fresh, vital and immediate musical movement to
come and carpet-bomb the environment from which Land of Kush and its
art-rock, neo-prog and experimental counterparts spring. We need it
fast, or we're all going to suffocate under the weight of this junk.

http://www.aversion.com/bands/reviews.cfm?review=3917&artist=Land%20of%20Kush&title=Against%20the%20Day