It’s been 13 years since Brooklyn’s A Place to Bury Strangers released their second full-length Exploding Head, and the record has held up strong. Often described as an endeavor in shoegazing, the band make a helluva sweet racket that has assisted them in standing out from the pack; while most of their stylistic contemporaries strive to be hazy and psychedelic, APTBS bring the pound and the scorch along with a tangible Euro post-punk inclination that made their association with Mute quite appropriate. On October 21, the set gets a deluxe remastering on 2LP (clear wax), 2CD (reverse board 6-panel DigiFile), and digital. Folks who disdain bonus material can get the original 10-track LP (transparent red wax).
Although he’s not a founding member of A Place to Bury Strangers, guitarist-vocalist-songwriter Oliver Ackermann did join the band early, and he’s now the only contributor that still around from the making of Exploding Head. Indeed, he’s long been the creative focal point of APTBS, so it’s fitting that Ackermann was in charge of the remastering process for this reissue.
Ackermann has further stated that records by Depeche Mode, Fad Gadget, Wire, and Nick Cave were his main listening diet while Exploding Head was taking shape (music given to him by Mute’s Daniel Miler), and it’s not difficult to ascertain the influence as the record plays. It’s a connection that applies to APTBS’s discography overall, as I’ve remarked elsewhere on this website that the band’s sound has an unshakable Anglo vibe; one might guess they are from the UK rather than NYC.
If Ackermann takes inspiration from assorted Mute acts, Exploding Head doesn’t sound like a throwback to the label’s early days, even as it’s released by Mute proper (the band’s only full-length for Miller’s imprint). Bluntly, APTBS is far too noisy for that, and I’ll add that the tag of noise rock is legitimately applied to the band’s stuff, as this album sounds at times like it could’ve been issued by the Blast First label sometime between 1988-’91.
But underneath the squall and din, Exploding Head is a smidge more melodic than the classique noise rock norm, so this isn’t a tidy straight line back to the genre’s glory days. Instead, the record’s raw attack sits in sharp contrast to the level of refinement that infiltrated the indie landscape during the ’00s. Of course, APTBS weren’t alone, as they fit in with raucous colleagues on the scene like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, with whom APTBS toured in 2008, and survivors like Brian Jonestown Massacre, for whom they opened at Webster Hall in Brooklyn in ’06.
In ’07 they opened for the Jesus and Mary Chain (also at Webster Hall), which lends another salient if not dominant point of comparison. But it’s not like APTBS is just a hodgepodge of swiped moves; even now, they really deliver a breath of fresh air, and one that’s wholly earned the descriptor of “loudest band in New York.”
Listening to this remastered Exploding Head, even at a moderate volume, the inherent loudness is still quite apparent, in part because the textures of turning up are an inherent part of the band’s formal equation, which brings us back around to shoegaze. And to return to the melodic, it’s worth noting that there’s no dream pop underbelly here, nor are there shades of noise-pop.
The 2LP doubles the original number of tracks, with the bonuses nicely maintaining the momentum, particularly through undiminished finessed abrasiveness. A three-song closing trifecta of covers (Love and Rockets, 13th Floor elevators, Bowie) is a treat of a capper, as A Place to Bury Strangers really came into their own with Exploding Head.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
