Album Review: Black Bananas - Electric Brick Wall

Like many who were too young during their initial go-round, or who weren’t “indie” enough yet, I was introduced to the scuzz-rock stylings of Royal Trux thanks to their inclusion on the High Fidelity soundtrack, where their song, “Inside Game, “ was used in the film, disguised as a track from the demo cassette from the shoplifting/music making duo The Kinky Wizards. When I was 17, when that movie came out, and I bought the soundtrack with my hard earned allowance money from my local K-Mart, I didn’t quite “get it” and would skip over that song.

Cut to, like, 13 years later, and between the “Best New Reissue” title bestowed upon Royal Trux’s Accelerator, and the fact that former Trux member Neil Hagerty produced the Hebronix LP from last summer that I rather enjoyed, I thought I should give them somewhat of a fair shot as an adult.

To say that Royal Trux, or any subsequent Trux-related projects are “acquired listens” is an understatement. When listening to Accelerator last summer, and while listening to the new Black Bananas LP, Electric Brick Wall, I just presume that this is what it feels like to do a bunch of really bad heroin—like feel filthy, excited, unsettled, impatient, and that time is slowing to a crawl all at once.

Black Bananas, for all practical purposes, is the post-Trux project of vocalist Jennifer Herrema, whose androgynous yelps haven’t changed a bit, but now they are aided by some digital warbles here and there. On Electric Brick Wall, she takes the scuzzy, sleazy Roayl Trux aesthetic of compressed drums and fuzzy, crunchy guitars, but modernizes it slightly by adding in more beeps and boops, and at times, gives off some trap music and witchhouse vibes. Dance music for junkies, I guess, is one way you could describe it.

Electric Brick Wall is an impressive album in the sense that it is both incredibly inaccessible to a casual listen but it is catchy, interesting, and strangely alluring. It’s noisy to the point of being obnoxious, and confusing enough to the point of being distracting—like the descent into cacophony on “Eve’s Child.” And there are moments when it seems like rather than an actual “song,” it’s just a recording of musicians not being able to play their instruments, fucking around on the instruments they have, and then ingesting a bunch of drugs—“Dope on an Island” (aptly titled) is a great example of this.

But upon further consideration, the description I just wrote there is, pretty much, exactly how Royal Trux worked too.

However, there are moments of pop music magic—like the nasty slither of the album’s single “Physical Emotions,” and the similarly funky “Give it to Me.” They seem satirically out of place within the rest of the context of the album, however—especially with the sexually charged lyrics. If you can decipher Herrema’s croak on the second verse of “Physical Emotions,” she proclaims: “I’m so hot. And I’m on top. And I know that you are feeling it too. Break out a sweat. But it’s not about that—it’s that feeling deep inside that’s making me wet.”

I’ve spent a bulk of this review (albeit unknowingly) falling into the same trap that the Pitchfork review of Electric Brick Wall succumbed to—and that is talking about Herrema’s past, pointing out the two “poppy” songs on the record, and then calling it a day. The real question I should answer is why is it that anyone should spend their precious time on a record that, on paper, kind of sounds like a hot mess?

Electric Brick Wall isn’t out to redefine music, or change the world, but it’s fearless kind of album. It’s not “fearless” in the same way that “What is This Heart?” is fearless because it hold nothing back emotionally, and puts it all against a backdrop of well-rounded pop music. Black Bananas is fearless music because it’s a gigantic middle finger sneer. It doesn’t take itself seriously at all—how could it? Barely making it over a half hour in running time, Electric Brick Wall is a strange album (for a lot of reasons) but one of those is that it goes very quickly, but there are also moments when it seems to drag on. As a whole it can be frustrating at times, but it never ceases to be interesting. It’s “art,” but it’s also an alarmingly fun listen, and given that we are seven months into 2014, it is one of the few memorable records I have listened to this year.

Electric Brick Wall is out now on a plethora of formats courtesy of Drag City.