Quantcast

Call for Papers: PopMatters Celebrates The Jam in Massive Special Section

Music
cover art

Effi Briest

Rhizomes

(Sacred Bones; US: 18 May 2010; UK: import)

All-female band Effi Briest are bursting with ideas on debut full-length, Rhizomes. Despite art house leanings—the arch bark of the vocals, the sharp angles on all of these tracks—there is nothing cool or academic about this set. All nine tracks course with hot blood. Those barking vocals snap with emotion, guitar lines cut deep gashes in the songs while the thick bass fills up space with dripping, molasses-thick notes. These musicians can stretch out with the expansive, moody surge of the title track, or tighten up their riffs into the affecting, terse thump of songs like “Wodwoman” or “New Quicksand”. As Rhizomes moves, the band sounds like it settles into its sound, grows used to the sonic mood it has constructed. The vocals fill out, the guitars thicken, and the tracks only get stronger as a result. For a group named after a 19th-century German novel, these ladies have created something awfully fresh. You can dance to this, you can shout along to it in your car, or you can cup your headphones to your ears and be amazed by the sounds they’re grinding out. Getting you to do any one of those things would be a pretty solid feat, but that Effi Briest can cause all three is what makes them an exciting band more people should hear.

Rating:

Media
Related Articles
9 Dec 2010
While the men were showing us their dark and beautiful fantasies, or pulling us into their high brooding violet, the women were absolutely taking over 2010.
Comments
Now on PopMatters
  1. The Top 10 Overplayed Songs You Hate by Artists You Love (Sound Affects)
  2. Tea with 'Sherlock': Investigating the Investigators (Features)
  3. Sunk? This 'Battleship' Stunk! (Short Ends and Leader)
  4. Tenacious D: Rize of the Fenix (Reviews)
  5. Top Ten Lost Midwest Punk Singles (Sound Affects)
  6. 10 Pieces of Cinematic Art That Require Revisiting (Short Ends and Leader)
  7. Like 'Doom', In Heels (Moving Pixels)
  8. Punk Rock's Pet Sounds: An Interview with Bomb the Music Industry! (Features)
  9. She's a Rainbow: A Tribute to Donna Summer (Features)
  10. Counterbalance No. 82: U2's 'Achtung Baby' (Sound Affects)
  11. 'Albatross': A Not-So-Weighty Coming-of-Age Meets Mid-Life-Crisis Film (Reviews)
  12. Counterbalance No. 83: The Stooges' 'Fun House' (Sound Affects)
  13. We Will Avenge Them Or… Be Avenged?: The Individual in the US Experience (Features)
  14. The Queen and Her Crayons: An Interview With Donna Summer (Features)
  15. The Best Canadian Records of the Year? The Fun Agony of Voting for the Polaris Prize Long List (Sound Affects)
  16. Flash Points: Mommy's Breast, Marriage Equality and Why Chipotle Is King (Features)
  17. Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death (Columns)
  18. Killer Mike: R.A.P. Music (Reviews)
  19. Sherlock Holmes, Dirk Gently and the Case of the Eccentric Detective (Columns)
  20. Early Summer 2012 New Music Playlist (Mixed Media)
  21. In Support of Supports (Moving Pixels)
  22. Flash Points: Chicks, Sluts and Facebook (Features)
  23. In Defense Of... Rock Radio: A Force in Popular Culture (Columns)
  24. The Cult: Choice of Weapon (Reviews)
  25. Garbage: Not Your Kind of People (Reviews)
  26. Willie Nelson: Heroes (Reviews)
  27. 'People's Pornography': The Mundanities of Pornography and Surveillance Culture (Reviews)
  28. Feeling '80s Spirit: Post-Hardcore Punk for the Plastic Generation (Columns)
  29. Like a Jack London Story on Steroids: 'The Grey' (Reviews)
  30. Saint Etienne: Words and Music (Reviews)
PM Picks
Music Archive
Announcements

© 1999-2012 PopMatters.com. All rights reserved.
PopMatters.com™ and PopMatters™ are trademarks
of PopMatters Media, Inc.

PopMatters is wholly independently owned and operated.
PopMatters is a member of BUZZMEDIA Music, MOG and Guardian Select.