ALL EARS: AMERICAN WATERCOLOR MOVEMENT

American Watercolor Movement
It Takes Fifteen To Tango In My Book, What Book Do You Read?
By Vincent Berrini

Editors' note: Yeah, we're a little late with this one, considering it came out a little over three months ago. But better late than never, right? We're also happy to welcome yet another writer to the mix today, and also to refocus the All Ears column to reviews of New Jersey artists. If you're interested in contributing reviews, or want your CD/DVD/smoke signal reviewed, shoot us an e-mail.

There's a groove, and American Watercolor Movement is working it.

It's akin to the groove Sonic Youth worked on Bad Moon Rising with which Kim Gordon called on us to use the word fuck. It's akin to the one John Lydon and Jah Wobble worked with Public Image Ltd on Metal Box. It is a groove which is frightening and calming all at once -- it is a strange groove, because it somehow inspires both movement and paralysis. Movement because the rhythm is so intoxicating, and paralysis because of the feeling that some major shit is going down and all you can do is stand back and watch.

American Watercolor Movement is unapologetically an art-rock band; it's in their blood. It's who they are and it's what they do; they've obviously found their path and they're following it. It Takes Fifteen To Tango follows a similar stylistic pattern to their first full-length, When The Maps Came Down, but with a few crucial differences.

Most important is that there is an obvious confidence that can only be the product of having played a few hundred shows -- in bars, in basements, in art galleries, in city council chambers(!). The live multimedia art-party spectacle remains the best way to experience American Watercolor Movement, but It Takes Fifteen To Tango is, so far, their definitive recorded document.

Within the first one hundred and twenty seconds of the first track, the music builds from a lonely, desolate soundscape, over which vocalist Jason Cieradkowski repeatedly asks a single, enigmatic question to a deafening crecendo, with guitars wailing like sirens, as Cieradkowski's lyrics swing wildly from lamenting and tender ('your eyes are like diamonds tonight, and you stare at the ground") to violent ("I could push you up against the wall tonight, but what good would that do") and paranoid ("and you swear that the devil's got you by the ropes, and he's gonna drag you down tonight"). It is positively frightening. All the while, John Fesken's bass stays on an even keel, the musical equivelant of a voice of reason amidst the chaos.

It Takes Fifteen To Tango is a remarkably cohesive work, each song blending seamlessly into the next. Compared to its predesessor, it leans more toward straight 4/4 dance-rock rhythms, but there is a lot of musical terrain covered within that framework. The angular Wire-isms of "She Danced Like A Demon" are followed by the relentless on-the-one stomp-clap that drives "Monkey Lady." "Flowers For Catalan" approaches Talking Heads territory with its multple guitar parts that sound as if they are dancing around other. The hushed "X Doesn't Always Mark The Spot" is built around a spare acoustic figure -- and then there's the elctronics-and-vocoder-laced "Roman Coin."

Compared to the travelogue vibe hanging over their first full-length, Cieradkowski's narritives and lyrical sketches often feel more personal on this album. He often repeats phrases as if exploring their meaning. Cieradkowski's voice -- chanting, screaming, singing, or intoning stoically as if performing Shakespeare -- has been thrust into the most obvious spotlight. This is not to suggest that the music somehow takes a back seat; in the mix, the textured guitars swirl, occasionally the bass bounces from speaker to speaker. And by the end of "Pre War Stories", the drums, elctronics and the freakout-guitar all sound as if they have combined to make some kind of unholy singular noise.

The fifteen songs on It Takes Fifteen To Tango combine to make a remarkably cohesive work and the songs themselves are great ones -- fully fleshed out ideas and grooves that very often end up in new places. With any luck, where they choose to go from here will be just as unexpected.