“Scars” – Wow & Flutter
Pleasantly crunchy and semi-dissonant, “Scars” opens with a yin-yang-y guitar riff—three parts ringing and harmonic-laced, one part fuzzy and purposeful, as if the band were still deciding what kind of song this was going to be even after they already started recording. What they ended up with is a deft blend of the opening riff’s two attributes, as a drony, unresolved sensibility courses through a brisk guitar rocker otherwise mixing the offhanded brio of an Exile On Main Street outtake with the squonky quirkiness of the Pixies. Translation: it’s curiously engaging, and it rocks.
And because I haven’t gotten on my “value of experience” soapbox in quite a while, I’ll take this opportunity to point out that Cord Amato has been in front of a band called Wow & Flutter, in one incarnation or another, since 1998. But here we are living through a musical day and age that seems to be about the opposite of letting musicians breath and grow and (dare I suggest it) learn their craft over an extended period of time. No, we’re much too focused here online on being sure to find everything first, and really fast, and then on to the next, even first-er and faster thing.
Tiring it is. I’m really happy to hear musicians who sound like they’ve been around a little while. Wow & Flutter, a trio at this point, will release its seventh album, Equilibrio!, next week on Mt. Fuji Records. MP3 via Mt. Fuji.
Fingertips 