Sunday, January 31, 2010
A+E, Music, Reviews

Retribution Gospel Choir

“2”  (SUB POP)

Cameron Wittig

RETRIBUTION GOSPEL CHOIR
w/Jupiter Watts
Saturday, Feb. 6
9 p.m.
The EARL
$10
www.badearl.com

Put down the fancy ear buds, find some big, bulky speakers and slap in the sophomore effort from this Minnesota-based trio. Although there’s only one guitarist, Alan Sparhawk turns up the volume and envelopes the proceedings with chunky slabs of gooey chords and reverb-laden leads. Imagine the Edge playing with Crazy Horse in their prime, and you’re close to the impressive sonic overdrive this band generates.

The dreamy qualities favored by Low, Sparhawk’s other outfit, are relegated to the sidelines here. These tracks pummel and pound with precision and intensity. The bass rumbles, Sparhawk whips off gnarly Tommy Iommi licks, and the often-militaristic drumming pushes the attack on this set of mid-tempo rockers that generate enough heat to melt the thick chunks of Antarctic ice pictured on the disc’s cover. 

As long as the trio keeps its pretentions in check (which it fails to do on the experimental “Something’s Going to Break”) and sticks to the brooding, occasionally pensive brashness it pulls off so well in the epic, eight-minute “Electric Guitar,” you can forgive some of the artistic slips. 

Even with an abbreviated playing time of a little more than a half-hour, there’s plenty here to chew on. Meaty melodies, emotional but seldom overbearing vocals and a thunderous guitar sound that threatens to collapse the walls of your house at inflated volume make you wish this short but potent project would go on a bit longer. 3 STARS—Hal Horowitz