Typical System
24 June 2014
Iron Lung
4 stars out of 5
If you ever were looking for that missing link between
Kraftwerk and The Fall, you can end your search here, with Melbourne ’s post-punk outfit Total Control.
Just as comfortable with keyboards, drum machines, and faux-German accents as
they are with drums, guitars, and caustic growls and barks, Total Control perhaps
superficially seem like more of a concept than a living, breathing band, but their
instrumental line-up and sound were arrived at through an organic,
trial-and-error process rather than through some calculated, image-focused,
cynicism made flesh.
Picking out the influences is as easy as hunting cows:
Kraftwerk, Joy Division, Gary Numan, etc—though on tracks like “Black Spring,” Dan
Stewart & Co. come off as some late-‘60s psychedelic garage band that
stumbled across Wire late in life and decided that it was the coolest shit ever
(which, of course, it is). “Flesh War” could easily be the result of some
clandestine swapping of spit between Gary Numan and The Chameleons. After the
relative doom of the bulk of the record, the contrastingly uplifting closer “Safety
Net” feels like walking into an air-conditioned café on an oppressively hot day—it’s
Total Control’s version of “The Morning Fog” to close off The Ninth Wave. (If you don’t know what that means, you need to
study your Kate Bush more carefully. Yes, there will be a test.)
Typical System is
a worthy continuation of the project that Total Control initiated with 2011’s Henge Beat. Now, if we could just
convince these guys to tour—or at least play a concert more than once a year or
so—the world would be a better place. Until then, we have these two pretty
nifty LPs to tide us over.
reviewed by Richard Krueger
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