Blonde Redhead - Barragán

Blonde Redhead

Barragán

2 September 2014

Asawa Kuru

 

3 stars out of 5

 

 

No one could ever imagine Blonde Redhead jumping onto a stage amid a massive display of pyrotechnics and shouting out, “Hello, Cleveland!” The band doesn’t have even the slightest tendencies toward rock star behaviour, and their ninth LP, Barragán, is such a wallflower of a record that at times it seems to apologize politely for causing any disturbance to your day. Long gone are the distorted shoegazing guitars of 2007’s 23, though BR uses the opportunity to expand their songwriting into many different directions.

 

Barragán is a quiet, unassuming selection of seemingly unrelated pieces, from the Italo disco of “Dripping” to the sound collage of “Defeatist Anthem (Harry and I).” There’s the goofy “Cat on Tin Roof,” which leads into the gothic lullaby “The One I Love,” though neither track especially enhances or complements the other. The disconnectedness of the record works against any sense of listening to a conceptual whole; indeed, Barragán seems to be a collection of highlights of the last four years of bedroom experiments. The more fully realized pieces, such as “Penultimo,” do hint at the genius of the band’s previous records, though in the end this new album feels more like a collection of odds and ends rather than as a proper LP.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger