It’s not a supergroup’s members that make it ‘super’. It’s the quality of the music and, where this type of thing is concerned, that usually means flaccid songwriting and lots of rubbing of hands as money lands in bank accounts.
But wait! What’s that on the horizon? Why, it’s an actual supergroup! It’s Giraffe Tongue Orchestra and their debut LP, ‘Broken Lines’, which is guaranteed to save your new-born baby from a burning building. It’s like the Avengers but fast-forwarded straight to the good bits.
Here, Alice In Chains’ William DuVall takes the mic, guitars are handled by Mastodon’s Brent Hinds and Dillinger Escape Plan’s Ben Weinman, Dethklok’s Pete Griffin is on bass and Thomas Pridgen of The Mars Volta fame sits behind the kit. Hawkeye auditioned to play tambourine but didn’t get the gig.
‘Broken Lines’ smashes prog, funk, metal, rock and electronica together in a fashion that’s seldom attempted. Throughout, it sounds like the sum of Giraffe Tongue Orchestra’s components while simultaneously remaining unique from them.
Let’s have a peek at Adapt Or Die, for example. The record’s opener serves as its ‘straight-up rock track’, where Griffin’s scummy bass rips like dunderheaded punk and lays foundations for what can only be described as Heaven’s Basement’s bed-wetting, unreachable end goal.
It’s infectious. It’s technical. It’s rock ‘n’ roll with a dichotomic dish of grit and cough sweets served up by DuVall. Hinds and Weinman swoop in halfway through, toing-and-froing as they gleefully solo with a knowing panache that’d surely get them fired from their day jobs. A healthy diet of Dillinger is then force-fed into Crucifixion’s angular verses, while Mastodon’s spellbinding progression is felt most on No-One Is Innocent’s spacey mid-section. But it’s when the band leave the baggage behind that things get really interesting.
Disco is bravely traversed on Everyone Gets Everything They Really Want, with all members participating in a little boogie or two. DuVall’s claim that “my demons stick into me just like glue” is followed by a discordant, brief Dillingerism but subtle electronics bubble underneath. All We Have Is Now appeases the radio rock crowd without being mindless tripe, Fragments & Ashes is a progressive epic squeezed into four minutes and Thieves and Whores is the album’s sole track that doesn’t grab you instantly, the reason being that it sounds like Dillinger Escape Plan playing Crash Bandicoot. Which is a wonderful thought.
Each of Giraffe Tongue Orchestra’s core members constantly attempts to outdo the others, but it’s DuVall who comes up trumps. He’s a chameleon in a leather jacket and tip-toes across this tightrope of genres with ease. Even the six-minute, mutating title track isn’t enough to smite him. He delivers three separate refrains that don’t just sit within this choppy, progressive space shuttle of a song but enhance it.
You could point out minor flaws but you’d probably be imagining most of them them. You’re cynical and jaded and that’s fine. We were too. But Giraffe Tongue Orchestra’s ‘Broken Lines’ proves that the supergroup isn’t about the members, but the music. Art supercedes artist.
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