Archers of Loaf
Vee Vee

THE REVIEW

Among the groups praised by Scaruffi (a true recurring nightmare for every music lover wandering daily on the web), there are these Archers of Loaf, a Chapel Hill band unknown to most. It is an indie-rock with rough sounds and a clumsy flair, pavementian to the bone, that references the Replacements and the somewhat sloppy and psych noise of Polvo - just to stay within city limits - with garage-punk enthusiasm and carelessness. Simple pieces, with a taste for hasty melodies - the typical crooked pop drift, college rock citations and clichés - and Eric Bachmann's voice, quite dispensable, torn between spontaneous-amateurish-humorous temptations and the testosterone illusion, which seems to be self-induced, of singing over Minor Treat's tracks instead of his own band's.

The album, in truth, starts well: “Step into the Light” is a cadenced and atmospheric rock, with a vaguely meditative and seventies flavor, offering space to the charming - though not very original - approximations of the guitars, engaged in out-of-tune and fragile electric duets, with the backing vocals filling the gaps. With the next track “Harnessed in Slums”, the band makes things clear - neo-beat riff at the opening followed by energized and punky indie rock, complete with Oi!-style armor, filled with changing guitar noise and simple arpeggios to contrast the hyper-vitaminic shouting of the vocalist. Mini-bridge in Polvo style, and then back again headlong until 3 minutes and 16 seconds. Its festive urgency is truly overwhelming, although a bit predictable and not exactly brilliant. The subsequent “Nevermind The Enemy” is then dull and out of focus, annoyingly full of indie clichés, starting with the dreadful imitation of the most uninterested Malkmus on the microphone and the shameless guitar feedback, with an insipidly alternative and trivially banal refrain. “The Greatest of All Time” is a simple electric ballad with ironic lyrics, sung with hilarious vigor, but nothing more. Much better is “Underdogs of Nipomo”, a bit Polvo and a bit Modest Mouse in Black Flag sauce. Perhaps the (little?) charm of the Archers lies in songs like this. Certainly not in the following “Floating Friends”, one of the worst imitations of early Pavement ever heard, nor in the falsely anthemic arena-rock of the playful “Fabricoh”. In poor taste is also the neo-hardcore jest of “Nostalgia”, while “Let the Loser Melt” is (by now) the typical piece of the Meatball Archers (Christ!), with its elementary metrics and narrative urgency of the singing, pleasant but not that much. The “melodic” “Death in the Park” is worth a listen, moodier, more considered and constructed, with a couple of really well-chosen harmonies. Disheartening is the childish nihilistic declamation of “The Worst Is Yet To Come”, while the band-like dissonances of the psycho-cartoony fanfare of the final “Underachievers March and Fight Song”, complete with a whistling "piping" by an unusually inspired Bachmann, are overall worth the ticket price.

In conclusion, it is a strongly amateur band, dabbling in the commonplaces of independent rock by gathering a handful of traceable influences, and having in the abrasiveness of the vocal style, very pronounced compared to the context, the only true element of personality: a bit too little, and all in all not even that well spent. Do yourself a favor and listen to the Beatles, in defiance of the indie cut-and-paste Talibans scattered over the web.