Times New Viking
Dig Yourself

For reasons still not entirely clear to me (although I suspect the lunar cycles have something to do with it), university exam periods are always an extremely prolific time in terms of musical discoveries. Indeed, my musical bulimia tends to reach critical levels during these phases, leading me to listen to things I might normally (sometimes guiltily) ignore. Well, it was precisely during one of my umpteenth aimless pilgrimages across the web that I stumbled upon a term capable of catching my attention: shitgaze.

It appears that the overcrowded world of music genres has a new resident, although perhaps subgenre might be a more fitting term since the movement didn’t seem to last more than a couple of years. In any case, it is an extremely radical and naive approach to rock music, highly lo-fi; or to put it more prosaically, the champions of this genre are mostly people who, at best, can handle only the basic instrumental ABCs and, in the manner of the first punk/garage bands, barricade themselves in some obscure hole where they take simple "pop" melodies as a skeleton, only to then assault and bury them under layers of distortion and noise. A concept not dissimilar to shoegaze (as can also be noted by the clever wordplay that christened this musical proposal), but everything is played and produced much, but MUCH worse.

Essentially, what differentiates these modern "punks" from those before them is that the average aspiring musician now has, thanks to the web2.0 revolution, musical knowledge and inspirations that their predecessors couldn’t even dream of; this leads to an unusual blend of sacred and profane, when these cultured "quotations" are inserted into a sound texture that is anything but virtuosic; and it is precisely in this that the charm of the genre, for me, lies. In fact, these bands allow you to enjoy songs that are at the same time simple, direct, and (within limits) melodic, without thus bordering on the boredom and mediocrity/banality to which most musical releases of this type are condemned.

Among the most interesting bands of the movement, at least from what I’ve heard so far, are certainly Times New Viking, who with this “Dig Yourself” have laid one of the "milestones" (if such they can be defined) of this movement. Compared to the average of these groups, TNV stands out for a rather distinct and refined compositional ability, so much so that the songs, if more polished, wouldn't seem out of place in one of the many indie-alternative discos (also due to a minimal familiarity with their musical instruments); however, our bold trio adds a series of entirely respectable influences, coating the songs with a layer of raw filth seasoned with nods to bands like Can, Velvet Underground, and 13th Floor Elevators.

Unfortunately, already starting from the next album, the group will clean up their sound, smoothing out the rough edges and "subversive" elements, towards a more accessible sound, but inevitably also much more anonymous (an evolution more or less achieved by all the bands in the movement, which precisely because of this had a short life), but "Dig Yourself" remains a little rough diamond that at least noise/garage enthusiasts should not pass up. Nothing monumental, it won't change your way of listening to music, but as they say in these cases: "It's only rock n roll but I like it".