Evil Triplet, Otherworld: Roads and Trips (Plus Track Premiere)
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on January 31st, 2017 by JJ Koczan
[Click play above to stream ‘We are the Aliens’ from Evil Triplet’s debut album, Otherworld. Release date is Feb. 10 on Super Secret Records.]
Like any good rocket launch, Evil Triplet‘s Otherworld works in stages. The Austin trio make their debut on Super Secret Records with the nine-song 2LP, clocking in at an unmanageable 72 minutes and veering their way between post-punk experimentalism and laid back cosmic rock. What are the likely side splits — three songs on side A, and two each on sides B, C and D — don’t quite tell the whole tale of how the album breaks down over a linear CD/DL listen, but one way or another, Evil Triplet conjure a sonic goo of just-sub-blissful tonality and keep themselves grounded despite never seeming to actually fully come to earth. Even on “Get a Job,” which is the most depressing song I’ve heard this month, they retain an airy undertone in the guitar work of Steve Marsh (also vocals) atop the push of drummer Kirk Laktas and the bass of Joe Volpi.
Despite this being Evil Triplet‘s first offering, all three members of the band have a history behind them, with Marsh having been in Terminal Mind, while Laktas has played in Cinders and My Education, among others, and Volpi in The Flood as well as Cinders and others. Does that experience help them keep afloat as “Get a Job” veers into a wash of downer abrasion toward its finish or help them balance space rock and structural nuance on opening duo “Star Ladder” and “Fungus?” I don’t know, but clearly these guys have had fun being weirdos for a long time, and now they’re very clearly having fun being weirdos together. Texas has a long tradition of anything-goes noise-infused anti-genre rock and roll. Evil Triplet fit well into it by not fitting at all.
There are moments where one is reminded of fellow Austin-dweller Mark Deutrom and his work with Bellringer‘s debut album last year, but as Evil Triplet move past side A and continue to flesh out across the dreamy “Planet I’m On” and the extended, mostly-drifting 10:55 “Post Group Date Scene” on side B, their vision becomes more distinct. Infused with organ and an initially wistful guitar strum, “Planet I’m On” holds some measure of sentimentality even after Marsh‘s vocals and Laktas‘ drums kick in and it swells to a more active thrust en route to a lengthy guitar solo that arrives just past the three-minute mark and does not relinquish until the end; Evil Triplet setting the course outward and following it vividly. “Post Group Date Scene” works in more of a late-’60s psychedelic vein as regards the guitar and background swirl, with vocals that seem to nod at Mario Lalli of Fatso Jetson and lost desert ceremonies in general. An emergent gallop leads to another flowing solo from Marsh, over toms and a fluid bassline, and just before eight minutes in, Laktas changes the drum progression to a more active beat and carries the rest of the track outward, like some lost moment that George Martin would’ve made The Beatles fade out of — all that’s missing is backmasked hidden messages about who buried whom.
The subsequent turn into “Pyramids” might feel more earthly, with its chug and straightforward beginning, but in reality the song is the beginning point of Otherworld‘s next stage — the second LP. Listening to digital files, one could argue “Post Group Date Scene” as the stretch that breaks them through the atmosphere. I’m not inclined to fight either way, but hearing the tracks with four sides in mind, even rounding out the first platter with the record’s longest track feels like a setup for what’s to come in side C’s “Pyramids” (9:02) and “We are the Aliens” (8:59), and side D’s “Worship Satin” (7:16) and “Road Trips” (10:13), and those turn out to be where the expanse in Evil Triplet‘s approach more fully takes hold.
By the start of side C, Evil Triplet have already shown they’re ready to let a song go where it will behind Marsh‘s guitar, and the back half of “Pyramids” works similarly with an improvised feel, departing its verses in favor of a swirling psych jam, effects layered across for added texture that fade out into the speedier push of “We are the Aliens,” which makes a fitting complement for its catchiness early on and departure into a reach of effects noise that winds up being the last element remaining after the rest of the song has split, like some lost radio broadcast sent outside the solar system. Keys play a significant role in the jam, setting a relatively simple progression under the guitar that gives Volpi and Laktas another element to work with in the rhythm. Spaced. Thoroughly. When Evil Triplet decide to go, they go.
Side D opener “Worship Satin” (get it?) finds an anchor early on in repetitions of its title, listing various places and times one might worship satin, but has notions of its own departure lurking beneath the surface that, sure enough, come to fruition as it marches through its second half, this time even with Laktas getting in on the noise wash via cymbal crash and tom runs — a fitting cacophony that, though the song is shorter, is no less striking than that of “We are the Aliens” or “Pyramids” before it. All this space makes “Road Trips” a somewhat curious end. Tires on asphalt? That doesn’t run on nuclear fusion! Nonetheless, with a subtle emotional current of piano alongside the wailing guitar, “Road Trips” begins surprisingly tethered to terra firma, and as Marsh runs through a list of places been, things seen and deeds done, missed buses and so on, the vibe is an engaging blend of the lysergic and the lucid.
Of course, they arrive in Fresno and that becomes the locale from which the song shifts into its final instrumental movement, but the piano stays, so as much as the guitar turns to scorch, there’s still something to keep a foot on the ground before the somewhat cold, sudden ending. It makes a difference, and though Evil Triplet‘s scope proves plenty wide throughout Otherworld, the last of its motions adds a reminder to the listener of a consciousness at work driving all the madness surrounding. No challenge to chalk that up to experience on the part of the trio, but there are plenty who’ve been around for whom the sorts of chaos in which Evil Triplet traffic would simply be too much to hold together. On their sprawling debut, they handle it easily.
