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Friday Full-Length: Akimbo, Jersey Shores

Posted in Bootleg Theater on June 4th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

By the time Akimbo got around to releasing 2008’s Jersey Shores, their reputation preceded them among those who knew them at all. Shored up by a stretch of outings that included 2003’s Elephantine, 2004’s City of the Stars, 2006’s Forging Steel and Laying Stone and 2007’s Navigating the Bronze after their 2002 debut, Harshing Your Mellow, the Seattle-based noise trio had worked with Amalagate Records and tastemaking imprints like Seventh Rule Recordings and Alternative Tentacles before signing to Neurot Recordings for what would be a one-off and their sixth full-length. And though their work happened in quick succession to this point — Akimbo wanted little for intensity on any level throughout their time together; their ethic, ‘Live to Crush’ (see also: ‘eat beer, shit riffs’) would become the title of their final ode to fuckall in 2013 — their underpinning in hard punk was never so fleshed out as on this narrative six-track/46-minute offering.

The inspiration behind Jersey Shores was/is duly violent. In the beach town of Matawan, New Jersey, in early July 1916, there were a series of five shark attacks that, aside from inspiring Jaws and much modern pop culture fear of Great Whites, were the story of the summer along the Eastern Seaboard. As Akimbo put it in the memorable first line of the album, “Don’t forget the tides” — something you might say to somebody going out for a quick swim in the Atlantic, though subtly ominous as well. In that song, titled “Matawan,” it’s Charles Vansant, and he and subsequent victims Charles Bruder and Lester Stillwell, are duly memorialized in the tracks “Bruder Vansant” — fair enough to combine the Charleses — and “Lester Stillwell,” which round out side A.

In addition to the theme around which the material is based — side B pulls back from the direct storytelling with “Rogue,” the career-highlight-riff “Great White Bull” and the 12-minute closing title-track — what Jersey Shores does better than the vast majority of albums across various styles that try the same thing is to embody the ocean. Drummer Nat Damm‘s work is presented with due bombast in the Chris Evans production, and there’s that sense of the room that comes through in the best of West Coast noise when it’s organically delivered, and in the interplay between the basslines of Jon Weisnewski and the guitar of Aaron Walters, there’s a blend of bounce and drift that comes through in the meandering beginning of “Matawan” that serves as an atmospheric foundation for everything that follows. akimbo jersey shoresOf course there’s plenty of crush (they were living for it, remember) in that track and the sinister-sounding “Bruder Vansant” and the how-to-do-payoff-right 11-minute course of “Lester Stillwell,” not to mention the back half of the album, but the setting is the shore and the summertime, and Akimbo manage to keep hold of that throughout the entire procession of brash, weighted pummel that ensues.

“Lester Stillwell” might be the broadest reach Akimbo put forth during their time together, building from silence to low-end-led punk thrust to maddeningly tense chaos to gallop and ripper guitar soloing to its ultimate crashout and a mournful, minimalist stretch of bass and guitar in its last minute. On CD, the punch that follows with the onset of “Rogue” isn’t to be discounted, and it comes largely from Weisnewski‘s bass while the guitar freaks out in a way that’s somehow post-Soundgarden but not at all that thing at the same time. I honestly don’t even know why I’m making that comparison but it’s strong Kim Thayil in my head so I’m rolling with it. Either way, “Rogue” is suitably bruising, but in its mounting volume, one still finds the central rhythmic crux of Jersey Shores as established in “Matawan,” and as it caps with distorted lumber, the shift into the initial crashes and ultimate fuzz assault of “Great White Bull” is emblematic of the purposefulness Akimbo have been working with all along.

It is not a riff easily forgotten. “Great White Bull” thrashes in the water, offering grim crescendo for the record as a whole across just four minutes of maximum-go shove, ending with the line “Mercy has no home among the waves,” which is and feels very much like the conclusion of the narrative, even if the title-track is still to follow. Instrumental and built up like so much of Jersey Shores before it from a relatively subdued start — a comedown well earned after “Great White Bull” — “Jersey Shores” offers more choice guitar and bass work in its early going and quiet further in somewhat meandering, improv-feeling art-rock fashion before wiping the slate at 4:59 with a full-bodied kick of a lumbering riff, giving methodical answer to the album’s most chaotic moments en route to a finish of residual bass, and, at last, waves. The band will drift back before the 12 minutes are up, some quiet guitar for an epilogue, but the sense of being returned to a kind of natural order is palpable.

The level of achievement across Jersey Shores was and remains something distinct and aside from the majority of Akimbo‘s work. They had progressed in sound for sure leading up to it, but Jersey Shores was beyond the band’s stated ethic, and though they toured hard for it as they always did, it was somewhat telling that Live to Crush, when it came out in 2013 on Alternative Tentacles, did so as a posthumous release. That last statement from Akimbo stripped away the atmospheric focus of Jersey Shores, got back to the punk, as it were, whereas some of the melodic tendencies made their way into Weisnewski and Damm‘s new project, Sandrider, whose self-titled debut (review here), had shown up in 2011.

That first Sandrider, as well as 2013’s Godhead (review here) and 2018’s Armada (review here), was produced by Matt Bayles, who also helmed Live to CrushAkimbo‘s final show was in Aug. 2012, in Seattle, with Tad Doyle‘s Brothers of the Sonic Cloth supporting. That would’ve been a monstrous gig to see.

If you don’t know Jersey Shores, it might not be the most representative of Akimbo‘s LPs to dive into — City of the Stars or even Navigating the Bronze might be better places to start with the band — but this record was something special and it remains so 13 years after the fact.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

Oh hi.

Well, The Pecan is back to school as of yesterday after fracturing his tibia, what, three weeks ago? Four? I don’t know. Reality shifts so much every day. It’s been three and a half years of being blindsided every morning, trying to ride that wave to the best of my ability, and finding myself barely up to the task on my best days. Last night I slept pretty hard. So did he, from what I saw on the monitor in his room. Kid’s a good sleeper, but he has to basically collapse from fatigue before he stops moving at all.

Stressful week for The Patient Mrs., though she did turn in an article long in the making yesterday and she seemed to feel good about that. Posi-vibes in the house are welcome. Things have been tense really since before the Pecan’s leg — I seem to recall something about a fractured skull? — but the pouring-not-raining aspect of double-you-tee-effs gets to be draining after a while. I’ve been working on raising my voice less at the child. Mixed results. Sometimes he needs his full name said in a more commanding tone in order to snap his attention from the thing he’s trying to destroy, whatever it might be. Just surprising him with that snap is enough sometimes if you can follow quickly enough with a redirect.

He’s also a master of the redirect. He’ll ask you what something is 50 times — he doesn’t do the standard ‘wh’ questions, but will say, “That’s a…” and leave you to fill in the blank forever — in order to get out of going to take a rest or get a diaper or whatever it is he doesn’t want to do.

I love him desperately. Yesterday the intensity around here was significantly reduced by his spending a couple hours at pre-K. All the more since it was raining. He needed to go back no less than his going back was needed generally. And we got his school pictures, which are so amazing I can’t. Even. Just can’t. I screamed when I saw them and I’m still screaming, they’re so wonderful.

Tomorrow night, Sun Voyager are playing Rushing Duck Brewery in NY. Same place I saw them in September. If the weather holds, I’m going to go. They’ve got one of the cats from Ghost Funk Orchestra sitting in on second guitar and their new record is a banger, so yeah, I’m on board. I’ll take pictures and write a review. Just like old times. I think The Patient Mrs. might come as well. It’s not too far a trip. Some nice enjoyment-of-company beyond the evening-standard Star Trek viewing, though there’s precious little I’d trade that for, generally speaking.

Next week, a Robots of the Ancient World video premiere, a Witchcryer track, Delving review (I hope), plus videos for Rosy Finch, Cavern Deep and Or Anthony. Very multimedia around here these days. Ebbs and flows.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Gonna be hot in the Northeast and it’s already humid as crap out, so don’t forget to hydrate. Watch your head. All that stuff.

And before I go, special thanks to everybody who has picked up The Obelisk merch from the new round of printings by Made in Brooklyn. There’s another t-shirt on the way.

FRM.

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