The Organ - Grab That Gun (Too Pure)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
There aren't more girls in bands for one very simple reason - to be in a band, you need to be a geek.. That's the truth, by the way, no matter how cool a rock star you're currently picturing. Sure, Hendrix became the coolest mother ever to walk the planet after he'd learned to play a backwards-strung burning guitar with his teeth - but just imagine the painstaking practice it must have taken to reach that stage of expertise, the hours spent in his room scalding his face whilst his then cooler friends were out in the sunshine, talking to girls. Geek-a-zoid. No girl I've ever met has had that much time to waste on something so frivolous as music - they're all off doing more worthwhile things, looking fabulous at the same time.
I've never met The Organ, but boy, do these girls sound like geeks. Their debut LP, the ever so gloomy 'Grab That Gun', checks all the boxes that so many run of the mill, up and coming, male dominated guitar outfits do, but instead of these being more regurgitated tales of how hellish it is to be male, white, middle class and rolling in your parents' money, The Organ sound really bloody upset. Maybe that's because, if this record is anything to go by, they've listened to nothing apart from The Smiths and early R.E.M. since they escaped from the womb, paying the sounds meticulously close attention whilst they were at it. Geeks.
Just imagine how obsessed a boy could get with 'Grab That Gun' then, considering your average lad still won't shut up about how great JJ72 were even though we all know it was only that delicious bassist Hilary who never sang a note and couldn't in all honesty play that well that they were interested in. They never actually made a decent record. The Organ, at first attempt, have made a great one - and in its opening track have discovered an anthem floating around the ether, 'Brother's Johnny Marr-style guitar lick and nonchalant, primary announcement of "here we gooo..." (uttered as if there is absolutely nothing to look forward to whatsoever) capable of cramming dance floors within its opening few seconds.
It jangles and admits of the shaking of one's frame, but it's a terribly downbeat affair, songs sounding at once lovelorn and hateful at the prospect of any kind of human contact. It's beguilingly mysterious. Returning to that R.E.M. reference (don't worry, it's much more 'Chronic Town' than 'Around The Sun'), Michael Stipe's main weapon - to sing incredibly slowly over very fast songs, thereby making them at once vital and miserable - is here given a higher, more feminine pitch, floating beautifully over frantic plucking away at guitar strings and organ hammerings everywhere - 'Love Love Love', 'A Sudden Death' and the gloomy, anthemic 'No One Has Ever Looked So Dead' all exhibiting qualities that, if were still utilised by those increasingly boring Athenians, would improve their current output no end.
Not mere copyists by any means, The Organ in their aforementioned opening moment, and what's more in their closing effort (the infectious 'Memorize The City') have tunes to strongly rival those they took their cues from. But those influences have been taken in exactly the right way, as points to start from instead of to emulate, and have been studied so carefully and loyally that it might just put any other debut guitar record this year to shame.
Artists in this article: The Organ
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment