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Amp, Us
reviewed by dave heaton
Amp's style of ambient-drone-pop music has always felt like
solitary music to me: records you put on to transport yourself to
another place. A cloud of sound, with buried voices of mystery, take
you on a trip within your mind. The title of Amp's new album marks it
as more inclusive than that, if you read it as Us, or more
confrontational, if you look at the back cover and see where they've
graffiti-ed "Amp" across the A in "USA" to get the album's title.
Listen to just the first track alone, "Opening," and your hunches
will be confirmed - the track builds into an intense force of nature,
with squealing instruments and voices, signaling that Amp have some
serious anger to express. If you couldn't guess, the next track, "Get
Here," contains pointed lyrics to let you know that what's at stake is
the state of the world: "Get what you want / take what you see / the
American way / is just an illusion / you're never free." By letting
social outrage into their music they've taken introspective dream
music and made it something outwardly focused and provactive. On
"Opening" and "Get Here" they lend their music an in-your-face punk
edge to match their anger, in the process transforming it quite
significantly.
Us isn't all about the games governments play with human
lives - much of the album is occupied by gentler, sadder songs
carrying expressions of emotion: loneliness, fear, hurt. Here are the
reminders that human beings are being used as pawns. Amp use free-jazz
elements and lopsided electronic textures to conjure up that feeling
that life's out-of-whack, to echo the nervousness of people who know
horrible things are happening to people like them but don't have the
resources to stop them.
Amp's attitude towards horrific events is a mixture of sadness and
straight-up anger. The album's second-to-last track viscerally
embodies both - "Endgame" portrays American gun violence as a relative
of egotism and greed, while also tapping into the real human pain
involved. On Us, Amp point fingers in a way that's built in a
sincere concern for humanity. While pushing their music in adventurous
new directions, they're also pouring their hearts into their songs in
an effort to make listeners think of the world outside of their
bedrooms.
{www.ampbase.net, www.darla.com}
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