{"id":166,"date":"2011-12-20T10:00:25","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T10:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=166"},"modified":"2011-12-15T16:14:28","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T16:14:28","slug":"music-review-suralin-a-general-dogsbody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=166","title":{"rendered":"Music Review: Suralin “A General Dogsbody”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"SURALIN\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Suralin<\/a> A General Dogsbody<\/em> Cargo Records<\/a><\/div>\n

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Remember a time when bands could have big riffs and juddering basslines and angular guitars and be just a little bit dark but still have good melodies and be a whole lot of fun, and sing lyrics like \u201cfeelings spring up like mushrooms\u201d and still do a bootyshaking dance number without it seeming stupid?\u00a0 Yeah, well, there was a time, kids, in the 1990s, when somehow that was all possible, Kurt Cobain notwithstanding.\u00a0 Or because of him.\u00a0 Or maybe it\u2019s got nothing to do with Kurt Cobain.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Suralin are from Chemitz, Germany, and luckily for them the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and so they remember that time, too, and while they don\u2019t seem hellbent on repeating history (who the hell from the GDR would?) they do seem to have at least decided that playing fast rock with big riffs and a decent ear for melody is something we could all use here when economic times are making it feel like we\u2019re living at the end of it all.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you get a big riff driven by drums and guitars, like the opening couple tracks (\u201cBright Black Morning Light\u201d chugs you along on its bassline), sometimes you get the bootyshaker (\u201cKeep It Dark\u201d), and sometimes you get a little bit of everything (\u201cChemicals Between\u201d).\u00a0 The thing about Suralin is that they seem to have soaked in a pretty big bath of music, and the whole range has gotten into their skin; they mix their pops and their rocks without making their heads explode, wearing their ideas like a comfortable set of clothes. Is that a mixed metaphor? Whatever.<\/p>\n

You get the feeling that the real way to listen to this band is at a live show, because sometimes it sounds like the recording left them coming off a little too soft around the edges, which doesn’t do some of the big riffs justice.\u00a0 And by the last third, the album does start to feel a bit repetitive: you want Suarlin to push out into some new territory instead of exploring the same patterns they\u2019ve established, or maybe just to loosen up a little bit.\u00a0 But then again, who cares what you want?\u00a0 They have the decency to end with \u201cSonata for a Good Soul,\u201d which plods along with a building slow riff and ends with a wash of guitars, and if that\u2019s not what your good soul wants, then you\u2019ll just have to miss out.<\/p>\n

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