aaamusic | On 23, Feb 2011

Having piqued curiosity in the masses and indeed controversy among certain fans with their 2010 release, the creepingly intense ‘Sugar’, Dead Confederate are accompanying their tour slot with The Whigs by releasing the tumultuous ‘Quiet Kid’ as a single.

Those who were introduced to Dead Confederate through the gentle dream-pop rock styling of ‘Giving It All Away’ may be startled by the abrasive chaos of the a-side ‘Quiet Kid’. Seething from the onset, this is four minutes of seething guitar squalls as thick and blistering as burning treacle. The sweet Grandaddy-esque vocals have been transformed into snarling feedback by distortion, anguished inflection and dark lyricism. The drumming is a relentless onslaught of clattering snare and hissing, barbed cymbals, while the guitars wail and create a solid wall of sonic concrete and the bass riffs menacingly and barely perceptible in its subsonic force. The track climaxes into a queasy, lurching refrain that strips back the density but loses none of the anguished malevolence as it crawls zombie-like to the end.

In contrast, ‘Run From The Gun’ isn’t so much Dinosaur Jr as Jonny Cash, with a strong southern twang to the vocals that match the jangling banjo intro. As the grunge roots of the band rise in the presence of weighty rock drumming and guitar-driven choruses, I’m left with a strong taste of The White Stripes, which might not be as out-there as Dead Confederate’s previous album, but is by no means unpalatable.

Old fans may balk at Dead Confederate’s pop sensibilities in their recent releases, but for the committed and the uninitiated, this is a band who, despite the occasional patchiness of songwriting quality, are at once accessible and easy to swallow yet capable of seething depths the likes of which are hard yet ultimately rewarding to fathom.

Author: Katie H-Halinski