rex

Review of "c" (Southern Records)
Originally from Silencer Web Site. October 22, 1996




"Now this - this is beautiful. It'll end in tears!
Aided by a production team and augmented lineup involving Red Red Meat and Gastr del Sol, Maine trio rex have expanded on the style and guile of the debut. Swollen with restrained passion and understated intensity, c is compulsively emotive and hypnotically melancholic. This does however, require concerted listening. To not totally involve yourself in it would be to miss the depth and feel, and thus the point.

Once you connect, it'll take you on a headswim of memories you cherish and regret, floating up on your emotions and out into its sweep of guitars and violins. The bendy arrangements, strange time signatures and quirky half-bars and notes only enhance the warmth and beauty: it's all just so there. Imagine Nub and Quint collaborating on a soundtrack for your dreams.

On "New Son", guitars and vocals stoke reminiscence from the back of your neck with an acoustic/electric interplay of arpeggiated chords, harmonics and harmonies; drifting into your chest and solar plexus with the subtlest, most incisive drumming since Carl Burnett. Suddenly it rises up on a rush of distorted noise and vocals and a beserk dervish rhythm that slaps you about. Then, dumped on your arse, you are soothed back into your origional euphoria. The end is an hypnotic spin of guitar and violin, swelling upon layers of percussion, finally spiralling out on a splatter of echoing, reverbing drums. I need an inhaler! Breathless.

The darkest moments come with the last track, "Farther Along". Stalking the shadows of your mind with brooding 'cello and acoustic bass, it feeds on that blackness, building in latent energy, before searing then out with huge welts of guitar noise. It storms off with your thoughts and squishes them into the feedback.

Don't listen to c while driving or operating heavy machinery - you will not live. Play it in the comfort of your own home and immerse yourself.