Officially, Load Blown is the fourth album by Brooklyn's Black Dice. But since it contains the band's final single for DFA (a three-track 12"), their first for Paw Tracks (a two-song 12"), and five cuts from an EP released simultaneously with Load Blown, it's really more a singles collection than an album. That may seem like trivial semantics, and these 10 tracks hang together well regardless. But the fact that they were created separately and originally intended for individual consumption gives Load Blown more immediacy and straight-up power than any previous Black Dice full-length.
Nearly every cut here gets right to the point, jumping into simple rhythmic and sonic ideas with little delay, then grinding away devoutly at those basic elements, adding accents and building momentum along the way. There are few stretches of the kind of wandering exposition heard on other Black Dice records, which usually cropped up when the band pushed a track past the 10-minute mark. Those moments often produced inspired music, and surely the band hasn't abandoned them. But it's fun to hear Black Dice go straight for the jugular throughout the aptly-titled Load Blown, and hit the mark every time.
In that sense, the album sounds like an expansion of band member Eric Copeland's recent solo effort for Paw Tracks, Hermaphrodite. That record built sunny loops from bouncing rhythms and semi-melodies, and so does Load Blown, with a wider, more open sonic palette. "Kokomo" uses repeated yelps and street-shaking bass bombs to lead a round of sonic jumping jacks, while "Toka Toka" weaves chirping squiggles into dancing circles, akin to the cartoon-ish audio experiments of Raymond Scott. Such bright-eyed swing is something Black Dice began to drive toward on their last album, 2005's Broken Ear Record. Here, however, almost every second is fueled by buoyant, even catchy energy.
Not that Load Blown is a delirious joy-fest, but even its darker pieces have an insistent pulse. The cutting beat of the hip-hop-ish "Gore" gets crashing and abrasive, but still hypnotizes. Later, the album's noisiest track, "Bottom Feeder", creates a shiny rainbow out of harsh blasts and babbling vocals. But the best tracks, like the skipping "Drool" and the vocal beat-box collage "Manoman", constantly sway and rise, recreating the head rush of a childhood ride on a schoolyard see-saw.
Despite the shift toward a more immediate brand of sonic invention, Load Blown is no radical departure. It's simply a new take on Black Dice's idiosyncratic mix, where attention to detail, openness to possibility, and intuitive senses of rhythm and timing all collide. Four albums and 10 years into their career, the band continues to pursue the detailed tweaks and disciplined practices required to master a craft, and Load Blown confirms they're well on their way to some kind of creative black belt. |
