Gorilla and Poems of Pretense, a disk of spoken word poetry scored by music, packaged with a companion book (which was not included with the reviewable pre-release, but I anticipate is quite cool), has its highs, has its lows, and finds its strength amid such comfortable turbulence, both aesthetically and intellectually. You’ll know by the following line of the opening poem, Welcome, if Gorilla is for you:

Welcome Republicans and Americans

Though the disk doesn’t dwell on politics proper, there is a noticeable progressive slant to much of the material. Perhaps it is the nature of the medium that invites this observation; after all, you will never hear Ann Coulter doing a spoken word poetry album…thank god. But medium aside, poetry, by its nature, reflects on an emotional core more than most other forms, and progressives, liberals, in general tend to embrace emotion more willingly than other political persuasions. This is all to say that if you are a fan of forward-thinking poetry, you will likely dig Gorilla.

It is tempting to judge Gorilla as a performance disk; the nature of an audio/poetry meld has long been claimed, at least in popular fashion, by slam poets (RE: vocally dynamic performance poets). However, you aren’t getting performance here. You are getting poetry, only subtly enhanced by vocal acuity and background music. This distinction allows a welcomed confidence with the material. Not that performance necessarily masks sub par work when used in slam routines, but the potential is there, much more than with Gorilla’s comparatively straightforward delivery. John Dooley’s vocals lull at times, inspire at others, but satisfies always. The disk’s forte, if it has only one, lies with mashing Dooley’s confident, frank speech against lines like the following, from Circus Never Comes to Hell, creating a much appreciated dissonance:

There are days, as you may already know, that move slower than unpunished murder. There are arsonists who make more money than you.

Hydropods, whose previous work includes Lost Chance Sessions, RUTH, and Vulture and Other Stories, touts Gorilla as their most ambitious project to date. I haven’t the history with Hydropods to support such a statement, but considering the quality of Gorilla and Poems of Pretense, I’m eager to rifle through their back catalog.

Visit:
Hydropods site

Purchase:
From MySpace page

Brian Rawson’s vocals stand out immediately, and remain a unifying thread throughout. Among the band’s hypnotic sensibilities, Rawson sings with a vocal lethargy that compliments without being overbearing. Think Boxcar Saints’s Last Things or Califone’s Roomsound disk. Even as the quiet violin on the opener, “Nightimes,” fades into the more traditional four piece setup on “Handspots” through to “Madletide”’s electronic pulse—each beautifully render in their own right—Rawson’s vocal confidence is stunning.

For anyone familiar with my harsh criticism of Scarlet Johansson’s recent vocal attempt, you know that I will not hesitate to condemn overproduced echoes. But, like D.R.I’s Smoke Rings album, the saturated vocals of Fog are a necessary, defining element. Production here isn’t used to mask sub par styles or sound quality, but is rightfully used to enhance the larger mood. Producer Costa Stasinopolis deserves a beer. Buy him one next time you see him.

Following the moody opener tracks, “Sira,” hits with something as close to a pop sensibility as the EP gets, resulting in an optimistic bridger to the disk’s second half. If anything will be stuck in your head from this album, this is it. I dare you to ignore the hook of “I’ll throw out my hands and let ’em.”

Fresh after “Madletide,” perhaps the sound defining track, we’re dropped into the slow, banjo-backed crooner style tune, “Moonshine.” Here we sense the band’s most direct folk influence, and glimpse the emotional poignancy that lurks just below the surface of other tracks. “Moonshine” is the rare reveal of the impending danger I noted earlier.

The EP rounds out with the uniquely guttural bass backed “Elijah.” While clean of distortion for most of the album, the bass takes on just enough dirty character here to tease with the promise of Cecada’s future. This is a band that is just getting started.

Fog is a beautifully structured and emotionally vivid debut, from a group so perfect they could score a fucking sunrise. I’ll settle, for now, to the sounds of Fog at Midnight.

Purchase:
From Snocap through Cecada’s MySpace page