Hat Trick: Blonde Redhead

Hat Trick: Blonde Redhead

Hat Trick is a new feature that I'm trying out that basically highlights those rare moments on an album where a group of classic tracks are sequenced right after the other. As a music fiend, this is something I pay attention to. There are many good albums with great songs (and even bad albums with great songs), but it's not often that those songs are placed back to back to back for a monumental assault that establishes such a momentum in a short block of time that it's usually enough to carry the rest of the album. Today's album pays tribute to a trio of Blonde Redhead songs from their 1998 album In An Expression of the Inexpressible.


"Distilled"
In An Expression of the Inexpressible's Hat Trick starts at track three, after a great opener in "Luv Machine" and the awkward, avant-garde (read: annoying) electronic song "10". "Distilled" picks things up quickly after that misstep. With vocals this time by singer/guitarist Amadeo Pace, the song is a fast-starting post-punk track that's also one of band's hardest rocking (by Blonde Redhead's standards) songs on this or any of their other albums. The best part comes at the brooding climax where the guitars take over completely, if only for about thirty-seconds, in a moment reminiscent of Unwound's best work.


"Missile ++"
A simple synth loop, a minimal drum beat, and a lazy guitar riff was all Blonde Redhead needed to record what is probably one of my all-time favorite songs. Yes, seriously. There's nothing too complicated about this track. It doesn't command attention at nearly the level that even the previous track does. What it does do, though, is give this air of effortless, laid-back cool. Kazu's breathy, experimental singing technique gives the song a unique character, and an Amadeo-sung chorus provides a nice contrast. This is one of the first songs I heard by the band and to this day it can't be beat. A post-punk classic.


"Futurism Vs. Passéism, Part 2"
But the band were not done yet! With "Futurism Vs. Passéism, Part 2", the band retain the sort of dark, lackadaisical atmosphere first established at the end of "Distilled". The vocals don't kick in until a minute and a half into the song, this time, though, they are delivered spoken word, in Italian, with a loudspeaker effect that gives the song a sense of urgency and tension that can almost be compared martial music. For a four minute song, it's kind of epic-sounding.


Three tracks, all of them I would think impossible not to include among the band's best of all-time. It was with these three tracks that I fell in love with Blonde Redhead. The album continues on with "Speed X Distance = Time", a strong track in it's own right, but also the track that breaks the flow established by the following three. Because it was with those three that the band accomplished the rare feat; a musical hat trick.