Noise-rock bands aren’t supposed to last as long as Brooklyn’s Black
Dice. The band has floated from indie label to indie label during
its 10 years, including a brief WTF-inducing major-label foray with
2005’s Broken Ear Record. Throughout their existence,
they’ve always been a bit of an acquired taste — mostly
appealing to people who like to expose their eardrums to new planes of
existence whenever possible. They’re still a tough band to digest
on Repo, their seventh full-length. The album cover is a
collage that appears to be composed of a photo of a stodgy ’60s
garage-rock act covered with psychedelic paint from grade-school art
class. It’s accompanied by the phrase, “Go where new experiences
await you.”
While the cover doesn’t really betray the gritty feel of this album,
it’s still a pretty fitting image for a band that’s never followed
convention. “La Cucaracha” sounds a little like Dante Alighieri’s
journey through hell, complete with demented grooves atop wailing
voices and gnashing synthetic teeth. Among the din of samples and
sounds melded together with ultra-precision, there’s still plenty of
rock-solid percussive beats propelling these tunes. “Ultra Vomit
Craze” contains a lengthy funk beat ripped straight from the
still-beating heart of the ’70s. There are a few scattered noise
blasts and sound collages — “Ten Inches,” “Whirligig,”
“Buddy,” “Urban Supermist” or even the album’s closer “Gag
Shack.” But those moments serve more as transitions than as the
album’s focal points. — Jeremy Willets
This article appears in Apr 22-28, 2009.
