So Many Dynamos - The Loud Wars

No band is unpigeonholeable (blimey - Long Words Ed), they say. While that may be true for most bands, there are some that continue to push themselves outside the boundaries of genre: bands like These New Puritans, for instance, are sounding like no-one else but themselves. Animal Collective, too, have always managed to avoid being pinned down completely, even as their sound has taken on more accessible - ‘poppier’, if you will - elements.

Illinois quartet So Many Dynamos could be seen to fall into this category as well. They have seemed to reinvent themselves with each release since their formation in 2002. ‘The Loud Wars’, their third record, indicates that the band are still full of ideas. There is a lot going on, and the album takes a large number of unexpected twists and turns.

Aaron Stovall is the driving force behind this album; his lyrics define most of the songs here, not least the stunning opener ‘Artifacts of Sound’ (‘I showed up for the water and the wine, but I didn’t sign on for the fire and the hail / So I screamed out from the belly of the whale, ‘Get me out of this party!”), a song that brings the band’s dance-punk tendencies to the fore, bursting into life, with some stunning drums courtesy of Clayton Kunstel and Stovall’s synth bass.

‘The Novelty of Haunting’, meanwhile, finds the group venturing into math-rock territory, its shifting time signatures, guitar harmonies and schizoprenic structure making it a great summary of the instantaneous side of ‘The Loud Wars’. Stovall’s lyrics this time concern the life of a ghost, and are witty and quite memorable, in particular, the chorus of, ‘I think your demons need some exercise!’

Lead single ‘New Bones’ channels Talking Heads, placing heavy emphasis on the rhythm section, and also displaying a recurring feature of the record: lyrical references. The album’s opening lines (‘The record doesn’t lie, so what friend could the record be?’) are sung over the track’s guitar coda. This happens a number of times on ‘The Loud Wars’; for example, the musical idea at the end of ‘Oh, The Devastation’ (the song itself is the most immediate on offer, a truly great prog-pop song driven by the twin guitars of Nathan Bernaix and Griffin Kay), is reprised in its successor ‘Keep It Simple’’s bridge.

‘Friendarmy’ is one of the album’s highlights, a song in which Stovall’s synth bass takes centre stage. The track is a strutting synth-pop number that contains what can only be described as a jaw-dropping bridge. New elements are added in every eight bars, as the song builds to almost the point of collapse. The playful, tongue-in-cheek reference to ‘tiring crescendos’ in the chorus is another example of the humour present here.

When all is said and done, however, ‘The Loud Wars’ is defined by its closer. ‘The Formula’ swoops in on inventive drums and staccato strings. In another example of reprisals, the guitar lick in its first chorus becomes the foundations of the transition to the song’s second part. Interlocked guitars support the frontman’s lyrics (‘Evolution is such a hard habit to break’), before a recap of the first section gives way to a fantastic riff. It could be taken to be a scathing attack on organised religion, judging by the lyrics of its defiant second chorus (‘There’s a place in the atmosphere, where the soundwaves go that no-one can hear / Where the words you speak that no-one should know - Where’d you think that your prayers go?’) but regardless of the meaning its lyrics, it is still an astonishingly effective send-off. Closer of the year so far, even.

There is a quite a large spectrum of styles here, but So Many Dynamos somehow manage to weave it all into one cohesive work, and for that they deserve some applause. While ‘The Loud Wars’ may seem a lot to take in at first, perseverance is key. No band is unpigeonholeable, they say. Well, this lot are doing a damn good job to prove them wrong.