Sightings - City of Straw

Sightings
City of Straw
(2010, Jagjaguwar)
RIYL = Mouthus, Skaters, Wolf Eyes

Following up Through The Panama, what most will consider as Sightings’ magnum post-noise opus, was never going to be an easy task. The guttural blast of that record still haunts me with its overt, menacing grind. However, in their move to Jagjaguwar, Sightings have created a contentious, noise addled rift in the music landscape that is equal to its predecessor. You might consider City of Straw the Amnesiac in this equation if Through The Panama is Kid A. A companion piece of sorts that is definitely equal in measure of austerity and grating aural dryness. Sightings are standing upon the peak of post-no wave noise, or something. In any case, it’s a sound with few reference points and garbage bins full of possibility. While categorization may be difficult, City of Straw is, at its core, really just punk music (is there any song more punk rock than “Saccharine Traps”?). And when I say punk music, I mean the spirit of what that term was originally intended to imply. Sightings are creating in the gaping jaws of their atonal sound fissures that anti statement statement which has become ever more elusive in our culture of hyper marketing madness. In terms of tonality, there isn't much that's filthier than City of Straw? Sightings are on the fore front of the stately blur between music and non music. City of Straw is that impervious straddle, hanging limp in the teeth of a trash compactor, threaten some type of reverse compacting: the apathetic compactor of trash compactors. City of Straw cannibalizes it all. And, for the record, personally I prefer it to Through The Panama.

-Thistle

Sightings - "Tar and Pine"