Sightings - Future Accidents

(Our Mouth, 2011)

You’d have to do some heavy make-believing to pretend that Sightings have ever worried much about song structure. Sure they’ve applied it on occasion, but never worried about it. So, to say that they have abandoned any concerns with structure on Future Accidents is a bit of a stretch.

And yet here I am saying just that (what all the kids are saying): Sightings found pitching themselves headfirst into structurelessness on Future Accidents.

Though, even stretched between four tracks, Sightings are just as powerful, punchy and acidic as they’ve ever been. In fact, it’s a pleasure to finally have another slab of concrete noise to spill into. Seems like everything’s been poppy and pretty around FG for a while.

A nice left turn (even if City of Straw is still my favourite Sightings records).

Here's "The Knotted House", the shortest of the four:

Sightings - "The Knotted House"

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"

Sightings - Through The Panama

Sightings

Through The Panama

(10.2007, Load)

Verdict = Superb Sound But No Heart

Sightings previous excursions in free form no wave have been destructive to say the least, however, on Through The Panama the band has pulled out all the stops delivering their most coarse material to date. Completely drowning out contemporaries like Clipd Beaks and Liars in the noise category, Sightings take their version dance punk deep into the vast swamps of their grinding past. In doing so Through The Panama makes some gains as well as takes some losses. The gains are obvious; for sheer tonal aggression Sightings are untouchable, scorching the grounds on which their transmissions flow like blasts of napalm. With Through The Panama, Sightings are waging war on the ear drum. The loss accompanying such a greedy audio display is that of the soul. Now that may not be a loss for some; I mean this was most surely the plan from the beginning for the gruesome hipsters and the ends to which most of their fans seek them out. Maybe I just have a soft spot for a bit of humanity in my noise, despite the monstrosity that the music embodies. Here, underneath the monstrous exterior, everything seems cold and robotic. Again, just depends on what you are looking for. The album is absolutely thrilling; there is no doubt about that. It is just not very often that I feel that I’ll need such a dose of horror bustling through my speakers. This of course is meant as much as a compliment as it is a potential deterrent.

- Mr. Thistle

Sightings - Perforated