http://www.aplacetoburystrangers.com/
Every year, promising bands release sophomore albums and in more cases than not, they usually take a step back instead of forward. Call it the sophomore curse, or second album jitters; the fact remains that most bands fail to duplicate on their second release what made people love them in the first place. Fortunately, New York's A Place to Bury Strangers are not like most bands, and their second LP “Exploding Head”, due out on October 6th on Mute Records, is anything but disappointing.
About three minutes into “Lost Feeling”, the listener is hit with an overwhelming wave of sound that would blow Phil Spector's wig away. Such a dense sound makes it difficult to believe that this band has only one guitarist, and a total of three members. Starting up with a surf-guitar riff, “Deadbeat” is an unrelenting piece of music with dirty bass sounds that finds singer/guitarist Oliver Ackerman pleading with you not to 'play with his heart'. “Keep slipping away” brings to mind a thicker sounding The Cure, with its great melody and hum-along riff, while “Ego Death” provides a claustrophobic, heavy guitar sound that would make Trent Reznor proud.
A Place to Bury Strangers' music is hard to classify, but not hard to relate to. In essence, “Exploding Head” showcases the versatility and talent that this band has for creating sonic assaults with a sense of danger, while throwing in danceable beats and pop sensibilities for good measure. The at-times undecipherable lyrics only add to the mystery, and the sinister guitar tones with uncompromising effects only serve to pump the sound up even further, like music on steroids. All in all, “Exploding Head” is quite an accomplishment for what is known as 'The loudest band in New York'.
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