Disappears, “Irreal” (Kranky, 2015)
2013’s Era was a criminally underappreciated monster of an album that marked an significant, unexpected surge forward in forging a distinctive and wonderful aesthetic all Disappears’ own. I am not sure quite what I expected from this follow-up, but it certainly was not still another dramatic evolution. That is exactly what I got though. While I still give Era the edge from both a songwriting and simmering menace perspective, Irreal takes its predecessor’s hypnotic, machine-like precision and echo-heavy minimalism and runs with it. Admittedly, the band’s brilliance is primarily stylistic this time around, but Disappears have nonetheless provided yet another thoroughly bad-ass avant-rock tour de force.
I have liked (or loved) songs on just about every album that Disappears have released to date, but Era was noteworthy in being the first where the Chicago foursome have truly sounded like only themselves, whereas earlier works always made the band’s shifting influences very apparent. To its credit, Irreal stakes out that particular (and very cool) niche even more emphatically (in fact, one of the opening lines in the title track is “I’m onnnnn….some new trip” delivered with a singularly bad-ass drawl).
Notably, the new trip that Disappears are on sounds increasingly less and less like rock as I know it. Sure, they look like a rock band and they play all the normal rock instruments, but their strain of rock is now just as informed by dub, experimental music, and minimalism as it previously was by Neu! And GVSB. Equally important is the fact that Disappears’ rhythm section of Damon Carruesco and Noah Ledger embraces an almost machine-like (and non-rock) degree of precision and repetition, though enough fluidity still creeps into their grooves to make them perversely sensual at times.
Aside from their wonderfully simmering, hypnotic pulse, Disappears’ other major innovation is their increasingly minimal and non-traditional approach to guitars. There is almost nothing resembling a chord progression or a riff on this album, aside from maybe the stumbling, broken-sounding harmonic hook of “Irreal.” The only real exception is “Halcyon Days,” which unexpectedly boasts some chords and a delay-heavy guitar melody. In all other respects, Irreal is basically a series of excellent bass-driven grooves colored by plenty of nuanced, effects pedal-heavy guitar textures. That might not sound all that amazing on paper, but the execution of it all is both ingenious and damn near perfect.
I cannot begin to imagine how much work went into chiseling these songs into their final forms, as few bands that I know of make better use of space than Disappears. Guitarists Brian Case and Jonathan van Herrick have almost completely carved away any traces of excess or ornamentation in their playing, so on the rare occasions when they actually do open up, it makes a real impact. Otherwise, they are more than happy to just ride a single note if it suits the song, which I greatly appreciate. Also, the relative absence of guitars creates room for neat tricks like the echoey dub effects on the drums in “Interpretation” (another highlight).
That said, there are a few ways in which Irreal falls a bit shy of its predecessor. As noted earlier, the songwriting is a bit weaker than it has been previously. That seems to be by design (the emphasis is now definitely elsewhere), but it would still be nice to have something as hooky as “Power” or “Pre Language.” The closest Irreal comes to a great single is the title piece, but it is sabotaged by an awkward segue into a three-minute outro.
The other perplexing aspect of this album is that it greatly downplays the presence of frontman Brian Case, as his half-spoken vocals are largely treated like just another instrument. I do enjoy his disaffected mumbling, but not nearly as much as I like it when he sounds like he has a basement full of dead prostitutes. That change drives me a little crazy, as he can be one of my favorite frontmen when he is “on” (his vocals on “New House” were the definite highlight of Era for me). Consequently, I think the pendulum may have swung a bit too far towards “inhuman” with this album—a better balance between cold, minimalist perfectionism, hooks and charisma can definitely be found.
Despite those caveats, however, Irreal is probably still my second favorite Disappears album, as the elements that do work do so extremely well: hooks are nice, but a strong, singular, and beautifully executed artistic statement is quite satisfying too.
Listen here.
