Dead C - Secret Earth

The elegance of howling guitar noise was fully realized when The Dead C appeared. For over twenty years now, the trio has continually redefined what rock music is and can sound like, and have inspired Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, Wolf Eyes, and Comets On Fire, not to mention the current fertile underground noise scene.

The Dead C is the ultimate blues band. But rather than departing from the heartfelt singing of the African-American South, they express the tenets of alienation in society with unrelenting force-- a focused soundtrack to accompany Knut Hamsun novels, Samuel Beckett plays, and Ingmar Bergman films. Michael Morley's monotonic vocal moan anchors the inherent isolation of our modern world--nothing is more earnest, nothing sounds so lost.

In its career, The Dead C has oscillated between two poles. Recent albums explore drones, electronic loops, and musique concrete. However, their new album, Secret Earth, proselytizes oceanic feedback, catastrophic drumming, and a return to the cripple rock blasts of their early material.

Along the axis of The Dead C's recordings, Secret Earth sounds like it was created between Eusa Kills and Harsh '70s Reality. It contains a straightforward (for them) expression of sound, while continually pushing their vast improvisational techniques into a realm of subconscious genius.