I’ve got a weak spot for the specialized craft these bands practice; their star-going-nova schtick does a better job of sketching what emotional life is really like than bands who loudly claim to be doing exactly that. Their lyrics are kind of lame, but so what? I have become more forgiving of bad lyrics lately if I feel like they’re coming from an honest and unpretentious place. At least Orchid know how to come up with a good song title or two: “Don’t Rat Out Your Friends,” “Snow Delay at the Frankfort School,” “Destination: Blood!” It’s their guitarist who seals the deal for me, though. Every time he rips into a new phrase it sounds like he just realized that guitars are cool. And he finds new phrases to play with every thirty seconds or so: the songs are short, like all good songs, and they don’t sit still for longer than a minute at a time. Because it’s independently produced punk rock, everything’s mixed at about the same level, so the guitar heroics aren’t spotlighted and showcased and brought up in the mix when they’re really up to something good, and what that means for you and me is that we get to enjoy some seriously shredding guitar antics without having to rub our chins and pretend we have something to say about “technique.” The whole record’s over in under twenty minutes. It’s not around long enough for a listener to even figure out what’s going on. It’s like a blinding flash of light or an overpowering burst of heat: one experiences it first and evaluates it only in the aftermath, by which point everything’s different.
