The music, meanwhile, walks the thinnest tightrope in all rock music: the one between primitivism, which is where the stuff got all its power from in the first place, and sophistication, without a little of which any record’s going to sound a little insincere: there are no more noble savages any more, I’m afraid. The sophistication is in the clear, loving care that’s put into each song, and the way they separate themselves from one another -- now frantic (“Full Disclosure”), now ‘81 English-underground-new-wave haunting & pretty (“Life and Limb,” one the catchiest, spookiest songs I’ve heard all year). At the chorus, it does get loud, and the fury that caused punk rock to come into being is audible at the heart of things; the guitars make truly gorgeous distorted sounds that could not possibly be confused with any other band’s output. There aren’t many bands who never sound like anybody else, and who achieve that distinction not through production sound but through the interplay of their musicians, but Fugazi is that rarest of items: they are the genuine article. The Argument starts off with a wonderful song and really hasn’t got a weak moment; I prefer some songs to others, of course, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that for every ten listeners there’d be ten different favorites. (There are actually eleven tracks, but anybody who says the opening sound collage is his favorite number is either a poseur or a purist of a very unusual stripe.) This is one of the best albums I’ve heard all year; there is probably a teenager somewhere whose life will be forever changed by it. Here at Last Plane to Jakarta, where records with that unique power give us reason to go on, it has made the unstoppable onset of winter seem a little less forbidding. If you’re like me, that alone makes it worth its weight in gold. |
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