Onwards to the Wall
Without any official testing, we can safely say that the master recording for 'Onwards to the Wall' is the loudest one ever submitted to the label for approval. Usually, we crank the volume to catch any digital pops or hisses that may foil a master. But this one we actually had to — ashamedly — put at half volume. This thing is pummeling. And amid this sonic whipping, a smile stretches across our faces. There's no other way to capture the music of A Place To Bury Strangers than just beyond the boundary of what's considered properly loud. Produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by APTBS themselves, this is the sound of a band in control of making out of control music. So yes, 'Onwards to the Wall' packs every bit of the searing sonic maelstrom listeners have come to expect (nay, demand!) from APTBS. Yet, the adroit songcraft that's always been there is brought more the fore, pop hooks are repurposed and more instantly recognizable. Now joined by bassist Dion Lunadon, formerly of The D4, Ackerman has found a crucial companion in pulling timeless melodies from their jet engine textures. Standout "So Far Away" takes all the pure pop perfection of The Box Tops' "The Letter" and shoots it through with a barely-harnessed dark energy and snarling propulsion. The title track carries a similar balance of classic, 60s-pop hooks and doomed-out vibes, employing a boy-girl vocal tradeoff that's at once both sexy and menacing. A handful of contemporary bands are currently exploring the new limits of loud. And here, APTBS proves that they have not only been leading that charge for some time now, but that they are also evolving and maturing on those front lines. 'Onwards to the Wall' is a fresh, complete artistic statement from APTBS. It’s a new chapter, a prelude for what awaits us on the horizon. It is a taste of greatness to come.
The New York noise-rock band's followup to 2009's Exploding Head is a five-song EP that seems to aim for a greater appeal.
A Place To Bury Strangers explore textures and melodies (to use the term loosely) that are as uncomfortable as they are uncompromising on their most brutal collection of songs to date. But haven't we in fact heard a lot of it before?
The Onwards to the Wall EP arrived nearly three years after the album Exploding Head, which presented a lusher and more accessible take on A Place to Bury Strangers' visceral take on shoegaze than anything they'd done before.
Ostensibly a chance to flex their chops with new bassist Dion Lunadon, the stripped-down attack of this self-produced EP offers a predictably visceral listening experience but feels like something of a step backwards after the artfully crafted maelstrom of 2009’s Exploding Head LP. The shoegaze influence gets dialled back in favour of a lean, propulsive garage rock vibe and the band sound as tight as they ever have, but underneath the sheets of noise and reverb these tracks are frustratingly pedestrian.
A Place to Bury Strangers screeched past the sophomore slump, receiving roughly the same critical response they did for their debut—a handful of music scribes who couldn't handle the obvious influences, and a handful who welcomed another take on the 1-2
A Place To Bury Strangers 'Onwards To The Wall' album review on Northern Transmissions.