Do Make Say Think preview

Do Make Say Think
Metro, Chicago
Saturday, November 10, 2007

Singing! There’s actual singing on Do Make Say Think’s latest, You, You’re A History In Rust (Constellation). O.K., so it isn’t them, but hey. Fives all around?

For all the instrumental freedom post rock provides, it all ends up sounding same-y to people with only passing interest. Do Make Say Think’s psych/folk/jazz/electronic career has helped their albums play more like mixtapes than most bands’, but the infiltration of Akron/Family and Great Lake Swimmers’ Alex Lukashevsky on the latest album suggests a thaw. The human voice is an instrument after all, right?

But there is reluctance. Because the Akron folks already shout more than sing, couldn’t DMST’s four-to-six-member posse have handled the chore? Maybe they will on Saturday without their flashy friends. Or maybe they’ll just try to burn your ears off, which seems to be a more immediate focus of History than hearing voices.

Opening with “Bound To Be That Way,” a song that must’ve fallen off the back of Tortoise’s TNT, the Torontoans edge their interior noodling with equal doses flash and grrrr. Post rock’s not for pussies, it nods. Lukashevsky, before Akron overtake him, manages to get the most pop out of “A With Living” before the nine-minute track tapers into a rehearsal. “The Universe!” then takes big-bang theory literally, bounding off the corridor walls in ways that haven’t been seen since A-Ha’s “Take On Me” video.

The found-sounds and backporch acoustics of “A Tender History In Rust” pay tribute to Gastr Del Sol before a would-be vocal-less My Morning Jacket pastiche, “You, You’re Awesome,” reminds all of a world without suffocating reverb. Old electronic tryouts by this time have been totally replaced by a folksy post-Americana-ism (don’t quote me) before morphing into a staticky vocal fireball to close, “In Mind.”

Now if we can only get them to shut up.

Apostle Of Hustle open.

— Kevin Keegan

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly