There are times when an album lands in your lap and is completely untreatable. Sometimes you just to have to accept that some things in this world aren't to be understood. Boe Weaver's self-titled album is one such time. There's little information about them available online. Their MySpace description features a video for "Ghouls", in which the artists play their instruments (so far, so every other band on earth), dressed in animal costumes (so far, so Flaming Lips), with crude, day-glo colours flashing in the background (so... sorry, I'm spent). Apparently it cost about a tenner to make. It makes your eyes water if you watch it more than once, and your brain melt if you watch it more than twice (probably). Which, coincidently, is what happens when you listen to their album. But in a good way. For this is pretty weird shit, but not weird unlistenable. This is the sort of thing that is weird enough to catch your attention, and weird enough to keep it.
Let's get the influences out of the way quickly. A lot has been made of the music that should really have sound-tracked a b-reel schlock horror film from the seventies. Even the track names draw from the imagery of that shameless time, when a wobbly camera and a stunningly beautiful Italian Z-list actress delivering lines such as "Oh my god, it's over there in the trees" with all the panache of a slice of Gouda were enough to fill the theatres. "Ghouls". "Monster Maker". "Manhunt, Pt. 2". "Mysterious Island". Somewhere out there, though, is a god-awful eighty-minute feature, full of floundering "actors", rickety sets and lashings of cheap frights, just waiting to cross paths with this album. It has everything it needs, in any case. The swirling, haunting organs of "Ghouls" combine with fuzzed-out crunchy guitars before being walked home by a joyously graphic guitar solo that, despite lasting a brief few seconds, manages to convey all the beauty of big moustaches, tie-dye shirts and LSD-blasted nervous systems. The colossal "Monster Maker" is nothing more than, well, monstrously chunky riffs and pulsating drums, which having scared the bejesus out of you, slink away silently from view, and lurk in the shadows before leaping out and crushing everything beneath them once again.
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Elsewhere, the laid-back groove of "Let It Die" does everything bar blacking up and putting on a huge afro wig to transport you into a Blaxploitation detective series. The funky bass, sinuous synth-lines and kaleidoscopic guitar melodies (which have more than a little in common with those Swedish psychedelic merchants, Dungen) couldn't be more relaxed if they tried, and the song proves the perfect "calm" before the "storm" cooked up by "Monster Maker".
But if I were forced to pick a stand-out track (see below), however, it would probably be "Manhunt, Pt. 2". Sounding like walk-on tournament music for Bruce Lee, it's full of drive, bongo rhythms, eerie flutes and piercing guitar lines that give you everything you could possibly want from a seventies-era martial arts film without the broken bones and awful dubbing. Indeed, the whole album actually plays out like a latter-era Quentin Tarantino film score, without the overbearing pretension and liberal use of the word "fuck".
But the thing that should be most emphasised about Boe Weaver's debut album is that it's not about the individual tracks, damn fine as they are, but the whole. To single anything out as single material here would be to miss the point somewhat. The eerie, psychedelic ambiance that permeates every crevice of this album is sufficient to keep you captivated. There are tunes to be had, make no mistake, but you'll enjoy it better if you kick back, put the album on repeat, and play out the various car chases, violent karate chops and kitsch vampire blood-letting in your head.
Boe Weaver on MySpace
Vu Records online
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