Brooklyn trio Sightings, over the course of their 10-year career, have progressed greatly as a band. From the noise-coated punk of their self-titled debut to the more comprehensible, brooding, and even melodic travels on City of Straw, analogies to machinery seem the most appropriate here: at the start, the engines were at full-speed, endlessly grinding away at anything that stood in its way; the gears are now worn, skittering and varying in speed as the deafening barrage has devolved into a malfunctioning system of cogs.
As expected, Future Accidents is in its inmost phase of decay. The vinyl-only medium lends these four tracks an essence of distinction; Side A illustrates the Sightings that listeners have been familiar with for the past four years, with three tracks at common lengths, the longest of which being over seven minutes. Mark Morgan's mutated guitar loops rarely obtain a grasp of tempo, Richard Hoffman's bass conjures grooves from other dimensions, and John Lockie's sporadic rhythms take the place of another texture as opposed to a metronome. Side B manifests an unfamiliar facet of the group on the side-long "Public Remains," a piece dedicated to mechanical loops and mangled drones provided by Morgan and keyboardist Pat Murano. Though recordings like this may not surface on Sighting's more 'proper' efforts, it brings forth an appetite for sprawling excursions.
With seven studio albums abroad and plenty of limited releases underneath, Future Accidents isn't bound to overwhelm versed followers. If anything, these 40 minutes are a standout documentation of the trio's progression, freeing them of all inhibitions. While its closer doesn't quite attain a crescendo of any sort, Future Accidents's succession doesn't accumulate grandiosity as much as it does degenerate into a swamp of sodden feedback. I wouldn't have it any other way.
[Sightings Myspace]
[Buy Future Accidents from Our Mouth Records*]
*The Our Mouth Records website makes no mention of Future Accidents due to a lack of updates, but I'd like to direct you to some distributors who carry the album: Weirdo Records, Flipped Out Records, and Norman Records.
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