Secret Fun Club - Skull With Antlers (Three One G, 2012)

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Secret Fun Club are a newer act to join the ever-broadening circle of the Three One G roster, though the band themselves have some history. Initially forming as a trio of John Rieder, Sal Gallegos, and Nathan Joyner (the latter two having held positions in hardcore supergroup Some Girls), SFC's rare debut EP entitled A Diagram of How Shit Flows Through Your Toilet Into God's Hands carried traits from their former band: bending guitar chords, a driving rhythm section, and a strong penchant for stop-start structuring. Since Joyner's departure, they've been reduced to bass and drums, pedaling new motifs that the label has described as "doomy frenetic noise."

That quote tells only half of the recipe, though. The remaining ingredients of their full-length Skull With Antlers consist of an ounce of Lightning Bolt-tinged riffage (bass, drums, noise-- it's a given, folks) and a pinch of math-scholar precision. Opener "Ozomotleycrudos" is a prime example of Secret Fun Club's variety of noise-metal blown to headbang-inducing proportions: a pounding stress trudges in tandem with a slow-as-molasses thrum and quickly comes to a halt in confounding intervals. Rieder and Gallegos' sense of synchronicity is unbelievably keen, prompting a complex fusion of sludgy brute force and adroit interplay.

Skull With Antlers becomes underwhelming at spare junctures, when SFC seem to either run out of ideas or indulge in experiments with less tact than anticipated. "Jack White Pride" is laden with reversed bells and digital fuzz in a slipshod assembly that makes one question its purpose on the album, because even on interlude terms its fadeout nullifies its potential as a buildup to the impressively titled "Steppenwolfmotherlovebonethugsnharmony". Cousins "James Brown Pride" and "Jack Black Panther" have some merit in which clean, pensive melodies loop to a lulling effect. Both tracks serve well as breathers; calm passages to enhance the force of the band's characteristically heavy undertakings.

Lest we forget that this is SFC's debut as a duo. Skull With Antlers' dawdling excurisions seem, at worst, like they inhabit a realm yet to be fully explored. Otherwise, Secret Fun Club's hi-octane technicality and drive make for an undeniably astounding listen, one to bring noise rock and metal fans closer together.



[Secret Fun Club Myspace]
[Buy Skull With Antlers from Three One G]