Review Summary: Despite the noise, recognize the sound!
Earthworks—the third full-length from New York duo Straw Man Army—continues the band's episodic theses on societal reflection, spitting forth questions from the dilapidated void of America's own heart with an earnest expectation of response—petitioning for an echo with their most overtly political record to date. Why profits over people? Was it always this way? In the end times,
will there be singing? Earthworks poses these questions with a purposeful sense of naivety in order to underline the often unsatisfying ambiguity of reply. I mean, truly, which way
does a spiral spin? Straw Man Army explores these topics with a collection of epigrams; striking criticisms of our own tendency toward apathy, the systems and mechanisms that control our daily life (the scene of the crime!), our future on the very Earth we have estranged ourselves from—all emitted in short, clever phrases that are impossible to ignore. Sonically,
Earthworks continues to improve upon (and increase the fidelity of) the minimalist framework established in the band's the first two records—still rooted in the tight, controlled rhythmic blasts of English anarcho-punk groups like Crass and Zounds, but with a heightened sense of melodic delicacy reminiscent of Fugazi, and speak-sung vocals that reflect New York precursors The Van Pelt and the anti-war prose of Moss Icon. Whether these similarities are intentional or by fluke of my own associations, songs like "Rope Burn" and "Turn The Wheel" only further my suspicions with their dispirited indie leanings and brooding guitar harmonies pushed only gently by the tube amp glow, meanwhile songs like "Spiral" and "Staring At The Sun" still shake at the fence of disorder with rattling snare rolls and antagonistic bass lines. It's a unique approach that I have honestly never quite heard before (not like this, and certainly not as well), and it only bolsters my faith in punk as an art form that can evolve without losing it's modus operandi as a music by the people, for the people. And while things might not turn out so well for mankind or our planet, as the band so graciously paints for us in their closing act, at least we have our songs.
"You wake up leaping through the door
And fall to the next floor
Under skies devoid of birds
There aren’t seasons anymore"
