Review Summary: The Number Twelve Looks Like You stole my outlook on music, and I don't ever want it back.
Flow. It's the universal word to describe something as quaint and natural as a river or the cycle of general life. Music falls under the category of the same as these phenomena of the world, like rivers and bloodbaths and carnivores and vaginal expositions. In retrospect flow represented a very formulaic outlook unto music as one, to create an equal group of songs and genres that carefully plotted their way around through the ears of the public and formed the mainstream tastes of Rap, Rock, and Pop. How does one escape this terribly uniformed *** cluster? Well, still you must learn to conform to the principles of who enjoys what, then hit the Grind with a progressively metallic view of hardcore domination. There you go, in comes the Number Twelve Looks Like You. Titled by the science fiction market, members of the band respectively paved their own roads down the desert to a destination not much unlike their source name. A screaming festivity of both guitar, vocal and percussion expertise came together into one to create something so maniacally intriguing it showed the ears of some a mind-numbingly awesome power that is
Grindcore, mother***er. To others it's pure unadulterated intolerance. Then to the rest, or if you want to use such a vast term, it's the finale of music altogether.
Put On Your Rosey Red Glasses became something that represented the beginning of the end of the road for music. Some things are discovered, and since the early math-rock and noise origins, the end of music has looked so damn close it's starting to scare me. Enthralling, at the same time.
Noise is a classifiable type of music, one that pays almost no valued attention to the simplicity of the time signatures, or...just the time signatures in general. Yes, I know, don't jump down my throat immediately with your claims of 'Number Twelve are far from Noise Rock!' Because they aren't. I know they don't emit the signature sounds of Arab On Radar, Lightning Bolt and Nurse With Wound, but if there is a measured sound to Noise then I don't want to hear anything further, because Noise is just as stated. The Number Twelve Looks Like You have incorporated Noise into their progressive grind in such an unreal way it's impossibly amazing. That's called shock value, my friend. Now of course your going to listen to this record a few more times afterwards the initial, and then the 'Holy ***' factor dies down a bit and the ghastly impression of the riffs and screams becomes a standard for your new ears. Dragging home the best NTLLY have originated from such a musical home.
The way all of this Noise jumble and Progressive styling match up to connect the dots of an incredibly outstanding album is easier than typical to explain. Simplicity is the heart of the overture, and when the overture takes the heart the basics are what is doing that. When you listen to music it's not the complexity that's really overwhelming your senses, it’s the attack on it by the C and B flats. Immediately
Rosey Red Glasses assaults the hearing with a sensibly original metalcore-ish atmosphere with
Don't Get Blood. Fast? Yeah. Heavy? If there ever
was use to that word. The most eerily amazing aspect of NT's music on this particular album (I'd not relate anything off Rosey too much with Nuclear) is that at first these riffs and growls come off as such stinking cheese, and everything you've heard before, for example the breakdown soon after the start of Jesus & Tori and the
I'm so tired holler in If These Bullets. But once the plant uproots itself and stands to such a height, you can look it directly in the pussy and think, wow, what a dick it's grown.
Yes, we've all listened to an album that grows on you almost as if a pet gradually becomes yours. This is no different. I do recall my first listen to this band's music and thinking, unique...very unique, but totally boring. They employed way too many metalcore cliché’s to actually grab my attention immediately. So I had further opportunities to take a look at every last aspect of the band, because after hearing 'My Sharona' and finally realizing the epic greatness of the brief but seemingly lifelong 'Blue Dress', I was hooked on the Number. Eventually this album will turn from noise to rock, to clarify what I have been rambling about. Bang your head on a wall, it's annoying. Recruit three friends and bang the same head spot on the same wall one directly after another, then back, and you have a music of sorts. That's the way
Number Twelve dilutes itself to something simpler to understand. It's not very hard, although the music does appear unfriendly at first.
That's a given with this band. At times, things like the crescendo
scream at the start of Jesus & Tori or the horridly interesting insight that is
Document, Gracebudd prove to have the power to give goose bumps. I will admit this band is entirely un-accessible at first, unless you actually look at the music with a view of instant interest. Unlikely. This album is more of a heavy version of everything every band ever wanted to be.
To make that statement a lot more clear, just think of it this way. When one sets out to make music creativity is probably the most imperative detail to dive into right off the bat. Progression is what evolves eventually from this, and then to a jam, and then to a record. The Number Twelve certainly know how to jam, and on
Rosey Red Glasses it just bleeds through the covers. Not that there are any, or much. There are limits to all music but it’s usually not something to worry about when you have a collective this open-minded toward their respective preferences and the rest of the band’s. This album flows like it was all made up on the spot, perhaps live even at a show. Songs are meant to be a pleasant surprise, at least under the proper labels, and not something you wake up to every other day. The music of the
Number Twelve Looks Like You conveys itself as just that, a pleasant surprise. Shock value is important in music, and the band is keen on just how to employ it and where. But they pulled a lot of this out of their asses, right? Likely.
There’s no problem with that at all. Apparently, right? This particular album is not the epitome of what can be so easily labeled as unique creation, but it built a wall of sound so high and so vast it’s near impossible to travel over. But around, yes, you can get around it. Like music that has no place in the world, this band records only what they must. That is my theory on why exactly this album became something so unnatural, is because the members knew exactly what to play and when. It’s creative minds thinking alike.
The music is
there. What this band puts on this earth for us to hear is just there. Look at it when you listen, the bud has been pried open. The music sleeps when it should and the music screams as it is commanded by you, your ears, the philosophy of music. It happens as it should. Almost as godlike as music gets,
Put On Your Rosey Red Glasses is the defenition of a wall of sound. Like a net, perhaps for a better term, because falling back onto a wall is usually a rather painful experience.
Although, orgasms can be painful at times as well.
