Replicants

(Zoo)
by Clarendon Lavorich

I hate bad cover songs. I’ve always been of the mindstate that a song should be either duplicated note for note and adhered to so faithfully that the result is one of complete disorientation (see Faith No More’s “Nestlé” jingle or Commodores covers), or a song should be so insanely altered that it holds little, if any, semblance to the original (see The Queer’s treatment of “Tainted Love” or Marc Ribot’s “Wind Cries Mary”). I’ve always despised bands that took the original and simply played it as a “cover,” not really exploring either the original intentions or the futuristic implications (see Sting’s “Little Wing”). That’s why I love Replicants.

Replicants are part Tool, part Failure, and part Eye in Triangle. Their product is every great song you ever heard, and some you might never have heard, sent through the blender of time and modern aesthetics (contradiction). The result is a self-titled album of 11 songs that shaped music, either by showing the way to go, or establishing a good, out-of-bounds, you’ve-gone-too-far limit. All played in a style that grunge, post-punk, and power pop should take a clue from. Check it out: These guys know how to take a great song form (or a trite one) and turn it into something that any self-respecting DJ would spin ’til the disc wore out. Granted, Replicants had the entire back catalog of rock to work from, but listen to these titles:

“Just What I Needed” by the Cars. They take the song, a happy mid ’80s pop tune, and put it in a minor key. The chords, the melody, are all there but… different. Strange. Exciting. Unsettling. And then there’s the sardonic take on Paul McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs,” where the original intent (“I love you”) is turned into a cynical send up of pop music. As an absolute coup, they get hold of Missing Person’s “Destination Unknown” and abuse it into an electro-grunge apathy anthem of alien abduction.

Get your ears around Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work” and understand what it sounded like to the kids in the ’70s hearing it for the first time. And try to understand the Syd Barrett tune “It’s No Good Trying,” clocking in at one minute of sonic attack. “Cinnamon Girl” is heavier than Mr. Young could have imagined (although I suppose now he’ll try), and Gary “Cars” Numan’s “Are Friends Electric?,” the song that searched the vacant keyboard universe in search of a friend, now finds one in the hearts of nostalgia. All are presented stripped and reclothed in the sounds of our generation (choose your own letter, schmuck).

But the song that truly got to me was Bowie’s “The Belway Brothers.” I can still see myself in my old bedroom in New York, listening to Bowie for the first time, and somehow latching onto this song. Then the void of growing up, separating that experience from then until now, hearing the sounds that were locked up in my mind for more than a decade bursting and splattering their way across my living room…

Yes, Replicants have put out an album worthy of the imitative art. It’s about damn time.