Charm School
Schadenfreude Ploy (Surprise Mind)
by Scott Deckman
Charm School can play different-hued music. I’m not the biggest Jesus Lizard fan, and Mark E. Smith is tough to take. Gang of Four is not my thing, either. Or the Nation of Ulysses (though I bet they were great live). If I was ever on some underground Christmas card exchange list, that just 86’d me. The above have all been bandied about as influences on Charm School, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.
The eponymous song off the band’s EP, Schadenfreude Ploy, takes a dissonant walk, mixing a menacing guitar line with atonal horn. The din is quite a bit toward the end. You got me. I know life can be a disconnected, dishonest mess, and that people in power have us all on a treadmill of never-ending debt slavery (and other things), and that those same people are doing evil most of us would stop if we could. I don’t need any convincing. But the band understands the venal: Some people will do whatever they can to get ahead, including jumping on the Dark Train. Case in point, “Scene Queen,” which treads somewhat adjacent philosophical turf but is more personal. It’s also faster, noisier, and stronger for it, and follows a more traditional song structure. Singer/guitarist Andrew Sellers sounds like boredom turned up loud; he has the impassioned disassociation blues. But Michael Gira’s spiritual son appears more approachable.
“Disgrace” is just as confrontational as the rest, but broodier. The song starts off placidly enough, until the addition of a stabbing guitar, then adds a repeating circular riff underneath, ultimately yielding to a post-slasher six-string. The riff comes back, until eventually both parts are contrapuntal. There is a sense of industrial forward-march-or-die in a demented fun house. It’s unnerving, and it’s supposed to be. Cleverly titled “Prime Mover Unmoved” is a six-minute-plus schizophrenic devotional to something, alternating an unsettling slow quiet with discordant pounding, and they even throw in something akin to prog in the bridge. Most of the cut’s second half rides the quiet into the sunset while slightly increasing the noise.
The band’s prior full-length, last year’s Debt Forever, leavened the dystopia churn with indie songcraft (the first half brought the noise, most of the second the could’ve-been-hits), hence the hued opening. I guess old grouchy me likes songs. These guys are pushing it, real good. One thing about this band though: They craft quality music, even the stuff I don’t necessarily like. There is an up-front, in-your-faceness about Charm School you can’t deny.
