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By: Dennis Cook
San Francisco's The New Up ooze modernity, a gleaming beast running low to the ground, hot eyes locked on a horizon that buzzes with neon disease. There's often a tinny quality to bands that take their cues from post-1985 rock - where the touchstones are say Radiohead over The Beatles, The Police over The Kinks - but this ever evolving quintet just goes from strength to strength, building new fangled objects from the discarded floppy drives, miles of fiber optic cable and general discontent buried in the landfill around us. However, as apocalyptic as that may sound they have a knack for writing tunes that make us do a strange jig, finding the sinews & meat inside our robot ways, and they've never done so as subtly and successfully as their new EP, Broken Machine (self-released on August 12).
As usual, the charm offensive begins with lead singer ES Pitcher, who comes on like animated hot chocolate stirred with some pick-me-up of unknown origin. But, as consistently intoxicating as Pitcher is, the boys in the band have tightened up their game in a way that keeps pace with her on this new five-pack. Heavier on squiggly keys, tough-to-place gurgles and fueled by a fierce low end, Broken Machine is the calling card longtime fans have sensed coming for a couple years. That's no dig on their fab earlier releases, but there's a hungry focus here. You can feel how much they want to make their mark, and by golly they probably will if they can maintain this EP's intensity and leanness. Listening to Broken Machine is the audio equivalent of watching athletes encased in shiny, skintight speed suits tear ass towards a new record, a new height. Even if they boondoggle a hurdle, they get full credit for the attempt, and one thrills a little to see them try, again and again. Each release has shown a pronounced determination to better themselves, and really what the hell else do you want from a band?
The growth on the new EP is revealed in more interesting backing vocals, twistier production, neat power chords and a general tuneful gelling of all the elements. Broken Machine taps, perhaps unknowingly, some odd but cool forebears, with pleasant echoes of Missing Persons, Talk Talk and a few other largely forgotten '80s gems. If Ricky was still around The B-52's might be making music as muscular and heady as "Top of the Stairs," and the title tune shimmers like a dinged-up mirage full of "scenes you remember from yesterday," fragrant as pheromones on the wind but still rough as sand. Bonus points for choosing a cool word like "Libations" for a title, and a few more for making it a smiling lament for wasted time, where Pitcher's voice intertwines with guitarist-singer Noah Reid's husky pipes in their best studio pairing yet. Closer "Just Because" is a put-it-on-repeat melancholy exorcism for days when one feels ignored and under-appreciated. It will dance you out of your self-absorption, and perhaps on a subliminal level that's part of The New Up's overall agenda. By tackling the human condition in 2008 with heart, but sans sentimentality, they help us stand on top of our debris instead of being buried by it.
The official EP release show is Friday, August 29, at San Francisco's Bottom of the Hill, followed by a national tour that will take them to Salt Lake City, Brooklyn, St. Louis, Portland and more. Find full tour dates here.
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