- When White Denim first emerged from Austin, TX some twelve years ago, it began a career of off-kilter music which combined progressive and psychedelic influences with the Southern rock elements of their native Texas. This has culminated in their eighth full-lengther Performance, which is one of the band’s more straightforward rock & roll records – but keep in mind “straightforward” for White Denim is still pretty out there in places!
It’s also one of the riffiest records they’ve ever done: the crunching guitars of Fine Slime and Moves On occasionally recalling Thee Oh Sees. Yet their own idiosyncrasies are never far away – the latter song, for example, suddenly gives way to burbling sequencers, like Tangerine Dream arrived to throw off the listener just a little bit more.
The Beatles and newer prog-pop acts such as The Lemon Twigs are evoked in the sunshine melodies of Magazin (sic) and It Might Get Dark. As you may have detected by now, this review has compared the music on Performance with a wildly varying range of bands. This could result in White Denim’s music being ambitious yet messy, overloaded with ideas but short on songwriting.
Fortunately that isn’t the case. Even when the album gets truly spacey as on the shimmering track Sky Beaming, the songs are smart but also melodic, inviting and even quite glam rock in places. That said, the tendency for multiple ideas to run through each song does mean that many tunes do blur into each other, despite the record’s undeniable eclecticism.
These are wrinkles that should iron out easily enough on repeated listenings, however. Each song has its own crate-digging charm as White Denim take you to early ‘70's prog land one minute and serve up a dirty roadhouse riff the next. At its centre is a keen sense of playful melodicism that turns up in even the weirdest songs on the album. Give this one a few spins, and you will find Performance’s charms are undeniable.
- Matt Thrower.