(Still Single) Ingredient-rich RIO acolytes, residing in both NYC and Philly, explode forth in a clatter of neoclassically-trained, compositionally agitated, yet detailed and well-versed rock/anti-rock/nein-wavo pummel and scrape. Loads of ideas in here, all executed with tact and vigor; this is the line where the aggression of the beautifully untrained musician intersects with discipline, punk/anti-establishment ideals plugged into a mainframe and shot through a Silly Straw. Every time I thought some intractable cabaret-borne notion was about to foist itself on me (via tracks with names like “Grimy Super Soaker” and “Cultural Uppercut”), Normal Love surprised again and again with a hint of wisdom and an intensity that will wrap around both your mind and your throat. Not too many challenges have been awaiting me in the review pile, but even if it were, this one would get a very high recommendation. - Doug Mosurock

(Olive Music) What constitutes chaos? Is it the disconnect of instruments, disharmony, or the disembowelment of pattern? This question would cease to exist if no wave in 1970s New York hadn't risen. Glenn Branca, Arto Lindsay, and Lydia Lunch evaded conventions, thus awakening an earshot that raised more hairs than English heavy metal did that same decade. And like metal, no wave's following prevails, although its audience may have waned with age. Have today's proponents of no wave (or noise for that matter) adopted the dissonance as a vernacular? One person this query could be directed to is Bay Area no(w) wave savant Weasel Walter, who's been active in the circle for over 20 years now. In 1991 he founded and assigned himself drumming duties for the transient cast of the Flying Luttenbachers. Since then, he's performed in xbxrx and Lake of Dracula with the ex-U.S. Maple frontman and deity that is Al Johnson among many other outfits. Walter also has a great ear for production, separating dual-guitar bands across the left and right channels on their records. Above all else, he knows the style of music in which he plays better than anyone else and is known for giving lectures on it. What may read like Chinese to others Walter knows full-well and distributes to a less-fluent audience with his label ugEXPLODE and its catalog. Amidst the label's array of experimentalists is Philadelphia quintet Normal Love, whose 2007 debut was an abstrusely systematic chamber skronk venture. In the years that followed the self-titled album, the band had undergone significant alterations to its membership. Bassist Evan Lipson and guitarist Alex Nagle performed on Satanized's sophomore album Technical Virginity, the latter leaving Normal Love alongside vocalist Melissa Martignoni and violinist Carlos Santiago. The band's long-awaited followup has been underway for a good while, after lineup changes, intensive rehearsing, and a Kickstarter fund, but Normal Love's ugEXPLODE enrollment has brought the label one of its most diverse releases. Survival Tricks is a smattering of Normal Love's cited influences from no wave to industrial to musique concrète to extreme metal to contemporary composition. All of these styles form a fine alloy, a tapestry so tightly woven together that it can't be torn. The most immediate and bearing the closest semblance to verse-chorus-verse is "Lend Some Treats", which pounces onto an abusive meter with a panorama of choked violin strings and frenetic guitar harmonics. Newly enlisted vocalist and sampler Rachael Bell shouts at three-syllable intervals, and during the quasi-chorus wavers between two notes with the instruments suspended in a fog of open hi-hats. Normal Love's confounding expeditions transcend definition. The arrangements sustain their puzzling evocation throughout Survival Tricks when apace with instances of beauty. Ben Greenberg-esque guitar delay clots together, introducing how "Cultural Uppercut" juts outward with buoyant violin chords and damaged electronics as Bell's prolonged cries are reduced to a climbing oscillation. Its ecstatic sense of harmony is spiritual, though the erratic orchestration suggests a tension that never quite unhinges itself until the brooding "I Heard You Could See Baltimore From There". Bell's inflection turns operatic, offering a resplendent strain that she abruptly guts for jarring chirps. Growling bass encircles the band's bleak dirge, diffusing as dissonant plucks and jagged notes enter the foreground. Be it a negative-space metric onslaught ("Grimy Super Soaker"), guitar-scrape industrial ("Breathe Through Your Skin"), or myriad avant-garble ("A Throbbing Sphere"), Normal Love execute each with abiding tact and forethought. Survival Tricks's meticulous clamor is a trial to endure, but parsing through its many layers pertains to the joy of revisiting it. Chaos is its dialect, and though difficult to learn, it's worth comprehending just a few phrases. - Carter Mullin

(The Gumshoe Grove) HooooooooooooooooooooooooooBOY, I’ve been jamming my nose into the sweet-yet-stinky ”summer sale” Mimaroglu Music Sales is cultivating and it’s been tough to emerge from the K-hole, even when it comes to performing rudimentary tasks like going to work, driving my daughter to wherever and making toilet. I have, however, managed to free myself from MMS’ clutches long enough to take stock of the latest record by Normal Love, Survival Tricks. And I tell you: If ST is a war, many of you will not be coming back (especially YOU, Peterson). It’s a war of audio attrition, and I barely escaped tone-death myself muddling through this scare-tactic mess of glitches, rhythm-section antler-locks, guitar trickery and vocal overlording. It’s going to take more than a few swipes to get a good read on this one, but I’ll take a crack at it by dint of the following exercise: If I were to, Frankenstein-style, create a composite of Normal Love (who, perhaps one day, will form a super-duper name-combination group with Talk Normal), its appendages and body parts would end up something like this: the mouth of Chloë Lum, of AIDS Wolf; the reverse-dexterity found in the many limbs of Fadensonnen; the muscular drummin’ arms of Upsilon Acrux; the fleet fingers of Portland, Oregon’s Dilute; the hyperactive imagination of Ruins (or, for that matter, Sax Ruins); the violence-spewing violin-elbow of C. Spencer Yeh; the sick, sadistic pathos of Spires That In the Sunset Rise; the mother-brain of fellow ugEXPLODEers Toy Killers; the ADD of Feeding Tube’s Sports; the anything-goes whimsy of The Black Neck Band Of The Common Loon; and, finally, the groupthink sensibility/awareness of Horsehair Everywhere … HOLY FUCK — where to go from here? I suppose now that I’ve laid out a foundational appreciation for Normal Love the next logical step would be to flesh out their stuttering, mind-flogging, screeching, droning, squiggling, sputtering, spiritually guttural attack for you; then again, my little Frankenstein’s monster routine above went a long way toward explaining the thrust of this sick animal for you. Anything I add right now could muddle the message of this post, which is: Support the musical endeavors of artists such as Normal Love and a special branch of heaven will be awaiting you in the afterlife, one replete with broken instruments, improptu jam sessions, back issues of Bixobal and the sort of non-fashion sense expected when folks too nihilistic to even wear soiled band T-shirts congregate. Don’t worry, if I get there first I’ll hold a spot for you … - Grant Purdum

(Babysue)Folks into obtuse nervous jerky experimental music, listen up. Those who don't...should consider immediately covering their ears and running for the exit. Normal Love is a weird band. A very, very, very weird band. According to the press release, this band creates music by "...bypassing existing standards and inhabiting a strobing black-lit world where apocalyptic decadence meets the iron fist of Draconian law." Whoa. That may be a strange descriptive passage but it gives an adequate description of the tunes on Survival Tricks. This isn't atonal noise because there is order here. It's just a different sort of order with lots of oddball curves being thrown at the listener all at once. Imagine Yoko Ono fronting a group of Modern Classical musicians with a rock band playing in the foreground...and you might begin to have an idea of the overall sound. These folks are playing for a very small audience...and they obviously don't give a rat's ass about giving people what they want. In our odd little book of wisdom, that is a very good thing. Eight bizarre cuts here including "Lend Some Treats," "Breathe Through Your Skin," "Cultural Uppercut," and "Cosmetic Rager." This music is a wildly unorthodox trip... - Don Seven

(Perte Et Fracas) La brise du matin ne manquant jamais de me pousser vers le goulet du port, c'est avec un merveilleux esprit d'aventurier zélé que je monte à l'assaut de Normal Love. Et la montagne est belle comme disait le poète. Elle ferait même un tantinet peur répondit l'écho. A vrai dire, je ne sais par quelle face je vais l'escalader. Et surtout si je vais réussir à atteindre la moitié du sommet. Car l'accès à la musique de Normal Love est un long chemin tortueux couvert de boue et de crottes de boucs. Diaboliques, il va de soi. Les proctologues de la musique appellent ça de l'avant-rock. Je veux bien. Sauf qu'avant le rock, je ne veux même pas savoir la merde que nos ancêtres écoutaient. Nous devrions plutôt appeler ça de l'après-rock mais ça fait trop apéro avec des glaçons, voir post-rock et une seule minute de Normal Love réduirait instantanément en bouillie n'importe quelle cervelle de ce genre musical éculé pour anarchistes de droite. Certains proctologues plus érudits que la moyenne et aimant aller au fond des choses sortent de leur manche la terrible étiquette de Rock In Opposition. Soit un truc datant du début des années 70 par ce rigolard de Fred Frith et Henry Cow qui n'est pas son pote mais son groupe d'alors. Soit le désir d'éclater les règles du rock en vigueur, faire évoluer les mentalités des gouvernantes victoriennes qui servent de directeurs artistiques dans des maisons de disques frileuses et ne comprenant rien à rien. Mais tout ça fait horriblement rock progressif et depuis cette époque des rouflaquettes et des pattes d'eph, bien de l'eau a coulé et les pieds de Normal Love ont trempé dans infiniment de courants qui font avancer le moulin. Vous aurez remarqué que je fais tout pour reculer le redouté moment où il faudra un tant soi peu décrire ce disque. Nous allons donc parler de Weasel Walter. Ce toujours jeune freluquet, chantre de la batterie atomique et de la musique qui en découle, n'est pas du genre à s'amouracher d'un groupe tiédasse, d'un groupe qui y va qu'à moitié. Il aime, comme les proctologues, quand ça va profond, durablement et que ça fait mal. Nous touchons donc du doigt (c'est une image) le fondement de Normal Love. Un rock qui irrite, un rock qui dérange, un rock qui ne s'accorde à rien tout en s'accommodant d'une multitude de fragments de la musique au sens très large. Expérimental est un terme galvaudé tant il est utilisé pour n'importe quel boutonneux sortant de son école d'art pétant dans sa guitare et en modifie les sonorités avec pro-tools. Accoler à Normal Love, il retrouve déjà plus de sens. Le rythme est le noyau central. Qu'il provienne de la batterie de Eli Litwin, de la basse ou de la guitare de, respectivement, Evan Lipson et Alex Nagle (soit deux Satanized), de l'autre guitariste ou des manipulations électroniques du compositeur en chef Ammon Freidlin (ex-Zs) ou du violon amplifié joué tour à tour par Jessica Pavone et Carlos Santiago, l'impact rythmique est le souci premier. Des rythmes concassés, martelés, découpés au chalumeau, hachés continuellement. Tous les instruments participent et jouent sur les rythmes, en même temps, chacun de son coté, se répètent à l'infini, obstinément, l'impression douloureuse d'être au milieu d'auto-tamponneuses, la tête comme un punching-ball, un dialogue de fou dont les fils apparaissent puis disparaissent au gré d'humeur très changeante, des interactions de dingues entre chaque instrument se balançant des parpaings de haute voltige. Les cordes crissent, la basse tape, le rythme s'arrête, repart, s'arrête, explose pendant une micro seconde, s'arrête, passe la balle à son voisin, avec toujours ce souci de mettre de l'espace entre chaque instrument, ne jamais surcharger le tableau sonore. Ca fait froid dans le dos. La seule touche mélodique vient de la chanteuse Merissa Martigoni dont les cordes vocales n'étaient point présentes sur le premier album instrumental de Normal Love datant déjà de 2007. Enfin, mélodique quand elle veut. Sur le péplum I heard you could see Baltimore from there, elle est capable de nous faire une Charlie Lookker (Extra Life), diva d'opérette rock mais elle sait être aussi glaciale, hurleuse et primaire sur le ténébreux Breathe through your skin, détachée, douce ou narrative. Elle apporte en tout cas une touche d'humanité. Respire. Tout ça pourrait paraître très cérébral, ultra technique mais c'est exécuté avec férocité, avec intensité (sinon le Walter n'aurait pas apprécié), le canevas de structures se met lentement en place dans votre cerveau dérouté, capable de sauvagement vous agripper (Lend Some Treats), une symphonie animale, une chorégraphie millimétrée et burlesque. La rencontre de la musique de chambre et du hardcore, de la musique expérimentale avec des intentions belliqueuses, la complexité du prog-rock et le nihilisme de la no-wave. Autant dire que c'est n'importe quoi. Pas la musique de Normal Love mais ces honteuses tentatives d'associations stylistiques. Il vous faut donc écouter ce disque pas banal, par petites touches si nécessaire, remettre plusieurs fois l'ouvrage sur le réchaud pour dénicher la flamme incroyable qui agite ce Survival Triks. Je ne comprends toujours pas tout mais je n'arrête pas d'y retourner. - SKX

(Brainwashed) If the term spastic ever needed an audio equivalent, Survival Tricks would easily fit the bill. While it is rooted in an improvised rock context, bits of jazz, noise, and techno fly around like shards of broken glass in an album that is as equally abrasive as it is spectacular. Unlike, say, the work of Torture Garden-era Naked City, this is not a work of surgical jump cuts and stop/start genre hopping precision, but something more in league with Boredoms' earliest (and best) works. This is immediately apparent on the rapid percussion and repetitive guitar scrapes of "Lend Some Treats," which quickly drops out in and out of snare rolls and bass guitar hits, occasionally settling into some sort of vaguely funk groove. When the band settles into a more stable mood, such as the scatter-shot but propulsive "Grimy Super Soaker," it almost starts to resemble an '80s synth band and their gear being pushed down the stairs during a recording session. However, for all its chaos and noise, there is an underlying song-like structure that keeps it engaging, rather than just being a random blast of sound. The longer "I Heard You Could See Baltimore From There" does do a better job at staying in one place, at times settling into a more pop-like, though still highly unconventional structure. While it’s the closest thing to an understated track on here, that is not saying much. At times, this overly kinetic sound leans into grating, abrasive territories, such as the constant, repetitive scrape of "Electrolytes in the Brine" that simply goes on too long for such an abrasive approach. The following "A Throbbing Sphere" goes for similar repetition, but its shorter length and less trying sounds make it far more effective. Normal Love is one of those bands that make description extremely difficult. They’re anything but subtle, and at times, the rapid pounding and crashing can be exhausting. The album as a whole is a bit of an endurance test, but in bite sized chunks, Survival Tricks is a great freakout in the vein of early no wave noise rock that is best absorbed in small doses. - Creaig Dunton