By Jesse Cataldo
It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that three has always been the prime number of rock music. The triangle forms the basic essence of the art form, blending three distinct elements into a cohesive and equalized shape. This is not to say that more than three is any less effective, but there’s a formula, and it’s there for a reason. On You’re A Woman, I’m a Machine, Death from Above 1979 kicks a gaping hole in this classic axiom, effectively smashing the guitar before they even take the stage. Not that they’re the first to successfully reduce the rock formula to two, far from it; but the first to use only bass and drums to create an accessible form of what could accurately be called rock music? Probably.
Death From Above 1979 grabs hold of the precedent set by Lightning Bolt-the preeminent purveyors of psychotic guitar jazz-and streamlines it. The result is a psychotic guitar sludge, one that’s both sing-along catchy and satisfyingly gritty. The absence of a guitar is any bassist’s dream, pushing what is normally a barely noticed background instrument front and center. Bassist Jesse Keeler responds with a constant mercurial snarl, distorting and stretching the instrument’s sound into something that could be a guitar, but isn’t, because, um, it’s a bass.
The bass as guitar motif has been applied with increasing frequency recently, especially in hipster sanctuaries like DC and Brooklyn. In some cases, this trend begs the question, why not just use a guitar? With Death From Above 1979, the choice seems less of a conscious decision to reinterpret the image of the bass than the fact that Keeler just picked up a bass and started playing. Besides, the bass does have a distinctive sound, pulling off a significantly dense low end that a guitar couldn’t. The opening riff on “Turn It Out,” the album’s best song, ranges back and forth from a crushing bassy chug to a screaming high, all in one measure. The bass in “Romantic Rights” sounds like it’s being strummed with a piece of broken glass, a level of grating catchiness unheard of on a standard guitar. On tracks like “Blood On Our Hands” and “Black History Month,” the bass even manages to match the cocksure swagger of a guitar. Simply put, it’s almost impossible to find music that’s this heavy and cutting edge, and still so accessible.