Album Review: Fire On Corridor X by All The Saints

Noise rules on local-via-Alabama band's debut.

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Atlanta’s All the Saints may start in a shivery atmosphere of Mogwai-ish guitar, piano and drums (the brief, evocative “Shadow Shadow”), but they quickly move to obliterating churn and drone. They may name two songs after historic synth pop (“Sheffield”) and post-punk (“Leeds”) capitals, but they are firmly grounded in the Manchester aesthetic of guitar distortion. Yet unlike label mates—and fellow feedback aficionados—A Place to Bury Strangers, All the Saints embedded a near metallic splendor into their fierce drones.

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It's not surprising that a new band might have some of the sense of epic reach as prime Jane's Addiction, say, but it's all the more interesting to hear a newer group exploring some of the sonic choices of bands that had initially followed in that band's wake, like the still underrated God Machine and the more obscure Pusherman -- or even, at a stretch, the earliest work by Verve. Thus the feeling of All the Saints, whose Fire on Corridor X reconnects dots from arena-scaled riffs and amplifiers to an almost dreamy, lost-in-it-all singing approach, not too far removed from the equal number of hordes trying to clone Spacemen 3 but not simply aiming to rewrite Playing with Fire, either. At its strongest, with songs like the archly titled "Regal Regalia" and "Papering Fix," the band kicks up a huge sounding storm while still providing space for the almost preternaturally clean singing boring through the mix -- not as an artificially high volume element, more like serenity in the midst of a storm.

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Atlanta trio All the Saints could save anyone the trouble of ploughing through the Creation back catalogue. Their effects-laden racket blends My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Swervedriver and early Oasis insouciance. Tracks called Sheffield and Leeds nod to the band's obsessive anglophilia, although they are actually named after cities in Alabama. However, All the Saints are more than just copyists of the early 1990s British scene.

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Tit for tat, revivalism that’s blatant and self-serving is now, and will always be, a bored and misguided maneuver. I remember a time when people I respected actively hated bands that sound like All the Saints, a Southeastern trio who have staked its future in hope of a grebo revival. Big things are happening for this band. Killer Pimp, the outta-nowhere label responsible for fishing A Place to Bury Strangers out of Pianos, picked these guys up; Touch & Go laid claim to them soon thereafter, committing to release the album on vinyl and digitally, and to work with the band exclusively for upcoming releases.

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