Upright Forms - Blurred Wires - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Underground lifer Nick Sakes returns on the debut LP from Upright Forms. The tight-knit Minneapolis trio feels like the culmination of Sakes' varied and prolific career to date, bringing together the unhinged prog-punk ferocity of Dazzling Killmen & Colossamite with the careening chaos of Xaddax and the shout-along hooks and dynamic songcraft of Sicbay. Blurred Wires is skewed yet tuneful, challenging yet compulsively listenable, concise yet brimming with invention. The experience of a lifetime distilled to 33 rotations across a gripping 33 minutes.Consider InchThey Kept on Living,Inch a song that first appeared in an earlier version on the SKiN GRAFT comp Sounds to Make You Shudder!. It starts off with a grinding 7/4 groove, with cryptic lines over scratchy noise-punk chords. After a brief build, the band explodes into a massive chorus, with Sakes shouting the title line against a fist-pumping riff.The trio sound equally convincing digging into the pummeling aggression of InchMy Lower Self,Inch where Sakes' vocals start off as a feral snarl and then soar triumphantly during the chorus, or the soothing indie-pop hush of the Paster-penned InchDrive at Night.InchVarious Inchtug-at-your-heartstringsInch touchstones informed InchLong ShadowInch. Sakes channeled Television Personalities, cult heroes of melodic British post-punk, on InchAnimositine,Inch which he accurately labels Inchour prettiest song.Inch Nearly 35 years into his career, Sakes is finding new ways to challenge himself - and in Paster and Westphal, he's found two musicians who are equally comfortable with both the thorniest and the loveliest manifestations of underground rock. When they reflect on their chemistry, they agree that their openness to collaboration is, as Sakes puts it, Inchone of our superpowers.Inch On Blurred Wires, that superpower yields dynamic, challenging and profoundly memorable results