Gnod – Infinity Machines (Rocket Recordings)
Manchester-based post-everything cosmic ravers Gnod seem to be engaged in a one-band crusade to save rock music. Or rather, they are one of the few ostensibly rock-focused bands questioning the genre’s validity and merit in an era of across-the-board conformity and rampant consumerism.
Let’s be honest, rock now stands for stadium-filling reunions by ageing icons just to get one last cash-in on a reputation built decades ago, and painfully brief celebrity status for an endless conveyor belt of skinny-jean-clad hipsters adopting the latest variant on the “Band starting with ‘The’” formula. Worst of all, bar rare valiant exceptions (Swans, The Dead C and um, er, well two ain’t too bad, I guess), these bands all pretty much sound identical, from big stars to small new outfits: like they listen to The Rolling Stones a lot but also once had a Neu! record played to them and now own a MiniMoog. So much yawn. But Gnod are different, and in a fairer world they’d be gracing all the magazine covers and not whatever latest piece of tedium Noel or Liam Gallagher or Blur or that bland chap out of Coldplay have decided to expel from their overly familiar musical backsides. But they aren’t, and in this context they may be better off, because they’ve had the serenity and time to make Infinity Machines something of a statement...
Read the rest of the great and glowing review in full here: Dustedinexile
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