The Men Leave Home
by Jeff Klingman
The Men
Leave Home
(Sacred Bones)
This borough is gradually weaning itself off wispy, nostalgic haze, maybe? Hey everybody, punishing sludge came back! The Men, a local four-piece who've put out subterranean tapes, singles and LPs for a few years, thrash into the spotlight with Leave Home, their debut for Sacred Bones, a Brooklyn label on a significant hot streak. The band plays fuzzy riffs, but with insistent speed and repetition that blurs the line between garage rock's looseness and krautrock's endless precision. The record isn't polished, like, at all, but it does have a deceptive bit of range. "If You Leave" starts suddenly after a good three minutes of feedback tease. It's aggressively murky, but there's a vibrant jangle under there. It answers its title's hypothetical with single-minded, sing-song certainty, "Die, I would die, I would diiiiiiiiie." A few songs later, in the screaming, broken-glass crawl of "L.A.D.O.C.H." it sounds like they'd rather kill. "Bataille" is the poppiest they get, with singer Nick Chiericozzi floating wounded, shaky melodies over the drill-bit guitar, inching towards great, hoary old influences like The Wipers or that first Mission of Burma EP (your "poppy" definition may vary). Despite the unfortunate mental image of its title, late-album instrumental "Shittin' with the Shah" is kind of incongruously pretty, even. It's spacious where previous songs were tightly coiled, claustrophobic. With ominous beats shading wandering guitars, galloping to a joyous finish, it sounds like a nervous stroll down a dusty trail, the war drums in the distance turning out to be a pretty decent house party.
