Album by The Lampreys
This album is unique.
Sacrifice for Film sounds like somebody recorded an indie rock album, melted the vinyl, folded it into a warped shape and then tried to play it on a record player at the wrong speed.
At different points I heard Ween, early Flaming Lips and Weezer. There are pieces of 50s and 60s pop, 90s alternative and slacker rock, bright 80s pop and heavily processed electronic music. Sometimes it sounds like a rock band. Sometimes it sounds like dance music. Sometimes it sounds like somebody fed all of those things into a machine and forgot to turn it off.
Trying to figure out exactly what genre The Lampreys are playing at any particular moment seems beside the point. The fun of Sacrifice for Film is hearing what they’re going to do next.
“Ride” starts with a guitar sound that connects 60s rock to the slacker sounds that resurfaced in the 90s. But everything surrounding it seems unstable. Sounds warble and distort, while the vocals have some of that melting quality of early Flaming Lips. The song briefly locks into something closer to a dance beat, only to change direction again just when it seems ready to open up.
It also introduces one of the album’s strangest recurring tricks. “It’s My Party” suddenly works its way into the song, not so much as a sample as a familiar piece of music that has somehow leaked into a Lampreys song.
That keeps happening.
“Once We Found Our Way Home (Do You Believe in Love?)” jumps into bright 80s pop. Its chopped-up opening gives me flashes of ELO, while the beat is infectious enough that I could imagine a much more conventional version of the song existing somewhere underneath all the manipulation. Even Huey Lewis and the News gets pulled into the mix.
Then “Chore” takes another turn. This one makes me think of Ween, unwinding with a strange darkness that sounds a little like a damaged music box slowly collapsing in on itself.
“Lemon” moves toward a brighter electronic dance sound, while “Things (Web- Scrobbler)” piles on the effects until the vocals become almost indecipherable. Voices suddenly speed up into strange high-pitched sounds, giving me another flash of Ween.
Then, because apparently Sacrifice for Film has no interest in staying anywhere for long, it starts sounding more like a rock album.
“Close (Clothes)” pulls back some of the experimentation for a slower rock song with a good groove and just a touch of funk underneath it. The vocals stay high and occasionally move into falsetto, but compared with some of what surrounds it, the song feels almost conventional.
“Giant Mass of Still Water” goes even further in that direction. This could almost have been pulled from a 90s alternative rock album. The guitar makes me think of Collective Soul, while the vocals have that relaxed slacker-rock quality. For a few minutes, most of the whistles, bells, warping and manipulation disappear.
It doesn’t last.
“You Win (You End)” brings back the electronic elements and manipulated vocals, but in a more restrained form. There’s a clean beat and plenty of momentum without the song throwing everything it has at you.
“My Dreams Always Haunt Me” starts mixing eras again. There’s something almost old-fashioned about parts of it, but underneath is a Weezer-like power-pop backbone covered in fuzz and distortion. This time the vocals remain relatively natural.
And then, at the end, “Strangers in the Night” wanders into the room.
Familiar music keeps appearing throughout Sacrifice for Film as though The Lampreys are picking up stray radio signals from the past.
“…and You Lied to Me” reaches toward 50s and 60s pop, mixing a little swing and doo-wop with an almost island-like rhythm and a much fuller arrangement. Eventually it starts turning into “Sherry,” complete with voices singing “Sherry baby.”
The album isn’t simply jumping between styles. It keeps grabbing recognizable pieces of pop history and bending them into its own strange shapes.
“Song About Something” returns to the more electronic side, built around a melodic but extremely choppy, stuttering rhythm and a great handclap beat that sounds like it’s being chopped into pieces along with everything else.
“Rockstar/Toothache” pushes that approach much harder. The beat is frantic, electronic and high-pitched, while the repetitive vocals add to the feeling of the song grinding forward through sheer momentum. It briefly collapses into a few keyboard notes and heavily processed vocal sounds before all that energy comes rushing back.
Finally, “Double Edged Sword” slows the machine down. There’s an almost hip-hop-influenced club beat underneath it, with cleaner vocals and a more restrained arrangement. The music is still heavily processed, but instead of bouncing all over the place, it gradually builds toward one final crescendo.
All of this musical playfulness can disguise just how dark some of the songs are.
Relationships fall apart. People remain obsessed with someone they can’t quite get out of their lives. Depression, drugs, anger and self-destructive impulses keep surfacing. There are moments of humor and even some rock-star bravado, but there’s a raw emotional mess underneath all of the warping, stuttering and genre-hopping.
I’m not sure I need to understand much more than that.
What interests me about Sacrifice for Film is the way The Lampreys deliver those songs. This is an album that wants to be catchy. Melodies stick. Beats move. There are recognizable guitar sounds and pieces of familiar songs. But whenever I started getting comfortable, something changed.
A vocal suddenly warped. A beat started skipping. A rock song became electronic. Something that sounded like it came from the 90s suddenly had a piece of the 60s poking through it. A song would start building toward something only to take another turn entirely.
Listening to Sacrifice for Film starts to feel like riding a roller coaster without being able to see the track ahead. You know there’s another turn coming, but you don’t know which direction it’s going to send you or when the bottom is suddenly going to drop out.
Verdict: Worth a Spin
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