The (International) Noise Conspiracy "Live at Oslo Jazz Festival" (Alternative Tentacles)
By Lucas Salg
Friday. Apr 20, 2:07 PM
These guys at the best they’ll apparently ever be.

To borrow a line from incendiary frontman Dennis Lyxzen’s previous band, I’ve got a bone to pick with The (International) Noise Conspiracy, and a few to break. I guess I have a hard time getting into these guys because their sound is so much at odds with their stated goals. Lyxzen’s made a career out of anarchic, anti-capitalist rhetoric, but where those statements found a happy home in the amazingly creative, way-ahead-of-their time hardcore band Refused, it really falls flat with the retro-minded T(I)NC. If you’re going to change the world, it makes more sense to be in an aggressive, forward-thinking band than a group of faux-mods who are really, really bummed they didn’t grow up in the ‘60s.

The (International) Noise Conspiracy specialize in a scrappy, curiously inert blend of garage-rock and ‘60s soul that just sounds far too placid and rehashed for Lyxzen’s fuck-shit-up agenda. Even Lyxzen’s vocals have been toned down from an acidic screech to a just-passable singing voice with a few half-hearted attempts to bite James Brown’s idiosyncratic style. It just all seems wrong for a band this politically active to sound like this.

So Live at Oslo Jazz Festival is certainly a surprise in that captures the band actually sounding like they give a shit musically, not just in the liner notes. Recorded in 2002, T(I)NC employed the welcome talents of Swedish jazz musicians Jonas Kullhammar and Sven-Eric Dahlberg to give a whole new dimension to their sound and it paid off. In this setting, theband actually come alive in a way you never would have imagined by listening to any of their disappointing albums.

Even though the songs themselves are still nothing special, the presence of Kullhammar and Dahlberg opens the sound up and seemingly frees the group to experiment. The songs have long stretches of free-jazz improvisation that result in some rewarding jams, particularly on “Survival Sickness” and the 13-minute highlight, “Will it Ever Be Quiet.” On these tracks, the band work up a cacophonous maelstrom that really comes as close as possible to translating the fire of their politics into an appropriate sound. It sure as hell ain’t “Worms of the Senses,” but it’ll do, capitalist pig, it’ll do.

Unfortunately, the band would go on to make Armed Love in 2004, proving that a) even Rick Rubin can’t liven these guys up on record and b) they didn’t learn any lessons from this uncharacteristically engaging recording, preferring to tread the same old tired waters. That’s a bummer, but if you want to hear these guys at the best they’ll apparently ever be, this is the record to pick up. If only they could sound this great all the time, they’d really be onto something.
www.internationalnoise.com
www.alternativetentacles.com

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Lucas Salg

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