New music from American Music Club

Mark Eitzel’s latest is a really good one, The Golden Age out in February on Merge Records. Here’s my Dusted review which ran last week.American Music ClubThe Golden Age(Merge)There's a moment in "One Step Ahead," about two minutes into what seems a fairly unthreatening, literate pop song, when things take a dramatic turn. The close harmonies slip a half-step closer and turn to discord, the drums rear up in cymbal-clashing rebellion and the guitar, played by longtime AMC'er Vudi (Mark Pankler), splinters into monstrous waves of feedback. That, in a nutshell, is what's interesting about this ninth installment (and second since a long break) by Mark Eitzel's American Music Club. The songs may seem soft and pretty on the surface, but there is always a fair amount of rage lurking beneath. That depth of feeling manifests itself in any number of ways -- in cutting, surgically-incisive lyrics, in casual profanity or in bursts of distorted rock cacophony -- and, for the most part, it simmers, its incipient threat keeping these tunes from receding into the background. More here: http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/4103