Sub Pop
2005
Black Forest
About This Album
Cavernous and cacophonous, the A-Frames' third album and Sub Pop debut, Black Forest, delivers more of the trio's theatrically doomy, witty art-punk. The nuclear fallout paranoia and Nazi/Teutonic flirtations on the album hark back to the attempts of '70s and '80s punks to shock the system, and like their forebears, the A-Frames find the fun in death, destruction, and nihilism, albeit with an even more tongue-in-cheek spin. Erin Sullivan's deadpan vocals and snotty lyrics ("One-way mirror on the wall/Who's the loneliest of them all?") aid and abet the band's chugging, clanking mix of guitars, deep, deep bass, and electronics, but underneath the noise and chaos, there are strong, even catchy, songs. "Television microwave" becomes a surprisingly hard-to-shake hook on "Quantum Mechanic"; bassist Min Yee's vocals add a surprisingly poppy touch to "Death Train"; and the prickly, mischievous "Flies" feels kind of like a punky, only slightly less campy take on the horror a go-go of The Addams Family and Munsters theme songs. This uneasy balance between noise and pop gives the A-Frames, and Black Forest, a unique tension: you keep waiting for an onslaught of noise, or a strong melody, that never quite comes.
Track List (try tracks 6,9,13 and 14)

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