Glocca Morra - The Working Bones, A Health Decline [Album]

Livid Records

November 23, 2009, 05:17 PM

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by Rob H [More from this Author]

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When I heard their name, I was expecting Glocca Morra to be an Irish band, perhaps from the Irish city of Glockamara, which is named in the song 'How Are Things in Glocca Morra?' from the 1940s musical Finian’s Rainbow. Turns out there’s nothing Irish about them. Glocca Morra is a four-piece from Miami, FL that combines the Pop hook-smithing of The Strokes with the quirky arrangements of Pavement and the rough, shouting delivery of bands like Hot Water Music or BearvsShark.

Their debut release, “The Working Bones, A Health Decline,” was released by Livid Records and it’s a chewy earful. The disc opens with the pleasant, melodic ‘Ego Death’ before jumping into the schizoid ‘Caution Clouds / Sticky Fingers.’ This song is a microcosm of the album. The instrumentation is engaging and even beautiful. In fact, entire sections of the song are pretty, but Glocca Morra doesn’t want you to get too comfortable. Pretty passages are punctuated by hard-hitting percussion, power chords, and lots and lots of screaming.

Glocca Morra doesn’t spend a lot of effort on production. This is not to say the album sounds bad. It’s mixed very well; all the parts are clear and the sound isn’t muddy. Rather, there are few effects on the instruments, none mixed in for atmosphere, and no strings or horns. It’s a minimalist sound: four guys in a room. For all its rawness and grit, however, this is a fairly accomplished debut. The songs are interesting and the arrangements are varied without being too disjointed.

The main discordant element in the whole album is the vocals. Although they do some fine, melodic singing, many of the vocals are delivered in a throat-searing scream, often by multiple singers. This effect will lose a lot of listeners, because it’s pretty prevalent on "The Working Bones…” In fact, there are several songs on this release I would otherwise have liked, but the screaming gets to be a little too much. ‘Leech Mansion,’ for example, and ‘Apocalyptic Showdown’ have some great moments, but long stretches of atonal shouting finally make me want to advance to the next track.

There are still many songs on “The Working Bones…” where the cool factor is not overwhelmed by the raucous vocals. ‘Caution Clouds / Sticky Fingers’ and ‘Fake Teeth’ fall in this category. The second to last track, ‘Majik City / Sleep Logging,’ comes in at 8 ½ minutes and is extraordinary. The first half of the song is a pretty straight, catchy Pop song, but it transitions to a bold and heartfelt love song that is at times raw and wrenching and at times pleasing to the ear.

“The Working Bones…” thumbs its nose at over-produced, carefully polished Pop songs. Here we are given a dose of pure energy and musicianship: raw but not simple. Songs are presented with warts and all – in fact, with some warts added for interest – and a rough hewn sound that they can probably produce verbatim live. There are portions of this album where Glocca Morra seem to dare their audience to like this album. Give it a few listens and you may just take them up on it.