Iran
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Website: http://myspace.com/iranband
Bio: ndie rock buried in fuzz and hiss. Iran take ultra catchy pop, and drag it through the detritus of lo-fi noise rock, picking up an ... (more) ungodly assortment of buzz and blur and scuzz. Imagine a Pavement record on Siltbreeze. Or Sebadoh, if Lou Barlow was a jaded fuck instead of a sappy romantic. Or old Smog covering Skullflower. Or Harry Pussy playing Built To Spill. A beautifully cacophonous mess. Iran play damaged folk music, bombarded on all sides by a wild assortment of squeals and shrieks, static and hiss, and speaker clogging grit. Huge and slowly shifting, dronescapes that evolve into perfect little pop songs and then explode into jagged shards of high end skree. Iran are psychedelic and textural and noisey and totally catchy. Add an unhealthy obsession with Brian Wilson, Roman Polanski, indie rock, and Norwegian black metal, a handful of disasterously deafening live shows, and a charmingly fractured obstinance, and you've got Iran. Hardcore hook-filled low fidelity un-pop noise. Pop. Plus fucking wicked tiger cover art. The Moon Boys is the second missive from San Francisco's premier NOISEPOP band, not 'noise pop' in the jangly-pop-punk-San-Francisco-festival-tight-pants-slacker-next-big-thing-major-label-bidding-war-rehashed-bullshit sense but in the gorgeous-pop-songs-buried-under-a-thick-splattery-wall-of-buzz-hum-whir-skree-guitars-set-on-self-destruct-Beatles-flitered-through-Skullflower sense. Like Sebadoh or Pavement being backed up by Throbbing Gristle or Whitehouse. Or Nurse With Wound fronted by Elliott Smith. If you get our drift. For record number two, IRAN has scaled back the noise just a bit and let the pop shine through. And shine it does. Gorgeous, heart-breaking, voice-cracking lo-fi love (and un-love) songs, delivered in a wavery falsetto, over gentle guitars, naive drumming and strange but wonderful backgrounds woven from vocals, amp hum, guitar buzz, as well as rumbling low end and squealing feedback. When the noise does kick in, it's not noise for noise sake, Iran handle the squirming serpent with a deft hand, molding gorgeous sonic squalls and speaker shredding skree from overdriven amps and detuned guitars, with buried melodies and strange and mysterious rhythms laying beneath the storm, like looking through a murky pond at the secret life below. Adventurous indie rockers could very well be looking at their new favorite band, and experimetal/avant garde-niks may just find themselves developing a pop sweet tooth. (less)
