Pitchfork

Philly, right? That was my guess, at least, on hearing these maquillaged soft-vowel-lovers. Sixth boroughites like their garments bright and their synths dug up on eBay. Or maybe it's the other way round. Either way, Rah Bras meet the criteria then wrap their wares in goth bondage. Only they rep Richmond.

\n\n\ The canard of spazz rock is that it's rarely all that spastic. Need New Body and Polysics play it too straight rhythmically to inspire convulsive dancing-- at least among the non-pill-popping set. Bablicon jumble the beat like lotto balls but they're hardly paroxysmal. In Hella we find stiff angles and sufficient contortion, but how much technical proficiency makes a contradiction in terms?

\n\n\ Sure, Rah Bras mathematize enough compound meters to keep a Modern Drummer nerd busy for a month. Their struggle, however, is in the process they can sacrifice their power. Recourses are motorik eighths and hard backbeats, like on opener \"As She Rah\", which gridlocks swirling synth gak with bouts of Queensryche-style double kick. \"Skin = Chronized\" follows with ugly, zippering synths and burning-fuselage static, but again towering drum pads do some spinal readjustment. On songs like \"Herculine Androgyn\" and \"War Ribbing Ode\" the Rahs abandon structural precepts altogether, riding stiff, blocky rhythms like a mechanical bull. The latter, which combines metal kicks and a very guitar-like synth run, hints at jammier underpinnings, and indeed, the band imagines some not-too-distant nexus of the universe where Dream Theater and Andrew WK intersect.

\n\n\ If Whohm's rhythmic linearity doesn't exactly secure Rah Bras' spazz badge, neither does its tenderness. Two longer, groove-finding pieces exhale and machinate at easier tempi: \"Venis\", brassy with a flatulent bassline, features ethereal female vocals above the nastiness. They're complemented by a surprisingly delicate filigree of synths, airier than Air. \"Mother Put the Wheel Away I Cannot Spin Tonight\" hops on the recent trend toward sentimental tokenism-- specifically, it's the kind of slowed-up, restrained, slightly mawkish, melody-fluent tour de force with which Max\xEFmo Park (\"Acrobat\") and Yeah Yeah Yeahs (\"Maps\") disrupted their albums' track orders. Call it spazz, chopped and screwed.

\n\n\ Whohm is an itinerant half hour. Forget semantics for a sec and there's still no obvious, practical way to term it. Which is to say: Rah Bras have hit upon an attractive disjunct, but ambivalence always problematizes itself. Had they structured the album more decisively, without such incoherent chiaroscuro, and with more heart-stoppers like \"Mother\" in place of the wonky padding, it would have made more sense. But then, eBay fashionistas think clash is a gas-- even, evidently, in Richmond.

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