Procedure Club: Doomed Forever
Growing up in the Connecticut music scene is fun because the scene is so small that everyone ends up knowing everyone. When I first came across Adam Malec it was through his band Groovski. Groovski was sort of like The Strokes except completely in Polish. This music spoke to my Polish roots and I was immediately in love. When Groovski disbanded in 2007, I was heartbroken. Perhaps that is why I was so excited to see Malec re-emerge in Procedure Club.
Procedure Club’s debut album, Doomed Forever is really nothing like Groovski. Their music mixes elements of dream pop, garage rock, and Electroacoustic music. The album’s lead single and opening track “Feel Sorry For Me” really defines their sound. A Casio-style electric drum beat works as the tempo setter for the song but the song’s most definitive element is the guitar. The guitar is so heavily echoed that it creates a wall-of-sound. The vocals remind me of Memoryhouse but a similar echoing effect is put on the vocals as the guitars. The echo on the vocals is so severe that the words become jumbled and incoherent.
I understand the echoes being employed is part of the new dreamwave craze, but in Procedure Club case it seems almost too much. The amount of disequilibrium it causes is headache inducing. It becomes especially apparent that it is unnecessary when you hear the less echoed tracks on the album. “Vermont” has a great garage punk feel. Although the vocals are still fairly not understandable, the track is probably the best on the album.
While the extreme echo was not my cup of tea, I suppose it will appeal to some people. There are a few tracks on the album that I can not see appealing to anyone. “Nautical Song” has the most disconcerting intro ever. I understand the concept of noise rock and dissonance but the screeching guitars are so much louder than anything else on the album that the first strike nearly blew out my headphones. The track does eventually settle down but the intro put a damper on the whole song for me.
In the end, I am a bit disappointed with Procedure Club’s debut. There are a couple of songs that show glimpses of brilliance but the lo-fi recording and massive amounts of echo rarely work well in tandem together. The album left me with nothing more than a headache.
Rating: 4.8/10
MP3: Procedure Club “Vermont”
Buy: iTunes or Insound!