Matador
In the past year Times New Viking have been heralded as the newest generation of musicians to embrace a do-it-yourself esthetic and campy ultra-low-fidelity production. Rip It Off is geared for listeners who are keen on penetrating the band’s affectation for noise. In fact the production quality is so low that one might think the intent is to make the album sound exactly the same regardless of what it’s played on — be it a cellphone a clock radio or a top-end stereo system.
Buried under the layers of droning tape hiss disfiguring compression and mutating high-pass filters are simple pop songs with a sense of humour. The sound ends up as the aural equivalent of a ’90s Magic Eye poster. By letting your ears relax and listening beyond the punishing treble you get a sense of the song concealed beneath. And much like those posters the sound sometimes just inspires frustration. In any case (to borrow from the band’s font-punning name) Times New Viking come across as bold but not justified — with a coherence level verging on Wingdings rather than Impact.
