Poisons That Save Lives

Album Review

The Rum Diary's Poisons That Save Lives sounds like the answer to that rarely asked musical question, "What would happen if a bunch of emo kids got hold of a stack of early-'70s space rock albums?" The results are actually quite delightful; this style of music has been resurrected several times, most recently by the post-Radiohead, chillily artsy likes of Sigur Rós and Godspeed You Black Emperor!, and just before that by the mid-'90s wave of slowcore bands like Codeine and Bedhead. The similarities between the Rum Diary's take on this music and their immediate predecessors is obvious — the bass, wooden and hollow-sounding, takes the melodic lead most of the time, with the guitars mostly there to anchor the drones and offer single-chord rhythm parts, and the drums are alternately nearly amorphous and tensely, skitteringly, driving — but Poisons That Save Lives is much more musically direct and vibrant than either of the previous subgenres. Their songs have a stronger melodic focus — "Killed By the Cowboy President" is practically a pop song, and would not sound at all out of place on any late-era Yo La Tengo album — and even at their most droning, as on the lengthy closing track, "The No Hunt," the songs are never simply shapeless haze. Highly recommended.