Life... what's ebbing away while you listen to this.
"Life…" marks the beginning of a new start for stoner rock cult icons Harvey Milk. Having formed in the nineties in Athens, Georgia, they are notorious for being experimental with records and live performances. This is no exception.
The album opens with their 'masterpiece' ‘Death Goes to the Winner’, which is an inexplicable mixture of riffs rejected from elsewhere, sweet almost choral passages, complete rock-outs, and white noise. The roaring vocals are like menacing, grinding gears, tuneless and wearing as the song goes on. It’s still a jam session on tape, and not a particularly good one. Nice touch with the slightly twisted lyrics borrowed from The Beatles’ A Day in the Life, at least the song does what is says on the tin and manages to capture the joy and despair of life and death. In a funny way.
‘Decades’ starts off with ‘When The Levee Breaks’ style drums, and powers into what’s almost a regular song, or as close as these guys get to one. The mixture of heavy metal riffing and relentless drums is a compelling one, especially on ‘After All I’ve Done…’. So perhaps it is just the droning, tortured vocals that are irritating about this album, other than those it becomes merely endearingly shambolic. I think they suffer from comparison: Harvey Milk are a band that wear their influences on their sleeve, record sleeve, that is. And on that sleeve is an Iron Maiden poster.
Ironically, Harvey Milk are at their best when they aren’t drowning in incoherancy, like the lighter riffs (comparatively) and chorus of ‘Motown’. They seem to hit the right mixture of guitars and vocals, and when it works, it works.
This is an out-and-out rock record, extra white noise thrown in, and heavy as lead. So if you’re in a screw-the-world-lets-make-some-noize mood, these slow riffs and ponderous vocals are for you. Deliberately imperfect, it encompasses those sorts of feelings about life, death, and relationships… and then sticks the middle finger up at it.