Artist: Model/Actriz
Album: Pirouette
Label: Dirty Hit
Link: https://www.modelactriz.com/
Style: Rock, Hard Rock
To describe the second album of Model/Actriz Pirouette as noise would be too simplistic. Energetic and tense, it ranges from pop to industrial metal, yet manages to remain both approachable and atypical.
This Boston-based band was formed by drummer Ruben Radlauer and guitarist Jack Wetmore. Both have known each other since childhood, their fathers even playing music together a few years earlier. Impressed by a performance by singer Cole Haden, the two men recruited him for the band, before adding bassist Aaron Shapiro. Their concerts earned them a good reputation, but with the confinement, their first album, recorded in 2021, was not released until 2023, although it was well received by critics on Pitchfork and Bandcamp.
While their musical style links them to the noise and punk movements, there are also components borrowed from metal. As a result, the tracks as a whole present a certain radicalism, but never as extreme as those of other famous bands in the aforementioned styles. Far removed from the sometimes violent archetypes, the tracks retain their interest without being too accessible either; they seek to integrate a danceable or electronic dimension and sometimes approach the industrial, recalling tracks by Nine Inch Nails or Marylin Manson. Placed at n°5, the short track “Headlights” acts as an articulation towards a calmer part.
Far from taking saturation as their central model, as other noise bands do, Model/Actriz seem to distance themselves from it. On the contrary, what immediately catches the ear is the metallic sound of the guitar, echoing the synthesizer, which resembles a vibraphone whose bars have been swapped for huge metal ones. The frenetic rhythm is distantly reminiscent of the 80s, but shines through in its tension and dryness. In the midst of this pounding, the vocals take on almost disconcerting pop accents, adding to the ambivalence of the moods created by listening to this atypical rock.