Apollo Sunshine

In the top-secret, Sector-7 classified Stereo Subversion scoring rubric, a score of 7 includes the criteria “strong artistry” – but in the case of Apollo Sunshine, “strong artistry” is really a pretty grievous understatement. Maybe a more accurate description would be “relentless artistry”, or “uncompromising artistry”, or “absurdly-over-the-top artistry” or, in longer form, “We’re going to play music that defies any form of categorization, stereotypes, or genre boundaries, and musical conventions, and you will like it!”

In that sense, Shall Noise Upon is actually a pretty appropriate title for this record – Apollo Sunshine is going to NOISE UPON you, and they’ll play whatever their noise du jour happens to be with little more than some signature vocal stylings to tie the record together. Now with any other band, this approach almost inevitably results in some laughable self-parody (Zooropa, anyone?), but the magic “it” factor that Apollo Sunshine packs in spades is their ability to do each of their myriad of styles while more than doing them justice and stamping them with their peculiar, Beatles-tripping-in-a-record-shop sound that by all accounts should be an absolute train wreck, but turns out to be pleasantly endearing, and by the third spin, it’s downright addictive.

At first spin, Shall Noise Upon sounds predictable enough – the tranquil, swirling strings and harp (I think?) in “Breeze” sound straight out of that goofy music that’s always playing in a shop that sells “smoking accessories”, and “Singing to the Earth” isn’t too far off that mark either, although AS dare to pick up the tempo a bit and throw in some absolutely beautiful vocal harmonies that recall (dare I say) the Beatles or Broken Social Scene’s more major-key material, not to mention a killer steel guitar solo. By the time “666: The Coming of the New World Government” rolls around, you might be forgiven for assuming you had Apollo Sunshine figured out…until guitars that are straight out of Achtung Baby/Pop-era U2 hit with all the shock of a cold glass of water in the face.

All bets are off after that, as “666…” quickly gets booted out of the way by the jagged-edged electro-noise title track and the raucous punk-a-billy-by-way-of-bluegrass hoedown stomp of “Brotherhood of Death”, and it’s at this point that the album stops politely asking for your attention, slaps you across the face, and demands it. As if the band would do anything close to predictable at this point, “Brotherhood of Death” drops off as abruptly as it crashed the party in the first place and in slinks it’s orchestral brother that sounds like a lost scene from Fantasia, complete with an entire string section, bass clarinet, cello melodies. It might even have movements. When my ADD meds kick in, I’ll check back on that one.

This really could go on as a track-by-track synopsis of a mind-bogglingly diverse and frighteningly unique album, but seriously, what’s the point? By know, anyone who’s got adventurous musical tastes already knows that they’ll be all over this album like Bono holding a little refugee kid, and it’s a safe bet that those who like their music predictable and safe have no idea who these guys are anyway. Bottom line, if you’re into bands that take musical rules and conventions and throw them out the window faster than Ryan Adams can rack up new projects, you can’t afford to not listen to this record.

Highlight Track: “Singing to the Earth (To Thank Her For You)”, “The Funky Chamberlain”

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