Pontiak – Maker

The raw guitar sound and earthy tones on Maker are undoubtedly one result of the Pontiak’s hometown and habitat. Recorded in their 12×12 homemade studio located in the back woods of rural Virginia, Maker embodies a combination of rock, hip-hop, and psychedelics and a heavy-trance spirit permeates the album. Songs are simple and underdeveloped, which makes sense given the brothers’ preference of the simpler things in life.

The third full-length album on their indie label (following the release of Sun on Sun last year) provides a slight relief to those who have been shouting “Rock is dead!” from the rooftops. However, tempos tend to be unhurried and songs develop slowly. Occasionally they are anti-climactic, but they do use tension and release to create some engaging themes. All in all, Maker is a decent album for a fairly youthful band.

Pontiak consists of brothers Van (lead guitar), Lain (drums), and Jennings Carney (bass). The brothers communicate well through their instruments, and the rhythm fits in tightly with the guitars. The lyrics tend to be syncopated with the rhythm in most of the songs that actually have vocals. Van is responsible for lead vocals, and Lain tends to sing backup. While the lyrics are hard to understand, the vocals in songs like “Seminal Shining” and “Honey” sound melancholy and stir up feelings of helplessness and languor.

The album starts off strong with “Laywayed,” evoking nostalgia of “a rock that once was.” Backed up by a psychedelic sound and eerie vocals, Pontiak begins to resemble Pink Floyd and other classic psychedelic rockers. “Laywayed” leads into “Blood Pride,” an emotional instrumental that conveys a sense of dark urgency. From there the record develops languidly, and many songs, like “Wax Worship” and “Honey,” sound extraordinarily similar. It concludes with “AASSTTEERR,” another slow-moving heavy tune with no climax, chorus, and very little listener appeal.

On a brighter note, a certain uniqueness in Maker’s raw sound is the result of a broken amp used while recording Van blew two amps while creating the album. While other musicians might have viewed this as a setback, Pontiak, who has been known to prefer live recordings to studio sound, embraced the noise created by the distorted amp and flew through the recording at a remarkable pace. On many occasions, the first take was used as the final, and is what we hear on the record.

The album is mildly inventive at best. While it attempts to revisit a genre that has been on hiatus in pop culture, it doesn’t introduce any new musical concepts or fresh ideas. This lack of ingenuity in a band that claims to have “pioneered a sound that is entirely their own” is disappointing. And if the band continues to play solely as a trio, they may not have the freedom or ability to introduce new sounds or experiment with other concepts that alternate instruments could provide. It appears that the band needs something, or someone else, if they are to succeed in bringing something new to the table in this musical age.

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Tagged as: Virginia

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