Tiny Mix Tapes Review
The word "experimental" is perhaps fast on its way to becoming the most abused musical descriptor since "edgy" or "hardcore." Face it, any schmo can slab on the term "experimental" to whatever approximation of "pop" or "rock" they feel like pulling off, even if the so-called avant nature of their proposed work is frustratingly lukewarm at best. Add a dude with a laptop to your band, and apparently your laminated license for the dubious world of "experimental" music is ready to be handed out to you post-haste.
With so many folks patting themselves on the back with such cred-padding labels, it's inevitable that certain bands who really are "experimental" within their idiom are going to get overlooked. And why? Because most musicians who really are worthy of this term are going to put more than a few onlookers, even those within the indie world, off. Untied States, for all their post-punk distinctions, are a group of lads (core duo Colin Arnstein and Skip Engelbrecht, plus bassist and drummer) who can wear "experimental" truthfully and proudly. Their derailed discordance verges on the maniacal, in a way possibly not seen since the criminally-underappreciated Fire Show (if you don't know them, seek them out now) turned the sagging post-punk movement's guts inside-out with glorious violence to inattentive spectators.
That's not to say that Untied States have worked all the kinks out of their mission just yet. For all the bits of synthetic dissonance that are emitting out of some very disturbed pedals and processors, there's still a somewhat unpleasant undercurrent of post-hardcore growing pains. Like The Paper Chase, Untied States similarly sometimes let their minor key freak-outs play off less like compellingly realized neurosis and more like an ex-emo kid having a self-imposed schizophrenic attack.
Still, of all the bands out there who are trying to make their name known for originality, Untied States are damn sure doing their hardest to push their sonic blundering to a peak of innovational eminence. "Can't Get Around It" is easily Retail Detail's peak of excitement, the drunk-jazz intro giving way to a bossa nova beat perhaps used at a wicked séance party. Likewise, Retail Detail's best moments are when the band ditch the guitar-splattered conniptions like "My Cause Is My Curse" and "Martyrs Have Nothing To Live For" for some outright feed-everything-to-the-id weirdness, such as the carnival-sludge nightmare of closer "It's Not Enough" or the stittery goth-funk of "It's Not Goodbye."
So while Untied States' effort Retail Detail may warrant only a 3.5 in the end, it's the very enthusiastic 3.5 that so few bands could possibly hope to receive. Untied States harbor such a giddy creative energy that some concoctions of theirs are bound to come out a bit half-baked or overbundled, but with every by-the-book gang of indie rockers (*cough*Tapes 'N' Tapes*cough*) using their high Pitchfork scores as some kind of proof of relevance without ever actually trying something unfounded, it is rather disheartening that some young miscreants as adventurous as Untied States will be left squalling and squirming on deaf ears. Too bad, because if Untied States can be encouraged, illuminating sonics are sure to follow.
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Exclaim! Magazine
Untied States make way for more noise than you’d think four people could be capable of. Sonic and textured, Retail Detail expands into enormously raucous soundscapes that weave noise, rock and samples. Untied States also escape into improvisation, integrating intense measures of unpredictability. There is also a strong sense of realness here, as this quartet’s belief in articulating their own self-portraits and personal experiences into their music come through. “It’s Not Goodbye” and “Immaculate” seem to collapse and shudder, breaking away in the vocal department while a wall of noise builds up all around. There is an element of the experimental here but the entire album remains accessible, so much so that it brings to mind Sonic Youth’s disharmonies, but in approach only. Untied States have created something far beyond the familiar and have strayed into a new place that only they have a key to. The ultimate impression is one of precariousness, as there are glimpses of delicate splendour and frailties that are always threatened by the potential of destruction that only seems a beat away.
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Movement Magazine
Huh! This album is basically a melding of no wave’s skronk and avant-garde’s structure-free aspects. Surprisingly, it’s also a completely solid listen! At times this reminds one of everything from early Sonic Youth (circa CONFUSION IS SEX) to Labradford’s sonic experimentation, all while maintaining a distinct and very intriguing sound. Not recommended for those who like structure, but experimental rock fans and even free-improv types definitely have a lot to love here.
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PopMatters Review
Cubist renditions of existential angst…
There are two kinds of chaos. One is that primordial ooze that contains everything in an undifferentiated mass—the beginning sort of chaos, best approximated in musical terms by drone. The other is the disorder that comes when things fall apart, the rules no longer apply, certainties fade and floating anxiety is the only palpable mood. It is this decadent sort of chaos that Untied States evokes in their second full-length album, a detuned, oddly timed, infinitely creative but undisciplined howl at modern life.
Consider for instance, the existential problem of other people, necessary—especially if you’re young and horny—but unknowable. Untied States attacks the issue in a postmodern break-up song called “It’s Not Goodbye”, which begins in lonely, reverberating keyboard notes and erupts into assaults of frustrated rage. “You’re an enigma… seeming/ Dying to meet you at the end of it all,” singer Colin Arnstein despairs, his wail running headlong into abrasive spirals of juddering guitar, and despite the complexity, the dense web of sounds that surrounds him, he is essentially alone.
Or, take the horrors of war, as Untied States does in “Martyrs Have Nothing to Live For”. Here a jittery web of guitar dissonance and irregular drum explosions coalesces into occasional structured song fragments, as a slurry, desperate voice moans things like “But I don’t want to die for/ What I can’t enjoy” or “I’ve got this casual casualty/ I’ve got this casual reality/ But, oh, martyrs have nothing to live for.” Quietly discordant intervals build tension while oddly tuned guitars plink out jerky no wave rhythms. Architecture within the song is an illusion, something that the next firebomb of feedback will rip right through. There’s a violence implied, a confusion embedded, an inarticulate response to nightmare scenarios that feels very in tune what we see every night on the 7 o’clock news. Despair comes from realizing that there is simply no authentic way to react to a bewildering set of stimuli. As Arnstein sings later, in “You Own Your Own”, “The more I try to feel/ The more I am faking/ The more I try to fix/ The more I keep breaking.”
Retail Detail draws freely from the post-punk legacy, borrowing alternate tunings from Sonic Youth, rattletrap slyness from Les Savvy Fav and jerk-rhythmed, junk-percussioned funk from early Liars ("We Don’t Have to Climb” sounds very much like “Every Day Is a Child with Teeth"). Like The Fall, they play with short, semi-sensical phrases, which gain humor and resonance through repetition; lyrics like “My cause is my curse” and “Martyrs have nothing to live for” become inexplicably meaningful over the course of their songs. The band intercuts these more developed tracks with short, atmospheric intervals, the clocktower dissonance of “I Mile Aisle”, the silent film organ notes of “Retail Detail” and the piano and abrasive guitar duel of “Retell the Tale”.
The absence of rules and continual violation of structure makes Retail Detail somewhat hard to follow at first, yet this same unexpectedness is what ultimately makes the band interesting… if not especially joyful. It’s the sound of clever despair, completely free of strictures and swaggering over its lawlessness, but maybe wishing that someone, somewhere would lay down some limits.
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Aiding and Abetting A&A #272 Review
Quirkiness does not equal genius, but Untied States' excessive use of eccentricity just might. The songs themselves are relatively straightforward, but the instrumentation and arrangements get about as far out as is imaginable. Sometimes the kitchen sink is thrown into the kitchen sink, an Escherian conundrum that simply elevates the songs into the stratosphere.
I really like what these folks do, but then, I'm a big dirty pop fan. Anything you can do to a pop song that doesn't destroy its innate purity is a plus in my book. And while these folks do have their deconstructive moments, at the heart of each song is a solid hook. Often demented, of course, but a hook nonetheless.
And while things keep flying at the ears with dazzling fury, the sound itself is somewhat restrained. To wit, you can distinctly hear each of these aural missiles as they threaten not only your ears but your sanity. That level of detail is something to behold.
Thus a gawd-awful mess really isn't. I was anticipating greatness from the moment I opened the package containing this disc, but this album surpassed that. I remain blown away.
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Delusions of Adequacy
Music can be rather boring at times. For every album that comes along and manages to completely devour our free time, there are innumerably more that beg the question: why was this recorded at all? In light of this, rock is a very fickle genre. It seems anymore that everything being churned out is just another impossibly unimaginative retread of already bland sounds. Luckily, rock is also very malleable and can be changed into something interesting with even the least bit of effort and imagination. Untied States is a band containing these two features in no small amount.
The group sounds like a strange meld of the experimental sounds of U.S. Maple and Jim O'Rourke, the fierce post-hardcore of later Blood Brothers recordings, and the conventional rock of, well, too many bands to name. The result is a deep, frenzied-yet-stable piece of what can be described as nothing else but avant-rock, as pretentious as that may sound. Untied States dodge characterization well enough to evoke odd terminology.
Strewn about Retail Detail, the band's second full-length, are equal parts abstract, whaa? noise and basic guitar rock features. The two offset each other in a delightfully chaotic way, while a generally simple chord progression and drum beat may be offset by oscillating electronic skronk and other random noises. Wailing guitar feedback accentuates vocals that call to mind a much more vicious and acidic version of Matt Bellamy from Muse. What seems like a grandiose piano-oriented track (“Retail Detail”) is transformed by a quick drumbeat and haunting vocals into a foreboding anthem in just over a minute. “Martyrs Have Nothing to Live For” sounds like the direction the Blood Brothers have been migrating towards over the years (that is, one away from simple, generic hardcore), and it exemplifies the band's willingness to let convention overtake the experimental every now and again. This is followed by the Liars-esque “You Own Your Own,” a scattered affair, to say the least.
The band doesn't seem content to dawdle in any one style for any amount of time. Because of this ADD-infused musicianship, the album comes off as messy hodgepodge of raucous sounds, and I could see this turning off a variety of listeners. However, there's much enjoyment to be had in Retail Detail, and I would recommend it confidently to anyone who has grown tired of the ordinary.
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All Music Guide
Atlanta's Untied States, led by the duo of Colin Arnstein and Skip Engelbrecht, joined by the rhythm section of Andy Jones (bass) and Wade Page (drums/percussion), turn in their second full-length release, Retail Detail, which furthers the band's explorations into the juxtaposition of straight rock playing and extreme experimentation. Untied States are the kind of group that can play somewhat conventional rock in a style that recalls Gang of Four, full of jagged guitar lines, driving rhythms, and harshly sung, minimally melodic vocals. But the bandmembers are only partially interested in such structures, and at any given moment one of their songs may break down or change gears suddenly, with tempos dropping or disappearing entirely and various keyboard sounds and noises replacing the established patterns. Like the Velvet Underground and the Mothers of Invention, Untied States want to explode the usual notions of what constitutes rock and, indeed, music itself. At times, the listener feels that the sonic ideas of John Cage have overtaken the band and that one is hearing not so much music in the accepted sense as loosely organized sound created in a partially unplanned fashion. The result is an album that is often jarring, but never dull.
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The Real Detroit Weekly
Take that post-punk, NYC indie stuff, mix in random squirts of synth and 8-bit sound-farts, shuffling drums, frequent noise-squall guitar-work and some strained vocals and you have Untied States. Bewildering yet cohesive, there are a million things going on but you can still bob your head. As weird as it is unique.
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Orlando Sentinel Pop Music Critic
Untied States: Retail Detail (4 stars out of 5)
The art of noise, random and chaotic
The music of Atlanta's Untied States could be called avant-noise, but the group never makes it that easy.
Anchored by the duo of Colin Arnstein and Skip Engelbrecht, Untied States specializes in industrial-sounding riffs that power the opening "It's Not Goodbye.'' Yet the abusive drum pounding and jarring guitar explosions occasionally dissolve into something softer and dreamier.
Maybe it's not that unusual for a band to employ expressive dynamics, but what do you call it when a cello surfaces as it does in the strange interlude "(1) Mile Aisle.''
The grave arpeggios in that song are punctuated by bells, harsh electronic noises and something that sounds like waves washing ashore. You can't hum it, but it's intense.
Listen closer and there are melodic threads concealed deep in these 12 songs. (The self-released Retail Detail is available at untiedstates.us.)
Whether it's the grand keyboard beneath the title track, the clamorous "My Cause is My Curse'' or the acoustic guitars that introduce the spacious "Immaculate,'' Retail Detail has a solid foundation.
It's there beneath the strange, psychotic-marching-band tempo of "We Don't Have to Climb,'' which starts out weird and then careens into insanity with its distorted shouting. Over the next four minutes, the song's energy fades, as if by exhaustion, then catches its breath for a final run to the finale of alien sounding blips and bleeps.
With its timpani rolls and disembodied voices, "Can't Get Around It'' sounds like an orchestra on acid. Then again, everything on Retail Detail resembles something in an altered state.
Reviewing key:
***** excellent, **** good, *** average, ** poor, * awful
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Atlanta’s Creative Loafing
Schizophrenia has always been good to the arts no matter how brutal or subtle its onset. Untied States' Retail Detail is not equal to Vincent VanGogh hacking off his ear and offering it to his favorite pro, but its twisted sentiments and ear-bleeding intensity are carved by the same knife. Everyone from Arnold Schoenberg to the Jesus Lizard scars the mindset of "Retell the Tale" and "Martyrs Have Nothing to Live For."
Each song maintains a twitchy, art-damaged cognition through icy classical music trim, winding through a frantic industrial art-rock dirge. Melodies form, sputter and collapse, and the mangled makeup of "Currencies" is totally compelling in the search for tangible emotion.
Retail Detail is awash in fragmented rhythms that jitter like synapses making all the wrong connections — this is not criticism. Stoner kids pay good money for this quality of hallucinogenic product and Retail Detail supplies the goods.
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North Carolina’s “Go-Triad”
Retail Detail"
Self-released
****
Sometimes Untied States doesn't feel very united. So perhaps it's fitting that this Atlanta band has released one the best records you've never heard of.
Untied, unhinged, unglued. That's the general feeling of listening to "Retail Detail," the group's third record, self-released, on which it continues a journey of fractured art rock bliss.
It labels itself experimental, but don't be frightened; it's just performing a little cosmetic surgery on conventionality. Musically, the group comes in well under the radar, flying low with a potent combination of pop rock tunefulness filtered through dissonant fuzz, industrial clatter bang and a certain amount of unpredictability. Vocals can be painfully strained croon, hurried mumble or static-filled ramble, and it works, thanks to the brooding affinity and frantic energy all these tracks share.
"You Own Your Own," for instance, begins with a throbbing ambient pulse and scattered snare in hot pursuit. Bass and guitar soon follow, along with paranoid observations and nervous chants of "He knows, he knows."
The next track is a one-minute interlude of glitchy chamber music adorned with cello, ambient pulse and stuttering static. "My Cause Is My Curse" ratchets the tempo back up with a more or less straight-ahead rocker before "We Don't Have to Climb" veers off again. The album maintains this anxious back and forth, leaving you uneasy and off-balance but ultimately rewarded.
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Smother Magazine Review by J-Sin
While many fellow pop artists are stuck on the “Retail Detail” side of making music if you will, Untied States delve into the dank world of experimental. Electronic pop glistens the vocals at times while the guitars angle towards the post-hardcore fuzz of early Sonic Youth and Fugazi. Big drum sounds dominate many of the tracks with psychedelic guitar overloads and outright bizarre sonic fillers. “Retail Detail” is pop’s antithesis and shines with cathartic clarity amid manic rock-n-roll deconstruction. You might think all of this would be far too chaotic but it remains artsy and not just mere noise for noise’s sake. Excellent.
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babysue Pork Chopper Cheeseheaded Pointy
Wildly unpredictable. The fellows in Untied States have a lot more in common with experimental British bands of the 1970s and 1980s than they do with bands in their hometown (Atlanta, Georgia). Retail Detail is a strange and peculiar collection of tunes that can only be described as sounding something like a more abrasive and loud variation of the up-and-coming art pop band Pattern Is Movement (mainly due to some of the peculiar rhythms and time signatures). While the guys in Untied States have a sound, defining that sound is ultimately rather difficult. Because of the vast array of styles and influences, the band ends up sounding like almost no one but themselves. Despite the fact that these musicians are pulling some rather odd punches, as a whole this album is extraordinarily cohesive and spins smoothly. Complex intellectual rockers include "It's Not Goodbye," "Martyrs Have Nothing To Live For," "My Cause Is My Curse," and "Currencies."
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Skratch Magazine
Traditional rock and experimental music (make that a lot of experimental music) make Untied States real. Retail Detail is both melodic and creepy. Explosive beats and strange rhythm make Untied States strangely enticing. THE GRADE: B+
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The Asheville Disclaimer
Untied States - Retail Detail
In modern music, nothing should be cherished so much as the unexpected. Surprises are rare things these days musically speaking. Most songs, and in some cases entire albums, can be predicted by the attentive listener after hearing just a couple bars. Fortunately Atlanta's Untied States have successfully incorperated enough imagination on their second full length, Retail Detail, to keep even the most jaded listeners guessing as to what is coming next.
Born of the near life-long friendship of Colin Arnstein and Skip Engelbrecht, Untied States presents an intriguing pastiche of incongruous parts and pieces jammed together to somehow form a satifying disarray. The 12 tracks on Retail Detail are experimental without resorting to drone or feedback, dissonant without sounding atonal and oddly melodic without sounding formulaic.
There IS structure and cohesion here but it's a different kind of structure, one that hinges on agressively shifting time signatures and jarring changes in tone. It's the kind of giddy inventiveness you'd find with Deerhoof, US Maple or early Sonic Youth. The songs themselves rarely sound like one thing through their short lives. Untied States keep things fresh by switching gears often although there are a couple songs such as "My Cause is My Curse" where the deconstruction slows down a bit to allow for a more traditional post-punk experience.
Although theres quite alot of sonic juxtaposition on Retail Detail, things never degenerate into cacauphanic mess of noise without reason. When two conflicting sections are jammed against one another they simply create tension and thankfully not a mess. Even though there are heaping loads of art flying around on this album it's at least been tethered to a very strong leash. Energetic, engaging and hugely satisfying, Untied States haven't come to bury the A,A,B,A song structure, just to rebel against it a little.
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UpBeet Magazine
Now this is the kind of band that you take with a grain of salt.
The tormented noise rock that comes bellowing from Untied States in Retail Detail has got to be one of the most complex and challenging 12 tracks I have heard in a hot minute. I mean, there are bands that are off-beat and accidental, but these guys are so the prior they are at times anti-melodic, a collapsing art form. The first couple of minutes of “It’s Not Goodbye” were almost too much for me; Colin Arnstein’s punk vocals are feasting wails, but his voice teeters on juvenile and whiny. Then I get to the rest of the CD.
I don’t know if it was just adjustment or the experimental seduction, but I found myself drawn to its chaotic masochism like a fly to a strobe light. The entire minute and a half of "Retell The Tale," a twittering piano melody and spastic electro-spritzes provoked my Freudian subconscious. There are brief moments where things seems to come together into a holy vision, hints of standardized song structure, but for the most part, I am tangled in an almost intangible web of clashing and crashing art rock.
If it’s possible to stay repeatedly absorbed in Retail Detail without great amounts of hallucinogenic medication, I am not quite sure. Maybe there’s a greater awakening, but this disturbed alternate reality worked best as a one night stand, and a good one at that.
RIYL: Sonic Youth, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Q and Not U, and Freudian neurotics.
Tracks: “We Don’t Have To Climb” and “You Own Your Own”
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The Daily Copper
If Dropsonic's Dan Dixon swallowed two heaping handfuls of LSD, washed it down with a tab or two lithium and some swill from the bottom of a cloudy jar handed to him by a Virginia bootlegger, ol' Dan might be in for one hell of a wild ride. Well, that and the little right powerful alt-rock trio he fronts might sound a whole hell of a lot more like this (also) Atlanta-based outfit, which shifts mood, styles and time signatures faster than the planet's plates shift 'neath California—nay, faster than an unpopular administration shifts attitudes to make its desired approval ratings right before re-election; nay, faster than a high school freshman shifts best friends--and fuses old skool art rock such as Jesus Lizard and Sonic Yewt with young 'uns such as Deerhoof, Braniac and the almighty Pattern Is Movement (to say nothing of a mind-altering version of Cheap Trick—no, really). The results, predictably, take some getting used to—there's sure as hell nothing here that'll get your booty shaking like a Queens of the Stone Age tune—and one imagines that one or two critics will be unleashing some vitriol about the emperor's new clothes and your grandma will probably cluck and say, under her breath, natch, "Damn crazy songs." But Untied States is on to something, albeit something that is perhaps at times too restless for even the band itself to comprehend as it demonstrates from time to time via material such as the acid-damaged "Can't Get Around This" and the equally out "It's Not Enough." A little less art and a little more rock and Untied States might very well have its future all sewn up.