Album Details

• Artist: Remora
• Album: Scars Bring Hope
• Label: Silber
• Year of Release: 2011
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2011-09-08

You will probably smile as you make your way through the muffled drone of "Awake Arise," at least if you are a Remora fan, because that song, which opens the new  "Scars Bring Hope" disc, is clear, inspired and confident. After fifteen years of skittish vocals, often unglued guitar explorations and disjointed genre-hopping, Remora's Brian John Mitchell still has plenty of ideas, and he is still willing to throw them all out there

"Let Me Die with a Coin in My Pocket" has a melody that is slightly baroque, though the mono-chord is still the foundation.

Who cares what the song sounds like; "Does the Music?" features one of the more jolting lyrics you'll hear this month:  "Does the music/make you feel/close enough to God/to want to f*ck me." As for the music? A simple subversive Gregorian melody.

 The jaundiced, country-esque "Let's Fall in Love" hardly makes one feel like doing so; a classic of sarcasm. Mitchell adopts a muffled, semi-harrowing Plastic Ono Band feel for the equally jaded  "Peanut Butter Cup."

Both "Protector of Builder of Airplanes" and "Static is Motion" are haunting and brilliant, but for different reasons. "Protector" is epic in its poetry and understated use of gritty guitar. "Static" is ambient guitar as it was meant to be: emotional and vibrant even in its minimalism.

Produced by Brian Lea McKenzie of the equally enigmatic Electric Bird Noise, "Scars Bring Hope" is a more than apt title for the latest Remora. Brian John Mitchell is a genius who has been collecting scars and sounds for over a decade, and turning both into beautiful, biting music that does give one hope, at least for more music from Remora to counter the inspiration-free mainstream offerings.

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