Black Gold : 'Rush'
Released: 4th October 2009
Label: Red Bull Records
New York two-piece Black Gold have been causing a stir stateside, the duo of Eric Ronick (lead vocals, keyboards) and Than Luu (drums, guitar, percussions, vocals) formed in early 2006. Their debut album Rush was released in the US in February of this year and will see its British release this month.
Opening with their debut single, 'Detroit', Rush gets off to a none-too-convincing start with a wincingly predictable baseline designed to evoke the the likes of Boyz Noize and HEALTH, but falls woefully short. And just as your toes start to unfurl the vocal comes in - the cringingly awful vocal. After this everything starts to sound distinctly like an horrendously over-produced tumult of turd.
One track in and you're worried, and track two, 'Plans and Reveries', serves only to convince you that those fears are well-founded. So stringently middle of the road, it doesn't sound like much of anything at all, something even your Gran would call dull.
And the album unfolds in much the same vein, like a crappy version of The Cooper Temple Clause, sans melodies, hooks and riffs
More precisly it sounds like a GCSE composition, predictably predictable in the most predictably predictable way predictable. It's heartless, not vindictive or cruel, but emotionless and directionless.
'Shine', 'Silver', 'The Comedown', 'What You Did', all sound like the same song, a song that you were happy to forget the first time. What becomes worringly apparent is that neither Ronick or Luu, know what it is that makes a song successful. The fundamental instincts of what we mythically refer to as, "musical talent", seem lacking. I don't mean to sound wantonly scathing, but nothing in this album ever suggests that its composers have any form of "musical talent".
Confused as to the hype surrounding the pair, I contacted a stateside collegue who informed me it was owing to their record label, Red Bull Records, chucking money about like no one's business.
Black Gold are described on the Red Bull Records website thus:
"Black Gold is the feeling when it hits your bloodstream, the unease at five a.m. after staying up all night doing things you regret but will do again and again. Black Gold is the taste of blinding white (crikey! Do you think they mean cocaine?), the numbness on your lips and throat (oh right, yes they do). Black Gold is the corrosion you’ve swallowed, with comforting warmth tempered by unease."
How do you like your drugs references? Blatant? Incoherent? Childishly designed to give a band a sense of credence they sorely need? All of the above?
The worst thing is, Black Gold are nigh-on the antithesis of "the feeling when it hits your bloodstream", they're more like the feeling of "finding your onken biopot has curdled" i.e... mundane and annoying.
After listening to this album my itunes asked me: Would you like to import this CD. Sadly, it only asked me Yes or No, had it given me the option "Turn CD into puff of dust," I'd have taken it.
0.0002/5
Words: Oliver Jones
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