Dead Rider are an experimental rock three piece from Chicago, eight years and now four albums into the game. I wouldn't call it post-rock, its far more chimerical than that.
'Crew Licks' is the motorbike of rock, laying in bits on the wooden living room floor and then along come Dead Rider to put it all back together again. After which, it no longer resembles a motorbike and nor does it do what a motorbike should.
So what does it do? "Grand Mal Blues" is a spectral beginning. Pink Floyd meets Black Sabbath head on. The singer reminds me of Chuck Prophet in his darker days. This is not pretty music but my God you can play it loud. "Ramble On Rose" (Grateful Dead cover) is one of the best electronic tracks I have heard in this decade. Something useful done with glitch for a change.
"The Listing" is a Jon Spencer type affair. In out, shake it all about and the auctioneer counts it off. "The Ideal" is steel drum madness which has started my head spinning. "The Floating Dagger" channels The Rolling Stones before collapsing in a heap on the floor. "Too Cruise" is a future city somewhere near you, in a way only perhaps David Bowie might attempt.
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Track seven (title redacted) is less essential but still gloriously bonkers. "Bad Humours" breaks out the funk and I mean serious fu*k. And just when I can't take anymore "When I was Frankenstein's" goes and pours petrol on the whole thing, sets light to it and holds a séance. This is the freest of free jazz, complete with spinner rims. Compelling and ever so massively scary.
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