Varied Superstitions is the 26th album by The Black Watch and the fifth one I've been asked to review, despite not always liking the band's music, I do appreciate the effort they always put in and why they have a small cult following who love them dearly. They formed in 1988 in Santa Barbara after seeing a show by one of the greatest support acts of the 80's The Lucy Show, who I saw a few times and totally get why they might transfix you. This time around John Andrew Frederick has corralled Rob Campanella, Chandler Fredrick, Andy Creighton and Misha Bullock into being The Black Watch as most of them have been for a while, with extra help from Bernard Yin, Rebecca Yin and Lindsay Murray.
The album opens by trying to dispel the first Superstition that Whisperin & Hollerin really don't like The Black Watch on Faze, a slow paced hazy almost Indian tinged song full of heartbreak at another relationship hitting the buffers, while they still look for illumination as to how they ended up here again.
In This Town feels like it is in surround sound and you're in the centre of a whirlwind of guitars and noise with Andrew repeating over and over the songs title like it is an answer to everything you see happening around you, no matter how joyful or disturbing the visions may seem.
It Is What It Isn't is a phrase that almost sums up the feeling most of us get watching the news on TV these days, the bassline drives this on with fizzing fuzzy guitars trying to put to bed the uneasy feeling that nothing is what it seems anymore, he doesn't share your point of view thankfully, the sounds of aircraft taking off rush by.
Jolly Melancholy certainly has the sadness to smash through the dreadful state we find ourselves in, the moping vocals let us know just how he got dumped this time, why did he believe the lies he told himself about her love this time, this covers the superstition that sounding too much like Pavement will give you top 40 hits.
Living Backwards behaving like a teenager in your 60's over a re-worked Thin Lizzy guitar figure that shines through the ennui infested vocals, No I Shouldn't play backwards guitar, going all Reversomundo on the music, cloaking all the things you did to be ashamed of.
Precious Little re-purposes my favourite Killing Joke bass effect, adds an insistent nagging riff, reverb heavy Mucullochesque vocals for the superstitious belief that every album by The Black Watch contains one bona fide hit song, this is the one on this album, super catchy, totally radio friendly, even when then the riff expands into an epic solo at the end for the fade out.
Pretending the modus operandi of humanity, we are all pretending on some level, slowly thoughtfully admitting to being stuck in a loop doing the same old things over and over, where is the evolution, oh woe the cheesy 80's guitar solo, moaning slowcore starting a fight, another of your repeating mistakes, covered on every album I've heard by the Black Watch deep in the bands lyrical comfort zone.
Some People Will Believe the superstition that The Black Watch are a legendary under achieving classic indie band, genius in their own lunch hours, one slow building anthem at a time, while nailing the place we find ourselves in the 2020's madness and dystopia, they have had enough of politics and want to go back to the peace and love 90's, the chorus is protest chant ready.
Sorry Wounds are superstitions that the first cut really is the deepest, when mediocrity has come calling, masking the total insanity of where we are right now, if now isn't the right time to ask that when is, can we change direction like they don't, staying defiantly pulsating not quite landfill indie in a small bar, dreaming of a saner world than the one we live in.
The title track Varied Superstitions crosses its heart, like they wear cross your heart bras, you think praying might bring down the system, the strings layered in like pillows to rest on while trimming your nails at the right time of day.
Your Clothes Sir is for the superstitions you have about stripping for strangers, in non-sexual situations, gently paranoid, musically unsure of itself.
Find out more at https://www.bluematterrecords.com/product-page/the-black-watch-varied-superstitions-lobe017 https://theblackwatch.bandcamp.com/album/varied-superstitions https://www.facebook.com/theblackwatchmusic
