Rahim - Ideal Lives

Mon 17th Jul, 2006 in Music Reviews

To describe the sound of Washington’s post punk band Rahim, it’s tempting to simply refer you to the title of the first song of the album- ‘Klangklangklang’. But that might be too simplistic and misleading, for while they certainly have a few vinyl copies of Talking Heads records in their collections Rahim offer more than the spiked guitar and off-hand delivery that forms the basis of many David Byrne wannabes who seek to burn up the indie dancefloor. Which basically means that Rahim have gone for harmony and melody where other bands have opted for haircuts and manicures.

The skeletal rhythms are tense and menacing and while the guitars have the requisite tight angles we expect from any band playing with art-rock there’s more shape to Rahim’s sound than just a series of spikes and jags. So what does this actually mean? Well let’s return to ‘Klangklangklang’ – the percussion is suitably syncopated, every syllable delivered as a new word and the bass line lurches along, but the faintly mournful mariachi trumpets were never part of the post-punk/art-rock textbook. Rahim’s pages in that book are printed on a richly textured matte paper surrounded by glossy pages proclaiming the abilities of many of their contemporary’s. For Rahim play an artful rock that reminds you that they’re from Washington, DC; not New York or Vegas. 

Highlight 10 000 Horses parades the bands abilities with an assured canter, breaking with galloping percussion during the verses. Yet the bass reins in any excess, maintaining Rahim’s grip and tension.

/we’ve got the power of 10  000 horses/
/there are enough of us to fill up the skies/
/the noises we generate will fill the meadows/
/the flesh that we leave behind will feed the flies/

The album’s great depth, yet also perhaps its niggling fault, stems from the bands staunch refusal to rest their sound in any particular sky or meadow. The ghostly vocals of the brief ‘Satisfy’ seep from somewhere behind your radiator, before disappearing, while ‘Shut Off the Light’ is all pounding drums, wisps of cymbal and chanted vocals before a stalking guitar circles in on proceedings. Both ‘Forever Love’ and ‘Enduring Love’ abandon any agit-jerkiness in favour of tender organ that in the sparse world of Rahim almost passes as lush.

Like the Futureheads, Rahim use their play between vocal melodies to shade and colour their sound, while so many other bands with similar post-punk influences are content merely to yelp or darkly intone. Yet while the Futureheads have opened their sound to wider, echoing spaces on their new Ben Hiller produced album – News and Tributes, Rahim have a less expansive, rawer sound.

Yet with so many bands lighting up this sonic territory with their shiny reflections Rahim may struggle to make their presence felt, particularly as parts of the album, while not filler exactly, feel a little workman-like in their execution. It’s not that these songs ‘In The Kitchen’, ‘Only Pure’) are failures, more that they simply fail to live up to the promise and flair of stand-outs like ‘10 000 Horses’. That said, Rahim has the potential to develop their sound into something that bridges the ground between experimentation and directness that was so perfectly captured by Spoon on their Kill the Moonlight album.