Album Review: Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm

Rating: 8 out of 10

Let's assume you don't read Pitchfork and then obsessively check out Metacritic to see what other folks have said about artists that they're, um, pitching. (Yes, that is the recipe to my neurosis... you're so clever to pick up on that!) Then it's possible you're going into reading this review having no idea about Marnie Stern, how incredibly distinctive she is, or what the criticisms being leveled against her are. Cool! I'm going to pretend the same.

This album is an almost non-stop mindfuck. First of all, Marnie Stern plays guitar like she's channeling all those tedious metal "guitar gods" of the 80s. It seems the quasi-technical term for this is that Marnie "shreds." Call it what you will, the shit takes some getting used to. The first couple times through the album, it was difficult for me to hear her madcap technique as anything other than showing off. Thing is, this album also has a vibrant sense of humor, as if Marnie takes nothing seriously, least of all her ability to play a couple hundred notes a minute. Nearly every song throws herky-jerk rhythms, or quirky production choices, or downright puzzling segues at you. And I haven't even mentioned Zach Hill's batsoid drumming, which often works in amazing counterpoint to Marnie's speed chops. It's like they're constantly challenging each other to see who can come up with the crazier rhythm.

So I found myself starting to grin as the album sank in. And then I found myself starting to laugh out loud at Marnie's cheerleader-on-acid multi-tracked chanting. A lot of critics have alleged that the album is too long and/or that its second half is boring and repetitive. To which I say: no fucking way. It's true that she front-loads the straightforward songs. "Every Single Line Means Something" is almost simple by Marnie's standards, and is probably a good place to start with her. "Grapefruit" has a chaotic schizoid rush that's intoxicating, while the galloping album opener "Vibrational Match" shows off her licks at their tightest. Having secured your attention (or sent you screaming from the room), Marnie then kicks off her shoes and gets progressively weirder and weirder. She warps her voice. She stops "shredding" and spits out jagged bursts of staccato noise. And she closes the album with a piece of spoken-word call and response that starts out cute and then half-way through turns into a stomping statement of intent.

My only criticism? This is an exhausting listen, and more than anything else I've heard this year I have to be in the mood for it. Add her in to your playlists and mixtapes with caution, because there's almost no way to transition from somebody else to Marnie without jarring. Does everything on Broken Arm work? Nah. But I'm definitely willing to reward ambition and unbridled creativity over polish or editing oneself in the name of some presumed notion of "listenability." This is an exciting and completely unprecedented album, and I can't wait to see where she goes from here.