Some bands have a sound that is hard to categorize because they seem to be deliberately ticking a lot of obvious boxes as if they are trying to keep as many people as possible happy. The more discerning bands cultivate a mercurial sound because they are deliberately not playing by other people’s rules and expectations, that genres, sounds and styles, fads and fashion are just things people do to keep the lazy journalists…people like me…happy. The Giraffes, I feel, fall into the latter category. They plow a unique sonic furrow because they do so through largely unexplored sonic pastures. Not just away from mainstream music-making but so far away that it isn’t even on the map. A place marked “here be dragons.”
More than thirty years in the game and presenting their eighth album in the form of Cigarette, this isn’t merely alt-rock; it is the sort of alt-rock that even most alt-rockers consider a bit too alt. Although the term alternative rock is a bit of loaded, as are all generic labels, and what we are actually faced with is the sound of a stone being skipped across the broad sonic waters of underground music, rippling and skidding here and there as the mood takes them, causing chaos and then moving on.
“Pipes” is a gnarly post-punk salvo that is teetering on the brink of the industrial sound. “Limping Horse” is bluesy-punk, like golden age ZZ Top trying to fit into a punk festival lineup and not be noticed. “The Shot” is a spacious, atmospheric and gothic-infused piece shot with tattoo beats and paisley pop backing vocals. Very strange, in a good way. In a great way.
When you want to hear what the alternative set considers alternative, then there is no better band to turn to than The Giraffes.
Cigarette album order
Spotify
Spotify
Pipes video
The Shot single
