Certainly it is refreshing, to say the least, to hear a band like Hi-Electric making a high-quality version of what “indie-rock” used to mean (with guitar, bass, drums and addictive vocal hooks at its musical core), back when the term had a dominating sonic meaning instead of the ridiculous and worthless trend-based connotations that have defined it over the past decade? Logic would dictate that i
t is exactly what you need and Hi-Electric’s self-titled, self-released CD is blowing your mind as you read these words. But perhaps you need some additional persuasion…
The overall state of “Indie Rock” within the musical/cultural context of 2012 automatically makes Memphis, TN’s Hi-Electric worthy of attention because of what they don’t do. The band also happens to be great at their chosen angle of approach to underground rock, so while my opening statement is an ultimately sad one about the current climate of affairs, the next sentiment is to be taken very seriously, as Hi-Electric continue a very special lineage of Memphis rock that will be the town’s real legacy of the future. When a member of Memphis, TN’s underground music community decides to follow a musical endeavor that isn’t easily classified as garage rock, Americana or some contemporary update of the blues, soul or rockabilly, they automatically deal themselves a rough hand of cards. That’s exactly what Hi-Electric ringleader Neil Bartlett did several years ago when he became driven to realize his music through this band. But first…
In the wake of the first worldwide explosion of indie-rock (late-80’s/early-90’s), Memphis, TN enjoyed a brief flirtation with “cool destination” status behind some rather inspired exports at the time who were getting some rather overdue attention: The Grifters, Oblivians, Easley/McCain Recording Studio and Shangri-La Records, to name a few, provided the music/culture media with an easy “next Chapel Hill” for a blink-and-miss-it moment. Very few people, Memphians included, remember this footnote in underground rock history, and this is very telling if we are to look at how certain factions of the Memphis underground are assessed by both the locals and the world at large. Jump a year or two into the future and you have the initial rumbles of a teenager who would become known to the world as Jay Reatard, the indie-rock collective around Makeshift Music that includes Oh Me Oh My/Antenna Shoes/Snowglobe personalities, and the garage-punk/pop world-takeover by Goner Records. This self-titled debut by Hi-Electric features heavy guest musician representation by Dave Shouse of the Grifters, Tim Regan of the aforementioned Oh Me Oh My/Antenna Shoes/Snowglobe triumvirate of bands, and Steve Selvidge (son of legendary Memphis Eggleston/Big Star/Tav Falco associate folk-rock luminary Sid Selvidge) of countless notable bands that have come out of Memphis. The album was sonically-contributed to (a fancy way of avoiding “guest musician” repeat-terminology) and obsessively recorded by another alumni of innumerable Memphis’ past two decades of interesting underground rock, Kevin Cubbins. The first incarnation of the band, active from 2008 until 2010, saw these musicians backing Bartlett live for a slew of memorable live shows around town. Having decided it as a life-endeavor and dug in appropriately immediately following his graduation from the University of Memphis in 2008, Neil Bartlett is openly influenced by bands of the past that form a mix that may seem odd on paper but works to a golden degree from the first few seconds of this album, to the silence that follows its final notes. This would be, primarily, fellow Memphians The Grifters, their forefathers in forward-thinking rock Big Star, and the hook-saturated desert rock of Queens of the Stone Age. Hi-Electric has nothing to do with the adult-contemporary prog-lite peddled by tedious practitioners of today’s “indie” like Grizzly Bear, Yeasayer and pretty much anything else adopting the animal or naturalist band-moniker template. You will find no exotic or tiny instrumentation employed, no ultra-upfront and dramatic vocalist who plays nothing, nor any of the other topical trickery currently employed by many bands to distract listeners away from a lack of songwriting skill. What you will find is ten songs that deliver the same physically-felt thrill, maybe in the stereotypical (because it is real and powerful) form of raised hairs on one’s neck or chills throughout the body, that came with first listens to Superchunk or Built to Spill or those first three songs on Queens of the Stone Age’s self-titled debut. Hi-Electric has plied their immediately-catchy guitar-pop live in Memphis for a handful of years, opening for the Meat Puppets, Magnolia Electric Co. and locally-based contemporaries, MGMT. But Neil Bartlett, backed now by bassist Alan Yee and drummer Henry Talbot, is ready to take Hi-Electric outside of the city limits to the audience it deserves, knowing full well that this is what Memphis’ long but sporadic lineage of truly influential and important bands have to do when serious about their art. Not only is Neil serious about his art, he just so happens to have created a sound that the world DOES need to hear.
--Andrew Earles (writer for Spin, Vice, Magnet & author of the 2010 book, Husker Du: The Story of…)
