Roué - Upward Heroic Motive

Roué
Upward Heroic Motive
Exit Stencil, 2005
Style: 6/10
Grace: 9/10
Overall: 7/10

The first time I met Justin Coulter, he was lighting a toilet on fire outside of a college cafeteria in Cleveland. Besides the burning toilet, Justin was also shredding and screaming over synthesized beats. No, this wasn't Roué, but Commercial Paranoid Behavior Control, a lovely two piece that terrorized the campus for most of my college career. In fact, if it wasn't for CPBC, I never would've gotten to play in bands. They were the only ones making an original sound on campus. While most bands were embracing a garage, indie, or emotional-guy-on-campus rock sound, CPBC were doing their best Atari Teenage Riot impersonation. So, the disclaimer is, I already respect Coulter. He could probably put out a mediocre record and I'd find something about it to appreciate.

Roué, though, is a little more rock and roll, a little more piss and vinegar, if you will. The guitars go from light and dirty to heavy and dirty and finally to metalicious and dirty. This is serious music; math rock without all the differential equations. Whatever the hell that means.

When Led Zeppelin started playing rock based on blues riffs, it was a new approach to loud and heavy. Now, it's really been done to death. I'm not saying Roué are suddenly building a new style, but they've definitely found some great basics to build off of. Mostly, the building blocks are post punk like The Stooges and The Fall mixed with some great attitude and anti-style like Queens of the Stone Age and Pere Ubu. Quite a crazy amalgam of reference points, I know, but it's hard to pin down what is driving Roué.

The surface gives a few more clues, literally, by which I mean, the cover art, done by Cleveland cum-New Yorker Dana Schutz. Her style—quick and dirty—brings out the artsy edge in the album. Another reason to not mind dropping 15 bucks to hold an album in my hands.

Upward Heroic Motive feels so good, it can't be bad. Oh, and I know that Coulter sings just like Mark E. Smith from The Fall, but it only bothered me for the first listen. After that, a lot of range comes out, especially in the screamier songs. I know saying this might piss someone off, but Coulter sounds a lot better than Smith, even 25-years-ago Smith. He might not be lighting any toilets on fire, but with Roué, maybe some metaphorical toilets will be lit aflame. I don't know what that means either, whatever, let's rock.