Endless Harmony

Little is known about ALPP, except that they are three brothers and one friend on rock instruments and Moog ...

LITTLE IS KNOWN ABOUT ALPP, except that they are three brothers and one friend on rock instruments and Moog, and that the ALPP EP that precedes this record (included here) was produced in the brave musical hothouse of Tortoise’s studio.

But, hey, that’s all by the by, because this record actually tells us more about its producer and label boss than it does about the Program. For this is the maiden release on Transcopic records (Managing Director Graham Coxon). As his calling card, its job is to inform us that part-time pop icon Graham is not only into, but now a bona fide patron of, Difficult Music.

That’s difficult, as in fiendish math-core time changes, guitar lines like hot pokers, and hollered missives about the moral emptiness of post-Fordian capitalist production. Coxon’s beloved Nation Of Ulysses wrote the blueprint for this postmodern spleen, although their impishness has been mislaid in the carbon-copying process.

That said, this is no bad record. On the contrary, it kicks seven shades of principle out of the Manics and frequently scales Fugazi-style emotional peaks. But at the risk of appearing churlish in the face of such knotted-brow sincerity, this record is not so much about the squall of post-hardcore systems failure as it is the sound of Coxon’s Faustian pact with pop being ostentatiously ripped up.

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