The Megaphonic Thrift

The pretenders to Sonic Youth’s crown are plentiful, ambitious and generally fallen somewhere obscure by the wayside, unlikely to usurp them and swiftly forgotten. The Megaphonic Thrift are, perhaps, a little different. Hailing from Bergen in Norway, after forming sometime in late 2007, their blend of Sonic Youth’s off-kilter song construction and guitar manipulation, with that rare, innate understanding of how to not only write and perform a song, but how to both rape and counsel the audience’s ears at the same time and still leave them wanting more, is a rare gift few in recent years have truly been able to grasp. Kevin Shields was a master of this. Billy Corgan occasionally got his finger on this particular pulse. J Mascis has flirted with cacophony throughout his career but always seems to come out of it somewhere in tune (ish). Thurston Moore and co perfected the art.

The comparison to Sonic Youth throughout the entire record is omnipresent. ‘Neues’ wouldn’t have been out of place on Sister, ‘Sister Joan’ reeks of Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star and ‘Dragon vs Dust’ draws heavily from Daydream Nation. They’ve taken Sonic Youth’s krautrock-influenced blueprint (including the Kim Gordon vocal stylings) and worked their way around it to sound not exactly like their idols, but to try to be their contemporaries. I think when Thurston Moore hears this record, he won’t sit there thinking ‘Hey, we did this twenty years ago!’, but rather a wry smile will cross his lips, a fluttering of pride will rise up in his chest and a belief that their legacy is in safe hands for the foreseeable future will warrant a contented sigh. If this isn’t one of the albums of the year come December, I’ll eat my hat and my coat too. - Subba Cultcha

Bergen offspirngs The Megaphonic Thrift, whom I followed around to three different venues, are admittedly my biggest surprise at this year’s Iceland Airwaves. Seriously, I just couldn’t get enough of their highly energetic and melodic Sonic Youth/Dinosaur Jr.-influenced alternative rock.

http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4138201-iceland-airwaves--the-dis-review?recent-recommended-reading - Drowned In Sound

From german magazine Intro's Iceland Airwaves review:
http://www.intro.de/live/nachlesen/23057233/das-war-das-iceland-airwaves-2009-bildergalerie-in-island-ist-die-hoelle-los - Intro Magazine

http://www.visir.is/article/20091019/LIFID01/160062577/1063 - Icelandic magazine Visir

http://skemmtilegt.blogspot.com/ - Highly influential Icelandic music blog

The Megaphonic Thrift may have built their legends on late-'80s underground-rock classics like 'Sister' and 'You're Living All Over Me,' but for a new generation of indie kids, the real canon fodder is those bands' respective early-'90s major-label debuts, 'Goo' and 'Green Mind.' Oslo quintet the Megaphonic Thrift couldn't be more '90s if you slapped them on a 'Reality Bites' DVD reissue, sporting all the requisite signifiers -- flannel shirts, Converse one-stars, cute female bass player -- but, more importantly, enough hard-hitting but hook-laden noise-pop jams to keep a nation of dorm-room slackers daydreaming for many moons to come.

http://www.spinner.com/2010/02/21/best-of-by-larm-festival/ - Spinner

Remember this band name. In fact, write it down now. The next step up the ladder from A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS, mixing MBV with SONIC YOUTH, but basically a cat caught in a ceiling fan comes close to describing the shear furious and glorious noise that makes up The Megaphonic Thrift from Bergen, Norway. We caught them last night at a jam-packed Rockefeller here in Oslo and after suffering through this band that pretended to be country, these kids came out and dropped the rock gauntlet on everyone that left us shaking. The band gets the Sonic Youth tag quite a bit, and they definitely bow to SY but feel like they have their own spin on things.

I had a chance to sit down with them in the hotel, in between their five performances at By:Larm and ended up liking them even more. What's not to like about a band that pulls their name from GUIDED BY VOICES, and what 'an odd assembly' they truly are. Basically they are built from the ashes of a number of popular Norwegian bands like CASIOKIDS, THE LOW FREQUENCY and SYME and STEREO21, but even being from Bergen, where electro-pop is king (Datarock, Annie, Royksopp), they fly back in the face of that movement with a sound that cries out that the end is near on that front and that good, old fashioned rock and roll is back. Many describe them as shoegaze, but it's not accurate, even if MBV swerves in and out. This is a band that isn't shy and has no problem staring straight ahead, even glaring at you because they have the goods to back it up and more importantly, the songs.

Last night's set was blistering. It was exhilarating. The band that performed before them ended their set trying to get the audience to scream 'power' over and over again, but it was The Megaphonic Thrift that didn't have to say it, they made you feel it. It was a good, old-fashioned ass-whipping is what it was.


http://futuresounds.blogspot.com/2010/02/bylarm-night-2-megaphonic-thrift-is-all.html - Future Sounds

The tide turned in a big way though with our next experience. I had been impressed with the opening night performance of The Megaphonic Thrift and recommended them highly to Larry, who was already firmly seated on the bandwagon. He and I chatted up the band earlier in the day and they remarked that this performance (one of their 5 during the fest) was the one not to miss and was on the biggest stage of their young careers. Yes, the perfect storm was brewing, and then TMT took the stage, the thunder and lightning show was one to remember.

The band clearly are a few steps ahead of most of their countrymen in terms of sound and stage presence, ripping through a fast but thick four song set of straight up rock n’ roll thunderbolts. Young American bands like Grooms and Twin Tigers might envy the sound of “The Thrift”, who seem to effortlessly cause your jaw to hit the floor. Whether it was the early disappointments that set up this slam dunk or possibly they are the next big thing here and abroad, Larry and I both felt like they were the highlight of our first evening.

http://woxy.com/blog/2010/02/19/bylarm-2010-the-megaphonic-thrift-steals-the-show/ - Woxy

The by:Larm Festival hosted more than 220 bands, so when listening to songs before the festival, some quick judgments were made. If a band sounded interesting, their name would go on down with a couple descriptive words and a star if they really seemed exciting. The Megaphonic Thrift pre-viewing analysis read "GbV / MBV ***." The Megaphonic Thrift formed out of several other bands in Bergan, and long before their 7" Acid Blues was being pressed, they were invited to bring their mix of acid fuzzed noise and undeniable melodies all over Norway. They were the last band I saw at by:Larm and I stood near the front with a huge smile, the wash of music making me feel like my face was being blown back. It was definitely the loudest and one of the most exciting things I'd seen in Oslo, grab these two and hear for yourself.

By Christen Thomas - RCRDLBL

Featuring members of Norwegian acts Syme, Stereo 21, and the Low Frequency in Stereo, the Megaphonic Thrift have only been around long enough to release a lone 7" single, but the streams at their MySpace page are enough to make you prick up your ears. The name is a Guided by Voices reference, but the Thrift jam like early Geffen-era Sonic Youth, which means lots of low vocals, punchy drums, and headlong tempos. On "Neues" especially, they set up a perfectly tuneful song, then carefully unravel it strand by melodic strand-- all in about four minutes. The result is a surge of scribbly, dissonant guitars, propelled by a percussive bass line and drumbeat that punishes the hi-hat and cymbals.

Stephen M. Deusner - Pitchfork

MUST-SPIN OF THE WEEK: The Megaphonic Thrift, “Acid Blues” 7-inch

After hearing Norway’s the Megaphonic Thrift, self-titled was reminded of our dorm-room obsession with Broken Social Scene’s “Almost Crimes (Radio Kills Remix).” Years past, from our tinny laptop speakers, we first caught the Canadians’ scents of Sonic Youth and Pavement mingling with something totally new and fresh, and we were infatuated for months and waited eagerly for the band’s then-import-only album to arrive in the mail. “Acid Blues” has us feeling much the same way.

The track’s hard-rolling drums, driven by a smashing kick drum, and piercing dual guitars have been ringing in our ears. Falsetto vocals eventually enter, mimicking the guitar melody, which proceeds to slash and burn white hot, one unleashing a blistering squeal, the other thumping out a drunken rhythm. The bass wallop throughout is relentless, and the whole thing’s done in less than three minutes, at which point you’ll want to hear it all over again. And again. And again. And again.

The group, which takes its name from a Guided by Voices song, released “Acid Blues” as its debut 7-inch (Sounds Gold) featuring another song “Mad Mary” on the flipside. You’ll need to crank the volume because Side B is mastered significantly quieter than “Acid Blues.” But the burbling underbelly of “Mad Mary” wooshes and grumbles as the song changes from a docile “Schizophrenia” breather into a roaring giant. Halfway through, the Norwegian-accented lyrics give out to a guitar onslaught that howls like its the Thurston & Kim Appreciation Hour.

The record’s sleeve, it must be noted, is delightfully DIY, featuring a photo collage of VHS tapes with the band’s name and track titles marked in old-school embossed label-maker tape. Crooked? Yep. Awesome? Definitely.

By Aaron Richter - Self-titled Mag