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The Paper Chase is a quartet from Dallas (Texas) fronted by singer/guitarist
John Congleton and featuring
Sean Kirpatrick on keyboards and samplers.
On their debut,
Young Bodies Heal Quickly You Know (Beatville, 2001),
they were as artsy, nervous and neurotic as the early groups of the new wave
(Television,
Pere Ubu,
Dead Boys).
The album feels like a disorienting whirlwind of elements that randomly
draw from post-rock and hardcore. More than flows of sound, the tracks
were bursts of sound.
The song structures of
This May Be the Last Song You Ever Hear and
Can I Pour You Another Drink Lover
are devastated by uncontrolled urges.
The more rational Paperwork and Off With Their Heads and the
eight-minute When And If The Big One Hits
toy with a similarly eccentric format, except that it is, at last,
subservient to the melody.
The tension between structured and free-form counterpoint is epitomized by
Goddamn These Hands, that sounds like
Godspeed You Black Emperor improvising
over a phone conversation.
The five-song EP Cntrl-Alt-Delete-U (Divot, 2002) further abstracted
the concept, crafting the edgy Press Any Key To Continue and
Who Can Deny How Delicious It Tastes at the border between
Pop Group and
Slint.
Perhaps influenced by the fad du jour (emocore),
Hide The Kitchen Knives (Southern, 2003) managed to sound less
focused while it emphasized the rocking and the vocal components
of their sound.
The three-song EP What Big Teeth You Have (Southern)
contains Everyone Knows How This Song Will End and two covers.
God Bless Your Black Heart (Kill Rock Stars, 2004) was sunk by
operatic and gothic arrangements that totally deviated from the original program.
How You Are One Of Us (2006) reinvented the project. John Congleton
was now personally responsible for both the lyrical and the musical aspects of it.
His strategy was the ultimate disorienting experience within the framework of the conventional rock song:
employing the wrong vehicle, namely cliches of arrangements (whether psychedelic-rock or chamber-pop), to deliver a message that has nothing to do with the cliche (e.g., a horror story set to lively power-pop riffs, or acid distortions for a melancholy reminescence).
From Chuck Berry to Slipknot, rock music used to tailor the music to the lyrics.
The Paper Chase are emblematic of a switch towards deliberately decoupling the
two and even juxtaposing them, so that one's yin contrasts with the other's yang.
A side effect of these twisted structures was the emergence of a demonic (not
just gothic) element.
It's Out There And It's Gonna Get You, Wait Until I Get My Hands On You and You Will Never Take Me Alive could be the vanguard of a new musical genre.
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