Since The White Stripes' meteoric rise, the concept of the minimal rock'n'roll duo has been deconstructed even further with bands as hardcore and uncompromising as DFA 1979 and downright shambolic as Former Bullies grubbing around in the messy margins of Alt. Rock.
Yet, for all these primitive guitar and drum outfits, few have dared to dispense with the guitars altogether. Sure, DFA 1979 kicked up a thunder akin to the gates of Hell creaking open for a while there, but they did at least tote a bass guitar and FX boxes. James Rutledge and Chris Walmsley (a.k.a VOWELS), however, realise that the primordial heartbeat of rock is the drum and that dressing it up with the weirdest electronic shit you can rather than anything resembling a guitar is gonna speak to the listener's very soul.
Good concept for sure, though sadly the execution proves rather uneven during the course of 'The Pattern Prism'. Opening with a looped groove, layers of experimental textures and what sounds like Walmsley heaving his mighty drum kit down a stairwell, first track 'Sonny' is an Avant-Garde collage devoid of easy footholds for the listener. There again, the press release refers to Stockhausen, so expecting 'Singles Going Steady' was never really on the cards, now was it?
Briefly, the prognosis improves considerably, thanks to 'Two Wires' insistent, Krautrock-y thrum. Yes, it revels in its' analogous synth interference, but welcomes in an almost Giorgio Moroder-style sense of danceable melody and thanks to Walmsley's bang-on drumming cruises with its' top down.It's excellent and a rare example of Vowels letting the sun in and meeting their public half way.
Sadly, such playfulness is kept to a minimum from thereon in. 'On Up!' is another hypnagogic thrum, but much heavier than 'Two Wires'. Imagine Dave Grohl guesting with early OMD and you're almost there. 'Swim Pool' is electronic drone-rock in excelsis, close in spirit to Tangerine Dream's slow-morphing opuses and – with its' symphony of gamelans, gongs and swirling cymbals,'Appendix' will certainly sort the wheat from the chaff, not least because it stains the best part of ten minutes before it's rumbled to its' inchoate conclusion.
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Anything structured is pretty much eschewed after 'On Up!'. The self-explanatory 'Drums Gone Awry' is hardly 'Moby Dick', but it's a percussive maze full of twists and dummies which leaves you disconcerted and oppressed however technically amazing Walmsley's skill is. Rutledge's ear-splitting synths then take over for 'Eh Uh' and by the time of the closing 'Closing Circles' you've been clubbed into submission courtesy of Walmsley's dextrous Junglist beats and what appears to be the ghost of a sax entering the tunnel as the track fades and glorious silence reigns supreme at last.
'The Pattern Prism' is a strange, hydra-headed electronic beast with an apparently insatiable thirst for the uncompromising and the arcane. It finds Vowels speaking a language which will be an acquired taste to all but the most daring sonic explorers but while that's surely worthy of admiration, it will find unconditional love a lot harder to come by.
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