On their first, eponymous album, Algiers have defined themselves as a gospel/experimental rock band with emphasized political attitude. If you are an artist today, and you are not political, you might as well retire, since music critics and other artists will reprimand you. In my humble opinion, this is aggressive and intrusive and no one should force an artist to be political unless they feel like expressing their ideology and axiology. But that's a topic for a separate post.
Algiers' sophomore The Underside of Power was a giant leap in the same direction. The band who charges their inspiration from racial and social and injustice is naturally going to have their battery full in the dark ages. If you haven't noticed, we live in dark ages now. The music of Algiers is difficult to categorize and put tags on it because it is reflected by a wide sonic palette. There is definitely Motown sound and gospel, but you can also hear influences of The Gun Club, Public Image Ltd and Marvin Gaye.
Walk Like A Panther opens the album and sets the tone for what's about to follow. Cry Of The Martyrs is an aberrant fusion of gospel and industrial which shows how eclecticism can give birth to some nasty and beautiful music babies. On the title track The Underside of Power, vocal soul harmonies of Franklin James Fisher are framed by rock play which gives the song a dose of pure, undistilled energy. Matt Tong, the ex-drummer of Block Party has joined Algiers and Death March is an evidence of how his rhythm section raised the bar for the band who was previously using rhythm machine.
The Underside Of Power is a dark album, congruent to the dark political times. Whether or not should everyone else make strongly opinionated political albums is not up for debate. It is a choice of each individual artist and we the best we can do is to respect their choice, because music means so much more to us than a prosaic or perplexing social commentary.
