Flak Magazine: Review of Quasi's The Sword of God, 09-07-01

Much was once made of the fact that the band's principals, Sam "Puffy" Coomes and Janet Weiss, are a divorced couple who maintain a creative partnership. But this is old news that inspires less and less wonder as time goes by, and Sam got all of the vitriol out of his system three records ago.

The duo is naturally linked to Janet's other drumming gig with prominent postpunkers Sleater-Kinney and to pop wonder Elliott Smith, for whom Quasi has often served as an opening act and rhythm section. But with a dedicated audience of its own, the band as an entity has certainly outgrown those shadows.

The novelty factor of the Roxichord, an obscure vintage keyboard that was once central to the Quasi sound, has drawn a certain amount of attention as well. At this point, the instrument has been remanded to the care of Seattle's Experience Museum. Its clamorous sound is now re-created via synthesizer technology and has been augmented or replaced by other arrangement elements since the technicolor brilliance of 1998's Featuring "Birds."

So all that's left to examine is the music.

The main rap on Quasi is that Coomes writes the same song over and over. While this statement is ridiculously exaggerated, it is also pointed; The Sword of God finds Quasi well into an era of self-repetition. Following Featuring "Birds," the album Quasi will be remembered for if there is any justice in the world, most of the songs on the 1999 follow-up Field Studies as well as The Sword of God show a band tunefully marching in place.

Quasi battles mightily to stave off self-repetition, but the efforts are seen mostly in tangential touches and one or two oddball songs. There's a short, looping instrumental that would fit in perfectly with the interstitial music on Elliott Smith's Figure 8, some bluesy acoustic noodling over a drone at the end of "Goblins & Trolls" and the bagpipe-march-meets-Stones-riffery of "Rock & Roll Can Never Die." There's even a goofy nod to concept-album thematic unity provided by whimsical liner notes concerning the rise and fall of Omar the singing chimp, whose story may or may not be reflected in the songs presented on the album.

Nonetheless, all of the Quasi clichés are here: catchy ascending and descending melodies, old-timey chord turnarounds, pretty high harmonies and slightly toned-down but still comically dour lyrics ("Birth by birth we're cast out on this earth to a welcome of blood and screams).

There are also more specific cases of musical reiterations. Part of the main melody line of "Genetic Science" is suspiciously close to the verse of "Under A Cloud" from Field Studies. The off-kilter stop-start rhythms of "The Sword Of God," "A Case Of No Way Out" and "Goblins & Trolls" could have been lifted directly from the weird, energetic instrumentals on R & B Transmogrification, Quasi's second record. Even the snippet of bird sounds that was featured on the third album reappears at the opening of "A Case Of No Way Out."

Surprisingly, the familiarity of the material on The Sword of God does little to lessen its impact. Coomes still writes good songs, and the duo still produces and performs with craft and conviction. A healthy handful of songs on this record — at least "Fuck Hollywood," "It's Raining," "Genetic Science" and "Little Lord Fontleroy" — stick around after a few spins. That's one measure of success, but more importantly, you won't mind these mental replays.

So Quasi's new record is neither essential nor revelatory, but it's a decent listen. That a couple of musicians coming from an indie/DIY background can continue to release good records and find success doing what they love into their mid-thirties is an inspiring enough story in itself.

— Wayne Lewis (capsighs@pacbell.net)