Spiro Agnew

Just the name, Spiro Agnew, wasn't going to earn my good graces. After all, Agnew was investigated for bribes, fraud, and conspiracy, yet he somehow remains in the relatively dark conference rooms of collective American memory. For me, he will remain the man who believed women need to be tamed, that all city ghettos resemble each other, and that the American press is an incestuous fish bowl of mediocrity. Thankfully, my friend Christel was quick to shed a light on what appeared like a tunnel of name-factual obscurity. "I once read in some Nixon biography that 'Spiro Agnew' was an anagram for 'grow a penis'", she told me. "Now that's what I read everytime Spiro Agnew's name appears." Slightly put off by this confession, I suddenly caught the anagram virus as easily as swine flu, and found myself squinting as hard as possible to stop my brain from grasping a subliminal message that may or may not be there. Despite this uncanny incident, I am horribly torn between sarcastic appreciation and genuine horror at Spiro T. Agnew - the man - vice-president under Nixon's reign, two feelings that combined together can only produce some reluctant act of worship ... not unlike Spiro Agnew's - the band - music.

Despite being frustratingly unaware of the motives behind the choice of such a dubious vice-president as band name, I pressed play, with nothing more as baggage than hearsay, a few extremely subjective comments from adoring fans, and this incommensurable curiosity that has been eating at me ever since MySpace suggested I add this band "based on common friends" (this remains to be proven, MySpace.) It is in this climate of uncertainty and two pills of 45mg of tramadol that I started my journey with Spiro-Agnew-The-Band, and this what I will attempt to detail... just... now.

I had never been attracted to anything a little too experimental. Like pretty much all mediocre mainstream critics like myself, I like things to be achieved, produced, and handed out to me as a finished product, ready to be consummated, swallowed, and digested. Discovery can only be found outside of your comfort zone, and Spiro Agnew proved to be an excellent case of out-of-body experience, perhaps even in an altered state of mind. I slowly lied on my back, eyes wide open in the dark, and slowly dived into that state of semi-unconsciousness, half-paralysis induced by tramadol... only to realize that the effects were deeply increased by the music. So fluidly it flows, so slowly the intensity builds, so unbreakable the chain of commands, it seems to carry you to a place you can't possibly figure out or even perceive in your awake, day-to-day routine. Spiro Agnew is nowhere near reaching a destination, and doesn't seem to care: it is all about the journey.

Because I emphasized I was not in the most acute state of thinking, the question remains asked as to whether Spiro Agnew maintains this tight grasp on your parietal lobe in a non drug-fueled state. It is a simple question of sensitivity and open-mindedness. That whom who has yet to be transported by the aerial, ethereal guitars throw the first stone. Precisely grabbing notes the same way your brain is catching on the chords just to find a red herring, a pathway made of little stones, the way home is nowhere near: words have dissolved, and the music is a free-flowing conglomerate of notes, sounds, whispers, blows, and tunes. Carried by a steady yet disconcerting rhythm, Spiro Agnew manages to transcend the very essence of music writing: coherence through disembodiement, and consistence throughout immaterialism. What you seem to believe is a waterfall of notes is actually a carefully crafted song where each instrument plays a specific part, the core of which you simply can't reach. It is remiscent of the downfall of humanity and of humanism, the unholiest urges and the forsaken times in which panic took over rationality. Chuck Palahniuk once described in his novel Lullaby what a world without words would be:

"Imagine people chanting prayers, singing hymns, to drown out any sound that might bring death. Their hands clamped over their ears, imagine people shunning any song or speech where death could be coded the way maniacs would poison a bottle of aspirin. Any new word. Anything they don't already understand will be suspect, dangerous. Avoided. A quarantine against communication. And if this was a death spell, there had to be others. [...]"

This is what Spiro Agnew is aiming at, shooting for, and wishing on: the darkest signs, the obscure moments, the light flickering on and off in the basement during the thunderstorm. Their music is uneasy, but comfortable at the same time; unexplainable, but understandable; experimental, but old-fashioned, encompassing references from Godspeed!You Black Emperor (on Death of a Geat), to deeply-rooted Cure influences looking eagerly at an imaginary eventual instrumental Smashing Pumpkins (circa Adore, but with more proverbial guts spilling out of wide open mouths). I remain convinced that Spiro Agnew digs its influences from my childhood nightmares, whilst keeping an eye on a bleak and streamless future. As the band themselves claim to believe that "myths, diaspora and AM radio" are an inspiration, the different wavelength is obvious, as they do not appeal to your direct conscience, but to a part of your brain that had stayed understimulated for some time. Spiro Agnew is a journey towards something even darker than I had imagined before taking those pills, and if The underwater fortress is anything to go by, there is more brainwashing to come. I'll take that, thank you.