'Secular Works' is an immediately confusing and disarming proposition. From the very first strains of album opener 'Blackmail Blues' it melds both the old and the new, taking musical worlds that on the face of it don't mesh at all and making something unsettlingly and oddly wonderful out of them. Extra Life is a project formed in 2007 in New York by vocalist/guitarist/composer Charlie Looker of Zs and this, the group's debut album, which was originally released in 2008 on Planaria Recordings to a healthy slew of similarly confounded and strugglingly expressed adulation, is to now receive its first full European release via LoAF recordings. The most immediately striking aspect of 'Secular Works' is Charlie Looker's vocal deliveries, which take the forefront of much of the band's sound. He sings in a odd flat, but soaring, voice, in the style of religious monkish chanting, and, when combined with the repetitive, at times raga-ish, structures often played out on the album, this gives the whole thing a very much devotional feel, as oppositionally alluded to by the album title. The real strength of the album comes from marrying this potentially anachronistic strongly medieval vocal and instrumental feel with complex progressive musical structures - the music is full of stabbing, staccato bursts of noise and rhythm, time changes abound, ambient raga drones appear, to be broken through with sudden explosions of gloriously tight full-band percussion where drums, bass, guitar, voice and various other instruments sound as one attention-grabbing blast. For something so complex and so potentially strange and difficult a listen, Extra Life's 'Secular Works' is also oddly accessible and appealing, it's individuality and complexities drawing the adventurous listener back and deeper each time to discover more in its dense, rich sounds.'Secular Works' is released on LoAF Recordings on 6th April 2009.
Extra Life
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