Sx3H.W.A #4: HARPER'S JAR “THANK YOU ANCESTOR FINGER”
Harper's Jar have rumbled around the Twin Cities underground for awhile now. Even before putting out their first track, the quick and saucy "Aphrodite," back in 2017, their raucous clattering has boomed from beneath the floorboards of DIY venues and out onto the streets of neighborhoods like Marcy-Holmes and Midway. Like the low lights lining these streets, Harper's Jar are a fixture, peeling up the shadows of the Cities. For how frequently the band's name has crossed gig flyers in recent years, you would be forgiven for never realizing that on Thank You Ancestor Finger, Harper's Jar are only now putting their rough hewn rock together into one comprehensive full-length release.
Like their few shorter releases prior, Thank You Ancestor Finger pulls from the frazzled threads curling and fraying through American outsider rock. "Standard In "c"" is a reweaving of 90s alt rock in its numerous forms. Front-person Devin's voice pulls from the throat straining rawness of grunge, but the band around him often slips back into the similarly noisy but more smartly intricate tones of other college-radio idols like Sonic Youth or Pavement.
It's this coalescence of what was once called 'Alternative' styles, rooted in the destruction of artificial battles between things like 'sound' vs 'noise,' that this band has developed. Early single “Dandy Golden Blue” swings between extremes, masterfully condensing the “loud-quiet-loud” formula down into microscopic sets of oscillating measures. "When You're Without Me" plants the band at this intersection of blown out noise and sweet melody on a slightly larger timescale. Without fully committing to something as harsh as shoegaze, Harper's Jar employ a cacophonous blend of pop sensibilities similar to the light and sunny brand of indie rock that was popular in the early 2010s with bands like Yuck or Smith Westerns.
With "Yakuza Moon" they reach a most precarious imbalance by implanting us into a thoroughly unhinged psyche. Paranoia builds through the arrhythmic pulsations of Kyle, their drummer, as blistering razor attacks split out from the guitar. Devin yelps unintelligibly about a faceless "he" and "they" before plummeting to a whispered murmur. Mercurial whips in intensity follow, flailing the track back up into a peaked fervor. When the track ends, sanity returns, if only for a slight moment, as "She's All Over Me," is the most gentle and straightforward song on Thank You Ancestor Finger. The abruptness in this transition, as well as the dichotomy between the sequencing of these two tracks back to back is where Harper’s Jar finds the most satisfying collision between aggressively cathartic alternative art and the semi-accessibility of amateur radio waves.
On its final piece, Thank You Ancestor Finger destroys this template of a semblance of duplexity. “Edie Sedgwick,” named for one of rock n roll's more prominent muses, shows the band uncoupling from any pretense of respectability and letting loose over nearly fifteen minutes of feedback, screaming, and exorcism. It is here that the band reveals their most practiced skill, restraint, and their most honest form, abandon. Each of the nine songs prior to “Sedgwick” on the tracklist were exercises, strained tests to see how far they could pull themselves back before bursting out again, but by the end of the album’s near hour, they’ve exhausted. The facade of a more traditional band has eroded. In the waning moments of Thank You Ancestor Finger, the only thing remaining is a band meant to rage, a band made to shred and destroy. Harper’s Jar have broken loose, and no one can stop them, not even themselves.
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Interview and Review by: Eric Martin, Writer @eamartin95
Edited by: Andrew Perrizo, Owner @PlaylistTC
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