Review: Night Control – Death Control
Night Control – Death Control (2009) [Kill Shaman] // Grade: B+
Ok so pardon yesterday’s diversion, I’m back to reviewing (fawning over) more obscure bedroom pop, and this one is a tad more obscurer than the rest. While ample attention is (deservingly) being placed on the likes of Woods & Wavves, Christopher Curtis Smith’s (CSS) AKA Night Control has just slipped in a real gem right under the noses of all this hoopla.
With a knack to at times channel the Velvet Underground, and other times Marc Bolan, CSS has a unique gift for weaving his haunting bedroom pop assemblages effortlessly in and out of more ambivalent and cosmically visceral terrain.
Not really an album per say, Death Control is a pretty auspicious debut. Collecting tracks culled and assembled from years of CSS’s tape recordings, does have those moments where some of his prolonged aural excursions could have used some trimming, refinement or exclusion were this an “album”. As a collection however, it works in providing context and painting an exciting picture of what to hopefully expect from Night Control’s musical career.
