Afterimage
Faces to Hide
Independent Project Records
Even now, the risk of overexposure is minimal for Afterimage. Toiling in obscurity, as deep and impenetrable as any CIA black site, the original lineup developed its uniquely Californian brand of experimental post-punk danger and blistering savagery in the darkroom of the ‘80s Los Angeles underground, all while living in the shadow of Joy Division. They were the second coming, according to the L.A. Times.
Sticking around just long enough to spit out one measly single and an EP, the entirety of their wildly creative two-year existence has been collected on Faces to Hide, a 26-track purge of feral demos and disorienting live fury, plus their eerie, gripping studio work. As a unit, Alec Tension, Holland DeNuzzio, Rich Evac, and the curiously named A Produce were combustible and unpredictable, throwing in saxophone bleats and other sinister sounds on a whim with sheer audacity and preternatural timing and unexpectedly riding rolling waves of synthy surf-rock in a thrilling “Surf Generator: Part of the Threat.”
Notice the drumming, inventive, propulsive, and powerful. Prepare for slashing, blustery guitars, and their vertiginous, hypnotic menace, which also throbs through tough, grabby bass lines. And then feel the heightened anxiety of Alec Tension’s nervy vocals, as high-pitched and quivering as those of John Lydon, conveying an unsettling, alienated reality and dark surrealism in tantalizingly subversive lyrics. Set up as a scattershot aural gallery, it’s all a mutant, contorted, dizzying experience, with Afterimage’s angular, daring acrobatics and explosive energy planting a flag in even the fullest memory banks.
To ensure Afterimage’s well-earned immortality, Faces to Hide comes with an all-encompassing 24-page booklet, which scrawls a fascinating history on its museum-quality walls with vintage photos and insight from famed music writer Richie Unterberger’s engrossing essay. The sublime packaging is a perfect match for what happens when a light is shined in Faces to Hide, where every bit of what Afterimage released on record startles and gets immediately under the skin.
As the galloping buoyancy of “Afterimage” makes a break for it, cycling relentlessly, the kinetic and urgent “Strange Confession” – spurting sax like geysers of blood – and the bounding “Soundtrack” pogo away. Brooding in a corner, seething rumbles like a skittering “Relapse” and “Satellite of Love” taste the whip and metallic flash of Afterimage’s baleful urges, whereas an off-kilter “No Dreams” washes and turns itself inside out repeatedly and a lurking “The Long Walk” creeps down slick New Wave alleys.
Among the pile of lo-fi, scratchy demos brought out of hiding, the gothic, undulating “Sonic Switch” clicks and clatters away, growing more ominous by the second, while a more avant-garde version of “No Dreams” sinks into murky noir, “Afterimage” tightens up and grows even weirder, and “Relapse” almost falls apart, slowing to a delicious crawl. Insistent and tenacious, “Just a Laugh” shows just how disarmingly catchy their songs could be, and even in these messy states, Afterimage’s influences – Public Image Limited, Pere Ubu, and The Fall, to name a few – come out of the woodwork, pushed by fellow West Coast bruisers Flipper and X.
The sound quality of the live material varies, but even when it’s rough and spotty, Afterimage’s incendiary chemistry blows up a punky, sped-up “Soundtrack” and the primitive, fast-paced “Breaking Point,” illuminated by mesmerizing starbursts. “Idol,” however, is something completely different and otherworldly, a rotating, variegated howl that doesn’t seem human and holds the audience in thrall. Afterimage has that effect on people.
