CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN – I Am The Golden Gate Bridge
Posted by AlMachine on Friday, April 11, 2008


Most collaborations seem to go one of either two ways; either messy, unrefined and downright forgettable (Audioslave, The Tears, Dirty Pretty Things, we’re thinking of you…) or occasionally beyond all expectations to the point where previous legacies tend to get forgotten about for the right reasons (Foo Fighters, The Breeders, Primal Scream come on down…). Sometimes however, when the sum of the parts of the latest joint venture all effectively started out as musical troubadours of the same family tree in the first place it can make differentiating between old, new, past and present somewhat impossible.

One such problematic outfit are Creature With The Atom Brain, essentially the brainchild of Belgian combo Millionaire keyboard player Aldo Struyf. Now anyone with any knowledge of his regular employers background will be fully aware of their connections with both garage grungers Evil Superstars and rock royalty’s Queens Of The Stone Age, so it is without any surprise that key members of all three outfits make telling contributions throughout ‘I Am The Golden Gate Bridge’.

What does make this record stand out from the aforementioned trio is that it clearly wears Struyf’s influence all over its sleeve, whether that be from the project’s title, named after a 1950s b-flick later turned into song by Roky Eriksson’s 13th Floor Elevators, an undoubted major player in the keyboard player’s musical development. Likewise, the preposterous album title, and songs like ‘Mind Your Own God’ and ‘Rapeman’s Scalp’ carry a hardened edge that occasionally slips into psychedelic drone territory, particularly on the latter’s largely instrumental journey through the excesses of stoner rock and neo-shoegaze alternatively.

The big guns of Mark Lanegan and Millionaire frontman Tim Vanhamel come to the fore on ‘Crawl Like A Dog’ and ‘Black Out, New Hit’. Lanegan’s earthy drawl actually turns the latter into an Iggy-esque rambler that actually usurps anything on the last QOTSA record, while Vanhamel’s quasi-robotic interludes (“I’m not your chaperone, I’m not your friend”) spit gravel-tinged dirt and sludge-like phlegm all over ‘Black Out…’’s bluesy coda.

At times ‘I Am The Golden Gate Bridge’ does become slightly languid, and pretty much follows the sort of pattern you’d expect from a group made up of members of the bands in question here; ’16 Inch Revolver’ and ‘Blackened Roses, Same Old Doses’ both sound too close to the QOTSA songbook for comfort, down to the aloof harmonies and Homme-patented trademark riffs.

Also, there is a tendency for the record to just slip into autopilot at times, such is the laidback feel that Struyf has tried to create throughout ‘I Am The Golden Gate Bridge’, and occasionally the listener may be forced into doing the same.

Minor gripes aside though, this is a fine debut that is worth buying for the more experimental moments such as ‘Rapeman’s Scalp’ or ‘Not A Sect’ and its whirling, catatonic dirge that seemingly makes more sense with every subsequent listen. ‘I Am The Golden Gate Bridge’ may only have started out as a side-earner to keep the pennies rolling in while Millionaire embark on another gap year, but if Aldo Struyf can continue to orchestrate such wholesome projects as this, this Creature With The Atom Brain may have an unexpectedly longer life span than its creator may have deemed possible from the outset.

7/10

Dom Gourlay


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