Ned's Atomic Dustbin - Brainbloodvolume
Jonn -- vocals
Rat -- guitars, keyboards
Alex -- bass, guitars
Mat -- bass
Dan -- drums
No one ever said growing up was easy. The zone between adolescence and adulthood often shatters illusions and brings on new responsibilities, and entering it can be as jarring as greeting the policeman who comes to the door at four in the morning to break up a raging party. Growth means change, and change requires adaptation, a lesson British band Ned's Atomic Dustbin has learned only too well since it's last celebratory offering 2-1/2 years ago.
"In the past we've been reliant on fun a lot of the time. We viewed our career as a big merrygoround, and we were all just out to have a good laugh. But there came a point where we realized we needed to re-evaluate what we were doing and dig a lot deeper to find out exactly what we were trying to achieve," says vocalist Jonn.
Such self-examination has yielded Brainbloodvolume, the band's most emotional and poignant album to-date. While past efforts were bursting with buoyant volleys of youthful angst, the new disc is more contained and rational, expressing a range of heartfelt sentiment from bittersweet reflection to abject rage.
"Instead of having one single energy rush we wanted to make songs that would carry their own mood so we could create a series of different kinds of emotions," says Jonn. "I want this to be the kind of album that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck."
From the corrosive industrial grind of the first single "All I Ask of Myself is that I Hold Together" to the bizarre samples and chaotic hiphop inflections of "Floote" to the echoey, introspective pop jangle of "Talk Me Down," Brainbloodvolume does just that, hurtling the listener out of a state of suspended youth and into the frustrating, multifaceted world of adulthood.
Named after a term the band discovered while studying the ancient art of trepanation (a primitive medical technique in which holes are drilled in the head to release excessive brain pressure), the emotion, anxiety and fury of Brainbloodvolume flow forth like exorcised demons escaping a splintered skull.
"There was a study done in the '60's, and they actually came to the conclusion that it would raise your state of mental awareness should you drill a hole in your head," laughs Jonn, who recounts the sloppy medical process on the turbulent track "Borehole." "Basically, a higher state of awareness was what we wanted to capture with this record."
But capturing that state wasn't easy. Since Ned's Atomic Dustbin's last outing, Are You Normal?, the band member's musical tastes have changed radically, leaving certain individuals favoring ambient techno and indie rock while others prefer classic rock and cabaret melodrama. As a result, agreeing on music for Brainbloodvolume was often as futile for the band members as drilling holes in their heads.
"We could have had fisticuffs over so many things," recalls Jonn. "It was quite stressful because a lot of the time I wound up as the mediator sitting on the fence and picking splinters out of my ass. Doing this album was a lot more to us than going into a rehearsal room and playing a few chords. It was democracy and war in action."
A year-and-a-half after Ned's Atomic Dustbin first started writing the material for Brainbloodvolume, the band has emerged from the battle unscathed, sporting eleven new songs whittled down from an original 30.
"We all had to either love or hate everything we had done. If it didn't really provoke a reaction from us, we wouldn't bother with it," says Jonn. "We didn't want anyone to be able to call this record a typical Ned's album. That's mediocrity in its worst form."
Lyrically, Brainbloodvolume takes on age-old themes of frustration and confusion, but with new found maturity and eloquence. "All I Ask of Myself is that I Hold Together" expresses an existential need for self-preservation. "Talk Me Down" deals with self-belief in the face of adversity and "Premonition" confronts feelings of helplessness that come from being thousands of miles away from home. Perhaps the band's growth is best displayed in the comically titled "Song Eleven Could Take Forever," in which the protagonist confidently states, "I'll get out of the way if you want to fight/It seems the more you learn the less you know."
"We all feel like we know exactly what we're doing, but at the end of the day we probably don't, so we've just learned to go about things one at a time and deal with each situation as it comes along," says Jonn.
The first situation for Ned's Atomic Dustbin came in November, 1988, when the five members met at a West Midland's college dorm, and named themselves after a skit from the "Goon Show," a classic BBC comedy series that starred Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. Two years of non-stop gigging followed, including tours with Wonder Stuff and Pop Will Eat Itself before the band entered the studio to record The Ingredients EP, which Sounds responded to by writing, "They play as thought their lives depended on it." That summer, Ned's Atomic Dustbin played its first Reading Festival, and was greeted by 60,000 screaming fans who embraced the band as a savior of British pop.
In 1991, the group released its startlingly energetic and original debut album God Fodder, prompting The Boston Phoenix to write, "this five piece thumb their noses at retro chic, choosing instead to pursue their own brand of rampant, unruly guitar-driven melodicism." Driven by the singles "Kill Your Television" and "Grey Cell Green," the album quickly became a commercial alternative favorite, selling an impressive 300,000 copies.
Exhaustive tours followed, after which Ned's Atomic Dustbin recorded its sophomore disc Are You Normal?, which was given a B+ rating by Entertainment Weekly, who wrote, "This second album has depth, staying power, and one powerful opener in the grungily Beatlesesque "Suave And Sophisticated." In short, Are You Normal? isn't."
Which brings us to Brainbloodvolume, which Jonn views as an affirmation of the endless possibilities of rock-n-roll. "When we first started, we felt like we could do anything. Then we released an album and toured it to death, and I think we sort of lost our way. But now we're really enjoying the creative process again, and it feels like there are no limits."
Indeed, Brainbloodvolume is a fresh, powerful and exciting record that will set the brain reeling and the blood pumping, with or without the aid of excessive volume.