Guns Or Knives - Can’t Beat Him, Can’t Join Him (Album Review)
Friday, 15 June 2012
Written by Ben Bland
Stef Ketteringham’s first full-length solo release proper under the name Guns or Knives, 'Can’t Beat Him, Can’t Join Him is a bizarre listen to say the least. The guitarist/vocalist in experimental rockers Shield Your Eyes, Ketteringham is renowned for his inventive guitar playing but perhaps less so for his consistency in the songwriting department. Of course, you shouldn’t listen to this album with the expectation that it will be a standard singer-songwriter material. To do so would be utterly hopeless.
Opening track 'What Good is That?' may temporarily mislead listeners into such thoughts. Fairly orthodox folk guitar is accompanied by what, for Ketteringham, amounts as something close to a croon. This standard approach resurfaces on the odd occasion throughout the record but this fact only makes the more unusual moments all the more jarring. 'Exit Out the Back Door Blues' lasts under thirty seconds and features nothing but wailing mouth organ and a couple of spoken lyrics. 'When You are Better, I’ll Buy You a Bottle of…' features discordant guitar in combination with wailing vocals that are rather reminiscent of John Frusciante’s during his heroin induced mid-nineties depression.
It has to be said; sometimes it feels like Ketteringham is more intent on being unique and different than anything else. 'I Can’t Imagine' is played on an acoustic guitar that sounds like it’s going to break under the pressure of being played and the vocals are half-ranted, half-screeched. 'Barclaycard' is an atypical instrumental track that sounds rather like the sort of thing you’d expect from Shield Your Eyes doing an ‘ambient’ piece. 'You’re Only Humanoid' meanwhile is basically a forty-five second blast of fuming noise rock. Variety may be missing on many singer-songwriter records, but at the same time a consistent musical aesthetic is occasionally pretty useful and such an aesthetic is absent at times here. The only real consistent element is the deliberately lo-fi production values, which are refreshing, compared to the overproduced works of many ‘similar’ artists nowadays.
Overall 'Can’t Beat Him, Can’t Join Him' is genuinely puzzling. Elements of everything here are inventive and interesting but at the same time there is real frustration as well. Ketteringham proves himself to be capable of writing really surprisingly good folk songs on a couple of the tracks here. It’s actually rather a shame that at times the lo-fi element is at the expense of the songs. Thus, if you’re on the lookout for a lo-fi singer-songwriter known for fronting an experimental rock group (there are a surprising amount of them about) then I’d urge you to put Shoes & Socks Off (Toby Hayes from Meet Me in St. Louis) on your list ahead of Guns or Knives. This album is really just a bit too self-indulgent in its own uniqueness for its own good.
'Can’t Beat Him, Can’t Join Him' is out now.
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