Single Frame, Everything Wants To Be Used For What It Was Made For

Hmm…wow. Okay, this is a little awkward. I’ve listened to Everything Wants To Be Used For What It Was Made For, the latest release from Single Frame, and I’m still not sure exactly what it is. The album toys with your musical sensibilities; it bats your head back in forth with a wide variety of genres, mashing together arena rock/acoustic/techno/New Wave/acid. Oh, and almost all the tracks are previously released songs that have been mixed, remixed, or are unreleased demos. After listening to Everything, saying the band is experimental would probably be an understatement. It left me wondering, however, what their original stuff sounds without all the preening and posturing.

The first track that really stood out for me was “Taken for a Walk” — the cottony distortion of the electric guitar slung out catchy riffs with a head-bopping beat. This is one of a few songs on the album that has a definite garage-rock feel. If you want a great impression of the band, I would recommend listening to “Clippership.” There were irrepressible similarities between this song and the indie-dance sensation that is The Faint. The band also resembles The Faint in terms of the singer’s style and lyrics, which are macabre but so catchy you probably wouldn’t notice the creepiness. Before you know it, the instrumentals have steered “Clippership” deep into your ear canals.

I have to say, though, that this is probably the first album where I’ve wanted to break out dancing one minute, only to want to throw my headphones down in aggravation minutes later. I speak specifically of “Sores for a Change” — the song produces what sounds like bees screaming. At this point my eardrums felt so tortured that I almost went limp and left my body. It’s a good thing that I didn’t, of course, because then I would have missed “Dry Lips,” which creatively samples from The Legend of Zelda and the silencer in the classic GoldenEye N64 game. Another track on the album that follows the electronic feel is “Silver Crime Lining” — reminded me of The Chemical Brothers. The drum machine and dub style of the song kept the lyrics bouncing from ear to ear.

After listening to this album, surprisingly, I found myself enjoying a good portion of it. Normally, if you find a New Wave/techno/acid CD around my person, you’d most likely hear a muffled scream, and shortly thereafter it’d be deposited into the nearest river, but I can appreciate more than a few tracks on this CD. From the dissonant piano to the bitter telephone calls and recorded dialogue to the Nintendo sampling and flat-out rocking beats, this album has it all. There are a few songs I’d love to hear over and over, and there are a few ambient tracks I’d avoid altogether. If anything, this album is a buffet of sound; pick what you like and sample the rest. I’m sure there are a few choices that will satisfy.