Sixteen Deluxe
Backfeed Magnetbabe (Trance Syndicate)
by Marc Hirsh
Sixteen Deluxe
Backfeed Magnetbabe (Trance Syndicate)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in the Public News, November 8, 1995
For an album of background music, Backfeed Magnetbabe sure is noisy. Coming off as an unfocused Sonic Youth or a hookless late-period Big Star, Sixteen Deluxe offers not a whole lot more than uncontrolled guitar chaos.
To say that the band's main liability is their weak songwriting misses the point. Sixteen Deluxe isn't about songs. There's something fundamentally wrong with a band that makes even a ringer like Big Star's "Kangaroo" sound tossed off and (shudder) boring. They give off the impression that songs aren't important, and too many end up endlessly repeating ideas that were no good in the first place.
Like too many other Big Star worshippers, Sixteen Deluxe seems to have taken the wrong lessons to heart. Focusing on the dreamy, organic style of Third, they attempt to emulate the atmosphere while forgetting that it amounts to nothing without a good song to hang it on.
The closing "The Beginning" is a repetitive noise figure, kind of like a scuba tank but different, with lots of space and studio chatter, lasting more than ten minutes. Sonic Youth has done stuff like this (see "Scooter and Jinx"), but their attempts were noisier, cleverer and, most importantly, shorter. As it is, Backfeed Magnetbabe makes your CD player an interesting white noise generator, but it's not worth paying attention to.