Monday, January 4, 2010

Pontiak...not the car

Pontiak, the heavy three piece out of the backwoods of Virginia (and now Baltimore), has been making a lot of records lately. Three Carney brothers make up the band, a hoary, drone-y, sludgy stoner-type outfit, with forays into folk and Americana. Their debut Sun on Sun came out last year, reissued on Thrill Jockey, followed by a split with Arbouretum, and another full-length Maker. Sea Voids is a long-ish EP, and it feels a little bit slapped together, honestly, though it is not without its moments. I wrote about it for Dusted and the review’s up today. (So we are officially back to normal, I guess…whatever that is.)


Pontiak’s fourth full-length is a grab-bag of styles: Sabbathy-sludge, amp torturing experimentation, Cream-like alchemies of whispery verse and electric blues. and quiet little folk tunes. Where Sun on Sun and Pontiak’s half of Kale (split with Arbouretum) seemed to place the band on a trajectory towards Kyuss’ bludgeoning hallucinations, Sea Voids opens up a jigsaw puzzle box worth of possibilities, jamming pieces in side by side without much thought about how they fit together.

Here they are playing “Maker” in Italy a year and a half ago.

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