Burning warehouses, train wrecks, armed rich kids

Baader Meinhof (Hut/Virgin)

I bet Luke Haines always seemed like the most ordinary of boys. His fey, intelligent tunes with the Auteurs started as pleasant and familiar; it took two more albums before he released the noisy masterpiece of After Murder Park, where he perverted his songs into entrancing, violent tales with distorted but unremittingly melodic guitars and that same, oddly soothing voice of contempt. Underrated and ignored, its failure probably didn't make Haines feel any better about his stress-induced jump off a wall last year. Perhaps the injury addled his brain, but it's hardly enough of an explanation for what he's unleashed with his side project, Baader Meinhof. Save for Haines' voice, here at its most strained, this album sounds more like Funkadelic than the Auteurs, albeit Funkadelic played at 16 rpm.

Featuring that instrument of rock's percussive doom, the tabla, as well as cheesy '70s funk keyboard and sparse, searing feedback, the songs are broad and simple, with only the occasional faint acoustic guitar bringing pop into the picture. For all its funk posturing, the album is completely undanceable, creeping along at tempos well under dancefloor requirements.

But Haines has a few aces up his sleeve. In the midst of the plodding percussion, Haines alternately inserts baroque and Middle Eastern guitar parts, making what was merely head-scratching into something so deviant you have to wonder what combination of drugs produced it. But I have a bad suspicion that Haines is completely sober--the music is too self-aware. Haines sticks everything where it will seem the most incongruous, and when things are getting repetitive, he'll switch into solo acoustic mode for a bit before slamming back into funkiness (hah!). Yet he can't stay away from the innate catchiness of the title track's chorus. The cellos swell over the rattling tablas while Haines' voice soars and the keyboard burps. Too bad people will look at you funny when you sing "It's a security state operation / Rich kid with a gun" on the bus.

Haines has always specialized in vaguely threatening words, but there's no mistake what he's talking about here: terrorism. From the group name (a German terrorist group) to the wanted-poster/smiling gunholder cover, to song titles like "Burn Warehouse Burn" and "There's Gonna Be an Accident," Haines plunges straight into morbid obsession. I'd need a bibliography to figure out what he means by "Al Fatah in Palestine with the P.L.O. / She put the kids in a P.F.L.P. camp six months ago."

In short, Luke Haines made this album for Luke Haines and no one else. There are no hit songs, and any catchy hooks have been surgically excised. But the tension between Haines' inherent melodicism and the obnoxiousness of the arrangements grows more fascinating with each listen. Admittedly, it's akin to watching at a train wreck, but what a train!

--Ramon Detweiler