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Sightings

Arrived in Gold

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By Justin F. Farrar

Published on December 29, 2004

Some tin-eared critics will write, "Hey dude, Sightings is the new noise." Do not believe this chicanery. Sightings is an extremely dissonant dance band. In fact, it is the first hybrid of Confusion Is Sex-era Sonic Youth white-noise and subatomically designed minimal techno. The eight tracks that comprise this new jam -- the NYC trio's fourth and best studio release -- are true 21st-century tribal grooves flickering rhythmically like a faulty tube of frosty-blue fluorescent lighting. And Sightings has placed your position, as listener, within that flicker, and that is one violently loud place to be sequestered. From there, the once-distant crackle 'n' hum of electricity feels more like a full-bodied seismic reverberation. Snarling six-string feedback cracks the spine like a whip. The corrosive synthesized drums splash across the face and trickle down the chest, leaving smoking radiation burns. Sightings' nuclear no-wave funk makes my sweat reek like ozone. Listen, this is the new rhythm. This is the new dance. This is the new nervous system.