| Avclub |
 Big Business bassist Jared Warren and drummer Coady Willis churn up the tonal equivalent of an oil spill, and write songs too violently catchy for the usual “sludge” and “stoner-rock” tags. Their bleak, queasy third album, Mind The Drift, tries to look beyond the euphoric whiplash of 2005’s Head For The Shallow and 2007’s Here Come The Waterworks, keeping the dense lows while guitarist Toshi Kasai adds squiggly underpinnings and melodic leads. If only the guitar tone sounded less thin and distant, and if only the guitar parts felt as resourceful as Big Business’ bass and drums always do. The album’s best extra instrument might actually be the trilling, high piano on “The Ayes Have It.” Even so, this (slightly) new direction is a fitting complement for the smart-assed menace that made the band such fun in the first place. (“Please don’t water me down,” Warren howls on the chorus of the nearly nine-minute album-closer “The Theme From Big Business II.”) At times, that results in songs that rank among the group’s best, especially as it groans and lurches through “Gold And Final” and “Cold Lunch.”...full text |
|
| Pitchfork |
| Chances are high that if you like the first two records from L.A.-via-Seattle's Big Business, you'll also like the band's third album in four years, Mind the Drift. While that may sound like quintessential question-begging, it's not, as bassist Jared Warren and drummer Coady Willis added guitarist Toshi Kasai before writing and recording much of number three. To these ears, Willis and Warren have always been a pop band that clad great hooks-- listen for "Eis Hexe" from Head For the Shallow, or "Grounds for Divorce" from Here Come the Waterworks-- within thick metal plates. They've had fun, too, taking risks with the occasional expansive instrumental track or a hard-charging tune that, without warning, opens wide into synthesizer wizardry and choral vocals. Infinitely likable and accessible but ultimately distinct and identifiable, Big Business have long seemed hard rock's answer to Phoenix. Aside from both having backed more-established acts (Phoenix once backed Air; Mind the Drift is Big Business' second since becoming an official half of the Melvins), both bands take magnetic pop cores and cast them into surprising musical contexts. Phoenix goes for sharp guitars and billowing keyboards. Big Business go for skuzzy bass and busy drums....full text |
|
| Dustedmagazine |
Big Business grows from a two-piece to a trio with this third album, augmenting the sludgy, low-end, drum and bass buzz of the band’s Here Come the Waterworks sound with a serious melodic turn toward big floating psych riffs and three-part harmonies. Bassist Jared Warren and drummer Coady Willis take a big step away from their part-time jobs in the Melvins (and from Warren’s work in Karp) by inviting guitarist Toshi Kasai into the club. The bass may still be an ominous thunder of distortion, the drums a continual, chaotic kit-hopping roll, but the vocals now sound like a weird cross of stadium metal and the Beach Boys.
Consider, for instance, album opener “Found Art,” which begins in widely spaced bursts of drums, the onslaughts running closer together and faster until they merge in one long splatter. The bass, when it comes in, is menacing and indistinct, the kind of riff you feel in your stomach, rather than hear with your ears. And the lyrics, are obscure and vaguely bombastic, dramatic as opera, yet, on examination, a bit empty. “Mind your step / let me be / no need to panic / we’re losing the light / haven’t got shelter / and it’s starting to rain,” sings Warren, as Kasai lets loose a slow, side-winding psych riff between phrases. And then (wait for it), there’s a three-part harmony in the chorus, as band members chime in with the phrase “Wonderful vision” at one-three-five intervals. There’s something Spinal Tap-ish about the reach for grandeur here – not that it’s bad exactly, more that it seems not fully justified by the material....full text |
|
Send "Big Business " Ringtones to your Cell 
