Send "Rafter " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Rafter Roberts' songs bounce and bend with an oddball sort of charm, and each record finds him following his muse in a slightly different way. His latest LP as Rafter, Quiet Storm, finds him once again staking out new territory. Released abruptly in late January, the digital-only release is said to draw inspiration from "black metal demo tapes" Rafter and his touring companions listened to while out on the road supporting last year's attempt at poly-glam Of Montreal-pastiche, Animal Feelings.Quiet Storm doesn't really sound like black metal at all, nor does it sound like, in Rafter's words, "Darkthrone meets the Kinks meets Lee Perry." But the record is reminiscent of Microphones/Mount Eerie godhead Phil Elverum's recent dalliances with the dark arts, namely, Mount Eerie's 2008 EP, Black Wooden Ceiling Opening. Both that record and Quiet Storm apply a similar amp-blown aesthetic to the songs. But while Elverum's affection for lo-fi and disquieting distortion is nothing new, Rafter's music has never sounded this harsh and abrasive-- almost every drum hit on this record crackles and blasts through everything else surrounding it. The technique adds a crunchy texture to the material, foregrounding Rafter's debt to the spikier end of 1990s indie rock. Elsewhere, the new dressings add an ominous, discordant feel to the record's more dirge-like moments (see album closer "Born Again" and the clattering din of "Coldness of Space")....full text |
| Sputnikmusic |
| Heimdall holds the Gjallahorn into the air and blows deeply into it; just behind him, Odin converses with Mim's head. The Midgard serpent Jormungandr furiously writhes, causing waves to crash and threatening to swallow entire seas whole. As this happens, the world tree Yggdrasil shudders and groans, anticipating the impending slaughter of the gods; to the east, the ship Naglfar breaks free and begins sail. Deep underground, the dwarves groan by their stone doors and whisper secrets older than the moon itself. There is no doubt that a personal music association may be just that - personal. Yet, Rafter's Quiet Storm seems strangely suited to such a bleak horrorscape - even if it is completely unintentional. A certain poetic melancholy pervades the one-man record, allowing it to defy its lo-fi industrial metal tendencies and carve, out of oil, a canvas of horrifying proportions. Take, for instance, album opener "Convenience or Death", whose defeatist tone suggests a sinking sun disappearing behind the raised spears of a metal army. In the background, the song's militaristic beats thunder ominously away, completing an introductory hymn that is anachronistically existential, yet unfathomably compelling. Any notion of this being a black sheep that just happens to be chilling out on the CD is immediately dispelled by the rumbling creep of "Nothing Here Worth Stealing", which boldly trundles through a harsh winterscape that is filled with nothing but the battle fallout of Tyr and the hellhound Garm. Rafter admits that the design of Quiet Storm was fueled by inspirations of banjaxed death metal tapes, mortal folly, and "a wave of existential freakout, human mind explosion". Ca c'est un peu bizarre, but a man is allowed to dream. He calls the record his fantasy; "like Darkthrone meets The Kinks meets Lee Perry". Of course, he's entitled to have his own way with his own mind, but the frantic electronic de-rezzing of "Innocence, In A Sense" might as easily recall propaganda images of Surtr advancing from the south, his sword brighter than the sun. For the rest of the album, Rafter goes for the jugular, calling forth all his pop sensibilities and jamming them into the visual equivalent of a bastardized stereo. The results are stunning: the moaning pop noise of "Interlude" sounds like it was crafted for a scene where rocky cliffs are opening, the sun's beams are blackened, and poison is being spewed forth into the sky. Our world is one where people can be inspiring, extreme, blown out, and ridiculous yet heartfelt; it just so happens that Rafter's mortal coil is not mutually exclusive with the one where Norskmen walk the road to Hel and heavens are rent asunder by the duels of deities. But don't just take my word for it - try this little experiment for yourself: visualize the giant serpent Jormungandr opening its gaping maw, yawning widely in the air, and engaging in frantic combat with Thor as a song like "Pummelled" or "Oh No" is playing; then see if you can escape associating the record with Ragnarok after....full text |
| Cokemachineglow |
| The Sweaty Magic EP (2008) has nothing on the big, sweaty, hot mess that is Rafter Roberts’ voyage to the darker side of dance-pop, Quiet Storm. More conducive to headbanging than, uh, conducive to banging, Storm is the site of Rafter, now based in New York after a San Diego rearing, turning, in no half measures, from the vein of sexytime-pop and R&B influences pursued through Sweaty Magic and previous LP Animal Feelings (2010) to a full-on, metal-influenced brand of old nihilism. While footnoting bands like the Kinks, Quiet Storm really sounds more like Phil Elvrum airing a huge crush on Sleigh Bells. It accumulates and crashes, builds and furrows like Mount Eerie’s recent forays into metal, with nothing but a thin thread of catchy hooks tethering it ever so loosely to the dancefloor. Rafter’s studio work (owning his own space as Singing Serpent) with Fiery Furnaces and habit of listening to metal demo tapes in the tour van have been inserted into the band’s often mad-lib conglomeration of influences, this time in place of the likes of Justin Timberlake, emerging in a rapturous amalgam of busted-ass speaker bass played with that high school drumline rat-a-tat. These are beefy, barrel-chested metal beatings swelling with distortion to consume roughly ninety-five percent of the airspace—meanwhile Roberts’ comparatively tiny voice shines like a single, bright scrap of metal amidst the dank squall. There’s little else to Quiet Storm besides that. One won’t witness any belching brass à la “Timeless Form, Formless Time” or catch more than a breath of backing vocals (mostly because it’s nearly impossible to even catch Roberts’ lyrics). Gone are the Auto-tunes; gone are the optimistic, wheedling peals of guitar, now confined to a raw, rock-out wail in opener “Convenience or Death,” or to a shred here and there, coupled with a shrieking bouquet of tortured strings in “Braden’s Song.” The plucky cowbell drumming of Rafter’s previous albums? Here it’s replaced by coarse clangs, like someone forcibly driving home railroad spikes, in “Nothing Here Worth Stealing.” Also gone are the come-hithers like “you’re my girl” and “get on the dancefloor”; instead, Rafter dabbles in jargon pinched from his influences, tweaked and skewed by his own brand of peculiar humor. You can see Roberts smirking through bleakly impending track titles like “Convenience or Death” and “Coldness of Space.”...full text |
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