rex
rex rocking out
rex, "rocking out"



REX
HOPE AND ANCHOR,
LONDON

PERHAPS with my home listening I've been neutering Rex, playing their new album quiter than they might have intended, muting their rockier side and rendering them subdued. But watching them live, it's apparent that they still see "rock" and "rocking out" as good things, that they enjoy wrenching piercing and elongated solos from their guitars. I'm often reminded of the last Red House Painters album where, in a flurry of guitars, it suddenly became obvious that Mark Kozelek - another supposed miserabilist with an ear for sound - must have grown up listening to Kiss, et al. But for all Rex's wearied "group against the world" appearance, even though they could mutate quite easily into a tiresome parody of Neil Young, there's something intriguing about them.
By coincidence rather than choice, I see Rex three times in five days and find them at their best supporting The Sea And Cake with Doug McCombs of Tortoise adding keyboards, at their worst when headlining, as they do tonight.
What they do though is create more neo-rock, extending rock's life with extra instruments, slightly skewed aesthetics - demonstrated by their tendency to play waltzes, for example - and different production. Additional member, violinist, Julie Liu looks like the outsider. She stands outside the triangle of Harvey, Scharin and Spirito, who all face each other and, musically, feed off each other. But in the end she makes the world of difference bolstering the sound with violin and adding new textures to the music.
They are, consequently, far less prosaic than they might otherwise be.

David Hemingway
Melody Maker, October 25th, 1997



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Photograph © janet morgan