{"title":"Polvo","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePolvo is an American indie noise rock band that was formed in 1990 in Chapel Hill, NC. Initially active until 1998, the band later reformed in 2008. Known for their unique blend of dissonant guitar riffs and intricate song structures, Polvo quickly gained a devoted following within the underground music scene.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eInfluenced by a range of genres including punk, post-rock, and math rock, Polvo's sound is often characterized by its raw energy and experimental approach. Their music has been compared to other notable acts such as *Chavez*, *Rodan*, *Unwound*, and *JUNE OF 44*. With their distinct style and innovative songwriting, Polvo has left a lasting impact on the alternative music landscape.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThroughout their career, Polvo released several critically acclaimed albums including \"Cor-Crane Secret\" (1992), \"Today's Active Lifestyles\" (1993), and \"Exploded Drawing\" (1996). These records showcased the band's ability to seamlessly merge complex rhythms with catchy melodies, solidifying their status as pioneers of the noise rock genre.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"exploded-drawing-2","title":"Exploded Drawing","description":"\u003cp\u003e“It’s not only Polvo’s masterpiece. \u003ci\u003eExploded Drawing\u003c\/i\u003e is a masterpiece”. Louder Than War, 2020. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOriginally released in April 1996, \u003ci\u003eExploded Drawing\u003c\/i\u003e was generally received as Polvo’s White Album, the moment when the band finally kicked off its shoes, cracked the studio windows, and unleashed a long suite of songs showcasing the band’s true range. This double LP gives it all up: paranoid blues rants, Delhi-via-the-Ozarks hoedowns, spaghetti western lopers, carnivalesque boogie, a blazing, frustrated finale, and as always, that guitar sound. It’s just a little off, twisted, tweaked, coming at us from some pangaeic realm we still haven’t located so many years later, and probably never will.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Touch and Go","offers":[{"title":"Turquoise LP","offer_id":50383999238475,"sku":"2053947","price":44.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Polvo_-_Exploded_Drawing_51cb4c87_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726282292"},{"product_id":"shapes-4","title":"Shapes","description":"\u003cp\u003e“Nothing less than kings of the underground… \u003ci\u003eShapes\u003c\/i\u003e is perhaps the album that makes you understand the mechanics and feral engineering of the machine that is Polvo”. Louder Than War, 2020. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOriginally released in 1997. Recorded by Bob Weston (Shellac) deep in the bowels of the Carolinas at The Fidelitorium. Polvo was not only unique but prolific, putting out one or two releases a year during the band's initial lifespan. Not one of Polvo's records sound the same. Similar, perhaps, but Polvo is a continually evolving beast of many facets. On Shapes, Polvo stretch out in their guitar army postures and play some ROCK! It opens with the attempted start of an automobile engine, then knocks you with the song, \"Enemy Insects.\" The band typically used non-western instrumentation, and with this album, they stretch even that.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Touch and Go","offers":[{"title":"Purple LP","offer_id":50394415530315,"sku":"2053939","price":32.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Polvo__Shapes_ecaae8b5_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726438837"},{"product_id":"cor-crane-secret-reissue","title":"Cor - Crane Secret (Reissue)","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn January 1992, fresh off the glory that was the band's 1991 double-7\" debut, Polvo headed into Duck Kee Studios in Raleigh, NC -aka the place where a lot of early Merge stuff was recorded -to track what became their debut full-length. \u003ci\u003eCor Crane Secret \u003c\/i\u003ewas released in July of that year, the same month as Sonic Youth's \u003ci\u003eDirty\u003c\/i\u003e and Danzig's \u003ci\u003eDanzig III: How the Gods Kill\u003c\/i\u003e. (Sadly, a triple bill never happened.) Opening with a new take on \u003ci\u003eVibracobra\u003c\/i\u003e, a bit of alternately languid and shuddering guitar churn that had appeared on a single the year before (a perfect way to bridge the Polvo of \"then\" and \"now\"), \u003ci\u003eCor-Crane Secret\u003c\/i\u003e, with songs such as the herky-jerky \u003ci\u003eKalgon \u003c\/i\u003eand the youthful-yet-complex\u003ci\u003e In the Hand, In the Sieve\u003c\/i\u003e, established the first iteration of that Polvo sound: intricate guitar melodies, Mr. Bowie's plain-spoken vocals politely deep beneath the guitar waves, and cool ideas of how guitars could go together all over the place. In an era where guitar bands seemed to be blooming like wildflowers in a particularly fertile cow pasture, \u003ci\u003eCor-Crane Secret\u003c\/i\u003e was a complicated bloom indeed. But Polvo was just getting started.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Merge Records","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50424473977163,"sku":"1085658","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/88069e84-8244-497d-a24b-cd31ff25e075_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726778665"},{"product_id":"today-s-active-lifestyles-reissue","title":"Today's Active Lifestyles (Reissue)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eToday's Active Lifestyles\u003c\/i\u003e, the second full-length by North Carolina rockers Polvo, did exactly what a sophomore LP is supposed to do: It expanded the ideas put forth in the first album, gave them a new spin and shine, and presented the \"where we are now\" to the world. Produced and recorded over four heady days in December 1992 by former Bostonian and ex-Volcano Suns bassist BobWeston (around the time he started in Shellac), \u003ci\u003eToday's Active Lifestyles\u003c\/i\u003e hit record store shelves in April 1993. From the whizzing crunch of Thermal Treasure to the loping, connective \u003ci\u003eMy Kimono\u003c\/i\u003e to the 7-minute-plus blowouts \u003ci\u003eStinger (Five Wigs) \u003c\/i\u003eand album closer \u003ci\u003eGemini Cusp\u003c\/i\u003e, the album asserted its place as a most worthy successor to \u003ci\u003eCor-Crane Secret\u003c\/i\u003e. The foreboding title of a particularly screechy, fuzzy jam,\u003ci\u003e Time Isn't on My Side\u003c\/i\u003e, proved to be nonsense; \u003ci\u003eToday's Active Lifestyles\u003c\/i\u003e has aged beautifully. “The band experiments with several ideas throughout the album, and each concept is successful. The album ranges from cascading guitar solos in \u003ci\u003eStinger (Five Wigs)\u003c\/i\u003e to the straightforward \u003ci\u003eTilebreaker\u003c\/i\u003e to the catchy, rolling, keyboard-punctuated \u003ci\u003eTime Isn’t On My Side\u003c\/i\u003e. Overall an excellent album with many layers.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Merge Records","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50444167840075,"sku":"1113547","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50444168593739,"sku":"1085659","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/a73c0d80-d528-4a3e-92b5-0ef928eac58d_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727025639"},{"product_id":"in-prism","title":"In Prism","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"It might be too soon to declare \u003ci\u003eIn Prism\u003c\/i\u003e the best Polvo record ever…but it might be okay by the time you’re done reading this. ...Only at this point in life would Polvo be so assured, so casually stormy and intensely calm, graceful and free with their power without setting aside anything that made them the rock artists they were during their first, unblemished run. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is not a thing on \u003ci\u003eIn Prism\u003c\/i\u003e that they aren’t doing better than before: the sidewinder guitars and the mighty roar and the moody atmospheres and the psychedelic explosiveness; the writing, the singing, the words you can understand, the ones you can’t. Polvo spent 1990–98 giving voice to a chorus of discrete rock \u0026amp; roll ideas that really hadn’t been heard before. And while there was nothing wrong before, it’s now so much more right—perhaps because after ten years none of the peripheral stuff matters anymore. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNow is for Polvo, and Polvo is for now. \u003ci\u003eIn Prism\u003c\/i\u003e is the best Polvo record even before you get to the majestic “A Link in the Chain,” serene and tempestuous like few other things you’ll hear. The album was recorded with Brian Paulson and Polvo has never sounded better. Don’t you agree?\" Mike Wolf, NYC (2009)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Label","offers":[{"title":"Yellow | LP","offer_id":50467520938315,"sku":"322806","price":37.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50467520479563,"sku":"1170517","price":32.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/cc0b08bc-83b2-4e01-b5d3-fc969cf96925_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727338872"},{"product_id":"exploding","title":"Exploding","description":"\u003cp\u003eback in stock\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Label","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50490886226251,"sku":"287045","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"polvo","title":"Polvo","description":"\u003cp\u003eCheck out the first 18 or so seconds of “Can I Ride”, the title track on the first release by Polvo, the two-guitar juggernaut that represented the other side of Chapel Hill indie rock (more on that in a moment). That two-note riff, and the guitar twang that follows, recalls the opening notes on another monster song: “The Sprawl”, a key track on Sonic Youth's epochal Daydream Nation, an album released in October 1988, less than two years before Polvo formed. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis compilation's nine tunes—the first seven from the Can I Ride double 7” EP (1990), the last two from the “Vibracobra” b\/w “The Drill” 7” (1991) are not quite the sound of a torch being passed, but they were a sign that Sonic Youth's weird tunings, the hardcore punk and proto-indie rock on SST Records, and R.E.M.'s hazy rock (three big influences on this era of Polvo) were changing lives. Even back then, the impossibly catchy roar from Merge’s flagship act Superchunk was known to outsiders as the sound of Chapel Hill. But Polvo was something different from the same region. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile the band never cottoned to the “math rock” tag (and it’s hard to disagree with them), there is no question that there was a distinct “how can we make guitar rock sound different from all the other guitar rock” vibe going on in the mid-Atlantic, from Richmond (math rock’s true home, don’t @ me) to the North Carolina Triangle over to Louisville and down almost to Atlanta. (If the Mastodon dudes aren’t down with Polvo, I’ll eat your shoe.) \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNo, Polvo were their own brand of squall, not afraid of big hooks (“Leaf ”), odd tempos and textures (“Lull”) and rolling thunder (“Totemic”), and answers to the musical question, “What if the Feelies grew up on Dinosaur Jr.?” (“Tread on Me”). Indie rock? Not the 2022 kind. Math rock? Eh, not really. This was the sound of a new Southern rock, of a pre-internet guitar storm that looked at what came before and said, “What's next?”.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Merge Records","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50508563972427,"sku":"1170518","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/2094213e-46cb-4b16-8648-d781dcaffb59_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727859936"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/polvo.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}