There’s just too many rock bands in the world. They’re like static, jamming up the airwaves with their self-serving ubiquitous din. A cull is required, a process of natural selection. Only problem is, whatever arbitrary power does the selecting will find itself utterly stumped as to whether a combo like Ikara Colt deserve a place on the ark or not.
See, this quartet are a damn good band, but their frame of reference is pitifully narrow – basically Sonic Youth minus the avant edge, with some Stooges drive and just a pinch of Suicide cool. Paul Resende’s vocal delivery is a sneerier, snottier Thurston Moore, they know just how to surge on the monosyllabic choruses (‘I’m With Stupid’), and the rhythm section is uncommonly nimble, jumping from gonzo throb (‘I Wanna Be That Way’) to no-wave disco sixteenths (‘Modern Feeling’). And all kudos to producer Alex Newport: this record is the best harnessing of rock music’s primary colours since, well the last couple of At The Drive-In and Mars Volta opuses he worked on. Most ‘garage’ bands with half a budget sound like an over-egged simulacrum of the rehearsal room, but Modern Apprentice is brilliantly realised in the production department, tapped direct from the players’ power sources on the bristling ‘Automatic’ and ‘Waste Ground’.
Bottom line: Ikara Colt make a splendid noise, it just belongs to someone else.