[review 2007: favourites]

I saw Marnie Stern during the summer during her full-band tour; previously she’d crisscrossed the States with nothing but a guitar and an iPod in tow, and even played a show at SXSW with the pseudo-karaoke setup. And though the show loses a certain something without Zach Hill behind a real drumkit—not just his furious octopus-arms drumming, but also the spectacle of watching him pour sweat out of his shoes two songs into the set—Stern’s ability to impress was apparently intact. And why not? Marnie Stern is easily the most impressive guitarist I saw this year, and it’s exhausting just to watch her long, unbroken strings of hammer-ons.

In Advance of the Broken Arm is a proof of concept for Stern and her virtuoso math-rock-meets-speed-metal stylings. The 44-minute album was built on a foundation of home demos she recorded before anyone had ever heard of her, after a late blooming where she discovered the likes of Don Caballero and Sleater-Kinney. From there, she sent her tapes in to Kill Rock Stars unsolicited, and found herself the proud owner of a record deal. It’s not hard to see why: Stern’s debut is jam-packed with energy, with every song cramming in the products of three whirling dervishes. Stern’s vocals sound like a seven-year-old girl channelling Corin Tucker, her guitar playing more closely resembles someone playing a thrash keyboard turned up to 12, and Zach Hill’s drumming is more hyperactive and explosive than three normal drummers packed into one body with all their limbs left intact. Any one ingredient would catch your ear; all three at once is like a never-ending tsunami of gloriously raucous noise.

The one issue is that because Stern and Hill only have one speed, the songs tend to blur into each other, and by the end of the album you might experience a certain amount of listener fatigue—especially since at times it feels like you’re listening to the album being played at four times its normal speed. But the one thing that makes it all better is the last track, “Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling,” where Stern builds a psychoacoustic space out of guitar overdubs before bringing it all crashing down in a devastatingly loud outro. The whole concept, complete with arch narration from Stern herself, is deliciously over the top and definitely not to everyone’s taste. You can think of the final track as a litmus test for the album itself—if you made it all the way to the end and you can buy fully into “Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling,” then Marnie Stern owns you completely. It might not be my absolute favourite, and it does get a little repetitive, but In Advance of the Broken Arm was one of the most exciting things I heard all year.