Review
Autolux
Future Perfect

Red Ink (2004) Pat

Autolux – Future Perfect cover artwork
Autolux – Future Perfect — Red Ink, 2004

Are My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, and perhaps Fugazi cool with you? Do you have an incurable fondness for spacey, fuzzed-out guitar rock? Do you suffer from chronic jock itch or something equally unpleasant? If so, you should indubitably investigate Autolux's Future Perfect pronto. There's no denying that the album is positively derivative, but its eleven nuggets of joy are an absolute welcome to anyone sick and tired of psyche-folk, dance-punk, and other silly sub-genres that eschew distorted guitars like a hard-rocking plague.

Speaking of guitars, there are plenty of those on Future Perfect. The Sonic Youth/My Bloody Valentine namedropping is no mere boast (or feeble attempt at gaining indie cred on my part)- it's a sheer sonic accuracy. The feedback, distortion, and awesomely crunchy ambiance are enough to make The Jesus and Mary Chain and possibly even vacuum cleaners blush. Acoustic guitars? Strings? Synths? Drum programming? Not on this record, bitches. Future Perfect serves up a good, old-fashioned mix of dreamy melodies, very nearly surfable feedback, and superb songwriting.

Oh, and MAJOR bonus points in my book for having a female drummer that doesn't suck. I don't mean to play the misogyny card, but drumming is an art in which the artist has to be undeniably cocksure, and it's sort of hard to do that when one doesn't have a cock. However, Autolux's Carla Azar creates some sweet (and more importantly, LOUD) beats that sound positively male in origin, which is an extremely high compliment to any female drummer.

Again much like My Bloody Valentine, the lyrics are endearingly stupid. "Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake the clouds out/ shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake the stars down/ shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake it downtown" anyone? Fortunately, reading (and typing) that is a lot more painful than hearing it sensuously and androgynously cooed in your ear in front of feedback. No one in their right mind listens to My Bloody Valentine because of the lyrics anyway; the cascading waves of beautifully layered noise are the main attraction in both their case and Autolux's.

By now, you probably already have an idea as to whether or not this thing is your cup of tea at all. Sure it's a throwback, and sure it's derivative, but it is a damn fine derivative throwback. It'll definitely bring some much-needed lighthearted enjoyment into your life, and will probably even help you forget about your jock itch.

7.7 / 10Pat • June 1, 2005

Autolux – Future Perfect cover artwork
Autolux – Future Perfect — Red Ink, 2004

Related news

Autolux Enter Studio

Posted in Bands on June 22, 2006

Autolux Joins NIN / QOTSA Tour

Posted in Tours on June 1, 2005

Recently-posted album reviews

Personality Cult

Dilated
Dirtnap (2025)

I had a hard time starting this review. I can’t help coming back to the fact that it sounds like Marked Men. It does, maybe intentionally so, as Dilated is the second of Personality Cult’s albums that is produced by Jeff Burke of Marked Men and Radioactivity. But I don’t necessarily like to say a band sounds like another band … Read more

Various Artists

Her Head's On Fire/Arms Like Roses - Split
Double Helix (2025)

Her Head’s On Fire (NY, NY) and Arms Like Roses (New Haven, CT) team up on this split 7” with two new tracks (one each band) of post-hardcore tunes that are both massive and melodic in their own distinct ways. "Universal" is the track from Her Head’s On Fire. Recorded by the band’s guitarist Jeff Dean, "Universal" came from the … Read more

Dead Bars

All Dead Bars Go To Heaven
Iodine (2025)

Dead Bars has a unique talent of taking the everyday, the experiences you see and live all the time, and shining a new light on them to make them personal and interesting. I've written about it before, yet it's my job to say this again and to make it interesting. It's what Dead Bars does, so it only seems fitting … Read more