Playing Enemy is a three-piece band made up of ex-members of Kiss it Goodbye and Rorschach. I do not bring that up as a selling point, but rather to give an inkling as to the school of thought from which the music is derived. Accessory is a two-song EP that may serve as the band's swan song seeing as they recently decided to retire. This is the third EP from the noisy group and follows their split with Pelican, which was also released on Hawthorne Street Records.
Accessory's first and mammoth like track "To Her, To Thank Her" begins with a quiet drone and an almost rhythmic noise. The track begins a slow build with percussion when the guitars enter the mix. One could expect this to be too noisy, but Playing Enemy does an excellent job of maintaining a coherent order in the arrangement. The almost rhythmic noise makes more sense once the guitars start their part as well. When the five-minute mark passes the percussion is augmented with a more traditional drum beat. The truly interesting aspect of "To Her, To Thank Her" is that the instrumentation continues to add new parts without the cessation of any of previous arrangement; it is a constant build from that initial foundation. Just before the sixteen-minute point the song starts to utilize a very out of place tempo and time change that affects the momentum, but it does so as to through a wrench into the proceedings and keep the listener wary of what is going on with the music. The song drastically changes tempo and time right before it reaches twenty minutes, but it still keeps the initial quiet drone and rhythmic noise from which the track initially came. After another round of the out of place break. The song deconstructs into a simple acoustic guitar. A piano peeks through every now and then, but the acoustic guitar remains the focus of the music, which is almost melodic but definitely relaxing. It has a pretty sounding quality that maintains a subtle melancholic tone. There is a bit of shock that forms as a sample drops in unannounced. It has a disturbing quality, mainly due to the fact that there has been no intrusion by vocals at all in the song. The sample ends as abruptly as it starts, which makes it even more unsettling, and the song itself seems to change in mood without changing what is actually being played. The instrumentation returns to the electric variety seamlessly by maintaining the same music as the acoustics. The vocalist finally makes an appearance without the characteristic howl that Playing Enemy has utilized in the past. It is effective at causing an almost trance like situation with the vocal repetition. The vocal intensity builds to that characteristic tone as the song continues to progress and the tempo slowly begins to increase in speed. After the crescendo, the bass has an excellent tone to it. The vocals are buried by the instrumentation, which gives the song a nice effect. After a period of this relaxed part, the song kicks back up in intensity. The song slowly comes apart at the end and degrades into a final acoustic piece. Being a fan of extremely long songs, mainly because it takes a certain level of patience and attention to detail to make it work, "To Her, To Thank Her" is a pretty good foray into that realm.
The second song of Accessory is Playing Enemy's rendition of The Beatles song "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." Playing Enemy calls it "She's So You." I was surprised by the arrangement that they employ. Not only does it have the signature noisiness that has become the band's calling card, but also it has a surprising amount of melody and does not do the song injustice. In fact, the song takes on a new personality in their rendition. The vocal arrangement is particularly noteworthy as Playing Enemy does not make use of their typical howl but instead make use of a strained clean vocal or yell. The truly odd part of the song is the electronic drum parts mixed with the acoustic guitar. It sounds reminiscent of a song off of Bloodlet's The Seraphim Fall.
Overall I would have to say that this would be a poor place to start if you have yet to hear Playing Enemy. The fact that Accessory is just two tracks makes it a challenging introduction to the band even though "She's So You" is probably the band's most accessible moment in their existence. The length of "To Her, To Thank Her" almost makes this a record purely for those familiar with Playing Enemy. In that case, this is a must have. If this is indeed the last we hear of Playing Enemy, then they left us with an excellent final bow.
