Untitled Document

ANTONIUS BLOCK – I dated the devil
(CD, Trost)

10/2006

The first sounds on this CD are a guitar lick that sounds like Steve Albini playing a minimal ripoff of Angus Young and me thinks “Me likey”. Then the female singer says “I was dating the devil, for way too long, We spend to much time together, I broke off his horns.” And on and on in a mixture of nursery rhyme and new New York-ish noiserock that I think “If they keep up this Patti Smith doing Karen O during most parts of the record and convince me that they can pull if off live as well, I might contemplate going to shows again.” Yes, Antonius Block does that to you, jumping to conclusion and fast forwarding your own thoughts, so you jump ahead of yourself unable to rewind or remember how you wound up where you are now. Where are we now?
I see planerides, dhingy rehearsal rooms, notebooks with plenty of scribbles and art shows. I haven’t seen the Ingmar Bergman movie “The Seventh Seal” from 1957 but it sounds impressive. Aknight comes back from a crusade and in the face of religious craze, pest and pain meets death in person. So they play chess and as long as the game takes, the knight may live on and search for god. The game of chess as a symbol for the neverending search for god aka meaning in live aka something to hold on to while being lost in space. The same issues then, back in the 14th century and right here and now. If god is dead and satan is dead, then the only deity left over (at least in western religions) is death. And at the end, death always wins. What did you expect? A happy end?
This life is mainly about pain, as mankind has known for a few thousand years, and why should it be any different now. Just yesterday I read an article that said our society is heading back into a new medieval time. Most people treat electricity, television, computers and the internet as magical things, obeying their entire lives to them as if they were necessary without understanding anything about them. A rich class of elite citizens is building, who have all the rights, money and power (the latter two being equal eventually) and a mass of de-powered people kept in chains and slaving their lives away for the bare necessities of living. Generation practicant is just a starting point.
That seem to be focal points in the way Tina Schule perceives the word as well, or so I guess. Antonius Block revolves around the lyrics of Schule and the unique guitar work of Jorge Docouto Parreira with changing drummers and sometimes bass players and the will to keep things simple, small, changing, challenging and meaningfull. Musically Antonius Block ride a happy horse. They dangle into math rock and noise rock usually connected to the dark urban city canyons of New York without losing that nice and friendly lo-fi atmosphere. Recorded by Steve Albini this could be a killer band, or sounding like a bunch of others, because at the moment they are keeping it true to what three people can do on stage as well. More production means more lying. So more like Dogma-movie than Bergman after all?
Within the songs they spread ideas and melody lines with the same fun and carelessness that makes the sketches by Scout Niblett so adorable. From the boom-chickie-boom country guitar line in “Full Bottles” to the kid’s song of “Müde bin ich” or the free form rap “I won’t love” accompanied by guitar screams, there is just so much on this record. Oh yeah, and “Thanks” might be the weirdest love song I have heard in a long time. Makes relationships sound like drug addiction. Well, chemically it is, I know, but those scientists don’t have all the truths either. Better ask an artist. Better not ask the devil, he might invite you to a game of chess.
www.trost.at

Antonius Block reviews for " i dated the devil"
GAP MAGAZINE TRANSLATION OF DEVILS AND HUMABEINGS In Ingmar Bergman's movie "The Seventh Seal", the knight Antonius Block embarks on a search forGod while playing chess with the devil. A perfectly suitable motif for a New York punk/no-wave band who's debut album is even called "I Dated The Devil". If Antonius Block had the hype machine of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's behindthem the quartet around Austrian filmmaker/singer Tina Schula would most likely be soon on the cover of NME, gearing up for their first world tour. Though AB's debut album has been released on the Austrian label Trost Records, one has to be happy with a few reviews and a Europe Tour planned for spring 2007. In the streaming waters of Karen O, Nick Zinner & Co. there still should be a lot of possibilities. The opening song already deeply draws you into AB's unique sonic universe. Tina Schula repeating the lines "I was dating the devil for way too long / we spent too much time together / I broke off his horns…" in a broken up mantra-like vocal style, guitarist Jorge Docouto unleashing the weirdest of sounds from his guitar and Andrya Ambro dictating the haunting rhythm with her reduced drum beats. A sonic universe that is located somewhere between The Velvet Underground and The Liars. Not a bad starting point, a thought that must have also crossed Trost Record's boss Konstantin Drobil's mind when he signed the band. Werner Schroettner, Gap Magazine, 7/10, Vienna
		DER STANDARD (AUSTRIA) October 2 2006 006 "I Dated the Devil" FROM ANTONIUS BLOCK: THE DEVIL MAY CARE! The New York band with Viennese singer Tina Schula re-discovers the post-modern non-recycled trash sound of the early 80's. In the middle of the 14th century knight Antonius Block and his servant return to their Swedish home from a religious war. Once arrived they don't find quiet and peace, but religious fanaticism, poverty, the plague and Death in person. Block manages to negotiate an ultimatum with Death while playing chess with him for his life. In this time Block is allowed to search for god and salvation. We are talking about Ingmar Bergman's 1957 dark film classic "The Seventh Seal" with Max von Sydow as the protagonist "Antonius Block". With their debut album "I Dated The Devil", the Brooklyn, NY based band Antonius Block deliver not necessarily the proper soundtrack to the sinister and apocalyptic medieval visions of Bergman. However, the band's choice to work in existentialist, desolate space rather than blossoming soundscape is clearly remarkable within AB's perfectly rudimentary songs. Their reduced and at points hysterically escalating vocals put Antonius Block at a crossing point between early Arto Lindsay and his band DNA, combined with a blood young Sonic Youth, of the once-world-rejected, cold no-wave sounds. The screechy, solely high pitched and nervous guitar sounds (squeezed out of the instrument by Portuguese Jorge Do Couto) and the challenging foundations on the verge of collapse leading towards acoustic apocalyptic scenarios are familiar with other contemporary New York bands: Liars, Black Dice or the YYY's. In particular, in title song "I Dated The Devil", the genre receives an impressive recharge (especially live, according to eye witnesses): "I was dating the devil / For way too long / We spent too much time together / I broke off his horns / Now I cry like a baby / For Jesus to save me / Waiting to be reborn". Tribal jungle beats meet painfully screechy guitar loops. Among all this Tina Schula projects the angry/annoyed schoolgirl who always hides a knife under her skirt, just to be safe. AB's impressive debut album has been released on small but beautiful Viennese Trost Records.
Monochrom ANTONIUS BLOCK – I dated the devil (CD, Trost) 10/2006 The first sounds on this CD are a guitar lick that sounds like Steve Albini playing a minimal ripoff of Angus Young and me thinks “Me likey”. Then the female singer says “I was dating the devil, for way too long, We spend to much time together, I broke off his horns.” And on and on in a mixture of nursery rhyme and new New York-ish noiserock that I think “If they keep up this Patti Smith doing Karen O during most parts of the record and convince me that they can pull if off live as well, I might contemplate going to shows again.” Yes, Antonius Block does that to you, jumping to conclusion and fast forwarding your own thoughts, so you jump ahead of yourself unable to rewind or remember how you wound up where you are now. Where are we now? I see planerides, dhingy rehearsal rooms, notebooks with plenty of scribbles and art shows. I haven’t seen the Ingmar Bergman movie “The Seventh Seal” from 1957 but it sounds impressive. Aknight comes back from a crusade and in the face of religious craze, pest and pain meets death in person. So they play chess and as long as the game takes, the knight may live on and search for god. The game of chess as a symbol for the neverending search for god aka meaning in live aka something to hold on to while being lost in space. The same issues then, back in the 14th century and right here and now. If god is dead and satan is dead, then the only deity left over (at least in western religions) is death. And at the end, death always wins. What did you expect? A happy end? This life is mainly about pain, as mankind has known for a few thousand years, and why should it be any different now. Just yesterday I read an article that said our society is heading back into a new medieval time. Most people treat electricity, television, computers and the internet as magical things, obeying their entire lives to them as if they were necessary without understanding anything about them. A rich class of elite citizens is building, who have all the rights, money and power (the latter two being equal eventually) and a mass of de-powered people kept in chains and slaving their lives away for the bare necessities of living. Generation practicant is just a starting point. That seem to be focal points in the way Tina Schule perceives the word as well, or so I guess. Antonius Block revolves around the lyrics of Schule and the unique guitar work of Jorge Docouto Parreira with changing drummers and sometimes bass players and the will to keep things simple, small, changing, challenging and meaningfull. Musically Antonius Block ride a happy horse. They dangle into math rock and noise rock usually connected to the dark urban city canyons of New York without losing that nice and friendly lo-fi atmosphere. Recorded by Steve Albini this could be a killer band, or sounding like a bunch of others, because at the moment they are keeping it true to what three people can do on stage as well. More production means more lying. So more like Dogma-movie than Bergman after all? Within the songs they spread ideas and melody lines with the same fun and carelessness that makes the sketches by Scout Niblett so adorable. From the boom-chickie-boom country guitar line in “Full Bottles” to the kid’s song of “Müde bin ich” or the free form rap “I won’t love” accompanied by guitar screams, there is just so much on this record. Oh yeah, and “Thanks” might be the weirdest love song I have heard in a long time. Makes relationships sound like drug addiction. Well, chemically it is, I know, but those scientists don’t have all the truths either. Better ask an artist. Better not ask the devil, he might invite you to a game of chess. www.trost.at
		A REVIEW BY CHRISTIAN LEHNER FOR FM4 RADIO, AUSTRIA. Gig II: Antonius Block, LIT-Lounge Manhattan "I don't know much about Antonius Block, but that the guitarist Jorge do Couto looks like Ray Manzarek from the Doors, originally comes from Portugal and strangles his guitar in a decade-bridging way that makes you think of Jimi Hendrix, Dead Moon, The Velvet Underground and the Liars, simultaneously. Though his solo free-riff parts never appear as mere stolen copies. Vocalist Tina Schula with her eerily detached monologues takes on such a strong presence that left the audience at Lit unsettled. The exile–Viennese also writes the melancholic, mesmerizing lyrics for Antonius Block. Apart from the three piece set up (guitar, vocals, drums, no bass) Antonius Block defies comparisons with contemporary New York rock bands and clearly stands their ground against band analogies like X27 to Risk Delay. Antonius Block, store this name in your brain. October 2006
"klingt nach dem ersten Reinhören super. Dicht, krachig, kantig." -bigkult.com We had our head handed to us at a recent show by local trio Antonius Block, and we're going back for seconds. The guitarist and drummer ripped through jagged riff-hunks while singer Tina Schula, who resembles an animated mannequin, declaimed and swayed eerily,the result is art rock that really rocks. --TimeOutNY		Antonius Block lassen es vom ersten Moment an krachen. Mit einer unglaublichen Souveränität klotzen die jungen Damen und der Herr auf ihrem Debütalbum "I Dated the Devil". Laut und deutlich. Ein Exilportugiese und eine Österreicherin treffen eine New Yorkerin, machen gemeinsam Musik und stecken sich bei Konzerten auch schon mal ein Feuerwerk an die Gitarre. Seit zwei Jahren setzen sie so New York in Brand, die Hauptstadt der Pudelfrisur, das Zentrum des guten Geschmacks. In Österreich erscheint nun ihre erste Platte. Der Titeltrack "I Dated the Devil" gibt den Ton vor und danach gehen Antonius Block nicht mehr vom Gaspedal. Die neun Nummern sind von einer erschreckenden Selbstsicherheit geprägt, da wird nicht getäuscht, nichts fingiert – das sitzt, passt und hat Luft. Hauptsache, es schrammelt aus allen Ecken und Enden, analoger Elektroclash quasi. Wer sie kennt, hat's immer schon gewusst, für alle anderen vielleicht die Entdeckung des Jahres.