Death From Above - You're a Woman, I'm a Machine

2023 was a good year for the Calgary Stampede Coca-Cola stage. The band line up included several bands I wanted to see, I ended up going three days and seeing four bands.

The first band I saw was Death From Above.

The duo that is Death From Above consists of Jesse F. Keeler on bass and Sebastien Grainger on drums and vocals. My experience with Death From Above is limited to listening to their album “You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine” on vinyl numerous times at my friends place. He really liked that album. With that I went into their show at the Coca-Cola stage fairly ignorant, but open minded. Sometimes that is the best way to go to a show, because your mind is open to witness whatever comes. It was a very good show. Helped in no small part that I was accompanied by a healthy number of friends. Several times during the show, I was reminded of the drinks, joints, UFC fights and hockey games that I now associate with Death From Above, whenever they played a song that sounds familiar, which, would presumably be from their 2004 debut album “You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine.”

There are not many bands that consist of only two members. There are even fewer that consist of a bass player and drummer. Conventional wisdom is that a musical group should include four basic components: rhythm, accompaniment, melody, and harmony. Conventionally you would use the following instruments in a rock band to satisfy this setup, drums, bass guitar, lead guitar, and rhythm guitar. However, there are no rules that must be followed, ever, especially in rock and roll.

The use of a base guitar for melody is always a bold approach. The four strings will limit the theoretical variety of notes that can be used, compared to the six strings. Bass guitar is designed to hit heavy and hard, so putting that instrument to the front position of your sound will unavoidably result in final product being a heavy hard hitting rock song. This is not a technique that should be implemented thoughtlessly.

The use of drums for the melody… that is insane, and I think that might be what is going on with Death From Above.

I sure hope I am using the terms, melody, harmony, rhythm and accompaniment correctly.

Operating under a level of ignorance on the subject matter, I dare say that I suspect, that Death From Above is led by the drummer Grainger. I have a stronger suspicion that it is a duo creative effort, it is just that Grainger is on vocals, and that usually implies frontman status. Surely, the vocals are the functioning melody, right?

Here is what I really like about Death From Above, look at how I am struggling to explain their sound. I do not know what I am talking about, and I actually really like that I cannot fit them into any sort of conventional design.

Now the hardest part, picking an individual song to talk about. I am only beginning the process of familiarizing myself with Death From Above’s catalogue of songs. At this time, their songs I know best are the ones from the album “You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine.” However, my experience with that album being is something of a blur, as I listened to it in it’s entity multiple times, never singling out a single track for dissection. However, I do like the title track.

If nothing else, I like telling me people the name of the album and title track, “You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine.” I have been in Europe for the last nineteen days, Norway and Sweden, and everyone I have mentioned to about Death From Above, find the concept of a drummer and bass player duo fascinating, and every time I mention their debut album “You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine,” I get the same reaction, “dude that sounds fucking awesome.”

They are not wrong.

So let’s start with the title track of Death From Above’s debut album and grow from there, since that is pretty much what I am doing right now.

Keep on rocking in the free world.

- King of Braves