GREEN VINYL
American Standard begins with a shock. Singer Michael Berdan stands alone and screams, "A part of me, but it can't be me. Oh God, it can't." It all begins with a confession. Behind the harrowing screams lies the pain of bulimia nervosa. It is the pain of an illness that is as physical as it is psychological. This is a kind of departure. With each sentence of American Standard, Uniform peels back a new layer, telling the story inside the one before it. The lyrics penetrate to the core of the innermost self, the small human being crushed in the grip of the illness. To unravel this story of eating disorders, self-hatred, delusions, mania and ultimate discovery, Berdan enlisted the help of two towering literary outsider figures. Along with B.R. Yeager (author of the modern cult classic Negative Space) and Maggie Siebert (the mind behind the contemporary body horror masterpiece Bonding), the three writers dissect the personal material to present a portrait of mental and physical illness as haunting and terrifying as anything in the canon today. The result is an accurate articulation of a condition that goes beyond simple torment, and captures the exhilarating transcendence and release that illness can bring in the process. American Standard is easily Uniform's most thematically accomplished and musically confident album to date. Sections twist and explode. Motifs drift off into the unknown before reasserting themselves with renewed vigor. Genres collide and break apart, forming something idiosyncratic and new. There's a grandeur that's due in part to the addition of Interpol bassist Brad Truax, along with the percussive push and pull of returning drummer Michael Sharp and longtime touring drummer Michael Bloom, who makes his Uniform recording debut here. But that grandeur is clearly attributable to the size and power of guitarist and founder Ben Greenberg's arrangements, which always elegantly match the intense lyrical themes. Without the slightest doubt, American Standard is a work of art, excruciating in its honesty and relentless in its pursuit of sonic transcendence. It's hideous. It's beautiful. It's necessary.
