If The Ex have a signature sound, it’s a kind of Bo Diddley-style shuffle that has various gears. What makes it truly special is the interplay of the three-guitar attack of Terrie Hessels, Andy Moor and Arnold De Boer. Their work creates a set of textures and rhythms endowed with such presence that each instance could stand up and walk. De Boer gives these golems a voice, and drummer Kat Bornefeld’s outstanding sense of timing and feel acts as their vehicle. Infectious cuts like the last two tracks, ‘The Apartment Block’ and ‘Great’ capture these transformations. ‘Great’ is really great, a manic lantern show of bug-eyed imagery, buoyed aloft by bouncy rhythms and given shape by some flashing guitar lines.
Language is also a key weapon for the band. In a time where the understanding of words, their use and their implicit power, increasingly has to fight for a place in the wider human discourse, The Ex give a lesson in how using language can be a relevant and subversive act. On If Your Mirror Breaks, words – employed as images, jokes, or incantations – all catch the listener off guard. It’s entirely apt that Walt Whitman’s poem ‘Beat! Beat! Drums’ is reconfigured as the album’s opening gambit.
If Your Mirror Breaks is not all chugga-chugga rhythms: certainly when compared to the last two solo releases, 27 Passports and Catch My Shoe. The more reflective, weirder side of the band shines through with three powerful slower cuts in the middle section. We start with the sinister ‘Spider and the Fly’, a magical realist tale that could have been penned by Bruno Schultz: a line “The spider writes: I will make a divine magnetic web / with the life-long love of comrades” also has something of Mark E Smith.
The track that follows, ‘Circuit Breaker’, a wonderful example of sensual and patient playing, is another showcase for De Boer’s lyrics, which, as ever, burrow their way into your brain. A repeated question, “What could I keep inside” gives a set of gnomic answers: a circuit breaker of soul, a die that never rolls, a wild flower bouquet, and finally an ever glowing heart that will prevent De Boer from living and dying like a rat. Finally we have the soft incantation of The Wheel, sung by Kat Bornefeld, an antidote to the previous pair with its affirming, healing message about change and destiny.
So there it is, a new album from The Ex, yet another folio of restless, inquisitive and downright odd songs to captivate us with. Listening in can be a surreal experience. But by God, they’re good!
