Press

Poem Rocket, in splitting their attentions between little details and enormous designs, practice a kind of musical botany. Imagine songs tall as trees, with even the tiniest green pores—upon the smallest leaf which dangles from the most remote branch—elaborately, graphically planned. As any great artists, they are trying to do the work of the gods ... the brutal, Romanesque death marches of Cranes and Joy Division; the choiring scrapes and hisses of Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine; the utter pandemonium and psychosis of Bardo Pond and Throwing Muses ... The songwriting is just too inventive to bog down in matchmaking ... Remarkably, there is enough organic warmth elsewhere, even in Poem Rocket's coldest, most satanic clamors, to steady each song.

—Bill Broun, April 1996

With one foot in mantralike repetition, the other in straight-from-the-gut rock, artcore trio Poem Rocket make skronk that soars, and despite the scary looking architecture themes and surreal song titles, Psychogeography is the sort of headphone experiment you can jump up and down to ... Yes, they’re New York-based, they have a female four-stringer and indulge in the occasional avant styling, but Poem Rocket, contrary to the opinions of lazy journalists, are nothing like highbrow punks Sonic Youth. Basically, Poem Rocket inject the tried-and-true emo formula with a greater sense of space and earthy sensuality—and there’s nothing too artsy about that.

—Andrew Lentz

Finally, something challenging to listen to that isn't difficult to understand. Delicate yet fully formed and not without a totally savage edge, this New York trio approximates guitar/studio psych-rock in all its exultant glory ... Poem Rocket has the sound for it all. With stark, lurid imagery and fierce intellectual underpinnings ... Occasionally plaintive, oddly subversive and even downright pretty, this recording seems to gestate like some kind of living entity ... Straddling the line between nightmarish and dreamy, the psychic coloring of this fanciful endeavor is both somnambulistic and hallucinatory.

—Mitch Myers, Volume 6, Number 35

… a deathly unity that signals a total stylistic certitude: barely qualifiable as a “guitar band,” Poem Rocket buries its swirling guitar figures under a cacophony of bass, piano and (say the liner notes) “et al randomness.” Poem Rocket works with noise the way a sculptor works with clay—keep chipping away at it until there’s a slab left that resembles art …the songs themselves emerge like they're rising from a tar pit ... Poem Rocket have no interest in leading an alien nation of like-minded depressives; they are the alien nation. File under: Love lies bleeding. Recommended if you like: Cure, Cranes, Joy Division, My Bloody Valentine.

—Chris Molanphy, March 1996

In an ideal world, Cypress Hill would sample "The Furry Evil Bird" and we'd have the real-deal avant-garde head-fuck pile-up we all want. Sandra Gardner …a sedated Sarah Cracknell singing in front of a slow motion Pop Group, makes “Contrail de l’Avion” this week’s most beautiful pop record. The sadness floods out. The unexpected elegance of all the songs makes Into the Æether easily PR’s best record so far. And I was told America was dead ..?

—Mark Luffman, November 18, 1995

Poem Rocket has been plying its highly individual brand of electroacoustic, post-punk art pop for nearly 15 years ... Sonic reference points? Tough one, since this bunch doesn't really sound like much else.

—Peter Aaron, July 2007

Tracks as oblique as early Gang Of Four, as impenetrable as “Delicatessen,” with a harsh beauty all their own.

—Mark Luffman, December 1995

Poem Rocket … crosses the dense guitar onslaught of '80s New Yorkers like the Band of Susans with the more melodic drone/pop combination of New Zealand bands like the Gordons and the 3Ds.

—Steve Silverstein, May/June 2001

Poem Rocket favors chunky, angular guitar lines and creepy feedback over shambling pop and dry, confessional songwriting.

—Charlie Wilmoth

Cette etrange pop acoustique aux rythmes repetitifs ponctues de riffs de guitars claustrophobes et hallucinants declenche un ouragan en Amerique. Et la France?

Smart rock folks, these. All hooks and brains ... Too delicate and exacting to be lumped in with most NYC "noise" rock, the trio still shoots for the heart of the song with its basic arsenal of guitar/drums/bass with a minimal accompaniment of Rhodes piano and tape loops. They are both direct yet elusive, making repeated listening a must.

—Eric Hill, January 31, 2001

This album is a dense art rock creation often deeper than Sonic Youth and more encompassing than the Velvet Underground.

—Tom Schulte

This sophisticated yet raw New York trio are one of the best art bands to rock garage-style since the Velvet Underground. Not only that, but they do so without the safety of ironic distance ... surprisingly sweet melodies and unexpected voice arrangements ... The real differentiating factor is Poem Rocket’s ability to coddle you with hypnotic rhythms before exploding. Or not—they just as often keep the tension hovering around, build it, and never consummate. You won’t always get the catharsis you need, and there’s an acute lesson in that. Who says art rock can’t be brutal?

—John Pecorelli, February 2001

Poem Rocket’s songs ... rel[y] on mood, individual interpretation and vibe ... But what makes Poem Rocket engaging … is the combination of guitarist/vocalist Michael Peters' discordant, bluesy meanderings and his fluid vocalization, particularly when paired with the floating, gauzy quality of Sandra Gardner's singing ... sounding more like Exene and John than Kim and Thurston ... The Rocket rises because it knows that sometimes it takes both noise and solitude to make a city beautiful.

—David Simutis, January/February 2001

Almost all the great bands to emerge from New York—from the Velvet Underground to Television to Sonic Youth to Public Enemy—seem to have in some way incorporated the drone and pulse of that city's perpetual motion into their music. In that tradition, the underrated Poem Rocket … who’ve always sounded something like the clanging of steel cellar doors and steam hissing from manholes, make the connection explicit on their new Psychogeography (Atavistic), an urban love song ...

—Monica Kendrick, November 3, 2000

Poem Rocket offer a raw intensity that's perhaps more akin to the controlled chaos of the early Factory Records bands, such as Joy Division, A Certain Ratio and Durutti Column. In more contemporary terms, imagine Radiohead on a shoestring budget. Both Radiohead and Poem Rocket are consumed, musically as well as lyrically, with the struggle between art and technology. With Poem Rocket, however, the tongue is planted much more firmly in the cheek … Listen and learn; this is college rock in its truest sense, dissertation and all.

—Darren Johnson, June 1999

New York's Poem Rocket takes multi-dimensionality to new levels. At any given point they can be described as pop, post-punk, indie-rock, psychedelic, discordant, organic, experimental, noisy, acoustic, hard rock, harmonic, or any combination thereof ... Poem Rocket is best described as Poem Rocket ... They take a place next to all of the great artists throughout history that have defied categorization.

—Mitchell Foy, February 12-18, 1999

Poem Rocket also takes elements from the post-rock book, namely on the slow-paced opener "Dirigible." ... Psychogeography is packed with intelligent, energized, danceable, not-taken-for-granted alternative pop/ rock tunes.

—François Couture

... New York’s Poem Rocket actually sound like a missile shooting pretty words from flame-orange engines ... a creepy and moving prayer book of avant-noise, with some pop passages … moving toward something all their own ... [a] strange mix of moving acoustic pop elements, mechanistic electro-rock, and at times hilarious social satire … Poem Rocket’s wit doesn’t curb tons of rocking out.

—Bill Broun, January 1999

If this underexposed NYC avant-pop trio weren’t so extraordinary, they’d be beating Sonic Youth and Radiohead at their own games. The Rocket’s second LP offers great songs, distinctive vocals, and innovation …

—RC, April 1999

... cunningly constructed ... lingers and haunts.

—Kelso Jacks, #558 February 16, 1998

It doesn’t take much time with Psychogeography to figure out that it’s clearly a Work of Art. Song titles in German, references to European history, sleazily distorted electric guitar, experiments with noise—stick the thing in a black turtleneck, and you’ve got the hippest record of the year … [They] manage to split the difference between visceral pleasure and analytical enjoyment, letting the two things grow around one another organically … And when Poem Rocket hit, they hit big. "HIP Pharmacy" attaches a breakbeaty rhythm to an impression of Mark E. Smith as an advertising pitchman. "Explosion Ex Cathedra (Cimabue)" is, despite its crushingly arty title, a nicely ominous little wonder. Throughout, the band's fusion of terse, No Wave ranting and freeform noise makes Psychogeography an intense trip through gritty territory, just as any album about living in an urban environment should.

—Sam Eccleston

… More than any other aspect of the band, Poem Rocket’s live performance is what sets them apart from their peers. While most bands will sit idly by when a crowd is unresponsive, Poem Rocket transcends the stage and incites the crowd at any cost. Peters’ confrontational journeys into the crowd are a metaphor for this phenomenon, but it is Poem Rocket's powerful music, honesty and overall intensity that really jumps off the stage into the audience's minds.

There is an invisible line that separates good bands from great bands. This line between mediocrity and greatness is the point where garage bands stop and true performers march on. Poem Rocket doesn't just cross this line, they dive over it with utter disregard for where they might land afterward.

—James Wallis, February 22, 1999

... points of comparison suggest themselves, without quite fitting snugly. The guitars that tear apart melodies with the rough, lacerating insistence of a dull saw blade remind me of Live Skull … but the undeniable elegance tempering the brutest noise directs me more toward the territory of Shudder to Think’s pop contortions … Poem Rocket have found the shortest distance … to expression, whether it be cauterizing sear of white heat or something lushly brooding. And far from being monochromatic or merely droning as so many of their precursors and peers have been, their songs are subject to tangents and detours that … ensure that they’re never static.

—Chris Wodskou, February 9, 1996

What this NYC combo has done … is soared above most bands who would be content to slap together … unrelated songs for release … [Michael] Peters, a Northeast Ohio native who was eventually drawn to NYC, could very well be the best performer/vocalist around that nobody knows about (A handful of MOO readers may remember his band Day For Night kicking around Ohio in the late 80s before heading off to Richmond, Virginia.) …The whole shebang could have been written by Angelo Badalamenti after a Galaxie 500 show. Poem Rocket doesn’t so much create songs as paint sonic pictures, loosely frame them, then hang them slightly crooked. Start collecting for your walls now.

—Mike Sumser

Like their hometown of New York, Poem Rocket find many ways of rising above squalor (or squalling) and being beautiful … So while Infinite Retry is quite beautiful indeed, it sure ain’t pretty. They share with Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine an air of seductive menace—even while they coo and soothe with whispered vocals and liquefied, dreamy chords, you get the feeling they’d just as soon use their guitar strings to strangle you.

—Chris Wodskou

Living in (and lurking through) the Big Apple, it's not very surprising Poem Rocket would inherit the tweaked guitars and dissonance of Sonic Youth and the twisting/crashing moments of the Velvet Underground. But the band manages to plow through uncharted territory by adding to its NYC mix some dreamy Mazzy Star ... and the sonic intensity of Big Black ... and walking that implosive edge like the mad Birthday Party.

—Greg Barbera, February/March 1996

Giving atmosphere a rock edge, New York's Poem Rocket continues to make some of the prettiest noise around.

—Laura DeMarco, Volume 6 Number 34

Poem Rocket skillfully combine the wide open repetitive, rhythmic nature of Echo and the Bunnymen with the claustrophobic guitar squall of Sister-era Sonic Youth. The result is both terse and swirly. Somehow they always seem to sound like they are playing along with a thunderstorm, even when they shift gears into some dreamy, fluttery, Bowie-like acoustic glam which amazingly feels just right next to the cool churn of the more “signature" songs.

—Craig Finn

Their songwriting is so loaded with musical history, so rife with theoretical concepts, so full of interesting ideas, they need footnotes. Forget math rock—this is thesis material.

—David Daley, April 1999

... call it a case of musical schizophrenia—where hints of noize school chaos belligerently dishevel a downy bed of post-punk-influenced rock ... broad musical vocabulary ... With traditional verse-chorus arrangements jettisoned, the band's germ ideas are circled as if they are raging, sacrificial fires, and a fever-pitch builds until each track burns out smoldering.

—Steve Savoca

Borderline Kraut rock, mixed with downtown-N.Y.C., mid-’80s neo-noise, chased down with a pop sensibility. Sound revolting? Try again. “Small White Animal” loops a shrieking guitar around a gloomy, goth bass progression—and guess what—I can’t get the fucking thing out of my head … unexpectedly great.

—J.D., Number 18 June/July 1995

Released in 2000, Poem Rocket's psychogeography was a revelation to those who heard it—an interior travelogue twisting the band's rich, dramatic vocal style with the musicality of White Album-era Beatles, the drone of Joy Division and a love for classic concept albums and Morricone soundtracks … Timeless space well worth dwelling in.

—Robert Cherry

New York's Poem Rocket may or may not be the biggest thing since Opal, but they’re definitely onto something, and doing it without copying other people or mimicking trends, which in itself is a victory.

—James Lien

Poem Rocket’s signature sound is of passionate rockers and spaced-out noise experimentalists playing the same song at the same time ... a musique concrete intro and outro around crackling ambient noise.

—Douglas Wolk, April 24, 1995

GORGEOUS. … the sound the words make is so perfect for the sounds the guitars make. A record you can trust.

August 1995

New Yorkers Poem Rocket peg their swirling guitar noises to fierce rhythms … Their often frantic outpourings evoke something of a post-punk feel … obligatory Velvet Underground homage … but elsewhere there are echoes of The Birthday Party and even Siouxsie and the Banshees: very 80s.

Issue 146, April 1996