This San Diego quartet often catches the brunt of editors who shorten the band’s name to “Eiffel Tower” in lieu of possible reader offense. I say they go ahead and call themselves the Plot to Blow Up the Twin Towers — they’re that serious. TPTBUTET (Whew! Maybe they should just use Eiffel Tower instead) sprung from the screamo scene, and the lyrical themes are sadomasochistic fallout of corporate control or some such spookathon, perfectly embodied by the noise. Drumsticks and saxophone blurts fly as if they’re frantically popping clips on an M-16, while high-pitched guitar shards zoom in like F-16 fighters; the Plot lets up only long enough to interject bits of old battle hymns before diving back into the attack. It’s life as perpetual fight in the purest, most youthful sense.
The usual problems exist: Whatever the message, without the lyric sheet, no one is catching the drift. And the persistent ironies of having a band with such commandingly tight, lockstep power using it to decry the fascist tendency toward commandingly tight, lockstep power goes back at least to the MC5. It’s like fighting fire with fire, and “Eiffel Tower” plans to go down in flames.
