The music of QDC attempts to capture the feeling and impressions gathered while walking through the shattered husks of abandoned buildings that have met their destruction through acts of war. The music strives to capture the loneliness and the echoed memories embodied by this abandoned architecture that has been scarred by war. Focusing upon structures whose purpose originated in housing families and individuals the music of QDC reflects upon the role of these buildings as spaces of protection during combat and the fate such places incur when the battle ends and they are left abandoned, isolated, unused, and ultimately discarded. Having been robbed of their function such ruins can only echo the past as their future is only further decay.
Secondly, the two most important factors in the creation of their music are improvisation and alcohol. I don't know about you, but drunken musicians, especially russians, recording music off the top of their heads sounds like a really bad idea to me. Remarkably, though, the album starts off fairly clean, with a nice bass line in On Retina of my Eyes.
Quercus is a strange band, primarily because of the melodic lines that they follow as a doom act. The music certainly follows a death/doom traditional mold, but somehow it never really sounds dark or sinister, but rather almost has more of a slightly playful sound about it.
Rosa Luxemburg; A dynamic figure, she managed to inspire the most interesting track on this album, a strange flurry of helicopter sounds backing an eerie wandering synth lines.
The Quips really seem like a band that is trying to still find out who they are and still need to hone their songwriting skills. A couple of the songs just took weird and unexpected turns resulting in me liking the song less and the two best tracks sound completely different from the rest of the album. Whether this was the bands or the label’s decision, I do not think recommending The Quips to people that like Nada Surf, Queens of the Stone Age, The Shins, and The Beatles is a good idea. While I cannot comment on Nada Surf or The Shins, as a huge fan of both Queens of the Stone Age and The Beatles I can say for sure that the Quips do not sound like either – not even close.
