Description
Afterimage may have only existed for a couple of years and released merely one single and one EP, but their take on post-punk--at once raw and explorative, with an eye to the sound that was emanating from across the ocean and one to a past-acknowledging future-- left a mark in the underground sonic psyche of the City of Angels. Faces to Hide collects all of Afterimage's studio recordings, plus demos and live tracks from performances at now legendary spots such as The Whisky A Go Go and Al's Bar. Listening to this compilation, one can picture the four members of Afterimage--Alec Tension (Dan Voznick), A Produce (aka future ambient explorer Barry Craig), Rich Evac and Holland DeNuzzio--bonding over a love of Public Image Ltd, Pere Ubu, Magazine, The Fall, Patti Smith and Television, while eagerly adding unexpected detours (surf rock, electrifying blasts of saxophone). Faces to Hide also makes it easy to see why, back in the day, the Los Angeles Times was compelled to call Afterimage "LA's Joy Divsion". Similarly to the UK trailblazers (of whom they were among the first avowed admirers among the LA punks), Afterimage seemed to sculpt their sound in marble, coming up with hypnotic skittery sonics revealed to be chilly upon their surface and fiery in their details.
