Clifffs

About PANIC ATTACK, by Rhett Miller The idea of “perfection” has ruined music. Perfectly triggered drum sounds are lined up with grids on screens. Auto-tuned vocals travel through the perfect chain of plug-in compression and limiting and brightening and whitening. The finished product is just that, a product, one from which all the humanity has been drained and replaced with a black hole of perfect nothingness and just kill me already. CLIFFFS don’t give a fuck about perfect. Which is probably why, for their sophomore effort PANIC ATTACK, they went and made a perfect record. Under-the-radar greatness is nothing new for CLIFFFS frontman John Dufilho. He’s done it with Deathray Davies, Cantina, and as producer and player on scores of albums by other artists, my own included. Something about this project is different though. The lineup is smaller, for one thing. John’s joined only by a tight, simple rhythm section comprised of Andy Lester (bass, vocals), and Bill Spellman (drums, vocals), and perhaps this is an intentional counterintuitive strategy – less is more. And the result is somehow messier. And bigger. Giant even. CLIFFFS’ PANIC ATTACK is a triumph of imperfection. Noise and chaos and characters living in real time. After a few listens, a narrative emerges amidst the racket, a protagonist wrestling with the world and his place in it. In this era of fraudulent supposed perfection, CLIFFFS’ glorious new album PANIC ATTACK gives us the thing we need most, connection.