Operator Generator
Polar Fleet (Man’s Ruin)
Hailing from San Jose, Calif., Operator Generator specializes in skull-burrowing, deluxe hard-metal riffage, as heavy as if the earth’s gravitational pull has significantly increased. On their Man’s Ruin debut, the Bay Area quartet clearly shows its influences — late Sixties/early Seventies proto-metal — with some glimmers of developing songwriting to come. Opener “Equinox” is clearly Black Sabbath-informed, from the intro riff and the swaggering cadence of the chorus to the distant, echoey vocals, which at one point go full on Ozzyesque , “eye-ee, eye-ee, eye-ee!” As edible as this tune is, thankfully the rest of Polar Fleet is less of an homage. On most tunes, Mitchell French’s voice is swathed in an echo blanket, not as an occasional effect, but as a permanent coloration, rendering a cool distant sound in contrast with the ever-present volume. With titles like “Quaintance of Natherack” and “Soil of Lavermore” these lads will be faves with those who relish Rush’s Caress of Steel phase, or those who take their Tolkien with a sixer of Mickey’s tallboys. All told, a better debut than most, but Operator Generator still needs to blaze its own path. (Friday, March 16, Emo’s, 9pm)
This article appears in March 16 • 2001.