"...When Prescott plays the drums - whether in Burma or in the Volcano
Suns, the band he formed after - it sounds like his kit's going to
get up and walk out of the room. He favors the cymbal, but the pulse
of his kick-drum is what's really distinctive: it's always a
fraction of a second ahead of time, the same way John Bonham's
always seems a fraction of a second behind. That Prescott came to
Mission of Burma after a long apprenticeship of mimicking Black
Sabbath and Led Zeppelin records isn't surprising, for he seems to
want to orchestrate a mass head-snapping in time to Miller's and
Conley's songs that isn't exactly in keeping with the fairly
esoteric lyrics; Prescott understands our record collections, the
way they provide an index of our lives, with Sun Ra next to
Supertramp and Rush next to the Runaways. When he sings, he sings
like a drill sergeant - the perfect vocal equivalent of his martial
drumming - and in Burma the beat of his kit issued commands when the
world of his bandmates often threatens to collapse under the weight
of its own intoxications. For a strange-yet-somehow-perfect take on
Prescott's drumming, check out the Steve Albini-engineered Volcano
Suns album "Career in Rock" (Quarterstick 0004) - the drum sounds
everywhere, tactile as thunder, like he's playing the air of the
room itself. "
To read more, buy issue one.