When you’re an established band with a loyal following and an instantly recognizable sound and your singer is, for whatever reason, no longer available, what do you do? Do you find a replacement who has made a name for himself in your genre and is gonna rock it out regardless of how much it changes the band’s sound, à la Black Sabbath/Ronnie James Dio or Van Halen/Sammy Hagar, or do you take your chances with someone who may be less known and less proven but who sounds more or less like your old singer, à la AC/DC/Brian Johnson (or, if you want to take the principle to the extreme, with a much worse result, Judas Priest/the tribute band dude who replaced Rob Halford)?

I’m going to have to say that The Ex went the Brian Johnson route. I did kind of miss G.W. Sok while watching them at Poisson Rouge the other night. I mean the guy was in the band for 30 years and, to me, his delivery–about equal parts singing, speaking, and shouting–sat kind of perfectly atop the chugging, herky-jerky pulse set by the rest of the band. But new singer Arnold DeBoer can do a pretty mean G.W. impersonation when circumstances call for it. Plus, he brings his own thing to the act, adding the occasional electronic blip or bloop to the mix and generally dancing and moving around the stage like he’s enjoying himself in a way that G.W. seldom did. I picked up their most recent CD, Catch My Shoe, and, while it’s no Back in Black moment, it’s as good as their last couple of discs, which have definitely gotten their fair share of airplay chez Weekday Worrier over the last several years.

I guess what it comes down to is that The Ex basically can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned. You get punk, noise, politics, Hungarian folk songs, Ethiopian funk, Congolese trance…and the list goes on and on. For a band that somehow works so many different stylistic influences into one, cohesive sound, I’m thinking that replacing a vocalist may end up not being much of a challenge. That’s certainly what the show the other night suggests.

The Ex - Theme From Konono


The Ex - Hidegen fújnak a szelek