It seems that pop punk has found my weakness. Keyboards. Blink 182 tried desperately for me to like their last effort with their synth laced songs and guest vocals by Robert Smith, at that point I resisted. Hellogoodbye covered their whiney emo voice with a vocoder and injected their songs with dance-y electro, this left me unable to decide whether they were actually good or if everything that I stood for musically was being compromised. Luckily, new artist Plushgun (Dan Ingala) isn’t forcing me to make such rash decisions about my musical taste. While he does include the traditional power chords of pop punkers, it is pushed way back in favor of synth strings and plucky melodies. Plushgun’s stripped down retro electro sound, especially on “The Dark in You”, calls to mind a more stadium ready Joy Electric or early Depeche Mode. The piano ballad “An Aria” sounds like a Snow Patrol ballad with a drum machine and synths, and that only makes it better. The crowning achievement up until this point is the catchy high school satire of “How We Roll” which goes from pop punk accessibility to a wafting melody to an aggressive dance beat and back again. Well there you go, I didn’t think it was that simple, but if you want me to like mainstream pop music, put the keyboards up front and give it a dance beat.
When I first heard Shitdisco, the New Rave band from Scotland, I thought that simply from the name they ought to be something that I’d enjoy, the vulgarity combined with disco sounded like prime dance-punk material. Although, when I heard “Disco Blood”, nothing from the track really stuck with me. I realize now that I must have been hearing impaired or something that day. In context with the rest of the album there are much better songs, but that track wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was, but when you compare it to the in your face hook and dance grooves of “OK” (9) or the breakneck ferocity of “Reactor Party” (2), it just pales in comparison. Shitdisco uses those familiar thrashy dance-punk rhythms with the traditional arsenal of bass guitar and keyboards and the occasional howl from lead singer Joe Reeves to great effect. While they don’t necessarily bring anything new and polished to the table, they more than make up for it with their level of enthusiasm. The songs are as raw as they are catchy. I can only imagine the sweaty fervor that they would evoke live.
Let me put this out there straight away. Spoon is one of my favorite bands and I enjoy nearly everything that they’ve put out.Ever since I saw Spoon on Austin City Limits in 2002, I’ve been hooked on their rock & soul minimalist sound. They are one of the primary reasons that I got into indie music towards the end of my high school tenure, and “Girls Can Tell” has remained one of my favorite albums of all time since I heard it. “Kill the Moonlight” took some time for me to get used to, but I love how they combined an experimental sound with so few elements on each song yet it still retained that blue collar accessibility. I enjoyed the expanding sound and grooves of “Gimme Fiction” immediately, while it still allowed for more subtle songs to grow into favorites.
If I were to compare the latest albums to different varieties of foods, I would say that “Girls Can Tell” would be the original recipe, “Kill the Moonlight” would be the low calorie alternative that is surprisingly filling, “Gimme Fiction” would be the 5-star restaurant interpretation into a 3 course meal, and the newest offering would be the spicy mélange of all three. “GaGaGaGa Ga” offers up tasty bites of home grown guitar pop that are instantly savory and easily digestible. The production this time around features more studio wizardry, but the songs would work just as well without the panning accents and quote song breaks. In fact the effects call to mind the spontaneity of their earlier work, where they would start and stop between the 2 minute mark and feature vocals processed backwards through the outro. I find that these little accents make the record feel even more intimate, like sitting in your room listening to your favorite albums with a few friends over rather than in a huge stadium listening to something that gets overplayed on commercial radio.
As for songs, all the tracks are solid. There’s not a misstep to be heard. Brit Daniel’s vocals are as good as ever, Jim Eno’s drumming is, as per usual, hyper rhythmic, and all the grooves and melodies are as funky or as tough as they want to be. Opener, “Don’t Make Me a Target” (1), starts off with that familiar heavy “rough day at work” sound, bu then the beat changes, the piano becomes more menacing and the song glides on thoughts of what you would do to your incompetent boss if you could get away with it, before it comes calmly to an end. “The Ghost of You Lingers” (2) is a song composed of urgent piano hammering and panning vocals, which is probably the biggest departure from their traditional sound. The effects and atmosphere add an ominous edge that makes this track the most dramatic on the album. The two tracks I seem to always come back to are the sashaying thump of “Don’t You Evah” (4) and the triumphant melodies of “Finer Feelings” (9). To suggest that these songs would be better out of context to the remainder of the album would be a mistake as the feeling and presence of each song is enhanced by the track before and after it. So, a word of advice, you could listen to some tracks now, but for the full effect you need to hear the whole thing from beginning to end. Trust me on this, I am even a guy who enjoys singles immensely, but this album needs to be heard in its entirety. It’s just that good.
The Faint is putting on a short tour and making a stop in Buffalo tonight. It should be a good time. They've been playing new songs here and there and I can't wait for them to release something new, it seems like it's been so long since fall 2004. In the meantime, here are a few tracks and a video of them making "Wet from Birth" to quench the feverish anticipation.
So, I've been a little busy since I got home from college looking for a job, but I do have some updates to put up this week. First up I'd like to talk about !!! (Chk Chk Chk). They came up to Montreal last Friday, but unfortunately my Great Aunt's funeral was the same day, and family things tend to come before party things. So anyway, despite my not being there the show was said to have been great. Their new album is across the board one of the best dance albums of 2007. It was one of the very first reviews I wrote for the AZLTRON blog. They also recently put out a video for their awesome track "Must be the Moon" from Myth Takes, which is my favorite track on the album, so needless to say it's pretty sweet.
So, this past week I was looking up videos of Bob Moog (the creator of the Moog Synthesizer) and I happened to find a video of Herbie Hancock showing kids a Fairlight synthesizer on Sesame Street. From his congenial attitude toward the kids and funky jam on the outro, I was hooked. So, needless to say I found myself looking up lots of songs and videos of him from the mid 80's in the past week or so. For those of you who aren't familiar with who this guy is, he is a wildly inventive and Grammy winning jazz pianist and composer from Chicago Illinois who has worked with Jazz legend Miles Davis and contributed genre bending experimental music that is still surprisingly fresh and accessible today. "You Bet Your Love", with its vocoder and slap bass, is certainly in the record collection of Daft Punk, and the jazzy drawn out funk storm of "Chameleon", I'm sure, has a home in James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem's house. Herbie Hancock was also one of the first musicians to use an apple computer to assist him in making music in the early 80's, he also was the first performer to win a Grammy for a song that featured scratching on the 1983 single "Rockit". I would be willing to bet, even if you've never heard of Mr. Hancock before, you've most likely heard "Rockit." What I'm most impressed with though, is that despite that it's been 20 or more years since these songs were created, they still sound great coming out of my car stereo.
Cary Brothers produces songs that are sure to melt the hearts of adolescent girls everywhere. With his breathy vocals, acoustic melodies and occasional string accompaniment he strikes at that nostalgic chord that’s so often tied to the end of something. Be it a summer vacation, a school year, or a relationship. What Cary Brothers does to avoid becoming more top 40 teen drama dreck, is to subtly include cool little accents, like the bongos on “Think Awhile” (9) or the vocal processing on “Ride” (2). Sometimes, he even abandons his formulaic sappy ballads for some energetic rock numbers like the classic rock influenced “Who You Are” (3) or the new wave rave up “The Last One” (6) that echoes both Wham’s “Last Christmas” and The Clash’s “Lost in the Supermarket” seemingly at the same time. Cary Brothers stands as a radio-ready balladeer in the vein of Coldplay or Snow Patrol, but with hints of more depth in his sound. Only time will tell whether he can make the jump from surprise hit on the GardenState Soundtrack to surprise radio hit.
Through the Sparksoffer up some eclectic mellow indie pop that leans in the direction of 70’s singer songwriters while still staying contemporary with modern instrumentation and effects. It’s like looking for random radio stations and finding a quirky artist on the lite-FM station. They combine nice piano work, gentle sparkling guitar, along with a beat that could evoke any kind of a fantastic adventure. Sometimes they’re a little too eccentric and slow to get stuck in your head, but they have a few songs that Burt Bacharach would approve of. “Action Figure Graveyard Pt. 2” (6) calls to mind a soothing afternoon on a tropical island. “Falling Out of Favor with the Neighbors” (4) is classic piano pop. “Local Moon” (9) is the most propulsive number on the album and at times conjures of some influence from the Walkmen. If you’re in the mood for a quirky soothing adventure you should spend some time on LazarusBeach.
The Moog offer up a fun, if not redundant take on pop-rock. The Hungarian 5-piece plays music in the same vein as Rooney or Phantom Planet with clear inspiration from the Strokes’ early work. Their bouncy garage rock sound sounds perfect for radio, and will probably get any party started before you can say “Black Eyed Peas”. The obvious single is the aptly adolescent “I Like You” (4) with its giddy freak out sound. “Anyone” (7) sounds like, for a long time, like they’re going to keep it a subdued piano ballad but around 1:08 they break it out Beach Boys style, and it works. My favorite track here, “If I Died” (6) plays around with some Stills-esque vocal style along with the catchiest hook to be found on the album. While the album at times seems to follow a “song by numbers” type formula, you can’t deny that the formula works.
Graig Markel provides wonderfully layered down tempo pop, rich with slide guitars, violins and chiming melodies on his new album “Via Novella”. The inventiveness of the instrumentation helps avoid the usual pitfalls of down tempo pop. The lush soundscapes evoke at times the sounds of Air or Andrew Bird while being intimately unique at the same time. There are some absolutely stunning instrumentals here. “Black Mesa” (1) and “Figures in the Snow” (10) both allude to nature’s beauty in title and in sound. I hate to be redundant with the term “beauty” here, but I would use that adjective again for most of the ballads here as well, in particular the subtly electro-acoustic romp “Cascadia”. Graig Markel also has the knack to inject his songs with a certain emotional weight while nudging the song along at just the right pace, best exemplified in “Knives Drawn” (2) and “Sixes and Sevens” (5). While not flawless from start to finish, you’d be hard pressed to find a better formed diamond in the rough. Buy Via Novella
As much as their electronics and reverb shoot their sound into the stratosphere, the boys and girl from Fields. Produce songs that would work just as well as acoustic ballads. That’s not to say that the electronics aren’t warranted, they add a trippy psychedelic atmosphere that heightens the concepts of their songs into almost an out of body experience. Like watching yourself go through a traumatic event in slow motion. Tracks like the poignant “You Brought this on Yourself “ (6) and “Skulls and Flesh and More” (7) illustrate this point, while the highlight of the album “If you Fail, We all Fail” (9) accesses the kind of hyper emotion generated by the likes of M83, albeit in a more accessible form. The forlorn boy/girl vocals and gentle to processed guitar work to create an atmosphere that emotes better than any top 40 fodder on a teen drama ever could. It’s painful and somehow beautiful at the same time.
The Arctic Monkeys return riding a wave of breakneck rhythms and in your face grooves. Alex Turner and company return with a more limber and polished sound. It seems like the expectations placed upon them are making them work harder, and I have to admit they have improved. They’ve been listening to their influences just as hard. I can hear traces of Damon Albarn, Morrissey, Klaxons, and the Strokes interspersed among the many tracks. Their attitude even reflects in the lyrics of flagship single “Brianstorm” (1), with lyrics like “Some want a kiss, some want to kick you” implying the very mixed reaction they’ve been dealing with since their success. If the sonic fury of “Brianstorm” is any clue, they’re out to prove that they deserve every bit of success they’ve had. They’re careful not to play just 3 minute rave ups using various songs that don’t go immediately for the aural sucker punch. The best of these tracks is the breezy reggae influenced “Fluorescent Adolescent” (5) which wouldn’t sound out of place on a strokes album. I wasn’t really that impressed with their first album as much as I tried to like it, but this time around their reaction to the backlash is making them more compelling as well as more dynamic.
LCD Soundsystem is playing a sold out show tonight at Le Spectrum in Montreal, and unfortunately I am in the middle of the final week of classes. There is a silver lining though, as James Murphy and co. released a new single of off their sophomore album "Sound of Silver". The single in question? The excellent dance ballad "All My Friends". The single features covers by Franz Ferdinand and John Cale and some new material, but the most exciting thing about this release, for me, is their superb new video. Shot all in one take.
Ranging from the annoying to the oddly inventive comes, Dan Deacon’slatest album “Spiderman of the Rings.” Composed of equal parts bombast and ridiculousness, that occasionally provide some fun beats and the intriguing sonic interplay that the man’s arsenal of electronic equipment provides. “Jimmy Joe Roche” (9) sounds like a corruption of the music from the original Pitfall game. Spectacle aside, there are some funky 8-bit breakdowns like “Snake Mistakes” (7) and “Okie Dokie” (5). If you can get used to the outlandish electronics and the equal parts Alvin the chipmunk/Crazy Uncle vocals you’ll find something to enjoy here. Or maybe you should get drunk first. That might help.
The Flesh’s new dark and dangerous songs from latest LP “Fire Tower” bounce along to their familiar stop and go rhythms, but the work is more developed than their debut.The grooves flow, the guitar spirals around melodically but the biggest change in their sound is that keyboardist Gabriella Zappia offers up lead vocals this time around. I find that her sultry vocals emote more and add a connection to the urgency that the band so often evokes. The best example of their new more cohesive sound is “The Cradle, The Brothel, and the BibleSchool”, with its incredibly catchy hook and increasingly funky sound. The Flesh also make excellent use of some strings on the tracks “Firetower” (3) and “Justice” (7). On the former, the strings lend an ethereal touch, veering directly into Echo and the Bunnymen territory; on the latter they add a satisfying dramatic determination. “Cross the Ocean” (11) is a beautiful adventure into the acoustic ballad and it is hypnotizing and rich. The Flesh prove that they are more than just a copycat dance/punk band, and I for one am eager to see where they go next.
Young Galaxy’s debut is a mostly a plodding melodic celebration of reverb and delay effects. They sound like early 80’s Cure if they were expansive and optimistic rather than claustrophobic and depressed. Admittedly, not all of the songs are really that gripping, but none are jarring or unpleasant. When the beats and the melodies do come together, they make for some memorable singles. “Outside the City” (3) rides on waves of feedback and gentle effects to a chorus that’s bound to get stuck in your head. The Cure references don’t stop there though, “Wailing Wall” (5) sounds like it could be a close cousin of the groups’ classic “Love Song”. There is a constant blanket of reverb cushioning most of the album, but once in a while a bouncy rhythm does pop up, but it doesn’t stay out too late. This album reminds me of a good dream. One that I will remember in the morning.
The White Stripes Return with a familiar crash bashing sound. The single is a strange mélange of arena rock riffs, almost raps, and rambling bag-pipe like keyboards.Sounds like a return to form in comparison to their enjoyable piano laden latest release “Get Behind Me Satan”. Looks like another good album from the White Stripes. Surprised?
The new Spider-Man soundtrack seems to have put away mainstream radio chasing in favor of songs that have a more indie flavor. Well, they’ve still got that one sentimental opening track that will probably end up being synonymous with the summer movie and the romance between lead characters Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, but many other tracks seem somewhat out of place for this series of soundtracks. Granted, the first soundtrack had The Hives and The Strokes, and the second album had… Jet, but all the remaining spaces were filled mostly with forgettable no-name mainstream rock, be it the gaudy guttural groans of Nickelback or the histrionic whining of Dashboard Confessional.
This Spider-Man soundtrack differs from the first two soundtracks in that it not only has an indie song here and there on the album just to make the compilations more bearable, this album actually gets tracks from notable indie bands and puts them all up front. Snow Patrol, The Killers, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Wolfmother, The Walkmen, The Flaming Lips and… Jet, all contributed new or previously unreleased tracks to the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack. Maybe a record executive decided to make a soundtrack that would best fit the movie seeing as though it’s going to do well anyway because it has the Spider-Man logo stamped across it. Maybe indie music is gaining enough popularity to cross over into the mainstream and this is just a helping hand for the “on the radio” boost? That’s probably a little idealistic, but either way, this album has some surprisingly good tracks from notable indie artists.
There’s of course the down-tempo Snow Patrol ballad “Signal Fire” (1) that probably will be crammed into our temporal lobes all summer long, which is also the only blatant bid for radio air play. After that, it gets pretty good. The Killers contribute “Move Away” (2), which sounds like The Cure jamming with a strange preacher cowboy that Brandon Flowers seems to have become. It’s actually one of the hardest rocking songs they’ve done. Ever. I can see how the sound of it would fit perfectly to a Spider-Man movie, it has that “depth” defying guitar swing that Spider-Man seems to like so much. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs contribute a slower but no less intense continuation of guitar rock in “Sealings” (3) again, another seemingly perfect fit into the spider-sound-scape.
After that, the styles start to break up a little, starting out with the rumbling drums and Jangly Guitars of the Walkmen on “Red River” which is actually the next single lined up after Snow Patrol. Also, there’s the Flaming Lips’ addition to the soundtrack “The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man how to be in Love” (7) which is a pleasant venture into their trademark sonic envelope specially tailored for Spidey. There are several other notable tracks on here; “Portrait of a Summer thief” (13) has the kind of emotional clout that could get them on the radio. The final note of interest is that former Phantom Planet drummer Jason Schwartzman contributes an almost acoustic song with the aid of actress Kirsten Dunst (Mary Jane Watson) on backing vocals. Some surprising contributions here, to be certain. If the soundtrack is an indicator for the quality of the movie, I think we’re in for a treat.
Froma concept steeped in gimmickry and novelty comes the Automusik “Hound Dog EP”. Said to be a statement on the current situation of popular music, the band produced an 8-bit revision of Elvis’ classic “Hound Dog”. At first listen it is painfully awkward…and the second listen, and the third and so on and so forth. The other material is a little more tolerable. The remixes feature a lesson in electronic percussion and 8-bit organ riffery (3) and a more beefy beat production reminiscent of hip hop style, but not without including a banjo for some reason. Other original material, “Everything is for the Baby” (2), Sexy Body (5), and the instrumental “De Robots Braken Mijn Radio” (6) are more tolerable than the title track. I would venture to say that they even make more of a statement on the current state of music than the title track as well. With a concept group like this you have to take their music with a grain of salt, but the beats and electronics sampled from the songs that aren’t Elvis covers suggest something more than a gimmick group, even the closing instrumental borders on actually being good. Let’s hope that further releases will go on in this direction rather than shot gunning people with sheer novelty.
You know your friends’ band that loves classic rock? Well, what if they actually got good? That is what Panthers are. Musicians devoted to the guitar riff and shout-singing rich with ambiguous sloganeering. Along the lines of an indie Wolfmother or a more fuzzed out Datsuns, all with the intensity of Death from Above 1979. That said, these guys are all that is rock. Their latest aural assault is the LP entitled “The Trick”, aptly titled, since Panther’s one trick is to rock, non-stop. Where a lesser band would have worn out their welcome in rock-land, Panthers reach to the depths of rock structure and pull out builds, chugs, screams, and organized chaos that are nearly always captivating. Opener “GoblinCity” (1) employs the speed chug riff combo along with the best vocal effort on the album. If this doesn’t get you thrashing violently in a forward direction, then you must be… unable to thrash in a forward direction. For an even rowdier number seek out “Uncertainty” (6). A relentlessly licking guitar gives way to an all out thrashing and bashing chorus moment. Fueled of course by vocals that border on screaming. Panther is not for everyone, if you have a heart condition or are pregnant or nursing it is recommended that you avoid Panther for its 100 proof rock content and relentless nature.
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It seems that pop punk has found my weakness. Keyboards. Blink 182 tried desperately for me to like their last effort with their synth laced songs and guest vocals by Robert Smith, at that point I resisted. Hellogoodbye covered their whiney emo voice with a vocoder and injected their songs with dance-y electro, this left me unable to decide whether they were actually good or if everything that I stood for musically was being compromised. Luckily, new artist Plushgun (Dan Ingala) isn’t forcing me to make such rash decisions about my musical taste. While he does include the traditional power chords of pop punkers, it is pushed way back in favor of synth strings and plucky melodies. Plushgun’s stripped down retro electro sound, especially on “The Dark in You”, calls to mind a more stadium ready Joy Electric or early Depeche Mode. The piano ballad “An Aria” sounds like a Snow Patrol ballad with a drum machine and synths, and that only makes it better. The crowning achievement up until this point is the catchy high school satire of “How We Roll” which goes from pop punk accessibility to a wafting melody to an aggressive dance beat and back again. Well there you go, I didn’t think it was that simple, but if you want me to like mainstream pop music, put the keyboards up front and give it a dance beat. 
