|
February 2007 Reviews Artist of the Month: Explosions in the Sky In the years since Explosions in the Sky released their previous record, The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place in 2003, the Austin four-piece have managed to hang on to the title as the best instrumental band on the planet. It could be that their seemingly air of mystery enhanced this enchantment – hardly a peep for a few years, particularly with respect to shows. Regardless of the reason(s) for Explosions absence, they are back with a vengeance on terrifically amazing All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone. The above isn’t entirely true as Explosions aren’t like the crazy recluse Russian mathematician who solves all those famous problems and never comes of his snow enclosed hut. In 2004, the band provided the soundtrack for Friday Night Lights, the west Texas high school football movie, something on face value may be shocking. Yet, Explosions’ gorgeous soundscapes provide perfect film atmosphere – a notion not lost in that fans MUST own the FNL soundtrack. Plus the band, Christopher Hrasky, Michael James, Munaf Rayani, and Mark T. Smith, originated in Midland TX – more football country than average. The band along with TRL also re-released their debut record How Strange, Innocence in 2005. Still Explosions only made live appearances at the various Austin festivals over the past couple of years. Explosions’ absence was by design as the band began to worry whether their compositions were coming too easily, too similar, to packaged, and too predictable. Many folks, where I would include myself, wouldn’t mind such new compositions to parallel past magical moments like “Your Hands In Mine.” But the band egged for a sound more challenging and more inspiring. It is not as if All of a Sudden is some shifting in movements and momentum from past spectacles. Instead, Explosions traded in The Earth’s crystal clear, pristine sound for a more ratcheted up, noisy version of its self. With the production help of John Congleton in Minnesota, Explosions replace the uber-clean soothing for a dirty intensity. All of a Sudden opens on “The Birth and Death of the Day” with several extremely distorted bangs on chords before the rest of the group sweeps in. In classic Explosions’ form the distortion drops off two minutes in to allow a crescendo of cleaner guitars that help bring to a peak of joy. Naturally, the journey continues through mountains and valleys for nearly eight minutes, making “The Birth and Death of the Day” the standout track on the album – as if to suggest you could truly separate the overall experience of a continuous listen. The follower “Welcome, Ghost” is a rather straight forward romp until the slow down midway through. “It’s Natural to be Afraid” serves as the longest song on All of a Sudden – thirteen-and-a-half minutes. With such space, Explosions’ slowly etch out the delightful with high note guitars and cymbal washing coming in half-way to carry you home. With rising and falling guitars, piano twirls around the five-minute “What Do You Go Home To?”, Explosions pick up the pace again as guitars immediately lift you on “Catastrophe and the Cure” and the band pulls out all of its signature moves throughout. All of a Sudden ends on the rather short and quiet “So Long, Lonesome,” which propagates on a soothing piano. As has been said on this site of the past several years, Explosions in the Sky are one of the best bands going in either vocals or without. And, thus, being devoid of all of their records is tantamount to the breaking the eleventh commandment – thou shalt have all of Explosions’ records. Though purposely less polished than The Earth or the Friday Night Lights soundtrack, All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone both continues and opens new chapters for Explosions in the Sky. Be part of the awakening!
…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead As Trail of the Dead progresses further and further from their magnificent call to the world, 2002’s Source Tags & Codes, the band has become more eclectic, pushing the grand orchestration of pop rock. In so doing, they’ve tried to hold onto their initial rock intent. Yet, the consequence is choppy records that shift between solid self-contained songs and odd journeys into their own acid dreams - almost as if Trail of the Dead are treading water trying to sort through the direction they should be moving. The songs that grip your attention include the hardest song “Stand in Silence,” several moments on “Wasted State of Mind,” the messy title track, and the Beatles-esque pop-drenched “Eight Day Hell.” For those looking for an album that sounds like an eclectic comp of a series of bands, So Divided is your answer.
+ 44 Mark Hoppus (bass/vox) and Travis Barker (drums) continue to follow the more mainstream, melody driven power pop path with an emotive drive. Something that Blink 182 started to lay out in their latter stages prior to a period of “indefinite hiatus”, after years of high jinx pop punk. Racing guitar riffs are supplied Shane Gallagher (The Nervous Return), facilitating the urgency and underlining Hoppus’ heart drawn vocals. This coats the languid, reflective and stern prosaic lyrical thrust that has the sentimental pull of Dashboard Confessional, also seeping in a little through the vocals; “Turn it up, I never wanna go home I only wanna be part of your breakdown. She got caught by the fall on the floor, I picked her up and she’ll never get let down.” This title track from the aching, but powerful debut album emboldens a reflective and seriously sharp streak to Hoppus, the former joker in the pack. With sincere delivery such as that displayed here, it is no longer difficult to take Mr Hoppus seriously. Maturity is like a dark secret, it will catch up with you in the end, whoever you are. (- David Adair)
Across Five Aprils Chattanooga, TN’s Across Five Aprils are so fucking good that it’s amazing that they haven’t just blitzkrieg every other hardcore band out there and wrapped up all the imaginary music awards for hardcore and metal bands. The five-piece expertly mix thrashing screaming metalcore with harmonies pulsating with dark imagery – and thus aptly described as melodic metalcore; possibly the very definition of. One may comment that during shifts from screaming to the melodic, AFA may be lazily compared to My Chemical Romance, as on the super opener “Tallahassee is for Hookers,” but at the very least it hooks the uninitiated ear for a moment. The other hang up folks have with bands moving between screaming and melodic vocals is the unnatural and contrived feeling it portrays. How AFA pulls off not sounding like this is hidden, but a listener would have to be a grump to pull away with this sense. Take a spin on Collapse and enjoy one of the most underrated hardcore bands going. And as your head gets smashed in by songs like “With These Hands” and “Shot Down With Arrows” realize that AFA have a strong back catalog, particularly 2003’s A Tragedy in Progress.
The Black Maria In the past couple of years, the Black Maria have been able to shed some previous entanglements to their past identities as former members of Grade, Zyon, and New Day Rising. Part of this comes from Kyle Bishop leaving the band and drummer Theo McKibbon and guitarist Scott Swain, both once of Far From Heroes, joining the five-piece. Again recording with Mike Green, the Black Maria further push dark imagery as demonstrated on their debut Lead Us to Reason into their brand of melodic hardcore on A Shared History of Tragedy. More than before, the Black Maria seem to fit well with Aiden, Atreyu, Avenged Sevenfold, AFI, and the like (including those that don’t start with A in their name). Though with a penchant for quasi-ballad breakdowns, the Black Maria provide something to come across in the eleven songs here. Those sharing the spotlight include the strong opener “The Perilous Curse,” “Waking Up the Wolves,” “Lucid,” and “The Concubine.”
Boys Like Girls Should we issue a beat down to the All-American Rejects for spawning more and more clones - the latest of which coming in the form of Boston’s Boys Like Girls? While BLG offers a more general version of catchy pop punk than some, several of the sections, breakdowns, and vocal cadences so parallel AAR you would be forgiven for thinking this is new material from AAR instead of another band; witness opener “The Great Escape,” “Five Minutes to Midnight,” and “Broken Man.” Unquestionably BLG have the chops to appeal to a broad audience, most specifically top forty rock radio fixated teenage girls. As such, the band will do well. Others might look for something that pushes BLG over the ordinary, something that leaves a mark.
Broadway Calls As part of State of Mind’s recent west coast reach out program, Oregon’s Broadway Calls launch off with the quick six-song EP Call the Medic. Broadway Calls focus on gritty melodic punk that brings up images of a cleaner the Broadways and Lawrence Arms, and breakdown moments to parallel HWM. Yet, in so doing, the band can’t cross the divide between sounding amateurish and professional. In that respect, Broadway Calls sweetly fits the bill as your favorite local band. Much needed production will help Broadway Calls move from runnerups to winners.
Daggermouth There is literally no way that a band with such horrific album art should sound this good - the art is bad cartoon drawings of the band beat up/dead at a convenience store. Further, the tough guy intro to Stallone only adds to sketchy beliefs about what’s in store. Yet, once the second song hits, this Vancouver five-piece busts into their own west coast Canadian version of Lifetime; melodic hardcore of drums continuously beating, bass thumping along, the interplay of dual guitars and the shouting vocal cadence. I would mention the hot songs on Stallone but Daggermouth’s use of sentence-long song titles prevents a sane listing; that new fetish of young punk bands to annoy just about everyone. The thing to remember is that if you want a young, energetic melodic hardcore band that can bring you back to the late 90s, Daggermouth is your new record on heavy rotation.
Drive By On their debut full-length, Drive By unleash eleven punk songs that sound tight with Drive Thru. Leading the Drive By charge is Todd Price who started the outfit in NY/NJ with Dan Fitzgerald and Jaeson Hertzberg, soon to be joined with Chris Perrino. Thanks to the folks that run Riot Squad Records also managing My Chemical Romance, the band’s first tour was opening for MCR; not bad. While Drive By play uptempo, catchy punk, none of the songs necessarily grab you and stick with you after the music ends. That can be helped in the future with solid production assistance. Another sometime problem with Drive By is Price’s penchant for veering into manly rock vocals like he’s trying to front a band that’s fixing on signing with Wind-up. Those moments are minimal, but they should be cut out entirely. If Drive By stay together and amp up their songwriting prowess, they should be a force.
The Good Good This Brooklyn trio work lines of experimental indie rock, shifting between solid material and simple junk on the composite record Furrows. The thirteen songs here combine earlier self-released records and songs from a European split 12”. This possibly adds to the unevenness throughout Furrows, but given some of the oddities that might not matter. The songs to get your head moving include the theatric “Clouds,” the instrumental shaker “3 Voice,” the riff-driven “Wooden Cell,” and the absurdly poppy “Billions of Needles (Northern Arizona).” The Good Good could make a very successful indie career with songs like “Billions;” if only they could leave more of the experimental shushing aside.
Goons of Doom Goons of Doom are a perfect example of a fun one-off going horribly awry. This Australian punk five-piece formed for the simple reason to play a ‘band’ in the indie surf movie Doped Youth. At that point the members hadn’t really played instruments so much before – something that wouldn’t be that shocking listening to the sixteen-song train wreck that is the Story of Dead Barbie and Ghost. It should also come as no surprise that the whole record was recorded in four days. Goons of Doom excel on the novelty angle – they are fronted by pro-surfer Ozzie Wright and their sound floats around surfy 80s Lookout! Records. Thus, the fact that their short US tour of last summer centered on America’s top surf locations should be another source of obviousness for you.
Helmet What the hell happened here? As part of Helmet’s triumphant return Monochrome, their sixth record, was supposed to reinstate Helmet as leaders of complex heavy music. Instead, these eleven seconds illustrate a band who’ve lost it – and simply pepper you with ordinary chugging riffs and horrific vocals. I’m going back to listening to Meantime and just hope that Monochrome was simply an errant nightmare.
IV Thieves Nottingham retro-monger Nic Armstrong seems to have found the right mix for his instrumental exploration. He has found two fellow singer/song writers in Shane Lawlor and the trembling voiced Texan, Elliot Fraser to allow him and his group to truly explore. The raw, rumbling and harmonious foundations that Nic laid in his solo career via ‘The Greatest White Liar’ album, provides the fulcrum for the roving to set off from. For opener ‘You Can’t Love What You Don’t Understand’, they utilise a soaring and fuzzy The Strokes styled intro for the calming vocals to move into. This element reaches a yearning, but comforting pitch similar to that of current climbers, The Hours. The flitting of moods is started early on, as the twining slow groove of ‘Catastrophe’ draws out a pungent poetic nature. This is achieved from a Roger Daltrey vocal base, delivered with heart-laden pump from Nic Armstrong. ‘Day Is A Downer’, mingles maudlin blues with sliding, almost country guitars to produce nocturnal glorification with true conviction. This helps the variety of the album, but does not detract from the tempo of it. Sliding psychedelia and an early the Charlatans vibe is oozed out mid-album to show these tune-crafters at their tightest. The distorted fuzzy vocal stroll concealed within ‘All The Time’, adds to the enigma that is slowly created and continues to draw out IV Thieves’ poetic leanings. The swooning lullaby tones and cushioning instrumental touch of ‘Lay Me Back Down’, fills the void between The Beach Boys and Aqualung, to sprinkle some reflection upon matters towards the end. This completes the range offered on an explorative offering, from a group in which three equally talented song writers work together in harmony, why is such an occurrence so rare? (- DA) Slowly but surely, since the release of their understated debut album around a year ago and on tour long before that, Little Barrie have been preaching the virtues of the retro scripture through funky vibes and an appreciation of The Who and The Cramps. Via opening double whammy of the blues rushed ‘Bailing Out’ and the aching whine-out of previous single ‘Love You’, they add more potency to their cause. ‘Pin That Badge’ uses some Red Hot Chili Peppers style funk rock, to draw out feeling and highlight the vocal versatility of the earnest Barry Cadogan. This signals a turn into emotion building, as the tracks start to get more drawn out and a bluesy drive comes out in the backing range. The moody feel helps the band produce their full range of fuzzy instrumental skill and it suits Cadogan’s range, standing out in the forlorn ‘Green Eyed Fool’. The percussion rumble, sliding and aching guitars along with the hurried, slightly disco vocal push gives ‘Pretty Pictures’ heart, soul and true emotion. This is what retro music should truly be about. The album tends to reach plateaus and then maintain the same momentum, something that can be a little grating, as you get the impression that this outfit has the ability to keep climbing. However, there is nothing wrong with reaching a groove and keeping it, especially when authenticity is prevalent throughout. With this second album, Little Barrie has added a solid The Who lauding instrumental base to their armour and a more groove friendly slant. However, their doubters will continue to argue that the range is still limited, despite a very promising start. The early funky exploration renders this offering a step forward. This is something that if built upon, it could help Little Barrie to produce a third album, in a year or so that pushes them through to the sort of recognition that many thought they were destined for a while ago. (- DA)
Massive Attack Many, many, many people in the world love Massive Attack; the type of devotion typically reserved for mystics or prophets. For others, Massive Attack are the group that has provided some excellent soundtracks for films. For both groups, Collected serves as a first-rate pick-up. If you don’t somehow fall into those two groups, Massive Attack are the pioneers of British trip-hop with a career that goes back to the late 80s and a myriad of different collaborators. In this regard, if you’ve ever been in a club, bar, whatever playing mellow beats then you’ve likely come across Massive Attack. This best-of consists of two audio consists stretching between the group’s four albums – Blue Lines, Protection, Mezzanine, and 100th Window – as well as rare material and the new track “Live With Me.” Some of the choice tracks include are “Small Time Shoot ‘Em Up,” “Angel,” “Unfinished Sympathy,” “Teardrop,” “Safe From Harm,” “Karmacoma,” and “Danny the Dog” from Unleashed. An extra love fest bonus is that the second disc is actually a dual disc that includes a cache of all Massive Attack’s videos. Needless to say this is an impressive collection of material and showcases the group as solid through the past three decades.
Mika A terse The Country Girl-esque noire element opens up the doors to a flighty glam/pop swirl, returning for bracing interludes to signal the comeback of the off-kilter Mika, in the form of ‘Grace Kelly’. The power of the Polyphonic Spree, the wistfulness of Jim Noir and the je nais se qua of Queen meet up in the musical orbit of this flighty ten track wonder. ‘My Interpretation’ stands toe to toe with The Magic Numbers and The Mamas & The Papas, to send you flying back to the times when your spleen was vented with deep seated vocal projection and a glorious, ranging melody. The androgynous vocal command is complemented, at intervals, by a stern and sweet female element. Unfortunately, Mika goes a little too far in his vocal exuberance during ‘My Interpretation’, whereby he strains a little too much and the instrumental razzmatazz doesn’t help to avoid the plummet into a pit of falseness. When things take a dip, all you need is an electro ladder and a bit of a WHAM spring, some labouring reflection and you are back into a cushy pop groove, ‘Love Today’. It is not surprising that the centrepiece of the album, ‘Any Other World’ is pure theatrical in large Michael Crawford portions and is an earnest number that veers just the right side of sentimentality. Using an orchestral and choral element to change the pace and mood throughout. Also, it says to The Killers that the phrase; “Smile Like You Mean It” is for general use and can be used to better impact when it is meaningfully built up to. The tongue-in-cheek lullaby style is used to devastating in the tale of a respectable man coming out of the closet, only to go back in and then yeah, come out again, ‘Billy Brown’. This is Mika’s most serious offering, lurking beneath a horn fuelled vibrant bounce. ‘Big Girl (you are beautiful)’, could have been picked up from the floor of a The Scissor Sisters’ rehearsal room and it oozes zap and spirit, as Mika’s elastic vocals are stretched in numerous directions to pull off a non-judgemental and inoffensive jaunt. The latter band’s influence also seeps through in ‘Stuck In The Middle’. The early dip in form is well and truly left behind and, Mika is continuing to prove that we have a fresh and bold impresario ready to push the boundaries of pop music, hopefully out of the reach of any X Factor contestant. (- DA)
MXPX Releasing a b-side and unreleased song collection like Let’s Rock only adds fuel to the fire that MXPX has long had the final nail driven into their coffin and they’re already buried. Unquestionably, MXPX were among the heavyweights during the mid-90s punk explosion with absurdly popular songs like “Chick Magnet.” Since the height of their popularity, MXPX have been holding the fort down with solid and consistent records, though nothing exactly ground-shaking. Let’s Rock is essentially a place-holder for their next full-length and serves to leak out some backlogged material. The record does offer strong tracks from “You Walk, I Run,” “Every Light,” “1 and 3,” and “Make Up Your Mind,” but none of them blows your hair back. The throat-slitting time, though, comes with the final three acoustic tracks on Let’s Rock. Literally, I don’t know who would think these sound good. Cut those off and Let’s Rock is only nine songs long. Compare that to the similar-themed amazing thirty-two song collection Let It Happen and Let’s Rock is a massive disappointment.
Neil Young If nothing else, Bush has given musicians a great deal of lyrical content to work with. And, obviously, this is no better demonstrated than on Neil Young’s anti-war opus Living With War. The Canadian-born Young continues this long tradition of political, left-leaning musical adventures, yet all ten tracks aren’t focused on simply ripping on Bush. Instead, Young takes stock of the current state of things across the social, economic, and political dimensions in the US. Along with a set of musicians and more techs and sound engineers than should ever be needed, Young rises on “After the Garden,” “Families,” “Flags of Freedom,” and “Roger and Out.” While a solid album through and through, the most shocking aspect is the awful lyrics. Young has committed the crime of putting certain words in front of making good music and harmonies. In thus doing, Young sounds rather amateurish in the depth of meaning in his lyrics; that’s a shame.
New Found Glory You could give New Found Glory credit for simply still being around. But, the absurdity of pop on the thirteen-track Coming Home halts any more props to these former Florida punkers. Being on the tips of emo-pop and pop-punk tongues during all of the new century, NFG become more a pop band on every record. On Coming Home you can hardly recognize any type of punk sound as it has all replaced with safe middle America-friendly pop, enough to appease parents of high schoolers who are dragged to concerts. NFG no doubt have the catchy, hooky song thing down as “Oxygen,” “Hold My Hand,” “Taken Back By You,” and “It’s Not Your Fault” are destined to rock top forty radio. It is possible that NFG are moving towards this more generic sound in order to avoid a genre expiration date, but it hardly makes curmudgeons smile.
NoMeansNo NoMeansNo’s tenth record is what the government really should be using for torture at Gitmo. These Canadian punk old timers are about as annoying and terrible as you get for a legit band; only several steps away from the music making you lose mass brain cells as you listen. And since the record is nearly an hour long, that’s a lot of brain cells. At best NoMeansNo serves as background music to drunken swirlers at a gritty city dive bar.
Now It’s Overhead Always under the radar Now It’s Overhead, led by Andy LeMaster, are back with the terrific Dark Light Daybreak continuing the lineage of previous records. One would think that after 2004’s Fall Back Open, Now It’s Overhead would become a household name amongst indie rockers. But, it never seems that LeMaster or the band get enough attention as they deserve. It could be that multi-instrumentalist and producer LeMaster has so many projects going on, particularly with Bright Eyes and his Athens, GA Chase Park Transduction studios, that it leaves less time to pump the band. Nevertheless, Dark Light Daybreak once again features dreamy layers of guitars, electronics, and melodic voices. At the front are LeMaster’s smooth ranging vocals which are accompanied by drummer Clay Leverett’s vocals and Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor’s siren-like vocal offerings. Unlike Fall Back Open, where several tracks dominated your attention, Dark Light Daybreak is more even across the ten songs. This creates the need to allow the record to unfold instead of just jumping song to song. Still, songs to check out include the excellent opener “Let the Sirens Rest,” the slow mover “Night Vision,” the bouncy “Type A,” the electronic “Meaning to Say,” and the honey-drenched closer “Nothing In Our Way.” Look for Andy LeMaster’s deft hand in the near future, particularly with his Saddle Creek cronies.
Jennifer O’Connor After struggling over the past few years as a singer-songwriter in NYC, Jennifer O’Connor finally gets her due on her debut for Matador. Starting out in Atlanta with the indie band Violet, O’Connor left the band and the city for the cold streets of NYC and the ups and downs that they present. Over the Mountain is actually O’Connor’s third full-length, following her 2000 Truth Love Work EP, her 2002 self-released self-titled full-length, and 2005’s The Color and The Light on Red Panda Records. While it is not a surprise that O’Connor got signed to Matador, it makes you smile given that so many in her previous position never reach such heights. Yah, yah, yah, right? But even more excellently, the twelve songs on Over the Mountain are light years better than anything she has done before. Chalk it up to learning the craft and hard work? Add some hard life moments. You might also add the superb exploits of her backing band on Over the Mountain – Jon Langmead on drums, James McNew (Yo La Tengo) on bass, Kendall Meade (Sparklehorse) on keys and vocals, and further help on vocals on from Britt Daniel (Spoon) and guitar help from producer Al Weatherhead. As you progress from opener “Century Estates” through the closer “I’ll Bring You Home,” O’Connor maps out her soft singer-songwriter side (“Today,” “Tonight We Ride,” and “I Was So Wrong”), the strong indie acoustic material (“Century Estates” and “Bullshit Maze”), along with straight-up indie-Americana specials like “Sister,” uber-rocker “Turn It Down,” and the amazing closer “I’ll Bring You Home” written for her sister who died of brain cancer. O’Connor has risen to the occasion on her biggest opportunity in her musical career, and we are all thankful.
The Old Ceremony Everything leading up to the actual music gives you the impression that the Old Ceremony will be something special. Utilizing superb album packaging, this Chapel Hill seven-piece creek along on indie rock pageantry, and in so doing are able to get opening spots in CH for huge indie bands. But, soon after the decent opener “Talk Straight,” the Old Ceremony moves toward the banal indie walking, trying to replicate and parallel grand lyricists but falling a few step shorts. For extreme instance, you can appreciate the Murder By Death-like “Poison Pen,” but then the Old Ceremony offers some pop rock crap that is designed for upscale bar bands on “Papers in Order.” Other moments aren’t as drastically terrible (but see “Reservations” and “Radio Religion”), but the dullness can wear.
On the Last Day Unlike the seemingly myriad of new signees that Victory keeps trotting out of their HQ, On the Last Day’s debut full-length actually induces a ton of ass kicking. This is a welcome reprieve that we’d find one or two in the bunch that sets themselves apart, if only for a moment. In similar fashion to Aiden, in sound, look, and location (Seattle), On the Last Day has the consistently rarer ability to appeal to a wide swath of fans. This may seem like On the Last Day are simply clones of bands like Aiden, but they keep all eleven tracks at sustainable high level that never exactly parallels or reflect Aiden. Nearly all the songs on Meaning in the Static are thickly and richly constructed with relatively complicated guitar work and extended section shifts, and while keeping catchy elements. Add in Geoff Walker’s strong vocal range, and only slight and undervolumed backing screams, and you wind up with a strong product. Songs to take note of include the opener “Twelve CC’s,” “Below One Hundred,” the guitar riffed-up title track, “The Rescue,” and the closer “The Journey and the Balance.” A good and bad element, however, is that many of the songs aren’t neatly separated by sound, and so they somewhat stick together. As long as On the Last Day don’t move towards more of a vampire look, they’ll be able to maintain their own identity.
Oxford Collapse Following the measured tempo opener “He’ll Paint While We Play,” you are quickly assaulted by jangly, catchy indie rock hitting your brow on the following “Please Visit Your National Parks.” As “Visit” shows and as Oxford Collapse illustrates through the rest of their Sub Pop debut, the band is rather adept at taking their indie rock a couple notches higher than your typical college indie band. That may be because they’re actually from Brooklyn and have to compete with all those dance-punk rock and garage bands infesting the borough. In that regard, Oxford Collapse sounds better suited for Chapel Hill or Austin than the Big Apple. Another element that pops up time-to-time is Oxford Collapse’s use of simple 80s Lookout! pop punk as on songs like “In Your Volcano.” Following two previous full-lengths on Kanine, this three-piece help their sound cause through a slightly dirty recording and super-thin guitars; guitars that nearly almost capture the right 80s indie riff. Other songs to make an indentation on your memory include “Loser City,” “Lady Lawyers,” and “Let’s Vanish.”
Pontius On their debut record, Chicago’s Pontius offers eleven songs of soft punk rock that are typically highlighted by one trick or another. First among these is the early reggae-infused guitar riff on opener “90 Days” which is further used on “King on the River,” and “Zonah.” The second Pontius focuses on mellow languishing pop songs with strings as demonstrated on “Redeemed” and “Ballad of the Fallen.” The final Pontius, and the most preferred, sticks with up tempo catchy rock songs highlighted by “In Vino Veritas,” “John J,” and “Fly Pelican Fly.” Foul Weather Clothes is a fine record and something that Pontius can grow with – as long as they leave out the reggae stuff and concentrate on an identifying sound.
The Prize Fighter Inferno Do you have the energy to continue the Coheed and Cambria story? Can/did you figure it out to begin with? To add further confusion and bafflement, Claudio Sanchez has released My Brother’s Blood Machine, under the moniker the Prize Fighter Inferno, which is a prequel to the CC trilogy. These songs consist of Inferno (aka, Jesse, Coheed’s brother) telling the story of the Blood Machine on present-day Earth (where Inferno is, naturally, resurrected after dying). (More than likely I didn’t get this story entirely correct, as I’ve been told before I haven’t nailed previous stories). Anyway, for the casual listener of My Brother’s Blood Machine the music is what’s immediately attractive and the story is of secondary importance. The eleven songs (plus a ‘hidden’ song) all align with electronic indie pop and/or acoustic folksy CC. Or, as one might say, the songs are either like Postal Service or acoustic CC. Part of the comparison is unavoidably due to Sanchez’s unique vocals. Apparently, this electronic, acoustic mashing was the original plan of Sanchez and Co. to tell the story of CC. Far from the bombastic, epic guitar opuses of CC, Blood Machine is considerably more accessible for the ordinary listener. And among those that draw such listeners in are the blip electronic opener “The Going Price For Home” along with like-sounding and excellent “A Death in the Family,” the amazing “Who Watches the Watchmen?,” and “The Margretville Dance.” The stellar acoustic, folksy numbers include “Our Darling Daughter You Are, Little Cecillia Marie,” “Run, Gunner Recall, Run! The Town Wants You Dead!,” and the high-pitched vocals on “Easter.” As an extra reason and bonus for picking up Blood Machine, the packaging is phenomenal; the type that should get some recognition from the Grammy category on packaging – who decides that anyway? The highlight: a set of tarot cards as the linear notes. Awesome!
Razorlight As has been said in other contexts, Razorlight are the type of band that gets people fired (those people specifically being workers at record labels). Or, as established by these ten songs of trendy pop rock crap, the person(s) who signed Razorlight should be fired. Admittedly, Razorlight go for your ear through catchy rock songs, but if you stop a second and notice that these have some of the worst, lamest lyrics possibly every written, the vomiting will come flowing forth. Once you pick up on that aspect, along with the generic compositions, songs like “America,” “I Can’t Stop This Feeling I’ve Got,” “Kirby’s House,” and “Back to the Start” begin to feel like a massive hangover you can’t get rid of; similar to someone drilling holes into your ears. Razorlight presents another torture device for the military.
Samiam After years on the Bay Area punk scene, various record labels, and following the rise and falling of punk’s popularity, Samiam are back with their fifth full-length and second for Hopeless. Samiam’s seemingly barren catalog stems from various reasons including being on hiatus for a number years following 2000’s Astray. With new bassist Jeremy Bergo, the thirteen-song Whatever’s Got You Down uses dirty shock treatment for their punk sound – no sweet-laced production over rough spots or faux fillers. Yet, the songs don’t sound like dollops of crap, but more like a talented outfit choosing the dirty sound – which is exactly what happened. On a quick listen you’ll probably miss the good parts while getting stuck on some of the roughness. But repeated listens bare out the gems with the guitars matching up with the vocals producing punk nirvana. Those on the fore-front are the opener “When We’re Together,” the superb “Get It Right” with an excellent high-note riff, the HWM-like “Storm Clouds,” and “Bide My Time.” Whatever’s Got You Down is a surprisingly strong punk record from an outfit often buried in the back catalogs.
Set Your Goals When San Francisco’s Set Your Goals opens Mutiny! on “Work in Progress” with this lame emo bit you instantly think ‘how the hell is this on Eulogy?’ Yet, in a bit the six-piece shift to melodic positive hardcore that exists somewhere between Lifetime and Saves the Day; doesn’t that require you to be from New Jersey? The following ten songs meet the expectations of the second half of “Work in Progress” as Set Your Goals blasts through the record in under thirty minutes. Among the highlights are the fifty-second “We Do It For the Money, OBVIOUSLY,” the guitar-riff drenched title-track, the cresting “An Old Book Misread,” and “To Be Continued….” If Set Your Goals can add live fire to these songs, they could be something special.
V/A Following up on 2004’s Thank You compilation from TRL (their 50th release) is the ten-track Thankful comp. Like Thank You, and unlike most comps put out by labels these days, Thankful consists of all previously unreleased songs from most of the bands TRL has signed in the past two years. And simply for that, you should pick this up. The one downside of the constraints on the bands here is that you don’t get a new song from Explosions in the Sky; but you do have their new record coming. Highlights on Thankful include Eluvium’s “Carousel,” Caroline’s “Wonderlust,” the match of Cex and Nice Nice on “Jacksonville,” the better-than-expected “Ready? Aim. Fire!” from the up-and-down By the End of Tonight, and Mono’s excellent “Since I’ve Been Waiting For You.” I suppose we are all thankful that Temporary Residence exists…
The Vulcan Freedom Fighters Have you ever wished for a modern day rock soundtrack to all the original Star Trek episodes? Well, now you have it. As a means to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the original series, Christopher Haines and Brandon Wiggins created twenty-three songs stacked with clips from the series and varying eclectic music moods. It is possibly interesting as a one-off novelty, but that’s about it; though Trekkies might enjoy repeated feastings.
Wolf Eyes Wolf Eyes are one of those bands that a strong cadre of underground folks love with a passion – yet for reasons that everyone else can’t figure out. On Wolf Eyes’ second release for Sub Pop and roughly 301st overall, the trio offers a split personality on Human Animal. The first half consists of murky, slow haunting tracks where random bits are the norm, while the second half is more in line with hardline noise assaults. Fast paced songs like “Human Animal” and “The Driller” offer solid noise anthems, but the rest of the record is probably best enjoyed as soundtrack material for horror films.
copyright exoduster.com 2007 |