Chimpomatic

Volcano Choir

Unmap

Jagjaguwar

It was relatively late in coming, but the praise that followed Justin Vernon's debut Bon Iver project was unprecedented and warranted. The critics aren't messing about with this new side project featuring Vernon alongside fellow Wisconsinites Collections of Colonies Of Bees - and there has been much frenzied chatter about Unmap for a while now. While Unmap is certainly permeated with a similar bewitching presence as For Emma, Forever Ago it sounds less focused and just what a side-project tends to sound like. It has a different agenda from the music made under Bon Iver. It is totally studio produced and has more formalistic concerns like texture and ambiance than the emotional weight Bon Iver carried. Rather than a mission statement bursting to be released from one man, this sounds like a group of like-minded guys just enjoying the process of music making and all the more so given the success that one of these members has enjoyed of late. But they handle that with remarkable restraint and play down Vernon's now familiar tones to mere texture at times.

It's quite clear this is no Bon Iver follow-up, as the sultry notes of opener Husks And Shells drifts into earshot. With the gentlest of plucking and delicate textures Vernon introduces himself with a series of wordless harmonies that amble along with little fixed direction but create an arresting sense of desolation. He raises his voice in the last 20 seconds with a gradual crescendo that makes room for Seeplymouth, one of the strongest songs here. With a similar structure it builds with layered percussion, synth melody and looped vocals to a massive, unrelenting finale that booms with depth and refuses to let up. And when it does, out of the dust emerges Island, Is, a perfectly carved marble statue of a song that glistens with polished clarity. Vernon's vocals are given new buoyancy with the electronic soundscape that underlies them. Gradually layered levels of melody and intricate rhythm amble along with perfect direction this time and create a sense of warmth that has rarely surrounded this voice.

But for me that is where the magic starts to wane. The rest of the album tends to veer off into more directionless territory. This is indeed the sound of a group of guys enjoying a process but at times it sounds far too much like that. And Gather meanders along in an aimless haze of half baked hand clap rhythm and irritating harmonies while Mbira In The Morass sees Vernon experimenting with a new warble in his singing and when coupled with some awkward percussion the result is less than perfect to say the least. There are of course exceptions to this. The short burst of joy that is Cool Knowledge comes as a breath of fresh air and the reworking of Woods, the Bloodbank EP's curious end note, is a vast improvement and a much fuller and fascinating piece of work. But these delights are too few in the second half of this record and by the time it comes to an end, the treasures of the first half have already started to fade slightly.

For Emma, Forever Ago cast its spell on all who heard it and the effect of this spell is still present here, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that I have felt it wearing off somewhat. What Unmap does do is prove that Vernon is no one-trick pony and has a clear passion for experimentation. This is an exciting prospect and one that hints at some truly stunning ideas yet to be realised, but those ideas seem slightly half baked here.

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5th Oct 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Strangers

Creepy, but ultimately sadistic and pointless film school exercise.

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4th Oct 2009

Rocknrolla

Decent, if predictable chunk of Guy Ritchie.

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4th Oct 2009

Dog Soldiers

Woof woof. Terrible.

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3rd Oct 2009

Alpha Dog

Well played, but a bit of a shambles.

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1st Oct 2009

Califone

All My Friends Are Funeral Singers

Dead Oceans

'All my friends are funeral singers', declares the title of the new album by Califone and maybe it's me, but I don't see this as something to shout about. The prospect of 60 minutes of morbid whining seems none-too enticing and a glance through a track list which includes 'A wish made while burning onions will come true' and 'Krill' doesn't leaves me any more enthusiastic.

This is the sixth album from the American-electro-folk-pop-combo; and it sounds a lot like they've been let loose at the ironmongers. There are fiddles, banjos and plenty of drawling twang to the vocals but listen carefully and you'll note the rousing clatter of metal objects being struck in the background. I tallied up steel drums, marimbas, jangly necklaces, xylophones... and surely a hint of more cowbell.

The album delivers on its title's promise with a surrealist unease filtering through each of the songs. 'Giving away the bride' and 'Evidence', throb with brooding melancholy and although there are some HooHa! moments, for the most part '...Funeral Singers' holds to a downbeat course.

Which isn't to say that the music is as deathly as I feared. Although not as involving as 2006's 'Roots and Crowns', this new album contains music of depth and subtlety. The sound is rich and increasingly layered with electronic distortions, effects, loops and mixing. This kind of intricate production however, is sometimes at odds with the homespun simplicity of much of the songwriting.

Generally diverting, occasionally moving, often unsettling; the album's lasting impression was like being stuck in a shack in some Appalachian backwater with four bearded, funereal-folk musicians and a laptop. And maybe it's me but...

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1st Oct 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Y: The Last Man

Brian K Vaughan, Pia Guerra

Vertigo

One man and his monkey, alone in a world full of women? Ever get the feeling that some projects are written just for you? 

Brian K Vaughn was one of the hired guns brought onto the Lost writers team and he brings a similar deft touch to his own work (check out Hurley reading the Spanish language version "Y, El Último Hombre" here). Ex-Machina is a great combo of city politics and superhero antics, while Pride Of Baghdad turned that corny Disney shtick about animals banding together for an impossible journey into an elegant anti-Iraq War statement.

Here, Y: The Last Man is a thoughtful and playfully entertaining sci-fi series that follows hero Yorick Brown over the course of ten graphic novels as he tries find out why he's the only man left alive after an overnight plague kills off all the other men and leaves him trapped on a planet of the babes (ahem).

It's one of those simple set-ups that doesn't disappoint. Our hero ends up being protected by secret agents and fighting ninjas on a globe-trotting odyssey as he searches the planet for his girlfriend (never let a gendercide get in the way of being hung up on one girl). A film version has been in the offing for a while, with Disturbia director DJ Caruso and Transformers dude Shia LeBeouf attached (and not attached, and attached again), but it's great in the comic format (and all ten have been out since last year, with some beefy deluxe reissues coming through now), so why not just read the original?

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30th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Pearl Jam

Backspacer

Monkeywrench

With their 9th studio album, Pearl Jam have fully completed their transformation from over-looked geniuses to the band that everybody thinks they have been since Ten first stormed the charts in 1991. As a lifelong Pearl Jam fan, for some reason I had a pre-conceived notion of how this album would be. The hints were there from the last album and a live outing for some if the new material did not bode well. I can't tell you how disappointed it is to have my preconceptions at least partly confirmed.

Advance tracks Get Some and The Fixer certainly have hooks and catches, giving a certain radio-friendliness to them, much like any recent album from AC/DC or even The Rolling Stones - rather than the difficult-to-fit, anti-mainstream style that hung around grunge, making it so fresh and new in the early 90's. 

Eddie Vedder injects the occasional attempt at enthusiasm with a whoop or a holler, while awkward drum fills patch the holes in the songwriting as the band try and add some urgency to the mundanity to most of the songs. Whether it was real or implied, much of Pearl Jam's attraction has long been built around the message, or implied narrative behind the lyrics. Here those messages are barely audible, instead opting for the gabba-gabba-hey enthusiam of bands like the Ramones - while Vedder's song writing and love-it-or-hate-it vocals are sadly underused.

There's an air of preparation here, as if song-writing duties have been distributed evenly amongst the rest of the band for some post-career nest building. I haven't seen the liner notes, but would suggest the faux Thin Lizzy of Johnny Guitar came from the pen of Mike McReady (update: wrong, it was Cameron & Gossard), while the Camero-driving pound of Get Some might be from bouncing bassist Jeff Ament (update: bingo). 

There are a handful of highlights here, with Just Breathe providing a short break from the non-stop pace of the album's opening, although at best it sounds like an outtake from Vedder's excellent stripped-bare solo album. Unknown Thought and The End approach the band's full potential (both penned by Vedder), while Amongst The Waves manages to shake off its cheesy start to build into a decent epic.

This isn't a terrible album by any means - and judging by some surprisingly positive mainstream reviews I would suggest everything I like about the band is what turned the masses away. There are moments of promise amongst the riffs, but Backspacer's biggest curse is that it is just largely forgettable. 

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29th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Point Break

Same as it ever was - 72% pure adrenaline.

Halliwell says: Ridiculous thriller, with convoluted and unbelievable plot and a great deal of masculine posturing.

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28th Sep 2009