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Saddle Creek

This one should appeal to David Lynch, I'd have thought. Great female vocalist, voodoo guitars, lots of reverb, very catchy songs in a variety of styles. Hey, what's not to like?

Just the wilfully daft band name - that's what's not to like. It's never going to be easy saying that one is it? Yeah I 'd like to order the album by this band called ooove-wa-zed. Or zee. Either way, a terrific band name would be one of the only things I'd want to change about this release. Sitting comfortably alongside the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (in rock mode) - there's something about the way this album is recorded that really appeals to me - everything sounds big without it sounding like a competition for space in the mix. The arrangements make the most of the basic rock format of guitar bass drums and vocals - always good to hear a band that can sound fresh with the most traditional line-up of instruments.

Touches of Tom Waits, Jacques Brel, Badelamenti, Portishead and the Cramps all contribute to a sonically rich and pleasing album that ought to see this Nebraskan four piece on their way to great things. But, they should have chosen a name that would make it easier to discuss them or order their records.

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#HarrisPilton

18th Sep 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Dag For Dag

Shooting From The Shadows EP

Saddle Creek

Dag For Dag are brother and sister Sarah Parthemore Snavely and Jacob Donald Snavely and while hailing from Southern California they now reside in Sweden. This is their debut EP and while being constructed out of some quite simple and well tested ideas is utterly infectious none the less.

As will be clear from the opening bars of first song Ring Me, Elise the whole thing centers around one guitar chord and rarely strays form this path. But who needs complicated backing texture when you have a vocalist as beguiling as Sarah. She instantly renders the bare bones guitar sound a cavernous and unhinged driving force. With an alto tone that hollows out your eardrums she picks this song up and scatters it into unexpected and thrilling territory. Things climb down from these lofty heights into progressively more pensive areas from here on in with the delicately melodic Pirate Sea and the haunting simplicity of Words. You Holler, You Scream and Better Now evolve Sarah's voice into more and more unhinged madness with the gritty guitar constantly threatening to drown her.

The remix that concludes this EP slightly lets the side down with its slick production making clean work of this rough diamond approach. This is incredibly simple music that really shouldn't be so pleasing, but it's the passion of the two siblings that drives this record and make it so listenable.

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6th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Tokyo Police Club

Elephant Shell

Saddle Creek

In 2006 I wrote the following about this Toronto bands debut EP:

"A Lesson In Crime has glimmers of hope and offers more than enough clues that this is a band that, given the space of a full length album, could produce something great."

Well here we are, a year and a half later and Tokyo Police Club's debut album is upon us, but unfortunately it too shows glimmers of hope that this band have something great in them. The space that I had hoped for in a full-length seems to have diluted the edge they possessed in 2006 making Elephant Shell - by no means a bad record but not the tour-de-force their EP had hinted at.

Musically it's pretty similar to the EP with driving guitars and a rapid-fire drum pace propelling the songs forward but Dave Monk's vocals seem to have been sand-blasted down to a smooth mediocrity that is really the source of this albums diluted sound. I know it sounds perverse to site this as the fault when in my earlier review I highlighted the songs that strayed away from the "Strokes-like" rasp of Monk's voice as being the most promising but even in these songs there was a trace of effects and gravel to make it an interesting sound. In Elephant Shell it barely changes from song to song regardless of the change up in pace, in fact it sounds the most comfortable on The Harrowing Adventures Of with its acoustic strum and low-key tempo.

It's a much bigger record though with the force of the guitars setting their sights on the soaring heights of bands like Interpol or Editors giving this sound an added weight and a maturity that definitely improves on their earlier work. The stop-start technique of this driving sonic backbone in songs like Graves and Sixties Remake forms the basis of most of the record with Monk's vocals slotting in after the guitars subside taking the pounding drum as the only accompaniment until they all join forces for the rousing chorus. It works well when some of the more successful elements of the EP are rejoined. Tessellate sees the band bring back the furious hand-claps and Your English Is Good kicks off with a shouting rabble intro and comes as close as any of the songs to the rasping grit that Monk showed earlier.

The 2006 EP had large doses of The Strokes and that has been dealt with here but in its place they seem to have adopted the generic sound of a hundred indie bands making up the numbers in todays crowded scene. This is unfortunate as put alongside some of those acts like Editors these four guys have way more to give. They aren't a one-trick, derivative waist of space like a lot of the stuff being rammed down our necks but they really need to find their voice if they want to be heard above todays indie din.

 

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17th Apr 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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