Chimpomatic

Robert Pollard

4 New Albums

It's been a while since I checked in with former GBV frontman Robert Pollard's release schedule (June 11th 2008 in fact) and a belated effort to do so now quickly unearths a whopping 4 new records. The kind of output that makes even John Frusciante look lazy. With Pollard's usual hit-rate in mind, I was expecting at least four new tracks for my ever expanding best-of-Pollard playlist.

Boston Spaceships - Brown Submarine - Sept 16th 2008 - 3 Stars
First up is the debut album from Pollard's 'new' band - the Boston Spaceships. A collaboration with former GBV band mate Chris Slusarenko (also featured in The Takeovers) and Decemberist John Moen, the band marks an effort to re-capture that 'full band' sound that has been missing from many of Pollard's post-Guided By Voices projects.

Go For The Exit starts the record with a slice of classic Pollard, as thoughtful lyrics wind over a simple guitar, before exploding into power chords - while Ready To Pop threatens to re-visit the successful magic of GBV's final album, but somehow never quite takes off. There's little in the way of experimentation here, so the simple-but-fun Rat Trap provides a welcome break from the otherwise even footing of much of the album, which is generally operating on cruise control, with only two songs even building beyond the 3 minute mark.

Circus Devils - Ataxia - November 11th 2008 - 2 Stars
The Circus Devils has been a longer-running side-project for Pollard, partnering with producer Todd Tobias and brother Tim Tobias. Ataxia marks the sixth full-length from the project and like a musical desk drawer, the record is packed full of sound bites and ideas while largely remaining a little incomplete.

Not dissimilar to one of Pollard's own art collages, the record has countless moments that catch your attention and a scattergun approach will always hit a few targets. The meandering epic Fuzz In The Street fails to gain any traction, while promising moments appear with the unfulfilled mystical intro to He Had All Day or the Procol Harum-esque spoken word of Stars, Stripes and Crack Pipes.

Just as your patience may be wearing a little thin however, another bonifide gem is polished out of the album's rough diamonds - as the gentle intro of The Girls Will Make It Happen gives way to a pounding drums and hypnotic lyrics that thunder along at a relentless and engaging pace.

Robert Pollard - The Crawling Distance - Jan 20th 2009 - 2.5 Stars
After the excellent albums Off To Business and Normal Happiness, Pollard seemed to be finding his stride in a world without GBV and the hit rate was soaring. Sadly the magic has momentarily gone again and we're back to the plodding middle-lane driving of tracks like No Island or It's Easy. Lyrically, as ever, there's plenty of interest - but without fully developed musical backing there's little to really grab your attention.

With the turbulent peaks and troughs of most Pollard records there's nearly always a killer track but, unfortunately, here the sea is calm and little breaks the surface. As a consequence, there's no real stinkers either, but I'd gladly drop a couple of tracks in return for that one diamond.

Boston Spaceships - Planets Are Blasted - Feb 17th 2009 - 2.5 Stars
A mere five months after their debut, the Boston Spaceships are back with a sophomore effort - Planets Are Blasted. Rather than build on the strengths of the original however, the record unfortunately misses the mark, lacking muscle and falling back into the one-dimensional trap that plagues much of Pollard's projects. Big O Gets An Earful tries to build up a wall of sound before fading away and Canned Food Demons makes a brave effort to bring the album up a notch, but it's too little too late. Sounding like it was recorded in parts, the record again lacks that power generated by a full live band holing up in a studio for 9 months. Or 9 days for that matter.

Circus Devils - Gringo - April 14th 2009 - 4 Stars
Before I'd even finished writing this review (quite literally) details of another Circus Devils album arrived in my inbox - their seventh album, Gringo, due out on April 14th on Happy Jack Rock Records.

It's arrival was not a moment too late. Forget the descriptions ("1970's Morricone-esque with a South Western flavour") and focus on the music, as Gringo is the easy highlight of this current run of releases. The album's more acoustic bias immediately dispels the tinny studio sound that has marred many of the releases cover here and in stark contrast to the Circus Devils' last record there's a full sound with a cohesive approach and multiple layers of interest. The epic Monkey Head takes the prize for album highlight, with a sprawling - almost prog - approach played out through booming acoustic guitars. Thumping sing-a-long Easy Baby ebbs and flows beautifully while Witness Hill wraps up an engaging record with suitable style.

Thanks Bob, I'll check back in six months.

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27th Feb 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Loney, Dear

Dear John

Regal

Having lit a fire in my heart in 2006 with his self released gem Sologne and then left me feeling slightly flat with his debut release for Sub Pop Loney, Noir, Emil Svanangen had some work to do with his latest offering Dear John. It's not that I didn't like Loney, Noir, it was just that it did the same as Sologne and at the end of my review for the Sub Pop debut I was looking for improvement. Well I am pleased to say that though Dear John follows much the same path as all the rest it is a very different affair in maturity and all-round scale.

The charm of Sologne was in its DIY simplicity. Simple, underproduced songs delivering perfect morsels of hope and warmth to a barren world. Well Svanangen's sound has grown up somewhat since we last heard him and Dear John emerges from the first moment as a mightier more determined and self aware composition. Airport Surroundings gleams with this new maturity as it breathes first life into the record. From the outset it's clear that Svanangen has no need for his DIY equipment anymore as a highly produced and simmering techno beat form the basis of this first song. It ticks along uneasily while all the time swelling to a gently crescendo. Layers of instruments join the march and Svanangen's own vocals are multi-tracked to great effect as the feeling of amassing detail pile on top of each other for the grand finale. And this is just track one.

As is often the case in life, with added maturity comes added pressure and consequently added tension. Much of this record relies on this brooding tension. Svanangen's warmth and hopeful slant are very much present but everything simmers none the less. The way he conjures up this feeling is the use of the gentle build. Many of the songs follow the same pattern of a tip-toe start followed by a huge rise in sound. It works very well throughout the first 4 tracks with this pattern being followed in varying degrees of intensity. I Was Only Going Out has the same effect but with a more subtle approach, and Harsh Words to even subtler ends. However it does start to get slightly predictable. It's not until we get to Under A Silent Sea that the pattern changes, and it needs to. The song floats on a gentle guitar pick to a point where a near euphoric House beat threatens to take off, but Svanangen resists the temptation to rocket off and instead takes it all down again and replaces it with a stark programmed beat that sees out the rest of the song. It's a masterful piece of construction and pace and actually opens up the rest of the album. It leaves room for the backbone song Summers which will remind any fan of why they fell in love with this music. It bucks the trend of the slow build and just skips along on a blissful beat for 4 perfect minutes. Like all his music this song sees Svanangen whispering sweet tales of loss and regret with great swathes of melancholia and yet your heart dances along all the time. It's the song to see us through this pesky recession. In fact if the credit crunch were a movie this song would be the closing song titles when everything turned out ok.

Svanangen had a more than sturdy foundation on which to build and with Dear John he has really used it to it's full potential. He's got numerous instruments each adding texture and richness to his sound, he's got choral accompaniment, driving production and a voice dripping with sweetness. It's the perfect blend and works a treat here. You need this record if you want to make it out the other side of this cold winter. It's a triumphant marching band of hope that knows the pitfalls ahead and feels the pain of the past but marches on nonetheless.

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26th Feb 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Titus Andronicus

The Airing Of Grievances

XL Recordings

If the year 2009 was a person and one of your mates he'd be a right bore. He'd be constantly broke, sighting the credit crunch at every given opportunity - and he'd probably spend most of his time dreaming up ways to shaft you of all your money. Now if The Airing Of Grievances - the debut album from Titus Andronicus - was also one of your mates, he'd have blugeoned 2009 by now, dumped his lifeless corpse into landfill. Not for the reason that he's a diehard optimist - far from it - in fact, he'd be a vicious little fucker, but he just wouldn't stand for any of this namby-pamby fear mongering that goes on and so far The Airing Of Grievances is the only album to kick the broke ass of 2009 firmly and squarely between its limp little cheeks.

Here are some facts, Titus Andronicus are 5 guys from a small town called Glen Rock in New Jersey, a safe suburban enclave to the west of New York City. The Airing Of Grievances is their debut album following a pair of 7" singles and an early EP, it's got 9 tracks, its 45 minutes long and it's fucking brilliant.

If only I could stop there, but in order to justify my massive wage packet I must go on. The Airing Grievances is essentially a punk record but it's way more complicated than that. It's a pit-bull that thinks it's an alsatian, a punk record that thinks it's an Explosions In The Sky record. At times It can sound like Conor Oberst fronting The Wedding Present and at others it could be No Age fronting the E Street Band. It's supremely muscular and feral and yet highly sophisticated. Singer and chief songwriter Patrick Stickles has a voice like a bandsaw cutting through sheet metal, it's almost constantly out of tune and really couldn't give a shit and it stands proud in front of a deafening wall of sound that is the rest of the band. As in all music it's the relationship between this voice and this sound that holds the key to the albums success. Stickles can morph his voice into a blunt instrument of such power and venom as if it's his only way of smashing through this wall of guitar breeze-blocks that constantly towers above him.

From the opening "Fuck You" howl of Fear And Loathing In Mahwah, NJ this record pummels relentlessly, it's massive musical structure rising slowly like a great city being raised from the oceans depths. Each song adds something different to the mix with this huge sound receding to allow room for punctuating guitar work on Fear And Loathing or the driving rhythm of My Time Outside The Womb. Joset Of Nazereth's Blues balances this might with Springsteen style harmonica while the title track foams at the mouth as Stickles spits the mantra "You're life Is over" repeatedly and eventually being joined by the rest of the band for a climactic finale. But it's the two tracks that follow that this record has been building up to. No Future, Pt 1 and No Future, Pt 2 The Days After No Future transform this record from a fiercely original punk pop album to something stella. They play out as one track and together stretch out over more than 14 minutes. It's one of the only times in the record that the tempo slows down and allows a brief breather. But as Pt 1 builds from this breather like a far off wave it drops into Pt. 2 and all hell breaks loose. Massive instrumental juggernaughts speed off at great speed and really open up the album into something magnificently ambitious.

The track lengths grow as the album progresses and so does the confidence. Stickles' vocals stand shoulder to shoulder with the awesome sound that props it up. He howls, screeches and moans over these huge riffs but always sounds raw and unhinged. The whole record sounds like a basement punk tape while effortlessly stretching out over enormous ground. It's this odd juxtaposition that defines their success. As Stickles shrieks on the title track "No more cigarettes, no more having sex, no more drinking till you fall on the floor, no more indie-rock, just a ticking clock," The Airing Of Grievances is a calamitous voice of doom and with a pounding fist draws a line under much of the music I've heard in a long time.

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25th Feb 2009 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band

Dead Oceans

As you may or may not summise from their name, Seattle quintet TMSHVB (for, errr, short) are a mischievous bunch. Naming rights were given to then 13 year-old Marshall Verdoes, as a reward for improving his drumming sufficiently to form a band with his brother/adoptive father (depending on which blurb you read) Benjamin. With obscure name in place, TMSHVB set about creating a buzz for themselves - issuing a number of Public Service Announcements before making a sound available to the wider public.

When those sounds were set free, first in the form of self-recorded and released EP Weepy and now in their debut self-titled full length LP, the mischief remained very much front and centre. Co-produced by Scott Colburn (with Arcade Fire and Animal Collective to his name) TMSHVB walk a tidy line between slick and slapdash, playful and professional. I would guess that Marshall is no longer 13 years of age, as he spares no snare, keeping hard time with the wayward structure of most of the 11 songs that make up the album he titled. Like a more mature Spinto Band (a category which technically every single band in the world falls into) TMSHVB’s tunes are driven by fun and good times - a refusal to be limited by anything as square as traditional structure.

“Who‘s asking?” opens things up nice - with a choral ‘Oooh Oooh‘ heralding in a tune evidently about a disagreement between Ben Verdoes and an old flame. All nice and jaunty then a pair of lead guitars appear from nowhere, perform a quick Brian May-esque dual, then disappear off into the night, allowing the tune to return on its original way and pace. “Masquerade” has those May guitars starting proceedings, building a tasty riff, which this time is broken down into a Waltz after a minute. That’s not to say this is Vampire Weekend type boundary busting novelty fayre, Mt St Helens are indie and no mistake. And they do it well. With obvious talent, they keep the energy high and the mood light, sample lyric from “On a hunt“ “I’m going to spear the mighty Giant Squid, I’ll Steal it’s ink, to write you letters of my adventures.” In amongst all this hyperactivity, slower tracks such as “A Year or Too” or 7 minute string-tinged closer “On the Collar” hold their own - rounding out the album nicely.

Forget the hype. Let the music speak on their behalf.

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23rd Feb 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Beirut

March Of The Zapotec & Realpeople Holland

Pompeii Records

First of all I didn't write this review for Beirut's second album The Flying Club Cup. However at the time it was written I probably would have agreed with it. I loved the first slice of Zach Condon's sound Gulag Orkestar and eagerly awaited the followup. But on its arrival I thought it was just more of the same. Well how times change, for as I write this the Flying Club Cup remains one of the most played albums in my collection and since its release in 2007 it has become one of my most treasured listening experiences. All my initial criticisms of it have fallen away, it aims at a similar point to its predecessor but via very different routs, in fact I rarely listen to Gulag Orkestar anymore and since I saw Condon's dazzling stage show at the Roundhouse I have been hovering above the Beirut camp like a bird of prey waiting for any little morsel to emanate from its walls.

So here we have the split CD March Of The Zapotec & Realpeople Holland. Some explanation is obviously needed to shed light on this more than ambiguous title. These are 2 EP's, the first is a collection of songs Condon recorded with a 19 strong Mexican band called The Jimenez Band which he found in a town called Oaxaca who's native tongue is Zapotec. The second is the total antithesis. Before launching as Beirut Condon crafted eclectic bedroom recordings through lo-fi instruments and keyboards under the name Realpeople and Holland is a collection of 5 songs that revisit this intimate process.

Judged entirely on their own merits both these EP's are as strong as anything Condon has given us before. His ability to extract regional sounds while lacing them all up with his own unique touch is seen very much on both the EP's but particularly on March. Condon is obviously conducting the band to his own rhythm and his Balkan trademark sound prevails but squeezing through the cracks is this Mexican might in all its mournful sway. In much the same way as The Flying Club Cup oozed with Parisian nostalgia March's south American grandiosity provides a melancholic warmth to the bizarre mix. Holland is a drastic change of scale and is predominantly Condon and a synthesizer. My initial criticisms of The Flying Club Cup's lack of progression would not apply to this release and Holland would be why. Condon's work has always been steeped in regional nostalgia but Holland is about technological nostalgia. His delicate programmed beats bleep with the tinny rhythm your drama teacher was so proud of in the school play or they are awash with great swathes of electronic atmosphere reminiscent of public information broadcasts in the 70's. But then on top of this you have his live musical accompaniment and the aching vocals that describe his sound. The mix is glorious and this EP contains some of the most perfect Beirut songs to date.

I speak here of the central 2 songs, Venice and The Concubine. The former is built around a wash melody straight out of the Boards Of Canada portfolio and then joined by Condon's gentle trumpet making the first half of this song a slice pure instrumental sublimity. Then as the vocals are faded in so smoothly the song grows into near perfection. The Concubine revisits Beirut's earlier sound with accordion, trumpet and gentle percussion propping up Condon's croon. It's Beirut-by-the-book but it's awesome and great to have him back. The only problem is that it's followed by a very poor piece of instrumental Euro pop that goes on way too long and closes this EP.

The problems with this whole release arise when listening to both of these as a complete entity. They don't sound like one and should really be released totally separate from one another. Thankfully they both progress Condon's sound but I must say I am slightly disappointed once again as I really really wanted a full album. But seeing as these two will be my favorite EP's in a year's time it's not much of a criticism.

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16th Feb 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Hunches

Exit Dreams

In The Red

Portland band The Hunches have been pounding the road for several years now, and Exit Dreams marks their third full-length record - out on label indie In The Red. Opener Unraveling defines the band well, combining a Punk Rock sensibility with something of an epic rock ambition, illustrating best what the US contributed to Punk Rock. The band maintain that early 80's disaffection with the mainstream and charge on with their battle-cry cranked up past 10.

Unfortunately the production falls way short of the ambition and the record sounds like it was recorded on an ansaphone. In the 80s. DIY bands like No Age have harnessed both the limitations of their available technology AND their lo-fi influences - and turned them into something extra, but here the production just makes me not want to bother listening.

From This Window plods through the fuzz, while any hint of charm is distorted away on Swim Hole. Not Invited threatens to break the curse, but just can't lift itself high enough. I don't know what the deal is with the raft of badly produced records we have seen recently. Is it a trademark sound? With technology where it is, it's hard to believe that you could accidentally make a record sound this bad.

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11th Feb 2009 - 30 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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J. Tillman

Vacilando Territory Blues

Bella Union

The smart money's currently on band leader Robin Pecknold to excel beyond the Fleet Foxes, but with a whopping six solo albums now under his belt, new arrival J Tillman could well turn out to be the Neil Young of the band - especially when one of his albums is already titled "Long My You Run, J Tillman" - presumably after the mildly lesser-known Neil Young / Stephen Stills album.

Admittedly, some of those 6 albums are low-key, digital only releases - and in fact this record was released some months back in digital formats. Presumably thanks to to the break out success of Fleet Foxes, it's now getting an old school release via the same folks over at Bella Union.

As the drummer, Josh Tillman's contibution to Fleet Foxes may not be too obvious, as it's fair to say they are very much a group performance - all contributing to the full and harmonious sound. However, with the heavy harmonies pushed out of the limelight here, there's a focus on the writing and delivery of a single man. Tillman shows his skills at the front of house, writing, producing and generally playing most of the instruments - in an album that is both melancholic and uplifting.

It's an inconsistent record, maintaining a very eclectic vibe - which is certainly part of the charm. The brass tinged stomp of New Imperial Grand Blues is raw and raucous, No Occasion is sparse and simple, while James Blues offers something a little different through it's delicate piano arrangement - but all are tied together by Tillman's strained vocals. However, without the deliberately sparse atmospherics and continuity of purpose that similar acts have employed (Bon Iver, guilty), the album is a little lost and lacks some of the pace and engagement of Fleet Foxes. While there is little to complain about, there's few big stand-outs - but approached on it's own terms there's plenty to enjoy.

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9th Feb 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Andrew Bird

Noble Beast

Bella Union

In recent years there has been an endless stream of male singer/songwriters oozing out gentle melodies plucked from delicate guitars and swirling with rich, textural strings and I'm quite honestly bored of the lot of them. Andrew Bird, however, provides exactly what i've just described but has always stood head and shoulders above the rest. His 2007 album Armchair Apocrypha won him critical acclaim across the board and topped many 'best of' lists that year. It was the album that lifted his sound way above his previous work and uncovered a wealth of ideas that had until then remained relatively unexplored. Noble Beast does however return somewhat to the earlier, less flamboyant sound of albums like Weather Systems. It's much more subdued in both tone and scale compared to Armchair Apocrypha but like all his work it is filled with warmth and a musical texture that surpasses most.

As a multi-instrumentalist, Bird meticulously constructs the densest musical backgrounds and Noble Beast excels in this area. With some of the skyward intentions toned down here compared to 2007 each song is given the time and space to explore this multi-layered and rich texture. This beauty is seen from the very first note. Opener Oh No introduces this record with Birds trademark whistles and assumes a rather jovial, jaunty tempo while dealing with the theme of pure terror. Inspired by a flight he took while sat next to a wailing child Bird says of the experience "I was struck by the mournfulness of this kid's wail. He just kept crying 'Oh no' in a way that only someone who is certain of their own demise could." And here lies the dichotomy in Birds work and one of the many answers to my earlier question of why he stands so proud of his singer/songwriter piers. Musically this album drips with cosy warmth and yet features some of his most deranged lyrical content ever. Stories of kittens with pleurisy and grown men living inside his body Bird creates here a work of infinitely evolving detail.

This record has some of the longest songs he's ever made. At over six and a half minutes Masterswarm frequently changes direction and with the luxury of time manages to drift off into blissful instrumental segments ultimately fading out to the sound of the rhythmic handclap beat as filtered through an effects program that could be from the Thom Yorke portfolio. Many of these songs feature Bird's enthusiasm for subtle experimentation such as this. Not A Robot, But A Ghost has some gloriously intricate and homemade percussion as its rhythm section that morphs with twitchy laptop beats to form a driving swarm of rhythm that propels the song along at a pace that the afore mentioned Thom Yorke would be proud to call his own.

Recorded partly in Nashville and partly at the Wilco Loft in Chicago this record couldn't fail to be a triumph, and a triumph it certainly is. It's slow burning but its depths are unfathomable at this early stage. It's a worthy follow up to 2007's impressive work and features some of this artists finest compositions. Some of them are so perfect they are in danger of being consumed by the advertising monsters but the ones that escape this pitfall will stick with you for a very long time.

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4th Feb 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Zero Boys

Vicious Circle

Secretly Canadian

While LA, NYC and DC drew the main focus of the punk and hardcore scenes of 80's America, the Zero Boys sprouted out of Indianapolis, Indiana. With Indiana-based label Secretly Canadian re-releasing debut album Vicious Circle, the opportunity has also been taken to release History Of..., which is billed as a lost second album. The disc compiles EP Livin' In The 80's with other tracks from the time - and between them the two discs cover the entire recorded output from the bands '79-'83 period, after which they disbanded.

From the opening track, the Vicious Circle album is a pogo-tastic affair, with the title track doing away with much intro before the explosive guitar and pounding bass hammer home. Livin In The 80's provides one of the band's most memorable songs, while the sentiment of tracks like Drug Free Youth and Down The Drain is pretty clear.

Lyrically it's far from challenging - and if someone is having a "needly stuck in their brain", you can be sure they're going to be "going insane" by the end of the verse. What the lyrics do successfully though, is to transplant the aggressive sound of UK punk into a US setting - capturing a time and a place perfectly. The 'big issues' of bands like the Sex Pistols (anarchy, anti-monarchy, the usual) are translated into issues with more connection to the Repoman-loving, car fixing, skateboarding, disassociated youth of suburban Indiana. Not being able to get booze, working a nine to five and looking forward to the weekend are the hot topics here and that connection to the youth of America was a recipe for success, as the skate-punk sound exploded through the US at the start of the 80's. Bands like 7 Seconds, Youth Brigade and Black Flag developed the hardcore sound that would become such a thriving industry - creating a climate where bands like Green Day could eventually bring their punk-inspired sound into the arena-filling mainstream.

There's little notable evolution by the time we move onto the long-lost History Of album, with many of the tracks still in something of a demo form. There's actually a touch of country influence here and there which softens the sound a little - adding a nice rolling vibe to the music, making it more accessible that some of the more hardcore-leanings of a lot of the early American punk bands. The dated production let's things down a little, with some of the kick seemingly missing from the sound - where these days you would expect a solid, booming bottom end. As a document of the developing hardcore scene however, there's plenty to enjoy - and you can clearly trace the roots of many of the influential bands that evolved from this pioneering sound.

 

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2nd Feb 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Phosphorescent

To Willie

Dead Oceans

In 1975 Willie Nelson released To Lefty, From Willie, 10 songs in which Nelson pays tribute to Lefty Frizell, picking 10 of his favorite songs and reinterpreting them in his own unique way. Well now, with To Willie, Matthew Houck aka Phosphorescent returns the favour, with 11 Willie Nelson songs that have been transformed like only Houck can.

Following on from 2007's breakthrough and utterly beguiling Pride, Houck follows a relatively straightforward path with these songs. Pride was unrelenting in both mood and length with many songs passing the six minute mark. It was definitely an album dedicated to mood and would expand from its claustrophobic cage of fear and paranoia to absolute bliss and euphoria. To Willie is much more upbeat and follows the regular song format. That being said it's simply dripping with delicate beauty and fragile devotion.

Houck's live renditions of many of Pride's greatest songs were much more fleshed out and rounded. To Willie seems to be the result of those live experiments. They emerge with a new confidence and don't sound like cover versions in the slightest. They sound lived in and weathered and their gentle harmonies and tales of love are all delivered with Houck's gruff, creaking voice. This record flows with a warmth that rarely showed its face on Pride's hollow and ghostly recordings. Songs like Reasons To Quit and I Gotta Get Drunk are full of a soulful groove that one would not associate with this songwriter. The overall tempo of this record is an instant surprise but Houck's hungover vocals lace it with a narcotic lethargy that unites it perfectly with his previous work. Can I Sleep In Your Arms breathes the vast chords of gathered harmonies that haunted Pride and Heartaches Of A Fool transforms Nelsons original into a cavernous and heart-wrenching moment of arresting beauty.

To Willie is quite a departure for Houck, but showcases an ability to adapt another artists material to his utterly unique vision. His work groans with an effortless power and that is what makes this recording both a loving and honest tribute to a much revered legend and a confident, gripping and beautiful piece of new work by a talent to keep a firm eye on.

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30th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Women

Women

Jagjaguwar

This debut from Canada's Women is certainly a rough diamond, but a diamond none the less. Recorded in Chad Vangallen's basement using ghetto blasters and old tape decks over four months Women continue the run of infectious lo-fi music that dominated last year but lace the whole thing with the slightest hint of melody. I would describe this band as the twisted wreckage that might occur after a multi-car pile up involving Animal Collective, The Beach Boys, Liars and Times New Viking. They have the unpredictable flair of Animal Collective, the drifting harmonies of The Beach Boys but can easily turn on you like a Liars sucker-punch. The Times New Viking reference is glaringly obvious as the whole thing bristles with tape hiss and guitar wash.

But where that band take the lo-fi sound to almost impenetrable lengths Women dangle things like song structure and melody tantalizingly close to the listener that it's hard to give up on them. The opening track Cameras is just glorious with it's warm jangle easing us in but after a mere one minute the whole thing descends into Lawncare, a pulsating, hollow and thoroughly unfriendly song that puts the listener on alert from the outset. But they'll rein you back in if you ever started to wander during the hard times with 50's tinged pop of Black Rice or the breakneck jangle of Shaking Hand, a song which awkwardly shifts between tempos with some incredibly nifty guitar work. The vocals are layered and muffled and often act as yet another instrument rather than forming the backbone of the sound. The album can shift from buried yet catchy pop hooks to pastoral instrumental sound experiments like Woodbine. It can also hit you with January 8th, the most Liars influenced track here. It's a relentless barrage of off-key guitars and crashing drums. It plays in the vicinity of recognition but ultimately carves it's own route through highly avant-guard noise. And it also runs into the final track Flashlights which finishes the record off with an all out assault using every instrument going. It's pure noise and acts as a warning to anyone who was about to form an opinion about what they just heard. This is a tough record yet full of rewarding moments. It crams in so many elements and manages to cram them all in to a very unique sound.

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28th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Franz Ferdinand

Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

Domino

Franz Ferdinand first surfaced on Domino's excellent Worlds of Possibility compilation in 2003, which celebrated the indie label's 10th anniversary. Their contribution (a demo of Darts of Pleasure) made a decent enough impression while sitting amongst the likes of Pavement, Sebadoh and Bonnie Prince Billy - but few would have bet money on the band becoming one of the crown jewels in the label's roster, giving them their first number on act in 2005.

Returning here with their third album, Franz Ferdinand claim to have taken a 'new direction', but it's unlikely to take anyone long to adjust to the new sound. Stop/start power disco is the order of the day, with very, very catchy, sing-a-long lyrics - smoothly running through the band's art school, psuedo-sexy style, like a Roxy Music for the 00's.

Lead single Ulysses is straightforward enough, making good use of loud/quiet, high impact production - like a disco Gang of Four. Things pick up with Send Him Away, which sees the style of the record develop a little - as the pop chorus/verse structure gives way to a nice guitar breakdown and leads into an impressive run of tracks, encompassing the heavy electronics of Twilight Omens and the pounding drums of Bite Hard.

The lawless guitar freak-out at the end of What She Came For shows a more rocking sensibility to the band, while the Kraftwerk beeps of Live Alone make it a perfect candidate for the next single, soaked in luscious 80's-style production. Things tale off a little with the video-game friendly Lucid Dreams - which drags it's feet from the beginning, running on for nearly 8 minutes - but it's one of only a few disappointing moments on the record.

Without knowing all the financial details, it seems like a fair bet that the success of Franz Ferdinand and the Arctic Monkeys has contributed a big chunk to the success of Domino over the last few years. The label was quick to see the potential in this relatively unconventional band and polish them into a thinking man's pop act - and if this is how the label pay their bills and finance their booming investment in new music, then who's complaining?

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26th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Antony & The Johnsons

The Crying Light

Rough Trade

It's been nearly four years since the operatic tones of Antony & The Johnsons breakthrough album I Am Bird Now took the music world by storm - well, the Mercury Music loving crowd at least. The Crying Light is the belated follow up, building on that success with confidence and style and again pushing forward the boundaries of popular music.

In name alone, "The Crying Light" gives a pretty clear idea of what to expect. Openers Her Eyes Are Underneath the Ground, Epilepsy Is Dancing and One Dove set the tone - with mournful, haunting vocals over piano and strings creating ethereal soundscapes reminiscent of the dreamy pop of the Cocteau Twins or This Mortal Coil. This is visual music, haunting and narrative - with suggestions of love, loss, life and death ...wait a minute, isn't that what everyone's talking about at the moment?

It's not all doom and gloom, and as early as Kiss My Name there's a chink of light at the end of the tunnel, as a more upbeat piano lifts the mood - accompanied by soaring strings and shuffling drums. It's back to the blues for the guitar-led title track, before lead single Another World brings the mood down again - as well as making for one of the more disappointing tracks here, plodding slowly along and highlighting the essentially straightforward method behind the magic of this album.

Thematically the songs are very consistent, giving a soundtrack feeling to the record - which seems built around centerpiece Daylight and The Sun, which by the time it arrives sound like a reprise itself, swelling beautifully and floating over piano and strings. Touching and melancholic, this record continues along the strikingly original path forged by the debut and should certainly cement the reputation of Anthony Hegarty as a creative force.

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21st Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Animal Collective

Merriweather Post Pavilion

Domino

So here it is, Animal Collective's much anticipated ninth studio album: Merriweather Post Pavilion (apparently named after their favourite venue) arrives with similar claims that greeted their previous few releases; namely that these would be proper songs, rather than the sprawling sketches that characterised their earlier work. The fact that none of the songs clock in at over six minutes, does seems to suggest a new more disciplined agenda.

Opener In the Flowers doesn't quite fit this claim; with its plodding build, it feels rather like a prelude and is slightly underwhelming. However, moving into the blissful My Girls, it all begins to make perfect sense, with Panda Bear's melodic stamp all over it and is utterly delightful. Then the stomping, playful My GIrls take things in a positively sing-a-long direction by Animal Collective's standards.

From there on in, it is apparent that the sound on Merriweather Post Pavilion has evolved markedly since Strawberry Jam, and on the whole it's a lot more accessible record. This time around their reliance on samples and loops seems to have focused them, such on the stripped back Daily Routine (Guitarist Deakin is absent from this record). Yet Animal Collective's real skill is their ability to extract melody from the strangest of places and as the album goes on it slowly seeps deep inside your head.

So whilst Animal Collective remain an acquired taste and are not ever likely ever to make something that isn't hard to categorise, Merriweather Post Pavilion is as an original, joyous and warm album that you're likely to find this year.

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14th Jan 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Omar Rodriguez Lopez

Old Money

Stonesthrow

Omar Rodriguez Lopez is the guitarist with The Mars Volta and this, his first proper solo album, is a collection of instrumentals and sound collages which serves as a strong statement of where he's at musically. Initially, this album comes across as the Volta without vocals, but repeated listenings reveal a wider scope of influences and textures. Genreally speaking only a couple of tracks resemble the Volta in terms of arrangement - notably the opener The Power Of Myth and the title track itself - elsewhere ORL's earlier excursions into the world of dub and found-sound are very a big influence, with mighty Studio 1 rhythms bouncing off latino melodies and third-world samples. The other big influence which flavours this record is mid-70's Jazz fusion, and by that I mean the good stuff - the use of Bass Clarinet cannot help but invoke the sound of Bitches Brew or Herbie Hancock's Sextant, and Omar's guitar playing coupled with some furious drumming are as close to a modern Mahavishnu Orchestra as we're likely to find.

What makes this good is Omar's approach to playing guitar - he is, without question, the finest rock guitarist to have emerged in two decades and this is a statement I'll attempt to qualify right now: consider the dilemma of the talented musician. If you have the dexterity and the ear for complicated playing, there is often the need to show-off, to learns tricks and to become nothing more than a performing stunt-show of arpeggios and flashy techniques, so many great players end up making music which only serves to highlight their technique. ORL is a very gifted guitarist but he understands something at a much deeper level than the sweep-pickers of fusion or math-rock - his solos charge head-on into unknown places, like someone riding the scree - a controlled crash at high speed. Really, the closest comparison to ORL's solo playing is Frank Zappa - he's really got that wah-wah thing down. On top of this, Omar clearly loves sound manipulation so his guitar sounds are often heavily effected, overdriven and swirling, but with a highly contemporary edge.

So, if you want to hear an album with a lot of high-quality guitar experimentation against a backdrop of electric Miles, King Tubby and Medal-era Floyd, then this is your new year purchase. If that sounds like your idea of hell then steer clear. Personally, I would love to hear the results if Omar teamed up with Bill Laswell - I think that would be a musical marriage made in psychedlic heaven.

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#HarrisPilton

5th Jan 2009 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Best Of 2008

Marmot

Music

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago: best album of the year by far in my book. Every song is great.

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend: great songs and manages to sound like Paul Simon in a good way.

El Guincho - Alegranza!: this year's Panda Bear, nearly.

TV On The Radio - Dear Science: their sound came together spectacularly well and they managed to take their song writing up a notch.

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Is It The Sea?: does a live album count? Slipped out almost unnoticed but is unbelievably good. Bought new vigor back to past songs.

Honorable mentions:

Pete Molinari - A Virtual Landslide : Chet Baker sings the Medway Blues.

Flight Of The Conchords : Very funny and surprisingly listenable.

Film

There Will Be Blood: for the first hour the best film I ever saw. Not so sure about the ending though.

No Country For Old Men: for the haircut.

The Orphanage: old school scary.

The Dark Knight: a bit long and self important but still one of this year's best.

Gigs

Smog @ St. James Church: even though they didn't play 'Dress Sexy At My Funeral'.

Jamie Liddell @ Koko: really.

Jim James @ St. James Church: hauntingly good.

Bog Log III @ 100 Club: his rendition of 'Clap Your Tits' was quite beautiful

TV

A year without television for me.

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17th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Best Of 2008

Harris Pilton

Best Live Band - Zu

Sneaking in at the last minute (saw them twice in December) come Zu, an instrumental group consisting of Drums, Bass, and Baritone Sax. This, you might think, is not a recipe for success in these modern times but Zu have an unconventional approach to their sound which has to be heard to be believed. The honking Baritone is barked hard through overdrive and fuzz, the Drums played with power and true flair, while the Bass (?) seems to perform the role of just about everything else a band could need - metal guitar, brass riffs, sweeping electronics and some of the deepest low-notes known to mankind. The result is the sheer chunky heaviness of Helmet with the experimentation of Krautrock. No chance of the mix sounding empty with this trio - you just keep wondering who is doing what, and how the hell they can sound like that. Expect unusual time signatures, a party atmosphere and a monstrous sound.

Best Album - The Fall - Imperial Wax Solvent

Thirty years into the turbulent history of The Fall, Mark E Smith is reunited with producer Grant Showbiz and, it would seem, the joy of making records. Imperial Wax Solvent is arguably the best Fall record ever, capturing something that was often hinted at during the previous three decades but never so consistently nailed. Thing is, MES has a great band these days and it sounds like he really digs what they can do, and this in turn produces some great vocal performances and lyrics from the main man. The titles tell you a lot:- Wolf Kidult Man, Latch Key Kid, Senior Twilight Stock Replacer, and 50 Year Old Man. One track is called Can Can Summer, and once it hits the main riff you realise why :- this is the Fall album where MES comes closest in sound to the group he has long-admired - Can. Smith's wife Eleni Poulou makes a considerable contribution to the album with way-cool squelchy analog synths and one lead vocal on the magnificent I've Been Duped (in which you'll hear her sing something about two hairy men digging up Scotland. Brilliant). But central to the proceedings is the wry old goat himself - clearly enjoying himself, sounding happy and enthusiastic, better recorded and lyrically sharp as ever. I've played this album all year long, and can't wait to hear the next one.

Best Game - Far Cry 2 - Ubisoft Montreal

The Far Cry franchise got off to a spectacular start in 2004 with the release of the original PC only game. Stunningly realistic landscaping, open fields of play and extremely smart (cunning even) AI enemies. A great start for any game series, which had console owners chomping at the bit. Sadly, the console based adaptations of the first Far Cry did not live up to expectations, with less diversity to the scenery, dumber AI, and on-rails game play. This was a big disapointment to anyone who'd played the original PC version, leaving console owners feeling rather short-changed. Far Cry 2 can be considered the first proper follow-up to the original, and it even raises the standard by several notches. Coming up to this release, Ubisoft were pretty confident about FC2's landscaping and weather modelling but it's not until you've seen the game running that you'll truly appreciate how spectacular this game looks, and how well it plays. Set in Africa, the story-line is mature and non-patronising, playing as a first person shooter with 50 square kilometers of free-roam play area. You choose your missions and when to do them, leaving you free to just roam about fighting off attacks from just about everyone you encounter. The AI is back to being cunning, the gently unravelling story is compelling, and the action is full-on. Sadly, there is one problem with this otherwise-perfect game:- many Xbox 360 owners have had their game's save files corrupted (all of them) by some mystery bug when they get to 88 percent game completion, forcing them to start all over again. That's a serious glitch and one which Ubisoft should be trying to address without delay. Luckily, I only encountered one single corrupted save file, losing only half an hour of progress. I checked my stats when I completed the game and found that I had enjoyed almost 60 hours of gameplay without ever getting bored.

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#HarrisPilton

16th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Shearwater

The Snow Leopard EP

Matador Records

It seems that having gone their separate ways Jonathan Melburg and Okkervile River's Will Sheff have become two of the hardest working and most prolific songwriters on the Americana underground scene. This year saw the release of Rook, Shearwaters mighty and deceptively impressive follow up to Palo Santo and just as the year draws to a close they sneak in this EP, The Snow Leopard. Named after probably the most stunning track on Rook, this EP rounds up many of the non-album B sides and giveaway tracks from the year and also some quite striking recordings from various radio sessions over the summer.

The title track just swells with a power that has become, over the last 2 albums, an expected element in this bands sound. Melburgs sweet voice quivers with all the vulnerability of a flickering flame but then rises with the music to below with dazzling confidence. There's a glimmer of madness in his voice as it reaches its peak only to fall to the floor and quiver once more. Much of this EP demonstrates Melburgs ability paralise the listener with an intimacy that can both freeze you with an icy chill and breath through you with unbelievable warmth. His radio K session performance of Rook, a song that flexes the muscles of this songwriter is stripped of it's strength and whispered with lonely acoustic accompaniment to great effect. Two of the tracks are covers, So Bad, originally by Baby Dee and Henry Lee, a traditional American folk song. They sit perfectly amongst the original Shearwater material and altogether form yet another valuable entry in this bands catalogue. They are an endlessly rewarding group who are really starting to master the many facets of their sound.

 

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12th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Roots

The Forum, Kentish Town, London

The legendary Roots crew brought a healthy dose of their Philly flare to a cold and wet winter's night in North London on Friday as they jammed with unfailing enthusiasm for about 2 hours. They brought with them a full live band and though I searched high and wide, no sign of any turntables. For these hip hop heavyweights it's no longer the platters that matter as ?uestlove engineers the beats from his lofty drum-kit mounted high on a plinth at the back. With his afro rising like a sun from behind his drum prison the man never stopped as both his unrelenting rhythmical structure and his physical presence formed the backbone of this incredible sound. And the reason it was incredible is that it redefined what a hip hop gig could be for me.

The show was by no means perfect and there were often times when my attention wandered but never once did it conform to a typical hip hop gig. Entering the stage first was a musician clad in a glorious tuba (later referred to as Tuba Gooding Junior) his deep, booming sound filling the venue. This introduction was mesmerizing and I was transfixed from the start as all the musicians took up their positions, keyboards, rhythm guitar, bass guitar, saxophone, percussion and drums all were in place and in struts Black Thought, baseball cap, sunglasses and phat gold chain. Taking his cue from ?uestlove who belts out the Apache rhythm that forms Phrenology's greatest cut Thought @ Work, the show commences in style. They frantically blend into Get Busy from the new album and it's not until this mayhem draws to a close that we are given time to breath.

With this live formation the band provide themselves with a lot of freedom, they're not constrained by programmed or sampled drum beats and so they are able to go where they please. They are able to tail off from one track into an impromptu rendition of Jungle Boogie led by the saxophonist, or let a song amble into a mammoth duel between ?uestlove's drum-kit and the percussionist's bongo dexterity. The other effect the live band has is the removal of the MC as the central focal point. Black Thought is way more central and way more impressive on record than he is on stage. This isn't really a critism of him, he's electrifying when on a flow, but is more of an observation about a front man that is quite willing to fade into the background and let his band take center stage. Sometimes he'd even fade off his rap mid-verse so that only he could hear his own words, like he was unaware of an audience.

They clearly love playing and seemed to never stop, flowing from one song to the next. The torrent of words flooding out over such a complex mixture of sounds does ask a lot of the audience and there definitely was a lull during the middle period, as this energy is hard to maintain. Black Thought's words were often enveloped by the music making it hard to hear him and with each song undergoing major changes it was hard to recognise some of them and many favorites passed me by unnoticed. Strangely enough, it was the musical interludes like the drum battle and the awesome bass guitar solo that thrilled me the most. They displayed the band's potential to turn on a knife edge and change up the genres altogether. And that was the principle success of the night. Black Thought's gold chain was the only conventional hip hop representative present that night. I didn't feel like I was at a hip hop gig and I was glad of it. People were moving to the back where there was more space to dance. As the whole show culminated in a rapturous and frenzied rendition of one of their biggest singles The Seed and every hand was thrust into the air I felt like I was in the presence of a truly legendary crew who were really writing their own rules and breaking them as well. The skill and creativity on that stage was palpable and a wonder to behold.

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10th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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ATP Weekender Curated by Mike Patton / Melvins: The Nightmare Before Christmas

Butlins, Minehead

When ATP announced this event six months ago, I could hardly believe my luck. I make no secret of my devotion to the Melvins and all things Ipecac (Patton's label), so this weekend festival (3 hours drive away) was like a gift from the almighty. As acts got added to the lineup the ticket value seemed to increase - especially when Butthole Surfers were added to the bill - so this was an event for which my expectations were pretty high. And whaddya know? They delivered 100 percent satisfaction, a weekend of eclectic and exciting music surrounded by like-minded people. And so, amidst the spartan tat of this windswept and freezing off-season holiday stalag, people gathered from all over the world to celebrate the left-of-centre and the truly gifted, on two main sound stages and one quadrophonic rig in a smaller venue.

(The) Melvins opened up on Friday as 'Melvins 83' - bringing original drummer Mike Dillard back to revisit their punky roots. Regular Melvins drummer Dale Crover played bass for this short set and was introduced as Matt Lukin. They were great - Mike Dillard sounded really tight - a performance that he can be justly proud of.

With so much going on, there were often choices to be made between two stages - throwing up some unexpected delights and a few minor disappointments. And so, in no particular order, a few words about some of the performances that I did see.

Best thing I've seen all year award goes to Zu - Italian noise-funk trio with the HEAVIEST sound I have EVER heard. Absolutely astounding virtuoso playing with not a hint of chin-stroking introspection. Big, noisy, intelligent party music - I cannot recommend this band highly enough. Want to see the most highly drilled weirdos in the world? Then check out The Locust - falling under the vague umbrella of Math-rock, these costumed and masked humanoids deliver precision salvos of Rhythm'n'Noise. What the drummer was doing looked inhuman. Brilliant. There were some understated and beautiful performances too - notably Martina Topley Bird who has the voice of an angel and Joe Lally (Fugazi) who has the dignity of a war veteran. At the other end of the scale (ie, dignity and restraint missing) was Squarepusher. Whilst his playing and programming are faultless, the smothering fog of his gigantic ego suffocated the fun out of the room. Thanks Tom, but we can make our own minds up about when to cheer. Audience response happens naturally when the music connects with people, and the winners in this respect were Taraf De Haidouks - the most awesome gypsy band on the planet. When they played, the room became a party, and once their time onstage was finished they just carried on outside. Makes you wonder how come our own folk music is so dull. Representing the slightly looser approach to music was the amazingly messy Butthole Surfers. Who knows how wasted Gibby Haines was, but he did punctuate one song by shouting "Three fuckin' hits of MDMA!", so that might have been a clue. Pretty damn psychedelic. Another treat was country-pickin' Junior Brown - possibly the greatest stunt-guitarist you will ever hear in your life, and with a rich barritone voice like a fine matured bourbon. There was a special performance of Stockhausen's Kontakte in the quadrophonic room - mixed from the original masters by Stockhausen's sound projectionist and complimented by a pianist and percussionist on stage. The sound system was crystal clear and the crowd remained quiet and respectfully awed by the one of the original noise-masters. By contrast, "America's funny man" Neil Hamburger was trying to achieve the goal of goading the audience towards "a crescendo of boo's" as he put it. Provocatively tasteless and badly delivered jokes about Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger coupled with general abuse of audience members. I liked it - and there was one genuinely funny joke - (What's worse than Muslim Extremism? Chinese Democracy). Mike Patton himself resisted the temptation to make appearances with multiple bands, concentrating instead on orchestrating a fine performance of The Director's Cut with his band Fantomas. They played the whole album and it sounded wonderful, with Patton clearly in an excellent mood - so much so they even gave us an encore of Al Green's Simply Beautiful which Patton dedicated to "all the laydeez in the house", prompting many female screams, whistles and a general gusset-moistening.

Booby Prizes go to the following - Big Business (hampered by a blown-up bass amp, and a subsequently muddy mix), Leila (technical problems not exactly enhancing something that seemed boring in the first place), Porn (onstage intrusion by mystery drunk guitarist [turns out it was the bloke out of Mastodon] leading to aimless collapse of order), James Blood Ulmer (great voice, but guitar playing somewhere beyond loose), and White Noise (the ledgendary David Vorhaus served up softcore euro-trance which bore no reference to his early experimental works). Didn't get to see Mastodon, Isis, The Damned, Farmer's Market or Kool Keith, so sorry about that. There was only so much a person could take in, but having said that, this was still the best music festival I have ever been to. Support ATP! They rule.

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#HarrisPilton

9th Dec 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Pavement

Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedance Edition

Domino

The Pavement re-release juggernaut continues at full-steam (wait, didn't the last review start like that?), with album number four now getting the super-deluxe treatment. Perhaps more than the previous efforts, Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition is truly jam-packed with goodies, stretching it out to an epic 155 minutes.

In the overall canon of Pavement's work, support for Brighten the Corners may be a little divided. The album sold considerably more that it's predecessors - and features a couple of bonifide hit singles in Stereo and Shady Lane - but much of the scattergun rambling charm of the earlier albums had perhaps been polished away. In retrospect, the album shows a logical progression in the band's sound, and pre-dates the evolution of Malkmus's excellent solo albums - and can hardly be labelled as 'conventional'.

Sure, the chorus of Stereo is catchy and conventional, but it's surrounded by unhinged guitar work and primal vocals - not to mention the spoken word interruptions ("I know him, and he does" retorts Bob Nastovich in his best Wayne's World voice, "And you're my fact checking cuz".). Shady Lane crams a 20 minute epic into less than 4, while the show-stopping Embassy Row commits an orchestrated guitar riot to tape.

Conventional, perhaps not - but if you take Spiral Stairs' slightly out of place efforts out of the mix (Date W/ IKEA, Passat Dream), the original album is at least pretty cohesive for a Pavement album. Bring the collected b-sides into play however and it's a different story, transforming this into a sprawling, but thoroughly engaging trip.

Outtake/B-side The Hexx has already been featured on Domino's Worlds of Possibility compilation (albeit in a more concise form than the versions here), while Beautiful As A Butterfly and Cataracts lead into the raft of additional tracks that formed the b-sides of the singles from this period. The highlight of the rarities section of this release has to be the Radio 1 Evening Session, which provides studio quality recordings of the band running through The Hexx, Harness Your Hopes and Winner Of The, with the undisputed highlight being the band's cover of The Killing Moon - a track that provides perfect ammo for a stretched-out work-out.

Admittedly things taper away with some of the other live tracks from the era, but as the zany double barreled finale of Space Ghost Themes I & II come around (from the Space Ghost Coast To Coast TV show), the notion that Pavement had entered a more 'straight-forward' mainstream period is a distant theory.

While the Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee re-releases arguably watered down their excellent starting points, Brighten The Corners here seems even better that the original - perhaps due to me approaching an album I perhaps was overly dismissive of from a fresh perspective. Either way, as these re-releases have shown, this was an incredibly productive band - kicking out 2 1/2 hours worth of decent material per album cycle, while the young pups these days struggle to produce a 12 track album and a couple of b-sides.

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2nd Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Neil Young

Sugar Mountain Live At Canterbury House 1968

Warner Bros

Great entry in the ongoing Neil Young archive marathon. This set's taken from a solo gig he played soon after walking out on Buffalo Springfield in 1968 to see if, you know, he'd be able to hack it as a solo artist or not...

Full of lots of bits of chat - talking about growing his hair; what he gets from writing songs ("you know, besides residuals"); introducing "new ones" and Springfield hits like Mr Soul (which apparently "took only five minutes to write - and it takes only five minutes to sing. If you can think of any words I should change after I finish, be sure and let me know!"); playing tantalising little excerpts of others like Winterlong without actually going into it (maybe he hadn't written the words yet); talking about his time working in a Toronto book store (he got fired for "irregularity" - some "really great diet pills" were involved...); and generally perfecting that fragile acoustic sound that we know and love... 

Won't necessarily win over any new fans, but if you're on board the Young train (or electric car) you'll enjoy it. Completists should note that it won't be included in 2009's bumper Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (1963 – 1972) 10-disc Blu-ray and DVD package.

Tracklist:

Emcee Introduction 
On The Way Home
Songwriting Rap
Mr Soul
Recording Rap
Expecting To Fly
Last Trip To Tulsa
Bookstore Rap
Loner
I Used To Rap
Birds
Winterlong/Out Of My Mind
Out Of My Mind
If I Could Have Her Tonight
Classical Gas Rap
Sugar Mountain
Sugar Mountain
I've Been Waiting For You
Songs Rap
Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
Tuning Rap/The Old Laughing Lady
Old Laughing Lady
Broken Arrow

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28th Nov 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Guns 'N Roses

Chinese Democracy

Polydor

So it's finally a reality, the album no one, least of all Dr. Pepper (that's not what a company needs in a credit crunch), thought would ever materialise. But it has and as expected it has brought with it the tidal wave of opinions that accompany every move Axl Rose makes. Listening to, and to a much greater extent, forming an opinion about Chinese Democracy is damn near impossible while employing your regular critical faculties. It's hard to compare it to previous Guns N' Roses material, seeing as their last studio album was 17 years ago and Axl is the only original member left. And Axl's dominating presence on the record is the only thing linking it to the previous work, as musically it is a different band all together and fiercely contemporary. It would be a different story if Axl had disappeared for 14 years and now reemerged with a comeback album in order to pay some bills, but as we all know that is not the case here. By all accounts he hasn't done anything else but make this record for 14 years, so to review it is like reviewing history and seeing as I am a long way from where I was 14 years ago it's hard to know if I'm disappointed in Chinese Democracy or if I lost interest in its concept a long time ago.

With this record Axl Rose reveals himself as the Colonel Kurtz of the rock world, or actually of the whole world. Lost long ago, way up the river of obsession and self-delusion, he works beyond the boundaries of reason endlessly creating things that mirror himself. In this likeness comes Chinese Democracy, drifting out of the mist from a place no man has gone, a bloated monstrosity so impressive in size and construction and displaying elements of genius but often swaying with uneasy insecurities. And like Joseph Conrad's character you stare back at him with awe, dazzled by the ambition but all the time filled with terror at the mind that could conceive of such a creation.

Excess has always followed Axl Rose both in his music and his lifestyle. Use Your Illusion was flawed, but few have managed to pull off the double album like he did back in 1991. It too was an over-ambitious project that was filled with fat, over-stuffed, gluttonous songs that aimed for the stars with every note. They often failed but it was hard to fault a band that had produced such perfect punk-rock ferocity in Appetite For Destruction only to set a rocket under all that and change forever what any fan had thought or appreciated about them before. All the signs were there that this was going to be a vastly out of proportion project. Axl has always tended towards the epic and with songs like November Rain and Estranged we saw his gigantic vision expressed, but then with songs like Coma we saw how it could all get out of hand. It's no surprise then that left to his own devices and devoid of the more direct guidance of Izzy Stradlin and Duff McKagan that Axl would be free to express his tendency to swell each song out of all proportion and cram as many elements into every second of his sound. This is the main critisism here but then it was always going to be.

Underneath the colossal weight of production you can hear some great songwriting. The title track opens the album with some force and with his Mr. Brownstone growl, Axl reinstates himself in our lives and it's good to have him back. As expected, Better is the high point of the album. It's a real powerhouse of a song and shows us how far this songwriter has brought his sound and yet at the same time shows glimpses of the feral energy that got us all hooked in the first place. It also shows how different the guitar playing is now compared to the melodic skyward playing of Slash. It's much harder on this record and the way the guitars chug with the force of a freight train on Better affirms that this is a totally different band than before. Shackler's Revenge sees the same guitar train chug but then unravels into an epileptic guitar solo the like of which this band have never provided in the past. Then there's the impressive Catcher In The Rye or the bewildering Street Of Dreams...enough...this has to stop. Having scratched the surface of what makes this record work I see before me, in my mental landscape, a vast chasm of points I feel the need to express, this must be what Axl lives with on a daily basis, and much like this records history any reviewer faces the same temptation to keep writing and writing. So with that in mind I move swiftly and brutally on to the concluding paragraph.

Ultimately, Chinese Democracy poses more questions on its arrival than it did as a myth. All the way through I find myself scratching my head in puzzlement at some of the bizarre twists and turns that Axl takes his band through. But I don't know if this confusion is down to the fact that I too am 14 years older. My formative years were spent with this band blasting in my ears and I can't say that I was chomping at the bit to get another taste. Few things on this earth are worth waiting such a long time for, except maybe actual Chinese Democracy, so now that it is here I can't say I am disappointed, all I can say is that I don't think I really like it but I do think that it's pretty good. The bright light that is Axl Rose has in no way dimmed as a result of this release, it hasn't tarnished the moments of perfection that soundtracked my younger days and all-in-all it's a very impressive event.

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24th Nov 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Friendly Fires

Friendly Fires

XL Recordings

This infectious debut from the St Albans trio was overlooked at first by my discerning ears, but has slowly seeped into my consciousness and is now a regular feature in my life. I think the initial reason for its rejection was its obvious references and slightly annoying upbeat jaunt. Taking their influences from mainstream dance sounds, 80's new wave, German techno and the classic pop hooks of Prince they make a sound that fuses expansive shoegaze indie sensibilities with driving beats and the result is surprisingly interesting.

Lyrically they are hardly taking by the throat the more weighty topics that challenge us today - themes of jumping in a pool and dreaming about moving to Paris are among some of the issues addressed here - but this hardly matters. Front man Ed Macfarlane's vocals soar like blazing rockets over the lush, synth-washed sonic background. On stage he shakes and gyrates spasmodically with top button firmly fastened on his crisp shirt like a modern day Ian Curtis, but he controls much of the synth sounds and forms the epicenter of this formation. They seem to do what Bloc Party used to do but without the contrived self-awareness. With tales of losing yourself on the dancefloor, many of the songs cleverly reference some classic pillars of house music. On Board is the most blatant as it begins with what could be a TV On The Radio sound but feeds in the baseline from The Source feat Candi Staton's You've Got The Love, while later on Skeleton Boy has the subverted feel of 90's dance hit You're Not Alone.

The longevity of an album such as this remains in question. Music that makes you feel this good must be full of evil trickery that will eventually reveal itself and leave the spell broken - but for now, I'm lovin' it.

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19th Nov 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Wilderness

(k)no(w)here

Jagjaguwar

It was just before the music stopped on my first listen through ‘(k)no(w)here’ that I thought the first track was going on a bit. Then I read the blurb.

“Conceived as one musical piece... The eight identifiable parts of ‘(k)no(w)here’ are not readily separated from each other, such is the flow from and into each part.”

Ah ha! Clever. Very good. Well done. Carry on.

So, hats off to the 4 Baltimore Art Rockers for doing that. It works really well. The ebb and flow of the album and the blending of tunes into one long track definitely helps build up the tension here. Someone wiser than me described their skill as ‘delaying gratification’ – and that sums it up nicely. Many of the songs here seem, Escher-like, to build and build. The full force is held back, before they let fly at just the right moment.

It’s a big expansive sound for a 4 piece. It’s nervous, it’s brooding and urgent. The angry asthmatic rasp of James Johnson – who is occasionally backed up by guitarist Colin McCann (aka Lord Dog Bird) – creates an engaging contrast with the music.

These dudes are quite serious about their output being artistic and honest. A fact which no doubt contributes to them being held in such high esteem from their label bosses at Jagjaguawar and beyond. Their output certainly isn’t pandering to any fad or fashion. While in places it reminds me a bit of Captain Beefheart in places, overall it feels original and beyond comparison (though do take into account my limited knowledge of art rock).

All up, I think this album is excellent. It’s a real grower. Note, though, that some of the magic is lost if you put it on shuffle.

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18th Nov 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Damien Jurado

Caught In The Trees

Secretly Canadian

Just like this review, the 9th album by Seattle native (and former Sub Pop alumni) Damien Jurado, took a long time coming. Along with best friends and bandmates Eric Fisher and Jenna Conrad, Jurado took over a year to make ‘Caught In The Trees’ and it is a record that has clearly benefited from this considered maturing process.

Each of the 13 tracks feels like they had Jurado’s love, attention and perspiration shared equally amongst them, lightly embellishing each one with extra touches to ensure ‘Caught In The Trees’ did not simply become another record by another singer/songwriter with a guitar. Sure, it’s his delicate voice and acoustic guitar that lies at the core, but it’s the subtle piano rolls, Conrad’s backing vocals, the under-produced drums and de-tuned solo parts, added to the ambiguous lyrics, that draws you into the enigmatic world of ‘Caught In The Trees’; a world that is at the same time intense and fragile – introspective in its vision and confident in its sound.

As Alan Partridge once said: ‘Lovely Stuff”.

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14th Nov 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Lord Dog Bird

The Lord Dog Bird

Jagjaguwar

The Lord Dog Bird is the solo alter ego of Colin McCann - the guitarist in the band Wilderness (review of their new album to follow) - and it was recorded at home on a 4-track by the spookily voiced Lord Colin himself. Sparse scratchy droning guitar, vocals and simple drums are the main ingredients here. This bare and basic sound adds authenticity and power to both voice and word. The atmosphere is a heavy claustrophobic mix of fear, honesty, and a tinge of optimism.

There is, though, a sense that these tunes are works in progress torn from a scrapbook. The similarity of the songs (both the sound and the composition), the presence of a couple of noodly instrumentals and the lo-fi nature of the whole piece gives it an unfinished feel. That said there are two exceptional tracks on here that elevate the whole damn thing:

“March To The Mountain” takes us on a compelling journey where the drums punch in to drive an urgent sense of being up against it. The words sound better delivered than written, but I like the way the end of the/my world is nigh gets expressed: “The sky is up above - the melting snow of love - and every rivers clogged - and you can’t find the sun.” The twin vocals on “The Gift Of Song In The Lions Den” add a haunting tone to this driven song that…Oh – bugger it – download and have a listen for yourself here.

This rather enjoyable 9 track album, released by the solidly rostered jagjaguwar label, was recorded when the main act were on an extended hiatus. Now, it might turn out that he has worked tirelessly to create this, his magnum opus, but I wonder if it might have reached a greater level of opus-ness if worked on for a bit longer.

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12th Nov 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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A Place To Bury Strangers

A Place To Bury Strangers

Rocket Girl

Often hailed as New York's loudest band, A Place To Bury Strangers unleash an impenetrable wave of noise with this solid debut. This is feedback-drenched garage rock that exudes muscle with every song. Their influences can certainly be heard through the fog with My Bloody Valentine and Jesus And Mary Chain being the most obvious but through the course of the record this sound becomes all their own.

Fusing clattering beats, driving, effect-dripping guitar and deeply buried vocals APTBS create a wall of sound that slowly advances toward you like the walls of a dank, creaking chamber. The speed with which this advance takes place varies greatly but the consistent element is its towering presence. Opener Missing You lays down a foundation of guitar that sounds like its being played through gravel but is brought to electrifying life by the lead guitar melody that soars over the top. To Fix The Gash In Your Head builds on a layer of programed beats that come at you like a machine gun. The contrast between this muscular music and the slow, muted and Joy Division-like monotone of Oliver Ackermann is the defining feature and as he calculatedly plots "i'll just wait for you to turn around, and kick your face in," the result is quite arresting. The Falling Sun ploughs a different course, that of painfully slow yet astral grandeur, but the destination is the same.

Like San Francisco's Wooden Shjips, APTBS have one setting and that is BIG but the fascinating thing about this debut is hearing them use this setting to treat various tempos and scales. On the awesome Breathe it's quite mesmerizing to hear this vast sound being employed in a steady, rhythmical way, it's like watching a giant handle a feather.

This record is like unearthing an 80's shoegaze classic that' been buried for years under a mountain of noise. It swirls with narcotic mesmerism and while the spell works its evil magic your head is slowly caved in with terrifying accuracy. Whether they come at you slow or pound your face to dust as quick as lightning the result is total annihilation. It's good stuff.

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4th Nov 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Crystal Antlers

EP

Touch And Go

Listening to California's Crystal Antlers is like struggling to wrestle miles and miles of razor-wire into a shoe box, and yet as hopeless and painful as that might sound it is an endlessly rewarding task. This 6 track EP, which is enjoying a re-release from Touch And Go Records, is as abrasive as anything you'll hear this side of a blackboard and yet it oozes soul in the most unlikely of ways. With guitars that screech like bad breaks on a juggernaught and the hoarse vocals of front man Jonny Bell, this debut release is an epic heap of gritty yet soulful punk, noodling psych rock and the odd touch of free-form jazz. It's a record that sets up contradictions throughout its duration and after just over 24 minutes leaves you pondering them as you look for the play button again.

Each song navigates its own route with little regard for formal song structure and from the first moments of opener Until The Sun Dies (Part 2) we are cast into an abrupt mess of driving bass guitar and the instant blast of vocals. This song can just as abruptly slam on the brakes and take all this down a notch to a breezy melody and yet as disorientating as this structure is the result is quite thrilling and after this first song you're ears are bruised but you can't stop. The terms soul and punk are hardly likely bedfellows but they both apply here. Amid the rasp of Bell's vocals is an aching sensitivity seen most powerfully on one of the stand out tracks A Thousand Eyes. As he belts out the chorus "Why do you have to try / to see with a thousand eyes?" you have visions of a man on his knees, clenched fists held aloft. The song veers off into spacey territory for the latter half and then returns for a bracing finale.

Parting Song For The Torn Sky is how this EP is rounded off and by the end of it you'll fully agree with its title. The magnitude of this song will tear a whole in the sky as it climbs higher and higher on ever increasing piles of drums and cymbals. Each throat tearing scream that is jettisoned from this growing construction of sound is like a missile being launched. Free guitar whirls and dives around every crash of the drums like the ghost of Hendrix and after an exhausting seven minutes the machine ever so slowly, grinds to a colossal halt and the silence is deafening.

The sense of awe one feels when noticing life surviving in the most unlikely of places or flourishes of beauty amid barren wasteland is what you'll feel after giving yourself over to this record. There'll be times when you'll think you're listening to the new Cannibal Corpse album but don't panic, push on and you will undoubtedly find a wealth of expansive beauty.

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30th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Blitzen Trapper

Furr

Sub Pop

Since Wild Mountain Nation, this Portland band's 2007 critically acclaimed album, there has been much talk about the brazen diversity of the lo-fi gems that littered that record, the way it lurched from avant-guard guitar noise to dreamy country heartbreakers. So it's surprising and refreshing to get this follow-up which seems to turn its back on much of that praise and is a crystal clear exploration of everything from 70's rock legends like The Grateful Dead and The Byrds to all the roots country melody that preceded that. They still embody the Beck sense of experiment but have made a decisive choice as to which elemnt of the previous record they wish to develope.

Furr is way more consistant than Wild Mountain Nation and though it lacks the debuts experimental flare it makes up for it in its ability to roll out songs that range from the wilderness-wandering soul of Stolen Shoes & A Rifle and the psych-rock skyrockets of Fire And Fast Bullets. The charm of Blitzen Trapper is that they are so heavily embedded in a rootsy/country sound but are, at the end of the day, an indie rock group who have grown up with the DIY mentality of bands like Pavement. Put all this together and the result is a sound that wears its influences proudly on its sleeve but at the same time manages to disguise them beautifully.

Much of Wild Mountain Nation seemed to filter Eric Earley's vocals through effects that kept it distant, yet here it is brought to the forefront and is gleamingly clear and intimate. Furr excells because the lo-fi elemnt is kept at a minimum and the intention here is to make complete songs that ooze atmosphere with their embracing of Dylan style narrative as in the story of muder and revenge in Black River Killer. Dusty landscapes roll out infront of songs like these, landscapes that hold in refuge all sorts of fugatives and runnaways. Slide guitar tumbles along, accompanied by the gentle acoustic strum, but the two can just as easily be interupted by swirling, narcottic guitar and playful yet decrepit keyboards. This musical mix and Earley's sometimes soulful and sometimes shrieking vocal delivery seem to ask more questions than they answer and yet it's in these questions that Furr's ultimate success lies. In lesser hands an album such as this would be of no use to the world but amongst its solid songs loiters an unruly side that will keep you coming back for more.

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29th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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O'Death

Broken Hymns, Limbs And Skin

City Slang

Having developed quite a reputation for their furious live performances this New York quintet have repeatedly fallen short of this unbridled excitement when it comes to their recordings. Enlisting the help of producer Alex Newport for this, their followup to 2007's Head Home, Broken Hymns, Limbs And Skin maintains their bloodthirsty edge but injects a twisted celebratory fervor that brings it in line with the stage experience but also makes it tough listening.

O'Death ooze nineteenth-century americana with all its tragedy and folk lore and with weeping fiddle, jaunty banjo and homemade drum kits they create an image of blue-grass country music being mutilated in the hungry jaws of a feral, gypsy-punk panic. The album is relentless in it's pace and fury and displays an underlying sense of longing and the inevitability of death. But there is also a feeling of jubilation that, rather than coming from a place of hope, displays an acceptance of the inevitable and a reveling in this resolution. It's an orgy of self-mutilating rapture that lurches from one change of pace to another with total abandon and those without the same resolution will find an unsettling sense of doom and viciousness.

Much of the tension can rest at the door of front man Greg Jamie - who's voice has the manic wail of a man insane. From the opening whirlwind of Low Tide to the closing gallop of Lean-To Jamie's urgent delivery sounds like a gap-toothed hillbilly yelling words of condemnation to accusers as he stands at the gallows, head in noose. On Home Jamie's vocals ease off on the grit and drip with Neil Young sweetness but as he starts to shriek "find a sacred resting place where the pecking hens wont harm the eyes," the latter half of the song descends into blood dripping fury. His growl is contorted like a Tom Waits narrative on the ramshackle On An Aching Sea while Grey Sun moans and creaks with pent up melancholy as Jamie's doom-filled words of wisdom spread darkness to all in earshot.

O'Death make no attempt to hide any influences that might have contributed to their sound, bands like Violent Femmes and the murder ballads of The Handsome Family can all be heard here, but the unrelenting sense of doom and the glee in which the band revel in it seems to swallow up any point of reference as soon as it emerges. The result is a truly unique creation albeit hard to swallow. Songs like Angeline, with its uncharacteristic sweetness and softness, are few and far between and offer much needed respite from the storm and I can't help feeling that had there been more moments like this Broken Limbs would be a more well balanced record and much easier to get on with. I'm well aware that to make art more palatable for the audience at the expense of the concept is a mortal sin but while I can certainly appreciate the quality and single-mindedness of this record I can't see it getting much air time on my stereo.

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28th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Deerhunter

Microcastle

4AD

Fans of this Atlanta four-piece are in for a real treat with the release of their first album for 4AD. Microcastle is the followup to 2006's critically acclaimed Cryptograms and departs from the highly constructed debut by doing away with much of the vast atmospherics, lifting the overall tempo of the record and injecting some exciting muscle into their sound. But this isn't the only treat in store. The release is accompanied by a bonus disc entitled Weird Era Cont. and is an album in its own right consisting of 13 new tracks.

Like The Pixies quiet/loud contrasts, Deerhunter construct their sound using a similar grasp of opposing forces. Their success lies in it's ability to build great, all-encomassing soundscapes of fog that swirl around you like soup, and then in a blink of en eye pierce this density with a clarity that dissipates all around it and appears, standing alone and shining with dazzling intensity. The other contrast widely used here is in scale. Opening track Cover Me (Slowly) launches off with crashing cymbols and soaring melody that instantly evokes visions of an ever expanding landscape growing wider and wider from a bounless basis. In a blink of an eye Agoraphobia follows this with stripped down drum beats and Bradford Cox's intimate vocals and the listener is abruptly jolted down to earth. Cryptograms employed the same use of contrasts but did it from song to song with almost every other song being an expansive and densely textured instrumental composition. Microcastle incorporates all this but does it in a way that brings a smoother flow to the album.

Bradford Cox's vocals shift greatly according to the musical arena they find themselves in. The slow pace of Activa brings with it Cox's thick, laborious delivery as if each word is wading through treacle. Whereas Nothing Ever Happened with it's deep driving guitar and relentless beat sees Cox drift with dreamy buoyancy. Like his side project Atlas Sound, Cox creates very thoughtful compositions where each word uttered is enveloped by bristling synth fuzz, gentle percussion and layer upon layer of subtle sampling and production. But he builds on this greatly with this release adding muscular guitar chords that, in the case of Nothing Ever Happened and closer Twilight At Carbon Lake, gather up all this delicate construction and cary it all away on huge waves of spund that never seem to end. They bring an epic quality to the latter half of the record and continue the trend well into the bonus disc.

Weird Era Cont. is far less considered and benefits greatly for it. The songs seem to be less precious like the hard work was done with the first disc and the pressures off here. As a result it's as good if not better than the lead record. Once you reach the end of this disc you get a dazzling idea of what it was all building up to in the form of the final track Calvary Scars II / Aux Out. It's a ten minute finale of epic proportions that ends up pounding and pounding and in the course of this it changes the face of thsi whole release and it, and the entire second disc bump the whole thing up to a fine score.

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27th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Shred Yr Face Tour - Times New Viking, No Age, Los Campesinos

Electric Ballroom, London. 20/10/08

I'm sure I speak for a large population of this city when I say I hate queuing, I hate the rain and I hate Camden. So standing in a whopping great queue on a rainy Monday night on Camden high street isn't my idea of the perfect way to start the week. There aren't many things at the end of this queue that would make these set of circumstances worthwhile but the opportunity to see this collection of bands certainly seemed worth the discomfort endured. Sadly it wasn't as easy as that. The queue was so big that Times New Viking were all but done as I entered the venue and Los Campesinos annoyed the hell out of me. Thankfully No Age made up for all of it and the star rating you see on your left is largely made up from their performance.

To be honest the LA duo of Randy Randall and Dean Spunt were who I really came to see. Their album Nouns has been the most played for me this year and to see them recreate that DIY sound on stage was well worth the misery that Camden can inflict. And the boys certainly didn't disappoint. From the first note their sound boomed out and resounded around the room with a commanding force. For such a small outfit they can certainly make a noise and the variation of sounds that power out of their two instruments and the odd sampling device defies the sight of the two kids that stand before you. Randy's guitar can assume the roaming jangle of This Should Be My Home, the carefree strum of Ripped Knees or stoop to the deep metallic grind of Boy Void and all the time he's accompanied by the force that is Dean's non-stop drum workout. There's little movement on stage but the sound is so commanding.

Much of Nouns was given a thorough pillaging with stand out moments being Eraser, Teen Creeps, Cappo and Sleeper Hold. The choice cuts from Weirdo Rippers stood shoulder to shoulder with their newer brethren with the finale being given over to a fantastic rendition of Everybody's Down. Thinking they had played their last song much of the crowd drifted towards the bar only for a red light to descend on the stage and the slight figure of Dean Spunt atop a speaker, mic in hand. Away from his drums for the first time he launched into the contorted vocal intro. After this a flashing strobe blinded the crowd and when it lifted Dean was back at the drum kit and the crashing second half ensued with chugging guitar and cymbals firing out with total abandon.

The ease and who-gives-a-shit nature with which No Age churn out their set make a formation like Los Campesinos! appear slightly too much and though they commanded the crowd from the word go they seemed very aware of themselves in comparison. A line-up like this will undoubtedly divide the audience and many seemed to have come for the fuzz and grind of the first two bands and a whole new crowd drafted in for the last act. This crowd were all set for dancing and as the signature tune of Death To Los Campesinos! started up the adoring fans got exactly what they wanted. I, however, had come for a head pummeling and got what I wanted from No Age and the tail end of Times New Viking so the multi-instrumental 7-man line up that stood on stage now did very little for me. Putting the 'camp' into Campesinos this band of merry musicians had more than enough of a following so off I retreated to the 'merch' desk to see if there was any No Age stuff I didn't already have. Sadly there wasn't so it was back into the rain for me.

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22nd Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Fucked Up

The Chemistry Of Common Life

Matador

The word "fuck" has become more acceptable throughout the "noughties", leading to bands casually incorporating this once offensive descriptive word. Not too far in the distant past I recall a dreadful funk metal band having to drop the fuck from their name to be replaced with funk; it was fortunate that their songs featured a sprinkling of slap bass. We currently have a batch of bands that incorporate fuck but this does not necessarily define the band to fit a obvious category of music, for example Fuck Buttons and Holy Fuck. Fucked Up in contrast are far more blatant with their intent: they are what it states on the tin - or in this instance on the album cover.

Having spent my teenage years influenced by then present and past performers of hardcore, both Minor Threat and Guerrilla Biscuits are two bands that I still listen to and have great affection for. It has on occasion briefly crossed my mind if any bands had emerged and managed to give this genre a kiss of life - unfortunately Fucked Up fall flat on their angry faces.

Hailing from Toronto, Fucked Up have been banging out their high brow hardcore since 2002, releasing numerous singles and producing energetic memorable live performances. Kicking off their second full length album with a pointless eighties thrash album tactic of beginning a song with a flute or a gentle tinkle of piano keys which is predictably kicked aside with the subtly of a hammer. As an indication of how unadventurous and dull The Chemistry Of Common Life is, the first few seconds are the highlight.

It is annoying to hear a supposedly aggressive band sound so boring. The guitars sound weak and lack any energy or ferocity, vocalist Pink Eyes (all the band have wacky names) is very reminiscent of Nick Sakes from the Dazzling Killmen which is a comparison to a more complex and far superior band.

Fucked Up did make me annoyed but that was due to having to listen to such offensively inoffensive music.

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22nd Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Desalvo

Mood Poisoner

Rock Action

Desalvo's lead 'singer' P6 wears a Kevlar vest on stage, the cover to their debut album pictures two nuns with ball gags in their mouths and the album is brought to a close with a song called Cock Swastika. All of the above should tell you that this isn't a band that tried out for X Factor this year. Desalvo hail from Glasgow and spew out the most abrasive, feral sound that ranges from the seminal noise of metalcore artists Converge to the brutal compositions of concept-metallers like Mastadon.

Mood Poisoner is a full throttle rape of your ears and never lets up for its short and yet ample 35 minute duration. With driving percussion and guitar chords that drill, unopposed into the sanctuary of your head, Desalvo's debut is unrelenting - and yet out of this overwhelming blast comes a feeling of boredom. Yes it's uncompromising, but its message and overall power is compromised by the lack of variety in its delivery. P6's vocals are like a band saw stuck in the 'on' position and with his high pitch scream I can't help being reminded of the Young Ones.

I know the band will probably come and kill me in my sleep for saying this but I'll take my chances.

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21st Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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The Stills

Oceans Will Rise

Arts & Crafts

Oceans Will Rise sees Montreal rockers The Stills return with a third album, and a new home - on Broken Social Scene's Toronto-based Arts & Crafts label.

Bombastic opener Don't Look Down seems like a radio-friendly introduction for what to expect from this album, as it's gently pounding drums and keyboard chug things along - with a catchy chorus and a well-oiled guitar solo. Snow In California continues the radio-freindly sounds, and I feel I've been misled.

The record label and album art might portray them as another bunch of hard rocking Canadians, but there's little here to recommend to the Black Mountain-loving, Kokanee drinking plainsman. Like Pablo Honey-era Radiohead, these guys have always sounded like they have the potential to sell out hit the big time, and that sentiment is only re-inforced here. Through tracks like the anthemic Eastern Europe or Dinosaurs the band seem to have one eye on the stadium rock prize, with a slickly produced and ambitious record. There's a place for all that of course, just not my place.

Oceans Will Rise rolls with the punches here and there and while there's certainly some beef to the sound here and there (Roobius), it's just so polished that it offers little new or engaging. While the lyrics and meaning of the album might be laced with doom and gloom - it all gets lost in the eminently catchy tracks and glossy production.

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20th Oct 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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Lords

Everyone Is People

Gringo

One listen to the Lords sophomore album and it's hard to believe that buried under the weight of scuzz soaked riffs, dirty blues arrangements and howling vocals lie three lads from Nottingham. Sounding a lot more like a bunch of unwashed Thin Lizzy fans, with Everyone Is People Lords deliver an effective if not familiar mix of the afore mentioned Thin Lizzy, the slinky grooves of ZZ Top, the trippy might of Hendrix and some early Soundgarden thrown in to really pad it out. But as helpful as reviews are that name check a multitude of sound-a-likes Lords bring enough of their own muscle to this album to make it a lot more than just a sum of its parts.

Their 2006 debut album, It Aint A Hate Thing, It's A Love Thing, was something of a side project for the 3 band members who were all in other groups but since then Lords have grown into the gravitas of their name and have come back with a sound that expands on the blues-rock success of bands like The Black Keys by dousing it with an obvious love of DC hardcore ferocity and the expanse of 70's rock. The Things We Do For Money is the flagship tune here and does everything you'd want an album like this to do. Treating the funk of The Meters to dirty, driving guitars, it holds a good amount of tension before dropping into the rhythm with amazing satisfaction.

Much of the album does follow this lead, with simmering formless arrangements introducing most songs until, with an imaginary nod of the head, all the band members fall into line and the riffage begins. But instead of being predictable this structure gives the songs the feel of a free jazz jam. It's not all high octane riff-offs either with tight-lipped shufflers like The Boat Don't Float shifting down a gear and building tension and the violins and cello's on opener Good Dog Bad Dog providing the mix with subtle texture and unexpected warmth. Everyone Is People wont change your life but it will certainly make it that much more entertaining.

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17th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Sic Alps

U.S.EZ

Siltbreeze

With the screech of feedback still ringing in our ears from the career spanning A Long Way Round To A Shortcut, comes this LA dude's first proper full length album. Since their DIY conception, Mike Donovan and Matthew Hartman have been slowly evolving their sound from the bandsaw-like noise of the early singles to the more song orientated blues-fuzz that we heard at the beginning of Long Way Round. U.S. EZ takes the whole gamete of that retrospective and with it we find a band more fully formed than ever and yet unmistakably gritty.

If you mistook that intro to mean that Sic Alps now make nice-and-easy-to-listen-to songs then keep an eye on your graphic equalizer and you'll see that it takes less than thirty seconds for opener Massive Place to hit the red line. Massive Place embodies this entire album as it is split into three definable sections, the first being Donovan's fuzz soaked vocals oozing out, thick as molasses and amid deep puddles of feedback. This tapers off unexpectedly and then resumes a moment later but now joined by what sounds like 20 drums. The third part is introduced towards the end of the song and is allowed roughly 5 seconds to get going before time is called on the whole thing. So in one song we have the near indecipherable and distant vocals together with the much matured and instantly impressive rhythm section which is all thrown left of center by the unpredictable song structure.

Even subjecting this record to this kind of scrutiny seems to miss the point. This band seem to pay little attention to things like structure or form and as a result have crafted a piece of work that flows freely though often on rocky ground. Songs like Put The Puss To Bed, with it's totally abstract nature, dovetail perfectly with a song like Bathman that, amid the wooly noise that surrounds it, sounds like a long lost Kinks demo recorded in an empty warehouse. Much is asked of the listener here, but never so much as the twinning of N##jj and its polar opposite Gelly Roll Gum Drop. N##jj takes all the noise from the early work and shits on it from a high height. It is 1:20 minutes of what sounds like a high speed pile-up involving a dozen 125cc motorbikes and 50 articulated lorries all carrying drum kits. It's a headache to say the least but what emerges is even more unexpected. Gelly Roll Gum Drop is one of the most conventional songs this band have made and plays heavily on their love of old rock n' roll and blues rhythms. Take all this and filter it through the lo-fi DIY filter and you've got a foot-tapping, scuzz dripping masterpiece.

U.S. EZ is the sound of a band emerging from its bare-bones beginnings into the big, wide world. It does this armed with all the tools that made people take notice in the first place, grit, freedom, non-conformity and energy and with all this firmly under their belt Sic Alps seem to march onwards into a new dawn and with a confidence that is a sight to behold.

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16th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Various Artists

Dreams Come True: Classic First Wave Electro

Domino

Dreams Come True: Classic First Wave Electro 1982-1987 is a compilation by writer Jon Savage, released through Domino - and right away you get the sense that this is a very personal collection for Savage. Billed as a compilation of early electro it bears only a few of the hallmarks that modern (?) electro carries. Essentially, this is the more populist sound of electro which became refined over the following years with the biggest hits yet to come, so what you have here then is early 80's electronic soul music - not particularly intending to be electro, just turning out that way. The sound of the Linn Drum is in evidence throughout, and many keyboard parts are played rather than using sequencers. There are also quite a few guitar parts floating about, even on Klein & MBO's Dirty Talk - the most truly electro item in the collection.

These tracks represent a lot of what was to come - you can be sure that Green Gartside of Scritti Politti was listening to this sound as he was writing Cupid and Psyche 85, and once the likes of Arif Mardin had embraced it for Chaka Khan's '85 comeback, this was a sound firmly in the mainstream. You can't keep a good song down tho' - and the standout track here is Larry Levan's mix of Class Action's Weekend, which would sound right at home on the next Grand Theft Auto soundtrack.

Mostly a moment in time for Jon Savage and a little inconsistent, but an interesting and enjoyable collection nonetheless.

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15th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Abe Vigoda

Skeleton

Bella Union

If Vampire Weekend sound like a bunch of private school kids who lace their tales of life on campus with the exotic sounds of their worldwide travels then Abe Vigoda are their less fortunate counterparts from the state school downtown who too embarked on journeys to far off lands but decided to quit school and stay there. While there they became ensconced in the local cultures and were in turn shielded from any notion of cool and their musical need to make loud noises was bathed in age-old, sun-baked traditions, this being the result.

Since their debut Kid City, Abe Vigoda have forged their own route to musical notoriety and in the process have stumbled haphazardly across what can only be described as 'tropical punk.' Hailing from L.A. Abe Vigoda are a four piece that vacate the emerging scene that surrounds the Smell club and along with contemporaries like Mika Miko and No Age are causing quite a stir with their complete musical abandon that comes at you like a black hole that, having sucked in so many musical genres is now spewing them all out the back end in a form so unrecognisable it's thrilling.

Kid City was this band's warning shot, emerging from their camp with abrasion and venom, and having got everyone's attention has paved the way for Skeleton. Skeleton is certainly less abrasive and as a result gives room to the myriad of elements that make up their sound. Having said that it still packs a punch and though the teeth have been filed down slightly it still aims to dominate completely. From the opening moments of Dead City/Waste Wilderness there is little let up as each song is jettisoned with reckless ease. Guitarists Michael Vidal and Juan Velazquez fire off punk ditties that manage to embody their surroundings of either the steel drum of the Caribbean or the gentle melodies of South America. The mix of the hard punk sound with the warmth of these two distant elements is instantly jarring but electrifying none the less. Neither sits well together and with the under production of Vidal's muffled and inaudible vocals this should, in a sane world, be pure noise. But thank God this world is anything but sane.

Skeleton is an album very much unaware of its surroundings in musical terms but all too aware in creative and geographical terms. Unlike with their debut, Abe Vigoda have paced this album perfectly and allowed just enough space to infiltrate their 'blanket' pace to keep the listener interested. Kid City came at us like a record with so much to say and not enough time but Skeleton has more maturity but still manages to retain the sketch-book like spontaneity of their original sound. In a year where Vampire Weekend's debut and No Age's Nouns have unexpectedly delighted my hungry ears it seems all too perfect that Skeleton should fall between the two. The record rolls along like a ball of knotted shoe laces which makes it very difficult to pull out and separate individual elements - but if you stop trying and just appreciate the knot as a whole you'll see it's a pretty amazing thing.

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14th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Deerhoof

Offend Maggie

Kill Rock Stars

The first thing you notice about the new Deerhoof record is the muscle in the guitars. The Tears And Music Of Love is an impressive way to open an album and after the first few bars of the duel guitar intro the new Deerhoof manifesto is firmly introduced. With the addition of a second guitar to the front line and an easing off in electronic production, the emphasis is on the live sound. To enhance this they have really stripped down the compositions allowing the twin guitars to stomp around in acres of space.

2007's fantastic Friend Opportunity signaled a veering towards accessibility for these art-rockers and its follow-up continues this trend. Offend Maggie successfully condenses the raw flair of this band and their frivolous tendency towards the unpredictable into near-perfect 3 minute pop songs but without compromising any of their avant-garde values. This is a trick bands have been looking to master forever and Deerhoof seem to do it effortlessly. Satomi Matsuzaki's sugar-sweet vocals are what has always kept this band well left of center and she doesn't disappoint here. She tends to sing in unison with the guitar melodies in a Malkmus kind of directional honesty, and it can really grate on songs like Basketball Get Your Groove Back, but her ability to quarry the purest of melodies out of such harsh musical surroundings is what makes their sound so addictive. She can deliver such cuddly and naive phrasing over jaunty percussion like on Fresh Born or make her distinctive voice float away on the intimate My Purple Past.

Deerhoof have always been masters of conjuring form out of formlessness and Matsuzaki's drifting style leads the way on songs like Eaguru Guru. Instead of the harsh changes of direction that have sometimes lurked around the corner on many of their past songs, the tendency here is to meander almost aimlessly into change with such ease and abandon that you really have to keep up or you'll find yourself in foreign territory quite often. Eaguru Guru strays way off the original course as the vocals drift by like tumbleweed, but those strays thinking that they're on to the next track are violently kept up to date as the whole thing is brought full circle with squealing guitars and calamitous, crashing drums. The effect is that the listener is repeatedly kicking themselves for thinking the band have lost their way.

This band never lose their way and yet again they have created a record that is built on chaos; for those willing to trust them the rewards are great. And though the pop structures that dominate this record make it much easier for the listener to trust than ever before, nothing has been lost. In fact, as a delivery device Offend Maggie is much more streamlined and is able to convey their love of the contrast, from form to formlessness, sweet to sour or soft to hard-as-hell, better than ever before.

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13th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Melvins / Big Business / Porn

Concorde 2, Brighton, October 6th 2008

The Melvins return to our shores after an 18 month absence to promote their latest album Nude With Boots, and this time they've opted to play only a few regional dates around the UK after a tour of mainland Europe. So it's off to Brighton for an evening at the Seaside in the company of the Melvins and their modular support act system. First up are (Men Of) Porn - Tim Moss's experimental trio with Melvins drummer Dale Crover, and usually a member of the road crew on bass - Moss is the Melvins tour manager so this is really a family affair. What Moss does is to set up walls of guitar distortion which he modulates with all manner of electronics, and tonight things were much more drone than riff. The sound in Concorde 2 was, by the way, crisp and very loud.

Next up are Bass/Drums duo Big Business, who count as 50% of the Melvins. They deliver a short and powerful set including hands up, Shields, Grounds For Divorce, Easter Romantic and several new tracks. Crover comes back on to play guitar midway through the set and the crowd really start to heat up.

After a five minute break, the Melvins start up with the title track from their latest album - Nude With Boots. Twin drummers Dale Crover and Coady Willis are locked together really tight tonight, and King Buzzo looks almost cheerful. They play a great set with lots of tracks from their two most recent albums (the ones which feature Big Business), and a few Melvins classics including Eyes Flies, Honeybucket, Tipping The Lion and a spectacular version of Boris to close the set. Most of the punters are half the band's age, and show their appreciation by moshing ceaselessly. A top night out at the seaside.

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9th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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