Chimpomatic

White Denim

Fits

Full Time Hobby

In my review of the dazzling debut album from White Denim, I referred to the free-weeling nature of their style to the possibility that their cup runnith over, that Workout Holiday was the result of someone calling time on this non-stop outpouring of grimy creative muscle flexing. Well almost a year on from this release and we get the followup, thus proving my point. Workout Holiday was a collection of new work and previous EP's so Fits has different role to play - but when you're so blind-sided by an album as I was with their debut, it sure is interesting to see the follow-up and put the catalogue into a context.

Their debut set them up as slightly unhinged punk upstarts and the clever thing about this record is that it not only hammers that point home quite profoundly, but also destroys it as a stereotype by placing them in some other less predictable arenas - that of lounge jazz, prog, psyche rock and even a bit of tropicalia. They've imposed quite a rigid structure on the record by separating these various approaches. The band describe the approach as "less medium to medium-hard songs and more songs that are medium-soft and hard-hard." Hard-hard leads the record with medium-soft occupying the second half. Very little ground is re-trodden here and from the outset it's quite clear that the manic schizophrenia they displayed earlier was nothing compared to what they are capable of. Radio Milk How Can You Stand It opens a four song run of some of the most sprawling free-form garage rock you'll have heard in a while. Drummer Josh Block and bassist Steve Teribecki lead this charge with non-stop rolling thunder. When I saw them in east London last month they treated us to a full throttle rock marathon that refused to acknowledge track-breaks. This is obviously how they roll these days and as All Consolation and Say What You Want repeatedly change up in arrangement and go careering off in unpredictable directions they might as well have done without track breaks here.

As far as the soft half of Fits is concerned Mirrored And Reverse is by far the highlight. It was given out as a free download in anticipation of the record and at the time it seemed quite a curious departure for this band but in the context of the record it not only make perfect sense but shines out as the best song here. It scuffles along on a downbeat rhythm with Petralli's vocals assuming an uncharacteristically subtle tone. As the rhythm swells the guitar drifts in with a guttural sort of blues that carries away the rest of the song. It's a worthy figurehead of this new sound and shows a more considered approach to their music. Along with the country pop of Paint Yourself and the lounge lazy haze of I'd Have It Just The Way We Were this second half treats us to some fine pop hooks like the ever-so-light and playful Regina Holding Hands.

Lead single I Start To Run and Everybody Somebody reign-in their tendency to erratic compositions and become near perfect garage rock. They drop in periodically to remind us that when they want to this trio can pull out a piece of toe-tapping grufty perfection, but they'd prefer to leave all that to other bands and strive forward into unknown territory. Fits may not be as instantly appealing or as jaw-droppingly exciting as Workout Holiday, but it's this refusal to stay still that makes it such a ballsy success. They started off as a bunch of punks who didn't know the rules and now they seem to have their eyes on the Hendrix crown, and it's only been a year. Their live show was an awesome display of energy and with Fits they've won themselves the freedom that some bands spend their entire career chasing. As I said after reviewing Workout Holiday, I can't wait for the next shot of this lot.

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23rd Jun 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Wavves

Wavvves

Bella Union

Wavves is the solo project of San Diego's Nathan Daniel WIlliams and that's the simple part. This is his second full length release, the first came out earlier this year and was self titled and featured the song Wavves, which was one of the best songs on the album. Both records have as their cover image, a faded photograph of a kid on a skateboard in his backyard and both will fix your head in a homemade vice but you'll love every minute of it.

Much like its front cover which features a kid attempting a drop-in off a wheelbarrow in the 70's, the debut record was pumped full of hazy nostalgia, disaffected youth rebellion, boyish reverie and was all churned out with the same DIY scuzz that you'd expect from a wheelbarrow drop-in. This follow-up features a more zoomed in shot of the same kid but this time he's found an actual ramp and it's possible to see a link between these two visual differences. They both thrash uncontrollably between slacker-punk and twisted surf-rock, they're both shrouded in red-line production and they're both pretty damn gnarly but this followup is more focused, more fluid and much like the difference between a wheelbarrow and a ramp when it comes to skateboarding this one is way more fun.

He's got himself a drummer on this new record and it makes a big difference. Together they scoop up the sticky floor-muck that is left behind after your average punk gig and recycle it back into music. Incorporating elements of Sonic Youth, Nirvana, the Beach Boys and contemporaries like No Age and Sic Alps, Williams masterfully evokes every musical and social teenage experience I can remember and filters it all through claustrophobic production. The two most obvious central anthems are So Bored and No Hope Kids. Both illustrate Williams' knack for crafting perfect pop hooks and melodies and then burying it all under a ton of feedback and general punk noise. They clatter around as if directionless but even in their most abrasive spells the pop element is always adhered to. I use that word 'Pop' with some pretty heavy inverted commas around it, but in this context it represents direction, be that melody or rhythm. Everything possible is done to submerge this element but it ends up carrying most of these songs to their successful conclusion.

To sum up, may I use the Paris Hilton vernacular and call Wavves my NFB (New Favorite Band) This title has been awarded for some pretty base level reasons. Williams makes proper punk rock that while doused in the contemporary trend of red-line production hollers with teenage nostalgic abandon and instantly takes me back to sunny days spent hating the world and dropping-in off wheelbarrows. Good times.

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29th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Crocodiles

Summer Of Hate

Fat Possum

The days of getting into new bands by the thank you's in the liner notes of a record are sadly long gone, as bittorrent downloads don't come with such added details, but the ever increasing ripples of excitement that are emanating from this band have largely originated from the fact that No Age included their self released 7" Neon Jesus in their Top Ten Songs of 2008.

The fact that No Age mentioned them in the first place is in itself quite misleading. Crocodiles are pretty scuzzy with ample feedback and effects permeating through each note but their adherence to pop sensibilities remove them quite considerably from the brand of noise punk that No Age craft. Long time friends Charles Rowell and Brandon Welchez hail from sunny San Diego and I guess Summer Of Hate emerges from an alternative and less glamorous Californian life that is filtered over to us here, a life of hum drum days and bored teenagers. So as a result you get an album drenched in hazy sunshine but dripping with grime. I say 'dripping with grime' but this may be a slight exaggeration. One scratch at this greasy surface and a gleaming pop structure reveals itself below. In fact, without even scratching another structure reveals itself, that of The Jesus And Mary Chain. I Wanna Kill, an extremely catchy piece of scuzz pop, is built almost entirely on the frame work of Head On, the same drum beats and a hook that follows the 80's hit to the letter. But instead of holding this against them, the song and the rest of the record is so satisfying that I find myself carrying on regardless. Soft Skull (In My Room) is a damn near perfect blend of dub rock and art-punk madness.

The record can be divided quite equally into two types of approach, that of the afore mentioned spiky pounders and the tripped out atmospherics of songs like Here Comes The Sky and the title track which swirls around like a modern day Velvets submerging the distant vocals in layer upon layer of effect laden melodies. There's enough of a blend of 80's synth beats and very contemporary punk rock grit to make this much more than a cheap rehash. It has a refreshingly different agenda than a lot of the noise pop acts around at the moment. It isn't very noisy and it doesn't aim to pummel you but rather seethes with tension and anxiety. Though Crocodiles at times seem to be hovering tentatively on the fringes of the noise punk sound as if not quite confident enough to dive headlong in their decision to keep an eye on melody make this a familiar yet rewarding listen.

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28th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

White Denim

Old Blue Last, London

May 18th 2009

There's an old parable of a bug who lived in the worlds most beautiful Persian rug. He spent all his time laboriously climbing over each tuft and viewed them as nothing but obstacles that stood in his way of progress. The sad tale is that he lived and died in this thing of beauty but never saw the glorious pattern to which he belonged. I was reminded of this tale as I stood in the beer soaked ambiance of Shoreditch's Old Blue Last watching Texan trio White Denim. As they embarked on what would be a mammoth non-stop medley of pretty much everything on their debut LP it was at times hard to see this onslaught of feral noise as mere obstacles that stood in the way of me and a lifetime of healthy hearing. But thankfully, and unlike our little bug friend, one nod from vocalist James Petralli towards his band members and the whole thing would drop into jagged funk riffs and as if by magic the pattern was revealed and the beauty made gloriously evident.

Admittedly using words like 'pattern' and 'beauty' is perhaps as misguided as feeding caviar to a rabid dog. The reality was a sweaty bar heaving with eager fans and three guys who thrashed the shit out of their fledgling back catalogue. This set wasn't just one song after another, it was one song, lasting for about 25 minutes and never let up in tempo. The only reason they had a short break in the middle was to repair some equipment. It was fierce and furious and played out like they had a train to catch, double-time. It was thrilling from start to finish and actually made me resent the times we live in. We're all so self aware now-days and it felt wrong not to be punching some dude in the face to this music, not intentionally of course but a dirty yet euphoric mosh scrap was really the only fitting way to behave in the presence of such passionately manic rock. And yet like their album, all this seemingly unharnessed frenzy is very much supported by a sturdy and considered foundation and when it chooses to reveal itself the pattern is awesome. From what I could hear above the ringing in my ears (which still goes on this morning) the new songs sound just as sturdy as the old which just fueled my appetite for the imminent release of the new record Fits. I recommend anybody in earshot to go and see these guys.

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20th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Jason Lytle

Yours Truly, The Commuter

Anti

It was a strange task indeed to review the last Grandaddy album, Just Like The Fambly Cat, knowing that it was to be their last. It was virtually impossible, armed with this knowledge, not to read every word of the record as a suicide note. It's hard to review the album in its own right and not view it in the context in which it was being presented, the full stop to a wonderful decade of music. Since that time the music scene has suffered three years without its most unashamedly romantic and yet seemingly reluctant indie hero, until now that is. Here he returns to our ears with his debut solo record and the task of reviewing a piece of work that finds Lytle at the start of a new road rather than at the end of an old one is an infinitely more joyous undertaking, and made even easier by the quality of the music in question.

Lytle's work has always danced intriguingly around a series of opposites or contradictions. There's the obvious one like a big, bearded country dude singing in such a delicate tone which, in turn, leads on to yet more trickery. In these soft tones he sings of unbridled romanticism of warm summer days, hand in hand or childhood idealism and then trashes them with stories of drunk robots or sudden bursts of feral punk rock. Thematically these contrasts have prevailed and one senses a constant struggle in Lytle between everything from art and pop, town and country, loud and quiet or past and present.

In true form the title of his solo debut is a signing off - Yours Truly. And The Commuter explains this struggle hinting at a constant state of traveling between one place and another, be that physical or emotional or forward and back. Place is a dominant theme here with much talk of "going home." the line in the opening song "I may be limping, but I'm coming home," touches on both his past experiences and what promise the future holds for him now. Back in 1997 he gave us lines like "Here I sit and play guitar, count stars, out in the country, having narrowly escaped my trip into town," from Collective Dream Wish Of Upperclass Elegance. Little has changed as we find him in a similar dichotomy. Lytle is a dreamer and his music has always vividly represented the artistic conundrum between free expression and some sort of existence in society and the rest of the world. The concept of 'home' can obviously be taken at face value having recently relocated to Montana but it could also represent a kind of comfort that he's now finding between these two artistic opposites.

The core of the Grandaddy sound is firmly in place on Yours Truly with a slightly more low-key feel to proceedings. Lytle writes simple songs about simple themes and it's in this pursuit of simplicity that he manages to create some of the most perfect songs of his career. In the liner notes there's a picture of his note pad on which is written "No more weird arrangements...not on this album!!! Very simple. Very nice. rich, Big, but with enough little fucked things." That kind of does my job for me, I couldn't have put it better. It's a lonely record, but sun drenched as always. Themes of loss prevail but hope springs forth continuously. He creates a kind of euphoric melancholia, or melancholic euphoria, depending on your state of mind. Brand New Sun swells with an almost tear jerking sense of promise as two people run headlong into the unknown with the sole purpose of change, whatever pitfalls await them they'll face it together. Birds Encouraged Him sees a character on the verge of giving up on life only to be talked out of it by the birds, this childlike vision of salvation at the hands of nature being a familiar thread.

Lytles work is so packed full of a unique kind of idealism, both innocent and jaded, that one is almost seduced into reading too much into his words. The temptation to do that on the final Grandaddy album was all too great and I don't want to do it here. Whether he's lost or has found his way home is his privilege to know but what he's given us is a wonderfully simple and endlessly beautiful piece of work and a worthy first step on this much anticipated solo journey.

Check out Lytle's notes on the album here.

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18th May 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Metric

Fantasies

The forum of a Chimpomatic review is one that I’ve already used to declare my love for Emily Haines; an ardour born of her anthems as a Broken Social Scene-ster and the achingly beautiful collection of songs on solo project ‘Knives Don’t Have Your Back’. I did however add the caveat that I wished at times the ice maiden might lighten up a touch and with Metric, the third of her musical trinity, she has deigned to do just that; to magical effect.

Like any long term relationship I feared that the passion may be waning and that the fire may just be dying out on first listen to Fantasies; Metric’s first full length album in 4 years. I confess to initially being a little on the miffed and disappointed side. Gripes included; occasionally the lyrics border on hectoring, song progression can feel slightly formulaic (taught tights starts like an a bow being pulled back raising to urgency and then arrow release) the veneer of over polished production threatens to muffle some numbers and the odd tune sounds like they’d been penned for the more intimate and vulnerable solo set only to be shoe-horned into a full band run out with an air of forced bravado. Its not that the criticisms are no longer legitimate it’s just that they are irrelevant and over thought. If one dissects a frog then one also kills it.

A few more listens and the passion roars just as fiercely as it ever did; like wondering how you could have ever thought that the girl next door was ever anything other than absolutely beautiful. As Emily implores ‘watch out cupid’ - the arrow has been shot. The merits of Fantasies, after a fair hearing, blow away any reservations. ‘Stadium Love’ is a manifesto for world domination warning U2 to vacate the stage. ‘Blindness’ is the sound of an Indie Queen on top of her game. I defy anyone not to hear ‘Help I’m Alive’ and not hum it endlessly for the following few days while ‘Sick Muse’ just soars; there’s no other way to describe it.

An ear for a melody, choppy New Wave riffs, hooky synths, no frills powerhouse drumming and a voice that has lived and is still alive all marry together to create a perfect harmony. Love, like faith, grows stronger when tested and I’m still in love with Emily Haines.

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29th Apr 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Brakes

Touchdown

Fat Cat

Brakes have come a long way since their gloriously ramshackled 2005 debut Give Blood. It lurched from one genre to the next with many songs coming in at well under the 2 minute mark. It was like a sonic sketch pad. Throughout the following Beatific Visions they added more meat to these bones and now they are certainly a mightier beast. The obvious change is that only 3 of the songs here are under 2 minutes and none beat the 7 second record held by the debut. But thankfully this change is merely cosmetic and though each song is longer the sentiment is still pretty much the same.

Thematically this album is as disparate as ever with each song appearing to have been born out of absolute circumstance. Delirious recording hours seems to have provided the setting for the crazy Don't Take Me To Space (Man) while Do You Feel The Same was recorded at the time of the financial crash when everyone was predicting the end of capitalism. So I guess what I'm saying is that much of this album is made up of ideas that seemed good at the time, and on the whole they were and still are.

Musically things have leveled out slightly. We don't get the stark contrast of bluegrass country jutting up against hard as nails punk ferocity as much as we did on the debut. It's more like country-rock dovetailing into punk-rock. With ex Delgado Paul Savage behind the production desk Touchdown is a more consistent rock record. The songs are perfectly formed ideas with everything you'd want from a rock song. Opener Two Shocks is the perfect example. It's slow to build and then with expert timing unveils itself to you with profound muscle unlike anything delivered by this band before. It's an opener that makes you step back and admire proudly the grownup standing in front of you. The same can be said for Crush On You and Oh! Forever. Looking at these three you just want to say patronizingly, "Haven't you guys grown, I've known you since you were this long."

There are still ample indications that this band hasn't totally matured, the best being Red Rag. The joint shortest at 1.33 minutes this song has all the snarl of previous 30 second sucker punches but borrows much from its older brothers that surround it here and plays out as a hard piece of feral rock. It's probably the best moment on the record and one that makes me glance back to the good ol' days of fun loving punk sketch books. Touchdown still possesses all these eccentricities but with all its mightier, stronger and better songs I can't help feeling the loss of something special. It's ever so slightly duller than before, but at the same time way better. Go figure.

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24th Apr 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Themselves

theFREEhoudini Mixtape

Anticon

Ahead of this summer's comeback album CrownsDown Themselves have dropped this 39 minute mixtape and it's free to download. If you cast your mind back to when Real Madrid ruled the football world with their dream team line up, this mixtape would be the hip hop equivalent. Featuring contributions from a host of Anticon dudes like Yoni Wolf, Sole and Pedestrian plus hip hop's alternative elite like Buck 65, Aesop Rock, Slug and Busdriver. The whole thing is also tied up in a nice little bow by Odd Nosdam who mixes it all.

But despite all the se names it's the two main players that drive this and make it a non stop bullet train of beats and rhymes. Jel's beats are heavy and come at you like a techno storm. They swirl into each other morphing and changing organically according to the MC that has stepped up. Dose One steals the show as expected with his lightning tongue flickering with lyrical brilliance. The way they have both progressed their other band Subtle is a major influence here as multi layered compositions are constructed. Programmed beats mix with regular old school as Dose's vocals shape shift from being mumbled backing texture to his twisted pixie rhymes that dart out of the texture as gleaming bullets. The mixtape format gives it a nice old school feel and each MC comes into play with great fluidity. Buck 65 gets a gloriously booming beat to play with, Aesop's deep delivery sits perfectly with Dose's high pitched voice and as Nosdam brings in Yoni Wolf the cLOUDDEAD circle becomes complete for the first time in too long and it sure feels good.

It's been ten years since this group first emerged and six since their last record and this generous 39 minutes of perfect prose is a fine return to form. Featuring the 7 original members of the Anticon collective it really sums up this labels history and their current standing as one of hip hop's finest labels. The fact that this is free makes it irrisistable, like I needed any other reason to hear these boys play again.

You can download the whole thing here (for the next 90 85 days only!) or pay out for a limited CD version that features an extra 16 minutes of audio.

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6th Apr 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

BLK JKS

Mystery EP

Secretly Canadian

After a year of critical acclaim in the UK and the US, South African art-rockers BLK JKS signed to label Secretly Canadian - who now offer The Mystery EP, a re-mastered and re-sequenced re-release, which was initially produced by the Secret Machines' Brandon Curtis.

These days 'Art Rock' seems to mean slightly erratic drums and having a couple of Paul Simon or Talking Heads albums in your CD collection, but it's a term that serves a purpose and provides a reference point to where these songs might fit in to the bigger picture. Less Vampire Weekend and more Brain Eno might narrow it down further, as the band's vocals ebb and flow around the music, becoming more of a sound than a lyric (see "Mystery"), adding another strand of subtle texture.

It's multi-layered and mysterious, and while there may be nothing new as such (Animal Collective and mid-80's INXS could provide further touchstones), there's a nice subtlety and atmosphere here - and the potential is obvious as things gain some focus on "Summertime", progressing nicely with a spiraling tune rising out of the experimental chaotic sounds. While there's not all that much to write home about at this point, this is ambitious stuff - which will hopefully distill down in the future to reap many rewards for the listener.

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19th Mar 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

Beware

Domino

The dark brooding ‘Tonight’s The Night’-like cover points to a return to the bleak and sombre days of ‘I See A Darkness’ for ‘Beware’, Will Oldham’s latest album under his Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy moniker. However this is misleading, as this is Oldham at his most mature and confident, the fragility of his Palace days seem a long time gone. The sounds here is full and accomplished, complimented on occasions with forceful backing vocals, fiddles, slide guitar and trumpets.

As ever, Oldham’s gloomy yet playful side prevails, turning seemingly conventional compositions into more interesting beasts altogether. The rousing opener ‘Beware Your Only Friend’ sees his ‘soul sucking thoughts’ go from ‘you want to be my daughter’ to ‘I wanted you to be my Mother’.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy albums are awkward buggers, as at first they can be quite underwhelming, but this is often misleading. Although his style changes, it often does so subtly and on initial listens you get pretty much what you expect. However, after some time they have a habit of slowly and surely getting under your skin.

‘I Don’t Belong To Anyone’ is up there with his greatest songs and best of all is the single ‘I Am Goodbye’ which is foot-stompingly upbeat for Oldham and catchy as hell to boot. So another very good Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy album but as ever, it might take a few plays to see if it’s a great one.

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16th Mar 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Bishop Allen

Grrr...

Dead Oceans

2007's The Broken String was a triumphant record for Brooklyn's Bishop Allen, packed full of light melodies that refused to leave your conciseness and aided by some very insightful lyrics. The followup Grrr... is more of the same, but somehow fails to rekindle the amorous feeling I felt for their debut.

The Broken String was a collection of EP's released in quick succession over the course of a year which may explain it's sense of excitement and freshness and go some way to account for what is slightly lacking here. I feel tight for even raising these complaints as Grrr... is on the most part a very worthwhile listen, but too many of these songs adopt a rather sugary sweet approach to pop causing the feel-good factor that prevailed before to seem forced and unpalatable. Songs like Oklahoma and The Ancient Commonsense Of Things with their hand clap beats and brisk rhythm skip by without a care in the world but possess none of the edge of some of the previous songs and when we hear the line "imitate the action of the tiger," on Tiger, Tiger you can almost imagine an audience of children mimicking tiger moves as if Bishop Allen were chairing the school assembly that morning. Previous comparisons to song writers like Ben Folds or Eels all but vanish on this release. The very fact that I really can't think of anything else to write here is testament to the effect this record has had on me. It means no harm and probably does what it set out to do but that's really not enough these days.

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3rd Mar 2009 - 2 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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

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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#BC

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

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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#CSF

2nd Feb 2009 - Add Comment - Tweet

Best Of 2008

R.Hammerstein

Top 5 albums
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna
DJ /rupture - Uproot
Kanye West - 808's And Heartbreaks
Takka Takka - Migration

Films
The Assassination of Jesse James
Garage
In Bruges
4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days
There Will Be Blood

TV shows
Wallander

Gigs
Hercules and Love Affair - Bestival
The Dodos - Amersham Arms
Sigur Rós - Alexandra Palace
Sébastien Tellier - Bestival
Yeasayer - ICA

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#R.Hammerstein

22nd Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

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.

#Music
#HarrisPilton

16th Dec 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Unforgiven

(dir. Clint Eastwood)

Malpaso

THEN: Seen as something of a resurgence for the serious western, Unforgiven tells the tale of two retired gunslingers (Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman), who are approached by a short-sighted young hopeful, after a local whorehouse puts up a bounty for two brutal cowboys. Meanwhile, hard-nosed sheriff Gene Hackman rules the town with an iron first - and runs any bounty hunters out of town.

David Webb Peoples' excellent script re-wrote the heroism, bravery and gentlemanly behaviors of the old west into a bloody, misfiring, mauling - and cast Eastwood perfectly as a bastion of days gone by. The film was something of a return to form for Eastwood, as both and actor and a director - and the Academy duly noted him for both. He moved up a notch in directing terms after this and hasn't really looked back.

NOW: Still unbelievably powerful, if anything, Unforgiven has improved with age, sitting comfortably with the films that it was made in honour of, at the western's throne. Eastwood handles the action and the direction like a master carpenter - showing a magnificent storytelling skill inherited from the likes of Don Siegel and Sergio Leone. There's no flashy camera work, just a restrained observation that never interferes with the story and serves it perfectly.

Eastwood's central performance as William Munny is so reserved and withdrawn, it's surprising you can feel anything for him at all. Few actors can remain silent in a scene while everyone talks around them - and still steal the show, but Eastwood does it, drawing heavily on much of his prior screen history to silently fill out Munny's back story. Morgan Freeman comes a close second of course and the pair of them have a great chemistry, which would be repeated masterfully in Million Dollar Baby. Brutal, engaging, vengeful and brilliant.

#Film
#CSF

5th Dec 2008 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

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

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.

#Music
#BC

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

Wallander

Sidetracked

BBC1

"Ystad - the Texas of Sweden..."

Kenneth Branagh stars in the first of three feature-length versions of Henning Mankell's best-selling detective novels. If (like us) you're not familiar with the series, then you're in something of a minority - well in the rest of Europe anyhow, where they've sold around 25 million copies. There's even a Wallander Tour in the real town of Ystad.

Initially it's a pretty unusual set-up. We're in Sweden, but everyone's speaking English. They don't even bother with anything like that bit at the start of The Hunt For Red October where they're talking in Russian for about a minute before zooming in and then letting Sean Connery go back to Scottish for the rest of the film. 

Then, until someone pulls out a mobile, you could be forgiven for thinking it was set in the 1950s - there's a kind of otherworldly, timeless quality to the country setting - it looks like a modern European country, but because Sweden's been so stylish for so long, it's hard to place when it actually is. Even the police station looks like a *Wallpaper shoot. 

But after the first ten minutes or so, you get used to the environment, and don't really notice until you're introduced to another Lars or Nyberg etc. The occasional nods to recent Swedish history - immigration, permissiveness, politics etc - add another dimension to an intelligent, well-paced story. No Ikea or meatballs though. 

The first in the trilogy running on BBC1 over three Sunday nights (and then out on DVD after), Sidetracked, introduces Kurt Wallander - divorced, living alone, trying to get on with his dad and daughter - no quirky character traits like Monk or Life here - just the stuff of life, played out realistically. That's not to suggest that it's boring, or soapy - far from it - just that it's played in the realm of the real as much as possible, which is what makes it work so well (even when it's a gruesome case involving scalping, three dead men in apparently unrelated cases, and a young woman who sets herself on fire).

For all the cliches about Branagh being the ultimate luvvie you kind of forget sometimes what got him that reputation in the first place: he is a really great actor. With Wallander he seems to have finally found the perfect character to fit his style.

It's a film that's moving, exciting, dark and occasionally heartbreaking - and for once we're presented with a policeman who's not jaded by the sight of another dead body, but rather takes it totally to heart, finding it almost impossible to understand how a human could kill another human. 

Branagh is joined by David Warner as his dad (great casting, and nice to see the Tron/Company Of Wolves star given such a meaty role); Sarah Smart as his assistant (she was the hanger-on woman in the excellent Five Days last year) and there's a small role for Skins generation one star Nicholas Hoult in the first episode.

As a sidenote, Wallander was shot using the new Red digital cameras - and it looks great, like digital has finally evolved to find its own aesthetic, in the same way that 35mm or Super8 have their own distinct looks.

Sidetracked is followed by Firewall and One Step Behind if you're familiar with the series - if they're as good as the first, this is a series that should run and run (as long as they can get Branagh back to TV after Thor). 

#TV
#chimp71

21st Nov 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Life

Season One

ITV3

Fun cop show with Damian Lewis as a detective who's been released from jail after serving 12 years for a murder he didn't commit. Even though he's scored bigtime on the compensation front - and has a huge mansion, and Adam Arkin to run it for him - he's returned to the LAPD to hit the streets (and work out who framed him). 

If you're not heading for Wire-style realism in a cop show these days, you might as well load up on the quirk factor, and here that's in full force, with Detective Charlie Crews bringing the zen sensibility he developed inside to bear on the crimes he's solving. Think Monk or House for an idea of the flavour, with lots of offbeat comments and a healthy obsession with fresh fruit.

Damian Lewis' accent doesn't falter too badly, the rest of the cast works, with Sarah "The L Word" Shahi as his recovering alcoholic partner, and Chicago Hope's Arkin doing a good job of trying to talk his jailhouse buddy through the intricacies of the modern world he's missed out on. 

Feels like it's going to hit a good balance between the crime of the day, and solving the ongoing mystery of who set Crews up, without making it too essential to catch every single episode. 11 in the first, writers' strike-truncated set, with more to follow. 

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#chimp71

29th Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Decemberists

Always The Bridesmaid: A Singles Series Volume I

Rough Trade

As a rule we don't usually bother with singles reviews but this is a special case. Firstly, as it involves the next move from this Portland band since their awesome The Crane Wife and secondly, as this single's release, when put with the other two volumes that will follow it, will form a seven song EP of new songs that didn't quite make the final cut for the forthcoming LP.

Volume I consists of Valerie Plame and O New England. Both are exactly what you'd expect from this band with no surprises but the song to get excited about is definitely Valerie Plame. It's a jaunty little number consisting of brisk banjo, comedy backing vocals, an almost Hey Jude second half and a shameless use of the tuba that will make you link your thumbs into your braces and bob up and down to the rhythm. But what is typical of the work of Colin Meloy is that the song is an amorous tribute to the onetime CIA operative whose cover was blown in a newspaper column. As if continuing the story first explored in Picaresque's The Bagman's Gambit, this song is written from the point of view of one of Plame's inside contacts and is a tale of love found in the most unlikely of places. As is the B side O New England which floats on a much smoother breeze but while being a delightful song might get lost on a full length record.

Volume II, featuring Days Of Elaine, Days Of Elaine (Long) and the curious I'm Sticking With You is released on November 4 and Volume III, consisting of Record Year and Raincoat Song will be with us on December 2. All come gloriously packaged as 12" vinyl and are sure to bridge the gap between now and the next album.

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#BC

23rd Oct 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Serpent

(dir. Eric Barbier)

Fid?lit? Productions

Midway through a divorce, successful middle-class Parisian Vincent Mandel gets involved with old classmate and blackmailer Joseph Plender, who has held a grudge since their school days. As Plender infiltrates his life, things slowly descend into hell.

Another tight French thriller coming up fast on recent success Tell No One. Based on an English novel - "Plender" by Get Carter writer Ted Lewis - The Serpent takes the Hollywood conventions of suspense and film noir and transposes them seamlessly to modern day Paris. The movie is confidently directed by Eric Barbier, who is happy to play on the storylines of the past - including France's own Cache, as well as Manhunter and The Fugitive, while Vincent is played suitably empathetically by Yvan Attal (from Munich, and er Rush Hour 3, Prison Break Season 4 and Tom Cruise in the French dubbed version of Eyes Wide Shut) - who himself directed a chunk of upcoming ensemble movie New York, I Love You.

In hindsight, some of the plot twists are a little precarious - and the movie actually ends up wriggling out of some of the traps it sets itself up for- but when you're in the moment it all makes perfect sense. It all gets a bit epic in the end, but remains far more restrained then your average Hollywood effort. Why can't Britain make more movies like this?

#Film
#CSF

5th Sep 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Jay Reatard

Singles 06-07

In The Red

As the title may suggest, this compilation covers a very short space of time for this energetic songwriter, but one listen and you'll see that Jay Reatard has produced more quality material in one year than many bands get to in a life time. Jay Lindsey has been around for a while fronting various bands, but most notably The Reatards, which was actually just him alternating between vocals, guitars and a beat played out on an up-turned bucket. His recent solo work consists of one album, 2006's Blood Visions and a whole host of singles and EP's that are now out of print. So In The Red Records offer us this 17 song run through that collects together all these rare loose ends and the result is a startlingly consistent sonic clenched fist that repeatedly pounds your face for 38 minutes.

Opening track Night Of Broken Glass will let you know exactly what to expect from this collection as it launches in to screams and machine gun punk rock like a slightly polished Beastie Boys a la Heart Attack Man. Another Person is slightly more melodic, incorporating swirling synthesizers around the rapid drums and Reatard's voice that assumes an almost 80's New Wave monotone. The refreshing thing about Jay Reatard is that he never tries to do anything else but punk rock, but that's not to say that this collection lacks variety. Every song sounds like Jay Reatard but to write this off as a punch-in-the-face punk hammering would be wrong. Songs like I Know A Place and Hammer I Miss You keep a healthy pace but allow more percussion and melodic vocals with the latter evolving into a blanket tone of rising group vocals that seem remarkably majestic. Don't Let Him Come Back rides on a Monkey's-like rhythm section and is quite pedestrian by Reatard's standards.

But then, by contrast, you get the twin assault running down the middle of the record beginning with It's So Useless. Sounding like a possessed Marc Bolan, Reatard creates a near perfect punk song with the chorus being shrieked in time to crashing cymbals gladly recalling my Sham 69 days. All Wasted is slightly less abrasive but manages to merge the New Wave monotone with So Useless' catchy chorus, this time ending with the repeated chant of "All zombies are wasted, all zombies are useless to me."

For all its might and pace this is well crafted and slightly over polished punk rock. I may have described it as a clenched fist but I wouldn't be surprised if the fist had well manicured nails, maybe with glam-polish and relatively soft skin. Reatard's voice is very melodic no matter how much he tries to hide it. You do start to cry out for more short, sharp bursts like It's So Easy or Blood Visions with their classic punk urgency and pogo capabilities. This collection is less Black Flag and more Pop Levi, but at the same time he gives you enough indication that if it came to it he'd kick Levi's ass in a punch up. But if this doesn't satisfy your Reatard cravings then look no further. Having recently found his home at Matador, we lucky people get another round up of Reatard with the imaginatively titled "Matador Singles '08" compilation hitting stores on October 6th. The two compilations should undoubtedly show this guy as an artist of unrivaled energy and enthusiasm who seems physically unable to stop spewing out quality rock at an alarming rate.

#Music
#BC

25th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Iron & Wine

The Creek Drank The Cradle

Sub Pop

THEN: Not to doubt their ability to unearth a great band, but at first glance Iron and Wine might appear a very un-Sub Pop signing. A mellow fellow, hushed vocals, an acoustic guitar and a tape deck do not normally make up the type of act the label is renowned for. However, it quickly becomes clear that their judgement on Sam Beam's talents was spot on.

NOW: It still sounds like some lost tapes of a folk genius from the 60s or 70s. Sparse guitar, haunting vocals whispering evocative stories on the memories of loves found and lost. While I prefer his 2nd full album (Our Endless Numbered Days), this is still a great record - easily recommended as a soundtrack to staring out the window on a long train journey.

SUB POP SAYS: “An ode to an older … part of America defined by “traditional values,” pastoral imagery and arcane manners.”

KILLER TRACK: Upward Over The Mountain - although ‘Killer’ so isn’t the right word

NEXT: 2003 - The Postal Service - Give Up

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#Locochimpo

14th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet