Chimpomatic

Spoon

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

Anti

For me, Spoon are one of the great American Indie bands - seemingly always recording, and always on tour. I got into them late, but like all good bands they have a back catalogue that keeps on giving... all the way back to their rough edged debut Telephono.

Telephono led them onto a major label deal with Elektra, who then dropped them after A Series of Sneaks failed to do the required business - a story covered in their Agony of Lafitte EP. Their subsequent records each expanded the success of the last, and 2005's Gimme Fiction seemed like a big hit - with I Turn My Camera On seemingly playing in all the clubs. I guess I was just in the right clubs, as number 44 in the charts doesn't demonstrate sales being where they should for a band this good. Their critical success continues however, and following last year's sidestep into soundtracks (for Will Ferrell's Stranger Than Fiction) Britt Daniel and co are back with another great record.

Don't Make Me A Target heralds the bands return, and quickly seems to address these political times ...or maybe that's just me reading things into it. Either way, politics doesn't get in the way of a thumping good tune, that quickly dispenses with the lyrics for a guitar and piano attack. The Ghost Of You Lingers is on the edge of pretentious, but falls just the right side of brilliant. It's an unconventional song, with effects and layered vocals that seem like they're building up to something which never comes, but where it takes you on it's own terms is more than satisfactory - dark, atmospheric and moody.

Cherry Bomb rolls back the years to the Girls Can Tell era and the kind of high-school story that seems to be the Spoon staple. Touching, moving and sentimental - built around great music with a banging piano trumpet and drums. Don't You Evah is a cover of a song by The Natural History, and there's some classic Spoon in tracks like My Little Japanese Cigarette Case and Don't You Evah.

The album is more of a fall back to the classic Spoon sound, before the mildly misleading diversion of Gimme Fiction. It's the sound of cruising in a 50's hotrod, chasing girls and drinking milkshakes with Richie Cunningham.

The band has moved forward and become more sophisticated, building more complex, layered backgrounds for their deceptively simple songs. There seems to be some influence coming in from the sound track experience and Rhythm and Soul ticks a lot of my favourite boxes to great effect. Great tempo changes. Great keyboards. A touch of Small Stakes Ice Hockey rock. I've narrowed the magic ingredient down to a squeaky little sound or a barking dog - which will make CSF junior chuckle one day. Animal Midnight has it, and so does On Parade.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is short, at 36 minutes / 10 songs ("the perfect number of songs for an album" apparently), but it never seems it. This is a classy and well-produced record, with some great songs, magic touches and restrained, clever song-writing. It's not a massive step forward - which is no complaint from me, as it is the sound of a great band knocking out another great album.

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5th Jul 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Transformers

(dir.Michael Bay)

Dreamworks

After their planet is ravaged by civil war, two warring factions of shape-shifting robots arrive on earth in search of a digital rubik's-cube gizmo with the power to turn ordinary electrical appliances into all consuming monster robots. The Decepticons are led by the evil Megatron, who was discovered frozen in the ice by troubled geeky teen Shia La Beouf's grandfather. Luckily he's just bought a new car that turns out to be one of the friendly Autobots who are here to save us - led by the articulated lorry-esque Optimus Prime.

As a kid you would probably shit bricks at how cool the robots are in this movie, but as an adult it's like watching a 120 minute trailer that shows all the best bits. An experience not too dissimilar to lying down on a motorway being run over constantly. The premise is thinner than Highlander II, with very little explanation for why the robots can assume some shapes they like, but don't bother at other times - when being a steam roller might be more useful than being a cool little dune-buggy.

Hollywood heavyweight/lifecoach Michael Bay adds his usual flair, taking his cue from the George Lucas school of film making - where you can't see the CGI because it's all CGI, and it works pretty seamlessly. There are some great sequences and effects - notably the helicopter-bot assassin that attacks the US Army a couple of times in an attempt to steal their bandwidth or something.

It's a fun ride, so don't take my cynical opinion on it all. I was always more of a Lego fan.

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25th Jun 2007 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Taken by Trees

Open Field

Rough Trade

After serving for 11 years as the voice of Swedish indie popsters The Concretes - as well as contributing unmistakable vocals to last years Young Folks single from Peter, Bjorn & John - Victoria Bergsman decided to leave The Concretes behind to go solo, taking her love of trees to conjure up the name Taken By Trees.

The acoustic guitar and single drum of Tell Me set the pace for the album, which is minimal melodic pop. Like a Scandinavian Camera Obscura, or a regular Stina Nordenstam, the album is built almost entirely around Victoria's attractive voice. There's not much suggestion of depth to the lyrics, just breezy pop that ambles along without causing any offense. Songs are often story-telling tales in the third person, with some minimal instrumental tracks making nice use of pipes and atmospheric effects. Lost And Found sounds like an ideal choice for a single, with the lovesick delivery sounding more than a little like fellow Swedes The Cardigans.

It's all pleasant enough, but lacking the heart or emotion to make it powerful. It ends up as nothing more than pleasant pop that provides nothing new, and you may feel like you have heard it all before.

The back up vocals of Hours Pass Like Centurys beef things up a bit, and the effects and xylophone of Ceder Trees starts to offer something a little different, but it's not really enough and is definitely a case of too little too late. It's all at the same level and is very conventionally structured, with verse / chorus / verse all the way through - but that's pop I guess. It's all pretty much reliant on you falling for her sexy voice and if you just go with the flow that might well be enough.

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24th Jun 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

The White Stripes

Icky Thump

XL Recordings

After the success of Jack White's near-permanent side-project of last year took off, the rumours flew that The White Stripes were to be no more. Only a fool would fall for that gag though, especially from a band that has a history of telling fibs and only needs a few days to record a new album. They spent a whopping 3 weeks recording this one, and it shows.

Lead single Icky Thump follows the method we've seen before of a banging radio friendly single that's track one on the album, but if I'm honest it hasn't had as much impact on me as either Seven Nation Army or Blue Orchid did. However, where those two tracks seemed like the only track on each album of that ilk, Icky Thump does sit in with things here more harmoniously.

Judging by the suits on the cover there's more than a nod to Gram Parsons and Emmylou going on here. You Don't Know What Love Is sees Jack White taking his lessons from The Raconteurs and creating an FM friendly 80's rock track.... with a touch of country. It's straightforward, but immediately engaging, oozing with personality. The production quality is definitely up on their previous efforts, which has a always been a bug-bear of mine. I never understood why using vintage equipment shouldn't result in such basics as a consistent volume level.... The Beatles and The BEach Boys always managed OK.

While the production quality may be up, the inconsistency is present in the style of the songwriting which seems to never offer the same idea twice. There seems to be few common threads running through the themes of the songs, and it very much sounds like a compilation album. 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues is a heavy-handed down beat number, with vaguely obnoxious guitars. Conquest is a cover of Corky Robbins, complete with Mexican trumpets. Prickly Thorn makes an impression with it's infusion of bagpipes, although it leads into St. Andrew (This Battle Is In The Air), which unfortunately hides Meg's vocal contribution in cut-up tape tricks. Great title though.

Things sound tired with Little Cream Soda's rambling jam with chat. The focus seems to have been lost and the stop/start dynamic of this track and Rag and Bone in particular is already sounding a little tired - although Jack's line about "doghouse, outhouse and ...." show that he's obviously a Tommy Lee Jones fan.

I'm Slowly Turning Into You and A Martyr For My Love For You form a great centerpiece to the album - finally something a bit more serious, sitting somewhere between the outstanding musical edge of the The White Stripes and the more straightforward style of The Raconteurs. They seem much more thought out and complete than a lot of the album, and give the ever present glimpse of what a great album the band could make if they cut their output level by three and harnessed more of their live brilliance on their records.

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23rd Jun 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Pissed Jeans

Hope For Men

Sub Pop

Pissed Jeans is the bare chested alter ego of white collar worker Matt Korvette, who sheds the skin of his day job in Allentown (known to me only through the Billy Joel track I'm afraid) and strips off to the waist to lead his band through sweaty all-ages punk shows.

With this second album, the band have been signed up to Sub Pop - and you probably couldn't imagine a better home (er, except maybe SST or Dischord). In these days of Zach Braff co-opting the Sub Pop rosta for his feel-good movies, it's good to hear a band throwing down the kind of sludge rock sound that got the label started.

People Person could not be a more ironic title for the album opener - a relatively fast punk number that has a similar effect to being mugged. With the brutal vocal force of Black Flag-era Rollins, vocalist Matt Korvette's lyrics are hard to pin down for sure, but it's either "I am a people person", or "I'm not a people person". I'm guessing it's the latter as Pissed Jeans are definitely not here to be your friend, but if you relax and go with the flow you might just have some fun.

The album generally works at a slower, pounding pace than the opener - whether its the heavy swing of A Bad Wind or the feedback drenched atmosphere of The Jogger. Things almost seem like they might break-out of the weight of this album on the amusing anecdote I’ve Still Got You (Ice Cream) or drum led Caught Licking Leather, but fear not. Much less post-modern sounding than recent punk-sludge from the likes of The Bronx, this is coming from the genuine roots of lifelong garage banders - who are clearly fans of Black Flag or sick-coloured vinyl specialists Flipper.

If you can withstand the bettering your ears will take, you will see through the wall of noise and expose the story-telling side of this album, stretching out tales of white collar workers in the "Straight World". It's a tall order that will certainly not be to many people's tastes - but for many pre-Nirvana post-punkers it will be a breath of fresh air.

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11th Jun 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Hold Steady

Boys And Girls In America

Vagrant

I started writing this review last year, but the album was already out so it wasn't a priority. It somehow got lost in the backwash and only recently floated up to the top of the pile. It's just in note form - but I think that it captures most of what I wanted to say. And in fact it kinda fits in with the way this album sounds and they write lyrics with really long sentences that tell a long story and don't quite fit with the music but somehow it really works and I love it and Tony's gonna step in here with a guitar solo.

Track 1. The title itself "Boys And Girls In America" somehow seems like a hangover from the American Dream.

"She was a really cool kisser.... She was a damn good dancer, but she wan't all that good as a girlfriend".

The lyrics have a very personal and subjective style, drawing you in to the story. "We thought that Sean Berriman could fly" or (wer'e-gonna-have-a-really-long-sentence-that-doesn't-really-fit-the-music-but-Johnny's-going-to-end-it-with-a-guitar-solo) personal, melancholic, nostalgic, looking back and recounting past events and escapades.

Wave of sound. Occasional piano break. A bit like the bar-room style of the Pogues, and in several places like a long lost Springsteen gem. 3.5

Track 2. Chips Ahoy. Circles of friends - "Some otherguy". Win on the races and "Spend the whole next week getting high". "I think his name was Chips Ahoy". Keyboard break. Grooving Bass. Enthusiastic. Passionate. 4.5

Track 3. Thumping Intro. Telling a story in past tense. "It started recreational, and ended kind of medical". Guitar duel at end. Similar themes to Oxford Collapse. Proms, pool parties, BBQs. Repeated. Simple. 4

Track 4. Can't keep up. "I was kicking it with Kevin". Blues Brothers intro. 2.5

Track 5. Melancholic. Pogues in New York. Drunk. Chas and Dave. "And then last night..." "Holly's inconsolable". Boys and Girls in America. 3

Track 6. Drums intro. Great. Phase 2 mid-album track. At their most Springsteen-esqe. "I guess I met her at the Party Pit". Like a bar in America with a great bar-tender, in a dirty/worn out Hawaiian shirt. 4

Very visual. Soundtrack to an 80's movie. "...and I'm pretty sure we kissed."

*HEAVY BREAKDOWN*

.....and that's as far as I got. Massive Nights is a great track from later on. Chillout Tent is pretty good too. It's certainly a little thin in places, but has some great tracks and some classics.

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9th Jun 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet

Band of Horses

Scala, London

With the departure of Matt Brooke, and the promising sounds coming from his new band Grand Archives, I was apprehensive that there would be a noticeable hole in the Band of Horses sound for tonight's show, but once Ben Bridwell took to the stage it was pretty clear who was in charge - and the wound had been well and truly healed.

His constant chat and banter quickly warmed the crowd, and a couple of a numbers quickly did the same to warm Bridwell's vocal chords. His powerful voice was the star of the show, but the value of the entire band's sheer enthusiasm cannot be underestimated.

The multitude of tattoos poking out from under shirt sleeves should have given some clues that behind the gentle looking bearded band was a hairy monster waiting to rock out. While The Funeral may well end up being their Creep, it was phenomenal live, with a sweeping majesty that was helped along by the singing crowd. The drums and two bass action of Our Swords showed some breadth to the band's style, and while there was plenty of instrument swapping it never hindered their performance. I guarantee you have never seen a man play a lap guitar like it was a flying V, but such enthusiasm lifted Great Salt Lake into a new dimension.

For probably the first time in memory the lack of songs on offer from a band with only one album never even hinted at being a problem. The band seems to have discovered a lost secret stash of moonshine with this forthcoming album, as the unlikely situation of new songs sounding as good as your old favourites was what we were treated to. The loud, rolling, bar room brawl of songs culminated in a fantastic foot stamping sing-a-long to a new track and it was certainly a million miles from the busker 're-imagining' No Woman No Cry on my tube home.

I have a new entry at number one for my albums-I-can't-wait for list, and Band of Horses have cemented their place far beyond a mere My Morning Jacket stand in.

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23rd May 2007 - Add Comment - Tweet