Celestial Biscuit

Review: The Ragbirds - Catching Fire (6.6)

2006-08-27T22:33:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 6.6
Lyrics: 5.0
Melodies: 7.3
Arrangements: 8.2
Thematicity: 7.4
Originality: 4.8
Production: 7.2

Ypsilanti's The Ragbirds released their first studio recording, Yes Nearby, last year, and while the band had only been together for roughly a year, the album revealed a competent ensemble comfortable with the sound they'd chosen for themselves (a fusion of afrobeat, Celtic music, fiddle-intensive folk, and reggae). The record also had its drawbacks: that sound is not a particularly unusual one, and furthermore one likely to be scoffed at in certain circles as "coffee-shop folk," but even their genre's most vocal detractors couldn't deny that the band members featured thereon weren't incredibly skilled, and what's more, incredibly tight. Undoubtedly The Ragbirds understood that these were their greatest strengths themselves, since the band attempted to capitalize on them on their second record by making that record a live recording. In theory, this ought to have captured the band's sponaneity and, if you will, synergy; in practice, Catching Fire doesn't live up to its name: the band certainly perform imaculately on it, but they also don't gain much of anything from doing it in a live context. In fact, they lose a bit in the production department, with the auxiliary percussion often buried beneath the rest of the mix and often only half-audible and the violin frequently too overpowering, and all in all, there really isn't that much of a difference between this record and its predecessor in terms of intensity or tone. That's not to say that the production is abysmal: it's actually fairly good for a live recording, but the Ragbirds really don't reap much from the experiment.

As far as the songs themselves are concerned (and it should be mentioned that they're all either new ones that didn't appear on Yes Nearby or reinterpretations of traditionals), they're slightly catchier than those on the band's last record, and they're all quite well arranged, but none of them are incredibly memorable. Furthermore, several of them are severely hampered by Erin Zindle's lyrics, which are frequently either trite rehashes of other singers' (most frequently Ani DiFranco's) social commentary, as on "Door in the Wall" and "Tipi Baya," or else just outright inane, as on "Ypsilanti Song." Honestly it's the band's lyrical posturing more than their folk-fusion sound that's likely to earn them derision as a stereotypical urban coffee-house act: first, because Zindle seems more intent on emulating both DiFranco's voice and her lyrical style (consider "Religion" exhibit A) than developing her own, and second, because it's evident both from the album's liner notes and it's overall lyrical content that the band take themselves a bit too seriously. Nevertheless, the band's finer qualities (their instrumental skill and strong, danceable rhythms) show through on a number of the tracks, including "Tarantella," whose concluding section is magnificent, the auxiliary percussion lines on "Onyame Kokoko," or the fiddle embellishments on "Harvest Song." Moments like these reveal just how good a band The Ragbirds could be if Zindle began to make her vocal style her own (which may be lacking, but shows a great deal more promise than Adam Labeaux's Dave Matthews impression on "Better") and put a bit more effort into her lyrics. As things stand, however, they do little on Catching Fire to rebut accusations of coffee-house banality, which is unfortunate, as there are a great many things about The Ragbirds' music that I genuinely like: I see shades of Canada and Nomo occasionally in their compositions, but only at ertian moments. In addition, the album also suffers from many of the usual problems that afflict concert recordings and reaps few of the usual benefits, and for that reason I hope the band returns to the studio for work on their third release.

-BT

Review: Howe Gelb - 'Sno Angel Like You (8.3)

2006-08-27T12:27:00.001-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.3
Lyrics: 8.3
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 8.5
Thematicity: 8.4
Originality: 8.0
Production: 8.3

I remember as a midwestern high school student, back in the early nineties, that the question "what kind of music do you listen to?" generally elicited the response "anything but country," from among my more musically-inclined peers. Of course we were kids and we were naive, and we recognize that now: those were the days of Travis Tritt and Billy Ray Cyrus, and no one had ever sat any of us down and played us any Hank Williams or Townes Van Zandt to show us the error of our ways. Still, there's a broader lesson to be learned here, which is that one shouldn't ever write off a genre wholesale, no matter how much it's stagnated. Today, the likely response from the scenester crowd to the same question would probably be "anything but adult contemporary," but anybody who would offer such a response has obviously never heard Howe Gelb. Sure, there are plenty of other artists who have kept the genre respectable over the last few years (Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, and Bob Dylan, to name three), but while most of them can just as readily be filed under blues, alt-country, or some other such moniker, there's no grey area with Gelb. His gravelly voice, reminiscent of Mark Knopfler's or Greg Brown's, his guitar, piano, and organ arrangements, his rhythmic, bluesy compositions, and more than anything else, his backing by a gospel choir are hallmarks of the adult contemporary, but his penchant for noise and disonnance in the electric guitar lines that crop up throughout his latest record (which Gelb himself describes in the liner notes as "sonic muck"), 'Sno Angel Like You, make it an engaging listen. The album's lyrics are strong, the arrangements fitting, and the production both stripped-down enough to appeal to lo-fi purists and well-sculpted enough to meet the approval of expert engineers. The most impressive thing about 'Sno Angel Like You, however, is that it manages to be uplifting without being silly or saccharine, and that's a rare thing in modern indie music indeed.

The reason this record is as uplifting as it is, and also why the gospel choir fits, is that Gelb's lyrics on songs like "Get to Leave," "Paradise," and "Neon Filler" contrast the tribulations of this life with the potential for salvation in the next, employ a little biblical imagery here and there, and draw a great deal of their power and portentiousness from nature's own, through references to storms, light on dark sea, and the rising and setting of the sun. Gelb doesn't claim to understand the mysteries and situations he sings about, however, nor does he claim to know what's to come, and that gives his lyrics an honesty strengthened even further by references to personal struggles like those detailed in "But I Did Not" and "That's How Things Get Done." The production helps further this as well by retaining a sparse, undoctored sound for the guitar lines and Gelb's vocals while properly integrating the fullness of the choir into the mix without spoiling things. The melodies on the record also add to the quality of the record, and a great many of the best (such as that on the chorus of "Howlin' a Gale") are carried by the backing vocalists. While this really isn't a pop record, there are a great many catchy songs here ("Robes of Bible Black" and "Hey Man" are two of the best), and only a couple of tracks (such as "Love Knows No Borders") contain protracted lulls. The material on it is well-unified, yet each song still has its interesting flourishes both vocally and instrumentally. In a nutshell, 'Sno Angel Like You, like Tom Waits work on Mule Variations, represents the peak of off-kilter, alt-country-influenced adult contemporary, and it should serve to convince any remaining skeptics that no genre, no matter how stagnant and insipid it may seem, is incapable of being revitalized.

-BT

Review: Paso Mino - Good People (6.3)

2006-08-26T16:55:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 6.3
Lyrics: 5.9
Melodies: 6.3
Arrangements: 7.9
Thematicity: 7.2
Originality: 4.9
Production: 7.7

While there's a good chance you haven't heard of Toronto's (or, more correctly, Craighust's) Paso Mino, you may have even seen them perform before and been unaware of it: their primary claim to fame is that they're currently serving as the backing band for Broken Social Scenester Jason Collett. This should at least tell you two things about the band: first, they're all impressive musicians; second, they tend stylisitcally toward the alt-country and folk-rock that characterizes Collett's solo work. Their debut, Good People, not only owes a great debt to the man they're backing, but also to Drive By Truckers (whose lyrical idiom appears to be thier prototype) and to Uncle Tupelo. The arrangements on it, while centered around the typical tetrad of bass, vocals, clean guitar, and drums, also frequently includes textural overlays featuring trumpet, keyboards, and harmonica. Their songs are about break-ups, comings of age, lives spent drinking and working in factories, and small-town life. If this all sounds fairly typical of the genre, you're getting the idea: there isn't a great deal in Paso Mino's music that makes it stand out from the rest of the alt-country crowd, save the occasional engaging riff. Paso Mino are phenomenal musicians, true, but they're not phenomenal songwriters; they function extremely well as Collett's backing band, but when left to pen their own material, they fall a bit flat. As a result, arrangements are the record's strongest suit, while it comes across as lacking in terms of both lyrics and production.

Good People's two chief failings are it's lack of strong melodies (and especially of strong vocal melodies), and its awkward lyricism. The most memorable songs on the record ("Sports Car," "Ride Their Bikes") are memorable generally due to the repetition of a few key lines or a thirty-second instrumental interlude brimming with guitar hooks than a consistently catchy verse or chorus. Several of the tracks, including "Oh! Little Young One" and the record's opener "Lift My Arm," barely register at all, and others, such as "Firefly" and "Factories and Beer" only do so during a particular section of the song (in the former case, the chorus; in the latter, the song's extended, keyboard-enriched bridge riff). As for the record's lyrical shortcomings, they stem primarily from Paso Mino's attempts to emulate Drive By Truckers' gritty rural images, often-humorous fatalism, and successful attempts to breath life and novel perspective into regional chichés. The band lacks their storytelling talent, and furthermore its unity of purpose (the socio-economic perspective that leaks out on "Graduates," for example, makes "Factories and Beer" seem somewhat touristic in its vantage), and the results are somewhat lackluster: "Sports Car" differs little from the Truckers' "Daddy's Cup" in its message or its metaphor, but it's far more awkward in its delivery and doesn't offer any revelations on the subject. On the production front, there are also a few problems: the guitars are often too treble-heavy, the bass too quiet, and the auxiliary instruments poorly mixed. In addition, the production makes an explicit point of calling attention to the band's more engaging solo riffs with large leaps in volume in a way that seems to detract from the rest of the record, though perhaps they might as well: Good People doesn't have too much else to offer. It doesn't play to the band's strengths (I can imagine what a Paso Mino record based around floridly arranged instrumental riffs rather than borderline vocal performances, and I hope the band members can as well), it seems to cling to an alt-country idiom that doesn't suit the lyricists, and it evinces the lack of a galvanizing presence like Johnathan Collett, who could bring about the realization of thier potential as instrumentalists.

-BT

Review: Various Artists - Ypsisongs (7.9)

2006-08-26T14:02:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.9
Lyrics: 7.7
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 7.7
Thematicity: 8.2
Originality: 7.9
Production: 7.7

In the years since Sufjan Stevens released his seminal Greetings From Michigan, historical and geographical theme albums have become a common trope in indie rock. From the Firey Furnaces' exploration of depression-era Chicago in Rehearsing My Choir to the Hold Steady's Minneapolitain rock opera Separation Sunday to Conor Oberst's New York-themed I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning to Stevens's own sequel, Illinois, American music now seems obsessed with finding a sense of place in the incresingly homogeneous, characterless, and commodified American landscape whose shortcomings were made an integral part of the genre's collective consciousness by Modest Mouse's seminal The Lonesome Crowded West nearly ten years ago. It seems logical, given the trend, that geographically-themed compilation albums, featuring bands from a given locality performing songs about that locality, would soon come into vogue. I don't know if it's the first such album ever released, but Ypsisongs, a limited-edition release on Cerberus records on which a variety of musicains from Ypsilanti, Michigan play Ypsilanti-themed songs, certainly fits the mold quite neatly (hell, six out of sixteen songs on it include either the city's name or some pun thereon in their title). When I first heard about it, I'll admit I was somewhat skeptical of the record's intentions (it's hard to imagine a record like this not sounding like a vapid tourist pamphlet), but upon hearing it, I was pleasantly surprised: while Ypsisongs does occasionally veer toward kitsch and self-commodification, those aren't it's primary attributes. I can't say that it captures the spirit of the place on which it focusses as well as any of the works mentioned above, and I certainly can't say it displays the same consistency (perhaps there's a lesson here somewhere about unity of purpose and plurality of participants, though I'll confine such musings to this parenthetical), but it features a surprisingly catchy battery of songs and contains a few real gems. In fact I only have two real issues with Ypsisongs. One is that unlike Stevens' records or the Firey Furnaces', whose geographical focus runs parallel to (and is often merely a cover for) the more universal themes of the human nature relation to the divine and the fragmentary, episodic construction of life and memory, respectively, there isn't too much more than Ypsilanti's physical landscape which unifies Ypsisongs's tracklist in any meaningful way. The second is that it contains a few too many inside jokes and references listeners outside the Ypsilanti-Ann Arbor area are unlikely to understand or be able to look up (e.g. the phallic water tower glibly dubbed "the giant water dick" in Dave Lawson's "YP"). These criticisms may be a little unfair, for really, this album is intendend primarily to provide the listener with fun, catchy tunes and and to showcase Ypsilanti's talented artists rather than for any more grandiose and philosophical purpose; and it succeeds in those aims. That won't make it a great record, mind, but it certainly will make it a good one, and one of the few compilations released in a long time that I've had any affection toward.

The tracks on Ypsisongsgenerally fall into three categories: those that serve as paeans to -- and perhaps advertisements for -- the city itself as a whole, those that present personal stories using the city as a backdrop, and those which capitalize on some scrap of local history, urban legend, etc. and expand it into a song. All three sets have their exemplars and their dross. In the first category, far and away the best (and probably my favorite song on the entire album) is Dave Lawson's "YP," which both channels the spirit of Sufjan Steven's "Come On! Feel the Illinoise!" and mimics its arrangement; far and away the worst is the half-assed "Ypsilanti Is a Great Place to Live" by Charlie Slick & Johnny Ill, which features little thought and less production. In the second category (which is the most consistently listenable), the award goes to Annie Palmer's charged "Ypsilanti Won't You Let Me," a succinct and eloquent expression of small-town malaise, though Emily Jane Powers's story of listlessness, love, loss, and physical and emotional uprooting "Thief" comes in at a close second. The third category features the most questionable contributions, though Drunken Barn Dance's "Circle the Wagons" is a pleasant mid-album surprise and Leaving Rouge's John Spencer-esque "Normal Street" is notable both for its humor and for its energy. As a whole, the album begins and ends well (the finale is a quick hardcore number by Coke Dick Motorcycle Awesome), but the middle tends to drag a bit. Production is a slight issue (as might be expected, it varies a great deal from song to song), but not a damning one. There are some great melodies here and some reasonably good lyrics at parts, but as a whole, while Ypsisongs doesn't embarrass itself in the way it handles its theme, it doesn't turn Ypsilanti into the backdrop for all struggling youth in small, out-of-the way cities the way Jacksonville City Nights turned Jacksonville into Winesburg, Ohio or Separation Sunday turned Minneapolis into an interior wasteland of neoteny and addiction. It is fun, though, in that it features some addictive melodies (especially Lawson's), but while I'd recommend Ypsisongs to residents of Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, and their environs, I don't think a lot of the record's references or musical idiosyncrasies will have the same appeal outside the area. I'm surprised to have been so pleased by the first serious geographically-themed compilation I've heard, though I suspect that subsequent offerings in the genre won't be nearly as engaging.

-BT

Review: TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain (9.4)

2006-08-14T15:43:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 9.4
Lyrics: 8.7
Melodies: 9.1
Arrangements: 10.0
Thematicity: 9.6
Originality: 9.4
Production: 10.0

I'll confess that I didn't pay much attention to TV on the Radio's first two records, Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes and Young Liars EP, both because I felt that the band's name and the name of their full-length verged on idiotic (suggesting that their lyrics would be equally so) and that while they seemed to be able to write a decent song, they didn't really stand out from other acts with similar influences. Return to Cookie Mountain, however, I can't ignore: while the band have somehow managed to trump their previous bid for stupidest album title in history (and I have to admit, it's a genuine contender), they have also created an album that far surpasses any of their previous work, deftly integrates melody and noise, evinces what is perhaps the most imaculate production job since Sigur Ros's Agaetis Byrjun, and offers lyrics at times as breathtakingly poignant as their album titles are ridiculous. More than that, they have hit upon an innovative stylistic combination that works: as strange as the concept may sound, the best description of Return to Cookie Mountain I can offer to that it's what Kid A or OK Computer would sound like if it were a soul record, for it succeeds in combining Radiohead's dark, percussive cadences, guitar squeals, and icy background noise with Tunde Adebimpe's virtuosic vocal stylings, which combine the humility and individuation of indie rock vocalism with the range, strength, subtlety, and emotive power of a Marvin Gaye or Otis Redding. The instrumentation on this album is incredibly varriegated (saxophones, windchimes, piano, synthesizer, snippets of whistling, electronic beats, sitar, and a plethora of backing vocals in different styles -- including some by David Bowie -- are featured), but each voice is given its due -- not only that, but the album manages to evoke a unified feel despite the diversity of the arrangements. The melodies are catchy, the beats infectious, and the rich, undulating wall of noise that underlies all of them fluid and nuanced. This year has not seen many truly exceptional releases so far, but Return to Cookie Mountain will certainly be one of the few serious contenders for album of the year when December rolls around.

Most of the tracks on Return to Cookie Mountain are structured around the twin pillars of Adebimpe's vocals and a solid, infectious beat that could just as easily support a hip-hop number. The melodies (apart from the vocal ones) are generally carried by a melange of several instruments sucessively phased into and out of the mix (though there are exceptions, most notably "Wolf Like Me," whose guitar emphasis and pounding chorus make it the most rock-oriented piece on the record). One interesting thing is that most of these instruments are analog; another is that, excepting a few piano hits on "Hours" and "Province," they consistently stick to drone rather than rhythm, which they leave to the percussion alone. The album's opening track, "I Was a Lover" provides a good introduction to what the rest of the record is about, with its seemingly chaotic yet carefully orchestrated background noise and dark tone, and also offers the most exquitite example of the emotionalintensity carried by Adebimpe's soulful falsetto. Following this track, the album launches into a series of potential singles, including the evocative, near-shoegazer "Province," until it decides to take a break with the haunting yet poppy, Brian Wilson-esque vocal and percussion interlude "A Method," and after that (or al least from "Dirtywhirl" on), things go from great to amazing. "Blues from Down Here" and "Tonight" are probably the album's best two individual tracks, both musically and lyrically, and they also feature some of the most impressive engineering. While we're on the subject of lyrics, I should mention that TV on the Radio's lyrics are generally quite good, but not uniformly so. The reason for this has more to do with the band's occasionally going overboard on the Dionysian side of things and momentarily descending into stereotypically emo (in its negative sense) sequences like "transfer my tragedy," but I can't fault Adebimpe merely for the modernist leanings he displays on tracks like "Dirtywhirl" and "Playhouses" -- in fact they're often an asset, if calling them an "asset" when referring to an intelligent, inspiring tour de force like "Tonight" isn't a form of sacrilege. Really, there is nothing out of place on this record either lyrically or musically, and my minor quibbles are more a matter of philosophical differences than aesthetics. Return to Cookie Mountain is an incredible record, one that everyone should hear and one that everyone will fall in love with for its unique vision, for its exquisite production, for its complex yet masterfully arranged wall of surprisingly melodic backround noise, for its rhythms, for its lyrics, for Tunde Adebimpe's vocals, for its pop sensibilities, or for any and all of the above.

-BT

Review: Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice - Gipsy Freedom (8.1)

2006-08-14T14:18:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.1
Lyrics: 7.6
Melodies: 7.4
Arrangements: 8.6
Thematicity: 7.2
Originality: 8.6
Production: 8.5

I would advise anyone whose first experience with James Toth's music involved falling in love with last year's Harem of the Sundrum & the Witness Figg to take the following into account when listening to his compositions with The Vanishing Voice: don't expect any similarity between them and his magnificent solo debut. That's not to say that Gipsy Freedom, his latest effort with said band, can claim no share of magnificence, but that one shouldn't expect the thematic unity, the surrealistic fire-and-brimstone sermons, the old-time folk aesthetic, the basement recording production quality, or the lyrical focus that defined Witness Figg (though shades of it can be found on "Dread Effigy"). Instead, expect psych-folk at its most abstract; this record consists mostly of the kind of meandering compositions the band's previous releases have involved, though it must be said that Gipsy Freedom can boast two advantages over the rest of the band's catalogue. The first, which is perhaps the more celebrated of the two, but, truth be told, the lesser in importance, is Daniel Carter's cameo appearances playing jazz flute; the second and more significant is a dramatic improvement in production quality. Carter is certainly an asset, and his presence on "Friend, That Just Isn't So" makes the track, but while they're tastefully integrated into the band's material, they also aren't by any means the centerpiece of the record (he only appear on one track out of eight). The focus is really the instrumental textures built out of scrapes, slams, scratches, and a plethora of auxiliary percussion instruments, which is finally, after so many releases (this is, after all, one prolific band), satisfactorally captured by some impressively deft engineering work. Admittedly it's not a very accessible record, but despite its vagaries it exemplifies why psych-folk deserves to be taken seriously and why Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice deserve more attention than most other bands working in the genre. Still, as impressive as it is in certain regards, it also suffers from many of the genre's stereotypical excesses, and as much as I like Gipsy Freedom, I can't justify touting it as one of this year's premier releases.

The primary issue I have with Gypsy Freedom is thematic. The problem isn't that it emphasizes noise over melody, or that it favors experimentation over consistency (a characteristic of free jazz, the aesthetics of which guide this record) ; it is rather that it seems an assamblage of pieces, each designed to fit some other mold (as opposed to arising spontaneously), thrown together haphazardly. Perhaps the most striking example of this is to be found in the compositions' lyrics, which range from the spontaneous, imagistic diatribe of "Dead End Days with Caesar" to the corny, pseudo-hippie jargon of "Friend, That Just Isn't So" and "Don't Love the Liar" (which comes across at once as both arrogant and naive). Admittedly, as with Broken Social Social Scene's You Forgot It in People, a lot of it can be chalked up to a multiplicity of songwriters and songwriting styles, but the question remains as to whether the album stands as anything more than a collection of interesting singles. Admittedly, the arrangements (one of the record's strongest assets) do a good job of providing something of a common thread, though there are even exceptions in that regard (for example, the track featuring Carter on flute). I also feel that if an album includes a track that exceeds fifteen minues in length, there better be a reason for it, and Lord help me, I can't find one for "Dead End Days with Caesar." Despite all this, however, there are some fantastic individual songs on this collection: "Genesis Joplin," despite its idiotic moniker, channels Bjork's vocal style and mythic and sexual symbolism quite effectively; "Dread Effigy" (on which Toth's influence is the most obvious) is actually quite memorable melodically, and the clanging cadence of and catchy vocal trebling of "Didn't It Rain" make it one of the record's most memorable tracks (though if the band is tipping their hat to Jason Molina somehow here I'm still unsure). Gipsy Freedom is certainly worth listening to enough to get past its initial abrasiveness and truly enjoy, and is genuinely more about music than noise, though like most pieces of professedly hippie art it claims to say and do a great deal more than it actually does. There's a hell of a lot of substance here beneath the posturing (a posturing which isn't even that pronounced), and albeit somewhat uncoordinated, Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice's latest offering is a pretty impressive one, and more accessible than you might think.

-BT

Review: Erase Errata - Nightlife (7.9)

2006-08-09T17:49:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.9
Lyrics: 7.6
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 8.2
Originality: 7.9
Production: 8.5

A lot has happened to Erase Errata since the release of At Crystal Palace three years ago. The band has broken up, reformed, changed lead singers, lost a member, reunited with its old lead singer, broken up again, reformed again, and finally, after all this drama, released its third full-length, Night Life on Kill Rock Stars. One might expect their sound to have changed radically due to all these line-up alterations, but actually the new incarnation of Erase Errata, doesn't differ much from the previous incarnation. In fact, much like Broadcast, Erase Errata has actually gained quite a bit from trimming their roster: Nightlife has a tighter sound -- and a far better produced one -- than either of its earlier efforts. To boot, the band have decided to base more of their music on melody than in the past, and while by and large the album still sounds like a noise-driven amalgam of Sleater-Kinney, Captain Beefheart, and Cap'n Jazz, there are parts of "Take You" and "Hotel Suicide" that actually approximate pop tunes. Of course this is all likely to recieve limited attention in comparison to the album's unprecedentedly pointed lyrics, which constitute an all-out critical assault on the American political and social landscape, complete with plenty of condemnation of the current administration. Unfortunately, while the topic is certainly one that needs addressing, and while Nightlife is certainly more convincing and artful in its diatribes than, say, Neil Young's Living with War, it comes off as distinctly inferior as an instrument of protest when compared to the likes of Sleater Kinney's One Beat or The Dumb and Ugly Club's Mars, 1967, largely because the articulation of its message is neither novel enough to turn heads and change minds nor thorough enough to be particularly powerful or evocative.

Hopefully the preceeding paragraph has not given the reader any false impression that Nightlife is a departure, for that it certainly is not. As usual, Erase Errata's songs straddle the line between noise and melody, and while they might tend slightly more toward the latter, the shift isn't a pronounced one. Many of the album's best songs are the more melodic ones (my two favorites here are "Giant Hans" and "Dust"), but as on Crystal Palace, many of the more experimental tracks (most notably "Rider") are equally worthwhile, and often it is these which bring out the nuances of Hoyston's voice. Judging by its music alone, in fact, Nightlife could easily have been Erase Errata's masterpiece, but the lyricism here doesn't stand up to that displayed on the band's previous releases. It's not that Erase Errata has difficulty with expressing political dissent, either, which is why I find it somewhat odd that Hoyston would abandon the astute observations and clever social commentary of "Driving Test" and "Matter No Medley" for the tired, unidimensional rhetoric of "Tax Dollar" and "Wasteland (in a...)" (I'll admit the tone of these songs has antecedents on Other Animals, but I didn't find it compelling there either). In a nutshell, the problem boils down to the band's not recognizing that speaking the truth does not in itself make for convincing protest music: one must also express that truth in a new way that makes people see things diiferently and must avoid preaching to the choir. When this isn't done, the result is the kind of obnoxious punk-rock self-righteousness that characterized straightedge and, more recently, sabotaged Fugazi's The Argument. When it is, you get impressive, well-tempered works like the Clash's London Calling, John Vanderslice's Pixel Revolt, and the Decemberists' magnificent single "16 Military Wives" (and its equally magnificent music video). While I'm glad that Erase Errata are still penning songs as good as they were when they began their career, I'm disappointed that they've traded the eerie, mythological symbolism of "Owls" for the literalism of "Tax Dollar," especially considering that when you really think about it, the two songs can be taken to be saying essentially the same thing.

-BT

Review: Starling Electric - Clouded Staircase (8.3)

2006-08-07T17:58:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.3
Lyrics: 8.0
Melodies: 8.3
Arrangements: 8.7
Thematicity: 7.8
Originality: 7.8
Production: 8.4

As strange as it may seem, in a year which has seen the final, inevitable stagnation of popular music in the United States in the face of stiff competition from Scandinavian, Canadian, and Japanese acts, Ann Arbor, Michigan is in the middle of a pop rennaisance, in which Starling Electric have played a large part. The band has deservedly built up a substantial reputation on the basis its live performances, which will likely be cemented by the release of this year's Clouded Staircase, the band's self-produced debut. Still, while the album is impressive for a variety of reasons, a word of caution is in order: this record isn't in any way an attempt to capture the feel of the band's live set, and I'd go as far as to say that the version of Starling Electric that appears on stage as a four-piece with a plethora of effects pedals and smoke machines is barely even recognizeable here. The arrangements are far more ornate, Caleb Dillon's voice, buoyed by echo effects, sounds completely different, and many of the album's inclusions are acoustic introspections rather than crowd-rousers, and even the band's most identifiable tunes ("The St. Valentine's Day Massacre," "Camp-Fire") have been completely reworked. Perhaps the strangest thing about this album is that it sounds almost exactly like later Guided by Voices (to an extent that I was actually able to trick die-hard Pollard fans into believing "To Flunker with Love" was an advance single from Normal Happiness), but as with Serena Maneesh's self-titled, it escapes sounding merely derivative and instead presents the listener with an interesting but unrealized possibility -- in this case, what Pollard's music might sound like nowadays if he bothered to arrange his material. Indeed, from the Zombies-esque "She Goes Through Phases" to the pure Pollard-ism of "Black Ghost/Black Girl," the arrangements are the best part of this album, and this is even more remarkable considering Clouded Staircase is self-produced.

As a whole, the record comes off less as a concentrated effort to realize a certain style or tell a story (despite what appears to be some vestigial thematic notochord in the form of multiple "Clouded Staircase" tracks) than it does the exploratory work of a band permitted to experiment with whatever instrumentation they want for the first time. Despite the Pollard influence and the short duration of the majority of the tracks, it still comes across as sprawling and vast. There is indeed a Guided by Voices album hidden in here somewhere, featuring such anthemic bursts as "New Era" and "Prince of the Puff of Smoke" (and my personal favorites, the frisson-inducing, guitar-propelled "All Through the Fall" and the out-and-out brilliant "To Flunker with Love"), but its tracks are interspersed with psych-pop fare like "A Snowflake" and "Death to Bad Dreams!/The Black Parade." For this reason, the album doesn't display a great deal of thematic unity, but to be fair, it's not really meant to; rather, it's about little touches that seem to have neither rhyme nor reason yet somehow succeed wildly like the organ and banjo intro to "Camp-Fire," the myriad subtle guitar effects employed on "She Goes Through Phases," or the unexpected acoustic simplicity of "Dust Chord." Lyrically, the album isn't bad, but it draws as heavily on Robert Pollard for inspiration for its words as for its music, which means it tends toward imagism and is built around majestic-sounding verbal catenations like "my electric saint" rather than an attempt to deliver any sort or message. This is a minor quibble however, and the only argument one could legitimately make against Clouded Staircase is that it borrows from Half-Smiles of the Decomposed-era GBV and the typical psych-pop sources du jour too much to be considered original, but I'd argue that the band's arrangements differentiate their material more than enough from that of their contemporaries (and even from those acts they have chosen to emulate) to make the album worthwhile, and that while it may seem a bit ufocussed at first listen, that's more due to a penchant for stylistic experiments (nearly all of which are successful) than any essential lack. Starling Electric have made an impressive record here, and the fact that it has a different sound from their live set only attests to the band's versatility.

-BT

Review: The Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes (8.2)

2006-08-07T16:21:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.2
Lyrics: 7.2
Melodies: 9.2
Arrangements: 8.4
Thematicity: 8.2
Originality: 7.3
Production: 8.8

First things first: yes, the Pipettes' nearly self-titled debut is fluff, but it's exceptionally addictive fluff. I'd love to be able to invoke self-irony to justify the trio's 1960's girl-group pastiche, but let's face it, there is the intelligent kind of self-irony which makes Art Brut and Bamboon hilarious and then there's the kind that offers no real social commentary, functions equally as self-commodification, and treads a bit too close to kitsch to be taken seriously, and The Pipettes' brand falls into the latter category. Still, as tempting as it would be to write them off as a milinarian-friendly incarnation of the Spice Girls or a sign that indie music has finally lost its last shred of credibility, there are several things about this band that just can't be ignored: they write insanely catchy songs, they arrange them well, and they got a fine sound engineer to capture them in a way that both fits their unapologetically retro idiom and brings out the best from their vocal harmonies and periodesque instrumentation. It would be better to say that the Pipettes are what the Spice Girls should have been but weren't, and while I'm not going to waste time trying to play apologist for what I consider a guilty pleasure, I do want to emphasize that this is one of the highest-quality guilty pleasure recordings I've ever heard -- perhaps the best since Duran Duran's Rio -- and that there's a deceptive amount of real artistry behind The Pipettes' individually wrapped morsels of candy pop.

Like the Ikea product it aspires to be, We Are the Pipettes is a deft blend of streamlined product fetishism and marketing finesse. To draw the listener in, the band has placed the silliest, most self-ironic composition at the beginning of their record (featuring the immortal line "if you haven't noticed yet, we're the prettiest girls you've ever met") and followed it up with the lyrically insipid but insanely addictive "Pull Shapes," which is destined for an impressive ranking on my list of the year's greatest singles. There are plenty more great songs on this record, including "Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me," "Why Did You Stay," "Tell Me What You Want," and, well, pretty much every track on the record. For those interested in and appreciative of the subtleties of the band's self-marketing ability, there are plenty of tidbits at which to marvel. Take, for example, "ABC," whose lyrical premise (intellectuals can't understand women and hate sex) is so trite and politically regressive that the song should by all rights fail spectacularly, but which recieves a slightly different bent (one of begrudging fascination) by the elliptical line "He's the kind of guy who..." at the end of the bridge and by the sincerely self-deprecating "I'm more stupid than the others" that occurs halfway through the following song. For those whose appreciation is rooted more in musical complexity, there are the well-placed string and glockenspiel trills on "Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me" to fall for, and plenty of artful piano licks, but the real enjoyment is to be found in RiotBecki, Gwenno, and Rosay's vocal harmonies, which form the basis of the record and display both exquisite integration and a great deal of individual flair. Again, there's nothing in any of these songs that will change music or inspire you to think in a different way (or really at all), but while it's pure bubblegum, We Are the Pipettes represents the acme of bubblegum. It is an unabashed and almost completely vapid product of consumer culture, yet it cand be dismissed, as there's way too much merit in too many places to sweep under the rug. I can't claim that this is one of the year's best records, but I think it possible that it may end up being the one that spends the most time in my stereo.

-BT

Review: Canada - This Cursed House (7.8)

2006-07-23T12:56:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.8
Lyrics: 8.2
Melodies: 7.9
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 7.9
Originality: 7.7
Production: 7.1

Although Ann Arbor folk-rock outfit Canada may not actually hail from Canada, they certainly deserve to be awarded honorary citizenship on the strength of their melodies, their intricate and unusual arrangements (what other act can you think of that features multiple cellists?), and their phenomenal, energetic live preformances. Their music is somewhat reminiscent of the Decembrists' in its tone and instrumentation, but whereas Meloy's lyrics are rooted in erudition and delivered in high literary style, theirs rely more on iconic imagery (houses, trees, cars, fires, mice), anafora, repetition, and simple yet evocative diction. The result is rustic balladry that come across as both heartfelt and intimately tied to basic human needs and necessities, to land and work, and to the passage of time. Canada are both aware of this and comfortable with it, for they have based their full-length debut, This Cursed House, around seasonality and seasonal imagery and driven the point home by entitling the album's two bookend tracks "Printemps" and "Antomne" and giving the listener some visual reinforcement in its autumnal cover art. It's no afterthought either: Stephen Radjewski's lyrics seem both consistent and natural on this record, and while there doesn't appear to be any distinct progression from spring to autumn over its course, that's not necessarily the point: the point is evoking a sense of time and place, and the record does this well. The record certainly isn't perfect, and Canada's songs are hampered more than a little bit by production problems, but on the whole This Cursed House is a fine specimen of what Canada is capable of doing, though I can't imagine it won't soon be surpassed.

When I speak of production problems, what I mean is the following: anyone who has ever seen Canada perform in the flesh can tell you that the band's intensity, emotional investment, and spontenaity are three of its most key assets, but This Cursed House was recorded and produced in a way that emphasizes the pure folk side of the band over the folk-rock side and makes their pieces seem sparse, treble-heavy, and methodical. It can't generally be said that the pieces have lost their emotive power, but it's the slower songs, such as "The King's Ashes" that benefit from the treatment, while some of the band's most moving songs in a live context, such as "Look to the Trees" and the catchy, anthemic "Cold Mouse Winter" lose a great deal in translation. Throughout the album, drums are undermiked, bass is undercut, and the band's vocal harmonies and background shouts lack the power the require to achieve their full effect. In general, the tracklist is solid (though there are a few bits, such as "Vorhies" -- essentially a reprise of "Look to the Trees" -- which probably should have been cut, either because some difference in production quality makes them sound misplaced or else because they simply don't serve a purpose) and peppered with stand-outs like "Asleep in Leaves," "Hexenhaus," and "Look to the Trees." Despite the production issues, "Cold Mouse Winter" is still the album's crowning glory, though its poignancy is slightly diminished by the fact that it is followed by the inessential "Automne," where it really ought to have ended the album. The arrangements, including glockenspiel, piano, and melodica, are also quite nice, and again would have been spectacular had they been integrated better into the mix. Still, for all the criticism I've levelled against the production, it's not abysmal, and the impressive qualities in Canda's music still show through. It's a shame we'll have to wait to see Canada's full potential realized on a recording (in many ways, I feel that the versions on This Cursed House will function primarily to tide fans over between the band's performances), but what they offer on their debut is still pretty impressive.

-BT

Review: Voxtrot - Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, and Wives (7.8)

2006-07-21T18:16:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.8
Lyrics: 7.7
Melodies: 8.1
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 7.9
Originality: 7.6
Production: 8.1

Voxtrot managed to impress more than a few people since their debut EP Raised By Wolves came out last year, for their second, Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives, has precipitated a fair amount of critical buzz, and for good reason: unlike many bands who have garnered similar acclaim without actually realeasing a full-length album (e.g. the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), they don't rely exclusively on style or flair, and display a genine talent for writing catchy songs and arranging them well. The comparisons to Belle and Sebastian you've probably heard made are apt, though it should be emphasized that when people make such comparisons, they are speaking of the band's modern incarnation, which bases its material around the instrumental hooks and pop melodies exemplified on The Life Pursuit. Comparisons could also be made to Kill the Moonlight-era Spoon (Voxtrot is, after all, from Austin, Texas) and perhaps to Hefner (though that's a bit of a stretch), but they should also be made to brit-pop acts like Maximo Park, The Futureheads, for their lyrics take more cues from their masculine angst (albeit in a toned-down manner) than in Stuart Murdoch's literary reveries and schoolyard vignettes. Neither musically nor lyrically are they incredibly innovative, at least for now, but that doesn't appear to be the point: Voxtrot are out to convince you that they are, in their own words, "married to [their] work," and their dilligence, aimed both at the listener and the characters or characters to whom their songs appear to be addressed, isn't ever in doubt.

The five songs on Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives are all decent tunes, and every one gets a great deal of mileage out of the taut arrangements of piano, guitar, bass (which is quite well used, despite the simplicity of the parts), vocals, drums, and strings. "Rise Up in the Dirt," which offers what probably is the EP's best vocal melody in its chorus, evokes a sense of triumph with its post-chorus swells and retains the listener's attention throughout the verses due to its strong piano melodies. "Four Long Days" manages to get a pedal stell into the mix without it seeming like a tasteless device to countify things for variety's sake, and "Fast Asleep" is a great pop song, pure and simple. There are a few issues Voxtrot will need to iron out before they get around to recording a full-length, however, and while I'd hesitate to dub them problems, I would say that they keep this EP (like their last) from being truly great. What makes Belle and Sebastian, whom the band emulates musically more than anybody else, great isn't melodies but lyrics: Stuart Murdoch has a knack for inventing believable, thoughtful protagonists, who are often female, which makes Ramesh Srivastava's first-person monologues, which aim to be masculine yet to some degree sensitive, seem a trifle one-dimensional. To be fair, they're not, but they also lack the intensity of Maximo Park's, the philosophical quality of Shins frontman James Mercer's, and the irony of Hefner's. In short, they're somewhat humdrum, and furthermore, the same can be said of some of the vocal melodies, which make for good pop songs, but (save perhaps "Rise Up in the Dirt") aren't exceptionally memorable. The message here is that if you like Belle and Sebastian (especially their more recent material) and other arrangement-heavy pop acts, you'll like Voxtrot, though they don't do much to distinguish themselves from the herd, save arranging their compositions well and offering a consistently above-average tracklist -- but I suppose those are rare and often overlooked qualities in their own right.

-BT

Review: Asobi Sesku - Citrus (8.3)

2006-07-15T16:07:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.3
Lyrics: 8.1
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 8.7
Thematicity: 8.4
Originality: 8.2
Production: 8.8

These days, whenever one mentions My Bloody Valentine in conversation, it is inevitable that one's interlocutors, if they are at all well-acquainted with the history of indie rock, will express a good deal of admiration for Loveless, and for good reason: it presaged and profoundly influenced Hum and Yo La Tengo, proved that guitar rock could be atmospheric, and essentially invented shoegazer music. The unfortunate thing, however, is that My Bloody Valentine and Loveless have become practically synonymous; most people forget that Kevin Shields used to write pop songs before he started experimenting with noise. Records like Isn't Anything, which may not be is influential or as innovative as its follow-up turned out to be, but is certainly every bit as well-assembled and even more listenable, don't get their due these days, but Japanese pop artists Asobi Sesku are out to change that. When I say that Asobi Sesku's primary influence is My Bloody Valentine, I'm talking about the band's early, pre-Loveless material, for on thier sophomore effort, Citrus, the band's characteristic waves and walls of heavily-modulated guitar noise, thickly layered distortion, and faintly perceptible trickles, chimes, and swells beneath it all are there not for their own sake, but to further a solid set of extremely compelling pop songs whose true basis is in vocal melody. Singer Yuki Chikudate sings both in Japanese and English (often alternating between the two within a single song) with equal fluency, and in sharp contrast to many recent Scandinavian acts who attempt English lyrics, she delivers lyrics which, despite their seeming simplicity, come across as both pithy and evocative. Those who back her are accomplished musicians, and the overall result is without doubt the finest trans-Pacific import since Koenjihyakkei's Angherr Shisspa.

One of the most impressive things about Citrus is that it begins strong (with "Everything Is On" and "Strawberries," whose overlapping images of both sexual and sensory re-awakening set the album's introspective, dreamlike mood) and keeps up the momentum throughout, despite the fact that the tracklist is actually quite varriegated. As an example, take the mid-album track "Red Sea," which may clock in at over seven minutes and devote more than a third of that time to a noise-for-noise's-sake outro, but never drags and makes a strong claim to being the album's best individual track. An even stronger claim can be made for the song directly following it, the sentimental pop tune "Goodbye," though there are numerous outher tracks that aren't that far behind either, among them "New Years" and "Thursday." Lyrically, the album is remarkably solid as well, and avoids the pitfalls of pure cuteness, twisting it instead into apophthegms like "don't cry for sleeping kittens" and "it's a violent truth that I'm like you," which contain a deceptive amount of depth. Meanwhile, behind Chikudate's words, a rich blend (or perhaps puree would be a better word, given the amount of processing) of guitar noise, bells, organ drones, etc. adds to them two things that music that treads this close to noise-rock rarely can: structure and intensity. Of course this could never be classified as noise-rock, or even properly shoegaze, however; Citrus is at its heart a pop album, and in drawing from Isn't Anything rather than Loveless, it gives new life to a tired genre and gives credit to My Bloody Valentine's back-catalogue, where it is long overdue. Credit is also due to Asobi Sesku themselves, however: they are not mere epigones, but have developed a style and idiom all their own out of those of their influences, and the result is both impressive musically and enjoyable from beginning to end.

-BT

Review: Herbert - Scale (7.4)

2006-07-14T17:12:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.4
Lyrics: 6.2
Melodies: 7.4
Arrangements: 9.4
Thematicity: 6.8
Originality: 7.2
Production: 9.8

Matthew Herbert's releases haven't recieved a great deal of recognition over the last five years or so, despite a steady output of records including Goodbye Swingtime and last year's Plat du Jour, but his engineering work on Roisin Murphy's solo debut Ruby Blue has once again placed him in the public eye. Sadly, there is a reason for this: Herbert is far more skilled as a producer than a songwriter, which is not to say that he can't pen a decent melody every once in while, but that his compositions generally employ production as a crutch to support lackluster lyrics and somewhat staid melodies. Until Scale, in fact, Herbert hadn't really tried to make songs as much as techno-influenced dance pieces, but on this latest effort he aims to create well-produced, high-quality radio-pop. The results are somewhat mixed: on the one hand, Herbert seems to have gotten exactly what he wanted; on the other, while the product is certainly a polished one, he continually succumbs to the worst tropes associated with the genre he's chosen to write in rather than attempting to push boundaries. Where Scale could have benefitted from incisive, empowering lyrics and the emotive power of well-delivered soul vocals, it settles for half-hearted, regurgitated platitudes and stock phrases which hardly ever come across as truly sincere. Still, by any measure it represents Herbert's best engineering job yet, and an innovative array of horns, beeps, drones, and God-knows-what-else (you can survey the album art and infer what's going on if you're interested) keeps even the most banal tracks at least somewhat interesting.

The biggest problem with Scale is lyrical: Dani Siciliano has a good, well-controlled voice, and while she's not Roisin Murphy, her articulation (which, all things considered, is not bad) is certainly far from problematic. If anything, it's the trip she has to sing that trips Siciliano up, and to be fair, it's doubtful whether anybody could have brought to life such lifeless material. Furthermore, while the minute nuances of Herbert's production are captivating, on a macroscopic scale (say, that of an entire song), the variety disappears, and most tracks sound exceedingly repetitive. There are a couple of songs, namely "Harmonise" and "Movie Star" which manage to sound fresh, but these two suffer from another problem entirely. As with Phil Spector's "girl group" recordings, it's hard not to see much of the lyrical content on Scale as unironically misogynist, and when it's not clear where lines like "what is it you'd have me do?" and "direct me in it" (from "Movie Star") or the artfully "censored" opening portion of "Those Feelings" are coming from, its hard not to interpret Siciliano's voice as a mouthpiece through which Herbert can air stereotypical male fantasies. Even if this isn't the case, there's nothing at all in the lyrics to suggest any sort of personal touch from either of the two, of from anybody for that matter, except on "Wrong," which is only barely on key for that reason slightly obnoxious. "Moving Like a Train" says nothing, "The Movers and the Shakers" dabbles unsuccessfully in political commentary and throws in some uninspired Bush-bashing (which, again, everybody seems to be into these days). Matthew Herbert's programming, sampling (including myriad clever touches like the falling ice-cube sound at the opening of "Those Feelings"), and orchestration does in many ways make up for it, but I really can't see myself listening to Scale for enjoyment, but rather to see if I can glean any technical ideas from it. Yes, as a technical manual it's one of the most brilliant records ever made, but as a set of songs (and that's really all it is: there's not much connectivity between them) it's only passable, and without his engineering work, it would be nothing more than elevator music.

-BT

Review: The Mongeese - The Black Arc (8.1)

2006-07-06T23:56:00.000-04:00

This review is currently unavailable.

Review: The Malachi Constant - Pride (8.1)

2006-07-05T22:26:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.1
Lyrics: 8.1
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 8.5
Thematicity: 7.9
Originality: 8.3
Production: 8.0

Since they formed, Twin Cities art-punk mainstays The Malachi Constant have gradually been altering their sound from the the melange of flat-out punk outbursts and post-rock guitar gymnastics that defined Newspeak and Challenger toward the unique brand of even-tempered, quasi-instrumental dance-punk that defined 2004's Infinite Justice. In general, the transition seems to be a potentially fruitful one, though Infinite Justice was somewhat inchoate and lacked the guitar melodies that made both Challenger and its successor, Zenith, so compelling. On the band's latest offering, Pride, however, they have become far more proficient with their new sound: not only has Karl Wedoff and Ben Hecker's guitar work returned to form, but the band has also figured out how that sound should be produced and how to take fullest advantage of Mike Wisti's sparse, icy production. Pride is not only full of memorable tracks and addictive guitar melodies, it also makes use of Alex McCown's skill as a percussionist, which was essentially wasted on Infinite Justice in much the same way Jim Eno's were wasted on Spoon's Kill the Moonlight. It also comes off as a far more personal record than its predecessor, and while Wedoff's lyrics are, as always, both minimal and slathered with irony to the point where one continually wonders whether he gives a shit about his lyrics at all, it's undeniably clear here that he does, and that the resignation evinced by his delivery on "Immortality" and "Sex Fantasy" is genuine expression rather than ruse.

The best songs on Pride are those which adhere to the dance-punk song structures the band experiments with here while taking advantage of their individual instrumental skills. These include "Blueshammer" (which really does borrow blues themes and use them to great effect) and the epic, multipartate "Princess Billionaire," but the finest example of their songwriting here is "Coquette on Horse," which begins by building up a series of melodic guitar solos and then transitions into a sublime yet understated vocal melody delivered over a pulsing beat and accompanied by a set of well-integrated backing vocals. Other songs, such as "Quid Pro Quo (or) Class Action" and "Time Travel" take advantage of Wisti's production (and a hell of a lot of drum compression) to evoke a more electronic sound. The only real problem the album has is the one The Malachi Constant actively cultivate, which is the active interruption of thematic unity via the insertion of silly, underproduced one-off jokes like "Kieth on All Fours," which features Wedoff disaffectedly delivering the lines "If you fuck with me, wait and see/I will fuck with you" over a set of intentionally half-assed instrumental lines. The band won't give up fucking with its audience, even in its new stylistic incarnation, and while it's initially part of the fun of joining the band in laughing at itself, it later just feels like an unnecessary interruption. Fortunately this happens only rarely, and in general the music on the album is good enough that one is willing to sit through the occasional bit of fucking around in order to hear it. Pride, without a doubt, represents a return to form for the Malachi Constant, and while it may not quite aspire to the level of Challenger (in my opinion, still their best record), it definately comes close.

-BT

Review: Six Organs of Admittance - The Sun Awakens (8.1)

2006-07-05T19:04:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.1
Lyrics: 7.6
Melodies: 7.8
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 8.7
Originality: 7.7
Production: 8.5

On School of the Flower, Ben Chasny's Six Organs of Admittance pioneered a new direction for freak folk by integrating it with post-rock, albeit in a somewhat inchoate manner. The album's title track, a thirteen-minute crescendo consisting of an acoustic guitar cadence embellished by non-stop drum fills was one of last year's most brilliant songs, and while the rest of the album could only boast an occasional catchy yet somewhat stereotypical folk tune like "Thicker than a Smokey," that one composition made it worthwile. I had hopes that whatever follow-up the band released would explore this intriguing synthesis more fully, and while there are still moments of it on The Sun Awakens, Chasny apparently had other plans for his record. These plans involved emphasizing electric guitar noise rather than drum virtuosity and forging a dark and tautly thematic record that plays more like a single composition with several movements than a set of songs. This isn't only due to fact that two thirds of the album's overall length is taken up by one twenty-three minute track called "River of Transfiguration"; it's also because each song on The Sun Awakens has its own particular mood, yet each seems to fit into an overall narrative. The album is not without its problems, and it's certainly not the pay-off I had been anticipating, but there's no denying that it's an improvement over its predecessor.

It behooves one to divide the album into two halves: one consisting of "River of Transfiguration" alone and the other of everything that precedes it. I'll deal with the record's early tracks first, which have a great deal of structure and rely heavily on the interplay between acoustic an electric guitars. The production is certainly up to the task, and although there is a trade-off (the drums are relegated to the background), Chasny's music benefits a great deal from the richer, more bottom-heavy sound. Without such improvements, the album could never have achieved the tenebrous mood that holds it together, and songs such as the eerie, Near-Eastern-sounding "Attar" and the brief yet thematically essential acoustic interlude "Wolves' Pup" never would come off as well as they do. The evocative runs on "Torn By Wolves" provide an excellent opening for the record, and the tension between the more majestic, poignant segments and the darker ones propels the album admirably toward its resolution. And then there is the resolution itself, which comes very close to justifying its length with the repeated intonation of its wordless mantra and the one taste of the free-form jazz drumming that I had so hoped to hear on this record. It serves as an excellent finale to the album and not only perpetuates the themes of struggle, darkness, and eventual awakening that the earlier tracks construct, but also develops their religious overtones. There are problems with with The Sun Awakens, however. One is that it recycles a few melodies and licks from the band's previous material: "Black Wall" is one of the album's best offerings, but it obtains much of its success by cannibalizing an acoustic guitar riff from "School of the Flower" and embellishing it with electric guitar solos instead of drum fills. Another is that the lyrics to "Bless Your Blood" and "Black Wall" (the only songs on the album that feature any) aren't that spectacular, and are furthermore unnecessary: the music is strong enough to get the point across without them, and I feel they should have been excised. Still another is that even though its thematic unity is impressive, the themes themselves (religion, the East, transfiguration, the coming of the dawn) are typical hippie fare that Chasny hasn't really interpreted in any profound new way. Still, this is in many ways an impressive record, and a fine example of what many rock musicians (and even many post-rock musicians) still don't seem to get: that it's often possible to tell a story more eloquently without words than with them.

-BT

Review: Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped (7.6)

2006-07-05T00:52:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.6
Lyrics: 6.8
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 7.4
Originality: 7.7
Production: 8.1

After examining twenty-odd years of examples, I think I can state reasonably clearly the characteristics that separate a good Sonic Youth record from a mediocre one. First, as Kim Gordon's songwriting tends to be more consistant than Thurston Moore's, a substantial number of its songs will be hers. Second, when Moore does take the mike, he'll spend his time there unrolling loosely-connected imagery rather than trying to make a coherent point, tell a story, or deliver a message; whenever Moore attempts to do any of the latter, the result is almost always disaster. Finally, Gordon will give the impression that she cares about what she's saying. If those things happen, the album's going to be good, and yes, of course there are other matters, such as catchy melodies and interesting guitar lines, but let's face it: this is Sonic Youth, and there are certain things they just aren't going to screw up. I had reasonably high hopes for Rather Ripped, primarily because its immediate predecessor, Sonic Nurse, presented the best example in recent memory of what the band can do when everything works and may well have been their best album since Daydream Nation. What Rather Ripped delivers, however, is something more akin to Murray Street. It has its good aspects, and some truly fantastic moments, but is hampered by a sense of aimlessness and a tendency to put the band's weaknesses on display.

As usual, and as on Murray Street, the album's biggest impediment is Moore's lyrics, which range from mediocre ("Rats," "Do You Believe in Rapture?") to abysmal and utterly uninspired ("Sleepin Around"). Fortunately, the melodies to most of his tracks are impressive enough to redeem them, as is the case with "Rats" and especially "Incinerate," which despite its shaky lyrics emerges as the one truly great song on Rather Ripped. Gordon's lyrics are, as is always the case, far better, and the droll sarcasm of "What a Waste" is a brilliant palate cleanser to follow up "Sleepin Around." Still, however, the rest of her lyrics and even her vocal delivery often lack intensity or conviction. True, "Turquoise Boy" has its moments, but those moments are mostly engendered by Moore's guitar solos, and "Jams Run Free" is equally half-hearted, though "Reena," the album's opener, is a thoroughly solid track. It must be said that the guitar work on Rather Ripped is impressive, however, and even more so here as Sonic Youth revel in their own musical idiom rather than attempting to imitate Pavement like they did on Murray Street. The production on the record is certainly adequate, but by no means the equal of that on Sonic Nurse (the low end of the guitar parts if often unnecessarily muted off or buried beneath the rest of the mix). It should also be said that the last few songs on the album (with the notable exception of the "New Hampshire"-influenced intro to "Pink Steam") are fairly forgettable. All in all, a great many of Sonic Youth's strengths (addictive guitar lines and catchy choruses) get showcased here, but only intermittantly, and many of their weaknesses (lackluster lyricism and an often total dissonance between what Gordon and Moore seem to be trying to express in thier songs) get showcased to an equal degree. This is a mediocre Sonic Youth record if there ever was one, but not one without a good deal of merit in the places you'd expect to find it.

-BT

Review: Don Caballero - World Class Listening Problem (8.1)

2006-06-29T17:24:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.1
Lyrics: N/A
Melodies: 7.9
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 8.3
Originality: 7.8
Production: 8.5

Don Caballero's definition of post-rock was never really about transcending or surpassing rock music, but rather about making rock music that just didn't happen to have vocals. The aesthetic that birthed Lightning Bolt, Hella, The Fucking Champs, and countless other similar, lesser-known acts is primarily their artistic vision, and even bands as far afield stylistically as the Malachi Constant owe them a tremendous debt -- and not merely for making ridiculously silly song titles like "Stupid Puma" and "You Sure Drink a Lot of Coffee for a Teenager" fashionable. In Damon Che, the band has one of the most impressive drummers in rock music, and as a unit they excell at integrating skillful individual flourishes into their music without sacrificing tightness or focus. These attributes are undiminished on World Class Listening Problem, which features what is in many ways their most impressive album to date. The main thing that separates this record from its predecessors is not the band's music or the way that it is played, but the production quality for which they have opted. While albums like Don Caballero II and What Burns Never Returns were engineered to emphasize Che's virtuosic percussion more than anything else, World Class Listening Problem aims more at the creation of a mood, and the aim is realized by jacking up the bass and turning Don Caballero's compositions into dark, foreboding walls of sound that fall somewhere between death metal and M83's Before the Dawn Heals Us. Those compositions are also arranged for the purpose: they are based more around bass hooks than the band's previous material was and tend also to keep the time signature a bit more rigid.

One might wonder if such changes might make Don Caballero's latest effort staid and uninteresting, but generally they don't. The more constistant time signatures allow the band to base its songs on rhythmic hooks (which have always been one of their strong suits, but have never before been so central to thier compositions), yielding addictive pieces like the crunching, bass-heavy "I Agree..... No!..... I Disagree" and the snare-and-guitar-driven "Palm Trees In the Fecking Bahamas." Not every song is incredibly catchy as these two, but most have at least one memorable riff, and all of them showcase the band's instrumental skill in a mature manner that never permits any detraction from the record's thematic unity. Sure there are tracts of certain songs that seem a trifle repetitive (the title track and "Mmmmm Acting, I Love Me Some Good Acting" come to mind), but there aren't any songs that are entirely forgettable. The least forgettable track of all, "Railroad Cancellation," deftly manages to pass its defining riff back and forth between instruments while embellishing it canon-style and building to an impressive climax of scattershot tom fills and majestic cymbal crashes, and it may well be the best individual song Don Caballero ever recorded. I will admit that the revamped production does have a downside, which is that it makes the band's post-rock a bit too redolent of death metal and hence sound a bit less original than it deserves to, but on the whole, Relapse Records (yes, they're primarily a metal lable) has done them great service. If you don't like Don Caballero, you won't find anything on World Class Listening Problem that is likely to alter your opinion (they're pretty much up to the same old tricks), but if you're a fan, you'll be impressed by the kind of thematic unity the production sculpts out of those tricks and perhaps come to the same conclusion that I have, which is that this is their magnum opus -- or if not, it's at least close.

-BT

Review: Matt Jones - Right to Arms (8.3)

2006-06-29T13:53:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.3
Lyrics: 8.2
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 8.5
Thematicity: 8.4
Originality: 8.0
Production: 8.4

From looking at Matt Jones, the imposing tower of a human being who formerly served as the percussionist for The Descent of the Holy Ghost Church, or even from hearing him speak, one certainly wouldn't ever guess that his singing voice would land in the upper regions of the tenor range and posess the sweet timbre of a choirboy's, but it does, and on Jones's solo EP Right to Arms, that voice forms the backbone of the record. This description doesn't do justice to the subtleties of his vocalism either: show me one choirboy who can meld effortlessness of execution with a world-weariness neither overwrounght nor entirely unironic, one who could deliver a line like "Did you see how they listed you with the word 'asshole' in parentheses online" in a manner that seems to say "I know it's stupid that I care about something like this enough to mention it in a song, but I can't honestly pretend that it doesn't bother me, and can you honestly say it wouldn't bother you just a tad bit either?" In fact, this record is full of moments that would in any other context would sound corny (I'm especially thinking of the nod to "Silent Night" in "Marble Sleeves"), but Jones's blend of jauntiness and self-conscious sincerity keeps the joke from ever being on him alone. Instead it's on all of us, or at least all of us who have ever either literally or metaphorically thought of inquiring "how far to the next stop sign?" of the figure in the passenger seat while driving home after a few too many drinks to get behind the wheel.

As is often the case with acoustic folk albums, this album's success is essentially in the execution, rather than the melodies or the lyrics (though I can guarantee that both "Vampires" and "Hand Out the Drugs" will get stuck in your head). While I've alread discussed Jones's vocals at length, the minimal yet artful arrangements on Right to Arms also deserve mention. Carol Gray's violin accompaniment enriches several of the tracks substantially (especially "'Silence!' He Told Her," on which its timbre eerily mimics that of a french horn), as does the ambient tricke of metallized guitar on "Hand Out the Drugs," and the reason they work so well is that they are neither intrusive (often a big problem with auxiliary instrumentation in this genre) nor inessential (the metallized guitar even carries the melody at points). This EP really doesn't have any flaws, other than those myriad lyrical awkwardnesses which Jones actually turns into an advantage (and what's more than that, his music's most distinguishing characteristic). It is well-tempered, subtle, thoughtful, and listenable with a well-defined character all its own. In a sense it's a shame that Right to Arms contains only around twenty minutes of music, but perhaps this is the perfect length for such a document: a quiet moment outside oneself becomes something else entirely if it lasts longer than a moment, and that's essentially what this album delivers. How I wish that more records provided the same.

-BT

Review: The Futureheads - News and Tributes (7.8)

2006-06-25T02:13:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.8
Lyrics: 7.9
Melodies: 7.9
Arrangements: 8.1
Thematicity: 7.9
Originality: 7.5
Production: 7.8

I'll be honest and say that it took a little while for the Futureheads' self-titled debut to impress me. Sure, like most everybody else, I was initially gaga over the debonair precision of "Decent Days and Nights," but it's not easy to distinguish oneself in the realm of masculine-angst themed retro-pop anymore, and the album wasn't either lyrically or stylistically that different from its predecessors. Still, the music was solid and eventually the songwriting won me over, but I've been harboring serious doubts about the band's longevity, especially since Maximo Park beat them at their own game last year with the release of A Certain Trigger. It's therefore unsurprising that the Futureheads have taken a cue or two from Maximo Park on their follow-up record, this year's News and Tributes (hell, there's even a song called "Back to the Sea" on it). While The Futureheads revelled in displays of energy, its successor takes the band's trademark precisely timed chord crunches and sudden assertions of volume and applies them to a more even-tempered (and even-tempo-ed) tracklist ranging from familiar bursts of fury like "Return of the Berserker" to ballads like "News and Tributes." While I expected that the band would try to take its sound in this direction, I am somewhat surprised that they succeeded in producing as solid and listenable a record as they have. Save the unforgivable squandering of an opportunity to name their sophomore effort Back to the Futureheads, it has no real flaws, though it also plays things a bit too safe to be considered great.

The record's two opening tracks, "Yes/No" and "Cope" provide the listener with a representative sample of both its strengths and weaknesses. Both songs have somewhat catchy parts, including the former piece's shouted cadence of a chorus and the second's primary guitar line, though neither particularly rivets or astounds with its melody (the only track on the album that really does in "Back to the Sea"). Both are well-produced for the most part, but both also feature the somewhat annoying sudden volume bursts (and I don't mean the band plays louder, I mean the band plays at the same volume and the producer automates the increase) meant to add a bit of stylish bombast, which may succeed in their purpose, but if you ask me, the contrast not only seems unnecessary but contrived. Lyrically, they're both alright (perhaps more so if masculine angst particularly appeals to you), but nothing spellbinding. The rest of the album, though somewhat varriegated in its material, isn't that varriegated in quality: all the songs are listenable and reasonably catchy, but few stand out from the rest. Except for the obnoxious dance remix of "Decent Days and Nights," which manages to strip the song of all its rhythmic intricacy (and to be fair, seems to be intended as a bonus track, despite its explicit mention on the tracklist), the album is quite solid and certainly more nuanced -- though not quite as addictive in its melodies -- as its predecessor was. If News and Tributes has any major problem, its that while the band do a reasonable amount of exploring withing the stylistic domain they set for themselves on their debut, it takes a lot to make garage-influenced Brit-pop interesting in this day and age, and the Futureheads don't realy have any characteristics which distinguish themselves from Maximo Park and other, similar acts who often come up with better material. It is thus difficult to regard News and Tributes as anything more than a competent album in an oft-emulated genre, but that is in most ways still a genuine compliment.

-BT

Review: The Black Heart Procession - The Spell (8.0)

2006-06-23T11:12:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.0
Lyrics: 7.9
Melodies: 7.7
Arrangements: 8.5
Thematicity: 8.8
Originality: 7.2
Production: 8.4

In an era where bands specializing dark, brooding songs heavy on strings, influnced by classical music, have become a trope and a caricature of the pathos that has somehow become attached to Nietzches's conception of the Dionysian, the Black Heart Procession still manages to sound both relevant and sincere. Part of the reason for this is that they aren't just run of the mill Cure or Einsteuzen Neubauten emulators, but rock musicians and balladiers at heart: Paul Jenkins's voice often recalls Paul Westerberg's, and the band's song structures and arrangements can recall Leonard Coen's. They are one of the few acts that can overcome the stigma of their genre, and though some of their past efforts have been slightly uneven in certain regards (melodies, production, etc.), their sincerity and skill have never been in doubt. On The Spell, the band's latest offering, however, the band finally seems to have gotten everything right at once and provided their listeners with one of the most solid albums this year so far. The mixing (especially in the incorporation of the string parts and background synthesizer drones) does justice to the band's subtle arrangements, and the composition is strong throughought. In a way, the album's solidity (read uniformity) is also somewhat of a hindrance, but not a major one: the Black Hear procession have obviously done exactly what they wanted to do here, and the results are indeed impressive.

Its difficult not to gush profusely over the arrangements on this record, but I'll limit myself to a few highlights: the piano, vocal, and violin interplay on "Places" is fabulous, as are the subtly crescendoing and decrescendoing background buzzes in "The Waiter #5," and the finely sculpted, pounding bass and guitar sound that defines "The Spell" and "Gps" is likewise impressive. As for most of the album's other aspects, however, my reaction tends not toward effusiveness but toward tacit admiration. I wouldn't necessarily categorize the melodies on The Spell as unusually catchy or riveting (there aren't too many standouts, though "Gps" and "The Fix" come the closest), but they're certainly well-defined and listenable without exception. The same judgment gets passed lyrically: on the one hand, there's nothing awkward, silly, or unnecessary in them; on the other, they're very typical in their subject matter, construction, and delivery (especially for the genre). In fact, if there's any real flaw in this record, it is, somewhat paradoxically, its consistency. It's not that the songs on The Spell all blend together (or that if they do, it's in a good way -- one that fosters thematic unity -- rather than a bad one), but that the Black Heart Procession plays it very safe here: the song structures, arrangements, and lyrics are all a bit too typical of their genre, and despite their unusually high quality, seem lacking in adventurousness and innovation. It would be nice to see the band, now that they've managed to solidify their sound, to experiment a bit, lest that sound begin to calcify. Mind, I think talk of calcification is unfair in regard to The Spell, but for all of its myriad graces (and they are myriad -- this is an incredibly subtle and thoroughly enjoyable album), I wish it took a few more risks.

-BT

Review: Be Your Own Pet - Be Your Own Pet (6.9)

2006-06-18T16:52:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 6.9
Lyrics: 6.2
Melodies: 7.3
Arrangements: 7.7
Thematicity: 7.8
Originality: 6.4
Production: 7.6

Frequent readers of Celestial Biscuit will likely recall that I have almost no respect for The Yeah Yeah Yeahs either as musicians (little of their arrangements or instrumentalism are in any way impressive to me), as innovators (anything significant the've gotten the credit for, Erase Errata did first and, and in my opinion, better), or as activists (one finds as much commodified dissent and sense of "sexual liberation" in cola commercials). Furthermore, while they've inspired a slew of immitators, the fact that many of these imitators' releases have so far outshone the band's own works (I'm thinking specifically of Love Is All's fabulously nuanced Nine Times That Same Song here) only make them look sillier, and sure, I'll grant them "Maps," but after three EPs and two full-length albums, one good song doesn't mean a hell of a lot. Yet, still there are bands, among them Be Your Own Pet, who aspire to little other than faithful imitations of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' sound, with sustained noise-punk intensity and plenty of sexually charged lyrics and histrionically emotive vocal antics -- and guess what: even these folks manage to surpass their mentors. The primary reason for this isn't songwriting (Be Your Own Pet aren't compositional geniuses, to be sure, and whether their self-titled debut even contains a decent single is highly debatable), but the fact that their members can actually play their instruments proficiently. There are occasional shades of Erase Errata on Be Your Own Pet as well, as the band seems to have a good idea of how to integrate noise into their work without calling undue attention to it. Nevertheless, while the album displays great effort and intensity, it comes off lacking in just about every other department, though to be fair, not woefully so in most.

The main problem I have with Be Your Own Pet is that its greatest asset is also its undoing. The unflagging pace at which the record begins with the succinct, reasonably eloquent "Thresher's Flail" is galvanizing up until about "Adventure" or so, tolerable through "We Will Vacation, You Can Be My Parasol," and hyperactive and annoying from there to the end. If the band had included even a single down-tempo tune, it would have given the listener some indication that the band wasn't running entirely on pitchers of Red Bull, but the closest thing the album has, "October, First Account," is easily one of its worst songs (I hate to say it, but you can hear the Averil Lavigne influence), and this sad fact is a signal that Be Your Own Pet don't just feel like being raucous, but that they really don't know how to do much else. Another problem of no small importance is the lyrics: Be Your Own Pet's members (mostly in their late teens) do not posess a maturity beyond their years. The band's singer, Jemina Pearl (not, as you may have guessed, her real name) slathers Karen O's Debbie Harry-inspired delivery with the sugary, come-hither syrup of a female alterna-pop star (think Letters to Cleo's Kay Hanley), and the result comes off insubstantial and misguided at best, and at worst, cloying and infantile. According to a great many people, female vocalist empowers both herself and women at large when she delivers a steam of unalloyed calls for sex as long a she makes it clear that she's the one in control; according to me, that's horse shit: lyrics like Pearl's are yet another example of commodified dissent and diffuse spectacle repackaging of subversion into an advertising campaign for consumer culture at large. I doubt anyone honestly thinks that tired catchphrases "burn this place down" and "let's fuck shit up" really mean anything anymore. Like Melodious Owl, I'll give them a bit of slack for being young and inexperienced, but while the Erase Errata breakdowns and unflagging energy are enough to make Be Your own Pet's debut somewhat listenable, they aren't quite enough to make it good, though I'll still maintain its superiority over anything the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have ever done till the end.

-BT

Review: Mission of Burma - The Obliterati (7.9)

2006-06-09T15:44:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.9
Lyrics: 7.6
Melodies: 8.3
Arrangements: 7.9
Thematicity: 7.8
Originality: 7.5
Production: 8.2

When a band suddenly re-forms after a hiatus of twenty years, especially an influential act like Mission of Burma, the listening public is bound to have questions. After all, the last two years have seen no small share of iconic proto-alternative and post-punk outfits like Dinosaur Jr., The Television Personalities, and The Pixies resurrected, and while for many, younger listeners (myself included) the prospect of being able to see these acts live for the first time may be intriguing, my cynical side is inclined to see many of these reunions as little more than attempts to cash in on the retro obsession, and the most blatant affirmation yet that it's merely a self-ironic redaction of the alternative ethos. As a result of this cynicism, in order for me to take any of these bands seriously, some proof is required of something that transcends the media circus: original material that not only shows artistry but also relevance. On Onoffon, Mission of Burma evinced their continuing capability to write a reasonably good song, but didn't quite deliver anything interesting enough to merit serious attention. On The Obliterati, however, they make a convincing argument that they still deserve attention, and while they may not seem as innovative as they did in the early 1980's, their songwriting is almost every bit as solid here as it was on Vs., the band's magnum opus.

It must be said, however, that while the original incarnation of Mission of Burma and its present avatar have a great deal in common, their rosters of strengths and weaknesses are far from identical. For example, Vs. was primarily based around intensity and only offered one truly addictive pop chorus (that of "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate"), while The Obliterati has several, including "Donna Sumeria," "Good, Not Great" and "2wice," and only one song -- the mid-album track "Careening With Conviction" -- that achieves greatness primarily through the sheer force of its delivery. In addition, while the band's characteristically raw production has been improved upon a great deal here, Bob Weston has deftly kept the best of the band's heterodox sound intact while fixing a few minor problems with relative track levels that they've had in the past. There are, however, two lyrical issues that The Obliterati has which the band's earlier recordings did not. The first is that the album is lyrically somewhat uneven, though not in the usual sense, where the lyrics are uneven across the board, but in the sense that on some tracks, they're spot on ("Man in Decline," "Spider's Web") and on others ("1001 Pleasant Dreams" and "13") woefully inept. Second, although "Donna Sumeria" offers one of the most interesting takes on the Iraq war (similar to the Police's take on the Cold War in "Every Breath You Take"), many of the political songs on this album seem somewhat dated, despite the band's attempt to connect the era of their original incarnation with their present one (think "Nancy Reagan's head), while that original incarnation was more interested in delivering commentary on timeless struggles ("the Roman empire never died/it just changed into the Catholic church") and hence more relevant, even now, than The Obliterati. The album also contains one genuinely bad song, "Birthday," but it doesn't interrupt the flow of the album enough to wreak any serious harm on an otherwise musically solid tracklist. I think it would be accurate to say that The Obliterati succeeds as solid collection of melodic songs, and although it doesn't do much for the band's continuing musical relevance, it shows that they certainly have polished their songwriting technique a great deal and are capable of writing catchier songs than ever before; and honestly, if all the all-star reunions that seem to be going on right now produced similar fruit, I'd be pleased as punch.

-BT

Review: Centro-Matic - Fort Recovery (7.8)

2006-06-04T14:22:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.8
Lyrics: 7.0
Melodies: 7.7
Arrangements: 8.2
Thematicity: 7.9
Originality: 7.4
Production: 8.6

Centro-Matic wear their influences on their sleeve, so in reviewing their seventh album, Fort Recovery (although hardly a household name, the they've been around since 1995), I thought it appropriate to be equally candid and state them for the record early on in the review: they are Wilco and Radiohead, in that order. While this may make the band seem somewhat generic (after all, who doesn't borrow from either OK Computer or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot these days?), the self-ironic self mockery their name implies on this count is a sign that the band know well that they have to introduce a substantial amount of individual character into their music in order to be taken seriously, but in many ways they're up to the challenge. Fort Recovery is, first and foremost, an attempt to integrate the band's Southwestern pop-rock conception of Americana with the OK Computer's characteristic percussion parts and impressive production, and on that count it certainly succeeds. The success comes at a price: the album's tracks, while all expertly engineered and for the most part richly textured, aren't all of the same caliber: some are phenomenal, but a few lack definition. Nevertheless, the production is genuinely impressive, and features some interesting touches, such as the subtle background piano licks that crop up occasionally, or the wall of sound derived from the rhythm guitar's fuzzy, overdriven low-frequency band. As a result, the preliminary Gin Blossoms comparisons this record is bound to be met with are bound to give way, in time, to compliments on its intricacies and appreciation of its many finer points.

The primary thing that makes Fort Recovery memorable, after the production, is that it contains some wonderful individual tracks. Foremost among them is the majestic 3/4 lilt "For New Starts," though "Patience for the Ride," "Monumental," and "Triggers and Trash" are every bit as catchy, if not quite as powerful. Lyrically, the album isn't much to wirte home about: "Calling Thermatico" contains the makings of an interesting story, were any of its characters developed, but as it is comes off as insubstantial, and they lyrics most of the record's other songs consist of somewhat suggestive phrases catenated together in typical mid-nineties style, that don't really say much other than what the listener wants to read into them, and even then, there's not much here in the way of novel imagery to work with. As for the album's sparser, more down-tempo tracks, they're hit and miss. "In Such Crooked Time" and "Take The Maps and Run" are good songs, taken in a vacuum, but both are far too reminiscent of Jeff Tweedy's songwriting to come off as much more than Wilco homages, and the same thing can be said of "Covered Up in Mines" in relation to Radiohead. Then there are songs like "Nothin' I Ever Seen" and "Take a Rake," that just come off somewhat flaccid. As a rule, the album's intriguing production and successful hybridizing of two distinct indie subgenres makes even this last category of tracks palatable, but while Fort Recovery is undeniably a solid record, it also takes very few risks and bases its solidity around engineering rather than songwriting, which in my book is seldom a recipie for greatness. It should still be said that it is worth listening to both for its potential singles and for its overall craftsmanship, although it also calls into question exactly where craftsmanship ends and artistry begins.

-BT

Review: Shoplifting - Body Stories (7.4)

2006-06-03T10:46:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.4
Lyrics: 7.1
Melodies: 7.3
Arrangements: 7.8
Thematicity: 7.6
Originality: 7.0
Production: 7.6

Shoplifting are the kind of band that would be cropping up everwhere by now if Erase Errata's first two records had recieved the attention I'm still convinced they deserved. The integration of Captain Beefheart influence into punk rock gave a long-stagnant genre some new territory to explore, though as with the Malachi Constant, who have suffered a similar fate after similar stylistic pioneering, few disciples have set out with the goal of following Erase Errata's example. It's thus somewhat comforting to throw Body Stories on the stereo and hear music whose primary influence appears to be Other Animals. Like most faithful imitators who harvest most of their mussels from a single pool, so to speak, they aren't in the same league with their primary influence, but they certainly aren't without a certain amount of flair all their own. The sheer fact that band's primary vocalist, Chris Pugmire, is male serves to differentiate them a bit, as does the band's emphasis on pusling bass beats and interplay between guitar, bass, and drums (yes, there's no unusual instrumentation here) over Erase Errata's constrained chaos. On the upside, it makes it seem as though the band has put a great deal more attention into their songwriting; on the downside, it makes Shoplifting's material seem far less spontanous than it needs to be.

I can't say that there are many individual songs that stick out on Body Stories, but if one listens more carefully, there are many things to appreciate: the band has a knack for making dissonance sound good, and any given track contains several instances of brief yet engaging interplay between two of the instruments. Sadly, however, the larnyx (no matter whose) is never one of those instruments. That's not to say not that the lyrics are abysmal (they're not great, granted, though this is mainly because tracks like "Male Gynecology" and "M. Sally" recycle the same social activist discourse -- and this is the kind of band that would use the word "discourse" to describe it -- you've heard a thousand times at campus rallies, and without the tangible sense of personal investment required to keep them from sounding dogmatic) or the vocal lines are exceptionally badly articulated, but that unlike the rest of the instrumentation, they seem superimposed, almost as an afterthought ("Talk of the Town" offers the nearest thing to an exception, but even that's debatable). In fact, the quality of the instrumental "Flying Factory," with its drum and bass groove and coruscating background chimes, leads me to wonder what Shoplifting might sound like if they dropped the vocals entirely. Again, let me say that this isn't because the vocals are horrendous, but because the band's clever instrumental lines deserve and addictive rhythms deserve more attention than they'll get on Body Stories, where the vocals frequently get in the way of the rest of the mix (which is a shame, because the rest of the mix is rather well-engineered). As it is, the record isn't a bad Erase Errata knock-off, but the band needs to highlight its strengths a bit more than they have here, especially considering Erase Errata themselves have a release date impending, and that Night Life is likely to overshadow such imitations as this.

-BT

Review: Ellen Allien & Apparat - Orchestra of Bubbles (8.4)

2006-06-01T11:06:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.4
Lyrics: 7.0
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 8.8
Thematicity: 8.7
Originality: 8.1
Production: 9.3

Now that May has finally ended, I should digress for a moment to remark on the impressive battery of new releases that emerged during this last month, including Danielson's intricately arranged Ships, the Dardanelles' catchy-as-hell Horseman, Pass By, and (perhaps most impressive of all) Beirut's breathtaking and wholly original debut Gulag Orkestar. In fact, the volume of good music made public during the last thirty-one days was so great that several of the better albums therein released are still on Celestial Biscuit's reviewing queue, but rest assured we'll get to them, beginning with Orchestra of Bubbles, the month's premier electronic album, the fruit of a collaboration between two of Europe's premier beat programmer's Ellen Allien and Apparat (a.k.a. Sascha Ring). While somewhat traditional it its approach (this is the kind of electronica that's based around rhythms rather than around the free-form textures that acts like Fenesz have been exploring), Orchestra of Bubbles is never dull: like The Knife's Silent Shout and Isoleé's We Are Monster, it evinces an immense amount of precision in its production and intricacy in its arrangements, but it also contains none of the flaws that plagued these two works. Where Isoleé often spent far too long repeating the same beat or embellishment, Allien and Ring structure their material expertly and show, in each song, a clear sense of purpose and progression; and where The Knife emphasized their vocals to the extent that their shaky lyrics weakened their compositions, they give their programming the prominence it deserves.

It must be mentioned, however, that there are lyrics on this album, and while they aren't that salient (only four of the record's thirteen tracks feature vocals), they aren't that good either. They also certainly aren't damning, owing both to the genre (in techno, one can get away with making a good deal less sense than in rock, folk, or country, primarily due to the genre's association with imagism) and to the fact that they never upstage the music, and musically this album is fantastic not only in the range and complexity of sounds it comprises, but also in its innovatinve integration of ususual motifs such as cello strains (in "Retina" and "Leave Me Alone," among others) and overlayed Fenesz-like static ("Edison"). It is also rich in melodies ("Way Out" and "Jet" are especially memorable), but what really stands out on Orchestra of Bubbles is the meticulous attention paid to dynamics. Every single sound that fits into the mix is in a constant state of crescendo, decrescendo, or undulation between the two, to the result that the album comes off richer, more textured, and more truly steric than nearly any other electronic music document since Endless Summer. It is also well-unified thematically, and while I always wonder how much impace the appearance of a given record's packaging and cover art has on my interpertation of its theme and feel, I believe that even without the album art's austere, black countenance Orchestra of Bubbles would still come off as nocturnal and introspective. While Ellen Allien and Sascha Ring may be playing it safe as far as the style of their music, they're also playing the music quite well, and their compositions on this release are richly layered without seeming indulgent (in fact there's a good deal to be said about this record's use of negative space) and more nuanced than those of even their most distinguished contemporaries.

-BT

Review: Beirut - Gulag Orkestar (8.8)

2006-05-29T11:27:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.8
Lyrics: 6.4
Melodies: 8.6
Arrangements: 9.4
Thematicity: 9.6
Originality: 9.8
Production: 9.3

In the months leading up to its release, Beirut's Gulag Orkestar was billed by many as, if not the second coming of Neutral Milk Hotel's The Aeroplane Over the Sea, at least a very interesting artefact cut from the same cloth. While such comparisons are certainly understandable, given the similarities in orchestration between the two records, they are also merely the best available parallel one can construct when trying to describe a record as unique and unprecedented as Gulag Orkestar is. While Jeff Mangum was an indie musician (and perhaps even before that, a talented lyricist with a passion for surrealism) who discovered novel ways of arranging his song-poems by setting a horn section and and accordion behind them, Beirut's Zach Condon draws his inspiration primarily from Eastern European folk music (particularly klezmer and traditional Polish dances), and an instrumentation rich in accordion, horns, and violin -- and utterly devoid of guitar -- is that which naturally fits the form. As a result, the album is intensely mimetic and transports the listener to and across Eastern Europe over the course of its eleven songs. Of course there is a bit of indie sensibility injected into the mix as well (perhaps most noticeably on "Scenic World," the closest thing to a pop song the record contains), but the blending of these stylistic elements is seamless: even Condon's sonorous, self-harmonized vocals keep up the illusion well.

The album has one flaw, which is that the lyrics are nowhere near Mangum's caliber; in fact I wouldn't hesitate to call them unispired and even at times ("life is alright on the Rhine") inane. However, this turns out not to be as much of a problem as one might expect for two main reasons: first, a collusion of deft production (à la My Morning Jacket's Z) and Condon's singing style with its numerous warbling flourishes and drawn-out vowel sounds gives the vocals a strong presence but makes it difficult to discern what is being sung most of the times without paying active atention to it; second, the lack of meaningful lyrics in songs modeled after folk dances and ditties (and furthermore folk dances and ditties not originally in English) isn't that much of a problem, and in fact occasionally an asset in that it goes with the theme and reinforces the mimetic illusion. Melodically, the album is by any measure a success (in addition to the poppy "Scenic World," many of its more traditional tracks, most notably "Prenzlauerberg" and "Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)," are incredibly catchy, and there isn't a bad song on the record), the arrangements are both unorthodox (for indie rock) and fantastically nuanced, and unlike some folk crossover records like the Clogs' Lantern, Gulag Orkestar has just enough pop music in it to make it seem a legitimate innovation, rather that something accidentally filed under the wrong genre heading. While I can't in good conscience rate this record any higher than I have, due its lackluster lyrics, it should be emphasized that the album has no other flaws of any sort. Like Paul Simon's Graceland or the Talking Heads' Remain in Light, its an example of what "world music" could have been, had it been based on inspiration and respect rather than cultural pigeonholing, global capitalism and its pawn multiculturalism, and the catering of marketing interests to the desires of naive graduate students wanting desparately to appear broad-minded in front of their peers.

-BT

Review: Danielson - Ships (8.4)

2006-05-26T12:46:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.4
Lyrics: 8.0
Melodies: 8.3
Arrangements: 9.7
Thematicity: 9.2
Originality: 8.2
Production: 8.4

Before I say anything else about Danielson's Ships, let me give any potential listeners out there who have yet to hear it this friendly piece of advice: give Daniel Smith's voice a chance. Not only is his singing style rather heterodox, but it also gives one the impression that Smith is yet another overly pretentious indie kid more interested in flippant slacker antics that any real communication or commentary, which is certainly not the case. Of course it doesn't help that the most discernable lyrics on the record are snippets like "can't believe we found this vintage/we not have such great advantage/great they'll look in our library" and "til the end of the me/I'm going to make you my priority" that come across as either cuteness for cuteness's sake or primitivist postmodern wankery, but if you don't believe me, read the lyrics and try to dismiss lines like "pleasing people is so predictable/we loke you now then stab you/how many times I obsess" as artificial. I'm not advocating that Smith is a brilliant lyricist, mind, but that he does speak from the heart and shouldn't be written off so easily. This is especially true when one considers the elements of Ships other than the lyrics, such as the instrumental melodies, recurrent themes and symbols, and (phenomenal) arrangements. While I'll confess that it took a great deal of exposure to warm up to the album, and that I still have a few lingering doubts about some of its lyrical content, I certainly respect its artistry. At its best, the album hybridizes the Animal Collective's Feels with Sufjan Stevens's Illinois; at its worst, it hybridized Sung Tongs with Illinois, which is to say while it might recall Dan Bejar's comment about a precious American underground born of wealth (and pissing away its talent and privilege La Dolce Vita-style), its never uninteresting.

Let us, however, sing the praises of Ships, for it deserves to be prasised, especially for its baroque arrangements of guitar, piano, glockenspiel, trumpet, and wonderfully placed female backing vocals. It is on tracks like "Ship the Majestic Suffix" and "Bloodbook on the Halfshell" (also, incidentally, two of the melodically strongest songs on the record), which revel in complicated song structures and frequent dynamic shifts, that the quality and intricacy of the myrad instrumental lines is most apparent, and quite a few of the album's songs are of this sort. There are some catchy songs on it as well (the catchiest being the call-and response number "Did I Step on Your Trumpet"), but the album is based more on instrumentation and theme than melody. Several of the songs in the middle run together a bit, though more due to the repetition of certain themes and successful album structuring than any paucity of ideas -- if anything, it springs from their overabundance (think Blueberry Boat). While on the topic of boats, it should be noted that the link Danielson successfully forges between the successful navigation of interpersonal relationships (of all kinds) and seafaring unify the album quite well, and when you really sit down and analyze it, as mentioned before, Smith's lyrics do display a great deal of ingenuity and sensitivity toward his subject. To be fair, the melodies and lyrics on this album, while good, aren't good enough to shuttle this record to my year-end album of the year shortlist, and I don't think its as innovative as some people claim (most of Smith's vocal tics are directly borrowed from the Animal Collective, as is a good deal of his compositional structure), but I do think Ships is a damn fine album (and while I've probably said it ten times already in this review, a brilliantly arranged one) and displays a tremendous amount musicianship.

-BT

Review: Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I Am Dreaming (8.4)

2006-05-25T11:25:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.4
Lyrics: 9.1
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 8.4
Thematicity: 8.4
Originality: 8.2
Production: 8.5

It seems that nearly everybody in the music industry has at least one serious side project these days, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. While I won't bother delving into the semantic difficulties I have with arbitrarily defining a single primary group affiliation for any given songwriter (are the New Pornographers a side project of Destroyer or vice versa?), I will say that it is only those bands (e.g. Sentridoh, Ariport 5) which are essentially excuses to release inferior, unreleased material who have given side projects a bad name. When what differentiates an artist's two projects is musical style or tone, rather than quality, the results (think Portastatic's Slow Note from a Sinking Ship) can often surpass those of his or her "primary" group, and this is certainly the case on Shut Up I Am Dreaming, the first full length offering from Sunset Rubdown, a side project of Wolf Parade's keyboardist Spencer Krug. While Wolf Parade concentrates musically on cadence and rhythm and lyrically on commentaries on modernity and the sense of isolation it carries with it, Sunset Rubdown opts for a freer-flowing, more ambient sound and lyrics that deal more with psychology than geography, offering up a fascinating tableaux of dream images, loosely-connected symbols, and outpourings of emotion. It is essentially an interior landscape, but (at the risk of dipping into naive belle-epoque modernism) one which will resonate with nearly any listener's own experience.

The record opens with "Stadiums and Shrines II," which delivers some of Krug's most compelling psychosexual imagery ("the white undersides of my thighs look much better in the night light/there's a kid in there/he's big and dumb and he's kind of scared") and an absolutely phenomenal guitar riff and sets the tone for the rest of the record. It will probably come as no surprise that Krug's keyboard and piano work provides the foundation for most of the record's eleven tracks, but while pieces like "Us Ones in Between" and "The Empty Dreams of Little Lord" seem spare in their arrangements feel as if echoing across a deserted ballroom, they never come across as lacking. Some tracks may be slightly less interesting than others musically (for example "Swimming" and "Q-Chord"), but Krug's lyrical imagery makes even even these worthwhile. It's not merely the louder tracks that have the most to offer, etither, as some Wolf Parade listeners might suspect: the austere, acoustic performance on "The Empty Threats of Little Lord" and the understated concluding number "Shut Up I Am Dreaming of a Place where Lovers Have Wings" are as as raw, intense, and articulate as the records more upbeat numbers. Nevertheless, it is during one of its upswells, entitles "The Men Are Called Horsemen There," where Shut Up I Am Dreaming reaches its apex with Krug lashing out at the subconscious application of gender roles with the apocalyptic imagery of the refrain "the men are called horsemen there/I'm no horsemen/and you are no angel" and then descending into lurid images of violence and urges to "trample the shepherds." While we may need bands like Wolf Parade and Modest Mouse to point out the horrors of the North American landscape, we just as desparately need bands like Sunset Rubdown to chart the mind's sublime heights and unsavory backwaters, and Shut Up I am Dreaming offers a compelling look at our own interior life, a glimpse of Spencer Krug's artistic range, and a testament to how side projects can yield incredible recordings.

-BT

Review: Boris - Pink (8.2)

2006-05-23T08:06:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.2
Lyrics: 7.9
Melodies: 8.0
Arrangements: 8.7
Thematicity: 8.2
Originality: 7.9
Production: 8.6

When I first put on the Japanese hard-rock outfit Boris's latest release, the much-touted Pink, whose belated American release on Southern Lord Records this month follows a great accumulation of critical acclaim, and was presented with its opening track, "Farewell," I serioulsy began entertaining the notion that this could be my album of the year. A combination of thick, ambient guitar chords, soaring vocals, and rich dynamics, the song recalls Sigur Ros, Hum, and My Bloody Valentine at once while maintaining an individual flavor all its own. The track represents the heights that Boris is capable of ascending to when the band is at its best: the trio are, as is the case with a great many metal and avante-garde Japanese groups (such as the Boredoms or Koenjihyakkei) that make it to the other side of the Pacific, techincally expert musicians. Furthermore -- and this is even rarer among international acts for whom English is not their native tongue -- their English-language lyrics are actually passable. While my hopes were slightly dashed when it turned out that "Farewell" was stylistically an exception rather than the rule on Pink, the band's musicianship and other better qualities still shine through, though not to the same level, on the rest of the tracks, making the record engaging, complex, and worthwhile even for those of us who are not usually metal enthusiasts.

The reason that Pink is not one of the year's best releases, and merely a very good one, is that it is essentially a genre piece that, with the exception of a couple of tantalizing stand-out tracks, doesn't do too much to transcend its genre. As soon as "Farewell" ends, the tempo increases, the album's charateristic thunderous drum lines and thrash guitar riffs start up, and the title track sets the tone for the rest of the record. While some shades of Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins and Hum persist throughout the record, the band's greatest asset, its flair for successfully hybridizing ambience and shoegazer metal, is never again tapped until the concluding moments of the eighteen-minute closer "Just Abandoned Myself." Between these two impressive bookends, there is certainly more to admire that just technical skill: "Pseudo-Bread" and "Afterburner" deliver memorable chorus melodies with startling intensity, and "Pink" (along with many other tracks) is wonderfully structured. Nonetheless, while Pink has no tangible flaws, most of its sensibilities are borrowed from typical hard-rock and metal tropes (with a bit of alternative rock's better elements thrown in), and while the production tends to bring out the best (and often most unusual) aspects of these characteristics, the band still plays things a bit too safe here. Still, while it's not one of the year's outstanding records, I certainly consider "Farewell" one of the best individual songs I've heard in a long time and a reminder that Boris is capable not only of producing good metal, but also of real innovation, and if they ever decide to make an album entirely in that vein, it could be, dare I say it, this decade's Loveless.

-BT

Review: Twilight Singers - Powder Burns (7.2)

2006-05-20T17:01:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.2
Lyrics: 6.7
Melodies: 7.3
Arrangements: 7.7
Thematicity: 7.8
Originality: 7.0
Production: 7.0

If there was any justice in this world, Craig Dulli would have roses laid at his feet daily by bands like the Strokes and Maximo Park, for the earnest yet self-aware brand of masculine angst that has given male-fronted pop acts a newfound sense of authenticity and relevance essentially found its way into rock music due to the Afghan Whigs. Be that as it may, Dulli's releases under the Twilight Singers moniker haven't done much to promote his legacy. While each of these records has had an impressive single or two, none have come close to seeming either as lyricall or musically inspired, as emotionally charged, or as honest as the Whigs' finest offerings (Black Love and 1965), nor have they been particularly well-recieved by the listening public at large. While most artists would consider drastically changing their style after such lukewarm reception (and usually only aggravate things by doing so), Dulli's latest effort, Powder Burns represents an attempt to regain his former glory by doing what he does best: getting darker. While certainly a wise move -- Twilight Singers, like the Afghan Whigs before them, are at their best when giving voice to the sordid undercurrents of the male psyche -- the record certainly is no return to form, and several flaws in its execution prevent it from broadcasting the kind of emotional immediacy it would need to succeed in its aim.

The first major problem with the record is its overproduction. While Dulli, both during the Afghan Whigs era and afterwards, has thrived on the combination of debonair vocalism and polished studio sound (which is actually one of the reasons why the band was so marketable during the nineties), the production that characterizes Powder Burns seems sterile rather than slick. Where his voice should sound personal and raw, it's often laden with unnecessary effects (as in "Forty Dollars"), and the overall mix recalls your choice of contemporary FM radio single. The next problem is that the lyrics alternate between trite and uninspired on the one hand ("Underneath the Waves," "Dead to Rights") and sensationalist and forced on the other (while the inverted Beatles lyrics in "Forty Dollars" push the buttons they're intended to, the rest of the song offers nothing novel). Finally, there's the issue of song structure: while Dulli has shown that he's capable of getting immense mileage out of dramatic guitar swells and lengthy builds, nearly every song on this record peaks far too early and then flounders, attempting to maintain its momentum for another three or four minutes until it stops. There ar a couple of exceptions to the rule, however: the album's brief, instrumental opening track "Toward the Waves" and sinister follow-up "I'm Ready" are impressive, the record's concluding track, "I Wish I Was" is both exciting and innovative for the band, and despite its lyrics, "Dead to Rights" is the one song that seems to come the closest to the Afghan Whigs' former glory. I'm inclined to believe -- perhaps just because I fondly remember what Dulli has done in the past, but I don't think so -- that this record's problems are more the result of technical issues like production than essential issues in composition, and while I can't deny that there really are serious flaws of the more essential type on Powder Burns, I'd like to think (and honestly do think) that the band is still capable of better things to come, under the right conditions.

-BT

Review: The Dardanelles - Horseman, Pass By (8.5)

2006-05-18T11:17:00.000-04:00

This review is currently unavailable.

Review: Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome: the Seeger Sessions (8.3)

2006-05-12T19:00:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.3
Lyrics: 8.4
Melodies: 8.8
Arrangements: 8.9
Thematicity: 8.7
Originality: 7.1
Production: 8.7

I've never been truly comfortable with the use of the word "Americana" in describing the historically-minded melange of traditional New World folk music, indie rock, old-school country, and psychadelica that has risen to prominence since the release of the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack. This isn't just because some of its most shining exemplars are Canadian (I'm thinking of Bell Orchestre here), or because it's one of the broadest and most meaningless genre classifications in current usage, but because the term has less to do with American identity (the thoroughly British Billy Bragg was one of its pioneers) than the realization that one can learn a thing or two from the parts of musical history that antedate rock & roll. Still, I'll admit there's something to the term, given the current political climate in the United States and the fact that whether or not those voices attempting to assemble an American mythology out of Woody Guthrie lyrics, gospel music, labor rhetoric, and the works of Howard Zinn will make any serious impression on the popular midset, it's nonetheless heartening to see some people are making an effort. Bruce Springsteen's contribution, a set of skillfully arranged traditionals entitled We Shall Overcome: the Seeger Sessions is an admirable one. While the forays of other formidable roots rock figures have come off as dated, half-baked, and monistic in their viewpoint (I'm specifically thinking of Niel Young's Living with War here), Springsteen's record is artful, even-handed, and not without a sense of humor. While its admittedly a different sort of artefact from records like Chris Bathgate's The Single Road I Long For and Gillian Welch's Time the Revellator, which comprise original material, it accomplishes everything it sets out to do, and with the necessary amount of elan and spontenaity to make its renditions worth the price of admission.

The record begins with what is probably the most interesting track, in the extent to which the arrangement is particularly novel, "Old Dan Tucker," which backs Springsteen's gravelly and now increasingly Dylanesque voice with a chorus of horns, a banjo, and an army of backing singers. While this sort of arrangement is typical of a great many of the album's tracks (including "John Henry" and the Zydeco-influenced accordion-driven "Pay Me My Money Down"), it's actually the variety in instrumentation that makes the record as strong as it is. Not only are the arrangements tasteful, but the production is up to the task of capturing the individual voices in its often thick brocade of sound. My only complaint is that while the arrangements certainly fit the songs well, few are exceptionally innovative (if you've ever heard a rendition of "Shendandoah" or "We Shall Overcome," you won't be surprised at Springsteen's take on either). In general, however, even given the conservative approach to instrumentation, the songs are nonetheless captivating due to the range of emotions portrayed in Springsteen's vocal delivery, which, in the tradition of Dylan and the Band's The Basement Tapes, capers deftly between jocular and downtrodden, jocose and righteously angry. Even songs that have been hammered into one's head if one was ever a member of a high-school band ("Erie Canal") actually pique one's interest. Only a couple of the tracks on We Shall Overcome: the Seeger Sessions are less memorable than others (and it's a worthy discussion point that "Eyes on the Prize" and the title track, the two songs which fall the closest to the protest-song designation, are its least interesting inclusions), and none are completely uninteresting. It would have been nice to have seen whether Springsteen could be as successful with original material (similar works by Chris Bathgate, Need Based Paint, and Wooden Wand still seem far more impressive seeing as they went through the trouble of penning their own "traditionals"), but as it is, We Shall Overcome: the Seeger Sessions is a thoroughly enjoyable collection of folk songs. If there's a politial message here, its one in true Woody Guthrie style, which emphasizes enjoying life and human company first, and building solidarity for its own sake, with any call to arms implied for circumstances when it's the right thing to do.

-BT

Review: Built to Spill - You in Reverse (7.8)

2006-04-29T12:47:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.8
Lyrics: 7.6
Melodies: 7.9
Arrangements: 8.2
Thematicity: 7.6
Originality: 7.7
Production: 8.4

When Built to Spill christened their first release in five years You in Reverse, they weren't kidding around. Even from the look of the album's cover, to say nothing of the pseudo-psychadelic blob-monster motifs that recall the illustrations that filled the liner notes to Treepeople's records, one gets the feeling that Built to Spill are more serious about bringing their ancient melodies to the future than they ever have been before, and sure enough, the music sound exactly how its visual accoutrements suggest it might. Built around defining instrumental riffs and extended guitar jams, You in Reverse sounds more like Ultimate Alternative Wavers than it does any other Built to Spill record. In some ways, the band's stylistic return to its roots is welcome, since Doug Martsch's guitar work has always been the foundation of his material; in others, it's a bit frustrating to see the band reject wholesale some of its most sublime developments since its debut. After all, while their reputation is primarily as a guitar band, Built to Spill's two most compelling albums, There's Nothing Wrong with Love and Perfect from Now On, while by no means short on instrumental skill, had their greatest strengths in other places: in the former, it was pop melodies; in the latter, overdub arrangements. In contrast, You in Reverse represents a conscious effort to put Martsch's guitar, and Martsch's guitar alone, in the spotlight, and the result is without question the best guitar album Built to Spill has ever released, but certainly not its best work overall.

"Goin' Against Your Mind," the record's opening track, encapsulates its general aesthetic quite well. It exceeds nine minutes in length, the first three of which are spent developing a reasonably catchy pop melody. The next six are spent meandering through a series of guitar solos punctuated by feedback squeals and the occasional repeated riff that emerges out of the chaos, repeats a couple of times, then returns to the primordium, until the primary vocal melody returns a minute from the end. As for that melody, it's not bad, but its nothing incredibly riveting either, and as for the riffs and guitar solos, they have neither the sense of majesty nor the careful articulation that Perfect from Now On's did. As for the rest of You in Reverse, it's pretty much the same story, though certain songs (such as "Liar" and "The Wait") are based more around a (catchy but still somewhat bland) vocal melody and certain others ("Wherever You Go," "Mess with Time") serve primarily as expositions of Martsch's guitar prowess. At first listen, the album seems to amble from riff to riff and track to track with very little sense of purpose, but further exposure reveals that this directionlessness is actively being cultivated as the album's unifying theme. While this can certainly work (consider Blueberry Boat), and while Built to Spill do their damnedest, they don't display the requisite elan to pull it off, except on "Conventional Wisdom," the album's one standout track, which provides a glimpse of what the band might be able to do if they continue to make music in the same vein. Still the record is by no means a disaster, only a slightly uninspired near miss, and every track has at least one or two (and often several) worthwhile elements to keep the listener interested and even entertained, and the production on this record, be it sacrilege to say so, is actually a good deal more subtle in its texture than Phil Ek's was on their last two records. While it's true that Built to Spill have come very close to branding themselves a jam band on You in Reverse, they are one of the only musical acts in existence that I actually think succeed artistically in the milieu. True, they haven't quite done it, but hopefully we won't have to wait another five years to see if they can strike gold next time around.

-BT

Review: Actual Birds - Vive la Fantastique avec Actual Birds and Friends (7.8)

2006-04-24T13:03:00.001-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.8
Lyrics: 8.3
Melodies: 8.3
Arrangements: 8.0
Thematicity: 7.0
Originality: 8.2
Production: 8.2

Anyone who has seen a live performance by Actual Birds and their rotating cadre of backing musicians the High Spirits can attest to Dustin Krcatovich's near-boundless creativity and genius for uniting melody and noise. Constructed out of beat-box loops, theramin squeals, and a single guitar run through a vast assemblage of pedals and processors gives his performances a protean and unpredictable quality, and while his stage arrangements often flirt with disaster, they never quite reach it, and that's what has made them some of the most compelling and seemingly honest shows I've seen in years. Of course we're not here to review the band's live performances, however, but thier latest record, Vive la Fantastique avec Actual Birds, and as with any Actual Birds release, the question is whether it manages to capture the brilliance of those performances. In the past, the answer has generally been in the negative: Krcatovich cherishes his artistic mutability and has never been particularly interested in sticking to a single musical formula for very long, and the result has been that his band's records have come off as vagarious and uneven. It should be stated up front that Vive la Fantastique isn't any more of an attempt at reproducing their live sound either, but also that despite that, it has a great deal more to offer than its predecessors.

So what exactly is the aim of Vive la Fantastique? Well, oddly enough, the record is based around vocal melodies ("Nothing Is Black and White" and "We All Have a Skeleton that No One Knows" are the best examples), and fairly catchy ones at that. Most of the arrangements are fairly simple, featuring a guitar line consisting of a few chords with little embellishment, Krcatovich's nasal, Isaac Brock-emulating vocals, and some variety of background noise, usually run through a phaser, and the minimalism is quite compelling. There is a profoundly personal quality to Actual Birds' lyrics, and while they may seem rough, painfully simplistic, or even awkward at times, the way they're delivered makes their flaws endearing, and they become more endearing still on the few tracks where Ann Arbor folk singer Annie Palmer provides a smooth, serene counterpoint to Krcatovich's gravelly warble (and in particular the joyous "The Sky Is Everywhere, Part I"). Given all this, Vive la Fantastique could have been downright incredible, but the record is not without its missteps: the album's consistency and intimate moods are wrecked midway through by an overlong and utterly annoying pastiche of distortion and conversational snippets entitled "Tender Shades of Fuchisa and Griege," and to add insult to injury, re-wrecked by the album's concluding track, "Art Vs. Commerce: the Final Word," which takes after Polara's obnoxious "Letter Bomb." It's obvious that these tracks were included to showcase Actual Birds' more experimental side, but to do so two thirds of the way through an album and abruptly change its mood is detrimental, no matter what the purpose. Of course, on the other hand, there is the fact that noise is what this band does best, and many of even this album's better tracks seem slightly empty for lack of at least some experimentation. While catchy any wonderfully intimate, Vive la Fantastique seems a bit too restrained. This is a band capable of producing something on the order of Feels or The Aeroplane Over the Sea if they decide to, but the only way to get oneself a truly great Actual Birds album thus far is to sneak a recording device into one of their concerts and press the record button.

-BT

Review: Chris Bathgate - A Detailed Account of Three Dreams (7.3)

2006-04-22T15:49:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.3
Lyrics: 7.6
Melodies: 7.4
Arrangements: 7.7
Thematicity: 6.9
Originality: 7.1
Production: 7.8

Dreams and the curious oneiric imagery that so many people regard as the straightest path to the subconscious are at once fascinating in their supposed ability to reveal the most intimate details of the psyche, direct and unfiltered, and also enjoyable for their strange pageantry alone. Numerous songwriters, among them Bob Dylan and Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum, have successfully done with their lyrics what Salvdor Dali did with oils: give the pageantry artistic meaning without compromising its strangeness with an excess of Freudian analysis. Chris Bathgate's A Detailed Account of Three Dreams, released simultaneously with the bluegrass EP The Single Road I Long For and the contemporary folk-rock full-length Throatsleep, attempts to do the same by presenting together three songs, each representing a different dream of his. The arrangements on the record are minimal (most of the disc's brief span features only Bathgate's voice and an acoustic guitar), and his singing style is far more intimate than on either of the other aforementioned albums.

Unfortunately, while Bathgate's exposition of his dreams is certainly a skillful one, the record suffers from some of the problems that dreams themselves suffer from: its three songs don't really cohere into any sort of larger picture, and the imagery in them, while interesting, seems to leave the listener without a context for interpretation (this is especially true of "Cond Fusion (Snakes)." This isn't necesarily a bad thing per se, but the dreamscapes on this record don't reveal any more of Chris Bathgate to his audience than the rest of his catalogue. Part of the issue is that the consummately refined quality of his vocals makes these songs seem too polished to function as windows on the psyche, and whether authentic or not, it's the roughness and strangeness of dream imagery (and the potential for revealing something that might embarrass the narrator) that makes it work for acts like Neutral Milk Hotel and the Mongeese. That's not to say that the songs themselves don't have rewarding moments: the quiet, sincere vocalism on "The Last Wine of Winter" (the best of the three tracks) makes the song worthwhile. Truth be told, the true caliber and emotive range of Chris Bathgate's vocals is better showcased here than on any of his previous records -- it's just a shame that such articulation doesn't quite go with the material he's articulating.

-BT

Review: The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea (7.8)

2006-04-22T12:24:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.8
Lyrics: 8.2
Melodies: 7.7
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 7.4
Originality: 7.9
Production: 8.3

It would be difficult to overstate the respect I have for the Fiery Furnaces. Not only are they responsible for Gallowsbird's Bark, which could well be my favorite album of the decade thus far, but there isn't another band, save perhaps Sleater-Kinney, who have consistently impressed me with both the quality and the inventiveness of their discography during the past six years. From the bluesy, rhythmic noise-rock of their debut, the band moved on to epic, protean synthesizer-driven compositions on Blueberry Boat, moved on to syth-pop for EP, and then elisted their grandmother Olga Sarantos for the fascinating concept record Rehearsing My Choir. The band's stylistic leapfrogging also prevented critics from being able to pin down a characteristic Fiery Furnaces sound, which made each successive release a mystery until you actually put the CD on and listened to it. This explains why Bitter Tea is somewhat of a disappointment: there isn't anything substantial that differentiates this record from the rest of the Friedburgers' ouvre. That's not to say that the band has given up experimenting, but that there isn't really any grand thematic objective to unify its tracklist, which makes its myriad small experiments seem somewhat arbitrary and often, given their frequency, downright hyperactive. Furthermore, it isn't the return to pop music that the Friedburgers heralded it to be, though it's not without its share of catchy melodies.

The main problem with Bitter Tea is that its second half, which is dominated by artfully assembled tracks with addictive rhythms and punctuated by the record's only two born singles, "Borneo" and "Police Sweater Blood Vow," is far better than its first, which comes off as schizophrenic and aimless. In fact, up until "Waiting to Know You" rolls around, the album is almost entirely devoid of percussion, which only aggravates the sense of vagariousness in the abrupt transitions thrown into songs like "I'm in No Mood" and "Bitter Tea," seemingly for the hell of it. There are far too many tracks here that don't quite ever come together as more than a collection of fragments, and while that worked on Rehearsing My Choir, where the music was esentially entisted as a textural device to further the mood of the narrative, there's no narrative to further. Fortunately, from "Borneo" (which features the record's most addictive vocal melody) on, things fall into place: "Police Sweater Blood Vow," with its gnashing slide guitar intrusions and pert chorus lyrics, recalls (though, to be fair, doesn't quite equal) some of the band's Gallowsbird's Bark antics, and "Benton Harbor Blues," the one song here that really does recall the pop aesthetic of EP, comes across as both beautiful and emotionally evocative. Perhaps the most interesting of the album's tracks, however, is "Whistle Rhapsody," which provides a intriguing glimpse as to what Matthew Friedburger (who sings lead on it) might sound like on his forthcoming solo releases. While I can't say that the latter half of the album makes up for the deficits in the former, nor can I deny that this is probably the band's worst album to date, it's not altogether bad, but even after several plays, my primary motive for listening to Bitter Tea is still curiosity rather than outright appreciation or enjoyment.

-BT

Review: Elevator - Elevator (7.7)

2006-04-21T19:09:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.8
Lyrics: N/A
Melodies: 8.4
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 7.6
Originality: 7.7
Production: 7.1

When one attends a house party in your choice of college town in these United States, one seldom expects much from the requisite live band one has never heard of before playing in the basement, but sometimes unexpected surprises arise in the most unlikely of locales. This is how I first heard Elevator, and while I initially chalked up my favorable response to their Modest Mouse meets Malachi Constant brand of post-rock to the relief that they weren't yet another Hot Hot heat simulacrum (which, given their name, had been what I'd feared I'd be subjected to for the following thirty minutes), but the more I heard the more I was made to come to terms with the fact that their music was actually quite good, quite subtle, and certainly destined for better venues. It was also easy to infer that my favorable impression wasn't merely the result of a mediocre band with a great live show, and sure enough, the material on the band's self-titled EP is as energetic, catchy, and rewarding as their performance had been.

Post-rock, especially the lyricless sort, is seldom melodically as interesting as pop, but Elevator manages to get a great deal of mileage out of the interplay between Jeremy Wingard's and Ben Miller's guitar lines, especially on the album's opener, "The Law Offices of Dr. Jeremiah Brockworth Wingardium III" (and yes, the song titles are all that long and that ridiculous). At its better moments, Elevator recalls the expansive tracts of sparse guitar melodics between the vocal sections of Modest Mouse's This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About, which is to say that the band has a good sense of how to incorporate negative space into their material. It should be said that the EP is not completely solid throughout (its concluding track, "Extremely Exotic Coconut Breast Covers" is essentially disposable), nor is the limited, amateur production up to the task of forging the kind of sound that would make Elevator truly shine, but I have no doubt that by the time the band releases its first full-length, these problems will be at least on the road to remedy. Elevator's post-rock, like Lightning Bolt's and the Malachi Constant's, doesn't stray too far from rock, and furthermore, from melody, and if they can keep this up, they've got quite a career ahead of them.

-BT

Review: Morrissey: Ringleader of the Tormentors (8.1)

2006-04-21T15:36:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.1
Lyrics: 8.3
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 8.0
Originality: 7.7
Production: 8.2

If there is any truth to the myth of the sophomore slump, that myth should be extended not merely to an artist's second release, but also to the follow-up effort released in the wake of any album popularly hailed as a comeback record. In fact, it should probably apply doubly, since such follow-ups are the testing grounds to determine whether or not a once successful artist's return to the limelight has been merely the result of stylistic bandwagonism or whether it represents the genuine recovery of some long-lost spark. Like many other former Smiths fans , I have been eagerly anticipating the results which would reveal whether 2004's You Are the Quarry was a true anacatharsis for Morrissey, or whether the record's prickly, up-tempo sound was just another successful prospecting attempt in the rush to things retro, and much to my surprise actually, he has produced a record approximately equal in quality to its predecessor, though one that certainly aims for a more polished and produced sound. This isn't a case of propping up poor material with literal bells and whistles, however: Ringleader of the Tormentors is primarily about Morrissey's heart-on-sleeve lyricism and plaintive vocal melodies. The much touted string orchestrations and miscellaneous instrumental accompaniments are merely a glossy coat of paint on an already impressive musical edifice.

An edifice it certainly is, for Morrissey aims for both suavite and majesty here. The Middle-Eastern violin trills of "I Will See You in Far-Off Places" (which, given the title and theme, is a nice touch) and the faintly noticeable Joy Division-style synth-bass that underlies "The Father Who Must Be Killed" are only two examples of the myriad subtle touches that once can pick out from the album's characteristic wall of sound when one listens carefully. Now some of these touches come off better than others (the ubiquitous children's choir and the storm noises incorporated into "Life is a Pigsty" are not only a bit over-the-top, but the former has also been done to death in recent years by Hefner, the Delgados, and nearly every other band from the British isles), but none come across as superfluous and none seriously compromise the album's integrity. Lyrically, while this album doesn't do anything that Morrissey hasn't done at some point in his career (though to be fair, "On the Streets I Ran" has some great one-liners), it is certainly consistent, and the only complaint that one can level -- that the lines he delivers are emotionally overinflated and self-obsessed -- is one that has more to do with whether one likes Morrissey and what he represents that whether one considers this album better or worse that the rest of his ouvre. Melodically, there are several good, single-caliber tunes ("You Have Killed Me" and "The Father Who Must Be Killed" chief among them), and while most of the album consists of prolonged pieces that are structured more around building to a climax than dishing out pop hooks, a great deal of them is nonetheless memorable. Basically, what it boils down to is this: if you like Morrissey, you'll like Ringleader of the Tormentors. If not, you may not, but it's more likely to win you over than any record he's made for ten years if not more, if you're willing to keep an open mind.

-BT

Review: Chris Bathgate - The Single Road I Long For (8.8)

2006-04-20T17:44:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.8
Lyrics: 8.4
Melodies: 9.0
Arrangements: 9.3
Thematicity: 9.7
Originality: 7.3
Production: 8.8

Revivalism has been the defining force behind both rock and folk music for the last five years, and while I still believe that I will look back in ten years' time and regard this as a boon, I still lament the extent to which so many musicians are content to strip-mine the history of their genres for interesting and salable tidbits without bothering to study seriously the artistic conventions of the past, to become proficient enough musicians to build on, rather than merely ape, their predecessors' works, and to immerse themselves in their musical heritage enough to understand it genuinely. Meanwhile, the few who have bothered to learn from history rather than steal from it have produced some breathtaking -- though all too often underappreciated -- records, among them Gillian Welch's Time, the Revellator, Wooden Wand's Harem of the Sundrum and the Witness Figg, and Blake Thomas's Real Like Theater. That Chris Bathgate would produce an album worthy this exclusive group is somewhat of a surprise -- not because his talents were ever in doubt, but because his debut, Silence Is for Suckers, aimed for a more contemporary folk-rock sound, and its designated successor, Throatsleep, portends more of the same. However, Throatsleep's companion piece, the EP-length The Single Road I long For, presents itself as a tribute to Harry Smith's American Folk Music Anthology and reveals Bathgate at the top of his form, making that compilation's music his own while giving it the respect it is due.

Perhaps the most impressive part of The Single Road I long For is the fidelity with which it reproducts both the essential sound and the emotional directness of its source material. Unlike fellow Ann Arbor act Need Based Paint's Songs of the American Civil War, Vol. I, which aimed more for a lyrical reconstruction of a historical context than anything else, this record's roots are in the music itself and in its arrangements, consisting primarily of mandolin, fiddle, and banjo. Lyrically, the album is quite sparse: several of the tracks are instrumentals, and even those tracks that do feature lyrics are structured around instrumental melodies. That doesn't mean there is a shortage of catchy and often powerful vocal melodies as well. "Ada" is an outright tour de force (to the point where it's not even a disappointment when one finds that it has nothing to do with the Nabokov novel), and most of the other tracks on the album with vocals (I feel "Strawflower's Waltz" and "We Turned into Birds" deserve mention by name) are nearly as compelling. Furthermore (and this is rare with folk albums) those tracks without vocals are as strong as those with. The production on the album is good as well, though (as was the case with Need Based Paint's debut) tastefully limited in order to further the record's mimetic function. While it's a shame that The Single Road I long For clocks in at slightly over 22 minutes, it's almost more fitting that this release is an EP, not only because the only real difficulty I had with Silence Is for Suckers was song length, but also because it aims to capture so many of this world's beautiful, seldom-articulated ephemera (and succeeds). Harry Smith and those whose songs he collected and compiled wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

-BT

Review: Wilderness - Vessel States (8.0)

2006-04-14T19:09:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.0
Lyrics: 8.3
Melodies: 7.7
Arrangements: 8.1
Thematicity: 8.5
Originality: 7.7
Production: 8.8

I spent a great deal of time this week at a conference devoted to a topic called the LHC inverse problem, which, in a nutshell, is the problem of how to determine the theoretical model which underlies new, high-energy physics from the data that will soon come out of a new particle collider under construction in Switzerland. This is not a trivial problem, for it isn't at all clear whether a given set of observations corresponds to a single model, a few models, or a large class of models. You may be wondering why I'm beginning a review of Wilderness's sophomore album Vessel States by mentioning this, but I have good reason to do so. A quick check on Celestial Biscuit's review archive will reveal that the band's 2005 debut recieved exactly the same overall rating at its follow-up, and Wilderness is not the sort of act who appear to be interested in making dramatic changes to thier sound, so the rating begs the question whether this means Vessel States is essentially a carbon-copy of Wilderness, or whether a conspiracy of shifts in a wide variety of model parameters, as one would phrase the matter in theorist argot, happened to result in an identical "signature."

The answer to the question may seem, at first listen, to be that little has changed: James Johnson's characteristic singing style (and Malachi Constant-influenced lyrics) is unchanged, and the band still sounds like a post-punk version of Talking Heads. However, closer examination will reveal several salient differences between this offering and the last. Two of these alterations are more apparent than the others; these are the increased emphasis on melody (to the extent that Vessel States even possesses in "Beautiful Alarms" what one might hazard to call a single) and the deemphasis of percussion in the way the record is produced. The former of these is unquestionably an asset, while the result of the latter is a bit more nebulous: on the one end, the drum production was easily the best part of Wilderness's debut; on the other, there is a reason behind the change. This record's foundation is in its sparseness and the evocative power of its sustained, ambient guitar lines. Some may find this a detraction, as the technical complexity of the band's instrumental lines has certainly been reduced here. I'd submit that the emotion evinced on tracks like "Monumental" (the record's closer) makes up for that (and strengthens the album's political messages with a sense of personal investment), but I can see room for disagreement. To put it succinctly, Vessel States shows Wilderness embarking on several minor but significant changes which alter their sound a bit but not the overall quality of their material. In musical criticism, as in physics, degeneracies often creep up in the places where you least expect them, and in this case at least, the surprise is a pleasant one.

-BT

Review: Band of Horses - Everything All the Time (8.4)

2006-04-12T22:44:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.4
Lyrics: 8.1
Melodies: 8.3
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 8.5
Originality: 8.1
Production: 8.5

The recipie for Band of Horses' music is a fairly simple one: mix even proportions My Morning Jacket's recent work and Coedine's The Frigid Stars LP, marinate in rich, echo-laden production for thirty minutes, add a teaspoon of alt-country, and bake on high for as long as necessary. Despite the simplicity, however, the finished product is an admirable one, especially considering how easy it would be for such an item to seem a mere simulacrum of last year's acclaimed Z. Band of Horses really do have their own style, however, and furthermore they are capable of not only procucing a wealth of listenable material, but also creating an artistically cohesive album out of it. To boot, their lyrics put My Morning Jacket's to shame, and while Band of Horses certainly aren't in the same league as Pavement or Destroyer, the words that accompany their majestic and somehow charactristically Southern brand of slowcore are certainly solid. This allows the vocals to ascend to prominence and for the impressive production displayed on the band's debut, Everything All the Time, to be used for better purposes than hiding the lyrics, which was its primary function on My Morning Jacket's latest release.

One of the most impressive aspects to Everything All the Time is its ability to present one of the most varriegated-sounding set of slowcore tunes I have ever heard, and yet to do so in a way that preserves the album's thematic unity. While Coedine and My Morning Jacket, as mentioned above, will likely be the first two influences to leap to any listener's mind ("The First Song" recalls the former, and what is probably the the album's catchiest offering, "Weed Party," recalls the latter), repeated exposure will reveal numerous other influences at work, including Hum ("Part One"), Karate ("Wicked Gil"), Califone, and myriad others. Still, Band of Horses have a sound uniquely theirs -- a sound build primarily around meticulous song structures and a brilliant sense of how to use dynamics evocatively without overdoing it. The best example of this, and the album's best track overall, is the majestic, protrated "The Funeral," which is built around undulations between pregnant mezzo-piano and violent fortissimo, but there are plenty of other instances of this technique's artful application here. Only at its conclusion does the record lose any of its momentum, and to be fair "Monsters" and "St. Augustine" are certainly not mere filler -- it's only that they don't convey the same level of emotion as the rest of the tracks. There is very little to find fault with on this record, and even my laudatory initial reaction -- that this record was what Z would have sounded like with decent lyrics -- doesn't do justice to Everything All the Time, which truly has a sound all its own.

-BT

Review: Islands - Return to the Sea (8.3)

2006-04-09T15:32:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 8.3
Lyrics: 8.4
Melodies: 8.3
Arrangements: 8.8
Thematicity: 8.4
Originality: 9.0
Production: 8.3

The saga of the Unicorns and their former members Nick Diamonds and J'aime Tambeur has been a strange one, to put it mildly, involving the band breaking up several times, losing guitarist Alden Penner, forming the gloriously ridiculous Th' Corn Gang, letting Th' Corn Gang evolve into a Unicorns cover band, and Diamonds and Tambeur finally assembling a set of songs to release under the name Islands. This set of songs has finally been released to the public under the album name Return to the Sea, and the title is fitting: like Tennyson's restless Ulysses, who gets bored with Ithaca and sails off Westward into Zeus-knows-what, Diamonds and Tambeur have decided to jettison most everything that made Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? what it was, save the group's clever, disarming lyricism and a healthy respect for the works of Modest Mouse, and start over almost from scratch. Where the Unicorns' debut was a jokingly macabre, synthesizer-driven theme album comprising short, amorphous tracks whose exact starting and stopping points weren't ever that clear, Return to the Sea's tracklist is dominated by protracted compositions like "Swans" and "Humans," which boast -- surprise! -- actual song structures, very little in the way of synthesizers, and some incredibly odd but intriguing arrangements that seem to have been included pretty much for the hell of it, rather than to promote any sort of thematic unity. In short, the songwriting on this record, while quite different from Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?, is every bit as good, though it may take some time to get used to the record's eccentricities.

Fortunately for those who require a little bit of prodding (or at least some sort of segue) to listen to more adventurous material, the first few songs on Return to the Sea constrain their experimentation within the usual ambit for indie rock. "Swans," the record's opener, clocks in at over nine minutes and wends through vast oceanic expanses of musical space, borrowing a great deal of its geographically evocative techniques from The Lonesome Crowded West. The next track, "Humans," takes a Tom Waits-style barroom piano and banjo stomp and peppers it with majestic, horn-laden chorus segments, and after that, "Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby" and "Rough Gem" (the album's two born singles) offer two contrasting styles of all-out pop-rock. At this point, now that the listener's heart has surely been won over by Diamond's infectious melodies and lyrical wittcisms (including a good deal of Mongeese-esque punning on his own name), Islands' experiments get wierder and wierder: "Where There's a Will, There's a Whalebone" launches into a minute-and-a-half rap segment; "Jogging Gorgeous Summer" goes Carribean and Andean at once, melding folk-pop with syrinx, steel-drum, and synthesized birdsong. By the end of the album, things once again resolve themselves (thanks primarily to an infectiously catchy and essential bonus track). Honestly there are times when I'm not sure whether some of these experiments actually work, and many teeter on the brink of the ridiculous, but the band launches into them with such elan that one can't help respecting even their most questionable choices -- at least to some degree. Much like Being John Malkovich, Islands' Return to the Sea is designed to propel its audience into outright absurdity by increments, so that one doesn't question what's going on until one is already in the thick of things, and at that point one is more interested in ejoying the ride than anything else.

-BT

Review: The Knife - Silent Shout (7.9)

2006-04-09T13:37:00.000-04:00

Overall Rating: 7.9
Lyrics: 6.3
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 8.4
Thematicity: 7.9
Originality: 8.0
Production: 9.2

In the world of techno-pop, there are bands whose sensibilities are grounded in pop and others whose artistic background is primarily electronica. Recently the former genus has been getting a good deal of press, as indie acts including The Postal Service and Mazarin, eager to find a niche for themselves, have taken to experimenting with elements of electronic music, and as such it is somewhat refreshing when a band like The Knife, who belong to the latter camp, reminds us that there is a lot more to techo-pop than clicks and beeps. The band's latest effort, the dark, haunting Silent Shout is rich in background textures, immaculately produced, and reminiscent of Vitalic's OK Cowboy in the way its sound is sculpted. The Knife place a far greater emphasis on melody and vocalism than Vitalic, however, and it is the infectiousness of melodies like that on "Marble House" which have garnered the band an appeal far beyond their native Sweden. However, while many techno-pop releases (and I include The Postal Service's Give Up among them) lack the lushly programmed tableaux, subtle changes in dynamics and panning, and finely sculped sound necessary to retain the listener's attention once the novelty of the melody has worn off, Silent Shout's background is even richer than its foreground, which makes repeated listening and closer examination of it a rewarding experience.

There is one glaring problem with this album, however, which is that like the works of so many Scandinavian artists who attempt to reach a wider audience by singing in English without being quite fluent in in (e.g. Soundtrack of Our Lives), the lyrics on it are terrible. Furthermore, since vocal melody is often the centerpiece of a given songs, the issue can't be ignored, and the result is that tracks like "Neverland" and "One Hit," which would otherwise have the potential to be some of the record's best songs, can't even be taken seriously. This changes the overall ountenance of the album dramatically, shifting its focus from the more poppy, intense would-be singles (save "Marble House," which is lyrically at least passable) to the more subdued tracks that make up the central portion and final coda of the album. This is not by any means a crippling blow, for the album's subtle programming and intricate overlays, most manifest on tracks like "From Off to On" and "Still Light," are the album's strongest asset. In fact, I should reiterate that this is a fantastic album in many respects, and one which would already have made itself a nest in the upper echelons of my favorite-albums-of-the-year list, had its poorly composed lyrics not compromised both the record's otherwise imaculately polished feel and air of sincerity. The Knife are a band that I honestly think could make one of the decade's most profound albums, were they to repeat Silent Shout's musical success, but in their native tongue.

-BT

Review: Liars - Drum's Not Dead (8.4)

2006-03-26T17:24:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.4
Lyrics: 7.9
Melodies: 8.0
Arrangements: 8.2
Thematicity: 9.4
Originality: 8.8
Production: 9.7

When Liars made their initial splash with the critically acclaimed dance-punk record They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, I never imagined that there would be a time in their career when they would sound more like the Animal Collective than the Pop Group, but that has indeed been the direction toward which the group has been tending ever since its post-Threw Us In a Trench personnel shift. The band's latest offering, Drum's Not Dead, takes about a third of its cues from Feels, a third from Radiohead's Kid A, and the final third apparently derives from a study of tribal percussion rhythms. In titling the album, the band weren't kidding: the drums are its centerpiece, but in a wholly different way than they were on the group's earlier material. Imagine powerful metallic-sounding guitar overlays and aetherial yet no less compelling vocals washing over a series of intense, echo-laden drum lines and you'll have some idea of what Drum's Not Dead sounds like. Quite unlike the Animal Collective's output, its production is honed to achieve a raw, visceral sound, and on it Liars prove that "tongs" can be as physical in their effect on the listener as songs can.

So I think I've driven home the point by now that Liars have created a powerful and thematic album, but what about things like melody and lyricism? Well, as far as the former is concerned, while the album is by no means based on melody or catchy songs (in fact, I would even say that there isn't one track out of the twelve on it, save perhaps "A Visit From Drum" that could stand as even a moderately worthwhile single), it doesn't lack them outright: "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack" and "Let's Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack" both have memorable vocal lines. On the lyrical front, Liars, much like the Malachi Constant, get a great deal of mileage out of actually giving a shit about lyrics while taking great pains to sound like they don't. Now the overt sarcasm and slacker-brand social commentary doesn't quite deliver the same impact here as it did on an overtly punk-influenced album like the band's debut, mind, but Liars add enough legitimately expressive content to tracks like "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack" to sustain the record. As mentioned before, the production is exquisite, though the empty quality of the arrangements, while certainly appropriate to the material, sometimes seems lacking in auxiliary percussion textures, but that's a minor quibble. All in all, Liars have pulled off an ambitious experiment in melding percussive primitivism with the ambiant music of Brooklyn's indie avante-garde without losing the emotional charge that characterized their past releases, and deserve a good deal of praise for so succeeding.

-BT

Review: Tapes n' Tapes - The Loon (7.8)

2006-03-20T21:12:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 7.8
Lyrics: 6.4
Melodies: 7.7
Arrangements: 7.9
Thematicity: 7.8
Originality: 7.9
Production: 7.7

Tapes n' Tapes are one of the myriad Minneapolis bands that continue to follow in Byron the Bulb's footsteps and wear their Pavenment influence on their sleeves. They bear some similarity to Hockey Night, the most prominent Twin Cities outfit of this persuasion, but while Hockey night have been content with faithful emulation of Malkmus and co., Tapes n' Tapes are out to inject a bit of Wolf Parade and Tom Waits into the mix, and the results are, well, mixed. On the one hand, there is a great deal to like in the dark, rhythmic compositions that fill of the tracklist of their debut album The Loon; on the other, while I think it can be said that Tapes n' Tapes use their talents to the utmost here, the band has its weaknesses. Granted those weaknesses don't seriously compromise The Loon, but they also prevent it from being more than a reasonably good album. Interestingly enough, however, the band's weaknesses are in general not the usual roster of deficits for local acts destined to become little more than local acts, which does set the band apart from its peers -- at least in some regard.

The first thing The Loon has going for it is consistancy. While there aren't too many stand-out tracks on it, save perhaps "10 Gallon Ascots" and the driving "The Iliad," there really isn't any dross here either: every track is well composed, and most are based around strong, rhythmic guitar hooks and offbeat drum cadences. It's second asset is that it employs noise and dissonance in just the right proportion to add eccentricity to those cadences without seeming to employ it merely as an attention-getting device. That having been said, while the rhythms are quite addictive, many of the songs don't have a great deal of structural variety, and rely on the repetition of their main theme perhaps a tad bit too much. Of course this works for a good many bands, most notably Modest Mouse and Slint, both of whom are obvious influences on Tapes n' Tapes, but the band lacks Isaac Brock's vocal presence, and furthermore his lyrical gift. In fact lyrics are one of The Loon's most salient problems, and it's peppered with uneven and nonsensical phrases like "I called your name like Harvard Square." Another issue is that the vocal melodies don't quite live up to the promise delivered by the hooks, though in all fairness, the latter are inteded to be the focus of the album. Now while this all might give one the impression that The Loon is an uneven record, it is anything but. The problem is that despite its solid roster of tracks, none are genuinely exceptional, and there isn't much here that leads me to think that Tapes n' Tapes are capable of making the improvements in melody or lyricism necessary to produce a truly great record; though none of that prevents me from enjoying their debut's many strengths.

-BT

Review: Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (7.7)

2006-03-10T19:03:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 7.7
Lyrics: 7.7
Melodies: 7.6
Arrangements: 8.0
Thematicity: 7.9
Originality: 7.0
Production: 8.3

On the one hand, its somewhat disingenuous to refer to the solo enterprises of New Pornographers personnel as side projects, considering that most of them antedate the Pornographers themselves by several years, but in another way, it's not. Only Dan Bejar's Destroyer has ever really produced records which seriously threaten to outdo the supergroup's efforts, and Neko Case's latest offering, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood is no exception to the rule, though like Newman's The Slow Wonder, it does give the listener a good deal of insight as to what Case contributes to the group and what her individual skills are. Of course most of these we knew already: her articulate, soulful voice that made "Letter from an Occupant" come alive gives "Hold On, Hold On" and "That Teenage Feeling" the same treatment, and her skill at arranging vocal harmonies is equally apparent. There is also an immense amount of emotion in her delivery when she's at her best, and she's at her best more often here than she's been on most of her previous recordings.

The record also reveals in which compositional aspects Case most benefits from the assistance of other members of the New Pornographers, and these include melody-writing (Newman's forte) and lyricism (Bejar's). While neither can be considered a weakness of Case's, in neither is she particularly accomplished either. There are a few single-caliber songs, including "Star Witness," "Hold On, Hold On," and "Maybe Sparrow," but there are also a few humdrum ones, such as "Lion's Jaws" and the title track. Lyrically, Case is likewise not bad, but not particularly innovative or compelling: the album's opening track, "Margaret vs. Pauline," is the only one that keeps up the caliber of its lyrics throughout, thought in any song a few inspired lines appear. The arrangements on the album are certainly adequate to the purpose of furthering the emotional vocal delivery that the record bases itself in. Indeed Case knows exactly what she's doing: while a higher proportion of the songs on this record are hers than on her previous records, the covers, including the traditional "John Saw That Number," are often the album's best moments, the record is still not a display of her songwriting, but rather a display of her ability to articulate the songs that she chooses to sing, regardless of whether those songs are her own or someone elses. There's no doubt that "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood" is admirably fashioned to bring out the best of what Case has to offer as a solo artist, but one still feels the absence of A. C. Newman's melodies here just as much as one felt the absence of Bejar's musical complexity on "The Slow Wonder," and honestly perhaps a little more so. It's a reasonably good record, but nothing that stands on a par with any of the New Pornographers' material.

-BT

Review: The Mongeese - Bande a Part (8.7)

2006-03-05T16:50:00.000-05:00

This review is currently unavailable.

Review: Clogs - Lantern (7.9)

2006-03-05T16:08:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 7.9
Lyrics: N/A
Melodies: 7.8
Arrangements: 8.2
Thematicity: 8.3
Originality: 6.9
Production: 8.4

In retrospect, eight years after the release of Godspeed You Black Emperor's epochal debut, it seems obvious that the classical influences that record introduced into post-rock would open the playing field for more and more acts which blur the line between classical music, traditional instrumental folk, and indie rock. Clogs, whose music is far more classically-influenced than the Bell Orchestres that exemplify the subgenre, are the kind of band that easily could have existed, say, five years ago, but never would've been filed under indie or reviewed on Pitchfork. This creates a bit of unintentional deception for the listening public: Clogs are constantly billed as doing something new and different, whereas they are merely being classified in a different manner. That's not to slam them or to suggest that Lantern is not worthwile listening -- it certainly is, but it is to suggest that likening the band to truly innovative acts such as the Books (a common comparison) is a bit of a stretch. Don't let the occasional guitar line throw you: Clogs play traditional folk music with classical and Celtic influences. That's the story. The fine print is that they do it well and have a solid and well-produced record to show for it.

Having said that, I'll breifly go through what I think this record's strengths and weaknesses are. The main strength is the band's ability to create and maintain a mood, as in the tenebrous "Canon," followed closely by the instrumental skill of its constituent members individually (Padma Newsome's string tracks, it must be said, are quite exquisite). However, I do wish there was a bit more to the arrangements on Lantern: while the limited number of musical voices sometimes furthers the mood of a given piece to great effect, most of the tracks on this record would have benefitted from fuller orchestration. There are also a couple of throwaway tracks on the record, most notably the title track (the only one which contains vocals), which seems out of place and taints the record with an unwanted Celtic-folk feel. The good tracks make the album worth its salt, but in my opinion the band still lives in the shadow of more polished and inovative acts in the contemporary classical and folk genres to which it actually belongs. Clogs are no Kronos Quartet, nor, for that matter, are they any but the remotest cousin of the Books or the Kallikak Family, but they've done admirably here with Lantern and show a good deal of professionalism and potential.

-BT

Review: Vitalic - OK Cowboy (8.3)

2006-03-05T15:02:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.3
Lyrics: 7.9
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 8.0
Originality: 7.8
Production: 8.9

It it not the easiest thing in the world to make an electronica record hold my attention, and frankly most don't. Furthermore, the ones I do sincerely enjoy tend to be more free-form or ambient compositions like Fenesz's Endless Summer or M83's Before the Dawn Heals Us rather than offerings intended for dancehall consumption. Even the best beat-intensive techno recordings don't thrill me: Isolee's We Are Monster, for example, while it earned my respect for its imaculate production, was too humdrum to stand on its own as music. Not so Vitalic's OK Cowboy, which is the first dancehall electronica record I've genuinely enjoyed in years. Its tracks are not only rhythmic, but also catchy, succinct, and heterogeneous enough not to come off as repetitive.

The production on OK Cowboy is inspiring, but not in the same way that on We Are Monster and its ilk are. Vitalic don't aim for the precise, refined tones made the industry standard by Daft Punk earlier in the decade; instead, they return to the sensibilities of the late nineties and intersperse ambience with the kind of overdriven keyboard stabs that Broadcast's Tender Buttons used to such great effect. In short, this band isn't afraid of grating noise and is capable of balancing such noise with the serene, airplane-phaser effects that dominate "The Past" and "La Rock 01." As far as lyrics are concerned, they really aren't the most important element of the record, but they aren't the kind of inanities that one often sees spewed out over a backbeat: "No Fun" and "My Firend Dario" both use their meager librettos to say (or at least imply) something of consequence. All in all, OK Cowboy manages to transcend the usual limitations of its genre by being both danceable and musically interesting, and the secret of its success, as with most recordings nowadays, is that its creators aren't shy about disonance and noise.

-BT

Review: Man Man - Six Demon Bag (8.6)

2006-02-25T14:40:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.6
Lyrics: 8.4
Melodies: 8.6
Arrangements: 9.4
Thematicity: 8.7
Originality: 9.6
Production: 8.5

I have always wondered why so few bands -- in fact nearly none that I can think of -- spend much time emulating Tom Waits, especially given the prevailing (though thankfully now waning) fascination with all things retro. Of course if that emulation were little more than shameless aping, there wouldn't be much of a point, but thankfully Man Man, whose sophomore album Six Demon Bag is perhaps the most Waits-esque recording I've ever heard, have enough elan (defined as respect for the Decemberists and Captain Beefheart) to make their music their own. Also, while their aesthetic emphasizes the improvisational and the bizzare over the reflective (consider for a moment that there's a song called "Van Helsing Boombox" on this album), the band still manages to deliver lyrics respectable enough to make their caterwauling sound though-out enough to come off as admirably odd rather than a hyperactive attention grab. Corroborating this is the fact that the band members are both competent instrumentalists and capable of striking that perfect balance between melody and disonance that made the Fiery Furnaces' Gallowsbird's Bark what it was. Still, while the Friedburgers, at least as far as their debut was concerned, erred on the side of the melodic, Man Man are continually pushing the envelope: this is the kind of band that will give a four-second shriek its own track listing in order to be able to have a song called "Fishstick Gumbo" on thier record.

Wierdness aside, though, everything works brilliantly. Starting from a Waits-influenced background of unorthodox percussion (such as the xylophone on "Spider Cider" and the rimtaps and bass-drum smack on "Van Helsing Boombox"), ragtime piano licks, and sailor-shanty accordion, Man Man build some impressive, varriegated pieces with catchy choruses, powerful hooks, and some curious yet never excessive instrumental textures. The band makes use of both its male and female female vocalists (neither of whom has a particulary orthodox inflection of manner of singing) perfectly, deploying them in tandem in situations like the call-and-response sections of "Tunneling Through the Guy," where they an stand as a Zappa-esque mockery of gender roles in music. Then there's "Ice Dogs," which begins with an homage to Rain Dogs, which it appears to be referencing stylistically at the outset, then descends into a take on Motown that begins as a slack-rock parody but increases almost imperceptibly subtly in sweetness until by the time the music fades out, the parody has metamorphosed into a salute. These tracks, along with the mid-album chaos of "Black Mission Goggles" (I'm so out of the loop that I really have no idea if "Norriega," as slang for cocaine, is common parlance of the band's own coignage) and "Hot Bat" (c.f. Zappa's Hot Rats), are great for a variety of reasons: they're catchy, they're musically complex, they don't compromise emotional delivery (or lyrics) for the sake of that complexity, they're out-and-out nuts, and they treat a delicate line between parody and homage that gives the band access to the best elements of both. Six Demon Bag is a fantastic record, and if only it started as strongly as it finishes (really its only flaw), I would already be able to declare it one of this year's premier albums.

Review: Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies (9.1)

2006-02-25T13:01:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 9.1
Lyrics: 9.8
Melodies: 8.4
Arrangements: 9.0
Thematicity: 9.6
Originality: 8.9
Production: 9.8

Destroyer's Rubies is to Streethawk: a Seduction as Brighten the Corners was to Slanted and Enchanted; while the latter half of each pair still holds a special place in the musical canon, primarily due its strong melodies and for the simple fact of chronological priority, the former is unquestionalby the band's lyrical triumph, and when you get right down to it, probably also the most refined example of what they are capable of creating. Indeed Destroyer's Dan Bejar, like Pavement's Steven Malkmus, is one of only a handful of lyricists who stand as legitimate candidates for application of the word "genius." On Streethawk: a Seduction, he made subtle referentiality an art form while others blatantly mined rock history for all it was worth, and developed an original sound by forcing the rhythms, riffs, and phrasing in his songs to adapt to his lyrical structures rather than the other way around. Now sure, Destroyer has released a couple of records since Streethawk, but these were intended more as experiments than successors; Destroyer's Rubies, on the other hand, takes the band's earlier sound, adds a My Bloody Valentine-like finesse to the production (like all things Bejar, the Loveless homage in the cover art is both apt and intentional), some killer guitar licks (the "monster riff," as the liner notes refer to it, in"3000 Flowers" is the kicker), and an even more focussed lyrical depiction of the relationship between life, art, business, and social politics.

Since referentiality is what Bejar does better than anybody else, you know you can expect a lot of it here. Subtle lyrical nods to Dylan's "Visions of Johanna" ("Rubies") and the Soft Boys' "Insanely Jealous" ("3000 Flowers") appear here, as do musical tips of the hat to the Band's "The Weight" ("European Oils") and the Animal Collective's "The Purple Bottle" ("Rubies") and numerous worthy original tidbits such as "I was Clytemnestra on a good day, dispensing wisdom to the uninitiated" and "She's been known to appreciate the elegance of an empty room." Songs like "Looter's Follies" and "A Dangerous Woman Up To a Point" are practically nonstop in delivering one-liners that add up to well more than the sum of their parts. Furthermore, the entire album is unified around the theme of music, performance, and the zoo of pop culture, but whereas Streethawk formulated itself through lambasting the music industry's worst excesses in the late 1990's, Destroyer's Rubies structures its commentaries as a general exploration of the relationship between art, artists, and the public, which gives the album a sense of timelessness and allows the listener to identify personally with the themes to a greater degree. Musically, the record's compositions may seem to lack organization upon first exposure, but this is only because they aren't typical in their construction -- as I mentioned before, it's the lyrics that lead the music (as a side note, Bejar's musical fluidity is an innovation that I'm surprised so few musicians have emulated, but I'm sure that many will in the future). A few times through Destroyer's Rubies will convince you that nothing is being half-assed here: this is the first truly magnificent album of 2006, and one that proves that there is life yet in postmodern art and cultural reference.

-BT

Review: The Minus 5 - The Minus 5 (7.2)

2006-02-17T19:29:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 7.2
Lyrics: 5.9
Melodies: 8.6
Arrangements: 8.2
Thematicity: 6.7
Originality: 6.1
Production: 7.0

As soon as a saw the cover of the Minus 5's latest, self-titled release, I knew what to expect: the band had decided to follow Down with Wilco with an album that could've been called Down With Uncle Tupelo. True to form, the graphic hommage to guest musician Jeff Tweedy's former outfit's "Gun" heralds a musical hommage of the same ilk. The ubiquitous country twang, the fascination with down-and-out life in middle-America, and hints at Uncle Tuplo's gritty, rough-hewn lyricism indicate that Scott McCaughey had it in his head to make another theme album, and a theme album The Minus 5 certainly is. Furthermore, it is an album with a number of very catchy individual songs.. However, while there aren't any glaring problems with the album, there are a number of, shall we say, incongruities that severely limit its impact and the verisimilitude of its Bible-belt imagery. The most salient ones are a prevailing blandness, some odd stylistic juxtapositions, and the tenuous maintenance of a theme through superficial means.

While I've mentioned the Uncle Tupelo influence which informs a number of songs on The Minus 5, I haven't yet mentioned the John Lennon hommage, which is almost equally pervasive (especially in the production and arrangements) and borders on derivative on certain tracks (most notably the otherwise exceedingly addictive "Rifle Called Goodbye"). I can't say that this is a damning thing by itself, but it certainly doesn't jive well with the alt-country roughness of "Aw Shit Man" or "Cigarettes, Coffee, and Booze." Furthermore, while the arrangements have their moments (my favorite is the keyboard track on "Leftover Life to Kill"), the mix is too treble-heavy and too antiseptically slick to make the songs come alive. The lyrics also feature some heavy-handed metaphors and questionable quips (I don't really find the line "I had six white Russians last night/and two of them were people" that clever, honestly), but honestly, the real problem with the vocals on this record is McCaughey's emotionless delivery, which one might not even notice but for the fact that Colin Meloy's guest spot on "Cemetery Row" badly upstages McCaughey and reveals, by comparison, how lacking in intensity and personal investment this album really is. Another hint at this is that the album's firearms theme is squeezed in in the most awkward of phrases (such as "I like you with a gun"). None of this mitigates the fact that the album has some very catchy songs on it (especially in its former two-thirds), but it does make it somewhat flavorless and more mildly entertaining than anything else -- viz. Original Luke ain't no John Hardy.

-BT

Review: Bamboon - Man Of Means (8.3)

2006-02-12T17:03:00.000-05:00

This review is currently unavailable.

Review: Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit (8.5)

2006-02-10T18:36:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.5
Lyrics: 8.6
Melodies: 8.3
Arrangements: 8.6
Thematicity: 9.2
Originality: 8.1
Production: 8.2

It's somewhat irksome as a reviewer when my assessment of any given record coincides almost exactly with Pitchfork's, but no matter how much I might try to hide it, I must confess that in many cases my tastes in music don't deviate that much from the norm. I can, however, retain some illusions of originality due to the fact that the reasoning behing my nearly identical numerical ratings are often vastly different from the justifications other critics profess for their own, but in the case of Belle and Sebastian's latest release, The Life Pursuit, I don't even have that luxury. The album, as you may have heard from other sources by now, is a return to form for a band that has been struggling for five or so years to have anything relevant to say (to the extent that the entirety of Dear Castrophe Waitress could have been distilled down to one song, "Piazza, New York Catcher", without anything of significance lost). The secret of the album's success is, on the surface, a return to the preocupation with academe and the intelectual and sexual discoveries of youth and a newfound emphasis on melody -- in other words, a combination of the artistic values that informed the band's first three releases. However, this isn't merely a return to past formulae; it's the artistic entelechy of what that band had always promised to be but never quite delivered, even in their best moments.

Essentially, The Life Pursuit is the result of Stuart Murdoch's taking a few notes from Colin Meloy, whose literary and literate lyrical style were fashioned after his own. There are both coherent narratives and well-developed characters in nearly every song on the record, and they combine to paint a vivid picture of city life among the collegiate crowd and other miscellaneous young adults that actually manages to retain elements of romanticism that many recent records (most notably Byron the Bulb's The Most Photographed Barn In America) have skewered and satirized wholesale. Sure "Funny Little Frog" and "White Collar Boy" mock in their own way, but neither completely bursts the idealistic bubble, and comes off as good-natured modernism in the Thomas Mann vein rather than vituperant deconstruction. Another Decemberists nod can be found in the band's arrangements, which are both complicated and well-tempered, and while the production isn't awe-inspiring, it's definately good enough to make those arrangements sound articulate. Add to this the fact that there are a whole slew of potential singles (e.g. "The Blues are Still Blue," "Sukie In the Graveyard," and "Act Of the Apostle"), a coherent musical timbre that only "Song For the Sunshine" threatens to spoil, and a sense that the internecine squabbles that have threatened the band's sound and stability in the past have been resolved in the only way that made sense (giving Murdoch absolute power and letting him sing lead on nearly all of the record's songs) and you get an understanding of why The Life Pursuit is not just a return to form, but the best Belle and Sebastian record yet.

-BT

Music Reviews by Artist (S-Z)

2006-02-05T16:44:00.000-05:00

Serena Maneesh - Serena Maneesh (2005)
Shining - In the Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be a Monster (2005)
Shoplifting - Body Stories (2006)
Sigur Ros - Takk (2005)
Silver Jews - Tanglewood Numbers (2005)
Single Frame - Body/End/Basement (2005)
Six Organs Of Admittance - School Of the Flower (2005)
Six Organs of Admittance - The Sun Awakens (2006)
Sleater-Kinney - The Woods (2005)
Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped (2006)
Spoon - Gimme Fiction (2005)
Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome: the Seeger Sessions (2006)
Stars - Set Yourself On Fire (2005)
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois (2005)
Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I Am Dreaming (2006)
Super Furry Animals - Love Kraft (2005)
Tapes n' Tapes - The Loon (2006)
Blake Thomas & the Downtown Brown - Real Like Theater (2005)
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain (2006)
Twilight Singers - Powder Burns (2006)
John Vanderslice - Pixel Revolt (2005)
Various Artists - Ypsisongs (2006)
Vitalic - OK Cowboy (2006)
Voxtrot - Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives (2006)
Kanye West - Late Registration (2005)
Wilderness - Wilderness (2005)
Wilderness - Vessel States (2006)
Patrick Wolf - Wind In the Wires (2005)
Wolf Parade - Apologies To the Queen Mary (2005)
Wooden Wand - Harem of the Sundrum & the Witness Figg (2005)
Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice - Gipsy Freedom (2006)

Music Reviews by Artist (K-R)

2006-02-05T16:41:00.000-05:00

The Kallikak Family - May 27, 2007 (2005)
The Kills - No Wow (2005)
Kiss Me Deadly - Misty Medley (2005)
The Knife - Silent Shout (2006)
Koenjihyakkei - Angherr Shisspa (2005)
Ladytron - The Witching Hour (2005)
LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem (2005)
Jens Lekman - Oh You're So Silent Jens (2005)
Liars - Drum's Not Dead (2006)
Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain (2005)
Love Is All - Nine Times That Same Song (2006)
Low - The Great Destroyer (2005)
Lyrics Born - Same !@#$ Different Day (2005)
Mahjongg - Raydoncong 2005 (2005)
The Malachi Constant - Pride (2006)
Stephen Malkmus - Face the Truth (2005)
Man Man - Six Demon Bag (2006)
Maximo Park - A Certain Trigger (2005)
Mazarin - We're Already There (2005)
M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us (2005)
Melodious Owl - Melodious Owl (2005)
M.I.A. - Arular (2005)
The Minus 5 - The Minus 5 (2006)
Mission of Burma - The Obliterati (2006)
The Mongeese - Inevitable Casualty of the Sphaleron Wash (2005)
The Mongeese - Bartered For Ceramics LP (2005)
The Mongeese - Bande a Part (2006)
The Mongeese - The Black Arc (2006)
The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree (2005)
Morrissey - Ringleader of the Tormentors (2006)
My Morning Jacket - Z (2005)
The Motion Sick - Her Brilliant Fifteen (2005)
Need Based Paint - Songs of the American Civil War, Vol. I (2005)
The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema (2005)
No Neck Blues Band - Qvaris (2005)
Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins (2005)
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy (2005)
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy Appendix (2005)
Oneida - The Wedding (2005)
The Onlys - Limbic System (2005)
Orthrelm - OV (2005)
Paso Mino - Good People (2006)
Pinetop Seven - The Night's Bloom (2005)
Robert Pollard - From a Compound Eye (2006)
The Ragbirds - Catching Fire (2006)
Rogue Wave - Descended Like Vultures (2005)
The Russian Futurists - Our Thickness (2005)

Music Reviews by Artist (A-J)

2006-02-05T16:39:00.000-05:00

Actual Birds - Vive la Fantastique avec Actual Birds (2006)
Ryan Adams & the Cardinals - Jacksonville City Nights (2005)
Ryan Adams - 29 (2005)
Ellen Allien & Apparat - Orchestra of Bubbles (2006)
Animal Collective - Feels (2005)
Antony and the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now (2005)
Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll (2005)
Asobi Sesku - Citrus (2006)
Bamboon - Man Of Means (2006)
Band of Horses - Everything All the Time (2006)
Devandra Banhart - Cripple Crow (2005)
Chris Bathgate - Silence Is for Suckers (2005)
Chris Bathgate - The Single Road I Long For (2006)
Chris Bathgate - A Detailed Account of Three Dreams (2006)
Beck - Guero (2005)
Beirut - Gulag Orkestar (2006)
Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit (2006)
Bell Orchestre - Recording a Tape the Colour Of the Light (2005)
Be Your Own Pet - Be Your Own Pet (2006)
Brendan Benson - The Alternative To Love (2005)
Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production Of Eggs (2005)
The Black Heart Procession - The Spell (2006)
Black Mountain - Black Mountain (2005)
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm (2005)
Blood On the Wall - Awesomer (2005)
Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Matt Sweeney - Superwolf (2005)
The Books - Lost and Safe (2005)
Boris - Pink (2006)
The Boy Least Likely To - The Best Party Ever (2005)
Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (2005)
British Sea Power - Open Season (2005)
Broadcast - Tender Buttons (2005)
Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene (2005)
Built to Spill - You in Reverse (2006)
Vashti Bunyan - Lookaftering (2005)
Canada - This Cursed House (2006)
Caribou - The Milk of Human Kindness (2005)
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (2006)
Centro-Matic - Fort Recovery (2006)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (2005)
The Clientele - Strange Geometry (2005)
Clogs - Lantern (2006)
Danielson - Ships (2006)
The Dardanelles - Horseman, Pass By (2006)
Devin Davis - Lonely People of the World, Unite! (2005)
The Decemberists - Picaresque (2005)
Deerhoof - The Runners Four (2005)
Dessa - False Hopes (2005)
Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies (2006)
Don Caballero - World Class Listening Problem (2006)
Dosh - Powder Horn (2005)
Edan - Beauty and the Beat (2005)
Elevator - Elevator (2006)
Erase Errata - Nightlife (2006)
The Fall - Fall Heads Roll (2005)
The Fiery Furnaces - EP (2005)
The Fiery Furnaces - Rehearsing My Choir (2005)
The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea (2006)
Sage Francis - A Healthy Distrust (2005)
The Futureheads - News and Tributes (2006)
Howe Gelb - 'Sno Angel Like You (2006)
Head Of Femur - Hysterical Stars (2005)
Herbert - Scale (2006)
Hockey Night - Keep Guessin' (2005)
The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday (2005)
Holopaw - Quit +/or Fight (2005)
Hood - Outside Closer (2005)
Immaculate Machine - Ones and Zeroes (2005)
Islands - Return to the Sea (2006)
Isolee -We Are Monster (2005)
Jackie-O Motherfucker - Flags Of the Sacred Harp (2005)
Joggers - With a Cape and a Cane (2005)
Matt Jones - Right to Arms (2006)

Review: Love Is All - Nine Times That Same Song (8.4)

2006-02-05T15:41:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.4
Lyrics: 8.3
Melodies: 8.3
Arrangements: 8.8
Thematicity: 8.5
Originality: 7.6
Production: 9.1

Seen from one rather cynical perspective, Love Is All are less a band than a congelation of this decade's leading elements of indie chic: they have a retro-pop sound that combines the European sounds of the sixties with post-punk, they've got horns and keyboards galore, they have a female vocalist who draws her inspiration from the so-called "girl groups" of decades past, they're Scandinavian, etc. It would be easy to dismiss them out of hand as the next Franz Ferdinand without listening to their much-touted debut, Nine Times That Same Song, but just because they're fashion conscious doesn't mean they lack substance, and Love Is All are better than you'd think, though probably not as good as they've been built up to be by the critical community. First, let me dispel a few myths that community has been circulating: they sound nothing like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (and thank God for that), they aren't a punk band (though they are punk-influenced), and the lyrics actually aren't that bad. Second, let me spend a moment discussing what the acual merits and shortcomings of this record are.

First, let's start with the album's title, Nine Times That Same Song, which would indicate a nine-song tracklist. What the band actually meant was one song plus nine more of the same, and while this may sound like an idiotically pedantic comment, it's not, for sloppy math is the key to this record's success: much like Erase Errata (to whom I'm more inclined to compare the band, though only musically -- not lyrically), Love Is All are not afraid of off-the-beat slop and noise, and integrate these elements well into their brand of horn-laden dance-punk. Josephine Clausson's voice is emotive and animated, and her vocal delivery is the other key element in the record's success. Also, while it would be nice if her lyrics were a bit more discernable, I love the seemingly muddy yet deceptively rich mixing job on this record (it may sound half-assed, but listen again -- there's nothing out of place here). As to the part of the lyrics I can hear, I do think Clausson posesses the self-reflection, the cleverness, and the seriousness to make her songs about love and relationships work, and though I'm a little leery of the commodification and anti-feminism that the rise in retro girl groups seems to portend, Love Is All has an unconventional enough take on the aforementioned subjects to steer them clear of my opprobrium -- at least for now. I like Nine Times That Same Song -- a lot, and I don't regard it as a guilty pleasure, but I do worry that it's too much a product of its own age for its own good.

-BT

Review: Robert Pollard - From a Compound Eye (7.3)

2006-02-02T16:35:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 7.3
Lyrics: 7.0
Melodies: 7.1
Arrangements: 7.9
Thematicity: 7.6
Originality: 7.0
Production: 8.3

To be honest, after my first listen to Robert Pollard's first full-length post-Guided By Voices release, I hadn't imagined I'd be rating this record as high as I am now. Of course we all knew that this record wasn't going to be a departure (GBV was Bob, pure and simple, and honestly, From a Compound Eye might as well be a Guided By Voices record), so the source of my annoyance wasn't any sort of failed experimentation on Pollard's part, but rather the fact that this album just didn't have the melodic pop punch that his previous releases with the band did. Even the band's artistic nadir, the lackluster Isolation Drills, contained "Glad Girls" (which alone almost made the record worthwhile) and "Chasing Heather Crazy", while the best From a Compound Eye has to offer is "I'm a Widow", which is an unquestionably good song, but certainly not on a par with the best of the GBV canon. Sure there are a few others that are kind of catchy in parts ("I'm a Strong Lion", "Kick Me and Cancel"), but most of the record seems to consist of songs released for the sake of releasing them -- in other words, to further Pollard's personal idom more than anything else.

The fact that the melodies aren't up to snuff creates a cascade of problems for the record. Lyrically, let's face it: even Bob at his best is largely nonsensical, but his words gathered a great deal of force by virtue of his earnest, no-holds-barred rock & roll vocal delivery. Here, he sounds a bit half-hearted, and as a consequence, the listener actually begins to question whether the refrain "love is stronger than witchcraft" (which is repeated just a mite too much anyhow) doesn't just sound silly. The end result is that the record doesn't sound like it has much to offer, which is a shame, because it actually surpasses the bulk of Guided By Voices' more recent discography in several important categories. The arrangements and production on From a Compound Eye strike the perfect balance between Pollard's mid-nineties basement recordings and Do the Collapse's slick studio sound -- a balance which has eluded Bob since the release of Under the Bushes Under the Stars. After a few listens, one begins to appreciate these things, but for Robert Pollard's music to work, it needs hooks, despite all its assets, this record doesn't have them; hence I can't really say that it's more than mediocre -- for Pollard, that is.

-BT

Review: Pinetop Seven - The Night's Bloom (6.6)

2006-01-30T14:57:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 6.6
Lyrics: 7.0
Melodies: 6.4
Arrangements: 7.8
Thematicity: 7.2
Originality: 5.7
Production: 8.0

I first heard of Pinetop Seven when I opened for them at a show in Omaha several years ago, and while I can't say the band blew me away with their performance, they did impress me profoundly with their musicianship and their arrangements. More than anything, they seemed like a band that had a hell of a lot of raw talent but hadn't quite yet discovered exactly what to do with it; thus, while I didn't pay much attention to them until recently, I was more than willing to seek out The Night's Bloom after it began to garner to much acclaim in critical circles. So is it the Pinetop Seven album I had been waiting for -- the one on which the band finally realized its potential and discovered its own unique sound? Well, if you've glanced and the numbers given above, you already know what the verdict is: this is the same Pinetop Seven that I saw in Omaha, with the same instrumental skill and potential and yet the same inability to do anything genuinely creative with them. The Night's Bloom, at its best, sounds like a more baroque version of an early Better Than Ezra record, and I find it severly lacking in both originality and definition.

So what's the major problem? Well, as with most records that aren't bad, but merely tepid, there really isn't one: there just isn't anything that stands out, either lyrically, melodically, or compositionally. The band it aiming for a folk-music simplicity in their lyrics, but there isn't much depth in Darren Richards' reflective moments, in the sense that his descriptions of them neither challenge the listener to think about anything differently nor successfully win his or her empathy. The music is pretty, but it also doen't change much in tempo or tone over the course of the record, and the arrangements, while they are certainly solid, aren't spellbinding in the way Blake Thomas's or the Decemberists' are -- Thomas uses his orchestrations to deliver an emotive punch, Meloy uses his to further his storytelling, Pinetop Seven do neither. Still, I would argue that "The Night's Bloom" and "The Comedy Is Ended" are the record's best two songs and that the band ought to consider the idea of dropping their vocals altogether (they're not bad, mind, just superfluous). This record doesn't have enough hooks for a pop record, but wants to sound radio-friendly anyhow, which is, in my opinion, a mistake. I still think Pinetop Seven are capable of doing something interesting, but not if they continue along the same path they have on The Night's Bloom.

-BT

Review: Low - The Great Destroyer (6.9)

2006-01-27T17:11:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 6.9
Lyrics: 7.0
Melodies: 6.5
Arrangements: 7.0
Thematicity: 7.4
Originality: 5.9
Production: 7.8

Low have been making music for over a decade now, and have become famous for their minimalism to the extent where the conventional wisdom in the indie community has long hailed them as Coedine's rightful heirs to the slowcore throne, if such a seat existed -- and rightly so: the band has not only succeeded in crafting their own sound, which even those who do not share the bands tastes must accept as finely-developed and at least moderately interesting. The band has also succeeded in giving Duluth, Minnesota a musical reputation utterly distinct from Minneapolis's. Thus my perplexity with Low's latest release, The Great Destoryer. Not only have the band abandoned the finely-honed drone to cash in on the pop fascination that characterizes indie's present zeitgeist, but they have done so by adopting (gasp!) a Minneapolis sound. Indeed, the album sounds a great deal like Dwindle's output in the late nineties, which blended slowcore with the characteristic Twin Cities sounds associated with Husker Du and Arcwelder. Now this would not have been a bad thing had Low been able to pull off the transition from making every note count to making pop-rock tunes, and I don't doubt that if Low continues on their present trajectory they'll rapidly figure out how to integrate their trademark sound into that of their Twin Cities conbretheren, but The Great Destroyer really sounds like a work in limbo, or if you prefer, a work in transition.

Let's begin with the song structures. True, there are three genuine standouts on this record that could make it as rock songs: "When I Go Deaf", "Walk Into the Sea", and my personal favorite, "California," which has a good guitar riff and a catchy-as-hell chorus to its credit. The rest of the songs, however, are capable of attracting the listener's interest neither by virtue of their melodies or hooks, nor by the visceral yet deliberate ambience that characterized the band's better recordings in the past. That's not to say that there are no elements of "Broadway (So Many People)" or "Monkey" that don't grab one's attention, but that the songs don't quite sound complete. The reason for this is that Low have produced and arranged their pop music the same way they did their previous material, and as a general rule, where the band tries to pull off a full, rounded sound, they end up with a transparent surface instead of a solid mass -- and frequently one with glaring holes where something (usually in the low- to mid-range) ought to be. Lyrically, the album is nothing special either, though it is by no means an embarrassment (not much has changed in this department). While I applaud Low for branching out, I can't say that The Great Destroyer impresses me much: I certainly wouldn't call it an act of bandwagonism, but I don't see why Low would be borrowing from a source it has for so long worked to distinguish itself. If pop music is what they want, they'd do far better emulating My Morning Jacket or Built to Spill than Arcwelder and Dwindle.

-BT

Review: The Russian Futurists - Our Thickness (6.7)

2006-01-27T12:32:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 6.7
Lyrics: 5.9
Melodies: 7.7
Arrangements: 4.6
Thematicity: 7.5
Originality: 6.2
Production: 6.6

The Russian Futurists, like many similar indie pop acts that have come outof the woodwork since Death Cab For Cutie hit it big, aim more for catchiness than originality. That's not necessarily a bad thing per se -- consider records like the New Pornographers' Electric Version and Weezer's debut -- but it is something that requires a great deal of finesse and songwriting talent. Unfortunately, while Matthew Adam Hart, the lone member of the Russian Futurists, has come up with a sizeable number of memorable melodies for the band's latest release, Our Thickness, he has also done a great deal to hinder the effect that those melodies might have on the listener. First of all, Hart has followed Death Cab's lead in making quirkiness and cuteness his primary aim, to the extent that there is actually a song entitled "Why You Gotta Do That Thang?" and another (catering to current the indie fanboy/fangirl penchant for all fascinations lexical and literary) entitled "Sentiments vs. Syllables," the lyrical content of neither of which delivers anything more substantial than its title might suggest. And did we mention there's a track called "Hurtin' 4 Certain?" You probably get the picture by now.

As for the music, it's not as vapid, conventional, or cloying as the lyrics, to be sure, but it has its strengths and its weaknesses. I'll be the first to admit that "Paul Simon", "Still Life", and "These Seven Notes" contain really catchy melodies, but the problem is that aside from one good melodic hook per song (if that), there really isn't any substance or variety to Our Thickness's tracklist: the same rhythm and the same instrumental lines persist throughout any given song, and there is seldom a change in tone, instrumentation, feel, or anything else that might add texture to the record. While Hart attempts to pique interest and add texture by opting for an unusual production style in which the vocals are downplayed and everything else (most noticeably the guitars) raised to a fuzz-slathered near-clip, he ends up with a sound that doesn't quite fit his music and doesn't sound all that daringly original either. Furthermore, the arrangements on this record are critically lacking: sure there are a lot of instruments playing at any given time, but they're playin slow, predictable parts and frequently just imitate the vocal melody, which only makes the record sound amateurish. I could go on about how the annoying spoken samples at the end of "Still Life" (imagine the opening monologues to Weezer's "Undone (the Sweater Song)" delivered in the same, obnoxious female voice but without irony) ruin what otherwise would have been the album's best song, and about numerous other small bones I have to pick with this record, but there really isn't a point. Our Thickness has little to offer other than cuteness, a few catchy vocal hooks, and an interesting but not entirely spellbinding sense of its own sound.

-BT

Celestial Biscuit's Top 50 Albums Of 2005

2006-01-15T14:57:00.000-05:00

Yes, this is the moment you've all been waiting for (and honestly, the moment we've been waiting for too): it's time to present Celestial Biscuit's top 50 albums of 2005. Before we do, however, we'd like to update you on some minor changes we made in determining what counts as the release date for albums which have either had an extremely limited first run pressing or else have different release dates in the U.S. and in other parts of the world. Here is the revised information:

Considered for 2004: "Cat Spectacular" (Bearsuit), "Thunder, Lightning Strike" (The Go Team).

Considered for 2005: "Bang Bang Rock & Roll" (Art Brut), "Angherr Shisspa" (Koenjihyakkei), "Wait Long By the River and the Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By" (The Drones), "Serena Maneesh" (Serena Maneesh), "We Are Monster" (Isolee), "A Certain Trigger" (Maximo Park).

Considered for 2006: "OK Cowboy" (Vitalic), "Nine Times the Same Song" (Love Is Everything), "Horseman, Pass By" (The Dardanelles).

Okay, that's it for preliminaries. To enter Celestial Biscuit's top 50 albums list for 2005, click here.

-BT

Review: Kanye West - Late Registraton (8.7)

2006-01-15T11:37:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.7
Lyrics: 8.6
Melodies: 8.7
Arrangements: 8.9
Thematicity: 8.3
Originality: 8.1
Production: 9.6

I remember when Kanye West's debut, The College Dropout was released back in 2004, I confess that I didn't agree with what seemed to be a consensus in critical community that it was one of the best albums of the decade. That's not to say that I didn't recognize the immense amount of potential that West displayed on that record, or that I didn't find his willingness to discuss his religious convictions as refreshing as Sufjan Stevens's, or that I didn't laugh for five minutes straight after every one of his miscellaneous "School Spirit" skits. There were a great many things that it did correctly, but there were aslo a great many that it did not: as is the case on far too many mainstream hip-hop albums, West's parade of guest stars rapidly became an annoyance, disrupting the flow of the album and taking the mic away from West. Furthermore, there were pacing problems, and many of the album tracks simply went on too long (admit it: "Last Call" began to sound like an interminable Academy Award acceptance speech after a while). But enough about the dificiencies of The College Droput -- on Late Registration, West's tour de force sophomore effort, all of them have been remedied. Not only is this album definitively his own, rather than that of an amalgam of guest vocalists, but it is also miles ahead of its predecessor in terms of production, nuance, and social commentary.

The key to West's success is his willingness to stick his neck out and at the same time appear to be baring his soul rather than grandstanding. The artfully checked sorrow in the chorus of "Gold Digger" and the horrific epiphanies and self-interrogation of "Diamons From Sierra Leone" are both emotional and debonair at once, as is nearly every other track on the record. Also, while the number of cameos hasn't diminished, they never upstage West (consider Jamie Foxx's Ray Charles impression looped as a bakground sample in "Gold Digger", or the Game's tasteful contribution to "Crack Music"), who finally delivers his audience an uninterrupted demonstration of his eloquence. Equally eloquent and equally stylish -- and furthermore equally important to the album's success -- is the incredible production, which integrates well-place backing vocals, piano licks, and jazz sambles into a complex and elegant tableau upon which West's vocal performance seems to have been intended to play all along. There's no shortage of singles on this record, nor is there any shortage of social and political commentary (integrated seemlessly into West's tenor of personal expression). Late Registration as its name suggests, is Kanye West's realization of what his debut hinted at but never attained, though it scarcely matters that it came a year late when the result is this spectacular.

-BT

Review: Patrick Wolf - Wind In the Wires (8.1)

2006-01-14T11:50:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.1
Lyrics: 8.2
Melodies: 8.0
Arrangements: 8.8
Thematicity: 7.6
Originality: 7.8
Production: 8.3

I have read numerous articles comparing Partick Wolf to Connor Oberst, and quite a few specifically comparing Wind In the Wires to Digital Ash In a Digital Urn, but despite some superficial similarities, I don't find much likeness in the comparison. Connor Oberst's lyrics (and treble-laden, lisping vocal style) are rooted in middle-American emo core, and his experimentation with elements of industrial music on Digital Ash In a Digital Urn (which was, if I may speak frankly, an abysmal and almost entriely meritless rehash of themes from the far better I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning); Wolf's lyrics are primarily influenced by the Modernist extension of new wave that appeared in the mid-eighties, promulgated by bands like New Order and the Cure, and his fascination with distorted, synthetic squeals and electronic noises has a similar origin. Modernism, unfortunately, is now hopelessly out of vogue, even in rock music (once its longtime bastion), and to most ears a song with a tagline like "my name is Tristan, and I am alive" will elicit nothing but derisive laughter. But let's say for the moment that one were to approach Wind In the Wires from the Hermann Hesse perspective that is due a man surnamed Wolf; then one would see this record for its overwhelming merits: namely its Smiths-esque vocal delivery, its brilliant production, and its articulate orchestration.

The most impressive thing about Patrick Wolf's arrangements is that they don't stray too far in any one direction: sure there are synthesizer sounds and beeps, but there is also plenty of acoustic guitar and violin, and the result is a tasteful balance between digital and analog. Lyrically, again, songs like "The Libertine" and "The Gypsy King" might sound corny at first, but if you approach them without any preconceptions, they're actually pretty good (though admittedly nothing spectacular). If you're into catchy melodies, this record has its share of those too (the title track, most notably), but don't expect it to be built around them: Wolf's music seems to be about arrangements first and mood second -- its the big picture (the whole of the album) rather than the individual tracks he's most interested in. On that cound, Wind In the Wires is an overwhelming succes: it has a consistent tone and a tenebrous, introspective feel whose sensitivity isn't damaged by the electronic music elements therein included; and while I can't guarantee that any given music connoisseur will find it as rewarding as I did (it certainly isn't aimed at a broad audience), its merits are undeniable.

-BT

Review: Lyrics Born - Same !@#$ Different Day (8.0)

2006-01-14T11:07:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.1
Lyrics: 8.2
Melodies: 8.3
Arrangements: 8.5
Thematicity: 7.7
Originality: 7.8
Production: 8.5

Remix albums, like compilation albums, are often bad news, but I certainly wouldn't be so glib as to summarily dismiss them, for occasionally one may be surprised, and Lyrics Born's Same !@#$ Different Day is just such a surprise. The arrangements on this record are better than they were on Later That Day, and furthermore, they're more playful and experimental. An additional surprise is that while on most hip-hop records, the more special guests appearing over the record's course, the more overblown and fragmentary it sounds, Same !@#$ Different Day manages to get the most out of its cameos (including KRS-One's tour de force diatribe on "Pack Up Remix", which is probably the best of the lot). I can't say that there aren't any thematic disunity issues on this account, mind, but I can vouch for the clever experimentation on this record making up for any deficiencies of this sort. Dan the Automator's take on "I'm Just Raw" is phenomenal (as would, I suppose, be expected), and the production is up to the task of uniting this gallimawfury of tunes.

Then we get to the lyrics, which, for an act calling itself Lyrics Born, cannot be overlooked. These aim more at being playful than being politically charged, insightful, or portentious, but due to Shimura's rapid-fire delivery, they come off as studies in vocal skill rather than merely fluff. The record's premier track, "Do That There", is a non-stop sequence of rapid-fire wordplay and complicated rhyming patters (to wit, a three-minute tongue-twister), and while lines like "So I pedaled hella hard to a seminar in Zanzibar" may not have any deeper meaning, they're well-delivered, and what's more, they're fun. "I'm Just Raw" and "Hello Remix" get by on name-dropping and catchy melodies, but they're nonetheless enjoyable; the reason being that Lyrics Born's music seems effortless by virtue of its lightness, rather than meritless or half-baked, which it surely is not -- one needs to pay a good deal of attention to this record before one notices exactly how complex the beats are. While I do confess that I don't think I could rate an album with the aims that Same !@#$ Different Day has any higher than this, primarily due to its a bit too eclectic composition, guest spots, and lack of true lyrical pith, it's a thoroughly enjoyable record, and one that draws successfully from an enormous pool of talented artists.

-BT

Review: Hood - Outside Closer (8.2)

2006-01-12T23:52:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.2
Lyrics: 8.2
Melodies: 7.7
Arrangements: 9.0
Thematicity: 8.7
Originality: 7.9
Production: 8.5

Hood, like Caribou and Dosh, base their act around uniting the song structures and musical sensibilities of electronica with the analog instrumentation and timbre of indie rock. Their latest effort, Outside Closer, is also in many ways reminiscent of the Notwist's Neon Golden. There are also hints of Clientele influence (in the locative power of the vocals). This is a fairly impressive canon from which to draw, and Outside Closer is both well worthy of it and more than the sum of its influences. The arrangements on this record are tasteful, diverse (everything from techno beeps and static to the accompaniment of a full-blown string quartet is employed, often simultaneously, and the blending is rarely short of seemless), and well-suited to the band's languid, aetherial material.

Thematically, the album is united both by its production and by its lyrics, which create an atmosphere of loss (the apparent candor of which owes a good deal to the artful underproduction of the vocals compared with the rest of the mix) and evoke the soul of what T. S. Elliott referred to as "a dry season". It's an album choked with painful reminiscences, paradoxically both stoic and emotional at once -- and quite powerful. Melodically, the album has its stronger and weaker points, the strongest generally coming in the form of a prolonged outro at the climax of a long build (see "The Negatives..." or "End Of One Train Running"), but holds together quite well, primarily due to the fact that the album's techno sensibilities allow it to get away with far fewer pop melodies than a standard indie record would be able to, and partially because the instrumental background is so rich. Outside Closer is well-paced, well-crafted, and well-executed, and although its subtlety will likely mean that it gets overlooked, it certainly doesn't deserve to be.

-BT

Review: Orthrelm - OV (7.6)

2006-01-12T20:36:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 7.6
Lyrics: N/A
Melodies: 5.7
Arrangements: 7.3
Thematicity: 8.0
Originality: 7.7
Production: 6.9

Orthrelm's OV is Rehearsing My Choir's only serious competition for the dubious honor of least accessible accessible album of 2005. The album consists of one 46-minute track, which features no vocals, no bass, and very little in the way of melody. Equal parts Lightning Bolt tune and Phillip Glass composition, this lone "song" bombards the listener with a series of guitar riffs and drum fills (delivered in consecution with no breaks) which are repeated over and over without any discernable variation -- often for several minute on end. Sound interesting yet? Well, it's actually quite a bit better than the above description might at first suggest: there really is a Phillip Glass feel to this record, and the repetition actually gives the piece a sense of constancy and power rather than just making it dull. There really is a great deal going on here, and while the record might sound interminable and boring the first time through, there are things for those with enough fortitude to sit through it a second time to discover.

Still, however, the record's repetitiveness isn't entirely a blessing. I will grant that Orthrelm is quite technically skilled, and that I can't remember the last time I hear a drummer play as fast as Josh Blair does, but while there is a good deal of substructure to the riffs that compose OV, they do eventually begin to get stale. After one begins to appreciate the record's assets, one begins to notice its shortcomings: there are no dynamics to Orthrelm's music whatsoever (contrast with Lightning Bolt), and very little in the way of nuance beyond an attempt to see how many hemidemisemiquavers one can pack into a measure. Furthermore, the production is noticeably substandard (again, contrast with Lightning Bolt, who use the exact same instrumentation). I give this band credit for chops, to be sure, but a display of technical proficiency is not the same as music, and as music, OV is partially successful, but inchoate.

-BT

Review: The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree (8.2)

2006-01-06T21:09:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.2
Lyrics: 8.8
Melodies: 8.0
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 9.2
Originality: 7.8
Production: 8.3

It's a shame that the year the Mountain Goats finally made a record with a purpose happened to be the same year the Mongeese finally managed the same feat, for it means that John Darnielle will probably continue to live in the Mongeese's shadow. The Sunset Tree is an admirable album, however, and while perhaps Darnielle's lyrics thereon don't quite match those on Inevitable Casualty Of the Spaleron Wash in quality or in quirkiness, they surpass them in intensity, and this is no mean feat. Darnielle's churning up the ghosts of his past (the album is a collection of songs about Darnielle's adolescence and relationship with his abusive stepfather) is in some ways reminiscent of Ethel Meserve's "Ina", but his vocal delivery, with its animated quaver, gives the listener the sense that he's genuinely trying to keep himself from breaking down. There are, of course, plenty of great one-liners and a great deal of literary ("Raskalnikov got sick and he didn't know why") allusions and religious symbolism ("there will be dancing and feasting in Jerusalem next year"); the former keep the record from sounding like some self-absorbed emo recording, and the latter lend the album an evocative power similar to Wooden Wand's Harem Of the Sundrum & the Witness Figg.

The arrangements on the record (mostly acoustic guitar and strings, with a few piano licks here and there) are simple, but eloquent (there are even a few novel experiments such as the cello-and-vocals-alone orchestration of "Dilaudid", which, even if not the album's best song outright, is certainly its most powerful). Of course albums with this sort of arrangement generally require good lyrics and good vocal melodies to succeed. The first, as mentioned already, are present throughout; the second, however, aren't quite as consistent: although the first four tracks are nothing short of incredible ("This Year" deserves explicit mention), the middle of the album loses a bit of momentum. From "Song For Dennis Brown" on, it picks up again, however. With its parental obsession, drunken majesty, learned aporia, and fascination with mortality The Sunset Tree is as to David Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius as Inevitable Casualty Of the Sphaleron Wash is to Rimbaud's The Drunken Boat. I prefer the latter, but there's good in the former as well.

-BT

Celestial Biscuit's Top 50 Songs Of 2005

2005-12-30T11:06:00.000-05:00

The time has come where reviewers of all sorts are wont to post year-end lists, and we at Celestial Biscuit consider the composition to be our favorite critical enterprise. Therefore, we offer not one, but two of them: this list of the year's top 50 songs (which we consider somewhat of an appetizer), and a list of the top 50 albums of the year (which we consider to be the main course), which will be released on January 15th.

It should be noted that unlike Pitchfork's top 50 singles list, this is not a roster of packaged singles, but songs in general: a song doesn't need to have been a single to be eligible for inclusion here. Thus you'll see many songs here that weren't eligible for inclusion on Pitchfork's or other top singles lists. However, we have had to make some decisions about whether to include certain CDs only currently either difficult to find due to extremely limited pressing or available as imports on this year's list, or whether to consider them next year's releases. If you don't see your favorite song or album on our lists, this may be why. Here are our verdicts on albums affected by our decision that we think are likely to be of concern to our listeners:

Considered for 2004: "Cat Spectacular" (Bearsuit), "Thunder, Lightning Strike" (The Go Team).

Considered for 2005: "Bang Bang Rock & Roll" (Art Brut), "Horseman, Pass By" (The Dardanelles), "Angherr Shisspa" (Koenjihyakkei), "Wait Long By the River and the Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By" (The Drones), "Serena Maneesh" (Serena Maneesh), "We Are Monster" (Isolee), "A Certain Trigger" (Maximo Park).

Considered for 2006: "OK Cowboy" (Vitalic), "Nine Times the Same Song" (Love Is Everything).

Okay, now that the ground rules have been set, here are Celestial Biscuit's top 50 songs of 2005:

50). Of Montreal - "And Thus begins Our Alabee"
There are hits and misses on Of Montreal's experiment in going techno entitled The Sunlandic Twins, but "And Thus Begins Our Alabee" is the greatest of the former. The jaunty "uh-ah-oh" that enlivens the chorus makes the song, in my opinion, and the rich tapestry of backing vocals, keyboards, and a myriad of other things I can't even begin to count makes the track not only fun, but interesting on a micro-level.

49). Six Organs Of Admittance - "School Of the Flower"
By far the longest composition on this list, clocking in at over 13 minutes, is an artful synthesis of post-rock drumming and psych-folk. From the steelstring riff that opens it and continues throughout, the piece builds canon-like into a barrage of distorted electric guitar squeals and freakbeat antics. The production holds it together, and despite its length, it's interesting throughout.

48). Lyrics Born - "Do That There"
While Kanye West's contribution to this list is perfectly serious in its articulation, Lyrics Born's is infinitely goofy, but the hilarity is matched by the awe-inspiring non-stop vocal chops the song shows off. This song is all about technique, being essentially a three-minute-long tongue twister with a chorus attached, and it's one hell of a ride.

47). Kanye West - "Gold Digger"
The exasperated resignation in Kanye West's voice when he delivers the "go ahead, girl/go ahead, get down" line, no matter how much he seems to want to hide it behind a veneer of confidence, shows through -- but of course that's all planned: West's delivery is masterful and his frustration manifest. I should add that the samples were quite well chosen here.

46). Bell Orchestre - "Throw It On a Fire"
The driving beat and horn melody make this the most memorable post-rock track of the year, hands down. The demonstration of the band's tempered instrumentalism is superb, and the composition is articulately arranged and well-produced to highlight all the parts that need highlighting.

45). The Decemberists - "On the Bus Mall"
This is Picaresque's tenderest moment, and its most contemporary. It's as if Colin Meloy wanted to reify the picture he paints of the Victorian underclass in "Eli the Barrow Boy" for a modern audience. Whatever the motive, I get frissons down my spine every time the "as four in the morning came on cold and boring..." stanza concludes with the protagonists' hands tightly holding.

44). Portastatic - "White Wave"
This song, with its And Here's Where the Strings Come In-era defining riff and Superchunk sensibilities, has the typical summer in the South flavor that only Superchunk (or now Portastatic, who seemed to have absorbed the ethos of Mac McCaughan's now-defunct quartet) can deliver. The chorus is great, and if only the lyrics had been a little better this could have been one of the year's cream of the crop.

43). The Mountain Goats - "Dilaudid"
Mongeese-esque and full of metaphoric conciets about flying chickens that would seem fanciful if they weren't placed in such a macabre context, this two-minutes of cello and vocals has the kind of rawness and urgency that both awakes and terrifies one. The shouts of "do it with your mouth open" and "take your foot off the brake for Christ's sake" are gut-wrenching indeed.

42). Chris Bathgate - "Loveless Son (Reprise)"
The first time around, in its acoustic form, "Loveless son is enjoyable enough, but by the time the motif returns for a second salvo late in the Silence Is For Suckers tracklist, it has conscripted an army of horns to back it, and when it blazes back in, amped up, electrified, and keyboard-laden, it truly comes alive.

41). Bonny "Prince" Billy & Matt Sweeney - "Only Someone Running"
"I do bad, I do good/I do as a seagull should" sings Will Oldham over Matt Sweeney's loose yet articulate guitar ramblings. Like most of the songs on Superwolf, it benefits from its lack of rigid song structure, but still manages to deliver one hell of a chorus -- when it feel like getting around to it.

40). Wolf Parade - "You Are a Runner and I Am My Father's Son"
Consisting of a couple chords and one hell of a stomp, this jerky, addictive masterpiece is succinct yet compelling, and its minimal lyrics and strange yet universally comprehensible symbolism makes the song's message incredibly powerful.

39). The Clientele - "Losing Haringey"
Off an album of pop songs, it turned out that oddly enough, the most memorable track was the least poppy of all of them. "Losing Haringey" is entirely spoken, but the account Alasdair MacLean provides of the epiphanies one can have on a park bench while imagining yourself in a photograph contains the album's most compelling lyrics by far.

38). Okkervil River - "The Latest Toughs"
This song attests to the fact that straightforward (but surely not unidimensional) pop music can be combined with and enlivened by the kind of emo-meets-alt-country sensibilities that inform Black Sheep Boy. Sheff's voice does exactly what it needs to when it needs to, the claps are a nice touch, and the keyboards are sublime.

37). My Morning Jacket - "Gideon"
Like all of Z, "Gideon" is dark, but with a reverence that cuts through the darkness and a sense of majesty. The echoing vocals (mirrored by an echo-like guitar line) almost make this overtly religiously-themes sond sound as if it had been recorded in the cave where Christ was entombed. The song's climax is a religious experience indeed.

36). Architecture In Helsinki - "The Cemetery"
Beating out even "Dilaudid" for the honor of being the shortest song on this list, "The Cemetery" packs enough abrupt shifts in mood, melody, and instrumentation for five songs into two minutes and two seconds. It's the best of what Architecture in Helsinki do best, which is to make the kind of acid twee that always keeps the listener on his or her toes.

35). Mazarin - "Louise"
It's Coldplay meets the shins in the moment of solitude between between beatbox-backed guitar pop tunes on We're Already There. This is the album's best and most intimate moment: an acoustic guitar, a few simulated ocean waves, and shells tinkling on the beach at sunset. Now that's a sense of place.

34). Ryan Adams & the Cardinals - "The End"
Ryan Adams's best offering from his best record of three this year gets its strength from superior arranging and from the conviction in his vocals. The small-town dive-bar atmosphere and the feeling of having nowhere to go and nothing to hope for is delivered here with a sharpened edge.

33). Maximo Park - "Apply Some Pressure"
You'd have thought that with a culture as regressive as this decade's has been, any sort of masculine angst would only seem bigoted and pointless, but while their contemporaries indulge in mysogyny, Maximo Park have enough sense to understand that they're not the center of the universe, and they can also layer together numerous fantastic parts into a great pop song, and this is the prime example of that skill.

32). Stars - "Ageless Beauty"
If there is anything eternal about love, rock music, or beauty itself, traces of it can be found in this near-perfect pop song, whose "we will always be in love" seems so serene and so unfettered, and even if the rest of the album's flood of lyrics about dissolution and impermanence breaks the dikes and drowns everything, there is something in this song's articulation that it cannot touch or submerge.

31). The Kills - "Rodeo Town"
In an album built on sexual tension, the moment where the tension comes to a head and the gun comes out is bound to be a defining moment, and appropriately it's also No Wow's best song. Alison Mosshart's restrained yet soulful delivery comes off better here than on any other track on the record, and the melody is to die for.

30). The Decemberists - "Eli the Barrow Boy"
Succinct yet haunting, with its images of tamarack groves and dreams of silk arabian thread as seen through the eyes of the titular lovelorn street urchin (and his ghost), "Eli the Barrow Boy" has the soul of Thomas Hardy in it, and it's one of Meloy's best (and most periodesque) ventures.

29). Animal Collective - "The Purple Bottle"
A fluid and amorphous wall of sound more than a song, "The Purple Bottle" is Protean and oceanic (note the crashing waves), but never short on excitement. It's also surprisingly melodic -- an even mixture, if you will, of song and tong, and one of the most unorthodox and compelling love songs I've ever experienced (and an experience it is).

28). The New Pornographers - "Sing Me Spanish Techno"
Like most of the better songs on Twin Cinema, it really could have been several, but the softer "driving at breakneck speed" portion, the chorus, and the catchy verse riff all somehow fit together, and the whole definately is more than the sum of its parts. There'll be no listening too long to this song, that's for damn sure.

27). Sleater-Kinney - "Entertain"
"Entertain" is the flagship song for Sleater-Kinney's departure album, and while the band's Eminem-like manuipulation of public image might be cause to doubt them, the Eminem-like finesse with which they wield their smoke and mirrors is enough to dispel those doubts. Corrin Tucker's throaty sarcasm on the bridge is the songs best part, though the "Johnny, get your gun" chorus is great too.

26). The Hold Steady - "Your Little Hoodrat Friend"
Craig Finns hoarse shouts and a barrage of barroom drums and crunching guitar chords propel this anthem of Minneapolis hoodrathood and cornerstone of Separation Sunday and have propelled the song all the way to the twenty-sixth slot on this year's countdown. This is song captures the Twin Cities and the sordid aspect of its underground scenes with uncanny accuracy.

25). The Mongeese - "White Hotels"
Driving and anthemic, one might not regognize "White Hotels" for a Mongeese song but for it's off-the-cuff lyrical musings. It's no use wondering how such a vivid description of anguish and soured love can get away with lines like "it wasn't really legally a floatation device, I guess" or "and I dream of magic beans": it's the Mongeese, so just sit back and enjoy it.

24). Spoon - "The Beast and Dragon, Adored"
This song's verse groove is one of those parts that demands an even better chorus, but Spoon pulls it off, and with a line like "when you believe, they call it rock & roll" that you'd never think you could take seriously, but here do. The song's noisy solo break may be more for texture than anything else, but it adds to the frictive feel of the song (like Pitchfork, I also thought the album's title had to be a misprint at first), and everything is in its proper place.

23). Bloc Party - "Helicopter"
This song is a four-minute barrage of drumming insanity, coupled to some fantastic vocal stylings and a phenomenal outro. It's post-punk meets the Clash at its best, and the lack of a strong chorus scarcely matters.

22). Andrew Bird - "Fake Palindromes"
With its soaring, Arabic string swells and solid verse bass-drum kick to complement them, Andrew Bird's "Fake Palindromes", while under three minutes in length, seems epic in ways that most tracks with double the duration don't. It's well-produced and well-arranged, as well.

21). The Boy Least Likely To - "I'm Glad I Hitched My Apple-Wagon To Your Star"
The Boy Least likely to excels at candy-pop, but the likeable kind of candy-pop where you don't have to be ashamed of the lyrics. While it ain't Monsters lyrically, "I'm Glad I Hitched My Apple-Wagon to Your Star" is a damn good song with a great chorus and a bouncy, washboard-driven beat that I just can't get out of my head sometimes.

20) Ladytron - "Destroy Everything You Touch"
While I begrudgingly accept the fact that this song's music is essentially a takeoff of the Bloodhound Gang's "The Bad Touch" (otherwise known as the Discovery Channel song), I still think it's a damn fine techno-pop song, lyrics be damned. The vocal timbre is perfect, and it makes the chorus plaintive in a subtle way that actually seems refreshing.

19). Need Based Paint - "Kathleen"
With easily the album's most heartbreaking lyrics (and that's saying a lot), "Kathleen" , which comes in the form of a long crescendo and ends with a burst of accordion, drums, and vocal harmony that may well constitute the best ten seconds of music this year, is a plaintive, earnest chorus breaking through the stoicism of its verses. Its historicity and its sparse instrumentation add enormously to the effect.

18). Okkervil River - "For Real"
Emo's traditional loud/soft dynamics staple is given new life and taken to new heights by Will Sheff's harrowing and tremulous near-screams that never quite overstep the bounds of good taste or seem unmusical. Lyrically impressive, dark, and powerful, this song is the best demonstration of Sheff's vocal ability that Black Sheep Boy has to offer.

17). Bright Eyes - "Lua"
I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning's most minimal track, this song's intimate expression of youth's darker and more aimless moments doubles as a vivid map of New York City. The variations on the "what looks simple in the moonlight" theme in the chorus are used to great effect, and Oberst's vocals are restrained, mature, and yet as emtional as they ever were.

16). Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "Upon This Tidal Wave Of Young Blood"
Clap You Hands Say Yeah's ability to set the listener apart from himself or herself, and from the rest of his or her surroundings is best articulated of this, the album's closing track. The Crashing waves of guitar and bass undercurrents that constitute the album's defining riff set the mood perfectly, and the song's "child stars" climax is the album's most effective use of Alec Ounsworth's voice

15). Wolf Parade - "Grounds For Divorce"
With a cadence that rivals that of Apologies To the Queen Mary's opener, "Grounds For Divorce" is an articulate expression of the modern sense of inevitability and the futility of love in the face of the urban landscape's destructiv power. It also has one hell of a chorus.

14). Sufjan Stevens - "Casimir S. Pulaski Day"
Perhaps the most soft-spoken song on Illinois, "Casimir S. Pulaski Day" is a beautiful encapsulation of youth, faith, love, and death at once in a way that seems expansive yet at the same time intimate. Oh, and that cardinal that strikes the window pane -- it's the state bird of Illinois. Nice touch... I'll be crying in the bathroom.

13). Art Brut - "We Formed a Band"
To release a single like this took serious gonads and a lot of self-irony (don't believe the lyrics when the explicitly try to convince you otherwise). There are numerous great, deadpan one-liners here, and furthermore, it's just a great pop-punk tune.

12). Black Mountain - "No Satisfaction"
No, it isn't a cover (note the subtle difference in name), but it knows its history and has one hell of a defining riff.

11). The Dardanelles - "Ear Candy"
From it's strange, Nass El Giwane-inspired banjo opening and analogies between the Biblical fall and the electroweak phase transition, "Ear Candy" leaps into a chaotic, driving splatter of bizarre imagery and distorted guitar, capped by some effective harmonizing and a plaintive reference to Pig Lib. How can you not love it?

10). LCD Soundsystem - "Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up"
Perhaps I've given this track point for context, but what the hell is a John Lennon tune
doing on a house album, anyhow? And furthermore, why is it so good? James Murphy's Beatles impression is as good as his Mark E. Smith, however, and this song would be a treat no matter where one might have found it.

9). The Books - "An Owl With Knees"
The one true song included on Lost and Safe is, surprisingly, its greatest achievement. Zammuto's poignant lyrics and achingly beautiful, understated chorus appear and disappear, wavelike among the programmed beats that underlie the song's aetherial melody.

8). Blake Thomas & the Downtown Brown - "Lonesome"
Artfully arranged and emotionally delivered, the powerful "I don't owe you anything" the chorus delivers can be repeated nearly endlessly without getting old. Add to this the song's artful unravelling at its conclusion and you have something that verges on the anthemic.

7). Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - "Freeze the Saints"
The most Pavementy track on Face the Truth has a wonderful piano line to its credit, and plenty of the album's signature guitar work. It also contains what is easily the album's best line ("You said done is good/but done well is so much fucking better") and probably its best lyrics overall. It's a brilliant expression of uncertainty and rear-regardant self-awareness.

6). Need Based Paint - "Goodbye, Eveline"
This is one of those songs that gets stuck in your head so easily it's hard to believe it's not some long lost folk ballad from the 1860's, and Brooks Thomas's poetic, periodesque lyrics, augmented by memorable violin riffs and equally periodesque, lo-fi production, add masterfully to the illusion.

5). The Decemberists - "The Mariner's Revenge Song"
This lengthy ballad, the climax of an album based around storytelling, is fantastical as it is clever and as entertaining as it is eloquent. Jenny Conlee, cast as the ghost of the narrator's mother, delivers a virtuoso performance, and the accordion and acoustic-guitar arrangement, with plenty of sound effects to back it up, fits perfectly with the subject matter.

4). Spoon - "I Turn My Camera On"
Stylish and sparse, this song represents Britt Daniel turning on a beat-box and cranking out his best Prince impression. The falsetto works (as usual with Daniel), and the result is catchy as hell.

3). The New Pornographers - "Jackie, Dressed In Cobras"
This is either the poppiest math-rock song ever penned or the most tempo change-ridden pop tuned ever composed, but either way it's pure genius. Neko Case's vocals on the chorus of "There's a kid going insane over her man", the song's triumphant verse cadence, and the "Clocks"-esque piano on the post-chorus are all brilliant, and all somehow fit together.

2). Okkervil River - "Black"
Our runner-up for song of the year is one of the most harrowing expressions of inefficacy and emotional turmoil, with a chorus delivered in Will sheff's harrowing roar, a catchy defining riff, and a driving feel that conveys the lyrics' sense of frustrated immediacy without going overboard into emo pathos. Those lyrics, by the way, threadbare and chilling yet well-tempered and tasteful, may be the song's best part.

1). Bright Eyes - "Landlocked Blues"
Connor Oberst's most memorable track on his most memorable (and mature album) is a nod to Bringing It All Back Home-era Dylan in it's sublime simplicity and its insitance on making every verse a self-contained entity. Propelled by it's gradual build and its powerful lyrics, and flavored with a tasteful incorporation of "Taps" and by Emmylou Harris's backing vocals, "Landlock Blues" is unquestionably the year's best song.

-BT

Review: Isolee - We Are Monster (7.9)

2005-12-27T20:42:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 7.9
Lyrics: N/A
Melodies: 7.9
Arrangements: 7.6
Thematicity: 8.3
Originality: 6.9
Production: 9.3

Monsters, like wolves, are a popular titular motif these days. We've seen I Am the Fun Blame Monster, In the Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be a Monster, and now We Are Monster. Like the collage of doodles that composes the album's liner notes, Isolee's album title is either a quaint grammatical mistake, an expression of unqualified hubris, or most likely both. Really, neither the hubris nor the primitivism makes much sense in this context: with regard to the former, We Are Monster is a good album, but not a great one; with regard to the latter, it is anything but primitive. This is an album whose sound has been carefully sculpted and whose production, like that of Autechre's Amber, appears to be the product of many hours of studio tweaking. The production on it is well nigh incredible, and each sound fits perfectly into the mix. However, perhaps for the same reason, it is an album that takes very few risks.

My main complaint about We Are Monster is that it plays things safe to a fault. Its sound is a well-tempered blend of Autechre's and that of several of techno's other big names, but while Isolee certainly can't be criticised for sounding derivative of any one act, unlike, say Fenessz, they don't do much innovative. Sure "Schrapnell" has a bit of background noise, but who doesn't these days? The few songs which have vocals of any sort (there aren't enough of them to earn the album a lyrics rating) aren't enriched much by what's said, which is often something inane like "can't imagine the fish" (contrast with M83's Before the Dawn Heals Us, which got a hell of a lot of mileage out of "Moon Child" and "Car Chase Terror"). The album does feature some catchy melodies, however, such as those on "Today" and "Do Re Mi". I think the most sincere compliment that I can pay to We Are Monster is that it is solid (an adjective that describes well both the album's assets and it's flaws, actually). It isn't quite brilliant, or worth sitting down to concentrate on intently, but it's damn good background music and no doubt fun to dance to as well.

-BT

Review: Jackie-O Motherfucker - Flags Of the Sacred Harp (7.5)

2005-12-27T20:07:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 7.5
Lyrics: 7.5
Melodies: 7.5
Arrangements: 7.9
Thematicity: 7.1
Originality: 8.0
Production: 6.8

Jackie-O Motherfucker have what may well be the single stupidest band name I've ever heard, but one of the most important lessons of 2005 has been that bands named things like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and the Hold Steady are capable of producing some amazing music, despite having really silly monikers, so we shouldn't jump to conclusions. Furthermore, the name would suggest a punk band, which means that Jackie-O Motherfucker, whose music is in many ways punk's diametrical opposite, have chosen a very odd label for themselves. Luckily, the album name Flags Of the Sacred Harp is a far better indicator of content: this is a psych-folk record, and one that purports to be heavily influenced by 19th-century American folk music (the name is taken from that of book of songs whose first edition dates to 1844). However, unlike Need Based Paint's Songs Of the American Civil War, Vol. I, the historicity is mostly for mood, and the band's music is more similar to what you'd find on Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice's Buck Dharma or Six Organs Of Admittance's School Of The Flower. In other words, it's a little psych folk mixed in with a lot of lo-fi post-folk and ambient noise.

Unfortunately, while post-folk is a rich genre full of unexplored territory and myriad possibilities, Flags Of the Sacred Harp doesn't quite achieve the clarity that School Of the Flower could in its better moments. One of the reasons for this is that, in an attempt at sounding historical, Jackie-O Motherfucker opts for a lo-fi sound, which worked for Need Based Paint's traditional folk, but the problem is that the band somehow confused low fidelity with inexpert mixing. Furthermore, the choice doesn't really suit the band's music, which is anything but traditional in its approach. The protracted instrumental experimentation that fills out "Nice One" and "Loud and Mighty" is musically interesting, but not justly produced. The lyrics are in no way particularly special, either, and I know it shouldn't affect my perception of the album, but I continue to be annoyed that "Good Morning Kaptain" is not a Slint cover. There are definately good things about Flags Of the Sacred Harp, but in its current state it seems ambling, disjointed, and half-finished.

-BT

Review: Koenjihyakkei - Angherr Shisspa (8.8)

2005-12-25T13:43:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.8
Lyrics: ??
Melodies: 8.3
Arrangements: 10.0
Thematicity: 9.2
Originality: 9.7
Production: 9.7

In order to understand where Angherr Shisspa, the fourth release from Yoshida Tatsuya's band Koenjihyakkei (which translates roughly as "the hundred sights of Koenji"), is coming from, it is helpful to know that Yoshida (the drummer) is a member of influential japanese art-punk act Ruins, and that the band's primary influences include late 1970's French prog rock innovators Magma (who, much like Sigur Ros later did with Hopelandic, invented the language called Zeuhl, in which the lyrics to Angherr Shisspa are sung). However, while an awareness of this information may at least give first-time listeners some grounding, it will in no way diminish the disorienting effect that the whirlwind of math-rock bizzareness, operatic tendancies, strange shifts in tone and tempo, powerful rhythms, and jazz leanings that this album can produce. Piano and keyboard parts swirl in seemingly from nowhere, launch spontaneously into salsa rhythms and then vanish again; distorted guitar lines roar in over dizzying drum antics, African and central-Asian tribal rhythms, and organ stabs; and John Coltrane-esque saxophone squeals punctuate the densely interwoven cascade of chromatic keyboard-work and other miscellaneous background noise. Wondering what the hell is going on? Well, so am I.

It would be an understatement to say that Koenjihyakkei are influenced by avante-garde jazz, and equally an understatement to say that their music is stylistically diverse, but what really makes Angherr Shisspa more than an interesting idea or a specialty recording is that no matter what the band is doing, the music never once loses its rock sensibilities (even during the traditional, skin-drum intro to "Mibingvahre") and never lets up the frenzied pace it sets. Much like Lighnting Bolt's Wonderful Rainbow, it can be interpreted and enjoyed as post-rock, though many of it's stylistic undrepinnings come from elsewhere. The musicianship on it is impeccable, and even the most involved of saxophone parts comes off articulate and well-tempered. The production is also spectacular (few albums use stereo panning to such an effect), and while I can't vouch for the lyrics, it scarcely matters: this is some of the most intelligent and richest music I've heard from anywhere in a long time, and like Shining's In the Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be a Monster, it attests to a reassertion of jazz and prog-rock influence on mainstream (if you can call it that) rock music that I never expected would sound as good as it does.

-BT

Review: LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem (9.3)

2005-12-25T12:38:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 9.3
Lyrics: 8.8
Melodies: 8.9
Arrangements: 9.5
Thematicity: 9.0
Originality: 9.8
Production: 10.0

The first time I put on LCD soundsystem's self-titled debut, I thought I knew what to expect -- I mean, the band's called LCD Soundsystem, they have a song called "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House", and the album gets filed under "electronic music" at most record shops, so the nature of the product should be pretty clear-cut, right? Well, it was evident as soon as the aforementioned track began to play that the album was not only going to turn out vastly different than I had expected, but a hell of a lot better than I ever could have imagined: "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" took an expertly-produced cadence of backbeat and bass and added to it a set of tongue-in-cheek lyrics about suburban house parties delivered in glib, Mark E. Smith style, complete with the trademark grunted vowel sounds at the end of every other word. In fact, one of the major keys to LCD Soundsystem's success is that the record seems to be the first to make what should have, in retrospect, been an obviously fruitful stylistic juxtaposition of Fall influence (which is apparent in many of the album's tracks, including "On Repeat" and "Losing My Edge") with rich, streamlined electronic beats. James Murphy's lyrics come off in such a context as subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) social commentaries on music and dance culture, among other things, and the album's seven-minute tracks not only seem precedented enough to be accessible in indie circles (Hex Enduction Hour had numerous songs in excess of ten minutes), but to use their duration effectively.

So a Fall-influenced house record? Sounds intiguing, huh? But wait -- I haven't even gotten to the best part, yet: not only does this album sound like Daft Punk and the Fall, it also sounds alternately like Spoon, Black Sabbath, and the Beatles. The truth is that LCD Soundsystem is one of the year's most eclectic records, containing brilliant songs like the White Album-inspired "Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up" (which may well be the sprawling, double-disc set's best track), the four-on-the-floor, far-from-daft punk number "Movement", and the seventies-metal hommage "Tired", which seem to pop out of nowhere, but miraculously never seem out of place. Perhaps the most impressive bit of praise I can lavish on this album is that, while ninety-nine times out of a hundred, any album released as a multi-disc set would do better condensed onto a single CD, LCD Soundsystem needs no trimming whatsoever. It is fantastically diverse, aimed to appeal to both electronic music and indie-rock listeners; it is deftly produced; and it features engaging vocals, real lyrics, and a lineup of some of the year's most amazing individual tracks. This is unquestionably one of the best records released, in any genre, in 2005.

-BT

Review: Ryan Adams - 29 (6.9)

2005-12-25T11:31:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 6.9
Lyrics: 7.0
Melodies: 6.9
Arrangements: 8.0
Thematicity: 6.7
Originality: 6.3
Production: 7.5

I scarcely thought it might be possible, and I imagine it's probably a calculated career move, but during this last year, Ryan Adams has managed to transform himself, at least in my book, from an arrogant poseur into a tragically underappreciated artist, and has engenered this transformation, paradoxically, as a byproduct of his own arrogance. The very idea that someone might release three full-length albums within a twelve-month span has turned public opinon (along with that of most reviewers) so violently against Adams's percieved (and, well, let's face it, actual) hubris that most people will refuse to give his records a chance anymore, and if forced to listen to them, it will only be begrudgingly and under duress. As a result, Jacksonville City Nights -- one of the best records he's ever released -- ended up being tragically undervalued or else dismissed out of hand. The dismissal is unjustified, and grates on me a bit: it's not as if anybody bats an eye when Guided By Voices or the Mongeese releases three full-length albums in one year, and so what if Adams is a bit too full of himself? The reviews should concentrate on the quality of the record, right? Right.

Unfortunately, based on that guiding criterion, while Jacksonville City Nights was a great album, 29 is not. The first, but far from most pressing, issue I have with it is that in its thematic attempt to represent one's (or even Adams's) third decade of life as a coherent narrative development, let along some sord of bildungslied, it fails outright: the songs seem thematically disconnected from each other. The second problem (and this is one of the major ones) is that the songs on 29, both musically and lyrically, are far too stylized: "Twenty Nine" is your typical roughneck guitar-blues stomp, "Strawberry Wine" (which has some nice elements to it, but goes on far too long) is typical, lilting crooner-folk, and every other song on the record is likewise transparently tied to some rigid convention. Third, the album drags throughout, and lacks both the emotional investment that Jacksonville City Nights broadcasted and the catchy melodies it contained. Fourth, the album isn't nearly as well-mixed as its predecessor was either. Taking all this into account, I dont feel bad about abetting the critical consensus on Ryan Adams's latest offering: it is an album purportedly about the tribulations of a quarter-life crisis, and perhaps fittingly, it comes off sounding in many ways as manufacuterd and silly as the concept of a quarter-life crisis itself.

-BT

Review: Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Matt Sweeney - Superwolf (8.3)

2005-12-21T18:01:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.3
Lyrics: 9.1
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 8.3
Thematicity: 8.6
Originality: 8.0
Production: 8.3

On Superwolf, Will Oldham and Chavez guitarist Matt Sweeney aim for minimalism: most tracks feature only vocals and a guitar line (the album's opener, "My Home Is the Sea" has drums, but that's an anomaly). Of course minimalism is something that Oldham does exceedingly well, but don't expect this record to take after I See a Darkness. Superwolf, with its alternately silly and heartbreaking lyrics, ambling guitar interludes, and loose song structures, takes after the Mongeese more than anything else, but where the Mongeese (at least until recently) were intensely cerebral and little concerned with mood, Oldham and Sweeney make the articulation of mood their central aim. The strong thematic currents (and that word has been carefully chosen, considering the numerous references to water, drowning, and the sea) of soured and lost love, death, and the unknown hold the album together conceptually. Musically, the album's minimalism allows all the subtleties of Oldham's voice to shine through -- strong, yet always amiable, and politely bashful at its nakedness.

As with many albums whose goal is to evoke a mood, Superwolf does contain a few tracks which do little more than contribute to the theme (meaning they don't have any particularly catchy melodies, strong hooks, or defining moments), but the album is overall, impressively solid. Among the best of its offerings are the album's concluding track "I Gave You", which captures the same sadness and resignation as the better tracks on Need Based Paint's Songs Of the American Civil War, Vol. I (which, it must be said, borrowed heavily from Oldham's early work and even name-drops I See a Darkness) and "Only Someone Running", with it's powerful chorus of "I do bad/ I do good/ I do as a seagull should", but due to the consistently high quality of the album's lyrics, even the songs which blend into the tapestry more than most are worthwhile to listen to (sure those lyrics may be a bit silly, haphazard, or off-kilter at times, but they serve, like the Mongeese's, to express the inherent contradistinctions and imperfections on the face of the human soul) There is a beautiful and haunting simplicity to this record, which represents, like the image on its cover, both a drowning man's hand and the neck of a swan.

-BT

Review: Dessa - False Hopes (7.6)

2005-12-14T00:56:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 7.6
Lyrics: 7.9
Melodies: 7.5
Arrangements: 7.8
Thematicity: 7.7
Originality: 7.3
Production: 8.4

Dessa is a member on Minneapolis rap consortium Doomtree, whose eponymous label is responsible for the release of False Hopes, her first solo EP. While I wouldn't say that it's one of the year's best hip-hop releases, it certainly demonstrates Dessa's considerable talents as a vocalist and (in parts) as a lyricist. On the five songs that compose the record, she allows her voice a broad stylistic berth, from the rapid-fire verbal outpourings on "Mineshaft" to the delicately and soulfully sung, multi-layered vocals on "kites". Of course Cecil Otter and the Doomtree crowd get their turn on the mic as well, but their contributions don't interrupt the flow of the album as guest spots so often do (e.g. The College Dropout), primarily because Doomtree functions impressively well as unit -- well enough even to allow its members substantial creative freedom while still being able to take advantage of the group to back them.

Lyrically this album shows a gret deal of promise: Dessa's earnest vocal delivery makes songs like "551" and "Everything Floats" sound richer than they ought to, which is not to say that there's little pith to them, but that her lyrics are the kind intended to brought alive via the delivery (even sarcastic one-offs like "Maybe she's born with it/maybe it's Maybelline" are coaxed into life by her vocalism). Sadly, while the beats behind her are reasonably good, as with M.I.A.'s Arular, they aren't nearly as vibrant as the vocals. Many of the standard hip-hop tropes are employed (e.g. sampling the piano track from a well-known rock song to form the backbone of one of yours, which occurs in "551"), and ther's little exciting in the way the samples are put together (though the production is quite admirable, especially on "Kites"). While I admire what Dessa can do with her voice, False Hopes comes off more as a showcase of those vocal talents than a well-sculpted musical artefact. Still, it's only her first release, and an EP at that, and as such shows a great deal of promise.

-BT

Review: Shining - In the Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be a Monster (8.3)

2005-12-13T00:31:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.3
Lyrics: N/A
Melodies: 8.0
Arrangements: 9.2
Thematicity: 8.4
Originality: 8.3
Production: 8.5

Shining is one of those post-rock outfits which make one wonder whether the distinction once drawn between post-rock and avant-garde jazz simply doesn't exist anymore. Okay, okay -- in truth, there probably never was such a distinction (consider, for example, the Sea and Cake), but I honestly could imagine this record being classified in either section at a CD-vending establishment. The reasons for this are subtle but several. There is a great deal of motif and melody used here, for one thing, which is not always the case in post-rock. For another, the crucial melodic strains are generally arranged so that the brass section (or occasionally a saxophone) gets top billing. Then again, there is also substantial electronica influence here, and the majority of it is influnce that seems to come by way of electronica-influenced rock music (the impact of Kid A, for example, is obvious on tracks like "The Smoking Dog"). Whatever the style -- and it changes moment to moment, from the Gershwin-influenced piano strains of "Magazine RWRK" to the pressing modern jazz of "Goretex Weather Report" -- the players execute their parts deftly.

I've revised my opinion of the production on this record several times; at first I thought the record overproduced and the sound far too clean, but more careful listening has convinced me that the production (which is also influenced by Kid A and by modern jazz) is intended to highlight the subtleties of the music itself rather than to set mood, which is the usual goal of post-rock (e.g. Bell Orchestre's Recording a Tape the Colour Of the Light or any of Godspeed You Black Emperor's releases). In the Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be a Monster is far more cerebral (the jazz influence) in its composition, and tends more toward pure music than it does toward the genre's typical imagism. That's not a bad thing, but it may alienate a few listeners who expect the contrary. If you enjoy modern jazz, or are willing to experiment with a record that's a bit challenging in certain respects (even for post-rock), you'll enjoy this record tremendously. Even if not, there's a lot more melodic content on this record than one might expect from this description (though most of it occurs on the album's former half), and even to ears unfamiliar with Shining's influences, In the Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be a Monster has a lot to offer.

-BT

Review: The Clientele - Strange Geometry (8.3)

2005-12-12T21:02:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.3
Lyrics: 9.0
Melodies: 7.9
Arrangements: 8.5
Thematicity: 9.2
Originality: 7.5
Production: 8.4

The geographical preccupations in the Clientele's music get a great deal of attention, and rightly so: rarely do bands achieve the ability to evoke a sense of plane (and time) the way they have done throughought their career. I'm not going to dwell on the locative aspects of the Clientele's lyrics, however, for there are plenty of other things worthy of praise that often go unmentioned. Here, for example, is a band that can reel off quotes from The Waste Land that not only sound perfectly at home in the context in which they appear in Strange Geometry (specifically in "Impossible"), but barely register in the listener's mind as quotations until the second or third time through. More incredible still is that the pinnacle of the record's lyricism, the encapsulation of childhood, adulthood, the unknown, time, evening, and aimless errantry in "Losing Haringey", is all the band's own. T. S. Eliot is a good fit for the Clientele, who maintain a genteel, understated tone in expressing their personal reflections and esoteric sensibilities, and it's a good contrast to the haute couture approach of the Decemberists or the often frighteningly passionate obscurantism of Byron the Bulb.

There are a few excellent potential singles on Strange Geometry -- for example "Since K Got Over Me" and "(I Can't Seem To) Make You Mine". Nevertheless, while it would be a disservice to the album's spirit of subtlety to say that it lacks differentiation, there are many regions of its tracklist in which the only thing there to capture the listener's attention are the lyrics. This isn't a damning problem, but it is a problem to some degree. As far as the arrangements go, they're subtle (there are very vew striking changes in volume, tempo, or instrumentation over the course of this album), but balanced and always appropriate to the kind of tableaux the Clientele wish to depict lyrically; the same argument can be used against any vituperation it might accrue to to its predictable (and none too original) stylistic blend of John Lennon-esque sixties pop with the standard early eighties canon of the Smiths et al. Every aspect of Strange Geometry is the way it is for a reason, and though it may seem a bit conservative or staid in its approach, I think the record's finer points far outway its detriments. If you don't listen to lyrics, or view them as crucial to an album's overall success, you'll probably rapidly tire of it, but if you do, you'll find it incredibly rewarding.

-BT

Review: Sage Francis - A Healthy Distrust (8.0)

2005-12-10T17:58:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.0
Lyrics: 8.4
Melodies: 8.0
Arrangements: 7.8
Thematicity: 8.2
Originality: 7.5
Production: 8.0

Sage Francis is the principal figureheads for the particular subgenre of post-Eminem hip-hop which asserts that the current political climate in the united states legitimates the drawing of parallels between the more tangible oppression in the black urban context in which rap originated with the more nebulous cultural 'oppression' that white suburban kids can identify with, and therefore legitimates (so the theory goes) artistic borrowings from hip-hop to express these vague discontents. Being a white kid of suburban provenance myself, I'm skeptical of such parallels, but I still admire Sage Francis for his abilities as a rapper, his astute social commentary, and his deft, multi-referential language games. The fact that his 'legitimacy' is liable to be called into question (as opposed to other performers in the subgenre, such as Dessa, who at least has the credential of being female) only increases my respect for his willingness to lay his cards down on the table. Sure this is emo rap, but it's emo rap with a social context, a palpable urgency, and some damn fine lyrical sequences; and Yeah, I'll grant there are a few less lucid or well-thought-out moments ("since Chris Columbus got murdered by the golden arches"), but on the whole, Francis does a good job of arguing that socio-political angst deserves his all-out verbal assault.

The beats and sequencing on this album are fairly good as well, but nothing particularly spectacular (you won't find any particularly unusual rhythms or demonstrations of DJ skills here, as you would in, say, Dr. Octagonecologist or Madvillainy). They do, however, complement Francis's diatribes quite well (the vocals, rather than the beats, carry the day on this album). His best songs are his most passionate: "Dance Monkey" and "Sea Lion" carry the day, while the more down-tempo numbers, such as "Lie Detector Test" and "Jah Didn't Kill Johnny" don't have the same immediacy (or enough subtlety to make up for that lack); furthermore Francis plays his cards correctly by refusing to indulge in one of hip-hop's most annoying habits: bringing in guest performers, who would only have interrupted the album's coherence and sense of urgency. While I still don't know if the new politicized strain of white rap will have that much longevity (or whether it signals the final absorption of the genre by mass culture), Francis's material on A Healthy Distrust is free of the self-ironic self marketing ploy that Eminem has always played (though admittedly masterfully), and is fresh enough to be interesting -- at least at present. I do, however, doubt that this record, which is a product of its age more than most, will have that much longevity.

-BT

Review: Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy Appendix (8.0)

2005-12-09T22:51:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.0
Lyrics: 8.0
Melodies: 8.1
Arrangements: 8.7
Thematicity: 7.7
Originality: 8.2
Production: 8.6

Honestly, there are few albums -- and even few exceptional ones -- in which I am sufficiently interested, if I were told that a collection of B-sides was to be released as a separate EP, to perhaps purchase said artefact, but Okkervil River's Black Sheep Boy is one of the few. This record contains seven tracks recorded during the Black Sheep Boy sessions, and it's actually worth hearing; while it's obvious why none of these tracks made the album, they're more than simply of historical or documentary interest. "No Key, No Plan" and "Another Radio Song" are quite catchy (though perhaps not as much so as "The Latest Toughs" or "Black"). As a window on the composition of Black Sheep Boy, however, it's fantastic: the elusive missing link between Will Sheff's earlier alt-country stylings and the gothic emo-country of his latest effort may not be completely evident, but there are soupcons of it here and there. Also, prototypes for "In a Radio Song" and "So Come Back, I Am Waiting" have been included.

Of course, these are B-sides, and as I've said before, there are reasons that they didn't make it onto Black Sheep Boy. Occasionally, those reasons are musical ("Last Love Song For Now" and "Missing Children" are okay, but nothing special), but mostly they're either lyrical or thematic: Black Sheep Boy Appendix teeters a bit closer to the excesses of emo-core (hell, the shibboleth of the genre, "diaries", is even uttered) than the original album did, primarily because there's no thematic coherence guiding Sheff's lyricism or making his vocal intensity seem as fitting. I'm guessing that the lyrics to these tracks were written during an earlier phase of the album's composition, for "Black Sheep Boy #4" is the only song containing its characteristic symbols and motifs. The arrangements on the EP are the same, however, and they are as effective here as they were on the album. I have to say I quite enjoy Black Sheep Boy Appendix, partly because of its brevity (more songs would certainly have done little but dilute it) and partly because the songs were excluded primarily because they didn't fit the theme, rather than because they were simply inferior compositions. Unkile Amnesiac, which simply felt like a bunch of songs that obviously weren't good enough to make it onto Kid A, Black Sheep Boy Appendix is sussinct, energetic, and listenable; and the fact that the lyricism is slightly shaky on it only increases my respect for Will Sheff, who, unlike the vast majority of songwriters, reveals himself more than competent vis a vis track triage.

-BT

Review: Jens Lekman - Oh You're So Silent Jens (7.7)

2005-12-09T21:53:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 7.7
Lyrics: 6.7
Melodies: 7.9
Arrangements: 8.5
Thematicity: 6.4
Originality: 7.8
Production: 8.3

In the roster of numerical ratings that appear above every album review on Celestial Biscuit, you may have noticed a category called "thematicity". Now, don't get the idea that I view professed (and more often than not, half-assed) theme albums as superior to other recordings: what I do feel however, it that an album should have some sort of artistic coherence to it. Even eclectic albums can be thematically strong, if its obvious that the ecclecticism is part of the intent. Intent, however, is what's lacking in Oh You're So Silent Jens, the latest offering from Scandinavian songwriter Jens Lekman. While one could argue that I'm expecting too much thematic unity from a compilation of material that appeared on a series of EP Lekman has released over the past two years, there is so little method to his madness that I am repeatedly astounded that "Black Cab" and "A Man Walks Into a Bar" actually appear on the same album, to say nothing of the two contrasting "Hammer Hill" tunes. That's a shame, because the music on this album is quite subtle, and superbly well-arranged -- not to mention well-produced. The lo-fi guitar on "Black Cab" is a perfect fit, as are the miscellaneous glockenspiel and violin textures that appear on most of the tracks. Still, as a whole, Oh You're So Silent Jens is as violently inconsistant in tone.

The problem is primarily lyrical: Lekman can't really settle on a consistant tone. His juxtaposed forays into Magnetic Fields-style cuteness ("Sky Phenomenon"), Smiths-style angst ("Maple Leaves"), utter banality attempting (but failing) to season itself with cuteness ("A Man Walks Into a Bar"), Sufjan Stevens-style personal anecdotes ("Another Night On Hammer Hill"), etc. often succeed individually, and in some cases ("Black Cab") quite wildly, but taken together they become a mess: heartfelt songs are cheapened by silly, banal ones, and genuinely humorous ones are ruined by the proximity of others built on saccharine lines that are supposed to be funny (and perhaps would be if they hadn't been done to death) but don't work. Take, for example, "F-word", which is delivered in an earnest, Viva Last Blues tenor, only to be spoiled by a silly chorus intended to sound cute or perhaps sensitive (it only ends up sounding trite) and the inclusion of ridiculous cat yowls which make the song sound as if it's supposed to be little more than a joke. There's nothing wrong with coupling frivolity, or even cuteness, with seriousness, but unlike the Smiths (who relied on self-irony, wry wit, and deadpan delivery) or the Magnetic Fields (whose cuteness and silliness are disarming rather than disjointed), Jens Lekman tries a pinch of this and a pinch of that and ends up with a lyrical disaster. Fortunately, the string arrangements and articulate melodies on Oh You're So Silent Jens make up for his inarticulate lyrics and questionable sound effects to a great degree, but the flaws and inconsistancies persist, and can't be overlooked.

-BT

Review: Stars - Set Yourself On Fire (8.6)

2005-12-03T19:21:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.6
Lyrics: 9.3
Melodies: 8.4
Arrangements: 8.7
Thematicity: 9.4
Originality: 8.2
Production: 8.6

Most of this band also belongs to the amorphous collective known as Broken Social Scene, which means that, given that project's history of eccleticism, they could, a priori, have sounded like damn near anything. What was the listener to expect? An album of anthems to a seventeen year-old girl? Miscellaneous K. C. incidelntals? Well, what Set Yourself On Fire contains is a tightly thematic roster of pop songs about love and relationships, and while that may sound like little more in the way of a description (as it could accurately describe the likes of both Is This It? and Helf), let me elaborate: it's a set of scenes (which aren't necessarily intended to convey a narrative) from disatrously revived relationships with ex-lovers, laden with quiet moments of reflection like those that make up "Celebration Guns" and the latter half of the album's title track, mixed up with anthems of devotion (but not to seventeen year-old girls) like "Ageless Beauty". Musically, the record bears a lot of similarities to Broken Social Scene's self-titled release, but it separates itself by aiming less for dream-pop (and Yo La Tengo hommage) than straightforward pop.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this record is that while it may not tell a story, it certainly contains some strong characters, whose personalities are actually strengthened by the dialogue between the male and female vocals, a technique which I had previously written off as an annoying convention belonging to the the world of Meat Loaf and other sappy metal balladiers: something that a serious musician would never dabble in unless (e.g. Silver Jews' "Tennessee") he or she were satirizing the tehnique. Here, the technique heightens the divide between the album's characters, gives them definition, and adds to the sense of isolation and longing with which "Calendar Girl" resolves the record. The arrangements are incredible, the melodies good, the production refined. The lyrics dwell quite a bit on death and lonliness, and how sex and love constellate with both of the above, and there are some wonderfully subtle lines like "how will you know your enemy/by their color or your fear" and "one day I'll be sand on a beach by the sea/the pages keep turning/I mark off each day with a cross". Theres poetry in this album, both in its lyrics and in its music, and for that reason this record outshines any of Broken Social Scene's releases to date.

-BT

Review: Melodious Owl - Melodious Owl (7.0)

2005-12-03T10:49:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 7.0
Lyrics: 5.8
Melodies: 7.1
Arrangements: 7.7
Thematicity: 7.4
Originality: 5.7
Production: 8.3

If one spends even a scant few minutes perusing a random sample of tracks by aspiring young artists on garageband.com, one comes to the conclusion that Hot Hot Heat is the cynosure du jour. Why? Well, like Nirvana before them, Hot Hot Heat's music isn't that complicated, so even if a band doesn't have a lot of skill, they can still pull off an acceptable imitation. Well, Minneapolis-area high schoolers Melodious Owl, who are being touted as the city's next big act to watch (for those who might be skeptical, there's even a Dosh remix of "Dance Fever Revisited" on the band's self-titled debut), have learned the lesson well: their music is a fairly predictable blend of the Faint and Hot Hot Heat. Still, there are a few things that set the band apart from the rest of their contemporaries. First, one has to be impressed by how much effort vocalist Wes Statler puts into his vocals; even if the intensity gets to sounding a bit silly after the nth song whose message is either "touch me" or "dance with me", the silliness is itself endearing. Second, Mark Mallman's production does a good job of keeping the record from sounding amateurish (especially a danger onsidering the band member's ages), while allowing their youthful exuberance to come across in full.

My main issue with this record, and indeed with a lot of the Minneapolis Music Scene's rising stars (including Hockey Night, Kid Dakota, and even Mark Mallman himself) is that at best, they tend to sound like carbon copies of some national act or other -- usually with inferior lyrics. In this aspect, Melodious Owl is no different, and while the band has done everything else right (getting Mallman, who is one hell of a producer, to record them, tossing in a few well-placed saxophone lines, and taking their name from an obscure reference in mid-twentieth century hyperrealist literature, in the idiom or the Malachi Constant and Byron the Bulb, were all good ideas); but unlike the aforementioned acts, these guys aren't yet doing anything particularly original, and the quality of their lyrics does not indicate that they've in any way been similarly informed of influenced by Thomas Pynchon of Kurt Vonnegut. While I'm actually somewhat surprised that Melodious Owl, with it's predictable, synthesizer-laden, dance-pop shenannigans, is as good a record as it is, it's not anything particularly spectacular, and I think my appraisal of it has been significantly tempered by the fact that it's refreshing to hear a bunch of high school kids trying this hard. Nevertheless, the Minneapolis music scene's major problem seems to be that it's not discriminating enough: the few bands that really do somthing unusual there end up either being ignored (the Malachi Constant) or leaving (the Hold Steady), and Melodious Owl typefies what's left behind -- a fun band, and from what I've heard, great live, but being great live doth not genius make.

-BT

Review: Brendan Benson - The Alternative To Love (6.6)

2005-12-02T19:14:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 6.6
Lyrics: 5.0
Melodies: 7.3
Arrangements: 8.2
Thematicity: 6.0
Originality: 5.2
Production: 7.3

Here's a tip for all you aspiring singer-songwriters out there -- in fact, here's two: first, any use of the word alternative in an album title is a mistake, especially if the (now unambiguously pejorative) label would aptly describe your material; second, avoid self-applying the equally pejorative term "singer-songwriter", for it connotes blandness and lack of any real pith or originality. Having said that, let's turn to singer-songwriter Brendan Benson's album The Alternative To Love as a cautionary example. I'd be willing to forgive the album title, but questionable record names so often belie questionable content (and especially lyrical content) that I can't overlook it: this album's generic tunes often resurrect the worst tropes of the mid-nineties in indie pop's clothes (admit it: you can hear the Matchbox Twenty in "Cold Hands (Warm Heart)", even if you try not to).

The record isn't meritless: Benson has considerable skill in arranging his songs, but unlike, say, Blake Thomas or Wilco, he really doesn't have much substantial to work with, and no amount of embellishment is going to make these tracks genuinely worthwhile. Furthermore, his lyrics are not only horribly generic (actually using the phrase "cherchez la femme" unironically loses him extra points), but Benson seems to be convinced of their cuteness and cleverness, to the point where the delivery only renders them more insipid. As a general rule, if you can correctly anticipate the word that will end the second line of a rhyming couplet after hearing the first more than, say, half of the time, there's a problem, and this record has that problem. Benson's music bears comparison to Devin Davis's in that both artists are articulate orchestrators with lyric-writing difficulties, but while Davis is capable of making up at least partially for his deficiencies with catchy melodies and sheer energy, Benson loses his steam after "Spit It Out", one of only two worthwhile songs on the album, and plods through generic pop song after pop song until "Gold Into Straw", with its waves of airplane guitar and chord-crunching chorus, finally delivers on the promise the opening track made, after which it's another descent into amorphous banality. If Brendan Benson was willing to opt for rock rather than the singer-songwriter ethos, he'd do far better than The Alternative To Love.

-BT

Review: Dosh - Powder Horn (8.0)

2005-12-02T18:30:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.0
Lyrics: N/A
Melodies: 7.7
Arrangements: 8.2
Thematicity: 8.0
Originality: 7.5
Production: 8.5

I think the presence of some type of deer on the cover of Dosh's latest effort, the first on his own label, is fitting, as he is essentially the Minneapolis music scene's answer to Caribou. Granted he tends a little bit more toward loops and specializes more in building rhythms than Dan Snaith does, but the overall effect is the same, and on Powder Horn, the style of production (which is almost identical to that on The Milk Of Human Kindness) reinforces the parallel. That's not to say that Dosh doesn't have his own signature style: his songs are constructed around strong foreground cadences, but their real pith lies in the rapid trills of bell tones, auxiliary percussion hits, and synthesizer notes that coruscate and play behind it. There is a great deal of subtlety to what Dosh does, and like so few artists in his genre, his material is generally rewarding to listen to as music, rather than simply as bakground noise.

As an album, Powder Horn holds together reasonably well, though it could do without the occasionally inserted samples of recorded speech, whose religious subject matter doesn't quite fit with the record's overall mood. Otherwise, there's little wrong with this record, as long as one accepts the fact that it's one of those musical offerings more concerned with realizing a coherent feel and well-produced sound than with pushing creative boundaries: there isn't anything epochal about it, but that isn't really a problem. Each track on this album is well-constructed and stands out melodically from the others well enough to keep the album engaging for the more-than-casual listener. Powder Horn is a solid record, and a thoroughly well-mixed one, and proves once again that Dosh is a lot more than the sum of his oft-touted live performances.

-BT

Review: Bell Orchestre - Recording a Tape the Colour Of the Light (8.4)

2005-12-02T10:55:00.000-05:00

Overall Rating: 8.4
Lyrics: N/A
Melodies: 8.2
Arrangements: 9.6
Thematicity: 8.3
Originality: 8.1
Production: 8.8

I know genre classifications are anthema to most anybody associated with the music industry, but Post-rock could do with a few subclassifications and distinctions. After all, what does the distortion-laden, drum-intensive speed-punk of Lightning Bolt's Wonderful Rainbow have in common with the subtle, meticulous orchestrations of Sigur Ros's Takk, other than the relative unimportance (in the former case) or outright nonexistance (in the latter) of lyrics or vocals. Some bands grouped under the heading are inspired by electronica, some by avant-garde Jazz, and some, like the subject of this review (yes, there is one), Bell Orchestre, primarily by classical music. There is a subtle sensitivity to dynamics, a rhythmic intricacy, a reliance on theme and motif, and a complex intertwining of instrumental lines that reminds one of Godspeed You Black Emperor, but while Godspeed was more Wagnerian in approach (with its leitmotifs, bombast, and apocalyptic overtones), Bell Orchestre is more Romantic and imagistic. As the title of their debut suggests, the album is all about mood -- if not out and out synesthesia.

The most surprising thing about Recording a Tape the Colour Of the Light is that it doesn't sacrifice melody as a stepping stone to its greater ambitions. The second most surprising thing is how accomplished the players are at instruments like the cello and violin, which, let's face it, in rock (and even post-rock) are usually just there for timbre and often played only just well enough to get by. The band is equally at home launching into driving, rock-influenced pieces like "Throw It On a Fire", articulating the traditional Copland-style folk of "Nuevo", or tiptoeing through "Recording a Tape... (Typewriter Debut)". This is a damn exciting record, for it's the first time a band has really dared to explore the interface between the classical side of post-rock and traditional classical Americana (by which I mean the esprit of the North American continent--yes, I know the band is from Canada). With Recording a Tape the Colour Of the Light, Bell Orchestre have created an Appalachian Spring for the indie set, with all the subtlety and complexity of twentieth-century classical compositions and some surprisingly catchy melodies incorporated into it. This is the year's premier post-rock record, for all that term is worth, hands down.

-BT