Rock-Rev_Reviews About Rock Music

Paul Weller_(2005) "As It Now" [8.0/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 09:09:00 -0800

Paul Weller
Album: "As It Now"
Release Date: 10 October 2005
Label: V2 / Yep Rock Records
Rev Value: [8.0/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Pop/Rock, British Trad Rock, Adult Alternative Pop/ Rock, Singer/ Songwriter
BUY IT

TRACKLIST

1 Blink and You'll Miss It (3:23)
2 Paper Smile (3:05)
3 Come On/Let's Go (3:16)
4 Here's the Good News (2:57)
5 Start of Forever (4:55)
6 Pan (2:26)
7 All on a Misty Morning (4:30)
8 From the Floor Boards Up (2:27)
9 I Wanna Make It Alright (3:38)
10 Savages (2:58)
11 Fly Little Bird (3:44)
12 Roll Along Summer (3:39)
13 Bring Back the Funk, Pts. 1 & 2 (7:15)
14 Pebble and the Boy

review by:Uncut
reviewer: GAVIN MARTIN
Album Value: (4/5)

Paul Weller's status as the most resilient survivor from Britpunk's class of ‘76 was challenged by his last album of original songs, 2002's inaptly named Illumination. One corking broadside ("A Bullet For Everyone") excepted, Illumination’s lacklustre performances and half-formed songs suggested fatigue, an artistic rut in his Dadrock furrow.

Whether Weller's fire had really gone out or he'd merely succumbed to midlife doldrums, a refresher was urgently required. Last year’s covers album, Studio 150, was no world-beater, but the break from routine evidently yielded dividends. As Is Now is the result: a work of rejuvenating power, on which Weller and his long-serving band attain a new sense of purpose and focus. Sharper songwriting is key. Trailed by two lean and seething singles, "From The Floorboards Up" and "Come On/Let's Go", As Is Now has much to live up to. And though the double whammy of those singles is the album's highpoint, their clarity and directness are also its hallmark. (...)

Full Review

review by:NME
reviewer:Paul McNamee
Album Value: (7/10)

The Modfather returns to show the kids a thing or two

Every couple of years, Paul Weller looks like he's finished. 'Studio 150', last year's covers farrago, was more miss than hit and was loved only by the Modfather's fierce devotees.

But every time he looks like he's about to fall off the edge, he returns with a record that reminds you why he is much more than just a well-dressed man with great hair.

'As Is Now' is Weller plugged in again. He's heard the sound of The Libs and Epworth's stable, realised they are all in his thrall, and kicked back to show the.(...)

Full Review

review by: Artist Direct
reviewer: Stephe Thomas
Album Value: (4/5)

If 2002's Illumination was a warm, laid-back record, Paul Weller's 2005 sequel, As Is Now -- a likeable but unremarkable covers album, Studio 150, appeared in the interim -- is its flip side, a lean, hard-hitting soulful rock & roll album. Not that Weller is returning to the sound of the Jam: he's still with the same band that he's been with since Wild Wood, anchored by drummer Steve White and featuring Ocean Colour Scene members guitarist Steve Cradock and bassist Damon Minghella, and he's working the same musical territory, grounded in Traffic, Humble Pie, '60s soul, and guitar pop. There may be absolutely no surprises here -- even the change of pace "The Start of Forever" is reminiscent of many of his gentler folky tunes, echoing Illumination's mellow vibe -- but for as familiar as As Is Now is, it never sounds lazy; it's a tighter, better record than most of his late-'90s albums. The closest antecedent to As Is Now in Weller's solo catalog is Heavy Soul..(...)

Full Review

review by: MusicOHM
reviewer: John Murphy
Album Value: (-/-)

When Paul Weller released what's generally thought to be his best album, Wild Wood, there was a track there called Has My Fire Really Gone Out?. Intended as a riposte to his critics who had long written him off as an irrelevancy, it was the highlight of a blistering return to form that saw Weller once again widely respected.

Now, over a decade after Wild Wood, Weller finds himself again the subject of carping from snide critics. Although albums such as Heavy Soul had their moments, there was something that suggested Weller was coasting somewhat. Last year's covers album, Studio 150, was a well-meaning experiment that fell flat on its face and people began to wonder whether Weller's fire really has gone out for good this time.

So As Is Now sees the man back with a point to prove - and long term fans of Weller will know this is when he's at his best. It's an album that sees him refocused, reinvigorated and projecting a real sense of purpose.

As Is Now sees Weller revisiting various points of his varied career and updating them. So there's the brittle guitar pop of Come On/Let's Go which recalls The Jam, the pastoral, laid back vibe of Wild Wood in All On A Misty Morning and even the ghost of the Style Council is resurrected in Bring Back The Funk. (...)

Full Review

review by: FasterAndLouder
reviewer: Paul Busch
Album Value: (-/-)

From the beginning you are listening to classic rock and roll, recorded by the formidable Paul Weller. This release, if you want the rating up front, is a must have and will definitley be in the Top 20 of releases for 2005. You want to fly, fly, like the little bird Paul sings about later in the disc. This is an album, recorded as an album should be. No massive over produced tracks here. Simply this is an album. An album!!! No filler, no tracks tossed on to make this a longer release. It flows like a river with some of the smoothest playing you’ve heard this year.

The songs, all written by Weller, show a maturity and depth that makes you think you may have heard these tunes before, but you haven’t. He has blended so many sounds from throughout his career and made almost a masterpiece. There are moments, for instance, in Roll Along Summer, that just transcend time and space. You feel yourself being taken into the studio, or the lounge room, or the back corridors of the songwriters mind.

The tracks laid down by the four main players on the record are so good you could probably just listen to them without any further additions. But add some George Martin-ish productions touches and some strings, on the ballad The Pebble and the Boy and you find yourself immersed in soul. And let’s not forget the fabulous use of horns here and there! (...)

Full Rev

review by: Entertainment.ie
reviewer: Lydia (SugarBuzz Correspondent South Wales, UK)
Album Value: (3/4)

Back in the mid-90s, the pastoral Wild Wood was the album that rescued Paul Weller's floundering solo career. In an attempt to recapture those past glories, it seems that the Modfather has gone back to nature again. As Is Now finds him in an unusually mellow mood, ruminating on the joys of country life and even paying a solemn tribute to the god of Pan. The prevailingly folky mood is varied by some dreamy jazz and the odd piece of taut guitar-rock, just to remind you that he hasn't forgotten his roots. If you think Weller has become a boring old fart in recent years, then this won't change your opinion. But those with an open mind will find much to enjoy in these warm, gentle vignettes, and will feel glad that the once angry young man has found at least a measure of contentedness.

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The Chalets_(2005) "Check In" [8.0/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Wed, 9 Nov 2005 08:48:00 -0800

The Chalets
Album: "Check In"
Release Date: October 2005
Label: Setanta
Rev Value: [8.0/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Alternative Pop/Rock, Indie Rock
Check in

review by:Playlouder
reviewer: James Harrison
Album Value: (3.5/5)

If one particular version of their origins is to be believed, The Chalets started out as a drunken pledge made between five festival-goers. Surprisingly for an idea forged in hazy days, the concept of The Chalets had the clarity and appeal to survive the morning after. Although their penchant for outlandish onstage costumes and their two-girl, two-boy up front formation might raise eyebrows amongst an all-too-often asexual indie scene, it won't stop the youth from having rude thoughts about their nurse outfits.

Perversions aside, the music is uncomplicated and brisk (women are rarely to be seen near prog records, like a musical burka), politely grabbing the attention with its enthusiasm and charm. The xylophone makes a fleeting appearance, as well as healthy splashes of kitsch synths, whippet-like guitars and some deceptively nifty drumming.(...)

Full Rev

review by:Downled In Sound
reviewer: Mike Diver
Album Value: (8/10)

They've rather, and slightly sadly so, dug their own (critical) hole some months prior to the release of this, The Chalets' delayed debut. The likelihood of a single review making it five lines without making some remark or other about kooky, quasi-kinky on-stage attire and co-ordinated hand-on-hip dance moves is, frankly, slim. See? Point proved. The overriding aesthetic appeal of the band – the twin girl and three boy line up, each dressed to impress and to appeal to primal instincts (women may want to mother the men, men may want to take the girls back to mother) – makes analysing this all the more difficult: without the visual accompaniment, will Check In choke on its own cutesy, saccharine pop?

Well, no, actually: strip away all preconceptions and Check In reveals its charms. Yes, certain songs bring straight to mind those sultry poses and jerkily pop-rockin' indie-boys, but qualities are abundant from the outset, said opening line being the former paragraph-referencing, "You're making us wanna unbuckle our trousers". The only instantaneous gripe is that Check In really deserved an earlier release; so many of these songs – 'No Style', 'Gogo Don't Go', 'Beach Blanket' – are preoccupied with summer abandonment, with seaside liaisons and spontaneous trips away. As October skies turn grey, said efforts make for nostalgic listening..(...)

Full Review

review by: The Big List
reviewer: ?
Album Value: (-/-)

Somewhere on a radar between the Buggles, the B-52’s and Franz Ferdinand (well, if they were to be joined by a few cool chicks), you’ll surely find Dublin five-piece The Chalets, ready to burst from a massively retro bubble of slick pop-art and fiendish kitschness.
No strangers to the live circuit, particularly in Belfast, The Chalets have certainly amassed quite a cult following based solely on their sharp and kinetically energetic stage performances and in their debut album ‘Check-In’, the quintet have certainly managed to cement their reputation further by producing a bumper, fourteen track LP, which is most definitely worth checking out.
With their infusion of eighties inspired electro-pop, dynamic, expertly executed male/female vocal exchanges and slick harmonies to rival even the Futureheads, The Chalets certainly have a uniquely fresh and distinctly fun sound, with every track on their album, strong and memorable. Right from the plucky chords of the opening song ‘Theme from the Chalets’, (a humourous tale of male/female misunderstanding), ‘Check-In’ reels you into a web of bittersweet quirkiness and unadulterated fun.(...)

Full Review

review by: Artrocker
reviewer: Brad Barrett
Album Value: (-/-)

"Several of these little ditties don't belong to a band originating from Ireland. They should be basking in the beaming sun of UV ray raked beaches..."

Writing this on a dismal, dirty grey Autumn England evening is bound to taint my feelings with a little cynicism. The likelihood of bitter asides increase as do the odds of me feigning neutrality about The Chalets blend of summer pop.

Several of these little ditties don't belong to a band originating from Ireland. They should be basking in the beaming sun of UV ray raked beaches. Palm trees should line the limousine drive while they cruise a Chevy convertible into a fuschia sunset.

As it is the rather kooky, group harmony drenched melodic-drama, though tinged with Americana, resonates globally not just nationally. Through reveberating synths and lashing guitars, not forgetting call and answer vocal sharing, the band reimagine themes of dispirited love and snarling kiss-offs, as 60s girl-group anthems cattle-prodded with buzzsaw modernisms. Jagged two chord riffs? Check. Occasional seething interludes Depeche Mode would be proud of, as in "Gogo Don't Go"? Check. Nasty, imbalanced psycho-sex-groove pop like "Love Punch"? Err....check! (...)

Full Review

review by: Popmatters
reviewer: Andrew Lynch
Album Value: (4/5)

With their kitschy outfits, cheesy grins and day-glo accessories, The Chalets look more like a cartoon than a band. Thankfully, the hotly-anticipated debut album from the Dublin five-piece shows that there's plenty of substance behind the garish image. With three boys and two girls on board there's bound to be some sexual tension in the air, and the best tracks here are raucous tales of romantic conquests told from several different points of view. Musically it's a particular smart brand of glam-rock, with beefy guitars and screechy electronica that manage the difficult feat of engaging both the feet and the brain. Profound they ain't, but in a local scene that's groaning under the weight of drab singer-songwriters, The Chalets represent a very welcome splash of colour.

Original Link

review by: SugarBuzz Magazine
reviewer: Lydia (SugarBuzz Correspondent South Wales, UK)
Album Value: (-/-)

A bit of a modern Mamas and Papas is the ideal way to open this introduction to The Chalets. With their male and female vocals harmonising and mixing over each other it is an understandable comparison though the heavy guitars and bass line cut through to add a definite noughties edge to what is definitely a fun rock, though pop tinged album.

It has that bouncy edge that is reminiscent of the Bloc Party style of guitar work but this album is much more fitting for an earlier era.

It has a touch of glam rock with a sunny surfy Beach Boys 60s feel. From the outset with “Theme From Chalets” you know you’re in for a fun time listening to this album.

At times it can feel like the songs melt into each other but then you’ll get a little bit of a guitar riff that just marks it out as different. “Red High Heels” is a particular track that makes you take notice again as it has that sound which you can’t quite put your finger on as it feels similar to Le Tigre but at the same time Sahara Hotnights.

“Sexy Mistake” follows this same idea but then as the album rounds up you are faced with “Love Punch”, a darker almost rock synth track which to my mind is one of the stand out tracks of the album. Not easy to categorise, my best recommendation is to give it a listen and see what you think.

Full Review

Rogue Wave_(2005) "Descended Like Vultures" [6.5/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Wed, 2 Nov 2005 16:32:00 -0800

Rogue Wave
Album: "Descended Like Vultures"
Release Date:10/25/2005
Label: Sub Pop
Rock-Rev Value: [6.5/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock, Indie Pop, Lo-Fi
Buy It

Tracklist:

1 Bird on a Wire (3:40)
2 Publish My Love (3:43)
3 Salesman at the Day of the Parade (2:36)
4 Catform (3:12)
5 Love's Lost Guarantee (4:44)
6 10:1 (3:20)
7 California (4:06)
8 Are on My Side (4:19)
9 Medicine Ball (1:54)
10 You (5:46)
11 Temporary (2:45)

Album Credits

Jeff Kleinsmith Design
Patrick Spurgeon Bass, Percussion, Accordion, Piano, Autoharp, Cymbals, Drums, Glockenspiel, Guitar (Electric), Bowed Saw, Casio, Radio, Mixing, Bass (Upright), Bass Pedals, Organ (Pump), Engineer, Xylophone, Group Member, Vocals, Tambourine, Organ (Hammond), Drums (Bass), Chimes
Emily Lazar Mastering
Gram Lebron Percussion, Vocals, Group Member, Wurlitzer, Fender Rhodes, Vibraphone, Drums, Guitar (Electric)
Bill Racine Trumpet, Mixing, Drum Programming, Engineer, Producer, Organ (Hammond)
Zach Rogue Synthesizer, Guitar (Acoustic), Casio, Piano Strings, Wurlitzer, Mixing, Organ (Pump), Engineer, Producer, Vocals, Organ (Hammond), Guitar (Electric), Bass, Piano, Percussion, Group Member
Evan Farrell Bass, Piano, Percussion, ?, Lap Steel Guitar, Group Member, Wurlitzer, Vocals
Aerielle Levy Cello
Gene Park Viola
John Goodmanson Mixing

review by:Allmusic
reviewer: Tim Sendra
Album Value: (3.5/5)

Rogue Wave's second album is at its heart no great departure from their first. Like Out of the Shadow, Descended Like Vultures is indie rock through and through. There isn't a moment that doesn't feel influenced, borrowed, or previously released by Death Cab, Elliott Smith, Yo La Tengo, Lou Barlow, and so on. Luckily there also isn't a moment that's not tuneful, exciting, or ingratiating; it's second-hand but runs just like new. Indeed, sweet vocal harmonies, melodies that hook you instantly, and arrangements that envelop you in their gooey goodness are still the backbone of the Rogue Wave sound. And again there is a nice mix of rockers ("10:1," "Publish My Love"), mellow and intimate acoustic ballads ("California," "Temporary"), and moody pop tunes ("Catform," "Are You on My Side"). This time out Zach Rogue is joined by a full band, though it's mainly Pat Spurgeon who plays jack of all by providing able backing on drums, guitars, keys, bass, and autoharp. This reliance on other people doesn't tamper with the winning formula much, though the production does. Unlike the first album, which had a homey, lo-fi energy, this one feels shiny and professional like it was cut by real musicians doing it for real in a real studio. The guitars are thick and layered, the drums upfront and loud, the lead vocals very lush and reverbed. It gives the album's big ballads like the opening "Bird on a Wire" or the ebbing-and-flowing "You" a naturally epic feel that other bands have to try way too hard to achieve. Unfortunately, on the rest of the record it adds an extra layer of studio realness that takes away most of the intimate charm the group had so much of previously. With Descended Like Vultures, Rogue Wave have become just another indie rock band, one that has delivered a strong album without a weak song on it, but a real band just the same. Hopefully, the people who fell in love with the first album will stick with Rogue Wave and see through the shine to the substance, because it is there and the album is good, just in a different way.

Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Brian Howe, October 26, 2005
Album Value: (7.8/10)

As a member of the Desoto Reds, Zach Rogue was working a crushing 70 hours/week at a web development company, frustrated, and desperate for change. Then a round of layoffs saved Rogue like a last-minute call from the governor and he beat a retreat to New York to see what he could accomplish on his own. Clutching a sheaf of the delicately odd pop songs he'd written but had no outlet for in Desoto Reds, he holed up in the studio with his friend Bill Racine and together the two began spontaneously cranking out the tracks that would become Out of the Shadow, an album that would earn Rogue Wave a Sub Pop deal-- and an endless parade of Shins comparisons. The spirit of adventure and freedom that accompanied Rogue's life-change was apparent in the record, which featured wispy, spectral tunes, somewhere between Simon & Garfunkel and Yo La Tengo, embroidered with intricate details.

Rogue assembled a band to take the songs on the road, and this quartet-- which includes Gram LeBron, Pat Spurgeon, and Evan Farrell-- is collectively responsible for Rogue Wave's sophomore outing, Descended Like Vultures. As such, it's reasonable to expect a record very different from the debut, which was penned entirely by Rogue. The first single from the new album, "10:1", confirms a sea change: Where the atmospheric debut laced cloudy melodies with quiet traces of heat lightning, "10:1" is a crashing thunderbolt. The thin, melodic contour lines that primarily structured Out of the Shadow become barely discernible underpinnings on this track, subsumed in raucously cartwheeling synths and returning producer Bill Racine's bracing guitar manipulation. The only vestige of the old Rogue Wave is Rogue's voice.

Has the band that relied on off-kilter charm forsaken their chilly moderation for heat-seeking rock? You know, sort-of-ish: "10:1" is a bit of a red herring. The main difference between the two albums has more to do with volume than style. The production now has more depth, and you're more likely to hear subtle (or not-so-subtle, in the case of "10:1") filters on the vocals. Out of the Shadow seemed to emanate from very far away, but Descended Like Vultures is more visceral and immediate, although the loud tracks are largely tempered and controlled. Once the disappointment that it's not a Leonard Cohen cover fades, the album's opening track, "Bird on a Wire", is a charming introduction to the louder side of Rogue Wave: Crisp drum rolls and strident bleats buffet the melody toward an outsized, lighter-waving chorus. The driving mid-tempo guitars that open "Publish My Love" are contrasted with an acoustic arpeggio that would've been the song's stopping point on the first album. The excellent "Love's Lost Guarantee" profits from the same contrast, revealing a surprising but totally sensible Death Cab for Cutie affinity as it alternates darkly twinkling passages with romantically crashing choruses. (...)

Full Review

review by:PopMatters
reviewer: Justin Cober-Lake, 1 November 2005
Album Value: [6/10]

Rogue Wave's debut album Out of the Shadow was full of memorable songs, all of which you immediately forget. It remains the type of album that you say you love but forget to listen to until someone, probably a guy like Zach Braff, mentions that he likes it, and then you play it and enjoy it for a few days and put it on the shelf and forget about it, unless another someone asks you if you're a fan of Rogue Wave and then you say you are. None of which means that album isn't any good. It's above serviceable -- it's just that it's that kind of indie pop that works great for one-offs (unless you're on Flying Nun and it magically becomes fantastic).

Led by another Zach (Rogue, of course), but with more influence from the band that formed around last year's tour and stuck around, Rogue Wave sets out to make a disc that you'll not only like, but remember. By and large, they succeed on Descended Like Vultures, and they do it by getting bigger without losing any of their intimate charm.

It won't get the attention of single "10:1" or album-opener "Bird on a Wire", but "Publish My Love" epitomizes what the band does. The track opens with electric guitars just a little too noisy to jangle, which drop out for a smooth, quick verse. Rogue's voice stays steady as the band fills back in for the chorus, and the guitars return to full force immediately afterward. The shifting sounds add more texture (or at least a rockier texture) than you might expect. The structure repeats enough to catch in your head (and the chorus is just several announcements of "You can never publish my love"), but the transitions, as well as the fluctuating lyrical parts, keep it interesting and lead logically to the song's closing climax.

Rogue Wave uses this sort of techniques to fill their album with quality songs. "Catform" alternates mood more than texture, remaining dark throughout, and "Love's Lost Guarantee" brightens the sonics just slightly, but adds some overdriven guitar to keep an edge. These kinds of small touches make the poppier hooks of the album more engaging, and stickier than the tracks on Out of the Shadow.

Songs like "Love's Lost Guarantee" also show that Rogue Wave has a harder side. "Bird on a Wire" hints at this side of the group. It begins with a sunny little riff, but adds vocal effects on the last syllable of each of the verse's lines, drawing the phrase out and creating easily-released tension. The noises and effects continue as Rogue sings a fine melody. The production teeters on overbearing, but doesn't tip over, allowing the track to fill with sound but not to overflow..(...)

Full Rev

review by: Prefixmag
reviewer: John MacDonald
Album Value: (3.5/5)

The temptation is to start name-dropping. We could start talking about how Zach Rogue’s vocals split the difference between Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum and the Shins’ James Mercer, how the guitars twinkle and spark like Radiohead’s glory days, how Rogue’s tunes have the plasticine sheen of Death Cab for Cutie and the same weepy sincerity, and how naming your band after your last name is kinda lame. But I’ve heard that would be lazy journalism — and, whatever, these guys deserve a bit more from us anyway.

The band’s second full-length from Sup Pop, Descended Like Vultures, follows an impressive debut — and success story. In short, Rogue gets dismissed from his dot-com job (poor guy), splits for New York, records an album alone, flies home to Oakland, changes his last name, finds a band and some friends, finishes the album, releases it alone, and gets picked up by a big independent label — all within a few years. If Out of the Shadow, his debut, is the result of years spent staring at cubicle walls, we have some reason to celebrate the dot-com flame-out.

But whereas Rogue began his corporate exodus alone, Descended Like Vultures finds him and his able compatriots integrated and working as a band. Despite their twists and turns (sonic and otherwise), the songs here are fully accomplished — unafraid of comparisons and sure of their intent. “Publish My Love,” possibly the best of the bunch, explodes in a mess of shoegaze before settling into a choruses that stand upright to love’s low-pressure winds; “10:1” pummels a two-note Hammond B3 melody to danceable oblivion. Even when things hush up, Rogue Wave keeps things interesting. “California” has Rogue’s elegant tenor laughing at the land of milk and honey as he sings “screw California and the friends that are never there” over warm acoustic guitar.

The sanitized production can be a bit of a stumbling block, and Rogue occasionally gets ahead of himself with his high-spire vocals, but Descended Like Vultures is by and large not the sophomore slump such and such and so and so were expecting. With few exceptions, bands that play like bands are more interesting than songwriters fronting freelancers. Thankfully, Rogue Wave is beginning to sound like the former.

Original Link

review by: Stylus
reviewer: Evan McGarvey, 2005-10-25
Album Value: (C)

isk isn’t the best game for honing your sense of geography. It splits the continental United States into two regions: Eastern and Western, though I’d argue the major indie-rock labels do pretty much the same thing.

When you get an album from Matador (East) or Touch and Go (Midwest) or Sub Pop (West) you tend to presume some things before the disk even touches the laser of a player. Rogue Wave and their second album Descended Like Vultures are as delightfully left-y as anything in Sup Pop’s catalogue and sprinkled with moments of Laurel Canyon production and expectedly pastoral acoustics.

The music on this album, much like this year’s anticipatory EP 10:1, is worn-in California pop, juiced with paisley guitars who sizzle more than thrash. There’s plenty of love too; the straight-ahead, personal pop boulders like “Bird On A Wire” are crisp and earnest.

Lead singer/guitarist Zach Rogue uses a quietly stained Elliot Smith-bleat and matches it up with terse acoustic guitars. This product is dusted with the salt of the Pacific, cold winters in San Francisco, and a refreshingly fresh pallet of soft/loud ennui. How else could they string together chants of “Are you on / My side?” or legitimately title a song “California,” and play it straight?

But even someone who shies away from the Yo La Orange County left-coast rock will find plenty to admire here. The songs are soundly emotive without being hungry and “universal.” The carnival organ and galloping drums on “10:1” don’t announce themselves with bombast. “Publish My Love” (rubbish title notwithstanding) subtly pushes Rogue’s spoken-word-metric wail under big, evenly produced guitar fuzz. It’s the most aggressive song on an acoustic, enduringly enduring set of small-ball rock songs.

Descended Like Vultures snuggles down between Wolf Parade’s Apologies To The Queen Mary and Modest Mouse’s 2004 release, Good News For People Who Like Bad News as a competent, half-slapped together, half-methodic slice of evolved indie-rock. Not as rural and weathered as the former, not as pushy a grab-bag as the latter (though all three albums do have mystifying, undergraduate titles).(...)

Full Rev

review by: Drownedinsound
reviewer: Lianne Steinberg, 31/10/2005
Album Value: (4/5)

Forgive me, for I have gone about my daily business without Rogue Wave in my life. It’s daft really as Sub Pop have had them in their bosom since 2003 when mainman Josh Rogue delivered debut Out Of The Shadow. But somehow they’ve managed to sit just under the radar. But with Death Cab For Cutie busy claiming space in American teen soaps and Guided By Voices finally clocking out of existence, there’s been an aching gap in the space-time continuum of bittersweet, foreboding indie rock.

However, the intimacy of Descended Like Vultures is instant, so much so that you can picture singer/guitarist Zach Rogue sat on his kitchen floor, with his morning coffee cooling as he messes around on a 4-track.

Opener Bird On A Wire has a gracefully crowing guitar that runs in at the final line of each verse, adding a sense of madness to a simply delicate song. The arrival of Publish My Love kicks in the killer rushes, lifting melodies up to the heavens and falling back into gentle acoustic breaks. Drums boom around like gaseous planets and guitars pick out the simplest celestial melodies. Part confessional, part observational, all of it has a wistful west-coast vibe. Are You On My Side spookily works its way around guitars and washes of harmonies whilst asking a lover for a fresh start. Medicine Ball is reminiscent of Life’s Rich Pageant-era REM, rolling through the dusky backwaters, echoing strange myths. Rogue’s voice has the ability to shift from a countryish Neil Young falsetto to the gritty tenderness of Elliot Smith.

Descended Like Vultures has none of the menace that the title suggests, but instead there’s plenty of distress, trepidation and steady reflection. It’s full of the minute anxieties of life that keep you awake in the early hours, but set to some of the most life-affirming sounds you’ll have heard for a long time

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Lightning Bolt_(2005) "Hypermagic Mountain" [7.5/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Tue, 1 Nov 2005 08:01:00 -0800

Lightning Bolt
Album: "Hypermagic Mountain"
Release Date:10/18/2005
Label:Load Records
Rock-Rev Value: [7.5/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Experimental Rock, Post-Rock/ Experimental
Buy It

Tracklist:

1 2 Morro Morro Land (3:43)
2 Captain Caveman (3:19)
3 Birdy (3:06)
4 Riffwraiths (3:03)
5 Mega Ghost (6:01)
6 Magic Mountain (4:55)
7 Dead Cowboy (7:58)
8 Bizarro Zarro Land (4:47)
9 Mohawk Windmill (9:38)
10 Bizarro Bike (5:18)
11 Infinity Farm (2:46)
12 For the Obsessed (2:10)

review by:Allmusic
reviewer: Johnny Loftus
Album Value: (4.5/5)

Lightning Bolt's 2003 album Wonderful Rainbow just kept getting bigger and bigger, like a 16-ton amplifier falling out of the noon sky. Its bass tone squashed round heads into wrecked ellipses, and the drums chattered away as if on a chain drive. The album was the opposite of Excedrin, a tension headache in ten movements. Lightning Bolt have done it again with 2005's Hypermagic Mountain. It's hard to say this is accessible; besides, if you did say that, no one would hear it anyway. But bassist Brian Gibson and drummer/default vocalist Brian Chippendal build an addictive structure into the manic pulse of "Captain Caveman," and "Riffwraiths" -- musicians' biggest fear next to unreliable drummers -- sounds like a song's break extended to three explosive minutes. And while Chippendale's vocals on "Birdy" are a distracting non-factor, its rhythmic throb is more relentless than a carbon-arc strobe light with no off switch. None of this is melodic in the traditional sense; Wonderful Rainbow wasn't, either. But Lightning Bolt's music beckons from a more elemental place, as a ferocious distillation of shattered punk fury, dance music release, and the purposely weird. Closer "For the Obsessed" ends abruptly in mid-freak-out, giving the silence that follows its own electricity, and in "Bizarro Zarro Land" Gibson and Chippendale are heavy metal soloists fighting to the death. What makes Hypermagic even more heroic beyond its immediate rhythmic grip is the musicianship, the furious dedication to a hyper, jagged groove. Longer tracks like "Dead Cowboy" and "Mohawk Windmill" build into giant fractals of epic noise, with weird little filigrees stolen from old Yes albums bursting forth from roaring bass guitar and splattering drum rolls. At its most chaotic, Hypermagic Mountain could tear open a wormhole into Comets on Fire's Blue Cathedral. It's clear that Lightning Bolt reach stasis at their noisiest, when they're caught deep in the zone.

Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Brandon Stosuy, October 19, 2005
Album Value: (7.3/10)

For years, noise didn't make headlines-- or even show up in mainstream magazines in the first place. Yet, recently, the aesthetic has enjoyed a more jovial reception by the press and from indie rock fans-- thanks in large part to Wolf Eyes, Black Dice, and Lightning Bolt. This critical feedback has allowed noise bands to go on increasingly lengthier tours with larger audiences at each stop, and those higher-profile peers have fostered a larger, less incestuous noise community. For Lightning Bolt's Brian Gibson and Brian Chippendale, fortuitous cultural circumstances and their improvisational acumen have rendered them the toast of the current noise-rock crop-- all the while they've continued to tweak their post-hardcore/Harry Pussy formula.

Hypermagic Mountain is Lightning Bolt's fourth, most well-oiled album: song-by-song it chugs into rockier Van Halen, Fucking Champs, or Orthrelm territory. Somewhere in the middle a lack of variety creates a dull patch, but even the more homogenized tracks slip by on the upped energy as well as subtle, virtuostic additions to the violence. The set was again captured by ex-Small Factory jangle-popper Dave Auchenbach, who mostly harnesses the band live to two-track (with some live mixing) and DAT. Because of the approach, Hypermagic Mountain breathes like a battering ram: The drums are gargantuan and, conversely, the vocals fold nicely into the buzz.

The sound's crowded-- the Boschian cover art is a solid visual analogue-- but Lightning Bolt make room for all their key ingredients: brief space excursions, lessons in dynamics, monster riffs, semi-humorous politicos, sugar-dosed energy. Everything you'd expect to find is here and in amped form-- festering bass (with that slippery balloon sound) and machete-slinging, crazy-climber drums. The components establish LB as more rock, less noise-- though they've always treaded closer to that realm than to Merzbow or Whitehouse.

The Brians' break the gate with "2 Morro Morro Land", upchucking a noodle before opting for the overdrive of a jaunty lick. The heavier, somehow portentous "Captain Caveman" connects for a second punch with Chippendale shouting somewhere in the midst of the commotion that "this is the anthem." Well, actually, it's one of many.

The next movement's spacier, focusing on ghosts: "Riffwraiths" and "Mega Ghost" include more entropic loops and echoed vocals-- especially on "Mega", which begins ambiently with dead-soul vocal echo. Fittingly, the first few minutes of zoomed drums and bass on "Magic Mountain" sound like an uphill climb. Like the best of immediate-minded rockers, LB kindly deliver. So no, none of that avant-noise tease: Despite still working on the outer edge of rock dynamics, when LB build to something, you can be assured it'll explode.. (...)

Full Review

review by:Stylus
reviewer: Roque Strew
Album Value: [A-]

The myth of Lightning Bolt hangs on its devastating, shamanistic live act. Concertgoers encircle the band, in ritual awe, like a crowded halo of asteroids orbiting a binary star: a bassist butchering his rig like a pink-slipped surgeon, and a drummer grinding his ragtag kit into cinders, while belting yawp after yawp through a tattered pillowcase luchador mask into his “throat mike,” a jury-rigged phone receiver run through a pre-amp. The experience, religious to every ticket-holder, outruns language.

The problem of Lightning Bolt, by extension, is recapturing this unhinged tumult in the studio, readied for your iPod’s earbuds and your mom’s car stereo, without losing the myth in translation. Luckily, with each new release, the band has tapered the gap between the live act and the studio artifact. Culling 57 minutes of Dionysian fury from three weeks—and two tracks—of Apollonian sweat, Lightning Bolt rushes forward on Hypermagic Mountain, their fourth full-length, in another stride toward the perfection of their prog-noise esthetic.

Rewind to 2003, year eight of the Rhode Island dialectic—Brian Chippendale’s jackhammer drumming braided into Brian Gibson’s whitewater bass—when Wonderful Rainbow cemented the Ruins and Boredoms comparisons, when the band rocketed into the higher echelons of the indie hierarchy, when noise began to slowly invade the once signal-heavy hipster cosmology. The more mature Hypermagic Mountain manages to one-up its junior, coupling an across-the-board tightness with better mixing. Where the vocals worked before as accomplices in abstraction, they’re now turned up, and clearer, thanks to the band’s new setup. The drums and bass, in the egalitarian polish of Dave Auchenbach’s knob-twiddling, are now equally prominent in the mix. The production’s richer than ever, with the once-submarine low end reigning alongside the mids and highs.

Gibson’s bass lines gallop from the get-go, chased by Chippendale’s percussion stampede, promising on the first track, “2 Morro Morro Land,” that Hypermagic Mountain will loom monolithically, maybe taller than Wonderful Rainbow. The opener’s raucous verve is overshadowed by the threatening storm of the next track, “Captain Caveman.” Here Chippendale, on cue, takes center stage, almost crooning over the stop-start convulsions, proggy fits of ricochet chord progressions, cribbed St. Anger riffs, and Gatling bass-drum pummeling.(...)

Full Rev

review by: Tinymixtapes
reviewer: willcoma
Album Value: (5/5)

What's with the lukewarm response to Psychic Paramount? Because the two best tracks on there mop the floor, in terms of sheer intensity, with anything Lightning Bolt has ever done. Mind you, I love them both. And Psychic Paramount is more the prog side of implosive guitar/drums mayhem while LB is the scrappy punk rock side. I guess I just can't believe my ears with either band, and wonder what fickle mandate made one more attention-worthy than the other. Perhaps I'm just getting ahead of myself, as Psychic Paramount hasn't put together a full-length yet. Whatever the case, fans of mind-blowingly loud, careening rock ecstasy should get anything and everything available by Psychic Paramount. For those of you who feel you only need one of this sort of thing, you're dead wrong.

Now, on to this new Lightning Bolt. So far, reviewers are lamenting that Hypermagic Mountain shows stagnancy. That makes me laugh. Not really. Actually, that makes me feel confused. When I play this behemoth of a record, all of my relativistic critical bullshit goes bye-bye. All concerns over structure, consistency, variety, depth and even melody are lost to the blood-curdling passion coming out of the speakers. Unlike Oxes, Hella, or some such wankery, this wankery is insistently, urgently infectious. It holds fast to the ground, obliterating everything that stands in its way. I know, I know. That sounds like some inane soundbite cliché. This time it's true. Every goddamned thing on this record is boring into the earth's core, straight as a goddamned arrow. Another cliché. Yeah well, what this record does so well is clichéd. It's cheap and tawdry and godawful and mesmerizingly so. Logic and pasty critique pings off of the Hypermagic Mountain and shatters into a million pathetic molecular shitflecks.

The word "hypermagic" means Merlin in a full-bodied epileptic fit. But he could be dancing! He could also be dancing. Give him some more Ritalin..(...)

Full Review

review by: shakingthrough
reviewer: Laurence Station
Album Value: (4.4/5)

Best way to enjoy music by Lightning Bolt: Crank and surrender. Hypermagic Mountain’s second track, “Captain Caveman,” all atomized vocal distortion and no-Ritalin-allowed rhythmic riffage, announces everything you need to know about the latest earsplitting noisefest from the high-revving bass and drum duo of Brian Gibson and Brian Chippendal. For those who thought 2003’s Wonderful Rainbow seemed extreme in its pulverizing level of intensity, Hypermagic Mountain reduces it to the equivalent of a by-the-numbers Bread rehearsal. Hypermagic Mountain’s sum effect eclipses its redline-obliterating parts, but special dispensations must be given to the leaking madness of “Megaghost,” with its yelping, wounded-animal sound effects and furiously tight interplay between guitar and drums. And it would be criminal to overlook the amazing proficiency exhibited on "Bizarro Zarro Land," which nimbly flirts with control and chaos, dexterously catapulting from one treacherous musical peak to next without once losing its footing. Hypermagic Mountain will be a tidal shock of relentless jackhammer threats to the non-discriminating music fan. For the initiated, there’s true primal joy to be heard in this mammoth creation. You’ve just got to be willing to shed those tightly guarded notions and listen.

Original Link

review by: Playlouder
reviewer: John Doran
Album Value: (4.5/5)

What blessed bastardry is this? It's bloody brilliant, that's what it is.

For the uninitiated (and surely there aren't that many left around these parts who haven't at least heard of this word-of-mouth sensation) Lightning Bolt are a duo of epic proportions. They came out of the Rhode Island, Providence performance art scene; Brian Chippendale played drums, Brian Gibson played bass; and when they got together, it was Mordor. After misfiring as a three piece, they went on to record 'Ride The Skies' and 'Wonderful Rainbow' as a duo but really became a cult name to drop because of their, literally, riotous live performances. Eschewing anything so sensible as playing on stage, they would set their instruments up on the floor instead. And with Chippendale yelling inaudible lyrics into a microphone stuffed into his mouth and his head crammed into a mask made from a pillow case as he bashed away at his kit and Gibson usually wearing a pixie hat, they would be the eye of calm in a psychedelic metal hurricane as bodies heaved and thrashed in a circle around them. The trouble was that it was always such an astounding experience to see them live that many would come away claiming that, as such, they just made noise and it'd be pointless to actually, you know, buy them on record.

The truth of the matter is that Lightning Bolt, although it is often hidden under sheets of feedback, hectic production and just sheer velocity, are actually a very hook heavy band. And here this is still the case. Gibson's bass is treated through layers and layers of FX, allowing him to carve out shimmering top end hooks as he thrashes out a groaning bottom end simultaneously. The over driven warmth of 'Dead Cowboy' is a flotilla of busy but simple hooks atop a sea of grinding sludge. And 'Bizarroland' starts off almost like Steve Vai before doing a hand break turn straight into becoming some sort of unholy alliance between High On Fire and Ornette Coleman.
(...)

Full Review

Why?_(2005) "Elephant Eyelash" [7.5/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 08:52:00 -0800

Why?
Album: "Elephant Eyelash"
Release Date: 2005-10-04
Label: Anticon
Rev Value: [7.5/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Alternative Pop/ Rock, Indie Rock
Buy It

Tracklist:

1 Crushed Bones (3:30)
2 Yo Yo Bye Bye (2:51)
3 Rubber Traits (4:01)
4 Hoofs (1:57)
5 Fall Saddles (2:43)
6 Gemini (Birthday Song) (5:27)
7 Waterfalls (2:50)
8 Sand Dollars (3:44)
9 Speech Bubbles (2:57)
10 Whispers into the Other (3:27)
11 Act Five (3:20)
12 Light Leaves

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Chris Dahlen, October 11, 2005
Album Value: (7.8/10)

I'll admit that I didn't "get" Why? on his early records, like that split EP with Odd Nosdam from 2001, where his puzzling lyrics and images are as fragmented as the clips of music he samples. It was like listening to the kids outside your window who are locked into their own in-jokes and use their own slang for sex acts: I just figured, you either get it or you're out. Somehow, his farther-out colleague and cLOUDDEAD partner Doseone was easier to follow, maybe because his jester act steers you more directly to his heart.

Dose has said about Why?, "I met him at 18 and he was 40." And you get that vibe from Why?, aka Yoni Wolf, more on every album. On Elephant Eyelash, Why? has moved even closer to using plain old song forms and he formed a live band to play them that includes Wolf's brother Josiah on drums, guitarist Matt Meldon, and Doug McDiarmid on anything else. Recorded in DIY lo-fi, they have better chemisty than when they debuted on the Sanddollars EP earlier this year. In fact, Wolf shrugged off his Why? alias and turned it into the name of his band-- which may violate the Hip-Hop Local 712 union regulations, but what the hey, they're underground.

In fact, forget about whether Wolf's career belongs in hip-hop or indie rock or jangle-psych or whatever: By now his music has oozed so far away from a clear-cut genre that the whoom-pa beats he's sometimes fond of could have been inspired by polka. The same goes for his fully-developed, fully-original vocals. His speak-singing lays packages of words one after another with attention to every syllable, dropping them in sequence like he's laying a stone path. But his pop songs showcase his singing, which starts off like he's reading his journal to a bored girlfriend, then takes flight in an impassioned croon.

Elephant Eyelash sounds less crisp and less striking than the folk-plus-beats arrangements of 2003's Oaklandazurasylum, but it brings more heart; where that earlier album's lyrics crackled with the anxiety of beating yourself up after a bad day at school, Elephant Eyelash soars like the last songs on prom night.You'll still puzzle over the lyrics-- Wolf says he's writing about a break-up, though don't let that limit your imagination-- but the emotional intent is blindingly clear. The music pours and soars over the splintered images, like on 'Sanddollars, which uses a triumphantly conventional pop anthem to make its chorus sound like a mountaintop declaration: "These are selfish times/I've got shellfish dimes/ And sanddollars." Yet he tops that with the huge, heart-pounding piano chords on "Rubber Traits", which propel him as he belts: "Unfold an origami death mask/ And cut my DNA with rubber traits/ Pull apart the double helix like a wishbone/ Always be working on a suicide note." And I finally understand how he feels.)

Full Review

review by: Dusted
reviewer: Charlie Wilmoth - Aug. 22, 2005
Album Value: (-/-)

The name Why? once referred to Anticon collective and Clouddead member Yoni Wolf, who released a string of rough-and-ready records that mixed elements of hip-hop and indie rock. Why?'s earlier output was fun - Wolf jumped among genres like the older, lo-fi Beck, but with less obvious irony and less of a folk influence. But those records weren't as fun as they could have been, because Wolf often tried to wring too much out of too few ideas, because his arrangements were a bit thin, and because he had one of the tiniest, weakest voices in the history of hip-hop.

The name Why? now refers to an entire Bay Area rock band, fronted by Wolf and including guitarist Matt Meldon, multi-instrumentalist Doug McDiarmid, and drummer Josiah Wolf (Yoni's brother). For whatever reason - perhaps the new lineup has something to do with it - Elephant Eyelash is fantastic, an indie rock record that nicely balances absurdity and directness, pop hooks with stoned weirdness.

Yoni Wolf's hip-hop roots (if indeed Clouddead counts as hip-hop) are mostly buried here - even the half-spoken rhymes on "Crushed Bones" and "Gemini (Birthday Song)" are accompanied by guitar arpeggios. Wolf sings melodies much of the time (in a stronger voice than before, although he's still no Sinatra), and the songs are mostly shaped like pop rather than hip hop, with verses and choruses taking similar amounts of time.

The result is indie rock that's quirky and seemingly casual in a way that makes the catchy parts (and there are many) seem catchier, a little like Pavement in their prime. The instrumental part on "Gemini" is similar to Pavement's "Range Life," in fact. Unlike Pavement, though, Why? gets a lot of mileage from samples and effects that augment their rock-band base. But the production doesn't feel digital at all, so the instruments and electronic touches both sound grainy, much like they do on Radiohead's OK Computer.
(...)

Full Review

review by: Prefix Mag
reviewer: Matthew Gasteier
Album Value: (3/5)

Why? (the singer, not the band) is most famous for his participation in Clouddead, the experimental hip-hop group that is proving increasingly influential. But Why? (born Yoni Wolf) has fashioned his solo project into a full-fledged band of the same name that includes Matt Meldon, Doug McDiarmid and his brother Josiah. On Elephant Eyelash, Wolf met halfway between his old group and his new bandmates, who seem to hail from somewhere in the Slanted Enchanted vicinity.

Shuttling between the multi-tracked free association of “Crushed Bones” and the summery pop of “Sanddollars” makes for a nice little trip through good enough indie rock, and by the time it’s over you’re just about ready for your mom to tuck you in and turn out the light. Not that there isn’t any emotional heft here, especially on album highlight “Gemini (Birthday Song).” This is an unambitious album in the best way. But then, Elephant Eyelash is an album for you to find and love for yourself if you are so inclined, so what can I do but sing along and nod?

Original Link

review by: Popmatters
reviewer: Josh Berquist
Album Value: (8/10)

After a number of beautifully flawed and fractured attempts, Why?'s Yoni Wolf finally realizes his hip-hop informed indie-pop aesthetic with Elephant Eyelash. While prior efforts were undercut by his impulsive restlessness, Wolf harnesses his inherent affinity for aberration and abstraction and directs it into an album that is more engrossingly O.C.D than aversively A.D.D. While still retaining every endearing idiosyncrasy, he exhibits unprecedented restraint over song structure and subject matter allowing his masterful word working to take its rightful prominence. This newfound focus makes Elephant Eyelash even more accessible than Wolf's previous output yet proves itself every bit as adventurous.

Even at his onset, Wolf distinguished himself from fellow Anticon alumni like Sole and Doseone by being much more They Might Be Giants than Deep Puddle Dynamics. That pop playfulness was plagued by Wolf's willfully chaotic compositions of unresolved movements leapfrogging over each other at whimsy. Backed by a capable and collaborative band, Wolf elaborates on these truncated tune fragments and sustains them over an intended trajectory. Rather than the sudden swelling and hasty deflation of his early work, these songs surge into the cathartic pop that was all too often absent in the past. Although they may be more coherent, these arrangements are still hardly conventional or commonplace; brushed snare reggae rolls offset the plaintive acoustic arpeggiation at the onset of "Crushed Bones" and rollicking carnival runs punctuate the piano ballad of "Fall Saddles".

These songs bolster an improved sense of subject matter in Wolf's work. His defining "coffee's turned my darkness into Woody Allen long-sigh anxiety" obsessions with leaving lovers, sex, and death remain but trimmed away are all the absurd and impenetrably personal references to things like cat food bowls and shirtless frisbee players. Wolf keeps his focus fixed on readily identifiable if albeit aching themes and refrains from the overtly and overly intimate details that had him censoring his own vocals on his last album. Of course there's still plenty of embarrassment and awkwardness in play through numerous references to masturbation and ruminations on spent semen. Even then, Wolf avoids outright obnoxiousness with winking playfulness.(...)

Full Review

review by: Almostcool
reviewer: ???
Album Value: (7.25/10)

The Anticon crew have never been ones to create hip-hop according to what is expected of the genre, and Why? is no different. In fact, one could argue that on his past couple releases he's very nearly created an entirely new genre that is grounded in indie rock, but dips into hip-hop and several other genres for something that's refreshing and unique (but maybe a bit frustrating for fans of one genre or the other without an open mind to accept the other). Elephant Eyelash is no different, with Why? pulling together all his previous influences into something even more focused and cohesive.

The release follows up closely on the Sanddollars EP, which came out only a couple months back, but is leaps and bounds beyond that effort in most respects. Yes, the almost nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness lyrics are still there, but the sense of songwriting, melody, and even depth of instrumentation has been expanded upon. "Crushed Bones" opens the release with lyrics that seem to touch on past drug abuse, and the song lopes along with skittery programmed beats and some dense layers of guitars while "Yo Yo Bye Bye" opens with pretty ambience and piano melodies with almost slurring vocals before chugging into almost bombastic refrains that drive home the odd (and often clever) lyrics even more.

Tracks just keep on throwing out interesting bits after that, with "Rubber Traits" dropping some of the weirdest lyrics of the album alongside some chopped-up indie guitar instrumentation while "The Hoofs" drops glittery chimes and squiggling electronics alongside acoustic guitars and the nasally vocals of Yoni Wolf (one of four members of Why?). One of the highlights of the entire album, though, is the insanely poppy (and catchy) "Gemini (Birthday Song)," which drops lyrics that reference the album title. As with just about every track, the actual lyrics are nearly indecipherable, but they (and the instrumentation) are absolutely buoyant in terms of overall feel, and the joyous tracks is easily one of the best things that Why? has done to date.

Once "Sanddollars" (from the aforementioned EP) hits, the album takes a distinct turn towards more straightforward sounds, and the overall release suffers a bit. For several tracks in a row, the album takes on a much more straightforward indie rock feel with a few strange bits and the typically odd vocals and lyrics thrown in for good measure. Coming after the inventive and infectious opening seven tracks, it's a bit of a letdown finish. That said, I've still got to give Why? some props for continuing to defy any genre boundaries in throwing hip-hop, folk, indie rock, and a dash of electronics in the cuisinart and molding the final concoction into something so darn great at times.

Original Link

review by: Hour
reviewer: Steve Guimond
Album Value: (3/5)

"I'm f***ing cold like a DQ Blizzard/ you act like a slut but you're really a freezer." What the?! Lines like this threw me off from the start - vocally weak, lyrically childish and lame. Too bad, because Yoni Wolf - cLOUDDEAD, Hymie's Basement - and his Why? project display an interesting amalgam of Beach Boy sunny harmonies and instrumentation, hip-hop beats and rhymings and neo-psychedelic pop traits. Having recently evolved out of a solo vision to full-band status, Why? continue Anticon Records' tradition of musical challenges, really only falling short in one very important category.

Original Link

Arab Strap_(2005) "The Last Romance" [7.0/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 08:29:00 -0800

Arab Strap
Album: "The Last Romance"
Release Date: Oct 18, 2005
Label: Chemikal Underground
Rev Value: [7.0/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Slowcore, Indie Rock, Sadcore
Buy It

Tracklist:

1. Stink
2. If There's No Hope For Us
3. Don't Ask Me To Dance
4. Confessions of a Big Brother
5. Come Round and Love Me
6. Speed Date
7. Dream Sequence
8. Fine Tuning
9. There Is No Ending

review by:Playlouder
reviewer: Iain Moffat
Album Value: (5/5)

While the biggest band of the mid-90s have been quite content to re-emerge this year with a record unthrillingly unswerving from their long-established template, aggrandizing their own idleness in the process, a number of the bands that emerged in that fertile era have suddenly shown a trifle more imagination. Hence, 2005's seen a troubled Low rocketing away from their slowcore shackles, and given us the Stereophonics finally leaving the pub after all these years for the more exotic climes of 'Dakota'. And now, in a manoeuvre even more unexpected than the aforementioned, it's thrown up an Arab Strap album that, while unlikely to be mistaken for the new Rachel Stevens set by anyone at all, is the pair's Outstanding Pop Statement. Honestly.

Clearly, working apart - an endeavour that's borne most fruit on the ceaselessly amazing 'Into The Woods' - has done both Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffat a power of good. They've resumed their partnership suitably galvanised and, while the Strap hadn't yet begun to sound tired as it is, there's a lot more life to this than we've heard from them before. 'The Last Romance' is decidedly brisk, clocking in at around 36 minutes, but is filled with many of the most singalong tracks they've ever recorded - and, yes, Aidan really can sing these days, in something of a dark croon, admittedly, and perhaps a slightly acquired taste, but a real leap onwards from the bleak beat poetry of previous recordings. It also includes a number of songs that wouldn't sound out of place in today's indie-friendlier fab 40, such as the recent 'Dream Sequence' single, with its lovely piano cascades, or '(If There's) No Hope For Us', which bears an uncommon resemblance to the Kaiser Chiefs' 'Modern Way' and is one of the first of their numbers that could ever finds itself in the same sentence as the words "naggingly infectious" without that being a reference to thrush or somesuch.

Most significantly of all, perhaps, is the strong female presence on this album. It's entirely explicit on the aforementioned '...No Hope...' and 'Come Round And Love Me' with their inclusion of infuriatingly uncredited (on PlayLouder's copy, at least) guest vocals, but, furthermore, after years of thwarted relationships it finally sounds in many cases here as if Moffat has turned a corner; 'Stink' admits to an unwillingness to settle for a seamier way of life in the long run, while 'Fine Tuning' is a touching take on a very committed coupling, with even parenthood being very seriously considered. Standout track 'Speed-Date', meanwhile, is joyously, unanticipatedly dismissive of swinging, cheap sex and familiar grubbiness in favour of - blimey! - a sense-of-wonder-filled love of monogamy. There's still plenty to appeal to hardcore Strapophiles, of course, like the blurrily avant-garde stylings of 'Confessions Of A Big Brother' and the uniquely dazzling accordion-and-sung and spoken-vocals-fest that is 'Chat In Amsterdam, Winter 2003', but there's no denying the more fundamental impact of this record: with 'The Last Romance', a whole lot of people are at last going to fall in love with Arab Strap for the very first time.

Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Matthew Murphy, October 19, 2005
Album Value: (8.0/10)

For the men of Arab Strap, the concept of romance has always been a favorite joke. Over the course of their discography, Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton have explored romance as an abstract notion constructed of the sordid lies people tell in order to pair off and-- as Aidan put it in one variation-- "go home and make a mess." On The Last Romance, their sixth proper studio album, Arab Strap present another song cycle detailing the craggy terrain that separates gloriously tawdry, dead-end sex from more lasting, mature (i.e. boring) relationships. But this time something wholly unexpected occurs, as the duo's notorious self-deprecating gloom here begins to lift, allowing the briefest rays of romantic comfort and satisfaction to flicker in the distance.

Throughout The Last Romance, Arab Strap's more familiar lyrical themes are thankfully bolstered by their boldest and most assured music to date, as they build confidently on the advances made on 2003's Monday at the Hug & Pint. Gone entirely are their once-frequent plunky drum machines, replaced by a skillfully balanced array of piano, strings, and horns. And though as a vocalist Moffat remains his curmudgeonly limited self, never before have his vocals been so thoughtfully integrated into Middleton's arrangements-- check the way his croon expertly mirrors the cello on "Confessions of a Big Brother"-- giving these performances an effortless, dyed-in-wool cohesion that their earlier pint-fuelled narratives sometimes lacked.

Over the years, Arab Strap have recorded an astonishing number of songs set in beds with dirty sheets, so the sleazy jolt of "Stink" opens The Last Romance in well-established territory, and with Moffat's customary disinterest in foreplay. "Strangers waking up in the Monday morning stink/ Of course I feel sick, but it's not why you think," he sings over formidably roiling guitars, postponing for a moment the album's newfound streak of tenderness. Equally uneasy are tracks like the propulsive "(If There's) No Hope For Us" and "Chat in Amsterdam, Winter 2003", a heartsick, drumless mutter which eventually opens out into impressively dissonant smears of guitar while Moffat glumly intones, "If we're having so much fun than how come I'm crying every Monday?/ Is it just to cancel out the laughter from Thursday 'til Sunday?" (...)

Full Review

review by: Contact Music
reviewer: Sharon Edge
Album Value: (-/-)

The sixth studio album from Scots Aidan and Malcolm and it's pretty much what you'd expect. It's apparent from the opening track - Stink - that their pre-occupations are still with the grimly realistic, dirty details of everyday life and love. Chat in Amsterdam, Winter 2003 is a strangely compelling track with a heavily accented, almost spoken vocal and screeching, distorted guitars. It's as thudding and grey as a hangover on a February morning, but has the distinction of being the only song I know that mentions Trisha.

The album then immediately springs to life with some jangly guitar and breathy singing with 'Don't Ask Me to Dance'. The vibe here is more laid back than miserable and the song has that Arab Strap intimacy - almost as if the words are extracts from a diary being whispered into your ear. 'Speed-Date' sounds cheerful enough but its description of 'ugly tattooed swingers' ensures the album stays firmly grounded in murky bars and backrooms. Full of emotional twists and turns and set against a bleak musical landscape, loyal fans will surely not be disappointed.

Original Link

review by: FasterLouder
reviewer: carlos esq
Album Value: (-/-)

When this boy with the new Arab Strap first played The Last Romance he knew what to expect. Yeah, yeah more alcohol drenched tales of the failings of love and sex, and nothing in-between. Arab Strap is like your favourite old
regular down at your local â€“ youâ€™ve heard all his tales a thousand times but that doesnâ€™t make it any less essential. In fact the band seem so set in their ways that they can add a hint of happiness to their repertoire and call it progress.

Mind you, just a hint.

The Last Romance, the duoâ€™s sixth studio album, is being touted as their â€�happy recordâ€™. If you were to believe that, though, youâ€™d probably also believe the regular when he says he could have it off with any lass he desired. Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffat perhaps do have reason to be a little more upbeat given recent critical acclaim for solo projects and 2003â€™s Monday Night at the Hug and Pint but Moffatâ€™s gruff Scottish brogue and stare into your half-empty not half-full pint mutterings just wouldnâ€™t be the same were he to sound cheery.

It must be said that lyrically, yes, Moffat deals now with not only love lost but the genuine feeling of love. Musically, the single Dream Sequence resembles the atmospherics of Coldplay, which I suppose could be construed as happy, or pleasant, or, um, unnecessary.

If the album displays any notable development it is in the melding of the lyrical prowess of Moffat with the increasingly poignant music, largely Middletonâ€™s domain. While Moffat should never be considered a singer as such, he has at last learnt to hold a tune consistent with his musical-backing. If you can get past his thickly accented croon, you will no doubt be captivated by the duty of care in which Moffatâ€™s vocals are integrated into Middleton's arrangements.

Effortless melodies and sing-along choruses suggest maybe coherency is the key to The Last Romance. But then, just how coherent can pint-fuelled narratives be? Arab Strap may have toned down the doom and gloom but their music remains a sort of seductive misery. You simply cannot deny(...)

Full Review

review by: Popmatters
reviewer: Josh Berquist
Album Value: (8/10)

I oftentimes find myself peering into pints observing foam dissipate into still amber. What strikes me most about this process is that I cannot discern its aesthetic value. There is surely some appeal otherwise it would not prove so captivating. Yet my fondness for the sight is rarely shared so it may merely be beer lust. Admittedly my love of lager is such that any assessment stemming from or surrounding its consumption is surely biased beyond fairness. The whole display may not be attractive at all but I still find myself delighted by the sight of every bubble bursting.

It is this same quandary that grips me now as I consider Tanglewood Numbers. My fondness for Silver Jews rivals my lager love and the frequency with which both are intermingled further muddles any appraisal. Most immediately Tanglewood's surprising stridency struck me as impossibly beautiful and astonishingly inspiring. It was love at first listen and the stumbling onset of the album still unleashes a flood of joy. So zealous is my conviction in the grandeur of this record that it arouses skepticism. If I'm the lone punk in the beerlight fixated on foam, I may also be the only guy in the room who openly confesses that all my favorite singers couldn't sing.

Many aspects of the record are far from readily appreciable. Elemental Jew David Berman remains faithful to an aesthetic that rarely concedes to casual listeners. While these songs rock and rollick more straightforwardly than their predecessors, they still hover somewhere between country hayride and indie heyday. Unwilling to yield exclusive appeal to either genre, they run the risk of satisfying neither and alienating both.

Berman's voice has always been an acknowledged liability and age has not improved upon that shortcoming. That the stately balladry of Bright Flight which framed his unapologetically plain singing to a degree approaching conventional beauty has been sacrificed to raucous rockers that outpace his cadence and leave him straining only exacerbates the problem. It's endearing to those of us who fall for that kind of thing but others may not be able to get past it.

Of course substance has always held primacy over presentation for Silver Jews. David Berman isn't a singer-songwriter so much as he is a writer who sometimes sings. Deliberately considered and concise, his wordplay defines and distinguishes his art. His way with a loaded one-liner is unprecedented and his sense of humor unrivaled. Yet his is a casual genius that sometimes belies him with the appearance of veering from superficially funny to eye-rollingly obtuse. Tanglewood again offers little concession here as Berman comes up considerably shorter on lyrics and takes even greater liberties with the lines he lays down. The surreal imagery of Bright Flight is reigned in but replaced by overt over-simplifications and obvious rhymes. "Punks in the Beerlight" bemoans "it gets really, really bad" and "K-Hole" stoops so low as to state "I'd rather live in a trash can/ Than see you happy with another man". Contrasting with the consistency of earlier efforts, mere cleverness is allowed to suffice where meaning was once insisted upon.(...)

Full Review

review by: Manchester Online
reviewer: Iain Hepburn
Album Value: (4/5)

RAW, tender, emotional, charming, filthy... Arab Strap manage to be all of these, usually within the space of a single song. And, it's wonderful to report, The Last Romance is no different.

Outside of great 90s writer Gordon Legge and the Irn Bru producing Barr family, Arab Strap are perhaps the most significant thing to come out of Falkirk. One of the mainstays of the Chemikal Underground label, they've been charting the dark and dirty side of life and love for the last decade or so.

Actually, Chat in Amsterdam, Winter 2003 - which comes across like a piece of poetry, backed by a discordant accordian and the occasional burst of guitar - sounds very like one of Legge's short stories set to music. There must be something in the water supply at Brockville.

It's one of ten tracks on this short and bittersweet album, which flirts briefly with almost conventional CU pop stylings while still retaining that diverse post-folk sound.

Drawl

Aiden Moffatt's vocals, retaining that typically central belt drawl, never lose their ability to charm and repulse in equal measures - most notably on the opening track Stink, which really has to be listened to to be appreciated: words alone don't do it justice.

Don't Ask Me to Dance sounds dangerously close to an anthem with its 80s REM construction, while the soft, melodic and twisted Confessions of a Big Brother offers immediate contrast, comprising for the most part just Moffat's dark folk singing and the scarily versatile Malcolm Middleton on guitar.

And you have to admire the attitude of a band who can call their closing track - a surprisingly upbeat piece at that - There Is No Ending. Sadly, in this case, there is. But it's a fine ending to a fine album.

Original Link

Silver Jews_(2005) "Tanglewood Numbers" [7.5/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 03:07:00 -0700

Silver Jews
Album: "Tanglewood Numbers"
Release Date: Oct 18, 2005
Label: Drag City
Rev Value: [7.5/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Alternative Pop/ Rock, Indie Rock
Buy It

Tracklist:

1 Punks in the Beerlight
2 Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed
3 K-Hole
4 Animal Shapes
5 I'm Getting Back into Getting Back into You
6 How Can I Love You If You Won't Lie Down
7 Poor, The Fair and the Good
8 Sleeping Is the Only Love
9 Farmer's Hotel
10 There Is a Place

review by:Allmusic
reviewer: Heather Phares
Album Value: (4.5/5)

Back after a much-too-long four-year absence — during which David Berman struggled with substance abuse, depression, and a suicide attempt — the Silver Jews return with Tanglewood Numbers, an album full of the wry, insightful storytelling for which the band is beloved, as well as some striking differences. The album's polished sound will come as something of a surprise to fans who have been around since the Starlite Walker days, as will Berman's urgent vocals on tracks like "Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed." However, these changes work in the album's favor and give an anthemic heft to the most gripping moments, most of which are about confronting troubles and fears head-on: On the album's opening track, "Punks in the Beerlight"'s "burnouts in love" fight to stay that way even when it gets really, really bad; "There Is a Place" closes Tanglewood Numbers by moving from despair to hope with a thrilling, white-knuckle chant of "I saw God's shadow on this world." But, even on the album's most desperate, searching songs, Berman's unfailing eye for detail remains, and Tanglewood Numbers is populated with young black Santa Clauses, girls in special economic zones, and guys who work in airport bars. Funny couplets like "Sleeping Is the Only Love"'s "I heard they were taming the shrew/I heard the shrew was you" and lighter, more typically rollicking Silver Jews tracks such as "Animal Shapes" and "How Can I Love You if You Won't Lie Down" keep Tanglewood Numbers from sounding too much like a recovery journal (not to mention that Berman is too talented a writer to need to rely on strictly autobiographical subject matter). Nevertheless, the dark undercurrent that runs through the album makes sweet moments like these all the sweeter. Hopefully the circumstances around Tanglewood Numbers will never repeat themselves, but there's no denying that this is a uniquely powerful and moving set of songs.

Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Brian Howe, October 21, 2005
Album Value: (7.9/10)

Few cultural moments are as indelible as the one that occurred in fin-de-siècle Montmartre. Capping a hill north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, the windmill-pocked neighborhood is modernly synonymous with a spirit of free-wheeling debauchery and artistic synergy. In infamous cabarets like Lapin Agile, Le Chat Noir, and Moulin Rouge, bohemian artists and bourgeois Parisians rubbed elbows with pimps and whores amid the bawdy entertainments of Jane Avril and Aristide Bruant. No artist is more emblematic of the period than the painter and lithographer Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

David Berman invokes Toulouse-Lautrec's name in "Punks in the Beerlight"-- "Punks in the beerlight/ Two burnouts in love/ Punks in the beerlight/ Toulouse-Lautrec!"-- the first song on Tanglewood Numbers. With this invocation, Berman announces the aura of Tanglewood Numbers. Inextricably linked to time and place? Check. Berman's ear is still turned toward the hard-bitten rhythms and brassy twang of the American South, and his narratives still unfold in real towns and avenues.

Seamy glamour? Check. Where 2001's Bright Flight leaned into full-bore country, emphasizing Berman's voice and lyrical content, Tanglewood Numbers is a band-oriented rock record-- crashing, amped-up, aggressively ramshackle. Berman's wife Cassie, with whom he seems to be developing a Waits/Brennan (or possibly Johnny/June) relationship, reprises her vocal and inspirational role (she penned the noodly dirge "The Poor, the Fair and the Good"); Stephen Malkmus contributes some raucous, cutting guitars; drummer Brian Kotzur and keyboardist Tony Crow supply a yawing foundation; Paz Lenchantin flecks the songs with banjo and violin. These diverse players lurch into a shit-faced stumble to forge a remarkably drunken-sounding record in the angry crucible of sobriety, a rock'n'roll hayride kicking up feathers and peanut shells.

The most interesting parallel between Toulouse-Lautrec's art and Tanglewood Numbers is the signature blend of jubilance and sorrow. Montmartre wasn't all fun and games by a long shot-- what was a thrilling diversion for wealthy Parisians was a harsh reality for its insolvent denizens, and in Toulouse-Lautrec's work, a sense of alienation and hopelessness undercuts the vibrant subject matter. His dingy washes of grey and green allude to the cheap, soul-hollowing aspects of taking pleasure from class division, and no two gazes or trajectories intersect, subtly isolating each of his subjects in their own existential void. Again, the parallel is striking: While Tanglewood Numbers is probably Silver Jews' most fun album to date, with its riotous guitars and rambling sing-along hooks, it's also their saddest, an outsized hangover that makes everything into sharp edges and toe-stubbing impediments, with a patina of dizzy anxiety on every blaring chord.(...)

Full Review

review by: Dusted
reviewer: Nathan Hogan
Album Value: (-/-)

Following a lengthy hiatus, David Berman has resurfaced with a new Silver Jews record and the requisite barrage of press interviews (including one for this site) that are distinct in their variety, candor, and wit per word. Berman answers even the most pat questions so archly, that where I used to imagine it taking him two or more years of careful chiseling to bring together 10 or 12 songs in the manner of American Water (1998) and Bright Flight (2001), you almost wonder if he isn’t sitting on a small mountain of brilliant castoffs. But then how to explain Tanglewood Numbers?

In one of these recent interviews, a writer asked Berman if he had any advice for his sister, who was soon to be graduating high school. This is actually consistent with the level of reverence typically accorded this guy; I felt almost guilty taking up space at an impromptu Silver Jews gig in March of last year, learning only afterward that they occurred about as often as blizzards hit Nashville. Berman’s reply was to quote Schopenhauer – “In this world, there is only a choice between loneliness and vulgarity” – and to specify that, for better or worse, he’d recently reversed directions in pursuit of the latter.

As an auto-critique of Berman’s fifth full-length record this is unduly harsh, though not altogether off mark. The best Silver Jews albums are endearingly lonely affairs – sparsely arranged, countrified songs about drunk, disfigured characters in absurd situations. Their peaks (“I Remember Me,” “Trains Across the Sea,” “Random Rules”) are those moments when the singer’s lazy, shaky voice moves nervously to the fore with sly and self-deprecating humor. Their valleys (“Time Will Break the World,” “Smith & Jones Forever”) consist of same-ish melodies motoring sluggishly through the dust kicked up by countless indie rock bands, burying clever lyrics beneath plodding paint-by-numbers guitar, bass and drums.

Tanglewood Numbers isn’t uniformly of the latter style, but the album presents itself that way, arriving frontloaded with its most bombastic, half-rollicking numbers. The first twenty seconds of “Punks in the Beerlight” consists solely of a lone sparkling shred of electric guitar tone – a promising, unexpected start – until the full-band arrangement kicks in with its booming drums, ponderous rhythm guitar, proggy synth counterpoints, and echo-chamber vocals. The song has the booming, reverb-fueled feel of '70s hard rock – neither bad nor good, really – but Berman’s phrases are uncharacteristically limp. (Rolling Stone bafflingly exclaims: “Berman has a gift for lyrics like "Punks in the beerlight, two burnouts in love / I always loved you to the max!"). I guess the "to the max!" cheer is sort of cute, but "Punks in the beerlight / Toulouse-Lautrec!" made me fearful of the remaining 30 minutes.
(...)

Full Review

review by: Cokemachineglow
reviewer: Peter Hepburn
Album Value: (86%/100)

This last summer I finally managed to devote the necessary time to trying to understand, or at least appreciate, Bob Dylan. I tried to avoid the big names (Blonde on Blonde, Highway 61 Revisited, Nashville Skyline) and instead spent weeks listening to New Morning, Desire, and Slow Train Coming. I read Chronicles, Vol. 1 and tried to understand where he was coming from as I listened to The Freewheeling Bob Dylan and John Wesley Harding. What struck me most is how, over the course of 14 years (1962-1976), Dylan managed to not only create a good half-dozen of the best album ever recorded, but also totally reinvent folk music.

Earlier this year, Rolling Stone put forth the theory that Connor Oberst is the heir-apparent to Dylan’s poet-singer throne. It’s a ridiculous supposition. First, because there’s no need for such an heir; Dylan’s albums hold up just fine, thank you. Second, Oberst is a whiny little punk from Omaha without a quarter the creative drive or genius of Dylan. Third, we already have Dave Berman.

I’m not arguing that Berman’s music is really all that related to that of Dylan (even if they are both poets), or even that the two musicians exist in similar musical realms, but rather that at some basic level of songwriting and personal expression, they’re operating on a similar plane. Berman, along with Stephen Malkmus and a few others, help pioneer the '90s concept of "indie rock," but did it as an extension of country music rather than the punk that many of his peers were using. Dylan saved rock by mining folk music while starving his way through New York City in the early ‘60s. He emerged from the decade not entirely unscathed and then went on to make Desire and Blood on the Tracks, two of my favorites, with an entirely different take on music and songwriting. And now it seems that Berman has conquered at least some of his demons (and addictions) and hits 2005 wth one of his strongest and most focused albums to date, Tanglewood Numbers.

The history of the Silver Jews makes this a hard statement to justify. Over the course of their four previous albums (and The Arizona Record) Berman and his ever-shifting cast of backing musicians have made the Silver Jews the best indie rock band that no one ever paid enough attention to. Malkmus’s involvement in the band was always something of a mixed blessing, bringing both his nearly unparalleled guitar chops but also critical attention which was too quick to deal with the band as little more than a Pavement side-project. Both the beautifully lo-fi Starlite Walker and the indie classic American Water live up to anything Malkmus’s other band ever managed, and even the two lesser known albums have a magic of their own (misstep though The Natural Bridge may have been).

All the albums have their own personality, ranging from the gleeful guitar twiddling of American Water to the quiet acoustic approach for Bright Flight. Still, coming charging out of the gates with “Punks in the Beerlight,” Tanglewood Numbers is something of a surprise. None of the previous Silver Jews outings really prepare you for the raw energy and hunger of the track. Will Oldham rides a gloomy rhythm guitar under Malkmus’s searing lead, letting Berman, who sounds a good 10 years older than he did on Bright Flight, let loose with the remorseful “if we had known what it takes to get here / would we have chosen to?” It’s a far more bombastic song than we’ve come to expect from the Silver Jews, but then again this is a far more aggressive (and talented) group than have performed on any of the previous records. Most importantly, Berman’s trademark sloppy romanticism is still at the core, just now concerned with tales of “burnouts in love” and unironic declarations that he “always loved you to the max.” It’s a love song for someone who doesn’t particularly want to be in love, but who’s willing to run with it.(...)

Full Review

review by: Stylus
reviewer: Mike Powell
Album Value: (B)

ight years ago on American Water, Dave Berman boasted “my ski vest has buttons like convenience store mirrors and they help me see that everything in this room right now is a part of me.” An observer first and foremost, it often felt more like Berman’s passive, tender will to absorb the world at a distance rather than shape it led him to a strange state of absence; even though the words were necessarily filtered through his perspective, his essence felt stylized to the point of erasure. That same album began with the line “In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection” and proclaimed “I am the trick my mother played on the world.” Since then, Berman has had one book of poetry (Actual Air), the album Bright Flight (his fifth in nearly 10 years), a couple of drug addictions, and one attempt to end his life. Clearly, the world had come back to bite him in the ass.

Tanglewood Numbers is the sound of Berman’s convalescence. It’s the most immediate and vibrant release he’s made yet, but it’d be wrong to blankly call it a triumph. If Silver Jews fans have always seen the world through Berman’s eyes, we’re now just seeing Berman for the first time, a player returning to the field after the trauma of injury. The magic has waned a little, but he seems loose, present, and expressive; he talks about God in post-game interviews and we roll our eyes. He doesn’t transcend, but he has fun. He walks with invisible crutches, but goddamn it he walks.

The poetry on Tanglewood Numbers is at times unusually blunt for Berman, there’s no way around that. Still, his lyrics have often mixed the ultra-vivid and impenetrable, like “Grass grows in the icebox, the year ends in the next room / It is autumn and my camouflage is dying, instead of time there will be lateness.” It’s the kind of writing that leaves traces of immense feeling, but defies a final clarity. Though he’s also coughed up plenty of beautiful, grinning sad-sackery, some of his verse is unusually stark this time around; even though imagination is often the most alluring mode at our human disposal, lines like “Andre was a young black Santa Claus, he didn’t want to be like his daddy was / Better take the gun with you when you go, he’d rather be dead than anything he knows” shiver nakedly, sapped of mystery but sometimes more moving than any of his most bejeweled obscurities. (...)

Full Review

Sleater-Kinney_(2005) "The Woods" [8.0/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 07:29:00 -0700

Sleater-Kinney
Album: "The Woods"
Release Date: May 24, 2005
Label: Sub Pop
Rev Value: [8.0/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/ Rock,Riot Grrrl
Buy It

Tracklist:

1 Fox (3:25)
2 Wilderness (3:40)
3 What's Mine Is Yours (4:58)
4 Jumpers (4:24)
5 Modern Girl (3:01)
6 Entertain (4:55)
7 Rollercoaster (4:55)
8 Steep Air (4:04)
9 Let's Call It Love (11:01)
10 Night Light (3:40)

review by:Allmusic
reviewer: Johnny Loftus
Album Value: (4.5/5)

Far from the retreat implied in its title, The Woods is another passionate statement from Sleater-Kinney, equally inspired by the call-to-arms of their previous album, One Beat, and the give-and-take of their live sets, particularly their supporting slot on Pearl Jam's 2003 tour. Throughout their career, the band has found ways to refine and elaborate on the fiery spirit that makes them so distinctive without diminishing it. The Woods is no exception -- it may be Sleater-Kinney's most mature and experimental album to date, but unlike most mature and experimental albums released by bands entering their second decade, it doesn't forget to rock like a beast. The album's opening salvo, "The Forest," is shockingly feral, an onslaught of heavy, angry, spiralling guitars, ridiculously loud drums, and Corin Tucker's inimitable, love-them-or-hate-them vocals. It's so crushingly dense that it's hard to believe it came from Dave Fridmann's studio; reportedly, The Woods' sessions were challenging for band and producer alike, but from the results, it's clear that they pushed each other to make some of the best work of both of their careers. Though it may be hard to believe, at first, that this is a Fridmann-produced album, his contributions become a little clearer on tracks like the dysfunctional domesticity of "Wilderness," which has the depth and spaciousness usually associated with his work. However, it's easy enough to hear that The Woods is quintessential Sleater-Kinney. This may be the band's most self-assured sounding work yet -- their music has never lacked confidence and daring, but now they sound downright swaggering: "What's Mine Is Yours" is a subversive nod to Led Zeppelin and also captures Sleater-Kinney's own formidable power as a live act. Tucker's voice and viewpoints are as thoughtful and fierce as ever, and as usual, she's even better when aided and abetted by Carrie Brownstein's harmonies, as on "Jumpers." Capturing both the deeply depressing and liberating sides of suicide, the song moves from moody almost-pop to an intense but still melodic assault; unlike so many bands, Sleater-Kinney can go back and forth between several ideas within one song and never sound forced or muddled. A martial feeling runs through The Woods, but unlike the more overtly political One Beat, dissent is a more of an overall state of mind here. The more literal songs falter a bit, but "Modern Girl" is saved by its sharp lyrics ("I took my money and bought a donut/The hole's the size of the entire world"), while Tucker and Brownstein's dueling vocals and Janet Weiss' huge drums elevate "Entertain" above its easy targets of retro rock and reality TV. However, the songs about floundering or complicated relationships draw blood: "Rollercoaster," an extended food and fairground metaphor for an up-and-down long-term relationship with tough-girl backing vocals and an insistent cowbell driving it along, is as insightful as it is fun and witty. The unrepentantly sexy "Let's Call It Love" is another standout, comparing love to a boxing match (complete with bells ringing off the rounds) and a game of poker. At 11 minutes long, the song might be indulgent (especially by Sleater-Kinney's usually economic standards), but its ebbs and flows and well-earned guitar solos underscore the feeling that the band made The Woods for nobody but themselves. It flows seamlessly into "Night Light," an equally spooky and hopeful song that offers promise, but no easy answers -- a fitting end to an album that often feels more engaged in struggle than the outcome of it. One thing is clear, though: Sleater-Kinney remain true to their ideals, and after all this time, they still find smart, gripping ways of articulating them.
Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Stephen M. Deusner
Album Value: (9.0/10)

By now you probably don't need to be told the particulars of Sleater-Kinney's new album, The Woods: about how they signed with Sub Pop, making it their first album since 1995's Call the Doctor not released by Kill Rock Stars; about how they hired Dave Fridmann to produce and recorded it in rural New York instead of Washington State; about how they wanted a heavier sound that mines classic rock like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Jimi Hendrix for inspiration; about how one song is more than 11 minutes in length.

So it should come as no surprise that The Woods marks a significant transformation for the band-- one they first hinted at on 2000's All Hands on the Bad One, and crept closer toward on 2002's One Beat. Nor should anyone be shocked that, despite the new song structures, guitar solos, and drum fills, Brownstein's guitar still roars wildly, Weiss's drums still thunder, and Tucker still wails with a primal urgency that is one of the most compelling sounds in rock music today. What hasn't necessarily been made explicitly clear is that, even in the face of its cock-rock trappings, The Woods most closely recalls the righteous fury of their first great albums, Call the Doctor (1995) and Dig Me Out (1996).

The brash economy of punk, for Sleater-Kinney at least, has always been just a short step away from the lumbering behemoth of hard rock. "The Fox", however, seems to say otherwise. Opening the album, this piece of Aesop rock is about a fox and a duck, and I think it just might be allegorical. But it's loud and it thrashes and Tucker shouts to be heard over the din. It's ferociously uninviting, but it works both as a context-providing preface to the nine songs that follow and as a deterrent for weak-eared listeners. Those who make it to "Wilderness" will have passed a test of sorts.

"Wilderness" and most of "What's Mine Is Yours" sound like prime Sleater-Kinney, as does much of the rest of The Woods. Fridmann's presence is far from disruptive; you can hardly hear him in the mix, except for a little sludge in the low end-- a nice substitution for a bass player. Instead of weighing them down with single-mic'd Flaming Lips drums or Delgados density, he simply steps out of the way and allows them to sound larger, louder, and looser.

Turning their crosshairs away from the overt political issues of One Beat, Sleater-Kinney's amplification here sounds like a reaction to the current wave of backwards-looking boys-club bands that idolize post-punk dramatists like Joy Division and the Cure and abstractors like Gang of Four and Wire. (And anyway, weren't the women of Elastica working this same nostalgia, like, 10 years ago?) On "Entertain"-- the first single, no less-- Brownstein chides the eyeliner brigade righteously: "You come around looking 1984/ You're such a bore, 1984/ Nostalgia, you're using it like a whore/ It's better than before."(...)

Full Review

review by: Shakingthrough
reviewer: Peter Landwehrà
Album Value: (4.6/5)

Sleater-Kinney has delivered an album that should give notice to other rock bands currently entering their second decade or longer: It’s possible for a veteran group to expand its sound without sacrificing an ounce of its passion or integrity. The Woods is a radical stylistic departure from the Pacific Northwest-based trio’s previous work.

Complementary guitarists/vocalists Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein (and drummer Janet Weiss) executed a similar stylistic shift with their second-to-last release, 2000’s All Hands On The Bad One, in which they used conventional pop melodies and slower, more graceful arrangements in combination with typical fast-paced hooks and dueling vocals to craft one of their most accessible albums. The Woods is the anti-Bad One, burying conventional pop-rock structures beneath distorted fuzz and an often-deafening wall of feedback to pay tribute to classic guitar heroics. That’s not to say that The Woods isn’t accessible -- it just doesn’t aim to please as obviously as Bad One. It's as if, having conquered punk, Sleater-Kinney listened to old Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix albums and figured, hey, we can do that too. And, boy, do they -- masterfully so.

The Woods’ opening cut, "The Fox,” explodes with Tucker's wail at its most shrieking-banshee arresting as she belts out lyrics that seem inspired from a dark children's fable regarding a fox trying to coax a duck out of the water in hopes of making a meal out of it. The track is a declaration of war on everything one knows about the band. Weiss pulverizes the skins, and the guitars of Brownstein and Tucker play off of one another with furious intensity. Throughout The Woods, guitar chords hum behind a disconcerting backfill of noise, every note treated to the meticulous production techniques of Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Phantom Planet, Mercury Rev).

Longtime fans may lament the dearth of tracks featuring patented back-and-forth verses between Brownstein and Tucker, but thankfully there’s the passionate “What's Mine Is Yours” to help ease the pain. Backed by a rolling beat, feedback and heavy distortion, the two singers manage to integrate the band's familiar sound with newer, more adventurous sonic explorations (one of the least of which being a sustained, feedback-fed guitar solo). "Jumpers" is a dark duet about leaping off the Golden Gate Bridge that brilliantly self-destructs the moment its main subject strikes the water. "Rollercoaster" is an exultant combination of peppy handclaps, cowbell and ooh-wa choruses that ruminates on relationships and their similarity to (yes, you guessed it) an amusement-park ride.
(...)

Full Review

review by: Cokemachineglow
reviewer: David M. Goldstein
Album Value: (94%/100)

If you read CMG with any regularity, you've probably noticed we tend to churn out an inordinate amount of positive reviews. This is the third "best of year" rating we've handed out in as many weeks, we're not shy about rating much lower than that, and we practically abuse the 70-79% range of our scale on a weekly basis. Sure, it may seem like we love everything, but that's only part of the problem; the weekly update nature of our site dictates that we have to be selective, and most folks would prefer to read about the good shit, anyway. So, until we get paid to do this (Ed: Hahahaha), why waste valuable time by listening to crappy records merely for the purpose of having your website look tough?**

I’d surmise that we habitually crowd the 70% range because it’s the dumping ground for a records that the entire staff can appreciate as being unquestionably “very good,” if precious little else. These albums are well written, well produced, and probably get listened to eight or nine times before being reduced to space holder status in your already huge collection. To continue rehashing a line of thought that CMG's Aaron Newell already captured in far better form with his Russian Futurists review a few weeks back: generally appealing to a wide variety of right minded indie-rock folk, everybody can appreciate these kinds of records, but can anybody be truly excited by one?

Stick with me here. I’m going to be exposed to at least a hundred different albums over the course of this year. Of those hundred, at least fifty of them will be “good.” Another twenty will be “very good.” Maybe ten will be “awesome,” and those albums will make my proverbial top ten and force me to kick down money to see those bands live, the ones who compose their albums on laptop computers notwithstanding. Franz Ferdinand was an “awesome” record that held my top spot last year. I listened to that album on repeat last year for maybe a week.

It’s taken the new Sleater-Kinney record to confirm what I had already suspected for far too long: In terms of excellence in rock and roll, my standards, and I’m guessing the standards of the average CMG reader, are way too fucking low. A cursory listen to The Woods raises a host of important questions. Has it really been that long since I’ve been genuinely ‘excited’ by a rock album? A: Yes. Isn’t it the point of rock and roll to be exciting? A: Yes. Why do so many unexciting bands exist? A: Because our low standards allow them to. Why can’t I go forty minutes without feeling a burning, and quite likely unhealthy desire to listen to the 2:50-3:50 portion of “Let’s Call It Love?” A: Because it’s exciting. It’s also the most intense minute of music that Sleater-Kinney has laid to studio tape in their seven album, ten year career, and features the best use of a bell for added emphasis since the last second of Radiohead’s “The Tourist..(...)

Full Review

review by: Popmatters
reviewer: Jill LaBrack
Album Value: (9/10)

It's really too bad we're all so jaded now. In the universe that is rock 'n' roll, almost every new release has at least one major reference point (or "trick", as a large percentage of bands have proven). We've heard it all before. We've seen it done better. A band with early critical acclaim can mathematically determine when the reversal of accolades will begin, regardless of the quality of the output (check in with the Arcade Fire in 2008). Others find tepid reviews but all the right moves garner them a second listen and MFA-worthy essays (see "Paul Banks sounds NOTHING like Ian Curtis You Philistine Swine", circa one year after Interpol's debut), only to have that backlash, too. Now, try being the band from the early 1990s who are now on their seventh release and, get this, have never broken up (thus no revival acclaim). How do you get people to listen to you? No one knows, of course (Robert Pollard suggests complaining). But if you're Sleater-Kinney, you learn some new tricks and give it everything you've got. We're still jaded, but maybe The Woods could be a wake-up call. If we (the critics and the listeners) let it.

For three out of their last four records (including The Woods), Sleater-Kinney have maintained that they wanted to try something new. On The Hot Rock, they broke rank with John Goodmanson and worked with producer Roger Moutenot (famed for Yo La Tengo's dreamy sound). One Beat featured horns and strings. Somehow, both those releases still sounded remarkably like Sleater-Kinney writing a new batch of quality songs. The "trying something new" part was probably what the band needed to get through the existential questions of rock band-ism, but fans still heard basically the same band they always loved. The Woods, though, is indeed a departure. The women have added the sound of classic rock to their punk handbag. Classic rock, as in huge guitars, near-constant drumming, and frequent operatic vocals. As in Led Zeppelin, The Who, and Jimi Hendrix. Sleater-Kinney go straight for the zeitgeist on The Woods. Young punk rock converts quickly learn to cast off these masters. Older and mature punk fans eventually listen to the two styles side-by-side, appreciating the beauty and slow precision of a Pete Townshend solo as much as the amateur energy and joy of the Slits. To have Sleater-Kinney converge upon these styles and create The Woods is a boon to the music world.

It all starts with feedback. Literally one second into the record and you are on the ride, and there's no getting off it unless you jump. The guitars, as mentioned, are huge. Ferocious. Corin Tucker holds it down (no bass here) while Carrie Brownstein meanders all over the place. You can imagine her fingers bleeding from playing so hard. Janet Weiss has always been an exceptional drummer, but on The Woods she lifts off into the stratosphere. The real thrill, though, is how Sleater-Kinney takes all this unleashed fury (and that's what it sounds like -- fury. Even more so than on any other S-K release) and shapes great, f'n rocking songs out of it.(...)

Full Review

review by: Drawerb
reviewer: Eric Greenwood
Album Value: (-/-)

Returning from the creative slump of One Beat, Portland, Oregon’s Sleater-Kinney has jumped from long-time label, Kill Rock Stars, to almost-major-label, Sub Pop, and surprisingly churned out its most explosive album in years with The Woods. Even if Corin Tucker’s flailing vibrato wail grates on your nerves after a few songs, her new found appreciation for bristling, feedback-drenched, borderline psychedelic guitar interplay with bandmate Carrie Brownstein will surely make you re-evaluate the cause. Flaming Lips producer David Fridmann is responsible for nurturing the abrupt dynamic shift, but Tucker and Brownstein rise to the challenge with fistfuls of artful noise. Not exactly radio friendly, The Woods explores sonic deconstruction a la Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix instead of the preciously catchy indie pop hooks you’ve come to expect.

It’s far and away the most raucous thing the band has ever recorded and Janet Weiss’ drumming pounds harder than anything since 1997’s Dig Me Out. The band sounds urgent and reinvigorated on caustic barn burners “Wilderness” and the 11-plus minute epic “Let’s Call It Love”- like it’s making music because it has to or it will whither up and die. With an album this uncommercial and experimental, I seriously doubt you’ll see Sleater-Kinney on The O.C. next season, but you will see the band on my iPod.

Original Link

Bellini_(2005) "Small Stones" [7.0/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 07:13:00 -0700

Bellini
Album: "Small Stones"
Release Date: 09/06/2005
Label: Temporary Residence
Rev Value: [7.0/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock
Buy It

Tracklist:

1 Room Number Five (3:35)
2 Fuck the Mobile Phone (2:06)
3 Exact Distance to the Stars (3:33)
4 Buffalo Song (3:14)
5 Not Any Man (3:21)
6 Chaser (2:56)
7 Smiling Fear (3:26)
8 Switched Lovers (2:40)
9 Raymond (3:39)
10 Agatha (2:18)

review by:Artist Direct
reviewer: ~ Rob Theakston
Album Value: (4/5)

Though many of the landmark bands that changed the course of post-rock in the late '90s are gone, there are a few labels that keep the house lights on just in case there are still fans of the sound out there who crave more. One of these labels, Temporary Residence, has become a haven for the sound circa 2005, and the latest offering from Bellini only solidifies that notion further. Returning three years after their debut, Bellini reenlisted friend/sound guru Steve Albini for Small Stones, and the results are exactly what you'd expect from an Albini production: fierce, crisp, and confrontational. Bellini follow Albini's lead nicely, bringing glacier-paced drones and mixed-meter uptempo numbers to peak boiling points, with Girls Against Boys alumnus Alexis Fleisig being the central force keeping everything glued together nicely. There's nothing groundbreaking on Small Stones, but Bellini have definitely pushed themselves to explore new territories and dynamics that weren't found on their first record, a feat that is no small accomplishment by any stretch.

Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Austin Gaines, September 27, 2005
Album Value: (7.3/10)

Bellini aren't crunk or grime. They aren't on any freak-folk compilations. They aren't the daughters of Sri Lankan rebels, and I doubt they own a Detroit techno 12" or anything that would have been played at the Paradise Garage. I suppose that makes Bellini just good ol' math rock-- the mid- to late-90s kind on Touch and Go and Quarterstick. This figures, as Giovanna Cacciola (vocals) and Agostino Tilotta (Guitar) were in Uzeda, and Alexis Fleisig (drums) was in Girls Against Boys.

Bellini's previous album, Snowing Sun, worked thanks to the bionic drumming of Damon Che from Don Cabellero. But then again that was a few years ago, when the world was simpler. It was also prior to the comi-tragic departure of Che, which would provide tabloid-esque fodder for the indie rock world.

Today, Bellini sound like...well, Uzeda. Cacciola still takes her English lyrics and morphs them into that of a mourning siren from a Giallo film. Tilotta's guitar work still consists of sharp jabs played at high volume, sounding reminiscent of Shellac. Maybe that's because Steve Albini is still recording Cacciola and Tilotta. The oft-forgotten rhythm section of Fleisig and Matthew Taylor both fulfill their job duties and make sure the songs drive forward, without any of the screwing around that was present on Snowing Sun.

"The Buffalo Song" finds Cacciola yelling over some fine post-rock noodling/riffery; Bellini switch it up on "Not Any Man" which has Cacciola mellowing out and cooing, "Say I called you my love" like a mix of Tara Jane ONeil and PJ Harvey. Bellini move from crescendo to groove in "The Exact Distance to the Stars" while Cacciola mixes surrealistic bedroom behavior with existentialism.

All in all, Small Stones is a cohesive album, but its songs just plod down a road that is already heavily trafficked. But then again if you love their style of music, then it's nice to have a band like Bellini that's gonna consistently give you albums of the same quality, even if they only arrive every three years.

Original Link

review by: Prefix Mag
reviewer: Etan Rosenbloom
Album Value: (3.5/5)

On a map, Italy’s boot looks like it’s trying desperately to kick Sicily away. And why shouldn’t it? Given what little I know about Sicily, life there seems brutish and inhospitable. If you manage to avoid being smothered by a lava flow from Mt. Etna, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, you’ll probably get whacked by the Corleone family. Even the square shape of Sicilian pizza suggests rigidity, impenetrability.

So maybe it’s not so surprising that Bellini’s core creative unit, Sicilians Giovanna Cacciola and her husband Agostino Tilotta, make some of the most abrasive and uncompromising noise-rock imaginable. With their former band, Uzeda, the two spiked the Jesus Lizard’s drunken noir with a shot of discordant, Unwound-style racket. That basic template hasn’t changed too much since Uzeda morphed into Bellini in mid-2001. Though Bellini’s 2002 debut, Snowing Sun, was less assaultive than the Uzeda material, it was really a difference of execution, not concept. Bellini complicated its pummel by bringing aboard bassist Matthew Taylor and Don Caballero’s Shiva-like drummer Damon Che, but the emphasis was still on tricky, indomitable grooves and dual-vocal/guitar strangulation. (...)

Full Review

review by: Leo Beat
reviewer: Stephen George
Album Value: (-/-)

The question I’d like to ask Agostino Tilotta, Bellini’s guitarist, is elementary: How do you make a guitar sound like metal being hurled through a wood chipper without being abrasive? The answer is a quarter of why Bellini is top tier in the so-named indie rock echelons. Bellini brings the scuzz without the stink, champions of forbearance where they could slap on layers of chops, open and airy but still in your face. Like a friend’s fist hanging just above your shoulder, waiting for you to be the one to turn into it, Bellini resists the temptation to dazzle with the musicianship that’s clearly there, wooing instead with their ability to compress calculated riffs and off-time beats into something Giovanna Cacciola — whose voice is an unadulterated article of beauty — can sing over. One among a record of standouts, “The Exact Distance to the Stars” partners requisite angles in guitar-and-bass work with the crushing straight-arrow drive — And it’s not enough/This is not enough — that transcends Cacciola’s beatific accent and pushes her throat to fray. A magnificent, bullshit-free record. Bellini plays Uncle Pleasant’s, 2126 Preston St., on Tuesday,

Original Link

review by: BoomKat
reviewer:??
Album Value: (-/-)

Bellini are relatively famous (and I caution you against taking that 'relatively' as anything other than a gross over-exaggeration) for having their band leader and "notorious troublemaker" Damon Che quit live on stage in Athens, GA, stranding the Italio rockers on the wrong side of the Atlantic sans airline tickets. Labelled as their 'triumphant comeback', 'Small Stones' is Bellini's second full-length and the first to feature Alexis Fleisig (Girls Against Boys, Soulside) on drums. Recorded in a studio which appears to have contained Steve Albini in some capacity, Bellini took just 5 days to complete; a rapidity which lends the album a tenebrous quality. Distilling elements of post-rock, punk-rock, The Stooges, Billy Corgan, Melt Banana, Sonic Youth and all manner of leather trousered cliché's down into manageable chunks, songs like 'Room Number Five', 'Smiling Fear' and (in particular) 'The Exact Distance to The Stars', horripilate (look it up) with an attitude often lacking in today's shiny Kerrang sanitized rock scene. Bolstered by a fantastic vocalist in the shape of Giovanna Cacciola, Bellini are big, clever and (most importantly) feverishly contagious. See you at Donnington.

Original Link

review by: Satellite Magazine
reviewer: Ashley Baird
Album Value: (-/-)

Your drummer quits the band in an on-stage breakdown and leaves you stranded with no vehicle or drummer. What do you do? Throw in the towel? No. Cancel the rest of your tour and go home? I don’t think so. You phone an old friend and ask for help. You get a new drummer, a better one, someone like Alexis Fleisig of Girls Against Boys and Soulside who can learn all the songs in one whole day. And then you finish your tour. This is what happened to the Italian/NYC/Austin quartet Bellini. This is their story. They are a rhythmic, tight, beautifully aggressive band consisting of Agostino Tilotta, his wife Giovanna Cacciola (both of Italy’s famed Uzeda), bassist Matthew Taylor (the Romulans) and drummer Fleisig. Small Stones, their second album, is more intense and more melodic with a relentless rhythm section that is more astute than on their previous album, Snowing Sun. Cacciola’s vocals exude a luring siren of earthy vibrations that sends you on a dark, tragic drive to emotion and its interests. “The Buffalo Song,” the fourth track on the album, leaves you in an unrelenting state of suspense through to the very end. The guitar riffs and escalations are indicative of a pumped-up haunted moon. The final song on the album, Agatha, is an instrumental overhaul of breaking drumbeats and guitar stabs that leads you from one destination to another. The whole album feeds the living requirements of an unfortunate desire that each instrument tongues at, licking off the impurities with each note administered. And, if this is their enduring goal, then Small Stones is definitely some great reward

Original Link

review by: Brainwashed
reviewer: Nick Feeley
Album Value: (-/-)
Bellini appeared to have stumbled out of a time machine. Their barbed guitar hooks, thumping rhythm section, and obtuse lyricism seem strangely out of place in 2005. One listen through songs like “Room Number Five” and “The Buffalo Song” make things remarkably clear: Bellini belong in 1993.

Though I don't mean this in a patronizing way, it's hard to argue with it after one listen through their second release, Small Stones. Over the course of ten songs, the band pumps out a series of pick-scraped riffs and thrusting drums that would make any crusty college radio jock happy. The obvious touchstones are on proud display on Small Stones; Slint, The Jesus Lizard, Circus Lupus. All of this adds up to an album that, though not quite the remarkable accomplishment it could be, is an assured and rugged set of songs. A lot of the credit needs to go to guitarist Agostino Tilotta, who knows how to write jagged riffs that aren't lacking in melody. On songs like "Smiling Fear," his guitar playing is anchored in place by the solid time keeping of drummer Alexis Fleisig (a name you might recognize as the drummer from Girls Against Boys) and bassist Matthew Taylor. Over top of all this, singer Giovanna Cacciola moans out vague lines. Cacciola is the other linchpin on this album, her voice wavers from a soft coo to an assertive holler, all delivered in her deep and accented voice. Elsewhere, songs like "Raymond" crawls along a spiny guitar part and slow drum fills as the tensions slowly builds to a climax. While Bellini aren't radically changing the way guitar rock is made or heard in 2005, Small Stones exudes such confidence and swagger that it can't help but not be ignored.

Original Link

Bear Vs Shark_(2005) "Terrorhawk" [7.0/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 06:55:00 -0700

Bear Vs Shark
Album: "Terrorhawk"
Release Date: Jun 14, 2005
Label: Equal Vision
Rev Value: [7.0/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock, Hardcore Punk
Buy It

Tracklist:

1 Catamaran (2:55)
2 5, 6 Kids (3:49)
3 Six Bar Phrase Hey Hey (0:28)
4 Great Dinosaurs With Fifties Section (3:09)
5 Baraga Embankment (3:13)
6 Entrance of the Elected (3:07)
7 Seven Stop Hold Restart (2:43)
8 What a Horrible Night for a Curse (3:51)
9 Out Loud Hey Hey (1:38)
10 India Foot (0:25)
11 Antwan (2:45)
12 I F****d Your Dad (3:31)
13 Heard Iron Bug, "They're Coming to Town" (2:39)
14 Song About Old Roller Coaster (6:01)
15 Rich People Say Yeah Hey Hey (3:45)

Running time - 43:59

review by:Allmusic
reviewer: Johnny Loftus
Album Value: (4.5/5)

Terrorhawk delivers a thousand percent on the promise of Right Now, You're in the Best of Hands, Bear vs Shark's 2003 debut. It's an impassioned and anxious indie rock stomp with a straight line drawn to the tension and urgency of D.C. post-hardcore. But it also bleeds sensitivity, and has a novel's touch in its opaque yet highly evocative lyrics. Mark Paffi is a presence in the center -- he's not quite singing, but it's not a shout either, and this catch-all style is responsible for some of the album's most incredible melodies ("5, 6 Kids," "Entrance of the Elected"). Bear vs Shark also get a lot of mileage out of stopping and starting a blaring electric guitar, and get an assist from programming whiz Matthew Dear here and there. "Baraga Embankment" aligns brass instruments next to those guitars, "Seven Stop Hold Restart" and "Catamaran" channel Fugazi effectively, and "I F****d Your Dad" has a little bit of a Modest Mouse feel. There's a tangible depth to Terrorhawk. There's ballast in its songs, so they really sink in. It's that novelistic quality again -- it takes some doing to let it surround you. But by the time the six-minute "Song About Old Roller Coaster" comes around, the album's been through surging melodies ("5, 6 Kids" again), manically dense layers (the absolutely crazy "Heard Iron Bug, 'They're Coming to Town"), and slippery little interludes ("India Foot" sounds like a field recording from a video arcade), and you're in for the long haul. Powerful, visceral, rewarding, and just a little confounding, Bear vs Shark is a band with both sharp claws and razor teeth. Watch out -- the Terrorhawk will slice you good.

Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Brian Howe, June 15, 2005
Album Value: (7.7/10)

Post-hardcore is a slippery genre. If emo is commonly defined as "we know it when we hear it," maybe post-hardcore is "we know it when we can't hear anything after hearing it." But that's too easy; lots of music is loud. Maybe post-hardcore is what happens when people who are into hooks and melodies get into heavier styles like punk, metal, and hardcore. Post-hardcore kids listen to classic Metallica and hear the melody beneath the mayhem, the pop in the apoplexy. They listen to emo and imagine what those wobbly arpeggios would sound like with some real balls in the dynamic shifts, some buffness in the chordage.

You can hear some latter-day Wire in Bear Vs. Shark's linear, deeply textured riffs; there's some early Mission of Burma in their pronounced loud/soft dynamics and fist-pumping rhythmic maneuvers. But beneath Terrorhawk's ripped chords, frantic tempos and dudefaced vocals, there's a dewy-eyed indie rock record whimpering to be let out. Not that letting it out would've been advisable-- as it stands, the raw fury and insane energy level of the album stampedes right over the brain and booms down the spine.

Deeper than it initially sounds, Terrorhawk will send you scrambling for a few points of reference before you zero in on the right one. Trail of Dead? Not quite. Constantines? Closer...Soon it starts making sense how the ballads sit comfortably with the screamers, the uninflected melodic vocals with the shredded-larynx ones, the brainy leads with the knuckle-dragging chords: This is the spiritual heir to Cursive's Domestica, an indie-hardcore record that's interested in locating the violence inherent in the lullaby and the euphony in the scorched-earth anthem.(...)

Full Review

review by: Aversion online
reviewer: ???
Album Value: (7/10)

Another strange full-length from this unusual indie rock band that, if nothing else, is a step forward from their debut, which just didn't do it for me. I wouldn't particularly say that the band has as much of an individual sound this time around as the vocals are (thankfully) easier to digest here, and their brand of dry distortion, jangly chord progressions, and hectic vocals isn't alien to my ears at all, but there's still something different about them, so that's a nice touch. This time around most of the vocals are sort of running around between yelling and singing, but the vocal arrangements can get pretty energetic and wild, and the "singing" is rarely true singing, so don't expect soaring vocal harmonies or anything like that. I wish they hadn't gone the route of tossing in occasional keyboards just because I don't really hang with much of that form of the hipster quotient, though to their credit they keep that stuff very much under control (not to mention infrequent), so I can live with it. Offered up are 15 generally concise tracks in nearly 45 minutes, so even though it initially appears that there are way too many songs, the album actually moves along without a hitch. "Catamaran" kicks out a lot of speedy energy and quick fits of discordance right off the bat to grab your attention and nail the point home that the band's made some changes in their delivery, and then "5, 6 Kids" drops into plenty of pull-off riffs and power chord surges accented by quirky textures
(...)

Full Review

review by: Prefix Mag
reviewer:Etan Rosenbloom
Album Value: (3.5/4)

Bear vs. Shark’s frontman, Marc Paffi, scares the shit out of me. It’s not his appearance --the guy can’t be more than two foot seven, with a perfect fourth-grade bowl cut and an impish grin. It’s more that the dude could crack at any moment. Live, Paffi howls like a doberman and slithers through the audience without ever making eye contact, the microphone cord his only restraint against cannibalizing every last one of us. Even during the occasional quiet moments, the quaver in his voice suggests instability.

Bear vs. Shark’s terrific second album, Terrorhawk, conceived in a secluded cabin in northern Michigan, thrives on that instability. Overdriven guitars crackle with explosive potential, the drums seem to get faster and faster, and Paffi relentlessly pushes his vocals cords beyond their breaking point. The band barrels ferociously through every last chord change and drum fill, constantly threatening to lose control but miraculously keeping its shit together.

For much of Terrorhawk, Bear vs. Shark delivers the melodic post-hardcore goods like a woollier At the Drive-In, but the five-piece taps into the same ragged passion that made the Constantines’ Shine a Light so urgent. All these bands make music that moves. “5,6 Kids” is the sound of perpetual motion, with a cyclical guitar riff, polyrhythmic drum pattern and throbbing bass each searching for its own way to break free. When they all lock in on the thrilling chorus, Paffi wailing at the upper limit of his range, it’s clear that they’ve found release.

Even if there’s nothing here as kinetic as “Ma Jolie” from the band’s debut, Bear vs. Shark moves in some exciting new directions on Terrorhawk. The band expands its attack to include pianos, electronic interludes and even brass -- former Morphine saxophonist Dana Colley summons the spirit of Albert Ayler over a powerful four-chord vamp at the end of “Baraga Embankment. With the stunning “Song About Old Roller Coaster,” Bear vs. Shark perfects the art of the waltz-time power ballad. Take that, Nickelback.

Though they could get by on their blistering passion, the guys in Bear vs. Shark are smart enough to know that a pastoral melody or gruffly delivered hook can be just as potent as a scream. On Terrorhawk, we get all of the above. This is a band to watch.

Original Link

review by: Europunk
reviewer: Mikey
Album Value: (4/5)

It wouldn’t be fair to give this album the standard, lazy comparison to Fugazi-esque, Dischord Post-hardcore, although it certainly has all the hall-marks: the choruses indispersed with angular guitars and the occasional burst of brutality. But Bear Vs Shark have a certain uniqueness on this record that makes it stand out from the crowd.

This band obviously like to mix things up, and don’t drag out an idea. There is a real spectrum on display here – stripped down piano, the occasional use of atmospheric brass, a big nod to 80s/90s UK indie bands. And - most importantly - a healthy use of guitar noise, a measured mess of tremolo picking and frenzied riffs.

In fact, my only really problem with this album is that the album arrived with the type of pretentious artwork that told me nothing about what the fuck he is actually singing about. The song titles are as you might expect from a band called Bear Vs Shark – “The Great Dinosaurs With Fifties Section”, “What A Horrible Night For A Curse” and the genius of “I Fucked Your Dad”. Its all intriguing stuff.
Unfortunately the band have decided to go for that slightly trendy plan of placing the vocals deliberately partly hidden behind the guitars, and you are left to appreciate the distinct vocal tone rather than the lyrics themselves.

This slightly frustrating pretention and secretiveness aside, it is a great record for what it presumably aims to do – go in a lot of directions very quickly but always returning a certain, melancholy post-hardcore ethic.

It is likely that you have a good guess whether you’d like this band just by seeing their name, but if bands with names like Bear Vs Shark usually do it for you, this album won’t disappoint.

Original Link

review by: Rocknworld
reviewer: Mark Hensch
Album Value: (5/5)

Hailing right from my home state of Michigan, it is with a particular sense of pride that I have watched the five-piece avant-garde post rock outfit Bear Vs. Shark evolve. Their debut, Right Now, You're in the Best of Hands...was a simply amazing blend of hardcore vocals, quiet shoe-gazing pop, mathy and angular guitars, and even keyboard drenched backgrounds. To be honest, I loved Right Now so much I was starting to doubt this 2nd album, Terrorhawk, would be anywhere in the same galaxy. Boy, was I wrong.

Terrorhawk is an album needing actual songs to be heard for accurate comprehension. No words I have in my vocabulary can accurately describe the height to which Bear Vs. Shark have risen. The band, which has already sported enough influences to make it difficult to determine their sound, has now blended so many genres that it is indescribable. The traditionally off-kilter lyrics have also gone further off the deep end, with titles and phrases seeming to be largely whimsical yet poignant.

Opener "Catamaran" has a scratchy starting riff and a piano backdrop before high-speed and frenzied post-rock blasts out through the speakers. This song is in the vein of earlier Bear Vs. Shark, and a swank start to the album. "5, 6 Kids" is where things take a turn. The song glides in on boozed up, dirty, math chords and a restrained drum beat. The song's air-tight power chord chorus and twinkling keyboard effects sound so polished you'd swear you could see your reflection in each note. "Six Bar Phrase Hey Hey" is a twenty-eight second blast of optimistic and frenetic post-hardcore. "The Great Dinosaurs with Fifties Section" is an apocalyptic dirge over spacey guitars and with blasts from vocalist Marc Paffi's seemingly airless lungs. The completely genius "Baraga Embankment" is one of the most interesting songs I've ever heard. This slowly-growing jam mixes piano balladry, melancholy futuristic rock, and somehow the sounds of classic Motown. Hearing a horn section and jazz piano in a Bear Vs Shark song is like seeing Husker Du jam with Ray Charles at the height of both of their careers. This is simply a song you have to hear. "Entrance of the Elected" is a bass-line ballad interspersed with airy notes falling face-down into a cavern and blasts of air vomiting them back up with the force of an F-5 tornado. "Seven Stop Hold Restart"is a straight-up hydrogen bomb; that throat-rippping, pulmonary-collapsing shriek that Marc Paffi can hit totally shreds through this track many a time.(...)

Full Review

My Morning Jacket_(2005) "Z" [7.0/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 02:27:00 -0700

My Morning Jacket
Album: "Z"
Release Date: Oct 4, 2005
Label: Ato/Badman
Rev Value: [7.0/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Pop, Alternative Country-Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Dream Pop
Buy It

Tracklist:

1 Wordless Chorus (4:12)
2 It Beats for You (3:46)
3 Gideon (3:39)
4 What a Wonderful Man (2:25)
5 Off the Record (5:33)
6 Into the Woods (5:21)
7 Anytime (3:56)
8 Lay Low (6:05)
9 Knot Comes Loose (4:02)
10 Dondante (10:33)
11 (GhostTrack)

review by:Allmusic
reviewer: Johnny Loftus
Album Value: (4.5/5)

In 2004, a dreamy cover of "Rocket Man" concluded My Morning Jacket's first volume of rarities. Which was prescient, because it's Elton John that Jim James' songs for 2005's Z first bring to mind. From the wistful recollection of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" to Honky Chateau's melodic and genre explorations, John's ability to mesh styles and take detours within his sturdy pop songwriting applies to James here, particularly in the expansive opener, "Wordless Chorus," or the initial happy-go-lucky lilt of "Off the Record." Z is My Morning Jacket's fourth full-length (and second for ATO), and it's the one that might finally jump-start the reaction that James' music has always deserved. It Still Moves from 2003 rightly enjoyed its accolades, but it meandered a little structurally, too, and sometimes got a little lost in its own reverb. On Z, MMJ's traditional influences are present -- the folk, blues, and country tones of John, Neil Young, and the Band shaded by contemporaries like Mercury Rev and Mark Kozelek. But songs like "Lay Low" and "It Beats for You" are crafted tighter, their sound-drenched keyboard lines meeting the percussion head on and riding meaningful flourishes of electric guitar. "Gideon" climaxes in James calling out throatily over twinkling piano and big chords borrowed from the Who, and "What a Wonderful Man" is a raucous, crashing tumble of unhinged crash cymbals, barroom piano, and mirthful yelping. Z is intuitive, intensely creative, classicist-minded, nearly flawless. It's music that's extruded from Jim James' id, and that's bearded, too.
Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Stephen M. Deusner, October 6, 2005
Album Value: (7.6/10)

Here's an album that begs for vinyl, although not for the reason you might think. Certainly, My Morning Jacket's worn-in rock 'n' roll-- its starchy guitar riffs and Jim James' other-end-of-a-long-tunnel vocals-- seems tailor-made for the intimate crackle of a dusty turntable. But the concisely titled Z, the band's fourth full-length, needs to be flipped over: It has two distinct sides. Granted, most albums still rely on the two-sided format the same way most movies still rely on the three-act plot, adhering to it almost subconsciously. But I'm not entirely sure My Morning Jacket intended such a dramatic difference between these two half Zs.

As Side One begins, the presence of producer John Leckie (of Radiohead, Stone Roses, and, er, Kula Shaker fame) is immediately evident. "Wordless Chorus" launches Z with a hardscrabble sound that recalls their earlier material, suggesting that the brighter production and looser, jambandier approach of It Still Moves was a slight detour. There are more keyboards on these songs, courtesy of new member Bo Koster, and more confident experimentation-- a little reggae, a little r&b, even a little ambient. Defiantly flaunting their rural eccentricities, My Morning Jacket once again recall the earliest of early R.E.M., before you could understand Stipe's mumbling, back when the Georgia foursome defined themselves by claiming a birthright to kudzu-covered mythology. It's not really My Morning Jacket's sound that suggests this comparison, but their willingness to let the music retain its mystery despite the risk of seeming obscure or evasive.

So Z abandons the Skynyrdisms of It Still Moves, but that album's lessons remain intact: Compared to those on previous albums, these tracks have more guitar crunch and tighter song structures. Even single "Off the Record", with its driving reggae rhythms and James' lively performance, foregoes a dueling-guitar climax in favor of an unraveling outro that sounds like Air noir. "Wordless Chorus" hinges on just what its title suggests: Jim James singing aaahs and ohhhs between verses as the band rocks around him. It's as if the entire album, not just this song, could be stripped of literal meaning, as if everything My Morning Jacket needs to say can be communicated exclusively through sound. And it works, especially at the end of "Wordless Chorus", when James breaks into a rapturous r&b yowl that recalls the Passion of the Prince..(...)

Full Review

review by: tinymixtapes
reviewer: jspicer
Album Value: (4/5)

Classic rock is the new face of indie rock. It doesn't matter if it's the psychedelic-inspired rock of Dungen, the skronk and pop of Wilco, or the southern rock of My Morning Jacket—classic rock, in its most generic meaning, is making a huge comeback. All we need now are the Kiss make-up, the expensive pyrotechnics, and Rick Nielsen novelty guitars. However, Z doesn't rely on fancy get-ups and cheap tricks. My Morning Jacket refuse to be molded into the next southern rock saviors, and the band's fourth full-length album moves farther away from traditional chops and into some uncharted territory for a band who records in silos on Kentucky farms.

What you can expect is what makes My Morning Jacket tried and true: bigger-than-life lyrics, classic rock swagger, and the need to move forward. Popping in the CD and listening to the opener "Wordless Chorus," a dose of what's to come is delivered soft and easy. The band has subscribed to the Mary Poppins philosophy: a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. The track is all hushed guitars and whirling melody with a carnival beat—if only songs like this were played while riding the 4-H Merry-Go-Round. And if it makes a difference to you, the chorus actually is wordless.

(...)

Full Review

review by: Pop Matters
reviewer:John Bergstrom
Album Value: (7/10)

It Still Moves; It Still Rocks

How can the faint scent of disappointment lurk in the air when a good band releases its best album to date?

Sometimes a band releases an album that crystallizes that band's sound to such a degree, captures so completely everything that is unique about it, so brightly illuminates its strengths, that a follow-up seems almost unnecessary. My Morning Jacket's third album and last studio release, 2003's It Still Moves, was an album like that. It didn't display a lot of stylistic diversity. Not every song was great, and several were almost superfluous. But as a showcase for Jim James' high-pitched, reverb-drenched voice and songs about finding redemption through love and rock 'n' roll, and the band's boot-stomping yet heartbreaking brand of widescreen music, it was and is a classic.

Therefore it's impossible to listen to or discuss new album Z without the shadow of It Still Moves lurking outside the room. "For the past I'm digging/ A grave so big/ It would swallow up the sea," James sang on the latter album -- and parts of Z are certainly a departure if not a slate-wiping rebirth. The new album is clean, concise; and, song for song, the strongest My Morning Jacket record yet. The difference, ultimately, is this: It Still Moves sounded haunted and haunting. Z sounds like a band going into a studio and making a really good album. Take it on those terms and it won't let you down; in fact, it'll put in hard time on your car stereo.

While parts of previous My Morning Jacket albums sounded sloppy, Z is crisply-produced and markedly more refined, in part due to co-producer (with James) John Leckie. Leckie is best known for two records -- The Stone Roses' self-titled debut and Radiohead's The Bends. He might seem an odd selection for My Morning Jacket, but read Leckie's description of another band he produced in the '90s, House of Freaks, and the pairing makes perfect sense: "They combined Americana songs and atmospheres. They... wanted to sound British, as well as sounding American." That's My Morning Jacket in a nutshell. On Z, Leckie helps the band broaden its palette without losing its musical identity.

One of the startling aspects of Z is the absence of reverb from the backing tracks -- but, breathe easy, not James' vocals -- on several songs. So, on first listen "Wordless Chorus" and "It Beats for You" are subtle and underwhelming, even more surprising given the band's recent addition of a keyboardist and second guitarist. Give them a few listens, though, and they're almost as affecting a Track 1/Track 2 combo as "Mahgeetah" and "Dancefloors" on It Still Moves. "Chorus" in particular has that soaring, multitracked James chorus that simply arouses the spirit. Toward the end, James adds some soulful, falsetto wailing, and even the shittiest day turns into pure sunlight.(...)

Full Review

review by: Lost At Sea
reviewer: Phillip Buchan
Album Value: (8.5/10)

Beneath the bales of soft-serve psychedelic reverb and Crazy Horse-chasing jamming that characterized My Morning Jacket’s prior efforts, there has always been a distinct, interesting voice. Front man and lyricist Jim James has consistently tapped the lump-in-the-throat of the human experience, wrapping his emotional mining in epic swirl and naked sincerity that would come off as cloying or forced if it were anything other than an expression of a complex, highly-developed artistic persona.

Z continues to explore the band’s voice, but in a different manner than past works. MMJ’s musical palate has radically expanded: the reverb and alt-country trappings remain, but they no longer dominate the band’s aesthetic. In nodding to U2, John McLaughlin, Sunny Day Real Estate, Mercury Rev, The Clash and countless other icons through a holistic approach to the pop canon, James and his band mates refuse to let sonics define them; it’s the whole “so much style that it’s wasted” bit that Stephen Malkmus sang about. The structural expansiveness of MMJ’s seven minute barnburners has been translated into a formal breadth that draws attention to the spiritual twine holding this diverse song cycle together.

The band spends a great deal of time polarizing their warring sensibilities into individual songs. The bombastic, soul-tinged arena rock of “Gideon” coexists with the slide guitar and hand percussion bareness of “Knot Comes Loose”. Electronic blips, programmed poly-rhythms and breathy “ooh”s and “aah”s dominate opener “I,” while raging phallic guitar scales assert themselves in closer “Dondanti.” James lets his earnestness run free through a soaring, textured closed space in “It Beats for You,” then tosses off a cranking honky-tonk ditty about ice cream with “What a Wonderful Man.”(...)

Full Review

review by: Rolling Stone
reviewer: DAVID FRICKE Oct 20, 2005
Album Value: (4/5)

America is a lot closer to getting its own Radiohead, and it isn't Wilco. My Morning Jacket, from Louisville, Kentucky, have been on the road to their OK Computer for a while; imagine "My Iron Lung" soaked in sour mash and you're pretty close to the massed-guitar seizures on 2003's It Still Moves. The band still has too much bluegrass in its blood and Lynyrd Skynyrd in the riffing here -- the jamming elbowroom of "Lay Low" and the plunging power chords of "Gideon" -- to pass for paranoid androids. But a major lineup change on the way to Z apparently inspired My Morning Jacket's prime mover, singer-guitarist-songwriter Jim James, to mess with his template, to impressive effect. He is now writing actual pop songs, like the two and a half minutes of "What a Wonderful Man," which jumps and crackles like a Seventies Dixie-rock take on the Who's "Happy Jack." And there is an emphasis on keyboards, in pulse and architecture, that adds buoyancy and color to James' writing and flatters his keening, stratospheric tenor. The Eno-esque flutter and gentle bump of the electronics in "Wordless Chorus" bloom, with the addition of some tick-tock guitar, into something like Mercury Rev on Soul Train. In "Off the Record," the band's loose, rough strut dissolves into reggae-dub shadows, while the closing "Dondante" builds, explodes and expires like Pink Floyd's "Careful With That Axe, Eugene": It's a long, riveting psychedelic death scene. Except James, as a lyricist, for all of his free-associative spray, is plainly focused on life and how to hold on to it. "Tell me, spirit -- what has not been done?/I'll rush out and do it," he declares in "Wordless Chorus" -- a lot like Radiohead's Thom Yorke, but with more light in that near-falsetto.

Original Link

Wolf Parade_(2005) "Apologies to the Queen Mary" [8.0/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 16:15:00 -0700

Wolf Parade
Album: "Apologies to the Queen Mary"
Release Date: Sep 27, 2005
Label: Sub PopRock-
Rev Value: [8.0/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock, Indie Pop
Buy It

Tracklist:

1 You Are a Runner and I Am My Father's Son (2:54)
2 Modern World (2:52)
3 Grounds and Divorce (3:25)
4 We Built Another World (3:15)
5 Fancy Claps (2:51)
6 Same Ghost Every Night (5:44)
7 Shine a Light (3:47)
8 Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts (3:39)
9 I'll Believe in Anything (4:36)
10 It's a Curse (3:12)
11 Dinner Bells (7:34)
12 This Heart's on Fire (3:59)

review by:Allmusic
reviewer: Johnny Loftus
Album Value: (4/5)

Montreal quartet Wolf Parade's full-length debut fully lives up to the potential bred by their early EPs and all those gushing blogs. They use Apologies to the Queen Mary producer Isaac Brock to their best advantage, acknowledging their debt to Modest Mouse but using his ear as a resource to tinge their endearingly brittle indie pop tunes accordingly. Spencer King and Dan Boeckner both sing in that certain kind of wry yelp that seems so quirkily marketable in the mid-2000s — see the Shins, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Hot Hot Heat — and it doesn't hurt that most of Wolf Parade's songs are pretty top, too. "Shine a Light" and "You Are a Runner and I Am My Father's Son" repeat from the self-titled EP, "Grounds and Divorce" bops along on cheery keyboard effects and an eight-note guitar solo, and Boeckner honks roughly over the modified new wave of "It's a Curse." Wolf Parade admit their love and theft of the past 30 years of rock music, from Bowie to Black Francis. They allow that, then purposely strip the songs of any slickness or accoutrements, so the keys and squiggly guitars and terrifically simple drums (Arlen Thompson might play just a kick drum and one big snare) teeter and balance together in a hectic and gloriously alive pop state. Have you heard Wolf Parade? They'll change your life.

Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Brandon Stosuy, September 26, 2005
Album Value: (9.2/10)

Considering the amount of pre-release talk surrounding Apologies to the Queen Mary, it's inevitable that reviews of Wolf Parade's debut will contain bad wolf puns, Modest Mouse references (Isaac Brock recorded much of the album), riffs on Montreal's music scene by those who couldn't locate the city on a map, and namechecks of the quartet's pals, the Arcade Fire and Frog Eyes. Amid the noise, what Apologies might not receive is the close listening it deserves.

There's no question the lonesome crowded sound is here, but when Wolf Parade dig in and dust off their influences, the band rolls like a Ritalin-deprived power-Bowie or 70s Eno flexing piano-based hooks over Pixified rhythms. Component ingredients include electronics, keyboards, guitar, drums, and two spastically surging, forever tuneful vocalists (Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug), but there are also surprises: A theremin cries in the slow-poke "Same Ghost Every Night"-- one of the longer tracks, it grows in pageantry as it swells to the six-minute mark-- and a spot of noise-guitar echoes throughout Krug's windy "Dinner Bells". And unlike most participants in indie rock's million-band march, Wolf Parade makes familiar elements mesh in special ways.

Groups like Neutral Milk Hotel and the Arcade Fire inspire listeners to both feel their music and listen closely to what's being said. Wolf Parade's Boeckner and Krug sing so energetically it can be difficult transcribing, but as lyrics reveal themselves on multiple listens, Apologies is populated by ghosts, crumbled brick, haunted technology, Marcel Dzama animals, fathers and mothers, off-kilter love songs, rusted gold, and endtime/brand new world scenarios that furnish the album's ornate instrumentation and clever arrangements with an inspired if elliptical story arc.

The album's roughly split between Boeckner and Krug, their tracks often alternating to a tee. But there is a non-cut/dry bleed between them, with both showing up on the same song, backing each other, screaming at the same time. I wouldn't want to inspire a quarterback controversy, but I tend to be a Krug man-- to my ear, he's the more intriguing lyricist, a Bowie-inflected guy tackling nonstandard song constructions. On the other hand, Boeckner is more traditionally palatable, which may make him the favorite by consensus: His work is often less unhinged or unpredictable, and this focus allows for some of the album's most immediate standouts.(...)

Full Review

review by: tinymixtapes
reviewer: tamec
Album Value: (4/5)

Wolf Parade is a pretty exciting band. Initially brought to attention by Modest Mouse's Issac Brock, Wolf Parade's widespread adulation has continued primarily through word-of-mouth, without much non-surfacy press attention until this summer's final teaser. But perhaps it's a boon to Apologies to the Queen Mary, the band's full-length debut, that the band's prior output didn't receive the attention it deserved. Of AttQM's 12 cuts, all but 3 have been available either on one of the band's first 3 EPs or, in the case of "Shine a Light" and "I'll Believe in Anything," as live in-studio (at CBC Radio 3) downloads. The band has only been together since 2003, however, and to ask them to amass more quality material than has landed on their records thus far is a bit too much to ask, even of Wolf Parade.

But rather than bitch about the lack of new songs, why not talk about how good they are? Like the Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade aren't doing anything particularly new -- the shrieky vocals, dirty guitars, and oscillating synthesizers won't shock anyone who's been listening to Modest Mouse and the like since the mid-90s. Wolf Parade's songs are mostly built around surprisingly catchy, surprisingly simple ideas -- be it the military stomp of album opener "You Are a Runner...," the elegant, sleepy riff of "Dinner Bells," or the sing-song melody of "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts." Apologies to the Queen Mary takes the best songs off each Wolf Parade release to date, cleans them up (that first EP was pretty fucking lo-fi), and, quite frankly, makes a realistic bid for The O.C. The unfortunate thing for the aloof among us, though, is that Wolf Parade do what they do better than anyone in recent memory. And they have a marginally better name than The Arcade Fire. Marginally.

Anyway, this is a real good record, and you'll probably have to listen to it whether you want to or not.

Full Review

review by: Pop Matters
reviewer: Liam Colle
Album Value: (9/10)

The Album of This Year's Decade

Forty-eight minutes of music to last all day. The '00s have already provided some amazing debut records and Wolf Parade join the flood with force. This is art and vigor, but vigor first. This is hart rock, overwrought and almost ridiculous. Like The Constantines, TV on the Radio and Funeral, the only thing saving Apologies to the Queen Mary from absurdity is their blind-sighted intensity. Irony is useless to these bands and it sounds like the malaise is finally crashing and burning. Listen to "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts" and you'll hear the death knells of yesterday's cynical detachment.

It's hard to make the things you do in a day count for something. That's Wolf Parade's point. Even for the most avant-garde, there's probably only a few seconds in a day when one can actually be an artist. No matter how high-minded or righteous you are, you have to eat and the rent comes due. Of course these restrictive realities fluctuate depending on culture and class, but everyone faces the frustration of the day-to-day. The point is though, that this inevitability doesn't have to equate with hopeless immobility. Wolf Parade attack cynicism and cash in on all their future allotments of artistic movement for one album that matters right now. Apologies to the Queen Mary magically melds the everyday with art, gravity with feeling, and creates something tangible yet wildly impractical.

It all sounds incredibly naive and would come across way too Disney if it wasn't for the severity of the players in Wolf Parade. Arlen Thompson's drums open the album and set up a momentous canvas for the rest of the band to work with. As Thompson bangs away with staggering authority, Hadji Bakara's and Spencer Krug's keyboard idiosyncrasies battle against Boeckner's rough and heaving guitar. It's wonderfully unrefined and utterly relentless. Their playing is so irrational that it borders on sublime. It's as if they're transcribing the frustration of the everyday, to which everyone is not afforded the luxury of expression.

What really distinguishes Apologies to the Queen Mary from just another ambitious rock album though, is the dynamic and accessible songwriting -- and the voices that propel those songs from the streets to the stratosphere. Krug and Boeckner trade off vocal duties throughout the album, but it feels less like "it's your turn to sing" than "I need that microphone now". Take Krug's "I'll Believe in Anything" or Boeckner's "This Hearts on Fire" for example. Both songs are born of the same laws of the howl as they churn and explode into anthems for the re-enchanted disillusioned. Not only will the melodies stick in your head, this stuff is going to get under your skin.

I'm not sure whether Wolf Parade will be around for that long, but this record should stand the test of time. Their hasty convergence and dramatic tactics make Apologies to the Queen Mary seem more like a torrid affair than a first step. Either way, it sounds as if we can add it to the pile of this decade's best. Stumbling artists from our graceless times, Wolf Parade's music might actually matter to some people.

Original Link

review by: Lost At Sea
reviewer: Sarah Peters
Album Value: (9/10)

hen listening to Wolf Parade, the phrase “on its head” continually comes to mind: they turn indie pop on its head - in fact they, very impressively, spin the sorts of indie pop that was already on its head to an even more acute degree. They turn what we already know about them on its head, giving already published songs new placement and prominence, and with such arrangement, new meaning and effectiveness. Everything looks better from their carefully chosen angles; with such a daring, thorough perspective, they turn what could very well be a predictably great album on its head to be even greater than we could have ever hoped.

Beginning with the afore-adored “You Are a Runner and I am My Father’s Son,” Apologies to the Queen Mary starts off smartly. One gets the feeling of beginning at a middle ground - at the center of a work already in progress. The track functions as an opening segway from dramatic action curiously unseen and begins the album in shambles: already liquored, desperate and willing to make a pact with the devil. The level of intrigue is already high as it moves to the silver-toned angst of “Modern World”, with all of its apt, crippling metropolitan phobias of disassociation, and its surprisingly spooky, enduring breezes.

Our first glimpse at true optimism, then, despite any hidden warmth, is the third track, “Grounds for Divorce”, whose ironic title is concerning in the face of such a chipper, Lonesome Crowded West style singalong. And when Wolf Parade grabs a hold of hope, it is proven right to never let go. The track’s fruit-colored guitars, bouncing movements and irrepressible vocal expressions are bizarrely contented considering its context and its insistence an impossible lover “looks like a newlywed.” When the muted, metallic tones previously championed by Wolf Parade turn invigoratingly bright, as they do on “Grounds for Divorce,” it turns even turning itself on its head, blasting through every level of irony to focus on something real and human. These are the plentiful moments, stronger than steel and steeliness, where Wolf Parade shows how undying hope is. It is a theme they are all too qualified to carry, as they themselves are bastions of such imperishable goodness.

As “We Built Another World” uses a truly unpredictable pace to twist dance-punk inside out, and “Fancy Claps” propels wailing choirs and oddly shaped punk into a tumbling keyboard oblivion, we certainly start to get it: Wolf Parade can play up any too-familiar style, paranoia or sentiment with ease and success, but they aren’t about to play anything straight or without light; it is exactly what makes them so unquestionably thrilling to listen to, time and again.(...)

Full Review

review by: Stylus
reviewer: Derek Miller
Album Value: (A)

Bark to yourself, in tongue-bite, in seizure, and listen to your voice bristle with spasm. Watch the concern and genuine sense of incapacity fill the eyes of your neighbours. What now. All sense flows out of the skin right then, and it’s down to fantasy, terror, cacophony, and awful heartache. Then imagine yourself surrounded by sizzling synths, drunken piano stomps, and lock-step pirate rhythms. Now you got it, and you have company: Wolf Parade has beaten you here, to this place. They’re waiting for you, seated, with bearded grins and shaggy chins. How’s it feel to have stumbled on the best sound of the fall?

This Montreal quartet’s back story is pretty well understood by now. First show with Arcade Fire. Released two fuzzy, self-produced EPs to subtle acclaim. Toured with AF and Modest Mouse. Caught the ear of Isaac Brock early on, who championed them to Sub Pop, and has now produced their debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary. Phew. Glad to have that out of the way.

This overgloried history shouldn’t really matter. But when a band manages to surpass all the bloated noise of indie mags and blogs, all of the muscle of the hype machine, it’s worth noting. With Apologies to the Queen Mary, Wolf Parade have done just that. They’ve cleaned up their grungy guitar lines (thank you Sub Pop), reworked a few of the best songs from their early EPs, and the result is undoubtedly the best contender for the Arcade Fire/Broken Social Scene-helm of 2005.

Mostly, we have a shaggy collection of garbled torchsongs sung in drizzle. Arlen Thompson’s frantic drums are often pushed high in the mix, to snake past hushed acoustic guitar parts and carnival keyboards, all entangled and knotted like ‘locks. Mixing the high-drama art-pop of friends the Arcade Fire with wry acoustic ballads that recall the work of Brock’s own band, Wolf Parade encompass all of the musical oddities Canadian bands seem to have perfected. “You Are a Runner and I Am My Father’s Son” joins organ stabs with short drum fills against a starlit circus shuffle, all the madmen unsoaped, unshaved, unbathed and free to rape the night. Co-lead Spencer King drains low, and the band seems to look the other way with its distant backdrop, “I was a hero early in the morning/I ain’t no hero in the night.”.(...)

Full Review

Neon Blonde_(2005) "Chandeliers in the Savannah" [8.0/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 08:30:00 -0700

Neon Blonde
Album: "Chandeliers in the Savannah"
Release Date: Sep 13, 2005
Label: Dim Mak
Rock-Rev Value: [8.0/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Experimental Rock, Noise-Rock, Indie Rock, Indie Electronic
Buy It

Tracklist:

1 Black Cactus Killers (2:34)
2 Crystal Beaches Never Turned Me On (2:51)
3 Chandeliers and Vines (4:07)
4 Princess Skullface Sings (2:30)
5 New Detroit (2:50)
6 Headlines (3:23)
7 Love Hounds (3:27)
8 Dead Mellotron (2:37)
9 Cherries in Slow Motion (4:02)
10 Future Is a Mesh Stallion (3:47)
11 Wings Made Out of Noise (2:21)

review by:Allmusic
reviewer: Heather Phares
Album Value: (4.5/5)

Although Neon Blonde's Headlines EP showed that Johnny Whitney and Mark Gajadhar's side project could sound like the Blood Brothers while also sounding very little like them, it still wasn't adequate preparation for the crazed inventiveness of their full-length debut, Chandeliers in the Savannah. A glittering, sharp-edged magpie's nest of fractured glam, hip-hop, electronica, pop, Blood Brothers-style fury and whatever else caught the band's fancy, the album is an example of how to build something beautifully ugly out of trash. While Chandeliers in the Savannah's opening track, "Black Cactus Killers," could belong to the Blood Brothers, it quickly gets weirder and more eclectic from there, spanning the equally melodic and chaotic "Crystal Beaches Never Turned Me On" and the glammy, flamboyant piano ballad "Chandeliers and Vines" with blatant disregard for niceties like logic and continuity. Though tracks like "Princess Skullface Sings" lean towards danceppunk, the sound and approach are far more punk than dance, no matter how many drum machines and keyboards Neon Blonde tortured to make Chandeliers in the Savannah. Actually, the album is a lot less blatantly electronic than Headlines suggested it might be (although "Headlines" itself is still one of the highlights here). "New Detroit" starts out as a bouncy, acoustic singalong to urban decay before turning ferociously electric, while "Cherries in Slow Motion" teeters between a nasty tango and waltz. The little bits of pretty melodies that pop up almost every track on Chandeliers in the Savannah only make the album stranger: "Love Hounds"' chorus is downright lush, and the silky guitars on "The Future Is a Mesh Stallion" are wonderfully out-of-place with the song's hip-hop-inspired drum beats and synths. Likewise, "Wings Made Out of Noise" pairs one of the prettiest melodies with some of the ugliest lyrics: "The note carved in her back said 'I want a baby wrapped in hundred dollar bills.'" Packed full of so much stuff that whizzes by so fast, Neon Blonde's music might be slower and more melodic than the Blood Brothers, but it's still a pretty wild listen. Chandeliers in the Savannah manages to do more than just show off Whitney and Gajadhar's range; while it's got enough perverse power to please Blood Brothers' fans, it's also interesting enough in its own right to win over listeners up for a challenge.

Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Cory D. Byrom, October 12, 2005
Album Value: (7.7/10)

Neon Blonde is a Blood Brothers side project comprised of vocalist Johnny Whitney and drummer Mark Gajadahr, and it's worth cutting to the chase in regards to the similarities between the two: If your main beef with Blood Brothers is Whitney's cats-fucking-in-an-alley vocal style, Neon Blonde might not be your thing. His vocals are flamboyant, manic, and completely over-the-top on Chandeliers in the Savannah, Neon Blonde's first full length. The main difference between Blood Brothers and Neon Blonde, however, is that instead of the searing, angst-fueled punk rock, this disc hands over track after track of eclectic electro-trash and danceable noise rock.

The band excels at combining stripped-down electric beats and synths with more organic elements, such as piano, acoustic guitar, and saxophone. Many of the album's stronger tracks feature the piano as the prominent instrument, including "Chandeliers and Vines", an almost tender ballad if not for the 20-second wall-of-noise freak-out in the middle. On the other hand, jagged guitar lines and simple programmed beats assault the listener elsewhere on the disc, with Whitney channeling Brainiac's Timmy Taylor in full-on spazzcore mode. It's that sort of track-to-track variety that keeps Chandeliers in the Savannah interesting.

While "Black Cactus Killers", "Princess Skullface Sings", and "Dead Mellotron" rattle with heart attack inducing rock, "Crystal Beaches Never Turned Me On" and "The Future Is a Mesh Stallion" are as dance as they are punk. The band touches on a bit of everything, from glam to post-punk to lounge, and slams it all together like they're using some sort warped Cronenberg creation made from the spare parts of old Casio keyboards. Chandeliers in the Savannah is dark, mysterious, and challenging, but ultimately rewarding. It never feels contrived, never odd for the sake of being odd. And although there's definitely a sense of improvisation and freewheeling here, the band is precise, tight when it's necessary, and never excessively sloppy.(...)

Full Review

review by: Rockus
reviewer: Steph Edwardes
Album Value: (9/10)

The closing track on the Blood Brothers' 'Crimes' album of last year made reference to "neon black", so utilising Neon Blonde as the descriptor for the alter ego of band members Johnny Whitney and Mark Gajadhar seems fitting. Although there are musical parallels - the underlying murkiness, the lyrical cynicism, Whitney's unmistakably defining voice, which is actually further developed and experimental in this context - Neon Blonde is far more erratic, and harkens to the complexity of '...Burn, Piano Island, Burn!' if you swapped that commanding rhythm section for a drum machine and synths for half the time, oddly shaped guitar/drum arrangements the other, and then injected creativity from every possible angle.

Having said all that, opening track 'Black Cactus Killers' may as well proclaim itself as a Blood Brothers creation, particularly given its off-kilter guitar prowess and vocal approach. But in true Neon Blonde spirit, this isn't something that sets the tone for the rest of the album, because there is no simple message to be told. You have to expect nothing, and yet expect everything. 'Crystal Beaches Never Turned Me On' follows, introducing sinister piano work into the mix. When coupled with Whitney's wild falsetto vocal style (and you either love it or hate it), it's reminiscent of The Paper Chase, even if only for a second, while 'Chandeliers And Vines' is the closest thing Neon Blonde are ever going to come to a ballad... that is, if Whitney and Gajadhar beat the crap out of each other mid song. Here it becomes obvious that while this record certainly ebbs and flows, it also shakes, swings and twists violently. One moment refined, the next untamed, all created by various musical tools of destruction. You'll either find it incredibly innovative or just too damn awkward to listen to.

Original Link

review by: Drownedinsound
reviewer: peter white
Album Value: (3/5)

When you spend all summer in the desert listening to the collected works of Elton John, life becomes a bubble of pop culture guilt and fashion contradictions.

But it is also the perfect preparation to help you understand the intricacies of Neon Blonde's debut, Chandeliers In The Savannah, a record so beautifully obscure and obscurely beautiful that it draws from a modern day pool of blood that once drew Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica.

And in vocalist and Blood Brother Johnny Whitney (who is here alongside BB drummer Mark Gajadhar), there is a voice as uniquely piercing and annoyingly recognisable as ol' Reg's.

As far as side projects stretch, this is no Grohl-esque Probot or Oberst-led Desaparecidos, where the (commercially viable) instigators chose to disregard their previous formulas to experiment. Chandeliers In The Savannah is as equally obtrusive as previous Blood Brothers' offerings, particularly during the Second Nature/ThreeOneG days, but it allows them to promote even more noisy nasal grazed punk parlance, with a slight seminal nod to glam pomp and piano pulling Bowie-isms. (...)

Full Review

review by: Absolutepunk
reviewer: Garett Press
Album Value: (4.75/5.00)

I'm not proud of this, but I'm going to be honest… I've never really gotten into a Blood Brothers record. I've listened to the band and heard their praises sung over an array of mediums but regrettably I've never taken the time to sit down and submerse myself in any of their albums. However, like almost all great bands these days, the Blood Brothers have spawned an intriguing new side project: Neon Blonde. Neon Blonde features Brothers' vocalist Johnny Whitney and drummer Mark Gajadhar and is promotionally recommended for fans of David Bowie, Brian Eno, and Freddy Mercury…. What!? Glam-pop from the 70's and 80's? Well yes… kind of. Neon Blonde is an openly creative outlet for these spastically sassy rockers. Johnny Whitney has not left his sporadically convulsive coos behind, he remains chirping away with that idiosyncratic frenzy. For the most part, the urgent and frantic nature of Blood Brothers still presides over each track but here we see a rather dancy and glorified art rock vision, complete with synth drum beats, keyboard elements, and dark melodies abound.

For the most part the record is very impressive. Nobody does it like these guys, and this album only solidifies that statement. "Crystal Beach Never Turned Me On," the second song on the album is held up by an old school sounding hip hop beat, until haunting piano scales take over, bringing on a wave of B-Horror movie darkness, before proposing a tango of a chorus. Believe it or not, the following number, "Chandeliers and Vines," actually leaps into a qualified piano ballad. For several instances Whitney actually drops the screechy edge of his vocals and outright croons atop classic piano delivery. The song is very charming, and it is great to hear this eclectic risk tasking which results in the most accessible and endearing tune on the record. Fear not, tracks like "Princess Skullface Sings," and "Love Hounds," reveal those grungy, churning, menacing guitars, that rub you the wrong way, but in all the right ways. And still yet you've got the soaring digital edge of, "Wings Made out of Noise," and a full on dance-club hit under the title of "The Future is a Mesh Stallion." This bountiful tracklisting seems to cover so many designations of the modern rock spectrum yet somehow remains clearly a unified effort, never losing the focus that makes them Neon Blonde.

While I am a fan of Whitney's voice and the experimental music on Chandeliers in the Savannah, it's a stylistic sound that one has to be in the mood for, and is far from immediately approachable. This is no easy listening, or vaguely stimulating background music. Neon Blonde is a challenging and free spirited duo of musicians who took the CD and used it as an easel to paint a landscape of guitar textures, vintage electronics, and tearing shouts. If you were previously not a fan of the Blood Brothers, you won't find much to change your mind here. Probably the definition of a love or hate sound, those with already existing passion for the Brothers will most likely revel in this fun and more light hearted branch off; either way I'd recommend at least taking a preliminary listen. Maybe today's the day to insert a jagged contradiction in to your run of the mill playlist, and have your world turned upside down as your toe taps to a new beat. The hectic beat of Neon Blonde.

Original Link

review by: Rocknworld
reviewer: Mark Hensch
Album Value: (4/5)

Neon Blonde is a prime example of how a side-project can be every bit as unique and edgy as the real band. The Blood Brothers are undoubtedly (at least in this author's opinion) one of the most exciting bands to emerge in the last decade in the bloated punk/post-punk rock underground. Aggressive, dangerous, and misanthropic to the point of absurdity, the satirical, abstract, and surreal acid trips the Blood Brothers deliver are the stuff of spastic dreams.

Neon Blonde will throw some for a loop; the band is Johnny Whitney singing and guitaring, while drummer Mark Gajadhar shows up out of the blue to beat the skins. This gruesome two-some come across as lighter and generally a bit more focused on hyper, groovy, and angular riffs that fit in with many an art or prog band. The lyrics, however, still maintain that sinister flair for pop-culture skewering that the Blood Brothers have had since day one.

Chandeliers in the Savannah makes such a great album as it takes the best aspects of the Blood Brothers and adds elements not present in that kind of music at all. At a length of just over thirty-four minutes, the disc flys by and presents few if any weak spots. "Black Cactus Killers" sounds like a solid Blood Brothers B-side that just barely missed the cut.

The nonsensical lyrics, grooving acid rock riffs, and an odd moment of cocaine-addled dancing interludes make for a grand opener. "Crystal Beaches Never Turned Me On" starts off a little shakey; the ominous key tones and odd piano progressions are paired with clownish, over-the-top vocals and a swinging chorus that almost comes across as Latin music inspired. The song's grim narrative and Whitney's stark cliffhanger of "Cut, Cut to a Commercial" sounds so much like prime Johnny Rotten it might catch a few folks off guard.

"Chandeliers and Vines" is a misanthropic rant against the news, pop culture, MTV, overpopulation, luxury housing, sitcoms, and pretty much anything else. The song's operatic piano balladry, fantastic ravings, and soaring choruses make this the best track here; it is so far removed from what one considers to be in the cannon of Blood Brothers it is rather jolting, and it seems Neon Blonde would make a marvelous social protest band.

The trippy LSD tangos of "Princess Skullface Sings" should get plenty of people rocking and raving, and the following song, "New Detroit," mixes spacey and psychedelic folk intros with hypnotic walls of sonic assault for an entertaining concoction. "Headlines" is an obscene mix of electronica-inspired drum beats and crystalline, hollow, 80's keys.

"Love Hounds" is another stellar track, as it fuses a cushion of prickly yet ethereal pop with some odd guitar parts and screeching sing-alongs. The messy (in a good way) "Dead Mellotron" maintains a frantic lucidity of barely cohesive musical chaos.

"Cherries in Slow Motion" is a grandiose piece of mocking piano balladry, in which Whitney proudly sneers "The Devil just keeps on playing my song." "The Future is a Mesh Stallion" has an almost hip-hop worthy beat behind it; its an odd and perverse little slice of insanity to be sure. "Wings Made out of Noise" closes the album with a bastard conglomerate of Postal Service beats and detached guitars.

All-in-all, Neon Blonde astonishes by giving the ethos of the Blood Brothers a little more heart. I realize that many people foolishly miss the thought-producing messages within the music of the Blood Brothers simply because it is too frenetic and chaotic for their tastes. Artsy, catchy, but never anywhere near the Hell of conformity, Neon Blonde impress with a fantastic album of post-modernist rants and raves that pretty much anyone could enjoy a song or two on. Bloody fantastic!

Original Link

Death Cab for Cutie_(2005) "Plans" [6.5/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 06:32:00 -0700

Death Cab for Cutie
Album: "Plans"
Release Date: Aug 30, 2005
Label: Atlantic
Rock-Rev Value: [6.5/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock, Indie Pop
Buy It

Tracklist:

1 Marching Bands of Manhattan (4:12)
2 Soul Meets Body (3:50)
3 Summer Skin (3:14)
4 Different Names for the Same Thing (5:08)
5 I Will Follow You into the Dark (3:09)
6 Your Heart Is an Empty Room (3:39)
7 Someday You Will Be Loved (3:11)
8 Crooked Teeth (3:23)
9 What Sarah Said (6:20)
10 Brothers on a Hotel Bed (4:31)
11 Stable Song (3:42)

review by:Allmusic
reviewer: Rob Theakston
Allmusic Album Value: (4/5)

For your consideration: a wildly successful indie rock band with a legion of followers on an equally successful, highly credible independent label makes the jump to major-label powerhouse Atlantic, leading to much chagrin and speculation among its fans as they awaited with bated breath for what would happen to the group. The result was For Your Own Special Sweetheart, inarguably the most polished and fully realized album of Dischord alumnus Jawbox's career. Fast forward ten years and you find Barsuk's Death Cab for Cutie in the same position, making the same move. A new label, a larger crowd (thanks to their repeated appearances on The OC), and a side project of Ben Gibbard (Postal Service) that very well overshadowed the success of his main project. All of the moves were perfectly aligned to take the little band that could into the rock stratosphere. But the difference between Jawbox and Death Cab for Cutie was that For Your Own Special Sweetheart went on to be the finest release of Jawbox's canon. Plans definitely comes close to that mark, but falls slightly short. In comparison to the dry, raw production of Transatlanticism, Plans is warm and polished, the kind of album expected from a band obsessed with the sound of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. Chris Walla does an amazing job bringing the group's sound in a different direction than before without compromising too many of the things that made the group sound great to begin with. Thematically, Plans is the Death Cab for Cutie suitable for graduate students, world-weary and wiser from their experiences, realizing they can no longer be love-starved 20-somethings without a clue yet hopelessly cursed to face the same issues. And there's merit to be had in acknowledging that maturity, for even blink-182 figured out their age and released their "serious" album. Gibbard's wispy, poetic lyrics (which could easily have been stolen from Aimee Mann's dressing room while she wasn't looking) still remain an artery from which the rest of the band beats and are some of his finest ever, but this time around the band aligns itself more with a series of emotional murmurs rather than a heart attack. The album winds its way from one ballad to the next, with brief stopovers at moderately up-tempo numbers to help break things up a bit. And it's this sense of resignation that either makes or breaks the album, depending on which Death Cab for Cutie is your favorite: the melancholic, hopeless romantic or the one who wears its heart on its sleeve with unbridled energy and passion. If Transatlanticism was Gibbard's Pet Sounds and Postal Service was SMiLE, then this is definitely Wild Honey, loved by adoring new fans and those who enjoy the ballads. But those hoping for a bit more -- for the bar to be raised higher -- might find this a mildly predictable exercise in Gibbard exorcising the demons of Phil Collins that haunt him. Plans is both a destination and a transitional journey for the group, one that sees the fulfillment of years of toiling away to develop their ideas and sound. But it's with the completion of those ideas that band is faced with a new set of crossroads and challenges to tread upon: to stay the course and suffer stagnation or try something bold and daringly new with their future. Which road they'll take will make all the difference.

Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Joe Tangari, August 30, 2005
Album Value: (6.5/10)

Death Cab for Cutie once released an EP called Stability, the irony being that it was one of their few releases that branches away from their core sound. That's fine, to a point. Their stately, melodic indie pop gives them a big enough palette with which to paint albums that don't lose their flavor on the bedpost overnight, but it also means that their records can feel interchangeable.

On Plans, the band's fifth album, Death Cab made the jump from the friendly confines of Barsuk Records to the storied halls of Atlantic, a move that makes a lot of sense. The band is ready for the large, diverse audience a major can provide, and they make the transition seamlessly, in large part due to the underrated production of guitarist Chris Walla, who has a way of making even the weirder flourishes (and the band tries a few to mixed success here) feel totally natural.

Despite Walla's consistently cozy production, Ben Gibbard's lyrics continue to move from critiques of middle-class life to tackling Big Themes, here the relationship between death and love. On "What Sarah Said" he claims, "Love is watching someone die." On "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" it's the title sentiment, and on "Soul Meets Body" he says, "If the silence takes you, then I hope it takes me too."

"I Will Follow You..." is the album's quiet centerpiece, just Gibbard on acoustic guitar, his fragile, almost falsetto tenor, simple delivery, and unexpected turns of phrase turning an well-worn lyrical road, the fear of losing a lover, into something affecting. The way he personalizes the afterlife and draws in childhood Catholic school experiences is impressive, to say the least. All this and it's sequenced directly after the album's most musically ambitious track, "Different Names for the Same Thing", an overly melodramatic track that heads off on a ponderous, M83-aping electronic odyssey.

The band's other, better experiment is lead single "Soul Meets Body", a sleek pop track that excels except for when the drums drop dead, the textures get all smooshy, and Gibbard goes up the scale to sing the title-- it's such a weird blunder that it's hard to tell at first if it derails the song or just nudges it a bit. Several listens in, the song works on the strength of its catchy "ba da ba da ba ba" passages and the incredible verse melody, but that one little passage is awkward, like the song has something stuck in its teeth. Death Cab opens the album strongly with "Marching Bands of Manhattan", a song that feels like it's constantly in the process of taking off, with pensive drumming and big, sweeping vocals singing about sorrow seeping into your heart as if through a pin-hole.(...)

Full Review

review by: Rolling Stone
reviewer: ROB SHEFFIELD
Album Value: (3/5)

Sometimes you hear a hungry, young indie-rock band toughing it out in a small town somewhere, and you just know that this band is destined to take the whole world by storm. Death Cab for Cutie are not one of those bands. In fact, even their biggest fans have to be a bit gobsmacked at their success. On their fantastic 2000 album We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes, Death Cab were already masterful, tuneful, resonant upstarts, in full command of their own eccentric guitar-shamble style. But these Bellingham, Washington, indie dudes seemed unlikely to ever go out in public wearing socks that matched, much less find mass appeal. Who thought they'd become high school misfit pinup boys? Who thought Ben Gibbard's melancholic tenor would get airplay, both with Death Cab and his synth-pop side project the Postal Service? Who thought these non-fashion-plates would become muses to The O.C., playing the Bait Shop the way the Flaming Lips once played the Peach Pit on 90210? Just think: If Death Cab had finished this album a little sooner, they could have kept Mischa and Brandon together.

Death Cab broke through with their fourth and finest album, 2003's Transatlanticism. That disc still sounds so great, it's a little scary. Gibbard's emotive singing and guitar found the perfect foil in the production of guitarist-keyboardist Chris Walla, who gave the big pow to songs like "Title and Registration," "Tiny Vessels" and "Transatlanticism," amping up Gibbard's purploid poetics without steamrolling right over him. Also in 2003, Gibbard teamed up with producer Jimmy Tamborello for the Postal Service album, which came out of nowhere to become Sub Pop's biggest seller since Nirvana's Bleach. Not a bad one-two punch.

On Plans, Death Cab's fifth album (and first for a major label), they try hard not to make Transatlanticism all over again. Instead, they reach for an expansive, Abbey Road pop style, with mixed results. The high points are high, just not as high as last time. "Marching Bands of Manhattan" is a great start, with Gibbard chanting, "Your love is gonna drown" over an urgent guitar riff. The single "Soul Meets Body" has an R.E.M.-style jangle, sped up to electro-disco tempo. "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" strips it down to Gibbard's voice and acoustic guitar, which works powerfully for such a starkly emotional love song dealing with the imminence of death. Yet it demonstrates how wise Gibbard is to let the band mess with his pristine melodies, which would sound wispy and ignorable on their own..(...)

Full Review

review by: Pop Matters
reviewer: Ryan McDermott
Album Value: (7/10)

Death Cab the heart that they broke.

Death Cab for Cutie is like a woman that is meant only to be loved. You look down at her as you are lying in bed and want nothing but to kiss her forehead and wrap your arms around her. Even in her most heated moments she is still honest and tender. Of course, it's not like she can't do anything wrong. There are moments when she breaks your heart and you feel like you'll never forgive her. But then there you are looking down at her again from that soft perch of the mattress and pillow.

With The Photo Album Death Cab won my heart. With Transatlanticism, Death Cab broke it. And with their new album Plans they've mended it and won me back.

This is an amazing little pop record of amazing little pop songs. I've always liked simple Death Cab over full-sounding complex Death Cab (which is why I probably don't like Transatlanticism), and there are some gorgeous morsels on this album. This record isn't a musical revolution, but more of a musical lullaby, a sweet collection of sad and hopeful stories.

To me there are really three things that make a perfect pop song: melody, lyrics and Brian Wilson. Now Ben Gibbard is no Brian Wilson, but he's got melody and lyrics. In fact he is writing some of the most gorgeous lyrics around today (only The Weakerthans rival him in their tender, heart-wrenching honesty). With lines like, "Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule/ I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black/ I held my tongue as she told me 'Son, fear is the heart of love'/ So I never went back", Gibbard emotes sweet emo melody and lyrics without all of the overblown tragedy that plagues today's emo scene. In fact, save for the fact that Gibbard has a soft focus sort of upper register voice, these songs, and most of Death Cab's for that matter, are less whiney emo rants as they are beautiful indie-pop songs.(...)

Full Review

review by: Filter Mag
reviewer: Lesley Bargar
Album Value: (89%)

We’ve always loved Death Cab for Cutie. We didn’t exactly know why, but we knew it had something to do with Ben Gibbard. That distinctly clean voice, those maudlin novel-esque lyrics, the off-kilter path his vocals pave through the music… these traits have always been center to Death Cab’s appeal. Well, that and the fact that Seth wooed Summer during a rockin’ set at the Tackle Box (the first and only O.C. joke I swear). But really-really-we just liked him, our awkward, talented frontman. It was never the pretty good indie pop behind Ben that made DCFC remarkable. It was the little dance he was doing in the front of them. So like my mom used to say, when you can get the Gibbard-brand milk for free (via Postal Service, specifically) buying the Death Cab cow seems a bit pointless.

But just when the rest of the band seemed doomed to become Ben’s backup players, this all changed. As if realizing that they’ve now got to compete for airtime with the Gibbard entity, the band steps it up for Plans, DCFC’s first major label release. Songs that begin like lonelier, piano based “Transatlanticisms” switch gears in the middle and become post-rock noise epics (“Different Names for the same Things”). Tracks that would have been upbeat, guitar-driven singles are now infused with sophisticated layers of electronics and percussion ("Soul Meets Body” or “Brothers on a Hotel Bed”). There’s church organ and notable time signatures and… well yeah, a shit-load of sad piano. All this quality and sophistication is done well, but not too well, thankfully. So now on Plans, thanks to the label switch or the competing egos or a better in-studio snack bar or whatever, DCFC is becoming a band that’s worth noticing apart from Ben.

Still, the best part of Plans is that Ben’s sappy emotional puppetry, pristine voice, and words (and words) about love, death, separation and freckles are, again, right at the center of it. Which, even without the gripping saga of the inter-band power struggle, makes for an overall kick-ass record. Kinda like the time Zach kicked Seth’s ass at the comic book premiere. (Sorry, I just had to do it.)

Original Link

review by: Glorious Noise
reviewer: Tom Mantzouranis, August 25, 2005
Album Value: (-/-)
Who would've thought five years ago that Death Cab For Cutie, fresh off their minimalist breakthrough, We Have The Facts And We're Voting Yes, would have endured a stylistic change, survived a near break-up, watched Ben Gibbard's Postal Service side project eclipse Death Cab's success after only one album, experienced a boost in popularity themselves, and signed to a major label for their fifth album, Plans?

The band, who announced that they were jumping from birthplace Barsuk Records to Atlantic, were lucky to avoid a lot of the conjecture that comes about when an indie band signs to a major label. Their fans, notoriously loyal, stuck with the group after the announcement and decided to play the waiting game before they made up their minds on the move to Atlantic. Which only makes sense, really–there's been no need to worry about the band becoming more television ready and accessible since Death Cab beat Atlantic to the punch, taking that leap themselves on their third full-length, The Photo Album.

Plans bears more in common with The Photo Album than its direct predecessor, Transatlanticism, which actually took a step backwards meeting the band's other albums at their midway point. No need to compromise anymore, as Death Cab have officially dropped the other shoe, putting out their first official pop album.(...)

Full Review

Broken Social Scene_(2005) "Broken Social Scene" [8.0/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 01:14:00 -0700

Broken Social Scene
Album: "Broken Social Scene"
Release Date: Oct 4, 2005
Label: Arts & Crafts
Rock-Rev Value: [8.0/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock, Post-Rock, Experimental
Buy It

Tracklist:

1. Our Faces Split the Coast in Half
2. Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)
3. 7/4 (Shoreline)
4. Finish Your Collapse and Stay for Breakfast
5. Major Label Debut
6. Fire Eye'd Boy
7. Windsurfing Nation
8. Swimmers
9. Hotel
10. Handjobs for the Holidays
11. Superconnected
12. Bandwitch
13. Tremoloa Debut
14. It's All Gonna Break

Band Offical Site

review by:Allmusic
reviewer: MacKenzie Wilson
Allmusic Album Value: (4.5/5)

In Canada, Broken Social Scene is somewhat of a phenomenon. Since wooing fans and critics alike with their 2003 Juno Award-winning album You Forgot It in People, the band's peculiar popularity has made them stars. The community that surrounds the 15-member-plus band is a family-like atmosphere with its many Canadian artists and musicians. When listening to Broken Social Scene, you also get the individual sounds of Feist, Stars, Memphis, Metric, and Apostle of Hustle, among others. It's camaraderie and education combined. The lush dynamic that carries Broken Social Scene's self-titled third effort is definitely built upon that. The 14-song set is as bright and moving as the band's previous efforts, but Broken Social Scene holds more charisma, more depth, and surely more complexities. The mix isn't messy in conventional terms. It's artistically untidy without production boundaries. Album opener "Our Faces Split the Coast in Half," which features the Dears' Murray Lightburn, makes a grand entrance with its polished horn arrangements, tight guitar riffs, and hypnotic harmonies. Additional standouts include indie rock moments such as "7/4 (Shoreline)" and the nervy "Fire Eye'd Boy." Handclaps and crowd chatter dosie-do with a sharp rock aesthetic on "Windsurfing Nation," which was the original title. Here, Toronto rapper K-Os and Feist vocally find their way through this majestic cinematic backdrop for one of its finest songs. From here, Broken Social Scene is a simply a rush of mini epics: "Handjobs for the Holidays," "Superconnected," and album closer "It's All Gonna Break" (this could have been a Nada Surf song) showcase how smart, creative, and brilliant this band truly is. Broken Social Scene are more than a collective; they're an orchestra for both the slacker generation and the literati.

Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Brian Howe, September 9, 2005
Album Value: (8.4/10)

Expectations are a bitch. Ask J.D. Salinger. Or George Lucas. Or Kevin Shields. After Broken Social Scene stumbled out of the incestuous Toronto alt-rock scene with Feel Good Lost-- a postrumental refrigerator-hum stiff of a debut-- few would have guessed this group of scruffed-up bohos had a veritable classic lurking in their collective consciousness. Then, ignited by a rabid internet reception, You Forgot It in People gracefully went boom, and lots of people remembered why they loved indie rock-- the shambling ecstasy, the pitch-perfect experimentation, the unabashed heart-on-sleeveness of it all.

Now, with file-sharers queuing up like mad and pre-orders bumping them to Amazon Top 50 status, the collective reacts to the furor by expanding and magnifying; another six members join the brood for its self-titled third full-length, and the band's once-refined studio sound is blown up into a pixilated blur of blood-gush guitars and squall-of-sound production that's somehow meticulously unhinged. This exercise in excess makes the ambitious You Forgot It in People seem positively understated by comparison.

De facto band leader Kevin Drew recently told Pitchfork that Broken Social Scene producer (and NYPD punching bag) David Newfeld "got addicted to the idea of trying to top YFIIP." He added: "His massage therapist says he might die in 10 years unless he changes his lifestyle." It's Newfeld's risky mixing and uncanny knack for coalescing myriad instruments and voices into a propulsive whole that defines this new album. Whereas You Forgot It in People was exacting and refined-- each cymbal crash snipped to perfection, each underlying string melody was spare and to-the-point-- Broken Social Scene is wily and flowing. Just consider each disc's mood-setting introduction: YFIIP's "Capture the Flag" is muted and tasteful; BSS's "Our Faces Split the Coast in Half" gets out of bed, trips, falls down, does a sloppy summersault, and gets back up no worse for the wear. The contrasting titles alone-- one direct, one Dali-esque-- speak volumes. But, however symbolic, "Faces" is only a casual stretch, with follower "Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Half)" serving as the album's first true workout.

"Ibi" breaks in with a woozy, five-alarm guitar-- a warning call for the track's off-key surrealism and pile-on distortion. Like the shaky ascent of a homemade rocketship, the song constantly teeters on cataclysmic oblivion; shards of chords slip away and grind against each other as the track embarks. Buried between the static and the void, mumbled vocals are folded in before the brass enters and elevates the endeavor to fist-pumping, room-on-fire glory.(...)

Full Review

review by: Stylus
reviewer: Derek Miller, 2005-10-05
Album Value: (B+)

Broken Social Scene has a talent for threshing silk grist out of miscellany. They can start with a beat, let it gallop in an empty room for fifteen seconds, heap multiple guitar parts on it, join it to one of their many vocalists, hell maybe several moaning out in a shared instant, and pin you to the wall with their beautiful chaos. At times it all seems like a mis-start that the band was too tired to halt full-borne, and there’s a sensitive poesie to the inertia they build out of these false steps.

After the abortive post-rock of Feel Good Lost, 2002/2003’s breakout critical success, You Forgot it In People, channeled the toss-offs and the heated grind of their ascendant pop into an album’s worth of dirt-jean symphonies. Truly a record lover’s record, it was hard to tease any of the songs apart from their neighbors, as though just the effort would melt the entire ensemble into its myriad studio parts, a mislaid guitar line again sounding foul and out of place and two off-kilt beats clanging racket and distortion. Oh, and a trumpet with no bridge to cross.

With Broken Social Scene, this massive Canadian collective, summoned around principal duo Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew, again manages to coalesce their many voices and pasts into a fluid cantata. Rough and furious, a sublime cough into the wind, they create a crude din without patience for getting things perfect. This is orchestral pop given the sand-grind, its shine and texture removed to leave a smear on something that was once natural. Take “Windsurfing Nation,” the track that lent its name to this record for many of its first incarnations. After starting as an experimental sound collage, a stumbling beat and wheezing vocals atop tangled guitar parts, the song wiggles into a prom-worthy fist-pumper. Unknown numbers of guitars spike and jingle around each other as something starts to spark, and before you know it, there’s a chorus and an upward pull. And then, what do you know, there goes K-Os, that backpackin’ slug, with a few verses to throw into the mix. It sounds like a post-millenial genre-fuck gone formula. Christ knows it shouldn’t work. But it does. I guess you knew I would say that..(...)

Full Review

review by: Pop Matters
reviewer: Zeth Lundy
Album Value: (5/10)

The appeal of Broken Social Scene's 2002 breakthrough album You Forgot It in People was largely contingent on its being blessed with a stinging sensation of spontaneity. The record seemed to creatively unfold as it played: taut grooves sprouted from preoccupied noodling, driving crescendos were harnessed and abused, studio chatter interfered at random moments. The Canadian indie collective stumbled upon a cohesive fluke of sorts, a record built by likeminded musicians mining for that elusive sound of something new. Who cared if the record didn't actually have any songs, in the formal sense -- it was inspired, and that infectiousness made the lack of real compositions irrelevant.

The band's third record, the titularly challenged Broken Social Scene, sounds like it's trying to recapture that spontaneity in swollen, epic gestures. But synchronicity and charm cannot be manufactured, and so the effort feels unnatural, as if the band is attempting to force an unpredictable good thing into a predictable pattern for success. Either that, or there's just too many cooks in Broken Social Scene's kitchen. (The group's double-digit roster, which includes members of Stars, Apostle of Hustle, and Metric, is appended this time by appearances from K-Os and the Dears' Murray Lightburn.) Broken Social Scene is a gratuitous collection of repetitive pocket-symphony anthems for the indie set and an unsuccessful regurgitation of You Forgot It in People's rareness.

In its ambitious reach, the collective's weaknesses shine through. The songs rarely make sense beyond their own circle-jerking, lacking any sense of definable structure or purpose except to reach a head-expanding plateau of catharsis and beat it into submission. When this long record (this very long, 60-plus-minute record) reaches its midpoint, déjà vu sets in, and for good reason: Broken Social Scene's songs are merely two- or four-chord vamps that, without choruses or verses or bridges, lack an identity outside of the big picture and can't help but incite comparisons with each other. If there are so many strong talents in the Broken Social Scene family, then why do they create nothing but a prosaic commotion as a creative unit? (Lyrics are an especially rocky area for the band; apparently 15 people couldn't come up with anything more profound than hooks like "If you always get up late / You're never gonna be on time / And that's a shame / 'Cause I like you.") Broken Social Scene may relish in the possibilities of its experimental pop, but the band's fixation on You Forgot It in People's blueprint mutates into nothing but single-riffed simulation. On the very basic level of a listening experience, "Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)" is a more explosive version of "KC Accidental", "7/4 (Shoreline)" is a faster, groovier version of "Cause = Time" with a fiery vocal from Feist, and, despite its provocative title, "Handjobs for the Holidays" clicks along as a more densely multi-tracked version of "Stars and Sons".(...)

Full Review

review by: Conctact Music
reviewer: Peter Landwehr
Album Value: (4.1/5)

The watchword for Broken Social Scene on You Forgot It in People was "variety". The band's sophomore album was a blend of styles ranging from folk to post-rock that evoked a strange combination of childlike joy and depressive melancholy, and managed to win the Canadian band a Juno Prize and a large underground following. Identifying leaders of a 17-member collective (whose participants cross-pollinate with other bands) is hard. Nonetheless, the delay in the arrival of the group's self-titled third release can be at least partly laid at the feet of producer David Newfeld, who set out to surpass his impressive work on You Forgot and has refused to release Broken Social Scene until satisfied. Whether he and the group have managed that is debatable, but Broken Social Scene is certainly an equal, albeit more difficult, successor to the band's last work.

For Broken, the band has created a sound that is still instantly identifiable as Broken Social Scene but is more coherent than that of You Forgot; it retains that album's sense of being many singles that work well as a unified group, but each track on Broken has a similar texture and energy. Newfeld's role in this process has been to pull specific instrumental and vocal lines out of this chaos for optimum effect. While very disorganized on first listen, after several spins the cleanliness behind Broken's noise becomes clear.(...)

Full Review

review by: Tinymixtapes
reviewer: Jspicer
Album Value: (4/5)
This may be one of the most difficult reviews of the year. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Half the reviews you read are going to praise the Canadian collective's third proper, self-titled album as another masterpiece; the other half are going to trash it, citing the band stretching themselves too thin, that too much is happening in the midst of the album's 14 tracks to catch all of it, even after repeated listens. Of course, I'm going to be difficult and be the margin of error -- that damned 1% that throws the curve out of balance and leaves pollsters scratching their heads. Why are these people still straddling the fence?

All the above comments I've made about Broken Social Scene's latest effort are true: It is a masterpiece, if you measure masterpieces by reputation and assumption. The band's stretching themselves a little thin, if you measure thin as sleeker production, more lush sounds, and overextended musical interludes. But I pose this question: Isn't this what Broken Social Scene has been hanging their hat on since they burst onto the American music landscape late in 2002? This is a band that makes the same noise whether 6, 7, or 15 people are gracing a stage or a studio booth. They're just carrying on their tradition, and doing so with tight craftsmanship even Bob Villa would be proud to sponsor.

But none of this even remotely describes Broken Social Scene.

This is a classic example of the adage 'the more things change, the more they stay the same.' This self-titled gem mirrors the highs and lows of You Forgot it in People almost to a tee. The opener, "Our Faces Split the Coast in Half," is an instrumentally-driven ditty; and while some faint vocals waft in and out of the track, it's the same up and at them spirit of "Capture the Flag," bottled in a jar and slowly unleashed to an ever-growing crowd of rabid indie kids hungry for something bigger, louder, and in your face. The album's first single "7/4 (Shoreline)" mimics the heartbeat of its cousin "Stars and Sons," before exploding into a fury of horns, walls of guitar, and an impassioned choral plea. "Major Label Debut" recycles the dreamy atmosphere of "Looks Just Like the Sun," with quiet aggressions.(...)

Full Review

The Rakes_(2005) "Capture/Release" [7.0/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:04:00 -0700

The Rakes
Album: "Capture/Release"
Release Date: 09/27/2005
Label: V2
Rock-Rev Value: [7.0/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock
Buy It

Tracklist:

1. Strasbourg
2. Retreat
3. 22 Grand Job
4. Open Book
5. The Guilt
6. Binary Love
7. We Are All Animals
8. Violent
9. T Bone
10. Terror!
11. Work, Work, Work (Pub, Club, Sleep)

The Rakes Offical Site

review by:Yahoo
reviewer: James Marshall
Allmusic Album Value: (7/10)

By now, the idea of four seemingly underfed young men squeezed into skin-tight jeans playing - oh dear - angular art punk is enough to inspire the rolling of eyes and a long sigh of boredom. Why bother when there's a copy of Wire's "Chairs Missing" lying around, right? And yet, as Britain comes to resemble the opening credits of "Monkey Dust", it would appear that a voice in the wilderness addressing these anxiously fraught times comes from…er…four seemingly underfed young men squeezed into skin-tight jeans playing…well, you know the rest.

The Rakes have certainly come in for some flak of late. Be it singer Alan Donohoe's "Tonight-Cat-I'm-going-be-Ian-Curtis" style of performing or that on first encounter the East London quartet could be any one of the hopeless urchins that The Libertines dragged in their sorry wake but lending The Rakes an ear becomes an increasingly rewarding experience.

As a snapshot of metropolitan life in 2005, "Capture/Release" not only hits the spot, it damn near rubs it out. Clocking in at just over 30 minutes, The Rakes' debut is by turns profoundly unsettling and savagely funny as each song is propelled by a seething sense of purpose.

"Retreat" is the story of an empty social life fuelled by a peer pressure that ups the ante to new levels of mindless stupidity while the grimly hilarious "The Guilt" raises a knowing laugh as Donohoe chronicles the consequences of drunken, casual sex: "I just woke up in someone else's bed/She was overweight/What did I do last night?/I found paradise in between her thighs/It was quick and nice/Now I'm feeling cold as ice." It's precisely this emptiness that lends "Open Book" an added poignancy when Donohoe sings, "Turn on the TV/It's 2AM, there's nothing on/I just need something to focus on".

As evidenced on "22 Grand Job", even work proves to be another mundane activity as the rat race conspires to crush any sense of individuality but it's on "Terror!" that The Rakes become creepily prescient as the protagonist dreads the inevitable attack on the capital: "Every plane a missile/Every suitcase a bomb/There's no reason in my head now/Only fear in my bones."

"Capture/Release" isn't an album to be enjoyed exclusively by Londoners. The experiences of "Work, Work,Work (Pub, Club, Sleep)" are universal enough and besides, songwriters Alan Donohoe and guitarist Matthew Swinnerton inform their vignettes with themes and situations that are recognisable to all but a few hermits. More importantly, "Capture/Release" works as a documentation of the here and now and one that should stand the test of time.

Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Brian Howe, September 9, 2005
Album Value: (6.3/10)

As of this writing, the meme spreading like memefire through the UK press seems to be that the Rakes are doing for London's indie denizens what Mike Skinner did for its chavs-- making mountains of their molehilly tribulations and turning music's often abstracted focus onto a particular modern niche. And it's true that everything about their debut, Capture/Release, screams NOW, from the nervous post-Wire guitars familiar from Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs, to the tattoos-under-starched-shirts lyrical purview, to the Paul Epworth production. Unfortunately, Capture/Release might be the victim of bad timing: It's going to sound pretty rote to American audiences who've been steeped in this stuff for the past couple years, and while it's doubtful that the Rakes are overtly ripping off any of the bands they resemble, it scans as a failure of imagination on the listener's end.

Art Brut's mundane, declarative statements are funny as hell, balanced perfectly on the sincerity/irony axis, and Skinner's are richly detailed. The Rakes aren't as witty as Art Brut, and they lack Skinner's close scrutiny, but their lyrical slant-- revolving around the working trendy person's guilt and ennui-- is not without interest. "Retreat" sets the tone for the album by swinging wildly between earnestness and apathy. "Everything is temporary these days," Alan Donohoe laments. But in a record that's all about jaded acquiesce, he immediately gives up: "Might as well go out for the third night in a row." After wondering whether he should donate his money to a charity or go on holiday, Donohoe succumbs to malaise: "Walk home, come down, retreat to sleep/ Wake up, go out again, repeat." The working man's blues even creep into the paranoid "Terror!": "And my job in the city won't matter no more/ When the network is down and my flesh is all torn." While a portrait of a generation's concerns, however superficial, does emerge, the triteness of these concerns and the clichés Donohoe often uses to limn them fall short of endearing. "I had just woke up in someone else's bed/ She was overweight/ Who did I do last night?" he charmingly wonders on "The Guilt".(...)

Full Review

review by: MusicOHM
reviewer: Jeremy Lloyd
Album Value: (-/-)

In the last 12 months, we've been literally swamped by rock 'n' roll bands from London trying to fill that post Libertines void. Barely a week has gone by without a new group emerging from the capital making some catchy, lo-fi sounds that demand our attention. Some have been great - Razorlight and Bloc Party to name a couple, and some have been horribly mediocre - take The Others or Dogs, for example.

The next band awaiting judgement are The Rakes, who have been building up a steady and devoted fan base in the aforementioned period with some impressive singles and a riotous live show. And on the evidence of this fine debut, Capture/Release, it's unequivocally clear that they fall firmly into the former category.

What they have presented us with is 11 songs in 34 minutes - all the tracks are quick and to the point, which tends to be an electrifying guitar riff or a great, unforgettable chorus. Not since The Strokes exploded into our consciousness in 2001 with Is This It has a band delivered such a sharp and concise debut.

The latent energy from their live show has been captured, but the whole thing sounds remarkably slick and polished at the same time - for this they can thank producer Paul Epworth, who has been partly responsible for a handful of fantastic records of late - debuts by The Futureheads, Maximo Park and Bloc Party, to name but a few.

But more importantly the material here makes you want to jump up and down, forget your troubles and just have a good time - as you listen to Alan Donohue's urgent, frenzied vocals and Matthew Swinnerton's intricate guitar notes on the likes of Strasbourg, 22 Grand Job or the finger clicking, verse-chorus glory of Open Book, you're often transported to that dingy, sweat ridden venue, full of warm beer and over enthusiastic fans. Or you're just in your bedroom secretly dancing away to yet another one of their mighty hooks. It may not be re-inventing any wheels, but as far as the previous criteria goes, it's certainly up there with the best records of 2005..(...)

Full Review

review by: The Guardian
reviewer: Caroline Sullivan, August 12, 2005
Album Value: (3/5)

The Rakes have the sort of rumpled angularity that has been making French fashion designers gurgle about le rock anglais recently. But what distinguishes them from fellow fashion-punks the Others, Hard-Fi, etc is singer Alan Donohoe, who is a "vivacious [sic] reader": anyone who has been mourning the demise of the meaningful lyric will be delighted by his storytelling.

Donohoe's narratives are bundled up into punchy, punky three-minute bursts that win points for verve, if not originality. But you've got to like a tune that starts with the earnest introduction, "This is a true story!" (It concerns the awful consequences of a night at a club.) Don't look for the next big thing in this debut album, but it is diverting enough to earn the Rakes a bit of success.

Original Link

review by: Conctact Music
reviewer: Joanne Nugent
Album Value: (-/-)

Hoorah, at last The Strokes have competition. And what a competition this could turn out to be, with blood and tears galore. Hailing from London, the quartet known as The Rakes release their debut album Capture/Release, and what a debut album. With the sound of a modern sex pistols the rakes inject their punk/indie sound into the music scene. From the opening of Strasbourg to the new single Work, Work, Work, there is not one bad tune on this album. The best song on the album is for me definitely 22 Grand Job, closely followed by Animals which has a distinctive 80s riff, the intro reminds me of Footloose and everything by Hall and Oates. However The Guilt is a great song as well and the reggae feel to Violent makes for yet another great tune. Hang on, wait a minute,

I can’t actually narrow down my favourite song on the album I’ve realised because there are just too many to chose from. There is a definite 80s vibe to this album and this in apparent in the latter part of the album, but it is carried off to a high standard. For a debut album this can not be faulted. I would say its perhaps competition also for the debut album of Hard-Fi – Stars of CCTV, released earlier this year. These London lads can only get better and as far as I am concerned the only way the rakes can go is up. A must for fans of the strokes, the sex pistols and anything with a punk flavour. A necessity for every music collection in the land, well worth the tenner it will cost to buy it and if anyone disagrees then they just do not have a great taste in music

Original Link

The Fall_(2005) "Fall Heads Roll" [7.5/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 07:45:00 -0700

The Fall
Album: "Fall Heads Roll"
Release Date: Oct 4, 2005
Label: Sanctuary
Rock-Rev Value: [7.5/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Post-Punk, College Rock, Indie Rock, Punk, British Punk, Alternative Pop/ Rock
Buy It

Tracklist:

1 Ride Away (5:01)
2 Pacifying Joint (3:46)
3 What About Us? (5:51)
4 Midnight Aspen (3:13)
5 Assume (4:07)
6 Midnight Aspen Reprise (1:53)
7 Blindness (7:24)
8 I Can Hear the Grass Grow (2:50)
9 Bo Demmick (4:15)
10 Youwanner (5:02)
11 Clasp Hands (2:45)
12 Early Days of Channel Führer (3:48)
13 Breaking the Rules (2:26)
14 Trust in Me (3:34)

review by:Allmusic
reviewer: Heather Phares
Allmusic Album Value: (4.5/5)

Having exorcised enough bile for two bands on their rickety release Interim, the Fall loosen up their attitude, tighten up their delivery, and squeeze out a rocking album that relies heavily on its highlights. Fortunately, there's plenty, most hitting with the thwack of the "Sparta FC" single or the Light User Syndrome album. "Pacifying Joint" is a punchy exercise in hooks and sheen, "What About Us" is snide Mancabilly of the highest order, and "Blindness" hypnotizes and chugs its way into the Top 25 original Fall tracks ever. Flashiest of the lot has to be a soaring cover of the Move's hippy anthem "I Can Hear the Grass Grow," a raucous singalong adaptation that brings sweet reminders of the group's take on the Kinks' "Victoria." Bringing up the second line are the usual brainy meanders like "Bo Demmick" and "Youwanner," plus the hip-shaking rave-up "Clasp Hands." Less ambitious songs and quirky numbers like the country-bumpkin reggae "Ride Away" and the lazy, acoustic "Early Days of Channel Führer" round out the album well, but some B-side-worthy leftovers tacked onto the end keep this from being Dragnet -- or Country on the Click, for that matter. Instead of just stealing the riff, "Breaking the Rules" would do better if it actually turned into "Walk Like a Man" and the Mark E. Smith-less "Trust in Me" is a fair Placebo-meets-Comsat Angels track that's horribly out of place here. Vocalist/Fall czar Smith is writing and singing with plenty of purpose up to this point, and if you hack off the misguided finish, Fall Heads Roll proves they can still live up to their legend.

Original Link

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer:Joe Tangari, October 10, 2005
Album Value: (7.8/10)

For a band with such a devoted cult following, the Fall are rarely covered by other groups. It's hardly surprising, of course, given the group's general disdain for standard song structures and Mark E. Smith's general-uh disdain-uh for everything, including conventional singing. For the same reasons, it's always jarring to hear the Fall doing someone else's song. When I first heard their version of the Kinks' "Victoria", I could scarcely believe it was real, and I still don't like it. Perhaps I'm too attached to the stunning original to bother with the exponentially higher level of sarcasm Smith brings to the table.

I'm not quite as attached to the Move's "I Can Hear the Grass Grow", but it's among my favorite nuggets from the UK's late-60s psychedelic explosion, a brilliantly arranged song that married trippy lyrics and harmonies to a brawling mod rave-up. Smith and his latest lineup naturally strip away all of those elements when they tackle the song in the middle of Fall Heads Roll, their 80th or 90th album. By the time they're done with it, the poor song is lying in a little broken heap, laid out by Smith's singing-not-singing and the band's frantic evisceration of the original's complex, multi-part arrangement. It's not an improvement, but it's different, and the Fall have undeniably made it their own.

I don't know if Smith intends sarcasm on "I Can Hear the Grass Grow", but it's hard not to hear it. The guy fairly drips with it-- it's like an appendage of his body at this point, and it gets him plenty of sneering mileage on Fall Heads Roll, a grab-bag of a Fall album with brilliant highs and scattered lows. In other words, it's exactly what Fall followers are hoping for, and it continues the band's recent run of strong work, even reviving a few promising songs from the dead zone of last year's unforgivably sloppy Interim compilation. "Blindness", for example, comes back in its third incarnation. With each subsequent revision, the song has grown longer and nastier, and here, the incessant bass crunch and hovering guitar parts drip with fury. (...)

See The Complete Review

review by:Playlouder
reviewer: Luke Turner, 29 sept. 2005
Album Value: [4/5]

The Fall's version of The Move's 'I Can Hear The Grass Grow' is an apt midpoint to 'Fall Heads Roll'. It positively skips along - yes, skips - with a great, joyous chorus, steely WHHING! flourishes like the sharpening of a knife, and Mark E Smith hammering out his lines with marked clarity. You can hear the message clear in his satisfyingly pugnacious bellow that punctuates 'Fall Heads Roll' - all is well in the realms of The Fall.

2003's 'Real New Fall LP' seems to have brought The Fall to a whole new audience, and given a bit of a prod to some of the balding old guard, currently busying themselves selling mortgages around the nation. A few years back, in the dark times pre-'Unutterable', who'd have thought that in 2005 Mark E Smith would be reading out the November football scores on primetime BBC?

While 'Fall Heads Roll' as a whole might not quite scale the heights of 'The Real New Fall LP', but there's no doubt that elements of it are up there with it.

'What About Us' is an address to deceased deviant doctor Harold Shipman that's all chipper "baba baba babbaba ba" shouts and judicious use made of Elena's urgent keyboard over Spencer Birtwistles rumbling drums. 'Blindness', meanwhile, has a mean clanking riff that refuses to relent for the song's entire seven minutes, and 'Clasp Hands' is a cheery jig. But as well as this trio and 'I Can Hear...', you've got album opener 'Ride Away', as jaunty a ditty as they've recorded in years, oom-papping along over a simple one-two beat and electronic squirls, Mark E Smith's "hey heys" winkingly cheeky. Then we're cracking straight into 'Pacifying Joint' where, again, Eleni Smith's synthesisers zip fruitily over the kind of simple, dirge guitars that The Fall do so well. 'Early Days Of Channel Fuehrer' even employs subtle acoustic guitar, the faintest glimmer of a country twang, and Mark E Smith singing with a hint of sadness in his voice. It's odd that the kind of song that most bands would consider to be a stylistic staple is, in The Fall's hands, an interesting diversion.

If 'Fall Heads Roll' had been limited to the above alone, with perhaps a couple others - 'Breaking The Rules' and the mendacious quiver of final track 'Trust In Me', say, - it'd have been nigh on perfect. But 'Assume' meanders through some good, gritty noise, but doesn't quite find a sure path, and neither do the two tracks which bookend it; 'Aspen' and 'Aspen Reprise' - these could have been done without. But these gripes aside, it's clear that in his second half century as leader of The Fall, Mark E Smith still has both creative mind and gimlet eyes lodged firmly on his shoulders.

Original Link

review by: Tinymixtapes
reviewer: grigsby
Album Value: (4/5)

First of all, I must confess that I do love The Fall. Whether I am 'in love' with The Fall I will not disclose to you, dear reader, but the point remains that this evaluation will take place with utmost Fall-centricity. As such, the perennial difficulty with any Fall album is expectation. Last year brought us the frequently brilliant, always good The Real New Fall LP - and, I admit, I was hoping this year for The Real New Fall LP Part Two, but I didn't get it. Such are the joys of The Fall, though, as I instead got something I didn't even know I had wanted.

We'll start off with the big one. As anyone who follows The Fall knows, quite a buzz has been building up around "Blindness," as it has appeared on both Interim and the Peel Sessions box set. Regardless of how this version stacks up to its counterparts, it is the most singularly brilliant track The Fall has come up with in many, many years. Returning to that old Fall formula of 'the long song,' we get seven minutes of repetition that is truly right up there with the classic "NWRA." Meaner and tougher-sounding than long Fall songs of old, Smith demonstrates the magic that can make seven minutes of listening to the same riff seem like far too short a time.

With such an absolute classic right in the middle, how does the rest of the album stack up?

The first half, though beginning with a mystifying but satisfying quasi-reggae number, shows a band that wants action, speed, and propulsion. There are three rockers cut from the same cloth as "Theme From Sparta F.C.," which is just fine with me. In their midst is the requisite 'quiet one,' and even there the rhythm section sounds unwilling to sit still.(...)

See The Complete Review

review by: Mark's Record Reviews
reviewer: Mark Prindle
Album Value: (7/10)

Continuing The Fall's 28-year history of perplexing all expectations, nearly the same exact line-up that recorded one of the band's most well-received and consistently hooky records ever (The Real New Fall Album) returns three years later with one of the band's absolute weakest studio releases -- tied with The Infotainment Scan for overall lack of consistency, though this album is longer with more good songs (and more bad, but hey) so it's definitely the superior purchase. At any rate, how disappointed can you get in a band whose 'worst album ever' still deserves a 7/10 on any decently-eared music fan's scale? If you're that kind of asshole, go listen to Public Image Ltd's "Disappointed" and slam your head in a piano.

First things -- there is nothing overtly 'weak' about the band's performance on this record. They play with tons of energy, good humor and varied quirky guitar and organ tones, plus Mark's voice is getting even odder in its old age. Confidence abounds as well, with no trepidation in the performances whatsoever. The production is equally strong, providing that raw, crisp and loud rock and roll sound and making sure that every instrument is audible and zesty, nothing is digitally smoothed over ala Infotainment Scan, and there's never an issue of over-trebliness or lo-fi rigmarole a ler Dragnet.

The problem lies with the songwriting. Or rather... the refusal to do any. Half of these riffs are generic, cliched chord sequences pulled from mid-60s garage rock songs. And since Mark just says everything as usual, there's no vocal melodies either. If you're unconcerned by originality in songwriting, you'll love this record because it sounds GREAT. I unfortunately can't ignore the lazy fact that "Pacifying Joint" is E-G-A, "What About Us" is E-A-G, "Assume" is A-C-A-G, "Youwanner" is Bflat-A-E, and "Blindness" is SEVEN AND A HALF MINUTES of G-Bflat-F. And I'm aware that it's easy to go back through the Fall's history and pick plenty of songs that only have two or three chords, but these particular chord progressions are so dated and overused throughout the history of garage rock, it's an embarrassment to hear The Ever-Creative Fall relying on them in 2005 of all years. It's the same kind of crap you can find on any of these retro-garage CDs on Estrus and Gearhead and labels like that. Add to these five retreads a two-minute 'reprise' of an earlier song on the record and a cover of The Move's "I Can Hear The Grass Grow" ruined by Mark's warbliest, least melodic vocals EVER, and that's an entire half of the album down the somewhat disappointing drain.(...)

See The Complete Review

review by: Adrian Album's Reviews
reviewer: Adrian Denning
Album Value: (8.5/10)

The only change in line-up I can detect from the previous Fall album proper is the fact they have a different bass-player now. For The Fall, this is a time of stability unknown since the days of Hanley, Scanlon and co. In addition to this, you know what? This version of The Fall are great. The band are on a roll, giving sterling live performances and now creating a run of recent albums that have nearly all been uniformly excellent. Still, a few of these songs have been doing The Fall rounds for a while now. 'Clasp Hands' and 'Blindness' to name but two have demanded to be included on a fall album proper for a good year, at least. 'Clasp Hands' is sterling, very catchy and has proper Fall guitar lines. 'Blindness' is based on 'Chicago Now' from 1990s 'Extricate' and lasts for seven and a half minutes. It sits slap bang in the middle of this latest Fall LP and sounds superb. The distorted bass sound is glorious, the band just really do sound utterly magnificent. The two songs i've discussed are not however, the finest songs from this LP. Song five is titled 'Assume' and although fails to make much literal lyrical sense to me, is one of the finest pieces of Fall music I can think of. Again, Ben Pritchard, the geetar man, does great things. The new bass player keeps his distorted bass sound which works really well. MES has a lot to say and a lot to say that needs interpretation, but boy, do those words strung together sound great. Another mighty highlight higher than either 'Clasp Hands' or 'Blindness' has to be the ultra catchy 'I Can Hear The Grass Grow'. A simple enough song, but here, enhanced by MES and enhanced by a kick-ass sounding Fall group of musicians. Deserved to be number 22 at least in the singles charts. At least. We can dream of a parallel universe. Uh.
(...)

See The Complete Review

Deus_(2005) "Pocket Revolution" [7.5/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 16:41:00 -0700

Deus
Album: "Pocket Revolution"
Release Date: Oct, 2005
Label: V2
Rock-Rev Value: [7.5/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Alternative Pop/ Rock, Neo-Prog, Experimental Rock, Experimental
Buy It

review by: Pitchfork
Album Value: (7.8/10)
reviewer:-Joe Tangari

The members of dEUS named their band after God, which takes no small amount of chutzpah. It also sets the bar kind of high. I imagine that if God made music it'd be pretty special, maybe the kind of thing that would physically blow your mind out your ear or herald the Earth's final destruction. Think about how disappointing it would be if God was on the bill and you got a milquetoast singer-songwriter or boring lap-pop.

dEUS' music isn't godly, but in the second half of the 90s they released three very good albums that weren't easily pigeonholed. The first two in particular hop from genre to genre, while 1999's The Ideal Crash took all their manic eccentricity and channeled it into a slightly more accessible package. Six years later, Pocket Revolution continues that evolution with a sharp, direct attack that undoubtedly has more commercial potential than anything they've released before. This comes at the expense of the messy charm that made their early music so enjoyably chaotic, but anyone who originally liked them for the Frank Zappa, Charles Mingus, Don Cherry, and Captain Beefheart affinities they once flew like a flag won't be totally disappointed, as their music still has those elements. They're just packaged more subtly.

Case in point is "Cold Sun of Circumstance", a wildly rhythmic song stuffed with faux blues riffage and frenetic vocals. The main thing separating it from the craziness of In a Bar, Under the Sea is the band's restrained production, which has a smoothing effect on all of the material. The proggier songs are held back a bit by the approach-- "What We Talk About (When We Talk About Love)" in particular features a monster rhythm track topped with Beefheartian interjections and could have had the same explosive quality of "Fell Off the Floor, Man" with looser engineering-- but the band's pop side is finally given full flower, so it's a trade-off. (...)

full review

review by: Drowned In Sound
Album Value: (4.5/5)
reviewer:-Lianne Steinberg

It's only a band; remember it's only a band. So why on earth does the first rumble of Tom Barman's fragile voice cause the eyes to prickle and form great big tears of relief? Maybe it's because those who fell so deeply into their world of hotel lounges, Beefheart toms and murderous relationships haven't dared speak of their absence, simply because it was a loss that was just too keenly felt.

Six years since what was thought to be their final album, The Ideal Crash, there is still no one that comes close to the avant-garde, nocturnal journeys of this Belgian behemoth. With the original line-up gone, it's been left to founding member Barman to surround himself with musicians who have helped him sound more like vintage dEUS. Opener 'Bad Timing' happened to be the final song committed to tape whilst recording, yet it's a natural way to start; reclaiming their fatalistic, sinister sound. In the same way that 'Roses' and 'Suds and Soda' built into earth shattering melodies that sprinted for the finish line, 'Bad Timing' features Barman characteristically holding his vocals back, maintaining a menacingly tuneful huskiness whilst all the dramatics are left to slicing guitars and driving, fuzzed up bass.

As The Ideal Crash couched itself in an intricate, serene world, new single '7 Days, 7 Weeks' is its natural successor, with Barman is in advisory mode and the soft, salutary tones being handed gravitas by the soothing female vocals. Long-time friend and frontman Tim Vanhamel adds his sleaze-ridden guitar to 'If You Don't Get What You Want' making it one of the album's sexiest, openly seductive tracks.(...)

full review

review by: Playlouder
Album Value: (4.5/5)
reviewer: Daniel Robson

I definitely fancy this new dEUS album. So why don't I want to shag it?

It's been nine years since I fell in love with Antwerp five-piece dEUS. The sweet, fumbling whimsy of 'Little Arithmetics' lodged in my ears, and although I found the rest of the song's parent album 'In A Bar Under The Sea' somewhat hit and miss, my love-pump throbbed anew when its follow-up was released in 1999. 'Ideal Crash' was just one of those albums: hard to pigeonhole, easy to love. It whirled with delicate, understated guitar-play, dark melodies, haunting strings, inventive rhythm and pert buttocks.

Six years later, dEUS are back, flaunting new knickers to tempt me into bed. But while 'Pocket Revolution' is good for a fumble, the band don't quite grip my horn like they used to.

The new line-up sounds pretty similar to the dEUS of old, that much is certain. The loss of auxiliary member Tim Vanhamel and addition of Mauro Pawlowski, both ex- of Evil Superstars - the best thing to come out of Belgium since chocolate-covered waffles - makes little odds. This is still very much Tom Barman's brothel, and he madams it well. Best of all, 'Pocket Revolution' sounds a lot like 'Ideal Crash' in its dense, raw musicianship, with thick guitars and teases of feedback echoing against underplayed strings and morose vocals.(...)

full review

review by: Gigwise
Album Value: (4.5/5)
reviewer: Janne Oinonen

Belgium might be renowned for chocolate rather than music for a reason (although Soulwax might beg to differ), but dEUS did an admirable job in boosting the country's flagging art-rock industry over the course of three albums during the 1990's despite being criminally ignored outside mainland Europe and Scandinavia.

Five years and a few line-up changes later, dEUS are back, and even a cursory listen to Pocket Revolution reveals that the amendments to the Antwerp five-piece's agenda aren't limited to the personnel department. The band's urge for producing an unclassifiable lopsided racket by tossing all possible influences from jazz noodling and nocturnal crooner balladry to Velvet Underground-flavoured drones and beyond, to the pot and then steering that steaming stew in thrillingly unpredictable directions, appears to be a thing of the past. Instead, it's their always prominent pop chops that hog the spotlight, with the inevitable results that Pocket Revolution is filled with disappointingly conventional fare that reins in the band’s more eccentric tendencies. There is nothing here to match the brilliance of violin-powered chant-fest 'Suds & Soda' - even an epic track named after the bizarre, intergalactic cult jazz hero Sun Ra who claimed to be from Saturn remains earthbound despite some spirited stabs at freewheeling space rock.(...)

full review

The Rosebuds_(2005) "The Runners Four" [7.5/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 16:00:00 -0700

The Rosebuds
Album: "Birds Make Good Neighbors"
Release Date: Oct 11, 2005
Label: Merge
Rock-Rev Value: [7.5/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock
Buy It

review by: Pitchfork
reviewer: Karen A. Mann
Allmusic Album Value: (8.1/10)

What happened to the Rosebuds?

When we first met singer/guitarist Ivan Howard and keyboardist/vocalist Kelly Crisp, they were blowing peppy power-pop smooches to each other on Make Out, gagging the cynical and wooing the goo-goo-eyed with Pixie Stix hooks and lyrics like "First time I kissed you, I almost died." Their outlook wasn't completely, err, rosy-- there were songs about sad drunks and a few hints of heartbreak-- but it was clear that this was a married couple utterly enthralled with their Big, Big Love.

There's nothing wrong with Big, Big Love, or Pixie Stix hooks, but the Rosebuds weren't particularly good at either. Thankfully, their second full-length, Birds Make Good Neighbors, is a dark, disconcerting record that derives its power from restraint. It's Southern gothic through the filter of Ernest Hemingway, with the frightening stuff left off the page but seeping between the lines. There's a lot of love in these songs, but it's love in the face of a common enemy.

"And we'll get by/ And we tell ourselves one more time/ We get by/ And we brace ourselves and hold our hands and fight," Howard sings on the opening song, "Hold Hands and Fight". But it isn't a triumphant vow or some kind of pep talk. The music is ominous, with piano, tambourine, and stand-up bass throbbing quietly, haltingly. Howard's voice wobbles, slipping between notes. When the chorus swoops in with a gang of muted oohs and whoas, it sounds like the Arcade Fire, if the Arcade Fire were very, very scared. (...)

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review by: Stylus
reviewer: Mike Mineo
Allmusic Album Value: (B-)

One must imagine how the atmosphere must be on tour or in the studio if you're in a band with your husband, wife, brother, or sister. Bickering must be the norm, right? Well, if you look in the direction of the success of The Arcade Fire (husband and wife) or The Fiery Furnaces (brother and sister), it may seem that the musical chemistry is extraordinary—that genuine relationships often create genuine music. The Rosebuds are no different. The husband and wife duo of Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp, along with drummer Billy Alphin, present a simplistic yet effective approach of guitar, keyboards, and drums drenched over Howard's smooth, bluesy vocals.

It's seems that the touring that The Rosebuds have been doing of late with Teenage Fanclub has rubbed off: tracks like "Boxcar" and "The Lovers' Rights" reveal an obvious influence. "Boxcar," for example, plys its trade on a simple guitar riff and catchy chorus: "But I'm not crazy, I'm just a little boy, and you're not crazy, you're just a little girl," which upon hearing many will find stuck in their head for quite some time. It’s not the lyrics, though, that work as much as it is the music: the brilliant hooks throughout Birds Make Good Neighbors make up for any lack of lyrical progression from their previous work. And musically, the song remains the same: The Rosebuds once again easily meld different sounds across the album, much like TheRosebudsMakeOut did, with its line-up of half-acoustic songs and half-upbeat electric tunes. Here, the only difference is the addition of the aforementioned blues. (...)

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review by: Allmusic
reviewer: Tim Sendra
Allmusic Album Value: (3/5)

The Rosebuds' first album, 2003's The Rosebuds Make Out, was a fun album, indie rock at its most lighthearted and breezy. In the time since then, the duo of vocalist/guitarist Ivan Howard and keyboardist/vocalist Kelly Crisp have discovered subtlety and sadness, it seems. The songs are coated with a layer of almost gothic gloom and smeared with glossy acoustic guitars and clichéd arrangements, Howard's vocals (one of the bands' strong points) sound detached and morose for the most part, and the band seem to have sacrificed their freshness and spark for a misguided attempt at emotional heft. On Birds Make Good Neighbors, the unbridled punch of the first album is pretty much gone, as instead the band have opted for a layered and adult sound with loads of the aforementioned acoustic guitars, lounge-y electric pianos, and cottony reverb to match the arty and somewhat arch lyrics. Songs about birds, ancient promises, boxcars, and falling leaves may sound good in the hands of someone like Nick Cave, maybe, but in the Rosebuds' grip seem ill-fitting. The band sounded much more at ease on their first album and the more subdued yet still energetic and light EP (2004's The Rosebuds Unwind) that followed, much more energetic and focused. That's not to say that there aren't some fine songs here like the rollicking "Hold Hands and Fight," "The Lover's Rights," which bops along like an indie rock take on Motown, and the pounding and peppy "Shake Our Tree" to name a few. Unfortunately, the forced and false-sounding songs outnumber these bright spots by a wide margin. In a sad trade-off, the band's desire to make a more emotionally powerful and thoughtful record has sapped their strengths and partially ruined what was good about them (their high energy sound, their gleeful innocence, and their knack for sharp and catchy hooks) to begin with.

Original Link

review by: Glide Magazine
reviewer: Garin Pirnia
Allmusic Album Value: (-/-)

The Rosebuds are one of those charming indie bands emerging from the storied North Carolina scene featuring such legends as Superchunk and Archers of Loaf. In 2003, husband and wife duo Kelly Crisp and Ivan Howard released their affable debut, The Rosebuds Make Out, which wavers between giddy lush ‘60s inspired pop music and emotive love tunes. But on their second outing, Birds Make Good Neighbors, the couple segue in a different direction. Gone are the infectious fun-loving hooks that made their debut so lofty only to be replaced with earnest and dubious ballads questioning relationships and love. Several of the songs contain sing songy/rhyming lyrics about eternal youth and metaphorical songs about nature and birds. (...)

Full Review

review by: Redalert
reviewer: Karen A. Mann
Allmusic Album Value: (-/-)

You probably shouldn't listen to The Rosebuds' new CD, Birds Make Good Neighbors, if you're going through a break-up. Really. Ivan Howard's plaintive crooning, paired with an overall jangly ominousness throughout, is enough to bring tears to your eyes — even when he's singing about how everything is wonderful and right with his lover. Maybe that's because there's always an underlying sense that everything is not right, and that his flowery declarations are masking some well-founded fears that this relationship, like so many others before, is going to end in a heart-rending, gory mess.

On their first full length, The Rosebuds Make Out (Merge, 2003), and this year's follow-up EP, The Rosebuds Unwind, the band showed a flair for winsome love songs full of vaguely-psychedelic hooks. The hooks are still there, courtesy of Howard's reverb-laden surf guitar, and keyboard player/vocalist Kelly Crisp's understated keyboard playing. A husband-and-wife duo, Howard and Crisp sing beautifully together, which is a good thing because there are quite a few sing-alongs in which they trade off of each other. Of note is "Shake Our Tree," a hand-clapping call-and-response that almost dares you not to like it.

Original Link

Franz Ferdinand_(2005) "You Could Have It So Much Better" [7.5/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Sat, 22 Oct 2005 08:45:00 -0700

Franz Ferdinand
Album: "You Could Have It So Much Better"
Release Date: Oct 4, 2005
Label: Sony
Rock-Rev Value: [7.5/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock, Alternative Pop-Rock
Buy It

review by: Allmusic
album value: (4.5/5)
reviewer Heather Phares

Opting not to fix what broke them, You Could Have It So Much Better serves up more of the stylish, angular sound that worked so well on Franz Ferdinand's debut. After years of rehearsing in abandoned Glasgow warehouses and playing in relatively obscure groups like the Yummy Fur, it's perfectly understandable why the band chose not to mess with a good thing -- and why they chose to follow up the breakthrough success of Franz Ferdinand so quickly. But, after a year and a half of near-instant acclaim and constant touring, Franz Ferdinand return with songs that just aren't as consistently good as the album that made them so successful in the first place. A lot of You Could Have It So Much Better feels like a super-stylized caricature of the band's sound, with exaggeratedly spiky guitars, brooding crooning, and punky-yet-danceable beats. This isn't an entirely bad thing: "The Fallen" begins the album with a wicked, gleeful welcome back that embraces the jaunty mischief running through most of Franz Ferdinand's best moments, while "I'm Your Villain" effortlessly nails the darkly sexy vibe they strived for on Franz Ferdinand. Meanwhile, the famous friends, arty parties, and "shocking" homoeroticism of "Do You Want To" -- which feels more like a victory lap than a comeback single -- play like knowing, tongue-in-cheek self-parody. However, too many tracks on You Could Have It So Much Better are witty and energetic in the moment but aren't especially memorable. "You're the Reason I'm Leaving," "What You Meant," "This Boy," and the oddly anti-climactic finale, "Outsiders," are Franz-lite -- not at all bad, but not as good as even their early B-sides and certainly not up to the level of "Take Me Out." What helps save the album from being completely predictable are slower moments like the pretty, jangly "Walk Away" and atmospheric, piano-driven songs such as "Fade Together" (which really should've been the final track). Best of all is "Eleanor Put Your Boots On," a gorgeous, Beatlesque ballad that suggests that if Franz Ferdinand have songs this good in them, they're selling themselves, and their fans, short with most of the songs here (you could have it so much better, indeed). Not so much a sophomore slump as a rushed follow-up, You Could Have It So Much Better probably would've been better if Franz Ferdinand had waited until they had a batch of songs as consistent as their first album, but as it stands, it's still pretty good.

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review by: Pitchfork
album value: (8.3/10)
reviewer Nitsuh Abebe

You've probably clicked over here to see if the boys in this band could be suffering from any form of second-album slouching. Here's the thing, though: I'm not convinced these boys make albums. Not like that, and not in those terms. Sometimes, when we call an act a "singles band," we mean something cruel and obvious-- that their album tracks just aren't very good. But with Franz Ferdinand, we mean something kinder: that their whole project, their whole system of stylish poses and cocksure guitar stomps, just happens to work better in discrete, surprising, three-minute blasts. It's damned generous of them, really. And like Duran Duran-- the band whose sound these guys spent parts of their first album hybridizing with some vintage Josef K and Monochrome Set post-punk stuff-- chances are they'll continue making solid LPs from which we mostly just cherish and remember the hits.

That's the report from You Could Have It So Much Better, which does a lot to lock in that M.O. As it turns out, Franz Ferdinand, like many an effective singles band, are immensely more lovable when they're on top of the world. Casual, insouciant greatness is kind of their thing, and these cocky kids seem to have known it from Day One-- just consider "Take Me Out", where they spend half a minute pretending to sound like the Strokes before pulping their way down into something much better. And then consider "Do You Want To", the lead single from this album. Give these guys the Mercury Prize, and do they sit down fretting about making some kind of serious statement? No, they come back with a big ridiculous stomper, a song whose hooks get so happily ballroom-glam you'd almost think they stole them from the Sweet or the Bay City Rollers-- the kind of song most bands wouldn't be able to pull off without telegraphing a whole lot of irony and embarrassment. (...)

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review by: RollingStone
album value: (3.5/5)
reviewer DAVID FRICKE

"Do You Want To" -- the first single from the second album by punk-pop Scots Franz Ferdinand -- starts the same way all great rock & roll dance-party 45s of the mid-Sixties did: in mono. For the first eighteen seconds, the entire band is, if you're listening with headphones, crammed into the center of your cranium: the cutting unison guitars of Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy; the interlocked swagger of bassist Bob Hardy and drummer Paul Thomson; Kapranos' arrogant vocal cheer -- "I'm gonna make somebody love me" -- sugared with sweet-whine harmonies. Then the music goes widescreen. The guitars fan out in snarling stereo; the bass and drums goose-step up the middle. And when that doot doo-doot vocal hook kicks in, it sounds like a gang of droogs busting up a 1965 Beach Boys session.

Franz Ferdinand easily won the Kings of the New Wave Revival sweepstakes -- trumping British peers like Bloc Party and the Futureheads -- with the Sta-Prest jump and firecracker choruses of their 2004 debut, Franz Ferdinand. But the tight lightning on You Could Have It So Much Better shows deeper roots in the first wave of white electric dance music: specifically the crunchy-guitar R&B and arch-garage songwriting of 1965-67 Kinks. The creeping intro of guitar and kick drum in "Evil and a Heathen" snaps me back to "Milk Cow Blues" on The Kink Kontroversy, and the way Kapranos and McCarthy fire up "The Fallen" and "You're the Reason I'm Leaving" with pitted grinding riffs instead of power chords is right out of the "You Really Got Me" composer's manual. On top of that, Kapranos often sings in a sighing tenor that suggests a less precious Ray Davies with a hipster-ennui dash of the Strokes' Julian Casablancas, especially next to the parlor-piano rolls in "Eleanor Put Your Boots On." Either by accident or conscious homage, Franz Ferdinand have made an album that, in more places and ways than you'd expect, is closer to Face to Face than to Gang of Four's Entertainment! (...)

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The Constantines_(2005) "Tournament of Hearts" [7/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 16:04:00 -0700

The Constantines
Album: "Tournament of Hearts"
Release Date: Oct 11, 2005
Label: Sub Pop
Rock-Rev Value: [7/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock, Alternative Pop-Rock
Buy It

review by: Pitchfork
review by -Marc Hogan, October 11, 2005
Album Value: (7.6/10)

Curling is a people's game, but while the Canadian women's curling championship, the Tournament of Hearts, is a professional competition, there are no full-time pro-curlers. Ontario's Constantines, too, counterbalance their work-- their allusiveness and unblunted riffs-- with a rough-hewn populism. Their songs might conjure the ghosts of Italian futurists, obscure 50s casualties, or Rod Stewart, but they ultimately bleed with love, rock 'n' roll, and the booze-stained nights that follow workaday days. The band's self-titled debut clamored for the death of rock music, while 2003's equally impressive Shine a Light saw a great band building its dank, proletarian vision, dancing through alleyways, too drunk to steer or to stop.

Third album Tournament of Hearts stumbles to its factory job the next morning, shakes out the cobwebs, and turns the radio dial to classic rock. It's gentler than its predecessors, relying on sweat and unresolved tension rather than a glorious gutter-poet deluge, though the change is more of subtleties than of substance. Here, the band consecrates not the grand passions of Shine a Light but the everyday labors of nurses, phone operators, and working stiffs "from Herald Square to the heavens, earth, and sea."

In depicting ordinary people, the Constantines unabashedly evoke bands that ordinary people might like. "Working Fulltime", inspired by the work of 93-year-old Chicago journalist and oral historian Studs Terkel, nods toward Bachman-Turner Overdrive in its title and simple, power-chord refrain, then dives into a G'n'R twin-guitar breakdown. "We will not be undersold," singer/guitarists Bry Webb and Steve Lambke grimly chant, after insisting, "We wake up every morning full of wonder." The album's most immediate track, "Soon Enough", is nearly as direct and overpowering as Shine a Light's immortal "On to You", but with a soft, countrified strum rather than its predecessor's punk-derived tumult. "Work and love will make a man out of you," Webb repeats, his still-throaty vocals sounding as subdued as the arrangement.(...)

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review by: Tinymixtapes
review by Bondelli
album value: (4.5/5)

The Constantines, darlings of the Toronto indie scene, are at it again with the Sub Pop release Tournament of Hearts. Following their highly acclaimed Shine a Light, Bry Webb and the rest of the Cons deliver another impressive album of post/punk/rock & roll bliss. Tournament reveals a new progression for the Constantines, while staying true to the sound that made Shine a Light so great. The difference was probably affected by the presence of Oneida's Bobby Matador during most of their recording, and listeners familiar with both bands should be able to discern Oneida's influence. Tournament of Hearts should not disappoint existing Constantines fans or anyone else that is lucky enough to pick this album up.

Tournament begins with "Draw Us Lines," a song consisting entirely of one chord. Most bands could never successfully pull off such a feat, but Bry Webb's passionate singing and lyrics, combined with the ability to create a flow that circumvents monotony, allows the Cons to work it into an interesting track. The rest of the tracks are varied enough to keep anyone from becoming bored even after many listens. The album contains "Hotline Operator," which was originally released as a B-side on the "Nighttime-Anytime" single, and my personal favorite, "Soon Enough," a track with a Western feel that manages to be both mellow and upbeat, with catchy guitar-work tied together perfectly with Webb's singing.

The greatest aspect of Tournament of Hearts is Bry Webb's singing. His voice convinces you of the truth of the emotion and power of his songs. With so many bands either sounding whiny or bland, especially when it comes to songs even remotely addressing the subject of love, it is refreshing to hear it done the way it was meant to be: emotion without mushiness, rock without bland lyrics, and execution that seems not at all phony.

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review by: Popmatters
review by Adrien Begrand
Album Value: (5/10)

The Constantines are one of those bands whose workmanlike attitude makes them impossible to hate. These hard working, hard-touring Canadian boys are your typical, earnest rockers, a band who has delivered every single time on record, be it their ferocious 2002 debut, the more even-keeled but more nuanced Shine a Light, not to mention the impressive handful of EPs they've put out in the past. As solid as their recorded work is, they're even better live. There's a reason why many Constantines album reviews start out with a preamble about how potent their live show is; you may like "Hyacinth Blues" on record, but egad, dear reader, when you hear that song in a packed club, climaxing with the "O-V-E-R-D-O-S-E" chant, for a while there, anyway, it sounds like the greatest rock song ever. Displaying a lyrical sincerity that's as strongly influenced by Ian MacKaye and Fugazi as their music is, the Constantines wear their hearts on their sleeves, and ask listeners to do the same, while delivering soul-stirring blends of hardcore and classic rock 'n' roll. This is workingman's indie rock at its finest, and when Shine a Light won over even more admirers a couple years ago, we all thought it was only a matter of time before this Guelph, Ontario band hit it big.

Needless to say, expectations were very high in anticipation of the Cons' third full-length, but while everyone conjured mental images of an even more explosive display of post punk soul, the band went and threw us all a curveball. Not just any curveball, mind you, but one of those devastating, drop-off-the-table sliders that leaves hitters whiffing helplessly like little leaguers. Gone are the aggressive bursts of guitars, the surreally poetic manifestos bellowed by lead howler Bryan Webb, the tense songs that wind up an audience as tightly as possible. Instead, we get an album that's understated, introspective, and lugubrious enough to either enthrall longtime fans, or completely alienate them.(...)

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review by: Blogcritics
review by Zach Hoskins
Album Value: (-/-)

It's easy to see why the indie community has embraced The Constantines. Personally and politically, the Ontario five-piece embody the same kind of earnestness grass-roots musicians and fans alike can rally behind: no complacency for these guys, no Clear Channel radio or wishy-washy mainstream politics. Tournament Of Hearts, like the two Constantines records which came before, is music that means Something - it almost doesn't matter what that "Something" is. Opening track "Draw Us Lines" is nothing short of a call to arms, Doug McGregor's drums pounding out a tribal rhythm, while vocalist Bryan Webb chants his peculiarly bolstering, quasi-mystical lyrics: "Starhawk in a street ritual, pleas from Herald Square to the heavens, earth and seas. Let the land move its people, and draw us lines from our fiery designs." He lets loose with a strangled yell and the song shifts into high gear. Power chords dart into the mix, only to pull back just in time for the next verse. The intensity builds to a fever pitch; waves of guitars and cymbals lap over McGregor's insistent tom-toms, and by the time it's all over it becomes clear: perhaps self-conscious, perhaps not, this is the kind of music the word "anthemic" was invented to describe.

But does Importance (or self-importance) alone make a good album? Yes and no. Certainly, the epic scope of The Constantines' vision does them more good than ill. Songs like "Lizaveta," awash in brass and fuzztone, are so heavy with portent that their cryptic lyrics are elevated to an almost prophetic level. "It's good...we desire disorder," sings Webb. "Be sensitive. You were born to live." Musical icons are invoked left and right: U2, Pearl Jam, Springsteen. The beginning of processional blue-collar rocker "Working Full-Time" - a repeating synthesizer motif, a series of thunderous drum rolls, another masculine, hoarse-throated yell - even calls to mind one of the more famous moments from the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again." But listening to such a tailor-made modern classic can tire a guy out, and ultimately Tournament Of Hearts feels longer than its 36-minute running length should allow. It's all just so serious. Even temporary reprieves, like the tightly wired "Hotline Operator" (something like a more impassioned, less sexy Kills outtake) and the light touches of electric piano that color "Thieves," are more concerned with heaviness than headiness, and that's a shame. It's like a healthy, hearty dinner with no dessert: good for you, sure, but where's the fun?

Like Fugazi before them, The Constantines make music as stone-faced and mirthless as the politics they represent. And maybe they should: in this age of irony, a good dose of gravity could be just what we need. But Tournament Of Hearts takes itself almost too seriously. It plods rather than struts. It proselytizes, but only rarely gives the listener anything resembling transcendence. Don't get me wrong, it's a fine album; meticulously crafted, performed with firm-handed control and startling chops. One just can't help but wonder how much greater the Constantines could be if they learned to lighten up

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Deerhoof_(2005) "The Runners Four" [8/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 15:20:00 -0700

Deerhoof
Album: "The Runners Four"
Release Date: Oct 11, 2005
Label: Kill Rock Stars
Rock-Rev Value: [8/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock, Post-Rock/ Experimental, Noise Pop, Noise-Rock
Buy It

review by:Allmusic
reviewer: Heather Phares
Allmusic Album Value: (4/5)

After seven albums' worth of gleeful pandemonium, Deerhoof calm things down a bit with The Runners Four, a collection of songs that are even more restrained than Milk Man and the Green Cosmos EP. Perhaps trying for the unpredictability of their earlier work got too, well, predictable for the band.

Even though the manic intensity that characterized work like Reveille is missed a little here, The Runners Four is still a far cry from typical indie rock; in fact, it sounds more like one of Deerhoof's older albums played at half-speed than anything else. Most importantly, the joyful creativity that radiates from all of the band's other work is here in spades, too: it's hard not to smile at "Twin Killers"' zigzagging riffs or "Scream Team"'s giddy, girl-boy vocals. (...)

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review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Nick Sylvester, October 10, 2005
Album Value: (9/10)

Pitchfork: You opened for Wilco recently. How was that?

Greg Saunier: When I was in the audience, watching their show, they would start a song, and people next to me would start hugging each other because they loved that song. And I thought that was something that I would really aspire to. To do something where music becomes-- and this sounds ridiculous or pretentious or something-- but where music becomes more than just good music.

* * *

Any band taking cues from Wilco-- let alone the best band in the world-- that's hard to stomach. Says Dominique Leone, "You don't always have to sound poignant to make poignant music." But I appreciate Deerhoof's challenge here: to comb hair without cutting it, to wash face without popping all the pimples, to be the best band in the world, but beyond that, to be the most lovable, too.

So tomorrow, Deerhoof put on their Tuesday best and release their first straight-up guitar-rock album-- short, dense songs packed into familiar forms, full-bodied vocals for unabashed, often gut-punching melodies, less herk-jerk, less of that house-of-cards spirit that coursed through Reveille and Apple O. Some people will miss that.(...)

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review by:Popmatters
reviewer: Justin Cober-Lake
Album Value: [7/10]

You might have trouble accepting this idea if you're a long-time fan: Deerhoof is a pop band. I know you used to love them because they were spazzy and noisy and matched up cutesy little-girl vocals with experimental art-rock, and what you keyed in on was that "experimental" part. So when I tell you that the new album almost lasts an hour and contains 20 songs, you'll have to bear with me a minute.

On The Runners Four, Deerhoof perform pop, but they don't make music for the radio. In condensing their music down to three-minute ditties, the band hasn't sacrificed the joy of exploration. Even more than in the past, the music here reaches outward by starting with conceptual ideas that are melodically and rhythmically recognizable (I wanted to sound smart by not saying "accessible") and pushing against the structures of the pop form.(...)

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review by: Tinymixtapes
reviewer:Jay
Album Value: (5/5)

Deerhoof are one of very few bands who, besides making me grin madly, can induce fits of genuine laughter. When you're losing count of the rapid punches on that guitar chord in the middle of "Scream Team," and the only breathing room you can find is in the dizzying vocal interruptions, and you're not even close to getting your bearings, and you think you've never been pummeled harder by Deerhoof - not only do they raise the chord on you, but this one is cut short after 14 of its expected 17 strikes by only the briefest chirp of "Team!", as the guitar immediately plunges back into its initial chord, BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.

The music urgently invites this analysis, and although the details are painfully dry in print, in execution this stuff is laugh-out-loud brilliant.

Deerhoof have always been about that kind of detail (or at least, since 1997). The effort and time it would require to explain to somebody the mechanics of most of their songs makes clear just how much effort and time is put into them in the first place. Deerhoof are consistently able to squeeze more ideas into ten seconds of music than most people use in three minutes, and without crippling their songs in the least. Even though you're continually being suckered left and right by their slight-of-hand, somehow it all makes perfect sense, the kind of perfect sense we don't know exists until Deerhoof introduces us to it.(...)

See The Complete Review

review by: Stylus
reviewer: Mike Powell
Album Value: (-B)

ast time I saw Deerhoof, they wore soccer jerseys from opposing teams. And Deerhoof are a spectator sport, in certain ways. Of course, the game's only known to the participants, and the rules radiate from tremors within their bones, unwritten-it's a volatile alchemy that causes them to pass around/wrestle the ol' cosmic bond. Operating like a set of magnets with an unseen charge at the center, they spin out of orbits, fly towards each other, and occasionally lock only to be ripped apart. There's no run-go-fetch logic to Deerhoof; when they're great, it's like a good round of guide-the-spirit, which is sort of like blindfolded downhill skiing: shaky as hell and twice as thrilling.

Thematically, The Runners Four explores that charge, but aesthetically, it often betrays it. It is refreshing that they're slowly letting go of the sack-of-lit-fireworks-in-a-porta-john shtick that pigeonholed them, but in doing so they seem to have given up that unnamable ghost, brightening the corners that haunted their ballads and tapering the incendiary uncertainty that made them so powerful. While The Runners Four is probably their most consistent album, they've always been the kind of band for whom consistency could slide, because when they were on, it felt like they could swallow the world and throw it up again with everything in the same place. They were magic. (...)

See The Complete Review

review by: JunkMedia
reviewer: Dominic DeLuce
Album Value: --

It's heartening to see Deerhoof, a hardworking and resolutely idiosyncratic star in the indie rock firmament, continue on such a jag of creative, critical and (relative) commercial success. The San Francisco quartet's good fortune puts one in the mind of Sonic Youth - a rare band of weirdos that actually manages to take off on the wings of a charmed meritocracy.

Ambient and direct, childlike and adult, hard-rocking and unapologetically esoteric – Deerhoof's play of elemental opposites is not a new concept, but perhaps they have found a new playing-out of its possibilities. The quartet's new The Runners Four doesn't rewrite their instantly recognizable sound. Hints of The Beatles still poke around the bright, sunshine-and-children's-book imagery of vocalist Satomi Matsuzaki; monster drums still crash against wheezing organ clusters and raw, 1960's power chords. But the heavier prog-rock leanings of some of their earlier albums are leavened on Runners by the milder temperament of pop songs and widened by an atmosphere of open-minded reflection over chaotic exultation. All told, it's another triumph for a band whose creative peak seems to defy gravity with each passing year.

See The Complete Review

Sigur Ros_(2005) "Takk" [7.0/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Tue, 4 Oct 2005 15:58:00 -0700

Sigur Ros
Album: "Takk"
Release Date: 09/13/2005
Label: David Geffen Company
Rev Value: [7.0/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Alternative Pop/ Rock, Indie Rock
Buy It

Tracklist:

1.Takk... 1:57
2.Glósóli 6:15
3.Hoppípolla 4:28
4.Meo Blódnasir 2:17
5.Sé Lest 8:40
6.Saeglopur 7:38
7.Milanó 10:25
8.Gong 5:33
9.Andvari 6:40
10.Svo Hljótt 7:24
11.Heysátan 4:09

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Amanda Petrusich, September 12, 2005
Album Value: (7.8/10)

When Sigur Rós' second full-length record, Agetis Byrjun, landed stateside in 2001, its extraterrestrial oozing was so unfamiliar (and, subsequently, unnerving) to American ears that it managed to finagle a staggering number of meticulously rendered comparisons to glaciers and fjords and icebergs: By year-end, it seemed oddly plausible to presume that Sigur Rós' songs were actually being mouthed by giant mounds of snow. Something about Agetis Byrjun-- its celestial groping, its shimmers, its weird vastness-- seemed handcuffed to the landscape from which it was born. Thus, the mythology of Iceland-- of staggering literacy and longevity, of Björk, of Reykjavik, of volcanoes and fisheries and giant slabs of ice-- became the mythology of Sigur Rós. Unsurprisingly, domestic intrigue peaked almost immediately: The record's liner notes and cover-- a silver alien-baby hybrid boasting angel wings-- revealed precious little about its creation, and vocalist Jonsi Birgisson openly admitted to howling in an entirely self-fabricated language. In 2001, Sigur Rós were deliciously strange, the only sensible soundtrack to post-millennial comedowns, all future and faith, bones and blood and ice and sun, culled gently from an island far, far away.

In the years that followed, Sigur Rós released three EPs, reissued their debut, and popped out another full-length, the ever-contentious, unspeakable ( ). With each new record, the band dutifully maintained their trademark swells, bowing consistently before the altar of ebb and flow, until Sigur Rós began to sound less like an icecap melting and more like Sigur Rós. The mystery melted, the fascination faltered, and the animated, barstool retellings of The Sigur Rós Story died down. Still, Sigur Rós are more than just a conversation piece, meatier than their reputation, better than the otherworldly blubbers they're so casually accused of: With Takk, the songcraft that once made Agetis Byrjun everyone's favorite sunrise record re-emerges intact. Melodies stick, songs coalesce, and Sigur Rós lay off the grim theatrics, reminding listeners everywhere that they intend to play theaters, not funeral homes.

Ultimately, Takk is a warmer, more orchestral take on the band's defining sound, and easily their most instantly accessible record to date (shockingly, over a third of the album's songs clock in at under five minutes each.) The cheerless drones of ( ) are replaced by more bass, drums, piano, horns, and samples, strings are more prominent than ever before, and Birgisson's lyrics are especially incidental, all barely-audible squeals and sighs. Mostly, Takk is ecstatic, constantly erupting in funny little waves of joy. Dissenters who rejected Sigur Rós as the soundtrack to wrist-slittings everywhere might be temporarily perplexed by the band's new, wide-eyed giggles-- but mostly, Takk just sounds like Sunday morning Sigur Rós, all yawns and sleepy grins and quick yanks at the curtains. (...)

Full Review

review by: Splendid
reviewer: Mike Meginnis
Album Value: (-/-)

Why do people get mad about Hopelandish? If you've somehow missed the kerfuffle, this is the whimsically named nonsense language in which Sigur Rós's Jon Thor Birgisson sings. It's striking, even strange, just how many people -- including Splendid's own -- have seen fit to bitch about the nonsense language. Hipsters are constantly complaining about how under-appreciated instrumental music is, yet when somebody sees fit to use his voice as an instrument, unmoored by language but tapping the intensely sympathetic power of human noise, people get their dander up. Seriously, hipsters, what gives?

While Takk is by no means the revelation that Ágætis Byrjun was, it makes a strong argument for listeners who have casually dismissed Birgisson's nonsense and his band's music to reconsider that unfortunate decision. Branching out from their basic, glacial aesthetic, and in the wake of a series of EPs, curios and collaborations, Sigur Rós have emerged at once familiar and new.

This apparent contradiction expresses itself most clearly in "Sé Lest". Clocking in at just under nine minutes, the song is as slow, subdued, and secretive as anything the band has recorded. Amid much negative space, sweet bells and warm strings cheerfully unfurl. Of course, there's also the Hopelandish, but the band is braver now than ever before, committing themselves to the sort of sounds you might expect to hear on a Disney soundtrack. Minimalist pianos shimmer as strings swell majestically, puffing themselves up and up and up like the breast of a panicked robin. The music gradually recedes until we have only the bells, then builds again, up and up and up, now to truly classic brass and downright romantic string flourishes that might be more at home in a Tchaikovsky piece. There are all the little touches we expect from Sigur Rós, as well -- synth burbles, tin clicks, and what sounds like the love lives of toys, clattering away in the background.

All traces of affectation -- assuming you can get past the Hopelandish, and you really should try -- seem to have been abandoned. The powerful, majestic guitar in "Saeglopur" couldn't sound more right with fourteen minutes of Godspeed You! Black Emperor behind it, and neither could the ensuing elaboration -- the gorgeous piano, the beautiful strings and all that lovely jazz. The song takes a massive step back after the crescendo and proceeds to build again, so slowly, so carefully that you hardly notice until it's dissipating for a second time.
(...)

Full Review

review by: Rolling Stone
reviewer: BARRY WALTERS
Album Value: (3.5/5)

Takk . . . is the most accessible album yet from Sigur Ros -- if a band featuring a falsetto vocalist moaning Icelandic and/or nonsense syllables over a slow symphonic-rock background could ever be considered accessible. Lighter and more piano-driven than the Reykjavok quartet's previous three albums, Takk . . . suggests a far more abstract Coldplay stripped of their stadium bombast. The majestic guitar climaxes that marked Sigur Ros' 1999 breakthrough album, Agaetis Byrjun , are fewer and farther between. Here, the guitars are generally restrained, augmented by orchestral flourishes and tinkling keyboards, while the steady rhythm of "Glosoli" sounds as if it's supplied by boots trudging over snow-covered tundra. With strings, horns, backward sound effects, an atypically straightforward vocal and a naggingly catchy keyboard hook that another band could make millions with, "Hoppipolla" offers itself as the autumn's feel-good anthem. Radio won't get it, but the iPods will understand.

Original Link

review by: Popmatters
reviewer: Maura McAndrew- 26 September 2005
Album Value: (6/10)

Sigur Rós is a band that, though celebrated by critics, have barely made it onto the radar of the trendy rock scene. A band of quiet misfits from Iceland, they broke through to acclaim in the Radiohead-worshipping era of the late 1990s. After that initial burst, however, they have received little attention. The reason for this is obvious: Sigur Rós makes strange, atmospheric, orchestral music that sounds like Kid A without the heavy iBook dependency.

Their new album, Takk..., is no exception. "Se Last" sounds like Coldplay in a dream world, and the magnificent "Hoppipolla" like Radiohead if guitar iconoclast Johnny Greenwood was the front man. This music is not created to be popular; the mere thought of these songs playing on Top 40 radio is laughable. Takk... is like music from a film you really like; it focuses so much on creating atmosphere that you barely notice it's there.

Takk... is in no way a departure for the band, and it's easy to forget that though the music is very different from most of what's out there, we've heard it from Sigur Rós before. These new songs flow together perfectly, and as with all Sigur Rós albums, it is difficult to tell where one begins and another ends. Only one song is a real standout, the dynamic "Hoppipolla," which allows us a brief glimpse of what Sigur Rós might be like as a "rock" band. Not a traditional one, mind you, but the closer they inch towards The Bends-style guitar crunch, the more I seem to like them. Of course, there is the issue of the vocals. Lead singer Jon Birgisson sings small and far away, in mostly Icelandic. Though his voice is obviously beautiful and quite powerful, it becomes one with the layers of sound the band creates.

This is Sigur Rós' intention: They alienate impatient listeners in favor of a new album format. Takk... is like the score to a movie the listener has the power to create. The music doesn't draw on anything tangible, but follows its own narrow, twisted path, whether the listener dares to keep up or not. That said, I can't help but wonder how great they would sound if they just rocked out a little.

Original Link

review by: Stylus
reviewer: Colin Cooper
Album Value: (A)

Perhaps right now, some way through the year 2005, we’re witnessing something huge. We’re experiencing options, choices, new levels of technological development combined with widespread accessibility. Actively listening to music is something that has become ever easier: the sheer number of ways in which one may purchase songs is slowly reducing the financial burden of musical media whilst simultaneously exposing a wider audience to a wider selection of genres, eras, influences. Some may still find it difficult to hear what they want—folk-electronica still isn’t riding high in mainstream radio playlists, and you still have to shell out extra for “speciality” CDs on the high street. Conversely, the unusual is becoming less so because we are sharing, opening our eyes, ears and wallets—the power of the consumer is raising everybody’s game. So whilst pursuing new and innovative sounds may still appear superficially difficult and niche, there has never been a greater number of methods to gain access to some sort of higher musical plateau.

In such a climate then, perhaps there has never been a better time to be Sigur Rós. Three full-length studio albums into their career, turning the huge critical acclaim their discs have always attracted into commercial success (audience numbers, exposure, sales) appears to be a very real prospect. It is surely testament to the band’s technological relevance that Takk’s lead single “Glósóli” was an Internet-only release—and one that will undoubtedly fare better in the digital, rather than physical, realm. And, coming in on the back of a self-conscious two-minute introduction (as if a track comprising of layer upon build upon layer upon increased tempo definition doesn’t carry its own warning of the tempestuous noises to come), “Glósóli” is a perfectly executed prelude to chaos.

What the introductory piece does for the listener is act as some sort of musical sorbet, neutralising one’s emotions, responses and heart rate created by whatever you saw or did or heard or felt before. All of this in order for Takk… to get a clear shot at your senses. And if “Introduction” is preparation, then “Glósóli” is microcosm, for Takk is in many ways a much darker record than any of the band’s previous work, with tempestuous conclusions and moody, almost pouty endeavours making up the bulk of its content.

Of course, many of these pieces offer their own interpretations of ecstasy, but by methods far removed from those improved in the past. Where we felt elevated and indeed airborne during the climax to “Starálfur,” or merrily roused by the choir’s contribution to “Olsen Olsen,” “Gong” (the current live favourite amongst fans) seems to excel in turmoil, sheer negative energy inherent in its staccato-ed percussion and ghostly falsetto. Perhaps the greatest example of this all-encompassing downward force is “Sæglópur.” A piece that begins on piano, sweetly punctuated with glockenspiel and non-specific effects, sternly administering mental images of clinging to rotting trees and to hope, screaming against the eye of the storm. Several minutes later the piece then descends into relative tranquillity, orchestral melancholy. It is seven and a half minutes long. In the most wonderful way, it feels like all your life. (...)

Full Review

review by: Allmusic
reviewer: Andy Kellman
Album Value: (4/5)

A strange thing happens before the two-minute mark in "Saeglopur." All the twinkling and cooing erupts, at what might seem like eight minutes earlier than normal, into a cathartic blast of tautly constructed group noise — or, as those who prefer songs and motion over moods and atmospheres might say, "The good part comes." "Saeglopur" is emblematic of Sigur Rós' fourth album, released nearly three years (!) after ( ). Nothing resembles a drone, and no part of it could be described as funereal. Even so, Takk... is still very much a Sigur Rós album, due in large part to the ever-present otherworldly vocals, but also because the only real changes are the activeness of some arrangements — arrangements that deploy a familiar combination of bass, drums, piano, vocals, lots of strings, and some horns — and some of the colors that are used. Despite opening with what sounds like a happy walk through a snow bank, the album is just as suited for a sunlit spring morning as ( ) was suited for a winter trudge across a foggy moor, so in that sense, it isn't a repeat and is more tactile than illusory, but it's not likely to win over anyone who suddenly felt an index finger push against the back of his throat while hearing "Svefn-G-Englar" for the first time. And it's not as if the band is suddenly writing three-minute pop songs, either. Half of the album's tracks are longer than six minutes, with extended cresting, sudden bursts of action, and a couple particularly fragile moments that seem to be on the brink of melting away. One thing to consider when wondering whether or not this band has changed in any way: they've gone from providing the background music to death announcements to "Sé Lest," a fluttering children's lullaby that is briefly crashed by an even more gleeful oom-pah-pah brass band.

Original Link

Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah_(2005) "Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah" [8.5/10]

noreply@blogger.com (hubafract) — Sat, 1 Oct 2005 16:40:00 -0700

Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah
Album: "Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah"
Release Date: June, 2005
Label: Self-Released
Rock-Rev Value: [8.5/10]
Genre: Rock
Styles: Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/ Rock
Buy It

Tracklist:

1. Clap Your Hands!
2. Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away
3. Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)
4. Sunshine and Clouds and Everything Proud
5. Details of the War
6. The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
7. Is This Love?
8. Heavy Metal
9. Blue Turning Gray
10. In This Home on Ice
11. Gimme Some Salt
12. Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood

review by:Stylus
reviewer: Derek Miller
Allmusic Album Value: (B+)

We retreat into the Bowery and its crude antiquity for a reason. I, too, am weary of now. Scrape at the surface for a moment, Downing Street memo and beyond, and it’s getting harder to avoid the ominous similarities ‘twixt Nixon and Bush.

Sure, one man’s megalomania is another man’s faith, but it ends in the same Orwellian pit. Maybe there’s something to be gleamed from our popular return to the frantic leap-abouts of the gilded-CBGB era, the rehumanizing of its cartoon statues—the Talking Heads, the Ramones, Blondie. Maybe this glorious skip-forward through generations of the best post-Nixon pop culture is more regeneration than retread, more cranky revolt than historical-revisionism. We need cacophony now. We need to limber ourselves in awkward dance. Everything’s become too quiet. The papers run rolls of faceless print. The television news is apoplexy via death toll. Maybe this is all too obvious to you. Maybe I should shut the fuck up.

Either way, we should thank Christ (er, Bush?) for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. They make us loud again. They have debts to shoulder from us all. They refuse to voice themselves in the kind of faceless subtlety that evokes modernity without a history, now without a then. You can’t avoid the obvious; lead singer Alec Ounsworth has studied the pre-80 Heads’ records. He knows every one of Byrne’s jumpy lead vocal gymnastics. That much is obvious. Fortunately for the band, they summon the manic lightning of the Heads and countless other bands while making them sound crisp and brutal at once. Shit, put all the if-you-like-then-you’ll-likes aside: such influences don’t tire in the hands of adept students.

After the Augie March-like carnival start of intro “Clap Your Hands!” “Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away” whispers with the colors that dominate the album: auger red inter-locked guitars, crisp black drum rolls, and the swirling oranges of tambourine in their background choruses. It’s a mix that plays well only in the dark, forced to blush and hide in the openness of the day. “Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)” repeats those gains, adding jeweled synths to the tangled guitar lines. Ounsworth’s lyrics are half-indecipherable, slurred out like a hipster urchin bound to the stool for one dark bar-time swallow.

“Details of the War” is the record’s garbled torch song, emblazoned not by flame but by neon and brick mortar. Concrete and heat, and the stiff return to both, seems to swell within the song’s mournful air. As summer boils on, it’s hard to imagine a song that better embodies our retreat from the air.(...)

Full Review

review by:Pitchfork
reviewer:Brian Howe, June 22, 2005
Album Value: (9/10)

Maybe no one told Clap Your Hands Say Yeah that first impressions are important. Or maybe they've just got massive sack. Either way, their self-released, self-titled debut CD opens with the weirdest, most potentially grating bit of snake-oil salesmanship you're likely to hear until Tom Waits puts out another record. I happen to dig the song, entitled "Clap Your Hands!" (a theme is emerging), but a maniacal carny barking over a stuttering calliope isn't for everyone. Those who persevere, though, will quickly discover that this garish foyer gives out onto spacious, elegant chambers of clean lines and soft lights.

Clap Your Hands are a five-piece from Brooklyn who're known to break out both harp and harmonica. They've recently been garnering rave press in their home city, and, over just the past two weeks, burning up the internet like a vintage Lohan nipslip. The pundits are saying Wilco (not hearing it), Talking Heads (okay), and Neutral Milk Hotel (getting warmer), but if it checks in with a number of modern and classic new wave referents, the music sings for itself: Clap Your Hands traffics in melodic, exuberant indie rock that pairs the shimmering, wafting feel of Yo La Tengo with a singular vocal presence that sounds like Paul Banks attempting to yodel through Jeff Mangum's throat. Or imagine the Arcade Fire if their music were more fun-loving and less grave.

Of course, if Clap Your Hands had a press kit, it would undoubtedly include something about "synthesizing these influences into a sound that's uniquely their own." And for once, it would be true. On the album's first true song, "Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away", a wailing vocal evokes Walkmen frontman Hamilton Leithauser, as hitching, muted guitars and singing melodic ones twist and furl over throbbing bass. On "Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)", the band veers into more Interpol-ish territory, with small, stripped guitars and bass, a thin synth wash, and lilting vocals with woozily yawning vowels. Same goes for the iridescent guitars, purring synths, and weary vocals of "Details of the War".. (...)

Full Review

review by:Almostcool
reviewer: ???
Album Value: [7.75/10]

I suppose that you could call Clap Your Hands Say Yeah the band that was launched by a single review. As an unknown batch of artists hailing from the New York area, they received an absolutely glowing review from a certain online review site, creating an instant buzz for their CD (which sold out of its initial pressing right away) and their performances. Although there have been instances of groups garnering acclaim through the wildfire information clearinghouse that is the internet, CYHSA is this years perfect example of the little unsigned band that could.

In terms of other artists, the group has been compared to everyone from The Arcade Fire (who themselves recieved a huge load of press from the internet world) to The Talking Heads, and both comparisons are warranted at times. The vocals of singer Alec Ounsworth at times resembles David Byrne when he's not completely overdoing things and in places the group lends just as much cred to the keyboard as the guitar, making for retro-sounding tracks that buzz and chime.

After the carny sideshow intro of "Clap Your Hands!," the group launches into "Let The Cool Goddess Rust Away" and they make a bid for indie stardom with a proficient rhythm section (including plenty of shakers), solid guitar work and crooning vocals from Ounsworth. "Over And Over Again (Lost And Found)" is a track where The Talking Heads references were easily founded as Ounsworth sings his tracks with a more rhythmic inflection while the stripped-down, keyboard and guitar instrumentation provides a quaint backdrop.

As mentioned above, Ounsworth gets a bit over the top with his vocal warblings in places and "The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth" is a perfect example as he wails and croons nasally over a instrumental backing that sounds more like Peter Hook led New Order than anything else while "Heavy Metal" again finds him bleating over a more fuzzy guitar indie rock track. Like all aquired vocalists, though, his weird quirks do grow on you, especially because the music backing him is so solid most of the time. With twelve songs that clock in at just under forty minutes, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have turned in a debut album that is assured even if several tracks feel more like short noodling sessions than anything else ("Sunshine And Clouds (And Everything Proud)" and "Blue Turning Grey"). Production on the release isn't outstanding, but for a self-recorded and released album that nobody probably expected to blow up like it did, it captures the rough charm of the group quite well. With some more performing under their belt and the help of a label (which they'll no doubt get now), I can't wait to hear what they do from here on out.

Original Link

review by: Tinymixtapes
reviewer: amneziak
Album Value: (4.5/5)

I'm not always sure where my music choices come from, nor can I understand why I'm so adamant to analyze and defend them. Many music enthusiasts get downright ugly if you even hint at showing disregard for something they love, yet I guess that's just a distinct trait of those who take their music seriously. But for us jaded listeners that pledge devotion to the avant-garde and noise albums of today, is it still possible for us to like good ol' wholesome pop music?

New York's newest underground party pack Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is a band teetering on the fence of obscurity and stardom, with so much hype that even David Bowie is showing up to their gigs. Their self-titled (and self-released) debut is an album which will force even the most hardened listeners to throw in the towel. And it's about fucking time!!! I, for one, have needed a great pop record for a very long time. This is perfect timing, too, because I've been pretty disenchanted with what's happened in 2005 so far.

On the album's intro, "Clap Your Hands," I'm reminded of what it might be like if Jack White sang during the 7th Inning stretch of a Cubs game. It swiftly leads into the first proper song, called "Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away," where we're met with perfectly paced pop and quaint, yet familiar sounding, vocals from Alec Ounsworth. While many are quick to dismiss him as Byrne derivative, I'm more inclined to compare him to a shakier live version of Thom Yorke. Nevertheless, I find Ounsworth to be quite original in terms of distinction, someone who will certainly make a name for himself in the months to come. His band mates better watch out, too.

While I won't challenge that "Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)" could be quickly labeled a second coming of the Talking Heads, I'll admit that I find it more enjoyable than just about anything they ever recorded. The carefree approach in which this song takes is enough to give credibility to the band's gift to be original. "Details of the War," a decisive favorite of the TMT staff, changes route for a moment to show a more emotive side to the band's repertoire. Appearing to completely forgo the giddy tone of the album, it takes a step back and gives it to us straight. Or does it?.(...)

Full Review

review by: Popmatters
reviewer: Stephen Stirling
Album Value: (7/10)

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will save rock and roll. They're the next Talking Heads, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Arcade Fire all rolled into one. They sell out shows, merchandise, and copies of their latest release wherever they go. Watch out America, this indie-rock quintet is taking over.

Hold on a minute. Let's wait and see if they reach their second record first.

With all the press hoopla, rave reviews, and the nod of every faux-hawk wearing hipster in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when first hearing the name Clap Your Hands Say Yeah its difficult not to expect some kind of prophetic musical savior here to change the face of music as we know it. It's just all too easy to jump aboard the musical bandwagon.

When faced with the facts though, CYHSY are in their infancy. They formed in Brooklyn over the course of the last few years, are as of now still unsigned, and much of their CD sales are still done through the band itself. Their self-released debut, while extremely promising, sounds just as it should: A self-released bid for some deserved attention. So let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

This is part of the allure of CYHSY though; this honest, raw feeling of a hard-working group of guys out of Brooklyn seemingly concerned with nothing more than their music and giving their fans a damn good show. Not to mention that for a first effort on limited funds, it's not half bad.

The album begins with "Clap Your Hands", an eerie, organ-driven opener that features lead singer Alec Ounsworth as the ringmaster to a somber circus of back-up singers as he commands them to forget their worries.

This transitions nicely into the album's first true song, "Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away". An upbeat tune, Ounsworth's vocals croon over choppy and creative muted guitar that gives way to lush chords accented gently accented by atmospheric synths, a fitting formal introduction to CYHSY's eclectic yet accessible style..(...)

Full Review

review by: Lost At sea
reviewer: Bob Ladewig
Album Value: (9/10)

A band name like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is honestly terrible. One would think they were going to be the next in the series of Rapture dance-punk rip off bands, but rest assured they are not - they are much more creative than that. Influences like the Smiths, the Modern Lovers and even a little Joy Division come out in different songs at different times. They tip their hats to new wave acts from the 80s, but they don’t beat it to a pulp. They let the influences suffice with just a light peppering in their songs, and because of this, their efforts shine. It’s refreshing and delightful.

It’s been noted this band came up with their name on the way to their first gig. They walked past a tagged wall with “Clap Your Hands Say Yeah” spray painted on it and thought they should name their band in kind - not only is it the band name, but the album title and the label, since they do it all themselves at this point, the poor guys. Nevertheless, their fidelity to the cause is not lost here; they have made one heck of a great album.

To be personal for a moment, I myself enjoy the Talking Heads, but I don’t know how big a fan I am. I own their live album and have downloaded a few songs here and there, but overall I have never gone out of my way to get their merchandise. They seem like a creative and influential band, especially considering when they were around and how many of today’s indie-rock favorites mark them as an influence. That being said, upon first listen to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s debut, I couldn’t help but hear David Byrne come out in the lyrical stylings of Alec Ounsworth and company.

In this collection, the instruments are varied and the tempo is usually upbeat but not needlessly punky. Heck, they even provide a song called “Details of the War” which could be a more dramatic conclusion to the Talking Heads’ “Life during Wartime”, though the two songs sound nothing alike. Listening to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah makes me want to hunt down the Talking Heads collection and see if I’m right about the sound comparison.
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