Pictured: Craig Finn, soon to take over color commentary for the Minnesota Twins.
Usually I wouldn’t call out our readers’ comments, but the last time we wrote about The Hold Steady it only got one. One big, fat negative comment. “Aaaaaaaannnnndy! Don’t write about the Hold Steady! Nobody likes the Hold Steady. Hold Steady. Betty.” Wrong you are, Betty.
Craig Finn and Co. released the first single from their upcoming album, Stay Positive, today. It’s a three-and-a-half minute long jam called Sequestered in Memphis that’s more E-Street and full of crowd participation that we’ve heard from them before. There’s tons of organ, big finger-noodle guitar licks and plenty of gaudy saxophones. It’s really nothing revolutionary for The Hold Steady, actually it’s a fairly straight-forward rock out song in comparison, but it’s packed full of the same irresistible, dirty energy and drunken emotions. Nobody but Betty can wait for this album.
During my first two years of high school, my best friend Paul and I used to sit in bean bag chairs and listen to Weezer records. This might be the coolest thing we ever did. We weren’t doing anything else. Since those days, I’ve had my mind bent by a ton of great records, but nothing has really blown me away to the point of setting aside time to put a pair of good headphones on, lay down, close my eyes, and listen to music. I’ll admit that this is mostly my fault. I’ve been busy. It’s not necessarily that these songs didn’t deserve my full attention, I just didn’t make the time. The point is, Bobby & Blumm’s debut album, Everybody Loves… marks the first time I’ve really sat down with an album. You should too.
Well-recorded guitars are important to me. In fact, a fantastic guitar tone has, in my opinion, the ability to excuse a lot of awful things going in a song. These guitars are beautiful. Few instruments in this world can match the quality of a clean electric guitar. I’m at a point right now where I think almost everything recorded with an acoustic guitar could have been improved by substituting a clean Fender guitar.
Wait a minute. This thing also has boy-girl harmonies. Say what you will about the cheese factor of boy-girl harmonies, but these ones will destroy you, all the while being the most understated vocals you’ve heard so far this year.
The performance of a song this simple gets twisted into something fairly complicated if it’s still stuck in your head a week afterwards. You know it’s got to be something more when your head just won’t let a melody like this escape. The come on babys and I wish you were heres dancing around only tambourines and handclaps in three part harmonies are as dense and fulfilling as most bands writing with intricate instrumentation. Somewhere in there, this light and lovely pop song is more.
As indicated in the video, The Daredevil Christopher Wright is in the process of releasing their first full length album, In Deference to a Broken Back. It is full of wonder and you would be wise to keep up with their Myspace page so you can track it down as soon as it becomes available.
Pictured: Credit to HowWasTheShow.com for this picture that I stole. Credit to the lighting crew at the Varsity Theater for being absolutely rediculous.
The story of Picking a Lock at the Speed of Light goes something like this, I gather:
a) boy likes girl,
b) boy also likes outer space, a lot,
c) boy takes girl to outer space in a rocket ship to impress her,
d) girl doesn’t like boy or outer space,
e) crap. Gigantic u-turn.
These Modern Socks tell their tale with a fairly adventurous exploration of cheap-beat electro-pop music and bits of fuzzy, overdriven guitars. There’s plenty of star gazing, gravity-free atmospheres and weird jelly food(i.e., funk) along the way, but in the end, both love and outer space are far out of reach for skinny-legged dudes with shaggy hair and bedrooms full of keyboards.
‘Martha Ann’, the single from David Karsten Daniel’s new album ‘Fear of Flying’, is two minutes of evidence that everyone should write shorter songs. There is nothing innately wrong with long songs, but in my estimation it is better to leave them hanging, quality over quantity. A song doesn’t always need four identical choruses. Succinct pop songs please.
I have a couple pages outlined in my head about the lyrical content, but that seems a bit contrary to the concept of brilliance in brevity. With hints from the rest of the album (a song entitled ‘Oh, heaven isn’t real’) and some transcribed lyrics, my best guess is that ‘Martha Ann’ is about what happens when you die - nothing or everything, and the difficulty in relating either belief to someone who doesn’t buy it (”from where I stand there is no light that you and your man are walking to”). This is somehow satisfactorily expressed in eight lines.
I’m not sure who made it official, but saxophones are cool again and DKD knows it. Not when used in a tv commercial quality series of ridiculous overtone laden licks as a hammed up solo, because whole notes and shifting harmonies is clearly where it’s at. The aforementioned horns, hints of mellotron flute, strings, and swelling filling organ add depth to what is a fairly simple and straightforward song. The use of melody in the ending guitar solo is perfect and memorable. I sometimes catch myself whistling the solo. It’s not a shredder nor should it be. It’s been said, by my roommate and I’m sure by others, that female vocal harmony is almost always awesome. Yup, basically, and especially here. The astute and possibly headphone wearing listener will also appreciate the more subtle left channel male harmony.
This is the front runner in my mind for single of the year. It delivers on all levels.
Pictured: Wye Oak. The kind of kids who acted like dinosaurs for the whole third grade.
“You know your secret’s safe with me,” promises Wye Oak’s Jenn and Andy. “If you feel young.” Their new album, If Children, feels like a Sunday morning of frolicking between bed sheets and letting just little bits of light in through the curtains. The kind of shit your too-busy mom tells you is just “wasting time,“ but is probably the best part of your Sunday morning. Simple guitar strums and duo whispery vocals control the songs’ movements with both ease and comfort, a playfulness that offers, above all else, security, in that it wouldn’t know how to harm you if it wanted to.
Cedarwell’s Erik Neave well embodies his northern heritage. Sheboygan, Wisconsin, should be proud of such a wonderfully full beard, such tough flannel shirts and darkly twisted, acoustic-pop songs that seem to ride nature’s very rhythm. Crisp clarity and addicting genuineness hibernate Neave’s voice somewhere in the back of your memory, somewhere where it can stay for a long, long time, constantly reminding you that this is Wisconsin, and winter never really ends.
How ironic then, to watch him playing for a music-variety show on a balcony overlooking the hustle and bustling of a European town. The program, Balcony.tv, is up for two Webby Awards, which is thought to be something like the internet’s version of an Oscar. The talking between the show’s host and Neave is worth the admission price alone here, full of miscued sarcasm and a slight imbalance of enthusiasm. “Thank you very much for being here at the balcony,” our host says. “It was really worth flying over here…I think…from Wisconsin to play the song…” Neave smiles and nods.
Pictured: Okay, yes, I do hate that I have to post this stupid picture. It’s the only one I could find on the entire internet!
Somehow this band is confident in epic proportions, unquestioned and walking stomping through uncharted lands that had only ever been feared from afar, and they’re completely nervous and unsure of it as well. If they flinch even the slightest, show the smallest bit of jittering or hesitance, they will lose the support of their less brave followers, so dark, space age keyboards overpower each other at their highest voltages, and Thom Stylinski pushes his vocals forward, almost too far forward, like he might push through the song somehow.
The Whiskers sort of make a big bloody mess out of pop-song frame working. Cogs is an example of them hitting me over the head with the dead body. Fact, the word ‘somehow’ both began and ended the previous paragraph.
Pictured: The Wombats, pioneers in urban calisthenics.
Holy cripes. The Wombats are a completely exuberant band that thrives on soaring choruses, dance-rock guitars, and effing awesome lyrics. For real, these guys have a shout along part that goes something like, “This is no Bridget Jones! This is not Bridget! Bridget!” I mean, what the hell is that? pure genius.
Their newest album, “The Wombats Proudly Present Boys, Girls, and Marsupials” is one non-stop dance party. Yes, it is the British school of post-punk white boy dance, but The Wombats really succeed in infusing their music with true joy. The bass drives, the vocals waver, and the choruses rock with synth leads and weird drum beats.
In short, these guys are my new Bombay Bicycle Club. Youth never seemed so cool. Ok, maybe youth is always inherently cool, but these guys make me want to jump and live forever.
Here’s, “Kill The Director” (the one with the sweet-ass Bridget Jones kiss off)
I couldn’t leave it at just one. Here’s a crowd pleasing rouser called, “Let’s Dance to Joy Division” They have lil’ kids singing on it, how can you not like it?
Pictured: Retribution Gospel Choir is just here for the combs that they put in that blue stuff.
Is Alan Sparhawk ever going to mess up? Ever? The mastermind behind The Black Eyed Snakes and indie-rock behemoth, Low is at it again. This time his band-du-jour is psych-rock band, Retribution Gospel Choir. Retribution alternates between 1990’s influenced pop rock, and stoner guitar solos. The result is, as you’d expect, amazing.
Sparhawk’s band contains current members of Low and the Snakes; their new album isn’t hampered by the awkward get-to-know-you stage that most bands go through. What is present is a solid rock record that will kiss you right before it smacks you in the mouth.
Retribution’s new album was produced by Mark Kozelek (Sun Kil Moon), and in some ways I think it may have hurt the sound. At times the drums sound tinny and far away. This is not a large hamper on the album. Look for Retribution on tour in support of the new album. It is well worth it.
Pictured: American Princes aren’t allowed to touch the fireworks anymore without asking dad first.
Arkansas based band, American Princes is sweet. The first time I listened to them, I honestly wasn’t that into it. They have this sort of pure 80’s vibe that can be a little tough to swallow on first contact. That being said, this band completely won me over with soaring choruses, lyrics that actually mean something, and the fact that their singer leaves his effing guts on every track.
Real Love is a song that sounds like it would’ve been written by John Lennon had he lived to see the New Wave movement. There’s a depth here that most “new” new wave bands don’t employ, gone is the complete party aesthetic. It’s replaced by world-changing choruses and wailing guitar solos.
There’s still plenty of reverb, and enough dance sounds to get little white boys to shake their skinny asses up and down the country. There’s driving bass (oh, the bass!) All things being equal, American Princes is a band that deserves your listen. Look for their album on April 14th.
“Our child will never be right with the down crowd.” This is a conversation between parents about their son. He’s lanky and uncoordinated, severely nearsighted and struggling to fit in. He is unfamiliar and awkward in the presence of girls his own age and isn’t the type likely to overcome it anytime soon. He’s more the type likely to dress himself in cardigans and slacks and lead the varsity forensics team to nationals.
Really this isn’t about their son though, really they don’t have a son. This is a conversation about themselves, and really there’s only one of them. Really this is a song someone wrote about himself and how he became the singer in a band.
The Pica Beats recently signed to Hardly Arts, a super-sweet division of Sub Pop. This song, Right With the Down Crowd, in all its wonderful glory, is from their self-released debut, All Mysteries Solve Themselves.
Frantic is probably the best word I could use to describe the Dodos. Frantic isn’t usually my thing, but it works here. For me. If I could use this song as a soundtrack to an episode of my life, it would probably be the part where I finally ask out the cute girl at the bakery. Actually, it would be the part where I’m walking up the street to the bakery, gaining confidence with each step. Either that or the part where I shoot myself in the chest. That’s how punk it is.
The electric guitar in the chorus that complements the vocal melody is X factor that really kills me.
Pictured: “Oh, did you read what Peervalidated wrote today? Those guys are so funny and awesome!”
For the next week, in anticipation of it’s release in May, the entirety of Syrbis’ new album Into the Trees is streaming on the Absolutely Kosher site. For this reason I’ve been glued to my laptop more often than usual, oh, so anxiously awaiting this album in freer form.
I was set to compare Sybris with one of our favorite bands, Land of Talk(see this post), and upon intense research found that the two exchange nods on their Myspace Top Friends lists, aka the great teller of musical truths. The two do share similarities, obviously the female fronted vocals and jangly, light-guitar rock vibe, but Sybris ranges through a wider spectrum of attitudes and emotions on Into the Trees, slowing down and speeding up when we think we’re becoming familiar with the pace. Joyful dance-rock verses are interrupted by melodramatics and broken down bridges, and choruses don’t always scream in excitement for attention, rather each part helps put weight on the previous one. It’s a bit difficult to engage in an album when it’s only currently available as a stream for one week, but I’d recommend setting aside a nice little non-pornographic session with your computer to give this a good listen.
Pictured: Pictures of Fleet Foxes are difficult to come by, with the whole soul stealing thing and all.
At this point I’m about ready to fill my closet with tie-dyed cotton t-shirts and too-short jean shorts, stuff my dresser full of multi-colored bandannas and collect necklaces made of hemp and sea shells. Does anyone know how to accelerate hair growth? I’ll need 2 or 3 feet of shaggy golden locks.
All these early 70’s psych-rock bands are proving the righteousness of the free-spirited baby boomers all over again. I feel like maybe we’ve been missing something, maybe our generation doesn’t have the insight or genuineness necessary to make music or art like this. Midlake did a little bit of it with “The Trials of Van Occupanther,” and Panda Bear picked it up with “Person Pitch.” Now Seattle’s Fleet Foxes are capturing the same sort of kind-hearted, throwback feel in their albums, pulling influences from childhood vinyl collections probably full of Simon & Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Robin Pecknold’s vocals swim in harmonies while seemingly unstructured pop songs intricately flow throughout the band’s two EPs, one simply titled EP, the newest called the Sun Giant EP. The pair of releases act as a preview for an upcoming full length in the spring called Ragged Wooden Ship.
For now I’ll jam Fleet Foxes out on my iPod, but when the day comes that we flood the streets with nylon string guitars and tambourines, I’m totally going to be ready to march and sing out loud.
