Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Beat the Devil’s Tattoo [Review]
After 12 years of playing together, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is a California band that has tried it all and still hasn’t found what it wants. After releasing the maligned “The Effects of 333,” BRMC returns to its roots with Beat the Devil’s Tattoo. However, like a cultural mutt, it can’t quite figure out what style to call home. And unfortunately, on this record, BMRC refuses to do the hard work of creating a coherent, consistent identity.
The record starts out promisingly, with the title track, “Beat the Devil’s Tattoo”, a chant-filled hillbilly stomper, where the vocals follow the minor-tinged guitars and the percussion is provided primarily by the boots of the band. The song iterates between verse lyrics and and “AH-ah-AH-ah” choruses, with more guitars added as the song reaches its climax, a hypnotizing recitation of the song title. A promising start.
The next tune, “Conscience Killer”, is a faux-Stooges rocker that tips its hat to the band’s Wild One motorcycle roots. Unfortunately, for all its “rock”, it gives me a greasy garage-rock-revival feeling that I thought was left back at the beginning of last decade. A brief detour for the brit-pop “Bad Blood” (and more guitar pedals), and the band returns with more stomp. The molasses-paced “War Machine” would be punishing, but for the deep-on-drugs vocals, which seem to have forgotten that the band was supposed to be gritty again on this jam.
Cedar Avenue – Someday Soon [Review]
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Cedar Avenue’s Someday Soon is a pop rock confection with fresh programming and keys – turning what should sound monotonous into engaging experimentation. But the album could certainly use more of it.
Above all else, the Minnesota-based four piece offers smooth radio-friendly vocals and harmonies that the younger lady set will love. And its no wonder, Cedar Avenue is an immensely talented ensemble that seems to have ironed out any wrinkles in days long past.
But in music, you can oftentimes be too perfect — the primary weakness of Someday Soon is that the singing and melodies don’t sound much different across tracks, and the album needed far more experimentation with tempo and digital programming to distract from that.
Good Kids Sprouting Horns – Give Up The Ghost [Review]
Give Up The Ghost by Good Kids Sprouting Horns was recorded in a bedroom, and it sounds like it was recorded in a bedroom. Not to mention a thin bed of static. But that’s the thing – It’s real.
But sometimes real just means that you’ve heard this stuff before. The instrumentation is hardly ground-breaking — it is layered well enough, but sloppily. And much of the production doesn’t credibly offer the live feeling it seeks to create or stumble into much else.
The album begins with Popcorn Ceiling, the track posted below. It’s an ode to the thought of ever having to leave that place — that bedroom and the mental state it governs. The lyrics and arrangement recall countless conversations had in small rooms littered with out-of-date recording equipment and wires shaped like the red lines on your feet. Conversations that always seem to conclude, “what do we know?”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
“Popcorn Ceiling” has the kind of sonic repetition that seems like the perfect kind of cynical in that bedroom, but hurts an album’s replay value in the real world.
For every time the purposefully off-kilter keyboarding produces a lively result, such as the second track, Double Digits, A Life Achievement there is a track like the appropriately named Effigy, that just seems out of place.
Still, it takes a certain amount of bravery to leave tracks like, “Headache” so sparce, with faint rolling percussion that lives outside a simple keyed melody on the choruses and vocals during verses.
“The sidewalks are cracking/ there’s no place left to step/ my god isn’t listening and he will not save our mothers” vocalist and lead guitarist Anthony Bitetti sings on the fourth track, “but if I had just a little more time/ I would tell you all the reasons I love to hide — tonight is the night we die.”
A bit over the top, yes. But if that’s the kind of thing that scares you away, you won’t like this album anyway. (The track concludes with about a minute of static-y chatter.)
Serena Maneesh – Abyss in B Minor [Review]
Abyss in B Minor, the latest album from Oslo natives Serena Maneesh, is a stellar and challenging follow-up to their self-titled debut. Incorporating electronic and industrial elements, Abyss creates a haunting, shape-shifting atmosphere.
In order to fully understand what you’re getting into, two points of note are in order. First, Abyss was recorded in a cave. Second, it was mixed by Rene Tinner, longtime dedicated engineer for krautrock masters, Can. The result is that the album frequently sounds like Can, recorded in a cave.
That’s not to say Serena Maneesh ditches the familiar (some would say too familiar) elements of their first album. In fact, the album seems to alternate between its new, heavier influences and their older, more Shields-laden style. But the ubiquity of that sound (especially after the MBV reunion), makes those tracks sound particularly staid.
The standout tracks here are, conveniently, the odd numbered ones. The album opener, “Ayisha Abyss,” is a sonic expedition. It features dark, haunting chords, chopped vocals, undulating bass, and layers of percussion that build and collapse over nearly eight-minutes, never quite releasing, never quite resolving. Serena Maneesh has always been best in its opening moments, and this album is no different.
Fan Death – A Coin for the Well EP [Review]
Fan Death, why did you leave us? Originally from Brooklyn, the now Vancouver-based disco-pop duo just released their first EP, A Coin for the Well, on Pharmacy Records. In 2008 they released their first single Veronica’s Veil, and while it was the string-driven disco I’ve now come to except from them, it still felt right playing it alongside the likes of CSS and Yelle. With the release of this EP, however, I’m not sure I still feel comfortable saying that. A Coin for the Well is straight, unadulterated disco.
Their second single and the first off this album, Cannibal, displays this best. Actually the first five seconds may be the most disco part of the album, and if for some unfathomable reason that is a turn off for you I insist that you listen on. Just before lead vocalist Dandilion Wind Opaine chimes in, a somehow fitting, Middle-Eastern influenced violin line drops to conclude the opening. Opaine’s blasé voice carries the rest of the most pop track on the record.
The rest of the album leans more disco on the disco-pop spectrum. Power Surge is the unheralded anthem, which I hope turns into the next single. Sans the retro synth, Soon plays like a R&B ballad that ends with a sax that can’t settle on being too cool or too sultry, a problem this album has in droves. Instrumentally, The Son Will Rise is the closest Fan Death gets to Hi-NRG, but Opaine remains unmoved even as the synths beg her to kick it up a notch during the chorus. Finally, the first track, Reunited, may be my favorite thanks to the epically eccentric video below. What can I say? I’m a sucker for any Purple Rain shoutout.
The duo, now with backing band, is currently on tour overseas opening up for Vampire Weekend. If you’re heading to Austin next month you can catch them during SXSW though. Their debut album Womb Of Dreams is scheduled for a May release.
LIVE REVIEW: Title Fight, This Time Next Year, Strike Anywhere, Four Year Strong on 2/12
Photo by Laura Murray.
Standing toward the back, I watched Paramore-haired teenage girls and their bro-meets-lumberjack-cowboy male counterparts stream into the main hall of the Gramercy Theater in New York City. For a second I had that feeling you get when you visit your old high school. To think that many of the kids in the crowd were born in the same year that I picked up the first Punk-O-Rama, I felt distinctly “cooldadish.”
The first band on the lineup was Title Fight, who I regrettably missed. If you haven’t spent some time listening to “The Last Thing You Forget,” please do. It features gritty vocals over melodic but unrelenting technical hardcore. It internalizes the best of Hot Water Music, Small Brown Bike, and Latterman. For an up-and-coming band, Title Fight is one of the brightest spots in the scene today.
This Time Next Year, on the other hand, was wholly unimpressive. On appearance alone, they came off as the kind of ready-made band you’d see in a teen movie–you know, when the guy goes to find the girl at the punk show or whatever. The music isn’t too far off from this impression. Too clean cut, too predictable, too vacuous. Another Found Glory. “I’m sorry I’m not sorry.” Ucht.
Thankfully, the set was short, and when the lights went down on This Time Next Year, there was a palpable change in mood. The next band up was Strike Anywhere, whose new album, Iron Front, I’ve also reviewed for A&SB. Strike Anywhere is neither clean nor cut, but holy hell they were tight.
Strike Anywhere – Iron Front [Review]
WEBSITE | LISTEN | PURCHASE ON AMAZON
Strike Anywhere is a melodic hardcore band from Richmond, VA with over a decade under their collective (collectivist?) belts. Since 1999, they have been churning out records of aggressive music steeped in activism and political awareness.
On Iron Front, released late in 2009 on Bridge Nine Records, Strike Anywhere continue their tradition with an album that is musically pummeling, if a bit heavy on the platitude. The band is tight as you’d expect after ten years of playing in lockstep at 200 bpm, and the production has the signature Salad Days punch. Thomas Barnett’s vocals are as strong and passionate as ever, alternating between infectious melody and throat-shredding shouts.
The record starts off with “Invisible Colony,” a blistering track that decries the influence of organized religion, the media, and war in “a glamorous, divisible United States.” At barely over one minute, the song leaves a strong first impression, portending good things to come.
Next comes the album’s single, “I’m Your Opposite Number,” which is vigorously… anti-stuff. Barnett has said that this song is about voting and remaining on guard even in ostensibly good times (see the references to “change”). In other words, it’s “against” the “system,” man. Unfortunately, the message is overshadowed by a slowed-down tempo and awkward jumps between the anthemic intro/outro and the lukewarm verses and choruses. The song comes off as designedly “the single,” with an unnecessary solo and browbeating repetition of the song’s title. I could have–and the album could have–done without it.
Movie Monday: Inglourious Basterds
Inglourious Basterds or The Giant Jewish Jerk-Fest Tarantino Made?
When I first saw the trailer for Inglourious Basterds my initial and admittedly bigoted response was, “A bunch of nerdy Jewish looking actors brutally killing Nazis… did Tarantino just set-up the ultimate Hollywood executive (read Jewish) circle jerk?” Needless to say, I didn’t bother to catch it in theatres. Reviews came in overwhelmingly positive from my pseudo film buff guy friends with a penchant for violence (fittingly). They promised stunning cinematography, a well-paced and cleverly written story, an Oscar worthy performance, another dope Tarantino soundtrack, and a healthy release of testosterone. After the easily foreseeable and overblown finale I was left with most of the aforementioned items matched by a serious case of blue balls. Historical revisionism has been employed here merely for the sake of another undeniably cool yet empty Tarantino film.
On the road to pointlessness there is a lot of fun to be had while watching Inglourious Basterds. Christopher Waltz deserves all the praise he has received for his performance as Colonel Hans Landa aka ‘The Jew Hunter,’ leading this impressive ensemble cast (with the exception of Brad Pitt’s rarely amusing, mostly annoying Aldo Raines and Hostel director Eli Roth’s awful acting turn as ‘The Bear Jew’). It’s a Tarantino movie so of course the dialogue is slick and absorbing and like I said before, the soundtrack kicks ass. The moving pictures are beautiful and major props are due to cinematographer Robert Richardson. The opening sequence is probably Tarantino’s best yet and the careful pacing and elegant visuals from a stationary camera (not handheld) are much appreciated.
Shout Out Louds – Work [Review]
Listen on Lala | Purchase on Amazon
Shout Out Louds are an indie-pop band from Stockholm, Sweden. They have some boys and a girl in the band, and are affiliated with Peter, Bjorn & John (famous for the single most important moment in whistling history since Axl on “That’s Good“. The song builds with a piano line that is equal parts “All My Friends” and Peanuts theme, cutting out sporadically for vocals, which are unfortunately a bit too heavy on the reverb (think Arcade Fire covering Phoenix). The chorus would be fantastic but for the odd choice of guitar line, which is a bit too present in the mix and distracts from the rest of an otherwise driving chorus.
The next track, “Fall Hard,” is the real standout on the record. The guitars, while still a bit overwhelming, do not ultimately disappoint. The song features really interesting chord progressions and technical but still memorable leads. The horns are smooth and pleasant throughout. And while the vocals here are slightly too Robert Smith for comfort, the chorus differentiates Shout Out Louds from their contemporaries and gives the song a welcome uniqueness that is mostly absent on the remainder of the album.
