Silencio
Dead Kings
The Mountain Collective Independent Artists, Ltd.
7/10
Silencio play epic instrumental metal. I bet it's way better live. I tend to feel the same about bands like this. Dillinger Escape Plan, Fantamos, the Flying Luttenbachers; I always get the feeling I'm missing out by not seeing them live. I mean, they're no Behold the Arctopus...
What other band names can I drop? No, that's it
Roué
Upward Heroic Motive
Exit Stencil, 2005
Style: 6/10
Grace: 9/10
Overall: 7/10
The first time I met Justin Coulter, he was lighting a toilet on fire outside of a college cafeteria in Cleveland. Besides the burning toilet, Justin was also shredding and screaming over synthesized beats. No, this wasn't Roué, but Commercial Paranoid Behavior Control, a lovely two piece that terrorized the campus for most of my college career. In fact, if it wasn't for CPBC, I never would've gotten to play in bands. They were the only ones making an original sound on campus. While most bands were embracing a garage, indie, or emotional-guy-on-campus rock sound, CPBC were doing their best Atari Teenage Riot impersonation. So, the disclaimer is, I already respect Coulter. He could probably put out a mediocre record and I'd find something about it to appreciate.
Roué, though, is a little more rock and roll, a little more piss and vinegar, if you will. The guitars go from light and dirty to heavy and dirty and finally to metalicious and dirty. This is serious music; math rock without all the differential equations. Whatever the hell that means.
When Led Zeppelin started playing rock based on blues riffs, it was a new approach to loud and heavy. Now, it's really been done to death. I'm not saying Roué are suddenly building a new style, but they've definitely found some great basics to build off of. Mostly, the building blocks are post punk like The Stooges and The Fall mixed with some great attitude and anti-style like Queens of the Stone Age and Pere Ubu. Quite a crazy amalgam of reference points, I know, but it's hard to pin down what is driving Roué.
The surface gives a few more clues, literally, by which I mean, the cover art, done by Cleveland cum-New Yorker Dana Schutz. Her style—quick and dirty—brings out the artsy edge in the album. Another reason to not mind dropping 15 bucks to hold an album in my hands.
Upward Heroic Motive feels so good, it can't be bad. Oh, and I know that Coulter sings just like Mark E. Smith from The Fall, but it only bothered me for the first listen. After that, a lot of range comes out, especially in the screamier songs. I know saying this might piss someone off, but Coulter sounds a lot better than Smith, even 25-years-ago Smith. He might not be lighting any toilets on fire, but with Roué, maybe some metaphorical toilets will be lit aflame. I don't know what that means either, whatever, let's rock.
Built to Spill
You in Reverse
Warner, 2006
Guitar solos: 9/10
Lyrically 7/10
Overall: 8/10
Built to Spill open up You in Reverse with possibly the best song they've ever written. That being said, it's hard to review "Goin' against your mind." I don't want to just explain to you what's happening here. The song shifts gears about five times, though, and each time, new guitar textures pop up, adding a new layer to an already sedimentary mountain of a song. I've never heard a guitar so emotional. I may have been drunk, but the first time I heard the opening solo, I got a little verklempt. Seriously, what a great fucking song. Towards the end, there's a bit of a cheesy verse, but it's immediately followed up with a huge "fuck what you think" bridge that would make J. Mascis fall to his knees. And that's not even the end, cause Martsch's brings some more god damn musical heartache.
Oh, and there's nine more strong tracks on this album.
After an okay solo effort in 2002, I had almost given up on Doug Martsch, and by association, Built to Spill. Martsch spits in my face like the little bitch I am, though. Not only does he write 10 great songs, his voice as well as the production is absolutely lovely. Martsch uses his voices like one of his guitars and vice versa. Each instrument is imbued with an ethereally sad and sincere quality. Drums, organs, tambourine, whatever's there has a purpose.
It all makes me happy. In addition to some great sounding Idaho rock, there are some cheesy words sang. There are a lot of themes, not just lines, that run through songs that are great ideas, as well as lyrics. Nothing quite so profound as "You were wrong," from Keep It Like a Secret was, but "Conventional wisdom" could be talking about politicians or best friends.
When Martsch sings over Sam Coomes's (from Quasi) organ in "Gone," it could be singing about nights in white satin for all I know, because the song is another epic; about fear and love and walking and I don't know what else—all gone.
Earlier this year, when I took turns driving and riding from New York City to Cleveland, this album somehow stayed in the CD player for about eight plays, straight through. It's really easy to get lost in the middle of this album. Despite the strength of each song, there's nothing like a closer. Like all great driving albums, it's open-ended. Nothing to define a standard album. Built to Spill have taken everything they love, condensed it, put it on this album, mixed it up, polished it, and gave it to me. Thanks guys, for keeping me awake and attentive at 4 AM... and again at 5 AM... and again at 6 AM.
Godspeed You Black Emperor
Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heavens
Kranky, 2000
Majesty: 8/10
Over-the-topness: 10/10
Hey, it works. Overall: 9/10
Listening to this album, five years ago in my car, driving through mobs of traffic in downtown Cleveland, I actually thought it might be the end of the world. GYBE evoke the rawest emotion that I could've felt. Their music is drenched in death; swelling guitars and drums that sound like so much steel and concrete bending and burning.
Living now in New York City, I feel much closer—not just physically, but mentally as well—to the end of the world. Listening to this album again today, on my way to work, the subway train stopped, and I sat in a tunnel beneath the East River for almost 15 minutes. It started to come back to me, and my stomach began to grow heavy and sick. There is no real reason for fear, though, just a reason to mourn. The elegy that is Lift Your Fists rings some sort of human truth about life, death and pain. It's the only way I can deal with so much grief.
Crazy Canadians and their liberal guitar and drum meanderings... what does it all mean? I guess, just rock out like you mean it and try not to get hit by any airplanes.
Dethklok
Metalocalypse (Promo)
2006
Leaving me wanting more: 8/10
Overall: 9/10
This is some metal shit. The promo CD that I found for a buck contains the songs from the first four episodes of the cartoon, Metalocalypse, based around the incredible animated death metal band, Dethklok.
These four songs are awesome and, at times, hilarious. A death metal jingle for a coffee company? I've been meaning to write this for years, I just now realized it, though.
Eight years ago, this is the type of cartoon I would've found on Ebaum's world. The whole world can get their creativity out there, no matter how broke they are. As long as you've got an internet connection and access to some software. I'm sure there's some shit coming of this type of production, but it has to be worth it. For every fine artistic vision like Metalocalypse, I'm sure there's a hundred turds, stinking up the mailbox of Adult Swim's submissions mailbox.
In addition to being superb, Metalocalypse is also amazingly easy to watch; all five episodes are now availabe for viewing on the Adult Swim website. Plus, a couple hilarious interviews with the show's creator, Brendan Small.
Thank god for Dethklok, they even include their metal pals—cameos from members of Metallica, Arch Enemy, Nevermore, and King-fucking-Diamond. Too bad these five tracks come in at only seven minutes, I need some more.
Antony and the Johnsons
I Am a Bird Now
Secretly Canadian, 2005
Appeal to elitist music critics:10/10
Late night boughts with insomnia induced depression: 9/10
Overall: 9/10
I am a giant nostalgic pansy.
I saw on the CBS morning news a segment about regret. They interviewed two doctors; both were specialists in regret, or something. Anyway, it made me wonder if there was a difference between nostalgia and regret. My own nostalgia is strong. I often have deep and emotional responses to friends and memories that revisit me from the past. I often find myself having nostalgia for things that haven't happened yet, playing out scenarios of how Christmas dinner with my family will go, for example.
In an interview, Antony talked about getting [all of the guests] together to sing on his album. He recounted a tale of being 12 years old and identifying with Boy George's album. Then, twenty years later, sitting at a piano and singing with Boy George.
"When he was in the studio, I just felt this big, long circle connecting in my spirit," he said. And that made me want to feel that same sort of thing. I was, nostalgic for the time in my future when I will have a revelation about the importance of my work. Not this blog. Not reviewing records. Something bigger, I hope. Not in terms of fame or money. It sounds egotistical, but I'd just like to be able to do or make something that inspires someone else to want to make something. Perhaps, what they create will be bigger than anything that I could've ever constructed. That is what Antony is talking about.
I Am a Bird Now is a touching, heartbreaking, and inspiring work. Of course, I can tell it's not for everyone. The akward tenor, androgynous lyrics, and stuttered song structures will probably bother most people. The fact that I take a little pride in knowing this is a little embarassing. I'm sure my egotistical and elitist sides are front and center. Most critics don't even realize they need to try and bury their egos and esoteric knowledge, not put it front and center. I don't care that much. I suspect that not many read this blog, these reviews, anyway. Even if it's not true, I'm going to keep telling myself it is. Just so it's easier to write and do whatever I want.
So, that's the end of the review.
Xiu Xiu
Tu Mi Piaci EP
Acuarela, 2006
Deconstructed pop: 5/10
Diversity of song selection: 10/10
Overall: 6/10
The one thing I've always loved about Xiu Xiu is their (or Jamie Stewart's) ability to approach the standard song structure and deconstruct it beyond recognition.
This EP crosses some sort of line though. The second—and highlight—track, a cover of the Pussycat Dolls "Don't Cha," doesn't seem to have any basis in reality. Definitely scoring points for a surreal experience, the song quickly disregards its pop roots and opts for some other sort of "cover" that most people aren't familiar with.
When I was in high school, I was a big REM fan, and I bought Surprise Your Pig, a collection of covers. One of the covers, "We Walk," performed by Steel Pole Bath Tub, took the first seconds of the original—the sound of pool balls being broken—and extended it to almost four minutes. At the time, I thought it was weird, but noteworthy. Now Xiu Xiu is trying the same trick. This time, though, they forgot to pick out the most interesting part of the tune to deconstruct. Instead, they take the whole awful Pussycats song and stretch it to four minutes. By my personal estimation, there is only about 10 seconds worth of a song there. I wish Jamie Stewart and company would've thought about it just a little more.
Besides that, though, the rest of the covers are okay interpretations of great songs. Covering Nina Simone's "He Needs Me" is exactly what I expected from Xiu Xiu right after Knife Play came out. Bauhaus's "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything," gets the best treatment here. Mostly because of the fantastic noise that ends the EP.
That's really the best reason to listen to Xiu Xiu anyway, all that noise.
French Kicks
Two Thousand
Vagrant, Startime International, 2006
Compared to the high standard they set with One Time Bells: 5/10
Sunny day city listening: 8/10
Overall: 6/10
I'm glad I stepped outside for lunch today. Making a trip to the James A. Farley Post Office, I got a chance to give a few listens to the new French Kicks album, Two Thousand.
Overall, the French Kicks are some rock band. They sound a lot like former labelmates, The Walkmen, and they've got some solid production and songwriting. It sounds just as uninteresting as you might think. The fun that I had walking around the biggest post office in New York City was slightly enhanced, however, thanks to some catchy guitar post-rock.
That's really all the good things i can come up with to say about this album. French Kicks made an album in 2002, One Time Bells, that has a special little place in my heart. Two Thousand is nice, as I've said, but I'm wasting my time trying to justify it. There are some great moments; "Go On" and "Keep It Amazed" being my favorites.
To digress, though, I did have a nice walk around the post office. Apparently, you can reach it from Penn Station without going outside. I'd like to think I could get to everywhere I need in the city without ever going above ground. There's a nice little inscription across the top of the building: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." I learned that this same phrase appeared in a story by Herodotus—a greek storyteller. The story was about how dedicated Persian postal couriers were. Can't we ask the same of our Brooklyn rockers?
Meat Puppets
Up on the Sun
SST, 1985(reissued in 1999 by Rykodisc)
Grunge-ness: 5/10
Laid back jams: 10/10
Turning my initial disapointment into pleasant surprise: 8/10
Oh, the Meat Puppets. I never figured out how these guys fit into the Seattle scene. Up until a few weeks ago the only album of theirs that I'd listened to was Too High To Die, and I liked it for it's psychedelic, rootsy rock feel. After listening to a few tracks from its follow up, No Joke, though, I decided I better stick to the basics, and never listen to any other Meat Puppets album again. After coming across a few of the Rykodisc reissues, however, I broke my own boycott, and gave Up on the Sun a listen. Thanks for nothin, ego.
Initially, I was dissapointed by the lack of heavy, crunchy guitars (like in "Backwater," duh), but on the second time around, I finally let those expectations go. Lo and behold, hidden in these tracks is some subtle and funky psychedelia. I'm not talkin about Phish style jams here, but there's no reason why fans of A Picture of Nectar can't appreciate jammy tracks like "Buckethead" and "Enchanted Forest."
These songs are right to the point. Don't let all this "jam-band" talk fool you. The Kirkwoods hold these songs close to the three minute mark, which doesn't leave a lot of room for explorations of themes or subtle repetition. Plus, the original 12 tracks are amended here with five more tracks. If Phish were to reissue anything, they'd run out of space before adding another half track.
Speaking of bonus tracks, I can't believe "Hot Pink" is really a great one. Why they left this off the original, I could never guess, but it's goofy and pretty, and great. But, they kinda blow it by adding a second version, which is twice as long as the last bonus track. This one's kind of a snoozer, but not quite a loser, bruiser, chooser, cruiser, two-time loser, muser, and a user. (I got all those words from a rhyming dictionary...)
The alternate version of the title track is like a whole new track. It's obvious that not a lot of time was spent on second takes, but this mellow version adds a little underwater guitar and feels more vacationy than the original. Plus, right in the last seconds, a fuzzy guitar solo, just like in the Meat Puppets I remember.
Dwight Yoakam
Blame the Vain
New West, 2005
In the vein of ultra-produced country: 5/10
Synthesizers, fake british accents, and steel guitars: 9/10
Overall: 6/10
Yes, I'm reviewing a country record. Dwight Yoakam is really the only salvagable artist from my childhood, you see. My family constantly listened to country music radio, which, in the late 80's and early 90's, was crap. Of course, I didn't want to listen to it, but because I found myself constantly hanging out with these people, I found myself occasionally finding some redeeming quality among this pop/country/drivel. Most of it came from Yoakam, and If There Was a Way and This Time are two of my favorite albums. Full of nostalgia, yup, but still great tunes.
Blame the Vain came out last year, and I'm finally getting around to giving it a proper listen. Most of the album is exactly what I expected, and I don't even want to get into those tracks. The slick production, layed back steel guitar solos, and country cliches abound—it's almost not even worth it. But there are these crazy tracks that don't belong. "Intentional Heartache" starts out with a short bongo solo. Thank god, after two bland tracks, I really needed a bongo solo to spice things up. Dwight probably wanted to give the beginning of the track some character, seeing how the end is something from a television show. In fact, it's a little skit that might have been lifted from "My Name is Earl," but not quite as funny. Dwight voices the narrator and the antagonized hillbilly who gets his boots painted neon green. Weird shit. Not hilarious, but amusing.
Surprisingly, the next notable track is the very next one. "Does it Show" starts out simply enough, with a prominent bass, and steel guitar; but the piano that's lolligagging in the background eventually forms a phrase in the chorus that sounds more like Elvis Costello than a saloon piano. Then, before the final verse, the vocals suddenly turn into a Bowie impersonation, complete with echo, reverb, and spacious feel.
"She'll Remember" is fucking out there. I don't even know how to describe it. Dwight opens the track in a fake British accent, and over crazy synthesizers yells at some woman who has just dumped him. He sounds a little bit like Nigel from Spinal Tap, especially when he says he doesn't want to count the times she's left before, "No, I don't want to count," and then proceeds to count off the track to start, "1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4!" The synthesizers disappear, and then it's just a normal Dwight Yoakam country song. A little upbeat, and a lot of sad. But for that one minute, I'm convinced that Dwight is really some fucked up genius trapped inside the body of this country music star.
Maybe he's tired of the country game, and is giving his fans little signs that he's ready to get out. Whatever he's doing, it's weird, and not very consistent. He seems to enjoy the slow numbers with slightly new twists on old country cliches—heartbreak, loneliness, guitars, cadillacs—all that jazz, but after his stint in Hollywood, he sees there's more out there.
It's a good thing, too, because if it weren't for these three tracks, I'd probably completely disregard this album as another slicked up, albeit consistent and sincere, country album from an artist I use to think had artistic promise.
Bathory
Hammerheart
fun: 4/10
epic-ness: 9/10
historical accuracy: 10/10
Noise, 1990
Recently, I decided I needed to educate myself a little about metal (or metducate myself). Bathory's Hammerheart is my introduction to Swedish viking metal, a sub-genre of metal I'm excited to explore. It's hard to get into the right state of mind to listen to this album. Partly because it was made in 1990 (when I was 12), and partly because it's music about Scandinavian history.
It's a lot of pretense, and I'm already kind of sick of it, so...
It is impressive that Bathory is apparently a one man operation, being the product of the imagination and hard work of the Swede known as Quoroth, whose real name is shrouded in mystery... well, whatever.
I've got a bit of a fetish for opening tracks, and "Shores in Flames" is almost fucking incredible."Almost" because it's bathed in a 90's production that feels like Alice in Chains or Manowar. But still almost fucking incredible is only one step away from fucking incredible. If it weren't for Quoroth's Layne Staley impersonation, and the cheesy feel of the production, I would drop the "almost."
The mellow introduction fools you for a few moments, but after the fourth line, there's an onimous sounding vocal ascension, and impending doom is heard in the distance. The doom comes quickly, and turns out to be the best Kyuss riff I've never heard, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world.
Lyrically there's something about Odin... I dunno. I don't care what this guy is singing about. It doesn't seem like there's a chorus, Bathory have a story to tell, and it's interupted by a wordless chorus and water and boat sound effects.
After the sound of paddles comes in, we get some low-down gutteral vocals, followed by the ever-popular "fi-yar!!" But I can't complain, seeing as how the fire does follow. Quoroth's super shreds are burning up the coast, the shores are in flames. It's drenched in that same cheesey production, but it could've been recorded in a garbage can, it still sounds phenomenal.
So epic, it's barely contained in 11 minutes. Things get off to a good start. The shore is on fire, the village is burning, and horns of war are blasting. Epic shit is going down.
And Thor be damned if they don't do it again and again, track after track. It does get a little tiring, and the album is tough to listen to in one sitting, mostly because of the length of these songs. Only one is under six minutes (not including the 52 second outro), and two songs break ten minutes.
It turns out that the singer, Quorthon, is giving us a lesson in history, recounting the arrival of Christians into Scandinavia. Upon which, Quorthon's ancestors are forced to convert from their pagan ways. The historical highlight may be "One Road to Asa Bay," whose lyrics reminds me slightly of Dylan's "Visions of Johanna," mostly because of the style in which they are presented: verse after verse after verse. Quoroth doesn't like choruses, and that's okay, especially when he's trying to tell you, dammit, about the shit that went down back in the day. He might even be reading directly from a history book, it's hard to tell.
Regardless of the subject matter, Bathory give a challenging listen. Luckily, it's filled with several fantastic guitar solos and lyrical nuggets. After repeated listens, the storytelling style doesn't bother me as much as the production does, though.
It is a powerful album, but tires me out, and I find myself skipping these songs when they pop up on my iPod. I guess, though, sometimes you're just in the mood for 90's Swedish Viking Epic Heavy Metal.
Band of Horses
Everything All the Time
Sub Pop, 2006
seriousness: 8/10
fun: 5/10
sincerity: 9/10
It's hard to review an album like this, you know the kind that gets spectacular reviews from those websites that I visit everyday: pitchfork, cmj, nme, blah blah blah. But I really wanted to give the album a listen, and since I have a degree that says I'm a writer, I decided to go ahead and write about it. The one thing that made me want to give this album a spin is Band of Horses' most commonly cited influence: My Morning Jacket. Those guys always get me right in the gut, and the voice of Jim James is the voice of my grandpa, askin me to come closer to his grave. I can feel the death on his tongue rattling between his teeth. My Morning Jacket is possibly just as sad and gorgeous as real life tragedy.
But before I had a chance to listen to Everything All the Time, I saw the video for 'The Funeral,' an incredible cathartic dirge whose video brought back my childhood. the summer after my parents divorced, my father liked to take his fourteen year old boy into town to the bars, because well, I was too young to stay at home alone, and the bar had soda, candy bars, a jukebox, and a pool table. We'd drive from bar to bar, for hours and hours, roaming the streets of Beverly, Ohio. Dad would occasionaly drive right through a red light. I was a paranoid kid, and I thought for sure we'd get pulled over and tossed into jail. and why not? My dad probably deserved it, I thought, he was stinking drunk, with his boy in tow; he was self destructive; soaring from manic laughter to a depressed stare and eventually to a narcoleptic two-handed steering wheel clutch that usually led the pickup past the white line onto gravel and grass... if only for a second. that second though, is what the video for 'The Funeral' made me think of.
Regardless, the video gave me a bittersweet memory and I've now attached some strong emotions to it, and I don't really wanna let go, does that make me some sort of girly man? so what? big deal...
I'll tell you what the fucking big deal is, the rest of the album doesn't live up to what that this one song created in my mind. Forget the pitchfork review, this band created their own hype with that damn song. The lesson: don't release the greatest song you'll ever write as your first single.
So, well, it turns out that the album is actually very nice, and it pains me to reach for comparisons here. My Morning Jacket have been cited in at least two other reviews, and I'll refrain from it, even though there are strong vocal and production similarities. The music, however, is much more complex. It deserves more. then again, you deserve more than a therapuetic rant. So, here it is, my review:
Band of Horses are like most of my friends, we get along best when we're all drunk and rowdy. The best songs are the ones that sound chaotic, messy, and a little pissed off. Besides 'The Funeral,' my favs are 'The Great Salt Lake,' whose big drum-beated verse and soft/loud chorus's drone gives away to a little soaring at the end of the track. And there's the horribly titled "Weed Party." It's forgiveable, though, because the party is actually a little tragic and quite a pretty romp. Comparisons be damned, these guys sound like Galaxie 500 in a bar in Nashville.
