Basia Bulat - Lightspeed Champion - Damien Rice - Jens Lekman - Midlake - Sea & Cake - MGMT - Von Sudenfed - Foo Fighters
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OH, MY DARLING - Basia Bulat
The cover image of Basia Bulat's debut record tells you all you need to know about what's contained inside. Then again, maybe it doesn't tell you anything. Bulat is starkly front and center, donning a floppy hat and a youthful Mona Lisa expression, the sort onto which one might project any number of emotions, feelings, or personalities. A sense of aloof confidence is present, butting up against a naïve cuteness. The music on the disc under the picture shape-shifts as much, at times offering up a neo-madrigal folkie or a muted soul whisperer; elsewhere, a lavender-colored soft-folk puree-blender shows up - you get the picture! Bulat further vacillates, like her countrywoman Feist, between little-girl sweetness and womanly wisdom, yet her specific blend of the two sensibilities more closely recalls Lilith Fair than Let it Die.
Bulat's voice is a soft, smoky coffeeshop flutter, most prominently recalling mid-Nineties AAA queens Natalie Merchant and Sarah McLachlan. Ergo, much of Oh, My Darling rings with the same sort of baroque femininity those women mastered. Several songs are coated in a thick lacquer of piano and bowed strings, most prominently "Snakes and Ladders", an attractive admixture of aristocratic lilt and snapping rhythm which rates as one of this year's most soundtrack-ready singles. Within the current atmosphere of music promotion, I guess that equates to "radio-friendly".
On occasion, however, Bulat's tunes rely a bit too much on ambience, with a couple of Darling's songs falling back into a billowing, wispy pastiche. Darling's most memorable moments, however, come when the frippery is most restrained, and the romantic sentiment follows suit. The timorous "Little Waltz" ("I learned how to dance/but I never showed it to you") only allows its string quartet to enter after the first verse, without chewing much scenery. "I Was A Daughter", which starts out with droplets of piano and "Sinnerman"-style handclaps before blossoming into a gentle torrent of violins and rapid-fire drumming, then recedes and reappears, is another example of Bulat's knack for curious and surprising arrangements.
She's keen with the folky minimalism, as well; the title track is simple, unadorned feeling, escorted by only acoustic guitar, some multi-tracked harmonies, and eventually a harmonica. The too-short stage-setter "Before I Knew" is Darling's best moment: handclaps, a ukulele, and some luxuriant harmonies surround Bulat, inching toward a folksy recollection of the Concretes' or El Perro del Mar's tranquil melodicism. It's gone, in just over a minute, and just like "Darling" - is simple, beguiling, and hopefully a sign of what's to come from this promising songwriter in the future.
Download: Basia Bulat - OH, MY DARLING
(available for 7 days from date of post)
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FALLING OFF THE LAVENDER BRIDGE - Lightspeed Champion
Comparing bands is pretty much unavoidable when you're trying to classify or keep straight hundreds or even thousands of artists that fall beneath the banner of indie rock. Hence, Vampire Weekend gets likened to Graceland even if the resemblance is slight rather than exact, while thanks to the nasally pipes of Alec Ounsworth, assessors of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will probably always evoke Talking Heads regardless of where the former group draws its inspiration. Associations with better and more established artists may add pressure to musical up-and-comers, but it also piques the interest of said artists' fans and admirers, and at least put these listeners in a positive frame of mind when putting the record on. Then again, it can work just as easily in opposition when the point of reference leaves you cold.
The potential side effects of prejudicing a listener's first impressions is something I've been thinking about since encountering Lightspeed Champion. Lightspeed is the current project of Devonte Hynes, most notably a member of now-defunct dance-punks Test Icicles. A head-spinning 180-degree turn from his previous group's beat-fueled mayhem, the new project finds Hynes assuming the role of a florid troubadour, dewily emoting over well-manicured strings and acoustic guitars.
Because Lightspeed Champion has toured with Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst), and because longtime BE collaborator and go-to Saddle Creek producer Mike Mogis helmed this record, Hynes' latest effort has earned him a slew of misleading comparisons to Oberst's acclaimed-yet-divisive outfit - an association that not only misrepresents Hynes' positive attributes, but his shortcomings, too. Oberst has an awkward way of shoehorning twang into his unchecked poetic rambling, but on Falling Off the Lavender Bridge, Hynes offers a comfortable (and more interesting) marriage of lush Brit-pop and Omaha-flavored country-rock.
On the other hand, Hynes' lyrics aren't quite up to par with his tourmate Oberst. And while Hynes' voice isn't as carefully spotlighted as Conor's, you can unfortunately still make out what he's saying. A precocious young man himself, Hynes has an awful predilection towards the kind of "transgressive" lyricism that's less shocking than just plain silly. Pick your poison: "I'm sick in your mouth," "Wake up, smell the semen," or something that certainly sounds like "until they cum down his throat."
Given the way Hynes has transitioned from disco-thrash to roots-pop, I suppose it's possible his next record might be hair metal laced with r&b or punk-rock opera. If he's patient enough to dig deeper into his current terrain, though, he could cultivate a sound distinctive enough for other artists to begin garnering ill-fitting comparisons to him instead. Just don't bother with the guttermouth lyrics.
Download: Lightspeed Champion - FALLING OFF THE LAVENDER BRIDGE
(available for 7 days from date of post)
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9 - Damien Rice
Damien Rice is fast becoming the vanguard of the avant-garde: a Bladerunner-snazzy digital billboard beckoning toward a brave, new, post-emo future.
Look, you've heard of the non-denial denial, right? "I have no recollection of that." OK, good, because more recently, the non-apology apology has been sweeping the globe: "I will apologize to insert name here, if I am wrong."
And now Rice, a confessional singer/songwriter, alone in the whole world except for fellow avant-gardist, come (ahem) author O.J. Simpson, has pioneered the next communications vogue: The non-confession confession. Simpson's book, If I Did It, was scuttled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. just days before its expected street date; Rice's sophomore album, 9, is already out and changes everything.
The confessional singer/songwriter's main charge has always been, tautology of tautologies, to confess. His tales of woe may be tragically real (Elliott Smith) or borne out of a self-mythologized folkie past (early Bob Dylan), but the broken-heart-on-bloodied-sleeve breed of performer exists to make you feel his pain, babe. Still, no professional fink has ever been so explicit as to begin a record with a song called "9 Crimes" - nor ever kept so fuzzy about what those crimes actually are. Yes, on 9, Rice makes a lot of mellow noise about being a liar, a cheat, and an all-around gloomy Gus, but his disclosures are usually too trite, his offenses too vague, ever to really ring true, and the songs' assembly-line construction subverts any emotional impact. It's as if Rice has conjured up every cliché from the genre's past, only to immolate them all in a tepid MOR bonfire. Far fucking out.
A somber duet with band member Lisa Hannigan, "9 Crimes" doesn't just conveniently explain the album's title. It also introduces Rice's bland template: First, intone a few faded metaphors so unrelentingly bleak they must be sincere; rotate through a few ghostly arpeggios, either on piano or acoustic guitar (every few songs, actually strum!); build from faltering Jeff Buckley whispers to cathartic Jeff Buckley caterwauls; let the strings swell, and...Congratulations, you're on satellite radio. Rice murmurs, "It's a small crime, and I got no excuse," then adds something about a loaded gun. First time I heard this was in a movie theater before Borat.
No bears in ice cream vans here. Rice mostly keeps this Lexus LS 400 in cruise control. Oh, occasionally he'll wax meta - from "You asked me to write you a pleasant song" to "What's the point of this song?" in just two tracks-- and sometimes he gets deep: "Nothing is lost/It is just frozen in frost." Mostly, though, he's unremittingly melancholy, making sure never to use the word "end" when "die" will do. "9 Crimes" has already been tapped for Grey's Anatomy, but the closest Rice comes to a future sleeper hit is the laid-back "Dogs", with an agrammatical, non-rhyming chorus about "the girl that does yoga/when we come over" and an overall sense of Dave Matthewsy lasciviousness. Whenever Rice risks truly touching us emotionally - say, when he's asking a former lover, "Do you brush your teeth before you kiss?" on "Accidental Babies" - he undercuts himself with go-nowhere melodies and formulaic arrangements.
There are a few times throughout 9 when Rice boldly ignores the fact that his chain-ready inoffensiveness is a major reason for his appeal. "I am lately horny," Rice bellows on the meandering "Elephant" after hissing like Thom Yorke at the end of an old "Creep" acoustic version. And that's only the start. With usual soft/loud dynamic, "Rootless Tree" drifts from middle-aged guitar harmonics (a dozing Keller Williams?) to adolescent alterna-angst: "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you," goes the lazy chorus, a funhouse-mirror obliteration of all that was affecting in Ani DiFranco's confessional singer/songwriter standard, "Untouchable Face". Rice assaults his coffeehouse milieu aurally, as well as lyrically: With its "my god!" squeals and sadistic, quasi-arty distortion, "Me, My Yoke, and I" is a break from the Rice mold-- and helped me finally identify with The Passion of the Christ. Forgive him, dudes, for he know not what he do.
Now, OK, you're saying, but didn't Rice actually do all this before on O, the award-winning 2002 debut that went platinum in Ireland and has soundtracked stateside TV dramas ever since? Not quite. Sure, O was a study in earnestness-by-numbers so unimaginative it could've been self-parody, but it did offer a few resolutely tuneful moments: ubiquitous first single "The Blower's Daughter", bedroom cello ember "Volcano", or the keening but catchy "Cannonball" and its adult-alternative remix. Like the Juice's If I Did It, Rice's 9 renders past transgressions merely hypothetical. This album promises nine crimes, but at 10 tracks, it's actually a bargain. Hints, allegations, and things left unsaid.
Download: Damien Rice - 9
(available for 7 days from date of post)
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NIGHT FALLS OVER KORTEDALA - Jens Lekman
Jens Lekman, the sample-happy Swedish singer-songwriter with the boyfriendable baritone, isn't an artist who changes much from record to record. On his second proper full-length, Night Falls Over Kortedala, Lekman's deadpan style of singing sunny melodies and wittily lovelorn lyrics are a lot like what he's been doing since 2004 debut LP When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog, and on the EPs compiled on 2005's Oh You're So Silent Jens. "So if you liked that, you'll love this," Jonathan Richman once wrote. Lekman quotes the phrase on his blog.
On the other hand, Jens Lekman isn't quite Jens Lekman anymore. He logged out of MySpace for the last time in February last year, dissatisfied with the impersonality of the medium.
It all goes to show: Pop's true meaning is whatever we construct for it ourselves. Not just critics or obsessive music lovers, but you, me, and anyone to whom a song means anything. Lekman's stunning Night Falls Over Kortedala embraces this idea more fully than any release of the past few years - more even than Girl Talk with his memory-pricking laptop references, Kanye West with his canny reuse of classic hooks from Curtis Mayfield and Daft Punk, or mash-up artists with their many one-trick tracks. Like the Avalanches if they sang their own tunes, Lekman borrows liberally from his memories and surroundings, then uses them to create a lush and romantic world worth misinterpreting again and again.
It's a world set mostly within the confines of a Gothenburg, Sweden neighborhood called Kortedala. For this, Lekman has called the album a failure; he'd intended to traverse more ambitious terrain. Whether through samples, stylistic appropriations, or simply lyrics, Kortedala is a globe-conquering record regardless. Its vinyl-crackling arrangements span the baroque pop of Scott Walker, the upbeat rhythms and bright harmonies of Northern soul, and the beach-party disco of fellow Swedish artists Air France, Studio, and the Tough Alliance. Along with wry, sometimes melancholic observations worthy of Richman or the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt, these elements make for Lekman's best record, one likely to captivate even those who were skeptical of his previous releases.
The new album introduces Lekman draped in timpani, strings, and horns on "And I Remember Every Kiss", which samples classical violinist (and gatefold-sleeve inventor) Enoch Light. While recalling late-1960s Walker, the majestic opening also picks up where the Blueboy-sampled orchestration of When I Said... finale "A Higher Power" left off. "I would never kiss anyone/Who doesn't burn me like the sun," Lekman proclaims here. A track later, though, he admits to sometimes nearly regretting his first kiss: "I see myself on my deathbed, saying, 'I wish I would have loved less.'" But that's when Willie Rosario's orchestral cover of Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" - also used by the Avalanches - hits, in all its blissful glory. Love can lead to anguish and shame, but in "Sipping on the Sweet Nectar", the feeling is worth it.
With that, the voyage begins. Single "The Opposite of Hallelujah" visits 1960s Motown by way of Glasgow chamber-pop; beats sampled from the Tough Alliance take the harp-twinkled melancholy of "I'm Leaving You Because I Don't Love You" to a club in the tropics. "Shirin" brings up the Iraq war as fact, not just political issue; it tells of an immigrant hairdresser at Kortedala Beauty Center (also the name of Lekman's home studio). On the slower "It Was a Strange Time in My Life", a portrait of the artist as a shy and self-loathing young man, a sample of an infant Lekman leads flute and chiming electric guitar into the not-so-distant past. "I had a good time at the party when everyone had left," Lekman sings; throughout the album, backing vocals by El Perro del Mar's Sarah Assbring and Frida Hyvönen ensure his loneliness never overwhelms his charms.
And these are considerable. If rock'n'roll is "the art of making the commonplace revelatory", as critic Greil Marcus once wrote, this fey crooner is a rock'n'roller on par with the Streets' Mike Skinner. Lekman can sing about asthma inhalers, avocados, and a heart "beating like Ringo"; on the aching standout "A Postcard to Nina", he describes an awkward conversation with a girl's stern father who makes clumsy jokes about lie detectors. All of it works. Over sampled a cappella doowop on "Kanske Ar Jag Kar I Dig" (Swedish for "Maybe I'm In Love With You"), Lekman just rambles for a while about something stupid he saw on TV. "This has of course nothing to do with anything/I just get so nervous when talking with you," he finally admits.
Though not twee exactly, Kortedala may require an appetite for schmaltz - another way Lekman makes "the commonplace revelatory." If his Four Seasons falsetto on "Shirin" sounds suddenly chic thanks to this year's great Pilooski re-edit of Frankie Valli's "Beggin'", then the unabashedly sentimental "Your Arms Around Me" might be the stumbling block for some listeners. (The ukulele riff has already been compared to Hanson's "MMMBop".) It really doesn't matter; based on the Situationist concept of détournement, Lekman's song about an unfortunate kitchen mishap is a subversion of any bland source material. Besides, none of us can escape what's least cool about our past - no matter what influences we list on our MySpace pages, it all informs our experience of pop. No one gets to know about my Dire Straits records. or at least they didn't until now. Or I could just be misinterpreting again.
Admittedly, no individual moment here quite rises to the heights of early single "Maple Leaves", which hinged on a mistake of its own: "She said that we were just make believe, but I thought she said maple leaves." As an album, however, Kortedala represents the most cohesive statement yet from an immensely talented artist whose early EPs once made him seem like a rebel against the LP form altogether. It's a record about moments (and kisses) we take with us - moments that we (or Lekman) may never have experienced: Our own Kortedala.
Download: Jens Lekman - NIGHT FALLS OVER KORTEDALA
(available for 7 days from date of post)
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THE TRIALS OF VAN OCCUPANTHER - Midlake
The future ain't what it used to be, so these days the past can seem like a thing of the future. To wit: The second LP by Texas-based rock group Midlake opened at #14 on the UK indie charts more than a month before gracing its sullen native shores. Similarly, Midlake take a step back from the synth-age psychedelia of their solid 2004 debut Bamnan and Slivercork on the follow-up The Trials of Van Occupanther, an encouraging but ultimately disappointing contemplation of time's ceaselessness, love's promise, and Harvest-era Neil Young.
Speaking of time, Midlake waste little at first. Opener "Roscoe" keeps getting compared to Fleetwood Mac but actually comes closer to the pristine, high-concept chug of the Alan Parsons Project's paranoid 1982 hit "Eye in the Sky" (in a good way, gang) or the similarly anxious space-rock of the late Grandaddy. "Whenever I was a child, I wondered/What if my name had changed into something more productive like Roscoe/Been born in 1891, waiting with my Aunt Rosaline," whispers frontman Tim Smith, his phrasing elusive, his grassy tenor warming into multi-part harmonies after one of the year's most casually compelling pop moments.
Alas, little else here comes close: A fuzzy guitar solo on the legitimately Mac-like "Head Home"; single "Young Bride" chases ramshackle dance beats and skittery violins through a haunted and hookless forest; and "Bandits" pairs anachronistic wit ("Do you want to be overrun by bandits?") with mild woodwinds, an acoustic intro recalling "Mother Nature's Son", and bland Coldplay piano.
Throughout the album, the desperation for meaningful human contact glimpsed in the record's lonesome centerpiece "Van Occupanther" underpins images of mountaineers, stonecutters, and frozen pines. The album's second most affecting track, horn-sprouting "Branches", further illuminates the protagonist's heartbreak through ominous minor sevenths, "Exit Music (for a Film)" triad-inversion segues, and a canny reference to the Jackson Browne-penned classic "These Days". "It's hard for me but I'm trying," Smith delicately repeats, his voice falling between Young's woozy falsetto and the sinuous timbres of Thom Yorke.
Unfortunately the second half of the disc drags, amid bell-like vintage synths, pastoral singer/songwriter strums, and a stolid mountain of midtempo melancholy. "On a clear day I can see my old house and my wife," intones Smith, still struggling against the passing seasons for an irrecoverable romance. It's a shame that the album didn't finish quite so brightly as it ended. On tour Midlake are less affected in their stage presence than on record. Listen to Occupanther, go see them and then go back to the record. You may find something in the last few tracks I didn't. "We'll pass by for the last time," the disc concludes, but surely a band this promising will be back for more.
Download: Midlake - THE TRIALS OF VAN OCCUPANTHER
(available for 7 days from date of post)
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EVERYBODY - The Sea And Cake
I've never seen the Sea and Cake play, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did so with their backs to the crowd. Their albums are not unapproachable - most of the time, in fact, they're pretty and inviting. They have great ears for rhythm, borrowing from bossa nova and Afro-pop, and they've a charming vocalist in Sam Prekop. And yet they can come off as stuffy and cerebral - the kind of band categorized as "pop" by default, the way you'd use the word to describe Stereolab or their neighbors and contemporaries Tortoise. These qualities became even more prominent with the keyboards and electronic dalliances on albums beginning in 1997 with The Fawn up through 2003's One Bedroom. So I picture them on stage interpreting some fluttering theme over bongos and layers of analog keyboards, their brows furrowed over nailing a sound rather than playing a song.
Whether ethnic or electronic, whatever the Sea and Cake runs through their eccentric filter winds up sounding slightly "off," either from the space and ambiguity in their compositions. Yet even a more direct, backyard-BBQ-ready album like Everybody still works. In fact, it may fit the band's idiosyncrasies even better. In moving a little closer to the middle-of-the-road, they start exuding something long absent from the group: warmth. The band that once cultivated abstraction and aloofness now, as elder statesmen of Chicago post-rock, stuffs its liners with pictures of their hometown next to guitar tablatures spelling out the chords for their songs. The Sea and Cake want to be your friends, all of a sudden.
"Up on Crutches" quickly sets the tone with a sparkling, insistent strum, a typical rock pattern from the drums, and Prekop sounding breathlessly nonchalant while the rhythm builds. "Too Strong" has the typically effete melody you'd expect from the band, though it's far more immediate and has a stunning slow jangle of a chorus, deft and breathtaking in its quiet appeal. Not to make him self-conscious, but age suits Prekop well, as he creaks earnestly and sounds wizened and authoritative no matter what he's singing about. This is especially noticeable in "Middlenight", where he pines about a possible "return to better days" while pedal steel guitar warms the soles of listeners basking in its gorgeous mid-tempo strumming.
Everybody picks up the pace in more than one spot, however: "Crossing Line" is one of their best pop songs, hummable and slick with a buzzing single-note guitar tearing through Prekop's cheery "doot-doo-doo"' and simple requests ("All I need's a little smile"). There's some syncopation in "Exact to Me" that recalls their love for the bossa nova beat, though it's far too straightforward and sinewy to fit in with their earlier work. Likewise with the monotone pluck of "Lightning", with a rhythm so tricky it'd sound like a CD skipping if not for the calming consistency of Prekop's crooning.
It's a shame that adjectives like "pleasant" wind up sounding backhanded or inadequate; maybe "playful" is a better word for Everybody. That it still sounds mischievous and human through the band's studious chops and omnivorous listening habits is no small feat, as these qualities have eluded them for quite a while. It's been four years since their last album, and Chicago's post-rock heyday has past, but the Sea and Cake remain relevant simply by becoming more transparent. They're still in the business of being a pop band, and this might be their most direct pop record.
Download: Sea And Cake - EVERYBODY
(available for 7 days from date of post)
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ORACULAR SPECTACULAR - MGMT
On the first song on their debut record, MGMT let us know how they got here. The rock song-as-origin myth is nothing new, and "Time to Pretend" situates itself in that canon. Emerging initially from a viscous electronic fluid, the song quickly takes shape as a bombastic electro-glam number about rock star dreams. Accordingly, it's cheesy and clichéd, but also thick with sarcasm: Before the first chorus, MGMT sing nostalgically about having models for wives, moving to Paris, and shooting heroin. The kicker, though, is in the title itself. Knowing that the Almost Famous notion of stardom doesn't exist anymore (if it ever did), the duo of Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser realise they're "fated to pretend." On Oracular Spectacular, they not only accept their playacting destiny, they demonstrate that, just maybe, it's a path more people should take.
MGMT find kindred spirits in Muse and Mew by dressing their melodies in the fanciful trappings of 1970s British prog, but unlike their contemporaries the duo also weaves in lessons from disco, new-wave synth-pop, and early 90s Britpop. The understanding that youthful innocence is a potent force - a theme first established in "Time to Pretend" - continues throughout the record. Instead of the "Knights of Cydonia", though, MGMT fights "Weekend Wars", ostensibly an ode to the fictionalized childhood battles that treat backyards as independent colonies in need of conquering. The gentle, chiming melody and effete vocals of "The Youth" recall Sparks or Queen at their most restrained moments, and "Kids" comes across as an inspirational dance anthem for playgrounders.
Most impressive on Spectacular is Vanwyngarden and Goldwasser's ability to dabble, with the shared understanding that whatever they do is Big. "Pieces of What" is an unexpected acoustic guitar piece, but it's delivered like an outtake from Suede's Dog Man Star. "4th Dimensional Transition" augments its cavernous psychedelic vocals with a jacked-up BPM count, and on "Electric Feel", MGMT pull off lithe, falsetto electro-funk surprisingly well. There's not much to the song aside from a Barry Gibb vocal and limber bassline, but within the context of the rest of Spectacular, it makes perfect sense. They're still young, of course; they've got plenty of time to figure everything out.
Download: MGMT - ORACULAR SPECTACULAR
(available for 7 days from date of post)
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TROMATIC REFLEXXIONS - Von Sudenfed
It comes as something of a surprise to know that Mouse on Mars and Smith apparently found the "Wipe That Sound" 12-inch collaboration in 2004 inspiring enough to record an entire album together. Tromatic Reflexxions, their (first?) full-length, reflects the general tenor of that original collaboration, even featuring one of the "Wipe That Sound" remixes in a slightly different form, and retitled "That Sound Wiped". Somehow, even though "That Sound Wiped" sounds just OK, the ideas presented actually gain some cumulative force as they're hammered at again and again over 48 minutes. In this way, the record operates something like a Fall album, wearing you down with its relentless energy.
Some have noted that Von Südenfed occasionally sounds like Smith is knocking back at the early LCD Soundsystem singles, on which he'd been such a clear influence, and opening track "Can't Get Enough" is probably the reason for the comparison. St. Werner and Toma have crafted a crunchy, bouncy beat with a bassline not terribly far from "Losing My Edge", and of course, Smith carries on like the scenester-baiting O.G. that he is. It's a solid kickoff that also lays out the project's tight parameters: Its grooves are harsh and noisy, often stuttering about in strange ways, and they strike a strong contrast to the accessible pop tendencies of Mouse on Mars' clubbier recent material. Meanwhile, Smith's voice is slathered in reverb, EQ'd to give it midrange-only bite, and occasionally chopped into bits and inserted where its abrasion can be best felt - the sonic equivalent of a pebble in a shoe.
The first eight songs stick closely to this template with slight variations, like a catchy chorus hook ("The Rhinohead") or a ridiculously broken beat that seems to bypass your hearing entirely and head straight for the fragile equilibrium maintained by your inner ear ("Serious Brainskin"). It's a weird stretch of music, sometimes exciting, but also oddly monotonous - especially considering the tightly packed and maximal approach to sound - and ultimately a little draining.
They finally decide to mix things up a bit during the album's last quarter. "Chicken Yiamas" begins with acoustic guitars playing some mutant blues. Smith says something about a yardbird and how he has two bones, but there must be something about those drumsticks because he ululates wildly, sounding more energized than at any other moment on the record. "Jbak Lois Lane" is mostly just a goof, a field recording dominated by a lawnmower as Smith speaks to someone only partly coherently in the middle distance. This leads to a bubbling tune with a vaguely West African guitar line and plenty of slide. Smith sounds like he's having a lot of fun by now, and his rhythmic feel is completely on as he negotiates the groove with strategically elongated vowels. How did we get here? What does this all add up to? Hard to say. Tromatic Reflexxions sounds like three guys having a great time ignoring whoever might be asking these questions. Smith is completely hatstand, but it doesn't matter to him.
Download: Von Sudenfed - TROMATIC REFLEXXIONS
(available for 7 days from date of post)
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ECHOES, SILENCE, PATIENCE AND GRACE - Foo Fighters
In early 2007, RCA released a 10th anniversary edition of the Foo Fighters' The Colour and the Shape, a reminder of the days when the group wrote big songs that were both catchy and palatable. The nostalgia trip continues on the band's latest album, Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace, which reunites the Foos with Colour producer Gil Norton (who has since worked with Jimmy Eat World, Maxïmo Park, and Morningwood, among others). The result, however, feels like a retread, a shame for a band that - as one of the few late 1990s/early 2000s modern rock groups to enjoy a long run of success - has practically become a walking metonym for alt-rock in the same way Kleenex has for tissues.
Album opener and first single "The Pretender" goes through the same motions as early, successful anthemic rawkers "I'll Stick Around" or "Monkey Wrench", and packing plenty of clever ideas and fist-pumping firepower, it's the most interesting song the band's released in quite a while. But deploying that same vitriol proves clumsy on hard-rocking post-relationship bummers like "Let It Die" (featuring the infinitely repeated plea "Why'd you have to go and let it die?") and "Long Road to Ruin". Even "Erase/Replace", sporting the album's catchiest chorus, can't atone for its hackneyed heartache and Fugazi-lite riffs.
On The Colour and the Shape, Norton brushed up the already passé grunge sound of the Foos' debut, applying a sleeker, arena-sized version of the loud/quiet dynamic he famously produced on the final three Pixies albums. While Norton's touch often sounded hyperbolic (see: Colour's "Enough Space" and "Up in Arms"), he was merely an accessory to a band that was ready for its close-up. Now, with the Foos (or is it the Fighters, or maybe even the Effs?) being full-fledged rock stars, Norton's presence takes a backseat to the band's heightened technical skill, which has grown exponentially since the addition of dexterous guitarist Chris Shiflett in 1999. The band hardly rallies around Grohl's ear-grabbing melodies and complementary guitar lines anymore, opting instead for a vanilla classic rock sound where vocals do their bit and showy solos or overly complicated riffs fill in the empty spaces. Bent on striking the right big rock pose at the right time, these potentially simple and endearing three-minute pop songs sound cold and detached compared to heart-wrenching Foo pop gems like "Big Me" or "Everlong".
For the past decade, the Foo Fighters have used acoustic numbers as placeholders to fill out their albums, a trick gone too far on 2006's unplugged record Skin and Bones. Several campus-lawn ballads on Echoes trigger nightmarish flashbacks from that live album, most notably "Stranger Things Have Happened" and "But, Honestly". Grohl's split-personality of happy-go-lucky punk-prankster and teary-eyed balladeer has never felt more dissonant than on these heart-on-sleeve pieces, and unfortunately, a quarter of the album succumbs to this schmaltz. Echoes does attempt to forge new ground, as Grohl's longtime affinity for Tom Petty sounds very apparent on the Americana-faded "Statues" and "Summer's End", though the novelty quickly wears off, the coyote-howl of the guitars lacking the necessary power to mask the drab melodies.
Echoes' most telling slip-up comes during "Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners", an instrumental track dedicated to the Tasmania coal mine victims that clashes the band's magnanimous intentions with an awkward musical direction. Sounding like a Led Zeppelin III outtake, the track highlights the Foo Fighters' unsolicited willingness to be everything to everybody all the time. Consequently, they're sounding less and less relatable, leaving us pining not just for the days of a little grunge trio from Seattle, but for the relentlessly catchy and charismatic Dave Grohl of the Foos' still-fantastic self-titled debut and the better half of The Colour and the Shape. One for the FF collection, but perhaps not their finest hour.
Download: Foo Fighters - ECHOES, SILENCE, PATIENCE AND GRACE
(available for 7 days from date of post)
