Music Bonanza (PART 11)

British Sea Power - The National - Of Montreal - Helio Sequence
- Iron And Wine - Bearsuit - Cass McCombs - Beirut


DO YOU LIKE ROCK MUSIC? - British Sea Power
British Sea Power have been an ambitious band from the start. From their first guitar scribbles on 2003 debut, The Decline of British Sea Power, through the more streamlined songwriting on the 2005 follow-up, Open Season, the Brighton band have pushed themselves and their craft beyond simply re-creating rock music - the band perform dressed in vintage military uniforms on stages decorated with foliage, yet they never come off as ironic. Their approach is playful yet cerebral, like a logic puzzle. So, although the title of their third album, Do You Like Rock Music? might seem overly straightforward for such an elusive group, it’s inquisitiveness is crucial: British Sea Power would like us to abandon our genres, subgenres, and microgenres. To hell with indie, post-punk, lo-fi and new wave; for British Sea Power, all of these fall under the rock rubric.
To this rock-critical end, the band recorded Do You Like Rock Music? around the world - in a Czech forest, in a crumbling fort in Cornwall, and most tellingly, in Montreal with the Arcade Fire's Howard Bilerman and Godpseed You Black Emperor's Efrim Menuck. This is a band going for broke by going global. They inflate the plaintive guitar pop of Open Season to monumental proportions, amplifying every element until it sounds enormous and overwhelming. The epic choruses and chiming guitars on "Waving Flags" and "Down on the Ground" sound immodest, as if the overzealous band wants to convert all you nonbelievers: You don't just like rock music, you love it, you need it, you worship it. Rock music has a wonderful plan for your life.
That's a huge undertaking for any artist, and not surprisingly British Sea Power come up just a tad short. Do You Like Rock Music? doesn't fail miserably, but disappoints gently. Where formerly they made glancing references to bands like the Pixies and the Psychedelic Furs (singer Yan still sounds studiously like Richard Butler), the primary touchstone on Do You Like Rock Music? is U2. And not politico-rock 1980s U2, sell-out 2000s U2. Let me get one thing straight, I am a fan of British Sea Power, but too often the drama sounds painstakingly deliberate, rising and falling expectedly. "No Lucifer" even bullies you into chanting along with its shouted refrain "Easy! Easy! Easy!" but offers no cathartic reward or explanation for what will seem like an esoteric repetition. If you’ve not been brought-up on 70’s wrestling with Dickie Davies, then you’ll not get the Big Daddy reference.
The recording work by producer Bilerman, along with Menuck and Graham Sutton (of Bark Psychosis), sounds often impersonal. A quick-moving guitar winds through the first measures of "Lights Out for Darker Skies", but the band's wall of sound violently overtakes it. Later, the scrappy guitars on "A Trip Out" sustain the song from start to finish before "Open the Door" dials it back for a surprisingly tender folk-pop chorus and a strong, short guitar solo. But "Canvey Island" weighs down the album's middle section with its hesitant pace and expository lyrics: "Like Canvey Island 1953/Where many lives were lost/and the records of a football team." This type of matter-of-factness forestalls any real wonder at the serendipity of nature and history (the song references a fatal flood), which British Sea Power conveyed so eloquently on previous albums.
Despite the implications of the band name, British Sea Power don't work as well at this size and scope. They're in danger of becoming the Alarm to the Arcade Fire's U2. Curiously, these stadium-sized songs channel less passion, anger, or awe than their earlier work. Granted, emotion has never been the band's strong suit, but here, British Sea Power speak the language of big feelings with little to back it up. Unfortunately Do You Like Rock Music? sounds empty at its core, with a rock where its heart should be.

Download: British Sea Power - DO YOU LIKE ROCK MUSIC?
(available for 7 days from date of post)


BOXER - The National
Among critics and fans, the National's third album Alligator has become synonymous with the term grower. Released to minor acclaim early in 2005, the album has since quietly and steadily built up a large, avid listenership. Matt Berninger's lyrics - initially off-putting and seemingly obtuse in their non sequiturs and stray details - proved unpretentiously poetic over time. His sober baritone and dogged repetition of phrases and passages made it sound like he was trying to figure the songs out in tandem with the listener. The band, meanwhile, played around the hooks instead of hard-selling them, so that in a sense, despite two previous albums and a killer EP, we all pretty much learned how to listen to the National on Alligator, eventually finding deeper shades of meanings in the words, sympathizing with Berninger's anxieties, laughing at his grim jokes, and tapping out the band's complex rhythms on desktops and steering wheels.
It's a testament to the good will engendered by Alligator that fans are now likewise calling the National's follow-up, Boxer, a grower. Despite the scrutiny greeting its release (brought on by the inevitable leaks), many listeners seem to be approaching these songs patiently, giving Boxer the space and time to reveal its dark, asymmetrical passageways. In a sense, the album demands it. The same elements that kept listeners returning to Alligator (Berninger's clever turns of phrase, the band's dramatic intensity) are present on Boxer, but are now more restrained and controlled.
From the first piano chords on opener "Fake Empire", the National create a late-night, empty-city-street mood, slightly menacing but mostly isolated. The 10 tracks that follow sustain and even amplify that feeling, revealing the band's range as they play close to the vest. Aaron and Bryce Dessner's twin guitars don't so much battle one another as create a unified layer that acts as a full backdrop for the other instruments, while touring member Padma Newsome's string and horn arrangements infuse songs like "Mistaken for Strangers" and the stand-out "Ada" (featuring Sufjan Stevens on piano) with subtle drama. But Boxer is a drummer's album: Bryan Devendorf becomes a main player here, never merely keeping time but actively pushing the songs around. With machine precision, his fluttering tom rhythms add a heartbeat to "Squalor Victoria" and give "Brainy" its stalker tension. In fact, the title Boxer could conceivably be a reference to the way his rhythms casually spar with Berninger's vocal melodies, jabbing and swinging at the singer's empathies and emotions.
Despite this implied violence, Boxer doesn't have the same aggressive self-reckoning and psychological damage assessment of Alligator. Here, Berninger sounds like he's able to look outward from that mental space instead of further inward. He observes the people around him-- friends, lovers, passersby-- alternately addressing them directly and imagining himself in their minds. Or, as he sings on "Green Gloves", "Get inside their clothes with my green gloves/ Watch their videos, in their chairs." He sounds more genuinely empathetic than previously (the accusatory you from the first two albums is thankfully absent), toying with ambiguity and backing away from outright satire. Certain themes continue to prevail: He maintains a fear of white-collar assimilation, addressing "Squalor Victoria" and "Racing Like a Pro" to upwardly mobile hipster-yuppies ("Underline everything/ I'm a professional/ In my beloved white shirt"), and clings to his American angst ("We're half awake in a fake empire"), as though recognizing the world's craziness makes him more sane.
Better even than these songs are the three mid-album tracks that toy with a love = war metaphor that miraculously avoids the obviousness that implies. On "Slow Show", over background guitar drones and a piano theme that echoes U2's "New Year's Day", he daydreams, "I want to hurry home to you/ Put on a slow dumb show for you/ Crack you up." But the capper is in the coda: "You know I dreamed about you for 29 years before I saw you." That hard-won contentment begins to crumble in "Apartment Story", in which the world invades the couple's shared space, and in "Start a War", where the possibility of loss looms threateningly. "Walk away now and you're gonna start a war," Berninger sings against the band's simple, uncomfortably insistent rhythm, his concrete fears giving the song the extra heft of the personal.
Obviously, it's pretty easy to read a lot into the National's music and especially into Berninger's lyrics, but that shouldn't imply that Boxer is a willfully difficult or overly academic work. Like those on their last album, these songs reveal themselves gradually but surely, building to the inevitable moment when they hit you in the gut. It's the rare album that gives back whatever you put into it.

Download: The National - BOXER
(available for 7 days from date of post)


HISSING FAUNA, ARE YOU THE DESTROYER? - Of Montreal
The breakup album is a familiar pop music trope - countless artists have harnessed the emotional fallout of a relationship to fuel their songwriting efforts. The less imaginative practitioners wind up churning out acoustic self-pity or overdriven spite and angst, while the most effective have draped heartbreak in a clever disguise (like the high-gloss domestic dispute of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours), or rendered personal pain as the most important event in human history (like the symphonic catharsis of ABC's The Lexicon of Love).
Despite a soft spot for concept albums, Of Montreal would seem an unlikely participant in this arena, having spent much of their career eschewing confessional introspection for escapist fantasy. Even amidst the notebook-doodle psychedelia society of Elephant 6, Kevin Barnes and his compatriots stood apart for their day-glo Nickelodeon world, full of bizarre characters with alliterative names and toy-box, sugar-high arrangements. While there's always been a dark streak running through Of Montreal's cartoon universe - and Barnes' chipmunk-shrill voice sometimes tips disturbingly from childlike to desperate - few would look to the Athens, Geo., band to accurately depict love's gory aftermath.
Yet in the past year, storm clouds have intruded upon the band's rainbow domain as Barnes went through a separation (he and his wife have since reconciled); concurrently, the band's sound has been slowly molting off the giddy pop of its early days, using its past couple of albums to test the waters of a more sinister combination of synth-pop and glam without abandoning its steakhouse jingle-worthy melodies. These two plot threads intertwine at Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, an astonishingly good late-period record from Of Montreal that's as uncomfortably savage in its depiction of breakup psychology as it is relentlessly catchy.
The emotional accuracy of the record lies in Of Montreal's unwillingness, or perhaps inability, to settle for "woe is me" moping. Barnes resists the urge to cry into an acoustic guitar, instead portraying the full-spectrum manic mood-swings of the brokenhearted: desperately seeking distraction in drugs or religion, imagining himself as a cynical-minded lothario, and even considering violence. When Barnes does directly give in to his despair, it produces the monolithic 12-minute centerpiece of "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal", a gutwrenching soundtrack provided by an unrelenting bassline and a synth solo that sounds like an angry flying saucer.
The rest of Hissing Fauna is an endless supply of off-kilter but instantly appealing melodies intact over the band's newly robotic sound. The focus throughout is on mechanized rhythms and synthesizer swirls, though the tempos are no less hyperactive, and the attention span of the arrangements is only a shade longer. Occasionally, the bright synthesizers appear to mock Barnes' shadowy feelings, like the roller-skate organ riff that flits about the pleading drug-use of "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse", or the Christmas carol exterior of depression saga "A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger".
Of Montreal's full embrace of this new sound works best in the record's second half, as after the soul-purge of "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal", Barnes tries to slut away the pain through a series of sex jams no less memorable for being completely unconvincing. "Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider" finds the singer sauntering through the club brushing off sexual advances from both women and men and boasting of "soul power," while "Faberge Falls for Shuggie" struts over a bassline funkier than I ever could have imagined the group capable of producing. Throughout, Barnes multi-tracks several lascivious voices, making bizarre double entendres out of parachutes and interiors. It's not the direction many of their fans might've imagined they'd take, but it's that very attribute that makes it so ceaselessly fascinating and inexhaustibly replayable.

Download: Of Montreal - HISSING FAUNA, ARE YOU THE DESTROYER?
(available for 7 days from date of post)


KEEP YOUR EYES AHEAD - The Helio Sequence
The Helio Sequence had been hitting the campaign trail hard, spending much of 2004 journeying through the US and Europe with Blonde Redhead, Modest Mouse and Kings of Leon, attempting to get the good word out about their sumptuous Sub Pop debut, Love and Distance. That their endeavours would see them elected to music’s high-table seemed a formality. It wasn’t. The relentless gigging eventually caught up with singer Brandon Summers and extracted a severe physical toll. Vocal chords shot to shit, he was forced to take a virtual vow of silence. For The Helio Sequence, it seemed it might be over before it ever truly began.
However, Summers was determined it wouldn’t end that way. He stopped self-medicating with whiskey and started a regimen of vocal exercise and mic’ technique. And now at last, the protracted silence is broken by the surging scream of Keep Your Eyes Ahead, an album that feels as vital as the first, gulping breath of the near drowned. What this record means to Summers and partner Benjamin Weikel is apparent in the intense force of feeling.
The emotional shrapnel of ‘Lately’ cannot fail to pierce even the most cynical of souls, the difference between what is said and what is felt, is immediately striking, “Lately I don’t think of you at all/Wonder what you’re up to, or how you’re getting on”. There is a futility to these attempted self-deceptions, our narrator all too aware that he can’t stop clinging to a love that’s long gone. The keys chirrup brightly, defiantly almost, but the haunting guitar line exposes the sham.
It isn’t only love that lies. ‘Can’t Say No’ questions the veracity of the printed word, of adverts that order us to “live well, but die fast”. It’s part of the modern condition, of living in a world that bombards us relentlessly with fact and fantasy, where all is instantly known, instantly available and kids’ heads filled with “download brainwaves”. But, even when expressing such profound dissatisfaction, such sadness, The Helio Sequence make it sound like the sweetest thing in the world, the hazy electronics meshing perfectly with drums and guitar to create dream pop.
This blessed-out state of being is evidenced elsewhere on ‘You Can Come To Me’, beats falling as satisfying as a thousand domino run, and ‘Hallelujah’, a night sky of staccato rhythms and twisted guitar spangled with celestial keys. Departing from lo-fi indie-electronica, ‘Shed Your Love’ and ‘Broken Afternoon’ are folk inflected tracks that rely on simplicity of songwriting to captivate. Smeared in bittersweet nostalgia the former is a finger-picking delicacy, whilst the latter is a twanging paean to the human condition.
‘No Regrets’ makes for a compelling final act, it's ramshackle melody and Dylan-esque harmonica quite unlike anything else on the pristine ten tracks that comprise Keep Your Eyes Ahead, an album whose deep felt emotion and effortless execution proves that there’s nothing like a little trial and tribulation to get the artistic synapses firing.

Download: The Helio Sequence - KEEP YOUR EYES AHEAD
(available for 7 days from date of post)


THE SHEPHERD'S DOG - Iron And Wine
Sam Beam's first two full-lengths under the name Iron & Wine were bare-bones, hushed affairs full of rich imagery, whispery falsettos, rhythmic finger-picking, and not much else. In the time since, Beam has gradually moved in other directions, expanding his palette on both the excellent Woman King EP - which featured more percussion and fleshed-out arrangements - and 2005's full-band collaboration with Calexico, In the Reins.
Beam has also toured with a group of musicians for some time now, so it makes sense that his new album would complete his gradual journey away from lo-fi home recordings. The album even teases you at its start - it begins with a snatch of scratchy black-and-white guitar and percussion before jumping to Technicolor when the bass and drums dive in. The rest of opener "Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car" is surprising as well, at once sleek and full of clattering Americana signifiers like steel guitar, acoustic slide guitar, and tack piano.
Despite these new sounds, the core of Iron & Wine remains Beam's voice, guitar, and songwriting, which is still more suggestive than concrete, and is built mostly around strophic verse/verse/verse forms rather than leaning on choruses. Beam and producer Brian Deck deftly build on that foundation, venturing into dub, blues, and West African music (among other styles), creating a series of interstitial passages that cushion the transitions between songs. Beam also experiments with his voice, layering himself heavily on several songs.
Perhaps the most stunning arrangement is the West African juju casting of "House by the Sea", which builds from an abstract soundscape into a snaky groove led by a frenetic bass and a strangely employed baritone sax. Guitars dance atop the rhythm as Beam harmonizes with his sister Sarah on the chorus - one of the few on the album. The album's foray into dub and reggae, "Wolves (Song of the Shepherd's Dog)", could have been a disaster if it hadn't been done so subtly, with an ear toward the musical elements that define reggae rather than the sonic character that defines it-- it's not a pastiche or a genre exercise in the least.
For an Iron & Wine album, The Shepherd's Dog is so varied that it takes several listens for everything to fully sink in, but the individual details-- such as the dramatic steel guitar at the end of "Love Song of the Buzzard" or the cascade of banjo in the middle of "Innocent Bones" - are nearly as rewarding as the overall sound of the album. The sequencing is also well-considered, setting contrasting songs against each other and ending on the stunning and starkly emotional "Flightless Bird, American Mouth". The vocal harmony as it rises into the chorus is shiver-inducing, and the song finally delivers the sense of resolution that much of the album purposely holds back.
The Shepherd's Dog is Iron & Wine's most diverse and progressive album yet, a deft transition to a very different sound that explores new territory while preserving the best aspects of Beam's earlier recordings. It's the kind of record that just keeps pulling you back with its dreamlike flow and attention to detail: The first time I listened to it, I played it straight though again when it ended, and I can't think of a higher compliment than that.

Download: Iron And Wine - THE SHEPHERD'S DOG
(available for 7 days from date of post)


OH:IO - Bearsuit
There’s a vocal riot going on, with frantic activity on guitars, keyboards and brass. If you puke you might miss the rollercoaster, novelty sandwich toaster of an album opener ‘Jupiter Force [recruitment video]’. Big band Bearsuit sure know how to entertain, and this is their third long player. Five out of the six members of this band take a turn in vocal duties; it’s just drummer Matt Hutchings left to his own devices. All the other zombies, bears and band-standers in the group are multi-instrumentalists, whipping up an over-the-top celebration of musical misrule.
And the feeling runs deep: three of Bearsuit’s line-up, Lisa Horton, Cerian Hutchings and Jan Robertson, also have a keytar-only project called Keytarded. Also in the past they have aptly toured with their Norwich neighbours KaitO, and the much-loved Deerhoof.
Bearsuit’s songs cover a smorgasbord of subject matters, covering issues that range from the search for tangible proof of a soul on steamrolling latest single ‘More Soul than a Wigan Casino’; lizard loving on the shoutily harmonious ‘Dinosaur Heart’; evil gangs of tiny kids on the Melt Banana-like ‘Hark! The Feral Children’; colonising of the solar system on ‘Mission IO Must Not Fail’, which again makes evident a male vocal at work, one which summons the spirit of Graham Coxon. And then there’s love. Yes, even Bearsuit are prone to a bit of romance on ‘The Love Will Never Find You’. If that all sounds a bit much for you, then there is always time for a slow song with sweet trumpet sounds called ‘Look A Bleached Coral Faced Crow With Jewels For Eyes’.
But Bearsuit are at their very best when the ride is fast and scary, like a psycho-killer ghost train ride. Or, the sound of the track ‘Shh Get It Out’. So this lot, then: they’ve got it all. Creative instinct, male and female vocals, and a plethora of instruments and themes. All they need now is your ears.

Download: Bearsuit - OH:IO
(available for 7 days from date of post)


DROPPING THE WRIT - Cass McCombs
Cass McCombs sings and writes songs, but he's not a singer-songwriter in the conventional sense. Always willing to play the angles, McCombs sounded more like a spotlight-friendly frontman than a singular songsmith on 2005's dense, multi-layered PREfection, hiding behind walls of reverb and a hodgepodge of musical stylings rather than crooning directly into the mic. Even on threadbare debut A, McCombs cross-pollinated folksy shuffles with art-pop tropes, daring listeners to earnestly connect with his gorgeous yet arcane ballads. A less challenging artist with the same skill set set would probably be polishing his mound of gold records right now, but McCombs revels in ambiguity, not accessibility.
While two quality full-lengths and an EP haven't reserved him a spot on indie's marquee yet, McCombs still possesses a prodigal glow. Named after the parliamentary procedure in which the head of government requests a dissolution of parliament, Dropping the Writ suggests a reinvention for McCombs both in its title and the fact it's his first release on Domino. Of course, McCombs doesn't know the meaning of the word "sell-out," so any jitters surrounding his label promotion should be allayed. This is, after all, the same nut who only disclosed his debut's lyrics if fans were willing to personally mail him a stamped SAE. Still, although the gussied up Writ doesn't find him morphing into a more indie-appealing form like Josh Ritter or Spoon, it's hard not noticing some edge has been taken off the curio's sound and mystique.
From "AIDS in Africa" to "Equinox"'s infamous line "Silverfish quilting testicle/ Despotic owl conducts the wolves," McCombs has beckoned listeners to dissect his oblique lyrics with the rigor of a piece of high literature. Hell, the guy could even pass for a Faulkner or Steinbeck in recent press pics. Writ, by comparison, feels lyrically straightforward, with the occasional idiosyncratic line thrown in merely for flavor. Opener and origin story "Lionkiller" sets a rare tone for McCombs-- he's content to talk about himself. "I was born in a hospital" he sings, echoing A opener "I Went to the Hospital", before unveiling other self-mythologized details of his upbringing over a rolling "Rawhide"-style riff.
The lyrical elucidation here extends to the music, as McCombs whittles PREfection's overgrown genre exploration down to easily digestible folk, chalk full of the Americanisms you'd expect from an acoustic-toting Yank. His Smiths and Cure tics have all but vanished, and even on McCartney-esque tracks like "Pregnant Pause" or "Full Moon or Infinity," the cheery anglo pop's undercut by the sort of detached dreariness typically reserved for Elliott Smith tunes. For the most part though, McCombs is content to lean back and strum away, gazing at the stars rather than his shoes. Yes, a couple unorthodox moments occur, such as the squawky melismatic "No me-e-eans yes!" chorus of "Petrified Forest" or the arpeggiating falsetto on "Deseret", but Writ mostly avoids conspicuous ideas. Maybe McCombs is trying to prove he's not dependent on eyebrow-furrowing eccentricities, but Writ, with its cut and dry approach, lacks the replay value of his previous releases. While this album may help broaden McCombs's close-knit circle of music-hungry fans, the indie renegade aspect of his music is sorely missed, even if his remarkable raw talent keeps this effort comfortably afloat.

Download: Cass McCombs - DROPPING THE WRIT
(available for 7 days from date of post)


THE FLYING CLUB CUP - Beirut
OK, one more Beirut album. The review in Part 10 was for old album Gulag Orkestar. Now to their new album.
Surprisingly, Zach Condon's horn remains in Brooklyn for the bulk of this sophomore album, The Flying Club Cup. Condon himself returns to France - the place where he was first exposed to the Balkan music that colored much of this debut, Gulag Orkestar. It's reflected here, with both Gallic brass and accordion and song titles that reference French cities and locations. Crucially, however, Flying Club Cup would be a triumph even with those layers stripped away; that's not to say that the cultural patina obscures the "real" songs underneath, but its removal allows us to sidestep mind-numbing questions about authenticity and intention.
Flying Club Cup deftly showcases Condon's gifts: "Nantes" sounds exotic without directly referencing a particular era or feeling, and "A Sunday Smile" - despite being about specific people and places-- evokes universal sensations such as sleepiness and warmth. "Un Dernier Verre (Pour la Route)" and "Guyamas Sonora" show off Condon's increased love of piano-driven pop songcraft - as well his band's frequent trick of introducing the best part of the song (here, the way the lithe percussion and ukulele contrast with the heavy accordion and his vocal layering) three-quarters of the way through. "In the Mausoleum" begins with some "Come On! Feel the Illinois!"-ish piano (Sufjan Stevens playing the U.S. cultural cannibal to Condon's worldly connoisseur), but what I like best is the violins, arranged by Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett (in conjunction with Beirut's violinist Kristin Ferebee), which are strong throughout the record and provide a perfect, light-as-lashes counter to Condon's thick instrumentation.
Vocal layering is another Beirut gift, but it also weighs heavily on each track, which is appropriate when nearly every song is about feeling weary or old beyond your years. But despite the well-traveled themes, Condon's vocal melodies, as on standout "Cliquot", are still dangerously romantic, veering closely to musical theater. Condon also does well by "Forks and Knives (Le Fête)", where the instruments hold back to give him more room to sing. And here, once you get past this spent-cigarette, empty-hotel story he's selling, it's obvious that what Condon lacks in lyrical ability, he more than makes up for in prosody. He has an impressive flow, a delicate glide that perfectly compliments the oft-commented-upon exoticism that tends to divide Beirut listeners. On The Flying Cup Club, and maybe on all of Beirut's records, this exoticism takes the form not of alienation but of a search for a familiar place within what seems (or sounds) unfamiliar, difficult, or repulsive. It's the process of searching that untethers the record from any limiting sense of place, be it an Arrondissement in Paris or a village in the Balkans.

Download: Beirut - THE FLYING CLUB CUP
(available for 7 days from date of post)