CATEGORY: Editor's Pick - Music Reviews

Loney, Dear
Loney, Noir
SubPop Records

Like a cute furry mogwai, Loney, Dear’s twilight pop songs come alive during those dark, lonely hours between midnight and the next morning.  Their SubPop debut, Loney, Noir, is practically a soundtrack for all relationship-induced insomnia around the world. 

Opener, ‘Sinister in a State of Hope’, fades in slowly with just a quiet keyboard and some unplugged guitar, however, through gradual increments, it expands into a living, breathing pop song that cleverly invades your subconscious.  By the time you notice the various horns and keys swirling about the background of the song, you will already have fallen victim to the bittersweet allure of its lyrics.  ‘Summer nights bring me cold,’ songwriter Emil Svanängen coos in his light, high pitched delivery, ‘All I want is a state of hope’.  Much of Loney, Noir’s ten songs operate with this kind of stealthiness.

Anyone who has spent an entire evening dissecting phone calls, picking apart pauses in speech, and obsessing incessantly over the opposite sex can find something to appreciate in Svanängen’s delicate songwriting.  On ‘I Am the Odd One’, a lonely organ floats innocently underneath as the song’s narrator apologizes repeatedly for ruining the good spirits of a prospective lover.  The next track, ‘I Could Stay’, is a melancholy look at leaving friends and family in pursuit of your own fortunes.  The record’s bouncy single, ‘I Am John’, is the quick worded account of a night spent running from ‘dogs’ and struggling to fulfill our promises of support and love.  Similar to David Bazan of Pedro the Lion, Svanängen is an economist with his words, preferring to use short, succinct verses when drawing emotion from the listener.

If the wee hours wear you down and leave you begging for something, anything to make those still moments come alive, put on Loney, Dear’s Loney, Noir and let the Swedish songwriter’s melancholy music confront and put your qualms to rest.

[mp3] Loney, Dear - I Am John
[stream] http://www.myspace.com/loneydear

CATEGORY: Editor's Pick - Music Reviews

Menomena
Friend or Foe
Barsuk Records

One of my pet peeves as a music listener is when a young band confuses eccentricity for creativity. Bizarreness for the sake of being bizarre is not genius- it is as stale and unimaginative as following the latest mainstream trend. It’s lazy and it lacks creativity. No amount of woodwinds, computer effects, or Alec Ounswarth yelping can attest otherwise.

So when a record emerges that combines exotic elements and strange textures without sacrificing songwriting I can’t help but cry a bit inside. The first record of 2007 that fits this description is Menomena’s wonderfully strange Friend or Foe.

Like the aforementioned lazy hipster bands, Friend or Foe is loaded with layers and layers of instruments, however, the boys in Menomena use them discriminatively to enhance the natural structure of their songs. The bleeps and bloops aren’t the songs themselves. This shows that songwriters Brent Knopf, Danney Seim, and Justin Harris have an understanding of pacing and melody that extends beyond trying to sound cool or quirky.

There are still tons of quirky elements at play here, but like the piano pop of opening track, ‘Muscle’n Flo’, Menomena have more in common with conventional rock than any experimental art movement. ‘Wet and Rusting’ is another stand out track that shows the band’s ability to set limits and keep their sonic palette within the bounds of reason. There is a lot at work but the song never becomes a brain freeze of sugar and excess.

The best way to experience the delicate balance of Menomena is to listen yourself, so grab the mp3 below and check out their Myspace page. It’ll be worth it to hear the first exciting full length of 2007.

[mp3] Menomena - Wet and Rusting
[buy] Menomena - Friend or Foe @ Amazon.com

[stream] Menomena on Myspace

CATEGORY: Editor's Pick - Music Reviews

Love of Diagrams
Self Titled EP
Matador Records

If Love of Diagram’s self titled EP feels more like a sampler than an official short player, it’s probably because it is.

Revolving around one preview track from their up coming full length, Mosaic, the EP assembles material recorded between 2004 and 2006, including a live cover of Pylon’s ‘Cool’, one unreleased track, and their 2005 single ‘No Way Out’ (which was featured on teenage soap the O.C. in December of that year). Despite their varied origins, all four tracks blend together quite well.

The Australian band’s dancey post-punk sound is best exemplified in the bookend tracks, ‘Peace or the Patience’ and ‘No Way Out’. The preview track from Mosaic, ‘Peace or the Patience’ is a sharp, angular no-wave song that shows off the vocal play between bassist Antonia Sellbach and guitarist Luke Horton. Like much of Love of Diagrams’ music, it consists mainly of one driving bass rhythm and grows progressively more intense and noisy as the track goes on. At the other end of the EP, ‘No Way Out’ is the most accessible offering with its immediately aggressive guitar strumming and relentless pace. Sellbach’s atonal shouts during the chorus fit perfectly with the angst and energy of the song.

It Love of Diagrams are looking to make their dent in the American independent scene come Spring, this limited edition EP is a good step in the right direction. The production pays homage to the original recordings of the 1970s and 80s and the songs themselves sparkle and shine while avoiding any of that faux-sex attitude that plagues many of today’s female fronted post-punk bands.

[mp3] Love of Diagrams - No Way Out
[buy] Love of Diagrams - Self Titled EP @ Amazon.com

[stream] Love of Diagrams on Myspace

CATEGORY: Editor's Pick - Music Reviews

Moneybrother
They’re Building Walls Around Us
Burning Heart Records

Culled from two previous full lengths, They’re Building Walls Around Us is the suprisingly fresh North American debut of Swedish singer/musician Anders Wendin and his Moneybrother monicker.  Throughout the six tracks he mixes indie rock, soul, and pop and incorporates a lot of strings and brass instruments to lend it an eclectic, classic feel.

The title track, an upbeat, swirling disco song, is filled with these lavish strings and enough high pitched vocals to last you the winter season.  A little on the cheese/camp side, but still extremely fun.  The second track, ‘Reconsider Me’, will remind a lot of indie rock kids of Bloc Party with its bass heavy intro and the accented vocals.  However once the chorus comes along, things settle into a more Moneybrother pop sound.

The remaining four song venture off into slower soul territory.  Although Wendin gets to show off his vocal ability a bit more on these tracks, it is a bit dissappointing considering the upbeat energy of the first two songs.  Still the EP is defintely worth checking out, for its unrestrained homage to past styles of pop music and the unstoppable title track.

[buy] Moneybrother’s There Building Walls Around Us at Insound.com

[video] Moneybrother - They’re Building Walls Around Us

CATEGORY: Music Reviews

It’s the Holiday Season which means the next two weeks of your life will be spent driving to the mall, buying junk, and then going home to wrap it in shiny paper.  It also means you have less time to browse through this website and read our long winded reviews.  In light of this, here are a 1,000 (or less) quick reviews to keep you warm this winter.

31 Knots
ep:Polemics
Polyvinyl Records

While they are busy recording their full length follow up to last year’s Talk Like Blood, Oregon’s 31 Knots have pushed out this 5 song EP of sprawled out and noisy rock.  The EP kicks off with ‘Sedition’s Wish’, a four minute track that floats in and out of funky bass lines and distortion heavy choruses.  It shows the bands’ skill at building mood and momentum in a song, but when you take into account that the next two offerings, ‘Vanish’ and ‘Black Ship Auction’, sound awfully similar to the first track, and the two intro/outro songs are mostly ambient noise, ep:Polemics loses a lot of its appeal.   Hardcore fans might rationalize spending $8 dollars on 19 minutes of 31 Knots’ dark, experimental rock, but most everyone else is better off waiting for the full length to arrive.

[mp3] 31 Knots - Sedition’s Wish

[buy] 31 Knots’ ep:Polemics at Amazon.com

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Damien Jurado
And Now That I’m In Your Shadow
Secretly Canadian Records

It’s been a long time since Damien Jurado released anything as timeless and sharp as Where Shall You Take Me?.  His follow up to that record, last year’s On My Way to Absence, had three or four notable tracks but as a whole it lacked the weight of his previous albums.  I began to wonder if I was watching the downhill journey of an artist who hit his peak with hauntingly simple folk tales like ‘Matinee’, ‘Amatuer Night’, and ‘Abilene’. 

Anyone who picks up his latest release And Now I’m in Your Shadow might be compelled to join me in this sad speculation.  Don’t get me wrong, there are some hidden gems among this thirteen glacier paced ballads, but the audience will have to exhaust a great deal of effort to find them.  ‘Shannon Rhodes’, ‘I Had No Intentions’, and ‘There Goes Your Man’ are all fine songs on their own, but bunched between other, slower, more drab selections, their redeeming qualities are deafened. 

In the end it’s better to wait for Jurado to release his full band sister album to And Now I’m in Your Shadow.  Perhaps if you combine some of these sleepy numbers with the up coming record’s rock songs, you can put together one mighty fine album worthy of the Jurado name.

[mp3] Damien Jurado - What Were the Chances

[buy] Damien Jurado’s And Now I’m in Your Shadow at Insound.com

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Bonus Links!

Jesse Lacey is Humble - An unparalleled move in the contemporary emo world, New Jersey’s Brand New have announced they won’t be doing interviews to promote their latest record The Devil and God Are Raging Inside of Me.  Well, no. Scratch that- they’ve actually done two.  Here is one of them.

Anagram Fever.  Catch it! - Why impress your friends when you can impress yourself with this nifty anagram generator!  Great for lonely parties!

Can You See the Year End Lists? - The peeps at Can You See the Sunset have just posted the second installment of their top 50 albums of 2006 feature.  Go read theirs while we work on ours.

Merry Christmas Podcast - Tim Young and his Contract Podcast have just debuted part 1 of their Christmas themed podcast.  Pull a lawnchair next to the fireplace and press play.  There are some great holiday themed tracks from The Eels, My Morning Jacket, Low, and the Smashing Pumpkins.

CATEGORY: Music Reviews

The Specimen
Do U Damage
Peace Bisquit 

Judging a book by its cover, you might expect Brooklyn’s The Specimen to be some form of rap/rock hybrid.  Something in the vein of a third generation Limp Bizkit cover band.  However, although the brass knuckle imagery and ebonic song titles reek of a band trying to be so tough and edgy their unintentional camp levels are approaching the outer atmospheres, these are merely affectations.  The Specimen are actually a rock/electro mash-up consisting of one member, Matt Gorny. 

After spending his childhood in Poland, Gorny moved to New York and started toying with music.  Eventually he caught the eye of a local production company and Do U Damage is the result.  Notably eclectic and bold in its vision, Do U Damage attempts to blur genre and eschew labels with it’s Oasis-meets-the Faint-meets-the Beatles concoction.  Unfortunately, the six songs on this EP sounds more like a huge mess of sound than genre-hopping mind benders. 

No, take that back.  Your mind will be bent.  There are so many layers thrown on top of eachother that your head will be spinning.  If things were only toned down a bit and moderated, as they are with the Beck-flavored ‘Hot Stuff’ and the playful ‘Move Like That’, Do U Damage’s blender of pop, rock, and dance would be both refreshing and addictive.  However, instead we are subjected to too much excess and not enough calmer moments to recover and rest our ears.

I won’t pretend there isn’t an audience for this much tinkered and tampered hodge podge of dance beats.  It’s just that Gorny seems to be a musician much more talented and capable than what Do U Damage implies.  Here’s to the hope that future releases strip away the superflouous layers and focus on the real goods- they’re definitely there.

MP3
Listen to tracks at The Specimen’s Myspace page

CATEGORY: Editor's Pick - Music Reviews

Oxford Collapse
Remember the Night Parties
SubPop Records

There was a time, at least 15 years ago, when children who were weaned on ridiculous ’70s hard rock and ’80s hair metal went to college. There they had their eyes opened by groups like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. and decided that they really didn’t need to shred, but could instead detune their guitars and try to be a little more melodic and artsy. Best of all, they could still rock out. It’s that kind of thinking that spawned some of the best bands of the indie music explosion of the mid to late ’90s from Superchunk and Archers of Loaf to Hum and Lotion.

Read the rest of this entry »

CATEGORY: Editor's Pick - Music Reviews

Grizzly Bear
Yellow House
Warp Records

The term “avant-folk” seems to be getting attached to any band or artist that features a heavy use of acoustic guitar and steers clear of conventional singer/songwriter fare. It’s a shame too because it tends to put those folks at a disadvantage, conjuring up images of poster boy for the avant-folk movement Devendra Banhart and his faux-naif antics. Hopefully with a tour opening up for fellow sonic daytrippers TV On The Radio, will help Grizzly Bear avoid such associations and show them to be the bold new step forward for the world of psychedelic and avant garde pop music that they truely are.

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CATEGORY: Editor's Pick - Music Reviews

The Blow
Paper Television
K Records 

Khaela Maricich!  You are making me blush!  Stop it!  I mean it!  How am I supposed to focus on my bloggings when a talented, attractive women is in my headphones singing funky electro-pop songs about sweaty bed sheets and various sexy time references?  I can’t handle this!

Your latest album Paper Television is like the siren’s call, luring unsuspecting mariners off their course.  It is also the most fun I have had all year listening to music.  There are upbeat French songs, funky dancefloor numbers, and layers upon layers of pent up sexual tension.  It’s an infectious monster that you just want to hug, hairy paws and all.

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CATEGORY: Music Reviews

Honeycut
The Day I Turned To Glass
Quannum Records

A hint of what this record could have been happens well into the fifth track, “Dysfunctional”. The track starts off promisingly enough with a saxophone loop that would make Rashaan Roland Kirk proud that lays into a slinky groove speckled with keyboard and horn stabs. The vocalist for the group, Bart Davenport, does his best version of a soul singer, but drags the whole song down with flat intonations and trite lyrics. But, at about the minute and a half point, a female voice comes to the fore and with one vocal line, makes the whole song burst to life. Alas, she doesn’t stick around for long and we are stuck with Davenport as our tour guide, taking us through a museum of well-worn beats and vocal melodies.

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