Album: The Horrors - Skying

Album: Skying
XL Records
Release Date: July 26 or August or something (in the US)
Rating: ******** (8/10)

The first time I heard the Horrors, they were opening for someone or other at Music Hall of Williamsburg and I thought they were one of the worst bands I'd ever heard - a "goth" band that had probably never listened to real goth music in their lives, a band who ripped off real musicians to create an "edgy" image and used some cheap effects to try to disguise the fact that their music is as formulaic as any mainstream teen radio idol.

But I kept seeing their 2009 record Primary Colours on Best of Oh Nine lists including lists by some people I hold in high regard. Like Fucked Up. I grudgingly sat down with a copy. And was astounded.

I can still hear in the Horrors what inspired my very mistaken first impression. On one level, they are a blatantly derivative 80s throwback. You'd be hard pressed to find any single element in their music that wasn't directly sourced from a UK band circa 1982 (give or take a couple years). And if I'm to be honest, that fact really does prevent this band from full-on greatness. The silver lining here is that they don't sound like most of the other bands of the moment. They sound big and their music resonates with drama and genuine pain. It's a sad truth that a band that doesn't sing about going to the beach is now exceptional. Fuck the beach. Ian Curtis never sang about the fucking beach - not because he didn't like the beach (probably) but because he knew it would be a stupid thing to sing about.

This is all kind of irrelevant because I actually have no idea what the Horrors are on about, except that it’s not the beach (probably). But what I'm saying is that the Horrors are true Romantics and are definitely not into this escapist bullshit. Romantics may be dramatic goofs, but if you can say one thing for them, it’s that they are much too busy getting their hearts broken to think about the beach.

For all its moodiness, Skying is less dark than Primary Colours. Which isn’t saying much. It also sounds much larger than Primary Colours, which definitely is saying something. Instrument for instrument, the Horrors owe their biggest debt to Public Image Ltd and Joy Division. The guitar is straight up Keith Levene (Public Image) with bass recalling Peter Hook (Joy Division) and vocals that are, at most, two generations down the musical family tree from Ian Curtain (Joy Division again). There is another band that ripped of Keith Levene and Joy Division, and they are called U2 and Skying doesn’t sound unlike U2’s first record (okay, it sounds exactly like it), even if the Horrors’ pseudo-gothic image doesn’t exactly jive with golden boy Bono. I haven’t heard anyone rip off Keith Levene quite so well since the Edge did back then (a long long time ago).

This guitar, however derivative, is the highlight of the album. It’s never high in the mix, but below the surface, it twinkles and shimmers like glowing embers. There's some Kevin Shields influence in there too, pitches bending achingly in and out of tune. The sparkling chorus on "Changing the Rain" is stunning and the melting reversed reverb on "Still Life" might take your breath away.

The synthesizers, on the other hand, are entirely lacking in subtlety. The cheesy parts may be hard for some folks to swallow, but at least the band fully embraces them. There's nothing worse than self-aware, apologetic synth pop. If you feel you have to apologize for your music, you shouldn't be making it in the first place. The Horrors offer no apologies when the blaring synth textures introduce "You Said" or when synthesizer riffs burst in rather rudely on songs like "Moving Further Away" and "I Can See Through You." Although the synths do sound modern, their parts unabashedly channel London, 1981. The band is not shy about signposting their New Romantic roots - you remember all those synth bands out of London in the early 80's: Soft Cell, Eurythmics, Spandau Ballet, Depeche Mode and the rest of them? Those guys.

The vocals also owe their biggest debt to that period - direct Ian Curtis descendents though they may be, they are more dramatized and less despondent. Sure, singer Faris Badwan has anguish, but it's the anguish of a showman. The Horrors are writ large and deliver a performance, a production, drama in the sense of theatrics as well as emotion. Like so many of their influences, they draw on glam rock, which draws in turn on cabaret - it's spectacle, it's fully removed from the mundane, it's the soap opera to punk's gritty documentary.

Granted, the band has some roots in punk and garage rock as well. The Birthday Party (Nick Cave's original band) is the first example that comes to mind but the band learns from bands as far back as 60's garage rockers like the Seeds and ? and the Mysterians. But on Skying, they've largely said adieu to their grittier side in favor of a massive, polished sound. They're still noisy, no doubt about it, but they don't have a lot of rough edges left.

The most polished and least dated element in the music is the rhythm section. Just as the vocals are Ian Curtis via New Romantics, the bass is Peter Hook via U2 in as much as it tends to hang on the root a lot and sticks to a lot of quarter notes. But this sort of minimal melodicism fits perfectly with the dance-y grooves of the drums, which unlike the beatz of 1981, have the advantage of having a chance to learn from hip-hop, trip-hop and acid house (of which the last is the most direct rhythmic blueprint for Skying). They've got that whole baggy, Madchester thing down pat, especially on the slower tracks like "Changing the Rain" and "Moving Further Away."

The album boasts a decent amount of variety, ranging from the one rough'n'gritty track, "Monica Gems" to the slick "Changing the Rain," from the Telescopes ripoff "Dive In" to the M83ity "Moving Further Away." The best tracks are the biggest, shiniest, danciest, poppiest, rockin'est ones: "Changing the Rain," "I Can See Through You," "Dive In," "Still Life" and the eight minute opus "Moving Further Away." The remaining tracks are a bit less inspired but work well enough in the context of the LP.

It's hard for me to admit this album is made up entirely of recycled 80's Britishisms and that's probably because I enjoy it so very much. I want to believe in the Horrors. I want to believe they are doing something that matters. I want to believe I'm not buying into an act that merely pillaged a decade and dressed it up all as something new, but I am. And so what? I started asking myself why anyone would want to make an album that sounds exactly like early U2, but I've ended up with a different question - why wouldn't anyone want to make an album that sounds exactly like early U2. Skying isn't important. But it's so beautiful it makes my heart skip a beat. And that's not a bad accomplishment, even if it's fleeting.

Album: Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread

Album: Goodbye Bread
Drag City
Release Date: 6/21/11
Rating: ******* (7/10)

On the one hand, more scuzzy garage rock may not exactly be what the indie world needs right now, but on the other, Ty Segall does it right. There's a reason Segall became a rock critic's darling with last year's Lemons. His songs are well composed - simple but full of not-quite-predictable hooks and supercool licks, and he keeps it up on this new LP with impressive consistency.

The album certainly benefited from Segall's experience on multiple instruments. Prior to (and concurrent with) his solo career, he played drums and guitar in a variety of bands. The arrangements are brilliant. While staying within the minimalist confines of the psych/garage/punk genre, they demonstrate a knowledge of the potential of each voice. The guitar and vocals make plenty of room for drums and bass, and none of the parts sound like afterthoughts.

Some of the tracks on Goodbye Bread go in for big, blues, rock'n'roll riffs - "California Commercial" and "The Floor" rock hard, all crashing drums, bristling guitar and meaty bass. The strongest track on the album is the vocal-driven anthem "You Make the Sun Fry," boasting one of Segall's best melodies ever, a near-perfect bass line and a rad solo.

The album is its best at its brightest, most youthful moments. The most obvious foray into minor keys, "My Head Explodes," falls short, starting on the right track but ultimately coming off a bit limp. "Where Your Mind Goes" is a more successful attempt to give the album a darker side. It's an exciting song, but could use to be whittled down from four minutes to three. Most of the rest of the album consists of slower, ballad-y songs under 70 BPM (i.e. a bit slower than "Hey Jude"). But while the tempo suggests ballad and the volume is generally restrained on these songs, they still have that garage grit to them.

Ty Segall does his thing well, but he definitely has a "thing," and it's pretty much just one thing. So despite great songwriting, Goodbye gets a little samey at times. It's also generic enough in style (garage rockers have been a dime a dozen since the 60's) that it's somewhat forgettable. Let's just say unless you've been in a coma for the last fifty years, it's not going to blow your mind. But it might set your head to bobbin' and maybe, when you're home alone, you'll bust out your air guitar for a track or two. At the very least, it's a lot of fun.

Album: Jeff the Brotherhood - We Are the Champions

Album: We Are the Champions
Infinity Cat
Rating: ******** (8/10)
Release Date: June 21, 2011

The new Jeff the Brotherhood album is exactly what fans of the band's 2008 debut will be expecting. It polishes the band's three-string psych rock and like their first album, it's a celebration of rock'n'roll excess. The indulgent fun of the album is first announced by an ungodly amount of flange at the beginning of the opening track. I'm not the only person who considers flange top among guitar's guilty pleasures - too cheap a trick to actually use in writing but super fun for enjoyment in one's bedroom. (For those that don't know, flange is an effect pedal that causes a "sweeping" sound without the guitarist actually doing anything.) But Jeff has always wallowed in cheap rock cliches, and in the best possible way. In the face of the wussy anti-rock bias of indie music, someone needs to bring back the wailing solo, the guitar hero posturing, the distortion pedal and the nasty riff. Oh yeah, and over that flange is not one but two guitar solos. At the same time. It's pretty sick.

Although the album does show the band moving towards more sophisticated musicianship, writing and production, they don't really step out of the boundaries they established on Heavy Days, just hone their craft within those boundaries. Some of the riffs even sound like particular riffs off Heavy Days, just reworked and embellished. That's not quite fair, but on the other hand, it's hard not to notice how familiar some of the songs ("Cool Out," "Mellow Out") sound.

The band does amp up their psychedelic side with songs like "Diamond Way," "Stay Up Late" and most of all, "Health and Strength," complete with Beatles-style sitar and high vocal wails. This may be a new dimension for the band, but it's such a 60's throwback that it doesn't really feel like an expansion. To the band's credit, though, they don't opt for a 60's vibe in the processing of their sound, using modern digital effects and beefy 90's guitar tones. As a result, as much as they consciously recall the 60's, their recordings wouldn't be mistaken for actual records from the time. Although they do seek a return to a time of simpler fun, Jeff aren't nostalgic in the sappy way of so many indie bands in the last decade and they aren't afraid to sound modern. They also aren't afraid to rock.

And in terms of rock, there's plenty here. Those thirsting for more ditties by the King of the Riff (Jeff's Jake Orrall) won't be disappointed by Champions, especially if they listen all the way through. Some of the early songs have the band tripping over their own ideas by adding too many complications to their ultra-simple formula. "Cool Out" and "Shredder" are rad tunes, but the album doesn't fully take off until "Ripper," one of the few songs that beats the raw power of the band's debut. Like the original raw power masters, the Stooges, Jeff don't shy away from the grittiest, simplest primal rock'n'roll urges - but unlike the Stooges, there's nothing anguished about Jeff. They're about raw fun.

Unfortunately, the band brings back one rock cliche we could all do without on their ambiguously misogynistic "Wastoid Girl." I know that's not what the band's about, but it's still a bad move on their part.

That track aside, Champions is an enjoyable listen. For folks new to the band, I'd probably recommend Heavy Days. It's got more weak links but its best tracks still pack more punch than almost anything on the new record. Still, it's a toss-up and fans will find lots to love about the new disc - as long as they don't have the audacity to expect something new.

Live: Total Slacker, Weekends, Selebrities, Beast Make Bomb

When: 5/13
Where: Monster Island Basement

The first band I caught at Monster Island Basement last weekend was Beast Make Bomb.  They are a pop-punk (heavy on the pop) sort of band with a moderate feminist bent.  The band is fronted by two women and backed by two men on bass and drums respectively.  The main singer and rhythm guitarist isn't afraid to dance, which was kind of awkward but definitely a good thing anyway.  The most impressive member of the band, though, is the androgynous lead guitarist.  She's not Hendrix or anything, but she knows what she's doing and got a tasty overdriven sound out of her hollow-body guitar.  Her backing vocals were low enough to be gender-bending.  Meanwhile, the bassist spent a lot of time way up on the neck, well into guitar range.  This gave the music a certain exuberant energy.

Ultimately, the band was kind of generic.  They're fun and they're good at what they do, but they are one of those bands that so adheres to tried and tested formulas that their songs sound familiar the first time you hear them.  I don't mean that they are ripping anyone off or that they are boring - just don't expect them to revolutionize your understanding of popular music.

The next band, Selebrities, made a deeper impression.  I couldn't look away, but I'm not sure if that was out of horror or love.  It depends on the band's intentions.

Selebrities play a synth-driven post-punk that recalls late Joy Division more than it does New Order.  What immediately caught my attention was that out of the dozens upon dozens of bands I've heard rip off Joy Division, this was the first to have a female vocalist.  I'm sure they aren't the only one, but they're the first I've encountered.  But as their set wore on, their focus on synths and heavily processed guitar pointed more towards the Human League, Soft Cell, Erasure and their ilk, the futurist bands of yesteryear that now sound so very dated.  And like those bands, Selebrities' songs were cheesy and overstated.  There was little in the way of subtlety and nuance.

But before writing off Selebrities as a cheesy throwback, several things gave me pause.  One is simply something I read about French-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard recently.  Godard was a critic before he was a filmmaker and I read a quote where he said he considered his films to BE criticism.  Could Selebrities be offering something similar, musically?

Other than my pure good-hearted desire to give the band the benefit of the doubt (HA HA yeah right), the main indicator that Selebrities might have something beneath the surface is the singing.  Singer Maria Usbeck was terrible.  I hope to god she knows that, and if not, I hope she doesn't read it here, because that's the kind of thing that can screw up a young musician.  But honestly, she didn't hit a right note once in the set.  She was close enough that you knew exactly what the melody was meant to be, but she never got on pitch.  And this was the band's main redeeming factor - in simple, cheesy 80's synthpop, the vocalist's correct delivery of the melody is simply a given.  But this is different, and that interests me.

As I see it, there are two possibilities here.  Either the band knows exactly what they are doing - artless, synthshit throwback - or they have no idea and just really like that genre and want to play it.  If the former is true, they are amazing, providing a keen critique of the state of popular music.  If the latter is true, they are awful.  And honestly, that's the more likely option.  Still, I'm going to give the band the benefit of the doubt for now.  If nothing else, they have some courage to get up and play when they are so very bad.  Which may sound like a backhanded insult, but I really mean it - I respect any band that puts themselves out there in way so vulnerable to derisive criticism (like this).

The highlight of the night, and the reason for my attendance, was of course Total Slacker.  Total Slacker are so fucking cool.  There's something about the tall, hunched guitar madness of Tucker (I dunno his last name) that recalls a young Thurston Moore, and indeed, with her frosty stoicism, bassist Emily (I don't know her last name) could be his own Kim Gordon.  The band don't sound like Sonic Youth at all, but they have a similar wild energy, endlessly creative but never taking things too seriously.

Total Slacker play songs that suit their name, sloppy, out of tune songs about "taco people" and being freaked out by cops.  I found it somewhat ironic that the band should spend ten minutes tuning (or playing "The Tuning Song," as they called it) when everything they play sounds blatantly out of tune.  But of course, the secret to Total Slacker is that their chaos is controlled.  It's genuine in their attitude, but as musicians, they know exactly what they're doing.

In fact, Tucker is a guitar hero on par with any of his contemporaries.  He can shred solos with his guitar behind his head and when the solos sound like all wrong notes, it's because he knows which notes will sound wrong in the right way.  Emily, for her part, is a mean bassist.  She doesn't overplay and is willing to repeat the same damn riff for fifteen minutes if that's what's called for.  But her succinct lines are near-perfect and nasty.  Emily and Tucker share vocals that are as skillfully detuned as their guitars.  Tucker is particularly sloppy, seeming to forget half the time that he needs to be near the mic.  Which is, of course, perfect.

The musical chemistry also extends to drummer Ross (I dunno his last name) and all three seem to read each other's minds, anchoring their fuck-all-cares chaos to their satisfying and actually carefully written songs - nearly every one a gem in its own right.

The set ended in chaos, but not with the destruction of a guitar, which makes this the first Total Slacker show in which an ax wasn't axed.  The band is heading out on tour so maybe they realized they can't keep up smashing their shit and lighting it on fire indefinitely.  I knew (or hoped) they weren't going to destroy their guitar when Tucker didn't change instruments for the final song, instead staying on his absolutely gorgeous 70's Fender Stratocaster.  I may not have the most acute ear for the nuances of guitar sound, but with that one, I could hear the difference.  And although the band's deconstruction of popular music didn't extend this time to the physical deconstruction of a guitar, Tucker was all over the place with wild energy, running to the back of the room with his guitar on the final song, while Ross stacked and then toppled his drum kit amid the feedback and disintegration of the closer.

Total Slacker may be my favorite Brooklyn band right now; they are certainly the most fun to watch.  Words can't do them justice - you'll have to check them out yourself.  Maybe on their tour.

Weekends closed out the night.  An energetic art-punk duo in the vein of No Age (and also comparable to their Baltimore kin Ponytail, duos Japanther and Lightning Bolt and kindred spirits Pterodactyl), Weekends play noise pop, feeding guitar through layers of distortion and delay and playing drums noisy and fast, which is the best way to play drums.  The two members switch places behind guitar and drums.  They jump around a lot and knock things over.  Brendan Sullivan, who played the guitar first, cut his thumb wide open on a falling cymbal, so the guitar neck was covered in blood for the rest of the set.

Although they were infectiously energetic, there was something missing.  The band has all the right ingredients but seems unsure how to make the soup.  They also drenched the vocals in completely superfluous amounts of reverb and delay.  Lightning Bolt does this, but their vocals are so minimal and ancillary, it makes sense.  When Weekends did it, they just sounded rudderless.  Maybe 25% of the time, the effects made sense, but the rest kind of seemed like the band was trying to disguise their lack of singing abilities (c'mon guys, who cares!  none of the other bands who played friday could sing!).  Maybe they just thought the vocals would work better with the effect-laden guitar that way, but if so, they were mistaken.  The songs would have been more enjoyable if there'd been a vocal line to grab onto.  Without that sort of melodic (or even anti-melodic) spine, the songs sounded amorphous and samey.

Weekends are great, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts.  Although they've been around a few years, they're a fairly young band so I'm hoping it's only a matter of time until they figure out what they're trying to do and fuckin do it.  When they do, they'll be one of the best bands around.

Album: Xray Eyeballs - Not Nothing

Album: Not Nothing
Kanine, 2011
Rating: ****** (6/10)

It may not seem fair, but timing is key in the world of pop music. A few years ago, Not Nothing would have been an interesting release but in 2011, the message is loud and clear: "Hi, we're Xray Eyeballs and we're a few years late to the party!" From the first reverbed notes on, Not Nothing identifies itself of a carbon copy of just about every band from the Woodsist-Siltbreeze-In the Red-Captured Tracks-HoZac catalog in the last three or four years, all jangly, lo-fi post punk with, gosh, a lot of reverb. A laundry list of bands to do just this could fill pages, but to name a few: Eat Skull, Vivian Girls, Beach Fossils, Thee Oh Sees, Babies, Dum Dum Girls, Real Estate, Fresh & Onlys, Nodzzz, Woven Bones, Crystal Stilts, Blank Dogs, Woods, Little Girls.....getting the picture?

Xray Eyeballs fall towards the darker end of this spectrum, evoking the discordant noise of Eat Skull (but with slightly less nasty lo-fi-ity) and the haunted post-gothic textures of Blank Dogs (but with no synths). It's that darkness that makes me think I might have enjoyed this if I'd heard it in 2008. But even at its freshest, the reverby lo-fi post-punk was a little stale by its very nature, and after the basic sound has been recycled dozens and dozens of time, there's simply no life left to suck out of it. Yes, Xray Eyeballs inhabit their own little slice of the genre, but it's a narrow slice with a lot of neighbors. The most distinctive aspect of Xray Eyeballs is their sneering, drunken vocal approach, but that alone isn't really enough to hold anyone's attention.

The opening track, "Crystal" starts with the same deep droning rhythm as a particular Bauhaus song (I forget which one [edit: it's "Double Dare"]) but the pace quickly establishes the song as more 1961 pop than 1980 dirge. "Nightwalkers" also takes a cue from the 80's with a riff that's more than a little reminiscent of a particular uptempo Cure song (I forget which one [edit: still can't figure it out, maybe it's not the Cure, but it's definitely something. Someone wanna help me out?]) but again bears more in common with the 60's than the 80's (or at least the 60's via post punkers like the Jesus and Mary Chain, who upped Brian Wilson's Beach Boys reverb to the point where it sounded like everything had been recorded in a cave). The third track, "Egyptian Magician" is a catchy ditty with sparkly guitar and anthemic vocals that are best enjoyed if you can ignore the unbelievably bad lyrics ("Let's take a ride to the sky / let's all get high"). Any momentum gained is sacrificed by the slow, western-inflected and extremely lamentably titled "Po' Jam." Name aside, "Po' Jam" is a valiant effort at a ballad which comes closer than most at pulling back the pace without stagnating. But for all the effort, the results are just so-so.

"Drums Not Dead," apparently named in reference to Liars' 2006 concept album of the same name (plus apostrophe), is one of the album's more interesting tracks. However, it's far more suggestive of lo-fi synthsters Blank Dogs than of Liars (who, unlike Xray Eyeballs, actually produce original and interesting music). In "Drums," the band swaps live drums for a drum machine and drive their plaintive guitar drone even deeper into chorus and reverb. That, in combination with the darkly chanted, lo-fi vocal tracks, makes the song legitimately haunting and would do Mike Sniper proud.

The subsequent tracks, "Broken Beds," "Xray Eyeballs Theme," "Kam Sing Knights," are all catchy, dark pop. The songs are well-structures and the melodies have hooks aplenty. But with a samey sheen and the world's most obvious two and three chord progressions, there's little to differentiate these songs from the similar output of the dozens upon dozens of bands that have been doing this same thing in recent years. Xray Eyeballs have mastered the form, but at this point, it's really hard to care. "Fake Wedding" is a bit of a standout, a bit bolder of a statement, but not by much. The closing track, "Escape from that Girl," is all Velvets and quickly bulldozes any interest you might have had left.

The adjective that best describes Not Nothing is "forgettable." And that has almost everything to do with timing - Xray Eyeballs are latecomers to a very overcrowded party, one that's been simply recycling its own output for several years. Sure, Xray Eyeballs have their own unique balance of these tired flavors, but despite their skill, the ingredients they are using went stale long ago.

Live: Dinowalrus, Mr. Dream, Flotilla

When: April 9
Where: Shea Stadium

So Shea Stadium had some big festivally sort of thing a week ago and thoughtfully listed the bands on the flyer in a completely random order that had nothing to do with the order in which the bands played.  Honestly, that's a pretty rude move - whether it was just laziness and disorganization or whether it was some hippy-dippy idea about people being exposed to new bands, let's just be realistic here, no one is going to sit through twelve hours of music.  (Granted, set times were apparently listed on Facebook just before the show, but that was too little too late.)

However, missing the bands I'd made the trek to see does give me some fresh blood to suck the life out of.  So cheers!

The first band playing when I got to the venue was actually the one I had gone to see, Dinowalrus.  Frontman Pete Feigenbaum was singularly unenthused when I told him a few weeks ago that I was probably going to start blogging again, so of course, I had to make his project a top priority. (Being obnoxious is a hobby of mine.)  However, I hadn't seen the band in ages and it's changed dramatically in the year or so of my absence.

First, the only remaining member of the band I last saw was Feigenbaum himself.  I had heard through the rumor mill that they had a new drummer a while, but at the show at Shea, they had a new new drummer making his live debut with the band.  There is no way the band could replace their former drummer Josh Da Costa (do I have that right?), a rare talent and one of the best drummers I've ever heard, but the new drummer didn't seek to imitate Da Costa - which could have only ended badly - but rather put his own stamp on the band's music.  I used to periodically use the word "mathy" to describe Dinowalrus, but when Feigenbaum called me out on it and asked to point to anything that was not a steady 4/4 in pretty much their entire set, I had to admit I was wrong in my terminology.  But the absence of Da Costa has finally helped me figure out why I used the adjective "mathy" in the first place - while Dinowalrus is not mathy, Da Costa's syncopated, polyrhythmic style gave the music a feel of shifting rhythm, especially in comparison to most of Brooklyn's current rhythm-challenged indie bands.  Mystery solved!

In contrast, the newest drummer's beats fall within a much more straightforward four-by-four structure.  While he's far less interesting than Da Costa, those are impossible shoes to fill and he is nevertheless a superb drummer.  His commanding style meshed well with the more straightforward approach of new bassist/synthist Liam Andrew.  Andrew's predecessor, Kyle Warren (who was in the audience), played the roll of mad scientist, his performance always coming across as an experiment, the stage a laboratory.  Andrew's playing, while not texturally vastly different from the spacey concoctions of Warren, felt more concrete and surehanded.

While I can't say the net change for Dinowalrus is positive - Da Costa's shapeshifting polyrhythms and Warren's quirky sonic chemistry are sorely missed - the damage is not as bad as one would expect from a 67% personnel change.  The band's trippy, spacey textures and pop sensibilities have been recombined and what's lost in subtlety is made up for in pop appeal.  Dinowalrus was always dancey (in a heavily drugged-out post-rave trip-hop psych-punk way) but their experimentalism did soften the impact of their songs.  Now, with more heavy-handed backing, Fiegenbaum's songs finally live up to their crowd-pleasing potential, leading numerous people in the audience in earshot of me remark something along the lines of "wow, these guys are tight!"

The next band to play was Mr. Dream, a band that confused me greatly in as much as I could not immediately sort out my ambivalent reaction to the music.  There were some good aspects, some great aspects even - the band was tight, noisy enough, aggressive, skilled at their instruments and sufficiently catchy.  But yet something was deeply off-putting: the sense that everything in the band had been too carefully calculated.  There was something excessively deliberate about Mr. Dream; they not only wore their influences (Pixies, Velvets) on their sleeve, they seemed studied.  Rather than simply looking to their sources as a model for attitude or an unconscious source for sloppy rip-offs, Mr. Dream sounded like they had distilled a formula of chord progressions, bridges, choruses, solos and the like.  Although it's hard to say exactly what blew their cover, something about the band's compositions seemed stale, mechanical and overly academic (even if the academic study was how to make non-academic sounding pop).

The band's live performance didn't help matters.  While it's hard not to commend the band for their effort - and they certainly were lively - there was still the stink of something disingenuous.  That's not to say the band was overly aloof or were not really having fun.  Yet there was a lack of spontaneity.  Even the band's seemingly in-the-moment gestures seemed calculated, planned, studied and manufactured.  Although the band was not a carbon copy of anyone in particular (bass lines and guitar tones evoked the Pixies, while the vocals were distinctly 90's alt), they seemed somehow phenomenally unoriginal and vapid.

Closing out the lineup was Flotilla, a band that certainly lived up to its name's promise of wussiness.  However, the band did surprise me - I was expecting bland but instead got painful.  I really do salute singer Veronica Charnley for having the balls to take the mic with absolutely sincerity and uncouched in aloofness, irony or studied flawfulness, but I fled the room after only seconds.  Her shrill voice fell right in that window where the singer has too much technique for the genre and yet not enough technique to hide her technique - she's either had too many or too few voice lessons (or does a good impression of someone who has).  Replete with a grating vibrato, Charnley's vocalizations were admirable for their courage but ultimately intolerable, at least in the context of the band's music, which was more subtly but ultimately even more offensive.  Ultra-wimpy without being cute, the band falls squarely in line with the horrible post-2000 wave of baroque pop movement led by such shameful antirockists as St Vincent and Grizzly Bear.

This entire approach to music nauseates me to such a point that I can't even begin to explore whether Flotilla succeeded in their attempts - although I'd venture a guess at "no" based on Charnley's awkward vocal tone.  But to be honest, I can't assess the band's merit within their own terms because their own terms make my stomach turn.  With all the softened, variegated textures and stale-sour odors of vomit, rococo pop like this is an acid eroding every edge from pop and indie music.  There is no merit to be found in this sort of polished wimpiness - not in today's musical/social/political climate - except, I suppose, a dire warning of the dangerously watered-down state of contemporary music.

But even setting politics aside, Flotilla is at once painful and bland.  I'm sure they're lovely people and a damn sight less offensive than bands like Dirty Projectors or Freelance Whales, but still worth standing outside in the rain to miss.  (Sorry.)

Live: Jeff the Brotherhood, Heavy Cream, Hell Beach + more

When: April 2, 2011
Where: Death By Audio

When I went to Death By Audio last weekend, I will admit I was not really in the mood for the music of the night - namely slightly southern-fried, post-ironic-hipster-idol-y, 60's-inflected indie rock.  But that doesn't change the fact that nearly the entire show was a disappointment.

When I arrived, Colleen Green was on stage.  The band is made up of two affected, Ray-Ban sporting women playing guitar and bass over a cheesy drum machine.  That's a setup that could go either way, but in this case, it went in a bad way.  The music was terrible, but that wasn't really the problem - in fact, that provided the only point on which you could argue the band had some merit.  My friend Pepe (thanks, random name generator) thought that the band members were courageous to take the stage even though they were so astoundingly bad.  However, I had the distinct feeling that this wasn't a brave presentation of incompetence in the populist tradition that runs from punk and No Wave through Beat Happening up to contemporary vanguard of bands that at least (sometimes) fake inability to play their instruments (e.g. Stupid Party, Total Slacker).

But Colleen Green is of a different tribe.  To me, their performance reeked of cowardice.  Their incompetence seemed distinctly calculated to allow them to take the stage without threatening insecure men.  This is one of the most disturbing faces of the nostalgia that has overwhelmed indie music and alternative youth culture in recent years - the relegation of women to a sort of Trix Rabbit role (silly girls, guitars are for men).  It's been difficult for me to put my finger on what separates the anti-feminist backlash of bands like Best Coast and Colleen Green from distinctly empowering female figures like Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells (who, after all, does not write the band's music or play an instrument, but whose ditsy bimbo character who thought she forgot her sunglasses is delivered with ambiguous derision and balanced with massive, nasty sound and one uncurbed scream).  Not every female in music has to be a bra-burning Riot Grrrl, but if you are female and playing rock or pop music, you are making a statement on feminism, whether you like it or not.  This isn't about what's fair, it's about reality, and in reality, Colleen Green says loud and clear that "girl bands" are a novelty.  We ladies of the music scene are good for a laugh, but let's leave the real music to the men.

Colleen Green were followed by X-Ray Eyeballs, an ultimately forgettable act of two and three chord songs.  I'd give them another chance, but their performance at DBA was not exactly something to write home about.

I wish Hell Beach was as forgettable as X-Ray Eyeballs, but unfortunately, the opening of their set, a song charmingly entitled "Dead Friends" is still seared in my memory.  The lyrics, which you can read for yourself here, are a tasteless, artless attempt to be edgy.  Or maybe it's an attempt to parody edgy rock lyrics.  Whatever they were attempting, they failed.  Actually, I should say vocalist Susan Tinsley failed.  The other two members of the band were pretty alright, with drummer Jolene Boyce having exactly the edge that Colleen Green was lacking.  Brad Holland managed to wrangle some nasty snarls out of his guitar - cliched snarls, but in a way that's more art-smart referential than uncreative.

The band is clearly going for some sort of goth punk or goth grunge.  Don't get me wrong, goth is all about having a sense of humor (a dimension of the genre missed by an entire generation of Hot Topic customers and sickly-looking gloomsters).  Goth's seminal single, "Bela Lugosi's Dead," is one of the of the funniest songs in pop history.  But that song was both lyrically clever and sonically creative.  "Dead Friends," on the other hand, is so obvious that you can actually feel yourself getting stupider as you listen - and not in a fun way.  I mean, c'mon Tinsley, how old are you?

The only band of the night that really did meet my expectations was Heavy Cream.  Part of the reason the band met my expectations is that those expectations had been lowered when I saw Heavy Cream at Union Pool (if I remember correctly) and found them to be nothing more than good Nashville-inflected garage rock.  I had hyped them up in my own mind to be the greatest thing since half-and-half (sorry) but this time, I approached the group with more reasonable expectations.

Nashville-inflected garage rock definitely still summarizes the band's sound.  However, there was something far more punk rock about their performance at DBA.  Part of it wasn't musical at all.  When guitarist Mimi Galbierz broke a string soon after the band took the stage, the set was stalled while the band tried to find a guitar to borrow.  (Jake's guitar, "Jamin," was suggested until the band remembered that guitar would only have three strings to their current five.)  While the band awkwardly pleaded with the audience to supply them a guitar, singer Jessica McFarland began berating the audience for their lack of creative contributions in the downtime.  Whether tongue-in-cheek or serious, McFarland's obvious contempt for the audience brought the show to a new level.  The band's frustration at being plagued with technical difficulties (the guitar being just one of several mishaps) was channeled into their music, giving it a harder edge.  McFarland can be compared to that other blond singer of the young Nashville scene, Jemina Pearl, in as much as both possess the stage with delightful arrogance and a sort of icy sexuality.  But McFarland's presentation is far more mature than Pearl's petulant (if captivating) behavior.

After the venomous performance by Heavy Cream, headliners Jeff the Brotherhood failed to impress.  I mean, they failed to impress me.  The audience seemed to dig it, moshing violently from Jake's first note on.  But the crowd at Jeff shows seems increasingly dominated by the kind of people who use the mosh pit as an outlet for macho aggression.  The pit is all about violence, which is obviously kinda the point.  But every scene where slam dancing dominates eventually seems to draw out a more bullying element, the meatheads who have ruined countless hardcore shows from the early 80's onward.  To be clear, these sort of meatheads didn't dominate the Jeff show - but I can feel a slide in that direction in the increasing roughness and decreasing fun of the audience.  People are starting to come not for the music but because they like to shove other people around.

But that's not the Orrall brothers' fault and it wasn't what made the show such a disappointment.  What ultimately ruined the set was simply the band's straightforward delivery.  The reason Jeff the Brotherhood shows have always excited me is Jake's ridiculous rockstar posturing, his command of the stage and piercing comprehension of rock'n'roll showmanship.  But last weekend, the band just played their songs.  They played well and with enthusiasm, but a spark was missing.  Whether the band is burning out, growing lazy or was just having a weary night remains to be seen, but whatever the reason, the band was simply not compelling or commanding.  Of course, in saying this, I am only comparing the band to themselves, their past performances.  Compared with the vast majority of acts out there, they are still one of the meanest live shows of 2011.  But for longtime fans, their current presentation seems distinctly uninspired.

Let's hope it was just an off night and not the start of the decline of indie's rockingest band.

Album: Woven Bones - In and Out and Back Again

Album: In and Out and Back Again
HoZac, 2010
Rating: ****** (6/10)

I got pretty interested in Woven Bones a few months ago and even meant to put them on my Bands to Watch in 2010 list. I didn't because I lost the paper where I wrote down the list, though, and when I recreated it from memory at the last minute, I missed these guys. But it turns out, it's just as well. In and Out and Back Again is a bit underwhelming. It's not bad, but it sounds like exactly everything that's come out on Siltbreeze or, well, HoZac, in recent years.

The album is a series of crusty, reverb-drenched psych-punk pieces that land on the more agressive and abrasive side of garage rock. The skuzzy, lo-fi production is nice, but hardly anything groundbreaking or even trend-defying. Tom-heavy drum beats thud thud thud and amps feed back a little and some really cool riffs turn up here and there.

Most notable in the melee is the voice of singer Andrew Burr. He doesn't hit a correct pitch once on the album - intentionally - but still manages to map out some supercatchy tunez. The high pseudo-yelp that ends many of his lines is more than a little reminiscent of Iggy Pop, which is a good thing and less cliche than trying to sing like Ian Curtis.

The minimalism and restraint of drummer Carolyn Cunningham and bassist Matty Nichols are just right to support the Burr's best guitar hooks. For example, both the impatient "Half Sunk Into the Seats" and the more measured, Stooges-esque "Creepy Bones" rock crunchy, spy-movie-worthy themes. Songs like the energetic "Couldn't Help but Stare" and poppy, major key "I'll Be Runnin" keep the album from becoming tedious.

If this album came at a different time, it might fare slightly better, but the whole skuzzy, lo-fi, Jesus & Mary Chain meets Nuggets thing has really been beaten to death in the last few years and I just can't get it up for another intentionally crappy recording with overly reverbed vocals. I don't think this band is trying to jump on a bandwagon, but they have the misfortune of ending up on one anyway, and ending up on it late in the game. Maybe that would be overridden if the songs were amazing, but they aren't. The riffs are solid and the melodies can be pretty head-noddable, but being late-comers to a trend - well, early bird gets the good reviews, I suppose.

[myspace]

Album: Thee Oh Sees - Warm Slime

Album: Warm Slime
In the Red, 2010
Rating: ******* (7/10)

Two adjectives come to mind for Thee Oh Sees - prolific and consistent. And those two adjectives are a rare combination. Thee Oh Sees (and their other incarnations) release a record of some sort every few months, it seems like, and although I haven't listened to them all, all the ones I've listened to have been solid.

Warm Slime is basically a long EP, or maybe a mini LP (seven songs, thirty minutes), and it features the same sort of lo-fi, psychedelic pop-punk that we've come to expect. The melodies are irresistable, the scuzzy guitars delightful, the distorted and reverbed vocals rockin'. The entire record is just plain fun.

The album opens with the classically bluesy title track which rocks as hard as any Oh Sees tune to date. The rolling bass line has attained perfection. The song is thirteen minutes long, ten of which are spent slowly breaking down and noising up and breaking down and noising up the song established in the first three. It's too long, but then again, this isn't a proper LP and Thee Oh Sees have earned a little self-indulgence by this time.

The rest of the album continues is a similar vein - lo-fi renditions of what would otherwise totally be classic rock songs or garage rock songs or something from the 60's. The wild "Castiatic Tackle" balances the steady march of "Everything Went Black," while "Mega-Feast" and "MT Work" start the album as lively as it began.

In many ways, it sounds as if Warm Slime were sequenced according to rock convention and then reversed. Starting on the long jam and ending on two catchy and short tunes is a subtle way to keep this record from feeling like we've heard it before.

Warm Slime doesn't break the mold or pave new ground. It's not headline news. But it's full from start to finish with solid tunes and great sound. Thee Oh Sees are a band to count on. [myspace]

Album: Let's Wrestle - In the Court of Wrestling Let's

Album: In the Court of Wrestling Let's
Merge, 2010
Rating: ******* (7/10)

I was bit surprised when I first heard British indie popsters Let's Wrestle had signed to Merge Records. Merge is certainly one of the best and most storied American indies, perhaps second only to Subpop (if that counts as "indie") and Matador. And while I adore Let's Wrestle, I didn't think them special enough for a label like Merge. Not in this country, anyway.

Now is when I would love to tell you their new album (out tomorrow) proved Merge's decision and revealed to me that special quality I'd been overlooking in the band for so long. But unfortunately, that's not the case. In the Court of Wrestling Let's is a lovely indie pop album with great little head-bouncing tunes, but it's not special. Merge could have picked any one of dozens of indie pop bands and achieved the same thing - something enjoyable.

In the indie pop world, Let's Wrestle keep a bit of lo-fi rough - not a lot, but enough to keep the band's distinctly indie flavor. In the same vein, it's got a pinch of punk in it, a little wildness. However, the melodies are pure pop. Wesley Gonzalez's plain, plateaued voice is subtly, warmly tuneful and it's his tone that gives the album its distinct identity in a world of similar ideas - too low and just too gruff to be boyish but far too untamed and too innocent to be adult.

As good as all the songs are, they pretty much sound alike. The same offkey high notes in the vocals, the same jangling guitar, the same major key measure-by-measure descents in the bass, the same tight, simple drumming. Many of the songs even seem to have the same melody. They don't quite, but the narrow range and similar contours make it hard to tell one song from another.

There are a few stand-out tracks though. "I'm in Love with Destruction" is distinct and memorable, its bombastic drumming and stretching ascents in the chorus setting it apart. The opening track, "My Arms Don't Bend that Way, Damn It!" starts with squalls of noise more reminiscent of Dinosaur Jr than the Smiths.

The final way in which this album distinguishes itself from the herd of noisy indie poppers is in its scale. A five-minute instrumental centerpiece of psychedelic guitar and several "interludes" give the album a sense of a larger purpose. And to the band's credit, these forays don't dilute the album. It has twelve proper songs in addition to these. Still, the effort may be wasted. The larger purpose is defeated by the cloneishness of so many tracks.

If you like a good cheerful, cynical, unpolished pop album, this is definitely a decent one. It's no better or worse than many others, but it's enjoyable and mixtape-able and it will hold down the fort until the next record of its type appears.

[myspace]

Upcoming Shows: Bellmer Dolls LAST SHOWS EVER! + more

Tonight! Wednesday, March 17

The Bellmer Dolls @ The Studio at Webster Hall | East Village, Manhattan | $10
Horrible news, friends. The Bellmer Dolls, one of NYC's great undiscovered bands, is calling it quits. They've got a few more shows before they throw in the towel, including this one tonight. The Dolls' garage goth is demonic and intense and their live show has the wild spontaneity that can only come from a legitimate disturbed genius. This is the real thing. [myspace]


TOMORROW! Thursday, March 18

Mahogany + Autodrone @ The Studio at Webster Hall | East Village, Manhattan | $10
Mahogany one of the greatest dream-pop bands ever. Unlike most bands of the genre, however, Mahogany doesn't rely on blurred, amorphous noise. Instead, a hundred distinct moving pieces weave together to create a thick blanket of sound. The whole thing is held together by sweet slow-pop melodies. And this show is all new songs, previewed from their forthcoming EP, so it will be exciting even to old fans. Autodrone play something similar, but with harder edge. Their raging lead guitar draws from proggy metal as much as shoegaze, but it never becomes burdensome. It just gives a sharp alt-rock edge to their dark, dense pop songs. [mahogany myspace] [autodrone myspace]


Friday, March 19

Oneida, Sightings @ Knitting Factory | Williamsburg, Brooklyn | $10-12
I'm never quite sure how to describe Oneida, given they don't fit into a genre and given how many different directions they've explored in the last decade. They draw on krautrock and industrial, concentrating on rhythm and repetition. They tend to be heavy, but their latest LP showed as much world and club influence as metal. It's trancy, cold, loud, aggressive and wholly original. Sightings is even more out-there. They draw on noise, avant garde and no wave to create an unforgiving, skull-shattering noise. [oneida myspace] [sightings myspace]



[Upcoming Shows Playlist]
Saturday, March 20

Ain't shit going on. Everyone is in Texas, I guess. No SXSW for me this year...alas.


Sunday, March 21

Bellmer Dolls @ Coco 66 | Greenpoint, Brooklyn | $7
See above. This is their last show. Ever.


Tuesday, March 23

Black Lips @ Brooklyn Bowl | Williamsburg, Brooklyn | $17
Black Lips play decent garage punk but I don't like Brooklyn Bowl or paying $17 for a show. Still, I thought I'd mention it, especially since there's nothing else worthwhile going on on Monday or Tuesday. [myspace]


[Upcoming Shows Playlist]
The long view...

March
24
Black Lips @ Bowery Ballroom

25
Nada Surf play Let Go + surprise guest @ Bowery Ballroom
Jello Biafra and Guantanamo Schools of Medicine @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple

26
Nada Surf play The Weight Is a Gift + surprise guest @ Bell House
Spoon, Deerhunter @ Radio City Music Hall

27
Nada Surf play Lucky + surprise guest @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

30
Big Pink, A Place to Bury Strangers @ Webster Hall

April
1
Bonnie Prince Billy @ Monster Island Basement

2
The Bronx, Japanther @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Captured Tracks Showcase: Blank Dogs, Wet Dog + more @ Glasslands
Bonnie Prince Billy @ Monster Island Basement

3
Soft Pack, Nodzzz, Male Bonding @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

6
The Bronx, Japanther @ Bowery Ballroom

8
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club @ Webster Hall

9
Pissed Jeans + Himalaya @ Knitting Factory
Xiu-Xiu, Tune-Yards @ Bowery Ballroom

10
Washed Out, Small Black @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

15
Liars @ Bowery Ballroom

17
Trans Am @ Santos Party House

18
Liars @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Trans Am @ Market Hotel

20
The Thermals @ Brooklyn Bowl

21
Apples in Stereo @ Bowery Ballroom

22
Quasi, Let's Wrestle @ Bowery Ballroom

25
Shellshag, Noun (Marissa Paternoster of Screaming Females), Black Wine, Pregnant @ Mercury Lounge

May
3
Chapterhouse @ Bell House


[Upcoming Shows Playlist]

Live: Stupid Party + Frankie & the Outs, Harlem

When: 2/12
Where: Monster Island Basement

Stupid Party is the shit and I've already made that perfectly clear. But this show at Monster Island was the first one where I really got a sense of the fourth member. Recklessness and a bare-bones sound are what makes Stupid Party so exciting, and the more players a band has, the less reckless they can be and needless to say, the more flesh they put on those musical bones.

I walked in to a extended instrumental section, and I was all like "who is this???" But then Cory Feiernan would start drunkenly* yelling into the microphone and I was all like "oh yeah, Stupid Party!" The instrumental bits were just kind of unspecial. They sounded fine, but when they lasted more than a few bars, the music lost its kick and its focus. When the songs stayed on target, though, they were as good as ever. And they added some slick, old school guitar solos too. Those don't yet sit fully comfortably in the music, but they are mad cool and I think they'll work their way in. Whatever happens, Stupid Party are still the shit and if you don't think so, they don't give a fuck and neither do I. [myspace]

Now Harlem I had mixed up with another band so I was extra disappointed to discover they're a happy-go-lucky cookie-cutter garage rock band. As this blog probably shows, I don't really like music that doesn't take risks. And Harlem is the opposite of risky. They smile and swing their guitars while playing backwards-looking, conservative music. B+ for effort but F for content. [myspace]

I stuck around to see Frankie & the Outs, the new vehicle for Crystal Stilts drummer and one-time Vivian Girl Frankie Rose. This show was the first time I'd seen Rose in guitarist/frontwoman role. She fit it well, as I figured she would. With her uncombed hair and oddball dresses, she's always cut a figure on stage and her personality is unchanged in front of the microphone.

However, unfortunately, her band is not so well suited for the job. She's found all-female group, which is super cool, but not all of the ladies selected are up to the task and frankly, personality-wise, some came off as pretty obnoxious. For one thing, they had a tambourine player. Tambourine was key in giving the music its faint Eastern European flavor, but gosh, get a drummer who can play it. It just looks gimmicky to have a girl up there waving a tambourine around. It looked to me that there were at least five or six members of the band, playing music that would only require four, and to my eyes, that makes the band a bit of a joke.

Sonically, however, they have potential. There were hints of the Crystal Stilt's dark post punk and of the Vivian Girls' lo-fi. However, the meandering melodies coupled with a certain flowing atmosphere set this apart from Rose's other projects. I'm not pissing my pants over this, or anything, but it's got some potential. We'll see. [myspace]

*I have no idea if Feiernan was or is ever drunk, but he sings like someone who's had a few dozen too many.

News: Jay Reatard Died Last Night

Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr., better known as Jay Reatard, died in his sleep last night, at age 29. He was a brilliant songwriter and put on one hell of a live show. Above all, he was an inspiring figure both musically and personally to many in our scene. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.


Official statement by Matador Records...

Who to Watch in 2010: Part 2

I already gave you the rerun list for bands to watch in 2010. Now for the new names:

Big Troubles - Big Troubles seem to me to combine the best of two worlds. They come from the media-savvy New Jersey in-crowd that brought us Real Estate and the Vivian Girls. But unlike most of these aloof bands, Big Troubles crank up the volume and distortion to 11 and aren't afraid to acknowledge a love of the Smashing Pumpkins and Oasis. In other words, they are a rock band who don't stake their music on cooler-than-thou posturing. Their songwriting is excellent, their sound rich and full and their live performance arresting. [MySpace]

Bonus Eventus - This band has been around a while but has only just started to unleash its charm upon the indie world at large. Simplistic pop-punk about being young and drunk isn't exactly a new idea, but these guys do it right. The bare hooks and raw enthusiasm combine to make great songs that will worm their way into your heart. [MySpace]

Ex Wife - Another New Jersey band, but this one from the less aloof New Brunswick scene, Ex Wife released a stunning EP in 2009 and have all the pieces in place to take off in 2010. Their music is punk-smart but emotive, raw but beautiful, gritty but lush. The band is young and sounds it, and it's too early to tell for sure, but I have a feeling this is just the beginning of something massively important. At once pained, agitated and inviting, it all sounds very contradictory, so I suggest you listen for yourself. [MySpace]

Frozen Warnings - With the Werewolves on hiatus, defacto band leader Brian Amsterdam has turned his attention to a new project, Frozen Warnings. If Werewolves are any indiaction, we can expect something relentlessly creative wrapped in a druggy haze and revealing some damn good songs. I doubt this band will sound much like Werewolves, but whatever direction they go in is probably worth checking out. [MySpace]

Heavy Cream - This female-led punk outfit from the Nashville/Infinity Cat scene is the combination of four very talented (and incidentally, very good-looking) musicians. Perhaps because they aren't quite as young and new to music as many of their punky peers, Heavy Cream have already revealed a level of professionalism and focus rare in new bands. But they are still youthful and energetic, delivering their irresistible tunes with reckless devotion. Watch out for these kids. [MySpace]

NEXT>> Part 3

Best Albums of 2009, Part 2: #25-21

PREVIOUS>>
Part 1 - Rules and Runners Up

#25

Blank Dogs - Under and Under
In the Red

Most bands never succeed in carving out a sound that's entirely their own, but Mike Sniper's lo-fi goth doesn't sound like anything else out there. Deeply reverbed synthesizers and guitars take the best from the original goth movement, leaving the melodrama in 1980. What's left are intriguing, dark pop songs. The "lo-fi," effects-laden production buries distorted vocals, leaving everything hard to make out. The effect sends chills down my spine. It's the feeling of encroaching darkness and the sense that some profoundly disturbing secret is lurking in the shadows. If you've ever been in an abandoned hospital or a spooky forest or someplace similarly eerie at night, you know what it's like when you can't quite make out what's frightening or explain it to someone else, but you feel a tangible chill in your bones. That's what this album does to me.

Read more from the original RFR review...

How I found it: the internet!
Track picks: "Setting Fire to Your House," "No Compass," "Slowing Down"
Link: [MySpace]


#24

Cold Cave - Love Comes Close
Matador

Once again, I have to resort to quoting the press release because I can't paraphrase this and be as spot on: "equal parts romance and nihilism." Cold Cave's Matador debut draws from new wave synthpop, but just as much comes from krautrock, industrial and no wave music, making catchy music that's purposefully, powerfully vacant and inhuman. It's a statement of disillusionment and knowingly futile emotion. If Nietzsche had made an album of synth-based love songs, it would sound like this.

Read more from the original RFR review...

How I found it: They opened for Crystal Stilts and Love Is All last year.
Track picks: "Youth and Lust," "The Trees Grew Emotions and Died"
Link: [MySpace]


#23

Thee Oh Sees - Help
In the Red

I wasn't that smitten with Thee Oh Sees when I first saw them last summer, but when I put on their album for the first time, it immediately grabbed my attention. The band's fuzzy, lo-fi garage tunes manage a rare balance between strongly stated professionalism and youthful indie-ness. The songs are well-written pop tunes, but they take themselves seriously, with instrumentation and production that packs a real punch. These guys are fun, but they aren't just fooling around.

How I found it: bunch of ways
Track picks: "Enemy Destruct," "Peanut Butter Oven"
Link: [MySpace]


#22

Fever Ray - Fever Ray
Mute

Fever Ray, a.k.a. Karin Dreijer Andersson, the frontwoman of acclaimed electronic duo the Knife, released her solo debut this year. Dark, dense and wild, Fever Ray is an intensely primal album, both more earthy and more cryptic than the Knife's work. The music evokes dark images of untamed wilderness, ancient times and the occult, enigmatically hinting at the deep pain of some past trauma and an ensuing psychological deterioration. Andersson's powerful voice is one of the strangest and most evocative to emerge since Bjork's heyday, and here, it is fully unfettered.

How I found it: "Salvador" turned me on to it
Track picks: "If I Had a Heart," "Now's the Only Time I Know"
Link: [MySpace]


#21

Dälek - Gutter Tactics
Ipecac

Being the only group in the world (to my knowledge) that can be classified as "noise rap," Dälek never ceases to be exciting. Gutter Tactics may not be their best work to date, but it's still a remarkable accomplishment. Rap's usual rhymes and beats here meet screeching, jarring iceflows of pure noise. Drawing from shoegaze and ambient as well as industrial and krautrock, Dälek is one of those rare bands loud enough to slam you back against the wall the first time you hear them. The lyrics are smart and meaningful, but unfortunately, the MC's delivery can be a little bland. Still, Dälek is one of the most boldly original groups on earth - here's hoping they're a precursor of what's to come in the next decade of music!

How I found it: I first heard of Dälek when they did a split release with "no-gazers" IfWhen.
Track picks: "Gutter Tactics," "No Question"
Link: [MySpace]

NEXT>> Part 3: #20-16
Part 4: #15-11
Part 5: #10-6
Part 6: #5-1

Live: Fiery Furnaces + Shilpa Ray

When: 12/12
Where: Bowery Ballroom

It's been a while since I've checked in with the infamous Ms. Shilpa Ray and her Happy Hookers, so I braved the chill to see her with Fiery Furnaces last weekend. First of all, I'd like to say this is one of the best opener-headliner pairings I've seen in quite a while. Ultimately, the two bands don't sound at all alike, but they have enough in common that I think each of their audiences would enjoy the other: strong female vocals, a certain pre-punk/60's influence and total insanity.

Ray and her Hookers were in fine form Saturday. They started off soft and built it up - a lot of bands try this and fail, but these guys are definitely good enough to pull it off, building suspense rather than failing to grab attention. Ray didn't even start yelling obscenities until about halfway through. Her songs are the same seamless combination of 60's psychedelic rock, blues, folk and soul that they've always been, expertly written and arranged. As always, the quality of the songs was consistently high.

Ray is backed by some of the best musicians in the Brooklyn indie scene. The rhythm section was actually entirely flawless throughout this set. I mean that! Really perfect. The guitar and keys didn't leave much to criticize either. Actually, the only negative thing I can say about anyone on stage is that the backup vocals by Andrew Hoepfner were way out of tune at the beginning of the set. If that was a conscious choice, it was a bad one for the style of music. However, the problem mostly resolved after the first couple of songs.

And Shilpa Ray is, as always, front and center, yelling, pogoing, flapping her arms around, cussing, giving people the finger and mumbling some completely illogical banter between songs. Even if you aren't that into Ray's music, there are a couple of things to be learned from watching her live. First, the songwriting and arrangements are exemplary. Second, she is one of the best examples I can think of of what makes a great frontperson great. She's not easily ignored or easily forgotten. [MySpace]

And then Fiery Furnaces took the stage. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I didn't know what instruments would be on stage, I didn't know if there would be anyone but the core brother-sister duo that make up the band, I didn't know what sort of music they might play. I was pretty surprised all around.

First of all, the instruments on stage were guitar, bass and drums. For some reason, I thought there'd be synthesizers and electronic insanity, but instead, it's just your rock'n'roll standard. There were more than two people on stage - two people joined the band to cover the rhythm section. The band also played a great cross-section of their music, from the early material to the most recent. Unsurprisingly, the band has reinvented their older songs. Some were recognizable, but others had morphed so that only the lyrics indicated to me I'd heard it before. The new versions weren't better or worse and didn't require knowing the originals to appreciate - which means, a good show for people who've never heard the band before and for people who know the albums by heart.

Fiery Furnaces are one of the most totally nutso bands I've ever heard. Every little piece of their music sounds quite normal, with the kind of pre-punk stylings even my parents would like. But when they string it all together, it's suddenly baffling. If someone with multiple personality disorder and severe ADD wrote music, it would sound like this - completely jumping styles every few bars. It does circle back to the same themes eventually, and though defying any conventional logic of composition, the arrangements don't seem arbitrary at all. Musically and lyrically, it's a sort of story-telling, though no one knows what the stories are, except that it were probably written by someone on a lot of acid.

Despite their self-deprecation in their band bio, Fiery Furnaces are extremely skilled musicians. Guitarist Matthew Friedberger can kill on guitar as he skips without self-awareness from jazz to metal to indie pop. And his sister Eleanor Friedberger can sing. I didn't realize the full strength of her vocals until seeing her perform live. Her voice is rich and controlled and well-suited for the band's strange story-telling ways. She seems most comfortable in jazzy and bluesy scales, but can pull of the rambling indie pop parts just as well.

The band's stage presence is a great fit with their music as well. Eleanor can be dramatic or coy or slightly awkward, but she is comfortable drawing the attention to herself, as it's clear her brother is less of a showman. She doesn't do anything particularly outrageous, mostly just wanders around the stage and semi-dances to the music when not singing. It's simple enough not to distract from the already schizoid music, but shows focus and passion, never detachment.

The band did play a bizarrely long encore, which seemed kind of presumptuous. It was nearly as long as the original set. On the other hand, they did use it as an opportunity to honor a request or two, which was pretty sweet and extremely rare to see a band do these days. So, it's hard to complain. [MySpace]

TONIGHT!!! Shellshag, Sisters, Big Troubles, Sundelles

Shellshag - "The White Stripes on steroids and crack" (Jersey Beat 2007) [MySpace] [Official Site]

Big Troubles - "Big Troubles is Ian and Alex, two guys from Ridgewood, New Jersey looking to give you a sonic shoulder rub if you can stand it. Just as their fellow Ridgewoodians Real Estate tend to dunk theirs underwater, Ian and Alex blanket most melodies in loads of fuzz and distortion. Lots of kids are doing it these days, few are doing it as well as these two." (The Tripwire) [MySpace] [Official Site]

Sisters - "The Brooklyn duo Sisters pull nineties alternative rock into the twenty-first century, skillfully tempering Gen X slacker aesthetics with an earnest optimism and youthful vigor." (The New Yorker [!!!]) [MySpace] [RFR Review]

The Sundelles - "The band's sound is as classic garage as you can get and there is something reminiscent of Sid Vicious in the singer's voice. This track is filled with youthful exuberance and defiance. Definitely mixtape worthy!" (Rock Insider) [MySpace]

It's at Monster Island Basement a.k.a. Secret Project Robot art gallery* a.k.a. 210 Kent Ave., at the corner of Kent and Metropolitan. Doors at 8 PM, costs $7.

[Edit: Apparently it isn't technically a.k.a. Secret Project Robot, that's a difference space in the same building. The show is at Monster Island Basement, my bad! Sorry for any confusion.]

RADIO FLYER REVIEW PRESENTS...

I am so excited about this show! We've got four kick-ass bands who make really loud noise and write great songs. They're among the very best punk/lo-fi/pop music you'll find these days.

Shellshag - "The White Stripes on steroids and crack" (Jersey Beat 2007) [MySpace] [Official Site]

Big Troubles - "Big Troubles is Ian and Alex, two guys from Ridgewood, New Jersey looking to give you a sonic shoulder rub if you can stand it. Just as their fellow Ridgewoodians Real Estate tend to dunk theirs underwater, Ian and Alex blanket most melodies in loads of fuzz and distortion. Lots of kids are doing it these days, few are doing it as well as these two." (The Tripwire) [MySpace] [Official Site]

Sisters - "The Brooklyn duo Sisters pull nineties alternative rock into the twenty-first century, skillfully tempering Gen X slacker aesthetics with an earnest optimism and youthful vigor." (The New Yorker [!!!]) [MySpace] [RFR Review]

The Sundelles - "The band's sound is as classic garage as you can get and there is something reminiscent of Sid Vicious in the singer's voice. This track is filled with youthful exuberance and defiance. Definitely mixtape worthy!" (Rock Insider) [MySpace]

It's at Monster Island Basement a.k.a. Secret Project Robot art gallery a.k.a. 210 Kent Ave., at the corner of Kent and Metropolitan. Doors at 8 PM, costs $7.

Live: Stupid Party

When: Halloween
Where: Bruar Falls

I went to see Stupid Party play on Halloween, which is an indication of how much I love them - I missed much of the Yankees game, during the friggin' World Series. Right there, that should tell you this is a band worth seeing.

Their set was pretty much what their sets have been in the past. They write great little songs and then pound them out like they are furious at the great little songs and want to kill them. They aren't technically inept but seem always to be playing music on the cusp of their abilities. The whole thing sounds like it could fall apart at any second. Which is exactly what makes this one of the best bands in NYC.

The performance was their usual, which means awesome. They make some poorly enunciated jokes between songs and although they don't have as much physical movement as many bands, when they play, you feel like they are subtly wrestling their guitars to death. Not smashing them, just strangling them without making a big fuss.

I wish I had something new or more insightful to say about this band, but it's just so simple. They are punchy and raw, they have great tunes and great musical chemistry. And they don't give a fuck. It really does not get any better than this.

[MySpace]

Upcoming Shows: Lightning Bolt, Stupid Party + more

Friday, October 30

Lightning Bolt + Black Dice @ Above the Auto Parts Store | Bushwick, Brooklyn (near Market Hotel)
Lightning Bolt are a post-hardcore band that play drums and bass at 10,000 mph, with enough distortion to singe off your eyebrows. They just put out what's possibly their best album yet. [RFR Live Review] [MySpace]


Saturday, October 31 (some sort of holiday, I gather)

Stupid Party @ Bruar Falls | Williamsburg, Brooklyn | $5 w costume / $8 without
I like Stupid Party. They are so badass. They are a punk-ish sort of band that is giving the finger to everyone else with their wild noise, sweet hooks and rawkus shows. Most importantly, they are way more down to earth than 99% of Brooklyn bands, and are 99 times more fun to watch. [RFR Live Review] [MySpace]


Monday, November 2

Knight School @ Bruar Falls | Williamsburg, Brooklyn | FREE
I couldn't not list this show, because it's FREE!!! Knight School are a fuzzy lo-fi pop band with some first-class melodies. They are noisy enough and rough enough around the edges to avoid the wussiness of many of their peers. [MySpace]