- joiezabel in Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head it really is brilliant, scott. i hate you.
- hotshotrobot in Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head Goddammit, Borch, now how am i supposed to review this? I can’t top that!
- Borch in The Avett Brothers - House of Blues - May 14th Good Lord, that’s a beautiful song! The Avett Bros. were in Chicago? Why wasn’t I notified?!
Neo-shoegaze. It’s happening all around us, and seriously, I couldn’t be more thrilled. Not
that shoegaze ever really died completely – there have been plenty of bands capitalizing on reverb and fuzz since 1991, but within the past few years there has been a slew of bands making high quality shoegaze that absolutely deserve attention. Bands like Fleeting Joys, Daysleepers, Screen Vinyl Image, Rumskib, Asobi Seksu, and the now defunct (but still totally awesome) Alcian Blue - just to name a few of my favorites - are putting their own unique spin on the genre, and making a seriously awesome cacophony while they’re at it. A Place to Bury Strangers is among this group of neo-shoegazers, and it would be very unwise if you didn’t start paying attention to them. Now.
(No, seriously. Right now.)
This is what you need to know about APTBS (I’m not typing the name out every time, so get used to the acronym): There was once a fucking awesome band called Skywave that made lots of nerds upset by breaking up and ruining all their fun. Luckily, the members split and created two separate bands out of Skywave’s ashes – APTBS and Ceremony (who is really good in their own right and who is also about to release a record that I’m very much looking forward to). Whereas Ceremony went the way of slightly (but only slightly) more traditional shoegaze, APTBS have created the loudest, dirtiest, bleakest shoegaze I’ve ever heard – ever – thanks to frontman Oliver Ackermann.
If Ackermann’s name sounds familiar, it may be that you’ve heard of his company, Death by Audio, which is, along with being a recording studio and music venue, a place where he dreams up, designs, and custom-builds his own effects pedals. It’s basically a laboratory of feedback and fuzz (sweet!), and the name of one of his more widely known pedals, Total Sonic Annihilation, gives you an idea of the volume Ackermann prefers.
Intense volume and distortion are the defining characteristics of this band. The combination is all-consuming, aggressive, and of course, good, because really, can it ever be too loud or too distorted? (For those that do not grasp the concept of rhetoric, the answer to that question is: no fucking way.) Within seconds of the first track, “Missing You,” you already know what you’re in for – extreme reverb, static, brutal guitar, feedback – essentially, everything that makes shoegaze so great, but exaggerated beyond belief. “To Fix the Gash in Your Head” (which is song about basically wanting to beat someone’s ass - but I mean, someone that totally deserves it) is the best example of this intensity, and also one of the best tracks on the record, with it’s primal drum beat and the loudest fuzz guitar your speakers will allow.
But it’s not all ass-beating and possible restraining orders. There are gentler songs here, as well, but only in attidude, not in actual volume, which never goes down. “Don’t Think Lover” could have been a Skywave track, as dark and pretty as it is. And a favorite of mine, “The Falling Sun,” although delivered in Ackerman’s I’ve-been-emotionally-dead-for-years vocal style, is simply beautiful.
This self-titled album is the band’s first proper release, although there has been a highly coveted CD-R floating around with a handful of these tracks on it for about a year. Needless to say, the people with the CD-R or who stumbled across them via myspace or live shows have been waiting anxiously for something official to be released. Well, we’ve finally got what we’ve been wishing for, but here’s the catch: there are only 500 copies of this extremely excellent record in the whole wide world, so you’d better act quickly.
Release date: Auguest 13, 2007
Label: Killer Pimp Records
Rating: 8.7/10
I remember once, maybe when I was in high school, noticing that most adults had a cut-off age at which they stopped listening to the radio, and by extension, stopped paying attention to new music in general. My father, for instance, was intelligent and knowledgeable about popular music up to about 1978 — after which point he knew essentially nothing. (To his credit, after missing all of the 1980s, he started listening to some new things again; it became sort of something for us to share.)
Of course, as your humble superstarcastic.com correspondent, I continue to listen to as much new music as possible. I can, however, tell you that I stopped listening to music radio in 2004; although I know a good deal about plenty of albums released during the past three years, including some released on some very, very small labels, as well as a few not released on any label at all, many if not most “radio hits” are lost on me. Unless possibly they were playing in the mall when I was there.
And so, as some kind of penance to the gods of pop, I’m going to listen to the current top 10 tracks on Billboard’s Hot 100, and give you my thoughts as I do so, in real-time (or some approximation thereof). (I was going to do the top 20, but I figured it’s best to start with baby steps after being away from this for so long.) For the record, I’ve never heard any of these songs before in my life.
10. “Shawty” — Plies feat. T-Pain
I don’t have any idea how this man pronounces his stage name, but I’m hoping its “plee-AYS,” just like in ballet class. But I have high hopes for this tune, given that it’s a duet with a fellow whose biggest hit was a song called “I’m in Luv Wit’ a Stripper.” Plus, the current top comment on its YouTube video reads “diz song iz gud,” which is a ringing endorsement if I’ve ever seen one.
Now that I’m listening to it, I think my favorite thing about this song is that all of the sung vocals are filtered through an effect box stolen from Eiffel 65. Well, that and that it’s got some of the most clumsy, misogynistic, and ugly claims to be giving one’s girlfriend (or “shawty,” in the common parlance) sexual pleasure that I’ve heard outside of a middle school anywhere. (I’m assuming the radio version is edited…which this is definitely not.) I’m thinking it’s mostly men buying this song, because it’s difficult for me to imagine a woman doing so. I feel like taking a chemical shower now.
9. “Who Knew” — P!nk
I actually remember liking P!nk a little, back when she was all mizzundastood. This one sounds so much like the beginning of “Since U Been Gone” — and P!nk sounds so much like Kelly Clarkson — that it’s hard to recognize as P!nk’s work. It’s pleasant enough, and certainly much more inoffensive than the last song, but it’s had all of the edges sanded off — especially when the strings kick in on the bridge — and at this point, this is derivative enough to make Aly & AJ look positively avant-garde.
8. “Rockstar” — Nickelback
Erm…the nice thing about Nickelback is that they don’t trust their audience to catch irony, so they’re more than willing take anything that might otherwise have been subtle or clever and smash you over the head with it until they’re quite certain you get the point.
At any rate, if they wanted to perform a song on this subject, a cover of Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good,” which is quite a bit funnier, would have been far superior. But that might have required overtaxing the drummer, who seems to be playing most of the song out of one of those “Play the Drums With Mel Bay, Level 1″ books.
7. “Let It Go” — Keyshia Cole Featuring Missy Elliott & Lil’ Kim
I once wanted to record a rap single by, say, Sam E. & SEE-NOTE with K-Taff and O.F.P., featuring R-Murray and introducing A-Dream, just to see how far you could stretch this trend of billing artists this way. But that’s neither here nor there.
The “ha-ha-ha-has,” just leave me wanting to turn on Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. Cole herself actually has a pretty good voice, but her efforts are sabotaged by the fact that she’s stuck singing mediocre lyrics over the top of some very lazy production. Well, that and the fact that she has to fight with Missy and Kim, who appear to think that they’re in a very different song. Seriously, the switch between the sung sections and the rapped bits is awkward enough that I thought I was going to get whiplash. (I was going to compare it to the bit where Dorothy steps out of the house in The Wizard of Oz, but there isn’t any Technicolor in this song.)
Also, this song is over five minutes long. I hate to think what the extended-play dance remix sounds like.
6. “Bed” — J. Holiday
I really hoped that the backing track was going to go into full-on Peter Gabriel mode, since the drums showed some promise, but instead it sticks in first gear for the entire song. I’m afraid I’m going to fall asleep, which is fitting I suppose given the song’s title, but I do have five more of these to go.
And the best thing you can say about J. Holiday’s come-ons is that they’re better than Plies’. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
5. “Ayo Technology” — 50 Cent featuring Justin Timberlake & Timbaland
I think the single most disappointing music news story of the year involves Mr. Cent reneging on his promise to retire if Kanye West’s album outsold his own. On the basis of this particular tune, I’m going to posit that encouraging the world to party like it was their birthday — and sip Bacardi in the aforementioned manner — represented the zenith of 50’s lyrical ability. I’d quote a few lines as evidence, but my mother does occasionally read what I write here, and I don’t want to give her a heart attack.
Also, though he’s becoming really overrated, I do like Timbaland’s production, but this is one he could have tossed off in his sleep. The Bjork single was better.
4. “Big Girls Don’t Cry” — Fergie
I doubt it somehow, but if this is a Four Seasons cover, my estimation of Fergie will probably rise several notches. I might even temporarily stop making fun of the guy who works in the library with me for bringing his copy of The Dutchess to work with him.
And…it’s not a cover, but it vastly exceeds my expectations. That’s not exactly the highest praise, given that my expectations were entirely shaped by how much I hated “London Bridge” (a rare radio hit that I was not able to avoid, alas), but it’s a pleasant surprise after the last few songs. If anything, it shows that if Fergie gets tired of the whole hip-pop thing, she’s got a future making adult contemporary albums. Heck, I’m gonna make a prediction: sometime in 2011, Fergie will release a duets album, which will feature collaborations with Jim Brickman, Josh Groban, and that one girl who sang “I Hope You Dance.” Well, and Justin Timberlake too, but only because he’ll still be on everything, even then. (Did you know that he’s on the new Reba McEntire album? And no, that’s not a joke, much as I wish it was.)
3. “The Way I Are” — Timbaland featuring Keri Hilson
I’m happy to note that the official music video for this song is presented by the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with Cheese. (What, you were expecting The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar?)
This strangely canned robot-funk is actually pretty catchy. It’s got the elements I tend to like in Timbaland’s productions — big fat synth-hooks, beautifully simplistic drums that use silence well, and basslines the size of an American car of the late 1950s. That said, Timbaland isn’t much of a rapper, (”I ain’t got a motorboat, but I can float your boat” is a pretty typical line) and so I’m not completely sold on this one. It sure sounds good by comparison though.
2. “Crank That (Soulja Boy) — Soulja Boy Tell’em
In a field with some pretty impressive contenders (think Vanilla Ice, or possibly Chingy, whose name I always wanted to rhyme with “dingy”), I think Soulja Boy Tell’em is right in the running for worst hip-hop stage name.
This apparently is a song with a dance that goes with it. It looks pretty dumb, from what I can see in the video, but less dumb than “The Macarena,” which is encouraging. I kind of want to like this song, actually, just because it’s got a goofy steel drum sample, but I’ve been listening to The Knife’s “Pass This On” all week, and so my standards for songs that use steel drums in unorthodox ways are pretty high just now. Props to Soulja Boy Tell’em for the totally old-school sunglasses though. Next pair of sunglasses I get, I’m gonna write my name on the lenses too.
1. “Stronger” — Kanye West
Well, I can’t hate this completely, since I like the Daft Punk song that makes up three-quarters of this track. Or maybe I can hate it, in the same way that I hated “I’ll Be Missin’ You.”
I can at least understand why this is popular — it’s based heavily on a very catchy song. But it’s also everything I detest about pop music — an amazingly lazy piggybacking off the work of the more talented, the triumph of mediocrity over genius, the ultimate victory of creative bankruptcy.
Yeah. I think it might be a while before I do this again…
Cease to Begin was the first I’d ever heard from Band of Horses (heard of them, as the excuse goes), and the problem with slavish indulgence of any album without reference to previous or subsequent efforts is that you’re surprised to find that the others don’t sound exactly like the one you first fell for (fill in relationship analogy here). Preference is one thing, but BOH debut Everything All the Time played like a tribute to the who’s who of indie (some songs I swore featured guest appearances by Jim James, Sufjan Stevens, or Great Lake Swimmers). Cease, on the other hand, is a superlative follow-up that expands on the moments in Everything that were uniquely BOH; it also puts them high in the running for feature in the next Volkswagen commercial.
Take, for starters, the outstanding opener ‘Is There a Ghost’: writers of a lesser ilk would be tempted to force more lyrics into the memorable and boisterous melody, but Ben Bridwell leaves the strange haiku alone – this is good. Keep this song away from English teachers because the mixed-tense lyrics, “When I lived alone, is there a ghost in my house?” are bound to send them into fits of rage, but it’s nonsense verse that isn’t so obtuse as to beg for attention.
Every instrument is distinct and emphasized, especially in dulcet numbers like the Fender Rhodes-heavy ‘Detlef Schrempf’ (which has nothing, far as I can tell, whatsoever to do with the former Indiana Pacer) but also smash-ups like ‘Marry Song’. In a comfortable progression, but not necessarily predictable order, Cease ranges from thoughtful country-tinged flavor to ebullient garage rock, and if it not entirely new it is certainly a smart revision of existing conventions.
If bands have lately been skimping on closing their albums well, Band of Horses makes a timely exit. The album, just over a half-hour long, bows out over four tracks from the strategically-brilliant instrumental ‘Islands on the Coast’ (almost unnoticeable by itself, but vital to the progression of the album’s coda) to a pair of aggressive marauders, topped off with the reflective, road-weary ‘Window Blues’.
There is also enough optimism to fuel a rally; the disc, it should be noted, will not serve as good break-up or crisis music, so approach this only if your life is in relatively good order.
Sub Pop
Oct. 9, 2007
9/10
Very few bands have the potential to continually get better with each new release. We all
know how it is – a band releases an awesome demo and then never puts out anything to rival it (say what you will, but at the time, Turn on the Bright Lights was pretty damn good). Or a band puts out something really good, but the subsequent releases never get any better, it’s just the same recycled shit over and over again (hello Daft Punk. Hello Daft Punk. Hello Daft…oh I’m sorry, was I being repetitive?). Or an artist just sucks and they continue to suck until you are consumed with hatred (I swear to god, Devendra Banhart had better not procreate). It’s a rare quality, this continual evolution of talent, and one that I respect very much. And I respect next to nothing (seriously, ask anyone), so it’s kind of a big deal. My point is, Liars possess this quality. To put it accurately and eloquently, Liars are fucking awesome. Period.
Liars is the ultimate chameleon, in that the band can skillfully incorporate a variety of genres into the music without losing any uniqueness whatsoever. On this new self-titled album, you hear everything from a straight up homage to Psychocandy-era The Jesus and Mary Chain (“Freak Out”), the obvious influence of late 60’s/early 70’s Krautrock (“Pure Unevil”), some serious fucking metal (“Plaster Casts of Everything”), classic rock (“Clear Island”), and some sort of devil funk that makes me think of Beck with tons more testosterone (“Houseclouds”). Liars seem to absorb awesomeness from well-chosen influences, then mix in a heavy dose of their own touch (which could be described as, say, dancable noise punk with an attitude problem), add some glitch drone and feedback and there you have it. To me, this element of craft, combined with the constant evolution of Liars own unique sound, pretty much makes the band one of the more talented and interesting groups in the music scene right now.
Plenty of naysayers have condemned Liars for essentially ripping off other bands while simultaneously being purposely difficult and overly high-concept, but I don’t understand why that’s a bad thing. If anything, this record is more accessible than the previous three, with far more attention paid to song-craft. Programming the band members’ influences into the music is just something that has to be done. That’s how art works. It’s about paying attention to yesterday’s geniuses and using your own talent to build on what they’ve done, thereby creating something new. The future can’t happen without the past. This is called progress, people. Growth. Liars embody this concept, all the while making an abrasively awesome racket that only a hardcore music geek (i.e. a person with good taste) could love.
Release date: August 28, 2007
Label: Mute
Rating: 8.5/10
It was a sad day for anyone who loved pop music when Paul Hester, drummer/vocalist for the then-defunct Crowded House, decided in 2005 that the world wasn’t a place he wanted to be anymore, and ended his own life. Although it wasn’t entirely a secret that Hester had been fighting depression for a long time, it’s still hard for me to reconcile his untimely end with his wicked sense of humor, and his sheer love of music. When I think of Hester, I think of him in some of the old clips from the ’80s, a smile on his rubber face, lost in the joy of whatever song was playing — “Now We’re Getting Somewhere,” maybe, or “Sister Madly.” That’s the image of him that I want to keep.
At any rate, Hester’s death casts a long, long shadow over Time On Earth, the first proper album for Crowded House since 1993’s Together Alone. The current iteration of the group retains the other two core members, singer/guitarist and principal songwriter Neil Finn, and bassist/harmony vocalist Nick Seymour. The lineup is fleshed out by latter-day guitarist Mark Hart and former Beck drummer Matt Sherrod, at least on paper, but the pair only appear on four of the album’s fourteen tracks, meaning that Time On Earth is for the most part simply the work of Finn and Seymour.
“Nobody wants to think about it. Nobody wants to talk about it,” Finn’s aching voice declares on the opening cut, “Nobody Wants To.” “They make it go away, pretending that it’s all OK.” It’s hard not to connect this with the band’s loss, and it sets a solemn tone for the album that never really lifts. The humor that was normally injected into even the most somber Crowded House releases (think Woodface) is essentially absent here; even the semi-jokey “Transit Lounge” can’t keep a smile on its face for long, as the later verses descend into the same melancholy that pervades the rest of the record.
What remains is classic, almost archetypal Neil Finn: slightly oblique lyrics, heavenly melodies, and arrangements so carefully crafted that they almost seem plated in gold. Seymour holds his own, to be sure, but this is Finn’s showcase — perhaps fittingly, given that the album began life with the idea that it would be a Finn solo album. It’s hardly a departure for him, which is probably the easiest criticism to level at Time On Earth, but it isn’t as if Finn is slacking off — this album is strong enough to stand alongside his best work. This is high praise: there’s a reason that Finn is often considered the finest songwriter ever produced by New Zealand, and it’s not just that the only competition outside of his own family that many record consumers in the US at least can name is that guy from OMC.
This is not to say that Time On Earth is immediately “catchy” in a Pure Pop For Now People sense; anyone scanning the record looking for another “Don’t Dream It’s Over” won’t find one. But it spins out like magic if you give it enough time, if you really listen to the ethereal wistfulness of “A Sigh,” or the sparkling interplay of the Johnny Marr collaboration “Even A Child” (which, by the way, is one of the more inspired things Johnny’s put his name to in several years). If the mood isn’t particularly wide-ranging, the album more than makes up for it in depth. It’s well worth the investment of a few hours to play Time On Earth multiple times; it will sound better each time you hear it.
Expectations are usually pretty low when a band re-forms a decade and a half later, minus a key member — and with good reason, as anyone who made the mistake of picking up, say, A Light at the End of the World will tell you. Time On Earth proves a happy exception, perhaps because of the tribute aspects of this release, or perhaps because Neil Finn, unlike many famous singers whose bands broke up, has managed to produce useful music during the intervening years (check out 2004’s woefully under-heralded Everyone Is Here, the second album Neil released with brother Tim as The Finn Brothers if you don’t believe me). It doesn’t replace Temple of Low Men or Woodface — it’s not coming from the same place, for one thing — but it’s more than a worthy addition to the band’s legacy: it’s a truly great album in its own right, a near-perfect slice of pop melancholia that’s been polished until it shines.
Release date: July 10, 2007
Label: EMI/Parlophone
Rating: 9/10
Indie-pop outfit Rogue Wave, a track from whose new album we recently previewed for you, have just kicked off a US tour. Here are the dates:
Sep 13 - Carnegie Music Hall - Pittsburgh, PA
Sep 14 - Messiah College - Grantham, PA -
Sep 15 - Michigan Theater - Ann Arbor, MI
Oct 10 - The Casbah - San Diego, CA
Oct 11 - El Rey Theatre - Los Angeles, CA
Oct 12 - Bimbos - San Francisco, CA
Oct 15 - Wonder Ballroom - Portland, OR
Oct 16 - Neumo’s - Seattle, WA
Oct 19 - Bluebird theatre - Denver, CO
Oct 20 - The Bottleneck - Lawrence, KS
Oct 21 - Waiting Room - Omaha, NE
Oct 23 - 400 Bar - Minneapolis, MN
Oct 24 - Double Door - Chicago, IL
Oct 26 - The Mod Club - Toronto, CA
Oct 27 - Cabaret Music Hall - Montreal, CA -
Oct 29 - Iron Horse Music Hall - North Hampton, MA
Oct 30 - Paradise Rock Club - Boston, MA
Nov 1 - Bowry Ballroom - New York, NY
Nov 2 - Maxwells - Hoboken, NJ
Nov 3 - Jonny Brenda’s - Philadelphia, PA
Nov 5 - the Black Cat - Washington, DC
Nov 6 - Satellite Balllroom - Charlottesville, VA
Nov 8 - The Earl - Atlanta, GA
Nov 9 - Mercy Lounge - Nashville, TN
Nov 10 - The Bottletree - Birmingham, AL
Also, the new album, Asleep at Heaven’s Gate, has apparently dropped on iTunes a week ahead of its standard release (September 18), with an extra track available. So, if you liked the track we brought you, feel free to check it out.
