A Pair of Reviews, Part 2: Yeasayer, "Fragrant World."

The new Yeasayer disc, “Fragrant World,” is not technically a sophomore release (it’s actually the band’s third studio-record). However, it faces many of the same fabled pressures of an act’s second album, as it is the follow-up to 2010’s universally-acclaimed “Odd Blood,” which catapulted the group to “It-band” status (recent releases by Animal Collective and The Dirty Projectors, among others, face similar pressure.)

Yeasayer navigates this potentially-tense moment in their career brilliantly with “Fragrant World.” If the record lacks “Odd Blood”’s urgency (which to my ears it definitely does- there’s little if any of “Mondegreen” or “O.N.E.”’s edgy dance-rock here), this is instead a more confident, reflective, mature Yeasayer. Comparatively, this record is almost ‘laid back’… but not in a bad way.

To my ears, the most notable aspect of this album’s interest is the instrumentation. Yeasayer has managed something many musicians might find unthinkable here- somehow, they’ve stripped even more of the ‘organic’ instruments from their mix (I can only locate a couple brief snippets of sound of this disc that I’m entirely confident are made by guitars) while making a record that I would be FAR less comfortable describing as ‘electronic’ than their last. This is not a synth record, this is not an electro record, this is DEFINITELY not a dance or EDM record. This is a well-written psychedelic indie-pop record constructed largely from a palette of ‘What the hell makes THAT noise?’ sounds. 

In my eyes, it’s about time that rock songwriting caught up with hip-hop production in this regard. This is a ‘think outside the box’ record that amazingly manages not to SOUND like one, unless you’re either stubbornly partial to the safety of the box, or you’re paying close attention to the xylophones, pizzicato, noise-swells, glitches, melodica, etcetera that sit in the spaces that guitars might otherwise go. This album should be required-listening for every musician in a guitar-bass-drum cliché-format rock band, to fuel a little thought toward how their songs are put together, and why. 

Oh, and those sub-hits throughout are IMPRESSIVELY low. 

A Pair of Reviews, Part 1: Bloc Party, "Four."

I haven’t reviewed anything here in a while. I think it’s probably overdue. I picked up a couple of highly-anticipated new records this week, so I’ll give you my take on two releases back-to-back.

The first, today, will be the new Bloc Party record, “Four.” I’ll follow that in short order with a completely contrasting spin on the new Yeasayer, “Fragrant World.”

To anyone who kept tabs at all on the hiatus/ feud/ reunion/ recording-process drama leading up to the new Bloc Party disc (played out extensively in the music press, on Twitter, etc.) we have to realize really quickly that we’re in for a bumpy ride with this record when the first thing that comes out of the speakers when you pop it in is ambient, “behind-the-scenes”-ish recording-studio sounds. Uh oh. They’re drawing our attention from the get-go to the notoriously tumultuous recoding-process (and these noises continue intermittently between tracks throughout.) Buckle up.

I’m just going to have right out with it- this is quite possibly one of the most confusing records I’ve ever heard. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t entirely “dislike” it… But the reasons that I kind of “like” it have to do with being a long-term Bloc Party fan sort of witnessing a documentation of an attempt to make a record by four people who are very obviously no longer on the same page musically. I find it more fascinating than listenable, and I have a hunch that most listeners who haven’t followed the ebbs and flows of this band’s career are going to be listening to this one wondering what the hell they just purchased.

We had all heard the rumors that, after each previous release got progressively more electronic (amidst certain mumblings that the rest of the band may not have been thrilled with frontman Kele Okereke’s leadership in this regard) that this record was going to be something of a “return to rock” for the band. I think many of us assumed (for better or worse) that this meant something of a return to the post-punk of “Silent Alarm.” “Four” is most definitely NOT that. In fact, as much as it’s a departure from anything even remotely electronic, it’s somehow an even MORE drastic departure from anything even remotely similar to the band’s sound prior to getting all “dancey.”

In short, this record not only sounds like the band is going through motions… but those “motions” seem to be based on fragmented, disjointed whims. Stylistically, this thing is ALL over the map. Sure, there are chunks of post-punk thrown in, but less Gang of Four and more Sonic Youth/ Refused… mixed haphazardly with shards of things like syncopated jazz with… is that a banjo??, shimmering atmospheric yet uneventful shoe-gaze, and more than a few moments that sound downright… wait for it… heavy metal??? (The album‘s closer, “We’re Not Good People” seems to be pretty much a disingenuously-earnest parody of a thrash-metal song, while the second track, “___” seems to channel Merciful Fate/ King Diamond?) For an apt example of just how extreme this awkward stylistic-mashup gets, cue up “Coliseum.” I hate saying this, because I still love this band, but hearing a British indie band trying to sound like southern-American blues-rock/ groove-metal is just downright cringe-inducing. This is probably all-around one of the worst songs I’ve heard in a while. (I HOPE this track is supposed to be a joke, but if it is, Bloc Party’s taken the “dry” in “dry British humour” to unprecedented extremes.) The tracks on the record that sound most like “Bloc Party” (in ANY of the band’s prior forms) sound fragmentary, unfinished, incomplete… they all seem to either fade out or end abruptly just as they feel like they’re about to turn into something memorable or catchy. (Oddly, the two most fully-realized Bloc Party-esque tracks are the two additional songs on my limited-edition copy, which don’t appear on the regular version of the disc. These ["Mean” and "Leaf Skeleton”] sound like the products of, say, “A[nother] Weekend in the City” era of the band, with an even greater dose of Joy Division influence?)

Here’s my hunch on this one- the crux of the issue here is the role that Kele plays in relation to on songs-of-Bloc-Party-past. If you follow the evolution of Bloc Party’s sound prior to this album, the front man’s solo-record while the band was on hiatus, “The Boxer,” WAS the next Bloc Party record. And it was brilliant.

Comparatively, Kele’s power as a vocalist just doesn’t show up on “Four.” Without hearing “The Boxer,” some listeners might think that during the band’s hiatus the singer had somehow lost the energy in his voice, which has always been one of the band’s trademarks. He never leans into his parts at all, and those parts are leveled FAR lower and less dominantly in the audio-mix than on any prior Bloc Party disc. Content-wise, both tonally and lyrically, Kele’s contributions are far more dark, cynical, and often downright angry than we’ve seen from him prior. Kele sounds very much like he checked out on the creative-process for this album, and I would wager that his contributions to the musical writing-process were far less than on past efforts. Let’s face it; following up “The Boxer,” Kele has quite a bit of possible time left in him as an indie-chameleon golden-child… the other three members of the band? Probably less so. It seems like he threw up his hands and said something along the lines of “Let’s let these kids make the record that they want to make, and I’ll just drop some vocals over the top.” The resulting album is definitely interesting… but extremely problematic.

That being said, I’d love to see what the rest of the band does in the inevitable post-Kele era. I’m hoping for something in line with Bauhaus post-Peter Murphy as Tones on Tail/ Love and Rockets, or Johnny Marr post-Smiths, personally.

“Sounds like someone recorded their drunk grandpa singing along to a Christmas cd in the bathroom.”

It seems that everyone’s talking about this years’ release of Bob Dylan’s attempt at a Christmas record. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground on this one. Journalists seem to love it (with caveats about irony and refreshing awkwardness) or hate it. I’m not going to throw my words onto the pig-pile and write an actual review... but merely muse on the concept a bit. Just take it as a given that my personal opinion of what I’ve heard of the record (I have to be upfront and admit I haven’t heard all of it, but browsing streamed snippets, internet bootlegs and the clips played on various NPR segments have been MORE than enough) falls on the more negative side of the heap. I tend to agree with Phoenix-based musician Brian Kelly (The Twilight Showdown, Borachio, etc.) that “Bob Dylan's ‘Christmas in the Heart’ sounds like someone recorded their drunk grandpa singing along to a Christmas cd in the bathroom.” (via Facebook.) If I thought it SOUNDED like a bad idea, I never would have guessed that it could be WORSE than I expected. But it is.

I have to confess, as a music-snob, that I’ve always been embarrassingly indifferent about Bob Dylan. In general, I have quite a bit of respect for him and like quite a bit of his material, but in small doses. I would never describe myself as a “fan.”

Let’s face it, there’s a heap of musicians out there that are better at writing songs than playing those songs. These are artists whose true value shines best when you hear their songs covered and performed by artists other than themselves. Dylan’s on that list for me... along with Leonard Cohen, Leadbelly (as much as I might personally enjoy both), and Weezer (first two albums only; everything after is garbage when played by anyone). For one reason or another, I tend to even prefer other people knocking-off Dylan’s SOUND and STYLE than hearing Dylan’s original rendition. Sure, I’ll admit to the sacrilege; I would far rather sit down and listen to Conor Oberst blatantly ripping Dylan-isms than cue up an actual Dylan record. And I don’t think that has all that much to do with my age. I just think for some song-writers like Dylan, it sometimes takes the ideas and instruments of others to iron out the kinks, to pull the pearl from the muddy oyster.

Dylan, for me, is a songwriter. And he’s brilliant and influential enough at it that the aspects of his records that I find hard to actually LISTEN to can be taken with a grain of salt most of the time.

But now, with this excruciating Christmas record, he’s taken what he’s good at out of the picture and left us with the rest; we get the muddy oyster-shell, and someone’s already stolen the pearl. This is a SONGWRITER releasing an entire record of covers, standards, classics. Think of how painful the reverse-scenario is... a classic-rock cover-band making the mistake of, after decades banging out recognizable radio-fare, debuting a couple of new “originals” to the drunk crowd that they entertain at the biker-dive. Let’s be realistic; NO ONE wants to hear flat-line, uninspired knock-offs of Credence songs (devoid of the catchy hooks) sandwiched between “I Want to Rock and Roll All Night” and “You Shook Me All Night Long”... and yet that’s what these attempts always inevitably sound like. And the lines at the rest-room and the bar suddenly lengthen at the expense of the dance-floor. Shock.

I don’t honestly know, in retrospect, why I expected this record (which I didn’t even expect to like) to be a bit better than it actually is. When I try to fathom how Bob Dylan doing Christmas songs could possibly NOT suck, the sound in my head sounds more like a Nick Cave or Tom Waits Christmas album than one that Dylan could ever do.

Now THOSE would be records that I would actually want to hear. Sure, they would be just as guaranteed to have their share of queasy, questionable, and cheesy moments... but I have the feeling they would be a whole lot more entertaining.... and at least a bit less painful.

A Pair of Past-Related Reviews; Part 3; Armor & Rage.

Cameron Audet has completed a new acoustic record, which will soon be available under the name “Armor & Rage.” According to Cam, this project also has a full backing-band based out of Boston, and records with expanded instrumentation might very well be coming soon. The current record is called “Pantie Melting Love Songs,” and I don’t have information yet about how and when a physical copy can be procured, but I’m guessing that, if you’re interested, bugging Cam through the project’s Myspace page might do the trick.




I’m not sure that there has ever been a record-title that has so blatantly announced that this reviewer is not in the intended demographic of the music contained therein as “Pantie Melting Love Songs.” I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the title, and I think it fits the music on the record pretty well. But… as you may have guessed (let’s not make assumptions), I don’t wear panties, so there’s not much “melting” to be done on that front (if I DID, for some reason, wear panties every once in a while [no one‘s judging here] I still really doubt that Cam would want any part in making them melt.). Basically, the title makes it pretty obvious from the get-go that this record was not intended for a 26-year-old male who prefers vague, complicated metaphors to honest, sentimental professions of emotion. And he’s got it right. This is a record that is very obviously, and very thoroughly, intended for girls. Since I’m definitely not a young girl, this is, quite predictably, not a record that I could listen to every day for my own personal enjoyment. However, knowing up-front what I’m getting into, I can definitely appreciate it for what it is. As a sentimental record intended for a young female audience, this is a pretty solid collection of songs, and he seems to capture his intentions dead-on.

While I was listening to these tracks and jotting down my thoughts, I was amazed that every time I put my headphones down to step out for a bit, I had the chorus-hook from one song or another stuck in my head. “Pantie Melting Love Songs” turned out, with each listen, to be a FAR more incessantly catchy album than my first listen would have suggested. I’m pretty sure that my girlfriend thought I was losing my mind as I kept singing “I’m wanting to see you… You’re easy on the eye…” as we walked down aisles in the grocery store.

I was initially trying to think of how to write this review by somehow bypassing the almost inanely obvious Dashboard Confessional comparisons. After hearing the songs, my initial thought was that even MENTIONING the similarity would be trite, redundant, and do no one involved much of a service. Lets face it, the post-alternative music market is GLUTTED with former members of indie and emo bands’ acoustic side-projects, the reviews for which always and inevitably (and almost always accurately) contain phrases such as “like Chris Carraba at his whiniest and most melodramatic” or “like Chris Carraba at his most heartfelt and honest.” The Dashboard fan doesn’t ever gain anything from such reviews, because they’re tired of being inundated with knock-offs, and the Dashboard loather doesn’t gain anything from such reviews (besides the red-flag not to buy the record), because they weren’t a fan the first time around.

What I realized the more that I listened, however, was that avoiding this comparison would be just as disingenuous. Unlike many of its ilk, this record, rather than trying to downplay the influence as most of this sort of acts tend to try to do (i.e. let’s throw in a verse that sounds like Conor Oberst; lets toss in some Jets To Brazil-isms or an Eliot Smith rip to show that we’re ’keepin’ it real,’ etc.), Armor & Rage seems to make a conscious decision to fly headlong into this comparison, which seems somehow more respectable. There’s a certain “Yeah, I like Dashboard. So what?” aspect of the songwriting here that’s almost refreshing compared with many similar-sounding acts.

The recording of the record is lush and skillfully produced, at the same time that it is incredibly (and almost startlingly) intimate. The reverb on the vocal-harmonies (all of which are Cameron’s own, and well- composed) is shimmering, without being overwrought or cheesy. At the same time, the degree of sonic detail allowed within the mix is tangibly real, complete with the sort of sounds of fingers on strings and popping of breath that conjure images of the musician performing in a completely empty room of an abandoned old third-story New England apartment (which reminds me a bit of early Ani Difranco… in production only).

Where Cameron does tend to deviate (thankfully) from such unabashed Carraba-isms is in the way that his guitar-parts are constructed. The power-chords-on-acoustic strategy of Dashboard and other such post-indie acoustic “pantie-melting” holdovers is almost completely absent from these songs, leaving in its place moments when the listener might almost start to think he’s listening to an actual FOLK (or at least indie-folk) record. There are even a couple moments when the guitar-work (which is admirably far more attentive at most moments to rhythm and groove than to notes and chord sequence) almost reminds me of certain Dar Williams tracks.

In the song “Take Your Aim,” there’s a moment when a tidal-wave of added backing-vocals break through the mix, at a spot that doesn’t exactly seem to be a climax. Sitting in my apartment alone with noise-cancelling headphones on, the change was so abrupt and forceful that I jumped (physically) out of my seat, and thought that someone was behind me. The most surprising thing was, this continued to happen EVERY time the song came on. I have to admit, part of me enjoys this unexpected moment. If you’re drifting off a bit listening to these songs (which is completely feasible, but not totally a flaw, as Cameron’s sound and songwriting is soothingly consistent throughout), this is a bit of the record that will wake you up and force you to pay attention. I’m definitely personally a fan of aspects like these, but it strikes me as a bit out of sync with the otherwise apparent aim of accessibility evident throughout the record, and thus I get the feeling that it wasn’t quite intentional.

Overall, the stated goal of “Pantie Melting” of the new Armor and Rage record is admirably achieved. This is a stirring set of soft emotional songs, skillfully performed and recorded; a laid-back, listener-friendly pop record, with a ton of commercial potential as such. Cam’s chosen title for the record boldly asserts his awareness of the general truth that it is impossible to make a record that’s equally well-suited to every listener, and, with that in mind, this is most definitely an excellent release for its intended demographic, even if it may not be up my own personal alley.

Surrealism's Frantic New Frontier; a review of Blanche Davidian's "Orange Sunshine."

After playing the hermit and hiding for the first set of months after I moved to Phoenix several years ago, I was hired to play bass for a punk-influenced rock’n’roll band. My first show on-stage with them was an appearance at the (now non-existent) Mason Jar, with Blanche Davidian, Army of Robots, and Calabrese. I never would have guessed at the time that this show, as my first memorable experience with live local music in this city, would set a precedent for the caliber of bands that call this wasteland home that most of the rest of the town’s entertainment options would fall far short of living up to, and that the bands on the bill of that show would still be topping my list for the most noteworthy and entertaining acts in town years later. In retrospect, boy, was I spoiled.

Upon my initial encounter with the Davidian boys, I was thoroughly impressed by their energetic, glammed-up stage-show, and aggressive yet mature blistering punk sound that reminded me, at the time, more of “No Lunch”-era D Generation than anything else. From the start of their set to the end, they were tight, professional, and kept the crowd captivated.

Blanche Davidian still impresses me with these same traits, but on their new record, “Orange Sunshine,” they also demonstrate that they have elevated their craft to a level that far transcends being merely an independent band that happens to be more interesting to watch than most.



Listening to “Orange Sunshine,” I now hear hints in the Davidians of the raw power-pop stylings of “Live at Budakon,” “Radar Love”/ “Barroom Blitz”-style anthemic campiness, a bit of “Night at the Opera” vocal harmonizing, the occasional vocal-part reminiscent of an early Michael Stipe, and a touch of cherry and oak in the slightly tannic finish.

Singer Jamie Monistat VII’s lyrics are gritty, creative and steeped with perverse wit, in a way that reminds me a bit of a more spastic William Burroughs when read on paper. One of the most noteworthy aspects of his writing-style is that the lyrics create a bit of a “Where’s Waldo” game of pastiche and intertextuality. Each song seems loaded with toungue-in-cheek references to other songs, borrowed and altered lyrics, and ironically placed fragments of familiar melody lines. This is particularly obvious on the song “Brimstone Jannie,” which strikes me as a verbal collage of borrowed elements decoupaged creatively and sarcastically (with gobs of glittery mud as the laquer) around a chorus, as well as appearing in a large number of other places on the album, such as in the album‘s opening track, “The Five Muscatels,” where layers of non-lyrical vocal parts morph at one point into a familiar doo-woppy part lifted, to admirably surprising comic effect, from a Monkees song (I think? Maybe Billy Joel? The Grease soundtrack? You get the point, you’d recognize it…).

My biggest complaint upon initial listen to this record also turns out to be something that I respect immensely from an artistic and conceptual perspective. The tone and tempo of the record is, with a couple of exceptions, fairly uniform throughout, with only the melody-hooks of the vocals and the guitar solos (which are exceptionally written and played by Mike Hawk and Nikki Seven, with stylings that are more often than not [to my great pleasure] more thoroughly “power-metal” than “punk”) cutting through what is at other points a somewhat monotonous first-listen. In this regard, I find that some of the album’s artwork is exceptionally well-chosen. On the disc itself is printed an orange-and-black mesmerism spiral, which gives way to a photograph of an atom-bomb explosion on the tray when the disc is removed. In light of these visual symbols, the trance-like consistency of the album’s sound seems quite deliberate. Listening again with these visual representations in mind, the record seems to, overall, suggest several layers of psychedelic spirals, in feeling very similar to the orange spiral on the disc, giving way to “explosions,” which lead to drops or rises to lower or higher levels of the intensity of the spiral. Probably the most easily exemplified of these transitions is in the song “Hale-Bopp Panty Raid,” which features a drastic fall to the softest segment of the record (featuring still more of Mr. Monistat’s witty lyrical pastiche… “knock knock knockin’ on Heaven’s Gate”, etcetera), which proves just as (if not more) psychedelically spirally than the more intense moments of the record, such as the one that it builds and explodes back into. If it is a coincidence that the cover-song that follows this track (Warrior Soul's “Let’s Get Wasted”) contains a lyric that refers to an explosion, it’s an extremely accidentally apt and ironic one.

Overall, the effect created by these tonal spirals and explosions works well with other thematic elements of the lyrics and packaging of “Orange Sunshine.” Nuclear fallout, psychedelia, hypnosis, drugs, realism so gritty that it’s unbelievably hazy, cults… are all thematic elements that seem exceptionally well, yet exceptionally ambiguously and appropriately confusingly, treated by the thorough-going statement being made by the record as a whole. This is one of several recent records that makes me wonder if music could be the next viable medium for effective displays of authentic Surrealism. As all modern painting in the genre seems mere pale Dali imitations, and the conceptual intent of DaDa poetry has sunk far enough into the cultural understanding that the point it makes is no longer as pertinently discomforting, the sonic palette could very well be this genre’s next frontier. If this is the case, Blanche Davidian could very well be among our best current demonstrators of how it could be done, and their new record "Orange Sunshine" is a well-crafted step in the right direction.