MUSIC REVIEWS!
I Decided I needed a
place to
throw all of my reviews that I've written over the years
for various sources. The
joint I wrote each of these
for is featured at the end of the review...
Older Reviews
A - C
D - G
H - K
L - N
O - R
S - T
U - Z
+++ NEW
REVIEWS +++
Nobunny
Love
Visions
Bubbledumb
Records
- 7.5 out
of 10 -
Sometimes, music
don't have to be of
high quality to be awesome. Take Nobunny for example – poorly
recorded,
sloppy “party rock” might be the best description of
this guy (and sometimes band, depending on how the wind
blows
apparently), but I'll be damned if these aren't some of the catchiest
songs I've heard in ages. Think of the
Ramones with a tinge of old
school garage and R&B thrown in for flavor. This album is
chock-full of short songs
that are all over the map, but somehow
coalesce into a fantastic set of slop-rock that I can't stop
listening to. This
record may not be the easiest to find, but if you
manage to score a copy you will be rewarded highly for your efforts.
You can check out the music on his MySpace page as well:
http://www.myspace.com/nobunnylovesyou
(SLAP)
David
Vandervelde
Waiting
for the Sunrise
Secretly
Canadian
- 7 out of 10 -
David
Vandervelde released one of my
very favorite records of 2007, “The Moonstation House Band” - a
modern
glam-pop masterpiece that strongly reminded you of the likes
of David Bowie and T. Rex without actually ripping
them off. For
this sophomore follow up, David has toned town the pop sheen a bit
and replaced it with a slightly
rootsier edge, but still firmly
rooted in the past – try to imagine the Byrds or the mellow side of
the Rolling Stones
producing modern pop songs and you're in the
ballpark. And while I don't love this at the level I loved his
debut,
it's still a very good record and certainly worth seeking out
if you have a hankering for catchy pop songs with a
classic feel. (SLAP)
+++OLD
REVIEWS +++
U.S.
Christmas
Eat
The Low Dogs
Neurot
Recordings
- 8 out of 10 -
This isn't your
father's metal. Or
shit, maybe it is, I don't even know what the hell that phrase means
anyway. What
I do know is this isn't the straight-forward
cookie-cutter crap that gets passed off as “metal” these days,
But maybe
you already assumed that, knowing this record was released
by the legendary Neurot Recordings, home label of
the one and only
Neurosis. In fact, I'd be hesitant to even really call it metal,
though it does it get heavy at times.
It's a
clusterfuck of a sound really,
that somehow works itself out into a glorious listenable noise...if you
were to
combine Neil Young's
“Dead Man” soundtrack, a heavy dose of Hawkwind, and a shitload
of psychedelics (with-
out crossing over into hippy territory) you'd be
getting close to what U.S. Christmas sound like. Oh, and also
include a lot of Theramin - though maybe that was implied when I
mentioned the psychedelics. This music is the
brown acid you were
warned not to take.
You know that
movie “The Postman”,
where Kevin Costner is riding around on a horse in a snow-covered
des-
olate wasteland, dressed like an extra from “Mad Max”? That's
kinda the visual equivalent to this album, only not
crappy like that
movie, if you catch my drift. And even if you don't catch my drift,
it's just plain awesome and you
should do yourself a favor and listen
to this band. (SLAP)
The
Notwist
The
Devil, You + Me
Domino
Records
- 10 out of 10
-
I don't think
I've ever given a perfect
score to a record on here before...it's not the sort of praise I
bandy about
all willy-nilly. I've given a lot of high scores,
sure...mostly because I can't be assed to write about all the
mediocre
music I hear each and every day and save my reviewing for
worthwhile items.
The last record
the Notwist released
was “Neon Golden” in early 2003 (though most everyone was
actually
listening to the European import of the album for a good
chunk of 2002). That, too, was a perfect record – one
of my
favorite records of all time, easily. I have hemmed and hawed for
years, waiting for that next record; and
while I'm not happy it took
six years, “The Devil, You + Me” is about as perfect a follow-up
album to that master-
piece as anyone could hope for. Not a bad track
in the bunch – in fact, it was tough picking out a stand-out track
as there were so many worthy recipients. Their unique
electro-glitchy-indie-pop sound is still there in spades,
though
somehow lusher, if that is possible.
I've recommended
a lot of records on
these pages over the many years I've written reviews for Slap, but I
can't
think of any that I have recommended as highly as this album. (SLAP)
M83
Saturdays
= Youth
Mute
Records
- 8.5 out of 10
-
So I now equate
France with three
things: Cliché Skateboards, tasty cheese, and M83. I would
imagine most
of you in-the-know skate kids know this group/performer
from the intro song used in the recent skate-film
masterpiece by
Lakai, “Fully Flared”. But the man behind the plan, Anthony
Gonzalez, ain't no one trick pony –
M83 has more good songs than a
teenager has zits...shit, that Lakai song isn't even the best track
from that
album (which is called “Before the Dawn Heals Us”, and
is one of the very best records released in the past
ten years as far
as I'm concerned; also, the best track on there is “Don't Save Us
from the Flames” for those
keeping score at home).
I've gotten
sideways from the original
intent of this little blurb though, and that is to recommend M83's
newest
record “Saturdays = Youth”. This record is damn near
perfect, a mix of electronica and 80's nostalgia that some-
how manages
to sound the like the soundtrack to John Hughes film but still
completely new and fresh at the
same time. And like previous M83
releases, it works the best when listened to through headphones –
you
really pick up on all the little nuances and layering that
Gonzalez puts into his songs. And like all of his albums,
it's a
grower...the more you listen, the more it seeps into your head and
the more you want to hear it. I've found
this to be true of all M83
albums, and I keep waiting for Gonzalez to slip up and make a
stinker, but so far the
dude is perfect. (SLAP)
The
Constantines
Kensington
Heights
Arts
& Crafts
- 7.5 out of 10
-
When I first
heard The Constantines via
their self-titled album in 2001, my gut feeling was their sound came
mostly from post-rock idealism ala Fugazi, with a hint of heartland
ideals ala Bruce Springsteen. Now, seven
years later and four albums
in, that comparison could probably be flipped – mostly straight
forward gut rock
with just a hint of that early-nineties DC sound
that characterized their early work (and especially their live
shows,
though that may not have changed much).
But if their
sound is growing a little
more mainstream, it's coupled with skilled songwriting and
musicianship
that is reaching higher and higher with each successive
release. Honestly, there is only one reason these
songs shouldn't (and won't) take commercial radio by storm – Arts &
Crafts
doesn't have the A&R budget to
buy airtime and compete with the
big labels. I guess I'm OK with that – I don't have to share one
of my favorite
bands with the goons of the world, though at the same
time this group of Canucks deserve much wider atten-
tion than they
get. (SLAP)
Black
Mountain
In
The Future
Jagjaguwar
Records
- 9 out of 10 -
The phrase
“stoner rock” has been
getting used way too much over the last couple of years; god knows
I've
been guilty of throwing the phrase into a review every now and then. My
first gut was to call Black Mountain's
sophomore effort a good stoner rock album and leave it at that; after
all, this is most certainly the first im-
pression this album gives
off. But it only takes a few more listens until you realize this
record is so much more
than a simple two-word descriptor could ever
display. Sure, there is no shortage of heavy guitar power chords,
but this band of Canucks manages to pair that at various times with
synthesizers, harmonized pop-like vocals,
power ballads...you name
it, they drag bits and pieces of nearly every style of music into
their oeuvre. Crap,
they even manage to get a little prog-rock from
time to time and it kills (as opposed to making my ears want to
fold
in on themselves like most prog-rock). I know the year has only
started, but this album is by far the strongest
contender for
greatest album of the 2008, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised
if they finished the year in
that spot. (SLAP)
Destroyer
Trouble
In Dreams
Merge
Records
- 8 out of 10 -
I was recently
having a conversation
with a friend about how Destroyer is pulling a reverse T-Rex...Marc
Bolan
started out all folky, some of the original “freak folk”
stuff really, but slowly T-Rex morphed into a rock band over
their
last few records. Destroyer is going the opposite route – Dan
Bejar really made his name off of earlier
upbeat glam rock albums
like “Thief” and “Streethawk: A Seduction”, but his last
couple of offerings, this record
included, have mined a more delicate
territory. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just different, and
it isn't
universal of the entire record – stand-out track “The
State” really gets amped up in the most perfect Destoyer-
like way,
a testament to the melding of glam and noise in all the right ways.
I might not
point to this record as a
starting point for folks interested in seeing what the fuss is about
behind
Destroyer (see the earlier mentioned records), but it's still
a very good listen and no doubt a release that will
see a lot of air
time on my stereo. (SLAP)
Morrissey
Greatest
Hits
Polydor Records
- 5 out of 10 -
I am a man of
mixed emotions here –
giving anything Morrissey puts out a low score is close to blasphemy,
but I simply cannot back this choice of top songs in any way, shape
or form. Read this rating as an average
of a perfect score of 5 for
the music with a fat zero representing the decision to call this
group of tracks
“Greatest Hits”.
To someone who
has followed the man
for, well, decades at this point, a quick look at the track list told
me
things were off – of the fifteen tracks, nine were from the last
couple of records and two were new, leaving
a whopping four songs to
cover his previous sixteen years of stellar recordings. For me
personally, I'd buy
the record anyways for the two new tracks...but
what of the casual fan, or the young kid just looking to get into
Morrissey's music? This would be an awful choice, simply put (or as
awful as any comp of the man's material
could possibly be).
I'm quite
certain nearly every fan of
this fine artist would come up with a different track list for a
“Greatest Hits”
record (me personally, any comp not including
“Speedway” or “Sing Your Life” needs to be sent back to the
presses), but I'm positive we would all agree that overloading it
with new songs is not the way to go.
For those
seeking a much better
“Greatest Hits” album (but still far from perfect in my book),
check out the
album titled “The Best Of” released in 2001. It's
obviously missing songs off his newer albums, but it does
a much
better job of sampling his entire catalog up until that point. (SLAP)
Sunset
Rubdown
Random
Spirit Lover
Jagjaguwar
Records
- 8 out of 10 -
It's pretty
obvious that Spencer Krug
doesn't like idle time...watching TV, goofing off with friends,
hanging
out in coffee shop, whatever. It's just not possible,
because if he ain't writing/playing/recording/touring with
Wolf
Parade, or helping out with Frog Eyes, he's making even more new
music with his solo gig Sunset
Rubdown. This is his third release
under this moniker in the past three years; and while Sunset Rubdown
was
meant as an outlet for his more “adventurous” songs, I
honestly couldn't tell you what the difference is between
a Sunset
Rubdown track and a Wolf Parade one. If anything, the songs might be
a little mellower on average,
but not profoundly so. All of his
tracks continue to mine a strange world where folk psych has been
married to
glam rock...lots of instruments and layers to the music,
often a sea of chaotic noise with islands of pop
brilliance...all of
it sounding very immediate and up front the way the record is mixed.
“Random Spirit Lover”
might actually be my favorite of all of his
solo works, and nearly as good as the Wolf Parade modern master-
piece
“Apologies to the Queen Mary”, and that is no short praise in my
book. (SLAP)
Why?
The
Hollows EP
Anticon/Tomlab
Records
- 8 out of 10 -
Why? have always
been an extremely hard
band to pigeon hole – they release their albums on the well
re-
spected hip hop label Anticon, but their music is this strange hip
hop/indie rock hybrid that is nothing like what
has come in the past
when people have made attempts to meld the styles. The main man
behind Why?, Yoni
Wolf, has his spoon in many pots, from his other
group cLOUDEAD to collaborations with the like of Thee
More Shallows
to Xiu Xiu to Subtle to Themselves to...well, you get the idea –
the dude is all over the map.
I bring this up
because Why? has just
released not one but two EPs around their new song “The Hollows”
(some might also say these are just singles with bonus tracks, and
I'm not even sure where you draw the line
at with this sort of thing
anymore so I'm sticking with EPs) – one EP to be released in the
U.S.A. On Anticon,
and another to be released in England on Tomlab
with an entirely different set of songs outside of the title track.
Consider this a
review of both EPs -
the title track is fabulous, as you might expect if you heard the
band's
amazing last record “Elephant Eyelash” - this song is very
much a continuation of that sound, overflowing with
catchy, quirky
lyrics delivered in Yoni's unique speak/sing/rap style. But the real
prize for both EPs is the
second track on the US release, a Dntel
remix of a previously unreleased track that is one of my favorite
songs
I've heard all year, one of those tracks that you keep playing
over and over and putting on mixes for your friends
until they get
sick of you talking about it. The British release also contains a
remix, this time by Boards of
Canada, a fine track in and of itself
but when measured against the other remix it just can't measure up.
After
that, each record has a couple of covers – not Why? covering
other artists as is usually the case in these sit-
uations, but rather
other artists (Half Handed Cloud, Dump, Nick T, Xiu Xiu) playing Why?
songs.
My only
complaint is that these tracks
were thrown on split releases instead of put out as one long player,
but
the music is so damn enjoyable it is hard too get too upset over
such a minor inconvenience. (SLAP)
The
Makes Nice
This
Time Tomorrow
Frenetic
Records
- 8 out of 10 -
There are no
shortage of great bands in
the Bay Area right now, and you could easily make an argument that
The Makes Nice are the best of the new breed. This trio is a
“supergroup” of sorts, at least in my mind, as all
three members
were once or still are members of other San Francisco or Oakland
bands that I've been a big
fan of for years (The Fuckin' Champs,
Harold Ray: Live in Concert, and The Mothballs). “This Time
Tomorrow”
is their sophomore effort and second album of the year,
and word on the street is they write songs like Robert
Pollard on
speed so hopefully the pace that they are putting out new music will
continue, especially if the quality
is this high. If you're looking
for a description of their sound, try to imagine the best possible
combination of late
seventies/early eighties power pop bands like The
Nerves, 20/20, and Shoes crossed with fuzzy late sixties
rock groups
like The Small Faces and early Kinks. The Makes Nice may sound like
some group of stuck-in-
the-past music snobs, but trust me – this is
now music and some of the best pure pop music coming out these
days.
(SLAP)
Most
Serene Republic
Population
Arts
& Crafts
- 7 out 10 -
Canada rock – so
hot right now. It's
like the whole damn country can do no wrong right now. “Population”
is Most
Serene Republic's second full-length, but the sound is so
fleshed out and mature you'd think they have been
around for ages. As unbelievable as it seems, they have somehow made
their
songs even
fuller of sound,
packing instruments and harmonized vocals one on top
of the other to the point where at times it sounds as if it
might
collapse in on top of itself. Song-wise, the EP they released just
before this album (“Phages”) was a hair
stronger, but
“Population” more than holds its own. If you've never come
across this band and want to know what
they sound like, try to
imagine if someone took Broken Social Scene, Aloha and The Polyphonic
Spree, stuffed
them in a sack, then shook'em around and dumped them
in a studio with about a million different instruments at
their
disposal. The results may not be for everyone but they really paint
my wagon. (SLAP)
Super
Furry Animals
Hey
Venus!
Rough
Trade Records
- 7out of 10 -
The greatest
Welsh pop band of all time
returns with their 8th album, and it's a
gem...one of
their best maybe,
certainly my favorite since the stellar “Rings
Around the World” of 2001. Their prototypical sound, that of
modern
version of the Beach Boys, gets infused her with hints of
electro-pop – a move that would typically turn me off
but somehow,
it really works. Mostly because they understand the concept of
restraint, and that overusing a new
sound or gimmick is a sure bet to
turn folks off of it. The pop sounds are still king here, with each
song catchier
than the next, but their sonic explorations do a dandy
job of heightening the overall feel of the record. It's a rather
short effort, just a little over half an hour, but I've always been a
less-is-more kinda dude anyways and it really
works with this
material. (SLAP)