Professional Flowers-Protex Biome/Genome Shuflr

Professional Flowers is yet another project of the ever prolific Matthew Sage, he of RxRy, Wellington Down, and his own self-titled work. One would think a solo artist wouldn't need so many different nom de plumes for their music, but Sage has always had a clear & distinct idea as to what each project represent and sounds like. As such, Professional Flowers feels like it exists in its own world, or more accurately, like it's trying to bring worlds together. Professional Flowers' sound is based in Sage melding manipulated field recordings to modulated synth sounds so that the natural sounds unnatural, and vica versa, with Sage exploring the dichotomy when placing those two sounds together. The Protex Biome tape is what happens when those sound blend into each other in the most organic way possible. It pulses with a certain life, with not only every sound blending into the next, but the whole album feeling like it's alive, constantly expanding and contracting, but always trying to bloom. It's the sound of various nature recordings playing at once as Mage cuts between them and soundtracks them at the same time.



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Genome Shfulr is the inverse of that sound. Harsher, and more random, the tape is the result when the sounds don't meld together at all. The contrast is sharp, the more earthy sounds rubbing sharply against the various synth beeps and whirls. In fact, the sounds Sage creates Genome Shfulr feel almost unnatural at times, as if he sampled space signals and TV static when crafting these songs. It's frantic and almost intense at times, with Sage purposefully making nearly every "track" on this tape short so as to not let them unfold, unlike how they did on Protex Biome. Even the longer tracks, like the three minute closer "Cloud Slurp", is just as jarring as the rest of the tape. Yet, although there's a schizophrenic sound at play here, Genome Shfulr still mirrors the beauty that was present on Protex Biome as well. For there are some lovely and lush moments buried underneath the squeals and sharp cuts of Genome Shulfr, much like their are hints and bits of murky darkness laying within Protex Biome.




Links:

Professional Flowers' Bandcamp

Album: The Slasher Film Festival Strategy-Crimson Throne

I don't like horror movies. In fact, I hate horror movies. I am possibly one of the biggest scardy cats in the world, so horror movies, and the horror genre as a whole are the antithesis to me in every way. However, as I've discovered over the past few months, I think I rather enjoy horror movie soundtracks, or at least music inspired by them. There was that creepy Espectrostatic song that cracked my interest in murky electronics. But what really clenched it was the Slasher Film Festival Strategy tape Wet Leather that my friend Tom gave me that I just feel in love with; all dark, throbbing, and tense as hell synth lines and never let you escape. And now, to truly cement my love, The Slasher Film Festival Strategy has released the album Crimson Throne as well.

Crimson Throne doesn't have the same methodical tension that Wet Leather had. Don't get me wrong, Crimson Throne has the same sense of dread, maybe more so, that was on Wet Leather. However, that kind of tension can't hold steady over 40 minutes, nor is that something Slasher Film Festival Strategy wants to do over this album. Instead, he creates something that ebbs and flows, an album that draws you in with the the eerie, but almost lovely lull of "Weightless" or "Frozen Alter", before dropping into the fast moving, throbbing, and ever approaching lurking of "Terraformer" and "Cosmic Burial". It's all in the albums center, the initially lovely done horrifying "Thermal Event" as it shifts from airy and floating melodies, before the industrial drum machine clicks on and the synths suddenly develop a darker quality to them. The just sad and ghost-like digital message that plays over the string like synths of closer "Day 18" end the album on just the right note. Crimson Throne is a dark and murky album, the monsters conjured by its synths and drumbeats waiting to escape and crawl into your nightmares.



Links:

The Slasher Film Festival Strategy's Tumblr
Buy Crimson Throne here, from Foreign Sound

Album Review: Joanna Gruesome-Weird Sister

Joanna Gruesome do this amazing cover of Galaxie 500’s “Tugboat” live. It unfortunately didn't make it onto their debut album Weird Sister, but it still needs to be heard by all. Over almost five blistering minutes, the band manages to take one of the loveliest and fluffiest dream-pop songs ever made and turn it into a series of noise-pop explosions, turning the song's inherent sweetness on its head, into a sonic dagger that communicates this hidden desperation & anguish that lay hidden inside the song next to its heavy longing. And yet, Joanna Gruesome is still able to hold onto the song’s heavenly core, despite the newly added ruckus that now surrounds it.

That, in a nutshell is exactly what Weird Sister is like; ten hyper sonic bursts of pure, genre worthy noise-pop perfect songs that manage to truly balance both aspects of that tag. It’s all there from the get go with “Anti-Parent Cowboy Killers”; the blitzkrieg of out of tune guitar riff before the song bursts into fuzzy chords and Alanna McArdle’s coo like vocals for the verse, and then explodes again during the chorus, McArdle now shouting her lyrics and the guitars harsher and more violent. Yet, always there is some sort of earworm melody being played by one of the band members, or some catchy as hell passage just waiting around the corner. “Sugarcrush” opens by blatantly ripping of My Bloody Valentine’s “You Made Me Realize”, then pulls a 180 and proceeds to be one of the most straightforward blissfully and infectiously catchy songs on the album, complete with boy-girl trade off vocals. (My Bloody Valentine is actually a strong, secret influence throughout the album, and it’s really interesting to hear them used as something other than a shoegaze influence, especially in the likes of “Do You Really Want to Know Why Yr Still in Love with Me” and “Madison”).

Nowhere is this give and take more clear than on album centerpiece “Secret Surprise”; what might be the best indie-rock song I’ve heard all year, it opens on a perfectly degree of tension, McArdle’s vocals being spat out against pounding drums and feedback squeaks that let you know the band is itching to start making some noise. But when the track does, it is utter, UTTER perfection. The guitars are at their catchiest and noisiest, the riff this sort of warped jangle progression to burrows deep into the album, the track increasingly becoming more and more manic, and the violent imagery of the song piling up. It would be hard for a band to try to top that, so the band begins to cool down, performing their only ‘long’ song “Candy”, which will soundtrack nerdy indie dork slow dances for years to come. The band gets one more burst with “Graveyard” (which feels like a Bikini Kill song on PCP and covered in glitter), before ending on “Satan” which rightly ends up being Weird Sister’s most effortlessly dreamy track.

A solid chunk of Weird Sisters is actually appropriated singles & songs that Joanna Gruesome that the band had recorded previously. Weird Sister though never, at any moment, feels fragmented or pieced together. In fact, I doubt fewer debuts have felt this confident or energetic since Los Campesinos!’s Hold on Now, Youngster… and I don’t make that comparison lightly. These tracks are brimming with a sort unrepentive youthfulness, an angry, snotty, and bratty as hell youthfulness, but a sense of life that is missing on so many albums now. Weird Sister is compacted and compressed indie-pop chaos. It is the result of throwing ten different indie rock gods into a blender and pouring the result into wax form. Weird Sister is just pretty damn perfect.



Links:

Joanna Gruesome's Facebook
Buy Weird Sister here, from Slumberland Records

Album Review: Holograms-Forever

How does a band whose music was already rooted, defined really, by its anguish, turmoil, and loneliness make those emotions more powerful within their songs? How does a band not only reinforce the emotional core of their songs, but make them more earnest, in turn making their songs more powerful? If you’re the members of Holograms, you just build from situation. Coming back from their first real tour, behind their first album, they returned poor, unemployed, and emotionally removed and divorced from their home. While a situation like this would normally cripple a band, Holograms somehow used it to their advantage, channeling the batter of their lives into the ten emotionally charged tracks of post-punk intensity that make up Forever.

The shift in Holograms sound is felt immediately once Forever begins. The songs are moodier, and have an added weight to them, as if some unseen and dark force was dragging at the band. A good portion of this can be attributed to a change in the dynamic of the band’s sound, i.e. how the synths are utilized over the album. Previously giving Holograms’ songs bustling and charged up feel like a machine falling apart, here they have become broader, not so much an instrument the way the guitar/bass/drums are, but now almost like a coating to the songs, giving the songs a presence that straddles the line between melancholy and unease (though it does come roaring back at times, to great effect, such as the explosive chorus of “Rush”).

With this shift in play, the band concentrates on fine-tuning their songs in terms of emotional power, but expanding their sound away from just intense post punk. The ragged and tense energy of the band’s previous efforts are still in full effect, just listen to the fury of “Meditations” and its anguished cries as a chorus, or the driving bass and cries of opener “A Scared State” if you need proof. However, even these tracks are tempered in comparison to the band’s debut. There is weariness to them in a knowing sense, that the lyrics can sometimes convey more than a burst of energy. It can be heard in “Ättestupa” in the way it lurks and staggers before the chorus comes in with the pained but defeated call of “I’m so tired” again and again. And that’s what’s at play here. A band batter and bruised to such a degree it has altered their sound and perspective. That’s how “Flesh and Bone” can be four minutes of blistering punk, but conveys almost nothing but pure hopelessness. How a song named “Rush” can have a breakdown through its midway point in order for the band to pick up stream to get to its noisy conclusion. Or how the slowed down and moody Joy Division-esque confessional “Wolves” can be one of the best tracks on the album. The album ends with “Lay Us Down”, an musical cousin of sorts to “Wolves”, that is a slow, steady, and nosier march to the inevitability of death that seems perfectly fitting to close out Forever with. How else could Holograms go out on Forever then by facing totality?





Links:

Hologram's Website
Buy Forever here, from Captured Tracks

Album Review: Weekend-Jinx

I’m listening to Weekend’s debut album Sports right now. I had to grab my copy because as ashamed as I am to admit it, it has been a while since I listened to it and couldn’t properly recall most of the songs (except for “Coma Summer”, which will become an indie noise rock staple in five years, mark my words). While it was spinning, I am clearly reminded of what was buried in the back of my mind; namely how much Weekend used noise to shape their sound. Throughout Sports, there is this static (both literal and figurative) layer of noise over the songs, used to bring emotional weight and intensity, raising and falling accordingly. I think that was so captivating about Sports when it first came out; it had been a long time since a band had been able to really be so unique with embedding noise into their music.

I bring all this up because after three years between albums (and one EP to help with the transition), it’s sort of unbelievable how much Weekend have scraped that noise aspect from their sound on Jinx. Not entirely, but enough that it really can’t be a defining factor for the band anymore. More so though, is what that removal has revealed underneath. Under those layers of fuzz were/are some absolutely astonishing gothic post-punk songs. And just like how Weekend was creative when they were utilizing noise, so too are they creative with their new sound.

I mean the opening should be the biggest tip off. The drone that breaks the silence as opener “Mirror” starts, the panned bursts of static, the steady thump of the drum all make it seem as if it’s going to another explosive opener like “Coma Summer” did. Instead an almost jangle guitar line cuts through, and Weekend keep pulling back throughout the song. It’s instantly clear Weekend are trying to evoke something much more now; a deeper sense of the emotions and pathos that were secretly always at the core of Weekend’s songs. Just listen to the chorus, nothing but the repetition of “I feel sick in my heart” over and over again. If the melancholy couldn’t be detected through the music, they sure as hell can be felt in Shaun Durkan’s lyrics. However, “Mirror” is just the intro to the actual rest of Jinx, a testament to Weekend continuing to push at how their band should sound. The glorious “July”, so warm in its guitar wash it feels like Ride if Robert Smith had secretly joined the band. Then contrast that to the next song “Oubliette” which has a much more post-punk snarl to it, almost feeling like a lost song by their friends and former peers Wax Idols, before the chorus comes in with its lovely solo call-and-response echo to it. What might be the best track on the album, “It’s Alright”, perfectly melds this industrial, almost drum machine stomp to a blur of My Bloody Valentine guitars that’s just three and half minutes of hazy guitar rock heaven.

Then all of that is contrasted by the atmospheric songs that the band included that not only serve as a counterbalance, but also help enhance the entire mood and core of the album. Album centerpiece “Sirens” is a blur of warped vocal effects that creates a fog that forces the song’s components to slowly rise out of the muck. It builds more and more, than just as quickly fades out again, and while it seemingly passes by in the blink of an eye, its presence is a giant puncture of attention, as the song sits heavy and informs the rest of the album. “Rosaries” follows a similar path, the band concentrating on the song’s cold, atmospheric core to channel something truly haunting, and equally devastating considering how few lyrics are used. It’s all buried underneath the haze of the song, but instead of hiding anything, it amplifies the emotions you know are buried underneath.

Jinx ends with “Just Drive”, the closest they get back to their old sound, a six minute sprawl (at least here) that jumps between post-punk bursts and noisy goth rock, with the band practically fighting to pick which style to channel. And along those minutes, almost every aspect of Jinx is in some way put into display, the way Weekend have evolved pushed into one song. And it’s completely memorizing, just like the rest of Jinx. What Weekend have managed to do here is what every band wants to do with their second album; step out of the shadows of their previous sound (as great as it was), and create something even better. Jinx defies most set in stone genre tags; a synthesis of goth, indie rock, post-punk, noise rock. Jinx is dark, noisy, turbulent, saddening, and utterly, utterly excellent.



Links:

Weekend's Website
Buy Jinx here, from Slumberland Records

Album Review: The Mantles-Long Enough to Leave

Christ, why does it take me so long to get into great bands? The Mantles are an absolutely wonderful pop band out of San Francisco band who have been churning out singles, EPs, and albums steadily for the past three years of pure, pristine jangle-pop. Wonderful jangle-pop that I purposely ignored for reason that I can’t possibly fathom right now as I sit here listening to Long Enough to Leave.

What’s nice is the small shifts in sound The Mantles make within their songs to keep them consistently interesting. This is displayed from the beginning with “Marbled Birds”. It opens with a simple, twangy guitar line, interweaved with a steady tambourine beat, the just as bright bass line, and another guitar melody. The song stays steady, incurring an almost beach like feel, especially when the background “ahhs” come in during the verses. Then the song picks up, the guitar ringing a little louder, the vocals a bit more impassioned before ending on this lovely, chiming outro from the way the guitars play off each other. Being part of the San Francisco scene to a degree seems to have helped shaped their sound so it doesn’t follow the same linear path that a good majority of jangle pop albums work along. Drawing from the fractured garage-pop of peer White Fence and from shambolic pop work of the early English DIY scene, there is a scruffy undercoating that lies at the heart of many of the songs on Long Enough to Leave. It might not seem like much on the surface, but for an album so firmly rooted in a specific sound (wilting guitar encased within a Velvet Underground obsession and simplicity), it’s these small shifts that elevate the pop records to greatness.

The result is ten tracks of restless, effortless, and sublime guitar-pop. “Raspberry Thighs” could easily be a secret Real Estate song that the band passed along to The Mantles to record. “Bad Design” bridges the gap between Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Boomgates in its fuzzy three minutes. The title track shows how skilled the band is at making melody, building half the song around just some off-kilter guitar playing. Painting Long Enough to Leave as a sunshine record, though, would be a mistake; the album title itself being the band’s little tip off. There are slightly darker edges lurking within the album, from the skewed pop of “Hello” to the cynical sage wisdom of “Don’t Cross Town” (which has this absolutely wonderful two second build-up pop to deliver its chorus). Once the Television Personalities-esque “More Than I Pay” (right down to the influx of the vocals to make them sound more English) comes in, the intended scope of Long Enough to Leave becomes clear. The band is coating the melancholy that lies at the core of all their songs in a thick shell of never ending guitar hooks and earworm melodies. And it all works because the album is a lovely collection of sublime, if brief jangle-pop excellence.



Links:

The Mantles' Tumblr
Buy Long Enough to Leave here, from Slumberland Records

Album Review: Wax Idols-Discipline & Desire

Discipline and Desire shouldn’t be as surprising as it is. Anyone who heard Wax Idol’s “Schadenfreude” 7” (and I did) would know they were already shifting their sound to something darker and fleshed out then the scrappy punk of No Future. Despite that precursor though, Discipline and Desire is a completely different beast, an excellent expansion of the band’s darker qualities that pushes them into the goth and post-punk realm, and are all the better for it.

All this become immediate to anyone listening once the tight and taught whiplash of opener “Stare Back” kicks in. The guitar riffs, now distortion and reverb coated, fill up nearly the entire track before everything drops as frontmen Heather Fortune’s vocals, now fuller, more pronounced, and a tad more evil, trade off with drum smacks as the bass holds steady in the background to create just the right level of tension. Then everything bursts into these amazing, bursts of noise post-punk. It serves as the perfect opener, not necessarily in style but in tone and the more experimental bent Wax Idol take here compared to No Future. There is “Echo and the Bunnymen if they tried to be the Jesus and Mary Chain” clamor of “Sound of the Void”. The “Dum Dum Girls on speed, playing shoegaze” swirl of “The Cartoonist”. Or the intense, goth band chime of “Dethrone”. Everything on the album is sharper, more personal and haunting, as if Fortune dipped each track into a newly blacked part of her soul before recording them.

More so there is the band’s willingness to showcase atmosphere on the songs. It’s felt throughout the entire album, in large part thanks to the wonderful production that somehow manages to make the band more polished while simultaneously giving everything on the album a murky, hollow quality. But tracks like the icy-queen, goth trance of “Scent of Love” or the banshee like howl and echo of “Elegua”, capture a bleek, gothic air and quality that would never have been imagined on No Future. This is best represented by the band’s centerpiece, the blistering dissonance and euphoria of “AD RE: IAN”. It is the one point of the album were Fortune vocals aren’t tinted by anger or intensity, instead dropping to a near whisper for the verses to communicate the sadness trapped within the track before exploding into a burst of noise (tempered by woodwinds and strings) and collapsing into the emotionally anguish and some of the catchiest hooks on the album. “AD RE: IAN” embodies everything Discipline and Desire is aiming for with this album, and how it can work so well because despite the multiple different directions this song takes, it still wind up being thee catchiest and best song on the album.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few people who pick up Discipline and Desire and hate it. Those going into the record expecting the same modern, ‘70s punk style that Heather Fortune and co. presented on their debut No Future, and getting instead this dark, twisted reinterpretation of ‘80s post-punk, goth, and new wave instead. Those people are fools. Discipline and Desire is deeper, more powerful step forward for the band. A demonstration to how a shift and expansion of a band’s sound can pay off dividends and create something richer and everlasting, despite the well-crafted gloom all the songs are cast under. Discipline and Desire communicates its focus to making a much more intense and personal statement as clear as glass, and is all the greater for it.



Links:

Wax Idol's Tumblr
Buy Discipline & Desire here, from Slumberland Records

Album Review: Youth Lagoon: Wondrous Bughouse

There was such a degree of intimacy to Youth Lagoon’s debut The Year of Hibernation, it was almost overwhelming at times. Over the album’s eight songs, bandmaster mind Trevor Power painted sonic landscapes that at times felt like you were peering into his journal and soul; hushed coos of pain or sadness that gave way every song to floods of aching emotion and bombast. There was such a poignancy and intimacy to the songs one had to ask how Power would be able to capture that again.

With Wondrous Bughouse, Youth Lagoon succeeds by not even attempting to do that. The album is not so much a “next step” as it is a complete rehaul of the band in terms of not only sound but scope. The hum and buzz of the intro track “Through Mind and Back” should be the first warning, but one isn’t given enough time to get lost in it before the album bursts, not builds, to life with “Mute”. “Mute” lays the foundation for the rest of Wondrous Bughouse; it’s a sprawling slice of experimental pop, filled with dense production and piano & effects that just pop in and out, making the music instantly much more fleshed out than most of the tracks on Hibernation. Power’s vocals are now no longer the quite whisper they once were. While not necessarily “powerful”, they are no longer buried, and are treated like the expressive tool they can be. In fact, the few songs that do mimic Youth Lagoon’s old style, like the acid-tinged trudge of “The Bath”, are still warped and twisted in their sound (like the echo-drenched vocal effects) so they don’t feel detached from the rest of the album.

Animal Collective also seems to cast a large, positive shadow over the album. How else to explain the off-kilter hop-scotch that is “Attic Doctor”, with its staccato piano lines and myriad of seemingly random samples that fill every crack of the song. Or the cascading builds and falls of “Sleeping Paralysis”? Elsewhere the influence is less prominent and direct, but still leads to the same effect; Power’s is truly experimenting with his sound, and it leads Wondrous Bughouse down some kooky and sublime roads. I doubt something as bizarre or wonderful as the prog-like build and climax in “Pelican Man”, which doubles as the album’s center as well, could have been imagined to exist on any Youth Lagoon album ever, but here it makes perfect sense. Same goes for “Third Dystopia” and its swelling brand of fuzzy, indie pop, or the fractured and dark psych-swirl of album closer "Daisyphobia". Every track defeats a previous expectation of what was expected from a Youth Lagoon song, and show the true scope of the album. The fact that nearly all of the work in the weird, askew ways is just all the better.

If The Year of Hibernation was like a blanket to wrap yourself with, then Wondrous Bughouse is the album for when you open the door and step back into the world. In an alternate reality, the album would be the soundtrack to a more adult-version of the Alice in Wonderland cartoon. Wondrous Bughouse is an album you fall into, one that swirls around you and takes hold of every senses. The damaged psychosis is felt, from the new instrumentation to the cover art, but just as the album title exclaims, there can be something great within that as well. And Youth Lagoon truly found it here.





Links:

Youth Lagoon's Facebook
Buy Wondrous Bughouse here, from Fat Possum

Album Review: Beach Fossils-Clash the Truth

One of the biggest complaints lobbed at the recent crop of jangle/guitar-pop bands that have risen over the years (and to a certain degree, formulated the Captured Tracks sound) is they all blur together, that what the likes of DIIV or Real Estate create is just a minor variation on the other, with nothing new or creative coming from the bands. Despite how wrong this opinion is, instead of delivering a intense & profanity laden speech at these people, from now on I'm just going to give them a copy of Beach Fossil's Clash the Truth and watch all their criticisms melt away.

The jump between Beach Fossil's debut and what they've accomplished with Clash the Truth is sort of staggering. Much like how label mates Wild Nothing were able to expand the scope of their sound with Nocturne while it still feeling perfectly like a Wild Nothing's release, so to have Beach Fossils. While we got hints of this back when the band released their "Shallow" 7" last year, the effect is much more present in album form. The hazy production has been sharpened immensely, and front man/band mastermind Dustin Payseur's vocals, while still smeared in healthy doses of reverb, are much cleaner and prominent through the record. The guitar playing, along with the rest of the instrumentation, has improved as well, becoming tighter, more confident, allowing the other genres that creep into Clash the Truth (shoegaze, dream pop, folk), to be pulled off just as well as the band's jangle pop.

All this helps to reinforce Beach Fossil's shift from swooning over a nostalgic past to concentrating on the present. While their debut was filled with sentimental reflections on their past and their lost carefree life ("Youth", "Lazy Day", "Golden Age"), Clash the Truth is just the opposite of all that. Opening with the title track that blares with a riff ripped right from the Sex Pistol's "Pretty Vacant", the last half of the song is sprawl seemingly abstract words that are in reality the various emotions that Payseur is trying to manage. "Generational Synthetic" is condemnation of the apathetic & fake world/generation Payseur feels he is a part of, contained within a song with such bounce that it will probably be picked up by the same people as just another indie tune. The revamped version of "Shallow" that appears here is even more urgent than it's predecessor, the volatility and desire for escape much more present in the shoegaze echos and speed that now form its core. Even "Caustic Cross" with its the simple, wonderful bobbing guitar line and math-rock drum beat, contains the sharper message of taking a stand and not throwing out your views when it is convenient.

Not that Clash the Truth is just one long examination of modern life; it also happens to be a nicely loud and bursting indie rock record. With Clash the Truth, Beach Fossils have fully understood the power of the instruments they are using, rather than the almost one-dimensional approach they used on their debut. This fact is clear from the brief instrumental/ambient tracks the band use to break up the album, to the krautrock outro that perfectly closes the album on "Crashed Out". The quiet roar of distorted and echo blasted guitars on "Careless" is as soaring as it is absolutely gorgeous. The miniature, Whirr-like build ups of "Burn You Down" as the drums crash more and more over the track's perfect bass line will bounce around my brain for days. Or the the utter twisted beauty of "In Vertigo", which as the band get as close to shoegaze as they have ever gotten before, pulling of the hybrid sound that emerges perfectly. Clash the Truth is pure, guitar-pop excellence; dream-pop at it's smartest and finest, with Beach Fossils adding so much to a genre that people underwrite. If every jangle pop band can make this evolutionary step, the genre is going to see some classics forming very soon.





Links:

Beach Fossil's Facebook
Buy Clash the Truth here, from Captured Tracks

Album Review: Iceage-You're Nothing

Aggression and anger were the fuel that ran through Iceage’s New Brigade. The metaphorical life blood that powered the band, this is despite the fact that for the most part there was an underlying restraint to New Brigade. Sure, Iceage’s debut could become intensely loud and blistering fast, but looking back they held a lot back; letting their songs collapse beneath clanging, guitar created noise rather than detonating them, or within the lyrics, which communicated mood easily but emotions only in the vaguest of sense. The catharsis was always tangible, but never completely realized.

You’re Nothing is the long coming release, a band that has shed their protective, apathetic shell to embrace raw, pure emotional turmoil, anguish, and energy. The shift happens a minute into the opening cut “Ecstasy”, after just pummeling your ears with an metallic, icy, and coiled guitar and drum barrage, drops to a crawl for the chorus of “pressure/pressure/oh god no”, with frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt shifting his usual detached bark to a throat tearing yell. You can almost picture him clutching head as he sings the lines.

“Ecstasy”, besides signifying the new emotional/cathartic release that Iceage embrace throughout You’re Nothing, also establishes how the band has somehow managed to become much noisier in their songs, yet somehow also become catchier in the process as well. Take the second track “Coalition” which is an even more of a blur than “Ecstasy”. It sounds like a hardcore band playing a shoegaze song, right down to the sexual confusion of the within the lyrics, the guitars are little more than rising and falling pitches of distortion. Yet, they work so well, giving way to a chorus with even more guitar ferocity that still manages to contain the central hooks of the songs as the lyrics are spewed out in the blink of the eye. The album follows this formula nearly throughout, presenting a bleak, angry, aggressive, but memorizing beginning before launching into a chorus that doesn’t shed any of these elements, but still brings in a new, addictive sheen that cements the likes of “In Haze”, “Burning Hand” and “Awake”. Even songs that deter from this like the piano laden “Morals” (which I don’t know how the band managed to pull off within the context of You’re Nothing but did), still operates perfectly on the principle of tension and release that Iceage create throughout this record.

The band’s lyrics and Rønnenfelt’s vocal delivery are the secret weapon on You’re Nothing though. What will probably be an over looked element due to Rønnenfelt having a Colin Newman level accent, the vocals are not the most prominent element in the mix, but are a notch higher than they were on New Brigade. Their higher presence is a necessity to emphasis the increase lyrical power the band has obtained on You’re Nothing. The lyrics are clear, goth influenced prose that capture a growing sense of despair, lack of self-worth, and emotional torment caused by other people. But the lyrics are not just black hole of darkness; the band paints in shades, bringing flickers of light and understanding, however brief their presence maybe. He sings with such pitch-perfect vitriol that even when listening to a track composed entirely in Danish, “Rodfæstet”, one can still feel the intensity contained in every word. By the time the album reaches its closing and title track, the repeated shouting of “YOU’RE NOTHING” feels anything but one dimensional, instead feeling like no other lyrics would do the song justice.

Aggression-rooted music truly isn’t a style that truly allows for evolution because then next step for those emotions (sadness, apathy, possibly happiness) are in such a different direction from the source the end result winds up sounding nothing like the starting point, and in turn worse. You’re Nothing proves how wrong this is, how fury, channeled Joy Division-like realism and intensity, channeled through nihilistic prose can result in something not just better than their last effort, but glorious as well.




Links:

Iceage's Website
Buy You're Nothing here, from Matador Records

Album Review: Ty Segall-Twins

We, music fans and music critics, really don't like prolific artists. Yes, the concept of your favorite band/artist releasing an armful of records in a year in a half rather than just one LP every few years sounds appealing, but it tends to backfire quite easily. In order to reach the title of "prolific", one usually has to put out so much that quality starts to fade, not to mention the effort in figuring out which releases are worth it, and having on top of the various side projects to keep track of as well. To be able to do something like release three albums in one year, and have them all be quality is a near impossible feat of musical prowess. Guess what Ty Segall did this year?

Twins is Segall's third release this year, and it is superb. While it could be argued that he’s been able to maintain this degree of quality thanks to others (the first album this year, Hair, was a collaboration with White Fence, and the second, Slaughterhouse, was worked out with his bandmates), but it is a testament to Segall to still have this level of work left for his “official” solo release of the year. Not to mention, I believe those previous albums helped to focus Segall into truly focusing on how Twins should sound.

That is to say Twins is monstrous. More akin to his Melted-era sound as opposed to the more stripped down sound he tried out with Goodbye Bread, but in a more mature fashion. The album is filled with some of the most creative uses of fuzz and blown-out guitar that I’ve heard on a garage record. It’s very easy to just crank an amp to 10, hit a pedal, and get by on pure energy, but Segall has moved beyond that process to something more. Opener “Thank God for the Sinners” sets the stage early, serving as a much more muscular intro cut than say “Goodbye Bread” was, launching in a flurry of fuzzy guitar riffs that somehow get amped up by the time the chorus hits. It manages to be intense and in your face without ever being overbearing in the least, much like the rest of the album. “You’re the Doctor” channels paranoia and anger into a truly manic guitar thrashing that does not let up during its two minute duration. “The Hill”, the most melodic track on the album, also has an otherworldly beauty to it as Segall’s vocals are layered with Thee Oh Sees’ Brigid Dawson’s as a drum fury and guitar screeches play underneath them. Segall’s vocals especially have been fined tuned for this release from their brattier days to nicely balanced punk tenor, switching between melodic growl and high pitched coo to fit with the track.

“Inside Your Heart” and “Ghost”, the two slow burning, bluesier numbers on Twins, while perfectly fine as individual tracks, feel somewhat out of place on the album with their stretched out solos compared to the smaller ones that punctuate the rest of the songs on Twins. They don’t ruin the flow, but disrupt it a bit. However, the album picks up a massive amount of steam again in its second half, especially with rockers like “They Told Me Too”, “Who Are You” and “Handglams” charging a steady, solid pace to the finale. Even “Gold on the Shore”, a bare acoustic track and the only real throw back to the Goodbye Bread sound manages to work here, in no small part due to its off-kilter nature. Twins reaches its last, and possibly greatest high point with closer “There is No Tomorrow”. A slice of sun baked pysch garage, it manages to be sludgy, melodic, and wistful all at once, as well as being a sort of summary of the entirety of Twins. Twins has this just inherent classic rock feel without at all sounding like classic rock. It already feels sort of timeless Nugget’s perfection, the type of record archive labels will be putting out for years. Above all else, Twins is great record.



Links:

Ty Segall's Website
Buy Twins here, from Drag City Records

Album Review: Gap Dream-S/T

It's usually a little cheap to compare a band to their fellow label brethren to explain their sound. While it seems logical, it has a tendency to limit perspective and unintentionally pigeon-hole not only the bands, but to an extent the label as well. However, I know there will be nothing limiting about talking about Gap Dream in the same breath as his label mates on the glory that is Burger Records.

There are various ways to approach the make-up that is Gap Dream. Gap Dream really is the work of one man, Gabriel Fulvimar, who can almost be considered an elder statesman in the certain circles of the garage rock underworld. Those facts are brought up not because Gap Dream's debut sounds purely like that of one man or purely retro, but they do inform the music.

The closest it can be described is if Conspiracy of Owls (70s AM radio loving who released their debut LP on Burger as well) had asked King Tuff to start fronting their band. Much like King Tuff, Fulvimar has the ability to be steeped in the old while still bringing in new ideas (not to mention a slightly similar high pitched vocal quality). Tracks like "Go Ahead" and "My Other Man" really showcase this as they have a deeply laid back, psychedelic feel to them; they wouldn't sound out of place pumping of a car in the the '60s or '70s. Still, Gap Dream is not a a one trick pony. The outstanding opener like "58th St. Fingers" is a dark, moody slice of excellent psychedelic, with just a hint of folkieness infused within it that really just sets the album. In fact, the whole album has bleak undertone to it. While it never overshadows the music, and the album still has sweet summertime hooks and vibes, the sense of melancholy on a song like "Leather" with Fulvimar singing about that "You have your demons and I have mine/Let's hope that they never combine" cannot be ignored either.

However, like I said, Gap Dream never drowns under those emotions, instead producing an album that is very three dimensional. Fulvimar is a master at crafting garage-psych gems and has in turn crafted a gem of an album. It says something that Burger Records was will to repress this album onto vinyl after already doing a run of cassettes. Gap Dream is destined to soundtrack several hot, summer nights, lazy, drug filled days, as well as a few broken hearts, and that is just absolutely perfect.



Links:

Gap Dream's Facebook
Buy the album here, from Burger Records

Album Review: Rat Columns-Sceptre Hole

Rat Columns' debut album is a difficult one, but not in the standard ways an album is usually viewed as "difficult". It doesn't have an excess amount of noise or purely random moments. Instead, Sceptre Hole twists the core of the band's sound from song to song in such a way that it keeps the listener on their toes as to what the album will come back with next. It's dizzying without being disorienting.

To be fair, I don't think any listener would have expected such a sharp change to occur with Rat Columns. What was a one-man band creating simple, bedroom and indie rock filtered post-punk, has now greatly expanded into an actual three piece band that in turn has greatly expanded the band itself. Gone is the sense of minimalism that shaped the band's 7". Instead, the band crafts a type of noise infused jangle pop that they are able to reform into all kinds of different ways. Compare the jagged-ness, fuzzy, indie rocker "Death is Leaving Me" to the Minks like swirl of "Ashes of a Rose" and it takes a second to realize it's the same band crafting both songs. However, the record never feels like it was just pieced or thrown together. Rather Rat Columns use a sense of darkness to connect everything together into a nice neat package. Haunting instrumentals are used to open and close both sides of the LP, paired along with Gothic cover art and song titles allow for these sensations to creep in slowly. In turn the band is able to create something like the Phil Elvrum channeling "Summer Thighs" and noise rock of "Dying Days" without creating dissonance. The whole album melds together perfectly, despite each song being able to jump out at you when you least expect it.

I'm listening to Sceptre Hole again, like I have intermediately for about the past month. And it seems appropriate that it's take me that long to fully digest this album. It's an album full of so many different varying twists and turns that you find new aspects to a song only after the fourth or more listen. Sceptre Hole is an album that reviles itself slower than you think, but the end result is completely worth it. One of the best growers of the year, in every positive sense imaginable.





Links:

Rat Columns' Tumblr
Buy Sceptre Hole here, from Smart Guy Records

Album Review: Youth Lagoon-The Year of Hibernation

I was beyond excited about The Year of Hibernation. After being exposed to the tear jerking beauty of "Montana" (more on that song in a second), I jumped on my computer as quickly as possible to pre-order it. When The Year of Hibernation finally arrived, I tour into the packaging as quickly as possible and threw it on my turntable. As the album began to engulf me I noticed something old. For some reason there were no lyrics to be found anywhere within the packaging, surprising due to Youth Lagoon's Trevor Powers' singing style leads to an obscured sense to what is being sung. Normally this isn't a problem for me; as the large connoisseur of lo-fi pop it's just another wonderful quality and characteristic. But I did something out of character. I jumped on my computer, found all the lyrics, and compiled my own personal lyric book to accompany my listening of the album.

That I feel speaks volumes about the music we are dealing with here. In a time when it takes monumental effort to just listen to 4 song EP all the way through, to be willing (me at least) to want to engage with every aspect of the music is saying something. In this case, how utterly emotionally beautiful this album is. I know that is probably the biggest thing whenever Youth Lagoon is brought up, but that's because of how good they are at it. I think that's mostly to their ability to sidestep nostalgia in the traditional sense, and the way a lot of modern bands trigger it. This is an album completely built around keys and synth, possibly the most used instrument in modern indie music, yet manages to be so much more original with it than others. This is especially true in the way all the songs build to big, cinematic endings. From the moment "Posters" evolves from simple piano tinkering toward beat blasts and perfectly placed guitar work, it's obvious The Year of Hibernation is bigger than just the eight songs contained would have you think. By the time the album reaches it's climax with "Montana", a song so powerful and beyond words that morphs from haunting piano lines toward thunderous piano lines that sound like Powers' might wind up destroying his instrument, the entire magic of the album has sunk in.

Equal parts beautiful and dark, The Year of Hibernation is one the best records, never mind debuts, of the the year. It's subtly majestic in all the right ways, quite when it needs to be, and loud and bombastic when it needs to be as well. It engulf your body for 35 minutes once it starts, and lasts for days after. And you will appreciate every moment of it.


(mp3) Youth Lagoon-Cannons
(mp3) Youth Lagoon-July
(mp3) Youth Lagoon-Montana

Links:

Youth Lagoon's Blog
Buy The Year of Hibernation here, from Fat Possum Records

Album Review: Total Control-Henge Beat

Total Control has built a nice reputation for itself over the past 3 years; releasing four equally acclaimed 7" of post-punk greatness. However, if it weren't for the band name being printed on the sleeve, one would think each single was by a different band. The first was manic herky-jerky guitar play, the second traced out synth post-punk, the third descended into pure minimal wave bleakness, withe the fourth concluding the saga on two tracks of synthy ambiance. The different styles actually worked though, spread out over the singles (and if one had an open mind to what was next to come). However, there comes the problem with creating their debut album Henge Beat. Which of the sounds created over the many singles is the one they choose to represent them on the LP? And the band came up with the perfect strategy: shove all their styles onto the grooves, and balance it by making all the songs great.

First, it needs to be said that Hedge Beat is a very cohesive record. Everyone of the eleven songs works in the context album, working very hard to avoid a large amount of juxtaposition (more on that in a second). It just doesn't achieve this through a singular sound. What the album does is present the songs, and bathes them in the same atmosphere and tone; that being one of paranoia, darkness, and claustrophobia. The harrowing and sparse "Meds" encapsulates this perfectly, a total sense of ;despair and nothingness. This in turn allows something like the synth built tension of "See More Glass" to exploded into the post-punk berserkness of "Retiree" despite how much the different styles would usual poorly contrast the album. Pretty much every of the band's past styles is represented in some form on Hedge Beat from the quiet, instrumental of "Shame Thugs" to the spaced out synth of "The Hammer". The only time the band's various sounds collide is with Hedge Beat's centerpiece "Carpet Rash", a sprawling 7+ minute track that shouldn't work within its context, but like a lot of moments on the album, does. It has the same angular and trebled guitar work of the post-punk tunes, but also the distant and robotic feel of the more synth based ones; mending both styles perfectly in combination to everything Total Control is.

One of the strongest debuts of the year, wildly different than everything that is usually being promoted (but would you expect anything different from an Australian band?). Wild and cathartic, yet controlled and precise: a mixture of contrasts that results in perfect post-everything style music.

(mp3) Total Control-See More Glass
(mp3) Total Control-The Hammer

Links:

Total Control on Bandcamp
Get Henge Beat here, from Iron Lung Records

Album Review: iceage-New Brigade

The sudden blog heavy love for iceage will probably go down as one of the most surprising pushes for a band this year. Not that it is unwarranted; far from it. As anyone who has managed to a copy of New Brigade in the US (not an easy feat, by the way) can attest to how good the album/band are (more on that in a second). But the fact is this is a band has been around for almost two years, and released a seven inch that served as a precursor to most of what's on New Brigade to not so much as a squeak from the blogosphere (though it did do great in the punk circle that iceage original come from). The sudden yelp of blogs, who rarely care for punk bands unless they are covered in lo-fi (not that there is anything wrong with that genre either), seems to have come out of nowhere, along with the equal strange desire to lump iceage with with the emerging "darkwave" scene.

So the best to approach New Brigade is to strip all that precedent that presides it and simply view it as an album that serves as the first impression for a band truly not known in the US. That means New Brigade is possibly one the best first impressions to ever be made. In a sense, its the same feeling I got when I listened to Cloud Nothings the first time, even if it triggered completely different emotions. The same immediate, yet strange catchy-ness that is attached to it that caught me off guard because it was their first release. "How is it possible for a band that just started to be this good already?"

Iceage are cynical, nihilistic kids from Denmark, making equally dark, nihilistic punk as an out growth of their life and surroundings. There is a clear cut hardcore back bone to it, but stops itself from being that. Nor is it post-hardcore; lacking any of the guitar work or direct sounds that make up the genre. Instead it's as if Pink Flag era Wire had decided to try to make a hardcore album, and succeeded. Much like Pink Flag, New Brigade jumps from one style to another with grace, from direct catchy punk tunes ("Broken Bones, Remember", "You're Blessed"), more experimental numbers ("White Rune", "Collapse"), to the most frenzied of songs ("Total Drench", "Count Me In"). All the while, the same trebled-to-the-max guitar lines, near blurred drum beats, and apathetic vocals make up the core of every song, yet always come out new or different on each song as well. It's potent without being overwhelming. Loud and cathartic, but excellent melodies buried within as well. New Brigade is as excellent a punk record as any blog piece has said it is. When both Altered Zones and Maximum Rocknroll are agreeing on the merits of an album, it is for good reason.

(mp3) iceage-White Rune
(mp3) iceage-Broken Bone
(mp3) iceage-Collapse

Links:

iceage on myspace
Pre-order New Brigade here, from What's Your Rupture? out June 21

Album Review: Panda Bear-Tomboy

Some pretext: I was not looking forward to Tomboy the way the rest of the world was. I had only heard snippets of the beloved album of yore that was Person Pitch, and no aspect of what I heard from it compelled me to seek out the rest of it. So the build up to Tomboy (the various mp3s, the singles found in record stores) was like hearing a new artist for the first time. Coupled that with the fact that Person Pitch does not serve as a frame of reference, and my view of Tomboy obviously lacks the prose and/or mindset that others will.

That all being said, virgin Panda Bear ears or not, Tomboy is a minimalist yet gorgeous album. Where my love of this album comes from is hard to fathom though. Everything that makes up this album, from the sprawling electronics to the use of vocals almost completely as an instrument is the obvious precursor (or now with this album, antithesis) of a genre I don't really like (chillwave). The album is also built on slow, stark, and simply beauty, something I rarely enjoy or appreciate in music I listen to. When I do, it's from the painful, quiet, organic side of music, i.e.Bon Iver or the Microphones circa The Glow Pt.2, not in the synth washed land of Tomboy. Yet, Panda Bear works these pieces into the glory of Tomboy, making everything I would normally run away from into something engaging and lovely with each passing listen.

In a general sense, every song on Tomboy has the same skeletal sound to it. A simply, yet intuitive piece of electronica looped over and over again while bombastic (but not intense) vocals come in win a mix between a one man gospel and one man Beach Boys. It's how each song is approached differently that creates the separation and in turn the expansion of the album. From the slow sprawl of "You Can Count on Me", it's like being transported the inside of a bleak dreamscape. Hollow and barren, punctuated only by the bursts of sound created by Panda Bear. "Slow Motion" a shimmer marvel of deconstructed pop song, electronic dream pop at it's finest.

The album can viewed almost like a wave, building with songs like "Surfer's Hymn" and "Last Night at the Jetty", before crashing into the drone of well..."Drone". The album peaks with "Alsatian Darn", the album's obvious center piece, as well as its catchiest and brightest moment. Despite being the point were Panda Bear sounds quite a lot like Animal Collective, "Alsatian Darn" is still completely a Panda Bear song, with drum beats that sound like claps and twinkling synth lines layered over beautiful vocals and cascade like a waterfall one on top of another. The album concludes with a trifecta of quiet, bleak ambient influenced tunes, ending in with the albums longest song "Afterburner", who's ending creates a spiral of music that keeps going and going and going...until the needle pops off suddenly and Tomboy is over in the blink of an eye.

(mp3) Panda Bear-Last Night at the Jetty

Links:

Panda Bear's Facebook
Buy Tomboy here, from Paw Tracks

Lost Gems: Television Personalities-I Was a Mod Before You Was a Mod

In the musical world, so much is released only to disappear without a trace. Creative, experimental, boundary pushing, great music is lost without a notice or second glance. In order to fix this I shall go, one by one, to bring to light all that I can... if I find them.

1995 was not a good year for the Television Personalities. The band had tolled in obscurity for years and band mastermind Dan Treacy's drug problem was just getting worse. Within a few years Treacy would find himself in jail before starting anew and getting everything back on track. However, before all that wound up happening, the band would produce one of their best and underrated albums I Was a Mod Before You Was a Mod (though I'm pretty sure you can say that about any album from the Television Personalities discography).

The album easily represents all the tribulations the band was going through at the time. For one, it's a bit hard to even consider it a "band" effort. The entire record was crafted by Treacy, writing and playing everything on it. Also gone are childhood musings and mindsets of previous albums. True, the Television Personalities where always darker than people gave them credit for (one reading of the actual lyrics for "This Angry Silence" is proof of this), but when you open with something as stark as the piano lines of "As John Belushi Said" it sets a tone that the album never shakes off.

Not to say the entire album is devoid of anything that made the Television Personalities, the Television Personalities. The title track is an excellent snotty guitar pop, and the band descends into utter nonsense with repetition of "Little Woody Allen". But still the rest of the album is marred by despair and lost, from the tales of fucking up that make up "A Long Time Gone" and what appears to be its counter part the equally sad "Evan Don't Ring Me Anymore". And that is only side A, which tries at least to keep the twee image up the ungodly excellent guitar pop coming from everywhere. Slightly less falling apart than usual, but fitting in the album's context. However, side B comes out battered and bruised, five increasingly dark tales from Treacy's mind, the psychedelia influence becomes more apparent with each passing song, almost as an emphasis. Demon's swirl around in "Haunted", paranoia and delusion become apparent with "Something Just Flew Over My Head", with the entire world falling apart on "I Can See My Whole World Crashing Down". The album ends with the most Pink Floyd influenced track "Everything She Touches Turns to Gold", a bleak retelling of Treacy's past coupled with bare bones instrumentation, crafting of image of Treacy singing it in a mental hospital. While the album is without a doubt dark that is in no way a commentary on the quality of the album itself. The album was originally released on CD by Overground in the States, but went out of print long ago. Thankfully, the always awesome Burger Records recently reissued the album on cassette for the rest of the world to try to obtain.

(mp3) Television Personalities-I Was a Mod Before You Was a Mod
(mp3) Television Personalities-A Long Time Gone
(mp3) Television Personalities-Everything She Touches Turns to Gold

Links:

Television Personalities' website
Buy I Was a Mod Before You Was a Mod here, from Burger Records

Album Review: Cloud Nothings-Cloud Nothings

After one self-titled EP, one split cassette, one split CD, and three seven inches, we finally arrive at what has been building and anticipated for way too long; Cloud Nothings' debut album. Something the band obviously could have released much earlier, they instead took the path of tour and honing onto the sound they wanted to make for this album. The outcome of that winds up being Cloud Nothings, a 11 tracks in less than 30 minute album that sounds like the entire band decided to eat an entire package of those novelty sized Pixie Sticks and recorded the entire album in one take.

I bring this all up because the honest truth is Cloud Nothings is more of a pop-punk or power-pop album than it is indie rock one. Or maybe a pop-punk record with indie undertones. One listen to "Not Important" and you will be second guessing whether or not your listening to a long lost Blink 182 demo. However, Cloud Nothings has been building to this sound for a while, so it might be a simply adjustment to the band without the wonderful lo-fi fuzz that made everyone fall in love with them in the first place. Adjusting to the whine that is the actual voice of front man Dylan Baldi takes some time, but works like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah work (this is a completement).

It's not as suddenly turned into Cloud Nothings turned into a bad band. Extremely far from it. Cloud Nothings have produced an album filled to brim with overtly addicitve pop songs, bratty and snotty filled with teenage spirit, but still the stuff that buzzes in your ears' days later. The riff ricochete like they are playing a squash game in the inside of your brain. It's one of those albums where every single song can be imagined to be spinning on a 7 inch of some sort, everything from the actual single of "Should Have" to the almost completely chouse songs that are "Heartbeat" or "Rock". Although not a compete sonic blast (see slow burner "Forget You All the Time") the album is incredibly constant, manic strumming over manic symbol bashes. While a breather is needed every now and then due to the album eventually giving you a headache and blurring together, Cloud Nothings have managed to do what every super prolific artist should do: write songs you want to listen to over and over again.

(mp3) Cloud Nothings-Understand at All
Cloud Nothings "Should Have" by carparkrecords

Links:

Cloud Nothings on Myspace
Buy Cloud Nothings here, from Carpark

Bridgetown Records Latest Batch

I think I can declare Bridgetown Records to be my favorite record label out there right now. Simply pound for pound, since I discovered Bridgetown Records thanks to their Cloud Nothings release, there has never been a moment I was not interested in something they have released. Case in point their latest batch which is possibly my four most favorite releases so far, so much so that is would be a crime not to showcase it all.

School Knights-Rush S.K. EP

Here is the shinning example that no-fi music is not only alive and kicking, but producing some quality material as well. Two members from the Boulder, Colorado scene come together to produce something even more different than their previous music. About a thousand Wavves comparisons will probably pop up as a reference point, but that is a bit of a cheap shot. Instead see it for what it really is: Four uber blown out and wonderfully riff heavy indie garage tunes with lyrics about teenage child hood and all the (painful) memories that come with it. Look a up coming cassingle and 12" full length to come soon as well from this extremely talented duo.

(mp3) School Knights-Cliques

Trudgers-Bedrooms on Fire

Picking up (at least for me) where their live CD stopped, Bedrooms on Fire by Trudgers is six more tracks of dark and chilly synth music. More the doom and gloom of fellow contemporaries Puerto Rico Flowers than the beats of Cold Cave per se, Trudgers is as if a monk had decided to quit the monastery, moved to the seedy part of South Califorinia, and fell in with the goth crowd. Every part of the song, both lyrically and musically, is repeated over and over again so that what winds up rubbing off is the tone and boxed up emotion of the songs. It's raw and unnerving, but with a lot of this dark, emotional music, there is an inverted beauty to it as well.

(mp3) Trudgers-Crashing In Your Car

Jen Paul/No Lakes-1965 Ghosts+Cherry Sap

Ambient shoegaze? I think that is probably the best way to describe the work of Jen Paul/No Lakes (that's the full band name in case you were wondering). Collected here are two of Jen Paul/No Lakes previous releases, which spread over this CD-R, which strangely works as the perfect format for these 16 tracks, captures the sound of the artist. Dark night time feeling music, played with little else but a few swelling guitar notes, help invoke the very sensation that is captured by the cover art. This is music that get's set to sadness and loss, and that is meant in the very best way possible.

(mp3) Jen Paul/No Lakes-Bottled Ships

Whirl-Disstressor

It has been a while since a new release by a band I don't know has made the words "HOLY SHIT" flash like neon sign in my head, but fuck if that's not what happened when I put Whirl's Disstressor into my tape deck. After the atmospheric and moody intro "Preface", the tape snaps forward with a single sharp drum beat into the My Bloody Valentine worthy "Leave", with the most heavenly voice and blaring shoegaze riffs come pouring out of my speakers, layered perfectly on top of one another. Captured in a single cassette is seven of the best pure shoegaze tracks I have heard in a very long time. Each track is an explosion on top of another, bombastism on to itself, ending all too soon for sure just seven tracks later. The reason why Whirl rises above the sea of other current shoegaze bands is beyond me, other than the fact that their music is so perfect. This is a release that most be owned.

(mp3) Whirl-Leave

Links:

School Knights on Myspace

Trudgers on Myspace

Jen Paul/No Lakes on Myspace

Whirl on Myspace

Buy it all here, at Bridgetown Records