Future Death-BATH SALTS

I personally have never taken bath salts, but I would imagine it would be comparable experience to what is felt while listening to Future Death's "BATH SALTS". While I know that's a bit of an easy comparison, but the twisted insanity and chaos within "BATH SALTS" truly not be explained in any other way. It feels like a Marnie Stern song, if Stern decided to record a song's vocals on codeine, but recorded the instruments after taking a hit of PCP. It's spazzy and manic to say the least, with so many frantic stops and starts within it that it starts to induce whiplash, with drums and guitars that feel like they're were speedup from the actual recordings because there is no way people can play this fast. And yet, stewing in all that chaos are the most absurd form of pop-hooks, demonic and seemingly inconceivable, but there nonetheless. "BATH SALTS" is just absolutely crazy, and is perfect because of that.



Links:

Future Death's Website
Download their self-titled EP here, from the band's bandcamp

Live Concert Review: Titus Andronicus and Los Campesinos!

(Note to everyone. There are two things wrong with this post that I WILL correct as soon as I can. The first one is the lack of pictures for the show which is due to me (stupidly) not bringing my camera. While this might not count as an actual "problem" per say, due to how visual these two band’s shows are I feel they are essential for a proper review of the shows. The second one is the set list’s which I know are wrong. I will fix them as soon as I can (if you know them please email me.)

On January 31st the "Red Bull Injected Right Into Your Veins Tour" a.k.a. Titus Andronicus and Los Campesinos! Tour came to The Parish in Austin, Texas. In the 3 hour span of the two shows, mass organized chaos ensued. Dance-mosh pits, stage diving, crowd surfing both by audience and band members , and unplugged microphones all occurred in a beer and pure joy infused concert all to the delight of 350 super fans.

Los Campesinos! could have not picked out a better opening band. Titus Andronicus are 5 New Jersey boys just signed to the XL label who released their debut "The Airing of Grievances". Obviously, any band that makes references to both Shakespeare and Seinfeld holds a lot of potential and Titus deliver. Beer powered lo-fi energy rock songs that never let up for one second playing their entire album plus a song from home town hero, Bruce Springsteen. If there was one complaint, it would lead singer Patrick Stickles vocal’s which, already on the album, whether due to the lo-finess of their songs are just the Jersey accents, are already hard to understand, reached an almost shoegazing level of distortion added to the lo-fi quality of their equipments. However, live, this was more of a plus then a problem.

After the a 20 minute gap between, Los Campesinos! came onstage. For does of you who don’t know (and why not?) Los Campesinos! play the greatest twee-punk pop ever with some of the wittiest and heartrenching lyrics added on top. While all these elements sound and should add up to the Welsh equivalent of an emo band like My Chemical Romance or The Used, Gareth Campeinos’ (they all share the same fake last name) cryptic and humor filled lyrics, plus some of the best melody add up to simply great music. Plus have in Pavement and Broken Social Scene as your key influences doesn’t hurt either. But the question always in the air was whether or not to they could match the energy they created on their albums. The answer, was a 100 % yes.

Opening with "Ways To Make It Through The Walls" the crowd, which had unfortunately stayed rather still during Titus’ set instantly and literary jumped into action. Creating the indie rock equivalent to a mosh pit, the energy never let up for on second. Pogoing never fit music so right as know when the band started singing "The International Tweexcore Underground"; even the people not dancing didn’t care how many times there were being bumped into. The connection was between the band and audience was strong the whole night. When the band launched into fan favorite "You!Me!Dancing!" a crazy/stupid/super fan jumped on the club subwoofer and danced along with the song twice! (That would be your’s truly by the way.) The entire concert was littered with moments like this. DVDs given to the band with boners drawn on each (it was a reference to the music), singing happy birthday to keyboardist Aleks, Garath jumping into the crowd then jumping on the subwoofer with Aleks to sing finale "Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks", and the whole band jumping into and crowd surfing. The only thing missing was a huge pile of confetti pouring from the roof.

Titus Andronicus’ Set ( They played all these songs, I just have the order wrong.)
1.Fear and Loathing In Mahway, NJ
2.My Time Outside the Womb
3.Joset of Nazareth’s Blues
4.Arms Against Atrophy
5.Upon Viewing Brueghel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
6.Bad Lands
7.No Future Part Two: The Days After No Future
8.No Future
9.Titus Andronicus
10.Albert Camus

Los Campesinos Set List(Once again, the songs are correct, but the set list is correct. However songs 1-2 and 11-14 I know are in the right order)

1.Ways To Make It Through The Ways
2.The International Tweexcore Underground
3.Miserabilia
4.Death to Los Campesinos!
5.My Year In Lists
6.Drop It Doe Eyes
7.Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown # 1
8.Knee Deep At ATP
9.All Your Keyfabe Friends
10.This Is How You Spell "HAHAHA, We Destroyed The Hopes And Dreams of A Generation Of Faux-Romantics"
11.Box Elder(Pavement Cover)/You!Me!Dancing!
12.We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
13.Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks
Encore
14.Broken Hearts Beats Sound Like Break Beats

Titus Andronicus Websites:
www.myspace.com/titusandronicus

Los Campesinos! Websites:
http://www.loscampesinos.com/
www.myspace.com/loscampesinos

Los Campesinos!-Avocado, Baby

No Blues is going to be a deeply interesting record. Maybe getting the full album will place everything in a proper context, but so far the glimpses the band has handed out are flat out startling. "What Death Leaves Behind" was soaring and euphoric, rushing with a sort of exuberance for the future that hadn't been heard from the band in ages. And now the second view point, the darker and yet strangely titled "Avocado, Baby". The song is a massive of different elements; an almost angular, post-punk edge to the instrumentation (particularly the guitar riffs and the drum beats), while light flourishes of noise swirl around in the background, and come boiling to the stop during the chorus. Here Gareth is back to being bleak, reflecting on love as an always means to the eventual end, and becoming so numb from it's effects that your heart becomes a rigid, vegetable like stone (hence the title). Yet, lurking underneath all that is a healthy sense of self-awareness. As cynical as the lines may appear, they are immediately put into perspective with the line "Just because it's not going to get any better/Doesn't mean it's going to get any worse". Even when Gareth basically shouts the song's central line ("A heart of stone, rind so tough it's crazy, that's why they call me the avocado, baby"), the next time it's heard, it's sung by a choir of children, suggesting a knowing sense as to how childish that view point might actually be. "Avocado, Baby" is a clash of depression and realization, that as close to death as your feelings have left you, it might actually be that terrible in perspective.



Links:

Los Campesinos!'s Website
Pre-order No Blues here, from Heartswells Records

Album Review: Los Campesinos!-Romance is Boring

This could be so much easier for me. I could just type out “This album is fucking, fucking great, buy it already you nincompoops” and my job would be done. But instead, I will be pouring over it in minute detail in order to explain how great this possible album of the year is (yes, I’m calling it already, sue me).

In any other circumstance, this album would get the “2nd album” label, with people saying it is too much of a departure from their first album. But thanks to We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, everyting just seems like the next logical step for the band. They manage to sound even bigger than they previously, how I don’t know. The mountain of sugar high energy fueled indie rock is brought to greater heights with some very twisted horns and vocal layering, with even the new, slower songs having that high octane feel to them. Harriet’s violins manage to sound so well timed and always actually add to the songs unlike so many bands who incorporate them for no reason. Gareth has also grown even more as a lyricist, not to say he was bad before. Few other people can express so much, communicating humor, pain, and passion and you knowing exactly what he’s getting at, yet coat everything a crypticness that could leave you examining and reexamining one line again and again.

Of course at the end of the day it all amounts to how good the songs are and so many obvious concert staples are created here. “In Medias Res” opens the album in the most unlikely way, with a build up and-gasp-acoustic guitar. A Xiu Xiu style break in the middle and girl show expansion while girl and death wallowing connect you back to the source. The one-two punch of “There are Listed Buildings” and “Romance is Boring” hits you with classic LC , full of super jangly riffs and hooks, shouted lines and the mission statement of the album. “Plan A” dives into pure noise rock and the post hardcore the band is actually found of, with a sweet candy center course that’s actually sour at the center. “Straight in at 101 is one of the most addictive and funny songs on the album, with Gareth singing about romance and sex and having one of the best opening lines ever of a song (“I think we need more post-coital and less post-rock”). It moves nicely into “Who Fell Asleep In” a stab at the church, religion, and their effects on the song’s love life. It is one of the slower songs that relies on its beauty and semi-painful lyrics and pulls it off. “Hear Swells/100-1 a treat 45 seconds of pure depression transcending into “I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know”’s explosion of an intro and another one-two of classic Los Campesinos from the gossip tale of “A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show Me State; or, Letters From Me to Charlotee”. “The Sea is a Good Place to Think About the Future” is the most depressing song Los Campesinos have wrote, a tale of a truly hurt friend, not romanticized in anyway. Topped with drum triggers, build ups and course crashes, and you get one of Los Campesinos ’s best songs to date too.

This album will split fans like hairs. Some will see it as their best to date and a band they love maturing gracefully, others that they are growing up way too fast and they gotten much too dark and obsessed with themselves. Or as Aleks’ finally curtain call, who left after their most recent American tour. But if you push past all that, you find an album that’s both super catchy and masterfully lyrical as well. Unsurprising coming from Los Campesinos , but still impressive none the less. The band isn’t maturing so much as getting out of their awkward teen years. Oh and to reiterate, this album is fucking, fucking great.

(mp3) Los Campesinos - The Sea is A Good Place to Think About the Future

Links:

Los Campesinos Website/Blog
Los Campesinos on Myspace
Buy the album here, at Arts & Crafts

Funny/Not Funny Cassettes

Funny/Not Funny Records is a Virginia based label who are a bit odd in the indie world. It's really local based, mostly supporting the bands of the area, thus leading to releases that are not so high profile. On the plus side, this in turn leads to discovery of some good stuff. Like the four cassettes they decided to send this way.

Matt Leech-Sink

What drew me to Matt Leech was his Minks meet Cloud Nothings style of music, like the wonderful "Empty Window". This tape sounds nothing like that. At all. This is the precursor to anything he is doing now. This is a tape full of banjo, and acoustic guitar, bursting of folky goodness. It definitely has a demo/4-track quality to it, something you'd find in an old moldy box of the abandoned house you decided to check out. A mix of slow burners and slightly more uptempo style, it's all very well done with a bit of Granddady to it all. The Microphones are also a bit of a unavoidable point of reference, especially with the drum work on "No Good" or depression of "Mind the Cabin Floor". There are worse things then being compared to such a great band though, and there is nothing by the number's about Leech's work.
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John Hostetter-Red Square

John Hostetter is a song writer and sometimes member of Harlem. Here in song writer form Hostetter is pretty akin to Johnathan Richman, though that's a bit of a coup out. The songs are more fleshed out than anything Richman does and Hostetter tends to scatter from one genre to another. Note the '60s throwback riff of "Frankestin" only to skip to the late '80s collage rock that is "Medusa". However, a love of Spanish guitar does become very evident, especially on the B side. An all around good tape, though it needs to be said that Hostetter could have done without the very long and jammy interludes he placed between songs.
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Andrew Cedermark/Drunk Tigers Split Tape

The cover art is perfect for this release; for the contrast between the the two bands is night and day. I've already spilled a lot of (virtual) ink over Andrew Cedermark as it is, and I am happy to spill more. Here are four more songs of Andrew's signature style of quiet to loud in a really unique way, layered in shoegaze riffs and with post Microphones influence, or maybe just straight Microphones love, thrown in as well. There's an isolation to the music that Cedermark manages to capture so well, even as the music starts to go bombastic around his words. Listen to "Lookin' for a Boswell" or "From Memory " for the best examples of this: it's actually quite beautiful. Drunk Tigers, on the other hand, are nothing like this at all. A bunch of kids from Charlottesvile , they walk the line between pop-punk and just plain punk. 5 punchy, actually quite catchy Replacement loving anthems are contained on their side. And loving the Replacements is always good in my book.

(mp3) Andrew Cedemark-Lookin' for a Boswell
(mp3) Andrew Cedermark-From Memory
(mp3) Drunk Tigers-Matchbook Tricks

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Invisible Hand-Sinister Hand

Without a doubt Sinister Hand was the biggest surprise of the whole batch. I had heard "Top of the Pops" and "The Future of Music" , and while I did like them, there impression on me did not last very long. One pop of this cassette, though, made me a convert. There is a deep post-punk edge that runs through the band, but that is much too one-dimensional. There is the drum machine looopiness of "My Heart Beat is Making My Ears Ring", then they dive into Fugazi style fierceness or they let up to a catchy indie rock mood for something like "Death Bellows CSS" or Black Tie Formal". It's not unfocused, but more the band trying not to make just one certain style of music, which isn't something you hear a lot of these days. A happy accident to stumble on, and a band to keep track of without a doubt.

(mp3) Invisible Hand-Top of the Pops
(mp3) Invisible Hand-The Future of Music

All Cassettes can be obtained here, from Funny/Not Funny Records