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Biirdie - Catherine Avenue
(2008, Love Minus Zero/Drive-Thru Records)
It's somewhat condescending when writing about an artist to begin by referring to said artist as "charming". If we were doing free word association however, that would be my instinctual response for the Los Angeles based Biirdie. Fortunately, in this case, there is much more to say.
Comprised of idealistic wanderers from various corners of the U.S., Biirdie has a sound that is ditinctly American and specifically Southern Californian. Their group harmonies and homespun melodies often inspire the moniker of "indie rock's answer to Fleetwood Mac". A casual listen to their second release, Catherine Avenue, may leave the impression that these are innocent songs with simplistic arrangements. Closer inspection reveals a deeper layer of depth however, and lyrics that yearn to re-examine missed connections while lusting for geographical cures.
Biirdie has a flair for playing long songs that don't seem that long when you're listening to them. That's because they're constantly evolving, unfurling even. Songs often begin with an elegant simplicity before slyly adding instuments or subtly leading into increasingly grand new phrases. The changes come about so naturally and organically that it's easy to forget that these moments have to be orchestrated.
In other hands these songs could very well lead to dull pretense and stuffy self-importance. Refreshingly however, these players know the difference between engaging intensity and pointless high drama. They're also not above a bit of sillyness as eximplified by their Camper Van Beethoven-ish cover of The Texas Tornados' "Who Were You Thinking Of?" or "Estelle", Birdie's equivalent of The Beatles' "Don't Pass Me By". It's an unapologetically goofy singalong which suddenly comes into beauty in the closing minute or so.
Over and over again on Catherine Avenue Biirdie show that they don't just know what the musical conventions are, they also understand how those conventions work and how to use them effectively. It's an unassuming album that doesn't so much demand your attention as it does reward it, especially for us misanthropes who more often than not are mistaken for nice.
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Zillionaire - The Street Lights Have Been Turned Down
(2008, New Granada)
An album like The Street Lights Have Been Turned Down probably won't grab you on first listen and that's okay. It doesn't really want to. The band responsible, Tampa based indie quartet Zillionaire, doesn't deal in hooks and riffs anyway. Instead the emphasis is on nuance and sophistication. Zillionaire is also a band which bears the distinction of carrying on a tradition as opposed to revelling in a trend.
Zillionaire's sound combines the deliberation and intertwined guitars of mid-90's slowcore with elements of the more restrained indie acts of the same era (think Bedhead or Versus). The guitars are, for the most part, free of distortion with deep tones and clean chords that are permitted ro ring free.
One of the halmarks of a truly great album is that the strongest run of songs, the ones most distinctive of the band's identity, come in the middle. Though each of the tracks on Street Lights... have their individual merits, there is a sizeable chunk of the album from around "The Incident of the Water Heater" through "Turn It On" in which it becomes more apparent that the musicians have put a considerable amount of time and thought into these arrangements. These songs are something of a cornerstone for the album with gorgeous vocal couplings and entrancingly simple guitar lines that gracefully compliment eachother while building to a satisfactory release in the occasional noisy sections.
Zillionaire's overall mood may seem dour and gloomy but at times there is the spark of a wry sense of humor. I mean come on the lyrics to "No Contest" are almost entirely comprised of titles from Versus songs. Possibly a statement that they're aware of the occasions in which they put their 90's influences front and center? Zillionaire needn't feel self-conscious of sounding derivative, especially when they're picking up a torch that's been mostly cast aside for quite some time.
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Arizona - Fameseeker & The Mono
(2007, Self Released)
While recording their new EP, Fameseeker and The Mono, the Brooklyn based indie/psych/folk band Arizona were apparently so taken with my fair burgh of Asheville that they now claim partial residence here proving once and for all that they are typical New Yorkers, but I digress.
I'm coming to terms with the reality that I was just expecting way too much from Fameseeker. Last year Arizona released Welcome Back Dear Children, an album so crammed with clever hooks, surprising turns and neat ideas that it left most listeners baffled that the band was still unsigned. Unfortunately, even though it's strong enough and has some nice moments, this new release just doesn't pay off the way Welcome Back... did.
Recorded by Danny Kadar who has worked previously worked with The Avett Brothers and My Morning Jacket, the songs on Fameseeker sound bigger and more grandiose than the band's previous work. They delve deeper into their love English psych-rock a la The Byrds and The Small Faces too. Unfortunately, while the depth and breadth undergo quite an expansion there's not quite as much going on on the surface. For the most part, Arizona's distinctly creative song writing (the main aspect that made Welcome Back... so undeniable) takes a back seat to the production.
The opening track begins pleasantly enough with "Thimble". Its breezy summer day verse launches into an epic, guitar driven build whose early promise quickly deflates into a good but rather uninspired mid-tempo rock jam. The next few songs follow in suit, sounding fantastic but failing to distinguish themselves from the rest of the stack of psych-indie releases that's been piling up in my room since since last Spring. At last, on the final two tracks, the songs find a footing and make much better use of the production. Both "Street Sweeper" and the closing "Imaging You" bring back some of the band's personality and charm while using the studio tastefully to spruce up the arrangement.
This EP seems hasty to distance itself from the bands lighter, home recorded early work. Hopefully next year's promised long player will do more to expand the strengths that Arizona has already established. I may well regret these words after continued listening but Fameseeker and The Mono just sounds like product of a band that's trying to grow up too fast.
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Art in Manila - Set The Woods on Fire
(2007, Saddle Creek)
Ever since the members of the much-beloved Azure Ray went their separate ways both Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink have grown steadily in their powers as songwriters and performers. Fink in particular has travelled the world expanding both her horizons and her sound with more nuanced arrangements and dynamic vocal presence. While touring in support of her 2005 solo album Invisible Ones she selected the best collaboraters from her ever rotating backup band to form what would become Art In Manila. The name of which is a tribute to Art Bell, the recently retired host of AM radio's "Coast to Coast".
Whereas her previous work often featured songs with dreamy, free-form structures and delicate melodies, this new musical outfit seems to keep Fink more anchored allowing her voice to take on a more commandingly expressive, at times even sultry, quality. She retains enough of her free-spirited otherworldliness to keep things interesting but for the most part adheres to conventional song structure. Stylistically, Set the Woods on Fire really tests limits of were this new band can go. There are mournfully desolate ballads like "Precious Pearl" and "Time Gets Us All", a couple poppy rockers like "Our Addictions" and the album's title track and even an appropriated version of Les Savvy Five's "The Sweat Descends". The last few tracks don't quite have the same momentum of diversity as the rest of the album but remain pleasant additions nonetheless.
Throughout Set the Woods on Fire Fink's voice soars angelically and with more control than I've ever heard her demonstrate The rest of the band keep things nicely grounded with compelling arrangements and neat little compositional touches to discover repeated listening. The songs are easy to love and go down smooth. Overall this is not an especially adventurous album, it is however a graceful step into a more mature next phase in the career of a very talented indie favorite. And occasionally, with tracks like "The Abomination" and the phenomenal title track, Art in Manila demonstrate what they're really capable of with masterful songwriting and graceful sincerity. There's more than a little to love in this band and I really want to hear what they do next.
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Vulture Whale - S/T
(2007, D'Elegante)
After last year's fan-freaking-tastic solo album, "1:50 in the Furnace", Birmingham, Alabama's Wes McDonald is back with a new long-player and a new band. While I'm glad to see a new release from this awesome new Alabama scene, Vulture Whale is still in the formative throes that good bands go through as styles mesh and instinctive musical bonds are formed. They may have done better to wait a few more months to work out more of these kinks before releasing something. That is to say that their debut is strong but spotty.
Vulture Whale works best when busting out those old school, turn-of-the-90's, blue collar Southern indie rock jams which are McDonald's halmark. Fortunately that happens often. Songs like "Baby in the Oven", "Take it Easier" and especially the epic "Land It" really show off what Vulture Whale are capable of with strong song-writing, solid musicianship and an undeniably sincere Southern flavor.
There are a couple though like "Shoulda Been Rockin" and "Rearranged" that, octane fueled barn burners they may be live, don't really come across as well here. They're played exceptionally well and flaunt the skills of guitarist Les Nuby but unfortunately they don't feel so much like songs as a pile of obligatory southern-rock genre cliches.
All in all this is a band I wish I could see live. They make great music and will undoubtedly make great albums. They just need a little more time to let the sound gel.
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Utah Carol - Rodeo Queen
(2007, Stomping Ground)
It's apparent from the opening bars of "Rodeo Queen" that Chicago Husband/Wife duo Utah Carol know a thing or two about writing music that billows with a lonely loveliness and just a hint of twang. The knowledge that Grant Birkenbeul and Jija Davis have released a mere three albums in their 12 years of musical collaboration should clue you in on the laid-back pace that their songs follow. Having been satisfied up until this point with a local following in Chicago and a larger fandom in Europe, "Rodeo Queen" has the potential to finally bring these two to the attention of the U.S. indie community.
Let's get this straight right now, we are not talking about the dour downbeat drudgery that has invaded indie rock in the last few years. Utah Carol is way too sappy, and I mean that in a good way, to be completely lumped into the Americana genre. Their style falls somewhere between Iron & Wine and The Starlight Vocal Band mixed with a bit of Ida or Mojave 3. Nearly the entire album is sung in unison by both Birkenbeul and Davis with a smooth, breathy sweetness. While varying in both style and substance, the songs of "Rodeo Queen" are all draped with the same blanket of low-key dreaminess conjured by the lovers' dual warbling.
Despite Utah Carol's propensity for starry-eyed sentimentality, the lovey dovey schmaltz so rampant in some other couple bands is actually kept to a relative minimum. Don't get me wrong, that element IS present but most of the songs paint overly romanticized pictures of the love that got away and all the accompanying notions of regret, heartache, obsession and self-sabotage. With soft guitars and sweet melodies Birkenbeul and Davis often seem to be telling personal stories of other people's lives which is all well and good as long as they keep doing it with such a bleary-eyed, twinkling, coffee house kind of panache.
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Through The Sparks - Lazarus Beach
(2007, Skybucket Records)
Through the Sparks hail from Birmingham, Alabama. They play a paticularly easy going yet thoughtfully paced and structured brand of psych-pop. They're on the same page with bands like Big Star.
On May 1 they'll release "Lazarus Beach". It's an impressive enough collections of songs made all the more impressive with the knowledge that it's their first long player. With an other worldly musical camaraderie and tasteful sensibilities they maintain a perfect balance of grim playfulness, subtle depth and engrossing melody.
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My Teenage Stride - Ears Like Golden Bats
(2007, Becalmed Records)
Why I Like The Band My Teenage Stride
By
David Cole (age 12)
There is a band called My Teenage Stride and I like them because they sound like all sorts of different bands from the 80's. The band's leader is named Jedediah Smith, he can play lots of instruments and writes hundreds of songs.
Their new album is called "Ears Like Golden Bats" and when I play it, it reminds me of listening to the college radio station in 1985. Some songs sound like New Order, other songs sound like Modern English or The Smiths or very early R.E.M. or even The Jesus and Mary Chain.
The songs on this record are all up-beat and make me remember good times from when I was in middle school and heard songs that I liked in movies about teenagers. Also none of the songs are too long, most are only two and a half minutes long so there's no time to get bored with them. The music is all sparkly and shimmery and the melodies are real pretty.
If "Ears Like Golden Bats" had come out in 1985 I probably would've bought it and listened to it everyday and been perfectly happy.
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The Saps - C'mon Already, Start A Fire
(2007, The Saps)
Is it too early to start naming my favorite albums of the year? Probably. All the same, I honestly can't imagine that there'll be ten albums in the next nine months that'll grab me more intensely than this one does. With an energetic catchiness that also sparks with a haunted sense of genuine damage, The Saps have qualities that elude most of their peers. Qualities that, despite effort and experimentation, cannot be replicated or manufactured.
Having released a handful of EP's and one other album over the last seven years, this Chicago quartet has dispensed with the formative flights of fancy and emerged with a well defined sound and an album that deserves a national audience. The new long player, "C'mon Already, Start A Fire", churns with aggressive hooks and the creative spirit of a band just hitting its stride. The guitars buzz with the reckless abandon of the kids down the street and at the same time know when to back off and exhibit just enough finesse to be taken seriously. Also every member playing a stringed instrument is named Dan.
One of these Dans also delivers the vocals. My favorite artists are usually the ones that make me want to pay attention to the words. Dan doesn't disappoint! Lyrics about Fourth of July heart attacks, talking to dead friends, fishing used as an extended metaphor for dating and all manner of physical and emotional injury are woven into each track with formidable cleverness and melodic subterfuge. Dan chooses wit over pretense and self examination over self indulgence.
Each of the ten tracks on "C'mon..." possesses a keen distinction from the rest without sounding incongruous. The album just jells perfectly as few do. There are no two songs that sound anything alike and there's not a stinker in the bunch. Every and each one of them make perfect mix tape fodder and will at some point be utilized in that capacity by yours truly.
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Paper Airplanes - Boyhood
(2007, 54 Degrees 40' or Fight)
One word you hear over and over again in the description of Paper Airplanes is "ambitious". For MY money that's an apt term for any three piece that attempts to keep as many balls in the air as these three guys do on their debut, Boyhood. With a roster of guest musicians that easily dwarfs the list of players proper and an unquenchable craving to constantly redefine its own form, it's little wonder that Paper Airplanes draw comparisons to everyone from The Arcade Fire to The Flaming Lips to Built to Spill.
There's nothing more exciting than a band willing to test the limits of its own formula. As listeners, we know all the time that there is the potential for brilliance or failure. That's why most of us listen to, or try to write about, independent music. Did the last couple of sentences sound hyperbolically dramatic? That's kind of what the songs on Boyhood are like.
Mostly the songs are a successful fusion of ambitiously epic arrangement, musical tension and emotional weight. When it works it creates an album that is more literary story arc that just a collection of songs. When it doesn't work (that's around track #9 for those playing at home) everything loses balance and entropy occurs. The arrangement can lose focus on its emotional core and attempt transitions much too clever for existing conditions to bear. Luckily, when these stumbling blocks are...stumbled upon, Paper Airplanes' youthful exuberance and ear for captivating theatrics pull everything back into balance.
Boyhood, with all its overreaching cleverness and grandiose arrangement demands a little familiarity to appreciate fully. On the other hand this is one of the few albums roommates have inquired about after overhearing when passing in the hall.
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Brent Amaker and The Rodeo - S/T
(2007, Self Released)
I can't really tell what this album is supposed to be. Is it a novelty? Is it trying to be a real country album? Is it making fun of country? Is it a party trick that got out of hand?
There is a grace period of about three minutes at the beginning during which I thought maybe I was listening to something special. Recorded on an analog 4-track in glorious mono, the production does a wonderful job of capturing the feel of your Granddad's old country western 45's.
The first track, "You're No Good", is actually a very good song. Though not all that original it is successful in conjuring a dusty, AM radio vibe. As the album progresses through its 24 minute running time however, any chance for the music and its production to conjure more nostalgia is constantly shattered by Amaker's cringworthy lyrics and intrusively inauthentic delivery. There are a couple other moments of hope however such as the album's final track, "Babe".
I believe that these people have heard vintage country music, I just don't think that they understand it. The Rodeo's biggest drawback is the misguided notion that being a country singer is merely involves a deep voice which touts its own rowdiness. There are no themes of sorrow, shame, regret or loss that are the staple of great country music. When you shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die, something has to happen to make you hang your head and cry. Also Country singers rarely threaten that their backing band will kick your ass.
As a son of rural Appalacia I feel compelled after hearing a Pacific Northwestern hipster sing the lyrics "I've got a little hillbilly in me." to say, "No Brent, I'm sorry but you don't have even a little hillbilly in you."
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Ghost Stories - Quixoticism
(2007, Sonic Boom Recordings)
With Quixoticism, his debut album under the moniker of Ghost Stories, prolific indie collaborator Ron Lewis has delivered an easily lovable album that neatly sidesteps most of the trappings of your average collection of bedroom recordings.
Don't get me wrong, I love the lo-fi but in the 15 or 20 odd years since the rise of the releasable bedroom tape the genre has moved from the arena of self-produced to more-often-than-not the arena of the self-indulgent. Nuggets of earnestness and song-craft are often squelched by recordists who don't know when to stop adding tracks or incessantly muddle everything with wierdo tape manipulation. If the song were a chicken nugget then the production would be a 50 gallon tank of honey mustard.
Ghost Stories, by comparison, always sounds like a band. Lewis has obviously taken his time plotting out these recordings. There are layers and undercurrents on Quixoticism but never more than what needs to be there for the sake of the song. These tunes are warm, catchy and brandish a disarmingly inviting familiarity for fans of upbeat but even tempered indie-pop. Quixoticism is a nearly perfect album. The first truly great debut of 2007.
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The Asteroid #4 - An Amazing Dream
(2007, Rainbow Quartz)
On these frosty overcast days of mid-winter I usually seek out the familiarity of simple melodies heavily blanketed in swirling reverb. Something airy yet grounded, melancholy but not self-indulgent and, most of all, something that can be at once expansive and sparse. These sounds are my aural comfort food. On their fourth album, An Amazing Dream, Philadelphia's The Asteroid #4 have delivered such an album.
Having never heard of The Asteroid #4 I'm thankfully spared the bias some critics have from the band's apparently awful preceding effort. All I know is that I love An Amazing Dream's billowing...um, dreaminess. Most of the songs are build around a strumming acoustic rhythm guitar peppered with the shimmering jangle of an ultra-effected electric. The ethereal airiness is kept firmly cemented by a grounded yet unassuming rhythm section. The drums and bass work together as an inseparable unit, keeping the momentum brisk and oak solid.
The album only has two real missteps. One is "Into the Meadow", a dismally white bread murder ballad that is very repetitive, very boring and very long. The other is tacked onto the end of the "Belong", the epic closing track. A few minutes after the song ends there is a two and a half minute session of pretentious ramblings about Alan Ginsberg, and yes it is as lame as it sounds.
The Asteroid #4 owes much of their sound and fashion to bands like The Trash Can Sinatras, The Ocean Blue and The Church. In fact An Amazing Dream contains a faithful rendition of The Church's "In Your Eyes". If this were released 17 years ago you'd probably have Dave Kendall introducing a video for "Ask Me About Pittsburgh" or "Go Ahead" on 120 Minutes. And with that last reference I betray my age and will now take my leave, thank you and good night.
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