Author: Tanner

New Releases


Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks – Mirror Traffic
Despite originally wanting to title the album L.A. Guns and putting the hard-rocking “Senator” forward as the first single, Malkmus largely lays off the Guitar Hero: The fretboard theatrics are used more sparingly and deployed to much greater effect on “Forever 28” where a “Mr. Blue Sky” bounce is interrupted by Thin Lizzy runs, or in the thrilling summertime riff of “Stick Figures in Love”. Only three songs break the five-minute barrier, and these feel far less claustrophobic than the extended tracks on the last three Jicks records. “Share the Red”‘s shambolic waltz, for instance, goes down easier than the 10-minute-long interlocking duets of “Real Emotional Trash”. Read the full review on Pitchfork


Beirut – The Riptide
You see, “The Riptide” is a demonstration. It’s an explanation that, from here on out, the band know exactly what they’re doing; they have the style, they have the skills and they have the willpower. But “The Riptide” is not the full execution. It’s a map; an overview of what is to come.

It makes sense that this is the album to finally see a release of “East Harlem” – a song Condon originally wrote when he was seventeen. Though it appeared on the “Live in Williamsburg”, it was not in finished form. Condon has been tweaking this song for years, performing different variations of it live, adding and dropping things, changing what he had (I personally had the pleasure to hear this final version of the song live in June, and can testify to how surprised I was by their changes); but it was always recognisably the same song. Of course it’s “The Riptide” when he decides to set in stone the final version of the song. The album’s about Beirut growing up, and “East Harlem” is the perfect song to represent that. Most notably, Condon’s flat singing really finds its sense of place now – becoming a layer of the music rather than becoming an imposing lead. Read the full review on The Silver Tongue


Jay Z & Kanye West – Watch The Throne
The album’s highlight, and an instant classic, is “Made in America,” a solid, slow-paced Frank Ocean-teamed jam about the American dream that reveals the main difference between West and Jay-Z: humility. Above a weirdly magnetic synthetic beat and dots of pretty piano clusters crafted by producer Sak Pace of the Jugganauts, Ocean begins by gently listing a string of saints — “sweet king Martin, sweet queen Coretta, sweet brother Malcolm … sweet baby Jesus” among them, and West offers a verse that starts off humble, but by the end he’s bragging about his power and slamming his critics — while Ocean sings “We made it in America.” Read the full Review on The LA Times

New Releases


The Horrors – Skying
Skying continues the evolution set in motion 2009’s Primary Colours, but with an emphasis on melody and pop form. This time, the band recorded and produced in their own studio, crafting a sound that recalls both the gothic pomp of 80s new wave and the big-screen dreaming of early-90s shoegaze, just as it was beginning to transform into chart-conquering Britpop. That the record can be heard as a catalogue of influences is nothing new for this outfit. They’ve routinely been tagged as “record collector rock” for their unabashed aping of influences from the Cramps to Can– and indeed their well-selected covers indicate a group that has spent some time in record shops. Skying isn’t likely to change that perception. The insistent chorus and Badwan’s breathy delivery on “I Can See Through You” comes off like the Psychedelic Furs run through the effects rack of My Bloody Valentine. “Monica Gems” nods to Suede with its decadent guitar swirl and Badwan’s moaning sighs. On “Endless Blue”, a horn section pops in for the floating intro as if borrowed from a James Bond theme by way of Blur or “This Is Hardcore” before the song abruptly surges into an impressive rock nosedive. The debts owed here are obvious, but the taste is impeccable, and the application is more often than not convincing. Read the full review on Pitchfork


The Rosebuds – Loud Planes Fly Low
Losing love and finding love are equally potent muses, and The Rosebuds are adept at turning both into seriously catchy songs. The North Carolina indie-pop sweethearts got divorced after 2008’s Life Like, and Loud Planes Fly Low is the sound of Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp working through their failed past to arrive at a functional future. Making the record was reportedly grueling, but the resultant emotions are the realest felt since the duo’s exuberant 2003 debut, Rosebuds Make Out. “Swooning” and “romantic” might be odd adjectives to use at this juncture, but they still apply in full force. Read the full review on The AV Club


Patti Smith – Outside Society
Punk-rock-poet-priestess, Mapplethorpian-anti-pin-up-queen, rabble-rousing-riot-grrl-archetype: Patti Smith is your go-to rock icon when it comes to underbelly doppelgangers of Pat Benatar or Stevie Nicks. Since the release of her 1975 debut Horses, she’s done the audacious thing (30-odd years later, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nigger” still shocks), the Top 20 thing (she made Bruce Springsteen’s “Because the Night” a viable, and successful, single), and the oddball reinvention cover thing (her take on Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” with none other than Sam Shepard on banjo, is a spooky Americana delight). This 18-song primer, out August 23, spans Smith’s entire career, thankfully skirting the more ponderous poet-concept pieces in favor of straight-up rock music. Read the full review on The Boston Phoenix

New Releases


Eleanor Friedberger – Last Summer
Unlike Matthew’s solo forays, which amplify his compositional idiosyncrasies (see his current Solos series featuring one instrument per album), Eleanor has chosen an immediately pleasant pop/rock mode and found many colors within it. For instance, “Inn of the Seventh Ray” has numerous numerical antecedents in past Friedberger songs “Seven Silver Curses”, “Seventh Loop Highway”, and “Cabaret of the Seven Devils”, but the song stands out within this already impressive run by virtue of its comparative unfussiness. A couple of piano and guitar chords repeat, and are embellished, and longing echoes in the singer’s voice. Three quarters of the way through the song, nearly all of that is scaled way back, and she sings over some background “ooohs” that are surprisingly haunted and affecting. Read the Full Review on Pop Matters


Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter – Marble Son
Throughout this gorgeous collection of music Sykes’ voice crisscrosses the paper-thin rift between deep pain and true bliss, enabling songs to drift into the ether in between. Slower moments build with a creepy, meandering flow before bursts of swirling psychedelic rock attack that would make Comets on Fire proud. This is heavy. Read the full review on Glide Magazine


MellowHype – BlackenedWhite
…even as it nods toward accessibility, BLACKENEDWHITE works as yet another fascinating, bizarre, expectation-defying piece of work from a group of young artists who don’t make anything else. And unlike the others, this one features zero rape threats. For neophytes, Tyler’s Bastard is still the place to start; he’s the group’s figurehead and most talented member, and you really have to confront how fucked up these kids are if you have any interest in engaging them. But BLACKENEDWHITE pushes them closer to humanity without sacrificing the weirdness that’s so central to their appeal. They’re not out of surprises yet, and they probably won’t be for a long time. Read the full Review on Pitchfork

New Releases


Black Lips – Arabia Mountain
In the single “Modern Art,” bassist for the Black Lips, Jared Swilley, sings over a fuzzed out guitar: “K-hole at the Dalí/Seeing the unknown/Well it might have been a molly/’Cause my mind’s being blown. Two things are clear about this band: 1) These hooligans quaff enough drugs that make Charlie Sheen look like he’s been huffing Elmer’s glue out of a brown bag. 2) Its music sounds just like they are: debauched, offensive and slightly criminal, all of which translates into its most recent vinyl pressing.

Famed for its notorious stage antics, such as making out with each other, flinging piss and whipping out their peters as well as their (legally questionable) lifestyle choices, the boys have cleaned up their act for its latest release, Arabia Mountain, on Vice Records. Well, sort of. Read the full review on Seattle PI


Sarah Jarosz – Follow me Down
No one should be surprised that acoustic multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz can pick clean and fast. Jarosz’s first album showcased her ability to take on folk, country, and bluegrass music head on as well as cover rock songs with creative gusto. Jarosz does the same on her latest album, but she has expanded her musical palette and does much more. Follow Me Down, which will be released shortly before her 20th birthday, reveals Jarosz’ considerable growth as singer, songwriter, and player. Her talent at performing everything from slow airs to somewhat avant-garde compositions while keeping the music consistently interesting suggests she is wise beyond her years. Read the full review on Pop Matters


The Japanese Popstars – Controlling Your Allegiance
The best dance songs are those that manage to navigate the pitfalls of the genre. It’s easy to throw a bass beat underneath any old track and put it on in a club; it’s another thing entirely to get away with the same trick on an album. This isn’t an issue for the Japanese Popstars, though. On Controlling Your Allegiance, they don’t limit themselves with repetitive rhythms. Instead, each song crafts a different tone through varied instrumentation, multiple vocalists, and a high-level intensity that will get people moving. Read the full review Consequence of Sound

New Releases


Brett Dennen – Lover Boy
Eschewing the pointed social commentary of memorable earlier songs like “Ain’t No Reason,” “There Is So Much More” and the zeitgeist-capturing “I Ask When,” Dennen opts to embed a broader humanistic message —“This album is about having fun and letting go,” he writes in his brief liner notes — in sprung rhythms resolving into cascading chorus payoffs. The most immediately sticky tracks are the three sequenced together near the top of the record, on which Dennen gets an assist from co-producer Martin Terefe (who’s done memorable work with Ron Sexsmith, another articulate, single-minded romantic). A pugilistically punchy groove and a guileless “nah-nah-nah” chorus provide “Comeback Kid” with its yin and yang; the balmy, string-laden “Frozen in Slow Motion” evokes the late-morning sun breaking through the marine layer at Paradise Cove; and the handclap-powered falsetto chorus of “Sydney (I’ll Come Running)” trampolines upward from the body of the track in irresistible fashion. Read the full review on Paste Magazine

 

 

Tune-Yards – Whokill
w h o k i l l, Garbus’ second album as tUnE-yArDs, delivers on the promise of her 2009 debut, BiRd-BrAiNs. Unlike that album, which she recorded almost entirely on her own using a digital voice recorder and the sound editing program Audacity, w h o k i l l was mostly made in traditional studios in collaboration with bassist Nate Brenner, engineer Eli Crews, and a handful of other musicians. The music benefits from the increased professionalism, but Garbus has not abandoned her lo-fi aesthetic. As on BiRd-BrAiNs, Garbus layers sound to create a patchwork of contrasting textures. This time around, the greater clarity allows for more exaggerated dynamics. Read the full review on Pitchfork

 

The Ladybug Transistor – Clutching Stems
The Brooklyn indie-pop band is as poppy as ever, playing songs that putter along with twangy guitar, strict tempos, and little blooms of lush orchestration every half-minute or so. But Clutching Stems feels pinned between the open yearning of “Oh Cristina” (in which Olson quotes the titles of other well-known heartbreak songs) and “Caught Don’t Walk” (in which trumpets burst in periodically to push Olson into a higher register), and the more formalist retro-pop of “Breaking Up On The Beat” and “Fallen And Falling,” where the band seems to be trying to wrest control of a bad situation by caging it within a sturdy musical arrangement. Read the full review on AV Club

New Releases


Handsome Furs – Sound Kapital
Opener “When I Get Back” has Boeckner returning to his native land a changed man, for better or for worse, as Perry’s left hand punches out deep grooves and her right hits an almost bubbly synth melody. “Memories of the Future” sees Boeckner disparaging the nostalgia that, arguably, drives this entire project and its wanderlust—“I throw my hands to the sky / I let my memories go.” The track proves that he and Perry can turn a forward-looking outlook into just as much of a jam as a backward-looking one. “Serve the People” could be an indictment of Russian oligarchs and American corporatists alike, and it will get fists in the air in both countries. Early single “What About Us” turns the record’s most club-ready and retro banger into a New Order-esque heart-on-sleeve coda, with Boeckner singing, “Let’s stay in this evil little world / Break my heart” over and over again to somehow comforting, ethereal results. Read the full review on Pop Matters


Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
More than any single Fucked Up record, David Comes to Life is thick with walls of noisy melody. It’s hard to get a handle on just how many guitar tracks are on a given song, and Shane Stoneback deserves a medal for mixing the sheer bulk of the sound into something so clear. But for all the shoegazey textures and blistering sonic assault, David Comes to Life is also direct and immediate. Hooks are piled on top of hooks, bursting through torrents of spacey noise (“I Was There”) and peppy rhythms (“The Recursive Girl”) alike. At points, the primal appeal of the blunt and effective riffing even brings to mind the bar-band rock of the Hold Steady. Read the full Review


Brian Eno & Rick Holland – Drums Between The Bells
A track on Drums Between The Bells like “cloud 4”, with Eno’s multilayered voice modulating between intonation and generous song to deliver gently optimistic, contemplative lyrics over legato organ lines and softly arpeggiated synths, finds itself speaking to Another Day on Earth and the semi-titular track “Just Another Day.” This cluster itself speaks to the instrumental (I dare not say ‘voiceless’) meditations “The Big Ship,” “Sombre Reptiles,” and “Another Green World” that nestle at the center of 1975’s Another Green World. It’s a testament to his maturity and prescience that Eno can maintain a conversation with his past achievements, giving an impression of a sustained meditation on an eclectic bundle of decades-long vibrating strings, and that he remains as happy creating “three-dimensional instantiations” of poetry as he is setting poetry to music, and finding time between to promulgate as many permutations as can be mustered or set in motion. Read the full review

New Releases


Cults – Cults
As the singles testify, the secret to Cults’ success is the way the group takes reference points that have been cited to death by now and breathes new life into them, putting a twisted twist on what only appears to be lovey-dovey girl-group pop through their edgy, inventive compositions and the effed-up romances Follin sings about. Even though Follin and Oblivion seem especially reverent of their influences, they’re also riffing off ‘em in clever and ingenious ways. Like on “You Know What I Mean”, where Follin conveys the cool doo-whoppy sway of the Supremes’ yearning-and-burning vocals as sparkling synths and sound effects play behind her, only to bring her simmering mood to a boil when she shout-sings the chorus. And you might swear you hear the Supremes’ pop symphonies peeking through here and there on “Most Wanted”, with just the right hints of swelling strings and gently tinkling ivories. All in all, Oblivion’s deft orchestration really takes center stage on “Most Wanted”, as a thumping bass line and old-timey blues guitar get across an authentic blast-from-the past feel as they accompany Follin’s honeyed vocals. Read the full review on Pop Matters


Kate Bush – Directors Cut
Her new album, which admittedly took only half as long to make as its predecessor, isn’t actually a new album, despite Bush’s insistence to the contrary: it consists entirely of new versions of songs from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes. In fairness, you can see why she’s chosen to point them up. They tend to be overlooked in her oeuvre, more because they separate her twin masterpieces Hounds of Love and Aerial than because of their content, although The Red Shoes is perhaps more muddled than you might expect, given her legendary perfectionism. Nevertheless, the decision seems to have bamboozled even her diehard fans, whose trepidation was not much mollified by the single Deeper Understanding. Again, you can see why she wants to point it up: its lyric about abandoning social interaction in order to hunch over a computer seems very prescient in the age of Facebook and Twitter. Read the full Review on The Guardian


Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – The Boatman’s Call (Reissue)
More than any other album in this batch of reissues, The Boatman’s Call is greatly enriched by a remaster that amplifies the magnitude of Cave’s loneliness, from the burning-ember ambience of “Lime Tree Arbour” to Ellis’ trembling violin lines on the absolutely devastating “Far From Me”. But even though The Boatman’s Call is Cave’s most confessional, open-hearted album, its sense of sorrow and catharsis transcends a strictly personal interpretation. It speak volumes about the album’s universality that its songs have soundtracked everything from Michael Hutchence’s funeral to Shrek 2. Read the full review on Pitchfork

New Releases


Bon Iver – Bon Iver
If you caught Vernon live after For Emma, you gradually saw him putting more and more emphasis on his band, moving Bon Iver from that solitary project into something that felt more like the work of a group. And Bon Iver, with its rich and layered arrangements, extends that development in a striking direction that’s both logical and surprising. Blending natural instrumentation supplied by recruited players– such as string arranger Rob Moose (Antony and the Johnsons, the National, Arcade Fire) and a horn/woodwind section that includes versatile saxophonist Colin Stetson– with an array of electronic and treated sounds, the album combines varied textures in ways that are ambitious and unusual but often subtle enough to miss on first glance. Read the full review on Pitchfork


Jeff The Brotherhood – We are the Champions
For a raw rock combo that in their early days seemed singularly committed simply to sweet riffs and rousing energy, on Champions JEFF prove themselves through a confident embrace of dynamics — stretching the boundaries of their economical ensemble past the brink, with thrilling results.

Sure, the primal, in-your-face energy is still there and potent as ever — the breakneck, jackhammer hi-hat and pummeling power chords of “Cool Out” will transport you to a Trans Am speeding at 90 mph down the darkest of highways while you pass a spliff to your shotgun-rider and rigor mortis begins to overtake the body in your trunk. “Shredder” relentlessly shells the listener with an assailment of head-bangin’, top-shelf Sabbath and Motörhead riffs that more than befits its name. And that’s almost nothing compared to the will-make-you-start-punching-people-uncontrollably-if-you’re-not-careful stoner-rock tour-de-force “Ripper” that follows a few tracks later. Read the full review on Nashville Scene


Tedeschi Trucks Band – Revelator
Here’s another perfect balance: Susan Tedeschi, whose soulful voice can handle blues and ballads with equal, rich ease, and Derek Trucks, her husband and certainly the best slide guitar player on the scene. Both have been leading separate bands during the first ten years of their marriage. But now the couple has joined forces, writing together and melding their groups into a single, 11-piece all-star band. The first recording by the Tedeschi Trucks Band blends wonderful, natural performances with great songs. Ideal balance. Revelator is outstanding in the extreme. Read the full review on PopMatters

New Releases


Battles – Gloss Drop
In a sense, Battles is the double-aughts version of a progressive rock band, featuring virtuoso musicianship pretty much unheard of in indie rock circles. All that was missing were lyrics about gnomes and fairies and the ilk. Battles was a band that was looking backward as much as they were looking forward, and it all began to make a heck of a lot more sense to me under that reflective prism.

That brings us to the sophomore album and yes, I had to wonder where Battles would go from Mirrored. That record captured a particular style of post rock-cum-prog, and my fear was that there would be a temptation to repeat the formula and do the same thing twice. Happily, with Gloss Drop, this is not really the case, although the driving musicianship and some of the trademark whimsy of Mirrored shines through. Gloss Drop is not merely a sequel to Mirrored, it’s an album in its own right, one that incorporates world music on a somewhat prominent basis, and one that sees the band move more in a pop-oriented direction. Read the Full Review on Pop Matters


Arctic Monkeys – Suck It and See
[Suck It and See] takes as its starting point Humbug’s least representative track, Cornerstone, a sighing, richly melodic lament at odds with the lurching, Josh Homme-produced darkness evident elsewhere. The result is the first Arctic Monkeys album that tries to ensnare the listener with its tunes, rather than guitar riffs or Turner’s lyrics. Oddly, what its mid-tempo stew of thick basslines, feedback-laden guitar lines, churning chord progressions and thumping drums occasionally recalls – presumably unwittingly – is the ooh-look-at-the-cosh-boys Morrissey of the mid-90s, though anyone who feels their spirits understandably sinking at the mention of that particular juncture of Morrissey’s career should note that the contents of Suck It and See are noticeably tighter, lighter on their feet and infinitely more fun than anything on Southpaw Grammar. Read the full review on The Guardian UK


Tyler, The Creator – Goblin
There is no need to introduce this man at all. You should know his name, his crew, his height, his favourite food and, especially, the name of his enormously awaited sophomore album. He expects you to, because the first entry in his Goblin journal is detailed with a furiously direct account of the hurricane of Odd Future references that has consumed Twitter and every second webpage on the internet in the past few months. It’s as if Tyler is narrating his own career in a third-person perspective. At the forefront of an eerily hellish beat, he calls out his critics, attacks the nay-sayers and compiles all his angry tweets (they’re more like ticks really – he just says what he wants, when he wants) against ‘White America’ into the 6:49 he has assigned himself: “N****s getting offended/They don’t wanna fuck ‘cos I do not fuck with religion/Well see that’s my decision you fuckers don’t have to listen/Here, put this middle finger in your ear.” Read the track by track review on Hip Hop Isn’t Dead it’s just Sleeping.

New Releases


My Morning Jacket – Circuital
My Morning Jacket’s new album, Circuital, does dial back the weirdness of 2008’s Evil Urges. It’s a tight, 10-songs-in-45-minutes affair, kicking off with the echoing, epic rockers “Victory Dance” and “Circuital,” then moving on to the yearning, poppy ballad “The Day Is Coming” and the sweetly sappy “Wonderful (The Way I Feel).” Neither the performances nor the arrangements are rote; “The Day Is Coming” puts a chunky beat under a celestial choir, for example, while “Victory Dance” includes what sound like Native American war cries, before culminating in apocalyptic screech. But they’re familiarly, enjoyably My Morning Jacket-like, as are the two slow, forlorn tracks that end the record. Read the full review on AV Club


Antlers – Burst Apart
Burst Apart begins with “I Don’t Want Love”, a lush track whose upbeat guitar seems to contradict the seriousness of the lyrics. It’s like the clearing of the clouds right after a brutal storm, though, climaxing with the sun coming out and Silberman’s signature falsetto triumphantly ringing atop whirring noise and percussion. It’s moments like this, with Lerner’s drums pounding, Cicci’s soundscapes, and the falsetto seamlessly coming together that make Burst Apart so powerful, not only through emotional catharsis, but through sonic harmony. That’s not to say that the lyrics suffer, though, at all. The Antlers’ songwriting remains visceral and emotive, notably in slower tracks such as “Corsicana”. The thematics throughout the album vary, yet each one is a relatable vignette of something everybody has felt and dealt with. When Silberman croons on “Coriscana” that “We’ve lost our chance to run/now the door’s too hot to touch/we should hold our breath, with mouths together”, the imagery and romantic desperation are nothing short of moving. Read the full review on Consequence of Sound


Friendly Fires – Pala
With a primary-coloured zeal that frequently borders on the absurd, ‘Pala’ proves the perfect tonic for fans let down by Klaxons’ transition from inspired chancers to jobbing rock band last year. Where ‘Surfing The Void’’s protracted birth throes sucked the mojo clean out of the new rave dons, ‘Pala’ is that rarest and most refreshing of propositions: a second album that actually sounds like it was a blast to make. It’s a record whose arena-sized ambitions work with rather than against the music, lending poise and focus to a sun-soaked carouse whose freewheeling spirit is a joy to behold Read the full review on NME