Review: The Talk – The Sinners of Daughters

Originally published in Punk Planet March/April 2006

This Charlotte trio offers a shimmering mass of pop rock that harbors all the vitality of edgy indie-rock while displaying an appetite for crunchy hooks and Beatlesque vocal melodies. With Brian Paulson working the faders, you’re guaranteed the record packs a sonic wallop lesser engineers would fail to muster. The inventive recording of fairly formulaic guitars can feel invigorating but the sudden appearance of trumpet and trombone is pushing it a bit, don’t you think?

Review: Miguel Mendez – My Girlfriend Is Melting

Originally published in Punk Planet March/April 2006

The title of Mendez’s latest disc seems to offer all the hints you’ll need about the music found within it: a touch of matter-of-fact sentimentality laced with a decent helping of mid-fi psychedelia.

While fuzzed-out guitars, distant ghost-pianos and reversed tape loops all shimmy into the spotlight, it’s Mendez’s understated, casually strummed acoustic guitar and Elliott Smith-style crooning that burrow their way under your skin and into memory.

A couple LSD-inspired faux pas notwithstanding — the closing track is titled, awkwardly, “These Clouds Are Made From Feelings” —Mendez nails the psych-folk delivery and, when things quiet down, some of his songs are devastating in their simplicity.

“Drinking Beers” is a great wintertime road song, the bass-framed “Fond Memories” recalls the acoustic mutterings of John Stuart Mill, and “Dropped My Shadow” is just begging to be ingested when you’re sleepless, alone at 3 a.m. and maybe a drink or two past your limit.

Review: Adam Gnade – Run Hide Retreat Surrender

Originally published in Punk Planet March/April 2006

“It is winter again and you are fighting with your woman.”

So begins the sprawling and sometimes stream-of-consciousness narrative Adam Gnade unreels on this Loud + Clear Records disc, a surprisingly resonant pseudo-update of On The Road for the lo-fi singer-songwriter set.

What’s amazing about the CD is just how much that narrative drives it forward, how the unadorned spoken-word recording of Gnade’s tale of turmoil, flight and discovery can hold your attention through a revolving landscape of spare guitar passages and noisy asides. Gnade’s story — which, loosely speaking, details a cross-country journey punctuated with relationship woes and observations about a broken world — is at its best when he manages to hit the little details: the aging, bearded men yearning for their youths while tossing back cheap 7-Eleven coffee, the work-nightmares that break with cold sweats, the smell of dead horseshoe crabs on a Florida beach.

“Dance To The War,” an urban-landscape dirge with a groove, is the record’s most song-oriented offering and also the best summary of Gnade’s rapid-fire approach. In it, he jumps from alcohol-soaked descriptions of Brooklyn and platitudes about needing to keep riding the nation’s highways to a news-collage about Iraq and the Middle East without skipping a beat.

By the last minutes of the closing title track, you almost wish Gnade never discovered the story’s ending.

Review: Ramona Cordova – The Boy Who Floated Freely

Originally published in Punk Planet March/April 2006

If the folks at Elephant 6 aren’t head over heels with this disc, there’s simply no justice left in the world.

A concept record about a boy named Giver who wakes up on a distant shore and struggles with his love for an island girl, Ramon Alarcon’s latest is a tender and eclectic collection of acoustic song-stories that are as emotive as they are difficult to pin down to a genre. Over the span of 11 songs, there are shades of Neutral Milk Hotel, sure, but also strong hints of flamenco, Hawaiian slack key guitar and — could it be? — Edith Piaf.

The record’s most riveting detail, though, is clearly Alarcon’s one-of-a-kind voice, which hits you in the gut whether it’s casually coasting over a gentle guitar pattern or soaring in that cherubic, almost chirpy falsetto.

There’s a brief appearance, in the disc’s latter tracks, of recorder and accordion but the record is an affair dominated by Alarcon’s voice and his acoustic guitar, and for good reason. It’s what sells the story.

Review: Chariots Race – Existence

Originally published in Punk Planet March/April 2006.

A 7-song set of generic and accessible punk-pop that feels like much of the alternative fare that clogged college radio in the mid-90s. At its tightly wound best, this Milwaukee- and Chicago-based quartet sounds like Jawbox on autopilot. In case the pony-tailed A&R rep in the back of the club missed all those radio-ready hooks, the band makes sure to throw in plenty of paint-by-numbers male/female harmonies.

Review: Blindfold – S/T

Originally published in Punk Planet March/April 2006.

Atmosphere’s the name of the game on this lush, 12-song outing, recorded over the course of two years with a healthy dose of reverb and what sounds like a half-dozen different guitar effects pedals.

Birgir Hilmarsson, who handles most the performing duties in the Icelandic group, has a clear knack for writing meditative and densely layered compositions — the kind of Sigur Ros-influenced fare that floats in front of your face like ribbons of smoke.

Even when anchored by percussion or carefully placed bits of static, the songs always feel like they’re ready to evaporate without warning into thin air.

That said, the record’s finest moments may be the tracks without lyrics, where Hilmarsson lets a somber palette of guitar, bass, drums and synth speak for itself. It’s here where the disc hits its stride and reaches its shoe-gazing best, though much of the material is so airy it may fail to stay glued in your mind after the disc stops spinning.

Review: Adult. – Gimmie Trouble

Originally published in Punk Planet March/April 2006

Sufjan Stevens may have taken his stab at depicting Michigan in song, but for my money, few acts may be painting the state’s automotive graveyards and factory wastelands in sonic terms as vividly as Adult., the Detroit trio whose studied electro-punk bears an industrial precision and claws at your ears with almost apocalyptic fervor.

Gimmie Trouble is all vintage synths, electronic percussion and off-kilter new wave gestures but what keeps it from falling into the ever-growing cult of Devoism (I’m talking to you, Servotron) is Nicola Kuperus’ forceful and punky delivery, which can feel as seductive as it is menacing.

On songs like the album-opening title track, the way she repeatedly wails lines like “Why don’t you give me /Gimmie some trouble!” as Adam Lee Miller constructs tides of cascading synth scales and Bizarro-world B-52’s-tinged guitars can get even the most rhythmically challenged among us shaking their spines.

Throw dark, plodding exercises like “Disappoint The Youth” into the mix and you’ve got a record that’ll challenge both club fiends and those who think a punk front woman’s got to be packed by a wall of distorted guitars.

Reviewer Spotlight: Pinetop Seven – Rigging The Toplights

Originally published in Punk Planet March/April 2006

Pinetop Seven – Rigging The Toplights

For the better part of two years and change, I worked at my university’s underground radio station, and few records remind me of all those priceless nights and graveyard shifts spent in windowless Student Center bomb shelters like Pinetop Seven’s sophomore outing, a quiet and quietly released disc that ranks among the finest and most overlooked of the last decade.

Written and recorded when the group’s core members still included Charles Kim, Ryan Hembrey and Darren Richard, Rigging The Toplights was made to be floated over invisible airwaves in the middle of a winter night. It’s the perfect medicine for loneliness.

There’s plaintive and heart wrenching ballads, slices of nostalgia and Americana, and acoustic guitar odes that quiver with emotion when Richard unfurls that shaky falsetto.

The mystery of the 13-track disc is how the band crafted songs so pristine, with such a calculated attention to subtle narratives and the most minute details, but made them so startlingly immediate and heartfelt. There’s not a dull moment throughout all the record’s 46 minutes — from the folk-pop road song “The Fear of Being Found” and “Floorboards,” that dark ode to commitment and recovery, to the Morricone shuffle of “Heavens” and the closing-credits resolve of “Quit These Hills.”

And, if you’re not moved to tears when Richard’s voice fades into darkness as he wails “I’ve no use not to hide” in “Drying Out,” well, you’ve just got no soul left.

Hang on St. Christopher through the smoke and the oil: Tom Waits, Real Gone; Shipping News, Flies The Fields; Loren Connors & David Grubbs, Arborvitae; The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band With Choir, “This Is Our Punk-Rock,” Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing; The Vanities, Coma Kiss Demos

Feature: Top 10 of 2005 (Delusions of Adequacy)

Top 10 of 2005

Originally published in Delusions of Adequacy

01. Slint – The Reunion (Bootlegs)

The Louisville legend’s rebirth was the underground story of the year and the recordings that have surfaced from their long-anticipated reunion tour provide all the evidence for those who couldn’t witness it with their own eyes. Whether it’s documented sets from New York’s Irving Plaza or Brown Theater in Louisville, these discs offer further proof, if any were needed, about why Slint’s work still resonates and casts shadows.

02. Bastro – Antlers: Live 1991 (Blue Chopsticks Records)

One of the year’s finest discs was, in fact, recorded roughly 15 years ago. A riveting collection of seven live songs from the year punk broke illustrate the now-defunct Chicago trio shifting from the venomous but densely arranged post-punk of its early days to the more atmospheric instrumentals it wrote before morphing into Gastr del Sol. More ammunition for those arguing David Grubbs’ prominent role in the history of post-rock.

03. Shipping News – Flies The Fields (Quarterstick Records)

Four years after Very Soon And In Pleasant Company, the group’s last full-length record proper, RMSN expands from a trio to a quartet and cuts one of their darkest and most direct outings yet. The resulting eight songs flutter between Rodan-tinged pressure-cookers and meditations crafted with rivers of guitar and bass.

04. Pinetop Seven – The Night’s Bloom (Barbary Coast/Empyrean Records)

It’s more polished and orchestrated than 1998’s Rigging The Toplights, the ensemble’s breathtaking high-water mark, but Pinetop Seven’s first new record in five years felt every bit as emotive and heartbreaking as its predecessors. Darren Richard and company again have crafted a unique mosaic of contemporary Americana.

05. Rachel’s – Technology Is Killing Music EP (Three Lobed Recordings)

A companion to 2003’s Systems/Layers and a cousin, perhaps, of Per Mission’s A Ritual Loop, this limited-run 18-minute disc offers a glimpse into how Rachel’s construct and deconstruct their enigmatic avant-chamber pieces. If you can find it, don’t let go.

06. Carrie Yury – Mutter EP (Self-released)

One of the year’s most unexpected and touching solo debuts also may have been one of its most understated. California artist-musician Carrie Yury invited Richard Schuler and members of the Palace stable to back her on this quietly released six-song offering and they help her craft folk-pop gems that are seductive and disarming in their beauty. Now all we need is the full-length follow-up.

07. The Wingdale Community Singers – S/T (Plain Recordings)

The literary-minded trio of Rick Moody, David Grubbs and Hannah Marcus lives up to all the buzz with a debut whose stripped-down odes and ruminations, acoustic romps and sometimes-playful songs burrow deep into memory and set up camp for a long winter. Each musician has their moment to shine on the 15-song disc (there’s more than a handful of outstanding tracks worth noting) but what’s most surprising is how well they fit together when they’re on the same page.

08. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Summer In The Southeast (Sea Note Records)

This collection of live songs captured, as the title plainly states, in the American southeast may be the answer for all those still hungering for another Will Oldham retrospective after 2004’s Greatest Palace Music. It’s all here – from “Pushkin” and “I Send My Love To You” to the Joya/I See A Darkness-era “Nomadic Revery” and “O Let It Be” – and Oldham and his cohorts prove they can still capture a live audience with their raw energy and sense of wonder.

09. Fantomas – Suspended Animation (Ipecac Recordings)

Yeah, it was gimmicky and felt, at times, like a reaction to the more long-form experiments of Delirium Cordia but Mike Patton, Buzz Osborne, Dave Lombardo and Trevor Dunn could stand in a room with their amps dead and droning and still sound captivating. This time, the buzz-saw energy gets the cut-up treatment through the prism of a sugar-powered Warner Bros. cartoon. And, for the next act?

10. Adam Gnade – Run Hide Retreat Surrender (Loud and Clear Records)

A modern version of Kerouac’s On The Road as seen through the eyes of the lo-fi singer-songwriter. Gnade’s stream-of-consciousness prose is far from earth-shattering but he nails the subtle colors and telling asides of American life with an addictive off-handedness in this cross-country musical journal. While most musicians would lose the rhythm of their tale by cramming it into a stale verse/chorus/verse mold, Gnade is smart enough to let the words levitate above and even without instrumentation. It speaks for itself.

Honorable Mentions: The Vanities – Coma Kiss demos (Self-released), Wicked Immigrant – White Nuns on Red Wine (Friendly Psychics Music), Amos Lee – S/T (EMI), Melvins – Mangled Demos From 1983 (Ipecac Recordings), PAK – Motel (Ra Sounds), Dave Spalding – Invisibles (Self-released), Blindfold – S/T (Resonant Records)

Feature: Top 10 of 2004 (Delusions of Adequacy)

Top 10 of 2004

Originally published in Delusions of Adequacy

01. Tom Waits – Real Gone (Anti)

What can you say? This eclectic mix of avant-garde jazz, dirgy blues, barn burners, tall tales, turntable-tinged sound experiments and heart-wrenching ballads could be one of Waits’ finest offerings in recent years. Real Gone is a reminder, not the any was needed, about why Tom Waits is one of America’s greatest and most treasured songwriters.

02. Nirvana – With The Lights Out (Geffen/DGC)

Simply put, Nirvana’s long-awaited boxed set of unreleased ephemera is a gift to those (myself included) who first cut their teeth on indie rock after Kurt Cobain roared his way into the limelight of America’s musical landscape. A brilliant and thorough look into the workings of a great rock band and the best argument for the group’s legacy to hit shelves since Cobain’s 1994 suicide.

03. Lesser Birds of Paradise – String of Bees (Contraphonic)

Don’t be deceived by the quiet whisper of Mark Janka’s lullaby of a voice. The Lesser Birds’ String of Bees is a powerful and riveting record, a collection of acoustic folk ballads and pop songs that seeps deeper into your skin and memory with each listen. If the bittersweet pseudo-single “Josephine” doesn’t make its way onto the airwaves, there’s simply no justice left in this world.

04. Minus Story – The Captain Is Dead, Let The Drum Corpse Dance (Jagjaguwar)

For all of the clever studio and engineering tricks and the attempts to turn songwriting formulas on their ear, Minus Story still managed to craft an addictive and sometimes alarmingly accessible indie rock record this year with its bizarrely titled The Captain Is Dead…. Let’s hope bands struggling to write hooks or plot big-guitar choruses half as engaging as this begin to pay attention.

05. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum – Sleepytime Gorilla Museum of Natural History (Web of Mimicry)

Adjectives really don’t seem to convey the sprawling but structured madness of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum’s latest effort. The disc, a song cycle of sorts that echoes postmodern cut-up artists like Mr. Bungle as much as it conjures violent imagery from A Clockwork Orange, is an epic feast of pressure-cooker metal, intricate post-rock, dark chamber pieces, campy theatrics and dense, atmospheric image-stories. Natural History also bears the distinction of being one of 2004’s more genuinely scary discs.

06. Sam Phillips – A Boot and A Shoe (Nonesuch)

A largely acoustic offering following in the footsteps of 2001’s breathtaking Fan Dance, A Boot and A Shoe further displays Phillips’ knack for penning/performing intimate but conversational ballads for guitar and voice. A blueprint for aspiring coffeehouse hopefuls ’round the country. Features one of the best album-closing tracks of the year, “One Day Late.”

07. Dean Roberts – Be Mine Tonight (Kranky)

An enveloping record for troubled times. Dean Roberts uses silence the way some guitarists use distortion, writing engaging, sometimes-dissonant epics that quietly slither into your ears and bring with them the scope of sunsets. During Be Mine Tonight’s best moments, the implication of a chord or the listener’s anticipation of an approaching refrain is as devastating as the spare sounds that Roberts presents. If you’re looking to illustrate some of the best prepared guitar, pseudo-glitchedelica or tabletop constructions released this year, discover this.

08. Kaada/Patton – Romances (Ipecac)

Ever since the implosion of Faith No More led, albeit indirectly, to the birth of Ipecac, Mike Patton’s been one of the busiest men in indie rock and avant-underground circles, providing his devoted followers with a prolific stream of mind-bending sound experiments and full-band rock/metal/noise exercises. Romances, recorded after Patton contributed his vocal chords to Bjork’s latest full-length, is one of the finer examples of the former category, a jazz/rock/R&B collaboration with John Kaada that spotlights some of Patton’s most seamless vocal performance of recent years.

09. Tanakh – Dieu Devil (Alien

Dieu Devil seemed to accomplish something that records by a lot of other indie outfits can’t seem to even tackle: combining warm and organic songs (that type of guitar- and voice-driven offering that just makes want to sing along) with a careful eye for structure, progression and dynamics. Tanakh seems to be standing at the intersection of a number of genres (rock, folk, dreamy psychedelics, singer-songwriter ballads) but their feet aren’t firmly planted anywhere. The record gives the impression of being captured to magnetic tape instead of being plotted out and planned, an immense feat for music this textured, poetic and emotive.

10. Danger Mouse – The Grey Album (Self-released)

The man who grabbed headlines earlier this year when he mashed together Jay Z and The Beatles deserves to be placed on a Top Ten list this year for sheer audacity and brazenness alone. The fact that this self-released disc really works – that it combines White and Black albums to give birth to something interesting and decidedly new – only adds to the release’s luster. Now, if only EMI agreed.

Honorable Mentions:
Hunchback – Something Wicked This Way Comes EP (Self-released), Skeleton Key – Live At Metro (Online only), Calexico – Convict Pool EP (Quarterstick), Tub Ring – Zoo Hypothesis (Underground), Zykos – S/T (Post-Parlo), David Grubbs – A Guess At The Riddle (Drag City), The Race – If You Can (Flameshovel), Knife In The Water – Cut The Cord (Aspyr), Pan American – Quiet City (Kranky)