Album Review: Noah and the Whale - The First Days of Spring

This album is not so much a pistol as a shotgun, its ideas roughly discernible as a concept album. Here we have Noah and the Whale, trading bright, poppy folk for gloom. Here the listener is treated to not one but nearly a dozen songs of longing and distress. Not as much cerebral as melodramatic, it's difficult to admit that this record has any staying power.

This is a breakup album--every song on the album makes clear you know that. And while repetition gets the point across, redundant repetition drowns out of the point, and we are left to focus only on the minutiae, where every song is the same by its unity of theme. While we the audience are told from the beginning that spring is starting, no chronological progression is made, even as we are told that this is a concept album, that the narrator is progressing.

Progression is slow, reversible, sidestepped, even redefined. Virtually the same palette of sounds plays throughout the record. I do not slight The First Days of Spring for reusing instruments (as that is never a crime for a band, except in electronica), but the intended impression upon the reader's mind is only slightly changed from tune to tune. I can break down the mood into archetypes: slow, deep, drums, with a slow riff played in the alto range of an electric guitar; light airs played on a piano like wind chimes--the beauty of life; janglyacoustic guitar--raw heart; a violin with a legato like an elephant is tall--the undying romanticism of the hopeless narrator; that ol ' "get all the indie kids together" ensemble, completely with jangly acoustic guitar (the band probably owes Architecture in Helsinki royalties). Now, some diversity stands, but the presence is unmistakably novel.

For the most part, the above mentioned ensemble of ideas is repeated and mixed. Any attempts to sketch the plot will result in just that: a sketch. There's really only a few points of note: spring starts and the narrator has no girlfriend ("The First Days of Spring"). Regret, denial. A weird perpendicular shoot into happy denial ("Love of an Orchestra")? Back down to Earth ("Instrumental II"). Sleeps with a stranger to prove he's not attached anymore ("Stranger"). Even stronger denial that he's still in love with her--claiming he is no longer concerned with his ex-girlfriend ("Slow Glass"), even though she's mentioned for every single song until the album ends. The narrator claims that he failed her and she failed him ("My Door Is Always Open"). End.

Huh? Even as the motifs play out and this slow-moving eleven-song ballad depart, I can only say that the album fails its parts. Too many ideas play out. The orchestral bump in Love of an Orchestra never attempts to unite its differences with the more baroque outlook of the rest of the album. In the end, this is no more a tale of recovering from loss than the ennui of modern infatuation, captured in amber for the world to hear for as long as MP3s will be spread around--for Noah and the Whale and possibly the indie movement, love is not just an emotion or state of mind but a separation from society. Being cut off becomes isolation from not just love but society itself. The problem is that this view is only melodrama. Unfortunately, that is the only view The First Days of Spring is capable of expressing.

CMJ Update #2 (Wrapup)

I only went to one panel on Friday, and it was about music and film, and may have been one of the better panels I saw. The panelists role-played and went through the choice of a song for a movie or commercial which was really fascinating and educational.

The Slayer listening party was a fun time, complete with Slayer DVD imagery and some Gallows DVD added in as well. Both DVDs are really good in fact, I might have to get them. Really bizarre but fun to see...if you like the weird and possibly grotesque. After the listening party we grabbed some authentic Chinese food in Chinatown and hopped over to the Relapse showcase.

Gloominous Doom opened up the showcase, and though it wasn't what I expected from a band with doom in the name, the music was pretty neat. The band has a bunch of technically solid players who transitioned from ska to dance to metal all in the same song, but the transitions themselves were not entirely smooth, mostly due to teh "purity" of each style played. Putting ska next to grindcore or even jazz fusion is just not entirely smooth no matter who plays it. I'd love to see this band move more progressive a la Between the Buried and Me, and less Iwrestledabearonce.

Howl was a bit more complete feeling than Gloominous Doom, though less to my liking stylistically. I was particularly not a fan of the vocals, though in general something with this band kept them from being overly enjoyable for me.

Complete Failure was a thrashy-y/grind-y band which didn't appeal to me at all. I struggle to see the appeal in music that is all blast beats and speed such that it basically devolves into noise. But that's just me.

Black Anvil were really solid. The first band of the night that the whole audience was really starting to get into, and one of two bands a lot of my CMJ friends were excited to see live. A sort of black metal-influenced hybrid, they keep the vocals black with more traditional metal guitar lines and less tremelo picking which makes for a fun and somewhat unique sound.

Revocation was, interestingly, my favorite act of the night. Normally a death/thrash sort of hybrid would hold no appeal for me, but the music was somehow catchy and good-sounding, and really got the whole crowd energized and moving.

Salome probably could have won top band of the night for me had they been a bit less experimental. Now, I'm all for bands experimenting, even live, but when you're a really doom-y, slow tempo band, experimentation for 10 minutes per song tends to drag and become tedious, very unfortunately. I also didn't dig the vocals. High-pitched screams just don't work in doom in my opinion, it detracts from the heaviness.

After the show, lots of sleep. Saturday was the day off. Did some tourist-y wandering around Times Square with some of my promoters and Kim Kelly, then hit up Jekyll and Hyde for dinner round 1, followed by dinner in Little Italy with Sarah and Becky for dinner round 2. After packing and pulling an all nighter, I hopped onto the plane bright and early at 6 am and came back to sunny Tempe exhausted and a little bit sick. A valid sacrifice for living life like a rockstar, and learning too of course.

CMJ Update #1

It has been an interesting CMJ event thus far. Unlike previous years, the schedule was packed early and gradually trickles off from there.

Tuesday was a ridiculously long travel day. Leaving Phoenix around 6 AM, I arrived in NYC around 4 PM, and got to my hostel around 5 PM. After checking into CMJ and picking up my badge, I met up with Sarah for some tasty dinner before running to the Dethcote party I'd been invited to during dinner. The music was loud and not good (some dance-y club music), but the beer was free (if you knew the right people) and catching up with all the guys from last year was fun.

Wednesday I went to 4 panels which was pretty intense to say the least. When I showed up to the first panel, about social networking and music, it was fairly empty, but by the end it was packed with people sitting on the floor, and I felt a bit uncomfortable being surrounded by so many hipsters. Moving onto the second panel, I was a bit less overwhelmed by hipsters, since it was about music and mobile devices. Pretty cool stuff thrown around for a tech guy like me. Then there were the two metal panels. The first was great as some of the feedback thrown around might result in some positive changes in the industry, always nice for those of us working in it. The second panel was, well, tense. One woman in the back of the room liked to call all music pirates thieves and had many a rant about how kids were destroying metal. Needless to say, in a room of college kids, that didn't go too well. Of course, most of us get all our music for free legally anyways, because they give it to us. So it also seemed a bit pointless to bring up. Still, the discussion was great.

After the panels I went on the walking punk rock on the Bowery tour/bar crawl. That was a great tour where we went with our tour guides to several historic areas of New York and discussed how punk rock started in new york in the mid-1800's, with the gangs of New York. Interesting ideas, and lots of great history. Also saw where CBGB's used to be and saw one of the only real dive bars left on the east side. After the tour we went on the annual bar crawl and there was a lot of great socializing going on whilst drinking copious amounts of alcohol.

Thursday was college day and somehow I managed to get there on time despite the drinking of the night before, and enjoyed a nice, free breakfast. After breakfast, a couple of panels went on, and Sarah met up with me between the two and we got a lot of great ideas about things to do to improve the station, which is always exciting. A couple of bands played during the lovely free lunch, and the second one was particularly interesting, though I didn't care for the vocals. After another panel was the college radio awards, and though I didn't announce an award this year, it was completely entertaining and fun. After the awards I ran off to the open bar before a showcase, drank as much in two hours as I had during the entire bar crawl, and a group of us stumbled up to another bar after the showcase to watch the baseball game. After a few more beers we went up to the Comedy Central showcase and enjoyed some comedy before heading home for some rest.

Tonight is the listening party and Relapse showcase, should be good times. There will be a second update soon.

Album Review: The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

I'm surprised Warner Bros. let this album see the light of day--who listened to this and decided that, despite its complete and utter disregard for Top 40 polish, Auto-Tune shine, and concise songwriting, this was music that would make the record label lots of money? Wayne Coyne and co. have never cared much for convention, sure, but Embryonic takes the band completely out of their familiar environment and gives us an idea of what Can might have sounded like if they found out they liked the sound of Vivian Girls.

On one hand, we have the sound of The Flaming Lips that is familiar to anyone who's heard any of their work after 1997. Punchy drumloops propel all manner of synthesizers and guitars through striking, beautifully rendered chords, as well as Wayne Coyne's own strangely in-tune voice. And with their carefully perfected bag of tools, the band shows off their artistic mastery of their instruments, sailing through tender slowness akin to The Soft Bulletin and rocking out like they'd only started touring yesterday in support of Clouds Taste Metallic.

And yet, there's this new side of The Flaming Lips that we haven't seen before--their experimental side. Avant garde? Maybe. It's arguable that Embryonic is that motivated to be so abstract when so much of the album focuses on melodic and rhythmic elements, as opposed to pure noise or arrhythmic pieces. Time signatures? Check. Key signature? Check. Melody? Check. The real avant garde masters would be offended. Lightning Bolt wouldn't let Embryonic into the same room as their material. Even listeners new to any Flaming Lips work at all would be able to tell that there are recurring elements that might constitute their repertoire--the drum loops, the voice (of Wayne Coyne), the slow, throbbing brainwave-stimulating synth loops, the dreamy atmosphere. If you were hoping that the band would venture into Throbbing Gristle sounds, you would be wrong. This is definitely tonal.

The result is the musical equivalent of half and half: half old material, half new modes of expressing that old material. Part of me feels like I'm simply hearing the sappy parts of The Soft Bulletin fed through a guitar amplifier. Is that a bad thing? If you don't mind lo-fi, you won't mind the new modus operandi. If you demand that classic Flaming Lips audial polish, this record will both appeal to you and annoy you to death. You will hear echoes of previous album At War with the Mystics (think "The Sound of Failure/It's Dark... Is It Always this Dark??") and some more. Get ready for pinging delays with deep reverb ("Powerless"), what may be called way too much vocoder saturation ("The Impulse"), freakouts! ("Silver Trembling Hands," "Virgo Self-Esteem Broadcast," "Scorpio Sword"), some random dude doing some poetry recital or something like that ("Sagittarius Silver Announcement"), glitch-style rhythmic noise ("Convinced of the Hex," "Worm Mountain"), and just about every freaky trick in Wayne Coyne's playbook.

In a way, Embryonic is the natural evolution of The Flaming Lips. Their earliest albums were noisy, wretched, and wild. Then the band matured and smoothed out the edges. Then they found nostalgia for their youth and merged their two worlds. We are at that last point. And as I listen to the songs again and again, I realize how much this style suits the band--so weird, but so beautiful. It's like The Album Leaf got drunk with TV on the Radio. Even as Wayne Coyne croons high and slow in "If" and a lazy bass strums along and all manner of amplification and synthesizer crash together for static jam "Worm Mountain," the twin paths are never more apparent. If you're left wondering why the hell The Flaming Lips would bother to do something so different, the answer is that it's really the same thing they've always done. Perhaps we're in familiar territory after all. But with The Flaming Lips, who can tell?

Album Review: Dappled Cities - Zounds

It's been a while since Dappled Cities Fly dropped the last word of their group name to become Dappled Cities--I guess the band just wasn't fly enough. (Cue intro music to CSI: Miami.) It's been longer still since I first heard the few ringing strums of their debut, A Smile, fitted with all the meat of indie rock and the jangly sound of twee. But make no mistake--their newest effort, Zounds, is a beast of a different mythology.

Dappled Cities offers a full, rich album, lined with pastiche and filled out with big, bombastic detail. The band makes no apologies about jumping into that muddy area between electropop and indie rock that so many bands have explored--terrain charted by Of Montreal, Cut Copy, and innumerable artists. Zounds makes a conscious effort to fill every second of every song with sound; where there is no instrument playing, there is an echo of one. "It does not matter if something belonged there in the first place--there must be a something," this album says to me.

Zounds is as artistic as it is a serious indie album, defying ownership both by pretentious hipsters and pop aficionados. The word itself is both an interjection and a summation of the wild sounds the band produces. One only has to look at the cover of Zounds to realize how scatterbrained the music is. The photograph that comprises most of the cover's real estate portrays a band in a room, sprinkled with confetti, filled with the strangest of objects-- a ladder, the trunk of a tree, a large balloon in the shape of a 3, a piñata, several photographs, and several sets of hands playing a keyboard on the floor.

It all serves to give context to the music ensconced within the disc--this is art. True enough, the mix of buzzing, whirring, gurgling, and thumping that starts the recording with "Hold Your Back" establishes the new and improved Dappled Cities as an Of-Montreal-cum-Animal-Collective-cum-Shins amalgamation that just wants to blow your mind, not with wacky exuberance or springy lyrics but with a complete tonal invention, combing through the lessons alternative music learned in the last 20 years and making notes about each of them. Each song is a synthesizer-driven indie rock song, dressed in the trimmings of that wholesome indie style--multi-instrumental, full, busy but not fabricated. I feel like Animal Collective grew became pensive, decided to slow down, and determined to find joy in life.

The listener at every turn is led, never quite able to determine the course of each tune. The album revels in the cerebral, each tune not quite the same and made of different inspirations. The listener is mislead through each song not by the style of the music but as a matter of course--who would expect the infectious danceable "Miniature Alas" to be preceded by a bizarre spoken word ditty? Zounds is an album that completes every idea--whether it's the moody "Wooden Ships" bursting into a baritone chorus suddenly or the punchy delivery of the chorus on "The Price," nearly every creative choice by the band feels natural and purposeful--"It should have always been like this," I feel. Even if many sections of the song feel like A, B, and back again, there's always a subtle (or major) tweak produced to bring the old idea to new life.

It's easy to tell that the band is having too much fun with the album. Their grandiose patchwork of multi-instrumental chaos and graceful--sometimes over-ambitious or ambiguous--lyrics will strand careless or uncaring listeners in a sea of confusion. The density of Zounds lends it weight that will wear out an audience expecting easy listening. While by no means does the music turn into noise, there is little doubt that songs like "Apart" must be experienced, not simply heard, to be understood. The steady march of lurching indie rock (Wolf Parade style) accompanying the nearly falsetto vocals can leave the unaware audience in a haze of ill feeling. The defiant "Stepshadows" plays like a funeral dirge for a chase scene in a 1990s Western, self-satisfied by its own certainty.

Thought and creativity went into this collection of songs, but it might be more difficult for the listener to ascertain what exactly the band was thinking. You are guaranteed a sonic canvas that only years of artistic endeavors will paint. After all, Daft Punk didn't write Discovery in a day.

Kylesa/Bison BC/Landmine Marathon/Khenty at Chasers 9/29/2009

Came in a bit late, so I only caught the last song in Khenty's set unfortunately. They weren't bad, at least...it sounded pretty promising. But I can't really say for sure.

Landmine Marathon was interesting. I don't think they were bad, objectively. In fact there were sections I really liked in their music. But there were too many grind sections for my tastes, and the vocals could have been better at times. Of course, at other times they could have been louder. Definitely worth checking out if you like the local metal and have more tolerance for grind than I do.

Bison BC was really good again, despite the fact that I haven't listened to their CD in a long time. Really enjoyable songs and, again, I feel they are better live than on CD. The CD has a tendency to pound my brain a bit too much, while live they pound it in just enough. Maybe it's the earplugs. Either way, I expect good things from these guys in the future. Really nice and friendly folks too. Plus, beard metal.

Kylesa was great live, again. I even listened to Static Tensions earlier today just to see if I would still get more out of seeing them live right after listening to the album, and I definitely did. So many bands sound exactly the same live and on CD. Sometimes that is exactly what you want, but Kylesa really bring so much more to the table live, and it's great. They played just about (or perhaps all) of Static Tensions, and then closed with a few older ones. But in between the two someone yelled "drum solo!" and thus we also got to enjoy a fun dual drummer duel before they started up on the old stuff. After about half the band was getting off stage, they were somehow convinced to return for an encore, which was their cover of Pink Floyd's Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun. A rendition which I quite enjoy on record, and which improves even more live as they jam in the middle of the song extensively and feel it out in a way recording really fail to capture. Even if you think this band is just ok, they are a must see live.

Album Review: The Luxury - In the Wake of What Won't Change

Back when I reviewed albums for 91.3 KXCI Tucson ("real people, real radio"), I had the luck to stumble upon Boston-based britpop group The Luxury's debut album, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things. A piece of emotive, sharply cornered pop/rock that was remarkably recorded in singer/producer Jason Dunn's apartment/bedroom (I can't remember which). The band back then (2006? 2007?) showed great promise in their songwriting, even if they couldn't afford studio time.

Now that 2009 has borne our universe most of the way through the fruits of her many months--when September is the month--I admit I'm a little surprised to find that The Luxury have followed me to Tempe, sending a CD to The Blaze. Well, this is my chance to follow their progress.

As it turns out, The Luxury have been busy, finishing first in a Boston-area band battle and recording their second album with the free studio time they won. For the large part, In the Wake of What Won't Change is bigger, more elaborate, and an improvement on what the band probably wanted to make on their first effort. Gone are the rough edges of their first record; their sophomore work hones in on the type of anthemic, alt-influenced britpop that defined the band's debut. In the Wake has two "sides" (but you don't have to flip over the disc), both with short, abstract "intros," which feels like self-indulgent bloat until you realize that the first side is definitely different from the second.

"Getaway Car," which starts the record proper after the first intro, steps nimbly over the beat, bouncing on the usual rock band standard plus an arpeggiating synth. I compliment "Take It Back" for the way it mixes throwbacks to classic rock with studio trickery, at once both heavy and soft. The first side even comes to resemble power pop at times. The Luxury does some of the best harmonies I've heard from recent bands, especially on "'Til Your Last Year" and "The Mirror Fogs."

The second side, begun by "El Jefe Y Su Burro (intro)," represents The Luxury's foray into production indulgence. I can't imagine what could have inspired the band to find not one, but two trumpeters for the aforementioned track and its follow-up, "Straitjacket," which sounds like David Terry of Aqueduct ditched the synthesizers and got major studio backing. While I am biased against extravagant arrangements without cause, I cannot deny that the trumpet blares and Jason Dunn's ridiculous energy make my foot tap hopelessly. The rest of the side finds the five-member band building U2-style anthems, heard best on "Sing for the Last Train" and "Closer."

It is also on the second side that the band makes a big misstep--criticizing President George W. Bush. My political views aside, I remember the last KASC Music Director, Owen, remarking that that no one wants to hear outdated political commentary in song form (or something like that--sorry, Owen). And yet, "012009" (referring to January 20, 2009, when Bush left office) spends three minutes to this very subject. Songs like this one, with thinly-veiled lyrics about a specific person, can quickly date a band or mark a group's amateurishness.

Misguided political statements aside, The Luxury has made an album that should get them national attention (should being the key word). If you can make it past track 11, The Luxury are a band that you need to hear. In the Wake of What Won't Change has carved out the space between power britpop and big indie rock and filled it. I just hope that these guys can resist the allure of overproduction so common to mainstream rock and pop.

Just another reason to love Ida Maria.

Ok so when I am extremely bored I tend to navigate through the numerous pages of Texts from Last Night and FML. I find fascinating the amount of things that a person is willing to say when there's that anonymity, a safety net. Now, courtesy of Ida Maria, I will be navigating through the pages of OMG This Rocks!

You know when you are dying to tell someone something really really cool that happened to you at a concert or restaurant that has something to do with your favorite artist, well on omgthisrock.com about a million people can read it and comment on it.

Check it here: www.omgthisrocks.com

Bobby Dylan could never do you wrong. Or get you lost.

According to thetripwire.com, Bob Dylan is in discussion with several GPS companies to provide a new voice to guide those lost souls. Those on the road, meandering the highways and biways of this nation can now entrust the rock poet to direct them to -- well, wherever they wanna go. The grocery store. Grandma's house. The mall. Wal-Mart.

Does anyone else see the irony? Protest poet tells you how to get to any corporate mecca you want. (Likely in exchange for a rather large sum of money in the first place.)

And shall we even begin to discuss the practicalities of this? How the hell are you gonna understand him anyway. Even on his best days it's a stretch to decipher a sound clip of him talking.

And I'm not sure where he's gonna take me anyway. I'd probably end up on some stoner beach at the coast. (Not that there's anything wrong with that...) Brilliant songwriter? Absolutely. Good person to ask for directions? Gotta say no on this one.

Taking Back Sunday/Kinch/Raining and OK at Wells Fargo Arena 8/21/2009

Oh dear, in all of my time spent at metal and other more niche-market shows lately, I've forgotten what it's like to be at a show featuring a popular band, that normal people enjoy. Specifically, I forgot that the average, annoying normal person actually goes to concerts. Then of course it was at ASU to boot. Crowd aside though...

Raining and OK were the opener and the first of two local bands for the evening. Initially, I was writing this review in my head and it was quite negative. There was so much looping and electronic modification of the sound I was a bit upset this was supposed to be a rock band, rather than an electronic band. The latter half of the set, however, shifted to something a bit more standard, and being the judgmental person I am, I graded them down for sounding generic initially. Then I remembered they were local, and realized that considering that they weren't another terrible indie rock band, and in fact were a pretty average opener on say a national tour, I felt these guys weren't actually half bad. In fact I'd see them again, and given that they are local, I probably will.

Next the comedian Baron Vaughn came up between bands and his first set was not that good, really. I mean, I have a poor sense of humor, but only a few chuckles here and there out of the quite large crowd, so I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought so. Thankfully, his second set was much better (probably because he stopped playing safe and went for edgy...we're in college after all). Not the best comedian, but I'd see his latter set at a club.

Kinch was local band number two for the evening, and despite their popularity in the local scene, I'd never seen them before. Good choice on my part, as it turned out. This band is just plain not good. Someone needs to hit the whole of the Phoenix local music scene over the head (or maybe stop doing so, I'm not sure). The highlight of their set was the people dancing in the back, a group which eventually grew to probably over 100 people between the two sites...oh sheeple.

Taking Back Sunday was the headliner and the reason I bothered to go, but in hindsight I didn't think about that too carefully. Granted, it was a free show, so no complaints about wasted money, but it wouldn't have been a bad idea to realize that I only own two of this band's CDs and there is a reason for that. To be fair, there were one or two songs I wasn't intimately familiar with that they played and I liked a fair bit but given their preference in the set list to CDs I don't own, nor do I particularly like, I was a bit disappointed. The Tell All Your Friends and Louder Now songs were all good choices, though Tell All Your Friends could have been represented 100% more and I don't think anyone would have complained...even if I prefer the original vocals for those songs. Speaking of band members, I also feel obliged to point out that this band has three guitarists. Now, I'm not totally opposed to the idea of three guitarists...some bands can pull it off; for example, Iron Maiden. When you have rhythm and dueling soloists, or three-part harmonized guitar riffs, I can see the appeal in the third guitar played, but for a pop punk band? Overkill. Really. There's no way to really justify the use of three guitarists in any pop punk band, and the performance did nothing to argue against that point so I stick to it. Up until the title track from Tell All Your Friends was played, I was ready to walk away from the concert quite disappointed, but thanks to two dancing and energetic girls behind me, when that song came on the energy was infectious and kept with me the rest of the show, bringing up the overall quality tremendously. Taking Back Sunday live: saved by a couple of ebullient ladies.