Idlewild – The Remote Part

Those trained monkeys over at Capitol Records must be running loose again. How else to explain such executive bungling and managerial ineptitude? They already pulled this stupid, shortsighted stunt once already, delaying the release of Idlewild’s magnificent 100 Broken Windows - not just for a couple of months, but for an entire friggin’ year – despite a flurry of fantastic, red-hot singles exploding out of your speakers at a head-spinning rate not seen since the days when King Cobain himself ruled the invisible airwaves. With such heady melodic scorchers as the devilishly catchy “Little Discourage,” the potent “Roseability,” and the thrilling “These Wooden Ideas,” (and let’s not forget the spastic fury of “Idea Track,” or the cool catharsis of “Rusty,” or the sheer majestic weight of the spine-tingling closer “The Bronze Medal!”) what could they have been thinking?! One has to wonder if they are deaf or just plain dumb. An LP that ferocious and unrelenting? A year late!? Puhlease!
Yet here they are, back at it. The same label that should get on their collective knees and count their Radiohead blessings has again decided to play a dispiriting game of keep away with the Scottish group’s new LP – the stunning, although not quite as consistent, The Remote Part. The album has been available in England (courtesy of British label Parlophone U.K) since last summer, and has been enjoying an avalanche of success, while American fans have been forced to wait (im)patiently or cough up the few extra bucks for the import (worth every penny!!). But good news appears to be here at last. Capitol will release The Remote Part next month, and the band will be in the States touring non-stop from March through June. (Now if only those pampered label execs and corporate hounds could get the lumbering wheels of that enormous marketing machine moving and promote this record, perhaps we could cut them some slack!)
While it doesn’t have as many flat-out terrific songs as its predecessor, I’d venture to say that The Remote Part is the record that Idlewild has wanted to write all along. While Windows was – with few exceptions – a barnstorming rock & roll burner, the songs here are more diverse, dynamic, ambitious, and reflective. Fans of Windows’ manic pacing need not be worried though. There is still plenty of high-octane rockers to please even the most ardent fist-pumper, starting with the staggering opener “You Held the World in Your Arms,” an odd but irresistible blend of 80s new-wave nostalgia and simmering post-punk power. There is nothing all that remarkable about the song’s arrangement – it’s quite familiar and ordinary – but the way Idlewild delivers their message is entrancing: passively stringing you along during the rough and tumble verses, then luring you close with the panic-ridden high-tension of the post-verse, and finally slapping you silly with the emotional release of a killer chorus that you just can’t get out of your head. Holy smokes! Believe me when I say this is as good a song as you’ll hear this year. But before you can even catch your breath, in crashes guitarist Rod Jones with a frantic, nasty, sinister, thundering riff that just rips you to shreds. The fast and furious “A Modern Way of Letting Go” is a 2:20 rocket-ride that manages to evoke Nirvana, Buzzcocks, Replacements, and R.E.M. with a stellar combination of brute force and whip-smart songwriting. Bassist Bob Fairfoull and drummer Colin Newton are so tightly-wound and smoking hot it’s a wonder they don’t collapse from the stress.
“American English” is another coup, a dark, but elegant pastoral charmer about the search for self and the meaning of truth in an uncertain world full of disillusion and disappointment. Jones’ hypnotic guitar swirl is warm and welcoming, echoing like church bells ringing in the far off distance while vocalist Roddy Woombie wearily laments: “Maybe you’re young without youth / Maybe you’re old without knowing anything true / I think you’re young without youth.” If it does nothing else The Remote Part surely cements Woombie’s status as one of modern rock’s most unique and gifted singers. Equal parts sultry crooner, art-damaged and disgruntled cynic, and introspective poet, Woombie possesses a remarkable emotional and artistic range, as well as a sizable talent for developing mesmerizing and memorable hooks. Whether he is spitting out the venom and vitriol on “Modern Way” or letting his strong, rounded voice carry the day on the effervescent lullaby “I Never Wanted,” Woombie is always in convincing control of the moment and the mood.
While things never quite reach the same stupefying heights as “You Held the World” or “American English,” the remainder of The Remote Part is a delicious dichotomy of sounds, moods, colors, and textures. From the intricate and thunderous bombast of the angular cranker “(I Am) What I Am Not” to the gentle acoustic pop of “Live in a Hiding Place” to the sprawling and somber afterglow of the gorgeous “In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction,” Idlewild deftly balance the bold with the beautiful, the harsh and aggressive with the calm and serene. Just sit back and listen as the band urgently cranks out the Ash meets Morrissey screamer, “Out of Routine,” and then softens into the triumphant acoustic guitar and piano laced “Tell Me Ten Words.” There aren’t many bands out there that can deliver such a convincing diversity of underground rock styles – Idlewild do it with confidence and ease. Even the more stark moments seem to bristle with an infectious, crackling energy.
The fact that Capitol would allow an album this widely appealing, this vast in depth and beauty, this just plain good to languish on the backburner while they focus on market strategy and quarterly profits speaks volumes about their commitment to releasing quality, forward-thinking music. The recording industry is changing, the paradigm is constantly shifting and evolving: the explosive growth and global potential of the world wide web and the decreasing cost of quality recording solutions has seen to that. But one thing will never change and that is the public’s demand for passionate, powerful, poetic music. Idlewild has gone out and created just that. Now if we could only do something about those damn monkeys.

Enode – Memory Still Fresh

From a band with an incredibly pretentious name, Enode(pronounced “ee-no-day”), derived from Latin meaning to “work it out” or “solve the problem,” comes a pointless and self-centered album. Memory Still Fresh is Enode’s debut release, written primarily by frontman Ben Gitenstein. The band describes its music as Nick Drake-type ballads mixed with the Get Up Kids and Built to Spill. The influences are apparent in each of the tracks, but so is Enode’s self-righteous, pristine attitude.
Memory Still Fresh opens with “Envelope,” a song that succeeds in pulling the listener in, starting the album off on a positive, yet typical note. The rhythm is choppy at first, then flows into a heavily pop-influenced verse. The chorus is sweeping and charged with emotion. Mixed in throughout the song are quiet moments and carefully placed riffs. “Envelope” essentially follows the basic pattern of any standard emo song. The album unfolds along this same vein. Each song on Memory Still Fresh is predictable and obvious, with lyrics that strive to catch the listener off guard. However, no matter what the lyrics said, all I got from them was “Listen to me, I’m a very deep and emotional person! Appreciate me and my music!.” Take the song “Maybe” as an example: “I don’t know your name / but I don’t really want to / I don’t want to lose you.” Wow, how deep and thought provoking… or not. What is there for him to lose if he doesn’t even know this person’s name? Or maybe I’m missing something. Maybe Enode requires a more insightful and intellectual listener than me. Then again, maybe not. I offer you another snippet, this one from “Pallbearer’s Confession.” Only one line is necessary to prove my point: “Every day the sunrise breaks my heart.” Excuse me while I wipe away the single tear that has rolled down my cheek.
As emotionally charged as Memory Still Fresh attempts to be, it comes off as almost laughable. The only way to take Enode seriously is to ignore the incessant, nasal, whine that is Ben Gitenstein’s voice and focus solely on the music. Even then, Memory Still Fresh is nothing groundbreaking or even worthwhile. In fact, it’s repetitive, formulaic, and completely unmemorable. What’s more, there is no point to the album, no song tying everything together. The final track, “Rain Falls on Brooklyn,” is slow and anti-climatic with uber-emotional lyrics. It is the typical end to a typical album.
The actual recording of Memory Still Fresh is tinny and flat. As a result, Enode sounds thin and the listener is left waiting for a lot more than the album delivers. Enode has set its sights too high, comparing the band’s music to Nick Drake and the Get Up Kids. Memory Still Fresh is a 10-track waste of time and will leave you with nothing but ringing in your ears.

Thirdimension – Protect Us From What We Want

As the amazingly resilient influx of bands from Sweden over the past two years shows no signs of abating, we might be justified in now making a preliminary evaluation of just what has filtered down to our American ears through the New Musical Express hype machines and European record charts. The first thing one notices is a fair amount of variation, with everything from the experimental Euro-pop of Moonbabies to the garage rock attack of the Hives, the twee-pop of the Acid House Kings and the proggy sounds of the Soundtrack of Our Lives accounted for within their ranks. Still, it’s arguable that the scene has yet to produce a true artistic breakthrough, as the great majority of the bands have fairly clear parallels in the traditional English-speaking canon, which generally ensures that few even realize that they’re Swedish. You can add Thirdimension to that number, as well, as they work within the parameters of already established conventions and generally give no sign that they aren’t coming from an Anglo-Saxon musical tradition, emerging with a consistently accomplished, if occasionally predictable set of songs.
A re-release of their 1998 debut, Protect Us From What We Want is a powerhouse summation of the last 30 years of British rock and pop. Founded largely upon a fairly simple mix of careening electric and soft acoustic guitars, the band stretches out to drench their songs in lush strings, pianos, and zithers. As such, you get a fairly standard mix of textures and tones, sometimes radically mixed within the same track, as with the veering back and forth between messy swirling distortion and pastoral calm of the opening “If This World Could Only See.” More often than not, the melodies soar, with sing-songy anthems rising through the crisp production to drive each song even nearer its natural inclination toward becoming a foot-tapping anthem. Such multi-layered moments, from the ringing organs of “This Time” to the slightly askew sing-along in “Never in a Lifetime,” wouldn’t sound terribly out of place on an early Oasis or Super Furry Animals record, as lead singer and songwriter Bjorn Stegmann possesses a similar penchant toward sweepingly dramatic arrangements yet thankfully manages to delete much of the formers’ tendencies toward grandiosity.
Throughout, the consummately gorgeous four-part harmonies highlight arrangements that are alternately dipped in rich strings (“The Games You Play”) or airy acoustic strumming and twinkly synths (“Until It Breaks”). Further, the opening seconds of the sharp guitar hook of “Lonely Road” will leave some wondering if it might be a cover of the Beatles’ classic “She Said, She Said,” just as the sweetly swinging strings and heavy guitars of “Yes Equals No” almost recalls the delicacy of Mercury Rev. No doubt, it’s all vaguely familiar and rarely approaches something that could be classified as a definitively original sound, but as the first step for most bands is to adequately recreate their favorite sounds, Thirdimension proves themselves amazingly competent.
Ultimately, the difficulty of writing music in an acquired idiom probably makes it that much harder to create an original and cohesive lyrical statement, as it must be even more difficult to avoid clichés when working in something other than your natural language. Thirdimension doesn’t totally avoid this conundrum, as most of their lyrics tend to be a bit unimaginative and vague, no matter how inventive they can be within the complexity of their arrangements. The fact that these bands ultimately bear little difference from the British and American bands that have inspired them is similarly unfortunate, as something akin to a genuinely Swedish form of rock would be a welcome addition to the school of music that can always use a few new voices. Obviously, it would be unfair to hold these bands to a higher creative standard just because of their geographical locale, and all of the bands have proven themselves wonderfully conversant in the various forms they’ve approached despite the derivative nature of their songwriting. Still, we’ve seen again and again, with artists as diverse as Os Mutantes to E.T. Mensah, that the best way to arrive at something new in rock and roll is to combine the traditional sounds of your homeland with electric guitars and a rebellious ethic. Whether or not that will ever truly happen with the Swedes is unclear, but we could certainly face a much worse fate that having to listen to albums as uniformly solid as Protect Us From What We Want.

Sam Bisbee – Live at Arlene Grocery

Although solo pop troubadours are creatures that periodically seems to go into hibernation, with each decade’s cycles of heavy rock movements relegating them to pansy status and just as many songwriters find themselves as the leader of a band, the year 2002 may some day be recognized as a banner year for pop fans. Not only did Elvis Costello return to form with the excellent When I Was Cruel, but we also had incredibly accomplished albums from the likes of Brendan Benson, Ben Kweller, Ron Sexsmith, and a host of others who decided to go it alone with their guitars and pianos. And if he gets a few breaks, Sam Bisbee could find himself listed among the breakthroughs of the year, too.
A live album recorded in New York City, Live at Arlene Grocery is a colorful and compelling set of high-energy songs recorded during the first days of summer in 2002. Opening with a note-perfect cover of New Order’s “Age of Consent,” Bisbee establishes a freewheeling and informal mood, his voice soaked in falsetto as an atmospheric wash of keyboards mix with punchy guitars. Drawing heavily on his sophomore release, Vehicle, the set becomes a showcase for a master tunesmith and his consummately tight band. Hooks abound inside the arrangements of the infectiously bouncy piano grooves of “Bucket Seat” and the Ben Folds-ish “Ride ‘Em Mower,” providing moments of pure pop bliss. At other times, with the tight soul groove and stream of consciousness delivery of “Molecules” and the slightly snide annunciation of “You are Here,” Bisbee can sound like a cross between Lou Reed and Stephen Malkmus, narrating his song with both confidence and cockiness.
The stronger pop proclivities in the set are balanced by a number of slowly building climatic rockers, with the surprisingly delicate melody of “Miracle Car” and the warm guitar tones of “Casualty” giving way to drawn-out U2-ish codas complete with Bono-esque “hoo hoo hoo”ing. Similarly, the gorgeously rendered synth strings of the Chris Martin-ish warble found on the alternately shimmering and driving ballad “Shake Me” could draw parallels to Coldplay. Still, Bisbee takes time to toss in a few surprises to round out the set, dipping into fairly standard piano balladry with the nostalgic “Cubicle Love Song” and an informal two-chord soul groove on a cover of De La Soul’s “Eye Know.”
All in all, the singularly accessible mood of the material will not be a surprise to those who’ve been following Bisbee for a few years, although just how well he recreates the somewhat complex nature of his previous studio recordings very well might be. Throughout, Bisbee proves himself to be an eclectic and entertaining musician, altogether capable of translating the first yawns of summer into an invigorating performance. He may not yet be recognized among the master craftsmen of his trade, but if the showcase on Live at Arlene Grocery is any indication, we should be hearing far more from him in the coming years.

Pony Express – Becoming What You Hate

You’d think that after working as a librarian for six years, I’d learn not to judge a book by its cover. I can distinctly remember taking one home in high school that had all the earmarks of a sci-fi pulp novel about phone phreaking and artificial intelligence – and the acrid sting of dissapointment that followed when it ended up containing 150 continuous pages of dialogue about masturbation and housepainters. Then, a year later, expecting stories about pianists and pale reclusives, I managed to pick up the damn sequel – which was about stopping time in order to look at people naked. Still, the most important lessons remain the most difficult to learn, which is why I approached Pony Express’s Becoming What You Hate with a little trepidation. How could I know? The album art screams “Virgin Megastore cut-out bin circa 1993,” and the one-page factsheet that came with the album uses poor grammar! Doesn’t that mean whatever’s inside is, itself, discountable?
Well, of course not – not unless you’re one of those fuckheads with the white belts that keeps telling me about form over function and spilling imported beer on my sleeve at shows while the rest of us are trying to actually listen to the actual music. I don’t care how you spell “Kurious Oranj,” just like I never cared how to spell “Mayonaise” in middle school, just as long as I get to listen to it. Becoming What You Hate could come wrapped in old butcher’s paper, for all I care – it’s a fantastic album either way. (Good thing this reviewing gig requires me to listen to the records I get.)
“So, what’s so great about this album,” you’re thinking, “that you’re making me wade through two paragraphs of yelling and books to get to it?” Well – before someone taught Mark Linkhous what “album-wide consistency” meant, remember how Sparklehorse had this wonderful knack for mid-album juxtapositions that only made sense five listens in? Maybe it’s just me, but listening to Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot always made me feel like I was rummaging through someone’s hope chest in a fever dream. Becoming What You Hate feels like that, except with less derivation into audio experimentation and songs that just chase their tails – somehow, with a Quaalude-hazed veneer over the whole thing, Pony Express manage to nail together what feel like 18 ideas into less than a dozen songs, without sounding schizophrenic or pretentious, and whilte maintaining their pop sensibility. Take, for example, “GPA;” some 45 seconds into the song, someone strikes a wrong chord, innocently, and just as you’re wondering whether or not it was intentional, the song dissolves into a ridiculous pile of distortion. Haven’t we seen Malkmus and Elvrum doing similar things? Sure – but where ol’ “S followed by a T” would’ve lit a cigarette and started picking through the dictionary, and Elvrum would’ve bounced the whole thing between speakers and thrown a choir on top, Pony Express sound as though they’ve discovered something about writing a pop album that the rest of us haven’t caught onto – some fantastic mix of irreverence and varied taste and sweet tooths that always feels like it shouldn’t be as cohesive and effective as it is.
Which is not to say that these are unlistenable experiments in four-tracking; sometimes the juxtapositions are simple and subtle. Placing the fingerpicking-and-singing “Teenagers & Fire” in front of the overbombastic, you’ve-got-your-Spiritualized-in-my-Sabbath “Headlights are the Answers” is so jarring, it’s almost genius. Even the band’s choices in instrumentation and arrangement avoid treading upon cliche; the refrain of “Long Island” wafts up from the tremelo-dazed too-many-Margueritas chorus – “You’re just too drunk to drive home / You’re just drunk enough to drive home” – and then comes down to a sarcastic, farty guitar line as though it were a hangover. And I can’t possibly finish this review without mentioning the last track – a “Sister Ray” -namechecking lo-lo-fi piece that halfway through gains what I like to call the Muppet Hell International Choir. I cannot possibly do it justice with words alone. In the name of grossly-underdesigned albums everywhere, I implore you to find out on your own exactly how good power-pop can be when it’s disassembled and reconstructed by Pony Express. Or do you have some hand-silkscreened LP covers to drink vermouth at?

Loess – S/T

As a reviewer, I’m not supposed to spend too much time comparing artists and albums to other artists and albums: it’s hardly fair to the artists, it’s boring for the reader, and it shows a real lack of ingenuity on the reviewer’s part. What happens, then, when I listen to an album and it simply screams derivation? On one hand, it’s probably still not too fair to the artist. On the other hand, it would be almost insulting to the reader’s intelligence to dance around a comparison for an entire review. Ah, sweet moral dilemma.
Resolution: Boards of Canada. There. I said it. Now you all know. Clay Emerson and Ian Pullman, the duo that man the laptops for Loess, sound so much like Boards of Canada that they’re not even denying the comparison anymore. Everything from the keyboard patches to the album art emanates the geological naivety of their Warp Records brethren. The drums rumble high in the mix, fighting for aural space by means of slow, circular beats that wrap themselves into the flow of the synth wash.
Now I personally have always been slightly critical of the homogeneity Boards of Canada sponsors: laptop music has always been criticized for its seemingly low learning curve, and Boards’ two and a half textures do little to sway the dissenters. Despite the relative simplicity to the music, I’ve always felt Boards did an admirable job creating an atmosphere and a mood. Loess strives for many of the same atmospheres and moods, and while they are not quite as proficient, they aren’t bad either. There’s a thousand keyboard gurus making “IDM” these days, and to their credit, Loess are extremely comfortable in their style and composition, and this helps the album to sit well.
To be fair, Loess does occasionally deviate from the Boards Formula. “2nd Twelve” is caked in a layer of pleasant static, which serves as a nice edition to the format. The track even holds up when the band remixes it later on the album. “Tone2″ relies on a hollow, percussive sound that creates the melody in the track, not unlike a different – though equally admirable – Warp artist, Plaid. The track might be the band’s high point, as it showcases a level of originality and experimentation that’s not as apparent on the rest of the album’s tracks. On the 19-minute plus closer “Woven,” the band keeps things vanilla for the first seven minutes, but when the track morphs into a gospel choir of scary-organ noises and almost vocal emanations, you realize this band perhaps does have some of their own ideas.
Though one could probably knock the band solely on their lack of new ideas, I’ve never been that kind of reviewer. Obviously, their interpretations of an already oft-imitated genre are nothing groundbreaking, but if you can’t get enough of the Warp catalog – and believe, there are many who can’t – than Loess could be right up your alley. If the band can expand on some of their more inspired moments, Clay Emerson and Ian Pullman may just make a name for themselves.

Verona Downs – Fuzz Demo 2 EP

Verona Downs, led by Greg Jacobs formerly of Weeping in Fits and Starts, continue their ongoing demo series with this three-song EP recorded at studios and practice spaces. However, the use of the word “demo” in the title is a bit misleading because it seems to imply that these are rough drafts of songs with mediocre sound quality, but these songs are fully realized and of professional quality soundwise.
For the most part, the music is sparse and quiet with well-placed male and female harmonies, which add a nice sonic layer to the gentle and simple music. The second song, “Outringing” brings the female vocals to the front as well as adding a violin to the mix, swinging nicely. “Wiggle” is the final song and finds the band injecting a little rock into the pop formula, making it essentially a boogie number about watching a girl’s body shake while she dances.
This demo is good teaser for Verona Downs’ soon to be released first full-length, entitled I Listen Through All the Breaking Oceans.

Marky Ramone & the Speed Kings – Legends Bleed

Rock-n-roll is here in a big way. The burgeoning popularity of this new form of music has already devoured the college music scene with revolutionary bands like the Mooney Suzuki and the Agenda, creating new and diverse sounds that push the boundaries of creative and cathartic expression in the art form of music. Such previously little known bands as the Strokes and the Vines are providing the pre-packaged mainstream with much needed unpredictability and a wild streak not seen since the days of Limp Bizkit’s emergence as a driving creative force in the music world. Rock-n-roll seems here to stay. Indeed, it is not just a “here today, gone tomorrow” musical genre such as third wave ska.
One such pioneer of this rock-n-roll genre offers up a heaping helping of raw fun and excitement. Marky Ramone, former drummer of a little-known NYC punk band, announces his presence to the world with this release entitled Legends Bleed. Apparently, Marky’s old band, the Ramones, were incredibly ahead of the curve, playing a style of super-technical, highly-skilled music that has influenced this current rock-n-roll reformation. For 20-plus years, the Ramones went relatively unnoticed, and it is good to see such leaders of a genre getting the proper recognition that they deserve.
But one must ask, “What kind of influences do musicians of this rock n roll music draw from?” Surely, they must have a passion in their hearts to express such raw emotions and radiate such a fun atmosphere. Here, Marky Ramone shows off the basis for rock n roll – drugs, girls, and a “fuck you” type attitude. Song titles range from “Fuck Shit Up!” to “Sex Phone Girls” and cover highly important events in today’s world. The music of the band is straight ahead, rollicking guitar licks that harken back to the hot rods of the 1950s. Lots of the songs concern having a good time and living life nonstop. This is quality music but lacks some of the finer points of such bands like the New Bomb Turks and other rock n roll bands of today. Same subject matter. Different level of quality. Marky was originally a drummer for a reason, and it shows.
Sixteen songs here get a bit repetitive. With 20 tracks in all, the last four feature ultra-rare field recordings of the Ramones in their natural environment of small, dingy clubs. These tracks stand out from Marky’s work and will surely serve to influence and entire generation of young rock n rollers, a trend that will hopefully spur on this new form of music past its current early experimental stage.

MAPS. – Model American

MAPS are a dearly departed hardcore band from that great punk rock town of San Francisco. Members went on to be in the Nerve Agents and the Distillers, a band who is currently enjoying some commercial success. Its safe to say that MAPS never had any ideas of being marketable; these guys have hardcore in their hearts and it shows in this discography. The group disbanded in 1999 after they were sued by a man who claimed to own the trademark to their name, Model American. Hardcore bands don’t have any money for such frivilous things as court battles so the band decided to call it quits and take on other endeavors. This record is released under the name MAPS, or Models American Playing Secretly, a moniker the band used when playing places where they had been banned. At any rate, this is a collection of all their recorded material, and it goes to show just how good of a band Model American was.
In the opening verse of “We’ve Had Enough,” singer Tim Pressley bellows, “I’ve seen too much / These negative ways / Attitudes start shaping / Values astray / It’s time to start thinking / Using our minds / Sticking together / Willing to fight”; these lyrics pretty much sum up Model American’s message of giving empowerment to the disenfranchised. The album’s second song, “Time Will Tell,” is my favorite track here as it starts of with a guitar melody that, somewhere in my mind and punk rock conditioning, came to embody the sound that I identify with hardcore. The songs “Don’t Give Up,” “Us vs. Them,” and “Never Forget” are all circle pit-inducing, fist-raising anthems to the max.
One thing that is lacking with many hardcore bands today is a sense of history. When some people talk about old-school hardcore, they mean stuff like Bane or Ten Yard Fight, and while those bands do embody some original hardcore spirit, they weren’t around in the early 80s. Model American shows off their historical appreciation by covering Seven Seconds, Bad Brains, and the Adolescents; all great covers, especially the Seven Seconds song, “Die Hard Youth.” This being a discography, there are also a couple of live tracks from a Gilman St. show tacked onto the end.
Model American made hardcore music, plain and simple. Alot of people say hardcore is repetitive, and its hard to argue that its not. There aren’t any uber-technical solos or super-intelligent, metaphysical lyricism, but what hardcore brings to the table is spirit. A good hardcore band makes you pump your fist and think for yourself without such musical tools. Model American was a damn fine band, and more people should know about their music.

Somehow Hollow – Busted Wings & Rusted Halos

Formed in the aftermath of Grade, Somehow Hollow presents a more radio-friendly sound. All four members have at one point played in the melodic punkcore machine known as Grade, but their friendship goes back way before that project, and they had in fact, been in a band before Grade broke up. But now this Ontario foursome has moved on and has released their sophomore album on Victory Records.
I wonder, is Victory going soft? I mean, they recently picked up Dead to Fall and Atreyu, but they also have the Snowdogs and now Somehow Hollow. Don’t get me wrong, I authentically like this album, as it is chockful of lovable vocal melodies and down-to-earth lyrics.
Busted Wings & Rusted Halos starts off with “Kamloops,” which features some wonderful guitar harmonies in the middle of the stereotypical punk power chord progression. If you’re expecting the raspy yells of Grade, you’re not going to find them. The vocals on this album are a straight-forward pop-punk singing voice, reminiscent of the Pennyroyals. There’s enough musical variety on this album to keep the listener entertained. Surprisingly enough, it sounds like this band knows more than three chords. And although they may not play anything that stands out and mind-blowingly original, they don’t completely suck, which is a nice change of pace for this genre of watered-down music.
While Grade had some aggression in the vocals and the music and everything else, Somehow Hollow is 100 percent melody and is the quintessential example of pretty punk rock. Songs like “The Witch of Glen Cedar Grove” and “How Winter Killed Our Souls” stand out because of the guitar work. This band is so damn catchy you can’t help but tap your foot and whistle along. It is unfortunate, however, that there is little dynamic contrast on the album, with a single volume the whole way through the album.
Somehow Hollow isn’t original nor great, but they’re good enough to like, and they’re good enough to say that ex-members of Grade still know what’s up with the world of underground rock.

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