The High Planets – Venus

I wish I had James Brown’s voice because I need to say, “Damn! If that ain’t FUNKY!” My head is swaying from side to side and my feet can’t keep still. I’m already singing along to the song and this is the first time I’ve listened to it! Lots of exclamation marks here since this band just puts you into that kind of mood.

My mind is being cast back to 1989 when Manchester was spelt with a D. There’s that baggy influence here that’s unmistakable. If this had been released in 1990 we all would have thought that this was someone riding of the coat tails of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays et al. Timing, however, is everything, and now that those bands have long gone (‘cept maybe The Charlatans) this band has come around just at the right time to remind us how good this sort of music can be when it’s done just right.

With the Farfisa organ sound, which still sounds great, wah-wahing guitars, funky drum beats, and some bonus sound effects to boot this band has all the right foundations. You still need a good tune to put on top though, and the very Shaun Ryder vocals provide just what’s needed to get that body moving. Nice little revivalist number here for the Baggy fans.

Sonika – Trueman

Lo-fi synth power-pop with the emphasis being the word pop. The mix is clean and sharp, and the female vocals are clear and strong. This sounds like a good fun bad that will shine in the live arena.

The verses are laden with early 80s-style synth riffs while the slightly noisy guitar kick in for the chorus. Singer Jayne (who apparently has her own vocal FX stomp box) sings of fame and the attention of cameras. Perhaps that will be a forerunner to the attention that the band will receive in the future. She wants people to look at her, and they just might when they find out more about her and this band.

These Sydney-siders sound like an Australian answer to Moonpools and Caterpillars. That’s a very good thing indeed. Their self-confessed influences include No Doubt. That gives you an indication of where this band is coming from, but lets hope they don’t pick up any fashion tips from Gwen Stefani.

With hooks big enough to carry a weapon of mass destruction and a beat that insists on the listener to dance like a maniac, this band is really going places if it gets that lucky break. There is an energy here that’s as infectious at botulism. This is fun power pop.

Star Bag – S/T

To speak first to the impressive points . . . “Everyone is on the Moon,” track two, is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from what a Wayne Coyne composition might sound like without all the majesty of the other Flaming Lips or their space-age production magic. It’s slow and sugary with high dreamy vocals and lyrical content to match. As the arrangement unfurls, countless guitars wander in from adjacent singer/songwriter genres to fill up the speakers in much the same fashion (but not with the same mastery of course) that an younger Doug Martsch has made famous. Other solid efforts include the waltzy “My Big Secret,” which rises above several cliches with some truly emotive slide guitar, as well as the poppity pop pop pop of the albums opener “I Just Can’t Wait.” The singer’s voice is clear and strong, and though a little hampered by his affectations and dramatic tone, it’s not hard to imagine him singing some strong power pop numbers from the 70s. (I find this refreshing.)
And then of the not so impressive . . . Too often here do Star Bag’s influences overpower their songs and make them sound derivative. Though certainly a talented songwriter, the group’s leading man, Clint Myers, is guilty of trading originality for predictability and makes a bad habit of spreading the cheese on a bit too thick. The strong numbers here are almost canceled out by the truly bad ones like “My Way Back Home” and the truly pointless closing track, “Give Me a Place,” and one gets the idea that these two were included not because the band thought they were so good, but because they had recorded them so they might as well just slip them on there. Cliches abound throughout the record, and though sometimes they can slip by unnoticed, when they aren’t so well disguised they can cause a listener like this one to cringe and scrunch his brow. This is not to say that the writing is all that bad. Actually, Mr. Myers’ worst moments rub shoulders with his best. His pen is filled with fresh imagery and evocative lines, he just needs to learn to determine the good ink from the bad ink. Oh and lay off the goofy Pink Floyd reverb. It’s stinky like Camembert.
This is a solid effort revealing a definite talent in bad need of a mentor or editor, or probably just less of a one-man show if Star Bag is to graduate from the upper reaches of the middle into something that could really grab an audience and take them somewhere.

Andrew Bird – Weather Systems EP

Former Squirrel Nut Zippers sideman Andrew Bird has released his fourth album, Weather Systems, which at only nine tracks long still manages to feel expansive, less like an EP than an extended experimental piece. However, despite that experimental feel, melody is what is at its heart. Bird seems to draw as his source material the American forms of country, folk, and certain brands of jazz, but his instrumental choices are all his own. He’s primarily a fiddle player, and he seems to delight in finding all the various unpredictable ways in which that instrument can be used to create a soundscape. Bowed, pizzicato, plucked like a mandolin, deeply layered and looped: Bird makes an orchestra out of one fiddle, while also working in percussion, backing vocals by Nora O’Connor (of The Aluminum Group, The Blacks, and Bird’s former band Bowl of Fire), and something the liner notes call “space guitar” contributed by Mark Nevers.

This is Bird’s first album for Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe label, a move away from the commercial potential offered by his old label, Rykodisk. Whether this was a matter of necessity or an intentional move toward a more independent-minded home I can’t say, obviously, but it’s certainly opened up Bird’s ability to do what he wants without the pressure to make a saleable product.

Bird travels his own road in many ways. Besides the unconventional instrumentation, there is also a cover of The Handsome Family’s “Don’t Be Scared” and an adaptation of a poem by Galway Kinnell called “First Song.” “First Song” is the strongest effort on the record. Bird casts it as a country waltz and sings it with a vulnerable, Jeff Buckley-like lilt in his voice. It’s a perfect find for Bird, portraying as it does the music of not only violins but also the bucolic noise of frogs and rusting cornstalks in a rural Illinois twilight. Weather Systems was recorded in a farmhouse where Bird moved to get away from the distractions of Chicago, and Kinnell’s romanticizing of the farm and of a lone boy listening to the sounds of nightfall captures what was most likely the thing that inspired Bird to make this music in the first place. It seems almost written for him, though it dates back to 1960.

The original songs are not so different from that in their tone (“Being alone, it can be quite romantic,” he sings at one point), though they tend to be more personal, more first-person. The best of these is the gorgeous “Lull,” with its pared-down sound and rambling lyric. “I’m all for moderation, but sometimes it seems / moderation itself can be a kind of extreme,” sings Bird, sounding at once cryptic and straightforwardly off-the-cuff.

Throughout most of the album, Bird’s voice sounds a lot like the singer from Red House Painters: he works the upper end of his register with his voice breathy, approaching but not entering falsetto. His melodies and the melancholic timbre of his songs evoke Rufus Wainwright more than anyone, and these two share more than that in there mutual appreciation for the eclecticism of the popular American musical forms of the last century and their refusal to reign in their explorations of what is possible to do on a pop record. Rufus’s efforts are certainly more polished, and he succeeds in hitting the mark more often than Bird does (the drifting softness of Bird’s songs tend to blend together a little mushily as the album goes on, and especially on the instrumental, untitled fifth track), but it’s certainly comforting to know that there’s someone out there besides Rufus (and his mother and aunt, the timeless duo Kate and Anna McGarrigle) who is evoking diverse musical bloodlines in a novel way.

Sekiden – 1 + 1 = Heartache EP

Sekiden is a three-piece band from Australia that describes its music as “perfect pop.” Although I can see where the band is going with this compliment, Sekiden falls in the same niche as several radio-friendly American pop bands.
This brief EP features four songs and ends in less than 10 minutes. The opening track “1+ 1 = Heartache” reminds me of Fountains of Wayne, but with less clever lyrics. If someone had told me that this track was a Fountains of Wayne song off the band’s new album, I would wholeheartedly believe it. Sekiden knows that synths and electronic drum beats are catchy, and the band uses these elements liberally throughout this song. The track is a fluffy pop affair with equally trite lyrics such as: “She’s so pretty / I want to take her to the city / Gotta take some painkillers / Painkillers for my heart.”
The second song, “Sloth,” sounds almost exactly like Weezer if not for some keyboard thrown in for good measure. There seems to be two vocalists in this band, and the one who sings on this track in particular might be Rivers Cuomo’s Australian twin. The lyrics seem to be the weakest link in this band. “I’ve been hanging on your couch / and you think that I am slouch / I am the laziest sloth / that you’ve ever laid eyes on.” The vocals on “Mastersystem” remind me of a cross between Social Distortion and the Rentals, while “Sleepyhead” is probably a Weezer song that Rivers Cuomo never wrote. Again, the lyrics are a bit uninspired. “I love you sleepyhead / You’re my dream sleepyhead.”
Perhaps Sekiden’s music is supposed to be medicine to relieve heartache. That is the impression that I gather from the lyrical content of the songs and the picture of an aspirin bottle on the EP. Whether the band succeeds or not is another question. Sekiden makes poppy, catchy music that is unfortunately easily forgettable.

Love Like…Electrocution – S/T

Love Like…Electrocution, Australia’s own spazz princes, are Down Under’s answer to bands like Hot Cross and Saetia. They blend screamo and metal in one fucked-up stew and spit the contents in your face, begging for a reaction.
LLE are a sextet that uses all of their members to their full potential. Like the above-mentioned groups, the music here is often technical and complex. There’s a lot going on and a lot of energy contained within five inches of compact disc. Often the drummer is going crazy with some fast scattershot beats or keeping the members in check with a precisely executed breakdown. The guitars are overlapping and mesh together. There’s some high speed noodling and a driving rhythm. All of this compliments the dual vocalist structure well. The lead vocals are screamed in a higher register with a strained voice. The backups are shouted back and they are often in unison.
Thankfully with song titles as ironic, comic and nonsensical as: “We Only Fuck to Black Sabbath Vol. 4″ & “Tips for Avoiding the Clap. 1 I Wouldn’t Piss on a Scorpion if it Was on Fire,” LLE is a group that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The messages aren’t heavy handed, and in fact without a lyric sheet they are almost indecipherable. It would be nice to know what all the fuss and screaming was about, but unfortunately you don’t get that satisfaction.
Overall, though, this is a mixed effort. The group, with all the musicians’ complexities and intricacies, is tight but could be tighter. The songs are short and therefore deliver a to-the-point punch, but after listening to the disc on repeat it can begin to sound like just under 20 minutes of straight screaming, each song no different than the last. So in one simple statement, at times Love Like…Electrocution can be either the ultimate motivational tool and energy pill or the ultimate headache inducer.

Ipanema – Je Suis Un Baseball Bat vs. Skull EP

Ipanema is the latest project brought to you by Wiz, former member of Mega City 4, Doughboys, and Serpico. His new band takes a more direct approach than any of his previous ones, and though there may only be two tracks offered here, the results thus far are promising.
Wiz manages to maintain a style comparable to that he used with his former bands, so fans of his other work should be pleased. But he also keeps from growing stagnant, touching things up just enough to keep them fresh and lively. With the first track, “Je Suis Un Baseball Bat,” the riffs are practically heavy enough to knock you over, but the hooks are just as bountiful. The song bounces from dark and dirty chugging to crisp and lively melodies, and if nothing else it serves as a valuable lesson to all the younger and less experienced pop-punk bands out there. And really, the second song, “Skull,” is not much different. It mixes melody with aggression in a poppy, punky fashion that is familiar yet invigorating. Fans of everything from elder statesman such as Jawbreaker to new-school torchbearers like Alkaline Trio should quickly find themselves tapping along once these two songs start coming out of the speakers.
The good news is that Ipanema lays it all out in a matter of about six minutes, never letting up and rocking out with a sort of sincerity that is absent from a lot of bands that would presently be lumped into the same category. The bad news is that Ipanema has yet to break any new ground and fails to set itself apart from any of the bands, both past and present, that are known for writing similar songs.
Available on both CD and fancy white vinyl, this two-song single serves as the perfect introduction to the Ipanema sound. If you like it, it will tease and tide you over just enough to leave you anxiously awaiting the band’s next release. If you don’t care for what you hear, the single will only have wasted a few minutes of your time, and you can move on with your life and quickly forget all about this little misstep.

Christiansen – Stylish Nihilists

I would not be at all surprised if Christiansen managed to be one of the next bands to break out and gather some mainstream exposure. Ask the band if being a part of the mainstream is all that desirable and the guys might point you towards the aptly titled fifth track, “The Middle Finger.” “Wrap your arms around the volume knob / It’s like a party worth portraying / It’s the age of electronica / When you die I’ll be your DJ / And we’ll dance and scream and drink to the mainstream / Or bury your firstborn and try to get on with life.” Apparently, they couldn’t care less.
Still, Stylish Nihilists is a record worthy of some serious attention. It rocks hard enough to completely knock you over, yet it never resorts to mindless chugging and pummeling. Instead, the band is technically tight and precise, a quality that was gradually improved upon with each of Christiansen’s previous two albums. There are several elements at work here, not the least of which is the jagged post-hardcore guitar work that smacks of everyone from forefathers like Fugazi and Burning Airlines to contemporary peers like Garrison. These guitar sounds lead the way, cutting right through you with a nearly perfect blending of abrasiveness and melody. There are moments during which the listener can easily picture the guitar being pummeled mercilessly as strings snap and fingers bleed, but there are also spatterings of huge, anthematic power chords and infectiously catchy melodies. It may sound like a lot of ground to cover, but it all comes together remarkably well, and without sounding the least bit scattered.
Partnered with the guitars as the co-leader of this adventure are the excellent vocals. The majority of the singing is done in an easily decipherable and pleasant fashion, with aggressive lyrics that come off as a bit silly once or twice, but for the most part stand out as intelligent and clever. The vocals occasionally find it impossible to refrain from erupting into a shout or growl, but there is always a sense of thoughtful control, which only furthers the thought that there is some real energy and passion behind what is being said. Finally, serving as the glue that holds all of this thoroughly enjoyable and mildly chaotic noise together is the playfully tight rhythm section. The bass grooves are about as thick as they come, intricate and interesting yet easily danceable, and the same goes for the drum work, which includes everything from pummeling standard rhythms to quirky snare drum rolls and added percussion toys. There are several points at which you won’t know whether to shake your ass or head-butt the guy standing next to you, but at least you’ll be enjoying the music in the background either way.
With every album Christiansen has released, the band has taken serious strides toward something truly impressive, and so it is easy to predict that bigger and better things are in store for this band. It looks like we’ll just have to sit back and see what happens, but Stylish Nihilists is definitely another step in the right direction.

Various Artists – Urbs in Horto: A Chicago Indiepop Compilation

Ah, the compilation CD. Usually a smattering of unrelated tracks burned onto a disc for the purpose of giving the listener “options,” it often also gives that listener 15 reasons to only listen to the albums I, I mean you, already own and not to trust Q or CMJ ever. Okay, truthfully, those are just promo CDs that come with the magazines; true compilations, as you already know, are more often than not gleaned from a record label’s roster. They can be unreleased rarities, or the best song from each band placed side-by-side for your convenience. It’s also a good way to trick you into buying one of the label’s artist’s albums because you think “Hey, that ‘Concerta’ is a great song! Their album must be rad, too!” Alas, this is often not the case and I end up 16 dollars poorer and not any wiser.
Urbs in Horto: A Chicago Indiepop Compilation is the one of several exceptions (get the Dimmak sampler, pronto) to the comps usually being crappy or out to trick you rule. With 18 Chicago scene mainstays contributing their considerable talents, every track is a winner. Of course, some are more winning than others, and since you don’t have much money or time and won’t buy anything without a good reason, here you go:
Track 3: Tenki, “The Set Up” – DCFC meets Joy Division and/or Interpol. With extra trumpet.
Track 5: Butterfly Child, “Girl on Fire” – Isaac Brock in a boozy fight with Ryan Adams. Country-pop edges out garage-rock as hippest genre to love.
Track 9: Written in the Sand, “UFO Disaster” – The Fall, but from Chicago and warmer.
Track 12: The Atari Star, “Urbs in Horto” – They have the title track. Which came first, the song or compilation, hmm? Wait. “Urbs in Horto” is Chicago’s city motto. It means “City in the Garden.” So…which came first?
Track 15: Troubled Hubble, “I Ran Over Some Glass” – The Helio Sequence meets Modest Mouse. Imagine.
Track 18: The Slugs, “Honey Rose” – The Lemonheads.
There you are: six songs that make this compilation essential. The whole disc is made of unreleased or rare tracks. The 12 other songs found are also good; some are indiepop in the strongest sense of the word, unabashedly wearing their love of Belle & Sebastian on their sleeves. Others are fuzzed-out rock numbers. In other words, this is a compilation that actually delivers. A little of this, a little of that, and just enough to make everyone happy.

The Slip – S/T EP

The three ladies in The Slip hail from the Gainesville, Fla. area, and this debut EP shows quite an interesting musical direction. The group takes some dream-pop melodies and clearly makes them their collective own. The vocals from Andrea are a little reminiscent of those of Heather Lewis of Beat Happening. Andrea’s vocals share that same laconic yet peppy vocal style and all the charm as well.
“Waste” starts the disc off in powerful fashion with some fast-paced guitar work and vocals that sound like they were recorded in an echo chamber. The vocals seem rather distant, but Andrea’s breathy vocals sound very natural and strong, which works well. Unfortunately the musical shifts distract, and, while sometimes rather interesting, they just come off as flat and predictable. “Chatterbox” continues the disc’s theme of dreamy and slight music with floating and echoing vocals over the backdrop. Andrea proves herself a very talented vocalist and guitarist as she throws off some tasty riffs throughout the song and disc.
This three-piece debuts here quite nicely, though on an occasion the band does try to do a little too much and gets too distracting. Andrea has a lot of talent both vocally and musically, while the combination of Mary and Sarah, on bass and drums respectively, also show they are quite a strong rhythm section. There is still some work to be done, as the songs are rather disjointed at points, sometimes creating a wonderful atmosphere that get interrupted by unnecessary changes in the music. Still this group of girls prove to have a lot of talent, and with some more seasoning they should soon be able to crank out some recordings that catch the ear quickly.

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