The Elected – Me First

Some static, maybe a little piano, a distorted drum machine that sounds like it’s been thrown down a flight of stairs, a theramin that acts like it’s scared of itself, a few notes from a female opera singer, and an acoustic guitar warming up. This is all in just the first 25 seconds of the debut release by The Elected entitled Me First. Now with that first few seconds, the record could go anywhere. You definitely feel that it all might be leading up to something. Maybe a couple drum clicks into a blistering guitar solo. Or maybe it just keeps going into some sort of environmental, ambient noise thing. Could be an indie-rock intro. Maybe it’s time for a “post-Pavement” band. However, it does have that drum machine bouncing around. Maybe it’s going to kick into some kind of crazy break beat thing I could do some insane aerobics to. I have been hittin’ the ice cream a little hard lately.
Things are mellowing now, and it’s just the acoustic guitar and a little background dirge. Wait a second. I hear a dude’s voice. I hear him saying, slowly, “One, two…” Man, if he follows that with a quick “one, two, three, four” we know this things going to kick into high gear and I’m going to be burning some calories! But then there could be the equally as slowly said, “one, two, three” and this band might just be waving that post-Pavement flag.
Hold up; I totally know what would help. The players! The band members. That might be a dead ringer for what the sound is gonna be. Let’s see, there’s Blake Sennett’s name on top with a lot of credits. This is probably his show. And if memory serves me correctly, he’s the male half of the Rilo Kiley guitar/vocal dual. There’s Jason Boesel’s name on drums and he’s in Rilo Kiley, too, so this must be Sennett’s side project, and drums are just drums right? (Sorry drummers, but unless your Buddy Rich, or that jerk-ass from Metalica, you know what I’m talking about here.) There’s Daniel Brummel on bass. The guy from Ozma!?! The band, drummer Patrick Wilson, alumni from Weezer, The Rentals, and Special Goodness plays in!?! Oh, wait a seconded. Patrick Wilson isn’t in Ozma. I’m thinking of Patrick Edwards. Then there’s this fourth guy, Mike Bloom, contributing lap steel and harmonica. Could that possibly be NHL legend, Mike Bloom? No, way. My mind is just starting to stretch things out way too much now.
Hold the phone. What was that last thing? No, not the hockey, dude! “Lap steel and harmonica.” And there’s the slowly delivered, “One, two, three…” That could only mean one thing with a band from Los Angeles, California, packed with indie rockers: some good “ol, modern day, alternative country! And there it is, the signature, snare-paced country beat, the pickin’ guitar, the taggin’-along bass line… and the dreamy slide of the lap steel. All we need now to seal the deal is the first vocal line for tone and content. “I was riding around with my worst friend.” Bam! And there it is! A country setting, with a smartly twisted play on words, delivered in a harnessed whisper that would make Sparklehorse main man Mark Linkous smile.
And this, my attentive reader, is just the first minute of Me First. There are many more that follow, each one more crafted than the next, and in way’s I would get lost in describing. Sennett seemingly floats us down his world of growing pains, past lost loves, liquor store loitering Dads, agoraphobic pill-powered Moms, and self-mutilating sisters. There’s even a dog that suffers the physical pains of neglect. How much Horse Called Music meets Sparklehorse can you get?
The poetry of pain is so strong, and mixed with superbly produced music that doesn’t take a nanosecond for granted. Music is the optimism throughout Me First. The different rays of California sunshine glows through the pain. There’s the super-dream-country “7th September 2003,” the demented-spiraling-circus of “Don’t Get Your Hopes Up,” and the up-beat-train’s-a-comin’ “Waves.” There’s also the beautiful-yet-disjointed “The Miles ’til Home,” the open-up-rocker “Go On,” and a sparser-orchestrated “British Columbia.”
I think if I ever meet Blake Sennett, I’m going to give him a big hug. A hug for this beautifully crafted album he and his friends have made, and for the inner pain he has so graciously floated us down.

Apollo Up – Light the End and Burn it Through

“Saw Her Standing There,” the first track on Apollo Up’s searing debut Light the End and Burn it Through, defines everything the band is, everything the band can be, and everything the band is not. A wave of excitement came over me as the opening strains of bass and God Lives Underwater-esque synth tones were joined by a wonderfully live, flat-sounding drum kit diligently pumping out a simple yet hook-laden beat. “Yes!” I thought, “This is going to be great!” Enter the vocal track, which inexplicably sounds like someone placed a microphone outside the bathroom door as the vocalist (I’m unsure whether the principal singer is guitarist/keyboardist Jay Leo Phillips or bassist Mike Shepherd) sang in the shower.

The whole album is plagued by this quality inconsistency, although I’m not sure that crystal clear vibrancy would really help at all. In my opinion the vocals are much too dark and menacing, especially compared to the brand of fiery prog-rock-pop that accompanies them. Which, by the way, is very, very good. In fact, the greatest moments on Light the End and Burn it Through come during instrumental passages, or when the vocals are limited to shouts and/or single lines of lyric.

Unfortunately for the casual listener, these moments tend to come in the second half of the disc, where Apollo Up really seems to find its sound, loosen up, and take some chances, resulting in songs that are much more surprising. The outro to “Some Kind of Washington” is particularly inspired, and segues into the superb “Jagged Eisenhower,” the best song on the disc. Both feature extended instrumentals that showcase Apollo Up’s undeniable skill – the complex rhythms and precise technicality never manage to get in the way of the songwriting – an impressive feat. Also, at five and four minutes in length respectively, they stand out from the rest of the album, most of which clocks in at under three (a trend the band might want to look into changing). “Jagged Eisenhower” in particular really opens up and features the most frantic, powerful, and memorable moment of the album during an extended bridge before taking an unexpected turn back into the best chorus Apollo Up can boast. It’s a tune to be proud of.

It’s unfortunate that a clearly intelligent and talented band has committed an artistic suicide of sorts. Don’t get me wrong; the vocals really aren’t that bad, it’s just that the beautiful proficiency of the other song aspects will leave you lamenting what could have been. That first sweet bite of instrumental savvy on “Saw Her Standing There” quickly turns bitter and makes the rest of the album just too hard to digest. This is a band that deserves excellence from every constituent part, and I hope to hear the songs that arise when that finally happens.

The Hurt Process – Drive By Monologue

Attention all girls between the ages of 13 and 17!!! Want to get a head start on your friends and be the “cool” one who knew The Hurt Process before they exploded with popularity? Well read on young ones, read on.
The Hurt Process plays the oh-so-popular brand of “hardcore” that features plenty of vocal harmonies, a few breakdowns here and there, some screaming dispersed throughout, and of course delicious pop hooks. I really fucking hate this shit. I know in my mind that this stuff really is useless shit that everyone is doing these days, but the fucking hooks. I catch myself humming the melodies, and I just want to puke. Although I really hate any music resembling this, I suppose I should think objectively and tell you about this band in particular.
Well, THP employ a dual vocal attack similar to that of A Static Lullaby where one guy is in charge of the singing while the other handles screaming and harmonizing duties. The effect of the dual vocals actually sounds pretty good. They easily shift from delectable pop harmonies to singing with a screamed backdrop, which is more than I can say about my vocal ability. Musically, the six musicians would like to think themselves as some kind of hardcore band. Unfortunately, this is a far cry from the reality of their sound. At its very heaviest, Drive By Monologue is nothing more than Taking Back Sunday with a lot more screaming. Not to say the music doesn’t have its intense moments because it certainly does, but I am a hardcore purist, or Nazi if you will, so anything that claims the hardcore name unjustly really irks me.
Album highlights include the tasty harmonies of “This Piece” and the heavier moments including a quasi breakdown in “Opinion.” I really don’t want to spend time getting into the parts of the album I don’t like; at least not in depth. The parts I don’t like are the albums lack of creativity and willingness to just jump on the newest bandwagon. Like I said, I don’t really want to get into it too in depth.
I’m sure all you little scensters out there will eat this up, particularly if you like A Static Lullaby, Taking Back Sunday, or Funeral For a Friend. So my opinion doesn’t really matter, but I can’t recommend Drive By Monologue.

The Method and Result – The Things You Miss EP

After the first listen, The Method and Result’s mish-mash of electronic beats and sound samples of everyday objects with drums, guitars and Megan Wendell’s alluring vocals don’t seem to go together. Vocals often travel at half speed in comparison to the rhythms, but every time the six-song EP repeats, melodies begin to emerge and songs begin to make sense.
“Party List” begins with simple lyrics confessing a favorable first impression over a soft piano line and an odd crunching noise panned all the way to the right. Guitars and subtle bass lines are added later, but without any instrument leading the way besides the vocals, the song never seems to crescendo. My favorite, and the most upbeat, track off the album “I Will Not Demand What I’m Worth” is driven by a repeating guitar riff played over real drums (this time not a drum machine). Even though it is not the most experimental song off the EP, it is probably the most listenable the first go-around, and it only gets better with each listen.
The Method and Result uses sound samples of dripping water, Asian stringed instruments, and electronic beats throughout the songs, but without a doubt, the song that will entertain listeners is “Safety Scissors.” The band uses exactly what sound sample you’d expect with such a title. The rhythm is primary composed of snapping scissors over a syncopated series of drum beats and erratic clicking in the background. It would be interesting to see these songs reproduced in a live environment. With only Megan and Mason Wendell as band members, would they hire a choir of kids armed with scissors for an “acoustic” version of Safety Scissors?
After I listened to the album a few times, it started to grow on me. Avoid making negative first impressions and you will be rewarded with one of the most creative albums in a while. Although there are only six songs, in 22 short minutes the Method and Result brings many out of the ordinary ideas and sounds to the table. Personally, The Things You Miss isn’t a CD that I’d go run out and buy, but I have to appreciate the risks being taken in creating a truly original album.

Spanish for 100 – Newborn Driving

I’ve got to say that, even though this record isn’t all that bad, Spanish for 100 has got to be one of the worst band names I’ve ever heard. That being said, I’ll forgive them and we’ll try and forget about that for now. I am not a big fan of alt-country or power-pop type rock, and that is pretty much what this is, but I work with some guys who love and I mean LOVE that kind of music, and I’ve heard plenty of bands in this genre a lot worse than Spanish for 100.
The band’s debut album Newborn Driving (also a terrible album title, but whatever) reminds me of many mid-90s groups such as the Jayhawks, the Posies, and Live. The vocals are a dead ringer for the Jayhawks. The guitar sound on this record is almost exactly like the Posies’ Frosting on the Beater record. The vocal harmonies are also reminiscent of both the Jayhawks and the Posies. The songwriting is pretty good for this type of stuff, as I said before I’ve heard much worse; that all being said, this is not my favorite genre and I’m not really into this record.
I suggest that if you are a fan of the Jayhawks or the Posies that you pick this up. I think for the genre it is probably quite good. I’m certain that if you like the aforementioned bands that you will like this quite a bit and it would be well worth your time to pick this up. A solid first effort by this Seattle band.

Despistado – The Emergency Response EP

There’s a very good reason this EP is titled The Emergency Response. If you’re ever at a dull office party, and everyone is bored to tears, just slap this EP in the stereo system. The masses of formerly non-moving schmucks at the party will be shakin some booty and bustin’ a move on the dance floor, and that emergency will be solved! Despistado’s debut EP is also brings a jubilant ray of hope to rainy days, bad moods, bad grades, breakups, and/or just about everything else that makes you sad or angry. A band that captures punk’s intrinsic upbeatness and the Rapture’s unavoidable danceability definitely has the power to cheer up the depressed emo kids of today; thus, given the right opportunities, Despistado could rid the world of “emo-kid’ syndrome.
Despistado’s erratic, chant-along vocals paired with jumpy, jittery guitars contribute to the punk feel, but it gains its groove from drummer Brenan Schwartz’s unique drumming style and bassist Joel Passmore’s extremely adept and powerful command of the bass. Passmore’s thumping, pulsating lines bring a character to Despistado’s sound whose absence would render Despistado hopeless; Songs like “HiFi Stereo” and “A Stirstick’s Prediction” would be absolutely nowhere without the fabulous, funky bass work. Schwartz’s drumming is also essential to the sound, as the hopelessly endearing groove on “Bubbles” comes straight out of the nearly tribal drumbeat he delivers. He also pushes Despistado along at a brisk clip, keeping everything together nicely.
That’s not to say that the guitars or the vocals suck – those two elements do deliver the meat of these songs – but the bass and drums are much more important than in most bands. The guitars here are choppy and dissonant, delivering just enough rhythm and melody to catch your ear, but not enough to keep you rapt in listening. The two guitars add a hectic, frenzied feel to the music more than they actually add melodic value, and that’s perfectly ok. To continue with the hectic feel of this six-song montage, we have the vocals. These are virtually all yelled/sung, reminding me heavily of the Rapture, as well as a higher pitched Jack White. They explode with aggression and punk mentality, while still remaining playful and dangerously catchy.
The best explanation of Despistado’s sound would be in the opener “A Stirstick’s Prediction,” where the bassist delivers a bouncy moving line, the guitars clang away, the drums act punchy, and the call-and-response vocals demand that you sing along. I’m pretty sure that the graveyards of the world would be exciting places if Despistado were played for the deceased, as all the dead would get up and dance along with these punked-out dance grooves. I just can’t get enough of Despistado’s music….it’s happiness in a can, and who doesn’t like to be happy?

Of Montreal – Satanic Panic in the Attic

Of Montreal’s debut album for Polyvinyl Records is a simple exercise in bright, energetic-if somewhat vapid-pop music. The band’s slackerish indie tendencies often undercut some of its better rhythmic and melodic ideas, as does the compressed, muted sound of the mix. At times, though, genuine inspiration breaks through on Satanic Panic in the Attic. “City Bird” is a nice example of a British Invasion ballad, flute solo and all. As on that song, the harmonies work better on slower songs, where otherwise they sound tossed together and off-key.
Nevertheless, this album is full of life. Charming touches of new-wave and Britpop sprinkle the album liberally, played off with skill but without undue reverence. Unlike most of the band’s Elephant 6 colleagues, Of Montreal’s members unafraid to be true more to themselves than their references, although the references are all over the album. (“Vegan in Furs” is a song title worthy of Morrissey and The Smiths, nicely updated for the new millennium, and includes a subtle little nod to “Fame” by David Bowie.) What they have very much in common, however, is a preference of style over substance, or at very least a style that masks substance.
What distinguishes this record most of all is the really startling complexity of the arrangements, all crammed into a narrow 8-track sound. The album is worth repeated listening just to pick out and unpack all the little bits and pieces of instrumentation that slip by you on the first listen.
Of Montreal is probably among the best at what the band does, but as long as so many indie-pop artists continue to see themselves as curators of an older sounds rather than artists, something will always seem to be lacking. The New York punks are gone, and so is the British Invasion. On the other hand, who can argue with an expert three-minute pop song? In this vein, Satanic Panic in the Attic is a real treat, but it’ll leave you still looking for a little something more.

Lambchop – Bath – Bath Pavilion, England – 2004-04-19

On the last night of yet another near sold-out tour of the UK, you might have expected the collective Lambchop mood to have been pitched somewhere just above that of a triumphant premier-league football team at the end of a successful season. But then this is Lambchop we’re talking about; Lambchop doesn’t do triumphalism or bombast, Lambchop just does well, erm… Lambchop. Which means opening with the gossamer glide of “My Blue Wave” (from 2002’s midnight moods collection Is a Woman) with Kurt Wagner sat hunched over his battered electric whilst the seven-strong incarnation of his constantly reshuffled band strum, patter, and tinkle in the background around him. Close your eyes for a while and you find yourself, not in the grandiose village-hall-meets-school-assembly-room of Bath Pavilion, but sat in the backyard of Wagner’s Nashville home, with the band on the porch peeling back, layer-by-layer, the hushed highlights from Is a Woman and this year’s twofer coupling Aw Cmon and No You Cmon.

Barely a crochet or quaver is spilt by the band’s beatific and textured playing, aside from when a brief blast of unexpected discordance hit home on the ragged Velvets-like rocker “Nothing Adventurous Please” and on the unexpectedly climatic conclusion to “The New Cobweb Summer.” That’s a largely one-track approach that was both Lambchop’s undoing and raison d’être on this uncharacteristically warm spring night.

Musically, Lambchop was meticulously well measured. Fusing a beguiling brand of somnambulant soul, plaintive country and barroom blue moods, it’s still a wonder – nay even a shock and a travesty – that the band remains such an outcast oddity in their homeland given its collective loyalty to America’s rich musical heritage. Songs-wise, too, Wagner is way up on his game, refracting mundane situations (“Nothing But a Blur From a Bullet Train”) through his weary but witty lyrical lexicon and celebrating the love buried within friendships old and new (“Something’s Going On”) without resorting to schmaltz or sappiness.

But of course you can have too much of a nice thing, and the performance began to drag a little as the eight people on stage barely broke into a sweat – though the aforementioned ‘rockers’ and pianist Tony Crow’s between-song comedy banter with Wagner did help to break the sedate song cycle a tad. Throughout the set, musical tempos regularly lagged behind the drinking-rate of the motormouths jabbering behind your writer’s row of seats. The overt reliance on the last three albums for the set-list didn’t help matters, with no heart-warming numbers resurrected from say I Hope You’re Sitting Down/Jack’s Tulips or What Another Man Spills, in the name of eclecticism if nothing else. Variety, it seems, isn’t the spice of life for Lambchop outside of the studio.

But such sniping is perhaps missing the point of the Lambchop live experience, because as was suggested before, it isn’t about playing up to expectations or romping through the ‘hits’. It’s about creating the ambience of the band’s hearth and home, thousands of miles away from the real one. Sometimes it sustains itself all night, sometimes it struggles, but it always makes sure you feel welcome and warm to the core. It’s a feeling worth clinging to in these increasingly cold hard times.

Calexico – Black Heart EP

For a band whose “official’ album catalogue contains four lengthy entries (i.e. 1997′s Spoke, 1998′s The Black Light, 2000′s Hot Rail, and 2003′s Feast of Wire), and whose “non-official’ output is over double that (through tour-CDs, compilation tracks, singles, and EPs) it seems a tad strange that Calexico’s latest Europe-only EP should be so engorged by remixes, instead of by new or unreleased material. Maybe fresh goodies are being held back for the next self-released web/tour-only collection due later this year or perhaps even for the “proper’ follow-up to Feast of Wire? Whatever the reason, it’s still hard to get excited by a tracklist that boasts no less than five remixes and one album-culled title-track. Realistically, readers, just how many Calexico lovers know or even care what the likes of Jazzanova or the GoTan Project can bring to their beloved band’s already impeccably crafted recordings?
Put preconceptions and prejudices aside for an open-minded hard think though, and the defense lawyers have something to play with, in the old remixes-for-cash debate. First up, Calexico’s highly-rhythmical and heavily-layered song arrangements are ripe for remix reworking, and in the past similar projects have served them very well – particularly on 2000′s highly-desirable Descamino remix 12″. Secondly, the members of Calexico have themselves shown no qualms in blending and bending genres and studio techniques in order to serve artistic impulses, not to coalesce to conservative fans. Bear such mitigating factors in mind, and you’ll find some good enough reasons to add this to your already bulging Calexico collection.
Jörg Follert’s remoulding of Feast of Wire‘s jazzy centrepiece – “Attack El Robot! Attack!” – is especially effective in making the band seem at home in both a hard-bop jazz club as well as in a more adventurous rock establishment. Mexican Robert A. Mendoza reclaims “Güero Canelo” for his homeland by turning up the Latin percussion tenfold for a joyous yet still mysterious hip-shaker. The “iso68″ remix of “Pepita” is the kind of thing you might have expected Tortoise to turn in, with its dub-like throb, shuffling drums, and bowed-cello turned up high in the mix – extremely delicious stuff it is too. The GoTan Project’s treatment of “Quattro (Worlds Drift In)” isn’t too bad either, though it does stray a tad too far from the original’s lithe groove with over-fancy electronics, warped accordion sounds and frilly finger-picking. Surprisingly, it’s Jazzanova’s ponderous cliché-ridden make-over of the title-track that lets the side down, but then it can hardly sound good sequenced straight after the stunning original version with its soaring John Barry-style melodramatics. As some recompense though, also included, for those with PC-access, is a superior live video performance version of the same song, which doubles-up as a mouth-watering preview of the forthcoming Calexico DVD, due this spring/summer.
Ultimately, this collection does still feel a little like a contractual-obligation exercise for a band with a preference for spreading material amongst various less-formal outlets, and fans may feel better serviced with the upcoming DVD and/or tour-CD. However, this collection does at least achieve the rare feat that most remix sets cannot. That is, maintaining the band’s inherent magic whilst drawing out ideas that might have otherwise been lost by prolific flurrying. Worth investigating, especially if you count yourself as one of Calexico’s more open-eared followers.

Fey Ray – I Wanna Be New and Perfect

Fey Ray presents a field of minimalist instrumental sounds over which the quartet layers complex rock tenor harmonies. Fey Ray fans note that the Seattle band represents a cross between the lilting vocals of Nick Drake and the mature rock attitude of Fugazi, as its eclectic influences range from art-rock to prog to post-punk. This band’s camaraderie is remarkable; in the world of rock and roll where bands dissipate only months after conception, Fey Ray forges a new path that emphasizes friendship and equal involvement. All four members vocalized and aided in the production of their stunning debut, I Wanna Be New and Perfect. The result is an album packed with political love songs and brilliant harmonies.
The intro of “Brand New String” rocks hard with an edgy guitar intro that is placed in context when the rest of the ensemble enters. The tune settles down and opts instead for a gently playful sound. Two lead guitars play off of one another and show off the group’s production skills as the song approaches its refrain. “Brand New String”‘s melody bends in unexpected directions as Matt Duss hauntingly chants, “you know you’re still the same old thing / puppet dancing on a brand new string / have you been sincere?”
Fey Ray also thankfully possesses a witty and humorous attitude concerning the political topics that flood I Wanna Be New and Perfect. “Reflections on Radicalism in America” is a mostly instrumental comment on this American social phenomenon. The band describes well the state of American radicalism: “it’s a game that you play / it’s a tattoo of Che. . . / it’s a band that you like / a delicious dessert.” But even in the instrumental section, Fey Ray’s thoughts toward radicalism are obvious, as the group approaches a potentially serious topic and comically offsets it with poppy rhythms, bells, and handclaps.
“I Wanna Be New and Perfect” opens with an a cappella harmony of 50′s style oos and ahs with subtle record pops in the background. The piano later takes up the vocal melody, and all of the band’s members join to fill out the tune. The title track highlights Fey Ray’s eclectic influences: the sound is not entirely divorced from classic rock, but their melodic and harmonic writing represent a much more contemporary, perhaps even original, musical perspective on rock. “No Suicide” contains the lonely, intimate sounds of Fey Ray’s contemporaries Songs: Ohia. Vocalist Angie Benintendi joins Matt Duss on this gentle rock ballad as the two attempt to convince listeners that their feelings of isolation and pain are not suicidal, but “up high, the saints shake their heads.”
I Wanna Be New and Perfect is a perfect rainy-day rock album. The Seattle band skillfully blends subtle pop tunes with a classic catalogue of influences, and Fey Ray’s debut presents this combination through a veil of introspection and wit. I, for one, am anxiously awaiting Fey Ray’s next release.

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