Joe Phillips – Detroit – The Shelter, MI – 2004-03-27

… Unfortunately, this bit has to start with a negative vibe from me (though, admittedly, it’ll be the only one of this write-up). See, I really only headed out to this show because my beloved Bayside was supposed to be one of the opening acts, which unfortunately turned out to not be the case because of an illness in the band (though all signs point to the fact that the band would be on-board for the tour within a few days). Grrrr. Still, though, I wound up having a few beers and having a good time regardless, so I guess there was no harm done in the long run.

I was able to wrangle up my Dad to head out to The Shelter with me (he’s a fan of both Bayside and The Juliana Theory), and we walked in right in time to hear Joe Philips of Few and Far Between start up his set. See, we didn’t know it at the time, but he got the last minute call to fill Bayside’s slot on the line-up. Circumstances aside, Philips’ acoustic set was solid, based mainly around material from Few and Far Between’s Three record (including the rarely-played “In Loving Memory”). For kicks and giggles, Philips’ tossed in an old Whiskeytown tune, as well as a nice cover of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?”

Wisconsin’s Number One Fan followed with a phenomenal set of material from the band’s Compromises release. Every song ripped off some deliberate two-guitar goodness mixed with simple keyboard parts to create a musical punch that gave the band’s entire set a near arena-rock vibe. Most of the material was slower, but the songs were still catchy in a low-key way. Still, the defining moment of Number One Fan’s set came during the band’s performance of “Sorry,” when frontman/guitarist Nicholas Ziemann threw his head back, yelling out, “Since we broke up and now I must grow up / You said change / The only thing I hate more than you” while throttling his guitar behind the mic stand. Number One Fan was intense, to say the least.

Anberlin followed with a solid set that meshed punk, screamo, and rock to a pretty strong affect. The band’s sound was tight, and the singer was a ball of energy, writhing around all over the stage whether he was singing, talking, or screaming. The only downside was that some of Anberlin’s material seemed to run together at times during the set. Still, though, the band had a lot of energy, and the band’s enthusiasm more than made up for the lulls in the set.

As for The Juliana Theory … Well, flat out, the band rocked. When the band played catchy guitar pop, it rocked. When the band played slower, more ‘emo’ styled material, it rocked. When the band got bold a few times and played some heavier stuff, it rocked. The Juliana Theory could do absolutely no wrong during its entire set. Highlights included the band’s emotional performance of “Into the Dark” (which came complete with an audience sing-along to the “In your eyes” bridge) and an absolutely ripping version of “This is Not a Love Song.” It was probably three songs into the set when I realized that regardless of whether Bayside had played or not, this entire tour was very much The Juliana Theory’s show. It may have only been The Shelter, but The Juliana Theory put on a set worthy of a legitimate arena-rock band on this night.

The Mirrors – Mirror Whore EP

Hear ye, hear ye! The British have come! These expatriates from England, as well as Ireland, are currently residing in LA, CA, under the name The Mirrors. Up until the EP Mirror Whore, these blokes’ greatest claim to fame is that their main vocal/guitarist, Martin Arthurs, is the brother of Oasis founding member Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs. Unfortunately, that and a couple Euros might be able to get you a cup of tea.
“Mirror Whore” kicks in like Bowie’s “Heroes” fused with a little Echo & the Bunnymen “Lips Like Sugar.” The vocals even have a dry, younger Ian McCulloch sound. Second vocal/guitarist, Brian Maguire’s backing vox gives an added impassioned, McCulloch feel. This catchy cut is definitely the single here.
A “Different Time” is a slow, sweet and bouncy number. The jangly guitars are very 80s, with a nicely distorted Will Seargent-esque solo sitting out front. This tune, as well, has the nice backing vocals that give the song an auditory fullness. The last track, “White House,” sounds like one of those songs that should be played faster than it is performed. There’s not much going on musically, and the lyrics are on the amateurish side. To be honest, this song doesn’t add much to this disc. Leaving it off would have made a strong single, instead of an EP that questions the bands potential.
The Mirrors are walking that fine line of impersonating and originating. Let’s hope their full length wins us over better than Mr. Bean’s did.

The Bigger Lovers – This Affair Never Happened… And Here are Eleven Songs About It

No need talking about the past with The Bigger Lovers, because they’re all about the future with their third release, This Affair Never Happened… And Here are Eleven Songs About It. The boys from the City of Brotherly Love are hitting their power-pop stride like nobody’s business. At first listen, you might think that something’s missing, but what The Lovers have done here is peel the onion back a bit, getting to the heart of power and pop. This Affair Never Happened is testament that less can be a whole lot more.
The songwriting team of Bret Tobias (guitar/vocals/keys) and Scott Jefferson (bass/vocals/keys) is a one-two punch that you wouldn’t want to get in the way of. Add Ed Hogarty’s fine lead guitaring and backing vocals, as well as Patrick Berkery (when he’s not hittin’ it for The Pernice Brothers) on drums, and you have the rock equivalent of the A-Team. Together these folks dish out a mix of individual vocal stylings as well as rich harmonies, with rhythm and melody that gets your booty moving and your mouth humming.
As you might have guessed, most of The Lovers’ odes are about relationships: you win some, you lose more. The opening track is no exception to this rule. Jefferson comes rocking right out of the gate with “You (You, You)” and his bandmates are kind enough to back him up, vocal-style, every riff of the way. Tobias tags up on the little ditty, “I Resign,” dishing out a cheery, ELO-styled, almost falsetto, thing. Hello, Mr. Blue Sky! “Blowtorch” is the first good example on the record of how the Lovers have stripped things down, though at times they can’t hold back and everyone piles on for a bit of ruckus with over-the-top, fuzzed guitar, and pounding Jerry Lee Lewis piano. “Ninja Suit” has that slow rocking feel like early Teenage Fanclub, and Big Ed wanders around nicely on the ax. Did I mention early Teenage Fanclub?
“Slice of Life” starts off with a late 70s sound you can’t put your finger on but will drive you crazy thinking about it. Not only does it feature hand clapping, but it goes to a kick-ass, Built to Spill chainsaw guitar slide, not once, but twice. Things slow way down with the very minimal “No Heroics.” Picture the band hanging out in a huge wood room with the simple strum of a guitar through a Fender Super Reverb. Indie rock meets lounge. Waiter, another vodka and tonic! “You Don’t Feel Anything at All” has Tobias singing through a crazy spaced-out Satan effect, coupled with more weird spacey guitar sounds. All the while the bass and drums provide a straight-ahead drive. More handclaps here, too! “Peel It Away” gives us more Scott on the mic with his patented, comfortablely relaxed delivery. Just a great song. It has everything. Nice pace, a lot of backing vocals, and layers of guitar popping in and out of the mix.
“Hollywood” follows, and it’s a big rock number, with exaggerated over-head chord strikes and never ending drum fills. When the boys get tired of that, they build things up with simultaneous chops leading to over flowing guitar solos. A reflecting, mid-70s Aerosmith driving around in their tour bus comes to mind. At first listen to “You’ve Got to Pay,” I thought I was in another state of mind. It sounded totally like Social Distortion with some sort of distilled, homeopathic dose of Huey Lewis to take the edge off. After some credit perusing I realized that it was an Only One’s cover, and Tobias’ English accent started making more sense. Closing out This Affair Never Happened is “For Christ’s Sake.” This just might be the next “Blue Christmas” we’ve all been waiting for. It’s about feeling down in the dumps during the holidays, because someone else is stuffing your old lady’s stocking. Ouch!
I couldn’t skip over any songs here, and I don’t think you will either. It’s like a record full of brand new singles. If you don’t like This Affair Never Happened, you’re probably either deaf or into some sort of new-age, Satanic polka hip-hop.

Vocokesh – The Tenth Corner

I’m all for experimental music. But there’s a fine line to draw between challenging the conventional perceptions of art and just plain being weird for oddity’s sake. I think Vocokesh teeters dangerously on this line, sometimes safely stepping onto the side of intelligent musical exploration, but more often crashing into the realm of the bizarre. Then again, these guys might have eschewed any attempts at intentionally pushing boundaries and instead just made a soundtrack to chronicle their vitriolic acid trips.
Things begin on a positive note with the titular track “The Tenth Corner.” (WARNING: listen to this song, and if possible the whole album, on headphones – the members of Vocokesh are intelligent with their use of panning). Pleasantly fuzzed-out guitars and vintage synths populate “The Tenth Corner” (the song), a combination any listener is likely to grow tired of during the course of The Tenth Corner (the album). Another plus for the song is the inclusion of an acoustic guitar, which softens the abrasive tones. Also, part of its appeal comes from the fact that it’s only two and a half minutes long… on a CD where three of the seven songs total nearly 44 minutes, this track is a godsend.
After the first track things become more and more predictable. There’s still fuzzed-out guitars soloing, vintage synths pumping out abrasive, oscillating effects, and the songs start getting much, much longer. There’s just no direction to anything; most of the tracks sound like extended experimental jams. But unlike many jam bands, there’s no sense of communication between the musicians – no give and take, no call and response, no musical conversations. It’s all just a meandering drug trip.
Adding to the confusion are three “alternate soundtracks” to short films that I have never seen. Really, what am I supposed to make of this? Fifteen minutes of swampy droning guitars and generic “pro” sounding drums? I might have a very different take on things if Vocokesh had distributed a DVD of the films with their CD (they might want to seriously look into this). However, one of these soundtracks is the other bright spot on the album… relatively speaking of course. “The Holy Mountain” distinguishes itself with a monotonous (in a good way) church organ, a much-needed new texture, which then degenerates into a thick, grainy noise cacophony many artists would be proud of.
All I can really say about The Tenth Corner is “I Don’t Get It.” My advice to you, if you plan on owning it, is to buy a whole lot of drugs and take them all at once. And I’m not talking about narcotics or barbiturates; I’m talking about paint thinner and Clorox.

From a Second Story Window – Not One Word Has Been Omitted EP

Not One Word Has Been Omitted is the repackaged and re-released version of From a Second Story Window’s first – and very impressive – demo. I am one of the privileged few that got to hear the original version of this demo/EP, and the new version is twice as impressive as the original. The guitars are crunchier, the drums are massive, the bass sounds great, and the Zao-esque snarls sound awesome. Now, after having seen the band live, I am pretty excited about what this band has to offer in the future.
It isn’t so much that this EP is that spectacular. In fact, it is only slightly better than average. The thing that I find most impressive is that this is literally the band’s first few songs the musicians have written. So in time they can only get better.
The boys in FASSW play the ever-so-popular modern metalcore sound, but they keep it interesting with a few hints of black and death metal scattered about through the five songs of this release. You know what to expect. A little bit of the Swedish influence, some massive breakdowns, high-pitched scathing screams, etc. The thing is, FASSW take the above elements and up the ante just enough to not fall into the inescapable pool of mediocrity that so many bands are stuck in.
For example, the huge build up and breakdown at 3:20 in “The Challenge of Caring” is just massive. “I Tried Voodoo Once” is definitely my favorite track from the album. Clocking in at just over six minutes, this song starts out fairly typically but goes through a series of tempo changes and a breakdown before it unleashes an immense melodic guitar lead upon these thirsty ears, then proceeds to pummel you with a monstrous breakdown. It shows a lot of maturity that they band isn’t afraid to tackle a six-minute song, and even more maturity that it was done so successfully without the song becoming stale or boring.
Although these five songs aren’t exactly groundbreaking, the future certainly looks bright for From a Second Story Window. So do yourself a favor and pick this up so you can say you knew the band way back when, because I foresee it becoming huge on the scene. A very impressive debut from a young, talented band.

The Dry Spells – Soundtrack to Your Bender

Sometimes I get tired of listening to bands that are too hard or abrasive, and I just want to listen to a band that knows how to have fun. With the title of the album being Soundtrack to Your Bender, The Dry Spells never attempt to hide the intentions of having a good time.
Usually when I hear a new CD, I try to think of what mood the album as a whole puts me in. About halfway through Soundtrack to Your Bender, I realized what it made me feel like: a barbeque. Stick with me here…the music that you choose to play at a bbq has to fulfill many criteria because it can determine everyone’s attitude and energy level. The music has to be uplifting and fun, sing-songy, and preferably have melodies simple enough so that no one is straining to hear the lyrics or music over the chatter. With Soundtrack to Your Bender, it feels as if I’ve heard all the songs before in one form or another. The simple chord progressions and rhythms give it an all-too-comfortable feeling. I can guarantee that even though I don’t know the words, I’d be singing along by the end of the night.
The combination of single coil guitars with a tinge of twang, lyrics about shotguns, beer, and drinking, and vocals that slip into a Southern drawl gives the album a country feel. Although the production is a little raw, with this type of laid-back, feel-good country rock, you don’t want to have an over-polished feel. The live feel definitely works in their favor.
While this album doesn’t break any new ground, The Dry Spells accomplish what the band set out to do. Soundtrack to Your Bender doesn’t belong in everybody’s CD collection, but it wouldn’t hurt to have around whenever there’s a party that needs to be picked up.

Youth Group – Skeleton Jar

At last – four months into the year, an album finally worth being excited about. Like all things Youth Group, this album comes under the cover of night, underrated by a populace training their gag reflexes on the guitar cocks of Jet et al. Three years after the band’s sensational debut, and following the departure of longtime member Andy Cassell (spot the irony – he manages The Vines), Youth Group has reformatted, reformulated, and reintegrated its musical vision. This time, it’s dangerous.
If the darkened cover and alienated art work don’t tip you early, this is a dark album. Gone are the well-lit celebrations of Urban & Eastern, and gone also are the eight-minute-plus slabs of epic guitar swordplay. Tightened, taut even, but with the unmistakable melancholic voice of Toby Martin remaining pure and potent, it’s as if trauma has shown them the only way out of hell is to make their own.
It all starts with a drumbeat, a jangly Birds-like guitar wrangle, and then Martin comes over, “lost in this purgatory,” and finally the full engine roar comes in for the chorus, “Shadowland,” the song’s title, repeated over and over, with only a sliver of hope, “I want to float upon the memories, not sink into the gloamy (or is it gloomy?) seas,” and finished with a confirmation, an embracing of the possibility. “Last Quarter” is more bombastic, youth radio-friendly, and maybe the least successful of the 11 tracks, if only for the lack of entries and possibilities the song’s standard structure enforces.
“When everything’s gone at least you’ve got nothing that holds on.” It’s wry poetry that rules in “Lillian Lies,” Martin’s voice narrating the tale of a lost girl on a lost bus in a lost life, “the sky doesn’t cover, it swallows” a warning voice for us all. “Baby Body” is pretty enough, all acoustic slidings, until again the vocal kicks in with “Liz hates her body, her baby body.” Lou Reed is in the house, except the house is a shoddy low-rent shack in the outer Sydney suburbs and we’re scrambling to find change for a loaf of bread. On the next track, “Drowned,” “all my optimism’s drowned, yeah I’m drowned” is sung seductively until feedback-laden chords swamp the message that “hope is all we’ve got left.”
Perhaps the beauty of this album is that every note seems well-placed, every strum thought through, economic in the precision of the pop-coated anger. The songs give you no chance to get lost and no chance to escape their tales and tunes. These aren’t melodies played by rote, Martin’s narrations never sink to the cheap rhyming populism of, say, Paul Kelly. Instead, each thrust seems to affirm Youth Group’s existence, even under the weight of the band’s fractured experience. “I feel like hell; you feel like dancing.” Irony, anger, despair and a howled plead for survival – it’s all here, and the sad, mad thing is that from the stinking maggot-crawling cesspool that is Sydney, something, in its hurt, has emerged to shine a clearer light on our lives, on the conceivabilities of Australian music, on the redemptive powers of rock even in the pits of our own desperation.
In an age of pop idols, false idols, and the harlots, pimps, and whores of the music industry, Youth Group with Skeleton Jar has raised the middle finger. Fuck you has never sounded so good.

Hella – The Devil isn’t Red

It’s been a while since I’ve heard anything like Hella. Picture one guitarist and one drummer, flailing away at their instruments like they’re whipping the beejesus out of the teacher who molested them in fifth grade, and that’s something close to the sound these guys make. Technically, it has all the best and worst elements of the tape you made with your third thrash band in the rehearsal rooms the day before you split up due to creative differences.
I would write about the songs, using their appropriate names if only the type face used on the booklet and back cover weren’t designed by Satan himself.. Maybe I’ve been masturbating too much, but see-through green and custard yellow fonts on clashing backgrounds make me an unhappy reviewer.
But to the music itself – it’s an instrumental field day, full of riffs that Iron Maiden might be proud off but ripped up via appropriate amplification and distorting devices and stripped of the egotanical obsequiousness. Most tracks clock in under the three-minute mark, some even shorter, and it’s a good thing as any longer and the attention strays. Essentially we’re listening to drum and guitar duelling on the moshpit and there’s very little to break it up. Not that it’s monotonous – just intense. Carlos Santana this ain’t.

Fort Lauderdale – Pretty Monster

Now this is some brown acid. Immaculately-crafted glam pop-rock songs from UK duo Fort Lauderdale, bleeding with Bowie-ness as if they’d only recently stumbled out of their downstairs, pot-ridden, love-spunking bedsit to discover the 70s had died. That’s the first two songs, but on “Best Days,” it’s Paul McCartney wandering naked through a sitar-stained Scotland as the sheep run farther and faster away from him. Track four and single, “The Chilling Place,” swirls in some rabid tuba with a post-trip hop beat and a Queen-like guitar meltdown, like the yellow submarine crashing into the Kursk.
Is it confusing? Yes. Is it weirdly warming, like pissing into one’s wetsuit? That too. Is there a point to the genre hopping and temporal lopping? Not that I can see, but that doesn’t get in Fort Lauderdale’s way as the musicians create what are quite masterful examples of psychedelic glam rock. Shit, there’s even acoustic guitars, bubble gum pop, and a hammond organ (???) thrown in for good measure. And, if it helps, with each listen I find myself finding more. Like “the smell you remember, it’s me – your pal” in “Hello it’s Me.”
Not cohesion, or sense, or lucid meaning. But definitely more.

Loretta – The Translation

Loretta’s The Translation is not a bad album, not very bad at all. The only problem is that this album can be summed up definitively in one sentence: If there was an album in between The Bends and OK Computer in Radiohead’s repertoire, this could be it.
Now, comparing a band to Radiohead isn’t exactly something to be ashamed of; it’s just that Loretta pulls off a Radiohead impression so well that I can hardly tell what the band’s individual personality is. The song structures amble along at a tempo-changing, sporadic rate, often changing from bombastic guitar noise to splendid, cascading waves of notes on a dime, much like Radiohead. While this sounds awesome, it’s hard to not think you’re listening to Radiohead. The lead vocals are a cathartic yelp, and a nearly spot-on impersonation of Thom Yorke in some places. It’s truly creepy how much Loretta and Radiohead have in common.
Despite these genre problems, the members’ chemistry is undoubted, as every part of the puzzle fits in flush with the others, creating a warm, full sound that truly impressed me. This chemistry is due in part to the fact that each member plays at least two instruments (Damon Wiedner is credited with four, and Jason Weidner is credited with three). This gives each member an at least functional knowledge of the duties the other members of the band have, and enables them to effectively use their instrument to the other members’ advantage. Thus, they lushly orchestrate their songs, filling every second with meaningful, pretty notes and rhythms- not a second is wasted.
If you have never heard Radiohead because you thought it was too hard to get into, listen to Loretta. This is the bridge between snobby Brit-rock and egocentric art-rock; the band is very accessible, in fact, which is something Radiohead has never been. If you’ve heard Radiohead, you might be interested in Loretta, but you’ll probably find yourself pointed to either OK Computer or The Bends by the end of the album. That leads me to another definite conclusion: if Radiohead didn’t exist, Loretta would be the replacement for them, just as highly touted, and just as loved. Unfortunately, Radiohead does exist, and I like to hear new sounds, not tweaked-up versions of already-tread material.

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