The December Drive – Hands Like Guns and Crashing Sounds

After first hearing of The December Drive, it took a while until I heard more than the name. One look at the moniker and I assumed this would be a generic-sounding band. Hands Like Guns and Crashing Sounds, the band’s debut CD, proved me wrong and then some. The young Weslaco, Texas quintet offers a surprisingly mature take on sprawling emotional rock. The melancholic style of emo, comparable to Sunny Day Real Estate’s How it Feels to be Something On album, displays passion on a grand scale. While popular emo bands pigeonhole themselves with incessant whining, The December Drive broadly covers earnest feelings of longing, anger, and happiness. Maybe it’s the lack of sky-high whining that allows The December Drive’s members to distance themselves from the stale emo genre. The music also draws heavy influences from Engine Down and Thursday, with dark guitar tones reminiscent of the two. Hands Like Guns and Crashing Sounds leaves the impression that mainstream emo is faking it, and this debut effort confirms this statement.

The heartfelt vocals of “Buffalo Wing Diplomacy” range from dreamy whispers to explosive choruses sustained as long as possible. Songs become so much more intense when the vocalist goes all out with these soaring lyrics. Reaching a climax at the end of the song, guitar distortion roars, drumming escalates into a frenzy, and screams bring the song to a close. Adding to the intense side of the band is the screaming that really heightens the rock factor. That being said, “1426″ closes the album with a bang, when nonchalant singing is abruptly replaced mid sentence by a wall of screaming and riffs.

The majority of the songs contain melodic, brooding guitar exploration. By occasionally adding moments of blasting riffs and loud vocals, the CD is always kept interesting. Although the album suffers from conforming song structures, The December Drive attempts to add variety with the ironically titled “And Now We Will Justify Your Criticism.” The track appears in the middle of the album, instantly kicking off with dueling guitars and screaming. Another straight-ahead rocker is “1426,” which begins after continuous feedback drone from the previous song. “1426″ shatters the feedback and displays post-hardcore influences with reckless abandon. Crashing, dissonant guitars and volatile screaming brings the album to a chaotic end.

The recording quality itself makes the songs even better. A quality production job by Anthony Perez results in clear vocals and crisp music. “Enough” opens with percussion that sounds like it’s coming from another room, until the volume gradually rises back to normal. When the guitars finally simmer in “No Remembering,” the longing vocals sound as if they’re reaching yours ears from a mile away. It’s these subtle touches that make the feeling really stand out above the band’s peers.

A substantial amount of the CD is instrumental due to the long song lengths, but the lyrics complement the parts. “Someday, I’d like to forget my way home.” This one line surfaces on both the first and last songs, setting the cryptic lyric tone. The December Drive gets its point across, albeit through thought-provoking lyrics. Writing songs about relationships sounds played out on the surface, but “ostracized in your eyes, stop playing the martyr” does the subject justice in “Buffalo Wing Diplomacy.” In “The Great Awakening,” which reflects upon a car crash, “look what, look what surprised me!” gets sung repeatedly. The band outdoes itself when the upbeat refrain is repeated after some guitar noodling. When the guitars begin to heat up, these inspiring vocals powerfully shine through again. Easily the highlight song of the CD, it’s also the longest one at over 14 minutes.

Considering this is only a debut effort, it’s very promising that The December Drive’s members are already such gifted songwriters. Their serious yet sensitive style of emo probably won’t blow up anytime soon. Still, don’t make my mistake and overlook this fine album for a minute. The sophomore album is still in the works, but I’m already the first in line.

Dearest, Crown – The Path to Going Down

John Darnielle’s list of title-naming no-nos expressly decrees that all punctuation marks are prohibited (except for exclamation points! of course!). If there’s one thing Dearest, Crown should refrain from doing, it’s sending a promo to the King of the Mountain Goats, as Mr. Capricorn there would immediately chuck the disc out his open window in a mighty stroke of godly vengeance. That man/goat pulls no punches; rather, he leaves it up to you to pull the punctuation. Luckily I’m no John Darnielle, so I’ve gotten past the unwieldy band name, which doesn’t bother me but in the long run can only serve to confuse, and discovered that there’s a lot to like and one major blemish to really not like about Dearest, Crown.

First, the good. Dearest, Crown was originally borne out of mid- to late-90s indie-pop band Harvester as a side project of Sean Harrasser and Todd Steinberg, but it has since grown to five members, each of whom play a myriad of instruments on this record, ranging from guitar to cello to accordion to trumpet. That dexterous multi-instrumentalist ability works wonders for this music, an eclectic strain of folk-pop balladry strongly reminiscent of Neutral Milk Hotel, the first two records of The Decemberists — another Portland-based band — and The Verlaines.

Endearing melodies abound from the outset with the wistful “Airplane.” As you might surmise from the title, the song bears a lyrical resemblance to Jeff Mangum’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” and somewhat amazingly considering the impossibly high caliber of Mangum’s Masterpiece, actually works quite well as “Aeroplane”’s heart-rending coda. It’s a mournful tale of tragic downfall, lost love, and hope-in-vain, and the narrator’s subject could be seen as a continuation of the innocent-suffering-horrible-fatalities symbolism that Anne Frank carried in Aeroplane. A seamless segue (of which there are many) leads into the more upbeat “The Last Great Shipwreck,” a tribute to drowned sailors, which contains an energetic chorus buoyed along by banjo and accordion. One notable highlight here is “I Do Not Carry Your Spirit,” easily the most NMH-inspired track in both sound and songwriting, with a gorgeous trumpet backing throughout and lyrics worthy of Mangum himself: (“Lately I’ve been fading / in and out of stars / Across black circles splashed in sparkles / freeway tunnels without cars / Along the monolith of cement / is a single blackened vent / It is not long, it is not wide / There is laughter from inside”).

So where’s the bad and the ugly, you ask? Now I wish I didn’t have to say this, but here’s the caveat: The lead singer can’t sing for shit. His voice tends to waver uncontrollably when he tries to sustain notes, and when he does, it’s extremely wince-inducing. Sometimes it’s bearable, but other times it just makes me want to run far away. It’s perhaps most notable on the otherwise excellent standout track “Virgin Spring,” and again, I really don’t like saying this but it kind of ruins the song. There are also instances where he crams way too many syllables into his singing, as on the Poguesy, Irish-folk ditty that is “Devil’s Peak Lookout.” I’m not suggesting necessarily that they scrap him and get another vocalist, because at times he actually sounds a bit like John Darnielle, a promising attribute in my opinion, and with a little practice and voice lessons he might be able to emulate the perfect-enunciation-coupled-with-vivacious-delivery thing that Darnielle does so well or even find his own idiosyncratic style.

Unfortunately, due to that one major flaw, I can’t wholeheartedly endorse this record; I can only cheer the band on. With these catchy melodies, eclectic instrumentation and occasionally visceral lyrics, Dearest, Crown has the potential to venture beyond the confines of the Northwest should the band work out all the kinks in its aesthetic. Starting with the band name, I might add, just so there be no lightning bolts should these folks ever chance upon you-know-who.

Like Moving Insects – Musical Album

There’s a whole mess of ragged, achy grace to Musical Album, the debut LP from Philadelphia’s multi-instrumental five-piece Like Moving Insects. The album’s so twangy, you’d think these city boys had stumbled onto Grampy’s still. Here’s to hoping the guys in the band have all their teeth.

The twang on this album is especially impressive considering the good ol’ boys from Like Moving Insects seem to have figured out a way to seamlessly bridge the gap between their countrified tendencies, which imbue the album with a bucolic pasture and pedal steel idyll and their own unique brand of tortured melodies. On Musical Album, sax, trumpet and moog take bowed banjo and pedal steel by the hand, round yer partner dosey do, and the result is a pretty darn original, if almost shockingly under produced, first album.

Marred by two first tracks that are shabbily produced and poorly sung, Musical Album takes a little while to get off the ground. It’s worth waiting to get to “We’ve Come a Long Way Since Morning.” I’ll be darned if this track doesn’t sound like it would belong on the soundtrack to a Dukes of Hazzard remake (if Tim Burton were to direct). The song jumps back and forth between gothic country-stomp and ethereal space jam worthy of My Morning Jacket.

“Cleanser” recalls Neil Young at his most deep and dire. Beginning as an acoustic dirge, the track resolves into a melodic lament that could just as easily describe a late-night excursion to purchase hard drugs as it could a plane old jonesing for a new life. The lap steel and vocal melodies on this track are as delightfully sad as Young at his best, full of regret and the inevitability of loss so thematically integral to country and blues.

While the rest of the album never quite lives up to “We’ve Come” and “Cleanser,” it’s fair to say that this album isn’t the best Like Moving Insects could have done had the band been equipped with a producer. It’s a good thing no producer was credited; he or she would have been responsible for lagging melodies and vocal tracks that sometimes indistinguishably waver between a Dylan-with-laryngitis or Neil-Young-with-emphysema carelessness. Still, the band’s considerable originality and talent shine through Musical Album’s twangy and slipshod exterior. Grab some hootch and wait for one of these guys to call Steve Lillywhite.

Cex – Starship Galactica

Okay, I admit it. It’s been a bad week. I broke my car’s CD player accidentally, my MP3 player is skipping, my friends are crazy, my room is messy, I’m tired, and Cex isn’t helping the situation much. You’d think that a guy whose name is pronounced “Sex” would be more helpful for mentally tired guys, but nope – this just flat sucks.

I’ve heard about Cex, briefly. I think I read a review somewhere, and if I recall correctly, they were saying something about how he was awesome. So, when I got Starship Galactica by Cex, I was mildly enthused, because the prospect of reviewing something I already know of is always a little bit thrilling to me (it means that I’m succeeding as an aspiring hipster…or something). So I put in Cex’s album, and waited…and waited…and waited…and although the music played, I was never wowed.

In fact, the whole thing seemed generic to me. The IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) beats are solid, but still, I just don’t see what makes Cex so much more than your average IDM musician. The songs are split between humourous interludes (which pretty much waste time), strictly-dance numbers, and trip-hop emotive pieces. The best songs here are the ones that aren’t simply heartless dance numbers; songs with a melancholy soul like the uncomfortable “Get in Yr Squads” and the deceiving “Your Handwriting When You Were a Child in the Winter” feel much more attractive than the ‘danceable’ “Cal and Brady Style,” “Cex Can Kiss My Soft, Sensuous Lips,” or “Monster-Face Pills.”

Unfortunately, I think Air has ruined me. The dynamic French duo churns out the same type of sound all the time that Cex taps on his best numbers – and Air does it better consistently. I’m sure there’s fans of the inherently synthetic, beautyless tick and tock tracks like “Cal and Brady Style” and “Friends Fall Down,” but I’m not one of them. They just don’t do anything.

Then again, this is Cex’s ‘long out-of-print’ album. Maybe his new stuff taps the emotive side a little more or does something else interesting that I can’t imagine. For this album, the songs are smooth, and the transitions good, but it just doesn’t do anything for me.

Summer Darling – I Know You – I Never Knew You

It may be too early in 2005 to call Summer Darling’s I Know You – I Don’t Know You my most surprising album of the year, especially since it was released by the band in 2004, but it’s been my favorite album for several weeks now. From start to finish, this album is a fantastic listen, traveling from alt-country-esque pop to upbeat rock and light indie-pop, all while maintaining a wholeheartedly cohesive feel and never losing the band’s penchant for sincere, honest songwriting.

When trying to describe this band’s sound to a friend, I compared Summer Darling to the mixture of Death Cab for Cutie, Wilco, and Moonbabies. These songs are so smooth and sweet, while still possessing a rock edge, with Ben Heywood’s songwriting delivering lyrics that are filled with longing, heartache, and a kind of desperation that’s undeniably the strongest I’ve heard in a while. The varying musical styles just compliment the male and female vocals and delicate themes.

Behind the light country-pop of “You Always Sleep with Your First Love” is a kind of haunting desperation, as the male and female vocals sing together “I have this theory that no one goes quietly into the night.” The gorgeous vocals of “The Painter” help carry off the deep longing feel, but the music is absolutely gorgeous as well, rich and sincere, with an underlying electric guitar buzz. When both singers cry “So please help me oh God / I can’t breathe,” I feel blown away every time. By the song’s end, Heywood is singing, “And I loved you more than anything” over driving guitars and an angelic backing chorus, and I am almost moved to tears.

“Dressed Up for Funerals” begins “Hallelujah / You were here, I was gone / Hallelujah…” and goes into a chorus of “Lover let it go / It’s not a sin if no one has to know.” It’s a Death Cab-esque pop song, the vocals layered beautifully over a mid-tempo piece that conveys more emotion than Death Cab ever hints at. By contrast, the guitars on “Summer Scars” are edgy and loud, but they contrast with the softer vocals and moments of more laid-back pop. This song especially reminds me of Silver Scooter. And you want emotion? Check out the end of the scrawling, six-minute album closer, “Math is Everywhere,” where Heywood is screaming (but in the background), “So are you!”

Other highlights include the more rocking “Year of Guilt,” the playful pop of the less intense “Queen of Pasadena,” and the rich and vibrant “Gloria,” which has a pastoral chorus that matches the tone’s soft and contemplative tone. The gorgeous piano pop song “Little Armenia” contrasts light piano and drums and soft vocals with the hauntingly sung, “Where is your god now?”

If I had spent time with I Know You… in 2004, it would have undoubtedly made my top-10 list of the year. It’s that good. One moment soft and delicate, the next upbeat and rocking, always sincere and honest – it’s the kind of album that requires playing on repeat. I find new gems in the songwriting or new hooks with every repeated listen, and that’s the sing of a truly wonderful, lasting album. Very highly recommended!

Lowcloudcover – I Took a Second too Long EP

The San Diego band Lowcloudcover, which has been operating for a few years now, has yet to release a proper album. These guys have been party to compilations, and in 2002 they put out an EP of four songs. Their latest offering, I Took a Second too Long, collects five new songs (plus an “intro” piece) into another EP.

With a running time of 30 minutes, you can do the math: there are some long songs on here. “The Last Lemming,” at 9:25 minutes, singlehandedly accounts for about a third of the entire EP’s duration, which is a shame. The shorter tracks – especially “Menace” – deliver a punch to the gut the way the longer tracks cannot. “Menace,” the second track, stands out as a simply fantastic expression of what the band can do when the artists focus their energies.

The song begins with a simple bass line and backbeat, pausing only slightly just before resuming as the guitars drop in, which is when the song really starts. Instantly, then, you hear the tension in the sound: the tonal combination of the guitar, bass, and subtle keyboards sounds somehow wrong but perfect. The opening lyrics reflect the tension: “When I get up to dance, my moves come as no surprise / And when I get up to dance, I take it right between the eyes.” The self-doubt, the insecurity, the feelings of awkwardness are captured right there, as a fine complement to the angst of the music. In this way, “Menace” delivers you into the same sonic and emotional territory trod by the Comsat Angels and the Lucy Show. I wish that the EP featured more songs along the lines of “Menace,” because it’s really a remarkable track. Kudos!

Unfortunately, “Where Did You Go?” and “The Last Lemming” follow “Menace,” and these songs seem to stretch their statements too thin. The complaint that I have with this is the same that I had with God Machine and sometimes the Standard, and maybe it’s just a matter of taste: if all of your most interesting and hardest-hitting tracks are the most concise tracks in your repertoire, you run the risk of testing patience with the longer excursions. Sure, not every song needs to deliver “right between the eyes,” and sometimes you need more time to develop a mood (in fact, “The Last Lemming” does this best as the lines “I could sleep all day” float over the pulsing bass and melancholy, creeping keyboards). I just think that sometimes the songs cover too much ground and would benefit from being split into their constituent parts as separate statements.

Maybe I’m just too impatient, but after those two long songs, the punchy concision of “Battle Scars” hits just right. While not as powerful as “Menace,” it comes pretty close at times. Like “Menace,” it’s both frigid and combustible at the same time.

From the band’s website, you can sample of couple of their earlier tracks, and both have drive and delivery of the best songs on I Took a Second too Long. I hope that Lowcloudcover puts out a full album one day, and I hope that the band skews the tracks to include the less digressive and discursive songs, because the band has a knack for capturing isolation and tension that works best in more measured arrangements. That’s where the band really succeeds, and does so like few others these days.

Until the End – The Blind Leading the Lost

Until the End is the pride of South Florida’s straight-edge hardcore community. After the band’s debut EP on Equal Vision and debut full-length Blood in the Ink on Eulogy, Until the End is ready to unleash The Blind Leading the Lost upon the masses.

First off, the layout on this album is a satirical propaganda pamphlet that is completely sarcastic and not subtle in the slightest bit. The topic of course is good old GW and the war on terror. The lyrics follow suit, dropping the personal lyrics for political topics.

The sound is straight-edge hardcore/punk with TONS of moshable breakdowns. New vocalist James McHugh ads some volitility to the band’s with his deep thraoty vocals. I’m really glad the focus has changed to a huge topic in today’s world rather than the stale idioms of straightedge. After all, my main issue with straight-edge music is their lyrics. How many times can straight-edge bands rearrange the same songs over and over? So needless to say, it’s a good thing Until the End mixes it up a bit with this one.

With the political stance on this album and the strong songwriting, this is an above average straight-edge album. Check it out if you like the straight-edge sound but need some new subject matter.

The Shivering – & Brand the Ground With Storm and Song

So I recently finished up a series of reviews I called “Bad Emo and How to Avoid It”. It had lots of bad emo bands in it, all of them sporting one heinous crime or another. Mostly, their fault was that not many of them were actually emotional hardcore. The Shivering have one claim: “Death to false emo!” These guys have a right to say it, because the Shivering is definitely true emo: emotional hardcore. At last, my soul can have some peace.

Yes, the guitars here crunch in a hardcore way, although they do have a splash more melody than some staunch emo bands. They fluctuate between thrashing charges and slightly less dissonant passages, then back to thrashing charges, lather, rinse, repeat. It’s highly satisfying, especially in the middle of the album, where they have the pattern down to a T.

The vocals are throat-trashing in a very emo way: not pure screaming, but not straight-up singing. It’s a contorted half-sung yell that’s perfect to yell along to. The best example of this would be the caustic “Daniel” where it sounds like he’s ready to explode, and his vocal cords would be the first to go. That larynx-shredding characteristic appears often, but “Daniel” is definitely among the top of the lot for vocals. The vocals and guitars are really what make this. The drums are complimentary almost to the point of disappearing. That’s great in some genres, but in emo, I want to hear ‘em loud and proud. I occasionally hear bass contribution, and it’s good when it’s there. More often than not, it’s not there.

This 15-song album is actually a re-releasing of several out-of-print EPs, which means that cohesiveness is a little bit sacrificed. It’s okay though, because it’s fun to go through and see how the band progresses from EP to EP. From the melodic hardcore of the Of the Liars EP to the balls-out dissonant power of Brand the Lion’s Mouth EP (a highlight of this album is the ridiculously chaotic “Brand the Lion’s Mouth”), to the more cohesive, refined instrumentalism of the To the Ground EP, this album has it all.

If you like emo at all, this is your album, buddy. If you’ve never heard a true emo band and don’t know what to get or where to get it, this is a good starting point. And thankfully, this isn’t a retrospective, so there’s still good things to come from this highly talented emo band.

A.C. Newman – The Slow Wonder

Power-pop is an oft ill-respected genre. After all, most of its output is trite, uninventive, and boring. Once in a good while, however, every genre is due for a bit of CPR by an intelligent, gifted songwriter. A.C. Newman, the current chief songwriter in the New Pornographers, has breathed a bit of life into the genre with his latest album, The Slow Wonder.

From the infectious drumbeat and fragmented rhythm of “Miracle Drug” to the wistful, smooth flow of “The Cloud Prayer,” The Slow Wonder is chock-full of catchy songs, off-kilter melodies, and A.C. Newman’s clever lyricism. “Drink to Me, Babe, Then” is a lethargic song seemingly capturing Newman in dream-state. He sounds barely able to breath, apparently having to struggle to exhale a story concerning such subject matter as “the boring choices rich kids choose.” “On the Table” is a piano-driven power-pop gem. Newman’s deft songwriting skill is apparent in the details: right before the refrain, a ghostly female chorus drifts in from above, only to be drowned out by the crashing cymbals of the refrain itself.

“The Battle for Straight Time” is the darkest song on the album. Foreboding chords announce the entry of a martial verse, while the chorus features crashing cymbals and big guitars. “Come Crash” is characterized by a cascading chorus; heavily distorted guitars spill downwards into the splash cymbals. The closer, “35 in the Shade,” is a rollicking power-pop masterpiece featuring rumbling drums and clever historical references.

The Slow Wonder’s best asset is not any particular song; rather, it is the album’s reliability. The sequencing of the album is superb; similar-sounding songs are sequestered to different parts of the record and the pace varies significantly. The successful sequencing and Newman’s ability to craft distinctive songs is vital to the replayability of the record; had some of the album’s more similar songs been placed in a row, The Slow Wonder could easily have quickly outworn its welcome.

In the end, while no one song may stand out immediately as incredible, the album as a whole is remarkable for its consistency and coherence. The album is served well by A.C. Newman’s bookishness and creativity; he operates strictly within the narrow confines of power-pop and manages to expand his sound into something greater than the sum of its parts. There is not a dud to be found on The Slow Wonder, and in a genre whose albums I usually find to be tiresome, that is a remarkable achievement.

Neko Case – The Tigers Have Spoken

Neko Case fans have been waiting quite awhile for a follow-up to 2002’s Blacklisted and it looks as though the pining will continue until early this year before a new studio album is released. However, Ms. Case recently released a live album called The Tigers Have Spoken to help kill the time. If you aren’t already familiar with Neko Case, she is one of those musicians whose big draw is her voice. Although she writes really good songs and has rocked the alt-country scene for quite a few years now, it’s still her vocals that really stand out in the crowd. Neko has one of those classically beautiful voices that sounds just as good belting out a pop tune as it does singing the blues. Anyone who appreciates a great vocalist will be immediately drawn to Neko.

A live recording is a bit of a disappointment when you are hoping for a new full-length, especially when the album only contains two new tracks to tide you over. However, Neko Case hasn’t created a simple live disc featuring fan favorites from her back catalog. The Tigers Have Spoken takes a different approach from the norm and focuses on cover songs. Other than the two new tracks, there are only two others that have made an appearance elsewhere in her discography.

The Tigers Have Spoken was recorded at three different shows in Chicago and Toronto during one week. The disc features the Canadian band the Sadies, which Neko has been fronting on tour as of late. Having a full backing band adds a nice complement to Neko’s vocals and lends itself to the different types of cover songs well. The two new tracks here, “The Tigers Have Spoken” and “If You Only Knew,” were written by Neko and the Sadies, and it is clear this group effort is a good fit. While these two songs stay within the alt-country realm fans have come to know Case for, the addition of other musicians creates a much more complex result than Neko’s normal girl-with-guitar strummings.

This release does rely heavily on cover songs though, and despite being recorded live, you can tell they were carefully chosen pieces. Each song not only fits Neko’s voice impeccably but works well with a full band. Two traditionals, “This Little Light” and “Wayfaring Stranger,” give the group plenty of room to flex their expertise arranging a song and testing out different styles. A few of the songs are more obscure and are probably first-time listens for many fans, such as Freakwater’s “Hex,” the Nervous Eaters’ “Loretta,” and Shangri-La’s “Train from Kansas City.”

There are two absolute highlights on The Tigers Have Spoken that really stand out from the other tracks: Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Soulful Shade of Blue” and Loretta Lynn’s “Rated X.” I actually find the Sainte-Marie cover preferable to the original as it seems as though it were written just for Neko Case to sing. Both of these songs are superb examples of an artist choosing to cover a song that fits their musical sensibilities.

Although two years is a long time to wait between albums, The Tigers Have Spoken is about as good as a live album can get. I really enjoyed the fact that Neko Case choose songs not already found on her previous releases, and her picks for covers are solid enough to satisfy most fans until her next studio effort. Even though there is just over 30 minutes of music here, the album is well worth checking out – if only to get a fix on Neko’s beautiful voice.

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