Spanish for 100 – Metric EP

Metric, Spanish For 100’s follow-up to its debut full-length, Newborn Driving, is a six-song EP of Northwestern indie rock with a twist. The twist is the dueling guitars of Corey Passons (voice, guitar) and Aaron Starkey (guitars). These are not your typical verse-chorus-verse rock tunes but instead are comprised of layered walls of guitar sound built upon sturdy rhythms, courtesy of Ross McGilvary (bass, voice) and Ryan Burt (drums).

“Go Away, Come Home” opens the disc and is a decent, hard-driving song with even drum work, while the dueling guitars provide the rhythm and an alt-country lead. The disc shifts gears for “Jungle with Lions,” which is a slow-burning tune where the bass and drums take the lead between short, wailing guitar bursts. The vocal harmonies are good and reminiscent of The Breeders and/or Throwing Muses, only with male voices. Track 3, “Fell a Bird” is the superior track here, and it uses an excellent guitar lick as the melody before erupting into an even better, soaring riff. “Golden Days, parts 1 & 2″ follow and return to form by providing more of the same dueling guitar power-rock only with more improvised solos. The disc closes with a live version of “See Now” with new drummer Andrew Squire.

Coupled with the crisp production work of Phil Ek (Modest Mouse, Built To Spill) and twangy guitar swirls floating over dissonant melodies, the comparisons to Built to Spill and Modest Mouse are unavoidable. But where BTS has a tendency to explore more interesting territory, Spanish For 100 is content to rock out. And where the vocal stylings of Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock provides an edginess to their music, Corey Passons’ high voice and strained delivery gives SPF100’s songs an emotional appeal.

The band’s name may cause some people to overlook this disc, but if you’re a fan of guitar-centered, spirited indie rock from the great Northwest, this disc should not be overlooked. The guitar duo of Passons and Starkey can coax some great=sounding guitar wails with just the right amount of distortion, and if new drummer Squire can bring his experience with jazz and dark ambient pop to the table, the stage may be set for better things to come for Spanish for 100.

Le Concorde – Universe and Villa

Doctorates in the rock world are an odd and infrequent thing. Sure, there’s the original “Doctor Love,” but let’s be serious. Simmons requires an extra tour bus filled with personnel hired for the sole purpose of fitting his middle-aged ass into the same spandex he probably used on the Dressed to Kill tour. Surprisingly, the punk scene has some professors. Greg Graffin is a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology or something just as damning, while that twit fronting the Offspring is on the Biology/Zoology path. Hell, even Milo went to college; then he came back and started making really boring records with the Descendents, but that’s beside the point. Thankfully, educated men of letters are no longer reserved for punk and cock rock (and oh what a thin and narrow chasm runs between the two), for Stephen Becker (Ph.D.) has brought us Le Concorde, and the band’s debut album is glorious poppy addictive fun.

Universe and Villa opens with a refreshing bolt of mid-80s bliss. Sure, the freaks among you that actually pay attention to these tiny wars against the English language I produce every week might stop and think “oh come now, you’ve used that cliché before.” I probably have, but in those cases I was referring to bands that were aping that revitalized dance-punk sound aped by bands like The Faint and their borderline horrific knockoffs (’sup Killers?). This is the 80s well traversed by the likes of OMD and Stephen (“TinTin”) Duffy.

The album opener is an innocent enough track, that is until the unbelievably catchy chorus of “hey little groover / hold up the people mover / slow down.” If you listen to this and start serenading people in airports or at shuttle stations, I hereby declare myself completely free from liability. Yeah, the song is that good. “Parallel Lives” opens with a Smithy flourish (even copping Marr’s harmonica for a brief moment) before slipping into vocals fresh out of Pepperland. The song is so thankfully carefree it’s easy to miss the bitterness that weaves through the lyrics. Kasher’s not the only one that can write songs about divorce. However, where Domestica was the bible for many an indie hipster (and sure, that record is flawless), Becker offers the pangs of separation minus the angry guitars and tortured screams. Lyrics, “two Parallel lives / extending on their course / departing from divorce,” bubble over a New Order keyboard line that will have you enjoying the sunny side of separation, singing along through Becker’s legal battle. Plus, you won’t kill your vocal chords singing along.

The theme of divorce spans much of the album. On “I Will Go to My Grave Wanting You to Love Me” Becker sings “and the major part of our lives / we shared and now can’t even refer to” to a dream pop melody, while on “Taxi in the Snow” he plainly states “I remember standing on the corner / with the ghost of who you were.” I can dig it. However, it’s not all dreary divorce songs and cranky bitterness. On “It’s the Minor Chords that Kill You,” Becker takes a stab at the very songs he writes so well. With a chorus seemingly stolen straight from the sun-kissed Beach Boy notebooks of Super Furry Animals, this song is all summer heat and crunchy guitars.

Le Concorde has created a great pop record, equal parts heartache and hallelujahi’malive. Every carves its own little niche in your psyche, from the subdued OMD send up of “Manhattan Chase” to the slightly glammy “Controlling.” This is flawless pop for the kids raised on Reagan and Russian radio.

Death Before Dishonor – Friends Family Forever

I’m not a huge hardcore fan anymore, but Bridge Nine always brings the goods (see my reviews of Stand and Fight, Champion, Wrecking Crew, etc). Death Before Dishonor’s Friends Family Forever is a little different than what I’ve come to expect from Bridge Nine, but not in a bad way at all. Friends Family Forever is seven tracks in about 19 minutes: pure malicious hardcore.

The songs more or less consist of 90s-style hardcore with lots (LOTS!) of mosh and rough, shouting vocals. If you want to get an idea of the sheer malevolence of this band, checkout the footage on the Boston Beatdown, Vol. 2.0 DVD, it’s brutal.

I really like that these guys will occassionally throw in some straight-up metal riffs to keep things interesting. Also, they aren’t just brutal. They write songs in a more complete and energetic fashion than most. No Swedish crap or any modern trendy stuff. The production work is pretty solid, but the guitars are kind of farty here and there. Also, the drums are a little clicky, but the vocals and bass are mixed in just right and the overall sound is pretty good.

This is straight-up, 90s-styled metallic hardcore: simple and brutal. The band is more interested in stomping your face in with thick riffs than busting out a wicked lead. However, it can concoct a pretty decent song. Another gem from Bridge Nine.

I.C.E. – Apocalyptic End in White

I.C.E., which stands for Imperial Crystalline Entombment, is the name of a band that shrouds itself in mystery. Each member wears a Michael Myers-style mask and a white robe (which calls to mind the evil offspring of Buckethead and Sunn) and takes a pseudonym – Mammoth, Blisserred, IceSickKill, and Bleak. The group’s basic story is of a deity known as Ravaskeith who will usher in a new ice age, and I.C.E. is his humble servant. Oddly enough, one would assume I.C.E. to have landed somewhere in Europe – say the icy depths of Finland or Norway – but instead this foursome calls Maryland home. For some, that fact alone might make this band seem more farce than anything, and you have to wonder if these guys take themselves that seriously.

The look and the premise of this band distinctly permeate the music here from the blistering guitar all the way to the thundering drums. The vocals are as demonic sounding as possible, making the inclusion of lyrics in the liner notes absolutely necessary. It’s not surprising though that the song topics are largely obsessed with death, winter, ice, freezing, and arctic landscapes. Oh, and that Ravaskeith guy. Apocalyptic End in White is like a dark fairy tale with which to scare the children.

Beyond the imagry, the real question is, are the members of I.C.E. – incognito or not – good musicians? The answer is an easy yes. As far as death metal goes, speed and technical prowess are most often king, and I.C.E. definitely has the ability in both areas. The 11 tracks are a full-throttle onslaught that doesn’t let up for a single moment. You will be assaulted with a barrage of metal mayhem that is sure to get your blood boiling and your head banging.

Black metal is a pretty specific genre that the average metal fan isn’t necessarily going to like. If any sort of gimmicks take away from your enjoyment of the music, then I.C.E. is not for you, as it is completely impossible to overlook this group’s persona. Technically speaking, Apocalyptic End in White is a solid album, and those who already dig this style will likely be thrilled to have a new powerhouse in their ranks.

Honeypower – Deflowered

The ‘band photo’ on the back cover of Deflowered shows six similar-looking folks playing different instruments in what appears to be the ultimate faux-art group shot; it’s ultimately humorous, though, as all six band members are actually Gavin Rhodes in various poses. See, Rhodes is Honeypower – not that anyone would know from the surprisingly smooth sound of his work.

Rhodes takes the no-bullshit pop-song attitude of Bennett and meshes it with the introspective side of dreamy artists like Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine to create a project that ultimately sounds far less like these bands that one would expect. While there are obvious hints of these acts, most of the songs are tender and benign, creating the dichotomy of an album that sounds good, but that’s ultimately boring and unsatisfying in the long run.

That’s not to say that Deflowered is a total waste; Rhodes grows some balls with the rousing guitar flare-up “God No,” which sounds like 60’s era Rolling Stones rolled up with The Jesus and Mary Chain. “I’m Free” is an acceptably subtle pop song; “Run Away” starts out slow, but picks up steam with a layer of ‘crunch’ rhythm guitar that supports the chorus.

The main problem is the long dry stretch that opens the album. The aforementioned “God No” is the first real attention grabber of the disc, and it’s track seven – which means Deflowered opens up with six tracks of drab, droning material that blends together way too easily. “The Ties That Bind” has a nice bass throb, but the rest of the track never falls into place around it. “I See the Light” is catchy, but not perky enough for the sound it’s trying to achieve; the consecutive “Down in the Valley” and “Oh Komiko” are just far too long – three minutes of each would’ve been great, but at over five minutes, this is a 10-minute vacuum of ‘disinteresting’ that’s just too much to overcome.

As Honeypower, Rhodes is in an unenviable position with this disc. The performances are breezy and dryly catchy, and the album sounds good as a whole production-wise. Sadly, though, Deflowered just doesn’t add up as the sum of its parts, as most of the songs here feel aimless and empty. Almost all of the necessary components of a good album are here – but the songwriting element just isn’t as up to par as the rest of Rhodes’ skills. Here’s hoping he can pull some better material out of his hat for the next round of Honeypower recordings.

The Casting Couch – 5 Songs EP

I’ve long felt that the EP is an underrated format. Long enough to allow for significant artistic expression, but short enough to help prevent the proliferation of filler, the EP can be especially useful for acts without the talent or sense of quality control to produce a consistently good full-length album. Yet if the EP is the perfect vehicle for producing a cohesive listening experience of unwavering excellence, it seldom lives up to its potential. Artists generally save their best material for their full-lengths, relegating the EP to the status of experimental vessel, stopgap between albums, and the design of choice for those without enough quality material to scrape together a worthy LP. The best EPs generally come from new acts whose desire to put themselves on record quickly – rather than insufficient talent to support a full-length album – steers them in the direction of the compact format. What makes these records such exiting listens is the way they hint at, without completely revealing the direction their creators might take if given more space to expand their vision.

5 Songs, the debut release from the Casting Couch – led by singer/songwriter Wendy Mitchell and arranger/instrumentalist Lynn Boland – is a record well suited to the EP format. Self-described as “Athens, GA indie-pop meets Austin, TX alt-country,” the Casting Couch has the drowsy sound of a band whose performances romanticize closing-time at the local tavern. With lyrics like “Pour another whiskey in my shot glass / I could drink a million more before I’m through / Cause there’s not enough liquor in the whole world tonight / To blur my vision when all I see is you,” the group seems poised to capitalize on rather than dispel such a caricature. “Whiskey Shuffle,” the record’s closer and the song on which those lyrics appear, ambles along with a thumping tuba and chorus that literally sounds like it’s being sung by a half-drunk crowd around a bar. In truth, it’s a nearly perfect drunken anthem, the kind that manages to be singable while only semi-memorable.

Given the Casting Couch’s seeming willingness to embrace the musical equivalent of a bar-room ethos, it should come as no surprise that the group sounds completely innocuous on 5 Songs, consistently running the gamut between inducing sweet reflection and boredom. When the record fails to hold listeners’ attention, part of the problem stems from the fact that Wendy Mitchell’s vocals are mixed a bit too low. This tends to deemphasize the melodies, a handful of which are quite fine. The opener “The Roof” plods along rather monotonously until Mitchell is joined with backing vocals on its mildly redeeming chorus. Elsewhere, “Easy to Fall” – the album’s lone piano ballad – aims for transcendence but falls flat with a melody that awkwardly drifts about without ever really going anywhere. 5 Songs hits its short stride with “Flying Machine” and “Copper Girl,” which comprise the meaty middle section of the record that manages to veer closer to sweet than boring. Both songs maintain the group’s meandering, alt-country vibe but with stronger melodies and instrumentation. “Copper Girl” is a particularly winning mixture of alt-country and pop, evoking the softer side of Yo La Tengo.

In music, as in life, charm goes a long way. As 5 Songs reveals, the Casting Couch is not without charm. That allure, however, has some trouble shining through on a record too harmless to be gripping. While 5 Songs has scattered engaging moments, it remains to be seen whether the Casting Couch is capable of making a full-length record that consistently rises above background music.

Bucket Full of Teeth – IV

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner, and its name is Bucket Full of Teeth. Composed of former and current members of Orchid, Ampere, and Wolves, Bucket Full of Teeth comes out ripping flesh and spewing blood everywhere. This is the band that should have logically come after Orchid and not Panthers. Given, I still like the first Panthers record quite a bit but only because it pretty much sounds just like Nation of Ulysses. Bucket Full of Teeth is onto something completely different. This band is breaking down the barriers of powerviolence/grindcore and showing us all what is really possible while breathing new life into a genre choking on bland metal riffs and cookie monster vocals. Leave it to the man they call Killingsworth to flatten the earth with thundering doom metal-influenced power chords chugging along at breakneck speeds before tearing ass into the most brutal blast beat noisecore this side of Daughters or Melt-Banana.

The record is called IV as it is the fourth installment in the Bucket Full of Teeth recordings. The first three consisted of an ambitious three-7″ ordeal called I, II, and III respectively, that all had interlocking artwork. It begins with an ambient track called “Imperfect Vibrations,” which sounds just like what the title implies, nearly one minute of rumbling low-end noise. This quickly segues in to “Capital Distracts and Imprisons,” a song that could easily sum up all of what Bucket Full of Teeth is about. This track begins with about 15 seconds of hoarse screaming over the top of furious blast beats before diving headlong into a guitar part that sounds like it could have easily been constructed by Mogwai, My Bloody Valentine, or Slowdive. Delay effects pan back and forth as the notes go higher and higher still encased in overlapping screams. More grindy fun ensues before the band dives into an ungodly heavy chugging part infused with Black Sabbath riffs played at ridiculous speeds not unlike High on Fire. All at once the distortion completely drops out and we are left with the shell of a ringing space guitar right before Bucket Full of Teeth bashes your skull into tiny shards with a slow-churning doom metal riff that ends the song one minute and 20 seconds after it begins. “The Dream Continues” gives us more ambient noise similar to Black Dice’s Creature Comforts, which lasts about 30 seconds before another pile driving riff stomps a mudhole through your face.

If you’ve been following all of this so far, you’re probably thinking you should be getting off your lazy ass and hauling it to the nearest indie record store to see if they have a copy of this. Need more convincing? How about after another one of those chaotic rippers you get an even prettier instrumental track called “The Path.” This track sounds sort of like what Kevin Shields was doing with his instrumental songs on the Lost in Translation soundtrack, in other words, like the ghost of a My Bloody Valentine composition. Of course by the time you’ve had a chance to think about any of this, Bucket Full of Teeth is already taking a hacksaw to the base of your spine with more buzzsaw guitars and headache inducing drumming.

Bucket Full of Teeth switches back and forth between nosebleed highs of grindcore insanity and moments of tranquility and calm for the entirety of IV. The record is very short, encompassing only about 16 minutes of music, even less if you decide to skip the noise interlude tracks. Bucket Full of Teeth gives you more in those short precious minutes than most bands can muster in an hour or even 30 minutes. IV is without a doubt one of the best records of the year for enthusiasts of the most abrasive styles of music. I would go so far as to say that this is the best grindcore record I’ve heard since Daughters’ Canada Songs from 2003. In short, there are only two words with enough weight to describe this record: FUCKING BRUTAL!!!

AK-Momo – Return to NY

AK-Momo is the name for what happened when singer AK (Anna Karin) von Malmborg crossed paths with multi-instrumentalist Mattias Olsson. Olsson is a part of several bands working out of Stockholm and clearly enjoys exploring eclectic sounds and styles. For her part, Malmborg brings a breathy, girlish voice and some quirky lyrics that spike these songs with a little raciness.

The 11 songs on Return to NY are arranged from the same formula. Olsson plays orchestron, mellotron, and optigan while Malmborg coos her lyrics. It’s only one trick, but it’s a good trick, and it’s very inviting for most of the way. Ultimately, though, it becomes too much of the same as one songs blurs into the next, and the babyish singing starts to sound cloyingly saccharine.

That’s what finally turned me off of this album: Malmborg’s voice, high pitched and limited, is best enjoyed in moderation. Olsson creates trippy, engrossing orchestration with hit pet instruments, but even these smack of one-trick ponyism stretched across 11 songs. Finally, they may have been better off writing in Swedish than English, because the English lyrics are often awkward and unidiomatic. Just scanning the song titles (“Women to Control,” “Cold War of the Hearts”) gives an idea of how that goes.

AK-Momo is better than a novelty act, but there is still something missing on Return to NY.

The Hunches – Hobo Sunrise

There’s rock music and then there’s raaawk music, the kind filled with so much energy and feeling that even when it sounds like it could fall apart at any moment and does, it only adds to the raw beauty of buzzsaw guitar colliding with a hate-flute. This is what you’ll find on Hobo Sunrise, the second full-length from Portland, Oregon band the Hunches.

Album opener “Where Am I?” starts off with heavily pummeled drums before the rest of the band catches up and helps out on what can best be described as an MC5/Jon Spencer mutant baby. This is garage rock, the kind that makes you want to play in a band or at least go home with the band. Songs stop and start and stop again, all on a dime. “Compression” and “Turkey Timer Pinocchio” are about as good as it gets, with catchy hooks and so heavily distorted vocals that multiple listens wil be required to unlock the key to the lyrics (here’s a hint, though: check out the titles).

“Im an Intellectual” is so simple it’s genius, a finger pointing at pointy heads trying to figure out the meaning behind everything. Then again, it could be taken as a boast. Added to the cacophony of noise that is brought by the Hunches are tin sheets of metal, and the infamous hate-flute (clarinet). “Insectual Hum” and “Frustration Rocket” are both eerily good, and the whole album has moments of beautiful complexity. “A Flower in the Ending” is just that, a pretty song sung over 50s guitar, completely unexpected and completely perfect, which is pretty much how Hobo Sunrise and the Hunches themselves can be summed up.

Japancakes – Waking Hours

Though contemporary country music is an admittedly easy target for just about anybody who isn’t a fan of the genre, having had its rich tradition of storytelling and musicianship eroded by years of artistic bastardization of musicians straining for the pop charts and commercial gain, the only fair conclusion an honest listener can draw is that country music, for most purposes, is dead. From the day that Hank Williams cracked the pop charts as the “Hillbilly Shakespeare,” country music has been destined for the bigger things that ultimately ensured its death by a thousand pop melodies. Sure, there are those who are keeping the tradition alive on the side stages and independent labels that fall well outside the grasp of the modern Nashville system, but country music – the real stuff, with nasal vocals, clucking banjos, and wheezy fiddles – is really folk music, consigned to a certain time and place in the American music canon and our common folkways. Still, such a suggestion implies that real country music must remain forever frozen, stuck in an era of acoustic instruments and murder ballads carved straight out of the Appalachian bedrock, with no musical progress possible. Surely, there must be a better compromise.

Over the course of four albums, Japancakes has been looking for that compromise, releasing a series of albums founded on touchstone country instruments like pedal steel and fiddle, yet pushing their refraction of the genre in an entirely progressive direction. Once an indie-rock it-band, the band has seen its fortunes coincide with the collapse of the Kindercore mini-empire, having never found the widespread acknowledgment that always figured to be imminent for band so adept at uniting such disparate sonic strands. Blending the countrypolitan of the 50s with the krautrock canon (call it krautrypolitan), the Nashville quintet remains a band without obvious parallel, and its fourth full-length makes that distinction abundantly clear. From the lushly bittersweet “Thumb on the Scale” through to the comparatively rocking guitars, gorgeous strings, and moody piano figures of “Where Things Leave Off” that closes the disc, the album is an epic exercise in rising and falling arrangements and beautiful nuance.

No better example of that dynamic exists than the opening “Keep Drawing Suns,” which starts the album off with a slithering rattle and evil hum, groaning through resonating reverb for two minutes until electric piano and pedal steel kick off a languid flow of gorgeously flitting steel guitar and crashing drums. Eventually, everything drops out, revealing nothing more than raindrop keyboards and electronic drool. Or take the hymn-like pedal steel and sweetly swaying melody of “Tremor” and the burned out waltz of “You Should Be Changing Everything,” both perfect examples of the refined process of compositional addition and subtraction that informs each of these tracks. Such movements are part of an undeniably subtle process, like watching weather patterns change in the sky, felt more than understood, leaving the listener to sit in the serenely unfolding textures.

If any complaint can be leveled, it’s that Waking Hours isn’t so much a departure from previous albums as it is a consolidation of past gains. Ultimately, it’s an album that lacks a unifying thread, and it’s a shame that arrangements this consistently engaging don’t have a conceptual theme upon which to be centered. Brief transitional pieces, such as the impressionistic piano strikes of “Untitled Two,” hint at such ambitions, but the band has yet to make an album that is any more than an album full of great songs. Even so, with Tim McGraw having plunged country music into its natural nadir by committing the ultimate cash grab by collaborating with Nelly, listeners who want their country music to be informed by integrity as much as progress, there are few acts more satisfying than Japancakes.

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