Soltero – Hell Train

Poor Tim Howard. Things never seem to work out for him. He’s perpetually dejected with the ennui of everyday life. His plans never go through and of course he never gets the girl. He’s sort of like a 20-something Charlie Brown. And to make matters worse, you’ve never even heard of him.

Like many guys his age, he puts his frustration to music. But unlike so many singer/songwriters of the Live Journal generation, Howard, under the moniker of Soltero (the apt Spanish word meaning lonely bachelor) articulates his frustration smartly and sweetly. More than just another hopeless college grad, Howard empathetically conveys his desperation and angst – and here’s the key – without sounding desperate or angsty. It’s Howard’s affable, everyman voice that guarantees his sincerity.

Now that we’re all done knocking the latest Death Cab record, we can move on to lyrics Ben Gibbard wishes he could write. Lines like: “You thought you’d be home by now / Another year wasted alive / Will you ever be filed in that celestial archive” are witty, emotional, and all-too-human. Howard’s lyrics are some of the most engaging and vulnerable you still haven’t heard. To make matters even better, Howard’s self-deprecating wit actually makes the music more likeable, as it never becomes too clever for its own good, a shortcoming we’ve heard one too many times from the likes of Stephin Merritt and countless others. Unlike them, this guy really means it.

Then there’s the music itself. Whether it’s sparse, acoustic numbers like “If I Had a Chance” and “Rosie Day,” the AM pop of “From the Station,” or the psych-rock fuzz outro of “Ghost at the Foot of the Bed,” all work as fitting backdrops to for tales of relationship woe. But not only is Howard a profound songwriter, he’s also a true pop auteur. His melodic sensibility shines throughout Hell Train. The jubilant surrender of “Hands Up” is a striking contrast to its lyrical resignation, making it all the more potent. The bleak “Acadian Coast” is also evocative, ripe with its poetic imagery, sullen guitar and all the strife of a bitter breakup.

Then there’s “Songs of the Season” with its standout melody and bittersweet contempt for holiday commercialism. “The songs of the season get under your skin like a tapeworm / Now the wind hits your face with a familiar sting / And it seems like the whole world is preparing to sing / You just keep saying nothing, it keeps you from saying the wrong thing.” It’s with words like these that you find yourself nodding along with a pout and a sigh of appreciative recognition. (It’s also an excellent compliment to “Oh Noelle,” his 2002 contribution to the compilation This is Christmas on which he compares office holiday parties to “a thousand little paper cuts.” Good luck tracking that one down.)

It’s a lot to take in on one listen. The interweaving harmonies and continual lyrical stunners make Hell Train quite a rewarding ride. After all, something here is bound to resonate with anyone who’s ever more than a little hopeless. On “Rosie Day,” Howard sings “Oh I wish that she were mine / I’d finally be fine / She just smiles and says some other time.” It’s simple but delivered so purely that it’s sure to induce pathos, but never pity. Hell Train remains emotional without being “emo” or any other easily labeled or manufactured genre. For our sake, let’s hope Howard’s in never “finally fine.” We’d all be better off.

Made Out of Babies – Trophy

With a name like Made Out of Babies, it’s a safe bet that this Brooklyn four-piece isn’t interested in subtlety. This album rocks hard and loose in the proud noise-rock tradition of the Jesus Lizard, Butthole Surfers, and their myriad progeny. Frontwoman Julie Christmas adds an intriguing dimension to the familiarly abrasive riffage and skin pounding, channeling the free-associative joy of Bjork as well as the sexual aggression of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O. The result is an artily heavy release that’s eerily captivating.

At its core, Made Out of Babies are a rock band: an ugly, primal, down-tuned rock band. Sometimes the rock expresses itself as fairly straightforward Motorhead/High on Fire-inspired punk/metal, while at other points the band seems to draw influences from the sort of heavy-but-airy stuff popularized by Neurosis and later refined by Isis and Pelican. However, the underlying theme here is straight-up, no bullshit, heavily distorted, pissed-off rock. The drums are constantly pounding out one loud-as-fuck groove after another, while guitars fly off in all directions like shrapnel, and Christmas alternately speaks, sings, and screams without a moment’s warning. It’s anybody’s guess what the heck Christmas is trying to express in her lyrics, as it’s a struggle to pick out even individual words in the cacophony. Luckily her delivery is more expressive than the great majority of singers blessed with clearer annunciation.

Made Out of Babies synthesizes a number of different strains of heavy music to create an eclectic, brutal sound that manages to avoid a great number of the standard pratfalls, forging a new and powerful musical identity in the process. This is probably the most rock-based release yet from Neurot (which is owned and operated by fellow heavy-as-fuck genre busters Neurosis), yet it fits comfortably into the label’s existing aesthetic. This one is worth a couple of listens – it’s an addictively original take on noise rock.

Rufio – The Comfort of Home

Rufio’s The Comfort of Home is exactly the type of bloated pop-punk album that I hate to see. Most of the songs on it are vapid, over-produced pop-punkers that make me want to retch when I hear them on the radio. In fact, this 16-song album can be pared down to seven choice tracks:

1.“Never Learn” – A speed-punk/pop-punk hybrid that has things most pop-punk songs don’t: an awesome bass line, guitars that deviate from standard chord progression, and aesthetics.

2.“Let Fate Decide” – This punk song contains a quick mellow breakdown, showing the band’s artistic side, as well as keys. Definite songwriting improvement.

3.“On Our Own” – Acoustic song that displays non-whiny vocals, beautiful guitars, and a very nice lead riff.

4.“Bitter Season” – the metal-tinged, yet keys-laden “Bitter Season” is actually a very, very good song. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I wish that all of the songwriting was this innovative.

5. Unnamed Segue 1 – A stomping indie-rock song with no vocals that I wanted so badly to be a full-fledged song. The guys are so good at aesthetics in this song (jumping from minimalistic beauty to stomping angst to transcendent beauty again in just over a minute) – why can’t they be as talented everywhere else?

6. Unnamed Segue 2 – A militaristic build-up of a song, this little gem is the best song on the album, hands down. It’s a true, dark, manic speed-punk song, with even some metal squalls thrown in. All this needs is some yelling and Rufio has suddenly transformed into something very, very current and very, very interesting.

7. Unnamed Segue 3 – A contortion of segue two (which is in itself a contortion of segue one), this version is more rocking and less punking. The drumming here is awesome.

Basically, Rufio’s members do all their best songwriting when they’re not playing straight pop-punk. Unfortunately, the majority of this album is composed of useless, vapid pop-punk songs. If they let themselves write an album of non-pop-punk, not wondering if it would sell, not caring if they got famous, they would be great. Their chemistry on the segues is intense, their sound is distinct, and their skill is undeniable. They could be so much more than they are. Hopefully they will embrace change.

The Nervous Return – Wake Up Dead

One of the small joys of listening to indie music or even major-label recordings in an indie vein is picking up on American singers’ slip into British accents. There are so many examples of such incidents, and sometimes the vocalists merit a ridiculing smile rather than one of genuine appreciation. Fortunately, on his band’s debut album for La Salle Records, Wake Up Dead, The Nervous Return’s lead singer/guitarist doesn’t overreach with his Anglo flourishes. Jason Muller and his three mates deliver an energetic, speedy, and occasionally disposable album of 80s-influenced punk-pop.

Wake Up Dead opens with loud electric guitars and fast beats in the form of “Dramahead.” The lyrics aren’t particularly interesting or memorable, but the song has uncharacteristically strong vocals for a punk release. “Red Camaro” sounds like Def Leppard helping Duran Duran to toughen its image around the time Papa Bush was promising “No new taxes.” Don’t cringe; “Red Camaro” is an enjoyable experience.

Most of the songs on Wake Up Dead follow the same pattern of grinding guitars with interesting effects, pounding drums, and repetitious, hair band-style choruses. This isn’t necessarily horrible, but it gets old soon enough. Artificially tough titles like “Murder Weapon,” “Hate Song (For Animate Object),” and the title track don’t improve the situation. On some of the album’s noisy nuggets of punk-pop, like “Murder Weapon” and “It’s Not Enough,” the listener can’t avoid imagined scenes of Muller and bassist/vocalist Anthony Crouse smiling and playing their instruments against each other’s back in a video scheduled to premiere on MTV between “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Armageddon It.”

One of the more dynamic and catchy songs on Wake Up Dead is “So and So from Such and Such,” with a mellower vocal approach and glorious guitars. “Skin Flavored Lollypops,” near the end of the album, highlights The Nervous Return’s impressive singing, with harmonies flowing around echoed riffs. Of all 10 tracks on this album of 34 minutes, “Skin Flavored Lollypops” is the closest to synth-rock. The song’s instrumental solos by various band members are a treat.

Wake Up Dead has its highs and lows, but The Nervous Return’s energy and desire to please are never in doubt. Perhaps greater lyrical sophistication and more varied melodies will improve future releases.

Lake Trout – Not Them, You

The commercial and critical success of Radiohead seemed to spawn an ocean of followers, mostly imitators, but the dreamy, shoegazey, atmospheric rock (emphasis on the rock) on Not Them, You proves that the guys in Lake Trout are innovators, not imitators. The music is so saturated with the emotive mope-rock influences of UK bands like Radiohead, Travis, and Snow Patrol, it’s hard to believe this band hails from Baltimore. But what makes Lake Trout unique is the way these artists ignore the rules of the day and incorporate the 70s prog-rock ethos of creating a dynamic album of experimental rock with nary a weak tune.

Three years removed from their last release, Another One Lost, and a year writing and recording with imaginative rock producers Tony Doogan (Mogwai, The Delgados) and Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev), Not Them, You contains 16 sonorous, brooding alternative-rock tracks that are as open and experimental as they are rocked out and catchy. No rules or formulas are followed here, which allows these artists the freedom to explore new territory while staying true to the music their sound evolved from. The prog-rock of Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Yes do not hit you in the face and are not so much heard in the mix as they are felt in the production. The solid bass of James Griffith anchors the rockier tunes, and Matt Pierce’s keyboards and flute shine on the slower open mixes. Michael Lowry keeps the beat with steady drumming, while the soaring, dueling guitars of Ed Harris and Woody Ranere provide the alternative-rock backbone.

While each song is distinctively Lake Trout, tracks like “Peel” and “Systematic Self” are cut from the cloth of Radiohead’s textured, electronic rock. The first resembles something from Kid-A or Amnesiac, while the latter is more in line with the spacey atmospherics of OK Computer. Opener “Shiny Wrapper” and “Now We Know,” with their pounding bass lines and Woody Ranere’s tempered vocals, hold a candle to Snow Patrol’s best work. The more melodic, poppier tunes “Pill” and “Have You Ever” are akin to the introspective rock of Travis.

Lake Trout is not afraid to venture away from structure as evident on “I” and “II,” which are short, ambient instrumental pieces, as well as the title track, which is a slightly longer instrumental tune with classic post-rock piano and drums without the cacophonous wall of guitars. “If I Can” and “King” present a more open, Hood-like experimental sound with subtle textures and flute. To further the 70s credo, a more atmospheric, Fridmann-produced cover of the Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” is included, but the strongest tune is “Riddle,” with its smooth guitar and rhythmic bass dynamics, synth strings, and mysterious keyboard lick; it could easily be an alternative radio hit.

Although the band is one of many fish in the post-Radiohead mope-rock waters, at least the name of the band stands out, though one is never sure whether it is Lake Trout the fish or Lake Trout the lake. But either way, Not Them, You provides enough experimental, angst-ridden alternative rock and dynamic hooks to make this a unique species, and it will make a nice addition to your CD collection. If you don’t believe me, I’ll tell you again.

Bellini – Small Stones

Wow, it’s been quite a week. Personally, I started taking law courses after being away from school since 1996. Nationally, well, people are suffering pretty bad. To live is to suffer, and we all have suffered to various degrees. The band Bellini dodged a huge bullet after raucous founding member and drummer, Damon Che, had an on-stage meltdown in the middle of a tour and took the band’s van, essentially stranding the band in Athens, GA. Bellini, on tour for the critically aclaimed Snowing Sun, needed a drummer and a van quick. Agnostino Tilotta, the other founding member and guitarist (previously of Uzeda), lucked out as his friend, Alexis Fleiseg, was just a few days removed from a tour with Girls Against Boys. Fleiseg agreed to help finish the tour. Fast forward three years and Fleiseg is still the drummer, and the band has one hell of an album, Small Stones, as a result.

Small Stones is an intense and emotional album that pummels about with equal parts sexiness and melodic mayhem. With recording help from Steve Albini, Small Stones is neither fast or slow, neither too noisy or not enough noise. And that’s what makes Bellini more of a Van Gogh than a Picasso. The album is filled with different strokes. Giovanna Cacciola (also previously with Uzeda), Tilotta’s wife, has a swoon-worthy voice (part Exene Cervenka, part Ye-ye) for punks and music nerds. Tilotta’s guitar works overtime on every single song. Fleiseg and bassist Matthew Taylor’s rhythmically compliment each other well throughout the album. On Small Stones, Taylor, though, seems to play deliberaty slower than Fleiseg and Tilotta, almost to the point that you forget he is there.

The songs on the album are short and to the point. Bellini never overworks a song, and the album as a whole steps in and out of aggresiveness via Tilotta’s guitar and Cacciola’s vocals. Every other song is faster and more intense than the previous. This is most evident during the the middle of the album with “Not a Man” and “Chaser.” “Not a Man” is a droney, math-rock piece that reminds me of the psych-rock outfit Bardo Pond. Then “Chaser” continues with more umph from all band members. This pattern is evident all the way through Small Stones.

Small Stones is one of the more enjoyable math-rock albums that have come out recently. It’s melodic, punchy, and full of attitude. Taking a little from various elements from psych-ish slow burners, to 7’s and 80s punk, Bellini has created a gem in Small Stones. Perhaps having the viral Che leave is just what the doctor ordered for the band.

Paint the Town Red – Home is Where the Hate Is

Paint the Town Red’s Home is Where the Hate Is has truth in advertising, but this is also socially conscious hardcore. While it’s a decent effort, the lack of innovation renders it far from mandatory listening. Modern Life is War has comparable lyrical messages but also reasons to hear them out.

It’s painfully clear this wasn’t blessed with any such God City Studios (Carry On, Another Breath) treatment. Drumming is too muffled and needs to be introduced into the foreground. Furthermore, for having two guitarists credited, it never impacts the sound. Paint the Town Red reminds me sonically of Blacklisted, and they only have one guitarist.

The main disappointment is not the production, but how this embodies the term “borecore.” The screaming doesn’t even sound bad, but the vocalist’s same pissed-off delivery gets tired so fast. Identical-sounding songs, derivative screaming, and stale riffs all lead me to look elsewhere for my hardcore.

Mercury Switch – Time to Shine

Mercury Switch plays fairly standard metalcore with chugging mosh parts, dissonant textures, lightly technical runs, etc. Scars of Tomorrow comes to mind, and both bands bore me to death, but whatever.

Tracks 1-6 are exactly what I state above, but tracks 7-11 are actually a conceptual piece called “The Invitation of the Reaper” broken up into five tracks. This is where the album gets a little bit interesting.

Pt. 1 of the saga is an instrumental called “Introducing the Keeper of Caskets” that melts into another fairly standard metalcore track called “Getting to Know a Shadow.” From there, Pt. 3, “The Devil’s a Woman Tonight,” kicks off with a Kind Diamond-styled falsetto wail and has mostly cleanly sung power-metal vocals, which is a ballsy move for a metalcore band. Then “Standing on the Edge of Reason” changes the pace yet again with a somber acoustic, folky track with pretty decent clean vocals, making it probably the best track. “The Invitation of the Reaper” concludes with Pt. 5, “Self Despairing Journey,” which is full of slow, menacing riffs and growls, again adding something a little different.

I applaud the effort put into trying to do something a little different. However, Mercury Switch just isn’t that good, so instead of it coming together nicely it sounds jumbled and disjointed. Well, at least they tried.

Jennifer Greer – The Apiary

The first thing I noticed about Jennifer Greer’s new album, The Apiary, was her lush vocals. This woman has one of those pretty, passionate voices that seems suited to any kind of music she could ever want to sing. Armed with her piano and a backup band, Ms. Greer takes on the world of jazz and pop with flawless clarity that will certainly draw plenty of comparisons to pop culture’s best know “woman with piano,” Tori Amos. But unlike her redheaded counterpart, Jennifer Greer’s songs have a smokier feel more suited to intimate venues and audiences who haven’t latched on to just one aspect of her music.

The Boston via New York City songstress is joined on The Apiary by four other musicians who provide the soft backdrop to her songs. This helps give distinctly different moods to each of her songs, and although I imagine Greer can hold her own completely solo, the bass, guitar, drums, and cello definitely create a more complex texture that only gets better with each subsequent listen. It’s the band that takes Jennifer Greer’s songs from languid to aggressive without missing a beat.

After the intro of “Invited,” Greer’s first gem, “Honey Bee,” sidesteps its way into your ears. Lyrics like “Mother what would it be if you say today, I don’t need this empire of pain” will steep themselves in your head so quickly that the background begins to fade. One of the album’s interesting themes, whether intentional or not, is walking (“Walking Home to You,” “Darkling,” Never,” etc). Perhaps this is a discovery for each listener, but Greer’s lyrics about walking to or from something evokes my own journeys in life and brings a deeper sense of kinship with the music.

The cello on “Origami Birds” takes this beautiful song a notch higher and perfectly complements Greer’s soprano. This track is a perfect example of Jennifer’s skills – not only as a songwriter, singer, and musician, but also for her arrangements. The arrangement is also what sets “Stupid People Lost in Eden” apart as well, and I think the effortless atmosphere of this song surely defines Jennifer Greer – her songs are at once complex and easygoing.

Jennifer Greer’s The Apiary is a stellar performance from start to finish. It’s rare that I find any piano-based album to be solid all the way through, but Greer breathes new life into her instrument as she seems deeply connected to the piano. While the combination of jazz and pop music won’t satisfy everyone, those who enjoy strong female vocals and more casual jazz should absolutely pick up The Apiary and rejoice in the calming vibe that Greer creates.

Dumptruck – D is for Dumptruck

The band Dumptruck had a decent run at popularity in the mid- to late-80s, putting out some albums that caught the attention of the college-radio crowds. Some commercial alternative-rock stations also noticed the band, and so despite the rather odd name, the band sold some records and made a name for itself.

Those later albums, Positively Dumptruck and For the Country, had the ring of fairly mainstream indie rock (at the time). Containing nothing too adventurous or edgy, these records had their charms and a couple of greats songs apiece, certainly, but they don’t seem to stand the test of time.

And then there’s D is for Dumptruck, the band’s first album, which was hard to find even when the band was at its height of popularity. It was released on a small-time label (run by Mark Mulcahey of Miracle Legion, who played drums on this recording). It was recorded in a demo-type studio, so the production could be a lot better. It’s from a band that probably didn’t excite many people with its later albums, and those later albums certainly would not have made much of an impression on the hippest post-punk kids of the day. Why would anyone want to hear this record now?

D is for Dumptruck, recorded in 1983, stands out as a real milestone for the New England alternative-music scene of the early 80s. Around that time, you had some real talent starting to coalesce – Dinosaur and Throwing Muses were going to challenge some of our preconceptions about rock forms, while Miracle Legion, Winter Hours, and the Lemonheads (among others) were going to follow more conventional forms but still issue some must-have recordings. I would put D is for Dumptruck-era Dumptruck squarely in the first pile of artists, the ones who made you listen to music differently because their sound was practically alien for the times. A couple of these tunes even show a Mission of Burma influence.

In 1983, Dumptruck’s sound combined angular (but sometimes melodic) guitars, deadpan vocals, and less-than-virtuosic musicianship, and somehow Dumptruck invested the whole thing with an intangible and indescribable tension. It’s dark and unsettling somehow, but it’s hard to say why. It might be the way the guitar and bass seem to go in and out of favor with each other (sometimes harmonizing, sometimes competing for the melody a la Unwound and Sonic Youth, sometimes just sounding out of sync). It might be the way the vocal delivery – pretty flat but with unexpected intonations – and the lyrics – fairly ordinary, usually non-rhyming, and sometimes not honoring the boundaries of the music’s verses and choruses – call attention to their own oddities.

Many of the tunes hew to minimalism. “The Haunt” keeps to a simple formula and melody, gathering a kind of mysterious sadness around it. “How Come,” the lead track, begins with an arrhythmic beating of the drums that picks up some speed before it locks into its form. The vocals creep in with such phrases as “I can’t decipher any of the sounds / For they’re incoherent / And garbled in a way” and “It doesn’t always happen / Only at certain times / Now is not one of those times.” The words don’t quite sync with the music, forcing emphasis on syllables that wouldn’t be emphasized ordinarily. It’s a little disconcerting, and it continually happens across the songs here. It’s a conceit that other aspiring post-punk bands might have been wise to try because it just works with this kind of music.

“Swirls Around,” coming midway through the original album, finds the band pounding as furiously as most any other band of that time. The heavily distorted, wah-wah guitar sound on this track would later become a staple of J Mascis’ recordings. The structure and delivery of this song echo the Miracle Legion wailer “Against the Wall” from its first release (no surprise, as drummer Mulcahey went on to front that band).

Each original-album track has its moments, and Rykodisc has augmented the collection with a few live tracks as well. The live versions of the album tracks show Dumptruck more energized and also a little more confident than it was when it recorded the album cuts. Some of the live versions also show the artists reinterpreting their sound a bit, adding a tinge of the countryish/folkish sound that appears on their later records.

Ultimately, this album wins because it conveys such an air of detachment and alienation without self-consciousness. It’s a little creepy, a little standoffish, and a little subversive. It’s also unlike any other album I can think of – approximating the vibe of Modern Eon’s Fiction Tales without the keyboard underpinnings. It’s actually a remarkable thing that this same band went on to put out an album like For the Country, where only one song – “Wire” – bears witness to this 1983 recording. This reissue is like an old friend coming back to town after a long hiatus, still looking ragged and upset and troubled after all the years. It’s great to have it back!

Next Page »