Tim Barry – Laurel St. Demo 2005

You cannot help but notice that punk-rock frontmen often try solo opportunities. Greg Gaffin from Bad Religion is just one of many recent examples. Avail singer Tim Barry is another new recruit to the club. Bluntly titled Laurel St. Demo 2005, it’s an acoustic endeavor with a narrative point of view. The combination is simple, predominantly just a man and his guitar, without any production gloss.

“Idle Idylist” brings the sound to life with a pinch of electric guitar. Besides having vocals too loud in the mix, there’s not a lot to moan about. Barry’s hardened voice is honest and full of emotion, used best in outbursts like “Sorrow Floats.” The rest of the song doesn’t carry the energy at all, which is a downer.

I’d have to say his voice and lyrics are the highlight of everything. That’s exactly where I see the Bruce Springsteen influence. The acoustic guitar and subtle accompaniment don’t harbor enough hook-power. Material wise, Barry’s songs are more laid-back and generic compared to Springsteen. “Ain’t Right Sure” just putters along, and my interest trails off. I’m sure he meant for the sleepy, slow-paced approach, but I’d be real interested if Barry mixed things up.

For rough demos not even meant to be released, these are good tunes. I kind of expect that this will slip under the radar, as the label is located overseas. Not all of the songs are equally strong, but most people who take the time to find this release would probably like something about it.

Those Transatlantics – Knocked Out

Knocked Out is as apt a title as you could ask for, and I expect to see it lead a majority of the accounts of Those Transatlantics’ soaring debut full-length. Easily in a league with other current pop savants such as the New Pornographers and the sublime Young and Sexy, though working a few hundred miles south of those Canadian heroes, somewhere in suburban Detroit. Hyperactively hook-hungry and blessed with the sweet, expressive and delightfully assertive vocals of Kathleen Bracken, Knocked Out is the perfect antidote to the somber wane of summer.

Efforts to procure some samples from the bands’ two previous self-released EPs failed, leaving me to wonder whether the skill evident all over Knocked Out was there from the start or if this disc represents a coalescing of young elements. I do know that a song like “I, Avalanche” doesn’t just happen, even if your record collection is impeccable and you happen to be somewhat clever. An epic sensibility is at work comfortably in this shifting patchwork of druggy, chiming guitars and teasing vocals. Best of all is the fantastic middle section: a slow, grand waltz embellished with elegant but queasy piano chords hinting at abilities for melodic mischievousness beyond what’s already been heard. Bring it on.

Those Transatlantics take the long view of pop, too, channeling sugar rushes from every era of Anglophilia. What results is not pastiche, however, but a great set of exuberant, unshakeable songs where even the weakest (“The Other Cheek”, “Love is-Was”) are colorful and generously melodic.

The best songs really do knock you out, though. Take the irresistible chorus of “Whiskey & Tea,” for instance, which follows a driving power-pop verse that eases into a cooing bridge. And Bracken’s vocals, though they might not strike one as exceptional at first, really shine throughout. Adorable? Plainly, but with a larger personality and a crucial forcefulness that vaults her beyond mere cute.

Another multi-part song, “Boys and Girls Sing for Summer,” reaches its zenith when the opening passage, initially delivered in dreamy, tinkly piano form is revived halfway through as a Stereolab-ish throbber only to break down again into a charming duet between Bracken and guitarist Chris Hatfield (“Hello Kate” “Hello Chris” “How’s it been?” “Not that bad”). I just want to eat ‘em up.

“Wendy” and “Little War” both deliver monster hooks and the subtlety to wield such mighty weapons with grace. And throughout the records is a great balance of guitars representing plenty of pre- and post-punk riffs alongside keyboards expertly woven into the larger fabric but capable of holding the spotlight themselves – note the aforementioned “I, Avalanche.”

Knocked Out is an easy candidate for record of the year, at least in the pop-omnivore category. It’s easy to fall in love with and smart enough to feature detail and performances that ensure the record won’t be just a quickly digested diversion, briefly championed, and soon forgotten.

Knocked out? Yeah, I’ll say.

Helvetia – The Clever North Wind

For the most part, Helvetia’s debut album, The Clever North Wind, seems like a tripped-out exploration of guitar effects and tweaked sounds that was discovered almost four decades after its recording. But no, the LP was not conceived and recorded while Love committed Forever Changes to vinyl. The Clever North Wind appears in 2006 as an appealing soundtrack for long drives and late-night listening in intimate settings.

The album opens with a trio of tracks effectively saturated in reverb, echoed distant vocals, rolling percussion, and varied tempos. Slow guitars meet repeated sets of fast drumrolls in the sad “Songs of the Ancient,” as “Now and Formerly” proceeds more dryly with heavier beats, perhaps answering how that as yet unrealized joint recording by A Certain Ratio and Tortoise would sound. “Dusty Rue” dramatically picks up the pace, and vocals are often indecipherable in this most spacey of the three initial tracks on The Clever North Wind.

Helvetia’s enjoyable trip includes rhythm section successes augmented by minimal altered vocals, like “Gladness (Is in the Heart)” and “Deirdre of the Sorrows.” There is a hint of the early 70s with “Viva the Decline,” “Floaters,” and “Laughter and the Art of Forgetting,” all more aggressive and closer to traditional rock than most of The Clever North Wind. The distinctive organs on “Floaters” stand out among the looser sounds that dominate the album. Displaying the band’s diversity in taste and style, even Helvetia’s 60s moments are not limited to typical psychedelic tones. Consider the classic pop of “Beezlebub (Leave Me Be)” and the hazy jam sounds of the album’s title track.

An hour after it begins, The Clever North Wind comes to an end with two tracks somewhat similar to its opening psychedelic salvo. However, “Hellawaitsya” and “The Drowning End” are more chilled out than most of the album’s trippy tunes and would feel at home on a Kruder & Dorfmeister collection. Helvetia hasn’t revolutionized music with The Clever North Wind, but this strong debut album blends percussion, bass, and guitar in a fresh new way, offering 15 efficient and solid tracks that can be enjoyed in various states of sobriety.

The Goslings – Spaceheater/Perfect Interior

Beautiful is a word that does not come to mind when one mentions drone/doom giants Sunn 0))). Ugly, harsh, abrasive, monolithic, perhaps, but certainly not beautiful. Beauty is all in the eye of the beholder, however, and to some, sustained low-end amplifier noise is it. The Goslings go a long way to integrate moments of tranquility, beauty, and even occasional melody into their droney amplifier worship.

The first four tracks here are from the 2003 Spaceheater EP. The first track, “In May,” starts off with a single sustained tone that is later accentuated by ambient noise and other drones over the span of the piece. As the short EP progresses, the drone elements are used rather as window dressing for a more pronounced ambient element a la Brian Eno’s Music for Airports or Fripp and Eno’s No Pussyfooting. Unlike Sunn 0))) or genre progenitors Earth, The Goslings use their drones dynamically and to add color, rather than as the central focus of their music. Surprisingly enough, this makes the disc somewhat pleasant to listen to!

The Perfect Interior EP portion of the disc continues the more melodic and ambient direction, adding strummed acoustic guitar, distorted and processed vocals, samples, and other elements. The drone is still there as the underlying subject of the music; however, it is not overbearing, and the melodic and pleasant elements find many opportunities to shine through. In addition to the melodies, there are many portions with guitar work a la Robert Fripp’s on No Pussyfooting. Taut, dissonant lines dance over the haunting ambient backdrops, slightly echoed and delayed for maximum tension.

The Goslings’ approach to drone is certainly an original one, and their integration of melody and calm ambient elements into an otherwise harsh style of music make this a rewarding recording to look into.

M Ward – Post-War

Over the last few years M(att) Ward has built himself a niche role as a benevolent backroom svengali figure after only a relatively short period of time spent refining his own remarkable talents. Almost in the same way that Ward’s own early champions – namely Giant Sand’s Howe Gelb and Jason Lytle of Grandaddy – gave him the necessary leg-up on the leftfield Americana hierarchy, he too has shared the benefits of his growing stature with others needing a collaborative catalyst or a career boost. Which means the likes of Cat Power, Beth Orton, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, Jenny Lewis, and the compilers of the recent John Fahey tribute album I am the Resurrection, have all been lucky enough to be touched by Ward’s increasingly confident creativity. Such generosity of spirit has not, however, hampered Ward’s own musical development; far from it, as evidenced here with his fifth and most fleshed-out album to date, Post-War.

Released barely 18 months after his conceptual homage to the halcyon days of public-spirited radio broadcasting – the richly detailed Transistor Radio – this new collection feels like a substantive gear-change for Ward’s art. Whereas his previous long-players were primarily personified by their hushed beauty, dusty experimentation, and nostalgic romanticism, Post-War pushes forward a more boisterous and band-orientated vision for Ward’s sturdy songwriting. Although Ward has not entirely embraced rock, he’s certainly learned how to roll.

With its yearning swelling strings, steady drumbeat, and a swooning vocal, the opening “Poison Cup” is perhaps a red herring for the subsequent sequence of tracks, but its Scott Walker-like widescreen presentation is undoubtedly a subtle wrench away from Ward’s lo-fi trademarks. The soaring twosome of “To Go Home” (a Daniel Johnston cover) and “Right in the Head,” however, cement the core character of Post-War. The former offers a rustic treatment of The New Pornographers’ potent power-pop (reinforced by gutsy guest vocals from part-time Pornos chanteuse Neko Case), while the latter rapturously extends on the frantic vibe of “Four Hours in Washington” from Transistor Radio. Elsewhere, the blues-rock stomp of “Requiem” cross-references Neil Young at his most passionately political, replete with a suitably squealing guitar solo.

Further in, the folk-rock glide of the cherishable “Chinese Translation” imagines a lost Dylan treasure as covered by The Byrds. The even lovelier “Magic Trick” provides the biggest highlight of the whole album, resembling a raw, lo-fi, 70s Beach Boys vocal workout, not unlike something from the band’s underrated Carl & the Passions: So Tough album. No M Ward record is truly complete without at least one sublime guitar instrumental, so just over halfway through Post-War in rolls “Neptune’s Net,” a surging twangfest that stirs up the spirits of Duane Eddy, Link Wray, and Dick Dale with a delicious dexterous crunch.

Ward doesn’t entirely let the balance tip in favour of his more strident material. Hence the organ-driven title-song smoulders spookily like Nina Simone, the delicate wistful ballad “Eyes on the Prize” fits with the earlier M Ward album jigsaw puzzles, and the stunning closing track “Afterword/Rag” echoes Tom Waits at his most tender, before sliding into a flickering Fahey-flavoured finger-picked coda.

Matthew Stephen Ward has once again proved himself as an immaculate conceiver of cross-bred styles, shades, and elliptical songcraft. Moreover, Post-War delivers Ward to a place where his ability to harness both the rough and the ruminative strands of his muse should be more clearly recognised and appreciated. Roll on Post-Post-War…

Track a Tiger – Woke up Early the Day I Died

The opening track of Track a Tiger’s Woke up Early the Day I Died is “Glad to Be Scattered,” a boring, repetitive, yet upbeat number that pairs Tiger’s mastermind Jim Vallent with backing vocalist Kristina Castañeda. The second track is the first track only slower. The third track’s the second track again. The fourth track is the first track with more enthusiasm and less backing vocals.

Can you see where this is going? I hope so, because after that it doesn’t much matter.

I have to admit that Woke Up sounds good. The production value is very high. Everything’s crisp and meshes into a perfectly acceptable whole. That, however, doesn’t prevent Woke Up from being incredibly boring. I found myself desperately waiting for something that would change up the repetitive nature of the album – an outburst of enthusiasm, wonder, beauty, power… but the songs are staid, commonplace, dull.

It’s as though Vallet was so intent on making sure everyone played everything exactly as they were supposed to that he stole his bandmates’ souls. The drums on “Happy” almost get out of control, but just when they should burst through, pick up, and carry the song to new heights, they instead drift into a pedestrian rise and continue on their monotonous way. That’s saying a lot, as “Happy” is the best track on Woke Up, and it’s the only one on which a regular band member doesn’t supply drums.

This is gentle, settled music, unlikely to offend anyone. Unfortunately, it’s also unlikely to excite anyone, either.

Oh, yeah, there are some samples at the beginning of “It’s Pretty Hard to Go Home (After Something Like That),” and that’s also one of the few songs that showcases Vallet’s pretty good voice, as until then (through 2/3 the album), he’s been lost in a competitive production wash with his backing vocalists. His voice is good, and listeners deserve to hear more of Vallet on what is his project. “Flood,” buried as track eight of nine, shows a bit more enthusiasm than most of the other tracks, but it still suffers from the by-the-numbers musicianship that’s plagued the rest of Woke Up. Once again, the listener is treated to Vallet’s agreeable vocals with only a little backing help. Now, if he could only come up with another song.

Track a Tiger’s Woke up Early the Day I Died is competent music likely to lull you to sleep. If that’s what you’re after, I heartily recommend it.

Blood Meridian – Kick up the Dust

“Country and blues music by way of people who learned to play guitar from listening to Ramones records,” says Matthew Camirand of his latest masterwork, Kick up the Dust. “Referential wannabe bullshit?” wonders the skeptical throng. Thankfully, not quite. Temporarily trading the drugged-out malaise of Black Mountain for the world-weary malaise of Blood Meridian, Vancouver hellion Matthew Camirand attempts to channel not only the spirit of Cormac McCarthy’s mean half but also a drunken Neil Young and the playful country-tinged mini-jams of Up on the Sun. Kick up the Dust certainly aims high, and while entertaining in its own right, by attempting to match the strides of its forbearers, it quickly becomes a case of left-in-the-dust.

It’s sad, too, because Kick up the Dust really wishes it could share shelf space with the epic Blood Meridian or stand aside Sixteen Horsepower’s monolithic shadow and cast its own. But compared to McCarthy or Edwards, this is mere child’s play. Not to say that Kick up the Dust is a bad album, just that, like so many (oh, so many) albums that have come before it, it pales in comparison to some of its loftier influences. And we can’t really fault Camirand for that, for despite being a seemingly distant heir to dirty Americana, he gives it a good go. Fittingly, like many country rides, it’s a bumpy one.

It’s easy to forgive Camirand for wanting to try it all on his debut: raucous punk-country, sooty barroom ballads, towering dirty gospel, midnight acid-folk, and strident, boozed-up singer/songwriter swagger. To his credit, he really only screws up a few of them, and the rest overshadow the missteps. Dangerously, the album starts off with its weakest tracks. The two openers, “Your Boyfriend’s Blues” and “Work Hard, For What?”, really are throwaway tracks, both quite upbeat and competent musically, but they’re dragged down by stupid lyrics, shitty Suffering and the Hideous Thieves-style vocals, and a strikingly insincere sentiment. It’s not until Camirand stubbles into the six-minute slowburn of “Let it Come Down” that Kick up the Dust starts to take off, and from there the band just seems to get better and better. What started as a juvenile, punk-laced take on Americana slowly develops into a mature and, most importantly, sincere album that may not understand the lifestyle it tries to channel but does not patronize it or do it injustice. “Soldiers of Christ” is country-grunge done at its best, and the soaring title track makes one frustrated that the rest of the album doesn’t tap into whatever keg Camirand poured it from.

Kick up the Dust’s weakest points are its trite and stereotypical lyrics, meandering between detached musings on acts of violence to the standard slew of country song woes and Southern hellfire harangues. They’re certainly the appropriate garb for the genre Blood Meridian invokes, but at best they slip by unnoticed and at worst sound exactly like what they are: silly looks at how someone who probably has no idea about country life would imagine it to be. It becomes hard to hear “Work Hard, For What?” as the ponderings of a dirty cowboy wondering why he has so little to show for his life’s work when it could equally be the lazy brush-off of a Silver Spoon-licking Vancouverite punk (which is probably closer to Camirand’s reality). The man’s not completely clueless, though, as there’s something about his howls of “So kick up the dust \ After all, it’s just the bones of our friends” that’ll send shudders of authenticity down even the most crooked of spines.

So while it may occasionally hack and cough or even wander off path in all the dust it kicks up, Blood Meridian’s debut is ultimately an enjoyable and competent edition to the Americana revivalist canon (and a reminder from Canada that North Americana is still Americana, damn it). Camirand proves effective no matter the incarnation, be it punk rocker, indie stoner, or wannabe cowboy. With Kick up the Dust, Camirand may have fallen a little shy of crafting a true Blood Meridian, but hey, at least it ain’t no All the Pretty Horses.

Bury Your Dead – Beauty and the Breakdown

J.G. Ballard – possibly one of the last personalities I would have expected myself to utilize in a review of a band such as Bury Your Dead – wrote an exquisite short story titled “The Drowned Giant” about a city shaken up by the washing up of a deceased behemoth on a local beach. Understandably, the people are both shrewd and eager in their approach of creature. Some individuals study and attempt to comprehend its existence, but in a short amount of time, the colossal fellow loses his original mystic, and soon there are several individuals to be found clambering about all over his inanimate being in acts of equal parts genuine interest and heartless desecration. Various merchants and interested citizens begin to amputate sections of the body for profit and ornamentation, and, also due to its worsening decadent state, the giant is abandoned and ultimately forgotten.

See how this serves as a viable interface for the current metalcore scene? Straight to the point, I’d be delighted to see the carcass of the genre disassembled and its memory suppressed before it has the opportunity to further corrode and flood our respectability with the pungent smell of sweaty teens punching air during a breakdown; noxious fumes from festering flesh and perspiring adolescents – see my connection? A few relics of it can remain as reminders of the phenomenon – a pair of chick jeans once worn by someone obviously male, a white bandanna, a black Converge shirt, a revolver keychain – but let’s eat our losses and retire the bands and their collective works to the Ididwhatasateenager?! section of the Museum of Inexcusable Musical Transgressions forevermore.

Now, to Beauty and the Breakdown. I won’t blame Bury Your Dead in full for my disillusionment with metalcore music, but being forced to listen to this album so many times has given me the extra push I needed in order to come down hard on the style, those who inhabit it, and those who all too willingly fall prey to even its most basic constraints. I don’t mean to sound as if the album is bothersome out of some contractual obligation imperative to the band’s subsistence, though I’m certain harsher detractors would cynically agree. Rather, it’s a bland exercise in what the band describes as a fusion of “fun and ferocity,” though with “fun”’s connotation set to mean “CHUGGA CHUGGA” and “ferocity”’s set to “DUN DUN TINK.”

Clairvoyance isn’t necessary to guess what type of music an album titled Beauty and the Breakdown would contain, but it would have been a touching consolation for Bury Your Dead to throw in a curve ball somewhere to break up the cumbersome monotony. The farthest out the band is willing to reach for even a breath of originality lies in a half-assed attempt at a fairy tale motif for the song titles and booklet filler, but, for some reason, I can’t imagine deriving “I look at you / With disgust, despair, and regret / All we’ve been through / How could you fuckin’ forget?” from any children’s narrative. It sounds more to me like they put away the Brothers Grimm in favor of a black-and-white composition book scribbled with a melancholy teen’s inane thoughts.

If there indeed is fun happening on this disc like the band proclaims, it’s obscured by the bevy of gnarled shouts and calculable, rudimentary breakdowns. Ignore this one unless you’re in dire need of a reason to mosh or do windmill kicks.

Pure Reason Revolution – The Dark Third

Others listening to Pure Reason Revolution’s The Dark Third have referenced Pink Floyd. True, The Dark Third occasionally invokes or outright imitates selections from Dark Side of the Moon, but comparisons to the legendary Floyd are unfair and, more importantly, inaccurate. PRR is a different animal.

PRR earns points for embracing DSotM-era Floyd at a time when Syd Barrett is all the rage. But on The Dark Third, PRR is trying to be too many things to too many people. The band’s website propounds:

“Pure Reason Revolution is a band that doesn’t fit in with any prevailing scene. That’s one of their major attractions, of course, but it means they are devilishly hard to categorise. Astral folk? The New Prog? Beach Boys harmonies laced with speed metal slam downs, pure pop melodies and space rock explorations? What exactly have we got here?”

PRR’s sense of creative freedom is admirable. But in blending diverse elements into one cohesive sound, the individual components lose their personalities, and the end result is bland. Distorted guitars riff heavy but aren’t convincingly mean. Electronic sounds waft in but don’t move asses. Vocals hover angelically but lack conviction. As a result, the music washes over the listener, never engaging him. It’s like playing checkers against a computer: kind of interesting for a while but not that fun.

The primary strength of this album is the tight harmonies. Every vocal is on point. This, coupled with the uniqueness of the overall aural aesthetic, could and does turn people on; PRR has garnered positive press, especially in the band’s UK home. But I mostly heard a big production with nary a genius or tortured soul to be found.

What Made Milwaukee Famous – Trying to Never Catch Up

After listening to Trying to Never Catch Up, it’s no surprise that esteemed independent record label Barsuk has re-released this Austin band’s previously self-released debut, re-mastered with four new tracks and slightly altered artwork. Yes, these guys are from Austin, not Milwaukee, but what should make them famous is the way they incorporate styles from many different indie-rock genres, as well as 80s new-wave, without sounding like copycats or sounding too retro, which is not an easy feat. Add the smooth vocal expressions and strong songwriting, and you get an album that sounds both familiar and fresh and entirely entertaining.

The quartet of Jeremy Bruch (drums), John Houston Farmer (bass, backup vocals), Michael Kingcaid (guitars, sequencer, piano, organ, Rhodes, vocals), and Drew Patrizi (keyboards, rhythm guitar, piano, organ, Moog synth, sound effects, backup vocals, tambourine and other odds and ends) show their instrumental talent and willingness to experiment by the wide range of influences they blend into a coherent yet unique form. In addition to the energetic and earnest guitar-rock influences of indie all-stars Modest Mouse and Spoon, the dynamic pop compositions on Trying to Never Catch Up combine the playfulness of The Shins and The Unicorns with the pensiveness of Death Cab for Cutie and are adorned with everything from Cars-like 80s synth-pop ripples to brazen Brit-rock guitar surges. All are creatively arranged with both thrashing and catchy rhythms, a few slick hooks, and occasional spacey interludes that create a certain dreaminess and provide substance to the indie-rock backbone.

The influence that surfaces most thoughout is that of fellow Austin band Spoon, due somewhat to the fact that Spoon member Jim Eno lent his skills in the recording, engineering, and production to a handful of the tracks, but also due to the vocals of WMMF’s lead singer Kingcaid. Not only does he sound similar to Spoon’s Britt Daniel, he sings in the same manner and with the same confidence, while Patrizi uses his pipes for backup harmonies in contrast to Kingcaid’s lead and even makes a cameo appearance as lead vocalist. To distinguish the band and add a touch of intrigue, WMMF effectively treats the vocals with fuzz, reverb, and echo on occasion, and on top of all that, the magnetic vocals have a way of bringing usually trite lyrics about relationships to life with a hint of dry sarcasm.

Trying to Never Catch Up wastes no time introducing us to WMMF’s expansive sounds, as opening track “Idecide” starts with a clicky drum beat and slick 80s synth trinkles that bridge nicely to grungy guitars and a fuzzed-out chorus. Death Cab for Cutie-like shimmering rhythm guitars follow on “Mercy, Me,” as an almost prog keyboard lick propels the song forward. The Death Cab-style guitars are also felt on later tracks like “Selling Yourself Short,” “Hopelist,” and the title track, with “Hopelist” a more subdued and stripped-down affair, while the title track takes off with soaring guitars and pounding drums. “Hellodrama,” “Curtains,” “Sweet Lady,” and “Bldg. a Boat from the Boards in Your Eye” are an eclectic mix of indie-rock patterns, mixing treated vocals with pensive and brooding guitars, 80s synth-pop waves, distinctive rhythms, and various found sounds fluttering through the matrix. WMMF displays its more experimental side on “The Jeopardy of Contentment,” “Almost Always Never,” and “Judas” that feature a more open sound with some quirkier cadences and cascading keyboards that freefall to a heavenly climax.

What Made Milwaukee Famous’ musicians tend to wear their influences on their collective sleeves, which makes these songs immediately likable. But thankfully, they also have the initiative to push the creative envelope by blending their own twisted sound experiments into the mix, including some semi-call and response stanzas and a rousing pub-like chorus. Trying to Never Catch Up is a smorgasbord of fresh and non-formulaic indie rock with substance and style that will hopefully bring some fame to this talented band.

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