Candy Bars – On Cutting Ti-gers in Half and Understanding Narravation

It often seems that quality songwriting, even in the independent scene, is overlooked by catchy guitar riffs and matching pinstriped suits. Likewise, it is also not often that an almost unheard of band can completely surpass the quality of most popular and established bands. However, the Candy Bars accomplish this feat with superb songwriting and introspective lyrics without the pretense or hype.

Comprised almost solely with a cello, guitar, and drums, On Cutting Ti-gers in Half and Understanding Narravation achieves such a powerful and full sound that one almost completely forgets the simplicity of their instrumentation. Daniel Martinez’ raspy and chilling vocals complete their robust sound, reminiscent of Jeremy Enigk in his non-falsetto moments. The album begins with the track ‘Landscape,’ which perfectly sets the tone of the album. Gently picked guitars and flowing cello and vocal melodies break into a tirade of both music and lyrics as Martinez paints a vivid picture of his disturbed fantasyland. “Violets” is one of the best songs on this album, adding bells to the guitar melody, Martinez aptly sends chills and resonance to the line “I hear you’re having trouble sleeping, do you suffer from plain dreams?” Moments like this appear throughout the album, where the music, vocals, and lyrics, coalesce into a cathartic moment.

Regardless of the emotive character of the record, the quality of the songwriting is what sets this album apart. While the songs are cohesive, the Candy Bars never rely on the same tactics and continually surprise before a trite moment can sneak in. Hopefully, with the release of On Cutting Ti-gers…, their first album, the Candy Bars will garner the recognition they deserve.

Latterman – …We Are Still Alive

How do you like your punk rock? Do you appreciate the importance and meaning behind “the only band that matters”, the Clash? Do you want your punk to be meaningless fun, with songs about masturbation and getting revenge on your stupid friends, like early Green Day? Do you want your punk band to have their tongue firmly planted in cheek, or their heart bleeding on their sleeve? With Latterman it doesn’t really matter, because they are kind of a punk band for all seasons.

…We Are Still Alive is the third album from the New York group. It shows the band adopting a similar approach to their first two albums. The album opens with the traditional punk rock instrument: a xylophone? Although, it doesn’t last long, on pace setter “Water Manes at the Block’s End”. We are then bombarded with a chainsaw guitar attack, that proves unrelenting throughout. “If we’ve ran a million miles/To get to this place” is the opening salvo, delivered in that now tried and true method of punk singing: the shout-sing. “Mumbled Words and Ridiculous Faces” continues the album, and lets you know that you will spend the next eight songs, like the first two; with your fist in the air, and your feet jumping up and down. “Don’t worry I won’t get burned by it” is the scream here. This is the key to Latterman: their ability to take a simple punk song, and by sheer energy, turn it into a near anthem. “I Decided Not To Do Them” opens with a tasty, fat guitar pattern, before turning into a semi-Bad Religion stomp. “Where did everybody go?” is the key lyric in this track, and also presents the theme of the album, ever so conveniantly. Latterman don’t want to rock alone. They are “true believers” in the punk mentality, with a nod to the “power in numbers” theory. The rest of the album continues the trend. From the goofy “If Batman Were Real, He Would Have Beaten the Crap Out Of My Friends”, to the punk as religion anthem of “This Basement Gives Me a Fucking Headache”, to the wall of guitars epic closer, “Will This Be On the Test?” the band plays with passion.

The problem with …We Are Still Alive is that it tries a little to hard to straddle that line between serious artist with something to say, and songs about Batman beating your friend’s ass. It is a line that many bands have tried to straddle. Green Day eventually developed into full blown serious rock stars, even though two of their first three album titles were poop jokes. Blink-182 went from mocking boy bands, to trying too hard to be serious artists, to taking an “extended hiatus”.

I guess in the long run, it doesn’t matter if a band straddles that line. As long as they create a good noise. And Latterman certainly does that. Their lyrics, though, are your typical pop/punk fodder that almost take away from the anthemic qualities of the music. It seems to be a running problem for pop/punk bands these days. They have great tunes, decent playing, and catchy hooks, but their lyrics are either incredibly trite, or ridiculously over the top. So when it all comes down to it, the one word that I would most likely use to describe Latterman: typical.

Young Widows – Settle Down City

When singer Steve Sindoni parted ways with Breather Resist late last year, the remaining members decided to keep writing and recording together. Funny thing is, when they finished the new album, they realized they were a new band. That band is Young Widows, and their album Settle Down City sounds good, a lot like The Jesus Lizard. It’s a perfect marriage of post-punk and noise rock with misshapen chords chugging and spewing over grooving bass lines and liberated drums. Guitarist Evan Patterson took most of the vocal duties, doing a pretty mean David Yow.

The music is brooding, melody is sacrificed for color, and the beats aren’t 4/4. Many people will find the music inaccessible, grating. That’s their problem. There is a recklessness here that seems purely intellectual. Sex and drugs have done a lot for rock n’ roll – good and bad – but rarely do they inspire a break from the visceral. Here, you get a heaping helping of both mind and bodily abuse.

After a weak opening track, the album Settle Down City starts its lunging, lumbering trek down a dark hallway. The track “Almost Dead Beat” is aggressive, but a slower delirium follws with “Glad He Ate Her”. Track 4, “Small Talk”, stays steady, and then the excellent “Formererer” ascends to noise between a stomping, crushing bass. The album continues in this vein, littered with anguishing highs and satisfying lows, elbowing you out of the path on its way towards a brick wall, or an open window, or whatever spins at the end of that dark hallway.

The Brother Kite – Waiting for the Time to Be Right

In 1987, Disney released The Brave Little Toaster, an animated film that, if a bit frightening for some children, succeeded at winning the hearts of the nation’s youth and even garnering an Emmy nomination. The cartoon was memorable for its characters, a sundry group of household appliances who resolve to set off and locate their master when they find that he has gone (on vacation, as it turns out)—the main five are the little toaster, brave indeed, Lampy the lamp, Blanky the blanket, Radio, and Kirby, a grouchy vacuum cleaner. One of the central difficulties of the story is, of course, their trouble navigating a human-sized world of doors and roads and, ultimately, locating Rob, the master. It all might seem a little foolish to those who consider it: Why would appliances want a master in the first place? It seems like they should welcome a break from servitude when it is offered them. Also, why set off blindly to find the boy when devices like telephones exist? There was an object that thought about this and came to the same reasonable conclusions you and I would if placed in the same situation, but, for fear that he would dispel the romantic quality of the film, it was silenced.

His name was Kite, and he was brother of the whiny, passive Blanky. A born rebel, Kite had been dreaming of the days when he could fly untethered and remain forever in the sky. When his opportunity came, he seized it with boldness. Waiting for the Time to Be Right is his story—and it’s a fine display of pop craftsmanship to boot.

Based on “The Coat of Arms,” you might say that Kite’s been listening to a bit too much Brit-pop. About two and a half minutes in, however, you’ll see where this is really going: Smile-esque vocal harmonies, a chiming trio of guitars, shoegaze textures, and, occasionally, the impression of a bird’s eye view. These elements have appeared together in the past, certainly, and there a few touchstones that the band openly acknowledges—anything Brian Wilson, The Soft Bulletin, The Who, Loveless—but novelty shouldn’t be required of pop of this sort. In brief, there are a great many points at which Waiting soars, while missteps are few and forgettable.

Credit Kite’s vocalist, Patrick Boutwell, for the strength of the former. In my opinion, Boutwell’s voice sounds a great deal like Phil Collins’ (this is in many respects a compliment); fortunately, any further resemblance to Genesis halts right there. Backed by this kind of instrumentation, though, even Collins would be a completely different musician. Cymbals crash, guitars compete for front-and-center, the bass grinds away, while Boutwell’s voice floats high above such earthly considerations. It’s tough to isolate the stand-outs in an album this consistently rewarding, but “The Finest Kind” and “Get On, Me” could sway even the most skeptical listeners. Moreover, these selections straddle the central divide of Waiting: the former is the, well, finest of the slower bunch, while “Get On, Me” shows off Kite’s rock pedigree. Guitars of the Death Cab sort prevail, but organs and strings are also used to great effect on “Waiting for the Time to Be Right” and “Never in Years.”

Kite seems to have written a thoroughly enjoyable pop album, by many accounts. Why, then, 19 years after the glory days of the little toaster, is it so belated? Are song titles like “Hold Me Down” and “Out of Sight” of any significance? The answers are probably related, but it would require a skilled analyst to construct such tenuous metaphors and feeble connections. For now, Waiting can be enjoyed like the lakeside sunset on its cover: you won’t be wrong if you say this sort of thing has been done before, but you’d certainly be missing the point.

The Matches – Decomposer

Decomposer, The Matches’ second album, is a haven for high school iconography, but not as one would assume. Rather than through the lyrics or instrumentation, the album’s keystone rests in the liner notes. Lending assistance is a cavalcade of big names, including Tim Armstrong (Rancid), John Feldmann (Goldfinger), Mark Hoppus (blink-182), Nick Hexum (311), Brett Gurewitz (Epitaph Records founder), and others. Does it show? Well, the production on the album delivers a surprisingly distinct, crisp sound, but I doubt many people would be able to listen to a track and pinpoint the superstar involved. Well, I’d guess adorning a jewel case with their names is probably a sure-fire way to push some copies, anyway.

But, wait, what about the people actually playing the music?

The Matches aren’t going to score any points for originality. At this point, pop punk isn’t particularly a genre in need of a brazen pioneer, but some recognizable deviation from the genre’s typical format would be a blessing. Chugged guitars, whiny hooks, and the edge of an occasional scream dominate what you’ll be hearing – Decomposer, like so many so-called “MTVmo” albums today, is a requisite laundry list of tried-and-true tactics and themes.

I won’t make any assumptions about the members or where their music is coming from, but what I gather from the songs on this album is little more than melodramatic hoopla, banal discourse on temporal affairs (“What little I learned about love is at my heart’s expense”) and clichéd, everyday happenings turned tumultuous (“Paid rent four weeks delayed / Fucked up in a three-point turn / Can’t give two shits these days / Packed one bag, no return”).

Album opener “Salty Eyes,” in all of its passionate, stripped-down elegance, initiates a completely different sound than the ensuing tracks, but the stylish yet frail soundscape disintegrates far too quickly to be truly savored. Following tracks introduce some electronic elements – which, I must say, are handled pretty well – but far too often are complacent to fall back on (generally) generic guitar playing for propulsion, just as the song lyrics tread the safe ground of adolescent experience. Comfort is found in the staccato notes strewn about “Clumsy Heart,” but not enough to salvage an overall dismal experience.

Should we judge bands as they present themselves or as we perceive them? If we operate on the basis of the first option, we have to evaluate The Matches as “Myspace romancer”s, a phrase attained from a line in their song “Papercut Skins.” Now, either their collective tongue is buried so far in their proverbial cheek that the lingual organ is protruding from the side of their face, or they’re making an unfettered, obscene effort to tap into what has proved to be a rich niche. I’ve my mind made up, so I’ll leave it to you to make a definitive choice.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy – The Letting Go

Having delivered himself to a peak of naked beauty with 1999’s sublime I See A Darkness, Will Oldham somehow seemed to lose the momentum he’d spent the preceding six or so years building-up (via various Palace and self-monikered releases). Perhaps no longer feeling a need to prove himself – especially with the high-accolade of having the late-Johnny Cash cover one of his songs – Oldham has been drifting into somewhat distracting dilettantism. Thus, there have been a slew of double-header collaborations (with Tortoise, Matt Sweeney et al.), contrary self-reinvention projects (notably the Nashville session-men assisted review of his Palace songbook), lazy archival clearance (Guarapero: Lost Blues 2) and a wilfully unpredictable approach to stage performances (as captured on last year’s Summer In The Southeast live album) to throw listeners off his scent.

Amidst all this extra-curricular activity, there’s barely been much of Will Oldham “playing it straight” in his Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy guise – with 2003’s slightly unmemorable Master And Everyone being a fleeting exception – provoking a feeling that he’s just exploiting the attentions of obsessively-loyal fans with indulgent diversions. Which is why this latest long-player, The Letting Go, feels like a blessed-relief from all the shape-shifting and conceptual reshuffling of latter-day Oldham recordings.

Relying on a set of sympathetic and restrained guests – including vocalist Dawn McCarthy (Faun Fables), ever-reliable brother Paul Oldham on bass, drummer Jim White (Dirty Three) and a scrupulously arranged Icelandic string-ensemble – The Letting Go is arguably the most pretty and richly detailed record Oldham has released in years. It’s not an easy or immediate collection of songs admittedly, but its best moments certainly find Oldham refocusing directly upon the open-heart of his songwriting. Musically too, Oldham has pared-back some of his latter-day excesses – without shutting-out more expansive embellishments when required – in favour of distinctively sparse and arcane folk balladry.

The opening “Love Comes To Me” more or less encapsulates the most likeable strand of the album’s wares evoking Leonard Cohen at his most plaintive and romantic, with McCarthy’s ethereal tones eerily echoing recently unearthed Britfolk legend Vashti Bunyan. Indeed, like Cohen, Oldham is a perversely alluring suitor when he wants to be, as the dainty magical likes of “Big Friday” and “Wai” wonderfully attest. But for every strong arm of comfort from Oldham’s songbook, there is also a chilling threat. It’s this sense of dread that certainly underscores the foreboding strains of “Cursed Sleep” and “The Seedling”, wherein strings, vocals and strained electric guitars swirl into a wave of desperation, sharing a similar vibe with past bleak Oldham epics like “Death To Everyone” and the infamous “Riding” as a by-product. Although the twin forces of emphatic darkness and lithesome light tussle to dominate the album, Oldham also resurrects his cracked-bluesman persona on the delicious lo-fi whimsy of “Cold & Wet”, as well as revisiting the eerie elliptical magnetism of his rare Dirty Three-assisted Western Music EP for the stunning “Ebb Tide”, obliquely relegated here to hidden-track status.

Whilst The Letting Go may not match the ghostly splendour of I See A Darkness or the raw redemption of Viva Last Blues, it undoubtedly halts Oldham’s directionless slide into insincerity. Crucially, it goes a long way to reminding many of us why we gave over such a large section of our record collections to accommodate his singular songcraft in the first place.

The Goodbye Kiss – The Goodbye Kiss EP

After writing reviews for awhile, I have started to predict what I’ll hear based on visuals alone. The Goodbye Kiss has cover art of enlarged black and white prints, and of course their name, which both had me assuming they might be an emo band. It just had that overall “look” to it. I’m not too shabby at this, because it’s pretty much a throwback to 90’s emo darlings like Mineral.

The material contains five songs which are drawn out, but capable of holding your attention too. That’s mostly in part to the churning guitars that remain in motion too much for you to grow disinterested. My only gripe with the five songs on here concerns the end track, “Washing Waters.” They should have picked a distortion with a smoother transition from the melodic clean parts. I’m all for hearing loud-soft dynamics in these type of bands, but they can surely incorporate it more naturally.

I gravitated towards this after one listen, and I’d also think fans of The Goodbye Kiss’ emo ancestors will concur. They obviously aren’t on an equal playing level with those bands, but I’m interested to see what they do next.

The Cardigans – Super Extra Gravity

By now, you probably know what to expect from a Cardigans album. Nina Persson’s singing remains the hallmark of the band’s sound on Super Extra Gravity, much as it did when the band’s “Lovefool” turned them into superstars. The slick, light sound of “Lovefool” may be what people remember most about the band, but it hasn’t been the blueprint for the albums that followed. Super Extra Gravity is no exception; its pop sounds notwithstanding, the album has elements of AOR rock and even garage to counter the sweetness of the singing.

Tracks like “Drip Drop Teardrop” dispense with the lithe musicianship of earlier efforts. Its marching-band tempo and martial emphases would sound plodding without Persson’s agile vocals floating above it all. The ballad “Overload,” with its soft piano and occasional guitar chords, shows that the band knows how to lilt as much as it stomps. It also betrays what sounds like a strong Chrissy Hynde influence in the vibrato and harmony of Persson’s vocals. You hear it on the other songs as well, but in the setting of a ballad the approach is nakedly apparent. “Don’t Blame Your Daughter (Diamonds)” again goes the route of the ballad, complete with strings backing the whole affair.

On a track like “In the Round,” with its acoustic guitar and punchy snare, you can appreciate the production aesthetic that the band went for on Gravity. With little studio gimmickry, the effect of the music is one of immediacy and clarity. The Cardigans sound like they have traded the stadium for the coffeehouse, and it suits them. Even on the bigger numbers (“Holy Love,” for one) the band reverts at some point to a simpler sound.

The occasionally bluesy guitar on opener “Losing a Friend” shows that there’s still some garage-band idea kicking around in the sound. “Godspell” too has a kick to it. But when I hear “Godspell” I can’t help thinking that someday I’ll be hearing it piped in over a grocery store’s tinny PA. Is this a “mature” album? Probably. But I can’t help thinking that without Nina Persson’s beautiful voice, Gravity just wouldn’t have garnered a whole lot of attention.

Fucked Up – Hidden World

Hardcore, man. I’ve seen all kinds in my time. Taboo porno. Crazy skaters. Punk rock: music with a message, screamed rather than sneered, and played faster than anything on this side of metal. Intensity, energy, Fucked Up.

For a band that plays simple punk songs, Toronto’s Fucked Up certainly doesn’t skimp on the passion. While plectrums stroke strings at 100 rpm, the chords don’t change any more than a typical Rancid song. In fact, take away Rancid’s flashes of reggae, Britain by way of Cali vocal annunciations, and add eye-popping yells, viola, you just baked up Fucked Up. But don’t eat it yet. You know the ingredients, but are they mixed right?

The band’s debut full-length, Hidden World, features thirteen songs that clock in at an average of 5:30. Closer “Vivian Girls” tests the limits of patience at over 9 minutes. Does this sound wrong to anyone else but me? I mean, I thought hardcore songs were supposed to be, like, 1, maybe 2 minutes long. You get 3 minutes for your obligatory anthem, but by no means should you reach 4 minutes. Ever. I mean, haven’t we learned anything from the terse statements of Minor Threat and Black Flag? Fucked Up leaves theses songs in the oven for too long, and they end up burned.

But something keeps these epic songs from tanking. Is it the glee of rocking heavy tune-age? The surf-blues guitar line that heralds “Carried Out to the Sea”? The ominous bass line that “Jacobs Ladder” descends? I don’t know. These bits and pieces, moshing in tandem, add up to a whole that is better, if only slightly, than the parts.

The real problem with Fucked Up’s Hidden World stems from hackneyed songwriting and lyrics. You’ve heard these songs before: crunching guitars, visceral screams, and “us vs. them” lyrics. Take “Baiting the Public” ’s opening couplets: “I want to smash your house/ I want to scratch your car/ I want to fuck your wife/ I want to break your life.” Sung from the perspective of The Man, the song walks a familiar punk trail. The establishment is bad, youth culture is good, and the youth will grow up to absolve the evils of the preceding generations. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this hasn’t happened yet; not in the ‘60s with the hippies, not in the ‘80s with DIY punk or hip-hop. So I’m left to believe that a bunch of kids in this new millennium, armed with knowledge generously passed to them from Fucked Up, stand to turn this losing record around? Fat chance. I checked the weather underground, and the forecast predicted unrelenting reign by the heavy hand of our governors. Apologies for the cynicism, but considering the uber-serious lyrical content, I had to address it.

But Hidden World isn’t terrible, just bland at some points and entirely too drawn out at others. However, all five members attack their instruments with a tenacity rarely committed to tape and obviously believe whole-heartedly in what they do. Can you ask for much else? As a musician: no. As a listener: yes.

Timothy Bailey And The Humans – Ecoutez! Ecoutez!

You would think that someone who co-led two bands, toured extensively for several years, burned out, dropped out (of the music scene and grad school), suffered a nervous breakdown, recovered and decided to return to music, would return with a vengeance. Such is the life of Richmond VA’s Timothy Baily but such is not his return to music. Instead of coming back strong and ready to conquer the indie-rock world, Timothy Baily and the Humans have presented us with a pleasant, but mostly pedestrian, 5-song debut EP of largely acoustic alt-country tunes. Along with frontman Timothy Baily, the Humans consist of seasoned Richmond musicians John Gotschalk (NRGKRYS, The Red Hot Lava Men) on keyboards and backing vocals, Johnny Hott (The Piedmont Souprize) on drums, Corey Waldrop on bass and P.J. Sykes.

Listening to Ecoutez! Ecoutez! is like taking a smooth and gentle ride through the hills of the Virginia countryside; moderately pleasing and not unenjoyable, yet nothing spectacularly breathtaking either. The gently strummed guitars, dreamy keyboards and hushed drums provide the listener with 20-minutes of amiable and melodic tunes that won’t have you reaching for the stop button but also don’t have enough twists and turns to create much interest or anything real memorable that would make you want to press repeat.

Bailey’s main lyrical concern is how people try to maintain a realistic sense of hope in the face of life’s worst difficulties. But with straightforward and bland lyrics like “Take a length of string, and tie it around your little finger. ‘Cause it’s hard to remember, but you’ve got to remember what you cannot forget” and “Without you I can’t tell what’s real from what’s too real”, it’s hard to take him seriously. Luckily he sings with sentiment and sounds like a countrified Elvis Costello.

The EP starts out nicely with two upbeat tracks “The Honey & The Lye” and “The Pretty Lights”. The former a bit more poppy than country with a Shins-like, shiny melody, while the latter employs some reverbed vocals and a slightly twisted, back-country jingle reminiscent of a Stan Ridgway tune. But it’s downhill from there as “Moonstones” is a sparse tune that wanders aimlessly with no pep and “Colorado Girl” is pure twangy, country singer/songwriter fare where Baily mixes a little Dylan in with his Costello-like voice.

Ecoutez! Ecoutez! fits in well with Cherub Records’ ideology of “handmade music in handmade packages” as the atypical packaging is neither a standard jewel case nor a digi-pak, but rather a cardboard wrap with a hand-stitched seam and a small, circular foam tab that holds the CD. It’s quite quaint and attractive but it doesn’t protect the disc well since after about 5 spins the fifth track “Length of String” was deemed unplayable by all 3 of my disc players. Fortunately I had heard enough of it to realize that I’m not missing out on anything spectacular.

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