Super Furry Animals – Dark Days/Light Years

The thing about Super Furry Animals is that they simply do not put out bad albums. In many ways, the Welsh rock band has cemented themselves as some of the finest set of musicians currently making music. The level of quality, at a remarkably consistent pace, that all of their releases are cared for is exceptional. And honestly, very few other bands come close to being able to rival that.

With the 2007 blissful pop of Hey Venus!, the Furries showcased crisp, clean, concise pop music that was as much catchy as it was hook-laden. Those songs featured a tight set of musicians delivering fantastic music with every single turn. While many were let down with its somewhat effortless approach, it was easily another excellent addition to the band’s immense catalog.

Now, with Dark Days/Light Years, Super Furry Animals return with a strong offering of all-over-the-place music. They’ve opened up the sounds to place their rhythm section front and center and with an adventurous take on multiple styles and a couple of full-fledged suites, this is yet another superb album on its own. With all of the aforementioned taken into account, the band has also opened up the mic to other band members and this all results in one monster of an album.

Take “Cardiff in the Sun,” drummer Dafydd Ieuan’s relentless pace is hidden below a careening guitar that roars and howls in the background. With cyclical, almost hymn-like vocals, somewhere along the way, all of the music comes together in a melting pot of mist and vapor that all elevates into the sky. This is definitely a different feel to the slashing guitar of “White Socks/Flip Flops.” Sung by Huw Bunford, the band lets loose to their inner psychedelic rock acts like Grateful Dead with fuzzy keyboards and clanking cowbell.

With the sheer mention of these two songs, it’s apparent that this is a much different sound. And although it may take a little bit more getting used to, repeated listens discover various gems. Lead single “Inaugural Trams” is a bouncy pop affair that bubbles with melodically capable music and the bridge contains a German rap performed by Franz Ferdinand’s Nick McCarthy. It’s these goofy choices that could only work under the umbrella of a Super Furry Animals album and they’re all the more impressive because of them.

Joy is tantamount on Dark Days/Light Years and it’s felt on every brilliant choice. The album’s opener, “Crazy Naked Girls,” sets the tone with laughs, greetings and a bombastic array of effervescent guitar and vivacious drums. Euphoria hits with the middle psychedelic swamp that erupts from a cascading amount of slime-filled guitar and rolling drums. Gruff Rhys and Cian Ciaran sound wonderfully thrilling on “Helium Hearts” and that animated synthesizer doesn’t hurt either; “Moped Eyes” possesses a killer funk groove that sounds as if it was stolen directly from Talking Heads.

There’s enough on here to reel anyone in, provided that you don’t make the mistake of taking the Furries tongue-in-cheek conveyance seriously. How can anyone not love the Yo La Tengo homage delight that is “Pric,” which I am pretty sure has the melody from last year’s “The Getaway Song” buried somewhere in there. It’s a shame more bands don’t put out music every two years as good as this because the music industry sure does need it. With Dark Days/Light Years, the Furries have once again proven their worth: splendid musicianship, experimentation at its most sensible meaning and those proven hooks are all on display here.

Rough Trade

The Blackbelt Band – A New Community

A New Community is chock-full of rich tones and masterful grooves. This moody chill music by The Blackbelt Band pulls from blues and rock, adding flavors of acid jazz along with whatever other music floats around their hometown of New Orleans. Unfortunately, the band’s promising sounds wither under glaringly bad vocals.

It’s hard to pin a label on these 10 songs. Bands that claim their sound is unrecognizable often sound like crap. This is because the musicians have nothing particular to say, lack the creativity to innovate, and don’t have the talents to mimic their favorite bands. But The Blackbelt Band avoid that fate and show some originality on A New Community. The band consists of 3 core members, then they diversify their sound using the talents of 7 of their other longtime musical compatriots. Their output successfully offers a sense of environment layered with moody nuance.

The Blackbelt Band excels at creating melancholy grooves. Most of the tracks here are built on the same foundation of a tone rich guitar, syrupy bass, and sweet drum work marked by crafty use of the high hat and cymbals. Songs follow fluid guitar leads that range along the neck, never hitting any piercing notes or trying any dirty bends. This is a winning formula, and you don’t pass up a winner. Sadly, The Blackbelt Band goes for more.

The band often launches into rock riffs, employing distortion and constricted rhythms. These ventures crash shortly after takeoff, though the real tragedy is the vocal performance. A variety of singing styles surface throughout A New Community–some work, most don’t. The worst of it is a rough, gruff staccato bark; at crescendos, this vocalist sounds as if he’s going for a bluesy delivery ‘a la Michael McDonald; the result is cringe-worthy, and some decent songs are ruined with this.

One of the better tracks on A New Community is “Not Watching”. This one opens with a laid back bass line  and piano groove. A male and female duet–this the front runner for best vocal performance on the album–enters over the bubbling guitar. Then comes the rock; a sludgy guitar line reaches over rolling tom drums. The song returns to a steady groove, with more vocal harmonies emoting the line “God’s not watching me, God don’t even care / You’ll see me in your dreams, it’s all you’ll ever see of me / and I don’t care”. This nice moment is sacrificed as the male vocalist forces his range and struggles. This music is expressive and unhurried. “Not Watching” has some weaknesses in its melodrama but it basically works, giving a complete picture of what the band is offering.

A New Community has a few compelling instrumental tracks. One, “Cicadas”, opens with a simple, repetitive piano riff. Synths emerge from behind to join the reverb-heavy guitar. These give way to another shining melancholy groove that shows off the band’s ear for great tones and rich sound quality. This music makes for great ambiance.

But for every step forward, the band takes one step back on tracks like “Flowers” and “The Mimic”. Not only are these songs ruined by poor vocal performances, but the meandering, free-ranging guitar pours salt on the wound by losing all sense of direction and wandering off like an Alzheimer’s patient. It’s not a frequent offense, but it is repeated.

Some compositions on A New Community lose their way. They wash over the ears without leaving any mementos to remind you they were there. But the real problem is, of course, the vocals. The band needs a new singer, or they should focus on making instrumentals, combining blues and post-rock and highlighting their impeccable rhythm section.

This album really doesn’t do justice to The Blackbelt Band’s potential.

http://www.sickroomrecords.com/

http://www.myspace.com/blackbeltband

Short Takes on Four EPs

The Naked Hearts – These Knees EP
Self-released

The Brooklyn, NYC, indie-rock duo of Amy Cooper (guitar, vocals, songwriter), and Noah Wheeler (bass, drums, vocals, songwriter), formed in the recent past of January 2008, but their musical roots run deep in the lean, melodic, and relaxed, but rockin’ guitar, drums, and vocals sound they create.

This debut EP was recorded with producer and engineer Dan Long at the helm and has been available as a digital download since January 2009.  Before forming The Naked Hearts, Amy was in the band Rubies and also released two albums as a solo artist.  Before collaborating with Amy, Noah was part of the band Perry Went Home with his brother Ben.

Amy and Noah’s minor-tone vocals swap and twin dreamily on “Cat & Mouse”, gently drifting against a spare current of punchy drum beat, cymbal tap, and reverb guitar chords until the instrumental pace picks up with a rapid beat, crisply shaken cymbals, hollow bass riff, and energetic, angular guitar upheaval.  On the PJ Harvey-like tune “Call Me”, the shifting weight of the initial bass and guitar dissipates as Amy comes to the fore like Polly Jean Harvey, plaintive, sweet, and willowy, curving around the lyrics “You hand me a heart that’s broken / then tell me it is a token / of love.  Something better not spoken of.”  The unhurried chorus slides in with Amy singing in a higher, rueful register as Noah joins her on certain words amid low-end, circular bass runs, wiry guitar chords, and cymbal shake.

Bass, guitar, drum beat, and tapped cymbals are featured on the languid “No One Nothing” as a mellow Amy declares, along with intermittent, glazed backing vocals from Noah and a mirroring bass line, that “No one, nothing / can take us down.”  The song builds momentum near its end with rising guitar licks, drum hits, and constant cymbal frisson.  The Sonic Youth-like “One False Move” presses with a fast drum beat, crashing cymbals, driving guitar riffs, and jagged bass line as Amy urgently exclaims on the verses, coming on strong and unadorned, sounding like a vocally-powerful, but emotionally- tender, Polly Jean Harvey, contrasted against an unperturbed Noah speaking out the song title’s words.

Noah takes on lead vocals on the verses of “Crashing Horses”, going from a lighter tone to a deeper register, while accompanied by a flat-smacked beat and spare, picked guitar.  Then it’s Amy’s turn on the chorus parts as she wistfully sings, with Noah in tow, along a stream of fluid, pulsing guitars and rattling cymbals.  “Only For You” caps off the EP on a melancholic and longing note as Amy sings in a softly aching, despondent tone about “Young faces / changing places / looking for something new.”  as Noah’s chilled vocals shade Amy on the chorus against drums, a flurry of cymbals, ringing guitars, and hollowed-out bass grind.  There is a vocal and instrumental break in the song near its end where the sound fleetingly blossoms into a bittersweet reverie with Amy lilting through the lyrics against elevated, smooth guitar lines.

http://www.thenakedhearts.com/
Evervess - s/t EP
Purr Factory

 

This 4-song, self-titled EP by San Diego, California-based Eric (guitar), Joe (guitar, vocals), John (drums), and Reed (bass) is an ear-pleasing, Cheshire cat grin-inducing, melodic blast of distorted and ringing guitars, dynamic drum work, deep bass lines, and cool, laid-back vocals in the vein of Swervedriver, The Church, and Ride.  The free and easy flow of the harmonizing vocals and catchy guitar playing also evoke the 1960s sound of bands like The Byrds and The Beatles.

 ”Eating Our Dust” could be a long-lost Swerdriver track as it shakes, rattles, and rolls smoothly down the runway, leaving them all behind upon liftoff with spectacularly aero-powered, distorted guitar fireworks, clarion swoops of ringing guitars, and doubled vocals that recall Adam Franklin of Swervedriver minus the deep, sandpaper tone.  “High” trades in the sonic afterburn of the opener for the fast strum of Cocteau Twins-like chiming guitar, cymbal shimmer, and dual vocals that sound like Steve Kilbey and Marty Willson-Piper of The Church as they effortlessly and assuredly glide over the lines “…you realize you’re probably stuck where you are / and if there’s still nobody who’s waiting for you / what’s the point of getting up any more?”

 ”Barrett” delves even deeper into The Church territory vocally, with Joe dispassionately intoning, one word after the other, “swerve…ride…taste…time…” against an agitated, wiry guitar scramble that echoes the sound of Echo and The Bunnymen.  The band tops it off with the engaging “Learning To Run”, as a galvanizing swirl of guitars, drums, and cymbal smash and shimmer whip up a bright sonic storm that contrasts against the contemplative, lullaby-like vocals, with the lyrics being a father’s ode to his son “I just want to see / you find who you are / and where you want to be…/ You’re everything to me.”  So sweet!

 http://www.myspace.com/evervess
Dreamtiger – Glisten EP
Purr Factory

Dreamtiger started out in 2005 in San Diego, California, far away temporally and geographically from the early 1990s heyday of the shoegazer sound of U.K. bands like Slowdive and Ride, but that distance has only brought them closer to capturing some of the softer side of the shoegazer style, with buried, hazy male and female vocals and dissipated, suspended-in-air guitar sonics.

James Meetze (guitars, vocals), Blake Jackson (guitars), Desiree Cooper (vocals, tambourine), Nate Soixante (bass), and Michael Cooper (drums) have crafted a debut EP that dabbles in and melds various music styles including shoegazer, dream-pop, and slowcore, calling to mind some of the output on 4AD and Creation Records.

“Heard Inside the Sun” palpably recreates the Just For A Day-era Slowdive sound with a slow, measured drum beat and airy, reverberating guitars that whirl out and chime blissfully on the chorus parts.  James sings in a subdued tone on the verses, drawing his words out pensively, while Desiree glides in on the chorus with a sweet, angelic tone.  “Waves and Tides” features watery, chiming Cocteau Twins-like guitar, that same steady beat, and vocal interchange between James and Desiree that recalls some of Secret Shine’s songs.  Burnished, distorted guitars kick in mid-way through the tune, shaking it out of its pleasant dreaminess and into a sharper, more aggressive entity. 

The up-tempo ditty “Blue June Sun” caters to dream-pop lovers, with an emphasis on the “pop” side, with kinetic, “skip-in-the-step” drumming, light cymbal crash, and short-phrase, sing-song lyrics traded between James and Desiree, contrasting with the bright, attenuated pull of shimmering guitars.  “Fragile Girl” goes for a more introspective sound with James and Desiree’s twinned, contemplative vocals backed by a slower beat, cymbal crash, and floating guitars.  The lyrics are less buried in the mix and reflect the somber nature of the tune as James and Desiree sing in hushed and despondent tones “She need some time to / reconstruct the world / inside her head.”  On closer “Rosalind” elongated, distorted guitar lines play against strummed acoustic guitar, a few bending piano notes, and James’s fuzzed-out vocals as he sings “There’s no space between us.”

 http://www.myspace.com/dreamtigermusic

 

Allison Weiss – Allison Weiss & The Way She Likes It EP

Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records

You can’t go wrong with an album cover that features a stack of pancakes!  Allison Weiss’s songs are like those pancakes, (s)lightly sweet, warm, (lyrically) yummy, and (emotionally) (ful)filling.  This 6-song, indie-pop EP finds Allison in full band mode, singing and playing down-to-earth tunes with no artifice or overt dramatics, just punchy drums, catchy guitars, astute lyrics, and personable vocal delivery. 

“I’m Ready” starts it all off with a jaunty, upbeat tempo of strummed guitar and kicky drums that recall “Ciao!” by Lush, followed by additional twangy guitar and Allison sing-talking in a clear, but plaintive tone, as she reveals her intent on the chorus with the line “Just tell me baby, / am I wasting my time?” amid light tinging notes and wordless backing vocals.  A sharp drum beat, tambourine shake, and guitar chords fill up “I Don’t Want to be Here”, until a faster pace of flowing piano notes, bass line, cymbal crash, and harmonizing male backing vocals round out the sound as Allison sings “I don’t want to see you / have the time of your life…/ without me.”

“The End” starts in the middle of the EP, sounding like a home recording, with strummed guitar and straight-forward vocals from Allison as she looks back on a relationship where “fact and fiction” were “one confusing blend”, but now she recalls the good parts and considers the guy her friend, but “I don’t mind / calling this the end.”  An added shining, rock guitar line gives “The Disappearing Act” a darker feel amid the upbeat tempo of drums and guitar, as Allison sings in a more serious tone, anxiously pushing out her vocals and exclaiming by the end of the song “I’m dying to know / where you go.”

“Daybreak” features low-key, hesitantly-strummed guitar and subdued vocals from Allison where, on certain words, she briefly lifts her voice up to a higher, wistful register as she sings “Slowly my doubts begin to surface. / Tell me all of this is worth it.”  Drums roll in, along with cymbal shimmer and a bittersweet, drawn out cello line.

 http://www.allisonw.com/

New Love Language Video for “Sparxxx”

The Love Language “Sparxxx”

Fever Ray – Fever Ray

The darkness all around us is hardly clairvoyant. The growing nature of this eeriness is something that we all must deal with on a day to day basis. Karin Dreijer Andersson, half of The Knife, has always been able to not only convey this coldness but with her debut album as Fever Ray, the Swedish artist has perfected the art of ominous tonicity.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a sad or depressing listen, it isn’t even an especially scary theme but with low, cloudy beats and Andersson’s rough and guttural delivery, Fever Ray is certainly ethereal. On “Seven,” Andersson sings about childhood memories and accompanied by spectral vocal chants and synth-heavy beats, it makes for one enchanting listen. A lot of the same great music that make’s The Knife’s albums so special is in full force here; particularly those booming, magnetic beats that combine light snares with wraithlike basses and enough otherworldly atmospherics to paint the dark picture that’s the cover.

With Fever Ray, Andersson has been able to channel slow-moving pictorials that don’t necessarily need to go anywhere. Their brilliance lies in the singer’s voice and timely beats and never in the need for dramatics. Take “Concrete Walls” as an example, Andersson’s voice is at her lowest (in terms of pitch) and the music is a slow jam of warbling synths and notably highlighted drum patterns. It all moves slowly into what gradually becomes an entirely engrossing listen.

On a dissimilar note, “If I Had a Heart” is also pacing but here it is done with a forward-way of thinking. The album’s opening song plays like a welcome introduction, a prelude if you will, to the album’s next song, “When I Grow Up,” and with its tribal-like drums set in place, Andersson is allowed to wail away in fine fashion. These are all well thought-out, well-impacted and well-enforced ideas and modes that prove Andersson as the outstanding musician she is.

The balance is paramount on Fever Ray, with just the right amount of diversity and formulation to deliver success. “Triangle Walks” allows a steady beat of drums and succulent keyboards to creep in, while Andersson’s fluctuating voice-reaching from low baritone to soaring alto-washes over the music. In another realm of focus, “I’m Not Done” is an exceptionally crafted song. For the first two minutes, there is this dripping of notes that are supported by the most endearing atmospherics before an instrumental wave of brash and confidence takes over. By the time Andersson returns, the song has turned into this full-fledged beast of a song, it’s amazing, really.

Most importantly, Andersson flexes every musical chop on this tremendous album. Her voice sounds stronger than ever, her music is creative and unique and her combination of both is terrific. It may not be as enigmatic as Silent Shout but if nothing else, it is a fantastic album on its own accord.

Mute

One Win Choice – Define/Redefine

There’s nothing too subtle about One Win Choice’s five-song EP Define/Redefine. It’s generally the sound of punk before there was hardcore: strident, angry, polemical. Of course this kind of thing has made some sort of resurgence a few times in the past, and mall kids have done nothing to improve its image by wearing their torn jackets emblazoned with the bands du jour. One Win Choice may be doing its best to swim against the tide of “corporate” punk, admirably enough, but it will be a hard slog to undo what has come before.

Lyrics like “Nearly every outlet/Nearly every teacher/Speaks to our great divide/An illusion/It’s an illusion” on the song “Where My Allegiance Lies” attest to the band’s one-scene worldview. That is, classes and boundaries don’t need to keep us from pulling together. There’s conviction in the vocals, somewhere between that of Leatherface and Archers of Loaf (hoarse screaming, basically), true enough. And the big, backing guitar chords alternate with some near-metallic riffing, just like we expect. But the remaining question when you hear this kind of thing is always, “But how do you top Black Flag?”

One Win Choice goes for the positive angle in its struggles. “We are the hammers/They’re the chains” is followed by “We are the dreamers” and “We’re here to change the world” (from the track “Every Heart”) pretty much typify the message. I think 7 Seconds and Earth Crisis might’ve beaten One Win Choice to the punch on this one, but maybe this generation’s version will be the one to make a difference?

By-the-numbers punk these days doesn’t have an easy go of it. That said, there will always be a new set of evangelists and a new set of fans to whom the fury and the energy and the passion will be inspiring. It could be that a few of the converts will go back in history and discover what has come before, find it equally catalytic, and do something positive with what they learn. Remember though that it was 1981 when The Exploited first came out with the album presciently titled Punks Not Dead (sic).

Bad Credit No Credit – Hey, Rube! EP

Carrie Anne Murphy has a bone to pick — with boys, girls, bullshit, machines, clubs; you name it. Fronting the Brooklyn five-piece Bad Credit No Credit, she spits, croons, and growls her way through five tight songs on the band’s excellent debut EP Hey, Rube! with a voice that rivals the boom of Shilpa Ray’s. With support from instruments ranging from slide whistles, tubas, melodicas, saxophones, clarinets, and flutes, her voice dominates the burlesque/ chamber sounds that emanate from the group. Her vocals run the gamut from booming in “Beltway 8” to the sweet longing of “Winter Waltz” and everything in between.  Live, her presence is undeniable and quite arresting; on record, listeners obviously can’t see the indignant stomping and laser stare that Murphy owns, but somehow she transfered the stomping and straining that fly from her body on stage to this disc.

Her voice doesn’t shit on the band’s very capable backing, though. She manipulates her singing to coax out and augment the meaning of a song, not crush it into the ground like a cigarette. Drummer/ tuba player Abram Morphew deftly handles the percussion and low end with sparse integrity, while Andrew Thomas and Elaine Haswell add subtle layers of color to the “marching band on acid” songs here.  Though most songs feature all five musicians, “Whorgin” gets the most sparing treatment on Hey, Rube! and evokes the aura of a smoky jazz club from the days of yore with a simply trumpet line flitting in and out of the empty spaces.

“Boys’ Club” is the best track on the EP, combining all the best elements of Bad Credit No Credit’s sound. The sax and flute melody hooks listeners from the onset, and words like “You think I condescend/ you want me complacent/ you want to tell me how it is/ you want to call me ‘baby’” aim to cut swaths through a male-dominated scene. Here, Murphy’s anger is most palpable, bordering on discomfort for listeners. But it’s this characteristic that makes this song specifically and Bad Credit No Credit in general so relatable for both girls and boys. Hey, Rube! rings an alarm, one that screams that Murphy is not to be fucked with, and that she and her musical cronies are a force to be reckoned.

Valina – A Tempo! A Tempo!

Austrian math rockers Valina bring with them new meaning to the old cliché “power trio.” Bands twice this size would have a difficult time generating the kind of thundering presence felt on A Tempo! A Tempo! But despite the purgative overtones, Anatol Bogendorfer (vocals, guitar), Florian Husbert Huber (bass), and Anselm Dürrschmid (drums) have always brought a keen sense of melodicism and emotional depth to a genre largely derided for its emphasis on technical prowess and obscure references to the Fibonacci sequence. The songs on the band’s third long player are another testament to how well they meld the disparaging worlds of pop and hard rock. The melodic hooks and discernible song structures of bands such as the Pixies are in place, but so too are the pulverizing grooves and angular time signature changes more common to Tool and Dream Theater.

Perhaps most refreshing are the lead vocals; despite having to compete with an intimidating rhythm section and the larger than life production style of Steve Albini, Bogendorfer never even comes close to the threshold of what his voice can handle. With the absence of stereotypical metal vocals, the listener has no choice then but to focus on the superb melodies and occasionally satirical (but highly entertaining) lyrics. “You are gently requested to shit like a swan,” sounds like something Zappa would’ve used in a Mothers of Invention project.

The album opens with the manic drumming of “Calendaria.” It’s an affecting and intense way to come out of the gate; the thick and gritty production on the drums and bass put them center stage while shards of distorted guitar tear through the texture. “Dogged” is a standout track, featuring the addition of a wind section. The band’s core three build the song’s drama through rhythmic hemiolas and unexpected changes in tempo while a saxophone and flugelhorn use long tone volume swells and spacious solos for contrast. The ironically titled “Per Sonare” (Giovanni Gabrieli, anyone?) tends to be more brooding and introspective than most of the other tracks on the disc. Evoking Soundgarden at their darkest, dramatic and lush guitar timbres float along as Bogendorfer sings, “We could have talked about it in Norway, France, or in Spain / Now I want to say that I’m happier here.”

“Idiom’s Palace” is one of the album’s only lowlights, where a Sonic Youth-style wall of abstract guitar noise gives way to a foreboding yet unoriginal drumbeat that couldn’t pummel you any harder if it tried. “Phantom Of My Longest Day” is once again a showcase for the rhythm section of band, allowing Huber and Dürrschmid to set up a brawny groove while the guitar is relegated to keeping time with airy harmonics that sound like they could’ve been ripped from Smashing Pumpkins’ “Zero.”

The album’s first half doesn’t deviate much from the tried and true mix of gargantuan drums, gooey bass, and slightly dirty electric guitar. The album’s latter half, however, shows Valina pushing the envelope a bit more. “Clock Shock And Freedom,” though technically a segue into the next song, has an eclectic mix of bass harmonics and tick tock string work. “Delivery Man (Duane! Duane!)” finally sees Bogendorfer’s guitar work stepping up to the plate with a fiery mix of slick distortion and digital delay.

Maybe the best part of all is that you don’t need even need to know what hemiolas or polyrhythms are in order to enjoy A Tempo! A Tempo!. While there’s enough virtuosic playing here to keep the chop monsters and gear heads happy, the album’s greatest asset is its broad spectrum of pop accessibility: it’s a disc worth owning, and a band worth watching.

Black Dice – Repo

The cover art to Black Dice‘s latest album looks beckons the listener to “go where new experiences await you.”  It appears to be the defaced cover of a garage rock LP (supposedly by the Kingsmen although I have never seen the original even after much searching for it). The band members’ faces have been replaced with something resembling paint splatter or melted ice cream with thumbtacks to suggest eyes. The most startling thing about this, at least to me, is that the centermost member stands with hands folded as if awaiting the listener’s judgment. From all of the things I’ve been reading about Repo so far, it must be Black Dice’s most polarizing album. I stand squarely entrenched in the camp that says this might be one of the finest moments in its catalog to date, even if upon initial listens it seems to have severely pissed off a few fans.

The most noticeable difference between Repo and the previous two Black Dice albums, Broken Ear Record and Load Blown, would be a distinct move away from repetitive dance-oriented structures. The group has been through so many phases in its career to date whether with the brutal sonics of early material like Semen of the Sun and Cold Hands or the sprawling psychedelic epics of Beaches and Canyons it was kind of bizarre to see them approach formula with two back to back albums exploring similar territory. Repo sees Black Dice definitively scaling back the track times in favor of a series of wandering vignettes that manage to retain a very “pop” sense of melody despite the cut-n-paste collages of samples. I’m a little weary of tagging Repo as the band’s “pop album” if only becase it’s become a cliche with difficult music for critics to seek elements that might make it somewhat more palatable to a wider audience.  Make no mistake about it, if you’ve never been a Black Dice fan before now Repo is not going to convert you. What it does instead is reward longtime listeners by tweaking certain aspects that have always been there such as trash pop, big beat, and dub reggae and allowing them to “surface.”

While at first some of REPO will undoubtedly seem oriented towards those with an attention deficit, it is in every sense of the word a “grower.” Unlikely yes, but even though some of the album’s pieces can come off hollow on first listen with time they become an integral part of an uncompromising whole. Certain songs stand out immediately such as “Glazin’,” which sounds like it could be a song by The Field which was thrown in a garbage dump and then only partially resurrected.  “Ultra Vomit Craze” skronks like early Black Dice built upon the chassis of a Basement Jaxx beat. “Idiots Pasture” sounds like a William Basinski composition with a beat being sucked into a black hole. If anything this schizophrenic approach proves that Black Dice is capable of crafting an album that hangs well together even as its pieces are sit canyons apart.

Paw Tracks

Lightning Daze – Caught In A Frame

Like its name implies, Lightening Daze is sudden and confusing, and you can hear it coming from a mile away.

The record starts off with this weird, sloppy homage to My Bloody Valentine before settling into a dull groove (if you can even call it that) layered with overly wordy verses and whiney choruses. The lead singer has no sense of rhythm or timing, unleashing these awful, off-kilter squeals that make getting through the already boring melodies an absolute nightmare. The drummer is seriously awful—they probably should have left him off the record and played to a click track. It might have been more interesting, and at least I could be able to count on a steady beat.

Lightning Daze makes seven songs sound like seven years—it’s just torture to slog through this record. This pseudo punk/post-punk/post-whatever spiel has been done so many times before by so many better bands, and if you can’t make yourself stand out, why even bother? This white noise contributes nothing, and only degrades an already dying genre.

Perhaps the worst part of Caught In A Frame is that it won’t just be a bad album—it has to actively offend me with its pure laziness. The last track delivers one final “fuck you” to the listener with a sample of dialogue from Robin Williams of all fucking people. Using a movie quote is one of the hackiest, most groan-inducing moves in the book, and to use one of the hackiest, most groan-inducing comedians of all time just reeks of desperation and self-importance.

I know I’m trashing them, but I get where they are coming from. They listened to Source Tags And Codes and those great Get Up Kids records and thought, this is really cool! I can do this! And yes, they can. Just without any sense of grace or musical ingenuity.

Lightning Daze

Engineer Records

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