Witchcraft

Since forming in 2000, Witchcraft's made no bones about their adoration of Roky Erickson and Pentagram's Bobby Liebling. However, despite both figures receiving nearly equal shine in Witchcraft interviews, the latter's left a disproportionately large mark on these Swedes' doom metal assault. Like equally cartoonish countrymen the Hives, Witchcraft doesn't flinch when copping their beloved retro bands, refusing to update even the most garish traits of classic metal, most notably Black Sabbath and Pentagram. The Alchemist, Witchcraft's third LP, sticks to many of these traits-- the compulsive riffing, Renaissance Faire charade, dramatic builds upon dramatic builds-- though it's also Witchcraft's first overt display of a Roky Erickson influence, and a better album for it.

On part one of the epic three-part, 14-minute title track, singer Magnus Pelander declares he "can blow your mind," and most of The Alchemist seeks to do just that in the old school stoner rock style. This is music for blazing in your parent's basement, the band no longer posturing as Satan's messiah but rather hedging their apocalyptic metal with a psychedelic euphoria. Of course, overall there's still a self-serious tone, with lots of phrases suitable to hear only at Comic-Con (e.g. "Constitution of murder!...Institution of sadness!" or "In our darkest hour/ When the dragon releases its power"). Regardless of what yarn he's spinning, though, Pelander's vocals really pop from the mix, a welcome change from most of the band's previous work recorded on vintage 1970s studio equipment. Opener "Walking the Line" will cause many double-takes, the song's bouncy melody taking a cue from Josh Homme's catchy brand of stoner rock. You can even feel the 13th Floor Elevators love on "Remembered", its death march verse contrasted by a trippy chorus and wah-wah guitar solo too loopy by metal standards.

With all the Arthurian lore and story-telling zeal, The Alchemist could actually be a fun record with a little tongue-in-cheekiness thrown in. But despite the looser psych vibe, the album follows the well-trod path to Mordor (or something like it). Along the way Sabbath riffs and scene-stealing howls cue us in when the stakes get particularly high, but the music often sounds as hyperbolic as the tale its soundtracking. That said, Witchcraft's made leaps and bounds since their debut, back when they'd be confused for the kind of macabre Scandinavian metal act that'd murder its bassist for inspiration. If these guys could just quit letting their Tolkien complex overwhelm the music, they might someday do their touchstones justice and escape their current snicker-inducing status.

— Adam Moerder, January 23, 2008

TV On The Radio

Often when we say a record has "atmosphere," we mean it as a put-down. From Sgt. Pepper's to the present, a record's sonic appeal-- the effects, the mood, the spaces between the notes-- is inextricable from how it hits us. But when an artist pushes atmosphere in place of songs, it's frequently thought of as a crutch. Most listeners don't trust a mood to grab their hearts the way they trust, say, a human voice; nobody counts on production to deliver the "money note."

When I try to explain TV on the Radio to people who aren't into them, the first thing on the checklist is singer Tunde Adebimpe, a stoic romantic who falters but never whimpers. He's got about the best set of pipes in indie rock, yet on Return to Cookie Mountain his greatest strength lies in how well he stands back and blends in-- with the throatier Kyp Malone, guest singers including David Bowie, and, especially, with the atmosphere evoked by producer and noisemaker David Sitek. As the two founding members, Adebimpe and Sitek fit together like Jagger and Richards. But where the two Rolling Stones projected snarling sex, these guys express... what?

In the original version of Return to Cookie Mountain that leaked this spring-- the one that kicked off at full throttle with "Wolf Like Me"-- they sounded like victory. With that cut up front, you knew this was the great leap forward for which their last two records paved the way-- and when I say three records, I'm counting their scattershot sketchbook OK Calculator, which caught the band at its most "Hey, what can I do with this four-track?" They always claim they'd rather keep messing around with new ideas than settle down and crank out the hits that are at their fingertips, which is one reason 2004's Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes felt more eclectic than excellent. (In retrospect, the other reason is that they were still using drum machines.) But this time, maybe they'd changed their minds.

But before Return to Cookie Mountain became their major label debut, its tracklist was reshuffled. Now it leads off with the fascinating "I Was a Lover", a sympathy card that carries the most emotional sample on the record-- a bellow like the sound of a sad elephant, which fits right in with the defeated verse. It takes skill to craft a tone that people can feel sorry for; maybe there is a money note locked in that pedal crouching under Sitek's shoe. But other times, the noise evokes an orchestra, or a rockslide. Abstract and electronic textures roll over acoustic sources-- bowed upright bass, sitars, flutes, backward wind chimes-- to reach a perfect consistency, all the way through to the closer, "Wash the Day Away", where white noise rises and swallows them all. But not a moment too soon: not only is the mix stellar (if a little too biased away from the vocals), but once you get used to the new setlist, the pacing is perfect as well.

The band cycles up like a centrifuge. Vocals spin on "Dirty Whirl" like wooden figurines on a Swiss cuckoo clock, while a shimmering piano figure chimes across "Province". Like their first albums, the songs build on loops, grooves, and drones. They feel familiar, but they've never sounded this good-- or this thick. Even the voices cascade on top of each other, which obscures much of the lyrics. Nothing can cut through except the sharp and vigorous rhythm section. Check out the way the air catches in Adebimpe's throat on "A Method", then shakes loose when Jaleel Bunton bursts in like a drum corps waiting in the parking lot for the parade to start.

But what's their message? They're not here to rock-- they use too many loops, too much repetition, and too little chaos. They can do the community-drum-circle thing, but they're too slick to try it more than once ("Let the Devil In"). And even Adebimpe's voice has never sunk this far into the music; we don't even get an a capella feature this time, because this isn't an album about standing out. He's still a failed romantic, a social conscience, a charmer, and a distant voyeur; but with every album he becomes less of a "persona" and more of a regular person.

Maybe that's why this album has such an incredible pull: It doesn't make an atmosphere so much as a space to spend time in, and Adebimpe doesn't become a narrator so much as a witness. We sidle up into his head and watch through his eyes the tyrants, the druggies, the cocky lovers, the losers, and those beautiful fools who still surrender to lines like "Love is the province of the brave." And TV on the Radio are standing in the center, watching it all go by again, and again, and again.

— Chris Dahlen, July 5, 2006

Okkervil River

Despite biopics like Walk the Line and Ray, musicians' lives don't naturally translate to compelling movies. The relentless repetition of touring, the fleeting nature of creativity, the mundane conflicts between bandmates and hangers-on-- none of it seems all that visually or narratively interesting.

Fortunately, in the right hands, that life can make for a powerful album-- like The Stage Names, the fourth full-length from Austin group Okkervil River. This sort of self-reflection should come as no surprise from the band responsible for both "There Is No Hidden Track" from 2004's Sleep and Wake-Up Songs EP and especially Black Sheep Boy, an album based loosely on the exploits of doomed folk musician Tim Hardin; what does surprise is how much they can accomplish with this confessionalism, which is at its most potent on opener "Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe".

As frontman Will Sheff howls hysterically about the lack of plot contrivances, epic endings, and dramatic camera angles in daily routine, the band becomes increasingly unhinged and aggressive, careening wildly from pent-up verses to explosive something-like-choruses-- an unexpected turn for an ensemble more associated with brains than brawn. Near the end, it all finally and artfully falls apart, leaving Sheff to close with the clincher about "a calm clicking, like a pro at his editing suite takes two weeks stitching up some bad movie." Life gets two thumbs way, way down.

Interestingly, Okkervil River's career is in the midst of a trajectory that perfectly mirrors a traditional narrative arc. Their first two albums, Stars Too Small to Use and Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You Meet, formed the introduction; Down the River of Golden Dreams was the exposition; and Black Sheep Boy initiated the rising action. The Stage Names, if not the climax itself, at least significantly thickens the plot, seeming just as artistically unsurpassable as Black Sheep Boy did in 2005, and even more emotionally devastating.

With his fondness for dizzying wordplay (who else writes in parenthetical asides?) and lyrical ambiguity, Sheff may seem like the ultimate indie pessimist on the rollicking r&b number "A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene" or the caustic relationship deconstruction "Plus Ones", but actually, he's just a realist who captures scene conventions and rock'n'roll marginalia even as he sees the void beyond them. The mercurial River sound looser and louder than they did on Black Sheep Boy, especially on the dramatic ebb and flow of "Title Track", and the tenderly rootsy "A Girl in Port". In fact, Travis Nelsen's explosive drumwork and Jonathan Meiburg's backing vocals often lend The Stage Names the immediacy and recklessness of a live recording. Their energetic imprecision-- one of their most commanding features-- coils effortlessly into Sheff's self-reflexive lyrics; few groups can so nimbly or inventively use music as an extension of lyrical themes or vice versa.

Fittingly, The Stage Names ends with "John Allyn Smith Sails", a document of failure so complete that the main character can't even succeed in killing himself: "I was breaking in a case of suds at the Brass Rail, a fall-down drunk with his tongue torn out and his balls removed," Sheff sings, embodying doomed poet John Berryman (his birthname gives the song its title). "And I knew that my last lines were gone, while, stupidly, I lingered on." Berryman seems to be indie's new romantic failure-- he also inspired the Hold Steady's "Stuck Between Stations". Craig Finn had the Minneapolis connection; Okkervil River essentially rewrite the Beach Boys' "Sloop John B" as a suicide note, turning the song into a joke so grim it's hard not to laugh.

Ultimately, The Stage Names shows how a vastly talented "mid-level band" (Sheff's words) sees itself, but there's no bitterness here, just overwhelming self-doubt and perseverance. Despite its density (they fit worlds into just nine songs), the album remains exciting and accessible, albeit highly sobering. It's about the folly of popular music and its attendant lifestyles, but these songs are so good and so moving that they only give us stupid, stubborn hope.

— Stephen M. Deusner, August 6, 2007

The Sword

The Sword has really stepped it up on Gods Of The Earth, their second full-length. Their core sound is fully intact, with plenty of thick, heavy Black Sabbath riffs. The major thing that has improved on this CD is the songwriting. There is much less repetition than on their debut, more diversity, and the songs are catchier with better hooks and more memorable riffs.

Another thing The Sword does on this CD is up the thrash factor. There are many more thrash riffs and influences, which combined with the doomy parts and retro vibe makes for some crushing songs. Gods Of The Earth is a definite progression for The Sword, and has something for fans into newer doom/stoner groups like High On Fire, or those who like the classics like Sabbath. By Chad Bowar , about.com

Hot Panda

Right out of the gate, Hot Panda hits you with everything they have to offer. The Edmonton outfit – you remember them from our Alberta Mixtape right? – opens their debut LP Volcano... Bloody Volcano with the sonic adventuring of Cold Hands/Chapped Lips. Synths, accordion, crunching guitars and Chris Connelly’s vocals provide the melody and Maghan Campbell’s softer voice leads the listener into the chorus (where you might expect a soaring explosion of strings and cymbal crashes), but the band quickly does an about face and litters the refrain with feedback, texture and static bursts of sound.It’s easy to see why the band has received countless comparisons to Daniel Johnson, but for me it’s how effortlessly they can add chaos and excitement to catchy hooks without ever losing momentum. Instead of sticking with the British pop invasion or dancey syths and guitar, they are willing to fuse in tons of other influences and textures. Grinding guitars and Keith’s bass slink along on the Brit poppy It’s Worth Eight Dollars and Connelly follows suit with his apathetic, working class vocals but again, they throw a nice change up on the chorus, letting the synth twist and turn and eventually Ashley Roch’s trumpet booms out of the speakers to finish the song.It’s not often a band manages to balance big risks with the immediate rewards of hook after hook (especially on their first full length), but Hot Panda seems to know exactly when to add new layers and when to rely on the riff that grab your attention. Afraid of the Weather alternates between a simple marching band drum beat and synth laced melody and a more herky jerky chorus, but it’s the heavy horn and guitar surge at the end of the track that forces you to dance and makes you remember the four-minutes fondly.Hot Panda can craft light, airy melodies (Holes floats by nicely), but Gold Star Swimmer shows they are just as comfortable adding grit to their songs and playing in the darker shadows of the room, especially when Connelly's delivery tenses up and adds drama to the track. Even the little cowbell and distortion of Bullhorn Romance adds depth to the listen and the natural diversity the band presents offers a glimpse of the many styles Hot Panda can expand on in the future.It's amazing how the band can produce so much energy, but not rely on it. Usually bands need time together to find the right recipe and more importantly, time on the road to make sure the recipe is right for them. Hot Panda has already been coast to coast, watching the odometer turn (they are playing here at Gus' Pub on April 24th) and if Volcano... Bloody Volcano is any indication of what’s in store, I don’t see any signs of them becoming dormant. - herohill

Swan Lake

Would that we typists could forego consumer-report linearity as we survey Swan Lake, opting instead in our reviews, as the act does in its songs, to isolate and juxtapose-- and then to isolate by juxtaposition-- loaded fragments, pleas, and images. Because holy hell, Beast Moans establishes a high that will likely inspire mimicry in its listeners. You'll be jotting down phrases that you hear throughout your day as if they were signs from the universe, just as this album's relentless reverb, sustain, and vibrato suggest that an act of creation is merely a series of echoes.
Swan Lake is of course a Supergroup McSideproject of folks already equipped with supergroups and side projects. Like the best work of its participants, Beast Moans is no pornographer's rubdown; it delivers on its tease. The Dan Bejar/Spencer Krug/Carey Mercer triple-team performs spirographic sprints around, say, Amalgamated Sons of Rest, the 2003 Will Oldham/Jason Molina/Alasdair Roberts gangwarble. In the event that you are an anxious consolidator of last.fm stats trying to weed out fluke acts, you might switch "Swan Lake" to "Destroyer" in the artist-blank and not totally be lying, since Frog Eyes have already backed Dan Bejar, and Bejar's preoccupations seem to win the album's field day: "A Venue Called Rubella", as the title hints, plays like an outtake from Rubies (okay, like a trippy, prancing alternate take of "3000 Flowers") and its lyrical shout-out to Streethawk continues Bejar's habit of mythologizing his own discography, which he, um, continues via "The Freedom"'s repine for City of Daughters.
Each performer gets a star turn on Beast Moans, and "The Freedom" is Bejar's; it's basically a Destroyer anthem, which means that it's made of pieces of countless other people's anthems, but boasting stunner lyrics and a chorus about much more than Swan Lake yet still about Swan Lake: "The freedom to be alone with the freedom" addresses not having to share, and this album's whole experiment is to approach fellowship as a formal constraint. When Bejar, Krug, and Mercer fade into each other, as they do on "City Calls" and "Pleasure Vessels", a magical fourth man's marrow seems to arise from the psych blandishments and obscure passion. Several other tracks even suggest that they were striving to become male, analog-ambient, goth-scatting Cocteau Triplets, using rock's la's, da's, ah's, ooh's, oh's, and whoah's (with a dash of Nintendo) to speak in tongues, structuring careful laments that impersonate unfettered lamentations.
That great not-American source of American imagery, the Bible, is responsible for a shocking number of lines. Also unexpected are the earthbound love songs. Equally freshening is how many tracks are woman-centric, although who knows if all of these sisters, daughters, mothers, widows, "Pollenated Girls", and lovers have actual referents or are just radiant furniture in a cosmology of longing. The fabulous Krug-led fable "All Fires" best blends the album's conceits, as a wife loses a daughter, a church is torn apart, Eve's origin is invoked, and a Theresa gets the mother/saint/martyr treatment.
Pretending to discuss the lyrics is a sad surrender, though, because anyone attempting to decode them is going to lose the songwriters' rigged game of "guess which finger I'm holding up behind the tapestry." The album's swathy textures deserve as much credit as the vocal shrieks for making its pomp and mystery so enjoyable. The lazy-susan approach to antic and mellow tones, the blend of trad-strumming with a panicked, not-altogether-Western approach to guitar, the shifts from church organs to carnival organs, and the unpredictable percussion combine to suggest that with Beast Moans, these yelpy brainiacs have cornered their collective animal. The album's thesislessness and almost-annoying beauty earn spittoonfuls of odd gratitude.
— William Bowers, November 22, 2006

Witch

Forget the dog, kids: 2006 is ostensibly the year of the Mascis. Not only are Dinosaur Jr. back for reunion tours and catalog reissuing, but my favorite wah-loving stoner is revisiting his Deep Wound and Upsidedown Cross days on the side, drumming for doom quartet Witch. Mascis handled Dinosaur's thunder toms when Murph wasn't around (see Green Mind), but in Witch, it's his singular role: no blistering solos or perfect "Freak Scene" poetry, just airtight rolls and bass-drum thuds.
Spanning the psych-metal/folk divide, two of Witch's members also play in the airy Vermont octet Feathers, perhaps known best as the backup crew on Devendra Banhart's anti-war song, "Heard Somebody Say" (although their pleasant forthcoming full-length on Gnomonsong should change that). Here, singer/guitarist Kyle Thomas and guitarist Asa Irons follow the footsteps of folk-rock genre-hoppers like Six Organs of Admittance's Ben Chasny, ably increasing the volume and peeling the tie-dye from the walls.
Fans of the legendary SST doom-metal band Saint Vitus will likely find this stuff to be fun, if hardly original. Just don't confuse them with Swedish Pentagram lovers Witchcraft. Actually, okay, confuse them if you want: There are plenty of similarities in the rollicking instrumentation and occult lyricism. The 1970s-style metal cross-referencing would make for a smoking double bill, but Witch inhales more Zeppelin with its Sabbath. Also, Witch's Thomas sounds nothing like Witchcraft vocalist/guitarist Magnus Pelander; instead, he warbles like Jason Simon of Dead Meadow or, oddly enough, the Apples in Stereo's Robert Schneider.
But whatever the proper analogue or crib sheet-- and regardless of the starpower Mascis brings to the proceedings-- the Feathers boys are the stars of Witch: The album's best moments result from the torrid dual guitar solos, the well-textured feedback, and how the heavy atmosphere contrasts with Thomas' sweetly nasal howl. And that howl is fantastic, especially when Witch aims for epic extrapolations as on the mountainous "Black Saint". He also contributes a supernatural spark to epic opener "Seer" (those riffs!) and the rising/falling "Rip Van Winkle", which should take 10 years off any self-respecting banger's lifespan. (It is sorta strange, though, that this Dead Meadow-sounding dude is from Feathers and Dead Meadow's newest album was called Feathers. Are they sharing the incense and blacklights or what?)
Renaissance Faire love song "Isadora" provides a pace change with dramatic cymbal washes/crashes and acoustic starlings, but the more expansive stuff works best: "Soul of Fire"'s boogie, for example, is less appealing than rifftastic "Changing"'s glorious bongwater drone. "Changing" also inserts resounding Druidic bell tolls and harmonies dipped in the magic circle and zodiac cloak. And whenever the shit seems to patter into the shadows, a whirlwind of guitar takes off and the boys bong out a few more rounds. These are such rich landscapes, all mossy and backed with an inked sky, it's like they live in an Arik Roper sunset.
Fans of doom and 70s psychedelia have hefty decisions to make these days, so if your budget's limited, here's how things stand on the Sabbath meter: Witch holds my attention more forcefully than the Sword or Pearls & Brass, but less gloriously than Om or Sleep. There's an energy and charisma in this dosage that I find lacking in some of the younger contemporaries. Really, it could be totally nerve-wrackingly debilitating to solo and scream in front of an icon of Mascis' stature, but Thomas imparts himself wonderfully. In fact, by the closing notes of the album's finale, I always forget it's J who's manning the drumkit at all.
— Brandon Stosuy, March 14, 2006

Black Angels

Trite as it is to dredge up drug-trip comparisons while attempting to describe how music sounds, there's a particular effect of failed, go-nowhere attempts at psychedelic rock: It aims for making you feel like you're high, or at least able to empathize with the notion of feeling high, but instead it's like you're actually stuck in a room with someone else who's high while you're sober. They're having the time of their lives, experiencing all sorts of mind-altering creativity, and here you are watching them flail around inanely-- or, worse yet, they just sit there staring into space. Even with a few good-to-great moments, this happens frequently during Directions to See a Ghost, the second full-length from Austin's Black Angels: The trip is implied, but it's all a secondhand narrative that loses almost everything in translation. The band members play under the impression that they're going somewhere, but it's a completely different place than where they actually are, and in either case there doesn't even really seem to be much of a destination in the first place.
Put this album amidst a thousand other songs on your mp3 player of choice, and eventually one of the tracks will come up, and it'll sound unique and startling and impressively fuzzed-out and evil for a couple minutes. Odds are it'll then go on for another three or six or 14 until it becomes clear how little their grinding, snarling riffs and heavy-footed rhythms hold up under constant repetition. Sometimes this drone is enough to snatch your breath; there's enough of a melody (and a compellingly creepy one at that) in "18 Years" to sustain the song's five and a half minutes, and the slow, hypnotic swagger of "Mission District" pulls you in long enough to let one of the few really powerful crescendos on the album to hit you dead-on. And even if it takes a while to get to its core, "Never/Ever" peaks with this burst of high-speed chaos that condenses everything cool about "Sister Ray" into an efficiently malicious explosion
But those songs come after an opening volley of not much, as the vertiginous midtempo shoegaze of opener "You on the Run" melts into the lurching, swooning "Doves" and then into the thumping sludge of "Science Killer", each song canceling out whatever sensations you might have felt from the previous. And all the interminable record-ending "Snake in the Grass" really does once it gets going ("going" used loosely) is get a bit slower two-thirds of the way through its 16 minutes. Is it really worth listening to a song that goes on for more than a quarter of an hour if it actually loses energy the more it goes on?
The bastard of it is that the lyrics fit the tone well-- all gloomy invocations of warfare, betrayal, paranoia, and self-obsession. And these people can play: There's some sparks when guitarist Christian Bland snaps out of his robo-strumming and actually sets about cranking out frightening peals of noise, Stephanie Bailey's drumming is forcefully solid even when the rhythms threaten to lull you into inattention, and every time I try to think of who lead singer Alex Maas is derivative of, I keep flashing back on their solid-enough 2006 debut Passover instead, which is as good a sign as any of how distinct his flat but doomed-sounding wail is. And if you isolate any random 45 seconds of Directions to See a Ghost's 70 minutes, you'll definitely be compelled to listen for another few minutes-- after which time you'll probably start waiting for a solo or a shift in tone that might not even come. One thing I've tried to keep in mind is the fact that the Black Angels tend to play live with film accompaniment, so maybe it works better in that context. Perhaps they could help those of us without any drugs by pressing this stuff on a DVD next time around.
— Nate Patrin, June 3, 2008

Slint

THE BANDTodd Brashear - bassBrian McMahan - vocals/guitarDavid Pajo - guitarBritt Walford - drumsYEAR: 1991Some bands are very good at describing their music using pictures and words. Slint would be one of them. The cover says it all - this is a dark, chilling album; full of emotion but with very little warmth throughout its forty minutes. It's music in black and white, and it's hard to imagine any other band capturing "colorless sound" so well. The album title is accurate too - the guitars on Spiderland are thin-sounding and skeletal, almost skittering across the songs like the aforementioned arachnids.The band went through quite a stylistic change from their 1989 debut Tweez to this, their second (and final) album - the former was a harsh and nearly-unlistenable collection of fractured, Big Black-esque songs (no coincidence that it was engineered by Steve Albini), while the latter is much more focused, with epic and powerful songs (none shorter than five minutes). Despite the song lengths, Spiderland doesn't have the pretentiousness and technical showmanship of prog-rock, and sticks more to creating moody, atmospheric rock songs that leave the listener kind of unsettled.Breadcrumb TrailThe album starts and ends with the best tracks, although "Breadcrumb Trail" is slightly inferior to the masterpiece "Good Morning Captain". Lyrically, this is the most playful song on the album, with McMahan quietly describing an interesting day he had at an amusement park as a story rather than as rhythmic lyrics. The instruments, however, overpower his soft voice, with David Pajo's snakelike rhythms wrapping around McMahan's words during the verse before exploding into a heavy and anthemic chorus. Although the subject of the chorus isn't very groundbreaking (a ride on a roller coaster), McMahan has a way of choosing creative words to describe it ("creeping up into the sky/stopping at the top, then starting down/the girl grabbed my hand/I clutched it tight/I said goodbye to the ground"). The band effortlessly makes the transition from quiet to loud passages, and it easily dwarfs the fine (but inferior) next four tracks. Six minutes o' brilliance. 4.5/5Nosferatu ManA more straightforward (but still complex) hard rock song, with a steady but pounding rhythm section and hard-to-hear but dark-sounding lyrics (about a vampire, I'm assuming). The chorus is the catchiest thing on the album, and McMahan does a very convincing (if unintentional) Steve Albini impression. Speaking of Albini, this sounds like a Shellac song. If you like Shellac, you'll like "Nosferatu Man". 4/5Don, AmanUnbelievably anti-climactic. McMahan once again tells an interesting story, but with no percussion, it's much easier to hear the lyrics (it's anyone's guess what they're about, though). The wiry guitars slowly build tension throughout the six-and-a-half-minute song, but except for a couple short bursts of menacing distorted guitar, there's no loud emotional payoff at the end, which is disappointing but creative at the same time. It's not bad, but it borders on 'skippable'. 3/5WasherSome sad-sounding but very nice guitar before the verse, which features McMahan inventing Conor Oberst with a timid, trembly voice and unexpectedly (almost uncomfortably) emotional lyrics. It's a very chilling song, but McMahan's lyrics seem hopeful, even when he sounds so defeated. One of those rare songs that sends chills down your spine (and surprisingly enough, it's not the only one on the album that does that). It becomes extremely tense as it goes along, but unlike "Don, Aman", it does explode into a climactic energy release near the seven-minute mark before settling down again. Muy, muy bueno. 4.5/5For Dinner...The shortest song, but it still manages to break five minutes. It's an uneventful (and kind of pointless) instrumental, that they probably threw on there to make the album longer or something. Meh. 2/5Good Morning CaptainHere's where it gets good. Seven and a half minutes of very creepy and skeletal rock. The guitar clangs in the background like a warning siren, while the snakelike bass creeps along between that and the pounding, tribal drums. McMahan speaks through the verse much like he does on "Breadcrumb Trail", but the story is much more ominous this time around, as he describes a shipwreck in chilling detail. There are the obligatory bursts of ear-piercing and melodic noise, but the album's zenith comes as the song starts to wind down. McMahan is at his most emotional, whispering the lyrics ("I'm trying to find my way home/I'm sorry/did I miss you?/...I'll make it up to you") before screaming "I MISS YOU!" as the song explodes in a jagged wave of noise. I've used "chilling" way too much during this review, but that single moment is one of the most chilling and emotional pieces of music I've ever heard. An easy 5/5.The album isn't perfect, which is disappointing, because half of the tracks indicate that it could have been (1, 4, and 6 in particular). It's definitely a 4/5, no higher or lower. The band split up after this album, and although it would have been interesting to hear the follow-up, their influence lives on in countless modern post-rock bands. - sputnikmusic

Yeasayer

Over the past few years, a few of the most talked-about indie bands have been those making music with an ahistorical sense of mythic drama. TV on the Radio, Celebration, Grizzly Bear, and Animal Collective, among others, have been variously and inventively appropriating rock'n'roll's roots in ritualistic sounds, working toward individual aesthetics that merge mutual appreciations for surface and tradition. By and large, they draw upon ideas of the pre-modern (multi-part harmonies and chants drawn from religious rites, a fixation on the unseen power of the natural world), and express them through ultra-modern forms (synthesizers, electronic textures, heavy echo).
Perhaps unconsciously, these groups are working in the shadow cast by the late 1970s and early 80s collaborations between Brian Eno and David Byrne, primarily My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and the Talking Heads albums Fear of Music and Remain in Light. By surrounding Byrne's rural preacher impression on "Once in a Lifetime" with angelic new age synthesizers and ethereal harmonies, for instance, the duo pulled an affective charge from seemingly incompatible elements. The co-presence of Byrne's anxious sermonizing, a West African rhythm section and Eno's stylish ornamentation signified not only the spiritual transformation of Byrne's character, but also an important shift in pop’s approach toward its own past along with non-Western forms of music.
Brooklyn's Yeasayer are the latest entry to this group of Byrne disciples, and one of the better bands to put a new spin on his polyrhythmic convulsing. The band gained recognition earlier this year for their fantastic first single "2080", possibly because of its sonic similarities to Midlake's buzzed-about 2006 single "Roscoe". Both share a woozy, woodsy ambience, but where "Roscoe", set in 1891, was nostalgic for a rustic world, Yeasayer gazes ahead-- and not optimistically. "I can't sleep when I think about the times we're living in," Chris Keating sings, continuing, "I can't sleep when I think about the future I was born into." After two preternaturally smooth choruses, the band lives up to its name. All new age elements temporarily vanish, and the group breaks through into communalism. The sudden, fervent "yeah yeah!" pulls from the same crowded Anglo-ethnic trough as the Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, and Danielson, and establishes the band's own link between the ritualistic and the futuristic.
All Hour Cymbals, the band's LP debut, is packed with similar moments of pan-ethnic spiritualism, filtered through walls of echo and layers of gossamer synth. The album opens on "Sunrise" with a gospel-tinged a cappella vocal that wouldn't sound out of place coming from TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe and adds handclaps and austere piano. The mix is gently, gradually taken over by a droning synthetic ambience and Keating's vocals, which express his desire to merge with nature. The song's falsettoed chorus is then fleshed out with a vague Far Eastern vibe, that same sense of foreign tension reappearing later in "Worms".
This sense of apprehension lends the album a dramatic flair, best realized in "Forgiveness", which-- while reclaiming the synthetic handclap and keystroke incantation for the band's unnatural revival meeting-- calls into question the time-honored tendency to appropriate religion for personal gain. Guitarist Anand Wilder sings: "I've come to beg for forgiveness/ So forgive me," yet after pleading that "I've tried to teach by my doing, your undoing" he admits, "But my time will be your ruin." Elsewhere, "Germs" augments its earthly paranoia ("What's hurting me when I breathe/ Perhaps it's just the mold on the ceiling") with a sonic mood somewhere between Celtic and Balkan, and "No Need to Worry" is a buzzing cathedral of dread, its title only serving as an attempted calming influence.
The peak of All Hour Cymbals' tangible sense of unease, the pummeling "Wait for the Wintertime", is Yeasayer's Black Sabbath moment, transforming their chants into a dark, persistent march. Although it's not clear whether the song is the band's own origin myth, about the apocalypse, or both, the lyric, "On a cold day, you can walk forever/ On a cold day, nothing's gonna stop us," is charged with dread, only bolstered by the atonal saxophones in its climax. There and elsewhere, Yeasayer channel both a dystopian science-fiction sensibility and deep appreciation for the natural world, employing a wide, international range of sounds. The result is a unique form of indie rock world music that resists stepping into the essentialist, ethnocentric traps consistently tripped by high-minded hipsters.
— Eric Harvey, October 25, 2007

Dodos

To understand where San Francisco's Dodos are coming from, just check the weekend itinerary from their most recent visit to L.A. On a Friday, they did a campus show for USC students; but when a miscommunication foiled their next day's plan to play at the Smell-- the venue at the epicenter of the local scene-- they ended up joining a bill with Thee Oh Sees and the Crystal Antlers at a birthday party at the Silverlake Lounge, an intimate, cozy space where you can't see a thing if you're more than five feet from the stage. It's within those coordinates (campus-quad pop, art-punk, and communal, lo-fi folk) that their Frenchkiss debut Visiter exists; an acoustic-and-percussion duo at their core, Dodos manage to hit with a full-band force that's even more pronounced in their astounding live sets.
On Visiter, Dodos guitarist Meric Long alternates between fingerpicking and breakneck strumming while playing in confounding alternate tunings. Logan Kroeber's clattering, locomotive percussion (which includes shoes outfitted with tambourines) is every bit a lead instrument as Long's guitar, and a big reason the band's music has garnered comparisons to the less abstract moments of Animal Collective and the output of other new-primitivist bands like High Places and Yeasayer.
The first quarter of Visiter marries those impulses with fantastic results. The banjo playing and female harmonies on opener "Walking" echo Michigan-era Sufjan, but the connection ends at Long's stridently confident vocal delivery. That song immediately segues into the maniacal "Red & Purple", a bewilderingly worded love song accompanied by a toy piano and fuzzy bass. And after the brief "Eyelids" comes "Fools", which has been bouncing around the web in some form for months, and is fast becoming the Dodos' signature tune-- although it may soon be eclipsed by the rollicking, Feelies-esque "Jodi".
From that point on, Visiter alternates between longer, more improvisatory material and near-interludes, which can leave a slightly spotty impression on its first few listens. With more exposure, the record reveals the celebratory acoustics of Led Zeppelin III or a more song-oriented take on tourmates Akron/Family. Playing with infectious fervor, Long runs through tricky blues-boxing and molten slide riffs on the galloping "Paint the Rust" and the second half of the epic "Joe's Waltz".
Visiter's second half is anchored by "The Season" and "God?", two massive shapeshifters that help define the record. Long and Kroeber here don't seem wedded to power duo minimalism-- and it's intriguing to wonder how they could incorporate their backgrounds in metal, African Ewe drumming, and gamelan beyond a sense of rhythmic intensity. These possibilities could also make more streamlined, Magnetic Fields-like numbers "Winter" and "Undeclared" seem vanilla by comparison to some, but by making room for both, Visiter ends up being one of the most welcoming (and welcome) records of 2008 so far. — Ian Cohen, March 21, 2008

Wolf Parade

Any proper insomniac can recite the consequences of a few frantic, sheet-twisting nights: lethargy gives way to elation, reason falters, your teeth start to throb, and a vague sense of uneasiness gradually mutates into weird, wild-eyed paranoia. Wolf Parade doesn't seem like a band that routinely logs its eight hours: Apologies to the Queen Mary, the group's 2005 debut, was riddled with allusions to sleeplessness, and its follow-up, At Mount Zoomer, is no less restless-- it's a fraught, expansive ode to being way too awake. "We're tired," vocalist/guitarist Dan Boeckner admits, voice defeated. "We can't sleep."
While prepping At Mount Zoomer for release, the band reportedly promised Sub Pop "no singles," which-- no matter how attached you are to the notion of the LP as a singular document-- seems like a self-defeating vow. Paradoxically, for a statement of cohesion (take these tracks together, or don't take them at all), At Mount Zoomer is inherently disjointed, very much the product of two distinct, if exceptional, songwriters. Unluckily for Wolf Parade, the success of Boeckner and co-frontman Spencer Krug's side ventures (Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown, respectively) means their stylistic tics are now public information, and, as effectively as these dudes co-exist onstage, they're still singular creative forces.
The band's resolve to enlarge and intensify itself-- At Mount Zoomer seems focused on skewing darker, on sounding nastier, more perilous, and less straightforward than its predecessor, with elaborate arrangements and, you know, no singles-- translates into a lot of proggy diddling (and, ironically, less theremin). The approach yields predictably mottled results: At Mount Zoomer is both captivating ("Call It a Ritual", "Language City", "California Dreamer") and a little bit exhausting.
Recorded in Petite Église, the Quebec church owned by Arcade Fire, and produced by drummer Arlen Thompson, At Mount Zoomer is free from the influence of Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock, who produced the bulk of Apologies. Lyrically, familiar themes abound: multiple allusions to funerals, cities, dreams, empty rooms, and things that mean nothing. Wolf Parade are uniquely skilled at skewering contemporary (see also: urban, digital, accelerated) culture, and these songs relay a sense of being stuck in the wrong spot at the wrong time-- it's a tense, tenuous place to live.
"Soldier's Grin" opens with punchy keyboard and guitar, before Boeckner steps up to outline the scene: "In my head, there's a city at night," he sings, voice clear and desperate. Although the song's objectively optimistic, full of twittering synths and mewling guitars, it's also deeply anxious, and when Boeckner promises "what you know can only mean one thing" it seems pretty evident that that one thing's no good. "Call It a Ritual" is equally uneasy; Krug's quiet, opaque vocals are spectral and strange-- less piercing than Boeckner's, but way more atmospheric-- and the track descends into a dreamy, muddled haze that feels a little bit like sleepwalking. "California Dreamer", another Krug-penned cut, is epic in scope: Although it's only six minutes long, it's relentlessly squirmy, flitting from quiet, guitar-driven dirge to full-band throwdown.
Whereas Apologies to the Queen Mary closed with an unimpeachable tract of songs, from "Shine a Light" on, At Mount Zoomer fizzles and sags after its sixth track-- the record's grueling backend culminates with the contentious, 11-minute "Kissing the Beehive", a stubbornly unmelodic finale marked by a mush of throbbing guitars and histrionic vocals (ironically, it's the only track that Krug and Boeckner co-wrote). At Mount Zoomer is fractured and spastic, and at times, the band's ambition eclipses its strengths. Still, there's something about Wolf Parade's fragility that's profoundly relatable, and the sense that the entire operation could fall apart at any second-- that we're all tottering on the brink of total dissolution-- is as thrilling as it terrifying.
— Amanda Petrusich, June 17, 2008

Jerseyband

Jerseyband plays Lungcore - A new genre that infuses a horn-driven band with heavy metal valuesWhat does a screaming hardcore metal vocalist have in common with a jazz trumpeter? For Jerseyband, they are one in the same. The band's unassuming trumpeter, Brent Madsen intermittently pulls the horn from his lips just long enough to let out his version of an ape on a rampage. One moment, Madsen screams, "Move my carrot!" and the next, your head is spinning because Jerseyband has already exchanged the gates of hell for a jaunt in Peewee's Playhouse. Backed by drums, electric guitar, and guitar synth, Jerseyband's horns (three saxophones and a trumpet) cut through meaty arrangements that shock their audiences into submission. Enthusiasts have compared their sound to Mr. Bungle, Zappa, and Meshuggah but one thing is clear; this band is best categorized under their own genre of horn driven metal called Lungcore.
-CD Baby
Most incredible unsigned band out there!

check em' http://www.myspace.com/jerseyband

The Almighty Defenders

Supergroups: Sometimes you get Cream, and sometimes you get a bunch of people who spontaneously engage in a slapdash recording session that may or may not involve absurd conceptual pseudo-alter-egos. One of the end results of the Black Lips' possibly kicked-outta-India incident back in January, aside from a deluge of some of the most breathlessly manic press-release freakouts I've ever read, was an emergency stopover in Berlin to recuperate/decompress with King Khan and Mark "BBQ" Sultan. Apparently the mood was so charged and jubilant in the aftermath they celebrated by spending eight days recording an "evil gospel" album. Well... shit, why not?
It's important to keep this narrative in mind when listening to The Almighty Defenders, because it definitely sounds like it took no more than a week to exist from conception to completion, even if it's probably more likely that the group's actually a culmination of a more long-stewing collaborative interest. It's a hasty sounding album in pretty much every sense of the word, with spontaneous-sounding takes and muddy recording that sounds almost surreptitious. It's like listening in on a bunch of like-minded friends screwing around in a jam session, which it technically pretty much is.
The album contains 10 originals and a cover of the Mighty Hannibal's "I'm Coming Home", all of which fall pretty strongly in line with what you might expect from a Black Lips/King Khan & BBQ Show hybrid, only messier and more incoherent: lots of garage-soul wailing, drums that sound like they're being hit with a stake-driving hammer, snarling guitar riffs lathed into crude, shambling catchiness, and the occasional UHF station Horror Chiller Theater organ. Both bands' propensity to run the wider gamut of pre-psychedelic rock'n'roll is bolstered a bit by the gospel underpinnings, though many of the songs-- sludgy vintage rhythm & blues ("Bow Down and Die"), amped-up doo-wop ("Cone of Light"), goonish blues-rock ("Over the Horizon")-- don't need too far of a push to get there. It's a shame that the on-the-fly nature of this album dampens what could've been a superb collaboration given another month's worth of studio time, though there's moments where they manage to pull through anyways; leadoff track "All My Loving" isn't all that complicated, but it gets its hooks in you quick.
Now if only I could figure out what they're singing. The biggest downfall of The Almighty Defenders is that most of the vocals seem to be miked sloppily, so while you get a nice fuzzed-out quality to the call-and-response chants and the wild-assed choirboy choruses, the actual lyrics often get subsumed into this big swirl of noise. It's especially bad on "Cone of Light", where Mark Sultan's amazing deranged-Sam-Cooke voice, strong as it is, still winds up smothered under percussion. When the irreverent-gospel theme is decipherable, it can be pretty striking, if frequently a little too prone to self-aware, button-pushing edginess: "Jihad Blues" is a demented sweet-chariot-ride song that invokes exactly what you think it does ("just gimme a boxcutter and a one-way ticket"), and I'm banking on "The Ghost With the Most" being the first time in recorded history that the Holy Spirit is invoked using a catchphrase from the movie Beetlejuice. But maybe the spirit's more important than the letter anyways: there's two tracks in a row ("30 Second Air Blast" and "Death Cult Soup n' Salad") that are mostly just incoherent howling and mumbling and the occasional Three Stooges imitation, and they might be the most ecstatic moments on the album. Maybe the most profound, too.
— Nate Patrin, September 14, 2009

Good piece of garage super rock!

check em http://www.myspace.com/thealmightydefenders

Pontiak

Patterns of listening are their own cumulative demographic: Some people listen for innovative music that cuts across boundaries and incorporates new elements. Other folks listen for comfort music-- old sounds given a new sheen or a new industry push. These divisions aren't always obvious, as champions of all genres and members of every social group fall unevenly and unpredictably into (and between) those dual castes. You'll find respective purists in noise and adult-contemporary pop, and you'll find teenagers and their grandparents who pine for the good ol' days. Each is bound to have a more progressive counterpart somewhere on the other side of the fence.
Don't be surprised, then, that one of the most ambitious and iconoclastic rock records of the year comes from three bearded, farm-living brothers raised in the rural hills between Washington, D.C., and Virginia's Shenandoah Mountains. Together as Pontiak, the Carneys-- Jennings, Lain, and Van-- turn Maker, their second album for Thrill Jockey, into a platform for bending elemental rock'n'roll into warped shapes. All the while, they keep the purists happy by putting the song at the center of the conquest.
Pontiak self-released their second record, Sun on Sun, in 2007 in an edition of 500 LPs. Last year, Thrill Jockey grabbed the album for a wide reissue that went largely unnoticed. Makes sense: Sun on Sun remains a somewhat indefinable quantity that erects big, brash rock songs with three-part harmonies and clangorous playing amid extended instrumental interludes, outros, and intros. United only by a slight haze of mystery and a visceral first-take buzz, the brothers mined slight funk ("White Mice"), bar-band force ("Shell Skull"), roadhouse waltzes ("Tell Me About"), and dreamy gospel-rock ("Sun on Sun") in nine weird numbers. The songs themselves were strong, but it's easy to see how the record-- blurring borders as it did-- could be written off as non-committal heavy rock.
It was easy to imagine Pontiak trimming the fat for the follow-up, editing away the instrumental excess and focusing on rock songs that could land on blogs and college charts. That might happen yet: The Maker tracks with relatively traditional structures are outstanding pan-American rock songs, aggregating blues, soul, Southern rock, and alt-rock into tunes you can, you know, sing. Opener "Laywayed" introduces its layers one at a time-- a jagged guitar line, a simple drum march, big bass sustains-- before charging into two parallel verses built so well that they're as memorable as a refrain (which the song forgoes). Above grimy guitar and bass, the Carneys present "Honey" in three-piece vocal unison, turning what sounds like a work song on its head. Pontiak grind through a series of bucolic images with resolute lethargy, suggesting a springtime Sunday where chores are abandoned for play-- booze, instruments, naps.
Overall, though, Maker is perhaps twice as divisive as its predecessor. With two more tracks and seven more minutes, it's increasingly eclectic and rangy. Still, it's more cohesive than Sun on Sun because its lopsided structure engenders a sense of propulsion. Each time a pattern begins to emerge, the Carneys destroy it: During "Laywayed", for instance, Pontiak ride a riff for the first 30 seconds. They pause, but instead of immediately ripping back into the song, they go silent for five seconds. The bait-and-switch commands attention.
And there's the album's overall structure: The first, third, and fifth tracks are lumbering rock anthems worth humming. The subsequent even-numbered tracks-- two, four, and six-- are aggressive instrumental bursts, each lasting less than two minutes. After track seven's subdued sing-along, you'd expect a return to those two-minute offensives. Instead, Pontiak unveil their instrumental epic, the 14-minute title track that builds and collapses several times over its length. Mining Om's bass-and-cymbal throb, "Maker" wallows at a mid-tempo trot. Little melodies swirl, and the tune gradually builds to the eight-minute mark. Then the pot begins to boil. Pontiak roar, but they settle again, their careful tension and release drawing more attention to riffs and rhythms than catharsis. Even at 14 minutes, "Maker" develops, moves, and feels like a song, not a long edit of a jam or exercise.
And that's the real charm of Maker. Even when Pontiak are demolishing, abbreviating, or stretching structures, they maintain an allegiance to song. "Heat Pleasure" might be 94 seconds of cymbal splatter and feedback rolling into one wide wave, but it adheres with direction and purpose. With its shifts in meter and simple key changes, the headlong burst "Headless Conference" is as memorable as "Wild Knife Night Fight", the catchy harmony-heavy bass tune that follows. Even the album's ragtag acoustic number sounds as subversive as the 14-minute trip in front of it. Pontiak, then, find ways to satisfy both castes-- the musical purists and progressives-- even as they play songs that seem designed for one or the other.
— Grayson Currin, May 14, 2009

I really love this band

check em http://www.myspace.com/pontiak

Heartless Bastards

Since 2005, Heartless Bastards have been writing traditional blues-rock that they record in a simple and more or less lo-fi manner, which means they bleed authenticity from both ends. So the cleaner and more carefully arranged sound of their latest album, The Mountain, is a new step for them. From the opening title track, it sounds like a confident one. A muffled guitar introduces the simple minor-key progression, but then the whole band kicks in, stretching the sound from pan-and-scan to widescreen, while a soaring electric slide guitar adds to the song's understated majesty. Producer Mike McCarthy has done a fine job of making the band sound clean without being antiseptic, but the focus is very much on the dirty guitars and the voice of frontwoman Erika Wennerstrom. Her voice is distinctive, powerful, and exudes an easy lived-in authority; it's the kind of voice any band playing this kind of straightforward rock would die to have fronting them.
Heartless Bastards seem like their trying to grow and diversify without losing sight of themselves or their sound-- a tricky undertaking since they've made it thus far on bare-bones rock. But even with the added touches, The Mountain still a pretty austere affair. The most ostentatious moments are the record's softer ones. "Wide Awake" is one example, with its reserved strum augmented by mandolins, a martial drumbeat, and Wennerstrom singing an ambitious, vaguely Eastern-sounding vocal melody (Led Zeppelin III seems seems like the band's North star on how to add depth). "Early in the Morning" and "Out at Sea" are more typical plugged-in mid-tempo stompers, the latter having a few overdubs and incidental noise that slyly suggest a psychedelic touch. "Nothing Seems the Same" is that song's simmering cousin, gradually building and receding without ever bursting through, with some of the same production touches.
If anything drags The Mountain down, it's tempo. The title track is immediately deflated by the acoustic campfire strum of the following "Could Be So Happy", though the simple ascending chorus promises that it'll linger in listeners' minds once it's over. . "Hold Your Head High", however, is maudlin world-weary, little-help-from-my-friends tripe that even Wennerstrom's voice, hammering every brassy high note within reach, can't save. "So Quiet" is another folky detour, with a string chart that screams starched collars in comparison to the band's blue ones, and they follow that right up with "Had to Go", more acoustic fun with added banjo and fiddle. Compared with the record's earlier slow songs, "Had to Go"'s languid tempo seems purposeful and patient, with Wennerstrom in total control of the melody-- but most arresting is the open space that they've allowed into the song. The last two songs signal a return to volume and normalcy, but while closing track "Sway" is a perky step sideways from the record's somber tone, "Witchypoo" is not nearly sublime enough to sustain its sluggish pace. With The Mountain, Heartless Bastards have shown that they have the tools and the talent to take at least tentative steps forward into a more ambitious and diverse sound. But it's surprising that they sound so introspective here when they could, and occasionally do, sound world-beating.
— Jason Crock, February 23, 2009

Do let me know what you think about this one

check em http://www.myspace.com/heartlessbastards

Sunset Rubdown

As the Wolf Parade juggernaut gathers steam, the quintet's charismatic keyboardist, Spencer Krug, somehow found time to follow his recent self-titled Sunset Rubdown EP with Shut Up I Am Dreaming, a collection of his strongest, most fully realized non-Wolf Parade material to date. Over the course of just one year, Sunset Rubdown's progressed from Snake's Got a Leg's rickety and insular lo-fi basement tape sound to a fuller-bodied EP to this exceedingly well-dressed, multi-hued glam pop.
Now operating as a full band (here, a quartet), Sunset Rubdown more closely resemble Wolf Parade but still maintain the rougher ragtag sound of their previous recordings. A good example is triumphal opener "Stadiums and Shrines II", which continues the practice of updating Krug's songs and echoing his past catalogue (all while building a personal cosmology). This version includes the same lyrics and general melody as the scrubbier slip-n-slide on Snake's Got a Leg, but otherwise it's an entirely different monster. Krug sheds the off-kilter dust-bowl harmonium and stuttering underwater feel of the original for a cleaner, less warped anthem. Now, when he sings "there's a kid in there/ And he's big and dumb/ And he's...kinda scared," instead of going by unnoticed, it'll make you lose your breath.
In his more fleshed-out, metaphysically epic form, Krug consistently finds ways to yoke disparate parts; there's so much inventive stitching, in fact, it makes it tempting to offer a play-by-play with color commentary for every song. Beyond writing catchy tunes and packing them with whispers, mallets, harpsichord, and patches of cheapskate drum machines, he's an intriguing presence. Instead of bubbling along at one level, he roller coasters and raves, mixing nonsense with sharp observations and sadness with puns. This jam-packed, unbridled sound ought to heighten the Frog Eyes comparisons, but complicated by the groups' shared tour and Krug's former role as one of Carey Mercer's band members, that contrast is a bit of a bore. Besides, Krug doesn't stick to any particular style beyond his approach to his howls.
More interesting to note: The cumulative effect of Shut Up I Am Dreaming surpasses "I'll Believe in Anything"'s ostensible perfection. That's a brilliant song, yes, but this a brilliant album, ballooning with those sorts of moments on repeat. See, for instance, the speedy ragtime re-versioning of "Snake's Got a Leg III", which feels comparable to Wolf Parade's "Dears Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts"-- albeit with a scrubby sense of pathos-- or jaunty sawdust kicker "They Took a Vote and Said No". As in many of Krug's songs, there seems to be some sort of moral, as if he's writing warped and warbling Aesop Fables. Here, it's "a kid" who "wants a ride", learning that nothing comes for free and "there are things that have to die so other things can stay alive." Some fleet-fingered guitar work and crashing drums obscure the lesson; after a pause and piano line, we're handed a kick-ass axe-toting coda.
Then there's the piano-based ballad "Us Ones in Between", on which he pulls out his deck of unexpected metaphors woven with an endlessly ambient tone-generating guitar: "You are a waterfall/ Wading inside a well/ And you are a wrecking ball/ Before the building fell." Again, there's one of those tenderly surrealistic morals: "I've heard of creatures who eat their babies/ I wonder if they stop to think about the taste." Through an inversion, Krug himself becomes the creature as well as the eaten, asking, "Oh baby, mother me before you eat me." In other new turns, there are female backing vocals provided by former Pony Up! member Camilla Wynne Ingr, and on many tracks glockenspiel or xylophone tap a ringing background.
The opening piano tingle of "Swimming" churns into haunted-house circus music and then it bursts and blooms into the catchiest little music-box reprise of "The Dust You Kick Up Is Too Fine" from the debut. These echoes are everywhere, the resampling a weirdly pleasant and satisfying sort of minimalism, offering listeners a chance to see his work from various angles.
This is rich stuff and it won't be surprising if some listeners prefer Krug's maniacal flights of fancy to Apologies to the Queen Mary's sense of balance. There's obviously much to be said for Wolf Parade's addictive push/pull switch hitting-- that overflowing seep between Bowie/Eno and jittery Iggy/Springsteen-- but it's also incredibly fun watching pop songs pulled apart and restitched into tiny rococo monuments and tossed skyward. All the Wolf Parade comparisons are a drag, sorry, but they're inevitable. Plus, the context's important: Because Krug followed some of the best material on Apologies with this elegant wallop, he's looking increasingly like an important songwriter rather than just another flavor-of-the-month.

— Brandon Stosuy, May 3, 2006

It isn't their latest release but it's my favorite

check em http://www.myspace.com/absolutelysunset

Maxwells

A Danish progressive act recorded live in West-Germany on the MPS label (usually a Jazz label)
They started out in 1963 as The Dragons with covers of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles… They earned a reputation and played in a lot of places locally. Around 1965 they changed their style and name. The Maxwells were born.
In late 1966 some members appeared in The beggars opera and Superman, stage plays in Denmark.
In 1967 , they acclaimed the first psychedelic show in Denmark called WE, a collage of scenes and songs. At the time with a very sensational light show, all handmade with gramophone motors, old glass ans slide projectors.
They collaborated with contemporary composer Per Norgaard, who wrote some songs for the group.
In 1967, they had their first TV appearance. This was a real success, followed by a radio broadcasting and interviews in the magazines.
Late 1967, they recorded their first single flower powder/what did she do? (sonet 7250).
Succesful touring and theatre appearences followed.
Their show opened with a recital of Dada poetry, slowly developping in a wild climax some 40 minutes later. The crowd loved it.
In the beginning of 1969 the German critic, Joachim Ernst Behrendt, heard the band play. He signed them to make the above LP.
The session took 4 days and was recorded in Villingen, Germany.
This is a real example of European psychedelica. Get out the incense and candles, bells and paint everything purple and pink.
source: www.longhairmusic.de

White Flight

Searching in vain for the missing link between indie-rock and hip-hop, we rest our heads at an outcropping, keeping our eyes peeled for signs of life; anything pointing to a merging of highly popular — and equally partitioned — genres that couldn’t seem more disparate, despite the progress made thus far in 2006 (the soul-swirl of Gnarls Barkley, etc.). After a short rest, we head into the brush again, starting to think a Loch Ness Monster sighting would be more realistic.
Then we see it, the creature that will render our hunting trip a huge success. It wears a Slanted and Enchanted T-shirt and a skull cap; it seems to be of no specific race; it walks with both a nervous slouch and a knee-swiveling strut; most confusingly, it whinnies and whimpers when we approach it rather than tying words together with rhymes and alliteration. But make no mistake — this is the species we’ve been waiting for. We can finally officially announce a new phylum! We dub it ... indie-hop? YES, indie-hop, for while the tag has been used in the past, it was employed to signify a different style (or to signify the presence of whitey) more than a distinct musical entity.
Scratch that shit when discussing White Flight. Actually, don’t scratch it; you won’t find traditional ‘wica-wica-wica’ turntable antics here. In fact, though genre classifications are vague and oppressive to begin with, trying to brand this record with any standard insignia is a particularly useless endeavor. All 13 tracks take a different tact. You might find a furry acoustic freakshow around one corner, only to double back and find a “Let the man-/ Let the man go through” shout-along chorus lurking behind you like a dark-purple fog. White Flight can get nervier than Tre-8’s “Fright Night,” freakier than a break-beat loft party, and more disjointed/disinterested than Malkmus covering a Malkmus song Malkmus doesn’t like. It all depends on what track you’re examining.
This happens all the time on the fringes of independent music, but White Flight never lose their sense of purpose for a single moment. They tinker, retool, and re-up several times while still smoking from the same incredible bag, passing around tight-stuffed spliffs of dub, hip-hop, indie-rock, mushroom jazz, noise-ambient, trip-hop and IDM/electronic until the entire smoker circle is bone-stoned and enthralled by the possibilities. Rarely do real-time guitar arpeggios mix with processed beats so fluently, nor do impromptu raps (confined almost exclusively to “Deathhands” and its slightly Basement Jaxxx-y feel) fit in so well with such a constantly shifting template of sound. White Flight never sound like they’re trying to approximate an outside influence, they simply are of that influence, to the point where you can predict the make-up of their personal record collections, all the while knowing that they found a few titles you’ve missed over the years. How else can you explain such a roundly original piece of work?
Of course, in lieu of such effortless quality, maybe it’s time to stop trying to explain it. Just know that White Flight are doing something new, with more instruments and more influences than you’re used to. The Gumshoe always dreamed of a day when his generation would ‘cross the streams’ of all genres, proving that today’s music fan is truly eclectic, an improvement over the dramatic boundaries that in the past would find listeners confined to certain tastes and little else outside their comfort zone. White Flight aren’t legends; they haven’t opened the door to unfettered genre experimentation, but they’ve gashed the padlock up good… only time will tell whether they bust it open themselves someday or simply yield to another generation of upstarts.

by Gumshoe (tinymixtapes.com)

This one will grow on you.

check em http://www.myspace.com/whiteflightsounds

NOMO

On last year's Ghost Rock, NOMO established their own brand of future funk, built on hypnotic grooves comprised of drums and a huge collection of electrified, homemade likembes and scrap metal. The horn section, once the thundering heart of the band, took on a different role, settling into spaced-out dialogue with the rhythms-- leader Elliot Bergman's more conversational horn charts recalled Charles Mingus and Sun Ra in their perfectly pitched balance between structure and disorder. Invisible Cities serves as something of a breath-catching moment for a band that's taken a giant leap on each of its albums, bringing some of the thunder back while further elaborating on the progress made on Ghost Rock.
Bergman's scrap metal instrument collection continues to grow-- this time, he's made a musical contraption out of street sweeper tines to deepen the band's gamelan-ish percussion patterns even further. The band also pays tribute to one of the 20th century's great instrument inventors, Moondog, by covering his German-period composition "Bumbo", a perfect fit for NOMO's mix of complex rhythm, homemade sounds, and arrangements that allow individual horns a chance to break out of the group. They add wordless female voices to the mix on the weird, rambling "Ma", giving the song a striking avant-exotica sound as the nagging guitar part chafes at the snaking baritone sax line.
Amid cosmic freakouts like the echoing rocket ride "Banners on High" and oozing slow-burns like the smeared half-free/half-composed "Elijah", NOMO bring out a few big, crunching horn themes that recall their early, Afrobeat-inspired music. The title track is a total bomb, with the electric likembes providing a bubbling harmonic bed for the horns to lie on over the fractured drum beat. "Waiting" is a classic funk workout with fluid sax parts and a few wicked sections where the horns solo against each other, while "Patterns" rides a swamp vamp the Meters would've loved to call their own.
Invisible Cities is the exact record NOMO needed to make at the point in their evolution. It consolidates all their gains and nicely sums up their output to this point, and as much as you can point to influences and basic kinship with other artists, the music NOMO are now making is very much their own thing. NOMO's facility with both rhythm and tunefulness also makes it easy to follow them as they head down their own path. If you've come this far with the group, Invisible Cities won't disappoint, and it's also a pretty great place to start.
— Joe Tangari, May 4, 2009

Great stuff.

check em http://www.myspace.com/nomomusic