A new Animals & Men record would’ve gone totally unheard unless an accident happened or the album ended up in the review queue. I blindly dismiss any and all reunions of “once-seminal”, “once-great”, or simply “discovered” bands initially active over twenty years ago. Save for Mission of Burma (who are clearly from another planet) and bits and pieces of the current Dinosaur Jr. incarnation, 99% of the time my instincts are correct. Imagine my surprise when this EP made it to the keeper end of my personal collection! This EP gets me out of a negative headspace, I forget that no completely-undiscovered gems actually remain in the KBD/DIY/post-punk era, and I rejoice that this squashes most of what’s going to surround it in smaller record collections. “New Material” is never something I want to read regarding a band this old, but this little fighter makes me forget that momentarily unshakable gun-in-mouth feeling that took over after hearing a new ESG record. Animals & Men enter the late-00’s sweepstakes with a sound uncanny in its similarity to the likeminded and seemingly forgotten Feedtime, not to mention the younger but defunct A Frames. So yes, there’s some thud-rock heavily influenced by The Fall and courtesy of guys who probably bought Live at The Witch Trials out of a headshop’s import bin in 1979. (http://www.myspace.com/convulsiverecords)
(Andrew Earles)
1 day ago
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6 notes
Bird by Snow is a grocery list of things, aesthetic and musical, that lesser bands have ruined…dramatic vocals, string arrangements, widescreen pop, the naturalist movement, apocalyptic overtones, and general eccentricity. Think back when Godspeed! You Black Emperor first happened, when their “thing” was a little more interesting tiresome crusty punk concerns packaged in Tindersticks’ chops. Then, jump a year or two to the first time A Silver Mt. Zion filled your shitty apartment with the “Godspeed! With Heart!” feel still used by said band to make better-than-boring albums. Though there is a tangible quality here and there, Bird by Snow is not all that similar on paper to the Constellation crowd, but we’re not peddling “tangible” here, we’re interested in “feel” and charm, two things on the 3rd Bird by Snow album alternately used as tools and outputted to the listener as intangible goodness. To put it another way: If Arcade Fire had lived up to ¼ of their INITIAL hype/promise, before anyone had actually heard the band, instead of becoming an excuse to over-intellectualize The Hooters, it might’ve hinted at the accomplishments found on Songbread/Another Ocean. Occasionally, nothing is more refreshing than hearing a band totally ace the “Everything Irritating … Done Right!” hat trick. (http://www.gnomeliferecords.com)
(Andrew Earles)
1 day ago
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1 note
No record was given the chance that this one was given…all year, and maybe most of last year. I’ve never tried to like a record like I’ve tried to like this one. It’s spun continuously over the past five days and sadly it will forever remain classified in a mental compartment I like to call “Similar to First Over-The-Jeans Handjob”, next to other mental compartments with names like “Local Rock Feel” and “Post-Good.” For one, I require my topical hardcore to be heavy, to bulldoze, to move air, and not necessarily in the metallic sense, either. This is not heavy, though I realize that’s not the point. Also, at the time of this writing, Failures have been discussed into the ground, usually behind their super-group status. It’s hard to approach this without the members’ former bands in mind; like a new hardcore record by a band I know nothing about, but it falls short on both levels. The self-importance by way of self-deprecation, self-awareness (Band Name = We Know We’re Too Old To Be Doing This), and vague packaging (no credits…so that people DO absorb this like a band they know nothing about), has overshadowed (in an ill-advised positive way) the average nature of the recording. Someone please tell me why each and every contemporary of this band manages to come off as more honest and more sonically-propulsive. Please… (http://ihateyouthattack.com)
(Andrew Earles)
1 day ago
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1 note
A diamond in the late ‘00s roughs, SF’s Grass Widow is like a modern-day analogue to early Throwing Muses, Glass Eye, Salem 66, maybe even Scrawl – a band with ideas about structure and clarity that has bypassed much of the past few years of intentional grounding of aesthetics. Without necessarily bowing down to the concessions of defeat, there’s a sense that these women have something bigger going on, sort of a unifying theory between sweet sugar pop and a little something more to chew on. Here’s three great originals and a Urinals cover, by a band which has fully awakened to its abilities. No obvious turns are taken in their songwriting, and the spaces in them are kept busy by a lot of interesting, cool-sounding things springing up from each corner. If nothing else, they have a melodic inventiveness that should keep everyone entertained, but there’s more here, and it’ll be exciting to hear what exactly that may be. If you live in New York City, they are playing shows here all this weekend. (http://capturedtracks.com)
(Doug Mosurock)
1 day ago
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1 note
From the label that brought us a black metal guy’s interpretation of the Dead C (Mrtyu) comes two long tracks of guitar improvisation of the noisy & warm rather than noisy & painful type. Either through effects or multi-tracking or both, there’s a few layers here that are normally absent from such one-dimensional endeavors. This record is really going to do it for the 100 people worldwide that probably already own a copy, especially if their gold standard of guitar-improv was achieved way back in the 90’s, like Alan Licht’s Siltbreeze cutout-bin clogger or any number of Keiji Haino solo efforts. As stated, there’s a warmth to this that removes any antagonistic attributes, putting it a few notches to the left of Fennesz, for instance, if Fennesz was purely interested in improvisation via a single guitar + effects board set-up. One can almost picture Li Jianhong’s grandiose foot-forward (or foot –on-the-monitor) stance as he wails away in the live setting…in front of 100,000 fans, because China is ridiculously ahead of the curve and this record is probably in their fucking Top 40 or something. (http://www.tippedbowler.com)
(Andrew Earles)
1 day ago
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1 note
A-side of the year, hands-down. Heavy, prog-ish rock (not metal) with shit-hot playing and shit-hot hooks. A little mid-90’s aggro thrown in and hope for interesting new bands seems far from dashed (for the moment). The b-side is an instrumental rave-up that recalls Major Stars at their most succinct, and after a few spins, it’s as amazing as the a-side. This isn’t the easiest 7” to find, it being self-released and all, but do go out of your way, as it does what a single should do: gets those tongues a-draggin’ the floor for a future full-length. Another reason to find this 7”, see this band, and buy a full-length upon its (hopeful) release: Mass Shivers almost died in a one-van accident a few weeks ago, but emerged relatively unscathed. The ruling forces want them to go on, and so should you. (http://massshivers.com)
(Andrew Earles)
1 day ago
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0 notes
A split single in which the MSJ side is typical garage tedium and one of the dumbest band names in a genre marred by dumb band names … these were the only reference points going in. Once again, the power of pleasant surprise is a good feeling. It helped with forgetting how obnoxious it is when a band this old releases a rarities & rejects comp of material that’s not even five years old. Thank god this one pulls a Singles Going Steady, winning the blindfolded taste test (against nothing in particular) as a proper and consistent body of song. Not really garage punk per se, but garage post-punk with sax, which is nothing new, duh, but the heaviness is nice and the energy is there … most of the time. They’re from Italy (I think), so the thematic offenses and arrogant statement of format can be partially overlooked as long as the record is playing. If the Intelligence traded The Fall/Urinals fixation for the Gun Club or Birthday Party (huge presence here) and more contemporarily, Cheater Slicks and Oblivians, then this is absolutely not what would happen, because Intelligence would have to live in Italy and make all kinds of cute presentation mistakes, but the point has been made (yet again). (http://www.myspace.com/avantrecords)
(Andrew Earles)
1 day ago
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Wow, if there’s one thing the Pillow Queens are experts at, it’s memorizing a script. They do not improvise or deliver any surprises, as they’re well aware that surprise is unacceptable to the nebulous What Matters Shot-Calling Committee in power during the second half of this decade. Another big “no-no” is displaying too wide a sonic palette within the boundaries posed by a single album. You don’t want listeners asking themselves “Is this the same band?” after every second or third track gets half-a-minute in and you want them to be comfortable with vocals that go beyond inspiration and straight into the loving arms of plagiarism. Once again, The Pillow Queens score high, as the vocalist, (most assuredly a ‘Zach’ or ‘Ryan’ or ‘Joel’) does get a little wild with the decision to copy Isaac Brock and then simply skip that middleman to copy Frank Black, though Zach-Ryan-Joel never does this in the same song. The world can only handle one Mike Patton! Now that everyone is wondering what currently-approved, safe-and-easy style The Pillow Queens chose as the sonic recipe…the ready-in-five-minutes instrumental hand that the Queens hope to play and win with…I should just bring the review to a grinding halt, concluding in five words or less that You Are Going To Like It! Not ‘Love it’, but ‘like it’, because ‘loving’ a band’s chosen direction implies that the target audience listens to their respective guts with a genuine affinity for certain artists or that they rock personal tastes as yet untarnished by what’s heard on some marketing department-programmed satellite channel (named “The Indie Way” or “Left of Boring” or something) or inside of an Urban Outfitters. The Pillow Queens are three Zachs/Ryans/Joels and one probable Rachel, Bekah, or Lindsey that really, really, really hope you like their spazzy-but-not-too-spazzy song structures and approachable guitar histrionics and yelp-yelp-rated-PG-13 vocals, because they really hope it wasn’t a bad idea to drop out of college and spend a ton of money on the Warmed-Over & Loaded w/ Quirkiness Early Modest Mouse package, especially since everyone seemed perfectly comfortable and ready to go with the 100% Heart-Free Shoegaze w/ Co-Ed Vocals Mixed Way-Up-Front deal. (http://monofonuspress.com)
(Andrew Earles)
1 day ago
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I just wanted to say that I am really goddamn glad this record got reissued (though in the Kurt Cobain-funded-reissues-of-their-catalog-in-the-‘90s sequencing). The electric violin on “Fairytale in the Supermarket” is firmly on some slashing Simon House-type abstractions, making that song and the ones that follow the most organically heavy of post-punk’s first wave. From the first Soft Machine album, through High Tide, up through the Kinks (whose “Lola” they so casually tousle), and a general digestion of both Slapp Happy and reggae, the record would stand out as the most soulful of the era. They sound as if they are having the most fun ever, even on the downers like “The Void.” This sort of thing was a great time when I first heard it back in high school, but it’s the kind of music that we sorely lack in this day and age, and we need it now. Throw out all your Clash records (if you haven’t already) and replace them with this; should be spinning in every dorm room in America for the next few years. (http://www.killrockstars.com)
(Doug Mosurock)
1 day ago
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1 note
Turned Word can’t be accused of having “a sound” but it can be accused of lacking discriminating release practices. What they do have is the ability to cater to a particular micro-sub-set of photo-collagecore, the one in which Load Records is seen as a sort of Matador Records, if you will (or won’t). Let’s say the aforementioned scene needs its very own Nickel Creek. Enter this band with the name that’s friendly to word-counts everywhere. Flowers in the Night is rural free-pop/folk with a lot of small stringed instruments and high-pitched man-child Danielson-style vocals, but no hooks or atmosphere to save the day. That’s pretty much the album in a rusty hubcap. Caroliner would eat this crap for breakfast. Comprised of folks (literally, they wished) that are not finished with the whole animals-doing-things/amateur-naturalists angle, Uke of Spaces Corners include a hand-screened card in each LP that shows such determination. This copy came with the image of a single-antlered, deer-headed humanoid (or sentient deer) preparing to boo-foo a bird-headed humanoid wearing a onesie. Funny how this is the perfect visual manifestation of the album’s Animal Collective-gone-all-Appalachian-hill-country-amateur-hour, because I don’t want to hear or see any of this again. (http://www.turnedword.com)
(Andrew Earles)
1 day ago
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1 note
