Reviews: November 2005
PROPAGANDHI
Potemkin City Limits (Fat Wrech Chords/Shock)
There seems to be more flash-in-the-pan bands than ever before, bands that need to be described as “ground-breaking”, “liquid nitrogen” and “piss-marinated council estate” to sound interesting.
Then there are a few bands that still create music for people choosing not to ignore their own conscience, music with the power to “describe, compel, renew”. Regardless of genre, they are the only punks left and these three guys from Canada are among that dwindling group of renegades. More important since their birth in 1986 for their challenging social content than possibly their flawless thrash punk, they have regained ground lost due to recent line-up changes, new guitarist/vocalist Glen Lambert taking the place of Chris Hannah. And the 12 songs here are among their best, calling to light the continuing hypocrisies of destructive cultural divides (‘Fixed Frequencies’), the humiliation of human migration (‘Cut Into The Earth’) and even their own fallible record label Fat Wreck Chords (‘Rock For Sustainable Capitalism’).
While AFI screams ‘One Of Us’ to a blind and cashed up flock, bands like Propagandhi (and their peers Against Me) are calling for a different kind of solidarity and for us to “remember when we used to believe that music was a sacred place, not just some fucking bank machine”.
APOLLO SUNSHINE
Self-titled (Heavy Rotation/SpinArt)
Expanding from three to four members for their second album, Boston’s Apollo Sunshine have reined in the multi-coloured sounds only slightly.
There’s less rock here, vibrant retro pop filling the air, again somewhere between The Beatles (‘Phoney Marony’) and Beach Boys (‘Flip’ and ‘Ghost’), the happy vibe escalating in ‘Today Is The Day’. With two guitarists now colouring the canvas, there’s an undeniable energy within the 60s haze of instrumental ‘The Hotter…’, luscious pedal steel country tune ‘Phone Sex’ and hokey ‘Magnolia’.
With equal doses of kooky and cool, they’re a barely containable pop concoction, but a totally intoxicating one as well.
DR. DOG
Easybeat (Rough Trade/Shock)
Under all the hootin’ and hollerin’ that’s littered throughout this laidback good-time jaunt are five individuals from Philadelphia who possess a similar song-craft to that found on The Beatles’ Rubber Soul.
Easybeat is nine songs that skip and swagger around Little Richard-styled guitar lines and Lennon-esque piano. Not exactly pop, not exactly blues and not exactly rock, these boys for their debut mix and match it all ever so subtly, so that the lighter and playful string-filled moments like ‘Oh No’ sit snugly beside the sparse and low-down ballad ‘Dutchman Falls’. The quirkiness peaks in the squawking ‘Fools Life’ – distorted and drunken, it’s the sound of someone shakin’ the shit out of the chicken coop.
With an over-arching air of backwoods perspective, maybe these boys are just tryin’ to have a bit o’ fun? In the process, they’re creating some truly original pop.
THE IMMORTAL LEE COUNTY KILLERS 3
These Bones Will Rise To Love You Again (Tee Pee/In-Fidelity)
It’s not only the sophistication of their songs that keeps growing, but the band’s line-up as well, the I.L.C.K. now a full-time three-piece with organ, this giving the songs less fucked-up blues and more of a Southern Gothic tone.
Lax on the constant caterwauling, but still possessing that undeniable rockin’ swagger (‘Turn On The Panther’ and ‘Boom Boom’), there’s a maturity about these tunes that makes this band far superior to its initial incarnation some six years ago. Elements such as the droning harmonica in ‘Blues’ and straight blues pickin’ in ‘Stitched In Sin’ are virtually ballads and there ain’t nothing wrong with that here. Songs such as ‘Wide As The Sky’ get some pretty expansive sounds going, but it’s when the boys rile up the Wurlitzer that it’s like the coolest amplified honky-tonk rock you’re gonna find anywhere around.
JIMMY EAT WORLD
Stay On My Side Tonight EP (UMA)
On the back of their massive Futures album, these boys have decided that there were a few extra tracks too good to let drift into B-side territory, collected here as an EP.
The title track is an abstract (in pop/rock/emo terms) seven-minute fractured love song, backed by a down-tempo pop number and soaring rocker. A real bonus is the authentic cover of Elliot Smith’s Heatmiser song ‘Half Right’. The only let-down is the overly glitchy and moody remix by Belgian’s Styrofoam. A nice lead-up though to their Australian tour next month.
VASHTI BUNYAN
Lookaftering (FatCat/Rouge)
People such as Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom have today recreated and reignited the delicate and sparse world of rural folk music that was amazingly captured in the late 60s by Nick Drake and Françoise Hardy. The unique thing about Vashti Bunyan is that she is one of the only living links between that so cherished world of the past and the much-revered artists of today.
Thirty-five years after the release of her cult debut and only album, Bunyan has drawn herself from obscurity, creating an album that permeates the air with the same delicate yet twilit mood of the late 60s folk scene. Teaming with another FatCat artist, Max Richter, these 11 songs build around Bunyan’s ethereal voice and acoustic guitar, Richter filling them out with piano and glockenspiel. A host of guests, including Banhart and Newsom, add their mark, making every song as special as the next.
An album of astounding beauty and unquestionable honesty, Bunyan has taken the decades spent in isolation and created music to make your heart swell and swoon.
MURCOF
Remembranza (Leaf/Inertia)
The world of Murcof is a dark and dank one indeed. Glitchy and moody electronica seeps from the speakers, occasional bubbles of beats burst and plomp in some form of uniform time, only to recede from whence they came. For this second effort, the man who is Murcof, Fernardo Corona, has drawn the depth of mood to its aural extreme – a feeling of fear and urban fuelled paranoia is present from the moment opening track ‘Recuerdos’ finds its legs.
Once on the more whimsical side of instrumental electronica, ‘Rostro’, ‘Reflejo’ and ‘Camino’, depict a sort of urban squalor, where rats roam free and the shadows hold more than what you see before you. A wonderful breeding-ground for the imagination, gulps of scratched sound stagger through eerie strings and melodies, taking you further into an abyss previously unseen in Murcof’s music. Maybe not one for those nights home alone.
EARLY MAN
Closing In (Matador/Remote Control)
The children have truly risen to claim the throne from their parents and forefathers; there’s mutiny about and standing on the front line of that assault are the two men of Early Man.
The dawn of metal saw the immortalisation of Sabbath and their kin, but it hasn’t ended there. The drums/guitar duo of Adam Bennati and Mike Conte have for their second album dredged up thick slabs of rock hard riffs, bound in distortion to bludgeon you into submission. ‘Death Is The Answer’ says all that needs to be said, a growled-out guitar, the hammer blows of drums and vocals that summon all to rock’s original and greatest metal altar. Never falling into that dumb rock, spliffed-out stoner sound, it’s tight chops, echoed vocals and a driving pulse that keeps the music fresh and dense for the entirety of its 43-minute journey… back to the future.
HOLOPAW
Quit + / Or Fight (Sub Pop/Stomp)
Floating somewhere between whimsical and dreary, the pop tunes of the latest Holopaw album never really ground themselves enough to make any proper impact, that maybe being half of Quit +/ Or Fight’s appeal.
Drawing from the same melting pot of pop/country/folk as artists like Iron & Wine, Songs:Ohia and Vic Chestnutt, ‘Losing Light’ and ‘Holiday’ have a listless and carefree air. ‘Velveteen’ lies within more traditional Neil Young territory, the sorrow and anguish raising the tempo and volume only for the slide guitar of ‘Clearing’ to again dislodge the music’s focus, sending it off with the wind.
Give this album all your attention and it will blossom; leave it to fill the room on its own and chances are you’ll forget it’s even there.
THE MARS VOLTA
ScabDates (GSL/UMA)
Think of this not as live album but a letter, a message in a bottle if you will, of five individuals who upon descending into the progressive black hole of Frances The Mute just wanted to let us know that their journey into the outer reaches of conceptual progressive music is still ongoing.
One long 73-minute sound collage of six songs delivered in 12 parts, structurally ambiguous and stylistically as varied as a patchwork quilt, the live version of their studio albums is even more abstract and intangible than you could have imagined. All points go to execution not vision, this overall document sounding like a horrible wank-fest. The music would have the ability to totally blow your mind if only it was focused on some tangible direction.
The Mars Volta: file with Emerson Lake & Palmer, Budgie, Rush and Hawkwind.
CITY CITY CITY
The Perimeter Motor Show (Holding Patten/Inertia)
Still as totally unclassifiable as on their 2004 album, Melbourne’s City City City have gone from a softer, more undulating sound to something more polarising and hyper-kinetic for this, their second outing.
The only real constant is the enthusiasm that that each song emits, whether it’s the drag-strip surf sounds of ‘Skim’ or the throbbing Krautrock of ‘East Brunswick…’. ‘The soothing horn that announces ‘Good Thanks’ doesn’t last long as a continental Stereolab-styled pop soon takes over, it too soon superseded. The only unfortunate moments are in ‘Mme’, when the obvious post-rock path popularised by Tortoise and travelled by many is recreated here, admirably but not originally. And with the obvious abundance of creative ideas between the seven-plus musicians here, the vocals in the title track just aren’t necessary. But the two-part epic excursion of ‘The 4am Cavalry’ leaves no doubt of this group’s impressive sonic instincts.
DANGERDOOM
The Mouse And The Mask (Epitaph/Shock)
When heavyweights meet, then the hype begins and I’m sure we’re all sick of Jay-Z & Linkin Park. When mavericks meet – and it doesn’t happen that often anymore – sit up and take some damn notice!
Welcome to the world of MF Doom and Dangermouse, slicing and dicing some sweet soul-fuelled beats and bringing a blessed-out vibe that the boys themselves serve some top-shelf verse to. Cee-Lo brings a honey-soaked vibe to ‘Benzie Box’, while Talib Kweli adds some history to ‘Old School’.
Listen carefully and it’s wild how horns mould with gritty shuffle beats, staccato strings and funked-up licks. The tracks are as captivating as the characters, themselves a wacky bunch of Saturday morning cartoon characters, Space Ghost and Harvey Birdman, serving up a bit of lip. Tracks like ‘Crosshairs’ and ‘Sofa King’ don’t deserve wordy descriptions, they only deserve your ears to enjoy and your ass to move!
THE SILVERMINE TAPES
A Tenuous Link (Patterns In Static)
Quiet for the past few years, Adelaide’s Silvermine Tapes have again reared themselves back to the forefront of the instrumental post-rock scene, one still vibrant with an underground well of talent.
The music that these seven individuals have devised and executed is a luscious range of songs and sounds to wade through and be drawn into its many layers and depths. The moods ebb from the static and playful opener ‘Bringing Them Home’ to the more pensive and brooding title track. Whether it’s wanted or expected, it’s welcomed when the sounds that mingle finally burst forth large swaths of static guitar in ‘For Those About To Glock’ and ‘Live By The Sword’. These moments alone are enough to fill catacombs.
With the addition of its many found sounds (thunderstorms, school children and galloping horses) A Tenuous Thread is anything but – it’s a wondrous journey and cohesive document of a still highly evolving form of music.
DAMN ARMS
Patterns (Unikron/Timberyard)
Out of the ashes of Snap Krack has come Damn Arms, the latest project of main-man, Tim Sullivan. Not all that unlike his former band, this Melbourne four-piece has all the moves and hooks to catch the ears of the hipster kids. This time round though while the synths sit at the front of the mix it’s the guitars and drums that drive the songs and give them the guts to last. Still if their not careful they might find this EP chic enough to propel them far.
THE KNIFE
Deep Cuts (Rabid/EMI)
If you’re too young to have been partying in the mid-80s, then the nostalgia embedded in each note and word of these 17 songs is going to be lost on you. This album either takes you back to that time all over again or invigorates the dancefloor for you for the first time.
Regardless of the fact that this album was originally released overseas three years ago, its pure disco is a timeless sound, in the same way that Gary Numan produced that timeless electronic throb in his songs. ‘Girl’s Night Out’ screams of chiffon and excess, while ‘Pass This On’ has a strange Copacabana-come-disco feel to it.
This Swedish brother/sister duo has perfectly captured the electro-pop of early electronic music, taking the simplicity of sound, the darkness of mood and reliving the innocent elation that made groups like Kraftwerk and Soft Cell mean so much to so many.
SINCE BY MAN
Pictures From The Hotel Apocalypse (Revelation)
Like falling into a thorn bush, the music of this Milwaukee five-piece is prickled and spiked with shards of guitar, brutish, shredding and never obvious. Their third album of post-hardcore is as angular as it is agitating, the opening track ‘Emergency And Me’ alone traversing white noise, abstract and intricate melodies as well as rambunctious riffing.
The vocal s of Sam Macon are the most stock standard part of the package, his screams, yells and occasional growl holding your attention with obtuse topical messages, but still a distraction from the cathartic chaos underneath. Tracks like ‘Binary Heart Attack’ and ‘Invocation’ are further evidence of these individuals attempting to further the sound of hardcore and, in the case of this album, succeeding.
PUBLIC ENEMY
New Whirl Oder (SLAMJamz/Stomp)
Public Enemy have little chance in today’s climate. Hip-hop’s the lifestyle, rap’s just the flow and all in all the whole thing’s a celebrity grudge match game with no winners.
It’s not ’87 and the stakes are centred on the bling – not an underclass’s ideas of revolution and cultural evolution. Who writes the soundtrack for our plays of today and whose words do we need to fuel the flames? This is what PE did like no others could and these are the thoughts they long ago lodged in our lobes.
Well, it sure as hell ain’t Eminem or Fiddy fucking Cent, but really, it’s only half the Public Enemy it was. Time hasn’t helped Chuck D articulate his message any better and Flavour Flav is still the same one trick pony. The tunes mean well, but these 15 tracks provide no clear direction – either in the beats or the flow – and so many tracks are spent trying to revive worn-out rhymes.
PE’s place and importance in history is already cemented and while we need their example, this album indicates that they’re a group that might be played out. Shame really.
THE GIRLS FROM THE CLOUDS
Lalalala (Candle)
After a few spins of this five-track EP, you’ll forget that they ever left your stereo. The core duo of indie darlings The Clouds, Jodi Phillis and Trish Young, have gotten back together here and re-kindled the pop spark they had throughout the 90s. The songs are made up of mainly bass, guitar and keyboard, leaving it to the vocal melodies and harmonies to carry you off, the end product more of a whimsical pop-folk outing in the vein of past peers Club Hoy.
SEASON
Within Without (Alone Again)
I seem to remember Season being a sprawling instrumental post-rock band creating large swathes of sonic textures rather than bristling little indie-tronica tunes. Well, it would seem that this two-track single has redefined who they are and what they do – ‘Within Without’ a wonderfully buoyant yet dark walk through Fourtet territory. The remix of ‘Give Up The Ghost’ (here named ‘Ghosties’) sounds altogether like a warped Stereolab.
THE VALENTINOS
Self-titled (Silent Partner)
I don’t care that this band is from Sydney, I want to know why I haven’t heard their magnificence hollered from the hills by NME. Hyper-kinetic disco-punk, this five-track EP is the launchpad for elastic sounds that find their feet firmly planted in the shoes of Brits like Bloc Party. ‘Man With A Gun’ and ‘CCTV’ could have been written in 1978 by Wire, in 1983 by The Cure or in 2000 by the Libertines. The skinny ties are gonna go bonkers over this!
EDITH FROST
It’s A Game (Drag City/Spunk)
Lying somewhere between country and folk, the songs of Edith Frost are sombre personal tunes that unfurl like open invitations into the secret worlds of a girl and the lives that have deeply intertwined hers.
Less fraught with danger than the music of Cat Power and never as dark as Nina Nastasia, it’s music with a more quizzical nature, perfectly displayed in the album’s title track and ‘What’s The Use’. ‘A Mirage’ reflects moods not too dissimilar to those of Emmylou Harris, the album as a whole having more of a country feel to it than her previous albums.
Still, if you open your arms to Frost’s bittersweet tales of love both lost and found, then you might also find a lot of yourself in these songs.
WE ARE WOLVES
Non Stop Je Te Plie En Deux (Fat Possum/Shock)
Out through Fat Possum records, a label known round the world for its blues and rock catalogue, this trio is a strange addition to that tradition. Taking raw and barebones rock and forcing it through a mulcher of electronics and synthesisers, We Are Wolves have taken the old and fused it with the future – producing a blues kind of Trans Am.
Many of the 11 songs here (‘Snare Me’, ‘Namaï…’ and ‘Non Stop’) have a rudimentary, almost haphazard way of being bashed out, working to not let the cute samples and presets override the live feel.
‘Vosotros, Monstruos’ though is definitely the high point of this sonic excursion –with a real sense of menace, the band’s various sounds coagulate here to create a truly heavy vibe. In the end, guitar, drums and synthesisers can still bash out the blues… explosion style!
BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY
Summer In The Southeast (Sea Note)
More than 10 albums later, the chameleon known as Will Oldham has finally documented the arena that harnesses the most emotion and power in his music. This live album of 17 songs finds a full and bristling band backing one of today’s most mesmerising troubadours.
On the stage, Oldham’s music is a very different beast, sombre torch songs igniting into blazing rock songs to shake the earth (‘O Let It Be’), his voice also regularly raising from a whisper to a yell, scream or even bark and howl. The collection, while being made up predominantly of the Prince’s music, is also smattered with Palace songs (‘A Sucker’s Evening’, ‘I Send My Love To You’, ‘Take However Long You Want’).
‘I See A Darkness’, ‘Master And Everyone’, ‘Death To Everyone’ and ‘Nomadic Revery’ are beyond their studio versions and, more so here, make you catch your breath. In other times, he would be a Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie, but here and now his work is without peer.
AMBITIOUS LOVERS
With Trombones (Warren Street Youth)
From its unique cloth packaging to the raw musical gems inside, this EP by Brisbane’s Ambitious Lovers is a release that will suffer from only being heard by too few people. It’s like unearthing lost songs from Harry Smith’s archives, these five tunes a mixture of mono and stereo recordings fused into songs of surreal beauty.
Outdoor recordings of mandolin (or is it guitar?) sit with vocals above a deep bed of brass to create a totally intimate experience, not too dissimilar to the early recordings of John Frusciante.
JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ
Australian Tour EP (Imperial/Shock)
Released to coincide with his mesmerising series of shows round the country, José González has put together a tour EP that clocks in at eight songs over half an hour and is worth more than its price. Kicking off with an earnest (as well as acoustic) version of Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, this series of previously unreleased songs is clearly as good as those to be found on his album. The Rocket Boy remix of ‘Heartbeats’, while having a seductive French flavour, is a little out of place.
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