Reviews: April 2005
THE EXPLOSION
Black Tape (Tarantulas/Virgin/EMI)
Like the Misfits and AFI before them, Boston’s The Explosion muster up a tight and taught punk rock. Chopped and channelled, the songs are hook-laden anthems that are likely to leave scores of newly recruited fans punching their fists in the air.
With this 12-song debut clocking in at 37 minutes, it’s not long before the lines are blurred and the initial air of straight punk starts to sound as much like snot-nosed rock, like that of old-school Clash or Johnny Thunders. With every song’s propulsion driving you further to an undefined escape from the mundane, the lyrics are the real let-down, often coming off as contradictory and inane.
As true to the cause as this album is, it’s unfortunately got nothing new lurking between its pages, making it enjoyable but nothing that will stand the tests of time.
ENON
Lost Marbles and Exploded Evidence (Touch and Go)
This amusement park roller-coaster ride of songs and videos binds together seven years of Enon. It’s a collection of 22 songs that almost got away, coming from various 7” releases, compilations and five songs that have previously only appeared on their website.
Given Enon’s propensity for eclecticism, the indirect continuity of the album is never a drawback; in fact, the variety of sounds here is part of what makes the ride all that more interesting. Starting off with a punk-funk driven ‘Knock That Door’, things veer into more sublime Blonde Redhead-esque territory with ‘Normal Is Happening’ and ‘Fly South’ only for ‘Genie’s Got Her Bag’ and ‘Marbles Explode’ to bounce off the walls in a mad frenzy of crazy electro-rock reinvention.
In a time when Gang Of Four or The Slits are mistakenly tagged to every new disco act that flies by, these fringe-dwellers are actually doing more to continue that mix of live-band punk-spirit with a hedonistic funk-fuelled dance, creating a highly intoxicating cocktail.
HEAVY TRASH
Self-Titled (In-Fidelity)
It’s almost like Mr. Jon Spencer is trying to reinvent himself and become exactly what he has hollered for over a decade but never was; a true down’n’out bluesman. Heavy Trash has all the sass and sweat of Spencer’s other incarnations, but none of the excess or circus ringmaster antics.
Made up of Spencer and Speedball Baby’s Matt Verta-ray, these two guitarists deliver electrified white-boy blues that exists somewhere between 20 Miles, G Love and Wayne Hancock. Delivering tales of screwed up love and all the things that make good blues, it’s only when the two break it down to just their guitars and Spencer’s sorrowful howl (‘Walking Bum’, ‘Justine Alright’) that the formula is right and the songs hit their broken-hearted mark.
The shimmering guitar of Verta-Ray could be the freshest thing to come to Spencer in years, showing that only when you’ve finished trying to explode the blues will you realise you’ve only just scratched the surface.
CONVERGE
Petitioning The Empty Sky/When Forever Comes Crashing (Equal Vision)
The 60s spawned heavy metal; the 70s, punk rock; the 80s, hardcore; and somewhere in the 90s it all splintered, congealed and gave birth to disturbingly heavy new hybrids. The brutality of Converge swells to cover all the above genres, with songs that sound like Attila the Hun wielding a guitar instead of a spiked club – there’s no doubt that much blood was shed at the early gigs that accompanied these two early releases.
The music over these albums grafts together drumming that drives with the unrelenting aggression of a tank, guitars that swing from grind to classic metal and vocals that could be as much from a Scandinavian black metal band as from the Boston underground – the whole thing unrelenting and completely redefining what was possible within its genre.
Taking in the 88 minutes of ’97 Petitioning The Empty Sky and ’98 When Forever Comes Crashing is like having each leg slowly amputated without anaesthetic – waves of panic, pain, terror and torment all delivered at excessive volume and speed.
Repackaged with new artwork and additional songs and videos, it’s really quite amazing to see a band with such a huge standing in the hardcore scene, so brazen and unparalleled in their formative years.
BLUELINE MEDIC/TED LEO AND THE PHARMACISTS
Split EP (Casadeldeisco)
To this set of ears, Blueline Medic and Ted Leo are like Jimmy Eat World teaming up with The Jam – not an impossible match, but not exactly an obvious one either. For this spilt EP, each band has contributed three tracks, Blueline Medic delivering their most melodic and down-tempo songs to date.
It’s Ted Leo’s contribution which makes this worthwhile, not only for his songs but an amazing re-invention of Split Enz’s ‘Six Months In A Leaky Boat’ – which will sound so good live and loud.
FANTÔMAS
Suspended Animation (Ipecac/Shock)
Damn, this album just blew my head out my own ass and now I can’t see what the hell it is that I’m writing!
Given the Transylvanian horror soundtrack that was Fantômas’ last album, Suspended Animation is definitely just as conceptual, but this time it’s a whole lot more brutal. In fact, it’s their heaviest effort since their debut six years ago. The concept is this: 30 days in April 2005, 30 tracks, each corresponding to a day in the month and adding up to 43 minutes of mayhem.
This is essentially cartoon music, with crazy samples littered throughout the sonic assault, Think a demonic alternative reality where Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Taz and Marvin The Martian play blasting metal. Everything on here is deranged and insanely precise, Dave Lombardo’s drum attack heavier than his days in Slayer, Buzz Osbourne’s guitar coming at your ears like 140-decibel sandpaper and as for Mike Patton, he still barks like a chihuahua. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to debate whether he’s a loony tune or misunderstood genius.
This is more twisted than Japanese porn.
THE PLOT TO BLOW UP THE EIFFEL TOWER
Love In The Fascist Brothel (Revelation)
You know an album displaying a bare-breasted transsexual Hitler on the cover isn’t going to be boring. Spazz-punk-rock is a starting point for these four from San Diego, and spack-out they do – 10 times in 24 minutes, in fact.
You know how strobe lights sometimes send people into epileptic fits? Well, I can easily imagine tracks like ‘Rattus Überalles’ and ‘Lipstick SS’ being the aural equivalent when dispensed at high volumes. Not that this debut doesn’t have songs – it has fistfuls in gloriously hooked abandon. It’s just that these boys seem to have complete disregard for anything that might confuse their music with something normal; making it more punk rock than the whole So-Cal scene.
Even after a few listens, I still can’t make total sense of the homoerotic military overtones, quite possibly just another hairpin turn on way to the inevitable precipice.
AFRAMES
Black Forest (Sub Pop)
Partly industrious and partly industrial, Seattle’s Aframes have a driving and methodical use of sound, like the dark underbelly of Big Black being constructed on a production line by Devo. But the machines have n’t been serviced or looked after for quite some time, so what should be the gleaming, newly constructed product of the imagination sounds not altogether well. This creation lurches in strange directions, its parts creak and rub together in ways that spell out the future before us should we continue to not pay attention to the shadows and basements of those left unattended.
These songs are alluring and attractive due to their seedy and maligned qualities, due to the dank alleyways that spit and vomit out songs like ‘Eva Braun’ and ‘Memoranda’. For the same reasons a drug-fucked Nick Cave of our past can still be a glorious artistic creation, the Aframes can find that place now and make those statements their own.
SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE
School Of The Flower (Drag City/Spunk)
The tapestry of folk music has many colours and many frayed edges, it’s like the dawn, with our eyes drawn to the rising light and colours that grow brighter and simpler with each inch of the defining horizon. But take your eyes away from the that centre of white, try if you might to look to the dawn’s outskirts, where dirty and dusky blues mix with the approaching warmth, where the obvious is blurred with the what-might-become-but-what-is-inevitably-lost in the fleeting changes of light.
Ben Chasny has lived in this dusty outskirts of folk for some time, within the often un-noticed edges of the passing twilight, and with this, his sixth release, he has dreamt up a world transient and elusive, lost to most as they lie in slumber. If you stop and listen to cities drone and creak you may hear the Six Organs of Admittance and hidden within it, the fluttering steel stings of Chasny’s fleeting dreams.
SOUNDTRACK
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (FMR)
As otherworldly as the deep blue sea and as eclectic as the films main character who delves its depths, The Life Aquatic is a strange mixture of orchestral score, modern day covers and indie gems.
Bringing together Devo, Iggy & The Stooges, The Zombies, Scott Walker and David Bowie is wonderful, mixing it in with dainty little mood pieces from the film makes it odd but still enjoyable. Add to that five Bowie Covers on top of the two originals and it becomes quite daft, Brazilian pop maestro Sue Jorge is responsible for the bowie covers which when translated to latin pop make songs like ‘Rebel Rebel’ and ‘Starman’ jovial in very odd kind of way.
So not you’re typical soundtrack and obviously meticulously pieced together to go with the film but if this is any indication, this on-screen story might have it’s deep-diving suit set at the right pressure.
NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS
B-Sides and Rarities (Mute/EMI)
If you think for one second that I’m going to be able to appropriately summarise a 56-track, three-CD Nick Cave retrospective in 200 words, then forget about it!
To start with, Cave’s B-sides are better than most musicians A-sides, and with the whole thing spanning 20 years, it’s easily too much to absorb in one sitting. Thoroughly covering every single, soundtrack works and smatterings of alternative and acoustic versions, this collection paints a more accurate picture of the many paths trekked by these wayward troubadours than even the best-of.
It ranges from the young Berliner snarling fire-and-brimstone with songs like ‘Scum’ and ‘Till The End Of The World’ on Volume I to the coming of age storyteller lost in the world, wearily reaching out with songs such as the 17-minute ‘O’Malley’s Bar’ and a frightening acoustic version of ‘Jack The Ripper’ on Volume II. We end the journey with the distinguished Londoner consolidating his past and maybe finally finding his muse in tracks like ‘Grief Came Riding’ and ‘Shoot Me Down’ from Volume III.
Uttering subjects and sentiments too fragile or fucked-up to withstand a place on any album, this is truly the dark and most seductive side of a man forever seeking salvation.
THE MINT CHICKS
Fuck The Golden Youth (Flying Nun/FMR)
Why is it that bands coming out of New Zealand usually have all the same ingredients as everyone else but always end up sounding quite different from the flock? The
Mint Chicks are as much a part of punk rock’s latest metamorphosis as outside of it.
Throwing barbs out to The Liars and Blood Brothers, these tunes feed on themselves, thrashing-about, ultimately either imploding or exploding, scattering debris far and wide.
While the vocals are all but undefinable, there’s so much going on in the music that you rarely have time to stop and reflect. Tracks like ‘Nothing Is A Switch’ and ‘You’re Bored…’ are unstable clusters of molecules that barely hold together as songs. This is polarised by songs like ‘Opium Of The People’ and ‘Take It…’ that jive with glorious abandon and move with focused direction.
All in all, this debut is a veritable minefield of musical aneurysms and scientific experiments not soon successfully replicated.
ALASDAIR ROBERTS
No Earthly Man (Drag City/Spunk)
It’s hard for music of a folk nature made by Scots – with their heavy accents – to not sound like it’s been transported from an ancient time. No matter how many ambient synth patches you have wafting under it all, its highland quality is timeless. For this, his third solo outing, the former Appendix Out frontman has delivered a concentrated dose of death, this being the one and only topic to grace these eight songs.
They’re not murder ballads as we usually hear them these days, but adjudications and tales of a time and cobblestone land that lived day to day and eye for an eye. Melding in with the lush pastures of acoustic guitar, flutes, piano and strings are other wonderful people such as Will and Paul Oldham and Isobel Campbell (ex-Belle & Sebastian).
A sombre and haunting collection of songs that taps a wellspring of tradition, making it as true and contemporary now as for any that have come before it.
ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS
I Am A Bird Now (Secretly Canadian/Spunk)
Is it the cascading vibrato in Antony’s voice which makes these songs swell with emotion, is it the orchestral arrangements that take ultimately simple piano melodies and raise them to grand heights or is it a deep sense of loss that so many people feel and that is the heartbeat of these songs that gives them an instant familiarity and warmth.
In the tradition of This Mortal Coil, Miranda Sex Garden or Nina Simone, this album is a mixture of yearning, sex, and music – in this case the obvious yearning of the main character to not be what it is he has been born as. Sharing these songs with many kindred spirits, we find fans and collaborators in Lou Reed on ‘Spiralling’, Devandra Banhart on ‘You Are My Sister and Boy George on ‘Fistful Of Love’.
There lies within the music of Antony the desire to have that different life, be that person we feel the world wants us not to be, and it is this that will make I Am A Bird Now resonate and connect to so many.
THE VASCO ERA
Miles (Universal)
Ah-how-how-how! That’s what it sounds like: a bunch of kids ripping off a John Lee Hooker blues riff, their snarling youthful voices failing to cover up the 12-bar tradition. In fact this four-track EP is closer to George Thorogood than the nu-rock circus or even something original. It would seem that anyone who can yell, use a distortion pedal and sound disaffected can get a record deal. Hell, I might go out and see if I can find that special gold record contract Willie Wonka chocolate bar.
BIFFY CLYRO
Only One Word Comes To Mind (Beggars Banquet)
Shapeshifters! Biffy Clyro are impossible to pin down, hopelessly romantic, their songs and this one in particular straddle soaring hooks and melodies on one end and distortion-fuelled guitar exorcisms on the other. These three tracks, full of creative soft/loud guitar outbursts, sombre interludes and pensive aggression, prove that the grunge and post-rock traditions have yet to burn out or fade away and maybe that’s a good thing. Singles connoisseur Robert Lukins though would probably just flick it in the bin saying that these boys have just forgotten that Kurt’s dead, man.
ANDREW MCCUBBIN & THE HOPE ADDICTS
Steer (Unstable Ape)
The first thing that draws you into this world of tales – told, as though in secret in the late hours of the night – is McCubbin’s deep, smoky, world-weary voice. Both inviting and cautionary, it wafts like smooth, thick threads of smoke from the end of a cigarette, drifting over a haunting guitar that shows just how deep and lonely the night can be.
Far exceeding what was an exceptional but unnoticed debut album, McCubbin’s second is less solo or acoustic, this time backed by and fleshed out with piano, strings, drums and bass; which all meld together beautifully with slide guitar on ‘Last Breeze’. Holding the air of sophisticated beauty that’s in the music of the Tindersticks, but without an inflated sense of itself, Steer is one of the most inviting Australian albums to come out in recent times, as refreshing as it is reflective and as much an emotional companion as a body of music.
MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO.
What Comes After The Blues (Secretly Canadian/Trifekta)
Neil Young’s legacy won’t die with him. Unfortunately, it will be watered down by many, but it will also flourish and bloom with a few. Jason Molina of Songs:Ohia and now Magnolia Electric Co, is one of those very special few.
With the power to stir and choke your emotions and place a lump firmly in your throat, his country rock is steeped in the traditions of pioneers like Emmylou Harris (‘Night Shift Lullaby’) or Gram Parsons (‘I Can Not Have Seen The Light’), but at the same time reinvigorating the spirit through his creative use of instrumentation and melody (‘Leave The City’). Violins yearn and meld with guitars, while a lap steel works like scissors cutting your heart in two – heavy doses of pain, loss, birth and love stir within the music.
What Comes After The Blues is Molina’s After The Gold Rush, its delicate yearning and heartache stronger than any heavily amplified exorcism. Somehow Molina clearly betters Songs:Ohia’s previously heralded moment of perfection.
THE DRONES
Wait Long By The River and The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By
(In-Fidelity)
Melbourne’s Drones create a very diamond-in-the-rough kind of rock, but cut through the hangovers and heartbreak and within lies honest tales of trying to make it all better and find something to believe in.
Opening with ‘Shark Fin Blues’, the album sounds something like Bob Dylan wailing out front of Crazy Horse, sounding all broken, desperate and lost in a storm of rousing guitars. Vocalist Gareth Liddiard comes across like a man broken many times over, his voice ravaged from too much crying and probably way too much drinking. This adds up to stories and sounds of people on the edge of losing it, like in ‘Locust’ and ‘Another Rousing Chorus…’.
Comparisons to Berlin-era Birthday Party or Scientists are only on the surface, The Drones sounding too much like outcasts to be comparable to anyone – within this lies their enigmatic appeal and mystique.
THE QUICKENING
Self-titled (Independent)
The Quickening are three very round pegs in the square hole of Brisbane’s music scene. With a massively ominous sound, they hardly sound like the punk bands they are associated with, and upon delving into the songs they’ve got a message much more intelligent than the bands that share their metal edge.
Years in the making, The Quickening’s debut is full of fist-in-the-air anthemic hooks delivered through guitar chords that sound like shards of glass cutting through any bullshit posturing or punk posing image. Rock solid and highly detailed, its time changes and white lightning delivery are at times a bit mind-boggling. These 11 tracks are a glorious mixture of live favourites, ‘You Pay For KaKa’, ‘Spoils To The Wicked’ and ‘Tiananmen’, as well as a swath of newer concoctions.
Take the focused power of Strapping Young Lad and fill it with the conscience of Propaghandi and you have The Quickening, whose sound of dissent is unparalleled in this town.
KAISER CHIEFS
Employment (B-Unique/Universal)
For better or worse, The Kaiser Chiefs are British and caught up in the latest shit-storm wave of musical hype to spew out of that country, so it’s possible that we could get sick of them before we ever get a chance to actually sit down and listen to this debut.
Undeniably catchy with its indie guitar pop hooks, it has that familiar mixture of the old and the new. There’s those Jam-style melodies, XTC vocal inflections and moody Brit attitude; all adding up to a easily digestible and enjoyable romp – all 11 tracks as rollicking as their hit single ‘I Predict A Riot’.
The songs’ variations are unfortunately buried within, therefore to the casual listener it all sounds a bit samey with no real sucker punch to take it all home. An album as easily enjoyable as it is disposable and as with so many bands, it’s ultimate worth probably proven on the stage.
SAM PREKOP
Who’s Your New Professor (Thrill Jockey)
There’s something intrinsically, instinctively natural about Sam Prekop albums. Not like it took a day to create, but a kind of out in the wilderness or wandering down the beach kind of natural sound – with songs wandering through, exuding a carefree mood.
This said, for his second solo album, Prekop has created quite an intricate and detailed collection of songs, based in acoustic guitars, piano and soft vocals all woven with a jazz-styled vibrancy that saves the music from becoming some kind of serious chin-stroking post-genre statement. Joined by old neighbourhood friends Rob Mazurek, Archer Prewitt and John McEntire, the music is seamless and, subsequently, flawless; songs such as ‘Dot Eye’, ‘C+F’ and ‘Density’ encompassing the futuristic moods of Tortoise, the subtle warmth of Chet Baker and the groove of Arto Lindsay.
This is the perfect dose of medication to make everything feel alllllll right.
CAESARS
Jerk It Out (Virgin/EMI)
So you write a song so catchy and psychedelically groovy that it’s like a glorious three-minute kool aid acid test. But no-one notices your song or intoxicating album and soon it all disappears back into Swedish obscurity. Jump forward two years and this time the Apple Corp. unearths your song and blasts it all over their shuffling world, so this time it’s another album, same song and finally the world’s starting to listen. Better late than never and still worth it, baby!
URBS
Toujours le Meme Film (G-Stone)
At first I couldn’t tell if Toujours Le Meme Film was in fact the soundtrack to a film unknown to me or if the albums concept was to create the world for the soundtrack to exist within. Well, there is no actual film, which is mildly annoying because after delving into the debut album by Urbs, it’s a film and a world I would surely watch again and again.
The scene is this: France, 1960’s, love affairs and late nights, the air full of intoxicating aromas that wafts throughout lofts and mix with the effects of top-self liquor. These are the scenes Urbs has set out to create and he has done so remarkably well, these 11-tracks, the kind of smooth and sensual exotica lounge that Kruder and Dorfmeister would create. Spacious dub and modern exotica that beautifully accessorises strings, keys, percussion and a sensual but unknown French female vocal, all this creating lasting imagery of the highest detail.
THE DETROIT COBRAS
Baby (Rough Trade/Shock)
Never judge a book by its cover? Well, sometimes a cover says more about its contents than you might care to realise. Like the fact that Detroit Cobras albums almost always have black ‘n’ white photos of African American women adorning their covers. And this is in essence what lies at the heart of this rock ‘n’ roll band, the history of love-lorn soul.
Stomp with a heavy dose of swagger; that’s what these five motor city five have dished up for their third album – the ‘Aretha Franklin’ vocals of Rachel Nagy again soaring and caterwauling over a heavily influenced Cramps styled beat. And while songs such as ‘Slipping Around’ and ‘Mean Man’ are a perfect mixture of soul and garage, this is overshadowed at times by the unfortunately benign lyrics that do nothing but distract through songs like ‘Weak Spot’ and ‘Hot Dog’.
So for maximum enjoyment, down a lot of spirits, make the music loud and then hit the dancefloor.
SANDER KLEINENBERG
The Fruit (Little Mountain/Stomp)
Like juicing an orange with a hammer, Kleinenberg has squeezed every ounce of squelch out of his latest single. This Mr Oizo styled cut takes a mild break-beat and layers thick, almost mashed synths over the top that mix with ‘wide load’ bass that clearly distorts the whole song. Backed up with three house variations, this dance track is a whole other kind of heavy.
FISHERSPOONER
Just Let Go (EMI)
It’s the guitars that save this track from sounding like 80’s thin synth-techno dross, and even then they don’t drop till the second half of the song. While definitely a high-energy number from Fisherspooner’s second album, it’s hardly anything new and will probably be forgotten in three months. For full effect though, get loaded hit the dancefloor and do as the song says… at you own risk!
THE WILLOWZ
Self-titled (Smash)
Snotty nosed like a teen angst Sex Pistols fuelled hissy fit! That just about sums up the Willowz and their debut album, that’s not to say it’s not fun or any good, it’s just that it sounds like a musical tantrum in the candy aisle.
Buzzing guitars hold the heart beat of songs like ‘Equation #6’ and ‘Put Together’ with trashy drums beneath and either snotty boy vocals or sympathetic female vocals riding above it all. The fact that they hail from Britain (what with those perfect accents) somehow makes it all make sense and actually work.
Throw in a decent amount of garage jangle and this somewhat naïve 20-minute debut is fun enough to break the bed jumping around to but what happens tomorrow when you need a new bed?
IAN RILEN AND THE LOVE ADDICTS
Booze To Blame (Phantom)
This guy’s been round the block more times than your mother! He’s probably had 10 drinks for every song he’s played and he’s been playing music for over 20 years. From his early days in X to his more recent Beasts Of Bourbon styled blues-rock-dirge, the gravely voiced Rilen has severed up 100 proof rock. These four tracks (from his last two albums) a perfect pill to sweep you into this seedy rock ‘n’ roll underworld.
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