Posts Tagged ‘ Public Enemy ’

Reviews: December 2006

JARVIS COCKER
Jarvis (Rough Trade/Shock)

The long and winding musical road that’s steered the former frontman of UK pop darlings Pulp has been a quiet one for a few years now. One-off projects, collaborations and such have kept him on the radar, but this debut solo effort really does highlight how something’s been missing of late from our pop landscape.

These 14 songs really do reek of class, of a sophistication that when teamed with a really wonderful songwriting craft gives you an abundance of style and substance. Working again with Richard Hawley and Steven Mackey, the orchestration and tone of songs such as ‘Heavy Weather’ and ‘I Will Kill Again’ recall the smoothest and most alluring elements of Leonard Cohen, while ‘Running The World’ and ‘Fat Children’ have real guts and drive.

Whereas pop today seems to be either hollow and visceral or just smulch, Jarvis is neither – a suave and timeless slow-burner.

CONTRIVA
Separate Chambers (Moor/Inertia)

From their quiet German origins, this quartet have beautifully built on the sounds defined on their debut of 2001. With a kind of desert feel like that of Friends of Dean Martinez, this album has layers and layers of pop intricacies woven into it in a kind of Tortoise-styled take on post jazz/electronica.

As confusing as this many sounds may seem, it’s actually comes together as one fluid stream, rich with its undercurrents and all in all giving off the kind of summer cool that could easily chill you out. Maybe Stereolab might touch on the sounds present in ‘Bluebottle’ on their French holidays or maybe it’s the acoustic guitar and violins in ‘Florida/lay-by’ and ‘Centipede’ that feel like the open roads that fill Migala songs. There’s so much to draw from Separate Chambers that by the end you might feel as if you’ve been on a small but exotic vacation of your own.

AARON MARTIN
Almond (Preservation)

This is music that could very well be made up of the scraps and discarded audio that the adults of this world have tossed away – a certain jumble and homespun sound permeates these mellow and contemplative songs.

Soft and unobtrusive strings and guitar make up the core of the music here, with sampled sound bites, toys, strange foreign voices and even nature itself fleshing out the moods. The rustic, backwoods feel to songs such as ‘Water Damage’ and ‘A Robin’ resembles the mood of Tom Waits’ music whereas the childhood innocence that defines ‘Canopy’ has an entirely enchanting feel.

In the vein of Califone or even locals The Ambitious Lovers, these 11 songs are as much a dreamland of sounds as a playpen of wide-eyed imagination.

DAVID FISCHOFF
The Crawl (Secretly Canadian)

Technology helps you go faster, see further and, in the case of David Fischoff’s debut solo album, create and furnish a luscious world of sound all by yourself.

Somewhere between The Shins, Postal Service and The Beach Boys lies this Chicago indietronic’s tunes – all with a real personal sense of space to them. Live instrumentation sits side by side with beats, clicks and cuts and multi-part vocal harmonies. The electronics though do often take control of the mood and tempo in the way that Bowie’s early electronic forays widened the pop landscape – the detail going way beneath the surface. ‘Rain, Rain, Gasoline’, ‘In This Air’ and ‘The Matrimony Vine’ are here, the standout future-pop creations of one man’s wondrous imagination.

SABERTOOTH TIGER
Extinction Is Inevitable (GSL)

Urgent can mean a lot of different things to a lot of people and is often a wasted word. Not a lot of music reinforces the urgency of time that’s fast running out – this album may very well be the soundtrack of you running for your life.

Coming out of hibernation from the Los Angeles underground, this trio make proto-punk rock that is not only viscerally fuelled but seems to still understand the power balance between your tired, your poor, your huddled masses and your corporate skyline. Extinction Is Inevitable takes the impact that sonic predecessors such as Drive Like Jehu had and update it with intelligent articulation – the distilled hypertension of ‘Elephant Army’ and ‘Black Magic Army’ fuck with your brain as much as force your body to lurch.

Sabertooth Tiger will either leave you spent, ready to rise above or out for bloody revenge!

THE RANK DELUX
Self-titled (FatCat/Inertia)

Remember locals Nightstick? Remember how friggin’ cool they were? Well, this British group are a pale but faithful version of that. This six-track EP is all dirty Clash come Buzzcocks guitars and a sound that weights heavily on the element of propulsion. Unfortunately, even with reggae flourishes thrown in (‘What Do You Want’, ‘End In Mind’) these boys come across as a little too snotty-nosed to really leave any kind of lasting impression – a few pints though would probably change that.

WITCHHATS
Wound Of A Little Horse (In-fidelity)

Unhinged, unrepentant and totally combustible – that’s this Melbourne quartet on their debut. The flipside of this dirt-encrusted coin is that their very existence seems to be in the shadows of The Birthday Party, Venom P. Stinger and Bird Blobs before them. So whether it’s more of the same or just the latest update, these five tracks are most certainly the sound of young feeding on the flesh of their parents.

OAKLEY HALL
Gypsum Strings (Spunk/Jagjaguwar)

New York’s Oakley Hall firstly sound as if they’re from the wrong side of country America and secondly as if they have successfully transplanted it into the centre of their metropolis.

Building a bridge between early Crazy Horse and Palace Brothers, this six-piece are all beautiful melodies, harmonies and some dirty guitar. Heavily bowed strings size up beside fuzzed out twang guitars in ‘House Carpenter’ while the echo of their city’s Velvet Underground forefathers seep out of ‘If I Was In Eldorado’. You could almost imagine Emmylou Harris singing ‘Bury Your Burden’.

It’s a ramblin’ and wanderin’ sound that runs through Gypsum Strings, never sounding completely settled in any one prairie or backwoods town. For a bunch of city slickers, they sure are some good storytellers!

WELCOME
Sirs (Fatcat/Inertia)

It would seem that the four members of Welcome are trying to channel another time and another place – early 90s shoegazing and late 60s psych pop. This is all filtered through the kind of now indie-rock aesthetic that binds one too closely to old ideas instead of forging new ground.

That said, this album is wholeheartedly enjoyable and while never building to the heights of guitar squall or total acid trip out, its rollicking spasms of melody (‘Natural Frost’, ‘Sirs’) do leave you feeling worked over. Volume is the key to Sirs: the louder it gets the greater the dynamics seem to push the music and the influences don’t seem so obvious (such as The Breeders’ entire career being summarised in ‘This Minute’). This album is good for another trip through the strawberry fields forever.

MÚM
The Peel Sessions (Fat Cat/Inertia)

This EP is like a perfectly fitting, warm sweater – only it’s more a sweater made of binary code as opposed to pure organics. Having finally found the rhyme and reason to release it, Múm’s only ever Peel session from back in 2002 is only now getting a second airing. The bridge between their first and second albums, ‘Slow Bicycle’, ‘Awake On A Train’, ‘Now There Is That Fear Again’ and ‘Ballard Of The Broken String’ perfectly capture the translation and evolution of their sounds into the live format. Still delicately introverted and fragile, here it’s all given some wonderful electronic force.

GREY DATURAS
Path Of Niners (Heathen Skulls/Stomp)

In some areas of music, 38 minutes could be a whole album – in the realm of Doom Metal, it really could be enough time just to set the scene. These five tracks though rely less on sweeping moods and more on an Old Testament-styled wrath for their feel! From the howling ‘New Neuralgia’ to the locust plagues throughout ‘Cretinism’ or the creeping death of ‘Aurora Australis’, the three years of recordings that span this EP could well be one single, bleak but beautiful nightmare.

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Lost At Sea (FUZZnSURF)

Face it, old school, fuzz-filled surf garage will never die! This four-way split not only proves it, but re-instills faith in just how far-reaching the genre still is. This 7” features one song each by The Invisible Surfers from Greece, The Supersonics from Uruguay, Pozor Vlak from Germany and most notably The Tommys from Australia. Three instrumentals and one vocal track demonstrate one unified, fun-filled twang-surf sound that sounds as fresh here as it ever has.

PUBLIC ENEMY & PARIS
Rebirth Of A Nation (Guerrilla Funk/Stomp)

Honestly, the music of Public Enemy has been slowly becoming a spent force over the course of the last 15 years, their trail-blazing first three albums setting a standard even they couldn’t again reach.

And so, some 20 years after their birth, enter the rogue force of Paris. The Washington maverick has written an album specifically for PE, but with the edge that both he has and PE once had – Rebirth Of A Nation is crackling with a fire and energy that is palpable. Paris’s hard leftist militant themes are still right up front, but delivered by a voice as trusted as that of Martin Luther King Jr. Chuck D volleys rhymes with Paris that cover not just change but the realisation of Black Power (‘Rise’) and disgust at the media’s barrage of false messages and goals (‘Can’t Hold Us Back’, ‘Plastic Nation’) – all still backed with rump-shaking bass.

This album is as close to A Nation Of Millions… as PE are going to get, but gone is the good time JB vibe and in its place the grown up, gritty, cerebral beats of raised fists in the streets.

DAVID VANDERVELDE
The Moonstation House Band (Secretly Canadian)

David Vandervelde sounds on record like a bit of a Frankenstein monster, made up of the body parts of Sparklehorse, Pavement and Grandaddy – all coming together with the ramshackle indie pop-rock beauty that enamoured so many to the 90s indie underground.

Add to this sound the surrounds of its creation, which happens to be Jay Bennett from Wilco’s studio, and alt-country experimentation starts to also become apparent in the mix. Made by someone aged 19, this debut bears the marks of a confident sound – Vandervelde’s voice the most prominent component of this, with its Mark Bolan-esque falsetto.

Over the course of these eight songs, things almost get transported back to some kind of 60s psychedelica, but all in all it’s the rampant adventurism that makes this album breathe. A strong springboard from which to launch whatever comes next.

JULIAN DORIAN
Woke Myself Up (Jagjaguwar)

Unfurling songs a little less fragile, a little more fleshed out, Dorian’s seventh solo effort is just as personal a journey for her as well as you – only this time she seems to have found safe and confident paths to travel, not precarious tightropes.

Of the same ilk as her contemporary Chan Marshall, Dorian’s songs waver on a delicate voice and intimate-sounding guitar (‘Swan Pond’, ‘I Left Town’), this more often than not building to complete band accompaniments. The most noticeable addition is actually the pairing of old friends, with fellow Eric’s Trip bandmate Rick White producing and playing on the whole album. Songs such as ‘Yer Kids’ and ‘Don’t Wanna Be’ bear White’s energetic imprint, this in turn giving Dorian’s songs a bristling energy not possible in solo mode.

While there are comparisons aplenty, this is a strong, raw and overwhelmingly beautiful album – something we could probably do with a bit more of.

SOLDIER & NURSE
Marginalia (Brah/Jagjaguwar)

Laying out a highly detailed, almost mediative avant pop, this Massachusetts duo create piano/organ-led songs filled with moody emotions that seem to be in constant argument with its dissonant swaths of guitar.

Marginalia coagulates many of the rainy day moods hinted at in the arrangements here, songs like ‘In The Dark’ and ‘Imaginary Friend’ sitting somewhere between melancholia and agit-pop – all depending on which instrument chooses the lead role. Imagine Mates Of State after an overdose of Quasi heartache and you have the delicate balance that makes these 14 songs work so well. There’s an obvious restraint shown here, with many of the tunes easily tipping into Jesus and Mary Chain collapse should their tethers be undone. The only thing missing from it all is some much needed rays of sunshine, which we can only hope exist somewhere over their horizon.

TEENAGER
Thirteen (Teisco/Timberyard)

There’s a certain discourse that goes hand in hand with youth and when that energy is focused and channelled through a guitar, a catchy melody and attitude it can sometimes speak louder than your speakers can register.

Teenager are very much their name, their debut album though most certainly doesn’t live in some ‘now’-styled vacuum of useless rebellion, the 13 songs here lurching and grappling with various styles and moods from the Jesus and Mary Chain opener ‘Liquid Cement’ to the Ratatat-ish ‘Luke And Angie’. While they regularly swap drum machines for live instruments and back again, it’s really the watery Cure-esque guitars and haunting vocals that create the feelings here and pull you deeper in – even the Peaches-styled ‘Pony’ with its overly sexualised tones fits the anything-goes-if-you’re-up-to-it vibe.

This album is the sound of confusion made sense and a good time without any need for a tomorrow!

2006
12/30
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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.

2005
11/30
CATEGORY
Music Reviews
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Reviews: September 2005

QUEENANDREENA
The Butcher and the Butterfly (One Little Indian/Shock)

This album is almost an article out of place, a collection of songs arriving some 15 years too late for a larger audience – the angst and wrought emotion of Queenandreena is akin to the toxic outbursts of Babes In Toyland and pre-L.A. years of Hole.

Veterans in their own way after years in various bands, vocalist Katie-Jane Garside and guitarist Crispen Gray have for Queenandreena’s third album continued their outbursts of naked rock. Creating a rollercoaster ride of soaring, screaming vocals and buzzsaw guitars, the songs translate difficult stories of exploitation and innocence, both lost and found. A blistering, almost revenge-fuelled aggression is the core thread throughout the album, this becoming its strongest spark or biggest turn-off.

With the smudged lipstick and baby-doll imagery of the early 90s almost a distant memory, the dirt playing field of menstrual aggression is now left to bands like Scarling and Queenandreena.

 

RICHARD SWIFT
Collection Vol.1: The Novelist/Walking Without Effort (Secretly Canadian)

Like finding an old, dusty suitcase in the attic filled with a treasure trove of past lives, the songs of Richard Swift are like perfectly crafted pop artefacts from a bi-gone era. This release sees the compilation of two past albums, combined into one easily obtainable 17-track whole.

While it’s not really there, the crackle of old vinyl and mood of classic 60s AM permeates the songs, mainly comprising of piano, guitar, a little drum machine and Swift’s crooning, sombre tones. The inclusion of a little clarinet in ‘Lovely Night’ or accordion in ‘The Novelist’ adds an element of abstract beauty to these already great songs.

Swift’s sound is hard to pin-point, traversing opposite ends of the pop spectrum, from the uniqueness of Syd Barrett to the craftsmanship of Bacharach, this out-of-place uniqueness translating into an unquestionably earnest album able to stand the test of any time.

 

BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME
Alaska (Victory/Stomp)

Precision-based hardcore or overdriven power-metal? This North Carolina quintet are trying so damned hard to forge a path of their own that instead they’ve produced a third album as confusing as it is impressive.

One minute it’s all growls, furious shredding and blast-beats (‘Alaska’) and the next it’s Dreamtheater-styled prog pomposity and falsetto (‘Selkies…’), the band’s penchant for creativity regularly getting out of hand. It has to be said that the playing is exceptionally executed; especially in regards to guitarist Nick Fletcher’s preoccupation with Cathedral-styled high-fretboard guitar leads. The musical interplay, while heavy on the metal scale, is blueprinted with a total math-rock set of musical equations. Even when simplified songs such as ‘Roboturner’ bludgeon and sludge their way out of the speakers, it is only a respite between more cross-pollination. There are just too many ideas and not enough focus for this to ultimately be enjoyed.

 

THE JUAN MACLEAN
Less Than Human (DFA/EMI)

From the DFA stables (home of LCD Soundsystem and Rapture) comes Mr Juan Maclean, a man with an already long list of credits to his name, being at the core of robot rockers Six Finger Satellite and himself producing a slew of underground 12”s which buoyed DFA’s initial success.

For his debut album, Maclean’s electro tangents stretch far and wide,  back to the core of Herbie Hancock’s funk jazz trailblazers and taking the groove and precision of Daft Punk light years ahead. It’s the live feel of the instrumentation in ‘Tito’s Way’ and ‘Crush the Liberation’ though, that really spark the music, turning dancefloor funk into a carnivalé street party, bells and whistles skirting between vocodered vocals and throbbing squelch bass lines.

Maclean’s use of classic moods – whether they be from the house of Kraftwerk, Jean Jacques Perry or that of Mr Moog – translated through the latest tools has produced a wonderful hybrid that is as eclectic as stylistically futuristic.

 

SILVER CITY
Self-titled (20/20 Vision/Stomp)

Remember in the 60s how the future would see us wearing those one-piece funky outfits, groovy spaceboots and all those cool toys and flying cars, just like the Jetsons? Well, we‘re not there yet, but that hasn’t stopped Silver City from attempting to create a soundtrack for this futureworld.

Combining funky electro, boogie disco and upbeat dub this Leeds duo has futurised the vibe pioneered by George Clinton, now ready to be consumed by the punk-funk generation. From the vocodered vocals of ‘Dance Til The Morning’ to the slap’n’pop bass of ‘What You Get’ a high-octane funk is the lifeblood driving these 11 songs. The only downside is how easily digestible it all is, ‘Down Till 7’ and ‘Shiver’ are the only moments when the vibe breaks out into something definable as its own. Still, for a bit of a boogie or light dancefloor groove, Silver City does the trick.

 

SPIDERBAIT
Greatest Hits (Univeresal)

Spiderbait are a unique band in this country, coming across as a trio of ocker footy fans who should be hooning round in their Monaros, not making some of this country’s heaviest and cleverest rock. After 15 years and five albums, they have certainly cemented a sound instantly recognisable to everyone from meatheads to punks to fresh-faced teens.

These 22 tracks have all Spiderbait’s best elements: Whitt’s blistering and over-cranked guitar riffs, Janet and Kram’s sweet and sour vocals and, of course, Kram’s limelight-stealing, driving drum workout. The tracks run back from the chart-topping hits, ‘Black Betty’ and ‘Glockenpop’ to their trailblazing ‘Buy Me A Pony’ and ‘Monty’. Years later, earlier tunes ‘Run’ and ‘Footy’ are still some of the funniest rock songs ever embraced by head-banging youth. This compilation should be all the proof needed that, recognised or not, Spiderbait’s four-to-the-floor talents are all but flawless.

 

FRANZ FERDINAND
Do You Want To (Domino/Sony-BMG)

With a world of expectation upon them, Franz Ferdinand’s first single is exactly what you’d expect. Filled with the necessary glitz to pack dancefloors from here to Glasgow, the song possesses the same angular guitars and middle breakdown as their other hits. Lyrically it’s another self-absorbing and inane focus on going out and getting a shag. This tune is sure to be worn out soon by iPods and Dj’s alike.

 

THE WHITE STRIPES
My Doorbell (XL/Remote Control)

Not the catchiest tune from their latest album, ‘My Doorbell’ still has a heavy stomp and could be seen as Get Behind Me Satan’s ballad single. With Jack White’s clunking piano and Meg White’s booming kick, the songs charm comes from the innocent boy-next-door sentiment in Jack’s lyrics. Backed up by two live tunes, the equally sentimental ‘Same Boy You’ve Always Known’, it’s only ‘Screwdriver’ that displays the powerhouse side of this ever more diverse band.

 

IRON ON
Oh The Romance (+1/Reverberation)

Next time you’re in the record store looking for that special song that moves your feet as much as strums your heartstrings, chances are that you won’t find it in overseas indie bands such as Death Cab For Cutie, Bright Eyes or The Shins. Chances are it’s right on your doorstep in the form of local four-piece Iron On!

This debut album sees the band stretch their wings and reach full flight, interweaving articulate melodies that leave a lump in your throat with the type of rock-out abandon usually reserved for the more leather clad type of band. It’s the magnetic vocals of Ross Hope and Kate Cooper that really strike the biggest chord, their tales of love both right and horribly wrong (‘Hearts’, ‘High Miami High’, ‘More Than Tape’) making you pine for more than the 10 songs on offer here.

It seems unfair for them to be labelled indie rock because that’s such a limp-wristed term, and when it comes to standout moments like ‘Playing Hard To What’, their resolve to totally disarm and dismantle you is unrepentant. A remarkable album.

 

PSAPP
Tiger, My Friend (Arable/Didgeridoo)

Taking that quirky intellectual pop vibe that you usually find in Belle & Sebastian songs and vastly expanding the pallet, London’s PSAPP produce songs with a childlike innocence, squeaky toys as beautifully orchestrated as strings or xylophone. Imagine the worlds of Autechre and Cocorosie melding into one, but where anyone can play anything, even Splodge the cat (‘About Fun’).

This debut’s songs range from the unique and organic (‘Rear Moth’) to the glitchy and surreal (‘Leaving In Coffins’), the most astounding thing being that this kaleidoscope of song is born out of only two people. It’s not that this album is sooo left field; it’s simply that the guitar and piano at the core of these pop gems are where most groups would end, and it’s here that Tiger, My Friend’s magic really begins.

 

DEVENDRA BANHART
Crippled Crow (XL/Remote Control)

With the cover art of Banhart’s fourth album recalling a neo-folk version of St. Pepper’s, it’s in fact a more subtle and personal expansion of sound that’s carried throughout. This time accompanied by a village full of friends, there’s less obvious weirdness and more orchestrated and immaculately crafted freak-folk than before.

Peppered with the flamenco and samba flavours of his youth in ‘Santa Maria…’ and ‘Quedate Luna’, the album expands progressively over the 22 tunes, both in scope and sound. The delicate beauty of ‘Heard Somebody Say’ uncannily recalls the soul of Nina Simone, Banhart crooning like a lost offspring. While piano, guitars and drums regularly fill out his troubadour sound, it’s ‘Long Haired Child’ when things start to go truly psychedelic, its hazy 70s vaudeville sound blooming into an exotic Middle Eastern echo with ‘Lazy Butterfly’ and rollicking stomp in ‘Queenbee’.

With an obviously unique folk music talent, Banhart hasn’t yet produced his best work, but with Crippled Crow he’s created his greatest statement of what looks to be a real magical, mysterious career.

 

URDOG
Garden Of Bones (Secret Eye/Sensory Projects)

It’s a strange psychedelic haze, a merry prankster-styled journey that the three members of Rhode Island’s Urdog seem to be descending into. It’s a place where dense, droning guitar, freaked-out Farfisa organ and derailed drumming mix with static interludes that find the music separating like molecules only to reform moments later as fully functional song structures.

The eight songs here play themselves out when and whichever way they please, whether in a playful one-minute ‘Smoky Narghile’ or spectral nine-minute ‘Ice On Water’. They always feed you enough line though, so as to feel lost in the sounds, but never abandoned within their swirling landscapes. Refraining from anything as brash as Beefheart, the songs retain a softer focus on detail, similar to early Pink Floyd or Can, the one moment of jovial sideshow alley atmosphere being ‘Urdog Awaken!’. A curious and enjoyable journey towards the third eye.

 

PUBLIC ENEMY
Power To The People And The Beats: PE’s Greatest Hits (Def Jam/Universal)

PE blazed a trail into the world’s musical conscience so deep and wide that no one collection of songs (or review) is ever going to do them justice. That said, these 18 tracks are a damn good start to outline one of music’s most important contributions since James Brown or Bob Marley.

While the combo of Chuck D, Flavor Flav and Terminator X could never better the early years of their first three albums (15 of the 18 tracks here), it doesn’t matter because those years in the late 80s saw PE redefine hip-hop, take it to the masses, fuel it with revolutionary messages and turn upside down the world’s kids, both black and white.

Tracks like ‘Don’t Believe The Hype’, ‘Fight The Power’, ‘Brothers Gonna Work It Out’ and ‘Bring The Noise’ (the latter producing what’s still the best synergy of metal and rap) combined humour and politics in equal doses, their songs’ fires still raging now decades after their creation.

And while you’re reading, remember this was during the Reagan years and life looked grim for many in the ghettoes. PE gave desperate kids hope and that can’t go understated in the déjà vu spectre of Bush Jr!

 

CONTROLLER.CONTROLLER
History (Paper Bag/Shiny)

These Canadians are making sure every last drop of blood and sweat is wrung from the dance punk cravat. Released a year-and-a-half ago, this EP still manages to sound fresh in a genre fast running out of ideas. ‘History’ is My Bloody Valentine trying to connect to the internet one minute and exhuming A Certain Ratio’s grave the next, while ‘Bruised…’ is the darkest and best track of the six. With its mixture of 4/4 disco styling, live instrumentation and Deborah Harry-infected vocals out front, within minutes it’ll feel as though you’ve been listening to this for years.

 

BONNY/SWEENEY
I Gave You (Drag City/Spunk)

If the eerie drawl of Will Oldham melts you, then this Ep is likely to work it’s magic from the moment his saddened drawl calls out for release. These four tracks of twin guitar and vocals are for all their sparseness; lush sounding country lullabies, warm in their mood and timeless in their sound. Matt Sweeney matching Oldham’s fragile vocals note for note.

 

AGAINST ME
Searching for a Former Clarity (Fat Wreck Chords/Shock)

It’s been bandied around that Against Me are this generation’s Clash. If that’s the case, then that makes Searching for a Former Clarity Against Me’s London Calling. On their fourth album, the band come into a sound of their own, striking the perfect balance between rock, punk (old and new) and blue-collar strike-line chants.

There’s an undeniable swagger and confidence present, from the opener ‘Miami’ and on, but the melodies set Searching For… apart – not in a Green Day pop way, but a mixture of folk-fuelled, rum rebellion-styled hooks with strong, Fugazi-like focused aggression. The political aesthetic is stronger then ever and originally articulated (‘From Her Lips To God’s Ears’, ‘Violence’ and many more), the music’s space allowing you to soak up the messages, temper the bristling bile and provoke thoughts, not just bashing your ears.

Seeing as most people don’t care about positive rebellion, it’s only the few who will be inspired by this remarkable statement and while there are real voices of dissent out there, there’s also a real hope for change.

 

TIM FITE
Gone Ain’t Gone (Anti/Shock)

Recalling the twisted pop/country/folk of Jim White or early 90s Beck, Fite has ensured his album grooves at a thoughtful and reflective pace, through the fiddles, the humour, the short blasts of misguided rock and the hip-hop vocal delivery.

Obviously a child of these eclectic times, it’s not since Sparklehorse that someone has brought so much varied sound to bear under one roof. The looped samples and answering machine vocals of ‘Eating At The Grocery Store’ meld beautifully into the slide guitar moans of ‘Forty-Five Remedies’. His sampling of culture stretches so far as to include portions of Dave McCormack’s music in ‘Not A Hit Song’. The strongest and most poignant aspect of Fite’s music though comes from interlude track ‘I’ve Kept Singing’, featuring the musical dissertation of the legendary Paul Robeson.

Anyone can produce pop songs and call them interesting, but not just anyone can make their melding of styles and sounds really work for them. Fite has, creating a completely original musical statement.

 

PIVOT
Make Me Love You (Sensory Projects)

From the moment the title track’s instrumental hip-hop groove beat blossoms into fully flourishing post-rock to the final ebb and pulsed frequencies, the journey taken by Pivot is a gorgeous subtle and languid affair, one that you easily get lost in.

Through predominantly live instrumentation, this Sydney five-piece build and meld their layers of sound to produce songs akin to Tortoise or Tommy Guerrero. The songs undulate from turntable moods (‘Make Me Love You’) to string sections (‘Artificial Horizon’) to broken down dub (‘LaMer’) with a seemingly effortless manner. Like all great instrumental music, the focus shouldn’t be the instrumentation or immaculate musicianship (which here is impressive enough) but the power the sounds have to fuel your imagination.

These nine glorious soundtracks frolic with as much depth as you can envisage – it all comes down to whether your imagination is up for this smorgasbord of sound.

 

CLUE TO KALO
One Way, It’s Every Way (Mush/Spunk)

This electronically orchestrated, luscious pop album is yet another leap forward for the man who is Clue to Kalo, Mark Mitchell. For his second album, he produces songs full of multi-part harmonies, sombre vocal tones and an air of bittersweet adventure.

Again refining a raft of organic instrumentation through the filters of electronic precision, these 10 tunes are reminiscent of the post-rock electronica of Tortoise or Fourtet. The juxtaposition of organs and accordion with saxophone, gu-zheung and mandolin bring together the perfect marriage of sounds, creating an air of past meets future (‘Seconds When It’s Minutes’, ‘Nine Thousand Nautical Miles’). There are also pure electronic pop moments (‘As Tommy…’, ‘The Tense Changes’) that rekindle the same spark that The Postal Service did with their songs.

Beautifully structured as a musical palindrome, Mitchell has presented a never-ending cycle of swirling lo-fi folktronica.

 

GOGOL BORDELLO
Gypsy Punks (Side One Dummy/Stomp)

While they hail from New York City this album breathes a mixture of Clash revolution and Pogues revelry, its title of Gypsy Punk right on the money.

Steeped in the cultural musical heritage of eastern Europe, with its interplay of violins, accordions and chorus-line chants, it’s structured punk side works to really propel these songs, the guitars and drums blistering beneath it all. ‘Not A Crime’ and ‘Think Locally Fuck Globally’ rouse the spirits with a multitude of voices heralding change, and with songs so culturally diverse, the core melodies regularly come from ethnic structures (and the odd reggae trip) – ‘Immigrant Punk’ and ‘Avenue B’ create a sound that will be fresh to most ears.

Not since Les Negresses Vertes has a group tried to reinvent such revelry and musical camaraderie, its uniting sounds only a good thing for punk.

 

THE WHATS
All Mouth No Trousers (Reverberation)

Whether as a side project to their long-time band Screamfeeder or as something definitively different, it’s hard not to look at The Whats as a legitimate entity in its own right.

With a very back-to-basics approach to the songwriting and sound, these 13 songs have a fun, old school rockity-roll feel to them, made up entirely of the sparse drums of Dean Shwereb and the guitar/vocals of Tim Steward. This approach brings the hooks and grooves easily to the fore in full hip-swinging effect, ‘Trouble’, ‘Chorus Ghetto’ and ‘Where Was I’ unashamedly brash in their delivery and resonance.

In this day and age, you can be sure of a few things – there will always be good three-chord punk, sad country and, in this case, stripped bare, stomped-out rock. So just enjoy it!

 

HORRORPOPS
Bring It On (Hellcat/Shock)

These Danish psychobillies pack a greater punch with their second album, full of all the hooks and drive that lies throughout rockabilly’s extensive history.

Charging their honky-tonk rock foundations with punk attitude and speed, ‘Freaks In Uniform’ and ‘Bring It On!’ get the album racing. What makes this band work though are the moments of restraint – in ‘Hit’N’Run’ and ‘Walk Like A Zombie’, they’re not afraid of having their hearts on their sleeves and their sound steeped in the history that preceded their genre. Songs like ‘It’s Been So Long’, with its saccharin guitars and vocals, are sure to piss off purists and give the band crossover appeal, but this cross-pollination actually does more to keep rockabilly interesting, the songs here never sounding watered down.

Ultimately, the Horrorpops do look harder than they sound, but even kids – punk, psychobilly or whatever – need something to snap their fingers to now and then.

 

BOYSKOUT
School Of Etiquette (Alive/Chatterbox)

This all-girl group of post-punk rockers have been slowly filtering this record out across the world for almost two years and with it now being our turn, it seems to still fit perfectly in with our current musical trends, it’s sound sitting side by side with the Presets or Snapp Krakk.

With a penchant for dark new-wave moods (especially Pornography-era Cure), the standard rock set up of bass, drums and guitar is filtered heavily through the barrel of thick keyboard overtones. While never totally turning dancefloor (‘Imaginary’) or fully rocking out (‘Sunday Morning’), there’s a constant edginess in the vocals and disdain in the air that makes it sound like they’re holding something back.

Still, with something for punks, goths and synthkids alike, Boyskout are sure to strike a chord with those ready to swoon their way through the dark nights.

 

AMBULANCE LTD
Self-titled (TVT/Shock)

Take away the noisy 80% of Sonic Youth and you’re left with the lovely pop parts and that’s the majority of Ambulance LTD’s sound right there. The indie guitar-pop shimmers in ‘Stay Where You Are’ and sounds quirky in ‘Primitive’, the songs always hinting at more unbridled sounds but never fully unfurling. Vocalist _____ has a whimsical way with words that recalls Stephen Malkmus, but the overt pop sensibilities never let the content of these five songs stray for long.

 

SIGUR ROS
Takk… (EMI)

Iceland’s Sigur Ros are as removed from pop as popular music can get – the sound that’s slowly been expanding over three albums is here both honed and reinvented into music as beautiful and harsh as their Arctic winds.

The 11 songs here have more sonic weight than their previous album, drums and cymbals cascading throughout ‘Takk…’ and ‘Met Blotnasir’. The vocals of Jon Thor Birgisson are emotions filled with sound, but unfettered by the crudeness of language, his soaring and uniquely high falsetto as powerful as all the instruments around him.

While there’s the strings and bowed guitars that you’d expect, there’s also jovial moments like the tubas in ‘Se Lest’ and on several occasions you’re reminded that this is a rock band of unique vision, not some mini-opera.  This no more evident than in ‘Soeqlopur’ and ‘Gong’, tracks that rival Godspeed You! Black Emperor for orchestrated ferocity.

Ultimately, in the context of modern music, Sigur Ros could only be aptly described as a sound of innocence both blind to and more powerful than a world of wrongs. Whether it’s sounds of sadness or joy, these songs cry out like a child would for its mother, communicating something vital and pure that only the coldest heart would ignore.

 

FEAR FACTORY
Transgression (Roadrunner)

From the outset, this doesn’t sound like the Fear Factory of old, primarily due to line-up changes, with former bass player Christian Olde Wolbers now shredding it on guitar while former Strapping Young Lad bassist Byron Stroud takes up the bottom end.

At the core, this is still very much the blistering tech-heavy metal that’s defined their 15-year career, but with new songwriters comes a different focus. There are no longer banks of effects and samples, their moods present in but a few songs and on Bell’s vocals. A thick wall of deep guitar does blanket everything, this held up by Herrera’s arrhythmic drum patterns and countered by the hooks of Bell’s soaring counter-melodies.

For the first time, their music presents a warmth that draws you in; still emotionally enraged, the cold futuristic precision of the past is now precision with a human soul and sound to it. For the first time, Fear Factory sound like they have ahead of them a real path beyond their future hell.

 

SHOUT OUT LOUDS
Howl Howl Gaff Gaff (Capital/EMI)

Okay, first thing, The Shout Out Louds don’t shout, howl or rock out in the way that their exterior suggests. They do, though, pop, chime, yearn and bop their way through a debut album of 11 tunes.

Consisting of five Swedes playing with a Bright Eyes-come-Interpol-ish pop-rock sound, they mix the moody air of their songs with a gleeful delivery that comes across in a very uplifting manner. ‘Very Loud’ is a building exhortation of sound; ‘Oh Sweetheart’ on the other hand is a unique mix of wafting strings and straightforward bottom-heavy stomp. There’s the odd Grandaddy-esque reflective ballad (‘A Track And A Train’, ‘Go Sadness’), but all in all it’s the sort of fun springtime music that you would expect from say, The Go Betweens. Luckily it’s arrived at just the right time and will hopefully be blossoming out of stereos far and wide.

 

MORTI VIVENTI
AKA: The Living Dead (Timberyard/Shock)

With a searing sound, these five boys from Melbourne have unleashed their debut EP, five songs of angular rock-come-hardcore that progressively build with intensity. Sonically similar to The Icarus Line or Hot Snakes, this is basically solid rock with the tempo sped up and squalling noise working as the glue to keep everything together. While pushed to the limit, Jordan Bloomer’s vocals luckily never fall into bad screamer mode, ‘Roman Polanski Discoteque’ the best example of his forceful delivery.

2005
09/30
CATEGORY
Music Reviews
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