Imaginary Cities – Temporary Resident

Gotta admit, I approached this one with a fair amount of trepidation.

Electro-indy pop ain’t really my thing.  That’s usually the playground of our valiant Koala and just about every bone in my not-wanting-to-be-turned-into-fey-mush body aimed to get this disc down to Australia and into her arms.

But it didn’t happen.  I’d already sent her a ton of music, and since she’s still a new scribe with us here at the Ripple, I didn’t want to inundate her more music than necessary and frighten her running and screaming away from the Ripple office.  Yes, that’s right; I can be merciful with our writers . . . at least at first.  Just call me Racer the merciful.

So, seeing that Koala’s docket was full, Temporary Resident fell to my pile.  Trepidation grew.  Antipathy followed closely behind.  I didn’t want something precious or cute.  I didn’t want a bunch of processed beats, lap-top music.  Just wasn’t in the mood.  Not my thing.  Seeing that Imaginary Cities was composed of only two musicians – multi-instrumentalist Rusty Matyas and singer Marti Sarbit – and my trepidation turned to full-on consternation.  I’d been flooded recently with a swarm of one-dimensional, near-anonymous, always grating, two-member indy rock.  I was looking forward to this about as eagerly as an annual enema.  And a sandpaper prep. 

Then I quit my mental bitching and put the disc in. 

Temporary Resident is an amazing album and Imaginary Cities are an amazing band.

Hailing from Winnipeg, signed at NXNW after only being together for a year, and already locking in the support slot for the 2011 Pixies tour, there’s just no doubt about it; Imaginary Cities are a band on the rise.  And from what magic unfolded before me on Temporary Resident, the sky just ain’t high enough for them to ride.

Unlike a lot of indy bands of this ilk, Imaginary Cities aren’t afraid to mix things up.  Jazzy textures, downtempo beats, heavier guitars, faded urban blues, even some bossa nova latin flirting, it’s all here and it’s all done with more passion than I’d ever expect from a two-piece.  And soul.  Tons of soul.

After all that hesitation, it actually only took Imaginary Cities 1 second of the opening song “Say You,” to capture my attention and hold it fast in their accomplished four-handed grip.  Like Bigfoot finally locked in a snare, they had me.  Riding the mother of all downtempo grooves, “Say You,” is so far up my alley that you can find my home and office sharing their zip code.  A killer organic bass locks in tight with that after-hours beat and makes my head soar off in a sea of groove.  Rusty knows how to compose a song, laying down just the instruments necessary to give the beat flesh and bone.  Never overwhelming the vocals or doing handstands for the sake of showing off.  Spartan and bass thick, my head is still bobbing just thinking about it.  Like some of the best of Babyfox or similar to one of my favorites Si*Se.  Pulsing and sexy and just flat out groovy.  I can never, and will never get tired of this one.

Which brings us to Marti’s vocals.  When I said I was captured after 1 second of this song, it wasn’t from the bass.  It was Marti.  With a natural languid flow to her delivery and a breathy innocence to her coy voice, Marti is a revelation.  She’s about as organic and unforced a singer as I’d ever heard in ages and her coquettish tone reminds me distinctly of one of the most brilliant singers of all time; Billie Holiday.  Imagine that demure voice, full of breath and pause, gracing some truly beautiful indy rock compositions instead of the old jazz standards and you’ll get Marti Sarbit.   Her tone and phrasing are simply engaging.  A touch of Edie Brickell.  A smattering of Erykah Badu.  Childish and unfalteringly sexy.  Captivating. A voice to fall in love with.

Then, just when I’d fallen for the easy downtempo of “Say You,” Imaginary Cities went ahead and mixed things up on me.  “Hummingbird” is pure accelerated, strummed indy pop. At first, I hesitated again.  I wanted more of “Say You.”  I wanted a whole album of that.  But Imaginary Cities are far too full of wanderlust to stick to one vibe.  I suppose the long Winnipeg winters make the heart amble, the imagination take off (hence the band name) and the soul stir, and Rusty and Marti take off to follow their muse.  Fortunately, the results make it all worthwhile, and once I let go of my wants and jumped aboard the Imaginary Cities train, it all just came together for me.   “Hummingbird” is immediate indy pop, hooky and melodic, and even with the increased instrumentation, the song still has a comfortable, organic feel.  As if Rusty and Marti invited me into their living room during the dead of winter to hang with them.  Light a candle.  Play some music.  Wait for the winter to pass.

And in many ways, that’s the biggest compliment I can give the album.  Whether on the wary “Calm Before the Storm,” the pulsating electropop bopping of “ Don’t Cry,”  the languid blues-inflected acoustic ditty “Ride this Out” or the angelic “Where’d All the Living Go,” Temporary Resident is always intimate. Comfortable.  Never forced.  Simply as organic, melodic, and as engaging as any album I’d heard this year.

Snob Music has hailed Temporary Resident as “the first great debut album of 2011.”  I’m not one to argue.


--Racer

Buy here mp3: Temporary resident
Buy here: Temporary Resident

Tyler, The Creator – Goblin

 

Talk about someone who has blown up.  When I first started listening to Tyler, The Creator in early 2010, when he first released his debut album Bastard, he and his cohorts in his collective, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, had barely made a dent in the music world.  Now it seems like they are making an asteroid-sized crater on the musical industry.  Whether it is from Kanye West tweeting that Tyler created the best music video in 2011, to Diddy saying that they are the future of music, to Sony partnering with the group to create their own label, Odd Future records, it just seems like they are on a high that will never go away.  However, Tyler proves on his new release that what glitters isn’t always gold.  Goblin is boiling over with Tyler describing his internal struggles with his newfound “fame”, however slight that fame might actually be.  The finished product is an album that is long, angry, and sometimes even challenging to listen to, but at the same time rewarding, interesting, and an insightful glimpse into the life of Tyler.

Right off the bat, you can tell that Tyler is not going to change his style just because he has gained a certain level of fame among the musical blogosphere.  The title track is a near-seven minute rant about his fame, fortune, friends, fans, mindset, and everything else that just happened to pop into his head.  He is just as terse and furious as he was on the opening track on his 2009 album Bastard, not afraid to wear his emotions on his sleeve, and let you know that he isn’t impervious to the world around him.  He readily admits that he is just a nineteen-year-old kid, not a role model; in fact, this is the very first thing he says on Goblin.

For the most part, this release delivers in every manner possible.  There are the typical Tyler songs that are slow, dark, introspective tableaus of self-loathing (Goblin, Nightmare, She, Golden).  Then, there are the tracks that are quicker paced, and the beat and lyrics will stay lodged in your brain for days, never mind how morbid or inappropriate those lyrics may be (Transylvania, Sandwitches, Tron Cat, Analog, Her).  Also, the fact that he wrote and produced almost all of the songs on the album is incredibly impressive.  Tyler makes a giant leap from Bastard to Goblin as a producer.  He has found his own sound, and has been slowly perfecting it over the last few years, and it is most certainly showing on this album.  Finally, there are tracks that go above and beyond in all aspects.

"Nightmare" is the one track that perfectly sums up the album.  The song is a track that, like others on both of his albums, has him talking to his “therapist”, Dr. TC.  It is one of the very few tracks on this album that has a hook on it, and it is one of the more depressing hooks I can think of when placed in the context of the song (“I told her I’m her worst nightmare/This is hell you don’t ever got to fight fair/My spirit floats around in the night air/Or in your daydreams, that’s how death seems”).  However, then Dr. TC brings up the mysteriously missing OFWGKTA member Thebe Kgositsile, AKA Earl Sweatshirt, and Tyler launches into a rant about parents blaming him for messing up their kids.  After this he continues his own downward spiral of self-loathing, with lyrics about drinking to forget his problems (“My nigga Jasper said if I drink and get drunk enough I won’t feel the feelings I be feeling when I sobered up. / But that’s a fucking lie, why would he say that I’m as emotionally strained as Travis when he’s…”), his loss of his missing “brother” Thebe (“Don’t look at me, I’m 6’5” about to fucking cry about another guy”), and his OF brothers leaving LA (“I finally had a family.  But, Domo’s in another state, and where the fuck is Riley?”).  All in all, “Nightmare” is a perfect summation of the album as a whole.

With Goblin, Tyler, The Creator solidifies his continued rise from a kid rapping for fun with his friends to someone who is perfecting his craft at an alarmingly quick rate.  Tyler is already at work on his next album, tentatively scheduled to be called Wolf and to be released in 2012, so he has seemingly not lost any of his hunger to be the best.  All we can do is listen to Bastard and Goblin and imagine where he can go from here.


--Genesis

Buy here: Goblin (Deluxe Edition) [Explicit]

Fountains of Wayne - Welcome Interstate Managers

I bet you already know one song from Fountains of Wayne’s 2003 album Welcome Interstate Managers. Here’s the first verse and part of the chorus:

Stacy can I come over after schoo-oo-oo-oo-ool,

(After school)

We can hang around by the poo-oo-oo-oo-ool,

(Hang by the pool)

Did your mom get back from her business trip,

(Business trip)

Is she there, or is she tryin' to give me the sli-i-i-i-ip,

(Give me the slip)

You know I'm not the little boy that I used to be,

I'm all grown up now,

Baby can't you see.

[Chorus]

Stacy's Mom has got it goin' on,

She's all I want,

And I've waited for so long,

Stacy can't you see,

You're just not the girl for me,

I know it might be wrong,

But I'm in love with Stacy's Mom. 

The reason you know “Stacy’s Mom” is MTV President Judy McGrath.  In 2003, she liked the obscure tune so much that she championed the making of a music video that starred Rachel Hunter as Stacy’s Mom and the single went gold.

Ahh, Rachel Hunter!  With a body like that who was listening to the music? Maybe it was due to the incessant airplay of the music video that we all learned “Stacy’s Mom.”  It might not have been on purpose.  It was background music so we could stare at Rachel Hunter.

As catchy and as popular as “Stacy’s Mom” is, it is far from the best song on Welcome Interstate Managers. You can even argue that it is not one of the top five of the fifteen (eighteen if you include the Japanese edition bonus track “Elevator Up” and the tongue in cheek "Adam's Mom (Stacy's Mom Remix)") tracks (do you really care or are you still looking at Rachel Hunter?  I thought so.))

Songwriters Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood played together, went their separate ways and then reformed as Fountains of Wayne in 1996, disbanded after a couple of uneventful albums, and then reunited in 2001.  The band consists of members Collingwood, Schlesinger, Jody Porter and Brian Young.

In addition to “Stacy’s Mom” on Welcome Interstate Managers  “Mexican Wine” also garnered  significant airplay.  The music video for the song spawned controversy. It showed young children singing the lyrics "think I'll have another glass of Mexican wine" and guitarist Porter catching a drink on the bare stomach of a woman lying on a beach.  Due to the controversy Fountains Of Wayne’s record label, S-Curve Records, pulled the video from circulation.

Yet, even “Mexican Wine” may not make the album’s top ten songs.  If you really want to hear great pop rock with intelligent writing about timely topics ,and hear great harmonies and instrumentation, just listen to “Bright Future In Sales” about a young road warrior sales recruit trying to justify why he does it, or queue up “Little Red Light” about losing your girlfriend while working in New York and commuting to a dismal job.   You can truly drop the needle anywhere on this one and hear great music. 

Others agree.  The TV series “Scrubs” used “Hey Julie” and “All Kinds of Time” in episodes of its show.  The NFL also used “All Kinds of Time” (an amazing song about a football quarterback making a perfect play in slow-motion) in its 2004 league promotional video.  L.L. Bean used “Valley Winter Song” in a commercial and Kate Perry covered “Hackensack” on “MTV Unplugged.”

Hey, look!  Eyes down here! I’m still telling you about Welcome Interstate Managers.  I know you are still looking at Rachel Hunter and maybe that is Fountain of Wayne’s biggest problem.  They are so good at their craft that others quickly grab their music to take advantage of this band’s incredible talent.  They don’t need Rachel Hunter but, hey, if you got her you don’t give her away.

Okay, you can now return your eyes to the picture of Rachel Hunter or you can watch and listen to one of the band’s videos below.

- Old School

Buy here: Welcome Interstate Managers
Buy here mp3: Welcome Interstate Managers

City and Colour - Little Hell

Hello Wave Riders!! On the ole' Ripple Effect I am known for reviewing my fair share of Metal and Hardcore albums. Non stop Brutality is just one side of the many facets of my musical make up. Today I want to share a kinder more heart felt side. Today I bring you City and Colour's new album, Little Hell.

Canadian born Dallas Green is the master mind behind City and Colour. The name City and Colour comes from his own name: Dallas a city, and Green, a colour (color for the Americans). Most people know Dallas as the clean singer in alexisonfire but Dallas has been doing solo work and writing material as early as the age of 18. Little Hell is City and Colour's third release and second proper release in the United States. His debut album Sometimes was only released in Canada through Dine Alone Records in 2005 and re-released by Vagrant Records in the states in 2009, a year after his follow up album, Bring Me Your Love was released.

Little Hell starts off strong with the track, "We Found Each Other in the Dark". This opener sounds much like City and Colour's classic tracks. Full on acoustic guitars and minimal backing band. It has a very alt-country feel to it. The song it self seems to be about the act of getting married and staying together for ever and finding that true love.

The first single off Little Hell, "Fragile Bird" is by far my one of my favorite tracks on this album. I first had a listen to this song a few months back on a random fan made youtube video form one of City and Colour's Canadian tours. Instantly I fell in love with it despite the poor sound quality and granulated video. For me, City and Colour's music is not so much the music but the lyrical content in that music. He always seems to hit a cord with me. As if he knows what I am thinking or thoughts that I have had.

"When she sleeps there is a fever dream, yeah
It brings the night terrors to harm this fragile bird
She speaks in tongues, the words they come undone, yeah
Then with a wayward mind she struggles through the night

All that I can do, is hope she makes it through the night
Through the night

These cold nightmares they make her worse for wear
Lost in the dark, she's got a heavy heart
And when she wakes in her fragile state,
Well, she calls my name hoping that I keep her safe

All that I can do, is hope she makes it through
All that I can do, is hope she makes it through

Through the night
Through the night
Through the night
Through the night

All that I can do, is hope she makes it through
All that I can do, is hope she makes it through
Through the night"

"Northern Wind" is the 6th track on this album. Again, it is a song that I can personally relate to. It hits a cord with me that makes me kind of sad but it's worth it.

"You're the Northern Wind
Sending shivers down my spine
You're like fallen leaves
In an autumn night

You're the lullaby
Singing me to sleep
You are the other half
You're like the missing piece

Oh my love
Oh my love
Oh my love
You don't know
What you do to me

You are all four seasons
Rolled into one
You're like the cold December snow
In the warm July sun

I'm the jet black sky
That's just before the rain
Like the mighty current
Pulling you under the waves

Oh my love
Oh my love
Oh my love
You don't know
What you do to me

I'm the darkest hour
Just before the dawn
I'm slowly sinking
Into the slough of despond

Like an old guitar
Worn out and left behind
I have stories still to tell
Of the healing kind

Oh my love
Oh my love
Oh my love
If I could just find you tonight
If I could just find you tonight
Oh my love

Do do do "

The last track I want to touch on is the song, "Weightless". For older City and Colour fans, you may remember so of the lyrics from the song, "The Urgency". "The Urgency" was an un-released early track that many City and Colour fans got a hold of. The reworking of this song is pure bliss. It has the same heart felt pain that made "The Urgency" but feels like a totally different song.

"Come close,
Lay next to me

Come close,
Lay next to me
I need to tell you something important

Stay close,
Lay next to me
I need to feel important

Because it's your eyes I don't believe
And my heart, I know, you will deceive
Do you know the consequence that comes with such confidence?

Holding all the weight in my life
Now you turn and walk away from me

So what is this now, you ask of me?
What's makes your pain such an urgency?
Now I want out, so plain to see
Once again my dear, a new tragedy

Holding all the weight in my life
Now you turn and walk away from me
Holding all the weight in my life
Now you turn and walk away from me

Needing all the strength in my life
Now you turn and run away from me
Needing all the strength in my life
Now you turn and run away from me"

Dallas Green has been my favorite artist since around 2003. As much as I like the screaming vocals from George Pettit in alexisonfire,  I always loved Dallas' clean vocals the best. I am always happy when I hear a new City and Colour song or an alexisonfire song, let alone a new album. With that said, Little Hell has now become one of my favorite City and Colour albums. The album has a different feel to the previous ones. It's a little less sad and the songs are a bit more catchy...but that's a good thing. Normally I dislike people liking bands that I feel like I discovered long ago and no one knew about. I can honestly say it is time for the World to know about City and Colour. No longer will I be selfish and keep them to myself. I expect them to blow up this year. This album makes me happy, this album makes me sad. It makes me feel things I haven't felt in a long time. I hope it makes you feel forgotten emotions as well.

Little Hell is set to release this Tuesday, June 7th. Do yourself a favor and pick it up.

-Cicatriz

Buy here: Little Hell + Limited Edition 7" (Amazon Exclusive Bundle)
buy here: Little Hell

www.cityandcolour.ca

Winter - Into Darkness

 

WINTER: long-lost B-sides of Hellhammer doing technically-inept Cream covers in half time, "Spoonful," or "Blue Condition," maybe--

Gather 'round cenobites, my hierophants, my lovers of the living rumbling sonicity, seekers of the divine resonance, spelunkers of the lower frequencies...

I have songs to be heard as ley lines, as tea leaves-- these words the hand that scatters them in your cup--

Here begins your travelogue, with I, your guide, your seer, Beatrice H. Virgil-- lovely to meet you.

So begins the listening, stylus digs in vinyl, forehead on the floor, by the woofer, ears to the ground-- facedown, gazing into vibration:

Aaaaand... dissonant monody! Into Darkness is a very dense sound--bass and guitar and frequent tom use (nearly as much as the snare-- really think about that) give the whole album a homogeneous, "single" sound, like Sunn O))) or Earth, but somehow with more instruments seemingly involved-- this weakening of shape, a mass of low frequencies and infrasounding....

First track, "Oppression Freedom/ Oppression," a six-minute instrumental, at 3:15 starts the first of many bent simple power chords-- layered into, clutched at, beseeching --like a moan, or a bleat-- there's howling overdubbed leads in the background--

"Servants of the Warsmen" and the album's first syllable of "RISE" announces the departure of the instrumental before it-- at 2:02 starts a solo like nails on a chalkboard, and at 2:15 we get the "Ooooh!" that could not be more like Tom G. Warrior--

One highlight, "Goden," is mostly a phased/ flanged minor riff, a snare that hits between tom-rolling tribalisms, punctuates the undulating sonic weight... at 4:00 that upbent note with static keyboards, the single tom drum pounds-- could this really be more simple?

"Power and Might" begins as they do, so slow it's nearly backwards, but then D-beats off (hee) into the distance; Celtic Frosty, showing Winter's punk roots; this instrumental segues into the Motorhead-ish...

..."Destiny," track 5, which at 7:25 crashes into D beats again, with solo crashing toms: the emperor with burgeoning visions of His Return (from Elba...?); track 6, "Eternal Frost," with his hand-of-doomy main riff....

The vocals are clear and high in the mix-- they might be mono/bi-syllabic grunt collections, but you can understand them fine... their tone and most lyrical content like some ousted savage powerful ruler, Genghis Khan or Sauron, bitterly chewing words of his brooding reminiscences-- a dethroned emperor? Ha.

haarp plays numbers like this-- riffs with no tonal center: they wander and revolve in their eccentric orbits: I dare you to hum the home key of these....

Final track "Into Darkness," a slow lurching patient rhythm, like a death metal breakdown section though even slower, at 3:50 finds the bass becoming very slightly dissonant, like he's moving one finger slightly too far up or down, one way or the other-- and this making an impressively heavy effect, like the song is gaining so much mass it's too dense to move and is coming doooooown, falling into its own orbit --it happens again at 5:50-- and at 6:30 a sudden "raked violin" sound scared yours truly shitless....

Winter's tunes are not "low energy," but "no energy"; live, they look like they're delivering a speech about tax expenditures during the previous fiscal year-- not to say, oddly, that they look bored: they don't.

Aaaaaand: just like Hank Mobley wrote most of his best licks in queer/strange-ass distant keys like F# or Dd, just like Hank Mobley played swirling licks on the tenor that sounded easy but were finger-manglers when you yourself picked up the horn, just like Hank Mobley, when living, was famous only among the fellow musicians who knew his subtle secret, his quiet rebelling genius--

--Winter were (in this, an oldy reissue from the ancient 90s) doing some still-subtle stuff with those guitars:

Witness:

The six strings are waaaaaaay down in the mix: strangely they're least obvious, but still PRESENT as fuck, with a rare use of some stompbox phaser/ flanger,  lending the sound cool dissonant instability-- like it could shake apart at any time....

Tuned all the way down to A (eventual home of Yob and Salome): rarely pedal-toning the open chord (like the main riff in "Am I Evil?" or Anthrax' "One World"); their "Goden" doesn't do it at all until over five minutes in....

This might be serialism metal-- no real riffs in the classic sense of an ostinado, no real key centers, like they're loathe to hit the same power chord twice... difficult to even find the tuning they're using, because they so rarely use the open chord -- you know this is SUPER rare in metal, especially doom-- we live to hit the "BONG" chord, to fire up that open C# or B or A or Ab, to just let it sing, to let it hang out...

There's a lot of patience in these riffs, even more than their tempi might suggest-- the know they've got that open A to "BONG" and they're stingy with its sheer power... but we love it when it shows up, don't we, bitches?

The riffs are nearly all chromatic-- inching by inch, stepping by step-- so there's more room to move, more freedom of expression (very punk, p'raps) in that many more notes "fit" the song than with minor and major riffs--Mr. minor mode is more ambiguous, since with more tones, more sounds available, they're more potentially off-putting-- your ears are all "Me no know where we're going and me scared!"

Winter rarely speed, but musically speaking, they establish early on that Into Darkness can go literally anywhere at anytime-- like how a horror movie's different from any other kind, e.g., Director David Fincher's saying Se7en, with the finding of the Goopster's head, let you know this was not a crime movie, not a mystery, but a HORROR movie--

And had been the whole time.

All the members of Winter have punk backgrounds, but this isn't punk doom-- it's doom in the most basic sense, with a minimalist, fuck-it, do-we-have-to-know-how-to-really-play-our-instruments punk ethic.

Vincenzo Galilei, Galileo's dad, said:
"...in setting to music a sonnet... or other poem in which occurs a line saying, for example: 'Bitter heart and savage, and cruel will,' ...many sevenths, fourths, seconds and major sixths [were] sung between the parts and by means of these, have made a rough, harsh, and unpleasant sound in the ears of the listeners."
"Goden"'s main riff is a grind between two chords right next to each other (a second). One of "Goden"'s lyrics is this:

Hear the piercing cries, of the fourth horsemen in the wind.
Galileo's pop Vinni was right. And this about 400 years ago. He saw Winter coming, baby. He laid out there, Nostradamus-style, the rules of earth shaking tunage.

He knew music. He knew music was/is animal bones splayed suggestively, letting you know what's what and what what will be... like birds on wires as notes on staves.

Words about music like Into Darkness are not criticism, not commentary: they're translation! Interpretation!

Is that unnecessary? You bet 'tis, clyde. You with the ears should just listen, but there are words --like these-- to get  you to listen... like Zen training, like Shikan-taza... words to remove sickness caused by words
.
Music students train to portray and project the "color" of a melody's phrasing, how to change it, de-saturate it, warm it up-- what is Winter's color?

"In [Asian] music, for instance, a particular mode or even a particular pitch may become associated with a specific sentiment or humour as well as with connotative concepts such as winter, night, and blackness."*
Winter are two fifth chords grinding beside to each other, moving back and forth. Sonic tectonics: Pangaea-cum-Gondwanaland and Laurasia via the first and second frets.
Boring? Yes-- potentially very.

But we don't listen to doom for change, we listen for its very lack of it: heaviness, mass, sheer density from inviolable, inevitable, and immovable objects... making sound.

Like approaching Winter.

--Horn

Buy here: Into Darkness / Eternal Frost

Ari Hest - Sunset Over Hope Street

All artists must hone their craft before they experience large scale acceptance and success.  Bob Dylan played in coffee houses for whoever happened to come in for a cup of joe.  The Beatles played dank cellars and pubs before they ever wooed a wider audience.  Elvis Presley sang in counrty western bars and truck stops prior to being the “King.”  In the immortal words of Richard Starkey -”You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues and you know it don't come easy.”

Ari Hest grew up surrounded by music.  His father wrote jingles for toy commercials and his mother was (and still is) a cantor at a New York Jewish temple.  He was raised on music that moved people to action.  He was always a good singer with a great range and decent guitar skills.

Hest played the colleges and the Battles of the Bands.  Many others did as well.  Most have ended in obscurity.  It is simply the nature of the music business.  It is a difficult creative business where the business part lacks soul and heart and the creative part is all soul and heart.

Just like his father Hest thought he had found that hook which would propel him to musical and financial success. It was a new business model for music in an internet age that he called “52.”  Here is how it worked. For the entire year of 2008, he wrote, recorded and released a new song every week and sent them via email to subscribers who paid a one time fee to receive them  throughout the year. The, in 2009, he released an album, Twelve Mondays, that collected 12 of the 52 songs selected by his subscribers which he reworked and rerecorded.

Although 52 was somewhat successful it did not propel Hest to financial and musical success. However, writing a new song every week did one very important thing for Hest - it made him hone his craft.  He learned lessons in nuance, drama and the emotive nature of music.  His songwriting improved.  His skill in arrangement grew.  An expertise in the use of strings and percussion flourished.  

It was his songwriting that improved the most.  His first song in 1996, Hest recalls, was about "something involving a made-up girlfriend and a hot-air balloon". By the end of 2009, his lyrics now swelled with allusion and emotion, and evoked tales with which his audience could relate.  Gone were the cotton candy, made-up girlfriends and hot-air balloons. Hest learned to connect with his audience with something worth saying and his audiences began to believe this quirky folk rock balladeer had something worth hearing.

In 2010 Hest went back into the studio and, on March 1, 2011, out came his new album “Sunset Over Hope Street.”  The album consists of eleven folk-infused well-orchestrated songs.  Each is awash in strings. Violins, cellos, guitars, bass, percussion, drums and keyboards intertwine to create stirring music.  It is folk music but with deeper, more involved musicianship.  

It is unfortunate that the album is named after what may be the worst effort on the album.  The best and most accessible lyrical track is “Business Of America”:

Faith is a victim of circumstance

In this shallow age

It doesn't stand a chance

Just when you think that it can't get worse

They will twist your words

So they sound perverse

Oh, can I believe in my America?

Oh, in the business of America

Gather up the goods like a good robot

It isn't what you are

It is what you got

Pay no attention to the dying man

If he ain't got cash

We won't lend a hand

Oh, can I believe in my America

Oh, in the business of America

Oh, that's the system at work

Everybody's a jerk

Oh, can I believe in my America

Oh, hard to believe in my America

Oh, that's the system at work

Everybody's a jerk

Gotta get the most, all that's mine, mine, mine

And ignore the ones

Who are left behind   

Here is Hest at his most sardonic, critical and poignant.  Bob Dylan couldn’t have done any better.  

Hest has grown.  He has paid his dues.  With Sunset Over Hope Street Hest is now poised for large scale acceptance and success.  Best of all it is now worth listening to what he has to say.

- Old School

 Buy here: Sunset Over Hope Street 

Amon Amarth - Surtur Rising

This is... gonzo journalism!

This is... method reviewing!

Come on, Strasberg and Stanislavski, let's rev up my affective (race?) memory and feel the pillage! (I'm German-American, so surely there's pillaging memory in there somewhere....)
I, in the spirit of the pillaging Viking hordes (pretty sure that name's copywritten), have written this entire review of Sweden's Amon Amarth and their newest, Surtur Rising, while drinking mead.

Mead-- the honey-wine every Viking and his mother drank.

You're welcome.

You know how Goddamn hard it is to find mead around here?

The things I do for you....

So: the Mead I actually found,  Oliver's Camelot Mead, tastes like, well, Honey wine (though apparently I should've tried this or thiskind).
A lot stronger than beer, less so than wine, it tastes like really light liquid honey with alcohol in it. I can't stand wine, but this is not bad. Not as good as beer, which I do so enjoy, but not bad at all.

One 5 oz. serving in:
Opener "War of the Gods" hammers in the intro theme with a crushing downbeat with melody that segues into a chorus that you could chant over a fire.... Amon Amarth sound confident and strong, and old Viking ruler --Odin?-- who's seen a lot and knows it back to front...will make you mad mead is so hard to get in comparison to beer;

Former albums have been fairly filler-dense, with a couple or three songs that are so good you forget the rest... I'm curious how this will pan out....

"Töck's Taunt: Loke's Treachery Part II" follows their pattern in songwriting: somewhat memorable verse followed by hooky-in-a- somehow-Viking way chorus... not quite as good as the first track, but quite good... we fade out into:

"Destroyer of the Universe"  which thrashes its ways, at 200 bpm, into a rager of a tune-- sounding like a cousin to "Twilight of the Thunder God" from their previous work, this time faster and with more solos and riffs....

"Slaves of Fear" a rager, though not to the previous degree, but is nothing near filler and rages and rages and rages....

Two Servings (10 oz.) in:
"Live Without Regrets" continues the Viking-themed melody with death metal vocals motif... but does little new with it, Amon Amarth's riffing in B standard, a fifth below standard tuning... somehow making up for the lack of nuance....

"The Last Stand of Frej" is suitable epic (and yet tragic) in its sonic recounting of the tale of the Norse goddess of majick, war and death... fades out to "For Victory or Death," which, clichéd title or no, which starts like a combination of Mercyful Fate and Bay Area Thrash....

Forget "Wrath of the Norsemen" overall, though at 2:10 it drops briefly into a nice little dirge/breakdown... "A Beast Am I" brings the fury back at 230 bpm, leaves behind the melody and just fucking rages....

 "Doom Over Dead Man," though I'm not sure what the title means, is perhaps the most emotional (read: bittersweet) track on here-- primitive instrument melodies about: conches, horns, shouts, abound... the rallying cry of a race (sadly?) long dead....

Long may they live...!!

And: though you know always what you're getting....

Bottom Line (15 ozs. in):


It's their stride.
This is feasting hall music.


This is music you scream with your barbarian friends after you've bested Grendel's Mother.

This is war music that manages to avoid the cheese of Manowar (said with love).

Now hoist your Goddamned tankards...!


To Amon Amarth!!! To Mount Doom!!!

May their kingdom resist weather, time and treachery...!

--Horn
Buy here: Surtur Rising
Buy here Deluxe Box: Surtur Rising
Buy here mp3: Surtur Rising
Buy here vinyl: Surtur Rising

Meekos &Me- Anxious Little Turtles

The first thing you will notice about the new LP released by this LA based band is the fourteen song length. Now, I am no expert but fourteen songs is longer than the average LP, especially if they are of this quality. All of the songs are really good and the sound is built to suit the content. Due to their changing style and story telling it manages to keep you interested throughout the entire fourteen songs.

As I have mentioned, Meekos&Me is a LA based band. They are comprised of guitarist, songwriter and singer Joey Colando and classically trained cellist Danny Grab. Anxious Little Turtles is their debut release and gives a glimpse of the greatness that is to come. It is difficult to sum them up into a single genre as it is clearly a work of creative collaboration rather than a decision to make a folk band or a rock band.

“Entropy” is the opening of the album. With good acoustics and cello support and creative, clever lyrics it gets you ready for what is to come.
“I say I love you,
You say you love me.
But oh my god,
Its been way too long.
Strength divides the weak from the strong”


It is surprising how well the electric sound from the guitar and the classical cello work together in “Grove Street”, accompanied with soulful vocals and lyrics about separation. Tied together to make a neat package.
“We've got green plants in the garden
It was nothing before we stared
And I know that
So stop your whining
Get away from me, if you are crying.”


“Underwater Dream” is a song about a merman's love for a human and is recorded to sounds muffled and bubbly, as if you were underwater as well. It really shows of the duo's creative outlook on their music.
“I can walk on water, on the bottom of the sea,
And when I talk to you, you can't understand me.”


“Animals in my Room” immediately caught my attention because of the opening with the Kookaburra laugh and the other lyrics that refer to Australian animals,
“Kangaroos, Polar bears,
Owls with their crazy stares,
And I am scared”
This was released as the single and it is easy to see why. It represents the album well with its eccentricity that still stays between the lines of normalcy. 


“Mountains in the Rearview” has a “hillbilly” sound to it with banjo like sounds and the pitch climb that hillbilly music has. Additionally, interesting lyrics.
“I'm going home,
Because you're back home.
Every night we are the last to fall asleep,
We talk about music
And we act so casually”


“Steven and Kirsten” is one of those growing up and moving on songs that most people are going to relate to. It is lyrically well written with a country sound to it (think tambourines). I especially related to it as it is pretty much how I ended up moving to the city. Just decided to one day and packed.
“All she wanted to know,
Is why you move so slow,
All you have to do is pack and go”


Joey Colando's talent on the guitar is on showcase with “Fantasies and Fairies” being carried by his brilliant fingerpicking style. With creative lyrics it is another exceptional song.
“Fantasies and flying fairies
Are you insane?
Act your age.
You gotta act your age
These days”


 “Umbrella” opens with Danny Grab's cello solo then breaks into being rhythm based. The cello stills features largely in this song and has a really good sound to it.
“I saw you laugh a lot the other day
You looked so cute
Do you think you look any other way?”


“If I Don't” has a great acoustics accompanied by soulful cello which is perfectly matched for this love song.
“I'll be with you some day,
I will.
I'll be with you one day,
My heart always will.”


“Whistle” is another sweet acoustic song that has almost dark lyrics to it. Unexpected but brilliant.
“But I whistle everyday
Cause I have nothing to say.
I lose my mind with you
I will someday
Oh, one day.”


“Kid Things” another song that is percussion and cello dominated but it then opens to a surprising electric guitar climax. It was really enjoyable hearing it open up and explode like that.


“Whistle (reprise)” is the only song on the album that is not full length. Whistling to the tune of “Whistle” it is a sweet way to wrap things up.

Overall, a really creative album. It is enjoyable to listen to and I will be on the look out for their next releases. 


-Koala

www.meekosandme.com/

Taddy Porter - S/T

“Hey man, we got the kegs.  Four of em.  You ready?”

Ready?  The words trickle through my brain.  I’m 18 years old, finishing high school.  Hanging with my friends Jeff, Paul, Ron, John, and Chris.  Dave is there.  So’s Bob.  Gary's somewhere.  The beer is cold.  An abandoned barn has been pre-scouted as the spot du jour.  My “man-machine” the 1974 Fiat is gassed and ready, intimidating the world with it's huge rubber bumpers.  The word has been spread around the school.  It’s time for a good old-fashioned beer blowout. 

And it’s up to me to bring the music.

Now, in reality, that scene may have taken place in the late ‘70’s or early ‘80’s, but the perfect music to complete this scene just dropped into my hands, fresh and dirty in 2011.

Taddy Porter bring on a southern-fried, greasy blitz of big riff, blues-infected rock that just begs to be cranked up and blown out of ’67 Camaro’s, ’73 Mach One’s, and just about any pick-up truck ever made.  These guys are simply a party in a bottle.  This is retro-rock, near-perfection and should blow the band huge.  Their blues riffs are meaty and beefy enough to get the guys gathered around the keg head-bobbing in rock-mania unison, while the backbeat grooves and undulates with enough sex to keep the girls swaying their hips on the dancefloor.  Or in this case, the dance barn.

I knew I was in good shape from the very first seconds of “Whatever Haunts You,” quite simply a monster of retro-fried Zeppelin blues frenzy.  From the very first moment, the boys show restraint, inherently knowing what it takes to bring dynamic to the song.  A simple, bluesy guitar stutter brings us on.  A drum beats somewhere in the background, steadily, like someone making love behind the barn door.  Slowly, languidly, the pace picks up until . . . all blues hell breaks loose.  Andy Brewer belts out the opening with a gruff-Plant energy as guitars, bass, and drums kick into full fury around him.  Dust bellows from the abandoned barn as air guitars break out from the guys and those young girls start swaying in ways far too seductive to write about in a family music site.  Oh fuck that.  They’re sexy as all get out.  Guys lining the walls watching those girls grind and shake, fantasies filling their heads.  And in each of those fantasies, “Whatever Haunts You,” is playing.  Dropping down to a mid-song respite, bellowing back up with a raging guitar solo courtesy of Joe Selby.  Kevin Jones on bass and Doug Jones on the kit keep those female hips taunting and teasing.  A great modern blues rock number through and through.

“Big Enough” keeps the sexual energy driving with a country-fried blues work-out.  This is what I always wanted the Black Crowes to sound like.  Big muscular guitars, stop-start riffing, snotty backing vocals, and Andy spewing out lyrics that seem to be about just what you might think with a title like “Big Enough.”  Not sure about that, but on my imaginary dancefloor that’s what they’d all be thinking anyways.  Toss in a truly bopping chorus and this song is another barn burner.

“Shake Me,” rocks in a Bad Company vein, maybe with a touch of BTO or many other 70’s rockers.  The opening riff reminds me of half of an ELO track before it takes off into dirty blues rock heaven.   For the life of me, I can’t imagine why this song wouldn’t be a hit.  In the 70’s it would’ve been and Taddy Porter would be filling stadiums with their southern Arena rock approach.  And the crowd would’ve eaten it up.   Whiskey soaks through each note like a home-bottled brew of 70’s moonshine.  Each riff is powered with enough grit and dust to make it truly authentic.  These aren’t guys going through the motions and they aren’t living in the past.  They’re living this rock, day to day, moment to moment.  Authenticity drips from each song like blood from an opened vein.  Toss some Stone Axe into the mix and we got a whole new breed of modern 70’s rock. 

As the party rages on and the keg starts to dry up, “Long Slow Drag” offers a brief respite from the frenzied rock.  A momentary slow dance before “I Gotta Love,” attacks in Blackfoot intensity.   The party rages back to full force.  With that charging guitar riff and killer vocal hook, hands fly into the air, the dance barn fills, beer flies and spills.  “Mean Bitch” sums up the wallflower guys’ thoughts at all the girls who rejected them that night with a guitar solo that can burn off enough of these guys’ pent up sexual frustrations.

The first fight of the night erupts to the rocking second half of “Fire in the Streets” which escalates from it’s subdued beginning in true Bad Company fashion to a full-on fist-throwing guitar epic mid-section.  A few lips get bloodied.  A few girls start crying in high school dramatics.  It’s all good.  It’s a Saturday night at a barn beer fest. 

Finally, as the keg runs dry, Taddy Porter cool the crowd down with the restrained, mid-tempo closers of “Railroad Queen” with it’s tasty slide licks and southern boogie, then the finale of “King Louie” a guitar screamer with a fierce backbeat a la The Rockets or 38 Special when they were good.  Andy’s voice really shines here revealing some tastefully roughed up soulful vocal chords, and the band ushers the crowd out with some stinging guitar leads.

The Camaros fire up.  The Mach One’s drive off.  Empty kegs get thrown into the back of the pick up trucks and I climb behind the wheel of my . . . Fiat.  Testosterone burned.  Sweat stained.  Sexual fantasy induced.  It’s been one helluva night.

And Taddy Porter is on tap for next weeks blast as well.


--Racer



Buy here: Taddy Porter
Buy here mp3: Taddy Porter (Amazon Exclusive Version)

Cattle Drums- The Boy Kisser Sessions +3

The thing that works with pop rock is the mix of catchy pop and heavy rock sounds. This EP by Cattle Drum brings that together, but in an unexpected way. Usually in pop/rock albums, the music is rock and the vocals provide the sing along pop but not with this EP. The music almost reaches the point of pop, the vocals definitely rock. It is possible to even go as far as saying the only thing that makes it pop is the guitar riffs that make you want to play along.

The entire The Boy Kisser Sessions +3 EP is full of cryptic lyrics and is wildly unpredictable making it really fun to listen to.

The first surprise is delivered with the first song. "New Furniture and Wigs" is a great opening to the album with an awesome riff that makes your reach for your guitar to try and play. The surprise is really the vocals. After hearing the riff you are expecting something a little  Fall Out Boy in flavour, but you don't. You get hit with impact making, tuneful shouting. The same sort of taste follows with "Who Punched Pat Moore's Face"- really great riff.

Just when you are thinking, “Okay... I think I can get what they are doing here...” they pop in "Sluts and Coconuts" which brings the two fast paced impact hitting songs to a slower more relaxed point. With a smoother, higher pitched riff and lyrics you can almost follow. "Bovrg the Nag" keeps you on the same wave as "Sluts and Coconuts", which is something you can appreciate in the roller coaster that is this EP.

 "Two Pigeons" has a sweet little opening, with acoustic guitar and soft drums, transitions into the faster paced, and backs off again later in the song.

"Just the Right Height" has an electronic start opening up to the tuneful shout that, at this point in the EP, you are beginning to really like. The lyrics still baffle you with things like-

“Doc scaled the walls of the typhoon front line, but I don’t mind the drive underground. Put em’ up high. A left handed pitcher who only throws curves, throws a fit”

"All the Electric Secrets of Hell" begins with my favourite riff of the album because it is soft and engaging. The obscure lyrics have also grown on you and you can almost find yourself wanting to sing along to the chorus of-

“Uh oh I’ve been waiting up all night, for something sweet, to crawl in my mouth.

You’re cutting out 'land ho' I’m wasting away out of bounds, scraping off my nails, and chewing off my tongue, but I’m at it again wearing in the wrong shoes.”

"I Know Who Killed Me" tops off the unpredictability of The Boy Kisser Sessions +3 by opening with lyrics, which none of the other songs have done. This is my favourite song because it provides me with a mental picture in my head of some crazy imaginary world thanks to the opening lines-

“I want to be more than a dramatic silhouette spilling gasoline on my paper shoes, to waste away playing kicking the can in an uphill landscape full of loose connections, a landscape prone to open flame.”

It can be also noticed, that in this song the shouting has almost dissolved into talking and the final half with just the tapping throws me out of my imaginary land into a jungle waiting for a cannibalistic tribe to eat me.

It is as if the Cattle Drums just went insane during this EP, and that is why I like it. You have no idea what is going on, where it is heading and you can't even sing along because you are never quite sure if you are going left or right. It appeals to me, and hopefully to others, because it is unlike most other productions. If anyone works out the meaning of it all, let me know.

-Koala

Buy here:  The Boy Kisser Sessions + 3

Anaal Nathrakh - Passion

The music of foul things best left undisturbed.

Passion is the soundtrack of the interior of Regan MacNeil's skull.

Passion is an audio snuff film.

Passion is Tarantino's Horror Movie: an obvious mash-up of other genres (black, industrial, electronic, dance, thrash, noise, ambient) and musical effects, that manages to still be unique and exciting... "Talent borrows, genius steals."

Passion is black metal survival horror.

Passion is industrial black metal (though the less-accurate blackened industrial sounds much cooler).

A philosopher once said the music of an age in turmoil is not soothing.

Passion is that music. Yet, disturbingly, is actually soothing... what does that say about us, as a people, or me in general?

First track, "Violenti Non Fit Iniuria": seems to open with background sounds that emerge as screams, whether real or not, run through a distortion pedal or board or just a bent bullhorn... the effect is lyrically psychotic and psychopathic, a singing monster well beyond its own mind... like Nero meets Denis Rader... DeSade's quite hummable love sonnets....

"Drug-Fucking Abomination": three minutes of (actually rather catchy) industrial grind, then with a chorus (as AN are wont to do) that's symphonic (a "chorus" of singers in high tones and in unison, not unlike Wagner or Grieg), but in a "Night on Bald Mountain" sense: there's that strange electric scream under the vocals, giving the whole piece a Satanic grandeur.

Ends with semi-orgasmic gasping over chewing sounds; suddenly cuts off. Make of that what you will.

"Post Traumatic Stress Euphoria," I love their titles. ("The Unbearable Filth of the Soul," from their last record, In the Constellation of the Black Widow? Fuggedabowdit.)

"Le Diabolique est L'Ami du Simple," double-bass drums programmed at around 300 bpm with genuine soaring (clean) operatic vocals overhead....

"Who Thinks of the Executioner," its gibbering madness, an even more aggro Ministry... as if Spiders had evolved fingers to play black metal....

If Behemoth is genuine rage recorded, Anaal Nathrakh is genuine madness, is genuine insanity, is what mental health professionals call a diagnosable mental disorder, almost certainly a psychotic disorder with comorbid diagnoses out the ass....

"Ashes Screaming Silence": (if wearing headphones) something walks through you (a genuinely disturbing trick with fading, from front left to rear right);  then at 2:51, whispers, from back to front, crescendo up to the bloody-throated screaming "...And that means something, doesn't it...? Doesn't it?!?!"

This song the best example of rage-cum-insanity-- a vivid depiction of the split, the schism, the break, emerged as articulate, into psychosis, the divorce from reality....

"Portrait of the Artist": explosions in background, warped radio broadcasts of symphonies in impossible keys-- some WWI flashback, a dying mud-crusted soldier tripping on mustard gas....

Passion doesn't really call for a review... more an informed consent.

the howling dementia of a patient screaming along with a symphony in the background the patient does not actually hear:

shantih

shantih

shantih

--Horn

buy here: Passion

Modern Day Moonshine - Refuge

A friend of mine has an original drawing by Bruce Burton of “The Family Tree Of American Rock.”  Here are a couple of photos of a poster made from the original drawing posted by Violator @ MuzicForums.com:

The tree is made up entirely of the names of American rockers and rock bands.  Trailblazers, such as Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley, are deeply embedded in the tree’s trunk. Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, ZZ Top, Beach Boys, James Gang and their ilk are relegated to branches and leaves.  It is a heady drawing - a wonderful artistic tribute to the breadth, scope, and growth of rock music.  

As I listened to Modern Day Moonshine’s release “Refuge” The Family Tree Of American Rock came to mind. The content of “Refuge” is as if Modern Day Moonshine (“MDM”) guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Todd Goodnough came upon the Family Tree and shook it as hard as he could. Leaves and twigs fell to the ground. Goodnough and his bandmates, bassplayer Brendan McCaskey and drummer David Burrows, then assembled a collage of twelve original tracks from the scattered debris. You have a branch of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; a bit of Bob Dylan bark; a slice of Dave Mason heartwood; a cone or two of the Doobie Brothers; a few stray needles of Allman Brothers; and some Atlanta Rhythm Section sapwood covered with “Champagne Jam.”  There is even a leaf of Brahms from the nearby Family Tree Of Classical Music Composers.

MDM generally mine the Folk/Country/Alternative Rock genre. Yet, there is also a nice soul blues ethos.  CSN&Y had a particular acoustic and electric guitar sound that was led by Neil Young and Steve Stills.  Goodnough has much of the same approach in his guitar work.  McCaskey thumps and bumps with precision and Burrows pounds out impeccable time with nicely played rolls and fills.  The notes sound like the buds of spring.  Each bursts into being and turns into a musical food factory.  Tasty stuff!

Yes, MDM’s latest endeavor is under the Ripple label.  True, The Ripple Effect is a Ripple enterprise.  Also true, I don’t get paid to do this by Ripple or anyone else.  If I didn’t like it you wouldn’t be hearing about it.  

MDM’s music on “Refuge”  definitely soars in the canopy of the The Family Tree Of American Rock. It won’t leave you out on a limb.  I guarantee it!

- Old School

Buy here: Ripple Music