J Mascis - Tied to a Star

J Mascis

Tied to a Star

25 August 2014

Sub Pop

 

3.5 stars out of 5

 

 

The “5^th greatest guitarist of all time” (according to Spin), Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis has just released his latest solo LP, Tied to a Star. A mostly acoustic affair, the album reveals a few things about Mascis’s songwriting—namely that without that wah pedal and distortion, the dude’s a traditionalist. Take “Trailing Off” as a case in point: a very delicate little tune featuring much intricate fretwork, the song is very easily imagined with a full-band Dinosaur Jr arrangement, and as such it would fucking rock. Same goes for the even more delicate “Come Down,” and so on. It’s clear that J Man doesn’t change his songwriting approach according to his environment.

 

And that’s perfectly okay. If, twenty years ago, you were miffed that Dinosaur Jr never got its turn on MTV Unplugged, this record (along with its predecessor, Several Shades of Why) is your reward for all those years of moping. You can dust off your flannel, park your middle-aged ass on your old skateboard, and nod along to the music like you really fucking get it, man. And why not? “Better Plane,” the album’s finale, is one of the strongest songs of the man’s career, with or without the wah pedal.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Rustie - Green Language

Rustie

Green Language

25 August 2014

Warp

 

2.5 stars out of 5

 

 

Glaswegian producer Rustie stumbles out of the studio with his second LP, Green Language, coming three years after his critically acclaimed debut, Glass Swords. Perhaps he was multitasking one drowsy morning, taking out the trash at the same time as mailing off the finished mixes to the Warp offices, and accidentally mixed up the two. That said, Rustie’s waste by-products are still superior to many producers’ best work, so Green Language is not a total waste of time. Still, is there really any reason to begin a record with not just one but three fucking intro tracks? When is this damned thing going to start, and when are you going to let me get into your groove, Mr. DJ?

 

Even ignoring the several false starts, this record is a conceptual disaster. Imagine that your friend made you a mix of some drugged-out New Age-y instrumentals (based on bird sounds, no less) and then dropped a Danny Brown track right in the middle of it. Fucked up, right? Well, there’s no need to imagine this scenario because on GL Rustie does exactly that. Now, I like a good Danny Brown track just as much as the next old white dude trying to seem legit to his younger friends, but I have enough wisdom appropriate to my age to recognize that there’s a time and place for everything. Perhaps Rustie is hoping that at some time in the future the New Age/Gangsta Rap genre will really take off, causing music historians to point to Green Language as a point of origin, but I suspect that unless it becomes possible to meditate to some dude bragging about his 9mm, that future will likely never happen.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers

The New Pornographers

Brill Bruisers

26 August 2014

Last Gang/Matador

 

3.5 stars out of 5

 

 

While it’s doubtful that The New Pornographer’s sixth LP was written under conditions similar to those at the song factory at 1619 Broadway—better known as the Brill Building, where many of the biggest pop hits of the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s were written by armies of songwriters, each in their own tiny cubicle—it’s undeniable that Brill Bruisers is a pop record full of nostalgia. The Vancouver-based supergroup has barely deviated a millimetre or two from the path they charted with their debut back in 2000; Brill Bruisers is a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile of Mass Romantic, though it arrives fourteen years later in a musical universe that is about as interested in sugary-sweet pop harmonies as it is in the other forgotten phenomena of the last year of the last century (yes, that means 2000, not 1999, you math-impaired freaks), such as the twenty-fucking-five live albums released by Pearl Jam that year.

 

Are you a long-time fan of The New Pornographers? If you answered “yes,” then stop reading this review and go listen to Brill Bruises. It’s exactly what you want to hear because A.C. Newman & Co. haven’t changed a thing. If you answered “no,” then don’t bother to check it out, because A.C. Newman & Co. haven’t changed a thing. If you’ve never heard of the band before, I assume that you’ve never actually listened to music. No worries, because if you turn on any college radio station for an hour or two at any point in the next three or four months, you’re going to hear at least one or two songs from Brill Bruises during that session. Guaranteed.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Robyn Hitchcock - The Man Upstairs

Robyn Hitchcock

The Man Upstairs

26 August 2014

Yep Roc

 

3 stars out of 5

 

 

Robyn Hitchcock (no relation to Swedish pop genius Robyn) has released several dozen records during his long career, both solo (augmented by the Egyptians or the Venus 3) and with The Soft Boys. The Man Upstairs is his most recent, featuring five original tunes and five covers. Hitchcock offers his takes on tracks by The Psychedelic Furs, Roxy Music, The Doors, Grant Lee Buffalo, and Norwegian group I Was a King. The album features Hitchcock on guitar and vocals, with occasional touches of cello or piano.

 

The Man Upstairs has Hitchcock’s trademark voice—think Eric Idle sneering at your wardrobe while simultaneously offering you a hot chocolate—but none of his trademark psychedelic and/or surrealist weirdness—think Eric Idle sneering at your wardrobe while dressed as a woman and riding a giant stoat while John Cleese, in nothing but a speedo, gives a rigid salute and sings “God Save the Stilton.” Or something. If you’re a long time fan, you’ll miss the bizarre lyrical tales and the ninety-degree turns in the narrative. If you’re a newcomer to the Hitchcock scene, there won’t be much here to convince you to delve further into his back catalogue.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Basement Jaxx - Junto

Basement Jaxx

Junto

25 August 2014

Atlantic Jaxx/PIAS

 

2.5 stars out of 5

 

 

Seven albums into their career, Basement Jaxx seem to have decided that they have earned the right to waste twenty-five minutes of their fans’ time before getting to the good stuff. The first half of Junto is incredibly boring. It’s dentist’s office boring. It’s waiting in line at the bank boring. But then the second side kicks in, and the dull, redundant house of the first side disappears, and Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton grab your hand and take you on an adventure of genre hopping, stamping your passport in many different dance music nations before dropping you off at your door. Or at least they try to, but they don’t seem to have either the desire or the stamina to make it happen.

 

While the second side is still not enough to make up for the agony of the first side, at least it’s an attempt. The Jaxx seem on autopilot for such derivative ditties as “Unicorn” and “Never Say Never.” Any hope you might have had for good times is crushed beneath the heavy hammer of horrible house early on, so that by the time you get to “Rock This Road” or “Sneakin’ Toronto” (a couple of later tracks that are actally borderline good) you’ve lost the will to go on. Call the coroner, because this record has taken its own life.

 

If you check out only one track on Junto, let it be the drum’n’bass hip hop of “Buffalo.” Not because this is the best track, but because it illustrates the album’s problems most adeptly. The track has the potential to be a tour de force of mayhem, but instead Ratcliffe and Buxton sleepwalk through it, wasting plenty of opportunities to bust loose and bring the crazy back to the dance floor. The potential is there, but the results are disappointing at best.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Prawn - Kingfisher

Prawn

Kingfisher

12 August 2014

Topshelf

 

3 stars out of 5

 

 

Despite having chosen a singularly idiotic band name, the quintet of WASP-y suburban New Jersey lads who make up Prawn seem to have made up for it with a careful study of ‘90s emo, drawing on genre pioneers such as The Dismemberment Plan and Sunny Day Real Estate as inspiration for Kingfisher, their second LP. As for what Prawn themselves bring to the table, that is less easy to distinguish—but even though Kingfisher follows very closely the standard emo template without much innovation, as a genre exercise it’s relatively alright, so let’s give it a closer listen, shall we?

 

Well, on closer listen, it does indeed seem that Prawn were trying to make a seven inch single, wrote ten versions of the same song, and then decided to use the outtakes to extend it into an LP. From “Scud Running” to “Halcyon Days,” Kingfisher is more or less the same shimmering testament to suburban angst over its ten tracks. Sure, lots of bands sound basically the same from song to song (White Lung, anyone?), but still manage to sound like themselves while doing so. Prawn doesn’t have that distinct identity of its own.

 

Have we entered the era of emo traditionalists now? Those who out of false nostalgia (for they’re far too young to have lived through the first wave themselves) attempt to recreate the world built by the visionary emo originators? It shouldn’t come as a surprise, as every genre seems to be recycled on a regular basis. Why should emo be any different?

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

The Magic Numbers - Alias

The Magic Numbers

Alias

18 August 2014

Caroline

 

3.5 stars out of 5

 

 

Alias is the fourth LP by English pop/rock band The Magic Numbers. Its elaborate arrangements, at time baroque, at times progressive rock, recall an early ‘70s English scene where complicated, meandering songs were the standard of the day. The main difference here is that The Magic Numbers keep their subject matter to the personal, whereas their forefathers were most frequently off in outer space or in the dark centuries of the mythical English past of monarchs on horsebacks, dragon slayers, and faeries. In addition, the two pairs of siblings—Angela and Sean Gannon; Michele and Romeo Stodart—are far more under the spell of American country music than King Crimson or Soft Machine ever were.

 

From the opener, “Wake Up,” Alias is an engaging, if not very challenging, elpee’s worth of toons. It’s a finely crafted piece of pop/rock, but never transgresses into what could be called “art rock.” While its arrangements often dive into the complex or even obtuse, it’s all in the interest of supporting and reinforcing the pop song structures which lie underneath; never do the band attempt deconstruction or subversion of pop constructs or ideals. And that’s okay. Perhaps The Magic Numbers were simply born fifty years too late—they should have been working at the time that the Rat Pack were at their heights, or even early Scott Walker. And then there’s “Thought I Wasn’t Ready,” a string-saturated ode to The Carpenters, followed by the straight-up early ‘70s disco that is “E.N.D.”

 

Clearly this band is adept at being shape-shifting tricksters, but at every turn they’re recognizable as The Magic Numbers. The four years they took off after 2010’s The Runaway gave them time to put together a very strong collection of songs for Alias.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Kimbra - The Golden Echo

Kimbra

The Golden Echo

19 August 2014

Warner Bros.

 

3.5 stars out of 5

 

 

Kiwi-with-bangs Kimbra Johnson gives us her second LP, The Golden Echo, coming three years after her debut, Vows. Kimbra, of course, became world-famous after the success of her Grammy-winning duet with Gotye, the omnipresent “Somebody That I Used to Know.” It was a spooky little ditty that somehow managed to get itself on Top 40 radio every couple of hours for most of 2011 and 2012, sandwiched between Nicki Minaj and The Black Eyed Peas. The Golden Echo is far more of a pop record than “Somebody,” although it only occasionally moves into true Top 40 territory (such as the ‘70s funk grooves of “Miracle” or “Madhouse”). Early reports of the album suggested appearances by Omar Rodríguez-López of The Mars Volta, Matt Bellamy of Muse, and Steven Ellison (aka Flying Lotus), but according to the credits none of these collaborations made it into the final mix.

 

Kimbra occupies a sort of purgatory between the hell of Top 40 and the heaven of college radio. Even “Madhouse,” a pop-funk tune along the lines of Prince, delves into the weird at times, deconstructing itself near the end, pulling itself apart and back through its own poppy entrails. Prince is Kimbra’s most obvious influence on The Golden Echo, from the slinky grooves to the vocal acrobatics. Being a liminal creature occupying the threshold between two distinct musical realms isn’t necessarily a bad thing—U2 has based a career on it—and the 24-year-old Johnson’s songwriting talent should continue to develop as she explores her music.

 

As pop records go, The Golden Echo is likely one of the better ones you’ll hear this year. It’s intelligent, complex, adventurous, and never caters to the lowest common denominator. Well worth picking up if you’re the type who’s afraid of most of the other records I review here.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

jj - V

jj

V

19 August 2014

Sincerely Yours/Secretly Canadian

 

3.5 stars out of 5

 

 

V is the third LP by Göteborg’s jj, and fifth release overall. If you’re a purist, you’re probably howling in protest that this new record isn’t called jj nº 5 in keeping with the band’s established nomenclature, so consider this radical shift in appellation technique to be their way of farting in your general direction. Regarding the disc’s music, it’s still full of that simultaneously sunny and gloomy stuff that the duo of Joakim Benon and Elin Kastlander are known for. It’s time for a gothic beach party, people!

 

Although there are moments of acoustic guitar meanderings, V is mostly an electronic journey, though not at all beat-based or overtly danceable. The focus is Kastlander’s voice, which is full of sadness—but a sadness that is blissful and uplifting, a sadness that gives you a big, warm hug because it wants to comfort you in your unfortunate, pitiable happiness. Perhaps she’ll offer you some ecstasy while she’s at it, though drugs are by no means required to float away on jj’s cloud of triumphant melancholy. The album’s offering of uncluttered, largely unadorned pop laments is among the group’s best work. The duo’s fascination with hip-hop is relegated to the introduction of one track, the otherwise funereal chant “Hold Me.”

 

V doesn’t do much to shake Göteborg’s label as the city of Balearic pop, and I can’t honestly think of any reason why such an action would be necessary. This music is for pure enjoyment, nothing else, so stop trying to look for hidden messages or deep meanings and just enjoy it for what it is.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Mirel Wagner - When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day

Mirel Wagner

When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day

11 August 2014

Sub Pop

 

4 stars out of 5

 

 

Mirel Wagner was born in Ethiopia and raised in the Helsinki suburb of Espoo, but from listening to her music you would be forgiven for assuming she lives and sings in the deepest, darkest places in the soul of the American South of a century ago. Her tales of child killers and the unheard screams of their victims are right out a Faulkner novel. When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day is a harrowing collection of murder ballads turned inside out, told from the point of view of the murdered.

 

If you simply look at the credits without listening to the music, you might instantly believe it to be an electronica record, as it was produced by fellow Finn Sasu Ripatti, better known by his pseudonyms Vladislav Delay, Luomo, or Uusitalo, among others. However, the music is comprised only of acoustic guitar and Wagner’s haunting voice, with nary a bleep nor bloop nor snick nor boom in sight. Ripatti’s production brings out each individual string as a fully formed idea, each breath between lines as a serious statement, without ever interfering with the music.

 

The weight of Wagner’s songs is carried by her lyrics and voice—she doesn’t add even the slightest flourishes of guitar virtuosity. Only the closer “Goodnight” features anything but acoustic guitar and vocals, with a subtle piano and cello combining to rock the listener into the deep sleep of death. Wagner’s murderers and murdered might be full of pain and suffering both, but the emotion they transmit the most is love: love for the killer, love for the killed, and love for you. Accept it.

 

Reviewed by Richard Krueger

FaltyDL - Into the Wild

FaltyDL

In the Wild

11 August 2014

Ninja Tune

 

4 stars out of 5

 

 

In the Wild is Drew Lustman’s fourth LP under the name FaltyDL, and second with Ninja Tune. The album is a scenic tour through the electronica wilderness of Lustman’s world. The music doesn’t follow any sort of linear progression—there’s no heavy-handed building up and letting go of tension; indeed, the stops and starts are disorienting and at times unnerving. And this is the point. In the wild, there’s no grand narrative, no logical steps which must follow each other in an established order, no sense which has to be made in order for things to be absorbed and understood. There’s just trees and rocks and things that want to eat you.

 

Even within individual tracks Lustman questions and rejects the norms of typical musical constructions. During “Nine,” for example, the percussion doesn’t even keep time with itself, creating the image of a rattlesnake, lurking unseen among the stunted desert pines and dwarf cactuses, ready to fill you with its poison. It’s not a narrative of man vs. nature—it’s not a morality play of any kind. It’s just how things are. If the listener can’t adjust his expectations to music that doesn’t fit into traditional listening patterns, this is not the fault of Lustman.

 

Lustman’s records become more impressive as he moves further away from beats and deeper into the avant-garde. Completely bizarre and yet charming tracks like “In the Shit” see Lustman essentially creating brand new genres all over the place. Where beats do occur, such as the frantic, warped two-step ditty “Dånger,” they’re not a reassuring constant; rather, they’re a worrying dark cloud on the horizon, threatening to create a flash flood in your already harsh desert world. You’d best take shelter if you want to hold onto your precious narrative.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Sinéad O’Connor - I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss

Sinéad O’Connor

I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss

11 August 2014

Nettwerk

2.5 stars out of 5

 

The tenth full-length by Irish singer-songwriter Sinéad O’Connor, I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss is about as traditional of a pop/rock record as she has produced in her career, exhibiting none of the creative spark of her first handful of LPs and none of the fiery political commentary which made her famous. Even her fascinations with reggae and roots music are mute. What’s left is a collection of flat, mostly lifeless AOR tunes that will likely be deleted from your iPod soon it is added.

 

 

Let’s make one thing clear: O’Conner’s vocal performances here are impassioned, emotional, and deadly. She hasn’t lost a thing in her delivery; it’s what she’s delivering over that is lacking. The intensity that won so many fans in her early days is still present in songs like “Harbour” and “The Voice of My Doctor,” though it’s a mystery why she chooses such bland arrangements to frame her voice and lyrics. A case in point: “8 Good Reasons” is a venomous autobiographical attack on the music industry, delivered with such contempt that it could strip the paint off the popemobile, but sung overtop one of the dullest pop piano backing tracks you could imagine.

 

 

Waiting for it to end. Waiting for it to end. Waiting…

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Grumbling Fur - Preternaturals

Grumbling Fur

Preternaturals

11 August 2014

The Quietus Phonographic Corporation

 

 

4 stars out of 5

 

 

 

The English duo Grumbling Fur consists of multi-instrumentalist Daniel O’Sullivan and singer-songwriter Alexander Tucker. O’Sullivan has a variety of musical projects going on, including art-rock group Guapo, experimental metal band Sunn O))), Norwegian weirdoes Ulver, and the synth-pop duo Miracle (with Steve Moore from Zombi). Grumbling Fur comes across as David Gahan fronting a Brian Eno experimental electronica project, and Preternaturals is the duo’s third album together.

 

 

While O’Sullivan and Tucker engage in a lot of sonic textural doodlings, most of these are subtle and operate at the service of the vocals. Sometimes the music is punctuated by acoustic guitar and cello, as on “Mister Skeleton,” a song which with a few production tweeks could easily be from some early ‘70s psychedelic record. “Pluriforms” most resembles Depeche Mode, both in vocal style and melody. Interspersed amongst the proper songs are three short instrumental pieces in which the duo explore more freeform possibilities.

 

 

For an LP that clocks in at barely more than half an hour and contains only six proper songs, Preternaturals feels surprisingly like a full album experience. While it is experimental it is focused and never aimless. O’Sullivan and Tucker continue to entertain and inform with their excursion into psychedelic electronica.

 

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

The Gaslight Anthem - Get Hurt

The Gaslight Anthem

Get Hurt

12 August 2014

Island

 

 

2.5 stars out of 5

 

Get Hurt is the fifth LP by The Gaslight Anthem, that roots-punk quartet who hail from the Bruce Springsteen State. Much of the album sounds like a cross between Born to Run and London Calling, which under normal circumstances would invoke incredulous raised eyebrows in reaction, but here only prompts a disinterested yawn or two. Seriously, you hear “Red Violins” just once and you’ll forget it for the rest of your life.

 

The Gaslight Anthem recorded Get Hurt in a room that contained recording equipment such as microphones for singing into, amplifiers for leaning guitars against, knobs for twiddling, and a microwave for reheating instant noodles. The band’s writing process included one or more members of the band writing words with a pen or pencil onto paper which may have been in the form of loose sheets or perhaps bound into a notebook. It’s possible that the notebook had a nice black cover that was textured to resemble leather. Some of the microphones were placed around the drum kit so that when the drummer (the member of the band who hits the drums with wooden sticks) hit the drums with his wooden sticks, the microphones would detect these sounds and send them back to a room where there would be a person twiddling knobs while he or she ate lukewarm instant noodles.

 

Clearly Get Hurt is a groundbreaking, envelope-pushing document of rock ‘n’ roll genius. Further evidence for this is given by the cover, which depicts a heart rotated 180º so that it’s upside down, making it look like a giant red bum that leads up to an infinitesimally small waist. The text reads “THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM GET HURT” in all caps like that. One thing that listening to Get Hurt has taught me: when I hit ctrl-down arrow on my keyboard the sound gets quieter, and if I hit it enough times the sound disappears completely, leading to great happiness.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

FKA twigs - LP1

FKA twigs

LP1

6 August 2014

Young Turks

4.5 stars out of 5

 

Tahliah Barnett records as the artist formerly known as twigs (apparently just plain twigs was taken, so she added the FKA). Her debut album, LP1, follows in the same naming tradition as her EP1 and EP2. At times coming across as a profanity-spewing Kate Bush fronting an experimental electronica band doing warped R&B, Barnett is poised to be the next big thing of the underground (is there really such a thing as an “underground” anymore?), combining “hip” with “weird” in a way that works.

 

 

“Two Weeks” dropped about a month and a half ago, the video racking up just over a million and a half views by the moment I’m writing this. Barnett’s been compared to pop divas such as Ciara and Mariah, but frankly these comparisons are ridiculous, as the tracks on LP1 are going to be passed over by Top 40 radio stations as “too weird,” “too intense,” or, most likely, “too good” or “including too many instances of motherfucker.” Barnett certainly has the voice, but it’s been clear from the start that she isn’t going to play the game—her music can be intensely sexual, but she doesn’t adopt the typical tropes of objectification as those artists named above so often do. Musically, apart from the vague territory of “female vocals on top of beats and bleeps,” she shares nothing in common with them either—this ain’t no summer dance party soundtrack, unless Merce Cunningham comes back from the grave and starts hosting sock hops for the kids.

 

 

Confident, well-written, and well-crafted debut LPs seem to be the norm these days (TEEN, Ought, etc), and LP1 ranks right up there with the best of them. For the post-R&B genre, Barnett has raised the bar, and in a couple of years will likely have a score of followers and imitators. No possible reason could excuse you for ignoring this record.

 

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Willis Earl Beal - Experiments in Time

Willis Earl Beal
Experiments in Time
8 August 2014
self-released

5 stars out of 5

 

Experiments in Time is the third full-length by Willis Earl Beal, and his first self-released LP since leaving XL Recordings. Long gone is the lo-fi acoustic aesthetic of 2012’s Acousmatic Sorcery, as is the polished, more traditional(-ish) R&B sound of last year’s Nobody knows. Today Beal offers us an almost beatless album of freeform soul-infused blues, a record that is both riveting and unique.

Beal’s vocals take center stage on Experiments in Time—there’s no beats, not even the most rudimentary time keeping (with the exception of “Waste It Away” and “Slow Bus”), to distract the listener. The majority of the music is comprised of slow, subtle keyboard swells, very rarely augmented by quiet, distant electric guitar (“Monotony,” “Traveling Eyes”) or electric bass (“Heads or Tails”). These are deeply felt hymns, a sort of gospel of angst and sorrow, directed not to God but against the monolith of consumer capitalism. If you’ve ever wanted a record that occupies the intersection of Gregorian chants and desolate blues, drawing its lyrical inspiration from the existential howls of Sartre and Camus (filtered through Tom Waits and Bob Dylan), look no further.

It’s easy to get distracted by Beal’s back story—homeless, almost insane man gets record deal and does duet with Cat Power—but this is really doing a disservice to his music. Do yourself a favour and ignore everything that’s been written about him, including this review, and listen to Experiments in Time without preconceptions. What you’ll hear is a work without many peers or precedents, undefiled by label expectations, genre clichés, or market considerations.

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Chrome - Feel It Like a Scientist

Chrome
Feel It Like a Scientist
5 August 2014
King of Spades

3.5 stars out of 5

Since founder Damon Edge died in 1995, Chrome has been led by Helios Creed, who had joined the band for their second album, the classic Alien Soundtracks, in 1977. Feel It Like a Scientist is the first new Chrome album since 2002's Angel of the Clouds, and Creed's first work since his Galactic Octopi LP of 2011. Having brought his rhythm section (Lux Vibratus on bass, Aleph Kali/Omega on drums) from his last solo album to the new Chrome material, Creed's new version of Chrome is more or less a continuation of his solo career (and vice versa, as Kali/Omega has played with both Chrome and Creed solo since 1997), which isn't exactly a bad thing.

This being a Chrome record, it's full of DYI proto-punk, proto-industrial insanity. Creed and his crew experiment with reckless abandon, though always while keeping a firm footing on the holy land known as Rock 'n' Roll. If there's any stylistic touchstone here, it's that Chrome don't give a flying fornication about style. There's no self-conscious posturing or calculated image construction going on here, there's only the unbridled madness that could produce tracks like “Brady the Chickenboy,” and fucking mean it, man. At times echoing the bands who echoed them, such as Butthole Surfers or Scratch Acid, Chrome appear to have opened a time tunnel between 1977 and 2014 and let everything flow back and forth. They get better home recording quality and iPhones; we get a reinvigorated experimental spirit and the AMC Gremlin.

Feel It Like a Scientist, as a successful recapturing of the spirit of the band's glory days in the late '70s, serves as a good contemporary introduction to those who are experiencing the unhinged majesty that is Chrome for the first time in 2014. That said, while it might approach those early victories in spirit, it isn't a substitute for Alien Soundtracks, Half Machine Lip Moves, or 3^rd from the Sun. Despite this, as a first album in twelve years, it doesn't disappoint.

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Owl John - Owl John

Owl John

Owl John

4 August 2014

Atlantic

4 stars out of 5

Owl John is the debut solo LP by Frightened Rabbit front man Scott Hutchinson. The album is the result of the Scottish singer/guitarist's creative fatigue after touring in support of 2013's Pedestrian Verse. The label told him to take a break and make a solo record on their dime, so he did. Musically, Owl John is a bit looser and less restricted than the more conventional songs of Hutchinson's full-time gig, though still firmly planted in the fertile soil of Frightened Rabbit's folk-rock tradition.

At times sounding like early Decemberists (“Los Angeles, Be Kind”), at other times pursuing a folk-electro-prog hybrid (“Ten Tons of Silence”), Hutchinson expands his creative range in multiple directions over the course of Owl John. “Hate Music” is a blues tune filtered through a gospel choir, with a vibe appropriate to U2's late '80s period. “Red Hand” is a menacing and stylistic rocker, while “Don't Take Off the Gloves” is a mid-'80s New Wave art piece somewhere between XTC and Tears for Fears. Hutchinson explores many different genres and styles over the record, but everything is unified through his distinctive, emotive voice and the sorrowful tone of his lyrics and melodies.

A very solid solo debut, Owl John should serve to reinvigorate Frightened Rabbit's songwriting process as well as establish Hutchinson as a strong solo act in his own right. Well worth suffering through the bizarre ancient Sumerian-esque cover art.

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Spoon - They Want My Soul

Spoon
They Want My Soul
5 August 2014
Loma Vista

4 stars out of 5

They Want My Soul is Spoon's eighth LP, and their first since 2010's Transference. The album comes across as the Spoon of old hosting a disco party for a group of Mercury Rev fans. Claiming to have been burned out after Transference, the band took a few years off for the members to do their own things and recharge. The results indicate that the vacation was a success—every track here is a delight, every beat begging to be danced to.

While there are still some classic Spoon indie rock tunes here (“Rainy Taxi,” “They Want My Soul”), much of the record is focused on the groove, whether in programmed or analogue form (“Outlier,” “New York Kiss”). Regardless, They Want My Soul is another great Spoon album, full of great hooks and permeated by Britt Daniel's crackling, soulful delivery. Spoon have always accessed some mythical world between Sam Cooke and Wire, achieving a sound that was part '60s soul, part '70s post-punk and kraut rock (see the bass line for “Rainy Taxi” and compare to Neu!'s “E-Musik” for an example). “Outlier” sees the band incorporating full-on dance music into their arsenal, bringing in the big guns and setting their sights on the dance floor.

Dave Fridmann's production adds some subtle symphonic aspects to Spoon's sound but doesn't interfere too much with the band's established minimalist approach (Deserter's Songs this ain't). They Want My Soul is an essential document in Spoon's career: cool and confident yet at the same time angst-ridden and mournful; hip and danceable yet deep and thoughtful.

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Eaux - Plastics

Eaux
Plastics
2 June 2014
ATP Recordings

4 stars out of 5

London trio Eaux introduced Plastics to the world back in June of this year, and I'm just getting around to listening to it now. Oops. That's two months of my life that I lived in ignorance of this great record, two months that could have been so greatly enriched by listening to wonderful music created by Sian Ahern, Stephen Warrington, and Ben Crook. This is dark, noisy electronica, created through improvisation and jamming, with a minimum of programming, and it's fantastic.

Despite not being pop music, just beneath the surface of these raging waters lurk some sweet vocal melodies (“Head”), reminiscent of A Sunny Day in Glasgow. “Movers and Shakers” resides somewhere between Jon Hopkins and HTRK, but far noisier than both. “Peace Makes Plenty” ends like an Einstürzende Neubauten junkyard breakdown, while “Sleeper” features percussion which doesn't want to play nice at all, skipping gleefully all over different tempos. Throughout all of it Eaux maintain an enduring sense of play and fun, no matter how dark and harsh the music may become.

Taken as a whole, Plastics is a record to be reckoned with, though each track stands well enough on its own to be considered a whole in itself, although Crook claims that Eaux's songs are “never finished, just abandoned.” Each track is a dense forest of complications, and you can't rely on Google Maps to show you the way out. This is a good thing, as Plastics is a place you won't want to leave for quite a while.

reviewed by Richard Krueger

Joyce Manor - Never Hungover Again

Joyce Manor
Never Hungover Again
21 July 2014
Epitaph

3.5 stars out of 5

 

Never Hungover Again is the third album (I hesitate to call anything nineteen minutes long an “LP”) by California punk band Joyce Manor. This is a record that positively reeks of suburban SoCal, from the bored kids getting bad tattoos to “Heated Swimming Pool.” Since the longest of its ten songs is 2:28, I’ve decided to write a review that emulates the brevity of the record.

Non-political melodic punk rock. Weezer with attention deficit disorder. Epitaph meets channel ORANGE.

For the self-pitying, unconsciously privileged white suburban teen in everyone.

reviewed by Richard Krueger