Of Montreal : Paralytic Stalks

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May 4, 2012
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Of Montreal : Paralytic Stalks

Of Montreal : Paralytic Stalks [ Album review ]

Of Montreal veterans may approach this album, as I did, with excitement and expectations for a mélange of bold, curious, and catchy tunes. Instead, Paralytic Stalks – their eleventh album – presents itself as a challenging patchwork of peculiar hymns and raw lyrical admissions, sprinkled with a few catchy hooks.

Those who became acquainted with the band in their early days as part of the Elephant 6 Collective know that evolution is nothing new to Of Montreal. What may surprise, though, is just how far Paralytic Stalks strays from the accessible, indie-pop ballads of yore, like The Party’s Crashing Us Now.

Kevin Barnes, the multi-talented vocalist and instrumentalist behind this nine-track album, pushes the envelope to extremes in this genre-bending release that ambles from gaudy ‘70s disco to pseudo-country twang. It’s apparent from track one that Barnes has used this album as a personal therapy session, unleashing his innermost thoughts as if he’s on the therapists’ couch.

Spiteful Intervention starts off with a somber, imposing verse before segueing to an energetic, camp chorus. Despite the melodic shift changes, Barnes maintains his classic party trick of juxtaposing morose lyrics on a twee musical background as he exclaims, “I spend my waking hours haunting my life / I made the one I love start crying tonight / And it felt good”. If you’re head-bobbing to the beat then these tidbits of penance may easily slip by, but they shouldn’t because this is what Of Montreal does best.

Next, you’re time warped to the age of disco in Dour Percentage, which draws heavy influence from the Bee Gees. Fast-paced, energetic and bordering on disco- bubblegum pop, Barnes emulates the signature falsetto voices of the brothers Gibb to a tee. The track stands out from others in that it is enjoyably chipper, if a bit ridiculous. Fans of the band’s older track ‘Brush, Brush, Brush’ will appreciate this ditty and have it stuck in their heads in no time.

A recurring theme across the album is that of love and honesty about relationships – including that of Barnes’ wife, Nina. We Will Commit Wolf Murder is the mesmerizing masterpiece of the album. With so much puzzling anarchy, this is one of the few songs that is very well structured. Barnes writes an open letter of love and yearning as he croons the line, “Lately you’re the only dancer I believe in” with an emotional credibility that leaves the heart heavy. It manages to tightrope beautifully between soft cantos and energetic bridges to create a symphony that is simultaneously galvanizing and analgesic.

The theme of love continues in Malefic Dowery, which describes a relationship that has turned mundane over time, evidenced by the lyrics “Now we’re a bore, we’re afternoon TV”, sung with palpable resignation. As the song reaches its peak, Barnes hauntingly sings “Once more I turn to my crotch for counsel / and it won’t disappoint me”, leading to questions of what might have been in his bloodstream.

The closing track, Ye, Renew the Plaintiff, moves away from the more sober songs above into an angry, jumpy piece that is nearly nine minutes long. Dedicated to Barnes’ wife, this honest tune reads like a diary entry before ending with a two minute long kaleidoscopic outro. While making this song was probably cathartic for Barnes, it’s more than a chore to listen to as you trudge through his sonic mental
breakdown.

Barnes has stated in interviews that Paralytic Stalks is meant to be taken in its entirety. The overall experience of the album leaves no grey zone. Patience to process it as a whole, rather than the sum of its parts, might be asking a lot of most listeners. Bottom line: you’ll either find it avant-garde and eccentric, or messy and unmerciful.

-Desmond Carter

w.c. 624

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

LABEL: Polyvinyl Records

RELEASE DATE: Feb 6, 2012

Posted:
November 1, 2011
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[rating: 3.5]
Future Islands: On the Water
Release date: October 11, 2011
Label: Thril Jockey

 

To say that Future Islands singer Samuel Herring has an unusual voice, would be an understatement. Before listening to the band’s new album, On the Water, I have always equated Herring’s distinct, strained  vocals with the likes of Tom Waits. What critic Daniel Durchholz described as sounding “like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car.” But on their new album, Herring’s voice sounds less Waits, and more comical – more like the  voice of Jason Segal’s Dracula puppet in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

 

No matter how you desect  it,  Herring’s voice, just isn’t welcoming.  Granted, certain tracks like “Where I Found You”, convey a certain charm and  palpable operatic emotion, but on the whole, Herring’s voice is a challenge for the listener. While there are great things to be said about a band who challenge their listeners, On the Water is relentlessly agitating, with each song masked by an intentionally repellent exterior.

 

Herring’s voice aside, On the Water is sonically reminiscent  of the last Wild Beasts album or even Austra’s LP. Most songs are built around synthesizers and buzzy, poppy effects, then layered with natural instruments. Where the vocals fall short,  the musical arrangements pick up the slack, and they do so with incredible strength. This is a a nautical album, heavy on atmospherics and complete with splashing wave sounds throughout tracks like “Tybee Island”. “Before the Bridge” is the most engendering song on the album, which is also highly progressive. There is a lot of raw emotion and yearning on this album, some of which flows from Herring, but most of which can be found in the subtle soundscape brilliance that the album is soaked in. Ultimately, song structure is so saccharine and well constructed on this album, that in some instances, Herring’s voice almost seems appropriate.  It takes some time and patience to arrive at that concession, but like listening to their previous effort In Evening Air on heavy rotation, it’s an embrace worth extending arms for.

 

-Andrew Bailey


Posted:
October 29, 2011
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[rating: 3.5]

We Were Promised Jetpacks: In the Pit of the Stomach 
Label: Fatcat Records
Release date: October 4, 2011

When people think of Scotland, three things come to mind – kilts, haggis and the Loch Ness monster. This is a fact and to be honest, it’s quite comprehensive. But after spending a decade living there one year, I quickly realised that beyond prehistoric urban myths and (surprisingly delicious) sheep innards, Scotland has a thriving music scene with a wealth of burgeoning talent and a handful of next-big- things.

For the uninitiated, We Were Promised Jetpacks (WWPJ) build on the reputation of fellow countrymen, like Belle and Sebastian and The Fratellis, falling somewhere along the spectrum between the formers’ poetic melancholy and the latters’ sanguine sing-alongs. Their debut album, These Four Walls (2009), put the Edinburgh-based quartet on the map, seeing them tour America and later open for Jimmy Eat World. Several singles achieved commercial success and served as soundtrack fodder for U.S. TV shows and a film (okay, so it was Hall Pass, but still).

The big question, as with most second albums, is whether In the Pit of the Stomach is a display of maturity or a sophomoric slump.

The opening track, “Circles and Squares”, starts with a cacophonous intro and immediately it’s apparent that compared to These Four Walls, vocalist Adam Thompson is lacking his former energy and passion. Confusingly, it somehow manages to gracefully evolve and ramp up to a powerful crescendo. The reward is a beautiful, contemplative instrumental ending that ultimately saves the song. Nonetheless, noticeable dissonance at Track #1 is never a good thing.

“Act on Impulse” is arguably one of the best tracks on the album. The addictive opening of punchy guitar riffs and drumming goes on for over two minutes and is gentle, upbeat and calming. An ethereal cadence and the songs’ raw lyrics show just what WWPJ is capable of, proving also that Thompson does indeed have the ability to stir emotions without needlessly yelling.

Expectations are lowered in “Through the Dirt and the Gravel”, which is chaotic and frenetically paced. Thompson’s vocals are grating and dispirited; one gets the feeling he can’t wait for this song to end either. While bassist Sean Smith and guitarist Michael Palmer struggle to salvage and inject some much-needed energy, the track sounds like something from a high school battle of the bands.

If you listen to just one song on In the Pit of the Stomach, make it “Sore Thumb”. This autumnal anthem is a modern-day lullaby for 21st century youth. To the social media weary, the indifferent, the young-and-already-blasé, and the confused and searching – this song is yours. It magically encapsulates the orchestral grandeur of Arcade Fire and fuses it with the strengths and personality of WWPJ, notably the exuberance that was abundant in their debut album. The result is nothing short of a poignant indie masterpiece fit for heavy rotation.

Like my year abroad in Scotland, the album avoids any middle ground, favouring an emotional rollercoaster approach instead. Thrilling highs or dramatic lows. Love or hate. Fish or chips. So what’s the verdict – sophomore slump or does WWPJ soar up into the strata? It’s actually not easy to tick either box definitively. In the Pit of the Stomach lacks the gumption and cohesiveness of These Four Walls, which was full of youthful vigor. It is decidedly the awkward, evolving adolescent phase of the band, and while there are moments of beauty and revelation, the underlying discordance shows that WWPJ are still finding their feet. But then, aren’t we all?

-Des Carter

Posted:
October 29, 2011
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[rating: 3.5]
Ryan Adams: Ashes & Fire
Label: Paxam
Release date: October 11, 2011
The long, desultory wayfaring that Ryan Adams first embarked on as a lovelorn, sentimental balladeer on 2000′s Heartbreaker, has finally come full circle.Adams, whose previously, indiscriminate performances in musical experimentation could be described, at best, as enigmatic (here’s to you, Orion), is finally back, doing what he does best: Alt. Country Rock.Ashes & Fire is a collection of understated, honeymoon songs from a man who sounds again at ease. Since his Whiskeytown days, Adams has weathered drug and alcohol addictions, heartache, and mental collapse, and each has greatly impacted his work. The musical results, though generally positive, have been vastly, varied. But in 2009, Adams got married; he then distanced himself from The Cardinals; and flirted with retirement due to Ménière’s disease, an inner-ear disorder which affects hearing and balance. Apparently, the roads he’s traveled have not been in search of creative reconciliation, but rather a matter of personal and physical well-being.There are vestiges of these demons on Adams’ new record – “Save Me” is a subtle but desperate cry for help – but ultimately, Ashes & Fire seems to reflect a reinvigorated spirit. The album astutely opens with Adams’ garbled words, “the last time I was here it was raining/it ain’t raining anymore,” over light, barely-there acoustic guitar. And for the first time in a long time, Adams appears defiant in the face of his obstacles and welcome to the challenge they present. His narrative about dancing in dirty rain, evocative of a “bring it on” mentality, persists throughout the record, even when he may be lamenting his situation. Adams discerns the positive even amidst the emotional shackles of a relationship on “Chains of Love”, and he prescribes virtue to hard lessons learned on “Lucky Now,” and “I Love You But I Don’t Know What to Say.” In the piano-driven grand finale, Adams seems to address his new wife, Mandy Moore, directly: “I was lost/I tried to find a balance, got caught up in the cost/I let it go, when I met you”. It wasn’t that long ago that Adams was completely lost in love –  he titled an album Love is Hell, for crying out loud – but Ashes & Fire is the very much the opposite.Sonically, this album is comparable to Heartbreaker. Adams has immeasurable taste, and while with The Cardinals, there appeared to be some method to his madness (the more instruments, the better), as  front man to the band, the intimacy of his work progressively dissolved: III/IVwas sprawling and over-packed, and Easy Tiger, though a good album in its own right, was singularly geared to producing a radio-worthy single. (I won’t even broach Orion.) Yet Ashes & Fire is simple and elegant; it feels personal and hopeful. The album is a return to Adams’ solo roots, but reflects the evolution of a man. No longer angst-filled, Adams is steadfast in his determination to fight rather than wallow – and he’s doing it with new found grace.-Andrew bailey

Posted:
October 29, 2011
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[rating: 4.5]
Atlas Sound: Parallax
Label: Parallax
Release date: November 8, 2011In the past year, Bradford Cox has asserted himself as one of the most important musical figures of this generation. Four, full-length, outtake and rarity albums, a massive tour with Deerhunter, and the release of his career-defining album Parallax. Up until this point, so much of Cox’s solo work was indistinguishable from his other projects — different store fronts for the same product. But on Parallax, the output is entirely unique and tremendously enjoyable.Previous Atlas Sound albums have always been an atmospheric and moody affair, but there’s a certain aura to Parallax that’s lacking in the former works. Maybe it’s a byproduct of the autumnal change, but the album contains a certain lively spirit that is hard to describe. “Terra Incognita,” a slow-rolling, acoustic piece is the soundtrack to lonely walks on uneven sidewalks. Cox’s haunting voice matches the deathly look of the leaves. It’s a beautiful landscape he paints, and it’s just one of the many focal points on the record.

The real weight of Cox’s work comes from the sense of isolation he creates on Parallax. Where most albums involve the world outside the artist, this album feels completely on its own, a summary of Cox’s stream-of-consciousness style of song writing and perfectly arranged instrumentals. While piecing the tracks together doesn’t necessarily reveal a coherent story or theme, the tone and rhythm of each song, strings together in movie score-esque pattern. Infectious guitar chords on “The Shakes” are echoed deep within the closing track “Nightworks,” in a tangentially related but familiar way. There’s a pattern to so much of Cox’s work, but it’s never boring or predictable. The subtle piano keys on “Mona Lisa” differentiate it from the rest of the album, but the same guitar effects are present along with Cox’s echoing vocals.

The album’s highlight, which truly showcases Cox’s ability to arrange and perform a song, is “Te Amo.” One of the best tunes this year, “Te Amo” has a simple lyrical structure, but is amazingly complex and breathtaking when taken as as a whole.The scaling piano keys at the beginning are entrancing, compounded by the slam of a drum that all lead into the explosion of Cox’s vocals. “We’ll have such strange dreams,” Cox sings in the third verse, the tune, by this time, having fallen into a hypnotic pace. On its own, the tune is perfect. But even as it transitions to the next track on the album, you can hear how it fits perfectly within the context of the rest of the album. And that’s where “Te Amo” excels: in its ability to stand alone as a great single, without retracting from the contained experience of Parallax.

There’s usually little to be learned from an album’s cover art, but Parallax has a story to tell. Cox, grabbing the microphone, standing half-lit and alone, is presented in his truest form. While his other projects also flourish, Cox is at his best when solo, left unaffected by outside voices and concerns. His ability to write hermetically, and at the rate and range at which he does, proves Cox to be an important, if fringe, member of the modern music scene. Parallax challenges current experimental pop music’s tropes and habits, vastly exceeding all expectations as one of the best albums this year, and certainly the best of Cox’s already-storied career.

- Erik Burg

Posted:
October 21, 2011
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[rating: 4]
Iceage: New Brigade
Label: What’s Your Rupture
Release date:  June 21, 2011

Anger, anxiety, maladjustment and nihilism are all impulses that legions of teenagers combat daily. In Copenhagen,  four teens are not merely scrapping against these demons, but waging an outright war on them.

Meet Iceage: a Danish punk outfit, whose rowdy live shows have delineated them the poster children for a “new cult of violent youth” – just have a scroll through the bloody post-show photos on their blog.But their new album New Brigade, substantiates the band as much more than a group of gashed-head exhibitionists and young, brash, noise makers. In a musical climate so over-run with baby-soft indie pop, New Brigade  is a refreshingly angry, visceral exercise in contained chaos and high-octane energy output. The album is a post-punk call of arms for loners and anarchists, alike, and easily one of the best punk records I’ve heard in years.

You only need listen to the exhilarating “feedback made to sound like galloping” first few seconds of opener “White Rune”, to get immediately drawn into the relentless, dark, fast-paced grip of this record.  Singer Elias Rønnenfelt belts out jumpy modernist angst ridden chants “I am White Rune!”, rioting the song into a furious Gang of Four-esc bounce that burns itself out in just two minutes,  before the listener even has time to catch their breadth.

 

Running just about 23 minutes, buried beneath scowling layers of heavy distortion and sloppy garage noise, New Brigade is, at it’s core, a faithful re-interpretation of early Joy Division, and New York No Wave. But for an album brimming with such over-worked post-punk , atmospheric goth and hardcore, New Brigade manages to infuse all three genres with a raw, new energy. The result of which, naively sounds as if the foursome discovered their “new” sound all on their own,  independent and oblivious to the last 30 years of music. And, for a band whose average age is seventeen, maybe, I even believe this.
Posted:
October 19, 2011
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M83: HURRY UP, WE’RE DREAMING

[rating: 5 stars]

M83: Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

Label: Mute

Release date: October 18, 2011

Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is twenty-two tracks of flawlessly crafted synth, drenched in intrepid, day-glo, art-pop scenery, barring a wasted moment. What M83 (Anthony Gonzalez) has accurately described as “Very, very, very epic.”

The double-album experience marks M83’s sixth record release, and an ambitious one at that. Siting Billy Corgan’s twenty-eight-track, nine times platinum, alternative magnum opus Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, as inspiration, more evoking of The Breakfast Club Soundtrack, Anthony Gonzalez, forges his ongoing love affair with dreams and the magical escapism of his youth into seventy-four minutes of bittersweet nostalgia, reconciled through epic dance jams. The result, is a very long, polished bedroom recording, you can bounce and sway to, contrived as a listener album, not a consumer.

Thematically, this is an album romanticizing youth; utter isolation, ecstatic joy, heartbreak and self-discovery. The first record follows one character’s longing for a relationship to finding love (even if it only  lasts two songs), through a period of self-mourning, and new dawn and redemption.

While this is very much a unified album, almost every song on Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming beautifully occupies a space all it’s own. The stand-out single and notably, one of the most redeeming singles of the year, “Midnight City”, is a humid, adrenaline-driven dream of a song, unlike any of M83’s previous work. Here, Gonzales’ voice is extremely compelling, less of a whisper than usual and more of a throaty cry, as eerie vocal harmonies, haunting sub-textures and synthetic strings adeptly sweep you into a highly danceable urban groove, swimming in broken neon light. M83’s signature dream pop aesthetics are all here, but each track feels larger and more bombastic than ever. “Reunion” is an effective track, ruminating on familiar territory from 2008’s Saturdays=Youth; nostalgia for youth, only this time around with heavier soaring synths. And, there is no better example for magnifying the familiar  than on “Wait”,  with it’s wistful Pink Floyd-like acoustic guitar riff, and high-pitched vocals elevating the song into something bigger and better than any songs off Gonzale’ previous albums.

Hurry up, We’re Dreaming, like almost every “indie” album recorded this year, adopts nostalgia as the basis from which to create, but what makes Gonzalez unique is his ability to dig deeper into the music and memories of his youth and not only move forward with it, but transcend it.

Posted:
September 15, 2011
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[rating: 4.5]

St. Vincent: St. Vincent

Label: 4ad Records

Release date:  September 13, 2011

Annie Clark is a woman of almost painterly beauty who would, in all likelihood, cut a bitch if she needed to. Beneath her gracefully composed chamber pop lies a scratchy, violent underbelly. With Strange Mercy, Clark achieves the perfect balance of porcelain elegance and distorted ugliness she’s spent three albums working to hit. Serrated guitar and some seriously agitated synthesizers—the coda of “Surgeon” sounds like something off a particularly wigged-out Bernie Worrell record—rip straight through strings, woodwinds and Clark’s own crystalline voice, leaving fractures in the delicate arrangements that take on a skewed sort of loveliness themselves.

 

- Matt Singer

Posted:
August 31, 2011
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Milk Maid: Yucca Album Cover

[rating: 4.5]

MILK MAID: YUCCA

LABEL: SUFFERING JUKEBOX / FATCAT

RELEASE DATE: JUNE 20, 2011

 

Martin Chohen, bassist turned singer / songwriter and frontman of Milk Maid, formerly of Nine Black Alps, recently recently recorded and released the debut album Yucca. Recorded in Cohen’s apartment in Macnchester, UK Yucca is an intelligent and solid album that offers up gritty guitar and often dark or concerning lyrics over “sweet, sun-drenched pop hooks”.

Yucca is what I imagine a Sonic Youth album would sound like if they had been from California and not New York. The range and versatility of Yucca can be seen with tracks like “Not Me” wailing heavy guitar action, the seemingly happy pop jam “Dead Wrong”, and the down-and-out lullaby “Someone You Thought You Forgot”.

Yucca is an album that could almost be a course book for a class on modern music history but without any obvious or direct references. In the past 2 years there has been a resurregence of bands that nod to 1950′s and 60′s girl group sound. While many of these bands are great many of them alsmost sound as if they could have been released in that era and no one might have known that they were made in the future and zipped back to be released via time machine, logically. Listening to this album you know that Yucca was made in current times – it’s obvious they know too much. The maker of this album must have a matured and very aware sense of where pop music has been and where it is now. They have been exposed to pop rock, garage rock, surf rock, punk and post-punk.  They know what they are doing.

I highly recommend picking up Yucca and blaring it while the weather is still nice. Preorder it at FatCat Records.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted:
August 15, 2011
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[rating: 4.5]

THE HORRORS: SKYING

LABEL: XL Recordings

RELEASE DATE: August 9, 2011

Most bands wontedly mature with mileage, but rarely are they able to thrive with the same level of success as The Horrors. In 2007, the band released Strange House; an underrated debut album that has slipped into indie rock obscurity, sounding today, like it was written and recorded by a different group altogether. Two years later, The Horrors released Primary Colours, rightfully shuttling the group into musical notoriety andsetting the pace for their newest record, Skying.

As with most Horrors’ albums this is not necessarily an innovative or unique sounding album, but rather a loud one. This new batch of material leans heavy on an older rock n’ roll and garage rock aesthetic that the band has comfortably visited throughout their career. But on Skying, The Horrors magnify the familiar, and along the way, throw in a range ofother musical influences from shoe-gazeto dream pop, to psychedelia mixed withsome of today’s more prevalent synth jams.

There is a lot of sound on Skying, loud fuzzy guitars,  big riffs,  free-flowing percussion, waving strings, electronics, organic effects and Faris Badwan’s commanding vocals (which have also grown considerable dimensions); but it’s all glued together to complete one masterful puzzle that evades sensory overload. Between the powerful bookends, “Changing the Rain” and “You Said”, two of the band’s most addictive songs to date and“Oceans Burning”, a sprawling 8-minute epic there are no tracks on Skying that lull the album’s progression. Skying is so uniformly composed and tightly arranged that no one song is greater than the next. And because of the albums consistentcy, differentiating the lush atmospherics from song to song, while initally challenging, is one of the most rewarding virtues of the record.

Skying is an album where the parts not only beget the whole, but where the whole synthesizes the parts. It is a collection of songs that succeed individually but absolutely soar when heard as a group. Where, in order to truly unravel just how fantastic a track like “Still Life”is, requires familiarization with the entire album. As you acclimate your ears to thestrata of noise, you’ll find that while Skying follows a cohesive blueprint, it never recycles a singular idea. This is a very fine line, which The Horrors have walked beautifully. In a matter of just four years,The Horrors have recorded a definitive album; mature, focused, and proof that some bands really are better at growing up than others.

-Andrew Bailey

Posted:
July 20, 2011
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[rating: 5 stars]

Bon Iver: Bon Iver

Label: Jagjaguwar

Release date:  June 21, 2011

When Justin Vernon holed himself up in a remote cabin, writing For Emma, Forever Ago, there is no way he could have foreseen the span of impact his album would exonerate, nor could anyone else.  Like a folk story echoed from generations ago, the goal was to hibernate and purge a year of personal trouble, pain, lack of perspective, heartache, longing, love, loss and guilt into a deeply affecting nine-song avalanche of gorgeous, fragile catharsis.  A year later, he would be taking calls from Kanye West, summoned for an indie all-star team recording eighties inspired love songs, releasing an auto-tuned EP, and closing Coachella.

After three years, Bon Iver, Bon Iver arrives into a world not only aware of it’s conception, but anticipating it’s birth with yearning. Thankfully, fans of Vernon’s lauded but comparatively skeletal predecessor albums, will not be disappointed. Bon Iver, Bon Iver masterfully combines the fruit of these labors,“bringing it all back home”. Like For Emma, Forever Ago, Vernon’s unmistakably earthy voice feels warm and personal amidst the minimalist composition residue lingering on this album; the organic sound of drumsticks bumping together, fingers sliding along a fretboard, all  nestled inside a new collection of quietly introspective folk songs like “Holocene” and “Towers”. The guitar at the beginning of “Holocene” is even reminiscent of Vernon’s pre-Bon Iver solo track “Hazelton” and there are post-rock echoes of Vernon’s experimental side-project Volcano Choir on songs like “Perth”, which transcends conventional verse and song structure. Even more, striking comparisons can be drawn to the Blood Bank EP, whose auto-tune legacy is, once again, re-visited with surprisingly tactful results.

But, Bon Iver, Bon Iver is built on a much more vibrant and lush linchpin than anything prior. These arrangements are more sophisticated and robust, and flourish from a consistent reciprocity of warm, beatific instrumentation consolidated by studio finesse. On the dramatic “Wash.”, Vernon’s virtuosic falsetto co-exists elegantly alongside the steady rhythm of keys before being tirelessly joined by separate layers of bold instruments punctuated by horns and synth.  The song titles on Bon Iver, Bon Iver are named for, or reference actual locations;  a wash of memories from places visited or dreams of places to go.  But unlike Band of Horses or Sufjan Stevens, these songs are less about the geography or culture of specific locations and more about breaking away to a state of mind;  living outside yourself and finding beauty in that space.

For an album written about escape, Bon Iver, Bon Iver puts forth a valiant effort at staying the course.

 

Posted:
July 15, 2011
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[rating: 4]

BATTLES: GLOSS DROP

LABEL: WARP RECORDS

RELEASE DATE: JUNE 6, 2011

How many bands can you think of that lost their lead singer and didn’t completely fold? Probably not many. But for Battles, the show goes on after the departure of Tyondai Braxton, the central figure of 2007′s break-out album Mirrored. As you’d expect after such a line-up overhaul, Gloss Drop is noticeably different from its predecessor, though many of the qualities that made their debut such a hit are still at play: high energy, strong musicianship, and an abundance of addictive weirdness.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that Braxton’s presence isn’t missed here, because it is. But the remaining members of the band – Ian Williams, John Stanier, and Dave Konopka – have done a fantastic job of brining in outside vocalists to complement their groove-heavy, mathematical-leaning sound. “Ice Cream,” a track that’s been kicking around for a while now, is one of the best examples of this, welcoming Matias Aguayo to the microphone to lay down crisp, almost ska-inspired vocals that wildly flirt with the frantic, rhythmic instrumentation. Later, the band collaborates with Gary Numan, Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino, and Yamantaka Eye on the elborate closer “Sundome”. And remarkably, these guest spots rarely sound like guest spots at all. Each of these artists blends so well- maybe it’s the production, maybe it’s the way the record was arranged, or maybe Battles just have keen ears for what precisely fits their aesthetic- that Gloss Drop sounds every bit as cohesive as Mirrored (even if there are less vocals.) It also helps that these featured artists were used in moderation. Only a quarter of the tracks have outside hires and each guest appearance is nicely bridged by the group’s quirky instrumentation, which prevents the album from sounding like an off-beat collaboration.

Yet, while there is no distinctly weak track on the album, there are, at points, moments that repeat, or songs that go on for longer than necessary. To put it another way, at times, Gloss Drop plays like a jam band with experimental, math-rock tendencies. “Futura” is one track where this really jumps out. For more than half it’s duration, the track is intense and gripping. But at some point around it’s final two minutes, the song starts to lose traction. The rhythms and cadences of the instrumentation might actually be duplicating but it sure sounds like that’s what’s happening. By no means does this wound the album as a whole, but it does grow sort of tiresome; just as it can be exhausting to hear a band stretch a three minute song into a 10 minute song in a live setting. It’s a bit of overkill- especially when a track like “Dominican Fade” proves they don’t always need to go the excessive route.

Most bands ravaged by turnover would have simply fallen off the face of the Earth, but it almost feels like the remaining members of Battles thrived on the challenge of picking up the pieces and carrying on. Depending on your own personal metrics, it’s entirely plausible to discover that this record is actually better than the first. It isn’t flawless, to be sure, but Battles have surely survived the wreckage with minimal scarringl with a successful album that asserts there’s more to come.

-Andrew Bailey

 

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