Free Polyvinyl 15 Year Sampler

Polyvinyl Records has been home to some of my favorite bands over the years and probably deserves a lot of credit for me discovering real indie music in high school.  What with bands like Aloha, Rainer Maria, American Football, etc. the label was one of the hottest and biggest in the emo/post-emo world.  It’s hard to believe the label is already 15 years old in 2011 and they continue to put out great albums year after year.  To celebrate their 15 years in existence, Polyvinyl has put together an incredible sampler featuring a whopping 30 songs from their finest acts over the years.  Old school songs like “Killing a Camera” from Braid are enough to make this a must download for me.  Hell, I’ll even entice you with a free download of that old school jam below.  Check out this sampler now and enjoy.

[audio: https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/24-Braid-Killing-A-Camera.mp3]

Download: Braid – Killing A Camera [MP3]

Owen – New Leaves

New_Leaves_digipak_3.inddRating: ★★★½☆

Owen’s sole member, Mike Kinsella, has been tooling around the scene since before we even knew what a ‘scene’.  With his brother, Tim, Mike helped start the groundbreaking band Cap n’ Jazz in 1989 which, with a solitary LP and a handful of singles and compilation tracks, changed the way we saw indie rock.  Since the bands split in 1995, Kinsella has put in time with such indie luminaries as Joan of Arc, American Football, Owls, and eventually settling with a his current solo project, Owen, in 2001.

In that time Kinsella has released five albums under the Owen moniker.  Each of these albums, while progressing with minor changes from one to the next, have essentially remained the same: Kinsella’s calming, but oft-times uncertain voice, telling of drunken late nights and one night stands, all with a background of lush acoustic melodies that surround you in blankets of finger-picking, hammer-ons and pull-offs.  If Kinsella weren’t such an accomplished lyricist and musician this formula would become tiresome.  In all honesty, for this reviewer, it had gotten tiresome around 2004 with the release of Owen’s third album, I Do Perceive.  I had grown tired of the clever narratives and pretty songs about finding girls and losing said girls.  I had all but written off Mike Kinsella.

But starting with 2006’s At Home With… and continuing more in his current album, New Leaves (released this week on Polyvinyl Records), something happened with Owen: Mike Kinsella grew up.  After a marriage and a new daughter, Kinsella’s lyrics have matured. Now he is longing for change in his life.  In the first single “Good Friends, Bad Habits” Kinsella laments about being jealous of his friends late nights and bar fights, but in the refrain he clarifies “Sometimes, like every time she breathes, I embrace my routine”.  This sentiment is carried on throughout New Leaves, in songs like the title track and “Amnesia and Me”.

There are still the tracks, most notably “Ugly on the Inside” and “Brown Hair in a Bird’s Nest” that hearken back to his previous lyrical content, and it just seems tired compared to recent domesticated enlightenment. Overall, though, New Leaves is a beautiful and heartfelt record that deserves a listen or two, but it would be nice to change things up every once and a while.

[audio: https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/02-good-friends-bad-habits-1.mp3]

Download: Owen – Good Friends, Bad Habits [MP3]

The New Year – The New Year

Rating: ★★★★½

Long ago, in a time far far away, Bedhead graced us with a several albums throughout the nineties; each one revolved around their slow, emotive sound.  Years later, decades in fact, the Kadane brothers carry on with their similar stylings, only with a new moniker; The New Year.

Their third album under the new name, The New Year, carries with it similar sounds.  In fact, a fair assumption would be to assume that the bands are one in the same, despite the absence of several members.  Still, the Kadane brothers have always been the center of this slow-core universe, and they remain so today.

Case in point is the opening track, “Folios.”  For three plus minutes it slowly builds and builds; gentle guitars pick their way through the track, backed by the slightest of drum beats.  By the time the vocals join in the song is near its close, but it leaves you with one of the main thematic statements from this record, as Kadane sings “I don’t think the good years I have left can wait/so what are we staying for.”  It seems to be an album about isolation and moving forward.

The largest change on the album is the skeletal importance of the piano work.  Sure, I’ve seen it before on their previous projects, but here it gives a greater weight to each song in which it uses, and it is used as the sole instrument on “MMV.” It is just one of the many ways The New Year has managed to branch out their sound on this new album.

Interestingly enough, the band doesn’t seem to have too many contemporaries these days, which is perhaps why I find this album so interesting.  There aren’t any elements of folk dancing about, and you’d be hard up to find a dance number here; not to mention the fact that the excess noise in these songs is used merely as a compliment, not as focal point.   They’ve perfected their format, and without the like of American Football and other like-minded bands, The New Year is on top of their game.

For me, their specialty has always been their ability to control the ebbs and flows of their music.  As quickly as they build up the pace and the tension in their songs, they turn around and return it all back to the pleasant pacing of where they began.  Few bands have been able to touch on this balance, always dancing on crescendos, and yet always holding back.  I’m sure one day they will let go, and that one day will be everything you want it to be, but for now, I’m okay with their ability to control it.

The gentle approach of this album carries a lot of power for me as the listener, and for you as well, I hope. It’s the sort of album you want to play in your bedroom when you are all alone, just absorbing yourself in aan album in its entirety.  It lacks pretension, yet each listen unfolds more and more.  Put your headphones on, and get deep into The New Year.

If you are more of the live setting kind of person, rather than headphones, then you should check them out live when they come to Austin on September 20th.  They will be hitting the stage at Emos.