Author: nicole.baumann

Shivery Shakes – Three Waves & A Shake

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shivsRating: ★★★★☆

Shivery Shakes are a local outfit consisting of the mergence of two past bands: The Bubbles and International Waters. These four gentlemen released a self titled EP back in 2012 and have been making waves through their live act all over town in which they’ve showed off their fuzzy lo-fi sunshine garage pop. This debut, Three Waves & A Shake, is their first attempt at a full-length release, and its combination of witty lyrics buried under the sheen of shimmery guitars will have you shaking it all day long.

“Recurring Dreams” may be your first introduction to this band, but it’s definitely not a bad place to start your love affair. Immediately, you get a bit of wandering guitar that sounds like it’s waking up as you ease into their sound. Following is some gentle whistling that screams easy-going and then the hazy vocals chime into the mix; they’ve got this slight echo/reverb to them that makes them feel far away and yet right next to you while they engage you in the narrative of the song. Meanwhile, the guitars are wide-awake, and so is the track, but it keeps pulling you further in. Two-thirds of the way through, you get this little break down where the vocals kick out and the band gets to simmer their way back to a boil, layering the instrumentation upon itself again before they launch into final chorus. This an excellent beginning to the record, one which should not only have you hooked, but swooning.

What’s special about this bouncy record is that this group avoids the phenomenon of redundancy that often overtakes albums, such as this, that fall into the genre of fuzzy jangle rock. Until its close, Shivery Shakes keep it fresh and crispy, but not overdone. Take “Strange Houses,” the eighth track on the record, to be an example of the band reinventing their sound to keep you interested. Here, you can hear the Surfer Blood-esque crashing waves of guitars that melt into one riff after another. While this starts as a mellow tune, soon we unearth this uneasy feeling with the band. The song asks, “at the moment I lose it, how will I tell?” prompting a shift from the winding sunset riffs to cutting tangy guitar for a moment of nervous instrumentation before a return to the chill vibes of earlier. It’s the little details like this that make each song stand apart from the other and make you want to spin this record from start to finish.

This album is brimming with sunny jangly pop/rock that makes you want to put on your sunglasses and take a drive with the windows down, seizing full advantage of the lack of fall weather that Austin is benefitting from these days. Hell, wherever you are, put on Three Waves & A Shake and your sunglasses and have a blast dancing with this record and Shivery Shakes. You won’t be sorry you did: music-scout’s honor.

 

Sleater-Kinney Are Back, Y’all

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sleaterWhile the Internet has been all a twitter over the box set reissue that has been put on sale from Sub Pop, Sleater-Kinney, of late 90’s girl group fame, have announced that they are back with a new single and a new record, No Cities To Love. The group broke up back in 2006, but they’ve decided to give the gritty emo badass rock another go. You probably know one member, Carrie Brownstein, from her role as producer/star/all-around-funny-lady in Portlandia, or even her work in her other band, Wild Flag that also featured Janet Weiss from the S-K lineup.  Have a listen to the new track and follow along with the words here, and get ready for the new album to be released January 20th of next year. You can also download the track for free with an email address on the band’s website.

[audio:https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Sleater-Kinney-Bury-Our-Friends.mp3]

Download: Sleater Kinney – Bury Our Friends [MP3]

Show Review: The Drums @ The Parish 10/19

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drums

This weekend in Austin lived up to its title of “live music capital of the world” to the extreme; each night we were given not just a taste of sweet jams, but whole menus to choose from. Sunday night at The Parish had New York’s The Drums on their last U.S tour stop, providing us with a night filled with dancing and singing along to the band’s hits, new and old. Brooklyn’s Beverly served as the openers for the evening, offering up their jangly no-nonsense rock to amp up the crowd. Read more about how the night unfolded after the jump.

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Stream This BLXPLTN Album

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blxpltnHere at ATH, we like to keep things as local as possible. So when we find an up and coming local act we like to let y’all know about it so you not only can stay hip, but also so you can jam out. BLXPLTN is a self proclaimed ‘politically charged futurepunk’ group of three that started back in 2013. They just recently dropped their debut album, Black Cop Down, on Wolfshield Records and you’re in luck– you can stream the whole thing via the band’s SoundCloud Page. Personally, I’m really digging “Pressure” and “Betta Run–” both of which give you a little bit of a mix between old and new influences in the sound (I’m getting Ramones meets TV On The Radio). Check out this track, and then the rest of the record for free. For Free!

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Show Preview: Mutual Benefit @ Red 7 (Tonight 10/21)

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mutual

Date 10/21/14 (TONIGHT)
Location Red 7
Doors 9:00pm
Tickets 12$ Here, 14$ at the Door

Mutual Benefit is the work of Jordan Lee and sometimes his friends– that is to say this project from Lee is often just one man’s take on quiet and well orchestrated folk/experimental pop that happens to be fleshed out with the help from many others. If you’ve never heard the band before, you should expect a mix of delicate string work mixed with fluttering lyrics. Opening up for them are Suno Deko, who sound like a nice little mix of electronic and indie rock, a la something like Sun Airway. This should be a gentle addition to your tuesday evening.

Have a listen to what exactly you’ll be missing if you don’t turn up to Red 7 tonight:

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Bear’s Den – Islands

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BearsDenIslandsRating: ★★★½☆

Bear’s Den is a three-part band from London that first caught my attention when I saw them open for someone right here in Austin. I was struck by their folksy based indie rock—some of the songs had that immediate tangibility in the live setting that comes with a group with good energy and chemistry. Islands is their debut record, one which has the group giving you ten tracks of this energy into one neat package for your consumption.

The band opens this debut with “Again,” which will immediately catch your attention for its looping banjo, full sounding acoustic guitar and steady drumbeat. This track has a cyclical kind of build to it, each time the band comes back around to the chorus they seem to have gained some steam. The vocals have this hollow yet vastly deep quality to them that intensify with the song as well as the addition of backing vocals to make them emotionally charged. Genre wise, this opener harkens that of folk, rock, and pop all in one, which is the case for the first part of the album.

Track, “Isaac,” takes a different approach than what you’ve heard thus far on Islands, turning to a softer sound that has me reminiscent of some Great Lake Swimmers track. It’s a pleasantly delicate tune, beginning with the plucking of banjo and acoustic guitar and vocals, devoid of any percussion. This song crawls along, the gang vocals combining with the instruments to generate a beauty of a number that finds itself in the lack of a steady beat created by drums. The rhythm comes directly from the expressed elements—it’s simple but also simply moving. Other well-crafted numbers that strike my fancy later on in the album are “When You Break” which has the band building up the suspense all the way through the track to its end. The song has this bubbling undercurrent of an electronic element that you may not even notice until the other elements cut out before the bridge kicks in. This is one of the best numbers on the record, and its got me listening over and over, each time the little nuances of it becoming apparent and appreciated.

While Islands is very easy on the ears, at places, it feels almost too easy. I’m left wanting some tracks that push the boundaries of folksy quiet indie rock, whereas a lot of these fall into the Mumford & Sons pattern of alternating quiet moments of stripped sound with loud twangy jam sessions. Bear’s Den moves beyond this at times, but if that’s your bag, this band does it well. Find a track or two to jam to before you hear it too many times on the radio.

 

 

Double Show Review: Sharon Van Etten/ Allo Darlin’ @ The Mohawk 10/18

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The MohawkSaturday night was a busy night at The Mohawk for tunes, but one that worked out quite nicely for those interested in both main acts. Outside featured the emotional force of Sharon Van Etten, riding high off the release of her latest stunning album Are We There, which came out earlier this year. Inside had Allo Darlin’ doing the same—their new record, We Come From The Same Place, just released last week. The combination of these acts provided a nice balance of heavy and light to the night, both groups giving out their own take on catharsis.

Read more about how the night unfolded and see some stunning pictures from B.Gray after the jump.

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Kevin Morby – Still Life

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kevin-morby-stilllifeRating: ★★★★☆

You may know Kevin Morby better through his other projects such as The Babies, or has bass work in Woods. However, Still Life is his second release for this solo development, a follow up to Harlem River, which came out last year. If you’re still only familiar with this man’s other achievements, it’s time to bust out your headphones or your speakers and have a listen to Still Life, which shows the pure talent that you already knew Morby possessed, but channeled in a raw and real form; the sincerity of this record will have you coming back to it over and over again.

The album comes to you humbly and asks you to “take [it] as you feel—” a line that comes on “Amen,” which you won’t come to until later, but this is an instance of the songwriting aptly describing the listening experience. From the moment you press play on opening “The Jester, The Tramp & The Acrobat,” you get this gentle undercurrent of a rhythm that carries you along while Morby, addressing you as a friend, opens up. The song begins to flesh itself out, transitioning from soft drums and acoustic guitar to some licking electric guitar and a change to a faster pace. Here, we get a bit of a preview as to what this album has in store for us: we get both a subtle and simple side well as the intricately crafted indie-rock-and-roll jam side, all of which is coated in a residual gravity in the songwriting.

While it’s hard to pick a favorite aspect of this record to focus on—both the instrumentation and the lyrics work together in a fantastic combination of mood—the lyrics are constantly are working at your heart, begging for you to let them in. Take any track on this record and you can find a line or two that is stunning in its nature, even removed from context. On a song by song basis, there are numbers like “Drowning” and “All Of My Life” which grip you from start to finish, tying together lines like the threads in a tapestry, leaving you simply stunned at the end product. Here is a man pouring what seems to be the contents of his soul into his craft, laying it all out for you in a sometimes delicate, sometimes rock and roll fueled context.

To put it bluntly and with a cliché, listening to this record feels a bit like falling in love; by the time I reached the ending of Still Life, I was already itching to restart and do it all over again, following Morby through the highs of the jams and especially the lows in his lyrics. It’s all good, and it’s all waiting for you to fall into its depths.

Greylag – s/t

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DOC098-Greylag_AmazonRating: ★★★☆☆

Greylag is a type of goose, but also a band of gentlemen from Portland, Oregon. Their debut, self-titled album out on Dead Oceans is a combination of folk and soft indie rock that offers some grand builds and quiet jams that should put this band on the map of the indie world.

Often, I’m quite intrigued as to what the album artwork has to say about a record and the general aesthetic that it gives to the bands name. Here, we have what resembles an old book or diary, immediately making me believe this record holds intimacy. For the most part, this is a fairly valid reflection, which only becomes more apparent as the record progresses. However, as the band kicks things off with lead single “Another,” you don’t really get this vibe. Instead, what you have is a fireside-dance-party with earthy sounding acoustic guitars looping on top of each other as well as some banjo. This first track reminds me a little bit of a more clean-cut version of Cave Singers—the folk-country-jam breakdown is there, it’s just a bit more refined and produced. While not a bad start to the record, it’s just enough to pull you in to see what the group has to offer.

At first listen, there are some immediate attention grabbers, but the more I listen to this record, the more I’m realizing that the tracks that immediately stand out on first listen aren’t the best to be found here. On the contrary, the more subtle numbers from Greylag are the ones that you can hear the most promise in their sound. Take “Burn On,” as a perfect example of this; it has that personal and stripped gentle quality at first that lets you warm up with the band. They give you this great build up with those bombastic drums from earlier, some group backing vocal, striking lead vocal and that twangy lead guitar. This song is great, and so is the ending track, “Walk The Night.” Here is another stripped down number which works so well for the group, giving out the calm and tranquil energy of solitude of just a man and his guitar.

On the whole, this little release was an impressive start for this band. While there is some obvious room for growth—some of the tracks come across as a bit too repetitive or like other songs on the record—there are still songs that are definitely worth your attention. I’m excited to see what’s to come next from Greylag.

 

Allo Darlin’ – We Come From The Same Place

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HIRESRating: ★★★★☆

Allo Darlin‘ first hit my radar back in 2012 when they released their sophomore record, Europe, and let the world know they have some serious skills when it comes to sunny indie pop. We Come From the Same Place offers a further trek down this road of well crafted glistening pop tunes as well as a beautiful transitional record for a shift to autumn days.

The band opens with “Heartbeat–” a bouncy and ukelele filled little warming up number, which gets you excited for this album by reminding you just what made you fall in love with Allo Darlin’. The real goodness is yet to come, but don’t worry it’s coming soon. Second up is “Kings And Queens,” in which the band picks up the pace and starts to hit their stride. Following that, you get the simply swoon-worthy title track, whose choral hook, complete with backing guitar riff is enough to make anyone tap their toes and jam along with this group. When Elizabeth Morris belts earnestly, “Please believe me, I’ve never said this before,” as the guitar delicately jams along with that jangle in the background, I was jolted from passive to active listener as that sensation of excitement swept over me. Here is where this album hooked me—from here on out I was pretty much on board with anything this band wanted to throw out.

This track isn’t, of course, the only stand out number on the record, as later on you get numbers like “Bright Eyes” and “Crickets In The Rain.” The first of these two songs turns out to be one of the more rock-laden tracks on the record and begins with a little stripped down electric guitar. What makes this track so special is the duet between male and female vocals that you don’t really find anywhere else on the album. Combined with that squalling electric guitar that takes off on its own at the end of the track, this number is infectious. “Crickets In The Rain” gives that perfect for autumn combination of sunny sounding instrumentation with a melancholy twist—be it in the lyrics or Morris’ vocal quality. It’s the perfect mirror to falling leaves or rainy days mixed with the still stagnantly hot Texas sun.

My small issue with this record is that it seems to be lacking a little power punch to push it through to the end. The songwriting is brilliant, the tracks are all pretty good, but I needed one more spectacular, knock-it-out-of-the-park song towards the end of the record to push me head-over-heels in love. That being said, since the songs are slow-burners at the end of the record, perhaps I’ve just missed the needle in the haystack and that missing piece will become evident with repeated listening. You have a listen and hear for yourself.

 

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