This is fine.
Jaill is one of the recent signees of our friends over at Sub Pop. They’re from the Northwest, but their sound, especially on this tune, recalls a lot of the 90s indie rock, which we all acknowledge is the hey-day of the genre. Be sure to keep an eye on the band, as they release That’s How We Burn on July 27th.
Download: Jaill – Everyone’s Hip [MP3]
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It must be noted that I have never been a fan of No Age. Their two albums Weirdo Rippers and Nouns have tried and failed in making a home in my music collection. My ambivalence towards the lo-fi indie rock that is all the rage these days probably has something to do with this bitter taste that I have towards No Age.
But something keeps pulling me back to this band. Maybe it’s Randy Randall and Dean Sprunt’s predilection towards ‘guerilla gigs’ or reviving Husker Du, complete with Bob Mould or live scoring the film ‘The Bear’. Sure, No Age’s music is lo-fi, but their drive to bring something special to the scene is highly admirable. This admiration drove me to give the new four song Sub Pop EP Losing Feeling a shot.
Losing Feeling, while sharing similarities with No Age’s previous releases, feels different, more fleshed out. The songs no longer seem like a wall of fuzz and reverb, but like dynamic songs that change from track to track. The opening title track plays like a contemplative slow burner, strangely reminiscent of Andrew Bird and leads into the delicate and drumless ‘Genie’. My favorite track on EP is the instrumental ‘Aim at the Airport’ which slowly builds tension on layers of effect laden guitars and tape loops leading to the EP’s climax, ‘You’re a Target’, the sole rocker on the EP, that I can’t help thinking was influenced by their time with Bob Mould playing Husker Du songs.
While I still wouldn’t call myself a No Age fan, I do respect what they are doing. On Losing Feeling the band has delivered a great listen from start to finish.
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A slew of records into his career and Eric D. Johnson returns with his outfit Fruit Bats to release The Ruminant Band on Sub Pop. Splitting time between Chicago and Portland, you can really feel the regional influences shine through on this album, filled with the wooded folk one would expect from the Northwest mixed with the quality production and warmth you’d find from like-minded bands in the Midwest.
Opening the album with a gentle folk number that rolls through the hills of your mind is where you first meet the voice of Eric D. Johnson. As his voices rises and falls with the gentle acoustic work of the guitar, you will find yourself falling in love with him. When “The Ruminant Band” takes over the stereo from here, Johnson’s voice takes you somewhere entirely close to home, echoing with familiarity. It’s one of the gentlest songs of the year, but one that definitely should make plenty of lists at the end of the year.
As energized as the album begins, or at least as far as one can go with this style of music, it begins to take a softer slide into the latter half of the album. “Beautiful Morning Light” recalls a touch, and only a touch, of Wilco. The acoustic number is carried by the perfect range that is Johnson’s voice, which seems to be the dominating theme on the album. It’s hard not to admire the vocal quality here when so many other bands are coating their lyrics and feedback and reverb.
“The Hobo Girl” is a mid-album stomper, in the midst of the softer side of things, that immediately recalls recent work from Dr. Dog, which is due to the saloon-style piano that serves as the backbone of the song. The song even features flourishes of barroom discussion included to give a little texture. Not sure why it’s necessary, but it makes it hard to get away from resemblances. “Being On Our Own” is another song in the same vein as the previous one, but done with a little bit more of a Southern flourish to the vocals. Set here in the middle of the album they provide the perfect pacing balance for the whole of the album.
The understated highlight of the album definitely has to be “Singing Joy to the World.” Every instrument merely exists to bring out the melody and inflection in Eric’s voice, and it’s short time span makes it go along almost unnoticeable in comparison to the rest of the record. Be sure not to miss this song, as you’ll be sore once you discover it’s the secret gem of the record.
Musically, The Ruminant Band is not full of anything that particularly jumps out at you as incredible feats of musicianship, yet the strengths of the group lie in that fact. Every song exists as a tool to help Johnson’s voice succeed in the ears of the listener, and in that fact, the Fruit Bats have done an exceptional job carrying out a wonderful album.
[audio:https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/08-singing-joy-to-the-world.mp3]Download: Fruit Bats – Singing Joy to the World [MP3]
Fruit Bats will be playing in Austin September 2nd at the Mohawk.
It’s no surprise that Sub Pop has been able to stay atop the game as one of the leading independent record labels since its inception. To this day they continue to release albums that always matter; let’s just say that the label is known for its good taste. They’re here to offer you a brand new sampler full of songs that you can get later this year, such as a track from Grand Archives, or songs you should already own this year. Grab yourself a copy of this fresh new sampler here.
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Dan Boeckner and his wife/girlfriend/whatever, Alexei Perry are releasing their second album, Face Control, on Sub Pop Records under the Handsome Furs moniker. The first outing had a lot of interesting moments, carried mostly by Boeckner’s voice. Interestingly enough, you don’t find the band breaking new ground with their latest release.
The instant the album kicks off with “Legal Tender” one will immediately note that the beats on this round are a lot more prevalent than on the last outing. That’s not to say that Dan doesn’t throw in some slicing guitar licks, as he surely does so on this track, but they seem merely as extra moments. It’s as if the beats support the entire infrastructure of the songs, while the guitar seems to be an afterthought.
Still, one has to question whether or not this is enough to carry an entire album’s worth of songs. Answering this question will more than likely divide a lot of people, as the better tracks coming from this album, such as “Talking Hotel Arbat Blues” or “All We Want, Baby, Is Everything,” are really fantastic, displaying how some of the more thought out moments on the album can rise above the simplistic formula.
And yes, there is Boeckner’s phenomenal voice. As part of Wolf Parade, he’s pushed his voice to the limits, sometimes letting his voice curl into a bit of a yelp. This is not so on the Handsome Furs work, where we find him restraining himself quite a bit, allowing for the vocals to pull out every ounce of emotion from both his voice and the listener. Clearly the power of his voice is capable of serving as the backbone of an entire album, but probably not as the sole focus of said album.
“I’m Confused,” for instance, relies upon Dan entirely, using his voice to carry the entirety of the song until his guitar work angularly cuts through the background of the song. It’s an interesting sound, but it fails in the fact that it comes across as if the whole song was just merely a momentary thought; it has no flesh or filling. This is not what one asks for in such cases. Sadly, this is the feeling a lot of listeners will be left with when listening to this album all the way through, time and time again. There are moments when you can’t help but to be taken aback by the songs, but other moments exist when you might ask for a bit of density to the songs, a little exaggeration if you will.
You’ll come to the end finding that you’ve enjoyed the album as a whole, most notably for previously mentioned tracks, but you won’t find yourself dying to listen to it over and over again, only asking yourself questions about whether the band could have done more to fill some of the blank space that stands motionless throughout the album.
[audio:https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/03-talking-hotel-arbat-blues.mp3]Download: Handsome Furs – Talking Hotel Arbat Blues [MP3]
From the shadows of death Murder City Devils return. We all were lucky enough to catch them at Fun Fun Fun a few years back, and now, we get brand new vinyl thanks to Sub Pop Records. The band is re-releasing their albums in honor of their brief West Coast stint, and just because they aren’t coming to Austin doesn’t mean we can’t run out and get that vinyl today! Good luck old friends.
Download: Murder City Devils – Press Gang [MP3]
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On their first album, Wild Mountain Nation, Blitzen Trapper was all over the place. They played classic rock in a crooked modern pop manner, but the vocals lacked clarity in delivery. Their newest album, Furr, offered hopes of better production with the backing of Sub Pop Records, and dreams of consistency.
Those of us with high hopes might have to admit that despite the band’s efforts, we are only having our needs fulfilled on one level, that of the vocal delivery. It’s predominant departure from their previous effort, which does make this one exceedingly better than its predecessor.
One would be hard-fought not to notice the 60s-70s rock influences draped across this entire album, but they were there in the past. The previous albums spoke softly of such influences, but they step it up entirely on this album. All of this is furthered by the strength in production on this album, which pushed the influences to the forefront, rather than disguising them in a lack of clarity created by walls of noise.
They did write one of their worst songs ever, and chose to include it. “Love U” is full of unadulterated yelping, and it rarely provides anything worth holding onto. It’s merely walls of screaming, accompanied by sloppy musicianship, and it stands right in the middle of the album–just skip it.
Almost every single listener who has a weakness for the folkier moments in rock n’ roll will surely find the rest of the album enjoyable. Each track seems to recall another musician at every turn, as if the band set out to write an album full of covers. Songs like “Echos/Always on/EZ con” and title track “Furr” are purely magnificent. The subdued tones of each song warrants repeated listens for the rest of the year; the folkier side of Blitzen Trapper is where the band, ultimately, performs at their best.
It would be easy to pigeonhole this band as one intent upon revisiting the past, but they seem to have their own spin on our heralded past. One would be remiss to toss this band to the side due to a lack of originality; give it a couple of spins and you’ll find that the songs seem strikingly modern. The band is knocking at the door step of a solid album, and Furr is an album that furthers that dream for both the listener and the band.
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“Willow Tree” opens up the newest effort from Chad Van Gaalen, Soft Airplanes. From the start you experience what Chad is all about, but only one aspect. The quite folk song is underlined by his soft vocals, which appear to have some sort of vocal affect that provides an emotional echo. Regardless, this is the song you want to hear while sitting on your back porch.
Then you swing at the folk moniker and you miss. “Bones of Man” completely throws you off track, walking the line of rhythm based bands such as Pinback. Even his vocals aren’t exactly the same, which is a bit refreshing. It’s a good song, though I must admit that it doesn’t have the draw of the opening track.
And back he goes again with the off-kilter folk tunes, though this one has stronger percussion work than the first song, though by no means is it over-powering–just more noticeable. By this point, his voice is back, and you can really immerse yourself in it. For some reason, it sounds like a folkier version of Brendan Benson.
From here he cruises off to sunnier times, or at least the feeling in “Inside the Molecules” is all things California. His guitar sounds a little more bluesy, but the atmospherics clinging to his vocals kind of carry that breezy aura you’d expect to find in a California bar band. He doesn’t jump so far with his next song, “Bare Feet on Wet Griptape,” but this song just didn’t work for this listener. It seems sort of casual, and even the lyrical commentary isn’t too insightful.
Suddenly, you’re transferred to future land where folk meets samples, and I know its been done before, but it’s sort of like James Figurine meets Grizzly Bear. I still can’t decide if that is a good thing or not. You should probably decide for yourself.
At this point I feel like I’ve run the course of this album. I don’t mean to say that in adding that point that you can turn off the record at this point, because there are definitely some key points to be visited throughout the rest of the album, but he jumps and jives across genres. Van Gaalen does it so effortlessly that a listener agreeably goes with him, no matter where he travels. His vocals have a haunting sense of freedom attached to them, and when he steers away from the folk as he does on “TMNT Mask,” its believable. Sure, one could ask for more focus here on this album, but at the same time I think the differences in sound add a texture to the album that you won’t really find elsewhere. Besides he paid homage to the long forgotten Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’d down with that.
This is good stuff.
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Sub Pop records claimed that most journalists would find it quite difficult to place Death Vessel, as the band is virtually indescribable. However, I like a good challenge, and since I like this record, I have vowed to do it justice.
Joel Thibodeau is the man behind the music, and perhaps the reason people find it so difficult to classify his music is his voice. His voice is what you might call androgynous, standing a thin line between being thrown in one direction or another. Regardless, it is very soothing whilst matching the music that it carries along.
Musically, it isn’t as difficult to put into place, if you were one to do such things. I suppose I am one for such things, and in my decision to this I have come to three various pieces of Joel’s musical recipe: Iron and Wine, Deerhoof and Stephin Merritt (solo).
Death Vessel has previously toured with Iron and Wine, and the touches of folk leanings are immediately noticeable, though not necessarily ripped off. The production has the intimacy of early Sam Beem works, while maintaing its own personality altogether. It’s not as gentle as Iron and Wine, which is where I think the strength lies in this album.
As far as referencing Deerhoof, that lies in the ability for the songs to operate on various tangents, pulling back together uniquely, and never making you feel as if you really strayed very far from the core of the song. The first few songs alone go from folk, to a hint of rockabilly and on to vaudeville. It makes for an interesting listen, yet maintains its own uniqueness.
Now Stephin Merritt references I don’t throw around lightly, but if you’ve ever run across his solo works, and looked at the instrumentation he uses, you will find that Mr. Thibodeau is not far off in his own endeavors. He calls upon many many friends to gather and flesh out his songs, much as Merritt has always done. The best thing about this effort is that while several songs contain multiple instruments outside from the usual fashion, they all seem to find enough room in these songs.
My only draw back with this album is my own inability to connect to the lyrics. They are indeed outside the typical writing style, but at times they resemble Lewis Carroll. Despite my inability to connect, they are still displayed in such a polite manner as to make a listener draw in closely, going deeper into the music as they do so.
When its all said and done, this is a genuinely unique album worthy of multiple l suggest picking it up immediately. And, if you fall in love with it, as I did, you can check out the band on September 12th at Emos Lounge. Tickets are available at TicketWeb or you can click this link.
We here at Austin Town Hall are quite fond of Oxford Collapse, so when we got ourselves this little piece of magic, we had to post it. The song is called “The Birthday Wars” and it comes off the new album BITS, which is going to be released by Sup Pop on August 5th. The guitar work alone makes this song for me. Look for our review of BITS soon.
Download: birthday_wars.mp3
