To say My Vitriol loves its pedal effects is like saying the sun is hot.
The UK quartet gives its reverb pedals as much of a workout as its distortion pedals, and as a result, it produces a sound that’s tender one moment, brutal the next.
My Vitriol’s debut album, Finelines, frames this stormy aesthetic into a tight set. Not content to merely throw 16 songs on a single disc, the band tie everything together with a number of short interludes and instrumentals.
As such, Finelines feels like a single, cohesive work. In less skilled hands, it would have come across as homogenous instead of unified.
While it would have been easy for My Vitriol to hide behind its pedals and attempt to pass it off as art, the band’s songs actually provide a sturdy foundation for its effects processing arsenal.
“Grounded”, “Losing Touch” and “Always: Your Way” sport memorable melodies and blistering fretwork. As the album progresses, the songs get more fluid, until the closing “Under the Wheels” sets Finelines adrift.
Singer Som Wardner thankfully doesn’t affect any of the usual alt-rock vocal clichés — no grunge growl, no Kurt Cobain worshipping. He’s got a nice scream, but he uses it sparingly.
In a way, Wardner almost calls to mind a young Billy Corgan but with a less grating voice. My Vitriol, too, is reminiscent of Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins in the way it doesn’t fear dynamics — rock music is usually loathe to play softly.
Sonically, the band shares more with Japanese rockers mono and Walrus than with the Pumpkins. My Vitriol also gets endlessly compared to My Blood Valentine, but since I never listened to My Bloody Valentine, that comparrison is pretty useless to me.
Regardless, Finelines is a satisfying debut from a band with an incredibly textured sound and the songwriting chops to make it work.
There are albums that are good that you might not like. And there are albums that you like that aren’t all that great.
Matthew’s Everybody Down could very well fit in the latter category.
Purveyors of What’s Important — i.e., critics — will most certainly latch onto the album’s professional studio sheen, the band’s alt-rock songwriting, singer Brian Sweeney’s Thom Yorke-falsetto and the music’s vaguely emo-ish trappings as faults.
And as well they should.
Everybody Down can’t escape some level of calculation, a familiarity with the way the guitars ring and buzz, the way Sweeney earnestly croons, the way the songs veer between sparse verses and big choruses.
But like that old proverb about trash and treasure, Matthew’s rank on your personal grate meter is a matter of taste. These same faults don’t sound nearly as bad as they could have been.
Sweeney, thankfully, doesn’t subscribe to the Emo School of Whiny Singing, which makes those unison power chords — a hallmark of most Weezer-inspired, post-Pinkerton rawk — far more bearable. Plus, those ringing arpeggios on “The Darkest Night”, “This Time” and “In Your Car” sound more early 1990s than early 2000s.
The title track does an excellent job capturing a listener’s attention right from the start, and following tracks — “In the Wonder”, “Steams” — keep the momentum going, alternating between rockers and slow songs with ease.
In other words, this album is easy to like for the exact same reasons other folks will feel ambivalent toward it.
And maybe that’s why this review is haltingly good — Everybody Down sounds exactly like the album that would find much favor for a very specific (and cool) audience, and it makes no qualms about it. Among the critical press, that’s whoring.
Phooey.
Matthew’s music is likeable because it’s well-written and well-performed. It’s not going to change the history of rock ‘n’ roll, but at the same time, it’s not a crass attempt to milk a cash cow. An eagar attempt, maybe — not a crass one.
Go ahead. Listen to Matthew, and don’t be afraid to like it.
My first encounter with Lamya was in New York City, Feb. 13, 1993. Duran Duran played a show three weeks before the release of its second self-titled album, a.k.a “The Wedding Album”.
What she did to “Come Undone” that night wasn’t pretty.
Six months later, a flame war erupted on what was then the only Internet mailing list dedicated to Duran Duran, and Lamya was given the nickname, “Lame-ya”.
So when articles started popping up a few weeks ago about Lamya’s debut album, Learning From Falling, the Duranie in me shuddered. Not her!
But hey — nine years? That’s enough time for a voice to mature, right? Lamya was all of 19 at the time she took the stage with Simon Le Bon that fateful February night.
Well, there’s some good news and some bad news.
As a singer, Lamya is still pretty average. Her raspy, nasal vox doesn’t possess the kind of Billie Holiday-from-the-grave vibe it’s meant to evoke. Compared to Erykah Badu or Lina, Lamya hardly ranks.
But nine years has done Lamya some good. She knows she’s not Mariah Carrey, and the shrill attempt she made on “Come Undone” nine years ago isn’t even part of the solution set.
If anything, Lamya shores up her shortcomings as a singer by wrapping herself up in some rather intriguing music.
Some writers have already lumped Lamya with R&B boundary blurrers India.Arie and Res, and on some level, they’re right. Lamya’s music has enough flexibility to include orchestral touches, acoustic guitars, Indian sitars, even a bubbling electronica beat here and there.
At first, Learning From Falling doesn’t really make much of an impression. It’s not nearly as distinctive as either India.Arie or Res, but over time, the album’s identity reveals itself.
“The Woman Who” does a nice job juggling classical guitars, a string quartet, synthesizer effects and an R&B beat. “Never Enough” manages to make a dance beat, lush strings and rock guitars feel congruous.
Nelle Hopper can’t seem to get over his work on Björk’s “Human Behavior”, employing a timpani once again as a hook, while “Pink Moon” could have been sung by any number of alt-country singer-songwriters.
Once Learning From Falling starts embedding itself into your subconscious, it’s hard to dismiss Lamya for her earlier transgressions.
She may not be as revelatory as other artists in this so-called neo-soul category, but she does hold her own well enough.
Don’t panic if you think there’s something incredibly familiar with Archer Prewitt’s third solo album, Three.
It’s not just the sunny, meticulously crafted pop songcraft. It’s not just the obvious 70s influences of the Bee Gees and Burt Bacharach.
If Prewitt’s Three should remind you of anything, think Let It Come Down by fellow Chicago resident James Iha.
Iha’s out-of-print solo album recorded ca. 1998 channels into the same creative A.M. frequency as Prewitt. Both albums sport some pleasant, 70s-styled songwriting delivered with a languidity bordering on lethargic.
Prewitt and Iha are such unassuming frontmen, they just can’t get too excited about the beauty of their own work.
But that modesty works to a point — instead of hitting listeners over the head with dazzling vocal acrobatics, Prewitt allows subtlety to seduce.
It’s hard to dislike this album.
Even without the dashes of horns and flutes and strings and sweet female vocals on such tracks as “Two Can Play”, “I’m Coming Over”, “Gifts of Love” and “Second Time Trader”, these songs hold their own when it comes to hooks and melodies. A case could almost be made for stripping away these flourishes.
At the same time, it’s hard to get incredibly enthusiastic about this album either.
Three is so painstakingly sculpted, so decidedly modest, it leaves a nice impression that doesn’t linger long enough after it’s ended. Some of the album’s first half — “Over the Line”, “I’m Coming Over”, “Behind Your Sun” — have nice dissonant touches that make them stand out.
For the moment the album is playing through a set of speakers, Three speaks well for itself. But it doesn’t cross the line where that seductive subtlety makes a listener crave it again and again.
Q: What do Tift Merritt’s Bramble Rose and Radiohead’s Kid A have in common?
A: Both albums are best heard when you’re not paying close attention to them.
In the case of Kid A, Radiohead achieved, by design or by accident, a goal Brian Eno set out to do with Music for Airports — to keep background music in the background while making it interesting.
Given the conventional songs on Bramble Rose, Tift Merritt most likely didn’t aspire to attain Eno’s goals either. After all, Music for Airports and Kid A barely have a single between them.
And yet, Merritt’s accomplished debut is best heard when relegated to the outskirts of consciousness.
On close examination, there really isn’t anything too remarkable about Bramble Rose — it’s a collection of nicely written, literate country music delivered by a singer constantly compared to a young Emmylou Harris.
The album is so determined in its modesty, nothing about it really stands out.
Ordinarily, such lack of flash can be construed as a virtue, especially in an era where Britney Spears can’t be escaped. But there’s a fine line between modesty and indescript, something Bramble Rose seems to straddle.
It’s only when Merritt’s music is playing in another room on a quiet late night when its beauty emerges.
The sweet harmonizing on “I Know Him Too”, the Georgia blues of “Sunday”, the simplicity of “When I Cross Over” — when the bits and pieces of Merritt’s most memorable moments transmit indirectly does that subtlty turn into seduction.
Sure, there will be folks for whom Merritt makes an immediate connection — it’s not like she’s recorded an album of throw-away filler. Merritt’s voice really is beautiful, and after a while, tunes such as “Trouble Over Me” and “Virginia, No One Can Warn You” ingrain themselves into your karaoke subconscious.
(Um, that’s to say at the very least, you’ll be singing the songs in your head.)
But that quiet beauty may take some work to appreciate. Or it may just be a matter of not listening too closely.
“Damn,” I thought when I first put Maia Sharp’s self-titled album in the car stereo, “this sounds like Sting. I’m not in the mood to listen to Sting.”
So I took the disc out and put on disc one of Super Junky Monkey’s Songs Are Our Universe instead.
Fast forward a month.
A single line from Sharp’s “Long Way Home” has been reverberating in my head when I wake up in the morning: “But I followed you there like the sick fuck I am”.
This line wouldn’t be so shocking if it were couched in crunching guitars and delivered in a scream. But it is shocking — Sharp houses the lyric in skillfully written pop music, and she sings it with the longing of a mistress resigned to play second fiddle.
And damn does it work.
Before I know it, Maia Sharp, the album, has become a frequent spin. In this case, the Sting-isms in Sharp’s songwriting — an intelligent blend of hooks and melody with jazzy harmonies and solid arrangements — aren’t merely derivative adult contemporary radio fodder.
It’s hard to dismiss the subtle touches in Sharp’s music — a chiming bell in “Willing to Burn”, dissonant chords on “Crooken Crown”, hints of Latin rhythms on “One Good Reason”, country-isms on “Happiness”.
Yeah, maybe the saxophones on “Crimes of the Witness” sound way late 80s, but after a while, they don’t sound so dated.
Sharp’s husky voice is certainly a welcome antidote to the all the whiny waif singers being passed off as “women artists” these days. (Vanessa Carlton? Give me a freekin break.)
Perhaps the nicest surprise comes at the end. Sharp co-wrote “You Can’t Have It All” with Kim Richey. The track opened Richey’s 1999 album, Glimmer, and marked Richey’s graduation from the Nashville songwriting assembly line to something personal.
Sharp’s own take on the track is actually more minimal and roots-based, opening with a vaguely Celtic feel.
Then there’s the recording she did as a child (“Ghosts”) which closes the album. A sentimental move, for sure, but somehow fitting.
Bonnie Raitt and Dave Matthews fans will also definitely be drawn to Sharp. Art Garfunkel was even so nice as to name drop Raitt on the promotional sticker plastered on the shrink wrap.
But Sharp isn’t below anyone who appreciates the days when Sting really did matter.
Who the hell is Pat Green? And why do people think he’s so evil? Well, visualize the term “frat boy country rock”, and draw your own conclusions.
Jack Ingram was one of the youngest frat boy country rockers during the early 90s, attracting an audience his own age while he was a student at SMU.
But Ingram grew up, and his major label debut in 1997, Livin’ and Dyin’, kept one foot in his country rock present and another in his singer-songwriter future. It was, as they say in music critic parlance, mature.
The next five years was where I stopped paying attention.
Ingram switched labels, then got sucked into a whole “country renegade” marketing blitz which paired him up with the brothers Robison (Charlie and Bruce). The guy who did Hey You, Ingram’s 1999 album, didn’t sound like the guy who did Livin’ and Dyin’, and in the wake of it all, Pat Green happened.
So it’s no surprise Ingram would rise from it all with an album that suits its title.
Electric doesn’t merely describe the axegrinding wielded by the likes of Austin’s Jon Dee Graham and David Grissom. Ingram’s rough drawl sounds as charged as his songwriting.
Billed as a song cycle, Electric holds together incredibly well musically. Themed lyrics are pretty much icing on the proverbial cake — you don’t need to pay attention to the words to hear the songs speak for themselves.
Although the album’s opener, “Keep On’ Keeping On”, spells out what’s to follow, “What Makes You Say” is where it all comes together. A simple but majestic tune, “What Makes You Say” feels almost minimal even when it employs a larger than life arrangement.
(Odd to think of it, but the track almost sounds like “Polomerria” by female Japanese rocker Cocco.)
Although Ingram can honky tonk hard, he’s best when he’s delivering straight-forward rock. “Fool” starts off as a meditative ballad, then kicks out in the chrous. “One Thing” is pretty much a rock song with some slide guitars in the mix.
Co-producer Mike McCarthy, who also helmed … And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead’s excellent Source Codes and Tags, provides Ingram some sonic touches traditionally frowned on by Music Row.
The most daring track, “Pete, Jesus, And Me”, is almost like a sonic history of Guided By Voices — lo-fi at the start, huge and slick by the end.
Electric goes far beyond the expectations of a “frat boy country rock” label. Guess that means folks ought to come up with something else to describe him, and let Pat Green inherit that mantle.
That’s not to say the Guided By Voices figurehead has ditched his faux-British singing and affinity for Who-like riffage for rehashed classicisms and 500 multi-tracked choruses of his own voice.
But like Enya on a good day, Pollard can write the same song over and over again and make it sound new everytime. On a bad day, though, that same song written over and over again sounds like, well, that same song written over and over again.
Universal Truths and Cycles marks a return to Guided By Voices’ middle period, when the band was far more ambitious than a four-track recorder could capture but not rich enough to pay for a full 24-track studio.
It’s a more stream-of-consciousness sound, where one track full of majesty and pomp follows a sparse track of nothing more than acoustic guitar and voice, which is then followed by a track that’s little more than a sound check caught on tape, followed by a track that alternates between bursts of guitar and jangly arpeggios, followed by, etc., et al, ad infinium …
Critics love this more diverse, more unpredictable sound because it’s (1.) not mainstream; (2.) well-written; (3.) just plain cool.
Bah.
Scattered is as scattered does, and Universal Truths and Cycles, while being skillfully written, doesn’t possess the clarity of the band’s most recent work. Even though Pollard does his best to give his songs plenty of texture, they eventually bleed into one another uncomfortably.
Sure, that mixed tape feel might attract some folks, but for listeners who like continuity in their album purchases, Universal Truths and Cycles is no place to look.
Thankfully, the album retains the fidelity of Isolated Drills and Do the Collapse, and to its credit, Universal Truths and Cycles comes across as a bit burnished. Gloss fit the band well, but so does a rough edge.
Just so long as Pollard doesn’t attempt to record these larger scales songs on an eight-track the way Under the Bushes, Under the Stars was made.
Still, comparing Guided By Voices to Enya isn’t so much of a knock. Even if the reclusive Irish singer has spent the last 15 years recording the same album six times, it’s a gorgeous album.
So too with Guided By Voices. Pollard may write the same song over and over, but what he’s writing is brilliant, succinct pop. It doesn’t hurt to put Universal Truths and Cycles on the stereo.
Let’s just hope the next time out, a little more editing and a tad more time will find Pollard writing on his good days than his bad.
There isn’t anything Musicwhore.org can tell you that you haven’t already heard from Rolling Stone or Mojo or Q or Spin.
All the pre-release hype was pretty much true — Murray Street is the most pop-sounding Sonic Youth album since Daydream Nation/Goo/Dirty.
Of course, I’m in no position to really say how accurate that is. I buy Sonic Youth albums on a case-by-case basis, and the only ones in my collection are, not surprisingly, Daydream Nation and Goo. (I also have Goodbye 20th Century, only because the idea of a rock band interpreting modern classical works merges two interests near and dear to me.)
That bias disclosed, the only issue for me is whether Murray Street would fit alongside said SY albums on my CD shelf — and it does.
Oddly enough, Murray Street is probably one of Sonic Youth’s least dressed up albums.
The aural pyrotechnics with which the band has long been associated seem to have been bypassed for a more unadultered sound.
That’s just a long way of saying the band doesn’t use very many pedals.
Sure, when the music reaches a point where the momentum builds — like during the chorus of “The Empty Page” or the middle section of “Karen Revisited” — distortion comes out in full force, but for the most part, they’re not the business of the day.
An intriguing development, really — the addition of Jim O’Rourke as a full-time member should have meant the triple guitar threat of Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon and Steve Shelley would yield more effects.
Instead, Murray Street comes across as somewhat genteel, the interplay between guitarists more textured. Genteel — when was that adjective ever used to describe Sonic Youth?
The seven-track album, however, clocks in at an epic 45 minutes, which means there’s a lot of noodling going on in Murray Street’s long-winded tracks. The minimalist dissonances more akin to the quartet’s dalliances with the avant garde still have sway over the band, and hence, the album.
“Karen Revisited”, the album’s longest track at 11 minutes, cycles through all kinds of textures previously explored by the Youth. But those first few minutes before the song transforms into a timbral exercise have some decent enough melodies.
If you don’t make it past the album’s first three tracks, you might be fooled into thinking Murray Street is entirely Thurston Moore’s vocal show. The usually prevalent Kim Gordon doesn’t contribute her familiar warble till the album’s end, while Steve Shelley anchors its middle tracks.
So yes, there’s nothing this review can contribute that hasn’t already been stated. Murray Street combines Sonic Youth’s latter-day harmonic sophsitication with its more melodic yearnings.
It’s smart enough for a patrician but made for a plebian.
It’s fascinating to see all manner of opinion about the Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots before arriving at my own.
Mainstream and independent media (magazines, fanzines and the like) are pretty much a Greek chorus of accolades, stating variations on the same theme — not as mind-blowing as The Soft Bulletin but certainly the best of the year!
Fans and listeners, however, are more direct — where are the electric guitars? We want guitars!
I only discovered the Flaming Lips with The Soft Bulletin, so personally, I don’t mind the electro-orchestral direction Wayne Coyne and company pursue on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.
Hands down, Yoshimi is so far the year’s most beauteous album. Coyne has polished his vocal performance, sanding away the rough edges and leaving an emotive rasp.
And while all the electronic effects, pseudo-orchestral arrangements and dramatic segues produce some gorgeous results, the acoustic guitars chiming throughout the album gives it a human anchor.
But there might be some credence to fan criticism of Yoshimi. The album pretty much sticks to a medium tempo range, no rocking beats, no overt ballads. And strip away all the effects from these songs, what would you get? Something pretty dark, it seems.
Yoshimi should be given credit, though, for following the creative path forged by The Soft Bulletin without retreading its terrain. This album isn’t a sequel, but if both albums were turned into movies, they’d make a great double feature.
In other words, if you really liked The Soft Bulletin, then you might … blah, blah, blah …
If anything, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots would have sounded incredible with a live orchestra performing the parts assigned to synthesizers. Include all the man-made effects and the rock beats, and it’s the modular soundtrack to Robotech all over again. (Best. Score. Ever.)
In the end, it’s a matter of taste. Yoshimi stands heads above the rest when it comes to style and scope, and even if it’s too lush for some long-timers, it’s better than any nu metal poster boys or emo flavor of the week.
P.S. Although Yoshimi marks Dave Fridmann’s most ambitious production work this year, Number Girl’s Num-Heavymetallic sports his best behind-the-console twiddling.
Yoshimi critics are right — Fridmann can do a whole lot with a band who aren’t afraid to hammer their guitars.