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OUR WEEKLY COLLECTION OF SHORTER REVIEWS
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Proudentall,
Neil Hamburger,
Shutdown,
Cadillac Blindside,
Drums & Tuba,
The Taxis,
Fivehead,
The Princeton Reverbs Colonial,
Bitchin' Wheels,
Electric Frankenstein,
Pacer,
DJ D:FUSE,
Le Coupe,
Subset,
Eskimo Kisses,
Orange Cake Mix,
Imbroco,
The Olive Group,
K.,
Trembling Blue Stars
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Proudentall / What's Happening Here / Sun Sea Sky (CD)
I like Proudentall! I liked them the minute I spun up their disc. They
have a sophisticated, mature sound that belies their relative obscurity. In
many ways they remind me of Jawbox. They play thinking man's hard rock.
It's not just loud and crunchy, it's texturally varied and dynamic and
capable of subtle emotional manipulation. The best song on the disc is
"1002". It's so impassioned that allegations of emocore will surely start
to fly. It's also an impeccably written song. A quick tempo keeps it
moving and stark dynamic contrasts add even more momentum. It places
sections of almost brainy pointillism (Rush-like) against pathos-ridden waves
of guitar and vocal fury. The chorus is the hook for me. After a suitable
build-up, with almost feral frenzy, the lead vocalist screams "Push me out
of your life!" as an angry hell of guitars and drums breaks loose behind
him. The song ends abruptly with an anguished "Get out! Get out!" To be
able to so aptly communicate emotion through music is a marvelous thing. I
look forward to more from Proudentall. -- nw
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Neil Hamburger / Inside Neil Hamburger / Drag City
(CD)
If you've never heard anti-comic Neil Hamburger before, this
EP might be a good way to test the water. Ostensibly
recorded in Australia, it features a couple of six-minute
segments from his profoundly (and, meta-textually speaking, deliberately)
unfunny routine. Less effort
than usual is expended in making the standup stuff sound
"authentic" -- either that or there are about five people (and
a BBC Sound effects record) in
Neil's fake audience, which wouldn't be entirely surprising. As
usual, the audience's indifference and occasional heckling
causes Neil to lose confidence in his material, though he
never falls as low as he did in Left for Dead in
Malaysia. If this stuff makes you laugh, great -- but every time
Drag City squeezes a little more out of the one-dimensional Neil, there's a better chance
that the joke will be on you. -- gz
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Shutdown / Few and Far Between / Victory
(CD)
Shutdown makes it clear where they stand by printing "New York Hardcore" in
big letters inside Few and Far Between's package. The songs are unvarying
in their go-for-the-throat speed, but the band seems to feel that its music is
more inspirational than angry. Since Shutdown makes so much of its positive
take on hardcore, it's shame that it's impossible to understand a
thing vocalist Mark Scondotto is saying. Not only is there the typical
difficulty in comprehending lyrics shouted at a voice-ruining volume, but
producer Roger Miret (of Agnostic Front) made the disappointing decision to
bury everything behind a domineering guitar sound. This robs listeners of
any chance to decipher Scondotto, though lyrics are printed in the CD booklet. Production also saps most of the impact from the rhythm section
of Dion DeNardo (bass) and Jimmy McCormack (drums). What remains is Steve
DellaCroce's guitar. With a start/stop style suggestive of Helmet's Page
Hamilton, DellaCroce's solid playing comes off as more metal than hardcore,
but the unvarying tone of his instrument begins to dull the senses
after a while. The result is exhausting. I hope the band is
able to find a more balanced mix on their next release. -- rd
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Cadillac Blindside / Read the Book, Seen the Movie / Soda Jerk (CD)
Here's an album that should be heard by anyone distressed by the lack of
good rock, and everyone who has lost interest in the emo genre (Which should be just
about everyone by now. - Ed). Melodically tight,
and rife with fantastic vocals by Zachary Zrust and James Russell, Read
the Book... touches upon the greatest moments in Braid's career, with the
vocalists almost fighting each other over the lyrics on "A Touch of
Nostalgia". The guitars always clang hard and meaningfully, and Rebecca
Hanten is a maniac with the drums. She helps to keep the energy going at a very
high clip, but also engineers the transition in slower songs
("This One's On Me", and the start of "Just Pull the Trigger"), allowing listeners to catch their breath and regroup. As with most emo records, the intensity is so high that it's hard to mirror the singers' level of interest in their woes, but Cadillac Blindside succeed
better than most. They get by on the passion and intensity of their vocals,
aided by a rhythm section that knows the value of simplicity. -- td
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Drums & Tuba / Box Fetish / My Pal God
(CD)
If you're not hip to the Drums & Tuba sound, well, you really should be.
Don't worry, this isn't some dopey gimmick record like Your Grunge
Favorite on Highland Pipes! or something. It's full-on funky,
groovy, dirty weirdo rock music that just happens to be played on
guitars, drums and tuba. In a way it's unfortunate that the band decided
to put the tuba part in their name, as it tends to draw the attention
away from the fact that their music is much more interesting and
noteworthy than their unusual instrumentation. Box Fetish is a
re-issue of Drums & Tuba's 1997 debut, with beautiful
new packaging and a few newly-recorded bonus tracks. If you're into
moody, complex, improvised-sounding, slightly dark but often humorous
instrumental music, then you really can't go wrong with this CD. Even if
you're not, you should check it out, just because I said so. Drums &
Tuba is touring this fall -- I've never seen them live, but I'm betting
that they'll be even better in the flesh than the are on plastic. -- ib
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The Taxis / Rude Girls Ride Free / North East Indie (CD)
It’s got to be getting really tough for bands to come up with names that
have the word ska in them, or names that conjure up some type of checkered
pattern. Never fear: The Taxis have got that one nailed. Here are five songs
of very straightforward poppy punk, with some horns thrown in to go with the
checkerboard background of the band’s patches and the paneling on the Taxi
in the artwork. The “ska” in these songs is found in “Pick it up, Pick it
up, Pick it up” yelps and upstroked-clean guitars in the verses, but in the
end what remains is mid-tempo and formulaic melodic punk rock. -- av
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Fivehead / Goodie the Rat b/w Better Part of the
Year / Peek-A-Boo (CD)
Fivehead are worth noting simply by virtue of their
likeable, slacker-friendly indie rock, but they also garner
attention due to the front-and-center presence of Silver
Scooter bassist John Hunt. Here, their dual guitar approach
-- Hunt shares duties with Beaty Wilson -- makes for a
tasty, ticklish melody on the quick and hummable "Goodie".
B-Side "Best Part of the Year" is a longer and more complex
treat -- a pop song with distinct album-rock aspirations.
Both will bring Dinosaur Jr.'s more restrained, sublime
moments to mind. There's not a unique sound here, but both
tracks left me wanting to hear more. -- gz
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The Princeton Reverbs Colonial / ...And the Flute to Float the Soldier's
Sword / Red Carpet Ring (CD)
To me, the name Princeton Reverbs Colonial conjures up the image of 10,000
tiny men in matching black and gold uniforms, swords and knives at the ready,
marching in strict formation towards a golden-stalked battlefield to fight
an army of fuzzy, pointy-eared trolls armed with stout wooden clubs and
morning stars. Those images come in rather handy when trying to describe the
sound of PRC's narritively inclined ...And the Flute to Float the Soldier's
Sword. If those fuzzy, pointy-eared trolls ever decided to make music it
would most certainly sound like this: sweet pop harmonies and devastating
hooks drizzled with fuzzy guitars and sprightly rhythms. Close your eyes and
you can almost see them bouncing up and down gleefully, bashing out tunes
like "A Family of Cruel Kings" or "Our feet do not suffer to be moved" like
an all-troll version of Superchunk. Imagine them banging their furry little heads
while ripping through the rambunctious, feedback laced "Ascend in Faith"
whose descending guitar line is lifted straight from the Stooges' "I Wanna Be
Your Dog". There is an actual story here, complete with eight-part narration and accompanying visual
imagery, but despite repeated listens and inspection of the artwork, the
actual premise of the story remains a complete mystery to me, so I made up
my own tale. That's the true testament to the PRC's music: it carries with it the ability to take your mind to another place, if only for half an hour or so. Regardless of time
restrictions, pick up a copy of ...And the Flute to Float the
Soldier's Sword and create a story of your own. Otherwise, the trolls just
might sneak into your room and steal your underpants. -- jj
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Bitchin' Wheels / Bitchin' Wheels / Frigidisk
(CD)
In the press release for this one-man project, Scott Phillips explains his
moniker thus: "How are you going to get through life? By cab, on foot,
in a Honda or something bitchin'?" The music here mirrors this statement; it's
vaguely profound, kinda serious and thoroughly smartass.
From the low-key funk workout of "Plus One" (which reminds me of G. Love
without the hip-hop) to the AM radio love song "Squatter Girl", Phillips
keeps things pleasantly varied throughout. "Carbon Based World", a
jangly toe-tapper with a tasty piano solo in the middle, manages
to feel as sweetly eccentric as Robyn Hitchcock. While most of the album
maintains a late-'70s Midwestern vibe, rockers ("Hollywood
Killed Elvis") are mixed with funkier tracks ("Always Headlights Shining Down My
Back") to keep each song fresh and exciting. A bitchin' record indeed. -- rd
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Electric Frankenstein / The Dawn of Electric Frankenstein / Triple X (CD)
Ready to delve into the history books of a band named Electric
Frankenstein? The Dawn of
Electric Frankenstein gives us a crash course on pre-EF bands. Not that
you've ever
heard of the Crash Street Kids, The Thing or Kathedral (hey, then we'd be
writing about
them, right?), but Professor Triple X provides four tunes from each of
these three bands to
give you the inside scoop on how Electric Frankenstein became the punk rock
monster that it
is. Moments of snottiness, lurching rhythms and honest simplicity all
surface, as do dead end melodies and some downright
unsightly riffs, but isn't that what the constantly evolving world of bands
is all about? You probably won't be floored by these three offshoots, but
anyone who has pondered the life, meaning and
history of EF can now be summarily gratified by this musical document. -- am
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Pacer / The Space Between Us / Eskimo Kiss (CD)
This shoegazer band from Wilmington, NC, has a great bass player, modest
husband/wife vocals and a lyrical knack for bringing out my petty side.
"Rain in July", an otherwise lovely bit of pop, has a scene where a stranger
"kindly" passes by, then inspires Jeremy Mathews to wonder, "If you knew
that I existed, would you bother to say hi?". Some may not mind this, but I
think strangers who "kindly passed" this guy on the street should be left
alone. There's not much point trying to make bastards out of everyone,
especially in a pop song. Pacer seems to be a band that writes lyrics because they need to be there. If they weren't printed in the CD booklet, I'd simply have lost lose myself in their
often-great melodies, which recall early nineties British pop -- and, on
"Time", divulge an orchestrated piece Brian Wilson would envy. Bill Patterson,
Pacer's bassist, provides a solid platform for the Jeremy and Kim's vocals, while Kim's
instrumental contributions (a
glockenspiel in "Rain in July", and sleigh bells in "Time") elevate Pacer's
music to a near-mystical level. Standing alone here is "Ballad of the Lawn King", a lawnmowing song which veers from their
formula, showing Jeremy more than apt at hillbilly new wave. Along with
Kim's noticeable twang on "Famous", it gives the impression that Pacer has a Southern
side that's dying to come out. In light of such potential, it'll be interesting to watch their music evolve. -- td
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DJ D:FUSE / Psychotrance2001 / Moonshine
(CD)
I'm never really sure how to evaluate a DJ mix while sitting on my butt.
I was in a club in Miami Beach a few nights ago, and I knew very clearly
that the DJ sucked. This was because I kept having to stop shaking my
funky bottom as he fumbled around trying to get the next beat happening.
Or when he actually managed to get two records playing at the same time
he didn't come close to matching the beats, which again was at odds with
my bottom's desire to gyrate furiously. QED. Seeing as my bottom is
firmly planted in a chair at the moment, I can't really say much for the
bottom-movement-inspiring qualities of D:FUSE's mix. Wait a minute, let
me get up... Okay, I can now report that my bottom did indeed begin
to shake. So I guess this is pretty good stuff! It has "trance" in the
title, so you can more-or-less guess what the music is going to sound
like, although it's actually a little more detailed (lots of vocal
samples and sound effects) than I was expecting. There are tracks from
D:FUSE & Joy, Humate, Schiller, Steve Porter, Hamel, LSG, Mike Ski,
Memnon, Highland, The Traveller and the Motion and Carissa Mondavi. The
beats are straight-ahead and pretty numbing, as is expected from trance.
Although I can think of more inspiring things to dance to, this is
certainly a collection of tunes that would get any party moving, a noble
and honest goal handily accomplished by DJ D:FUSE. -- ib
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Le Coupe / All I Hear / Shelflife
(7")
Looking to prolong your waning summer for a few more days?
Like pretty much anything on Shelflife, this three-song 7"
should do the trick. These are gentle, understated
international pop songs, dependent primarily upon
lightly-strummed guitar, poolside percussion and the
alluring vocal talents of Stacy Michelson. Though
occasionally (and charmingly) off key, Michelson is up to
the modest demands the music -- namely, to gush in breathy,
siren-like fashion, allowing listeners to imagine themselves
enjoying an exotic international vacation. Since none of
the three songs here will inspire any more vigorous activity
than a languorous stroll to the bar, leisure-time listening
is recommended. This is a genre that's best taken in small
doses, the better to hide the fact that there's very little
variation between artists. Under the circumstances, All I Hear is a perfect portion. -- gz
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Subset / Overpass / Post-Parlo (CD)
Though Stephen Malkmus seems determined to put Pavement to rest, his band has inspired CDs like Overpass, which will more than satisfy your need for that particular indie sound. Besides a high
proportion of maddeningly catchy tracks ("Anchor", "Cabin Fever",
"Umbrellas", "Disarmament"), the great economy and clarity behind the album's production keeps the pulsating guitars from surging over and above Lindsey
Simon's wonderful, Malkmusian voice, preventing any of Subset's musical ideas
from getting lost in the mix. Significantly more enjoyable than Fastball (by
way of better influences, if nothing else), this Austin band manages to
inject life into all their songs -- even keyboard-driven oddities like
"Winter '79" -- and thereby have produced an album that's wonderful, despite
doing little more than express the band's willingness to carry Pavement's torch. -- td
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Eskimo Kisses / Eskimo Kisses EP / Post Parlo (CD)
If you thought the spirit of the Pixies was dead, shame on you!
Quirky, thoughtful, melodic inde rock will always exist while bands
like Eskimo Kisses have a say. Not only is their name cute, their music is
quite enjoyable. I'm particularly fond of "Pennsylvania" and its odd
chorus, sung in deadpan tones: "Your LP's scratched and the Betamax tape
won't fit inside the VCR, cassette tape ribbons break and your jambox
self-destructs, filling the air with feedback." No, I don't know what it
means, but it's just strange enough to be charming. The jangly guitars and
jaunty rhythms only heighten this quality. My favorite track, though, is
"Junebug". It's catchy as the flu. The jerky vocal delivery of Shar Mcleod
adds particular interest. While this EP only clocks in at 20 minutes, the
time is used well, and when it's over I find myself wanting more. -- nw
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Tunes for thunderstorms is what Jim Rao has crafted here. A jangly
acoustic guitar ambles along underneath sleepy lyrics and ambient effects.
Small voices -- such as Speak-and-Spells and those little cow cans that moo
when you turn them over -- embellish these simple songs. While the result
can be appealing, the tunes don't drive you as much as lean into you. The
rich overdubbed harmonies that dot the cassette make for an attractive
lullaby -- one well-suited for long bus rides when the last thing you want to
do is talk. Instead, you just want to be told a story. These cuts may not
always deliver on that front, but at least they do a fine job of keeping
you company along the way. -- rg
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Imbroco / Are You My Lionkiller? / Deep Elm
(CD)
Consisting of members of Mineral and Pop Unknown, Imbroco is a quartet that digs
deep into shoegazer pop. The songs are extremely gentle, lapping on the
listener's shore with a hushed ebb and flow. Occasionally, as during the
final moments of "You're My Lionkiller", a stronger wave crashes down, ruining
the mind's sand castles...but softer tides soon return to
smooth out the scars. It's during these rougher moments that I find the band
most appealing. While the entire album is immaculate in its production and
execution, most of it also blends in a bit too well with other
practitioners of the genre. These harsher sections make Imbroco stand out
from the crowd -- which, although it may be somewhat antithetical to the
shoegazer style, makes for more engaging listening. -- rd
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The Olive Group / Blue / Post-Parlo (CD-EP)
The Olive Group offers six songs of sparse indie pop. A fair number of
rock bands have turned their sights towards this tasteful, jazz-flavored,
bordering-on-adult-contemporary sound. There’s a bit of a simplified Sea and
Cake here in terms of sonics and vocals. The major restraint is limited
ability on the part of the players. The jazz isn’t quite jazzy enough to
show off anything more than simple scales learned in guitar lessons. The pop
is a bit too bland to rock even in that nice, subtle way. But all hope is
not lost: The sensibility is hinted at here, and the players can certainly
improve with future releases. -- av
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K. / Not Here b/w The Plan / Tree
(7")
Ida's Karla Schickele turns in a pair of elegant, moody
piano and violin tunes, aided by bandmate Ida Pearle. "Not
Here" is a mournful mid-tempo affair spiced with clarinet
contributions from Sue Havens. It's well suited to autumnal
coffee-drinking and similar activities. "The
Plan," a Low song, is a predictably solemn affair -- even
compared to the "A" side -- but Schickele gives it an earthy
sensuality. Both tracks are quietly stunning, while merely
hinting at the potential of Schickele's gentle, emotionally
powerful voice. More, please! -- gz
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Trembling Blue Stars / She Just Couldn't Stay / Shinkansen (CD)
While not as masterful or essential as their Dark Eyes EP, this
new quartet from Bobby Wratten's third band continues to showcase the group's
ability to capture the melancholy beauty of committing ("I have no desire to
escape/No wanton need for liberty") to a love whose time has come and gone.
As with the other single culled from Broken By Whispers, the
non-album tracks are excellent -- arguably better than much on their recent
full-length. There's greater structure to these songs, and enough heartfelt
singing to keep you from mourning the mostly dormant New Order and its
inferior offshoots (Electronic, Monaco, The Other Two). Along with other
post-Sarah acts like HAL (of Brighter), the Trembling Blue Stars
keep you thinking it's cool to be sad. This is well worth the exaggerated
price all EPs command, as it's one of those rare discs you'll play aplenty. -- td
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gz - george zahora | nw - noah wane | am - andrew magilow | ib - irving bellemead | jj - jason jackowiak
td - theodore defosse | rd - ron davies | bl - beth lucht | av - adam voith | rg - rodney gibbs
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