Now Departing:Finn Riggins - Vs. Wilderness

Finn Riggins
Vs. Wilderness
(Tender Loving Empire ; 2009)

There's something to be said for compact, layered rock and roll. Boise, Idaho's Finn Riggins, back with their second full length for Portland, Oregon's Tender Loving Empire, has created just that ideal type of album. In an age where bands are pounding you over your head for attention at all moments, a concise, unique record is all the more advantageous. With eleven tracks coming at 40 minutes, Vs. Wilderness is an album that should get Finn Riggins all the attention they deserve from listeners.

One of the more unique things about the album, and most releases by Tender Loving Empire, are the hand-made CD cases and in-house art designs that are eye-grabbing and unique. In a day when labels are moving away from physical product in general, it's nice to see a label that makes it worth it to track down their physical wares.

Vs. Wilderness is bookended by a set of instrumentals - "Rush of Animals (prelude)" and the closing "Rush of Animals," but in between is some hearty, mid-fi (if there is such a thing) rock that shakes and churns. First proper song, "Battle," surges with hypnotic, repetitive guitar lines and chorused vocals from the three band members. There are shifts in tempo, more instruments than you'd think three people could play at once and the undeniable urge to tap feet. The record never loses any of its energy or pace from there on. Even when it takes side trips for distorted keyboard driven funky romps ("Dali") or steel-drum melody inflected ballads ("Shaky"), the record keeps its energy firmly in hand.

Having seen the band live before, I can certainly attest to the energy carrying over to their performances, and this record is their best documentation of that fury yet. Finn Riggins is part of a dynamic, small-label indie-rock movement that continues to put out inventive, unique and passionate music - that goes for Tender Loving Empire as much as it does for all the countless other labels around the country producing music this engaging and exciting.


Rating: E(xcellent)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Finn Riggins - "Shaky"

Finn Riggins - "Wake"

Order Vs. Wilderness from Tender Loving Empire or download it at eMusic.

Now Departing:Julie Ocean - Long Gone and Nearly There

Julie Ocean
Long Gone and Nearly There
(Transit of Venus ; 2008)

I seem to go out of my way every year to crown a power-pop champion for the year. Someone whose subversion or reverential recreation of the genre is so willfully brilliant and fun that I have to listen to the record over and over. In 2006 it was Devin Davis, last year it was Georgie James, in 2008 it's Julie Ocean.

But despite this being a debut album, the people involved aren't surprising. With a pedigree that includes members of Velocity Girl, the High-Back Chairs and the Saturday People, Julie Ocean is one more cog in an incestuous indie-rock machination of bands that have made a living out of co-opting and vividly and uniquely recreating some seriously classic rock and roll tropes: surf music, harmonies, three-minutes and less running time, jangly and crisp guitars. Long Gone and Nearly There follows in the best tradition of albums like The Ramones and, in more recent times, Is This It, hitting with force, quickly and succinctly, leaving the listener ready to hit play again at the end. The album blitzes by - 10 songs in 25 minutes - without a wasted note.

The first four songs roll by at an amazing clip - "#1 Song" and "My Revenge" being the two standouts. The former even contains a lick of guitar that immediately recalls a faster version of Matthew Sweet's "I've Been Waiting." The latter is possibly the record's most perfectly condensed moment: background harmonies, shimmering guitars, a glorious chorus, a pace that never slackens from note one. It even follows that grand tradition of juxtaposing ridiculously up-tempo music with somewhat bitter lyrics. "Just a little bit of sugar," as Julie Andrews sang.

The proof of Long Gone's brilliance lays in track five - the one song on the album that really stretches out. A little over five minutes long, it's the type of song that normally drags a record like this down. In the midsts of brilliant, short, punchy gems comes the long form song. But "Here Comes Danny" defies expectations - it's the epitome of the other tracks' perfection extended out to five minutes. I had to double check the time when I began writing this. "Here Comes Danny" has been one of my favorite tracks on this album since I first listened to it, but I was honestly shocked to find out how long it is. It doesn't feel anywhere close to that - with its guitar solo and megaphone-shouted background chorus, it's completely engaging. A record full of songs like this would begin to wear on listeners, but placed within the shorter pieces, it only reinforces just how sharp Julie Ocean is.

The back half of the album soars as well. "Bright Idea" hums along at punk speed with its "ahhhh" undergirding. The other true standout, "There's a Place (In the Back of My Mind)," sounds like a lost Buddy Holly track, and this is the one misstep in the album. This song should have been the final song on the record. Instead, the album ends on the breakneck "Looking at Me/Looking at You," a fine song in its own right, but it leaves the album more open ended. This is a quibble over sequencing, which isn't a major complaint at all, but I feel like ending the album on the former track would've even further pushed listeners to want to hit the play button again immediately upon its finish.

Long Gone and Nearly There arrives just in time for summer and to truly throw down the gauntlet for power-pop in 2008. If you're going to step to this album, you've got some mighty large and catchy shoes to fill.

Rating: E(xcellent)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Julie Ocean - "My Revenge"

Julie Ocean - "Bright Idea"

Download Long Gone and Nearly There from eMusic.

Now Departing:The Black Angels - Directions to See a Ghost

The Black Angels
Directions to See a Ghost
(Light in the Attic ; 2008)

Epiphanies are a slow process some times. I had been listening and re-listening to Directions to See a Ghost, the second LP from Austin, Texas’ the Black Angels, for a week at this point. The touchstones are obvious – their name is a Velvet Underground song reference after all and there is just too much fuzz to not think of My Bloody Valentine. But those names just seemed too obvious. I was hesitant to write this review using only those points for reference. I just wasn’t satisfied with my thought process.

Then came enlightenment.

It came in the middle of the album’s nearly 17 minute closing track, “Snake in the Grass.” Sitting at my computer, surrounded by the song, it dawned on me – Kyuss. It sounded like freakin’ Kyuss.

Kyuss isn’t a band that you’re going to hear people pulling out of their critic’s toolbox that often – the stoner/desert rock band that gave the world Josh Homme and of course, eventually, the Queens of the Stone Age, has its own sort of niche following, but nothing viral. But I’ll be damned if “Snake in the Grass” doesn’t sound like a unique and eerie cousin to Kyuss’ “Demoncleaner.” And honestly, that excites me.

Directions to See a Ghost is an incredibly worthy follow-up to the Black Angels’ 2006 debut LP, Passover. The overall sound hasn’t changed a terrible lot – it’s obvious that the band didn’t take the ‘radically different’ approach to their sophomore effort. But the production has been amped up and what was already a full and powerful sound has become even more so on this album. The structure mimics the first album to some extent – a clutch of songs and then an overpowering, long closer (18 minutes the first time, 16 and some change this time) that leaves the listener wasted in its wake. Given the band’s sound – fistfuls of fuzz and noise, grooves that are locked into and driven out to their logical ends, reverb laden vocals – it would be easy to end up with something akin to My Blood Valentine – a record that works more as a piece, divided up into “tracks” that are sometimes hard to tell the difference between over time. (Ask me to name an individual track on Loveless and I could name a few, but I’d be hard pressed to sing any part of any one song for you.) Instead, the band delivers a consistent sound that explores sincere shifts in percussion and treatments to create pieces that work together and apart.

There isn’t a bad song on the record, but the standouts are truly standouts. “Doves” is anthemic in its soaring chorus; “Mission District” builds a moody, slinking bass and drum combination into a song that positively oozes an evil-tinged sexuality by the time it explodes across the speakers. My interpretations of this are based completely on sound. The vocals, purposefully buried in the mix until they’ve become just another sound in the stew, are hard to discern, but it doesn’t make them any less important. In fact, singer Alex Mass’ vocals are one of the band’s deftest weapons. Sounding at times like a psychedelic channeling of Ian Curtis, Mass creates a mood that is simultaneously detached and strangely invested.

The excellent pairing of the songs “18 Years” and “Deer-Ree-Shee” in the middle of the record take two songs and turn them into one as the tracks meld together with keyboards and sitar treatments. “Vikings” is a slow burner that uses a percussion line that makes you feel like you’re on a ship sailed by the titular people. You can hear the drums beating, the oars pulling, the coast of the hapless victim village off the prow. “You in Color” recalls the thick guitar work of Girls Against Boys during its introduction – the plowing riff making way for the song that barrels after it.

Directions to See a Ghost is an easy record to get lost in. Its sound is something that can be allowed to wash over you or to be explored song by song. In all the recent discussions about the future fate of the album, I can’t imagine the sincere loss to music if records like Directions to See a Ghost are torn apart into individual songs. Much greater than the sum of its parts, the Black Angels have created one of the best records of 2008.

Rating: A(udiophilic)/E(xcellent)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

The Black Angels – ”You on the Run”

The Black Angels - ”Mission District”

Download Directions to See a Ghost from eMusic.

Now Departing: The Replacements - Twin/Tone Reissues

The Replacements
Twin-Tone Reissues
(Rhino ; 2008)

This has been a pretty great year to be a fan of the Replacements. In
addition to Jim Walsh's
excellent book,
All Over But the Shouting,
the news had begun to circulate last year
that the full catalogue would be getting the
remastered/bonus track treatment this year.

The first slate of re-issues are the albums originally released on Twin/Tone Records and in addition to the slate of unreleased material, the true reason to celebrate is just the fact that these albums have finally received
a remastering.
The CD issues of the albums, including the "re-issues"
from earlier in the 2000s that were intended, it seemed, just to keep them available since they did nothing to the sound or material, have always had weak recording quality.

So, are they worth picking up? Absolutely. The big changes come to the albums on either end of the slate - Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash and Let It Be. The lead songs on these albums sparkle with a new depth they haven't had before - "Takin a Ride" is even more propulsive than ever and the drums in "I Will Dare" crackle in a way that makes the classic seem just as jittery and nervous and hopeful as ever. And this carries over throughout the entire album. For people who have listened to these records for years wondering what has been missing, it can be a revelatory listen when you hear the new remasters. The work on Stink and Hootenanny, while not as immediately obvious, is still good. Stink, of course, was already thick and brazen and the remastering doesn't alter that in any way. Hootenanny retains its sound as well, though both are definitely better than the original CD releases.

The remastering alone is worth the price of admission for long-time fans, but the real draw are the bonus tracks. A lot of what comes on these have made the rounds in bootleg circles for years, but the sound quality of them on CD is dynamic. Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash is the biggest haul, brimming with thirteen bonus tracks. The jewels here are the original basement demo tape recordings that Paul Westerberg gave to Peter Jesperson back in 1980. These are the tracks that legendarily knocked Jesperson on his duff from moment one - included is an older version of "Raised in the City" and "Shutup," as well as a couple of songs that wouldn't make it to tape. A slew of studio outtakes are included and the other real gem, the b-side to "I'm In Trouble," the clever and smile-inducing "If Only You Were Lonely," long only available on vinyl singles and the Boink! European LP.

Stink has the set's most completely enjoyable bonus tracks, with the original "Staples in Her Stomach," an outtake from the sessions, and a high-octane rendition of "Hey, Good Lookin'" and "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock." This version of Hank Sr.'s classic is not the one that was originally available on the "I Will Dare" 12" single - rather this one is done in the style of the Stink sessions - abrasive, fast and a hell of a lot of fun. The album ends with the jaw-dropping "You're Getting Married," a solo home demo that Westerberg had given to Jesperson back in 1982, but had not brought forth to use with the band. Listening to it, it's easy to hear the late-period Westerberg - the one from Stereo and Come Feel Me Tremble. It's a remarkable song.

Hootenanny has the least interesting of outtakes, though it does include a re-recording of "Johnny's Gonna Die" (originally from Sorry Ma..) done at a faster speed, a studio version of "Treatment Bound" (as opposed to the basement recording found on the album) and another Westerberg solo home recording, "Bad Worker," that is pretty solid. Let It Be is given a solid set of bonus material with a slate of fantastic covers ("20th Century Boy," "Temptation Eyes," and "Heartbeat - It's a Lovebeat") as well as an awesome outtake ("Perfectly Lethal") and alternate and demo versions of two album tracks.

There's a lot to love here - but will it serve as just a gift to long suffering fans or is there hope that this can help carry the Replacements' legacy onward another twenty-seven years? The Warner Brothers/Reprise album re-issues, due out later this year, will tell the tale of the band hitting its stride and then some (note to those who matter: "Nowhere is My Home" better be on the Tim re-issue or there will be consequences), so hopefully new listeners will be able to discover the band from stem to stern without missing anything along the way.

Ratings - These are based on the remastering/bonus tracks on each album, not the album itself.

Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash - A(udiophilic)/E(xcellent)

Stink - E(xcellent)

Hootenanny - E(xcellent)/I(nteresting)

Let It Be - A(udiophilic)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

The Replacements - "Raised in the City" (demo)

The Replacements - "Hey, Good Lookin'" (demo)

The Replacements - "Johnny Fast"

The Replacements - "Temptation Eyes"

Purchase Let It Be, Hootenanny, Stink and Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash from Amazon.

Now Departing: Hayden - In Field & Town

Hayden
In Field & Town
(Fat Possum ; 2008)

The pinnacle of Hayden Desser's career thus far was his 2001 album, Skyscraper National Park. It took the suffocating isolationism of Hayden's lyrics and finally let it transcend the minimalist structures of his first two LPs, allowing it room to breathe and explode across songs like the noisy and gorgeous "Dynamite Walls." But those elements disappeared a bit through the follow-up, Elk-Lake Serenade, in exchange for a more controlled, more fleshed out set of songs that, on the one hand, created some of his finest singles to date, but on the other, left less emotional investment to be had. In Field & Town pulls from both albums' worthiest elements and creates an excellent album that finally sees Hayden's songwriting getting the fully composed treatment it regularly deserves.

The album opens with a song that is bound to throw long-time listeners. The title track is more bubbly and invested with sound than just about any Hayden song before it. When I first heard it, I didn't like it. The sound is reminiscent of elements of indie-rock and I initially thought it derivative. But the more I listened to it, the less I was able to pin down exactly where I had heard the styles before. I'm used to a Hayden album having moments of full-on instrumentation amidst smaller, more sparse constructions. So imagine my surprise when the track that follows it, "More than Alive," starts off with a standard-sounding Hayden piano arrangement only to explode across horns and punches of electric guitar. "The Van Song," and especially "Worthy of Your Esteem," continue in this vein, creating some pretty outstanding moments across the first half of the album. Only the maudlin and lovely "Damn this Feeling" is a return to the Hayden form of old - piano and harmonica holding up the whole song. It's a great momentary lull and reminder of why his earlier albums were so enjoyable. It doesn't negate the fact that this move away from that style was a necessary move in order for his music to remain interesting.

In the middle of the album is its longest song, "Did I Wake Up Beside You?" At just over five minutes, it hearkens back to the exploratory noise of Skyscraper National Park, building across a couple of verses and choruses to a truly triumphant bridge of intense sound. It's here, and honestly across a lot of the record, that comparisons to Neil Young have been most accurately leveled at Hayden. It's only fitting considering Hayden's cover of Young's "Tell Me Why" on the Live at Convocation Hall double-album. The stumbling, seeming out of sync, but really well within it - the borderline atonal guitar solo that rips through the bridge - all reflective of Young's work.

The rest of the album is spotted with one bubbling pop moment ("Where and When"), more typical Hayden minimalism ("Weight of the World," "Barely Friends") and one of the album's finest lyrical moments, "Lonely Security Guard." It's one of the moments where Hayden's lyrics escape the dreary navel-gazing he evokes so well and, while not eschewing the self-deprecation, creates a funny and warm story. He's done this before - "Hollywood Ending," for instance - where his natural sense of humor (catch him live on tour and you'll see what I mean) comes out in unexpected ways. It makes for one of the album's finest moments and shows the depth of his writing ability.

In Field & Town isn't any great leap forward for Hayden - at this point in his career, I doubt we're going to see one of those. But it is a truly excellent record, one his fans will enjoy if they open themselves up to his developing style and look for all the familiar touchstones. New fans also may find a lot to like now that his music has fully climbed up from its darker, simpler moments.

Rating: E(xcellent)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Hayden - "Where and When"

Hayden - "Lonely Security Guard"

Download In Field & Town from eMusic.

Now Departing: Bombadil - A buzz, a buzz

Bombadil
A buzz, a buzz
(Ramseur ; 2008)

The touch of the familiar has always been a selling point in music. But it's also been the cornerstone for bands and artists that have a vision beyond the familiar. Whenever I think of groups that were rooted in the classic while plumbing a broader sense of style, I can't help but think of the Pogues, a band whose foundation in Irish folk traditions allowed it to pivot around the genres of punk and trad-rock with ease, painting a brilliant canvas of where music had been and could go. American indie-rock has seen an upswell of bands like this in the past number of years - the Avett Brothers and, lately, Megafaun have been channeling rustic and classic traditions as a base to create amazingly fresh sounds by mixing them with various American musical styles. Add to the list another North Carolina band - Durham, North Carolina's Bombadil. A buzz, a buzz, the first full-length from Bombadil, has its foundations in folk and country, but it sends its feelers out through the fractured compositions of the indie landscape, grabbing sounds as varied as the minimalism of Spoon and even the woozy-pop of Jon Brion.

The album is a kaleidoscope of moods and sounds, though the record has an unabashedly sunny disposition. The opening track is a spare piano, winsome lyrics, lonely and hopeful before the dynamic true-opener of "Julian of Norwich." If there's a song on this record that reminds me most in style of the Pogues, it's this one - a bounding, traditional English folk ballad down to the horns, pipes and percussive cadence. It's boisterous and rowdy in the way the Pogues were at their best. It's followed by one of three coy and spry songs that dot the album - "Smile When You Kiss" (and the similar "Three Saddest Words") are songs that skip and bubble along with word play and a warm sense of humor. They're purposefully very light and goofy in a way that recalls how Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan could be silly at times. Bombadil aren't the equal of those songwriters by any means, but they have the spirit down nicely.

The title track is the first song to really put to work the notion that Bombadil's folk stance is highly workable as a platform to explore other genres. Driven by rhythmic piano chords, the song is taken up by off-kilter percussion and bass, organic musical noise and bursts of odd harmonics that become more and more infectious upon listening. It recalls the ingenious minimalism of Spoon in its tendency to have parts fall in and out of the song, adding and taking away from the overall picture, leaving ghosts of sounds behind to fill in at times.

The songs "Cavaliers Har Hum" and "Johnny" both mirror the wobbly pop of Jon Brion, with horns, piano and the stray xylophone wandering amidst the song structure. "Johnny" is the best example of this - a somewhat sardonic song about an over-emotional boy, it climaxes among punctuating brass and cymbals. Bombadil remains within the established instrumentation of the record, but bends it to take on the sensibilities of other artists so well in appropriating it for their own. It's a remarkable skill that not a lot of bands always have the talent or patience to do.

Whether North Carolina is beginning to craft a new scene is unclear, but the amazing work of bands like Bombadil is without question. So is the quality of their debut full-length, a record that is as sharp and provoking as it is flat-out enjoyable.

Rating: E(xcellent)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Bombadil - "Julian of Norwich"

Bombadil - "Three Saddest Words"

Download A buzz, a buzz from eMusic.

Now Departing: The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely

The Raconteurs
Consolers of the Lonely
(Warner Bros. ; 2008)

There's something to be said for guerrilla marketing. The Raconteurs, the super-group that's only a super-group if you're a hard-nosed indie-rock person to begin with, announced the release of their sophomore album only one week before its street date. I liked that. It's gutsy and, in an age when record companies worry about pirates and stuff, it's one way to get ahead of the game - just don't give anyone time to leak the album. The stunt calls attention to the album, allows word of mouth to get around, and hopefully you've got yourself a slow, simmering sales winner.

But then something strange happened. The other week, after playing a song from the album on my radio show and podcast, I got a comment from the Web Sheriff. (You can read it here.) This is a company hired by record labels to troll the internet in search of "pirate" copies of songs being floated around. So while the comment is innocuous enough, the fact that it was left made me purposefully back off on reviewing this record. I had originally intended to post this last week, but half out of wondering what was up and half out of thinking that it would be imprudent for me to post any song samples, I backed down.

So, now that that's out of the way, just how is Consolers of the Lonely? It's good. Quite good. And is easily the better of the two Raconteurs albums so far. But the very things that made the band seem like it could be more than just another Jack White project aren't emphasized in the way they need to be. The result is a seriously solid rock album with flashes of genre brilliance.

"You Don't Understand Me," three songs in, is the first to really take some advantage of the obvious talent for stylistic mining. Moving away from the opening two tracks' blues-on-steroids archetype, the song uses Beatles style harmonies and some really tremendous and tasteful piano playing to undergird an amped up soul workout. It's immediately followed by "Old Enough," a Brendan Benson-sung tune that sounds like a slicker version of what Oakley Hall has been doing so extremely well for their past couple of albums - dabbles of Southern rock and jam-band sensibility squeezed into a pop-length song. "Many Shades of Black" revisits the territory of earlier - injecting some truly wicked guitar and horn work - ultimately ending up with something that sounds like a cover of something straight out of the 60s heyday of pop soul.

These songs, along with a few others ( the back-to-back "Rich Kid Blues"/"These Stones Will Shout" especially), are the album's highlights, unquestionably. The rest of sounds like a fuller-band version of the type of music Jack White has been channeling with the White Stripes' last few albums - so, sadly, it's just not as interesting. They provide a lot of power - those aforementioned opening two tracks are pretty stellar, as is the note-perfect rave-up, "Hold Up" - but with the album coming in at just under an hour, those moments become too frequent. They aren't broken up enough by the broader tracks and by the time you reach the end, it's just not holding your attention as well. Ultimately this is an album with a good handful of really remarkable songs and then a lot of quality tracks that just seem like a holding pattern. From a band that includes one of the more exciting retro-musicians of the 2000s and some cohorts who create some amazingly vibrant music on their own as well (Benson's solo work is ridiculously good), this is a bit frustrating.

This is where I would normally try to give you a taste of some of the best songs on this album, but since the long arm of the law has made me feel like I shouldn't do that, here's a provided video of the lead single, one of the good-but-weaker songs on the album.

Rating: E(xcellent) / I(nteresting)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:



Purchase or download Consolers of the Lonely from Amazon.

Now Departing: Jordan Zevon - Insides Out

Jordan Zevon
Insides Out
(New West ; 2008)

The curse of the father's success. It's an unavoidable discussion when musicians are the sons or daughters of someone famous. Liam Finn has been facing that down with his music and now so will Jordan Zevon.

The press release for Insides Out goes to great lengths to have Jordan say various things like "No matter how good Dad was, he was still my Dad and you're supposed to rebel against your parents." The line has to be drawn between Jordan and Warren, yes? Well, try as you might, he is his father's son. And despite the obvious British influences that Jordan readily cites, his father's songwriting influence is prevalent. But that could just be genes.

The album starts off well at establishing an alternative set of influences. "The Joke's On Me" and "This Girl" are both near-perfect slices of Oranges and Lemons-era XTC pop, full of carefully constructed harmony-choruses and the sort of wry, deprecating lyricism that both that band and Jordan's father had perfected over the years. It's not a surprise that these are the tracks that seem to be leading the album's commercial push - Zevon is set to perform the former on Letterman on April 18th and the latter is the free download over at New West's website. They're immediate and hooky, precisely the sort of thing that drives interest.

The rest of the album, though, does little to separate Jordan from his dad. Especially in songs like "Just Do That," "Camila Rhodes" and "Payday," Zevon channels his father's sense of style and structure. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Warren Zevon's pop style was acerbic without being over the top. It had an ultimate optimism that boiled below the surface, even in its darkest moments. Jordan's songs don't yet have the depth of his dad's. That's probably unfair to compare someone's debut album against the high water mark of a brilliant musician's career, but it's the unfortunate and obvious comparison.

The bulk of the record's tracks aren't bad, they just suffer from comparison. So an unquestionable highlight is when Jordan takes on one of his dad's own songs - the rarity "Studebaker," which didn't even surface on record until after Warren's death. Jordan's version is the fully-fleshed out version that Warren never had, being that the only version that exists is a piano-only demo. Jordan gives it a loving and reverential reading that makes it fit perfectly between the other tracks on the album. It doesn't help the rest of the album, but it at least lends him credence as an artist by making the musical connections between the generations more apparent and, ultimately, giving most listeners a reason to come back again when his second album comes calling.

Rating: I(nteresting)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Jordan Zevon - "The Joke's On Me"

Jordan Zevon - "This Girl"

Purchase Insides Out at Amazon.

Now Departing: Wye Oak - If Children

Wye Oak
If Children
(Merge ; 2008)

As much as Merge Records was defined by Superchunk's roaring maelstrom indie-pop in the 90s, it has come to more resemble label co-founder Mac McCaughan's other project, Portastatic, in the 2000s. Bands like the Essex Green, the Rosebuds, the Clientele and, yes, Portastatic, have created vibrant orchestrated pop, noisy anthems and everything in between. Wye Oak, one of the latest additions to the Merge release roster, fits snugly among them with touchstones all their own.

If Children is a record that moves in swells. Opener "Please Concrete" uses a balance of folk picking with surges of My Bloody Valentine noise to style an opening track that leads well into the rest of the album. As a map to guide the rest of the record, that song's parts serve well. "Archaic Smile" serves up a gorgeous slice of slow-core. "Warning" uses simmering bass and a cascade of feedback to replicate the opener's bridge, giving a propulsive blast to follow up the simpler beginnings. "Regret" is a lovely, quiet song that never leaves its humble melody aside to build anything larger, despite it serving as an able bridge to the next song.

But the group that seems to serve as the biggest comparison is His Name is Alive. Channeling the airy, ethereal vocals, Wye Oak takes the song structures of His Name Is Alive and overlays them with more noise. Where HNIA has tended to use more electronic-heavy instrumentation, Wye Oak relies on more of the natural noise and bluster that can be created by guitars and drums.

Even at its loudest moments, If Children still feels like a pop record out of time. "I Don't Feel Young" could've been a Ronnettes number in Phil Spector's able hands and here they create a wall of sound all their own. At the song's apex, the drums crash as if mimicking "Be My Baby." It's one of the album's highlights, without question.

There's a lot of beauty in If Children, but after repeated listens, it doesn't go much deeper than its gorgeously rendered surface. There's a ridiculous amount of potential for this band and Merge obviously saw it when they signed them. Somewhere, somehow If Children will be someone's perfect soundtrack to a summer night.

Rating: E(xcellent) / I(nteresting)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Wye Oak - "Warning"

Wye Oak - "I Don't Feel Young"

Download If Children from Merge Records' digital store.

Now Departing: The Kills - Midnight Boom

The Kills
Midnight Boom
(Domino ; 2008)

The last time I heard the Kills was 2005's No Wow which popped up on the WQFS rotation and grabbed me with its dirty, minimalist swagger. I had apparently missed their first album, but it positioned them squarely with the equally squalling Raveonettes whose debut EP had surfaced about the same time as the Kills. The Kills seemed to be chasing minimalism down a dark hole - rough and dirty guitar with minimal percussion and melody. The detached lyricism (a phrase I've used a lot lately) was also part of its sexy charm and the record won me over, though it didn't have a lot of staying power. I'd honestly largely forgotten about them. Now they resurface. The ensuing couple of years finds them in a similar boat - but not quite so dire. There's a lot more fun in this album than there was in the past.

First, one thing I love about this band is their creative use of minimalism in percussion. If you're going to strip a song down, the thing that always makes the song sound big is that beat. Take it down a notch, and you've got yourself a controlled reaction waiting to explode. All sorts of things - from handclaps to door slams to coughs to pots and pans to, well, handclaps again - dominate the rhythms of this record, in addition to the simple drum structures. Opener "U.R.A. Fever" is punctuated with dialtones and phone button bleeps. It builds slowly into a smoldering heap, leading perfectly into the more raucous "Cheap and Cheerful" which recalls Peaches at her best (minus the profuse sexuality). And yet despite these simple beats, the whole record carries a dance rhythm that is hard to ignore. I can't imagine seeing the Kills perform this stuff live as being anything less than an out and out dance party.

Next, the Kills know how to craft appropriate length and how to place songs. Clocking in at under 35 minutes, the 12 songs move with a great sense of structure, with slow points adequately placed throughout the run time. "Black Balloon," placed squarely in the center of the album, is a slow, hissing feeler that offers perfect respite between the pair of rave-ups, "Hook and Line" and "M.E.X.I.C.O.C.U."

The album is kinetic and enjoyable, a more dynamic listen than their previous work, but still maintaining the general sound of their previous work. If you enjoyed No Wow, then you'll enjoy Midnight Boom, but it does beg the question - will it be as easily forgotten? The Kills, while enjoyable, didn't stick with me the first time. The dancier, more vibrant band that has appeared on this album may stand up a little better. But then again, it depends on what the band is going for. Purposeful disposability is an art form in itself, and from that perspective, the Kills are making some of the more fantastic trash-rock records of the 2000s.

Rating: E(xcellent)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

The Kills - "U.R.A. Fever"

Download Midnight Boom from Amazon.

Now DepartingSera Cahoone - Only as the Day is Long

Sera Cahoone
Only as the Day is Long
(Sub Pop ; 2008)

Is there an unfair, uphill battle that female artists face in rock and roll? The battle I refer to is the race to find another female artist with which to compare them. While we certainly pull out the big, comparative guns for male-fronted rock bands and solo artists, there isn't quite the sheer vehemence that seems to come out in reviews of female artists. Pity the poor women who were endlessly compared to Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morrisette or, in the wake of alt-country's peak years, Lucinda Williams. Is it that these artists are really that much alike, or are we just that tied into our notions that women sound like women and therefore must be compared to other women?

Enter Sera Cahoone. Sera is a veteran of the Pacific Northwest music scene, having played with Carissa's Wierd and drummed some for Band of Horses, and has crafted her sophomore album, Only as the Day is Long, in a gorgeous and haunting country and folk inflected tone. You can almost see the critics salivating the words: Neko Case.

But let's back up for a minute and, at the risk of sounding somewhat hypocritical, let's talk about Gillian Welch. If there's an artist, voice wise, that Cahoone can be compared to, it's Welch, and indeed, the timbre of Cahoone's voice is rich with the aching emotions that Welch has been so adept at conveying. But I'm not trying to box Cahoone in - the depth of her background is enough to prevent that. Only as the Day is Long is filled with moments that play to type and escape it.

Opener "You Might as Well" plays to type and does it beautifully. It plays as the doppleganger of A.A. Bondy's "Vice Rag," the stomping rhythm, fueled by the guitar's intricately picked melody, echoing classic blues and folk traditions with an obvious sense of pop construction. The bridge is the song's most beautiful moment, small bursts of chords emerging from the melancholy. The title track echoes the soaring choruses of Welch, banjo, harmonica and others falling in to build an absolutely uplifting song. Songs like "Shitty Hotel" and "The Colder the Air" use the pedal steel of Jason Kardong to build up dusky sounds reminiscent of the earlier, mesmerizingly dark work of Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter.

When Cahoone works out of the album's general feel, on songs like the shimmering, shuffling country-pop of "Happy When I'm Gone," she's as unique and independent as the artists I've stacked her up against. I may have played into critical stereotypes by comparing her to other female artists, but the names I invoked are artists who, while starting in a genre that is well-worn and hollowed, have carved out a unique place for themselves and their sounds. I like to think that my comparisons aren't pinning Cahoone down, but rather, are evaluating all the many places she is likely to expand on her talent. Here's hoping I'm right.

Rating: E(xcellent)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge for Yourself:

Sera Cahoone - "Baker Lake"

Sera Cahoone - "Only as the Day is Long"

Visit Sera's MySpace page for some more songs and downloads.

Purchase or download Only as the Day is Long from Amazon.

Now Departing: Susu - Win

Susu
Win
(eMusic Selects ; 2008)

This week's Now Departing comes from a band released on eMusic's boutique, in-house label. It's a neat concept - each month eMusic releases two albums by either unsigned or overlooked bands to give them wider exposure and in this case it paid off. Caught my attention at least.

Susu is a band from Brooklyn, New York, who are channeling some of the noisier ends of the indie-rock spectrum. Everything from Bauhaus' caustic drone to Sonic Youth's detached delivery, from Girls Against Boys' fuzzy disintegration to the breakneck mayhem of the Murder City Devils show up across the EP's nearly 24 minutes. There is a lot of familiar territory here: the guitars, the vocal delivery (Andrea Havis' channeling both Exene Cervenka and Kim Gordon while Michael Andrew brings his Lou Reed/Thurston Moore), the song structures and deconstructures.

Which makes this a perfect album to review given this blog's recent discussions about whether or not music that isn't necessarily moving forward is worth listening to. Susu is the type of band who is further refining a well-established and respected sound. Do they do it well? Well, for a first EP, absolutely. "Anarchitect" opens with the kind of precise, hungry, simmering rock and roll that propelled Greensboro's Tiger Bear Wolf into my Top 25 Albums of 2005 list. It's music that seems unbalanced, chaotic and furious. "Part Bloodhound" sounds almost like a Daydream Nation outtake - not to beat the Sonic Youth comparison into the ground. Havis and Andrew's vocals are a perfect juxtaposition of being detached and frantic - emotionless and distinctly emotive.

The album keeps a pretty even keel throughout, not varying much from its style. For a debut EP, that's fine and, in fact, encouraged. Wild diversity may work over the course of a full-length LP, but on an EP it would just sound unfocused, sprawling and like a mess of single ideas cobbled together to form a short album. It also works in ways that wouldn't work over a work much longer. All the songs even clock in somewhere in the three minute range with the exception of "Hands Up (The Race)," a brooding six-minute song planted firmly in the middle of the EP which combines all of the album's tricks into one cathartic high-water mark.

So, here I'll err on the side of just enjoying this record. If Susu consistently cranks out music like this, it'll be enjoyable, but will lose its novelty over time. But for the moment, it's a great slice of what indie-rock used to sound like distilled down to its essence.

Rating: E(xcellent) / I(nteresting)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Susu - "Anarchitect"

Susu - "Get Hip"

Download Win from eMusic.

Now Departing: The Gutter Twins - Saturnalia

The Gutter Twins
Saturnalia
(Sub Pop ; 2008)

Super group or side project: different sets of expectations accompany either term. The super group is always hoped to be something akin to the sum of its parts and rarely meets them. The side project is often assumed to be tossed off and spur of the moment, so if they end up being fantastic, it's a great surprise. So what to expect from something that can easily invite both terms? Let's give it a shot.

The long awaited Gutter Twins album, Saturnalia, is the output of a super group. Combining Greg Dulli (ex-Afghan Whig, current Twilight Singer) and Mark Lanegan (ex-Screaming Tree, and variously member of Queens of the Stone Age and album-partner of Isobel Campbell) is a beautiful thing on paper. They get reunited on Sub Pop, the label where both started their careers and following Lanegan's contributions to a 2006 Twilight Singers EP, all manner of expectations had to be raised.

Okay. One more time.

The long awaited Gutter Twins album, Saturnalia, is the output of a side project. Combining Greg Dulli (whose main gig is the Twilight Singers) and Mark Lanegan (who has being riding on his own from project to project) sounds like a great time. All manner of guests drop in (Martina Topley-Bird, Jeff Klein, Petra Haden, Joseph Arthur, Troy Van Leeuwen) giving it the sort of freewheeling feel of a fun, enjoyable piece of work.

So which is more accurate? A little of A and a little of B is the unsatisfying answer. My expectations were astronomical for this album and, in that respect, it doesn't deliver. But is it a good album? Very much so.

Anyone who has spent any time listening to the recent Twilight Singers output is going to find something to enjoy in this album. A lot of the songs resemble the most recent Singers output (especially Powder Burns, but also Blackberry Belle) just with the delicious new underpinning of Mark Lanegan's rumbling, power of a voice. As a juxtaposition for Dulli's raspy, seductive howl, it's a fantastic match-up. Opener "The Stations" has Lanegan opening the album, only to be joined soon by Dulli, laying out just what a fantastic match their vocal stylings are, especially in this style of music.

The album varies from smoldering and simmering ("God's Children," "Circle the Fringes") to theatrical, riff-heavy rock ("Idle Hands") and into moody set-pieces ("All Mistery/Flowers," "Seven Stories Underground"). There's also a bit of revisiting of the programmed/non-organic sounding drums from Dulli's latest efforts. "The Body" recalls a good bit of Dulli's Amber Headlights album, as does "Each to Each."

All of these comparisons to Dulli's most recent work make this sound less like a true collaboration musically and more like a Twilight Singers plus Lanegan full-length. And ultimately that's both good and bad. Good because it's wonderful to hear - the work they did together on the 2006 EP was pretty exciting and Lanegan's voice fits naturally among the melancholic, city-lights landscape of Dulli's best work. Bad because it feels like there could've been more in the way of attempting something different on the part of both men. Super groups often disappoint because they end up sounding exactly like the sum of their parts, rather than something bigger. And that's why this album might let a lot of people down on initial listens.

Viewed as a simple extension of the 2006 work, however, even if the backing band here isn't the current Twilight Singers lineup, it's a success and stands as a great comparative piece to the Singers' recent work. A good comparison here would be a more moody and ultimately more successful version of the aforementioned Amber Headlights. It and Saturnalia are insightful and unique appendices to the latest part of Greg Dulli's career. Simultaneously it's another in a line of successful projects by Lanegan in the 2000s - a continuing series of enjoyable projects that show a great depth and flexibility in his art.

Rating: E(xcellent) / I(nteresting)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

the Gutter Twins - "God's Children"

the Gutter Twins - "Idle Hands"

Purchase or download Saturnalia from Amazon.

Now Departing: Kathleen Edwards - Asking for Flowers

Kathleen Edwards
Asking for Flowers
(Zoë ; 2008)

If you somehow manage to avoid the sophomore slump in music, all eyes immediately shift to see if there's the junior jinx. Kathleen Edwards avoided that slump by creating a more nuanced and textured version of her debut with Back to Me in 2005, but you can only reshuffle the same deck so many times. Her third album, Asking for Flowers, plays down the rockier elements of her first two albums in favor of a more maudlin, less insular set of songs that add up to a tremendous album, even if none of the individual songs match her past high points.

The album opens with "Buffalo," a spare, piano driven song at the outset, further pushing the more maudlin feel of the record - a far cry from her first two album's twin firecracker openers of "Six O'Clock News" and "In State." Quietly squeaking piano pedals pulse under the opening chords as Edwards sings: "The summer months left me alone...have you ever seen lightning and snow?" The often chaotic nature of relationships in Edwards' first two records here are dampened by a turn outward, an attempt to look up and out that dominates a good third of the album. The gorgeous title track and "Oil Man's War" pick up the voice of narrators outside of Edwards. They experience crippling depression and mental issues ("Asking for Flowers") and a pair of people who flee from having to fight in the Iraq conflict ("Oil Man's War"). While Edwards has put herself in other's shoes before, this is a more intense exploration of that idea.

"Alicia Ross" and "Oh, Canada" represent a sharp tandem of songs that show Edwards casting a culturally critical eye at her own country and does so in a way that is an honest and impressive examination of duality. To some extent, Alicia Ross was Canada's Natalie Holloway, a younger white girl who goes missing and sets off a media rampage about her whereabouts. (In Ross' case, however, it was eventually solved - her neighbor had killed her and taken the body 70 some miles away.) The song is written from the late girl's perspective and is a trembling, beautiful song that is relatively haunting given the actual events that inspired it. Then, five tracks later, "Oh, Canada" eviscerates the very system that documented Ross' disappearance in the first place, replicating a complaint often heard about media here in the States: "We don't say it out loud / There are no headlines / When a black girl dies / It's not the lack of a sense / It's called ambivalence." The two sentiments are a paradox - a seeming contradiction that actually holds a solid truth and it's a powerful thematic punch.

Edwards' clever songwriting turns up in spades across the album as well. "The Cheapest Key" is the most like her earlier work, a piano-driven bar rocker that explodes with self-referencing lines: "F is my favorite letter, as you know" she sings, referencing her infamous foul mouth and "Don't get me wrong / Here comes my softer side / and there it goes," accented with a tinkling piano run to represent the brevity of the moment. "I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory" makes all sort of amusing metaphorical pairings to illustrate the title pair's situation (Fogerty vs. Elvis in the 70s; Ford Tempo vs. Maserati, etc.). Her barbs for commercial success aren't any less present either. Echoing the tones of her debut's "One More Song the Radio Won't Like," the song snipes: "Heavy rotation on the CBC / whatever in hell that really means."

While there are no songs that immediately rival "Independent Thief" or "Summerlong" on this album, there are two that make a serious dramatic impact. "Run" starts off as a slightly funky keyboard riff that soon develops into one of the album's most haunting vocal choruses and "Goodnight, California" closes the album with more than six minutes of haunting, string laden melancholy. It gives a long goodbye to an album that certainly begs, nay, insists on moments of reflection, lyrically and musically.

My initial listens to this album yielded the opinion that it was good, but not as good as prior ones, but songs buried themselves in my head and wouldn't let go. As the listens racked up, the album revealed itself more and more to be deeper and better than I'd thought. Ironically the most immediate moments on the album ("The Cheapest Key" and "I Make the Dough..") end up being almost out of place among the rest of the album. They serve as buoys along the way, balancing the heavy moments with lighter ones and ultimately creating something worth repeat listens. I'm a bit biased - I've been a huge fan of Kathleen Edwards since day one - but Asking for Flowers could be her finest moment yet. I just have to keep listening to find out. And ultimately therein may lie the answer to how good this record is - the fact that I just want to keep listening again and again.

Rating: A(udiophilic) / E(xcellent)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Kathleen Edwards - "The Cheapest Key"

Kathleen Edwards - "Asking for Flowers

Kathleen Edwards - "Run"

You can stream all of Asking for Flowers at Kathleen Edwards' MySpace page.

Purchase Asking for Flowers from Amazon.

--

In addition to Asking for Flowers, Jim White's Transnormal Skiperoo also comes out this week. Read my review here.

Now Departing:Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

Bon Iver
For Emma, Forever Ago
(Jagjaguwar ; 2008)

This record was floating along in my peripheral until I heard one word that, of late, has made me sit up and pay serious attention here in North Carolina: Megafaun.

Now, this is a bit of a stretch - Bon Iver is Justin Vernon who used to be a member of DeYarmond Edison. When he split, the remainder of the band relocated to North Carolina and became the really fantastic Megafaun. Vernon became Bon Iver and it was one this connection that I decided to give this album a listen. The connections I make in order to justify my attentions sometime, honestly. Well, this time it paid off. In spades. For Emma, Forever Ago is exactly the type of insular, minimalist folk CD that I needed to hear.

Now, I just lost a handful of readers with the words 'insular,' 'minimalist' and 'folk.' But these are just the framing devices for a truly, spectacular American music record. A lot of the album finds its roots in American folk, blues and simmering, lo-fi-spirited rock. The latter part is important as the album has a feel that epitomizes the spirit of lo-fi records but is produced to the last detail. The multi-tracked vocals of Vernon deliver his falsetto/mid-high range vocals impressively. This is, again, something that initially might turn people off, but Vernon delivers his vocals with such emotional conviction that they become absolutely gorgeous throughout the album's running time.

A record that harbors this many tracks of spare song structure would normally wind up boring, but the album's saving grace is that it uses just enough instrumentation to keep this from happening. "The Wolves (Act I and II)" spends nearly the first three minutes using vocals and sparsely, not even consistently, strummed guitar to build a spare, hollow feeling throughout. Then comes the vocoder. You heard me: the vocoder. The line: "What might have been lost" is delivered repeatedly with the word 'lost' tweaked in a style reminiscent of a boy band. (Remember Ralph Wiggum's sung lines in "Drop 'Da Bomb" from the Party Posse episode of The Simpsons? The robotic voice? Yeah, that one.) But it's done in such a disarming way, so subtly, what would be exceedingly cheesy anywhere else, or even turned up a little louder, works wonderfully to break the building melancholy.

Occasionally the record bursts out of its guise and into another. "For Emma" comes out with horns and wailing, plaintive guitar work over top of the prevalent acoustic strumming. It sounds like a murkier, more dusky revisiting of some of the high points of Hayden's catalogue (Skyscraper National Park especially). The gorgeous "Blindsided" sounds like a great lost pop song buried in the dust. "Skinny Love" is the epitome of a lot of the best songs on this album - singing that pierces through the sparse surroundings and raises the guitar from mere undergirding to vocal partner.

At 37 minutes there is not a wasted moment on For Emma, Forever Ago. It begs the question - would a similar follow-up be as evocative? But for now, there's no reason to even ponder that. It stands out as a fantastic achievement in well-traveled halls.

Rating: A(udiophilic)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Bon Iver - "Skinny Love"

Bon Iver - "The Wolves (Act I and II)"

Bon Iver - "For Emma"

Download For Emma, Forever Ago from EMusic.

Now Departing:Citified - The Meeting After the Meeting

Citified
The Meeting After the Meeting
(Eskimo Kiss ; 2008)

There's something to be said for brevity - albums that know when to quit and don't stick around too long. All too often I'm subjected to albums that have just too many songs, or even EPs with lackluster filler surrounding one or two solid entries. When albums come out that are honestly fantastic from stem to stern, it's worth noting. This year, so far, there have been two albums that have met that standard - first, the Whigs' Mission Control and now Citified's The Meeting After the Meeting.

When last we saw Citfied their debut self-titled release was clocking in at # 11 on the J's Indie/Rock Top 25 albums of 2005. It's been a decent wait since then, but the results were worth it. That first LP was put together almost entirely by one man. Now, for the first time on record, Citified is a true band, and the difference is obvious. Where the first album used a mixture of programmed drums and guitar work to create a detached and cool result, the new full-band recording is much warmer, much more focused and vibrant.

Channeling elements of everything from the Red House Painters to REM, from Echo and the Bunnymen to a more organic Depeche Mode, Citified is a band who bears repeated, careful listens revealing a divine craft for layered production. The melancholic, reflective "Weddings" is the EP's opener and the song most akin to Depeche Mode in style. The brooding keyboard and lyrics create an autumnal tone - "Open bar / means I'm safe," the lyrics implying something worth drinking about. The soaring "KL Gala" holds one of the EP's finest moments - a mid-song faux-fade that makes it seem, if only for a moment that the song is left floating in mid-air. The hazy crunch of "March Through Mayday" turns Citified into a contemporary of My Morning Jacket - blissful chorus and start-stop verse riffs that tremble and vibrate beneath the uniform reverb vocals.

Citified's tendency to create unique moments within songs is what makes their music stand out and it's "Read Like a Number" that ends up being the crown jewel of the record. The neatly picked melody beneath the propulsive swirl of the vocals creates a mighty song that really takes off in the entry to the first chorus - four-part harmony falls into place, one voice at a time, before crashing into the chorus. It's the type of moment that makes a song and can even make an album and here, nestled among the moments that inhabit every song on the album, it serves to push the entire album to a point above and beyond.

The Meeting After the Meeting marks a moderate but important step forward for Citified. Now that the full band has had a chance to make its mark on wax, there is a lot more potential for where the band can take future recordings. This is an EP of fragile strength and depth and it's also one of the best records I've heard in recent memory.

Rating: A(udiophilic) / E(xcellent)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Citified - "Read Like a Number"

Citified - "Weddings

Citified will be my guest on this week's show, February 20th.

Hear more Citified at their MySpace page.

Now Departing: Dead Meadow - Old Growth

Dead Meadow
Old Growth
(Matador ; 2008)

The last time I checked in on Dead Meadow was also the first time. In 2002 I saw them open for Fugazi and was treated to a fuzzy, dirty version of classic rock being channeled through psychedelia and indie-rock. They've been putting out albums pretty regularly since then, but Old Growth is the first that I've actually given a complete listen.

On the whole Old Growth is a little more subdued than I might expect. The majority of the album's tracks play to the band's strengths as a trio. The dirty guitar effects that dominate the album's sound hearken back simultaneously to both early-90s grunge and the work of blues-channeling rock bands from Black Sabbath to Led Zepplin to Cream. Given the debt that grunge owed to the thick, percussive classic rock of the 70s, this isn't such a surprise, but does speak to the multiple influences at work in Dead Meadow's music.

But what do I mean by 'subdued?' The record just doesn't rock in the big way that I would expect. It's much more groove oriented as openers "Ain't Got Nothing (To Go Wrong)" and "Between Me and the Ground" demonstrate as they lock into a riff and work within that theme for the majority of their running time. "Ain't Go Nothing" comes in right at seven minutes in length which is somewhat off putting as both an opening track and a song that deviates little from its main riff throughout. Beginning with "Down Here" however, the album takes off in more varied directions. "Down Here" is a largely acoustic driven number, a short number, and a distinct one on the album, but a sign of more variety.

"I'm Gone" comes in like soft, propulsive power-pop, sounding almost like a jangle-free version of some of Teenage Fanclub's more melancholic numbers. For a band that has secured itself a reputation as a guitar-centric band, Old Growth is surprisingly solo-free. Where they do exist, they are limited, tasteful and add a good bit to the overall picture.

"Seven Seers" is another example of the album's attempt to stretch out, bringing in vague Eastern flavors with elements of understated noise and strings. It's a brooding, dark and remarkable album track and something that seems perfectly suited for a film score, the lyrics adding flavor and atmosphere to the piece. Towards the end of the album, "Hard People / Hard Times" brings one of the closest thing to out and out rocking that the album contains. The lyrics pursue a political agenda that is sort of nebulous and ultimately not terribly effective. It serves as an anti-climax to "Either Way" - a slow wind down to the rest of the album. In tone it matches "Down Here" and it gives the album's finish an easy finish, even if the previous track didn't lead into the finish that well.

There's a lot to be found in Old Growth, but it seems like an album that reveals itself quickly and doesn't invite a lot of intense repeat listenings. It's the type of record that would do well in the background - without lyrics or vocals that are a serious feature above the instruments, it sits well as a record that welcomes less distinctly attentive listening. As a live act, Dead Meadow are probably still a power-house and a singularly enjoyable show, but their recorded work, at least on Old Growth, is only so interesting. The pursuit of more diverse styles seems the key to a more invigorating catalogue - something this album hints at, but doesn't fulfill.

Rating: I(nteresting)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Dead Meadow - "What Needs Must Be"

Dead Meadow - "I'm Gone"

Dead Meadow - "Seven Seers"

Download Old Growth from EMusic

Now Departing:Black Mountain - In the Future

Black Mountain
In the Future
(Jagjaguwar ; 2008)

For me, picking up the Children of Nuggets boxset was a turning point in my understanding of rock and roll. The term 'psychedelic' only had a vague meaning to me before my initial explorations of bands in the Paisley Underground movement via the boxset. Since then it's been one branch, then another, that seems to connect back down the psychedelic family tree. I missed Black Mountain's debut back in 2006, but their name always caught my eye, even if they weren't actually from Black Mountain, North Carolina. Their new album, In the Future, is exactly the type of release from exactly the type of band who belongs on the future updated version of Children of Nuggets. Piled with amazing psychedelic drone and thundering riffs that reflect everything from the Rain Parade to Led Zepplin to Neu, In the Future is a remarkable and surprisingly consistent listen from a band following a muse that hasn't been actively (or successfully) followed in some time.

Opening with the thunderous "Stormy High," the album is a genuine and fantastic update to a classic sound. Layered amongst the dense guitars are keyboard effects that give the sound a theatrical feel - the whole thing is a powerful opener, obviously designed to put listeners on notice. The slow-simmering "Angels" follows up, reigning in the building friction. It seems like a pretty standard song until the bridge comes through, bursting with strings that make the simplicity of the song leap forward as a brilliant foundation.

But the first track to make true use of all the influences is the absolutely astounding "Wucan," with a droning, undergirding of keyboards and bass that resemble the chugging, ur-riffing of krautrock, hypnotic, wavering guitar lines that reflect the psychedelic nature of the lyrics and occasional bursts of tight, powerful rock. The haunting bridge is the song's vanishing point - where it extends itself out into true epic feel, even though it clocks in at just six minutes. Not that the album is without its longer moments - "Tyrants" comes in at just over eight minutes and the mammoth "Bright Lights" more than doubles that at nearly seventeen.

In the Future isn't without its divergences from the formula the album seems to be building - "Stay Free" is a largely acoustic ballad that comes at the mid-point, delivering a falsetto-heavy psych-folk dose, reminiscent of the hazy, blissful creations of Dave Roback (he of the Rain Parade, Opal and Mazzy Star) and "Evil Ways" mines some of the funkier, bluesier moments of the Rolling Stones. The album uses these songs, along with some of the more meditative, vaguely ambient tracks ("Queens Will Play," "Night Walks"), as anchors to break up the album's big, droning rockers. It's a clever strategy and keeps the album from bogging down. At just shy of an hour's length, back-to-back meditative jams would have been tedious, but spread out amongst the other equally engaging songs, they work as the major pieces of the album.

Black Mountain is a band that could do any number of things in the future - either wither into terrible self-parody and past worship, or continue to hone their skills into something truly engaging and evolutionary. For the time being, they have put together a quality album, the likes and style of which haven't been heard done this well in some time.

Rating: E(xcellent)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Black Mountain - "Angels"

Black Mountain - "Wucan"

Black Mountain - "Evil Ways"

Download In the Future from EMusic.

Now Departing:Big Ditch Road - The Jackson WhitesThe Whigs - Mission Control

Big Ditch Road
The Jackson Whites
(Eclectone ; 2008)

It's a privilege to watch a band evolve. It happens so rarely that it makes it all the more exciting to get in on. Which is why The Jackson Whites is such a thrilling EP - it's the moment that a band seems to have truly arrived.

Listeners to the show might remember that Big Ditch Road's most recent LP, 2006's Suicide Note Reader's Companion, was my # 5 album of that year - an achingly subdued sounding record that straddled a connecting point between straight-up country reverential, roots-rock and American indie. Their previous LP, Ring, had been their trad country album and here they were dragging more influences on board. The Jackson Whites shows them in yet another state - the country influences have faded to the background, the amps are turned up a bit more, as is the production, and what it amounts to is as fine an American rock record as you could ask for.

"Waiting to Destroy" starts off with a simply strummed acoustic and lead singer Darin Wald's unique voice before breaking into a full band rush. Lyrically recalling, of all people, the Circle Jerks ("I wanna destroy you.." Wald sings), the song is upbeat, brief, and a tremendous opening song. The title track and "All the Way to Idaho" echo this boisterous, rocking tempo, even if the lyrical topics aren't always as happy.

Wald told me in an interview that he purposefully turned away from the "crying in your beer" lyricism of their earlier work in order to look outward. And the results of this are everywhere - the title track's reference to an oft-maligned Native American tribe, "A Bad Chord Change"'s reference to Atlas Shrugged and "Northwoods Report / Chomsky '08"'s reference to both a questionable (at best) moment in American history and the noted linguist and political activist. All of this gives the listener something deeper to probe into, looking for the connections between these ideas and the larger work of art in which they appear.

Having firmly cast their lot with the rockier element of their sound, and having opened up their lyricism to new horizons and allusions, Big Ditch Road has created a thrilling EP of material that could easily be called the best of their career. Now how about a full-length LP of the same quality?

Rating: A(udiophilic) / E(xcellent)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Big Ditch Road - "Waiting to Destroy"

Big Ditch Road - "The Jackson Whites"

Download The Jackson Whites from EMusic.

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The Whigs
Mission Control
(ATO ; 2008)

Speaking of great rock records, re-enter the Whigs. Their 2005 (or '06, depending) debut, Give 'Em All a Big Fat Lip, was raucous, touching rock and roll at its finest. While certainly delving in the classic indie-guitar sounds of the 2000s, there was enough to hint that something really astounding was coming. That's Mission Control.

Expanding on the explosive rock and roll of their debut, the Whigs traffic in all sorts of styles for the follow-up - but not to the extent that it feels like a genre party. Rather, it's elements of various styles layered over their solid template. "Production City" explodes with guitars that mimic the dance-punk revival of the early 00s, sounding here like they just one-upped Moving Units at their own game; "I Never Want to Go Home" sounds like a great, lost Lemonheads song; and "Hot Bed" bursts with a raspier and more minimalized version of the great orchestrated indie-pop of recent years.

There really, honestly isn't a bum song on the entire album, but the highlights are astounding. "Right Hand on My Heart," the lead single, is one of those anthemic-chorus songs that infests your brain - in my case, for weeks at a time. "Sleep Sunshine" moves in a circular pattern that recalls some of the best, softer moments of the oft-overlooked Polaris (creators of "Hey, Sandy," the theme song to The Adventures of Pete and Pete). It's often puzzled me a bit that All Music Guide references Son Volt as an influence for the Whigs, but here vague country elements, specifically pedal steel, add beautiful adornment to a gorgeous and fuzzy ballad. "I Got Ideas" is the very definition of indie power-pop, spreading its verse melodies across a sneaky bass line, only to have the chorus erupt in horns and foot-tapping singing.

With eleven songs in just under 38 minutes, Mission Control is the type of album that a band needs to make in order to win fans over. It's concise, tight and catchy without feeling like you're listening to the same song over and over for eleven tracks. There are so many songs on this record that should rightfully be radio fodder that it's ridiculous. Why bands like this have to struggle for wider, commercial access still floors me, but then I haven't had my finger on the pulse of commercial radio for some time. All that matters here is that Mission Control is a rollicking record of sincere quality and style. Looks like Athens, Georgia does it again.

Rating: A(udiophilic)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

The Whigs - "Right Hand on My Heart"

The Whigs - "I Never Want to Go Home"

The Whigs - "Hot Bed"

Related: J. interviews the Whigs on J's Indie/Rock Mayhem

Download Mission Control from EMusic.

Now Departing: Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark

Drive-By Truckers
Brighter Than Creation's Dark
(New West ; 2008)

I never thought I'd say this about the Drive-by Truckers, but they really needed this to be a good album. The last couple of years have been tumultuous, from a critical perspective, for the band. 2006's A Blessing and a Curse was the first Truckers album I'd ever bought that I could heartily consider a let-down. The songwriting seemed stilted and uninspired in a way that it had never sounded before. While it wasn't a bad album, it wasn't great, and greatness was what I was used to from DBT.

Then what everyone assumed would eventually happen happened. Any band that can keep three really talented songwriters yolked together for three albums deserves a tip of the hat, but obviously it had hit a wall with A Blessing and a Curse and, for whatever reasons, Jason Isbell left the band. Isbell had seemed to light a fire under the band from the moment of his joining and when he left and put out the fantastic Sirens of the Ditch last year, I began to wonder what the first Truckers record since Southern Rock Opera to not feature Isbell was going to sound like.

The answer is surprising and expected at the same time. We'll start with the latter. Brighter than Creation's Dark feels more like Southern Rock Opera in spots than any record they've done since. Perhaps this is because of the returning dominance of just the original duo of Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley to the songwriting, but the album's length plays into this as well. At 19 songs and just over 75 minutes, it's an intimidating record, size wise. I raised an eyebrow looking at the track listing, wondering if this was going to be too much, if perhaps they hadn't let their internal editor work and had instead created an album that would be unwieldy and meandering. The songs, however, are uniformly strong, and Mike Cooley contributes the most songs that I can remember him ever adding to a DBT record, penning 7 of the 19 tracks. "3 Dimes Down" is the typical Cooley rocker that treads in well-worn, but still fist-pump-inducing, paths. "A Ghost to Most" is another of his contemplative ballads that still carries a bit of power. But Cooley also cranks out a few of the most traditional-country songs that have come from the band. "Perfect Timing" and "Lisa's Birthday" are the band truly reigning themselves in to create some sharp genre exercises that really work within their placement on the album.

Helping in creating these pieces is the fact that the band has expanded to five (really, six) members, adding guitarist John Neff and keyboardist Spooner Oldham. While Oldham isn't an official member, he has been playing in the touring incarnation and his contributions are all over the album. The band's size and variety has allowed them to give nuance to songs that might otherwise have contributed to this album being just too long to work. Opener "Two Daughters and a Beautiful Wife" is gorgeous, slow and one of the most heartfelt (and heartbreaking) songs Hood has written. "Daddy Needs a Drink" and "The Home Front" (one of two Iraq war themed songs by Hood on the album) also take advantage of the expanded instrumentation and make some really outstanding moments that are destined to be classics in the band's oeuvre. "The Purgatory Line" is one of the best examples of this expansion on the album, turning in a song that actually recalls some of the alt-country universe that Neko Case and Jesse Sykes have explored.

Which brings me to one of the most surprising moments on the record: the debut of bassist Shonna Tucker as a songwriter. She contributes three songs here: the aforementioned "The Purgatory Line," "I'm Sorry Huston" and "Home Field Advantage." The last one is a serviceable, but fairly rote song. The two that really soar are both plaintive, classic weepers; "I'm Sorry Huston" is the first of Tucker's songs on the album, and where she has had a backing role as a vocalist before, this is her first center stage performance. It reveals her as a classic country crooner - think Neko Case or Patsy Cline, but not quite as versatile as either one.

Regardless, the songs, especially "The Purgatory Line," add a new dimension to the Truckers' sound, and this is exactly the sort of shift the band needed. The band has entered an identifiable third phase of their career: the first capped by Southern Rock Opera, the second by Isbell's departure. While the band's common threads have been a constant, like any good group, they know when it's time to head out for new territory. Brighter than Creation's Dark is the marker at the head of a new trail, one already returning rewarding dividends, on the way to somewhere really promising for one of America's best rock and roll outfits.

Rating: E(xcellent)

(Rating scale: A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y)

Judge For Yourself:

Drive-By Truckers - "The Righteous Path"

Drive-By Truckers - "3 Dimes Down"

Drive-By Truckers - "The Purgatory Line"

Download Brighter than Creation's Dark (starting Tuesday the 22nd) from EMusic.