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By Robin Smith, January 10, 2011 8:00 am

Shout Out Louds – Our Ill Wills

Merge Records 2007

Rating: 10/10

Our Ill Wills. I don’t know. I could labour over a theme if I wanted to, something about the Swedish downturn (Kiran Soderqvist, I made this up) but I feel like I’d be overdoing it. How can you sell this record? It’s “four guys and one girl” getting together to make indie-pop, which is pretty much the exact thing you’ve probably heard a hundred times before with a slightly different number-quote. The album art doesn’t really mean anything either, aside from the fact that it’s probably fun to spell out words with international maritime flags. The songs are sung delicately and beautifully- and crafted even better- and that’s the album’s biggest selling point. Songs. Cute, irrelevant songs.

But by god do I love Our Ill Wills, a record as simple, in many ways, as the first records I listened to, ones which were essentially just a collection of songs that captured whatever they wanted to capture in their fleeting minutes. There was no real aching importance once you turned off Blur’s Modern Life Is Rubbish- it was just Damon Albarn reminiscing over some London days and some very British things indeed- but it was compelling nonetheless. And I don’t live in Sweden, or as the Shout Out Louds point to in “You are Dreaming,” Stockholm, but I assume it works in the same way: Adam Olenius, Bebban Stenborg and co. are chronicling titbits of their lives and then singing them to us. And just like some of the best records, it’s the fact it’s such a collection that makes it so great: songs that are cute and giggly, such as “Impossible,” and songs as foreboding as “You are Dreaming.” It’s a simple, honest record. And that’s an infatuating thing, for some reason.

It’s an indie-pop record, and in fact Our Ill Wills is like the best indie pop records, a sugar-hit even at its saddest, of course, because it’s so ridiculous. It bolsters its themes as high as they can reach, and the music responds: a ***ty fallout with an important friend is retold on “You are Dreaming,” a painfully cold guitar piece that, like any break-up song, tells one side of the argument and tells it convincingly. “South America” is ecstasy for no reason, so it pulls out all the stops and doesn’t bother to explain why, through the interactive sing-along choruses and the unnecessary (but purdy) string arrangements. “Suit Yourself” is Olenius giving a dazzling display of his graceful vocals, “Blue Headlights” is the same for the even more dazzling Stenborg, and hey, “Hard Rain” combines both for something dreamy and something perfect. And that’s the album: it’s dramatic, an emotional outlet for joy, woe, sounding pretty (not so much sounding ugly) but it’s also well crafted, seriously and sincerely assembled stuff. All this, and no hand-claps.

Not much can really be said to validate my love for these Swedes, nor can I really justify them as the reason I know where Stockholm is. Granted I’m not a terrific geographer, but I guess what elevates Our Ill Wills above every other indie pop record I’ve listened to is its theatrical nature, its ability to go from one spectrum to the other in seconds. Even if it’s all twee dramatics, there are so many twists and turns to the people of this cutes-y, delectable quintet: the wholesomely lovesick “Tonight I Have to Leave It” first, the damningly nostalgic “Parents Livingroom” following and the bitter back-and-forth cursing of “You Are Dreaming.” These guys turn from crooning lines as embracing as “why can’t we give love!?” to ones as horrible as “don’t come back to Stockholm no more” in as little space as three songs. Filthy hypocrites, yes, but they love the drama. And all the more better for it, because you don’t have to be on or off for this record. You can have it whenever you want: when you want a good wallow, or, more healthily, a song to celebrate your life and your friends with. Or just a good pop song; you can shut out the romantic lyrics and listen to the xylophones. You can be seduced by vocalist of your choice. And don’t worry about being in the mood, because Our Ill Wills will always be in the mood for you.

Shout Out Louds – “You Are Dreaming”

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By Rudy Klapper, October 12, 2010 8:00 am

Elliott Smith – Figure 8

Dreamworks 2000

Rating: 10/10

I don’t think there will ever be a song that can transport me to so many places simultaneously as Figure 8’s opener “Son of Sam.” That crunchy guitar melody, the perfectly timed drums, the bouncy piano lead, and most of all Smith’s angelic vocals, the kind of soft yet instantly recognizable, instantly memorable wisp that could call to mind so many emotions without going overboard. It’s a song about a serial killer, although of course I only had the foggiest clue of that when I first heard it – as with many of Elliott’s songs, even the simplest, most direct lyric requires more than a few spins to fully unravel. Like “Son of Sam,” Figure 8 is at once Smith’s most accessible and immediate record, yet, like everything else in his obscenely consistent discography, one that keeps on giving as the years pass and the vinyl scratches get deeper. It’s the soundtrack to my parents’ disintegrating marriage and decades-long divorce; my bible when I was first learning to track my own drum playing along with my favorite records; the only CD I’ve had to buy three copies of from constantly wearing them down. By 8^th grade I was getting sucked into radio rock like Linkin Park and whatever made me look like a badass, but what song did I come home and play right after my first real kiss? “In The Lost and Found,” obviously. Elliott may have been the pits when it came to his own love life, but I’ll be damned if I’d found any artist, now or then, who spoke more directly to my heart than he did.

I first heard Figure 8 near the end of 5^th grade when my oldest sister gave me a copy. Stop for a second and picture the absurdity of a twelve-year-old listening to Elliott, an artist whose most popular topics included drug addiction and gnawing depression. Of course, I had only the vaguest of ideas concerning what he was singing about. The magic was in the sound, how Elliott’s superbly written and mixed arrangements came together into some of the purest songwriting my little prepubescent ears had ever heard. I had always loved the Beatles, and some part of me saw their huge influence in Smith’s own melodic gifts, but he took things to the next level. Songs like “L.A.,” with its faintly alt-country guitar lick and cavernous drumming, or “Everything Means Nothing To Me,” all crashing drums, tinkling piano, and haunting strings, spoke to me with the sheer power of their hooks, redefining the simple verse-chorus-verse pleasures the Beatles had given me with something new and exciting, something I could never predict. Elliott had always had this knack, but it was never the focus in his earlier records (records, I should mention, that I didn’t even get around to until high school – Figure 8 was more than enough for me), and XO had its fair share of ups and downs. On Figure 8, everything came together with nary a wasted note, from light yet intricate acoustic numbers like “Somebody That I Used To Know” that showcased his incredible playing abilities to full-blown epics like “Can’t Make A Sound.”

It wasn’t until I grew older and delved deeper into typical teenage angst that I began to appreciate Elliott’s work on a more well rounded basis. I’m talking, of course, about his lyrics, words that run the gamut from German actor Bruno Schleinstein to New York murderers to Franklin D. Roosevelt, people and metaphors that Elliott routinely turned to in his latter albums to cover up and mask his own significant problems. One of my great regrets in life is not seeing Elliott live, although during his Figure 8 tour he was a mess, forgetting lyrics, mumbling through performances, unable to string together even the simplest of coherent messages. It made the lyrics even more tragic, despite Figure 8’s reputation as his “happiest” record – the clear pain the man was going through during its recording and support makes a lyric like “I couldn’t think of a thing / that I hope tomorrow brings” from “Stupidity Tries” such a striking red flag. “Happiness” is so goddamn heartrending, so crushingly sad in the context of what happened to Smith that even though I always want to feel good after listening to it I just can’t. What does it say about a guy who wrote his most earnest, straightforward lyrics deep in the midst of his own addiction and self-loathing? All I feel is unyielding sadness every time I listen to it, the unfortunate fact that a man who was able to make such brilliant music couldn’t help himself out of a hole he’s helped thousands crawl out himself.

But the music will always remain, and good God could I go on and on about the music: the jangly piano and oddball concluding refrain of “Junk Bond Trader;” my high school yearbook quote in “Pretty Mary K” (“here’s what you get / for things that haven’t happened yet”) and the breathless way Elliott delivers it; how the part where he sings “if I send you postcards from the side of the road / photographs of moving parts about to implode / if I called to keep it together like you say I know I can do / to transmit the moment from me to you” on “Wouldn’t Mama Be Proud” is probably in my top ten musical moments of all time; a million other things I can never really fully describe to someone who hasn’t heard them. Because it’s always been about the feeling with Elliott, his enviable ability to bare his own soul and in doing so reveal things about myself I never would have found otherwise. I’ll never hear a new Elliott Smith record, never have that anticipation I last experienced when New Moon came out (and even then it wasn’t the same), and I’ll never hear him perform some of my favorite songs live. But I’ll have this record, and Roman Candle, and Either/Or, and all of his releases, and I won’t regret a single second of it, because music this timeless, this universal, only comes around once in a long while. This should be treasured.

R.I.P. Elliott 1969-2003.

Elliott Smith – “Happiness”

See larger image Figure 8 (Audio CD) List Price: $10.99 USD New From: $6.51 In Stock Used from: $0.01 In Stock Release date April 18, 2000.

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By Rudy Klapper, September 30, 2010 8:00 am

Seeing one of my favorite bands at the Palladium in Hollywood tomorrow. Besides being my favorite Spoon song (right ahead of “Black Like Me”), this is easily in the running for favorite song ever…just check out my site’s tagline. And those guitars!

Spoon – “The Beast and Dragon, Adored”

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By Robin Smith, September 4, 2010 8:00 am

Eels – Electro-Shock Blues

Dreamworks 1998

Rating: 10/10

Electro-Shock Blues isn’t just a reaction. It’s a hundred shades of one reaction; a funky, playful album of horrible mirth at times, a completely hopeless document at others, an open stream of all the emotion one could have in the face of being left on your own. And finally, it’s life-affirming, an E beating up through the rubble of his life as if he’s learning some lesson and subtracting the bitter from the bittersweet. Because surely that’s why Electro Shock-Blues ends on the up. “P.S. You Rock My World” is the aftermath before itself, E’s words so bluntly honest: “I was thinking about how everyone was dying / and maybe it’s time to live.”

Sometimes I wonder that about E. His descriptors do him horrible service, painting him black and white in his never-ending sadness, as if every song is an “Electro-Shock Blues.” He’s more complex than that- hell, in the last number onElectro-Shock Blues his epiphany comes at a funeral service. At first I thought this was all a devastating black comedy, but now I realise it’s deeper than some ironic Indie pop record: it’s E’s honest smack of tough love, and he is his own recipient. On “Last Stop: This Town” he places himself in position with no compromise whatsoever, both with lament and celebration- “You’re dead / but the world keeps living.”

This song (and the album it belongs to, don’t forget) has soul. E pumps his fists, fires up his guitar riffs and screams his yeah yeahs, and, quite simply, lays it down like it is. What makes Electro-Shock Blues so honest it can be called a document, an accidental journal left around for curious eyes? Surely it is that E never flinches. He writes his tragedy from both sides and doesn’t shy away from measuring every millimetre of his mind; the lows and the highs come together, as the insanity comes with the joy on “My Descent Into Madness,” a pop highlight on the album that depicts E’s late sister and the reasons to root for her- “Come meet me at 8 o’clock tonight and you will see how I am not the crazy one.”

Electro-Shock Blues is held together like no other fragile thing is, its acoustic mopes, layered dance offs and electric rockers all landing on the same plane. Most would call this structure, and sure, this album has the beginning and end and the moments in-between, but ultimately the truth is what keeps E’s songs clutching to one another. Each one, to put it simply, is a reaction. A reaction to two deaths, to being the last remaining Everett and to wondering where the hell one goes from such a dark place. And every reaction leaves us humbled, but no perhaps more than the heart-stopping strings of “Dead of Winter”- “I will not fade into the night.”

Eels – “My Descent Into Madness”

See larger image Electro-Shock Blues (Audio CD) List Price: $9.98 USD New From: $4.88 In Stock Used from: $0.01 In Stock Release date October 20, 1998.

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By Robin Smith, August 15, 2010 8:00 am

Galaxie 500 – On Fire

Rough Trade 1989

Rating: 10/10

There’s barely a second that goes by on Galaxie 500’s On Fire without Dean Wareham begging love lost just one more chance, but it’s “Where Will You Come Home” that really sticks out for me. “When will you come home? / watching TV all alone, watching Kojak on my own,” he wails with his eyes potentially closed, but through all the radiating passion I’m left wondering: is this just time passing by a commercial break? Whoever Wareham’s ex is, his high-pitched mopes try and try to convey the blues she’s given him, but he sends her (and all of us) one better – yep, On Fire is an album that couldn’t be without melodrama. Melodrama sets it all alight.

Even if this isn’t true, On Fire succeeds on a similar feeling, a contradiction of terms that makes Wareham sound like he needs the agony more than he needs it cured. It’s a record about romantic things gone the wrong way: a shitty date, a weird acid trip, a sad night alone or even the frolics at the end of the world. Each song exists on its hunger for this darn-shame sadness, and the band accepts this feeling. At times Wareham seems aware of how trivial he is being, side-stepping his problems with silly anecdotes- “I stood in line and ate my twinkies / I stood in line I had to wait” when he’s drugged up; “you said / can I bring my guitar?” when he leaves the planet. Wareham doesn’t patronise us and give us life-lessons on love and pain – hell, even on his band’s tearful cover of “Isn’t It a Pity” he stops short of this – he just shares it with us, he makes a day of it. In fact, his George Harrison rendition sums it up with a grin. Sucks, doesn’t it?

The synchronisation couldn’t be better. The music and emotional weight of On Fireshare a mutual understanding, with the flattened out guitar play reserved when Wareham sets his dull, plodding scene and the blistering solos temperamental when he enters it. That in itself summarises all ten of the album, each explosion of instruments set to its weepy conductor; when he has his serious face on, the music makes us frown as much as he does (“Isn’t It A Pity,” or “Snowstorm”) and when he’s light-headed his band mates respond, just as they do on the glum hoedown that goes on in “Leave The Planet,” the band reverting to an out of tune harmonica to fend off the apocalypse. It’s silly, but serious and touching in the same blow, and in a sense Wareham and co. smooth over their melodrama with something more realistic. The music is realistic, in a way- there are times when Wareham is each feeling he has, and these simple guitar chords deafen us and mellow out when the time is right.

This is my favourite dream pop record out there because, quite simply, nobody is shoving it down your throat. On Fire plays out with only half a heart, spacing out Wareham’s passion as if it were for no one other than him. He repeats himself like he’s the only guy that matters and to hell with bigger problems, but still I can share in every moment of this, even without being told to. It’s immersing at every turn, playing out with the best kind of music- that which reflects mood. Most importantly though, Wareham shows us what we’re all too fond of. He knows melodrama makes us tick, that we’ll use this beautiful On Fire record and make it all about our foolish selves when really it’s just another rock record. I’ve never watched Kojak, though, so take one off five hundred.

Galaxie 500 – “Isn’t It A Pity?”

See larger image On Fire (Audio CD) List Price: $11.98 USD New From: $37.99 In Stock Used from: $6.13 In Stock Release date April 29, 1997.

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By Robin Smith, July 26, 2010 12:00 pm

Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

Merge 2007

Rating: 10/10

It’s kind of sad, but I don’t think I have any opinions. Or, at least, I don’t think I have any that belong to me. I can’t think of a book I’ve read that I haven’t asked of others its worth or its literary relevance. I can’t think of a political opinion I didn’t steal from my brother. I can’t think of a musical obsession I had that wasn’t born from hype. I can’t help but feel a little useless about the whole thing because, quite simply, I don’t think I’ve made up my own mind about anything.

And that is why I’m so glad Neon Bible exists. Butler’s rock opera is just that: profoundly and devastatingly useless. Neon Bible waves a white flag in the air; the Arcade Fire is outraged in the realisation that its very last ounces of significance have been stripped away, and all they can do is scream out at those who hold claims on the truth. Butler’s lyrics declare himself and all of us powerless, not just over the world we are fighting over to change, but also the rights and wrongs in our head and our control over them. Butler gives up on that control. He gives up on religion, in the now and in the afterlife (“Heaven is only in my head”). He gives up on society and preachers who will sacrifice anything for their scheme, including their most sacred trait, spirituality (“Tell me lord / am I the antichrist?”). Most importantly, though, he lets go. Whether or not you flick through the themes of Neon Bible and agree to disagree, the album’s debt is to uncertainty and, most importantly, acceptance of that uncertainty. Neon Biblepresents a city of the brainwashed and determined, doing anything for something, be it putting daughters on the stage or selling souls to the church. And the album doesn’t end with some beautiful release from it all, either – nope, Neon Bible keeps its citizens trapped forever.

That white flag isn’t waved with weary arms, though. No matter how resigned Butler is to all of this, he and his followers surrender with nothing but passion.Neon Bible shows violence and while it does not indulge in the aggression that runs through its forty-six minutes, it uses it as a means of statement. Butler’s vocals, most notably, sparkle with melodrama. When as loud as he is on “Intervention”, his voice universalises what he is saying and no matter how hopeless his descriptions are, he makes his words monumental. On “Intervention” he dooms his protagonists to fear and the end of love and friendships, but he does so with such immediacy and drama that the song could spew from the world’s most tragic pantomime – hyperbole reigns over this record. It’s the only thing other than darkness.

And here’s the thing about Neon Bible. It’s a record controlled and surrounded by darkness, and maybe the group even focus in upon it and create the record around that absence of light. It certainly feels like it. “Keep The Car Running” tells the story of a man waiting in the dead of night to be taken away, but the conspiracy ultimately turns internally to his fears. “No Cars Go” is a run-away rock opera set in the dead of night with the thrill of escapism. And “Antichrist Television Blues” paints us a metropolis at midnight, with the reverberating guitars only shining artificial light on the buildings downtown. In this sense, Neon Bible is so unlike Funeral and just as worthy for its differences: it shows a second shot of Butler and Chassange, and it’s a paranoid one. What’s even more triumphant about Neon Bible is how this mood is never lost through the orchestral side of the Arcade Fire, in fact it enhances it. Musically, Neon Bible brings an empty landscape to life, and it is far bigger than the box it is put into. We’ve got flutes, church organs, accordions and thunder effects, and we become cramped into what is a supposedly a dead scene. If anything, Arcade Fire get lost further in their entanglement with baroque pop and their dated sound, and it makes a horror-flick of Neon Bible twice over.

People will argue against that, and scoff at Butler and co. for creating a record too grandiose for its own good, but in a sense, isn’t that the point? Where Funeral looks into the personal loss of the band with reservation and respect, its successor is external, making a social spokesman of Butler and creating something that speaks to everyone regardless of inward experience. He never quite becomes an activist and the anger he shows bubbles on the surface of Neon Bible, but the passion seeps through every piano note, every choir of voices and every church organ. This record is cyclical with this passion for fear, and where Butler opens his tragedy by warning us that all words will lose their meaning, he closes it with a revelation: that he’s living with us in an age of fear and self-doubt. That fear and self-doubt is what puts Butler’s music at its peak. It’s what puts it at its most intense. And it’s how he keeps us in line: by creating an album for us, the kids who squirm at gore and close their eyes until the scary part is over. But for Butler, it never ends. “World War III, when are you coming for me?”

Arcade Fire – “Antichrist Television Blues”

See larger image Neon Bible (Audio CD) List Price: $14.98 USD New From: $9.56 In Stock Used from: $5.99 In Stock Release date March 6, 2007.

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By Rudy Klapper, July 13, 2010 8:00 am

A sexy vinyl re-release of blink-182′s best album comes out tomorrow – buy it here. For old time’s sake, and because it’s a killer summer tune…

blink-182 – “Feelin’ This”

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By Rudy Klapper, March 11, 2010 12:00 pm

Guster – Lost and Gone Forever

Reprise 1999

Rating: 10/10

It’s impossible to discuss certain records without just a little bias creeping into your argument. The illusion of impartiality is one that takes years to hone, and with Boston rock trio (now a quartet) Guster’s seminal album, Lost and Gone Forever, I’m not even going to try to maintain it. I love Guster – their effortlessly intertwining vocals, their penchant for acoustic over electric instruments, drummer Brian Rosenworcel’s wildly creative drum work and impassioned playing (dude drums with his hands!). For most of the ‘90s Guster was “that band with the bongos,” a talented but fairly inoffensive (and thus inconsequential) group that became fairly well known in the coffee shops and college bars of New England but never really progressed past their stereotypically “college band” vibe: three guys sitting around jamming in some Boston bar. Their major label debut changed all that; it’s the same quirky band, full of double-sided metaphors and those awesome hand drums, but on a much wider studio canvas that fully realized the band’s unique voice. It’s an emotional rollercoaster, at times dripping with surprising venom and at others awash in heartwarming sentimentality, and the band hadn’t yet fully succumbed to the radio-ready formula that would dominate their latter, lesser, efforts.

Pop can be a beautiful thing when done right, and Guster, while indubitably a rock band, have never shied away from their inner pop sensibilities. It’s apparent right there on opener “What You Wish For,” where Ryan Miller’s alto contrasts companionably with Adam Gardner’s low-end rumble and Rosenworcel’s busy drum work carries things along nicely. But it’s the little things that truly shine through and make this a Guster song: the way Miller’s voice purposely cracks on the chorus, the way the band coats lyrics like “and what you wish for / won’t come true” with a bright, poppy melody. That bipolar charm is even more evident on single “Barrel of a Gun,” perhaps Guster’s best song. The drums are titanic, swelling rolls of congas and cymbal crashes that propel everything onward. The lyrics are hilariously disturbing, a love song from a man unhealthily infatuated with the celebrity on his movie poster. And the chorus is pure money, two-part harmony highlighting the dichotomy of the song itself and inviting the audience to sing along with its obsession. It’s the purest distillation of the Guster sound, and the template for the rest of the album.

The major label production does the band a big favor, showcasing and uplifting the band’s traits and talents to stadium-sized levels on an anthem like “Fa Fa” and letting them successfully pull off a near acapella effort with the fragile, triumphant “All The Way Up To Heaven.” Producer and alternative-rock maestro Steve Lillywhite deserves much of the credit here, for knowing just when to let an epic song like “Happier” explode from its timid constraints into a full-blown chorus. Too often in later efforts would the band reveal their cards too early, obscuring their unique appeal with formulaic sounds and structures that sounded just like everything else out on the radio. Here, though, Lillywhite lets a song like the threatening closer of “Rainy Day” to develop on its own. The result is an organic evolution from the foreboding drum taps and crackling guitar of the intro to an apocalyptic, thunderous stomp of an ending, a song that progresses and flows with the ease and chameleonic strength of the record itself. It’s lightning in a bottle, a time-stamped image of where the band had been and where they were going to go in the new millennium.

But Guster would be just another lucky college band if it weren’t for the members themselves, who continually hit homers with nearly every song here, each of which boasts mammoth hooks and sterling performances. Rosenworcel is an absolute beast on the drums, throwing out polyrhythms seemingly on demand and abusing his hands with passion; check out the subtle work on concert favorite “I Spy,” or the way he kills the chorus on “Happier” (there’s a reason he also goes by “the Thundergod”). Miller’s vocals aren’t as polished as they would be in the future, but it’s this winsome imperfection that gives his emotional performances such character. Lost and Gone Forever is a surprisingly dark record, something not readily apparent when you listen to Miller’s eternally optimistic vocals and the songs’ supernaturally bright melodies. But it’s there in the lyrics, from the sarcastic daggers Miller throws on “Two Points For Honesty” to the damning chorus of “Happier” that Gardner’s bass voice adds so much gravity to.

Guster’s mixture of pop joy and lyrical disenchantment is a paradoxical one, and the direct reason for Lost and Gone Forever’s timelessness. It’s the band in a nutshell, three guys who know how to write music that spoke to the sunnier side of one’s heart, but also with that singular talent to match it with subversive wit and hopeless lovesickness. It’s something that the band never really lost, but never again could they focus it as tightly as they did through these forty-four minutes. It’s that rare pop-rock record that demands repeated listens and rewards them; the kind of album that proves that radio hooks and accessible songwriting can coexist alongside impressive musicianship and a roiling mess of emotions. In short, it’s proof that pop music can overcome its self-imposed limitations and result in something true and honest – something great.

Guster – “Barrel of a Gun”

See larger image Lost & Gone Forever (Audio CD) List Price: $13.96 USD New From: $5.00 In Stock Used from: $0.79 In Stock Release date September 28, 1999.