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One of my favorite songs from a record that I can’t help but enjoy even if it leaves me wanting more. ”The Rifle’s Spiral” has some spacey effects and a more fleshed-out production reminiscent of Broken Bells, but that gorgeous hook and forceful guitar lines are all Shins.
The Shins – “The Rifle’s Spiral”
New Japandroids album comes out June 5th and is tentatively titled Celebration Rock. Did you like their debut, the stellar, balls-to-the-wall punk of Post-Nothing? Do you like youth? Lust? Guitars fuzzed out and turned up to a wonderfully screeching 11? Of course you do, and if you didn’t, this track just may change your mind.
My affinity for drummer-vocalists knows no genre bounds (see: Death from Above 1979, Telekinesis, et al), so when I recently saw Los Angeles natives PAPA provide a killer opening set for the Handsome Furs, I was immediately drawn in by Darren Weiss‘ stellar double-duty work as both drummer and singer. It helps that the band plays killer roots rock firmly rooted in Weiss’ soulful vox and a golden ear for melody, as this highlight from their A Good Woman Is Hard To Find EP demonstrates. Americana fans, check it out immediately.
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One of my favorite Americana bands of the past few years, San Diego natives Delta Spirit are releasing their third album today on Rounder Records. The self-titled album brings a more exploratory sound to the band’s dyed-in-the-woold rock traditionalism, but the focus remains, as always, on singer Matthew Vasquez’s distinctive croon. “Empty House” is vintage Delta Spirit, opening up the record with a galloping beat and a confident performance by Vasquez.
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One of my favorite tracks from (still) one of my favorite albums of the year. Very trippy, with an emphasis on Alexis’ layered vocals – a different, dreamier tack for the band that I love. Get Reign of Terror if you haven’t yet.
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Brooklyn quartet The Men blew up the blogosphere last year with the under-the-radar, endlessly hyped Leave Home, a taut, pounding reaffirmation of punk’s viability in the modern age that succeeded where similarly minded bands (see: Iceage) failed. Capitalizing on the hype, the group released Open Your Heart yesterday, and it’s another predictably virulent punk-rock guitar assault, amps generously at 11 and hoarse vocals the order of the day, but there’s a softer side to things here, less DIY and more carefully textured and arranged. It makes for a much more varied record and sound, no more evident than in the poppy, Wilco-esque “Candy.” RIYL: Japandroids, Women, loud guitars, Dinosaur Jr.
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Chattanooga quartet Moonlight Bride just released a new EP this past Tuesday entitled Twin Lakes - the four song offering sounds like the logical progression for the band from their 2009 full-length Myths. It harnesses their noise-rock take on shoegaze with a carefully directed melodic aim. All those cacophonous guitar squalls and atmospheric effects coalesce into memorable melodies and a pleasing cathartic release; frankly, it’s a shame this EP is only five songs long. RIYL: noise-rock with a purpose; Women; Crocodiles; the Pains of Being Pure at Heart; fuzzy walls of sound.
Moonlight Bride – “Drug Crimes”
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It’s nice to see Brendan Benson back in the game. One of my favorite artists (you might know him better as Jack White’s foil in the Raconteurs), Benson is planning on releasing his fifth solo record, What Kind of World this coming April, with “Bad for Me” the first taste just out yesterday. Benson is a peerless songwriter in the pop-rock vein, and his classic production and arrangements (best exemplified in 2005′s stellar The Alternative to Love) is really what sets him apart from similar power-pop artists. “Bad For Me” is a perfect example – a lush ballad bolstered by a melancholy piano line and an expansive chorus. What Kind of World was produced by Benson and recorded entirely in analog, and suffice to say, I am pretty damn excited.
I’ve never been a huge Cursive fan, so I have been pleasantly surprised by their seventh album, I Am Gemini, which just dropped yesterday. It’s their most conceptually bizarre record yet, telling the story of two estranged identical twins, one good and one evil, who eventually meet with chaos predictably erupting. It’s a pleasure to hear Tim Kasher really having a ball telling such fantastical stuff over the most straightforward Cursive record since 2000′s Domestica. Lyrically Kasher has a tendency to go off the rails, but I Am Gemini succeeds mostly because it’s a focused collection of taut, muscular pop-rock, with Kasher’s typically strong penchant for hooks and genuine pathos fueling everything. “Warmer, Warmer,” in general, is a joy to listen to, with its spindly bass and twisting guitar pushing Kasher into more and more anguished yelps.
Quintessentially English quartet (brothers Dave and Peter Brewis pictured above) Field Music just released their fourth LP Plumb last week, and for fans of poppy, XTC-influenced guitar rock, it’s more of the (very good) same. 2010′s Measure was ambitious, even too much so as many (including myself) said, but Plumb tones down the song lengths and exploratory passages and ups the hooks. The end result is perfect for those who like creative riffs and instrumental interplay (particularly from drummer Peter Brewis, ex-Futurehead).
Field Music – “(I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing”
As a Break-Up Record, A Sleep & A Forgetting checks off all the boxes quite nicely. The story has been written a thousand times before, but trust Nick Thorburn to inject some high drama into it: A Sleep & A Forgetting comes after Thorburn endured a messy end to a relationship last Valentine’s Day and spent much of the past year in the care of a wealthy older patron (a woman, natch), who gave him a place to stay and a piano to pontificate on, the modern-day Romantic come to translate his tears to the ivories. It’s a record that wallows in clichés, be it in its release date or in its backstory or in its straight-to-the-gut lyrical matter, and for a band that’s always been the indie pop standard-bearer of bombast and glam, it all feels oh so very tragic and more than a little contrived. Yet for maybe the first time, A Sleep & A Forgetting gets at the heart of an artist who, over years of project changes and name switches, has remained frustratingly opaque.
Thorburn has always been a hard guy to pin down, but on Islands’ 2008 triumph Arm’s Way, it was this creative shiftiness that made his genre-mashing experiments work so well. Here, Thorburn is as direct as he’s ever been: “Sounds forming words / from the well spring of concern / while my boat in that ocean turned / on the hull I watched the city burn,” Thorburn whispers on opener “In A Dream It Seemed Real,” and it’s this portrait of a shattered relationship that is possibly the most heartfelt song of Thorburn’s career. Looking back on Islands’ discography, it has always been his music that managed to connect with me on a fundamental level – it wasn’t until the music itself became unremarkable that I really took to Thorburn the lyricist. And that’s what the music on A Sleep & A Forgetting is, for the most part; shades of grey and greyer, a muted palette of piano, guitar, drums and bass that pales in comparison to the vibrant canvas fans of Islands have become accustomed to. It’s a bleak picture of melancholy that doesn’t want to end, and it makes the occasional gasps of air all the more rewarding: the flippant barroom piano on “Hallways” that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on that Mister Heavenly record is a particularly nice touch, as are the carnival keys on “Can’t Feel My Face.”
Those are the exceptions that prove the rule, however; A Sleep & A Forgetting is a depressing album through and through, with all the subtlety and vitriol of the recently dispossessed yet none of the verve of Islands. “I loved a girl and I will never love again,” Thorburn moans, and yes, this is upsetting and occasionally cringe-worthy in the same way reading an old Livejournal is, but for once there is no artifice to Thorburn, no Nick Diamonds clogging up the lanes with thirty string and horn parts and lyrics about blood diamonds. Something is lost there, certainly, that manic energy and excitement that Islands always seemed to have no problem bringing, but there’s something found here, too. “Oh Maria” is the only track where Thorburn works from a third-person viewpoint, telling the story of Buddy Holly’s widow and her dreams of him, and it’s this frail, inconsequential lullaby that seems to be the only place where Thorburn can find a way to see past today and look to tomorrow: “Now that you’re all alone, do you remember that song / just think of me when you’re falling asleep / when you wake up / you’ll be able to dream.” It’s a sweet sentiment, one that resolves itself in a satisfying swell and that wrenching final line, and in its brittleness and fragile sense of loss showcases a side of Islands many will have never expected. This is the kind of raw yet hopeful vulnerability that A Sleep & A Forgetting tends to miss in favor of more blunt emotions, and for the purposes of this record, perhaps that’s okay; everyone needs to get their demons out once in a while. Whether Thorburn can maintain this kind of shockingly honest songwriting, whether he can combine this fragmented, broken singer with the wild, carefree bandleader of the Unicorns and Arm’s Way, will determine whether Islands will remain a going concern.
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The Shins will be releasing their first single off their upcoming album Port of Morrow next week (on Valentine’s Day no less. That’s cute James) on a 7″ – you can already check out that single here . James Mercer and company, meanwhile, just released the B-side to that single yesterday, and it’s a lovely, slower tune that, along with “Simple Song,” is really amping up expectations for Port of Morrow. Check out the video below.
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