Jaill - That's How We Burn (2010)

Wonderful blend of garage-rock and post-punk with great pop sensibilities.

New Blog

Started a new blog here. Eventually it'll probably replace this one, but maybe someone will occasionally share music with you on this one :).

Slowdive - Souvlaki (1993)

Artist/Album: Slowdive—Souvlaki
Totally Subjective Number Rating: 10/10
Recommended if you like: Any contemporary dream pop or post-rock.
Released By: Creation Records
Favorite Tracks: “Catch the Breeze,” “Waves,” “Primal”

In introducing a little more rock to their sound, Slowdive both benefit and suffer. Yes, this is a less atmospheric album than Just for a Day, which is forty of the most beautiful minutes ever recorded. However, the more tangible vocals, toned-down synths, and clear melodies, increases the impact of these songs. Not to mention the diversity of sounds on this record, which surpass most of what you’ll hear in most shoegaze or dream pop albums. It’s kind of a neat thing to know that this type of stuff can be incorporated into popular music forms, and to do it takes skill. Not that it doesn’t take skill to do what Slowdive did on their debut, but they’re two different things. Some of the vocals have an almost twee vibe to them, which doesn’t really bother me, but it could conceivably bring the band’s music a bit closer to Earth and rob it of some of its ethereal beauty. I don’t think this matters because this album’s introduction of Slowdive’s slowly churning atmosphere into more a standard pop/rock format really works as well as I could have expected. This edition of the album has four bonus tracks.

Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007)

Artist/Album: Spoon—Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Totally Subjective Number Rating: 9/10
Style(s): Post-punk, indie pop/rock.
Released By: Merge
Favorite Tracks: “Don’t Make Me a Target,” “Rhthm & Soul,” “The Underdog,” “Black Like Me”

When I think of Spoon, I think of a very tight sounding band, with rigid rhythms and a penchant for occasional experimentation. Everything is just so tight, so controlled; their songs tend to be really skeletal, with simple, common drum beats, repetitive guitar melodies, and a post-punk reliance on bass. They tend to dress these elements with pianos, brass, and other bells and whistles, none of which distract from the simplicity of the melodies. Note the citar (I think) solo on “My Little Japanese Cigarette Case,” as just one of the many creative flourishes they include on this album. Spoon is so good at dressing their angular post punk melodies in a rather unique way. Britt Daniels also has a fairly distinctive voice, if not an especially strong one. They achieve a lot of cool guitar tones, really giving each song a different feel. A lot of these vocal hooks are really catchy too. I have to highly recommend this band to anyone with any interest in independent music. Few bands combine creativity and catchiness like Spoon, and post-punk is rarely made this catchy while staying true to its foundations. They aren’t one of my favorites, I find I have to be in a specific mood for Spoon, but few bands combine creativity and catchiness like Spoon. This is probably their most upbeat, most accessible album. It’s pretty consistent, though there are a couple tracks I like less than the rest, there’s nothing here that doesn’t fit.

Sick of it All - Based on a True Story (2010)

Artist/Album: Sick of it All—Based on a True Story

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 5/10

Recommended if you like: Sick of it All

Released by: Century Media

Favorite Tracks: “A Month of Sundays,” “Dirty Money”

Sick of it All’s Based on a True Story is pretty basic New York hardcore. Whether you look at this strain of punk rock as dated or nostalgic will determine whether you like this or not. If you like your punk on the melodic side, or are into melodic hardcore, this probably isn’t where you want to be unless you’re looking to discover some of the relics from the 80s, in which case I’d still think you’d be better served to look into the early emo bands. Allmusic’s review of this album call this “old-school hardcore comfort food for punk rockers.” I sort of agree. I liked their debut album Blood, Sweat, and No Tears (1989) better. The difference is in the production. With the slicker production on this new album, it sounds like vocalist Lou Koller is shouting at you, rather than with you. That’s what happens when his vocals are so high in the mix. The guitars exist just to continuously slap you in the face, again sort of what hardcore aims to do, but I like a little more tact. On their debut, the riffs were more varied. The variation from song to song is relatively minor. It doesn’t have to be that way though, as these guys proved 21 years ago. It’s almost like they try to be so aggressive that it really loses some of its impact. Good hardcore? Sure, but this has been done better many times, and there are contemporary bands who put interesting spins on this without compromising aggression.

No link per label request.

Slowdive - Just for a Day (1991)

Artist/Album: Slowdive—Just for a Day

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 8/10

Recommended if you like: Any contemporary dream pop or post-rock.

Released By: Creation Records

Favorite Tracks: “Catch the Breeze,” “Waves,” “Primal”

Just for a Day was the debut of this short-lived British band whose songs were slow and expansive, shoegaze slowed to a crawl. Drums were very low in the mix, and the bass and synthesizers near the top. But the melodies were of secondary importance to the waves of synth noise that just dominates the mix. It’s a sound that’s pretty but melancholic. The music on this album is not as exciting as the stuff the band would go on to record, being mostly devoid of pop sensibilities. This isn't exactly a problem for me because this music really reaches some truly beautiful heights, something that must be heard to be believed. If you enjoy lush, atmospheric music, this delivers in spades. If you’re looking for something a bit more rock-oriented, this might not satisfy, but do seek out their sophmore album Souvlaki, which mixes this sound with more pop/rock song structures.

I'm going to try to mix in some older albums with the new releases I typically post. By older I mean before 2010.

Autechre - Move of Ten (2010)

Artist/Album: Autechre—Move of Ten
Totally Subjective Number Rating: 7/10
Recommended if you like: glitchy electronica, ambient electronica, dark ambient
Released By: Warp Records
Favorite Tracks: “Etchogon-S,” “rew(1),” “M62,” “Cep puiqMX”

This is the second album by Autechre to come out this year, the other one being a fine release called Oversteps that I talked about a few months ago. The duo uses analog synthesizers and experiment a lot with different sounds ranging from techno to ambient to hip hop. For me, this is not the sort of thing I encounter very often, even within the electronic stuff I listen to with any regularity. What makes Autechre distinct from most electronic music is that these songs are quite complex and tend to have a dark, mysterious quality to it. That darkness, I attribute to their waves of synth noise that just sort of cascade over each track. I think they used this to excellent effect on Oversteps, which really showed off their ambient side. The beats they use aren’t simple as in a lot of dance music. The first track, “Etchogon-S,” begins with a glitchy beat, the timing of which, I just cant quite put my finger on. When they combine synth notes and beats, it’s often hard to focus on one or the other for very long. Often my attention would be diverted from one rhythm to another and back again numerous times within a song. It gives the illusion that there’s a lot going on.

This thing is being billed as an EP, but at 10 tracks and 47 minutes, it is short only by Autechre’s standards. Oversteps was over an hour long. I quite enjoy what these musicians do, especially the ambient aspect of it. It’s unlike most things I’ve listened to, and I know there’s a niche within the IDM community for this sort of music, but it feels very fresh and unique to me. I like their more abrasive tracks best, such as “Cep puiqMX” (most of their song titles are like that), and wish there was a little more of that on the album, but this “EP” is a wonderful example of just how diverse electronic music can be.

This Will Destroy You - Moving on the Edges of Things (2010)

Artist/Album: This Will Destroy You—Moving on the Edges of Things

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 7/10

Recommended if you like: Noisy, ambient post-rock.

Released By: Magic Bullet

Favorite Tracks: Both are pretty good.

This EP consists of two tracks, and fourteen minutes of music, from this post-rock quartet. Their second full-length is due out sometime this year, and it isn’t clear whether these two tracks are on that album. They were a pretty standard post-rock group from what I remember of their debut album, which I quite liked. These new tracks are really more ambient than anything on that album, with a lot of murky static that really clouds the mix. I really liked the jazzy rhythms and the almost math-rock guitar melodies on their self-titled, so I hope those aren’t completely gone on the upcoming album. What they do really well on these new tracks is use the hazy ambiance to muffle what’s going on. You can hear different tones ring out underneath the droning atmosphere that hovers over everything. Throughout the first track, “Rituals,” I kept getting the feeling that notes were about to bubble up to the surface, but they didn’t really do so until about halfway through the nine-minute track when you hear strings and soft percussion poking its head through the haze. The band does a good job of justifying their song lengths—a distinct linear progression can be heard on both songs—far from simply creating some pretty guitar sounds, the music starts somewhere and winds up somewhere different. The other song, “Woven Tears” has a more lively drum beat but turns up the noise, giving the song a dark, mechanical feel. It’s hard to get too excited or disappointed by a two-song teaser for an upcoming album. If these songs are any indication, I’d have to recommend the first album more highly to post-rock fans.

Belle and Sebastian - The Boy With the Arab Strap (1998)

Artist/Album: Belle and Sebastian—The Boy With the Arab Strap
Totally Subjective Number Rating: 7/10
Recommended if you like: Any indie (or mainstream) pop, especially stuff with twee sensibilities.
Released By: Matador Records
Favorite Tracks: “It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career,” “Sleep the Clock Around,” “The Boy With the Arab Strap”

This is a fine collection of tunes if not as impressive as the album that preceded it. If anything, it shows that maybe Belle and Sebastian shouldn’t experiment. The spoken word/psychedelic pop on “A Space Boy Dream” kind of kills the momentum of the album for me. I still don’t know if dreamy, sunny pop gets any better than Belle and Sebastian when they’re at their best. I still prefer If You’re Feeling Sinister (1996), Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003), or The Life Pursuit (2006), simply because they’re more consistent. Little things go a long way, like the hand claps on the title track, towards making the songs really memorable. If you like this band, then you’d be missing out if you don’t give this album a chance because it has some great songs.

Steel Train - Steel Train (2010)

Artist/Album: Steel Train – Steel Train

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 7/10

Recommended if you like: The Format, Tegan and Sara, bands like that.

Released By: Terrible Thrills (the band’s own label)

Favorite Tracks: “Bullet,” “You and I Undercover,” “Children of the 90's,” “Soldier in the Army”

Steel Train’s third album begins with what might be my new favorite song of theirs, “Bullet.” It’s a song that alternates between the two distinct strains of their sound. It has that U2 arena momentum that they excelled at on songs like “Kill Monsters in the Rain” off their 2007 album Trampoline. The chorus is a bouncy, sing-along passage lead by acoustic guitar strumming. These styles are almost two extremes, the first sounding huge and the second warm and intimate. Steel Train do both very well and it makes for a good pop song, but they don’t really do that throughout. Sometimes they seem to stray towards an eccentricity I associate with indie rock, by which I mean a sort of franticness that comes at the expense of catchiness. In a number of places the hooks just don’t go where you might want them to go, and I applaud Steel Train for not being overly predictable, but wish more of their songs would be as catchy as “Bullet” or “Soldier in the Army.” I couldn’t warm up to all of these songs, which is a shame because the songs I could warm up to I absolutely love. This is an album of peaks and valleys—really high peaks and valleys that are just low enough for you to really miss the peaks. Steel Train brings a fun energy to songs that are about serious things and they value musicianship and that makes for an album on which nothing is hard to listen to and it’s a hard album for all but the most hardcore indie-heads to hate. If you liked their past work, especially their last album, this might work for you. Also, if you like pop music with synths, with a fun spirit, that likes the rock at times, and aren’t afraid of a few left-field songwriting choices, Steel Train might be worth your time.