After speaking with them in their practice space in July, we waved the flag on San Francisco’s own Weekend as a band to seriously keep your eyes on. There’s a lot of shoe-gaze making the rounds these days, but Weekend brings some of most charged elements of punk and post-rock to keep it pressing and renewed. When you’re touring with A Place to Bury Strangers, you’re going to need some ear-bursting, bleeding-red energy. And with their first full-length, Sports, Weekend provides just that. Having served us with two fantastic singles ahead of the album this year (“End Times,” a track taken from their split with the Young Prisms, is one of our favorites from earlier this year), Sports was shaping to be quite a ride, most likely a fast, hazy and spirited one. So let’s get these windows down! Wait wait wait… can you unlock my window?
Sports rockets into play on “Coma Summer,” with hot pace and a youthful attitude. The bass and drums give the music a distinctly punk base layer, while the often blistering, at times droning, and at others clanging guitar work of Kevin Johnson grab you by the neck and throw you through alleys of rupturing texture. In the spirit of Kevin Shields and Ira Kaplan, Johnson throws a diverse set of distorted tantrums through his pickups. Overlaid all of this chaos are the vocals of Shaun Durkan, which serve more as an instrumental compliment to Kevin’s fretwork than as the vehicle of a story teller. They’re predominantly indistinguishable, at times sounding almost inhuman amongst the storm clouds of fuzzed-out distortion. Yet, on tracks like “Coma Summer” Durkan leans heavily on captivating melodies, getting downright anthemic.
Though the more immediately memorable tracks come rather fueled, there’s a lot of diversity to the pace and vibe of the record. It’s noisy, that’s for damn sure. And was probably loud as hell to record (and meant to be played that way). But there’s a lot of trade off between how that noise is shaped. For instance, “Monday Morning” exchanges offense for slow, swelling waves of distortion and drifty vocals, while the cruising bass line keeps complete eruption imminent (which eventually comes at the beginning of “Monongah, WV.”) It’s rarely busy; Sports is mostly minimalistic, as the cover art my suggest. And while the tour-mates might suggest a bleaker feel, Sports lends itself to plenty of triumph.
In every sense, this is city music. It’s disorienting, aggressive, and overwhelming, with moments of unity, release and a damn good fight in it. Kids in Manchester are going piss themselves over it. And for good reason; it challenges where its influences like Joy Division left off with a modern attack and renewed vigor. It’s a hell of a record and well worth the ear damage.
The first time I saw Bradford Cox play a drunken night in San Francisco, he was hardly capable of standing up,let alone keeping a song together. Suffice to say, we got off to a rocky start, but I’ve since been made quite a believer. If anything his substance abuse that particular evening stuck with me when reading his statement on the decision for the new album’s name, Halcyon Digest (4AD), “The album’s title is a reference to a collection of fond memories and even invented ones… The way that we write and rewrite and edit our memories to be a digest version of what we want to remember, and how that’s kind of sad.” We all have memories we’d prefer to forget, and worth drinking past. Deerhunter isn’t without their fare share of tragedies. The record runs the gamut from blissfully nostalgic to a soft sadness regarding the irreversibility of time. There’s particular attention to aging and loneliness, though mostly paired with a sunny backdrop. The self-produced album got an assist from Ben Allen, who produced Animal Collective’s MPP and Fall Be Kind EP, which should set the stage for the album’s tasteful expansiveness.
Beneath the noisy yet ethereal atmosphere lays a bedrock of straight pop. Bradford Cox and Joshua Pundt let memorable hooks spin and spin amidst a nebulous sound, like pinwheels in the swirling wind. Despite it’s content getting heavy here and there, Halcyon Digest, moreso than prior releases, feels sun blistered and bright. “Revival” is a perfectly relaxed beach-soaked pop number, which drives hard and keeps you slapping your knees. Cox, now more than ever, displays a magnificent range and angelic purity to his tone, reminiscent to the indie favorites, Grizzly Bear. “Basement Scene” plays bittersweet in its distinct end-of-summer tones, but its lyrics suggest the occasionally somber theme of the record, “It could be the death of me/knowing that my friends will not remember me/I don’t want to get old.” This bittersweetness hits best on the back half of the record with the single, “Helicopter,” which drips with an echoing drum machine, chiming bells and psychedelic effects with a bright yet lonely melody in the canopy above it all, “Nobody cares for me/I keep no company/I have minimum needs/And now they are through with me.”
However, there are a handful of songs that lean away from sunny atmospheres, getting groovier and shoegazey. “Earthquake,” features a downpour of multi-tracking, the seemingly 20 some-odd acoustic guitars rippling like a flock of scattering birds. “Desire Lines,” opens up into a lengthy, entrancing breakdown, carried by bass and straight ahead drums, and steered by shimmering guitar licks on repeat. Similarly, “Fountain Stairs” hammers like a great 90s rock groove, complete with sax accompaniment, though the true sax number on this record is “Coronado”. “Sailing,” while more of a folk ballad, lyrically embodies the inverted drive behind the typical shoegaze song, “Wind in my sails/I live for days/No water, no food/It was good/I didn’t mine, no/Nowhere to be/Nothing to see/Except me.”
Final track, “He Would Have Laughed” is a tribute to Jay Reatard, and was recorded by Cox alone at Notown Sound in Marietta, Georgia. This track serves as testimony to Cox’s impressive composition capabilities, tasteful choice of effects, and a monster on the loop pedal; not to mention a touching dedication to a shooting star musician that burnt out bright if but far too early. The intimacy and sincere intensity of the track at times feels like songs from Thom Yorke’s The Eraser.
The production level throughout the album is a great mid-level, big enough to reach expansive levels, but not hesitant to strip down to bare, gritty essentials. Combined with increasing accessibility, their opening spot in Spoon’s tour becomes an easy line to connect. The songs build wonderfully, starting from stutter steps and reaching elegant strides. They hit moments of golden glory, but are steeped in loneliness. Halcyon Digest proves a truly dynamic, transporting listen and a satisfying volley from a band held with considerable expectations.
I tried to warn you. Nick Cave and his crew of miscreants WILL STOP AT NOTHING! Let me make this abundantly clear: this album comes nearly 40 years into Nick Cave’s career and these old wolves are still foaming at the mouth to rip off your limbs and party in your blood. Though the rock legend requires little if any introduction, this Aussie’s prolific career ranges from early days as a murder ballad songwriter, to score composer (The Assassination of Jesse James), to novelist (The Death of Bunny Munro), and now… in what should be the twilight of their careers… Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos, weighing in at an average age of about 50, give us their most psychedelic and hard hitting work, period.
Grinderman 2 plays somewhat like an extension of the original effort which was a pivotal turn for the foursome, so its worth delineating how it arose. The members, all originally Bad Seeds, began Grinderman in 2006 as a side project with a distinctly rawer sound, supposedly due to Cave’s rudimentary guitar capabilities (traditionally a piano player). Grinderman, released in 2007, was a runaway train- trippier than the Seeds, and down right ridiculous in its loose approach, while maintaining a commanding aggression. The album’s focal point, “No Pussy Blues,” was a declaration from Cave, “It is the child standing goggle-eyed at the cake shop window, as the shop-owner, in his plastic sleeves, barricades the door and turns the sign to “CLOSED”. It is the howl in the dark of the Everyman.” Watch their performance of ” Honey Bee (Let’s Fly to Mars)” on Later… With Jools Holland for visual digestion of this concept.
Now Cave returns as the psych rock master of twisted, unsatiated, Nabokovian desires. He sizes up a tiny hellion on the single, “Heathen Child,” detailing, “She’s got a little powder/She’s got a little gun/She’s got a little poison, got a little gun/She’s sitting in the bathtub sucker her thumb” (hilariously literal interpretation above). We’ve heard him discuss a similarly destructive nymphet on his better known, “The Curse of Millhaven.”
Perhaps the only real divergence of Grinderman 2 is it’s more troubled, warped, longing approach to getting busy, where Grinderman used testosterone-driven outrage to make its demands for sexuality. The first album felt like a battle cry for all muted carnality, and now Cave has raided the sealed cages. On “When My Baby Comes,” Cave begs from the perspective of a psych ward patient for his lover to visit, “Just how long you gonna be my baby? Til you come.” The grunge groove that hits is soaring, fueled and entrancing, winding out while the full band repeats, “Where did you go in my house?” On earlier track, “Worm Tamer,” Cave tastes the lustful poison of a serpent-like lover on his tongue, and concludes with the lamentation, “I guess I’ve loved you far too long (far too long!).” These are twisted tales of passion. Though no longer banging on the doors for entry, his torment persists pungently in fresh confusion, as Cave continues to take on the impossible and unbearable power of nubile temptresses. He’s the wolf in the decadent chambers; the beast in the deceitful gardens; the Grinderman.
As a purveyor of grey t-shirts, budget jeans, and flip flops, I wouldn’t portray myself with a fashionable sense by any means. But finding an appreciation for How to Dress Well’s Love Remains, out later this month from our friends at Lefse, at least helps me feel like a man with some style. These guys are making some seriously sexy night jams. Basically, if you were playing this disc with my sister around, I’d knock you out. The gauzy, drifty synth textures lay a honeymoon-suite bed for the Justin Vernon-ish falsetto vocals across the album. The lo-fi approach to rhythm and bass allots for loads of space. You’ve heard similar stylings recently from bands like the xx and more recently Gayngs. Tension and desire hit you with levels that range from gentle warming to absolutely-need-it-now. Analogies only partly aside, the whole work is a release.
The project is put together by Tom Krell, a philosophy research fellow in Cologne, Germany whose moonlighting as a 90’s R&B revivalist comes much to our approval. Though there’s plenty of lyrics, the work seems to be mostly a textural, ambient experience. The vocals act more as an instrument, such as on “Lover’s Start,” bouncing with a rhythm familiar of Justin Timberlake. That’s right, THAT sexy. Perhaps the most lyrically present and stand-out track on the album is “You Won’t Need Me Where I’m Goin’” in which Krell confesses “Girl/you won’t ever have to worry about me no more/You don’t ever have think that I’ll be gone for/ You won’t need me where I’m goin’…” Other favorites include the early tone-setter, “Ready for the World” and the most pressing track on the album, “Walking This Dumb (Live).”
Imagining Tom in an apartment, finishing up reading some intense German existential reading and wailing in these high pitches alone over an 808 in a little room does seem a little hilarious to me; Kant inspired boot-knocking. But of course its more than that. The music is carnal and as serious as what you’ll catch if you start playing this too liberally. The unity of direction and loneliness of the album certainly comes across pretty clearly as a solo effort; a pretty heavy task. But then again, so is studying German philosophy, so kudos to Krell all around.
Mark Lanegan, one time Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone age member, collaborates on this surprisingly strong release with Isobel Campbell, of Belle & Sebastian fame, titled Howl. While these two seasoned veterans originate from different ends of the rock spectrum, three albums in their unlikely union yields some of its most positive results.
The album tip-toes in with a mournful duet, “We Die and See Beauty Reign,” Lanegan quietly rumbling like an unnoticed earthquake while Campbell whispers airily beside him. The piece leads as a statement of the poetic weight of the album. It’s gentle but stormy like low rolling thunder, as you might describe most of Lanegan’s career. Hell, look at the album cover of The Gutter Twins! But with Campbell, Lanegan seems like he might actually be having some fun (can’t blame him), as “You Won’t Let Me Down Again” comes saddle-blazin’ in the opener’s wake, more representative of the wide open country feel of the album. Lanegan takes coarse command while Campbell supports like a lingering but still very present ghost.
While the duo’s juxtaposition remains consistent, the space they cover spans considerable ground. Though plenty bluesy, “Come Undone” is the type of waltz you’d expect from an R&B revivalist like Alicia Keys, though many many octaves away. “Hawk” plays like the soundtrack to the bar fight in Roadhouse, fresh with slide guitar and honking sax solos, though no Swayze to break it up… In one of the most chilling and attention grabbing songs of the album “Sunrise,” Isobel takes a dimly lit spotlight over a quivering guitar on what can be described as nothing less than phantasmal. Later, Lanegan hits achieves contrastingly supernatural low notes on the gospel number and album closer, “Lately” with choir support.
The variation aside, the album’s best moments and more common refrains remain its folk songs. And like the best folk lyrics, at times the album unveils worldly truths with quick turns like, “Time is a fast old train/she’s here and she’s gone and she won’t come again/so won’t you take my hand?” Occasionally they do fall short in over-simplicity, such as on Snake Song, “You can touch me/if you want to/I got poison/I just might bite you.” But that might be swept beneath the acoustic blues riff, clanging banjo and the foot-stomping for many. Elsewhere lyrics discuss love, rivers, and more trains. The good stuff.
Hawk doesn’t bring any radical ideas to the table, but then again, folk and bluesy alt-country don’t exactly have a knack for progression. Anachronistic and transporting would be better words, and Hawk achieves just those. Parallels to Robert Plant’s recent collaboration with Alison Krauss are probably appropriate, especially given Hawk’s residence in a common genre. Though given both Lanegan’s and Campbell’s quiet demeanor (and lower-profile), Hawk is the tale that will likely be less told and deserves a closer listen.
The Portland-based trio Menomena returns valiantly with their fourth full length album, Mines. Since the 2007 release of Friend and Foe the band has toured with the masters of tension, Bloc Party, and are currently headlining with BB favorites, Suckers. Earlier this year Brent Knopf’s side-project, Ramona Falls, toured with America’s favorite wine guzzlers, The National. Their journey to recognition has been pretty bizarre, but then again, so is their music really. Beneath the face of their unique tunes ticks a robot in music’s clothing. The band developed proprietary software years ago to help them make some sense of licks and riffs they were practicing on, which has become a unique part of their composition process. The Terminator of music?! Maybe. Evil Bee doesn’t make it seem like very good cover. But if they are, then its with great irony that Mines gives us a more sincere look into the lives of the writers behind the music.
Lyrically, Mines seems to be a balance of self assurance and self doubt. You get a tasting of their sensitivity on the opening track with the confession, “You’re five foot five not a 100 pounds/I’m scared to death of every single ounce.” But this is countered immediately by the fist-pumping “TAOS” which does some chest-beating for the band, “I’m not the most cocksure guy/but I get more bold with every smile.” Despite a number of raucous rock tracks and silly misspelled track titles, Mines plays as the band’s most personal work. Soul-bearing lines pop up more commonplace, “Go home I’d like to, stumble to bed and lay beside you/until we’re even or romantically bored, whichever comes first.”
Notably, Mines exhibits the band’s best vocal performance to date. The gentler ballads provide a clean insight into the vocal prowess of the whole band, who split duties on vocals. “Oh Pretty Boy You’re Such A Big Boy” achieves the highest note I’ve heard out of Justin Harris (3:35- dammmmn), after a whole song of highly controlled, lower octaves. Blind-siding and sky-splitting. The accents on the harmonies from the whole band are tastefully inserted throughout the whole album. The grittiness of the chorus on “TAOS” seems better suited for Mick Jagger. And the post-production on the whole shebang spreads an extra laminate of smoothness.
Perhaps most importantly, Menomena has built a reputation as a highly dynamic band with unpredictability from track to track, and Mines is no exception. Track’s like “BOTE” compete with previous releases “Pelican” and “The Monkey’s Back” for heaviest track from the band, with screeching guitars and blaring baritone sax on the breakdown. “Five Little Rooms” paints an apocalyptic scene with piercing intensity and sorrowful acceptance at once. There’s a fair share of storms hovering over the album. But not withstanding a few tear-jerkers, such like “INTIL.” They’re able to cover a wide ground without losing cohesiveness between these tracks. Maybe its the band’s finely crafted build ups, which lift through both the softer and harder tunes? Or maybe that’s just what Skynet wants you to think…
Every time I start to thank Canada for a great band, I think about Nickelback and have to replace my broken monitor. As Canada’s latest incremental reparation, Montreal-based quartet Wolf Parade returns this week with their third LP on Sub Pop, Expo 86. The band recorded and mixed at Montreal’s Hotel2Tango with Hoard Bilerman (former member of Arcade Fire), after only a couple of months of writing, having reconvened in November ’09 from their own side projects- guitarist Dan Boeckner from touring with Handsome Furs, keyboardist Spencer Krug from touring with Sunset Rubdown.
On Expo 86 the band continues its trajectory in grander sized sound while attempting to maintain its charms. For any of its pop concessions, the album contains no erosion of passion. Especially on the Boeckner pieces, much of the album plays like a neon Springsteen- enthused, all-in rock ‘n roll draped in casio synth ready for dancing. Krug too has developed past his shaken songwriter portrait, apparent on earlier tracks like “You Are a Runner,” sounding more on this album to be leading a charge than quietly taking the fall. He’s more emphatic than ever, rising to match Boeckner’s swing and importantly keeps the flow of the album.
Expo 86 features more massively reverberating guitars and catchy synth riffs, which by measures of size and intensity sounds predominantly like Boeckner behind the wheel. But that’s not to say that there is less of Krug’s subconscious bending or stream of consciousness. Vocal duties are still split straight down the middle. And Krug’s otherworldly wanderings are introduced from the get-go, as he muses on the opening line, “I was asleep in a hammock/I was dreaming that I was a web/I was a dreamcatcher hanging in the window of a minivan parked along a water’s edge/I’d say that I was all alone… but I’ll never be born as a scorpion.” Needless to say, dissecting any lyrical meaning from Krug probably takes a scalpel carved from a crystal skull. But the opener is as frenetic as the album gets, which leaves it less haunting as the work on Apologies to the Queen Mary, playing more continuously as up-tempo.
It’s Boeckner’s sentimentality that seems to be the primal force behind the album (the Springsteen thing). This is most explicitly stated on “Little Golden Age, ”I don’t miss my little golden age/cause the body takes the heart takes the heart from place to place/ but this place still stands this place remains unchanged/and I cant go back but who would want to anyway?” Call it unsentimental sentimentality, but the feeling is there. Maybe “Pobodys Nerfect” is more convincing: “We built this city on cocaine and lazers.” Late-night uppers and flashing lights? Yea, now you’re with me. The album’s direction may best be represented by “Ghost Pressure,” the album’s first single and arguably the best tune on the record. Its an infectious, repetitive chorus backed by rock steady drums, cracking Boeckner vocals, bleeping and buzzing synth, and shimmery guitar lines. “Little vision come shake me up, shake me up,” seems to metaphorically asks of us to dance along.
There are a few indie fan-favorites that have smoothly expanded their sound with wider appealing records this year, The National and The Hold Steady are probably the most notable. Expo 86 is a step in a similar direction for Wolf Parade. This aren’t Dan Boeckner’s most piercing and howling selections, and is far from Krug’s most fantastical work which I think his Moon Face EP earlier this year stands a good running for. But Expo 86 is a full band effort; a well produced collection of energetic, arena-ready tracks that may have indie nerds grooving next to some babes at bigger venues this year. And if only indie nerds show up, I think Krug can probably conjure some spell that can change that…
‘Walking up to me expecting, walking up to me expecting words, happens all the time.’
With this, James Murphy kicks off his new album This Is Happening. Over the last couple releases, LCD Soundsystem has risen from relative obscurity to a major band in independent music. Expectation for Murphy’s next release have kept pace. From the man who began his rise with “Losing My Edge,” a song about attempting (and failing) to maintain hipster cred, these opening words shows how very different James Murphy’s world looks today. What kind of album does he make with his status at unflagging cool, dare I say star? Well, it’s still cocky, the disco beats are still there, and if you ignore a few missteps in the direction of overly self-indulgent it’s a very good album. Although it’s not as consistently mind-blowing as Sound of Silver, the highs are just as high. The lows, though at times painfully long, are easily skipped and forgotten among the other great tracks.
Right off the bat, Murphy demonstrates his mastery of the slow build with his excellent opener “Dance Yrself Clean,” which clocks in at over 9 minutes. This continues throughout the album. Most of the songs are over the 6-minute mark and several are in the 8- to 9-minute range. Usually, this is to great effect, but it also contributes to the big dud of the album, “One Touch,” a robotic attempt at extended disco Daft Punk, complete with screechy female vocals. The song seems like it could crescendo rewardingly in the chorus but then only gives you six quiet notes from a xylophone as a refrain. The song is long, falling flat for a grand total of 7:47.
Fortunately “One Touch” is cupped on either side by the best 4 songs on the album: “Dance Yrself Clean,” “Drunk Girls,” “All I Want,” and “I Can Change.” These four songs are so filled with incredible goodness that if you ignore “One Touch” they make up arguably the strongest string of songs in LCD’s career (counter-argument: “North American Scum,” “Someone Great,” “All My Friends,” and “Us vs Them”). “Dance Yrself Clean” begins with a pattering beat, vocal harmonies, and James speak-singing to us before dropping a heavy synthesizer that sounds like it was taken (gracefully) from The Knife’s “We Share Our Mother’s Health.” “Drunk Girls” seems like a stripped down anthem suited for a frat party before the swooning, yearning, chorus comes in: ‘oh Oh OOOH, I believe in waking up together.’
“All I Want” deserves it’s own paragraph. Taking the sliding guitars straight from Bowie’s “Heroes,” this, James’ opus on steady love and ultimately heartbreak, is among if not the best song of his career. Like “All My Friends,” Murphy puts aside the cockiness and uses repetition and warm instrumentation to create a safe space where he can talk about what he loves most and his fear of losing it. “I’ve never needed anyone for so long,” Murphy sings in the first verse, recalling stability and lengthy relationships before undercutting it with “all I want is your pity.” In the second verse, the girl one day never comes home: so “you pack your backs and leave.” The inevitability of loss. Murphy wants your pity for that inevitable eventuality. Musically, as the song progresses, fuzzy synths break up the repeated guitars in increasingly wild patterns. By the end of the song, the erratic squealing keys threaten to pull the track apart with only the guitar line holding the composition together, Murphy wailing “Take me home. Take me home.” The obvious parallel between the musical progression of the song and the lyrical focus (the stability of a relationship in the face of life’s inevitable craziness) just adds to the songs charm.
The second half of the album returns to the stylistic studies of the opener. Often, these songs are broken into sections with a long intro (if this were classical music, several movements). “You Wanted a Hit,” addresses the growing pressures of the record industry with his usual cockiness. “You wanted a hit, but maybe we don’t do hits… You wanted a hit. Well, this is how we do hits.” While most of these tracks lack the immediacy of the first half of the album, the closer “Home” is a sweet farewell with it’s grooving bass line and chanting vocals. “Home” may in fact be the LCD closer, as This is Happening is rumored to be their last album.
As a whole, This is Happening is often too slow to be considered a dance album, more appropriate for the car than a party. We get to see Murphy indulge and delve deeply into his exhaustive knowledge of disco, punk, and electronica to make music intended for the pleasure of his own ears as much as his audience. While at times quirky and esoteric, it’s ultimately very rewarding. Give the album multiple listens. Much of the pleasure lies in the details, little riffs and muttered lyrics, and if that still doesn’t do it for you, just put “All I Want” on repeat and rock out or mood out to one of the most perfect compositions of a very accomplished trio of albums from LCD Soundsystem.
When Brooklyn-based quartet, Suckers, signed in February with NYC-based indie powerhouse Frenchkiss in February, we knew something likely worth our time was brewing. They joined label-mates The Antlers, The Dodos, and current tour-mates Local Natives, and prepared for the follow up to the Anand Wilder (Yeasayer) and Chris Moore (TV on the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) produced self-titled EP on IAMSOUND last year. In the same keeping of production quality, their debut LP Wild Smile proves a masterfully produced record, containing an epic size while preserving its charm. The fact that Wild Smile is a debut LP is stunning. “Save Your Love for Me” offers a grand introduction to the bubbly bigness of the album, like a jumbo-sized bottle of champagne, promising playfully roaring highs, bittersweet lows, and plenty of party sing-alongs. The breakdown of the song unleashes arena sized drums, a glamorous guitar solo, and an ungodly high falsetto performance that makes you wonder if Queen has been reincarnated in Brooklyn.
The albums first single and what I consider one of the best tracks of the year, “Black Sheep,” blasts an indefensibly infectious chorus, the vocals rupture with incoherence, and the effects give it a trophy-like glimmer. The song builds on a fairly simple progression without many complicated turns. This happens often on Wild Smile, where Suckers start with a pop-oriented arrangement of chords and reinvent the phrasing, effects, timing, or instrumentation throughout the song to keep it feeling fresh as lemons. But I didn’t really notice that until the 5 or 6th listen, after I grew tired stomping my foot through the floorboards in celebration.
In the same respect, variable is probably the best word for the album. Vocally speaking, Quinn Walker oscillates between someone with a serious story to tell and you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me high falsetto. Sometimes he brings to mind the laughable deepness of Fred Schneider of the B52s (don’t tell me you don’t hear it on “Black Sheep”), though more often heard are the cracking calls of Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse; there’s definitely some David Byrne in there as well. Particularly on tracks like “Loose Change,” he receives marvelous vocal backing from the whole band, giving them an Animal Collective togetherness, demanding you chant along with their commune wherever you are.
Likewise swings the pendulum of the vibe of their music, which reaches tear-jerking catharsis on “A Mind I Knew” only to be immediately followed by the blissful happiness of “Roman Candles,” complete with group whistling and the swing of a perfect day in the park. There is a taste of disco on “Black Sheep,” surfy pop on “You Can Keep Me Runnin’ Around” and new wave on a number of tracks. These influences seem to unpredictably circulate on the album.
Wherever the needle lay, prepare Wild Smile for heavy summer rotation.
I’m told San Francisco in the 70s was a kaleidoscope of drugs, psychedelic rock, folk and youthful “mad people.” Sleepy Sun seem to indicate that in the last 40 years, not much has changed. The band’s debut album Embrace was chock full of drifty folk tales that turn on a dime into sludgy hard rock, all of it with a distinctly rustic, California flavor. Comparisons to Led Zeppelin are inescapable. Even the dynamic between singer Bret Constantino and Rachel Fannan often rings of the more recent Robert Plant and Alison Krauss project- Constantino a passionate howler; Fannan a gentler, sensual compliment. Though make no mistake, those roles have room for reversal. All comparisons aside, the band returns with their sophomore album, Fever (Sol Diamond, ATP Recordings), which extends their trajectory of big dumb riffs and bluesy acoustic reflections, both parts equally adventurous.
“Marina” leads with skuzzy guitar, an early indication of the trippy, lumbering break downs and wah-wah 70s rock solos to come. This opener is a perfect example of the range of this band, even within a single song. It transitions from this fizzing rock intro, to soft and airy verse, later onto a Santana-inspired hand drum mid-section, ending with a joyous gospel-esque vocal section: “Fever, fever, fever flood the door. Shut it, shut it, shut it, crack a light.” Ok, alright, fine, let’s squeeze ONE more heavy guitar solo in at the end, but then that’s it…
The album’s only real single, “Open Eyes,” breaks into a new plot of experimental territory with Constatino’s vocals on a heavy filter effect, sounding straight out of the Mars Volta playbook. But as the chorus hits, “You’re not alone/rest assured/cause at the bottom you can open your eyes,” and Fannan and Constantino unite in battle cry, the band erupts back into their groovy, entrancing sweet spot. The album closer, “Sandstorm Woman,” is probably a more representative track running a total of 10 minutes, a total head rocker, drenched with solos and easily the most seductive on the album. It seems to suggest western pioneers are alive and well. “Rigamaroo” may state this more directly, if admonishing, “How could they see/how could they know/where treasure lies/and where he’ll go?” Tumbleweed rolls on past the desert campfire.
Fever proves majestic in its spotlight vocal moments, brooding and stormy in its sludgy hard rock riffs, and triumphant when the two styles meet. Add a dash of electric harmonica solos and you attain mind-expanding rock bliss. The formula hasn’t changed much, which is something to take comfort in, as it shows there are plenty of wagon rides to come from these young Bay Area rockers.
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