1. “Someday Soon” – A+ 2. “Friendly Ghost” – A+ 3. “Spray Paint” – A 4. “Number One” – A+ 5. “Be Your Baby” – A 6. “Gay Human Bones” – A+ 7. “Torture Me” – A
8. “Cloud Pleaser” – A 9. “Faces” – A 10. “Tila And I” – A
11. “Three Legged Dog” – A- 12. “Prairie My Heart” – A- 13. “Scare You” – A 14. “Stripper Sunset” – A- 15. “Pissed” – A- 16. “Poolside” – A
Grade: I don’t know if I’m in an extra special good mood because of the fine weather I see from staring out the window or what. This record is really really awesome. Like “Friendly Ghost” is one of those great garage tracks that gets you happy as fuck. Then you got stuff like “Be Your Baby” which is the surf-punk answer to the classic 1960s track “Be My Baby” by The Ronnettes. This is definitely one of the top-bottom best crafted albums I’ve heard not only in 2010 so far, but this decade. The flow is freaking incredible until “Prairie My Heart.” Comparisons you ask? Nobunny covered in (King Khan and) BBQ sauce somewhere in Texas. If Chris DeC looking for an early favorite recording of 2010 this will be it. I know the kid. He got all warm and fuzzy with Album and this is a similar trick pony (same record label and all) except much better! You’d think these guys have been cranking LPs for years.
Band: Dum Dum Girls Release: 3/2010 Label: Sub Pop
1. “It Only Takes One Night” – A+
2. “Bhang, Bhang, I’m A Burnout” – A 3. “Oh Mein Me” – A- 4. “Jail La La” – A 5. “Rest Of Our Lives” – A+ 6. “Yours Alone” – A- 7. “Blank Girl” – A- 8. “I Will Be” – B+ 9. “Lines Her Eyes” – A- 10. “Everybody’s Out” – A 11. “Baby Don’t Go” – B+
Comments: Dum Dum Girls! Yes! I like how last.fm puts it: “neither lo-fi nor too polished.” If you are looking for a quick hit, something to immediately latch you onto the group, I’d recommend “Jail La La,” the first single to go with this record. I’m already getting candidate for song of the year vibes. County jail sucks. “Someone tell my baby/Or else he won’t go out and save me” sings Dee Dee on the chorus. Literally, a great pop song that won’t get amazing treatment because it’s a bit lo-fi. Dum Dum Girls have been labeled a “buzz band” and I guess after opening for King Khan and BBQ Show and (soon to be) Girls, that’s kind of reasonable. For me, I knew the group had talent a long time ago; all of these songs solidify that. Definitely, definitely, definitely, DON’T just listen to this one and say to yourself this is pretty good and then never listen to it again. I usually do that with some decent records, but please something for me and get through this multiple times. The drums alone should have you hooked if nothing else.
1. “Rocket” – B- 2. “Believer” – C- 3. “Alive” – B- 4. “Dreaming” – C 5. “Head First” – C- 6. “Hunt” – D+ 7. “Shiny and Warm” – B- 8. “I Wanna Life” – C+ 9. “Voicething” – D
Comments: The synthesizer is a funny little instrument. It seems like it’s an easy way to make anything sound listenable. It’s funny to see how much “synthpop” is different, yet sort of similar to synthpunk . I guess the difference is that a majority of the songs from this band seem like creative variations of other songs. There are only so many progressions and approaches that a band can make in songs like these. That kind of bugs me, listening to this record as a whole. I guess if you like repetition and electronica, you’ll like this.
Band: Nick Curran Release: 2/2010 Label: Eclecto Groove Records
1. “Tough Lover” – A- 2. “Reel Rock Party” – B 3. “Reform School Girl” – A- 4. “Kill My Baby” – A- 5. “Psycho” – A- 6. “Sheena’s Back” – A- 7. “Baby You Crazy” – A- 8. “Ain’t No Good” – A- 9. “The Lowlife” – B+ 10. “Dream Girl” – B 11. “Flyin’ Blind” – B+ 12. “Lusty L’il Lucy” – A 13. “Filthy” – A 14. “Rocker” – A
Comments: Without a doubt Curran is one of only a handful of musicians today that effectively does the ’50s thing pretty good. He makes no effort to modernize the record in any aspect. I’m not really a purist so I can’t say that I’m completely taken aback by everything on here. Curran and gang are comparable to King Khan and BBQ Show, if only the Show tried harder to limit itself to just playing oldies. Curran has got the ADD of King Khan (and Little Richard and so on) and the sheer power of Sultan. He also has a back-up group that possesses all the instrumental goodness of the Shrines. That said, this thing doesn’t really make me overly excited. I can’t really understand why not and that alone bugs the shit out of me. A good majority of the tracks don’t have much “replay” value. They are pretty awesome when you play them the first time, but after that I have no burning urge for more plays. “Lusty L’il Lucy” is a funny little ditty. She’s the town’s best friend. She’s also the album’s best song. “Filthy” describes Lucy, I’d imagine. Definitely, the last three songs alone are probably as cool as the first eleven…and that’s fine. I’m glad I got to experience this one. I’ll be coming back to it every now and then because it just might better tickle my twine at a later listen.
Band: Happy Birthday Release: 3/2010 Label: Sub Pop
1. “Girls FM” – A 2. “2 Shy” – B+ 3. “Cracked” – C+ 4. “Perverted Girl” – B+ 5. “Subliminal Message” – B- 6. “Eyes Music” – C+ 7. “Maxine The Teenage Eskimo” – B+ 8. “I Want to Stay (Run Away)” – B 9. “Pink Strawberry Shake” – B 10. “Zit” – C 11. “Fun” – B
Comment: Right off the bat, Happy Birthday sounds like Islands. That comparison pretty much dies, though, after “Girls FM.” Considering the band is still obscure as fuck (they were signed out of the blue by Sub Pop after forming in late 2008), it’s necessary to give them a decent amount of credit just for releasing something polished relatively quickly out of nowhere. I can’t really describe the sound too well on this record. It’s merely an eclectic pop record…what the “independent” big shots like to call “indie-pop.” That really doesn’t tell anyone much, unfortunately. On “Maxine,” you’ll definitely hear some surf-pop Beach Boy influence. Like you’re deaf or something if you can’t hear that. I guess I could namedrop Girls as well, but Happy Birthday is much more spastic. They do a pretty bad attempt at garage/punk on “Zit.” I don’t know, I thought I was going to like this record more than it turns out in the end. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but nothing special.
Hamilton Leithauser on The Walkmen’s untitled sixth studio album:
I’m not 100 percent sure what’s going to be on it; we’ve written so many songs. We wrote a lot of songs for You & Me, but we ended up basically using like 90 percent of them on the record because we wanted it to be a long record. But this time, I think we recorded 22 songs or something like that. There’s talk of doing a 20-song record or something, a White Album kind of a deal. But I don’t think that going to fly because I’m not sure that all of them deserve to be on it. But I mean, I don’t know. It’s coming along nicely now. We just did our first session by ourselves. We haven’t done one of those, where we engineered everything and recorded, in like five years. I’m really happy with the way we did it. I was actually impressed that we could still do it.
Band: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Release: 3/2010 Label: Vagrant
1. “Beat The Devil’s Tattoo” – A-
2. “Conscious Killer” – B- 3. “Bad Blood” – B 4. “War Machine” – B- 5. “Sweet Feeling” – C+ 6. “Evol” – C+ 7. “Mama Taught Me Better” – B 8. “River Styx” – B- 9.”The Toll” – B 10. “Aya” – B 11. “Shadow’s Keeper” – C+ 12. “Long Way Down” – C+ 13. “Half-State” – B+
Comments: Kasabian, say what?! My reviews are based on impulse and usually aren’t structured AT all. Like what I just said. I brought up Kasabian and then made a random comment. And then I just did it again. Okay, what I meant to say is that as soon as I first popped on “Beat” all I could hear was the band Kasabian with a bit more overt influence of the blues and garage rock. That’s basically a pretty good thing. I think the song could have exploded in some parts more effectively, but overall it’s memorable and great and all that crap. There is an apparent line in between forgettable and pretty cool. For a song like “Bad Blood,” it’s something that I normally would dig, but has me scratching my chin at some points. It’s funny how BRMC really wears its influences on its sleeve. I can even see a band like The Dig drawing influence from BRMC, even if it’s unintentional or indirect. Just look up The Dig and you’ll see what I mean. The thing about BRMC is that they seem to give a shit about what they are putting out. A lot of other garage rock bands that I love and adore don’t come across as spending a shit load of time on every song. I’m not being critical of one way or another…just putting what I hear in words. Another thing I’m getting: BRMC is probably a tight live band.
Band: Joanna Newsome Release: 2/2010 Label: Drag City
1. “Easy” – C+ 2. “On A Good Day” – C- 3. “Soft As Chalk” – C 4. “Esme” – B+ 5. “Have One On Me” – C- 6. “You And Me, Bess” – C 7. “81” – B- 8. “Autumn” – C 9. “In California” – C+ 10. “Good Intentions Paving Company” – C+
11. “Jackrabbits” – C 12. “Ribbon Bows” – C+ 13. “Go Long” – B- 14. “Kingfisher” – C- 15. “No Provenance” – C- 16. “Baby Birch” – C 17. “Does Not Suffice” – B- 18. “Occident” – C
Comments: Eh. Joanna Newsome is probably a folk prodigy of some sort, but to me she’s just the female offspring of Devendra Banhart and Regina Spektor. That means that this record is going to Album of the Month in March for WERS. “Freak” folk is pretty damn hit or miss. Sometimes it’s merely the case that the song that sounds the most fucked up is the best. God save the Queen if “freak” folk hits the mainstream. Joanna is too damn gentle. It’s not really even that. It’s just that my musical personality is anti-social when it comes to listening to this music. It’s bearable for a few minutes, but then can just get downright depressing. I don’t see how anyone could stomach something like this continuously. It’s pretty touching, blah, blah, blah, blah, but boring! She morphs into Peter Gabriel on “Good Intentions” and the result is an exotically freaky epic. Also, how do you tell any of these songs apart?
Band: The Radio Dept. Release: 4/2010 Label: Labrador Records
1. “Domestic Scene” – B+ 2. “Heaven’s On Fire” – B 3. “This Time Around” – B 4. “Never Follow Suit” – B+ 5. “A Token Of Gratitude” – A- 6. “The Video Dept” – A 7. “Memory Loss” – A- 8. “David” – B+ 9. “Four Months In The Shade” – B+ 10. “You Stopped Making Sense” – A-
Comments: European band makes noise pop shoe-gaze music. It’s been done many times over. There’s the average, the good, and the great. I haven’t listened to many a particularly boring band of this style. I do hold bands that try these tricks and gimmicks to higher standards than bands with other sounds. I’ve found myself falling into the typical trap of overrating dreamy songs. Take “Never Follow Suit.” It sounds like a rip-off of Beach House, but with male vocals. I really love Beach House, but Beach House sound-a-likes? I ought to use some caution before dishing out an A. A rated songs should be at least a little memorable. I took a little break from this album and opened up what I thought was Radio Dept, but it was actually the Spaceshits and I thought to myself ‘dayum Radio Dept. really improved.” No, no, I’ll give this album the benefit of the doubt. The quality is shit, but then again that can be explained in two ways: A) this is a low quality two-months-before-official-release-date rip OR B) this is what noise sounds like. I’m going to go with B. At any rate, it’s hard to explicitly hate on this. It’s been done before and doesn’t really fresh. Yet, it’s pretty listenable. By most people’s count, I gave this album an awesome rating. It’s okay.
Comments: I had a little electronic craze back when I was a youngster. I was into the Postal Service, Dntel, and Figurine. I also was really into Lali Puna’s “Faking the Books” (the song, not the entire album). It’s been about five years since that time and I’ve pretty much moved on from the genre, but every now and then I’ll give some electronic a shot. I like a lot of the tracks on here, but they aren’t memorable. Some of the sounds are interesting like those on “Future Tense” that really do personify the future. Generally though, the less electronic, the better. The songs that have a vocal focus are cooler than the instrumental driven ones. Check this out if you like Lali Puna or electronic/spacey music in general. Otherwise, take a pass.
Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 