Recording review - Buffalo Killers, Fireball of Sulk (2014)

Who do Buffalo Killers they think they are?
^2.75/5.0 

On the one hand, it's good that Buffalo Killers are so full of ideas that they're compelled to drop a second release within the same year. It's a bonus for their fans and it generates a fresh round of attention. For the most part, reviewers have been kind, so it's paid off, but I can't help but feel let down. To be fair, these six songs aren't bad at all. Instead, the problem is that they're so disjoint. EPs are usually a grab bag, but Fireball of Sulk comes across as an insecure demo for a less competent band trying to find something that will stick.

On a full length album, Buffalo Killers might have been able to create enough context where the playlist could flow more smoothly, but Fireball of Sulk never finds a center. Despite the consistency of their guitar tone, bass grind, and laid back rhythms, they set up two cross currents that break up any momentum that might develop. In particular, the slogging classic metal sound of "Marshmallow Mouth" is optimally placed to break the EP's stride. Its closest sonic cousin on the album is the angst-free grunge of the opening track, "Blankets on the Sun", but rather than accentuating that connection, they crammed it in between a twangy bit of psychedelia ("Weird One") and a '70s style folk rock tune ("Something Else"). This gives it a jarring impact but doesn't serve any of the songs well. To further muddy the water, they double down on the country rock vibe with "Don't Cry to Me", whose choppy cut-time beat recalls Mike Nesmith and the Monkees novelty country work like "Your Auntie Grizelda".

Understand, neither the grunge nor the country rock sounds are objectionable; in fact there's plenty to like about each. Despite being the pitfall of the playlist, "Marshmallow Mouth" is probably my favorite track here. The headbanging snarl of bass and guitar sets up a trudging grind that sways through some two-chord changes to lay the perfect foundation for the flailing guitar solos. It's a thick morass of garage metal, but it's so easy to surrender to the inevitability of the rhythmic tide. The lyrics don't make a lot of sense beyond the accusatory tone of the vocals, but they avoid easy parody, unlike a lot other bands working the same vein.

By contrast, "Something Else" could have easily fit on 2012's Dig. Sow. Love. Grow., with the same unselfconscious retro aesthetic and vocal harmonies that would be at home in the James Gang. In contrast to "Marchmallow Mouth", the autobiographical feel of the lyrics offer a sincere sense of where the band is at. More importantly, Buffalo Killers show an intuition for flow that is missing from the larger picture. The verses settle into a solid wall of guitar, punctuated by the tom hits, but they throw in rhythmic breaks on the lines, "If this life's a game, then have I lost?/ Do I have to dance to pay the cost?" that match the questioning mood and disrupt the sing-song feel of the earlier lines. Later, they use a repeated guitar figure to build up momentum for the Joe Walsh style solo.

In a shuffled iTunes-driven world, it may not really matter. People can pick and choose what they like from Fireball of Sulk and be perfectly happy. For that matter, it's easy enough to jiggle the playlist for some improvement. I'd rather hold out for their next full-length, though, in hopes of a more coherent sense of the band.

Recording review - Jackson Browne, Standing in the Breach (2014)

Solid hooks can't quite fill the gap between the personal and the political

It’s taken six years but Jackson Browne is back again to refute both the critics and himself. On 2008’s Time the Conqueror, Browne was so immersed in his political message that he lost his connection to the emotional core that has driven his popularity. Worse, reviewers rightly bemoaned the album’s weaker musicality. On Standing in the Breach, Browne digs deep and resurrects the subtle but full arrangements, the rich melodic ideas and the well-crafted songwriting of his early albums. While about half the material carries forward the idealism and leftist politics he’s emphasized since the 1980s, he leavens that with a variety of life sketches that bring back the missing personal element. To a great extent, the album succeeds in delivering the classic Jackson Browne sound, in part because his voice is as strong and clear as it’s ever been. But nothing in this offering is as moving as “Song for Adam” or “From Silver Lake” from his solo debut. “Here” is the closest contender, with lyrics about loss and disconnection, but it only offers Zen comfort for the pain, rather than empathy or catharsis. Despite this, it’s still a very elegant little package. The music captures a sense of clarity and coming acceptance while the meditative vocal delivery bridges the divide between the music and pain in the lyrics. That complexity is the hallmark of Browne’s best work.

Browne begins the album with a peace offering to longtime followers, “The Birds of St. Mark”, which dates back to 1967, well before his solo career. This had only been released in a live piano version on 2005’s Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1, but this studio take settles into his original vision of the tune as a Byrds-style song. True to that, he’s picked up the tempo and his collaborator Greg Leisz fills the piece with Rickenbacker 12-string chiming worthy of Roger McGuinn. The track rolls out easily and the arrangement is quite polished. Those old fans will appreciate the gift and it does call back to the rich metaphorical lyrics of his earliest work. It’s a good song, but it feels a bit precious and dated. Written (appropriately) in the voice of a much younger man, it’s a bit out of place on Standing in the Breach. There’s an immaturity in the flowery language and allusion, using them as a shield against being seen as shallow or uncomplicated. It’s not clear if Browne is reaching back to his lost youth or merely reminding us of who he was. In either case, although it’s quite pretty, it doesn’t seem as engaged as his solo piano performance.

The album’s title offers its own multilayered message. The song, “Standing in the Breach”, is an affirmation, even as it recognizes the dire times we face, “Try to put our world together/ Standing in the breach.” But that phrase also touches on where Browne is trying to position himself, reaching out to both ends of his long career and proposing continuity between emotional meaning and social message. To his credit, he draws on both sides, but he rarely connects with the two on the same song. The closest he comes is on “The Long Way Around”, which ties a personal perspective to his commentary in an attempt to soften the preachiness. He doesn’t quite pull it off, but it still turns out to be one of the strongest tracks on the album. The low-key, sparse arrangement relies on a simple acoustic riff, a steady drum beat and the melodic bass work Browne has a penchant for. It’s a hopeful sound that contrasts with the litany of societal ills he identifies, shoehorning in pollution, greed, gun violence and ingratitude among the privileged. The vocals fit the music best, with a bouncy flow like “All Star” by Smashmouth and Browne lays down some tight lyrical turns. The track is filled out by reverse-gated guitar licks and sweet femme harmonies. Unfortunately, his message ends up a little muddled by the kitchen sink list and dated references like, “It’s hard to say which did more ill/ Citizens United or the Gulf oil spill,” but it’s catchy enough to gloss that over.

Flaws aside, Standing in the Breach is a big improvement on Time the Conqueror and it rekindles my appreciation for Browne as a writer and performer. While it doesn’t turn the clock back to the early 1970s and he can’t quite close the gap between his classic hits and later activism, the album shows that he can still turn a nice phrase and craft a solid hook.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - Woods, With Light and With Love (2014)

Little clarity, but plenty of relaxed acceptance

Woods’ 2011 album Sun and Shade offered truth in advertising, tempering their bright folk sound with hazy if not truly dark psychedelia. Their followup, Bend Beyond (2012), honed that edge with songs that balanced simple acoustic strums and delicately distorted fills. On With Light and With Love, the band continues along the same path. While each of these records makes its own statement, Woods hasn’t wavered or evolved their aesthetic approach along the way. Instead, they’ve polished their studio and songwriting skills to approach their ideal: the sunny side is distilled into crystalline clarity, and the shade offers hints of mystery and hidden connections.

The album opens with the lazy beat and light steel tones of “Shepherd”. The song evokes both Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and Graham Nash’s solo work. If every tune has a perfect home where it belongs – “We Will Rock You” in the stadium, “Us and Them” in headphones on a dorm room floor – then the beautiful simplicity of this tune calls for a starry mountain night with friends and a campfire. Jeremy Earl’s breathy falsetto is lightly flanged and distant, making him less a friend offering perspective than a niggling voice of conscience, “Look out, what’s upon you?/ It’s a shepherd for your sorrow/ And this one, it burns for me and for you.” Earl’s words are rarely self-consciously oblique, and they sound good in the ear, but, on closer inspection, real meaning is elusive. Maybe the vocal treatment muddies the lyrical water, but it’s hard to make sense of lines that sound like, “A skull for roses bleeds the past/ it’s the shape that never lasts/ And this one, it grows for you.” If the literal message is vague here, the ambiance of the tune is clearer. That pattern persists through With Light and With Love. The band’s musical prowess has improved, but their lyrical skills are still lagging.

The album’s climax comes relatively early, with the nine minute title track that showcases Woods’ love of heady noodling. The steady progression stalks forward, anchored by a rich melodic bass and attended by meandering electric fills. In this context, Earl’s high pitched singing sounds like John Gourley from Portugal. The Man, but the vocals are not really the point. The real focus is the mix of pensive tension and resolute action. There are long periods where the guitar lead chatters in the right channel, full of sound and fury, but when it desists, it reveals a keyboard riffing hypnotically, low in the mix. Near the five minute mark, after another chaotic splash of acidic guitar distortion, the instruments drop away and the song becomes a Pink Floyd tribute. With simple organ chords and a heartbeat bass, it’s a bit like “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” for a short respite before an earlier motif reasserts itself with ragged energy. Unlike Bend Beyond, which reined in the band’s excesses, Woods shows absolutely no restraint as they ride this epic piece through its changes.

The long-form jam of “With Light and With Love” seems to open the floodgates, allowing spacy details to permeate the following tracks more fully than the first songs. The bridge in “Moving To The Left” slips into surrealism, spaceship sound effects kick off the retro sunshine psych of “Twin Steps” and the end of “Feather Man” descends into an ambient meltdown. But none of these hallucinatory ripples overcome the band’s peaceful sense of acceptance. Woods maintains a dreamy Zen detachment that emphasizes the light and an abstract love.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - Songs:Ohia, Journey On: Collected Singles (2014)

Don't look for explanations, just feel the connection

Jason Molina was more comfortable faintly disguising his solo work with band names like Songs: Ohia and later Magnolia Electric Co. Whether that helped or hindered, he still managed to inspire a mythology as a tortured artist, an iconoclast and an idiosyncratic genius. Molina himself seemed to have little interest in that kind of analysis; he’d rather buckle down and move on to the next project. Journey On: Collected Singles gathers a number of his early 7″ singles and split sides in lovingly retrospective homage. Ben Swanson of Secretly Canadian talks about how hard it was to get Molina to agree to the idea. He jokes that Molina started to entertain the idea because he was sick of them asking, but of course it may be that he was physically just too sick to argue any more. His untimely death in March 2013 at 39 closed out a long struggle with alcoholism and left fans feeling the loss. This special box set honors the 7” release format he favored. Coming out about for 2014′s Record Store Day some 13 months after he died, it forces a kind of maudlin nostalgia that Molina probably would have resisted.

Fans will pore over these songs and others looking for clues and explanations but that path is ultimately unsatisfying. Sure, certain lyrical moments can suggest foreshadowing and there is a morose undertone to much of his work, but looking for confirmation is a sucker’s game. Magical thinking and false pattern matches won’t explain anything, much less resurrect him and it’s merely our yearning for a simple narrative that beckons us into that trap. While this collection does show off his emotional depth and beautiful economy, in the cold light of day, his moody themes are no different than a host of other ‘tortured’ artists. It would better serve his memory to just embrace the loss, savor the music and try to carry on. At least that would be in keeping with the perspective he favored in his songs, where he might be beaten, but he was rarely self-pitying.

Drawing on almost a decade’s worth of odd songs, Journey On shows a wide range of sounds from the raw alt-folk wail of “Boys” to the ponderous elegance of “Keep It Steady”. Much of the material shows Molina’s appreciation for Neil Young, both in his embrace of sonic simplicity and his sincere and unselfconscious singing, but other influences come through. The moody drive and syncopated percussion of “Freedom Pt. 2″ evoke Black Sabbath’s psychedelic tunes like “Planet Caravan”, while “Soul” draws on the reflective tone of “Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones. As he sings, “What is it like?/ Is it worth this misfortune ?/ What is it like on the other side?” he sounds wearier than Mick Jagger. Listeners who insist on overanalyzing these songs for signs of Molina’s fall will appreciate the irony of lyrics that find solace in passion, mercy and patience, when mercy and patience were not enough to overcome his passions or addictions. It’s an overly facile reading, though, and it’s better to just sink into the embrace of his voice which shifts from vulnerable to raggedly insistent.

Of all the tracks on Journey On, “Lioness” is my favorite. The original version from 2000′s The Lioness is powered by the transition from drag-beat verses to the up tempo assertive chorus. But this stripped-down take hits like a sucker punch. The shadowy solitude of the simple guitar creates a small hollow of space to hold Molina’s fatalistic surrender to love, regardless of the cost. Jennie Benford’s drone backing harmony steps in behind his voice to brace his resolve. Instead of relying on the pacing to build the chorus intensity, he packs the repetition of, “If you can’t get here fast enough / You can’t get here fast enough…” with desperation, like the sound of a man at the end of his rope. His voice swings from resignation touched by beatific martyrdom to taut focus. Although this is clearly a song about self-destructive obsession, it still doesn’t play to the narrative of a doomed alcoholic. Instead, the powerful beauty of this song centers on the conscious choice to trade everything for love, “l want to feel my heart break, if it must break, in your jaws.” The tiny spike of guitar punch at the end is less a feint towards a lead than the sound of the last wall falling between him and his fate.

Journey On serves as a wonderfully cathartic wake for a strong but somehow brittle artist. It lets us mourn his loss and immerse ourselves in all of the emotions he evokes: the solemn pain of “United or Lost Alone”, the resolute strength of “Vanquisher”, the taunting exaltation of “Boys”. It’s a small shrine, but as he sings on “The Gray Tower”, “I think there’s a lot of good in this town/ I think a lot of it’s unredeemed.” This collection redeems a bit of Molina’s spirit for all of us.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - Califone, Stitches (2013)

A search for meaning finds only an occasional touch of chaotic noise

As the famous phrase goes, some men just want to watch the world burn, not necessarily out of malevolence, but sometimes because they never let themselves hope for anything more. On Califone’s new album, Stitches, front man Tim Rutili makes this explicit on “Frosted Tips”: “In the old, watching the new world die.” His voice is resolute, if a bit detached; swept along by a powerful tide, all he can do is observe. By the end of the tune, he seems to be pleased about the impending destruction. The song rides through a glitched out interlude before he closes on a memento mori mantra, “Bee-stung lips, your frosted tips are never growing out.” Like many of the other tracks, the tune appropriates a ton of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot vibe, mixing a forthright simplicity with undercurrents of chaos. In this case, driving alt rock is tempered with an acoustic folk aesthetic and crowned with a messy aura of low-fi psychic noise. For better or worse, “Frosted Tips” serves as a high water mark for the album, with an energy that is unmatched by the other songs.

The rest of Stitches is more introspective, preoccupied with a need to make sense of things, like relationships, morality, or life itself. Califone’s folky Americana foundation clings to the hope that an explanation is possible. The songs are carefully arranged, generally leaving things sparse enough for a pattern to emerge. Instead, ambient and chaotic elements bubble through, denying any simple answers. That mix of low-key structure and mild sonic sabotage is what makes the album interesting and evocative. On “Movie Music Kills A Kiss”, Rutili tosses out observations in a laconic tone like Jeff Tweedy or Tom Petty. Thematically, it’s as though he’s trying to find acceptance by telling himself the story of their breakup yet again: “The ghost of you comes clear as day/ Emerging from the darkroom chemicals.” The guitar provides the glue for layers of unrelated instrumental gestures. A scattering of piano notes, an occasional ponderous bass note punctuation and faintly ringing organ fall together almost accidentally, suggesting the bones of a deeper narrative. Tellingly, there is no real resolution. Instead, a niggling organ line persists like a fact that still refuses to fit.

On the title track, a mechanical rhythmic foundation is dressed in pensive washes of organ, but the song is partially eclipsed by a background of buzzing static and a cicada chorus of humming. It feels like a defensive move, the band using the distraction to blunt the trauma of failure as Rutili helplessly recounts a codependent tale of loss: “Trying to stop/ Taking it out on you/ Cut the connection/ Just to stitch it together again.” Much like his relationship, the song seems to lose energy and fade before it reaches any firmer conclusion.

The search for meaning continues through the album, with rueful regret and references to Mary Magdalene and Moses, but it’s not until Califone embraces mystery that they come closest to finding peace. “We Are a Payphone” falls into a mellow jam with a percussive guitar part that meditatively repeats. Rutili sings like a reflective Paul Westerberg, quickly getting to the fundamental question of the album: “Is it too late to turn this around?” But the lyrics turn more oblique and philosophical as he sings, “We’re the horses wrist with/ Scratches on the record/ We are a payphone waiting.” I’ll be the first to admit I’m not enlightened enough to grok these lines, assuming I heard them right, but somehow they still offer a hint of meaning. They suggest that we don’t know who we will connect with or why, but that it’s our purpose to make a connection. The calm guitar strum slides into a trippier bridge which features glowing shards of electric guitar in a Pink Floyd groove.

It’s telling that the two best tracks on Stitches, “Frosted Tips” and “We Are a Payphone”, are the outliers. Whether the album as a whole holds together is probably in the ears of the beholder. I liked Stitches well enough, but after a couple times through, I found myself reaching for Wilco instead.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review: Hawk and Dove, This Yesterday Will Never End (2013)

Impressive music can't save stilted vocals and awkward lyrics

It’s a dualistic world; every entity contains its own ideal as well as its negation. Normally one eclipses the other, yielding success or failure. On This Yesterday Will Never End, Hawk and Dove hold both in near equal measure. Their music is powerful, showing off the versatility of the band, but it still can’t gloss over the stilted vocals and strained metaphors. Lead singer Elijah Miller is too consciously poetic. His lyrics favor cryptic allusion and he has a David Sedaris delivery style that turns his lines into awkward proclamations that can’t bear close scrutiny. Jim Morrison overcame bombastic self-indulgence through force of personality and Robyn Hitchcock’s eccentric charm transforms his studied quirkiness, but Miller hasn’t found his formula. Occasionally, well-turned phrases bubble up, like, “And every wall inside the house was leaking from the paint/ And every drop was practicing amnesia on its way” in “Things We Lost So Far”, but it’s hard to tease meaning from the jumbled imagery.

It’s frustrating because their instrumental work is so satisfying. In contrast to the tortured lyrics, the band’s music supports a range of nuanced moods from sparse thoughtfulness to snarling catharsis. Their arrangements evolve over the course of a song, with surprising turns. From the rising swell of feedback on the opening track, “Send Your Blood To War”. I was prepared to fall in love with Hawk and Dove. The resonant guitar whine was tethered by a thread of sustained organ as Miller’s stylized phrasing added to the strained tension. The lead off verse almost hangs in space until it drops into overdriven, shoe-gazer rock. This resolution is tainted by the contrast between Miller’s precise enunciation and the barely controlled fury of the music. Still, the slow grinding rhythm and discordant tones capture a rich sense of internal conflict, which is appropriate, given the vague and ambiguous lyrics. They could equally apply to someone joining a jihad or becoming a conscientious objector. Whether it’s a clever attempt to make a meta-statement or just to avoid commitment, it feels immature.

The band follows it up with “Song For Him”, which is just as exasperating. Once again, the music hits the spot as it borrows a sense of expectancy from the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin”. Then the tune shifts through a chain of moods, with the yearning ache of violin or determined throb of drumming and staccato guitar. The lyrics run through a matching free-association set of images. The chorus offers the only hint of meaning, with Miller dealing with his daddy issues. I liked his use of biblical allusion, but the explicit contradiction is confusing: “Father Abraham, you should have followed through/ Father Abraham, you should have stopped because you wanted to.” Is he saying that Abraham should have sacrificed Isaac despite God letting him off the hook or that he should have defied God in the first place? Ultimately, the question is moot; I’d rather follow the instrumental ride and blow off the vocals.

The best melding of music and words comes with “The Space Between”. The opening drone and chiming notes are pensive, fitting the first words, “I do not know how to speak, but I can talk to you all night.” The hesitant beginning picks its way through an odd path of chords to find itself blossoming into an introspective pop groove, where female backing vocals offer a counterpoint response to Miller’s lead. The interplay of voices layer with islands of instrumental parts into a dense thicket of sound. After a contemplative dynamic drop, the tune grows in volume and chaotic energy. The vocals become hoarse trying to keep up, “I do not know how to move, but you are closer than before/ You are near the air I breath, you can warm the coming breeze.” The song swirls out in a spiraling cloud of wailing guitar, barely held together by the insistent drums. The tune fades into dying embers of reverberation.

Guitarist John Kleber has talked about Miller’s ability to hold an audience rapt and how that inspired their collaboration. Maybe that stage charisma just doesn’t come through in the studio. That said, Kleber shouldn’t sell himself short. Based on the mulligan’s stew of stylistic references on This Yesterday Will Never End – folk, garage rock, country and psychedelia – Hawk and Dove’s instrumental work could carry a whole album

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - Smoke Fairies, Blood Speaks (2013)

Shadowy reflection remains open-ended

Like a stone dropped into inky black waters, there’s no recourse but to surrender and sink into Smoke Fairies’ murky swirl of hypnotic grooves. This is shadow music where voices from the subconscious interrupt idle musings, where meditative clarity is stripped down and revealed as obsession. Blood Speaks is a stunning collection of modern and retro psychedelia, moody pop, and folk rock sensibility. Echoes of older bands, such as Jefferson Airplane and It’s A Beautiful Day, bubble up through the solemn sounds of the Cowboy Junkies as Fairport Convention nod knowingly. The songs rely on pensive, layered arrangements to support the ghostly vocals, but each is a necessary part of the whole. Katherine Blamire and Jessica Davies almost merge into an amorphous entity as their guitars intertwine and their voices blend together. Their close harmonies recall Heart or Fleetwood Mac, but harnessed to a darker riptide. Their singing often drives the feel of the songs: a bruised, but detached Suzanne Vega sound on “Version of the Future” or a delicate Kate Bush warble on “Daylight.” The pair has a unique dynamic sense, less tied to volume than levels of energy and intensity.

Blood Speaks sets the hook immediately with the obsessive drone of “Let Me Know”. It’s driven and unsettled; the guitars throb against the slower swell of subliminal bass in the right speaker. The verse starts out with quiet defiance:

You’ve got the power to bring me down
But I’ve got some sense and I’m gonna let it go
I see you coming like a wave of stones
But my destruction is mine to own

But the chorus reveals the rotten core to that confidence. Like an insomniac’s vicious, circling thoughts, it’s a mantra of regret: “Let me know where I went wrong/ I want to know.”

“Hideaway” is less damaged by love, but remains bittersweet. The gentle guitar sway on the verse is borrowed from Jefferson Airplane’s “Come Up the Years” while the singing leans towards Tori Amos and Kate Bush. The softer sections are bedecked with subtle details: light touches of keyboards and interlocking guitar lines build a beautiful rhythmic complexity while the vocal lines offer a taste of English folk. During the chorus intensity, strings and wordless background harmonies add to the disquiet. The tension between the lazy flowing verses and the clenching chorus accents the ambivalence in the lyrics, where relationships can keep fires alight but they tame a spirit’s wildness. Ultimately, though, the self-destructive weight of habit seems to lock the conflict in place.

Smoke Fairies have built their sound on a mix of American and English influences. Their time here, starting with a year-long relocation to New Orleans in 2002, led to recording with Jack White and breakout success at the 2010 South By Southwest in Austin. But the folk influences of Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention shine through their work. Blood Speaks builds on the brooding sound of their earlier albums, but shifts away from the heavier blues vibe they’ve used in the past. “The Three Of Us” is the only holdout tune, with a mercurial slide guitar. Like Earl Greyhound’s hard classic-rock psychedelia, the deconstructed blues riffs color the piece, but it’s too rich to be pigeonholed. Davies and Blamire bring their paired voices closer then further apart as they present the Zen koan of the lyrics, where a shallow storyline delivers a set of deeper philosophical questions. Answers, of course, remain elusive. All of their songs seem to thrive on a lack of resolution.

Unlike a lot of spacy psychedelia, Smoke Fairies don’t slip into self-indulgent lead guitar posturing or epic, meandering sonic excursions. Instead, each song is immersed in shadow, a morsel of twilight texture that invites reflection, if not illumination.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review: Steve Earle & the Dukes (& Duchesses), The Low Highway (2013)

Progressive icon brings humanity to his social themes

Steve Earle makes it look easy on The Low Highway as he transforms from modern-day Woody Guthrie to gritty, soulful rocker, with side-steps into bluegrass and new country. Although his gravelly voice has a limited range, he’s a strong performer and his writing continues to be impeccable. Many of his songs present interesting, realistic characters, from a meth head loser in “Calico County” to the poignant father in “Remember Me”. More than just character sketches, their stories touch on larger themes. Given his progressive politics, Earle relates a number of these tales to the economy and social issues but he shows a defter hand for crafting the songs on this offering than previous albums. In particular, his backing band is chameleon-like, adapting to the shifting genres that Earle selects for the tunes. Beautiful folk arrangements are packed with subtle detail but the group is also up for rough and tumble rock ‘n’ roll, bluegrass twang, or retro Gypsy jazz.

The Low Highway begins by showing off Earle’s troubadour side on the title cut. His voice wheezes, backed by a simple acoustic guitar before the bass steps in behind him. Light touches of fiddle and steel guitar sidle into the background to join the march. An ode to the 99 percenters, the tune revisits Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land”:

I saw empty houses on dead end streets
People lining up for something to eat
And the ghost of America was watching me
Through the broken windows of the factories 

The country instrumentation and folky feel are simple but not simplistic. The fiddle and steel guitar fill in the spaces between the verses but refrain from taking full-on leads. This maintains a somber tone that fits the dark State of the Union lyrics.

The next two tracks drop in on some characters along Earle’s Low Highway. The rocking “Calico County” features a solid riff and guitar tone borrowed from the James Gang. The meth-cooking lead character is trapped in his hometown:

Out of here someday
Ain’t that what I used to say?
Army wouldn’t take me
So, I guess I’m gonna have to stay 

His backstory lays out all the cards stacked against him, but the relentless vamp tells us that, like it or not, life just goes on. The protagonist in “Burnin’ It Down” is even more resigned, but he’s found a target to vent on. Sitting in his pickup truck, he’s working up the energy to burn down the local Walmart: “It doesn’t matter much how long I wait/ The door’s always open and it’s never too late.” Earle uses the lazy country arrangement and weary, slurring vocal to convey the scene of a man smoking his last cigarette. Neither of these characters is looking for sympathy but the songs hint at the stories behind what we hear about in the news.

The Low Highway isn’t all dark despair. Despite its mournful beginning, “Warren Hellman’s Banjo” is a celebration of the billionaire banker/bluegrass impresario who started the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco. Full of references to classic folk and bluegrass songs, it’s a fitting tip of the hat as it alludes to the long musical chain running through the American songbook. Its traditional feel fits nicely with tunes like the bluesy cut-time of “Love’s Gonna Blow My Way,” which harks back to a 1930s sound. Like the songs in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the lyrics acknowledge life’s difficulties but they show a resilient backbone of optimism. The jazzy violin accompaniment and solo seem inspired by Stéphane Grappelli. This is one of the three tracks on the album that Earle wrote for the HBO series “Treme”, along with the Cajun boogie duet “That All You Got?” and the moody “After Mardi Gras”.

Individual tracks on the album offer immersive moments that show off the range and depth of Earle’s songwriting. Although The Low Highway is not a concept album per se, there is a narrative arc that ties these songs into a richer fabric. The dystopian snapshot of America in the title song provides the context for the dead end life in “Calico County”. And where that character sees no choices, he’s followed by a man determined to at least strike a blow, if only against a faceless corporation. From there, it’s a small step up to the defiance in “That All You Got?”, where the characters are beaten down but unbowed. Through denial, optimism, and a reminder of the alternatives, these songs eventually find strength in the universal story of tradition and a forward-looking present, even if “21st Century Blues” casts some doubt on the future. But Earle recognizes that the objective idea of a historical connection isn’t satisfying as a final philosophical answer. Instead, he ends with the elegiac tune “Remember Me”. Written from an aging father to his young child, it humanizes that generational chain. Regardless of whether we’re society’s outcasts or not, whether our problems are public or hidden, each of us loves and all we can really ask for is to be remembered, hopefully fondly

(This review originally appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - Camper Van Beethoven, La Costa Perdida (2013)

Weathered band paints an eclectic vision of California

Camper Van Beethoven has always been a meeting point of diverse musical visions finding common cause. Their punk directness was ornamented with surrealistic exploration and they tempered their distorted guitars with folk instrumentation. The band established a unique sonic blend that was as recognizable as David Lowery’s nasal vocals. More recent reorganizations would result in Lowery focusing on pop-infused alt-rock with a thick streak of sarcasm in Cracker, but Camper Van Beethoven’s songs were always more complex, whether conveying subtle moods or creating complicated narratives.

An older, more weathered version of the band is back for La Costa Perdida, but they resurrect their hallmark sound with a jumble of musical influences and sense of surprise. The wistful folk of “Come Down the Coast” coexists with the rocking blues of “You Got to Roll” and the trippy pastiche of “Too High for the Love-In”. In lesser hands, the contrasting tensions would reduce the album to a muddle of unrelated ideas, but the band uses these perspectives to build a nuanced sense of California, both past and present. This picture is too vaguely structured to be a concept album, but the thematic thread allows the ripples from one tune to rock another.

La Costa Perdida’s California is a place where love’s promise is still possible, though not fully realized. It’s where self-obsessed paranoia can be overwhelming and where the frantic meet the fatalistic to try to find their places. In addition to their normal elements, the band uses the mod, easy-listening sound of the 1960s and early ‘70s as a touchstone to evoke California’s past. Strings and sweet backing vocals drive the lazy sway of “A Love for All Time”, evoking the Carpenters preserved in amber. The opiated languor on “Someday Our Love Will Sell Us Out” defangs the lyrical pessimism, leaving an almost cheery acceptance.

Lowery’s voice still holds traces of his trademark sneer, but he sounds wearier than he did on his recent solo outing, The Palace Guards (2011). On tracks like the title song and “Northern California Girls”, that raw tone fits the laid-back, restrained delivery. Despite its AM-radio-pop fade-in, this latter cut drifts into Jimmy Buffett territory. While Parrotheads would feel at home, Jonathan Segel’s violin anchors the song in the classic Camper van Beethoven sound of “Sad Lovers Waltz” (II & III, 1986) or “Good Guys and Bad Guys” (Camper Van Beethoven, 1986). As Lowery relays the siren call of the girls luring him back to the coast, he’s clearly resisting their entreaties. It sounds like he’s running from his past, but maybe he’s just trying to escape from the allure of surrendering to the flow. Either way, his resolve is weakening.

Eastern European tension underlies “Summer Days”. The instrumental first quarter suggests that Lowery lost his fight and has returned to his lost coast. When the lyrics come, they’re full of nostalgic regret. The song circles and builds into a series of peaks separated by brief moments of relief, and a sense of doom pervades the song, suggesting that we’ll all one day have to face our past.

Along with psychedelic guitar jams and Gypsy violins, Camper Van Beethoven has always included a dose of country-folk grooves to round out their sound. They continue that tradition here. “Peaches in the Summertime” serves up a hyper “Cotton-Eyed Joe” styled romp and “La Costa Perdida” harnesses conjunto for its loose narrative. It’s here that Lowery sums up the character he’s voiced for the whole album: “I’m a half-aware-o caballero Yanqui/ From a town just south of Brawley.”

(This review first appeared in Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - The Gromet, Barren (2012)

Colorado country rockers make retro tones their own

It's been two years since I last heard the Gromet when they opened for Tumbledown. The Golden, Colorado band has spent that time honing their sound as they play the Front Range and touring around the West. Last month, I caught their CD release show here in Ft. Collins and picked up a copy of their new album, Barren. I enjoyed their set, but I finally found the time to settle in and give the album a listen. While the band still plays a country rock/Americana mix, they've traded out Wilco influences for the folk rock feel of the Eagles and The Band.

The album name serves as fair warning that the Gromet has also matured their sound from their more direct, feel-good roots. While Barren is hardly moping, bringing some darker themes allows for a wider range of emotional nuances. The title track has a simple, folky sparseness with a clear acoustic guitar and sincere vocal. With a wistful sense of loss, "Barren" is reminiscent of "Where Do They Go" by the Beat Farmers.

Barren love shows its age
I'm wonderin' what you feel now
Barren love shows its age
The more you give, the more it takes

The only ornamentation is a poignant bit of melody worked in with the guitar chords. The track gains even more weight from the contrast with the previous track, "Whiskey and Pills", a soulful country rocker that would feel at home in the Marshall Tucker back catalog. The slightly hoarse lead vocals stand up well to the warmly distorted guitar tone. The lazy melody is familiar, wrapped in an aura of early '70s rock. The solo kicks in, accompanied by retro falsetto harmonies that shift the vibe from "Can't You See" to a twangy Rolling Stones sound. The repetition of the title line sets up a perfect sing-along tag to take the tune home. This has the hallmarks of a great live song and the band captures that energy here.

The Gromet proves adept at mining the Western rock space to tip their hats to a host of influences, from the rootsy John Hiatt Americana of "Skip Your Stone" to the folky tone of The Band on "Stalemate" and the Eagles flavored harmony vocals on "Empty Space". Despite the inspiring list of sonic references, the band manage to stake their own claim with catchy lyrics, boot tapping rhythms, and a clear, honest band persona.

Recording review - Mumford & Sons, Babel (2012)

Heavy handed dynamics crush the subtlety

Mumford & Sons follow in the strong tradition of Great Britain’s folk rock movement, offering a refreshing perspective that contrasts with today’s shallow pop and corporate rock. Like Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and The Waterboys before them, they harness traditional rhythms and instrumentation but still reflect their own modern influences.

Babel is a clear outgrowth of the sound from their first album, Sigh No More. The musical arrangements retain the fresh mix of folky banjo and driving pace of earlier tunes like Little Lion Man, but now the band is more polished. The band has honed their sound in the last couple of years of practice and performance. In particular, they’ve amped up the dynamic shifts in their music. Up until now, this has been one of the band’s strengths. The contrast between a soft cry and a strong response can be powerful. Unfortunately, Babel takes this too far and becomes heavy handed.

Marcus Mumford‘s raw, husky voice drops down as he brings a quiet intensity to the calmer moments, but he’s too quick to rise into full oratorio and the music drives this even harder. With the highs so much stronger than the lows, almost every track becomes an anthem and Mumford begins to seem a bit strident. As the band constantly escalates the emotional stakes, it devalues the power of their dynamics.

This can sabotage the impact of a more subtle song like Holland Road. The track sets up a reflective, open tone supporting lyrics that speak of failure:

With your heart like a stone 
You spared no time in lashing out  
And I knew your pain  
And the effect of my shame 
You cut me down

Just as Mumford’s vulnerable tone sinks in, the song is buried under a fierce rhythmic assault. Mumford’s voice and the music both turn defiant. The words still center on the pain, but the rest of the song undermines any sense of loss. The intent may be a message of overcoming adversity, as the song finally asserts, “If you’ll believe in me, I’ll still believe” with a soaring horn accompaniment, but the narrative doesn’t hold together.

Despite lack of subtlety, Babel shows good lyrical depth, often couched in religious imagery. Biblical allusion is more pervasive than just the title song. The words may touch on love or life’s experience, but a spiritual metaphor is always close at hand. So, the failed relationship in Lover’s Eyes fixates on the singer’s sinful failings:

Should you shake my ash to the wind 
Lord, forget all of my sins 
Or let me die where I lie 
Neath the curse of my lover’s eyes

Similarly, the depression and pain on Ghosts That We Knew leads to a plea for redemption: “Give me hope in the darkness/ That I will see the light.” This religious context seems to reflect today’s evangelical times even if the band isn’t directly pushing that message.

Fortunately, not every song turns so histrionic. The first single, I Will Wait offers a more effective example of Mumford & Son’s dynamic work. It’s stronger in part because it reverses the band’s usual pattern and leads with the uptempo galloping rhythm, relying on the softer moments to add depth. The thick vocal harmonies provide the backbone without over-emoting, adding light touches in the quietest moments: 

Now I’ll be bold as well as strong 
And use my head alongside my heart 
So tame my flesh and fix my eyes 
A tethered mind, freed from the lies

By emphasizing just a couple of those words (“head”, “mind”), they give greater strength to the phrases that follow.

 After all the dynamic swings on Babel, my favorite moment was the relative calm of the bonus track, For Those Below. The beautiful descending guitar intro hints at Dear Prudence by the Beatles while the balanced, close vocal harmonies anchor the song in a folk context. The song still builds, but the scope is more manageable. Where the other songs rely on defiance and will to overcome adversity, For Those Below is more open, suggesting that personal growth can triumph through acceptance. The folky feel recalls Gordon Lightfoot and it’s reassuring to hear that the band can still trust in a simpler sound once in a while.

Speaking of folk idols, it’s telling that Mumford & Sons chose to cover The Boxer, which is perhaps Simon and Garfunkel’s most bombastic song, as another bonus track. Surprisingly, the band toned that down a notch from the original. Adding a banjo line and slide fills, they craft a perfect ornamentation to this classic tune. It’s a nice selection because their version emphasizes the band’s place in the shared folk tradition.

Mumford’s experience drumming for Laura Marling rewarded him for his willingness to step into the light and it could be that theatrical sense which has pushed the band to the relentless extremes they offer on Babel. It’s been a very busy couple of years for Mumford & Sons with the bounty of attention for Sigh No More, working with Ray Davies (Kinks), and playing the Grammys. With luck, the band will have the chance to continue growing and follow Babel with a stronger, more nuanced album.

(This review first appeared in Spectrum Culture) 

Recording review - Miss Shevaughn & Yuma Wray, We're From Here (2012)

Warm heart and fuzzed out soul come together

Duos are often more revealing than a full band. In a larger group, one member's vision can dominate. Or, by contrast, the personalities can smear together into an amalgamation without the rough edges. But a duo often presents a yin yang balance between two equals. If the match is close, it may emphasize the common ground, but magic can happen when two stronger visions come together. If the clash is not destructive, two perspectives can yield a rich sense of depth.

Miss Shevaughn & Yuma Wray don't always succeed in smoothly merging her folky singer/songwriter sensibility with his harder edged garage guitar, but they do click often enough to create several special moments on We're From Here. The two clearly come from different worlds, but the long time they've spent on the road together has granted them a strong mutual respect and border crossing spirit. Neither musician's contribution can be summed up simply, but their strengths bolster one another.

Erin Frisby (Miss Shevaughn) has a fine voice that evokes the classic folk sounds of Linda Ronstadt or Emmy Lou Harris. When the tunes are more country, a touch of Patsy Cline comes out in her expressive phrasing. Confident yet vulnerable, she gives the material an emotional core. The opening track shows this off. From the simple folk start of Go Hang, her sweet but weary tone slides into your heart. Frisby carries her weight as a player, too. While her strength seems to be acoustic rhythm work, she has a nice touch at steel guitar and electric fills.

Chris Stelloh (Yuma Wray) balances Frisby's sentimentality with his electric guitar work. He seems happiest turning up the distortion and reverb to create a rich retro tone. On the subtle end, he can support a lonely melancholia with a Sleep Walk slide fill, like his backing on Go Hang. At the other extreme, he can build that into a richer garage rock, like he eventually does on Mi Burro Está En Fuego.That instrumental evolves a moody acoustic line into a Spanish flavored rock jam. The progression stays interesting, with tight breaks and fuzzy, single-coil accents. Throughout We're From Here, Stelloh's electric sound proves to be a strong companion to Frisby's rich vocals.

The centerpiece of the album shows off both players' strengths. The River Made Me Do It begins with a heat shimmer of sun-baked harmonica, creating a plaintive, lonely feel. The banjo and fingerstyle guitar lay down a dark, folk blues sound. The threatening undertone of droning bass creates a shadow of the deep woods that can hide a world of secrets. Frisby's voice is seductive, but a sense of doom clings to her words:

Well, the river made me do it
Waltzed right in
And made himself at home
And when I looked into his eyes
I fell right in
And I'm a thousand miles gone

With the sonic memories of House of the Rising Sun and Brother, Can You Spare a Dime driving the groove, the tune offers up its moral lesson like an old style murder ballad. About halfway through, the band borrows a page from the Doobie Brothers' Black Water to lay down an interlocking a capella line ("Floatin' on by a dry county"). This sets up the electric guitar to drive the song forward like Jack White on a tear. Then Miss Shevaughn & Yuma Wray drop back to the folk blues simplicity and take us around again for the second half. Frisby's voice moans as the heavy guitar leads her to her fate to close the song.

We're From Here's failures aren't fatal, but those strong tracks make songs like Make It Out Alive or Martha Ann sound weak and flawed. On the straight rocker, Make It Out Alive, Stelloh takes the lead vocal. Like The Replacements trying to write a Springsteen anthem, it feels derivative. Even though Stelloh gives his best, it lacks the chemistry of the duo. Similarly, Martha Ann's folky epitaph is pretty and Frisby's in her element, but it's missing the moody edge that Stelloh's guitar buzz adds elsewhere.

The closing track, Anniversary Song uses a different technique to show the duo's complementary nature. The main push of the song stays in the acoustic realm. Frisby's voice is full of longing and Stelloh's acoustic fills are tastefully restrained, maintaining the essential Linda Ronstadt vibe. When the song seems to end, there's a pause. Then we hear a brief sample of the band's alternate take as a reprise. Stelloh wrenches a low-fi haze from his distorted guitar, which contrasts with the clean single notes of acoustic. This hint at what might have been is just another way for Miss Shevaughn & Yuma Wray to show off their dualistic nature.

Concert review - Todd Snider with Reed Föehl

25 April 2012 (Hodi's Half Note, Ft. Collins CO)

I was pleased that Todd Snider played here in Ft. Collins, especially in an intimate venue like Hodi's. It's a big difference from the Boulder Theater (his next stop on the tour). Snider and Reed Föehl pulled in a mixed age crowd that filled up the venue.

Reed Föehl

Folk singer Reed Föehl is a Boston native, transplanted here to Colorado. He played a comfortable, singer/songwriter set that didn't push boundaries but still satisfied the quiet, attentive crowd. With his simple finger-picked guitar and the wistful twang of his singing, his first song evoked John Prine at his more serious. His subtle harmonica playing added a tentative vulnerability to the tune.

Introducing the next song, he said, "I'm sure a lot of these may be new to you. But this one is new to me. It's called 'Color Me In'." It was another simple waltz beat folk song, sounding like early solo Ryan Adams. These were good tunes, but they set the flow for the whole set: serious, sincere folk music with a coffee shop vibe.


Föehl's stage presence fit well with this. He was very gentle and earnest, with a mild self-deprecating patter. Even offstage, his mellow, friendly vibe made him very approachable. Still, I found myself wanting him to be more dynamic, both physically and musically. The folk genre is a fairly big pool, with room for humor, edge, and energy but Föehl's set maintained an even, steady pace.

His next to last song finally shook things up. Once an Ocean was moodier with a darker depth. Föehl channeled Neil Young and Buffalo Springfield and built a much appreciated intensity.

Todd Snider

In person, Todd Snider always teeters on a ledge in a way that even his live recordings can't quite convey. He's joked about this unpredictability in his song, Age Like Wine:

My new stuff is nothing like my old stuff was
And neither one is much when compared to the show
Which will not be as good as some other one you saw
So help me, I know, I know
I know I am an old timer...

Snider is touring behind his latest album, Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables (review), but the set list bounced through his full catalog. He opened with an older tune, Alright Guy, then jumped right into New York Banker from the new album.

Snider was something like a Zen master as he zipped through his set list but never seemed rushed. He and the band flowed from song to song, but as soon as the pace seemed noticeable, Snider broke it up with some of his seat-of-the-pants patter. While a given story may follow the same basic flow from show to show, the details shift and blur.

The best moment came near the end of Beer Run, when he interrupted the song to share his philosophy about playing goofy songs like this:

...there's something I want to get off my chest because it bothers me. My friends back home in East Nashville, they just naturally assume...without even asking me, they just naturally assume that I am sick of this song that I'm playing right now. They say, "Oh God damn, you must be sick of that fucking one." Shit, no, I'm not!! It's my favorite one...

...I can't get enough of it. And I'll tell you something else. I'll tell you that there ain't never gonna be a day in my life when I make up a song that somebody else likes or wants to sing to. I don't care who they are. If they like it and they want to sing to it, I want to sing it for them. I'm grateful for it. And I'll tell you why...

That segued directly into Age Like Wine before wrapping up with a final chorus of Beer Run.

His backing band matched Snider's style perfectly. They laid low, easy to underestimate until you realized how tight they were. The uptempo numbers gave them a little more room to work with, allowing for some fancier fills, but they were great sidemen. Their foundation gave Snider more dynamic space.

The mix of new and old tunes satisfied the crowd. Snider's consistency as a writer provided the common ground that had everyone singing along on every song. Along with his own songs, Snider threw in a run of covers: Neil Youngs Hey hey, My My, Rusty Weir's Don't it Make You Wanna Dance, Jerry Jeff Walker's Pissing in the Wind, and Jerry Lee Lewis' Great Balls of Fire. Each of these felt like the show's closer as the big endings dragged on, but every time, the band would suddenly kick into the next one. By the time Snider and the band finally left the stage, the audience was wrung out. If this was a ploy to avoid an encore, it didn't work, though. Snider came back out and took a request (Play a Train Song) and followed that up with his last song of the night, Big Finish.


This turned into a sideshow moment. While Snider encouraged a girl at the front of the stage who was soul singing along, the rest of us were distracted by a harmonica player walking through the crowd towards the stage. Acting like he was part of the act, the harp player jumped up and took over the mic. A bemused Snider handed him another harmonica in the right key. When the soul singer decided to come up, too, Snider just stepped back and gave them room. It was anarchy, but what else is going to happen when you try to make a Saturday night out of a weekend.


More photos on my Flickr.

CD review - Todd Snider, Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables (2012)

The raconteur is back with more stories from the fringe

If there's a brief summary for the characters in Todd Snider's songs, New York Banker comes close: "Good things happen to bad people" and, of course, its corollary about good people. In this case, Snider uses his song to explain the whole banking crisis and add a human element. The sloppy, bar band alt-country rock music frames the song as if Snider is the slightly drunk high school teacher bitching about his fate. If the Occupy movement could settle on an anthem, it ought to be this.

Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables carries on Snider's tradition of using fringe characters and their stories to throw some perspective on our own lives. Sometimes the themes are big, like New York Banker or the cynical assessment of religion, In the Beginning. Other times, he closes in on smaller, personal stories. Either way, despite his casual speak-singing delivery, he lavishes attention on each track. Even on the most tossed off songs, like The Very Last Time, which promises that this last time is not like all the other last times, he still creates a moment of poignant perfection:

I had a dream where you came to see me
You asked if I was okay
That's how I knew that I was dreaming:
You asked if I was okay

The matter of fact tone and lack of self-pity combines with pig headed optimism to give the simple idea some depth.

Agnostic Hymns reaches back to the ramshackle feel of The Devil You Know. The unreliable narrator/scam artist of In Between Jobs is a younger brother of the confident construction worker in Lookin' For a Job. Snider's voice drifts across the dirty blues licks, spinning his web. His cocky attitude encourages distrust but also a grudging respect:

There's only one way to win this shell game
Be the one that gets the other guy to play
You think I'm not very bright and you might be right
I might have been born yesterday
But I was up all night...

The least direct song on the album, Brenda, paints Keith Richards and Mick Jagger as flawed lovers that offered each other redemption. While that probably shouldn't be read literally, Snider gets awfully close to a deeper truth. Whether or not the Rolling Stones' chemistry "was true love", Snider shares the true love in his heart.

Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables is another fine Todd Snider album. He doesn't really break new ground, but, like a great raconteur, Snider shows us what he does best without repeating himself.

CD review - Sills & Smith, Uncertain Vista (2011)

Split personality: we will, we will rock/folk you!

Uncertain Vista sprawls for 60 minutes and 21 songs, allowing enough room for the two or three bands playing to each show off their signature sounds. Of the collection, I prefer the indie rock centered band the most, but the musicianship is strong across the board. Of course, it's not a collection of bands, it's just the split personalities of Sills and Smith, jumping between indie/alt rock and Americana (Canadian style)/folk.

This dichotomy would have worked better if they had split the album accordingly, but the songs jump from sound to sound, sometimes disconcertingly. When the appropriately named Ominous fades down from its dark. chaotic tension into the delicate slide intro of Water, it's hard to shake the dissonance.

Despite the roller coaster sequencing, there is a streak of continuity on Uncertain Vista tied to the lead vocal sound, the balanced song arrangements, tight harmonies, and the exceptional bass work.

The first three songs start out on the indie rock side, with A Writer's Retreat creating some beautiful music. The see saw rhythmic start features some harmonic note textures that contrast nicely with the wide open flow of the chorus. The electric guitar is wonderful, creating a counterpoint of sounds that balance the structured arrangement of the other instruments. Similarly, on Inside/Outside, the electric guitar adds character, largely by being less anchored to the Police-like main guitar figure.

Spiraling Down's shift to a more Americana feel is the first indication that Uncertain Vista was veering for other targets. The repetitive melody lines and swaying rhythm is pleasant and the lead has a nice Roger McGuinn feel. But it's out of step with the earlier songs.

Picking some favorite moments, Crux of the Matter is a strong alt-rocker with a power pop edge. The driving beat lays down a foundation for a John Entwistle bass line that melodically toys with the groove. The psychedelic guitar solo drifts through the break leaving little flecks of golden fuzz. On the folkier side, the aforementioned Water has a gentle folk rock vibe. The arrangement is simple, but allows enough room for the slide guitar accents in the spaces left by the hesitant acoustic guitar. The vocal harmonies are solid, matching the laid back feel. The imagery and lyrical flow is smoother here than some of the other songs.

It's good for a band to have an eclectic range of songs. Sills and Smith's musical talent and skill at arrangement shows off their versatility. With better song sequencing or judicious editing, Uncertain Vista would have been a stronger offering.

Drop by ReverbNation and give Sills and Smith a listen.

CD review - Barry, Yawnin' In the Dawnin' (2011)

Folk rockers from New York make a solid debut

Barry is genuine. Barry is sincere and not afraid to be a little cornball. Barry is a folk rock band made up of three brothers. I've sat in with my brother's band and it sounded great. But it's hard to imagine adding a third brother and making a band work. Pat (guitar/harmonica), Ben (bass), and Brad (drums) Barry may secretly fight at home or even onstage, but on Yawnin' In the Dawnin', they smoothly mesh together to create a solid sound with some interesting songs.

Against a sea of low-fi, indie releases, it's refreshing to hear such a well made album. The arrangements and the engineering are top notch. The mixing is particularly fine: the vocals are always clear and the individual instruments stand out. Album production values are rarely worth mentioning: if the band isn't deliberately making an unaesthetic statement, most self-produced albums are merely competently engineered. Yawnin' In the Dawnin' sounds professionally produced.

Musically, Barry offers up a nice palette of sounds across the EP. Three Years in Carolina lays down a simple vibe that hearkens back to folk rock acts of the early '70s. With brothers singing, it's no surprise that the harmonies are sweet. But the two part (and occasional three part) vocals are smoothly arranged. The musical flow is effortless: a chorus slides right into a harmonica solo that hits a perfect up and down dynamic. Then that sets up a slower verse and chorus. The breaks and deceptively simple feel recall the Band's classic songs.

In stark contrast, Carnival(E) has a darker feel. The bass and cut-time beat hint at the carny sound without taking it as far as Tom Waits would. That leaves room for the rocker chorus, which sounds great against the verses. I love this track, but there was a weakness because the chorus and verses don't really tie together lyrically. The carnival theme in the verses:

Welcome to the carnival
the strong man lifts his weight while on a wire
And he breathes fire
Marvel at the acrobat, lion tamers, jugglers and a psychic
Come one, come all to see the show

seems too loosely related to the chorus:

Maybe I'm the fallen man,
The bearded, tattooed long-haired rambler
I'm a nomad
Maybe I'm the chosen Son
The one who walks alone and offers salvation
Maybe I'm no one

The music and the vocal expression gloss over the disconnect, but it still tweaks me a bit.

The other tracks are closer to Three Years in Carolina without rehashing the same musical ground, from the outlaw country of Love Something Too Much to the barroom autobiographical Drink One More. The songs are catchy and fresh. The band's attitude is also fresh and earnest, reflecting well on the name of their personal record label, 100% Records.

The only misstep is the goofy title track. Yawnin' In the Dawnin' is a brief a capella ditty somewhere between old time sing-along and barbershop. The press release explains that it's a morning wake up song their father would sing. That answers the question of why it's there, but it's still an acquired taste.

Give Barry a listen or drop by their Facebook page. I'll be interested to hear more of their music in the future.

CD review - Woods, Sun and Shade (2011)

Dreamy indie folk captures a slice of the '60s and '70s

Woods actually capture a couple of slices. Their gentle folk rock sound recall bands like It's a Beautiful Day or the Flying Burrito Brothers. But they also sprinkle Sun and Shade with a couple of psychedelic jams that merge early Pink Floyd with Velvet Underground and Can.

On the surface, these two directions set up a cognitive dissonance. Both are enjoyable, but they don't quite mesh. But by the time White Out plays, Woods has bridged that gap. The percussion and bass driven groove builds up a trippy feel, while the dreamy, echoed vocals surprisingly ground the tune. The meandering result is a Grateful Dead sounding folk jam.

For a taste of the mid '60s folk rock, give a listen to Any Other Day. The big room reverb, the close harmonies, and chiming acoustic guitar conspire to recreate a 1966 Buffalo Springfield vibe. The effect is subverted by the charred edges of distorted guitar that sneak in the second half, but that balance is what makes Woods enchanting. The contrast between the upbeat, hopeful music and the pessimistic lyrics is another interesting quality:

I won't believe that it can't get worse
It's not impossible to see
To have and to hold for whatever that's worth
We won't be coming back

On the wilder side, Sun and Shade offers two extended jams, Out of the Eye and Sol y Sombre. Both are rich musical explorations of experimental space. Woods take the time to let the tracks develop naturally, which is very much like Pink Floyd's work on Saucerful of Secrets. On Out of the Eye, the hypnotic jam weaves between Floyd, Velvet Underground style discordance, and classic Krautrock. Sol y Sombre takes a Floyd-style space rock groove, built from a bass and percussion foundation and adds some sparse, meditative Jerry Garcia guitar lines.

Embrace the dichotomy that Sun and Shade offers, whether it's the dandelion wine or the subtly dosed Kool-Aid. Either taste will prove worthwhile.

CD review - The Brian St. John Quartet, Songs About Other People (2010)

The Brian St. John Quartet's Songs About Other People has a timeless feel. Wisps of late '60s jam and early '70s folk rock permeate these laid back tracks, alongside a modern indie rock sensibility. A good song gets your feet tapping, but a great one inspires you to sing along. BSJQ hit one of those moments early in the album with Velvet Floor Blues. The shuffle snare and sparse blues licks catch the ear before the track builds. Loudspeaker vocals and light horn touches come in to set the hook. By the chorus, it sounded like alt-traditionalists X had inherited some heavier blues influences. "Oh, she's gone. Gone, gone, gone..."

Moving forward, Renaissance Man starts out like a Blues Traveler tune, but with a strong folk rock vibe. The combination is typical of the album: modern and retro, catchy hooks with a more interesting instrumentation. The woodwinds add a lot to the arrangement. The Blues Traveler feel is even stronger on the jam fest of 87->95, although it's tempered with a touch of Rolling Stones. It's another relaxed, feel good song.

Every track has something intriguing: either an interesting blend of styles, exception playing (Randy Sabo has some wonderful bass lines), or choruses that lodge in your ear. Brian St. John's vocals are very restrained. He's a little hoarse and given to half whispering his lines sometimes, but his songwriting style favors that delivery.

The only questionable track is Townie Girl, which started out as my favorite song. The jazzy blues groove is sweet, the horns are moody perfection, and St. John's voice is squarely in his comfort zone. The first stumble is the mood-killing electric guitar solo. The volume jump, wailing tone, and contrasting reverb are jarring, like the guitar was sloppily punched in. If the entire track had built from that moment, it might have worked. Instead, the mood recovers somewhat with the following horn solo. Then there's a beautifully tentative, wistful piano fill (at about 4:40) that's short but elegant. The other poor decision was to overlay the extended instrumental section with storm sounds. The jazzy jam stands well on it's own; the sound effects add a slight cheese factor that make it hard to take seriously. This live version doesn't have the piano, but it does show how the song can shine.

Despite my gripes with Townie Girl, Songs About Other People is a good album. The lineup plays well together and the songwriting is solid. Like a good amber ale, there's plenty of flavor without attacking the palate.

CD review - Catie Brandt, Runaway Sun (2010)

A new artist needs to find her voice. Which style, techniques, and songs feel right are the clues for discovering her strengths. Combining these withe the artist's unique character and quirks can become a map to creating her performing persona.

Catie Brandt seems like she's in the middle of that process on Runaway Sun. She's cast her net wide, varying the moods, the genres, and instrumentation from song to song. Some tracks click, showing off a strength to be honed and polished. Other tracks miss the mark, either because the parts conflict or they don't work for her voice.

The dreamier, introspective tracks work best, supporting her voice and staying in her vocal range. The wistful Night and Day has a loos retro feel that recalls Mama Cass Elliot's gentle crooning.The bass line is too high in the mix, but it does stay in line with the soul of the song.

Rise Up creates a nice balance between the tension of the song and her warm, thoughtful voice. The sparse arrangement and steady bass line provide a scaffold for her singing to flow naturally. The lead climax dominates the end section, but the setup groove persists and supports it. This was the strongest track on Runaway Sun.

Someone For Me may not be as strong an overall track as Rise Up, but its jazzy chanteuse style fits Brandt's voice the best. She sounds comfortable meandering through the tune and the piano arrangement sets the right rhythm and phrasing.

On the other side of Runaway Sun's experiment are the tracks that don't gel. Emily is a nice song, with a strong, upbeat shuffle propelling it forward. But the instruments eventually bury Brandt's vocals. The busy arrangement, the overly loud lead, and the rushed vocals overwhelm the song's good points.

Hit The Ground Running, the first track, pushes Brandt's voice too hard. It sounds challenging for her to sing as she has trouble holding pitch. She does bring a sense of desperation to match the dire lyrics, but the bouncy rhythm and cheery instrumentation undercut the mood.

So, Runaway Sun is a mixed bag. Some of that might arise from the origins of the album. The liner notes are unclear: Brandt's name is on the front cover, but the inside credits Jon and Cate Minus 8 (Catie Brandt and Jon Irizarry). A band trying to find its balance might account for the shifting feel between the songs and the less clear focus on Brandt's strengths.

CD review - Gasoline Silver, Gasoline Silver (2010)

From the opening notes of Indianapolis, I was home. With a trans-punk sound that calls both Patti Smith and the Stooges to mind, Gasoline Silver lays out a perfect driving punk feel. Their low-fi vibe finds its own voice by adding in a bit of retro synth and drums that sound more machine than man. Then they finish out the first chorus and pull out a harmonica. Okay, so it's not really traditional. My foot is tapping along and doesn't care.

They mix it up more, throwing in a few bluesy folk rock pieces, like the Dylanesque The Wild Farewell. This one's got a little When I Paint My Masterpiece kind of feel. This time, the harmonica is no surprise at all. It flows out smoothly, with the expected metaphor laden lyrics.

Band leader Ron Franklin has a strong sense of the sound he wants, sometimes shifting genres, but always staying true to an uncomplicated structure and presentation for the songs.

Still, the post punk drive is what grabs my ear. It's All Over But the Cryin' crosses Roky Erikson with the Cramps. Simple choppy guitars, reverb soaked vocals, and absolutely no frills. Miss Cape Canaveral has a stripped down feel that sounds a little like Romeo Void.

Gasoline Silver is due out August 10. Until then, you can hear a few of their tracks on their site and cleanse your aural palate. While you're at it, find yourself an unassuming amber ale (Odell's Levity comes to mind).