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 - The Electric Mess, House on Fire (2014)

Vivid performances and smoldering personality will take you back
Browsing through retro-inspired rock band offerings is like picking your favorite movie franchise reboot. Occasionally, an album strikes a nerve, but nothing can really replace dropping the needle on The Velvet Underground and Nico, sinking back into thrashy joy of The Pretenders, or sampling the cream of late '60s psychedelic pop bands from Northern California on a Rhino collection. It's hard for younger bands to slide in deeply enough to get past the simple surface characteristics, and those that come closest to the elusive feel rarely have enough personality to be memorable. The Electric Mess beats those odds and adroitly covers the musical dive while lead singer Esther Crow and her drag alter ego, Chip Fontaine, provide the personality to close the deal. Their last album, Falling Off the Face of the Earth (review), was notable because the band's clear love of primitive rock came through in beautiful fidelity . On House on Fire, they capture the raw energy of the garage more strongly than ever, with emphasis on raw. Although these tracks never devolve into muddiness, the engineering isn't quite as crisp and nuanced as Falling. But The Electric Mess makes up for it by bringing a vivid spark to their performance that puts the listener right at the edge of the stage, looking up in wonder.

I've already talked about the lead single, "Better to be Lucky Than Good", with its Lou Reed characters and story line propelled by Patti Smith proto-punk. Fontaine's smoldering voice scratches like a warm woolen blanket, selling the song with jaded nonchalance. It's a strong piece to lead off the album, but it also turns out to be fairly representative. Its big finish barely leaves time to catch your breath before they launch into the tight power pop rock of the title track. This time, Dan Crow's guitar paces restlessly within a cage of organ fills and vocals. In constant motion, Crow occasionally lets it loose enough to wail or throw itself against the bars, but when the solo comes around, it's clear that he hasn't run out of ideas as tears his way across the fretboard.

Later, on "Get Me Outta the Country", Crow's guitar slips off the leash and romps its way to Shredsville. This would be a great tune to catch live, to feel the primitive rite intensity and just hang on for the ride. But even while the lead slips out into the weeds, the rock steady drum work and anchoring bass hold it together. The Electric Mess wraps up the tune with a fade-out ending, a technique that's fallen out fashion, but this captures the loose unwinding that a live version would expand upon.

Lead singer Esther Crow spends most of House on Fire in her Chip Fontaine drag persona, with his hoarse growl and macho attitude giving the songs an earthy grounding. On "She Got Fangs", Fontaine's rough huskiness is the focal point against the moody psychedelic sway. His tale of seductive entrapment and then becoming the hunter himself is a simple enough story, but his swagger recalls Van Morrison fronting Them on "Gloria". While he hits his strongest stride on the thrashy blues sprint of "Beat Skipping Heart", my favorite Fontaine moment is the campy and theatrical spoken word section on the "Leavin' Me Hangin'", where he calls out his quarry, "Girl, I wandered the streets looking for you. Saw a couple of your friends, all tarted up. They lied and said they didn't know where you were . Girl,you ain't no Queen of Sheba and I ain't no piece of liver. But you never deliver." It's another case that calls for the live experience to see how far he'd push it.

Esther Crow takes her first real break from Fontaine on "There's Nothing You Can Do", which features keyboard player Oweinama Biu on lead vocals while she drops into a supporting role. Biu summons a good sense of desperation that fits the mood of the piece and it's a nice change to hear the two of them singing together.

House on Fire wraps up with a little bit of a bait and switch. "Every Girl Deserves a Song" initially sounds like a wild instrumental coda to the previous tune, but the minute long vamping builds to a climax only to fall into a delightful Mod pop song. Esther Crow summons her inner Cher (a la "The Beat Goes On") and brings a touch of hippy girl soul to her singing. Her laid back vocals gloss over the jarring disconnect between the frantic intro and the opiated groove, providing a warm embrace of lotus-eating bliss. Her lyrics bridge Summer of Love pop and its hidden underground scene, "Why don't you bring some Percocets / To help me cool my jets / Why don't you bring an unapproachable vamp / Just to round up the tone of my amp." Dan Crow's wah-wah guitar and Biu's ringing organ tone complement the song with their own patchouli-scented textures. Along the way, the tune also conjures the perfect psychedelic descriptor in the phrase, "Fizzy Bacchanal", which is begging to become a band name at some point. After the amphetamine immediacy of the other tracks, this gentle letdown is a sweet closing note from whatever alternate past that The Electric Mess is channeling. Rather than conflict, it recharges the listener enough to tackle "Better to be Lucky Than Good" all over again to ride that tiger one more time.

Recording review - Israel Nash, Israel Nash's Rain Plans (2014)

Retro roots, but real and original

The overused shorthand, “retro,” can mean that a group short on their own ideas has repackaged the past. Although Israel Nash Gripka’s country-rock/Americana infused music raises immediate comparisons to a host of classic folk-rock acts, Israel Nash’s Rain Plans is hardly a slavish (or lazy) re-creation of history. Instead, he’s applied a master craftsman’s aesthetic to expanding what might have started as simple singer-songwriter tunes. The resulting album features richly layered instrumentation that draws on acoustic and electric sounds, soft-diffusion reverb to cosset the mix and, above all, a worshipful appreciation for warm analog tone. Casual listeners may hear it as a pastiche of The Band or early Neil Young, but the details reveal Gripka’s original perspective, driven by some of the same values.

Rain Plans begins with “Woman at the Well”. While the initial intro recalls John Fogarty and Creedence Clearwater Revival, the melody on the first line comes straight from “The Weight” by The Band. Instead of pulling into Nazareth, he calls, “Swing low, Laura/ I’m up to no good.” The oblique lyrics that follow suggest a man reminiscing from the end of his life’s road, with the calm delivery and steady pace signaling an acceptance. The song’s familiar elements are on the surface, but the texture of the piece demonstrates Gripka’s unique voice. He uses acoustic guitar as a canvas for the overdriven guitar to splatter trails of warmly fuzzed fills. Meanwhile a thin haze of shimmering synth wash fills up the background. The last minute and a half or two become an extended fade, where the fog of distortion rises like an inevitable tide, obliterating everything. By the end, it owes as much to My Morning Jacket as it does to those earlier bands.

“Woman at the Well” is a fine start, providing a good lead-in for the distorted steel guitar on the country rock of “Through the Door”. The arrangement on this one is perfectly constructed, with each element seamlessly in place. The verses are country while the chorus has more of a blues rock feel. The balance is a little psychedelic. This intensifies as things get interesting about half way through the piece. It breaks down to a thoughtful interlude, centered on the simple repeated guitar riff from the verse. The other instruments layer in with each repetition, and once they’re all on board, the song restarts, but in a spacier mood that turns soulful and intense.

It’s not until “Who in Time” that the Neil Young spirit begins to infuse the album in earnest. The trippy intro groove has a twangy psychedelic feel, but the transition into the verse sets up a “Down by the River” sway, and then a touch of harmonica adds its contribution. The backing harmonies, along with the light pedal steel, cement the mood. Eventually, Gripka’s vocals slide into Young’s slightly nasal falsetto, first on occasional lines, and then more strongly on “Rain Plans” and “Iron of the Mountain”, finally hitting a peak on “Mansions”, which crosses Young’s “Southern Man” with “Cowgirl in the Sand” and “Like a Hurricane.” But for all those allusions, Gripka’s song makes its own statement about hollow excess as it swells into a hypnotic swirl of crackling sparks of chaotic sound.

It’s easy to imagine these songs shrunk down to solo arrangements; Gripka’s voice and personality could handily carry them. Still, there’s a joy to soaking in the sound of a group as they pick up on each other’s nuanced playing, each finding the ideal addition. Bottom line, the real surprise is that Israel Nash Gripka hasn’t hit it bigger here in the U.S. We’re arriving late to this party; Rain Plans initially came out last year in Europe and is only now releasing in North America. It’s obvious to hear why he’s been embraced overseas. His sound is completely American in the best possible sense; its folk, blues and country rock sound are expansive but not excessive. Stick this one on repeat and play catch up with the rest of the world.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - Got a Girl, I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now (2014)

Moody pop with swinging retro French style

While it's not quite as surprising as finding out that Phil Collins is a recognized expert on the Alamo, you're still likely to be taken aback by Daniel Nakamura's deep appreciation for retro French pop. Dan the Automator is known for quirky and creative production, but his work with Got a Girl is refreshingly direct. Collaborating with the actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Got a Girl fills I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now with chill sophistication and nuanced musical allusions that demonstrate an understanding of the genre without slavishly recreating the past. The two of them flow like top grade dance partners, effortlessly leveraging moody grooves into lush gems while drawing on contemporary pop.

Nakamura and Winstead met when they both worked on the 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and that connection laid the groundwork for Got a Girl. They nailed down the idea for I Love You But as early as 2012, but it took a long time for the project to come to fruition. Along the way, Winstead contributed vocals to Deltron 3030′s Event 2. Listening to their work on that album, it’s hard to hear the continuity with Got a Girl’s sound, although there’s a hint of Winstead’s pop chops in her backing for “Looking at the Sky”. Of course, the Deltron project was a completely different animal, with Dan the Automator taking a more typical hip-hop approach on his beats and Winstead’s voice used more for texture than lead. Still, that contrast make this new release more satisfying for its ambiance.

The album sets the hook early, with “Did We Live Too Fast”. The carillon intro sets a thoughtful tone, and then the main groove drops the song into the middle of a ’60s mod movie. Winstead alternates between coy seduction and sultry distance, and Nakamura’s music masterfully supports her performance with horn punches and sighing strings. His arrangement captures the sense of the era, but it incorporates modern touches, periodically tagging lines with a light glitch skip or using a glaring synth melody on the bridge. As the title suggests, the lyrics are filled with both wistful nostalgia and jaded fatalism. The pair tap into that same vein again on “Things Will Never Be the Same”, this time getting darker and more theatrical.

Later, on “Close To You”, the synth instrumentation and disco rhythm push the album forward into the ’7Os, but the bridge reaches backward as it paraphrases the classic late ’60s hit, “Love Is Blue (L’Amour Est Bleu).” It’s almost subliminal and probably too subtle for younger listeners, but it shows that Nakamura has done his homework. Even the seemingly normal pop tunes like “I’ll Never Hold You Back” or “Last Stop” have a sparse beauty. Winstead uses these tracks to show her versatility; her voice opens and softens, complementing the sweet simplicity.

I Love You But is remarkably even with one exception, the poorly conceived “Da Da Da”. The rest of the album maintains a well-crafted sense of time and mood, but this one tune sabotages all of that work. The music doesn’t drift too far, but Winstead’s petulant boredom and the crass lyrics hit like a warm spray of spittle. This is clearly intended to be a joke, but as she announces, “This song is shit/ It sucks/ It’s a piece of shit,” her point is all too true. The slinky tension of the final song, “Heavenly”, does its best to recover, but the bad smell lingers. Unfortunately, it’s hard to unhear the offending track; the best I can do is delete it from the playlist and wait for its memory to fade.

(A version of this review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - Wunder Wunder, Everything Infinite (2014)

Retro rehash, with occasional glints of interest

Is anyone else getting tired of the glut of twee retro bands? Sure, jangle and reverb are cool, but there’s got to be a limit. Wunder Wunder’s spin on this old game is to aim for the sound of a pop psychedelic band plucked from 1967 and whisked forward to the present, where a modern producer introduces them to electronic tones and helps them make a record that bridges the decades. If they had succeeded at this, it would have been great. Unfortunately, they don’t achieve that degree of originality or excitement. Instead, they’re just another band obsessed with the past that can’t quite let go of their modern instruments and sensibility. Ironically, they produce their strongest material when they fully indulge their craving for headier times, but Everything Infinite hits the wall on the tunes where they break character and slip into more recent pop fluff. Since their two extremes can’t quite meet, the album is disappointingly uneven.

The opening run of songs shows most of what the band has on offer. They lead off with the title track, a beautiful Beatlesque bit of psychedelia. The intro is starker than the Fab Four would do it, suggesting a power pop setup, but it quickly finds its footing with echoing vocals and a strong McCartney style bass line. While they decorate the tune with occasional fountains of anachronistic synth arpeggios, this is as close as they come to any kind of time traveling ideal. “Coastline” gamely throws in some old school flanger and the same echoed singing, this time summoning more of a sunny ’70s sound. Unfortunately, the skinny keyboard tone and flat mix feel cheesy after the richer sound of “Everything Infinite”. As they continue, they completely lose their mojo early into the third song, “Hail the Madmen”. The track is a muddled mess of random ideas, executed as an animatronic interpretation of danceable ’80s music. The chorus celebrates a mundane mindlessness with inane lyrics, “Hail the madmen/ Help me get you off the street/ Hey, you madmen/ You need some time off your feet.“

Then, Wunder Wunder pulls it together for another gem, “Trouble in Utopia”. They can’t resist some programmed percussion, but the trippy radiance overwhelms the cross-time distractions. Meditative repetition and bubbling tones create a wonderfully skewed sense of surrealism, which is propelled forward by the steady pacing of the arrangement. The tune peaks with a chaotic jam that feels like they’re self-consciously sifting for the perfect frequency combination to blow our minds. The lyrics declare trouble, but Utopia trumps. Still, as nice as this is, it definitely whets my appetite for the real thing, like The Moody Blues or Strawberry Alarm Clock. This only grows stronger by the time that “Sure Stuck” kicks in. The verses borrow heavily from The Bangles’ “Walk Like An Egyptian” and while the other sections turn up the paisley, they still can’t make it sound original.

Wunder Wunder is certainly adept at harnessing sunshine spaciness on Everything Infinite, but that’s hardly a unique skill. Their compatriots, Tame Impalas, have that ground well covered and have done a better job of updating the ideas beyond their nostalgic value. To break out ahead of the retro pack, Wunder Wunder will need to find their voice and work out a better melding between the Summer of Love and the summer of 2014.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - The Men, Tomorrow's Hits (2014)

The retro ooze? You're soaking in it...

Do you believe in coincidence? Most people don’t. We’re hardwired to find patterns and connections and it’s almost impossible for us to accept that those relationships might exist only in our minds. With their latest release, Tomorrow’s Hits, the Men try to overcome our natural instincts. They’d have us ignore the evidence of our ears and entertain the conjecture that, somehow, their immersion into 1970s rock is anything but a retro pose or heartfelt pastiche. They seem to suggest that they’ve never paid any attention to bands like Cheap Trick, Bruce Springsteen or Tom Petty. So, any resemblance is surely just an aural trick.

The thing is that they just about pull it off. Listening to “Settle Me Down”, I can hear a blend of George Harrison and Tom Petty among others, but the longer the song plays, it stands more firmly on its own merits. There’s a lot going on from the opening notes: the bass and guitar aligned in staccato arpeggios, the choppy rhythm guitar, a shimmery touch of slide guitar and an amorphous wash of organ to cement it together. The swaying rhythm of the A section gives a lazy feel to the vocals. The B section balances a surf-guitar tinged darker edge — “But it’s all right that I didn’t see you that night” — with mellow “oohs” and brighter jangle. There’s not a lot of lyrical depth here; the band just repeats a simple set of lines. But the piece has a meditative quality that transcends its musical references. Like their earlier work on Open Your Heart (2012), the clench-release flow of the song is innately satisfying.

Given the band’s punk roots, it’s interesting that the strongest—and hardest to ignore—apparent influence is Bruce Springsteen. The opening chords of “Dark Waltz” suggest “Adam Raised a Cain” crossed with a bit of John Fogerty. “Another Night” feints towards “Because the Night” before changing directions with a Clarence Clemons-style sax riff and a Van Morrison vocal feel. The album closer, “Going Down”, comes from deep within the lo-fi reverberation of the garage, driven by an up-tempo punk energy, but it still finds kinship to Springsteen’s Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973).

Tomorrow’s Hits, though, is at its best when the Men indulge their predilection for thrash and attitude. My favorite track, “Different Days”, launches with an adrenaline pulse bass line before dropping into a driving garage rock grind that supports the punk vocals. It reminds me of Team Spirit’s raw garage pop and, like Team Spirit, the Men can pack a lot of angst and ecstasy into the same space (“And I’m waiting for this night to fade/ And I hate being young/ Sick of all this do-or-die/ Don’t they know it’s just suicide? Uh huh”). In the album’s lead single, “Pearly Gates”, the band applies their over-the-top treatment to blues rock. The exuberant chaos and untethered slide guitar suggest Johnny Winter’s cover of “Highway 61 Revisited”.

There’s an obvious irony in calling this collection of retro-toned tunes Tomorrow’s Hits. Sure, musical fashion rolls through its cycle and everything old is new again sooner or later. But I think the point is that bands like the Men have been absorbing all of these classic sounds for so long that this mishmash of lo-fi, raw rock building blocks is their milieu. In that context, the title puts most of its emphasis on sarcastically mocking the idea of “hits”.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - Cheatahs, Cheatahs (2014)

Shallow reading of retro shoegaze - not bad, but not enough

I may be a little out of touch – does ProTools have simple push-button production filters for classic sounds of the past? Instagram has settings for 1970s snapshots (1977) and washed out Polaroids (Earlybird), so it’s not that far-fetched to imagine virtual knobs for dialing in “1983 new wave” or “metal power ballad”. If it were that simple, it would explain why Cheatahs have saturated their sound with “late ‘80s British shoegaze”, maybe tempered with a light dusting of ”early ‘90s alt rock”. Their eponymous debut leads off with a brief flirtation with feedback that serves as a prelude to the first real song on the album, “Geographic”. This muffled, low-fi wash of sound liberated from Teenage Fanclub serves as an introduction to what you’ll be listening to for the next 45 minutes. If you’ve ever stepped out for a smoke break while a thrashy wall-of-guitars band is pounding through their set, this is what you’d hear from the sidewalk. It’s thick and compressed, packed with echo and distortion. This is not a bad thing. The parts can all be distinguished and they fit together well. Nathan Hewitt’s voice has a nice mix of rawness and whispery intimacy and it’s not completely buried by the self-absorbed guitars or urgent beat. True to Cheatah’s inspirations, the guitars offer a spectrum of textures: detuned jangle, chiming tones, crunching down-strokes and light howls. I decide that I like them, but the sense of déjà vu keeps me from committing fully.

The song ends a bit suddenly, but the next track, “Northern Exposure”, attempts distraction with a jarring guitar strum that echoes from somewhere deep within a tin-walled warehouse. Soon enough, we’re underway again and this is the moment I distinctly fall out of love with Cheatahs. This piece is completely different – new riffs, a fresh set of chord progressions and a more earnest vocal tone – and yet the song remains the same. Just like everyone’s Instagram photos come to be indistinguishable, the production is so lovingly heavy handed that it pancakes the band’s character into two dimensions. The light variations in tempo and rough sonic color never quite grant the tunes enough zing to stand out. It’s interesting that one of the tracks, “The Swan”, dates back to the band’s SANS EP from late 2012. Packaged here along with the newer material, it demonstrates an aesthetic continuity in how little they’ve evolved.

The band draws particularly heavily on My Bloody Valentine, especially the album Loveless (1991), but they don’t really understand their source. Cheatahs locks onto the thick smear of sound of tracks like “When You Sleep” or “Come In Alone”, but where Loveless was full of Kevin Shields’ idiosyncratic character and perhaps flawed artistic vision, this album meanders from one hazy thicket of muddy fuzz to another. It’s frustrating, because there are plenty of moments that do click: a tsunami of resonating distortion crashes over ringing strings or a dynamic breath of tom-tom inhale and kick drum exhale is accompanied by the labored panting of guitar crunch. But those high points aren’t anchored to pieces that connect. After several times through the album, it’s clear that the songs aren’t bad, they just melt together. Maybe by their sophomore effort, Cheatahs will develop some more depth or at least learn how to throw a change-up.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - Eleni Mandell, Let's Fly a Kite (2014)

Retro stylings and nurturing serenity

Mothers can be nurturing and loving, but they can also be fierce. Eleni Mandell’s last album, I Can See the Future (2012), caught her at the cusp of motherhood—she made that album in the wake of a breakup while pregnant with twins. Unsurprisingly, that project marked a new chapter in her music, and she abandoned the richly shadowed edges she showed on 2009's Artificial Fire (review) in favor of a stripped down simplicity. Let’s Fly A Kite carries that sound further, digging in and grounding some of the ethereal moments. While there is a clear thread running through these releases—Artificial Fire’s “Right Side” presages “Magic Summertime” from I Can See the Future and either song could be arranged for this album—it seems like softer serenity is Mandell’s new normal. At this point, it’s hard to recognize the young woman who avidly followed X and the rest of the L.A. punk scene.

Instead, this latest batch of tunes slips back to the long-ago sounds of Patsy Cline, Dinah Shore, and Patti Page. Like Page, Mandell’s voice is cultured, warm, and clear, and it matches the musical aesthetic of that earlier era. The arrangements are lightly orchestrated with the same kind of studio precision found in popular gems from the 1950s and early ‘60s. Producer Neil Brockbank and Nick Lowe’s backing band deserve high marks for their stellar efforts in that regard. The beautiful interplay of organ and clarinet in the accompaniment for a tune like “Wedding Ring” subtly supports the vocal in a way that modern pop recording has lost. The song features a hint of lyrical disillusion that Mandell’s inspirations might have avoided, but otherwise it’s a perfect period piece.

With the retro feel of her singing and instrumental backing, Mandell treads close to more recent performers like Diana Krall or Linda Ronstadt, although she relies less on interpreting the classics. Her own songs stand up fairly well; she has a good lyrical sense and she knows just how to push her voice melodically. Although her maternal instincts are obvious on “Put My Baby to Bed” and “Little Joy”, Let’s Fly a Kite isn’t aiming for that demographic sweet spot.

So, with a wonderful voice and masterful arrangements, what’s holding the album back? The biggest problem is that it lacks any sense of urgency. With a couple of exceptions, the tunes unroll at a deliberately sedate pace that doesn’t offer much in the way of bumps or excitement. Where Krall and Ronstadt are adept at mixing up tempos and using their phrasing to punch up a song, Mandell settles comfortably into the orchestral pocket. It doesn’t take too long for that to slide into background music. As the details blur and focus slips, some of the tracks begin to sound familiar. Is “Something to Think About” a reworking of Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea”? Not really, but that first line is a near cousin. Similarly, one of the slightly more insistent pieces, “Cool Water”, has a strong Buddy Holly vibe.

In an interesting twist, the most outstanding track on Let’s Fly a Kite, “Maybe Yes”, has the most modern feel. The band still brings their delicate touch, but the song seems more than a decade younger than the rest of the album. Mandell’s lyrics are at their most confrontational (“Maybe doesn’t make me hot/ Maybe doesn’t burn me up”) and that attitude helps. The jazzy backing is upbeat and her sultry energy invigorates the piece. The rest of the time, she seems content to settle into a gentler rhythm of parenthood. She’s undergone changes before, so this, too, will probably pass. Maybe her next release will channel her protective Tiger Mama.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - Boogarins, As Plantas Que Curam (2013)

Sunny psychedelic pop owes a debt to 1960s Tropicáli

I like to imagine pockets in the world where time stands still or even regresses occasionally. Places surrounded by mountain fog and wrapped in their own echoes.  That's the kind of place in Brazil that I picture for Boogarins. The band seems caught in a warp where 1960s Tropicália is vibrant and it's okay to be earnest and awkward as long as the music can wrap around your mind and provide a cocoon. With a lighter tone than their countrymen Os Mutantes, the band fills As Plantas Que Curam with a sunny psychedelia that is one step removed from Beatlesque exploration.

The opening track, "Lucifernandis", tosses out a brief teaser of studio pre-taping before jumping into the insistent guitar riff and rolling drum beat. The guitar twists in on itself with a lightly fuzzed trail and the subtly echoed vocals begin chanting through the opening verse. The joyous sound reminds me of Roky Erickson, but with much sweeter singing. The chorus turns up the sunshine with a harmonized melody that has passed through several hands since its origins on Magical Mystery Tour. It's not so much that the song is derivative, but more that Boogarins have a talent for creating songs that sound instantly recognizable. Throughout As Plantas Que Curam, I felt more like I was returning to an old favorite, rather than meeting a mysterious stranger.

The second track, "Erre", shifts the roots from Lennon and McCartney to Pink Floyd circa The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. The production has the same hollow quality on the opening guitars and a familiar sounding, hypnotic bass line. The singing even suggest Syd Barrett's phrasing. It's a rich, spacy ride, spurred on by persistent flanged cymbal work that fills the track with a constant rattle that dazes and bewilders. While I don't speak Portuguese, the vocals feel like I'm getting advice from an older brother. The guitar solo wanders in, as if by accident and leads the song to resolution.

Along with these retro flourishes, Boogarins evoke some more modern comparisons. Songs like "Despreocupor" and "Hoje APrendi de Verdade" are filled with groovy good cheer rooted in a naivaté that suggests artists like Devendra Banhart and Robert Pollard (Guided By Voices). The latter track captures a taste of Jimi Hendrix guitar tone, but eschews fireworks for a solid supportive role. The vocals eddy around in a mind-twisting whirlpool. It's disorienting, but there's no chance of a bad trip because we're safe among friends.

The moodiest moment on As Plantas Que Curam comes on "Eu Vou", a mostly acapella tune thick with resonant echoes. The song is ornamented with delicate swells and bubbles popping for a touch of backing music, but they remain understated behind the vocal and its reverberations. The title translates as "I go" or "I will go", which fits the lonely feel of the piece. But, in keeping with the general optimism of the album, the isolation is not crippling; there's a core of resilience in the singer's voice to take comfort from.

Boogarins have made a beautiful album, full of life-affirming psychedelic pop. Sometimes, a foreign language can add an exotic element, but As Plantas Que Curam defuses that with its friendly manner and relaxing vibe. Exotica can be intriguing, but this time, it's nice to surrender myself to such inviting musical surroundings.

Recording review - Soft Metals, Lenses (2013)

Emotionless electro-pop goes retro

I remember Terri Nunn’s breathy voice. Full of seduction, she made Berlin one of my favorite bands for a while. Later, Julee Cruise’s ethereal vocals on “Falling”, from David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks,” would help create the mood of dreamy paralysis that permeated that show. Electro-pop has come to rely on the trope of the fragile nightingale, burying her under lacquered coats of reverb as she adds analog soul to the mix. These women usually have fine voices, but all too often, the music lacks the depth to carry them. Sure, there are still standouts like Niki Randa on Flying Lotus’ “Hunger” or Sarah Kinlaw of Softspot, but too many other projects just go through the motions.

Soft Metals creates the same pairing of synthesizers and songbirds on Lenses, but misses the mark on both sides. Even though their moody, minimalist electro-pop favors dance-friendly disco beats, it feels lackluster. Rather than provide a contrast, Patricia Hall’s delivery is often lethargic and wooden. It’s a shame, because she has great vocal tone, but it rarely finds direction. Hall and her partner, Ian Hicks, strive for a purist electronic sound, stripped down to 1980s tech. This aesthetic has potential, but the band can’t build up much enthusiasm. As a result, the album sounds like it’s angling for a new Blade Runner soundtrack, but it’s better suited for the background of a softcore Cinemax movie from their target decade.

“When I Look Into Your Eyes” offers a promising synth-pop start. Hall’s voice has a hint of dread, but is largely emotionless. Wisps of Fairlight-style synth sparkle are the only color against the repetition of the backing loop. I can almost envision the matching movie scene of a voyeur watching a woman through her blinds. Hall’s flat effect vocals play to his obsession, but even her sighs sound perfunctory.

It’s not until the second half of Lenses that the band summons any energy. The instrumental “Hourglass” builds a heady trance groove and sets it against a relentless disco beat. The pure circle of notes from the start of the song remain at the center, but the accompaniment varies from synth-pop to shimmery electro-pop, piquing more interest than the first four songs together. A couple of songs later, “In The Air” launches with nervous percolation. Hall’s dreamy vocals finally find a reasonable counter-balance in clockwork pace of the music. The rhythm is mechanical, but there’s a welcome spark of engagement.

Soft Metals saves their best for last. The album closes with an extended instrumental that finally opens a new front on the band’s sound. “Interobserver” begins with a low-fi synth loop, full of intrigue and narrative tension. The buzzing echoes that wash through the loop evoke unsettling imagery. I imagine a snow-filled, silent video of alien beings bent on some unknown task. The music captures a sense of distance, but the wandering phase shift holds us rapt. The song barely attempts resolution, condescending to close with a quickening swirl of sound and even quicker fade. Unfortunately, “Interobserver” is an outlier compared to the rest of Lenses. While it proves to be a wonderful diversion, it begs the question of what might have been. If the band could pair this kind of evocative sound with Hall’s singing, they’d have something unique and powerful. Instead, they seem satisfied to settle for electronic ennui.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture)

Recording review - The Cairo Gang, Tiny Rebels (2013)

A tribute to Summer of Love psychedelia

Rule 34 effectively says that anything can serve as a fetish for someone out there. While I don't really think that Emmett Kelly has a sexual hang up about Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, and the psychedelic music of 1966-68, Tiny Rebels certainly flaunts his obsession with a particular sound. The EP jangles with dueling 12-string guitars, drifts along with simple melodies, and communes with ringing vocal harmonies. Except for some of the lyrical turns, these songs are precisely tuned into the period like an episode of "Mad Men". Beyond just capturing the instrumentation and innocent expression of the time, there are small touches that add verisimilitude to the conceit: the residue of amp hum lingering after a fade out, light echoing room artifacts, and subtle moments of saturated audio tape clipping.

The Cairo Gang serves as Kelly's nom de band, with a rotating cast of musicians passing through to fill out his sound. He's used the name to release a small collection of albums and EPs, but the band's most visible moment has been backing Will Oldham (Bonnie "Prince" Billy) on The Wonder Show of the World (2010). That wasn't Kelly's first collaboration with Oldham, but the shared billing explicitly acknowledges his role in providing the music for Oldham's lyrics. Kelly's playing remains recognizable, but Tiny Rebels breaks from that project's stark, stripped down sound, crowding these six new songs with a multitude of details.

The title track kicks off the mini-album with a sense of ambiguity. At first, the repeated high E note sounds like a tuning exercise, but the band joins in and transforms it into an eighth note drone that centers the song. Despite the falsetto harmonies and ringing guitar, the trudging pace darkens the mood. At this point, the words still maintain a period sense of obscure omniscience:

Standing atop the summit
The downcast seem to be
Below us, tiny rebels
With makeshift loyalty

The psychedelic mood thickens with "Take Your Time", which begins with a musical tip of the hat to The Youngbloods' "Get Together". The counter-culture lyrics are spot on, "Don't just sit and listen to what you're told," but the solo is the real treat. Two guitars start out in parallel, but remain independent, each meandering along their own path through a crystalline hall of mirrors. They drift apart, then occasionally mesh again. Just like the lead on The Byrds' "Eight Miles High", there's a naïveté that later period psychedelia would shed.

It's not until "Shake Off" that the band starts to introduce lyrical anachronisms:

As if I don't really want to be useful and I
Don't fucking feel much like getting control of all the
Retarded bullshit I must be able to shake off
Shake off 

The casual profanity and the glib reference to suicide on "Shivers" clash with the musical setting, but I think that Kelly is deliberately playing the modern sentiments against the loving retro execution to create a more interesting artistic effect. He may also want to consciously distinguish himself from more earnest tributes to the past. Either way, this contradiction favorably sways my opinion on the album. As much as I enjoy The Cairo Gang's obsessive recreation of the past, Tiny Rebels would be an empty shell without the contrast. Piercing the patchouli purity gives the album the spark of rebellion it needs.

Recording review - Arbouretum, Coming Out of the Fog (2013)

Echoes of 1972 super-groups that never existed

Consider the prototypical hipster band. They're a clever duo, mining old-school sounds. They blend in a little electro-vibe synth here and there and then proudly apply a low-fi matte finish. Arbouretum is not that band. Those other cats would shrivel up against the onslaught of warm tube distortion on Coming Out of the Fog. It's not "retro"; it's a freaking secret radio station broadcasting from an alternate 1972. One where Neil Young joined Bad Company and they jammed with Richard Thompson and the Velvet Underground. Arbouretum doesn't just sound like a band from that era; they capture the exact production quality of those classic recordings. With the dynamic compression of old microphones and analog tape, the instruments all blend together into a warm, live-room mix. As nice as the MP3s sounded, I wish I had a copy on 180 gram vinyl to really soak in the period sound.

In 2011, their album The Gathering (review) instantly became one of my top recordings for the year. Coming Out of the Fog doesn't meander quite as widely as that record, but it's a strong followup. They still understand the magic of how to use a down-tempo, roaring distortion to build intensity. On "Renouncer", they set up a simple pattern of Super-Fuzzed guitar and bass that roils and swirls around the solid drum work. Dave Heumann's vocal is husky with a delicate edge, somewhere between Paul Rodgers and Warren Zevon. The steady pace fits the oblique lyrics that reference the lessons of St. Simeon Stylites and other religious figures. Even the lead is unhurried. The band takes a similar approach on "All At Once, The Turning Weather", dragging the tempo and letting the rumble of guitar and bass fill the track. This time drummer Brian Carey gets a little room to show off some sweet cymbal work, using his ride to periodically frost the edges.

While they're effective at the drag-beat crunch, Arbouretum has no problem opening up the throttle. The album peaks with "World Split Open", whose mid-tempo drive is centered around a resonant acid-rock guitar riff. The repetition becomes a saturated raga meditation worthy of the Velvet Underground, with hints of "All Tomorrow's Parties". The comparison is apt as Corey Allender's bass meshes with Carey's drums to evoke John Cale and Mo Tucker. Glimpses of feedback are scattered throughout the cushioning cocoon of fuzz. Heumann's heady lyrics have a grand feel:

To cast aside a world of lies
Where distress and trouble grows
To dispel the legends that surround
An unfolding compass rose

The solo is untethered, as if Heumann is manipulating a chaotic fountain of noise. The buffeting distortion is cathartic, but the stripped down, tribal beginning to the following instrumental track, "Easter Island", comes as relief. While it develops into its own noisy celebration, it's a calming drop-off to take us to the title track.

"Coming Out of the Fog" shows another side of the band. It's very Beatlesque, with a mix of Abbey Road's "Sun King" and the verse from Let It Be's "Don't Let Me Down". Heumann's restrained, Americana vocal sounds weary and philosophical, backed with Mathew Pierce's nuanced piano and Dave Hadley's singing steel guitar. It's a sweet decompression from the dark and exciting drama on the rest of the album. Coming Out of the Fog may be less epic than their last album, but Arbouretum have crafted a well-paced record that holds together and showcases the band's rich sound. I'd like to think that there's a 1972 out there somewhere, sending out these kind of echoes across dimensions.

Recording review - Sirsy, Coming Into Frame (2013)

Unapologetically pop duo share their earworms

The rock/pop duo Sirsy has tried working as a larger ensemble, but guitarist Rich Libutti and drummer Mel Krahmer have found their own wavelength that's hard to explain to others. They're renowned as a touring act, but until now they've never successfully translated their stage energy to the studio. On Coming Into Frame, they decided to break the pattern of their earlier release. Instead of self-producing, they brought in the production team of Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade (Hole, New Collisions, Dresden Dolls). The pair followed a "Rick Rubin" approach of understanding Sirsy and letting their sound come through. As a result, the album showcases Krahmer's strong voice and captures Libutti's subtle, retro guitar vibe. Kolderie and Slade found the right balance, where the engineering is fairly polished, but the album's not over-produced, maintaining a more organic feel.

The clean mix works well for the band.  While there are plenty of indie rock duos out there, Sirsy bucks the low-fi trend and favors a lush, textured pop sound. They embrace the pop label, but on their own terms. In an interview with RUST Magazine, Libutti is proud of making pop music but isn't comfortable being lumped in with Lady Gaga, "...our whole approach is so different, yet it's hard to differentiate ourselves." Despite hitting the pop jackpot - the songs are full of catchy hooks and earworm melodies -- Sirsy does stand out because of their depth and personality. A track like the thoughtful "Picture" starts out following an indie pop formula: a simple guitar figure repeats, building to a ringing chorus. But where their peers might favor a soft, delicate girly vocal, Krahmer's womanly voice demands respect. On "Brave and Kind", her singing pushes through with ringing power. The simple guitar riff has a touch of Radiohead's "Creep", especially on the chorus. As it grows in intensity, Libutti adds warmly distorted accents that seem to propel the vocals.

My favorite track is "Gold". It's light pop chord changes sound incredibly familiar, but the details make it more interesting. The guitar work is absolutely beautiful. The brief interlude after the first chorus is a masterpiece of elegant simplicity. Libutti's hollow, retro tone sets an introspective mood that fits the regretful feel of the song. Krahmer's lower register has a bit of Karen Carpenter in the lush verse vocals, but her voice is ballsier than Carpenter ever strove for. The lyrical flow is smooth and the phrasing ties the lines together:

And I suppose forgiving doesn't end it
Cause we're bound to screw it up again but
Just know I never meant to let you down
I guest it was so hard for me to see since
You've been the anchor, keeping hold of me then
That you would be the one of us to drown.

It's a very tasteful arrangement. Heavier handed producers would have gone über-pop and Auto-Tuned the vocal, but Slade and Kolderie recognize that the programmed rhythm loop takes the song exactly where it needs to go and no farther.

Sirsy also used their play order to good effect. "Lot of Love" and "She's Coming Apart" seem like companion pieces. The first features an old school '60s pop feel, with tremolo guitar and Nancy Sinatra-style singing. Krahmer's vocal is very expressive; she's jaded and tough, but also hopeful:

Maybe it's all a bluff
This happy ending sort of stuff
When I see you smile, it makes me want to try, oh

The chorus is positively saucy. "She's Coming Apart" initially seems to continue the same musical changes, but quickly jumps into edgier territory. This time Krahmer is the narrator, cynically finishing the tale from "Lot of Love":

Annie's on automatic
No one seems to know
She says it all went South
Since they hit Mexico

The guitar-grinding chorus reminds me of the Runaways hard-rocking pop.

This would have been a good song to end Coming Into Frame. The actual last tune, "The Cost of You" is good and belongs on the album, but its moodier feel belongs earlier in the track list. I like the mix of electro-pop keys and violin accents, but it sacrifices too much energy. Sirsy tries to overcome this by building the tempo and volume to a climax, but it's not enough. That's a small complaint, though, for an album full of perfect pop moments.

Give a listen to Sirsy's wickedly hypnotic single, "Cannonball"

Recording review - My Gold Mask, Leave Me Midnight (2013)

Inky dark vocals and Gothic echoes

Creepy torment, dark shadows, and Gothic echoes fill My Gold Mask's debut album. Leave Me Midnight is full of songs that bind low-fi elements carefully layered with a retro production style marked by crisp, reverbed isolation. The band develops a sound like the master recordings were left in a haunted house to soak up the ambiance until even the more pop-oriented tracks take on a pensive quality. It's fitting that the songs are rooted in synth-pop, but the beats aren’t anchored to the dance floor. Lead singer, Gretta Rochelle has a richly expressive voice that invites comparisons to Siouxsie Sioux, with some of Amanda Palmer's modern theatricality. The counter-rhythms and jigsaw tight arrangements push well past any genre limitations, occasionally reveling in complexity without sabotaging intensity.

Unquestionably, though, the best song on the album is the simplest. “Without” opens with a staccato guitar that tips a hat to the Cure, while Rochelle's voice hovers between seductive and petulant.

Love, oh it’s taken me so long...
Love, oh it’s tearing me apart...
Love, I don’t even know what for...
I’m without you 

Her hopelessness is raw and honest; the spare musical accompaniment lets the words sit and ripple outwards. That first verse sets the hook, but the second verse reveals that this is a duet, with Jack Armondo repeating the lyrics. Unlike the unadorned female vocal, his lines eventually pick up a harmony part. The mantra-like repetition of the last line drives home the forced separation between the two sides; each of us is alone, wanting the same connection. Armondo's calm delivery is a nice contrast to Rochelle’s flash on the rest of the album. Somewhere between Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode) and Peter Murphy (Bauhaus), he grounds the song, supporting its powerful fatalism.

The rest of Leave Me Midnight measures up as the band tempers their retro synth-pop with an even older sound, rooted in the '60s. Songs like “Some Secrets” draw upon that era's experimental aesthetic, drenching low-fi precision in a thick coat of reverb. When the rhythm kicks in to transform the song, Rochelle's voice is inky pop perfection. As the intensity grows, it sounds more like My Gold Mask managed to record the reflected echoes of an idealized live version. Similarly old-school, “Burn Like The Sun” uses garage psych to set the scene for some kind of pagan rite. Rochelle's tone is a bit brighter than Siouxsie Sioux’s, but in moments like “Nightfalls” or the verses of “Lost In My Head”, her voice is resurrected. But it’s not a slavish imitation; it’s just a shared expressiveness. As “Song of Wound” offers its arty, Bauhaus vibe, her drawn out phrases and wordless singing raise that familiar vocal spectre to caper with the tribal drums. Leave Me Midnight is cloudy like absinthe and just as bittersweet.

December Singles

Let's wrap up the year with an old friend and a small collection of newer bands.

They Might Be Giants - "Call You Mom" (from Nanobots, due March 2013)


They Might Be Giants are promising a lot with their upcoming album, Nanobots: namely a full serving of bass clarinet. Regardless of whether they have their pulse on the market demand,"Call You Mom" delivers that classic TMBG aesthetic. Quirky yet compelling, the lyrics follow a Freudian Slip 'n' Slide of Oedipal images. The solid retro rock music adds the perfect frantic energy.

FIDLAR - "Gimme Something" (from FIDLAR, due January 2013)



Speaking of retro, über-ironic FIDLAR brings a house party atmosphere laced with healthy sense of humor. Their video for "Gimme Something" claims, "Our friend found this video of us playing a couple years back. Back when cocaine was good for you." While the band pounds their way through the jangly rocker, the video splices footage of Credence Clearwater Revival (circa 1970) to match FIDLAR's track. It's a clever joke, but there's an ounce of truth as the band's guitar sound borrows a fair amount of Fogerty's tone.

Wax Idols - "Sound of a Void" (from Discipline & Desire, due March 2013)


We'll continue the retro run with a great, high energy post-punk jam on "Sound of a Void". The thick wave of rhythm guitar and bass packs the dynamic space as Hether Fortune's accusatory tone channels '80s angst amidst shards of angular fills. "Let's turn down the static world" -- Wax Idols build a delicious dark tension with echoes of Siouxsie Sioux and Romeo Void.

A. Chal - "Dirty Mouth" (from Ballroom Riots)


Back to the present - Our last single for the month is a tripped out electronic groove from A. Chal. He sets up "Dirty Mouth" with a sparse drum machine beat and shimmery washes of synth. The heart of the tune is a chopped and processed vocal line:

Dirty mouth and she just can't
Get it good to be on that
Daddy issues and cognac 

It's hard to tell if I got that second line right, but the moody chill of the mix implies that things probably won't end well. This is wonderfully evocative track, but it fades out way too soon to fully satisfy.
 

Recording review - Spiritualized, Sweet Heart Sweet Light (2012)

Confused ambivalence, but Spiritualized still brings the noise

Spiritualized took their time getting Sweet Heart Sweet Light out the door. Of course, two years of recording and almost a year of chemotherapy hazed mixing could slow down anyone's momentum. Jason Pierce (AKA J. Spaceman) is now in better health, but the illness and his treatment had an impact on the new album.

Sweet Heart Sweet Light is a bit confused, unsure of whether it wants to be ironic or sincere, harsh or treacly. It hasn't decided whether their musical touchstones should be esteemed or dismissed. This ambivalence is not new for Spiritualized, but this album brings it front and center. Despite this, there are still some constants: a low-fi, compressed production that recalls the late night FM radio of my youth, Pierce's eager embrace of glorious noise, and the belief that regular repetition can drive a message home.

Skipping the pastoral welcome of Intro and it's promise of comfort, the album gets underway with Hey Jane (graphic official video here). The bouncy beat and Pierce's naive vocals capture a young David Bowie, reworking Jean Genie. Halfway through the track, the song hits a meltdown ending. The chaos fades but the song resurrects into a sunshine psychedelia, packed with hypnotic repetition and a relentless bass beat. The tempo creeps higher and Pierce's vocals come in, alluding to the earlier lyrics. But now there's a threat, "Hey Jane, when you gonna die?" This heavy bait and switch makes it harder to trust a surface read on the other tracks.

So, later, when Freedom's sweet harmonies and country folk arrangement offers a respite from the thick, heavy sound of Headin' For the Top, there's a sense that the Neil Young mask could slip at any time.

By the same token, when Spiritualized gets saccharine sweet on Too Late or mines a gospel vein on Life is a Problem, it feels like another chance to dash everyone's expectations and undercut the band's reputation for noise.

Sweet Heart Sweet Light does deliver plenty of the discordance that Spiritualized is known for. I Am What I Am is a perfect example. The warning feedback whine heralds chunky strum and a dark, heavy bassline. The song's bluster has a threatening tone, like Bad to the Bone for the experimental set, but the lyrics are cloaked in metaphor

I am the heart that calls you home
I'm the grave that marks your stone
Misunderstood, d'ya understand?
I'm the sea holds back the land
I'm the mishap and coincidence that came out as you planned
I am what I am

The sassy backup vocals on the chorus set up a call and response. But the noise rises against Pierce's calm delivery. Piano stabs, steel wool scour, and a distorted buzz like a rattlesnake -- these sounds fall into place like a gathering horde behind their leader. A saxophone channels Ornette Coleman short circuit squeals. It's a delicious tension as Pierce remains unfazed, untouched by the chaos.

This contrast is what I love most about Spiritualized. For a moment, it banishes the schmaltzy strings and other retro pop trappings to capture the essence of the band's roots.

Recording review - The Electric Mess, Falling Off The Face Of The Earth (2012)

Distorted and fuzzy, but never low-fi - garage psyche perfected

Many bands aspire to the retro haze of garage psychedelia, filling their tracks with a messy wall of guitar fuzz and driving beats. Emphasizing the garage side, they revel in the sloppy catharsis of low-fi sound.

But The Electric Mess achieve a perfected form of the genre. Lovingly engineered, Falling Off the Face of the Earth proves that garage psych credibility doesn't require low-fi sonic fuzzballs. Instead, the recording reveals every detail from Esther Crow's hoarse rasp and its tasty reverb placement to the hyper throb of Derek Davidson's twisting bass lines. The leads are smooth and balanced as they trade between the richly overdriven guitars, with their perfect vintage tone, and the trippy organ as it braids a heady chain of wheezing notes.

Esther Crow occasionally offers a sweet female vocal, but usually fronts the band with her drag alter ego, Chip Fontaine. With a cocky swagger, Fontaine's gruff voice alternates between sly innuendo, macho posing, and flirtatious teasing. Fontaine's persona reaches its peak on Nice Guys Finish Last, as he outlines his plan to turn into a cad to get the girl. Rough and ready, his attitude sells the songs.

The clarity of the mix doesn't tame the edge of The Electric Mess' sound. They draw on a host of classic influences: Soft Machine, the early Doors work, ? and the Mysterians, the 13th Floor elevators, and Velvet Underground all come to mind at various points on Falling Off the Face of the Earth. On I Didn't Miss You At All, Oweinma Biu's lead vocal sounds like Roky Erickson. The vocal arrangement pits his voice against Crow's and together, they create a whipsaw energy. The beat is steady as the guitars lay down an acid shred groove. The anarchy of Dan Crow's guitar solo is supported by Davidson's hard rocking, melodic bass.

On Tell Me Why, the tweedly organ line recalls ? and the Mysterians, but the beat is hyper intense. The Electric Mess creates a headlong rush punctuated by great slow-down moments that open up the song for a brief break before the breakneck pace is reasserted. Biu's keyboard solo drifts further out into space, dragging the rest of the band along. Fontaine channels his inner Elvis near the end of the track before the song's inevitable meltdown. This is three minutes of garage psyche perfection.

True to the genre's psychedelic roots, "The Girl With The Exploding Dress" is filled with trippy lyrics:

You've probably seen her before
On your favorite dancing floor
I won't mind if you take her hand
Just try to understand
She's got x-rays in her eyes
She's blinded lots of guys
If I were you I'd keep my glasses on

Craig Rogers' drumming is densely packed with fills as he propels the track forward. It's the kind of over-the-top playing that can only work when the whole band falls tightly together to hold the groove together. The Electric Mess makes it sound trivially easy.

Recording review - Buffalo Killers, Dig Sow, Love, Grow (2012)

Unselfconsciously retro, it's a rich throwback to the early '70s

The early '70s were a fertile hot zone. All the disparate musical shards of the hippie '60s -- folk, pop psychedelia, acid rock, and blues -- were starting to slide together into interesting combinations. Bands like Bad Company, the Band, and the James Gang created sounds that were anchored in rock yet soared into cool directions.

Buffalo Killers are throwbacks to that time. Dig, Sow, Love, Grow could have dropped in 1972 or '73 and it would have fit in just fine. Rather than reproducing the retro vibe of the era, Buffalo Killers seem utterly unselfconscious about their sound. The album has a melange of almost familiar sounds: the Led Zeppelin opening to Get It that slides into a bluesy rock jam, the 13th Floor Elevators garage psychedelia of Hey Girl, the lazy folky groove of The Band on Blood On Your Hands, or heavy Joe Walsh punch of Those Days. Lazy tempos give the heady guitar riffs plenty of room to meander.

Joe Walsh seems to be the strongest influence, pulling bits of James Gang funky jams and Barnstorm era rock to permeate several of the tracks. Buffalo Killers capture his rhythm guitar sound and even a bit of his voice. Brothers Andrew and Zachary Gabbard voices find their home base somewhere between Walsh's tone and Ozzie Osbourne's yowl.

Despite all the comfortable musical elements, Dig, Sow, Love, Grow feels more like cross-pollination than a derivative exercise. Each listen turns up a new favorite track. Early on, I was caught up by Get It. The simple staccato keyboard part offsets the warm overdriven guitar tone. The bluesy solo had a wicked tone that perfectly wrapped up the whole package.

Later, Farewell stood out. It starts with a beautiful descending line that balances the bass and guitar. This develops into a rich sound that drifts between delicate psychedelia and a thicker handed folk rock. It's a thoughtful song right up until the more discordant finish that signals a kind of emotional surrender.

Right now, I've dropped deeper into the garage psych with Mysun. The folky rhythm reminds me a little of Pink Floyd's Free Four. It's got a sunny, open feeling.

Buffalo Killers may have spent some time buried in their parent's music collections, but it was clearly time well spent.

Front Range - Recommended shows, 7/30

30 July (Bluebird Theater, Denver CO)
White Denim

It's been a while since I've seen Austin's White Denim, but their acid drenched jams and soulful grooves will keep your head spinning and your mind grooving.


3 August (Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison CO)
4 August (Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison CO)
My Morning Jacket

My Morning Jacket is one of those jam bands that turns out to be remarkably grounded. They tap into zen simplicity. Retro rock and psychedelia, everything is filtered through a soulful open attitude.

3 August (Cervantes Other Side, Denver CO
Sister Carol

And for really soulful, drop by Cervantes Other Side this Friday to see Sister Carol. Her feminist conscious rap/reggae is a delight. I'm hoping to catch this show because I've never seen her live.

Recording review - The Henry Clay People - Twenty-Five For The Rest Of Our Lives (2012)

Zen koan concept album is still anchored in classic rock immediacy

If albums are dinosaurs in these short attention span times, then the concept album is primordial. Retro psychedelic or overwrought progressive bands may exhume the format, but it's an old school play.

The Henry Clay People are all about the immediacy and punch of solid rock. On Twenty-Five For The Rest Of Our Lives, each song stands on its own with most of them clocking in under three minutes. But the band threads a common theme through the tracks, creating a Zen koan of a concept album: the coherent message is there, but it's almost an aside.

Like Jethro Tull's Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die!, the Henry Clay People find themselves facing the developmental crisis between their undisciplined youth and the prospect of boring adulthood. Jethro Tull's title track is somewhat morose, although it tacks on a happy ending. By comparison, Twenty-Five is more nuanced as it offers a deeper view of the question.

On 25 For The Rest Of Our Lives, the Henry Clay People capture the grown up frustration that comes from an undirected teenaged rage. They recognize the futility of holding on to an irrelevant past:

I don't wanna turn 25 for the rest of our lives
Spend the rest of our lives eatin' off of the ground
But where will I survive, cause we don't know how to die?
I said we don't know how to die...let's die right now!
Decide right now!

Joey Siara and the band skip the "holy crap, are we supposed to be adults now?" phase of this developmental crisis and dive into the "now what?" phase. They're looking for a meaning or a path, but they retain enough attitude to maintain some standards: "Now we've got to settle down? We don't settle for anything!"

Twenty-Five explored the idea, like a tongue probing a sore tooth. The band reminisces over the past, but with a clear eyed recognition. The Fakers calls back to their youth and what they overcame, but admits that "one was a faker, the rest of us were fakes".

But where are they now? Over the slashing Ramones beat of Every Band We Ever Loved, they take down the whole indie scene, starting with themselves:

No more room for romantics, I want to be a machine
I been sentimental, got no memories
You gave us nothing to do, and so we did nothing
Nothing sentimental, no more memories

By the time they reach Those Who Know Better, they're philosophical. The dreamy, tremolo-soaked sound is distant. Even when it rouses into energy, it remains muffled.

Been offered some wisdom
Been cut down to size
By those who know better
And those who think twice

The message is fatalistic, but the Henry Clay People don't sound like they've quite accepted that wisdom they were offered.

The best part of Twenty-Five For The Rest Of Our Lives is that you can ignore the concept arc and just enjoy the music. The Henry Clay People still stir up a mix of classic cock rock strut, Ian Hunter's glam rock frantic energy, and smooth pop vocal veneers. They may be growing up and reevaluating, but some things never change.