This cracking album elicits equal measures of sympathy and sonic satisfaction. While the narratives are of forlorn, loveless, exasperating lives, the music radiates with shimmering guitars, resilient hooks and melodies shining throughout. The lyrics come drenched with a drunken self-depreciating stench of hopelessness, yet you get an inkling that the pain is poured out into the songs. This is real, everyday emotion distilled across many long nights of empty bottles and endlessly-strummed guitar strings.
Naturally, Black Mountain's music seems to come from a very dark place. Their outer-worldly, ethereal meanderings cascade over vast songs of epic proportions. 'In The Future' seems more like back 'In The Middle Ages'. At times pulsing guitars and barely restrained baying echo some fierce, turbulent times yet it also recedes into wistful-folk and sparse, hauntingly whispered vocals. The band combines a prog-rock chug with a malevolent mysticism to create a throbbing and evocative beast.
This record’s not likely to top your favourites list if you have perfect pitch. Lucky for Brooklyn duo, Matt & Kim, not many people have that. It’s the irregularities and imperfections in Matt & Kim’s music that gives their self-titled release a live, raw feel and an edginess that becomes endearing a few tracks in. As kids, Kim went to raves/listened to techno, Matt was into punk, and there are bits of both genres in their new-age squathouse-pop turned nation-wide rock style. The pair makes a completely diverse two-man band - their stuff is unique and they do seem like they’re pretty happy. I can hear smiles when I close my eyes.
Words like 'unmistakable' are often thrown around like cliché's at a sporting coaches' press conference when describing a singer. When you hear a voice like Joe Jackson's you understand why. Rain was four years in the making, and the lengthy gestation shows. The album reveals many polished gems of songs and nifty little melodies and nuances peeking out in abundance. The instrumentation almost keeps a respectful distance from Mr Jackson's dulcet tones and distinct timbre.
Kelley Stoltz brings us his latest batch of upbeat lo-fi with the new release Circular Sounds. This follow-up to the San Franciscan's 2006 long-player Below the Branches provides the perfect soundtrack for a glorious summery Sunday afternoon. Highlights include the high rotation first single 'Your Reverie' (just try getting this chorus out of your head!), the melancholy 'Something More' and the '60s pop of 'To Speak to the Girl'. If you don't get it on the first listen, spin it again because it's a real grower.
Kapow! A bombastic blast of buzzing, careening rock kicks off this tasty platter and it barely lets up. Miss White delivers a yelping, fiery vocal that embraces melody and raw power in equal doses while the ITR Orchestra clang, bash and swing through a searing muddle of time-lost rock. An utterly bristling, catchy and insatiably exciting album that in 30 minutes leaves you baffled, berated and in quite a bit of a tizz.
Julien Poulsen roped in a legion of Melbourne rock luminaries, transient musicians and some guest vocalists seemingly straight from God's choir to create this astonishing atmospheric debut album. It is a musical product and reflection of the foreboding and serene wilds of Tasmania. Compelling instrumentals seep alongside robust rock and ethereal deft musical movements. Former Violent Femme Brian Ritchie is responsible for some of the most languid, liquid bass lines ever put to tape.
Since rising up out of the ashes of At The Drive-In, Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez have gone from epic release to, well, epic release. So much so that an uneducated listener would not be remiss for thinking to themselves, post The Mars Volta album experience, ‘pwhor, this is about as epic as a band can get’. They’d be right… if TMV had been content to stop with, say, De-Loused In the Comatorium. Thankfully they were not and in 2008 their 1.3-hour-long answer to the ’06 release, Amputecture is the equally affective The Bedlam in Goliath. It’s as bold, grandiose and guitar driven as you would want (expect) a TMV release to be. If you love them, you’ll love it.
I remember the first time I ever experienced the mania that is a Die!Die!Die! show. It was a few years back, with a handful of other inquisitive souls, down in the beautifully dank cavern of Sydney’s Candy’s Apartment. As frontman Andrew Wilson wrapped himself around a ceiling pipe above the Candy’s stage, screaming vocals as he climbed, I recall thinking to myself, 'this band knows how to play a fuckin’ show!' Their second abrasive punk release, Promises Promises is proof in purchase that they know how to record a fuckin’ album too.