I once asked a buddy for a restaurant recommendation in Florence, Italy. He emailed back the name of a place with a comment about their truffles, saying “they are earthy and divine.” I never expected a guy that funneled beers with me in college to talk about truffles let alone use that phrase, but by happenstance, this random phrase is how I’d describe Midlake’s latest release, The Courage Of Others. Earthy. And devine.
It’s also a perfect album for the winter season. It’s sound is heavily influenced by 60’s British prog-folk-rock with mystical lyrics, flute accompaniments and melancholy themes. It’s not an album you want to throw on at your next party, but it immediately gave me the urge to walk through a damp, foggy forest in solitude.
So that’s what I did. I put in the headphones and, for the first time, hiked to the top of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. It was the site of furious Civil War battles that claimed the lives of more than 5,000 soldiers. Hearing these somber songs while walking past cannon emplacements and preserved earthworks in this battlefield of ghosts made the early morning hike extremely eerie. As I approached the summit, “The Courage of Others” began to play with lines:
How can they have the courage?
Of lords that have long since past.
It’s in their hands. It’s their heads.
It’s been in their blood for many years and brings them sorrow.
In a dark room he trembles alone. He trembles alone.
It was a moving experience and I don’t think the moment’s gravity would have been felt without Midlake providing the backdrop. I captured a picture on my phone:
I’m aware that this isn’t a typical album review, but this is one of those albums that must be experienced. There is no standout single like “Roscoe” on 2006’s outstanding The Trials of Van Occupanther but The Courage of Others is a better body of work than it’s predecessor. It’s available on eMusic if you’re a subscriber. No mp3’s have been released, but there’s a little player below for sampling.
Local Natives are set to release one of our most anticipated albums of 2010, Gorilla Manor, on February 16th. “Wide Eyes” opens the album and according to guitarist, Ryan Hahn, “It’s about people’s obsession with the miraculous and disastrous…with witnessing extraordinary events.” There’s a great part at about 2:15 where the band breaks into percussion ala Paul Simon’s “The Obvious Child” and you expect the tune to explode. But they dial it back down with a noodly guitar lick and slowly build back up with harmonies before breaking into a closing jam a minute later. I have listened to that part about 100 times and it’s simply brilliant.
Local Natives also do a phenomenal interpretation of Talking Heads’ “Warning Sign.” “We’ve basically flipped the song on its head,” says drummer, Matt Frazier, explaining how they switched David Byrne’s original yelped vocals into a beautiful three-part harmony. The mere fact that they chose that tune is awesome, but the way deconstructed it is inventive and original – not your average cover song.
“Cards and Quarters” is a slow, dreamy tune that moves at a snail’s pace as the harmonies wash over an ever so simple beat. This tune was the song that sold me last year at SxSW and the last minute is fantastic. I could go on about this stunning debut all day. While they were a pleasant surprise in ‘09, I’d declare them one of the top new bands out there today. Couldn’t have happened to nicer group of guys.
The other night I was having a couple beers with my friend SafariMan, and we got to talking about how excited we were for SXSW this year. We probably spent an hour reminiscing about last year and all of the great acts we saw. At one point, SafariMan asked me, “Who was that awesome band we saw at Habana Calle?” I told him it was Glossary, to which he responded, “That’s right! I’d never heard of them, but they were great!” Ahhhh, SXSW.
Well, I’ve got good news for SafariMan and any other fans of Glossary – they’ve got a nice new album out, released yesterday via Lucero’s new Liberty and Lament record label (Glossary’s Todd Beene also plays in Lucero). We wrote a weird review of their last album, The Better Angels of our Nature, back in 2008. That album ended up being #40 on our best of 2008 list and their latest, Feral Fire, is just about on par. In fact, there are some shining moments on the album that may even be better. I’m not sure yet if it’s as good from top to bottom – time will tell.
Feral Fire continues the recipe developed on Better Angels but with a couple slower numbers mixed in. The driving guitars, harmonizing vocals, bountiful pedal steel, and southern-fried rock feel that drew me to them initially are still there in a big way. They come out of the gate strong with the standout track “Lonely Is a Town”. In fact, the first three songs rocked me right out of my Sauconys (they gave us free shoes once). And lyrically, it’s a great album. I think my favorite track is “Save Your Money for the Weekend,” a song about wooing a good girl:
All my daddy left me was a name and a mouth full of bad teeth
Oh honey I’ll be fine, if you meet me out on Friday night
‘Cause I know Christian girls know what’s wrong
But that doesn’t mean they always have to do what’s right
Glossary is touring with Lucero through the south right now. Catch them live.
We don’t have any approved mp3’s from Feral Fire to post at this time, but the guys have been plenty generous in the past. You can head over to their site to download Better Angels Of Our Nature and Joey Kneiser’s solo album for FREE.
Leonard Mynx is following up his debut EP with another free album entitled Le Petit Mort. Offering free music to find your fanbase was a marketing tactic also used by Joe Pug and it undoubtedly helped him in with ticket sales as he started touring. Perhaps Mynx has a similar strategy.
His previous album, Vesper, was sparse and mostly acoustic. This effort called on many Portland musicians, whose other projects include Norfolk and Western, The Decemberists, M. Ward, Horse Feathers, Loch Lomond, Audie Darling, Laura Gibson, Jolie Holland (and many more), to give his songwriting more flavor.
I’ve listened to Le Petit Mort for a full week and, despite the title, it nods its brim to music that is truly American in the vein of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits. You can hear three of my favorite tracks from the album below and look for an update from us when it’s released for free this Spring.
For a free copy of Mynx’s first album, Vesper, you just email leonardmynx[at]gmail.com and provide your name, mailing address (if you want a cd), or email address.
I first caught wind of the Athens, GA based Futurebirds courtesy of Aquarium Drunkard. Their write-up went something along the lines of this – blah, blah, blah sounds like Tennessee Fire. Comparing any band to My Morning Jacket will get me interested.
After spinning the EP, it was easy to see the early MMJ comparison. I’d also draw a comparison to the now defunct band, Vietnam. The album has that same hazy, psychedelic drug-inspired southern folk feeling. The recording is a raw and slowly grooves along while layered vocals float on top. “Dirty D” and “MJB” are the two tunes that have stuck out for me, but the 30 minute EP is strong throughout.
While the EP is raw in terms of recording, you can’t help but feel that Futurebirds have a very special LP in store for us. Who knows? Maybe in 2020 when I am 50 and still writing for free for this god-forsaken website, I will be saying that some new band’s EP reminds me of the Futurebirds. In the meantime, you can catch them down in Austin during SXSW 2010.
By now, hopefully everyone has heard of Dawes. If you haven’t, I feel really guilty for not letting you know about them sooner. This is a band I was first exposed to last year at SXSW, when they played a great set right after The Love Language and right before The Felice Brothers. And I saw them play again when they opened up for Langhorne Slim at Lincoln Hall in Chicago. Their album, North Hills, has been getting more and more airplay in my household over the past year. Yet somehow all of us at HearYa have neglected to let you know about them. Whoops.
Dawes is led by frontman Taylor Goldsmith, a guy who sings with a ton of heart. If you’ve seen him play live, you’ll notice the facial contortions he employs to get the most out of each and every word. And sometimes he growls into that microphone so fiercely that it looks like the veins in his neck are about to explode. I’ve always had a soft spot for lead singers that sing with passion. So Dawes has that going for them, which is nice.
And North Hills is filled with great songs and great songwriting. “When My Time Comes” is the universal instant classic, but you’ll find the entire album is excellent. It’s evenly mixed with alt-country fare, southernesque rock, and slower folky songs. They’ve opened for the likes of Langhorne Slim, Band of Horses, and Cory Chisel, and I’d bet you a dollar that fans of any of these bands will be equal fans of Dawes. I wouldn’t steer you wrong, and again I apologize for not letting you know about them sooner. Luckily there’s still time to hop on board.
It should also be mentioned their drummer has the best head of hair in all of music. It’s majestic.
The musical tornado known as Left Lane Cruiser are back. And like a tornado, you better get the hell out of the way or risk finding yourself flat on your ass three miles down the road. The duo of Freddy J. IV and Brenn Beck are back and the formula remains the same – Freddy J. belts out the vocals while he plays the guitar like its on fire and Beck beats the drums like they grabbed his wife’s ass.
While the formula remains the same there are a couple of subtle differences. In spite of an excellent finger-picking acoustic number, “Ol’ Fashioned,” the album sounds heavier (more metal) than Bring Yo’ Ass To The Table and it sounds cleaner than its predecessor, Thanks to Jim Diamond’s production. That’s never more evident than on “Hillgrass Bluebilly” and “Black Lung.”
Back in March, my buddy Jefe and I caught them on a small deck at SxSW and after the set I was half-deaf, exhausted and had a thirst for moonshine. And while they might not be reinventing the wheel with their update on delta blues, it is being done with an incredible amount of individual talent and fervor that is lacking with many of today’s acts.
It had been four years between Eels’ 2005 release Blinking Lights And Other Revelations and 2009’s Hombre Lobo. Mark Oliver Everett had taken some time to write a book, travel the globe (a few times) and make a documentary about his father. Six short months after Hombre Lobo, however, the songwriter behind the Eels moniker is back with End Times, the most personal album since Electro-Shock Blues that dealt with the death of his mother, father and sister.
Everett is no stranger to loss. With the tragedy he’s endured in his life, you’d think that breakups would be trivial. This is obviously not the case because some unnamed lady has the guy reeling. End Times is a chronicle of heartache in a dying world. It’s about an aging man losing love in a world where the integrity of humanity is decaying before his eyes. Everett says “This will be some people’s favorite EELS album and some people’s least favorite EELS album. I’m prepared for that.”
I do like End Times, but I’m not sure that any Eels fan would call this their favorite. After a few listens, I started picturing Mikey from the movie Swingers, laying in bed feeling sorry for himself. I wanted to tell Everett to snap out of his self-pity and move on. Let’s hear something uplifting. That being said, for an album released 6 months after its predecessor, this is not a batch of B-Sides. It is an entirely different body of work that’s refreshing reprieve from the intensity and primal energy of Hombre Lobo. It’s a stripped down affair, recorded mostly alone in his basement, which suits the tone of this deeply personal material.
While I think End Times is good (not great) and I appreciate Everett wearing his heart on his sleeve, I struggle identifying with the theme of the album. Perhaps misery does love company and I’m just not miserable. Perhaps it’s bad timing with horrific images of Haiti’s devastation in the news every night – I mean, who wants to hear an album about a guy losing his girlfriend right now? Life could be much worse.
I became a fringe fan of Cornershop, as many people did, with the release of When I Was Born for the 7th Time – the album that carried the catchy tune “Brimful of Asha” along with a bunch of other great tracks.
I’d recently heard they released their first album since 2002 and was surprised I hadn’t heard anything about it anywhere. I immediately searched iTunes with the intent to buy the album, entitled Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast, but it wasn’t there. So I went to Amazon.com, only to find that it was only available as an “Import” for $36.98 (yikes). Turns out they decided not to release the album stateside, only in the UK.
0 for 2.
I finally ended up on cornershop.com and found the album for download for ₤7.99 ($13.27 US) via PayPal. Could they make this album any more difficult to own? By this point I was ticked off – making it this tough to find an album is a pretty big misstep by a great band that’s been around for almost 20 years. Unfortunately, they’re still operating like it’s 20 years ago. I don’t think I’ve heard the term “Import” since the early-90’s.
Even though Cornershop really didn’t want me or anyone else in America to own this album, I went ahead and begrudgingly bought it anyway. I honestly feel like mailing those guys a steaming bag of poop with corn in it for my trouble. But I’m happy I bought it – it’s really good and it’s as catchy as Swine Flu. It’s the kind of upbeat music you need in Chicago when it’s negative 1 million degrees outside. Standout tracks include “Soul School,” “Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast,” “Free Love,” “The Roll Off Characteristics”…heck, the whole thing is great. Here’s a taste of one of the other standout tracks, “Who Fingered Rock ‘n’ Roll.” You can stream a lot of the album on www.cornershop.com.
This year, like every other one for the past four or five, I sat down in mid December and began to compile a force-ranked list of my favorite of the many albums that I purchased over the preceding 12 months. The ranking is influenced heavily by my mood and by the integrity of my memory. Given brain cell attrition that can be materially accelerated by holiday season drinking…..well, you get the picture. Some make the list that probably shouldn’t and are sampled only sporadically thereafter.
One album, however, that continues to resonate with me, and more profoundly with each listen, is the fantastic self-titled debut from Real Estate. Not only did the album make my top ten for 2009, the “Beach Comber” track was my favorite song of the entire year and represents a microcosm of why I love this band. Part of the lo-fi, psychedelic, SoCal pop movement that continues to take hold today, yet with material departures beginning with the recognition that band is not even from Southern California. They actually hail from New Jersey and, although there is some sand-and-surf subject matter, you’re more likely to get songs that relate to real world and living in the suburbs.
First of all, it’s moody and melodic. On certain tracks the band uses slight variations of continuous loops, which gets hypnotic, but then veers in tempo and careens off in a new direction mid-song. “Beach Comber” is the highlight and sets the tone for the rest of the album. It begins with a lightly submerged-sounding guitar strum that leads you to this poignant opener: “What you want is just outside your reach, keep on searching.” There’s a breeziness, even optimism, to the melody that sweeps over the listener, but there’s also traces of melancholy and longing, reinforced of course by those lyrics.
Later there’s “call the office and tell them you won’t be coming home”—offers the hope of escape, but in a way that’s more comprehensive. And finally, the gripping “Suburban Dogs” that exclaims: “Suburban dogs get afraid when it rains/suburban dogs bark at slow-moving trains/they run from your house, but return the same day/suburban dogs are in love with their chains”. Wow, that’s a confluence of feelings ranging from nostalgia to disdain to fatalism and sure to give you equal doses of repulsion and longing whether you’re a suburbanite or not.
Other winning moments include “Green River” and “Suburban Beverage” and there are a few very good instrumental tracks as well. I should also point out the band just released the EP Reality, which further perpetuates the sound, mood and content of their debut LP. Despite all of the recent music of similar genre, this band stands above the class for me as a result of their command of mood, through the lyrics and the melody.
