Sunday, August 28, 2011

Rentals: Return of the Rentals

In between the great first two Weezer albums, bassist Matt Sharp sneaked off to create his own thing on this album. Maybe the work on this album is indicative of what Sharp brought to the band (they were never quite the same after he left post-Pinkerton) but I think this is more an indication that he had his own ideas that happened to occasionally coincide with Weezer. This is far from the propulsive pop rock of the first album, or the reckless garage-punk of the second. It's stitched together with flailing synths that go from excited to empathic, touched up with strings and laid down on a bedrock of fuzzy, solidly rhythmic but generally murky guitars. This album has a specific sound, and that sound does a great job conveying Sharp's lyrics concerning self-doubt and confidence, timidity and action, wanting and denying: ideas that crop up, similarly but differently, on Weezer's albums. This is as good as them. But different.

After a windy, whispery intro, we hear the opening track of this album come to life with some high high voices settling down. Following this is Sharp's flattened vocals singing about machinery breaking down and being unable to find the source of the problem or determine how to proceed. While he sings, the fuzzed-up guitars churn along like clunking machines, and, importantly, a moog synthesizer whirs and hums seemingly on a rhythm of its own. His vocal delivery seems a little flattened, a little thin -- he's not a very experienced vocalist and you can hear him strain a bit, but before long the chorus comes in and Sharp is joined by Cherielynn Westrich and Petra Haden, whose vocals throughout the album sweeten the material and make it really human. This track, "The Love I'm Searching For" suddenly reveals itself in that harmonized chorus: "I tried, you know I tried / I try-ee-i-ied / Hard as it may be / You should be with me." I love that lyric and that delivery, a cooled-off plea or a stand-offish declaration, a mixed message of sorts. There are mixed messages and double-encoded statements all over this thing, from the lyrics often distancing themselves from the object of the singer's desire, to the instrumentation being both harsh with guitars and pretty with violins, to Matt Sharp's worn out yet hopeful delivery.

It took me a few listens to get into it, but that's not an indicator of quality or lack thereof. It indicates that this is a work I had to prepare for, to build up a new way of thinking about, according to its own logic.

The album is built largely around upbeat numbers that play on, rather than attempt to hide or improve, Sharp's vocals. He talk-sings a bit like Mark Knopfler, sometimes in kind of a white boy hip hop without trying to rap. He sounds at once giddy and impatient and irritated on the stomping second track, "Waiting." A big clue is when he says "I'm tryin' / But have nothin' to offer." He's a bit more patient in the easy-rocking pace of "Friends of P." That song, an ode to either Ric Ocasek's wife or the psychic friends network: "Oh yeah / Oh yeah / What's that you see? / Tell me / More of / What's gonna be!" The synthesizer, the key melodic instrument for much of the album, pulses and fluctuates under those lines like little I've ever heard. The chorus is also mindlessly catchy, chantable fun.

In the middle, the album really shows what it has to offer. "Move On" is one of the most affecting songs here, not just for the harmonies or the sweet synth playing or the strings that slowly build. It has a great light touch. The way it drifts on until the guitars kick in is just haunting. As Sharp moves into his falsetto (previously deployed in Weezer,) he does some of his strongest singing on the album, and those parts you just want to crawl up into and get comfortable. My track comes next, "Please Let That Be You" begins at a galloping pace, with an almost timid false opening to the vocals and some synth noodling. About am minute in the first chorus kicks in, along with the girls, and it absolutely bursts: "Please let that be you / Knocking on my door so loud / Just like you do / Bringing a message or two / You know you are my fave / And I love you." I love this chorus so much, it's so hopeful and yet so nervous and so naked: Please let that be you. I couldn't find any online resources that agreed with my assertion that the line is "fave" instead of "faith" or "fate" but I like the idea of being someone's fave. The Moog giddies up and does some of the niftiest work on the album, fidgeting between the vocals and soaring after them.

The same few elements appear throughout the album, but it rarely feels like its repeating itself. Within the parameters of the Rental's defined sound, Sharp explores thoroughly. "My Summer Girl," "Brilliant Boy" and "Naive" are all in their ways self-critical and doubting, suspicious of both the man and his world. "Summer Girl" is a heavy sigh, ultimately realizing "I know I'm not your type / I'll never be your type." "Brilliant Boy" is hooked around a double-accusation: "You're just a stupid girl... I ain't no brilliant boy." It lumbers along, one of the most menacing numbers. "Naive" is the most self-immolating, naturally. It carries along at a waltzing pace, drawn out the way one might pace the floor. "These Days," brings us back to the territory of "Waiting," of being impatient and let down. It stomps along at a marching pace: "These days / I may not be so happy / After all / After all that I have gained / I still feel sad when I'm all alone." Like I said, the lyrics are direct and confessional, yet remain in their way obscure and poetic.

The final track, "Sweetness and Tenderness" manages to be an epic blockbuster while also seeming very personal and direct, a real burst of honesty after the whole album spends time circling around the idea looking for a place to park. It begins quiet, with hushed vocals and delicately-strummed guitar. The first pass at the chorus is modest, and then the strings swell back up to lift Sharp and the backup vocals into the ether and give it a real prettiness. Then, this gem of a line: "I guess it's real simple / It's just like when Gary Numan said / You're just a viewer cold and distant / You are just business, you're worthless." At this point, the guitars drop in like a hammer, and that chorus that gets me a little choked up: "You say you're with me, I know you don't care... sweetness, (oh, sweetness!) I need some tenderness (tenderness...)" this puppy just keeps climbing. The vocals, and therefore the lyrics, are pushed to the forefront of the album, and this one even better than the rest, underscores their quality. This is a really well-written piece of work. This is one of many cases where I would say an album is great not only because of its virtuosity (ie "the musicians are really great!" "They make music that is very distinct!") but because the sound and the meaning works together really well. Matt Sharp had specific thoughts and managed to express them specifically.

The Rentals, what a cool name for this band. Since a rental is something you want but don't want to keep, it really goes along with Sharp's ideas of commitment and loss, of putting yourself out there and needing love, but hating to go through the hassle. Great name for an album too, since in this context it indicates pushing something away rather than embracing it. I guess it's no shocker this album speaks to me, but I think even so it's really well put together. Here's a record you'll want to (yuk yuk) return to over and over.

Buy this album now: iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca



Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Serious Contenders: Richard Thompson, "Shoot Out The Lights"



While we're talking about RT, here's one of my comfort videos. I do love the original recording (which I can't find as easily on YouTube as I can a dozen live ones,) but I dig this dark, intense reading with Elvis Costello from his appearance on Elvis' "Spectacle" show. The riffs don't rumble as pointedly as the record, but the solos are absolutely untouchable, intense stuff.

Anyway, this dark fantasy of loneliness and personal violence will always be one of my very favourite songs, and based on any criteria, a serious contender.

Cover: Richard Thompson, "Don't Dream It's Over"



Last week I posted the Crowded House original as s "Serious Contender," a sort-of overlooked tune from the mid-80's that is well regarded but probably not generally thought of as "one of the greatest songs ever." I love its usage in the film Adventureland particularly, but its startlingly evocative refrain of "Hey now, hey now, don't dream it's over" is great no matter the context.

Richard Thompson, one of the great (and beyond critical assessments, overlooked) guitarists of the 70's, would evidently agree. Apparently, during this "all requests" show, he took one written as "Play a song you wish you had written but didn't," and got one of his stage crew to download the sheet music and lyrics for this sucker. Well done, sir!

Monday, August 22, 2011

Serious Contenders: The Beatles, "I Call Your Name"



You could easily make the argument that virtually any Beatles song is a "serious contender," other than "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." It's not hard to point out how brilliant the latter-day Beatles were, but sometimes this happens at the expense of their early work. I think that's a shame, because I'm always a champion of direct, simple rock and roll statements, and in the spirit of the times this is some great stuff. The lyrics juxtapose vulnerable, lovable popstar fluff -- the material of the Beatles' early "work songs," -- with a bit of a tough-guy facade, something Lennon was known for. The lyrics, simple and direct, do a great job of conveying loneliness and frustration without saying in so many words, pinpointing the feeling and the exact right way of saying it. For an early Beatles composition, this is one of the many that they got spot-on.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Black Lips: Arabia Mountain

I feel like I'm going to owe you guys an article that examines, in-depth, the current trend towards retro, nostalgia, or vintage sound in modern-day rock. It's a card that gets played more and more throughout the past decade to the point where much of what I have reviewed already, will be reviewing shortly, or have my eye on for the future, could be classified quite handily as "retro" efforts. I have my own thoughts on what it means, why it might be a good thing, why artists do it, and who it's for, but as this is a review of the Black Lips album, I want desperately to keep my remarks limited to the album in question, as usual.

"Retro" in this case refers to the Black Lips' handiness with the 60s surf rock form, and their ability to infuse it with light touches of psychedelia. So here is an album that is very action-packed, very much in motion.

The bulk of the album is comprised of propulsive rock numbers, the likes of which would get any kid moving in an early 60's beach blanket film, with guitars the chime out and overlap like the waves themselves. That opening riff on "Family Tree" in particular sounds like feet shakily standing up on a board as the big one approaches (I don't know anything more about surfing than could be learned from movies.) The vocals themselves quickly break out into craziness rather than a nice, polite, Jan & Dean reading. And so you are brought into the world of surfpunk. The second track, "Modern Art," features a neat overlapping call and response between the vocals and the guitars, and its raucous harmonies in the chorus set out the tactic for much of the album.

Other great more-or-less straight rock workouts on the album include the circular spinning "Go Out and Get It," "Time," "New Direction," which excitedly sets out for the horizon, and the Bo Diddleyish "Don't Mess Up My Baby." Handclaps keep the mood sunny and beachlike, but the dried out vocals keep the album in dry land, while in other places it spins out toward the stars.

The album often turns for the psychedelic, sometimes in unexpected places. Sometimes it's just by letting a guitar solo get crazier than you'd think at the end of "Go Out And Get It", or by throwing themselves so raggedly into the vocals on a song like "Dumpster Dive" or the the biting saxophone of "Mad Dog." "The Lie" propels itself with breathless paranoia, and "Mr. Driver" gasps and wheezes with exhaustion, with an always ear-catching line about "My sexual Viet Cong." One of my favourites is the dark-tinted, shimmering "Bicentennial Man," which is thankfully way more enjoyable an experience (and far shorter) than the film by that name. Its thundering drums and ringing guitars make it a highlight of the album, and in contrast to the low-key vocals on that track, make it emblematic of the Lips' character. "Bone Marrow" separates all the compositional elements and slowly goes about reuniting them. Elsehwere, like "Raw Meat" or "Noc-A-Homa," they just go nuts. The singalong bits really knock me out because they capture the spirit of unity on this record: everyone at the same party having a kickass time together, but singing in their own voices.

With any retro affair, you're left with the pertinent, yet boring and ultimately irrelevant question of fidelity: does it sound just like the 60's? No, the band really revels in the advancements of what a recording group is allowed to get away with nowadays, from those raucous vocals that straddle the line between carefree and careless, and access to random instruments at a whim. It does, however, carry the spirit of an album from those days, of easygoing good times, married to the kind of free-associating studio expanse that Brian Wilson was starting to dig when he lost his marble.

The album does stumble a couple of times. I'm not personally fond of "Spidey's Lament," the only bona fide ballad on the album, which tries to put the story of Peter Parker in a different context. It doesn't work for me as a Spidey fan or as someone who wants to hear this album get going, although it's a decent enough tune and very vintage to those early 60's Phil Spector records that influence the album. The ringing guitar in it is better than the song itself. The closing track, "You Keep On Running" is the ultimate extension of the album's psychedelic interest, which sacrifices the energy of the surfpunk for spacey weirdness. The best bits of the album feel spontaneous and lively, which probably explains why the best tracks are all under 3 minutes.

In general here's an album with character, even in those weaker moments. That character adds spice to an already fun listen, which will inspire many re-listens because it's so easy to get caught up in the spirit and speed and rhythm of each individual track, and to want to get really familiar with them so that you know what cool, weird thing is coming up around the corner.

Buy this album now: iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca

Cover: Asteroids Galaxy Tour, "The Safety Dance"



With soul, energy and general fuss, AGT (also known as "That Beer commercial Band") go the opposite route of the below Arcade Fire cover, livening up the most notable of Men Without Hats' many hits, already a pretty goddamned fun song. It was probably wise to replace the synths with horns, which are "in" but timeless.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Cover: Mr. Little Jeans, "The Suburbs"



The opening title track to Arcade Fire's opus is a dusty, nervous wreck of Neil Young-esque negative nostalgia, with every repetition of the "Sometimes I can't believe it / I'm moving past the feeling" seems to sink deeper into itself.

Here, Mr. Little Jeans gives it the Zero 7 treatment, makes it nice and cold and detached, with the almost Stepford sedation of the vocal matching the humming, distorted strings of the backing tracks. It trads in nervousness about growing up for dismay at having settled. It's different yet close.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Cover: Nirvana, "Here She Comes Now"



Like pretty much any band that doesn't suck, Nirvana has a bit of a Velvet Underground influence. They do this song honor by making it both rough and pretty, in that Nirvana way. It begins as clean, bright power pop, then escalates into a very characteristic Cobain vocal workout as the guitars pound harder and harder, where the original got jammy and jazzy. The Velvets make for some good cover material, their songs being so deep in the DNA of all that follows that it's easy to pick them up and put them back together in a new style that doesn't damage the original. They're that strong.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Serious Contenders: Adventureland Triple-Feature, Velvet Underground/Crowded House/Replacements

I have a lot to say about the movie Adventureland, since I'm a sucker for "manic pixie dream girl" movies, particularly those that uncover the flaws in that archetype. What really interests me is the music: all the best MPDG films have awesome soundtracks since the people that make them (and therefore usually the characters) are music aficionados who let their love of tunes guide their feelings and actions. This one begins with this classic Velvet Underground cut, which mellowly slips you into the film's disenfranchised white middle class aesthetic:



Jesse Eisenberg's main character is a bit of a music snob who frequently extols the greatness of Lou Reed, whose music runs throughout the film, but that doesn't stop them from using some great tunes contemporary to the film's late-80's setting. Later during one of the warmest moments of the film, the main characters watch the July 4th fireworks and this gem wells up, crystallizing this moment of yearning, of being with someone and yet somehow separated:



It's funny how context can rescue a song for you, because I never thought much of Crowded House before then, but the thought of those characters in that moment with that song underscoring the moment really does it for me. Of course, the film ends with a song that is truly excellent no matter the context:



"Unsatisfied" features one of those great, dreamy acoustic intros that melts into a powerful electric verse and rough vocal, driving the film toward its climactic scene. All these songs are serious contenders in their own way, and their usage in that one film is spot on.

If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. If you've seen it but wrote it off, well, it's not for everyone. But for me, it does a great job exemplifying what music can mean to a person, to our relationships, to our everyday lives.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Serious Contenders: Sly & The Family Stone, "I Wanna Take You Higher"



Notably not a song about drugs, but about the spiritual qualities of music. And holy fuck, does it feel like it. All the pieces work together to transcend the boundaries of the song, to uplift the spirit and of course, to rock the fuck out. Sly and the Family always get their due from the critics, but few of us on the lower level -- the mere listeners -- really give them the time they deserve.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Foster the People: Torches

This is where it's at. Out of utter chaos comes excitement and fun but also a surprising amount of rhythm and soul. This album is made up of a thousand little moments, threads that join together to form a blinding, action-packed blockbuster. This is the culmination of a decade of development in danceable indie-pop, from Phoenix to the last Strokes record. It's all crash and bang but beneath lurks a healthy spirit propelling everything forward to ensure the record never drags.

It achieves liftoff with "Helena Beat," which starts with a soaring synth riff and ends with caramel-sweet "weee-oooohs" and in between is that blazing vocal delivery that defines the band: obscure yet articulate, easy to discern but tough to unpack: close but far, inviting but isolated. Most of these songs feature a chanting chorus that will get stuck in your head at least until the next one. That it constantly, successfully refreshes itself is a gift. If you start to like it, you won't want to stop listening to it.

Mark Foster, the maestro here, has a great sense of songcraft. These aren't a million miles away from conventional pop songs, they're arty enough but not hard to "get." They grab you. "Pumped Up Kicks," as I've mentioned before, has an undeniable appeal, built on that smarter-than-it-looks bassline, a story of a bullied kid coldly seeking revenge. It's both the best example of Foster's songwriting and the singular standout, because though the rest of the album does kick at the same laid-back-yet-tense pace, it tends more toward the hyperactivity. There's the piano groove of "Call It What You Want," an inviting tune and a seething indictment of labels and scene cultures. The grooviness makes the message all the more inviting, because when I listen to this album, it feels like being part of some huge gathering. One nation under a groove, per Funkadelic.

Some of the better moments of the album are the laid-back ones, though: "Waste" is a pledge of fidelity, and the lush score gives way to a clear-cut vocal in the chorus. That's what I like about the album, it knows when to pile on the sounds, knows when to fade them out. There are a million or so moments, loud, quiet, busy, relaxed, all alternating just at the right spot, giving you exactly what you need to hear. Foster also manages to make me stop worrying and love the male falsetto, which I was prejudiced against simply because I never felt it useful, but the contrast between his Strokes/Cakelike lower register and his Jamiroquai/Prince impression upper register creastes a strong contrast of emotion and expression. The vocals here are definitely part of the sonic strategy all throughout. The man knows his work. "Miss You" is like a whispered declaration of love in a hailstorm, time seems to stop for the chorus.

Not a track on this album is to be missed, but there are a couple of truly excellent culminating tracks. "Houdini" features, again, a great piano groove and clapping-snapping rhythms, the great vocal dichotomy, and the utterly relatable declaration that "Sometimes I wanna disappear!" which he then does, into what else but the music. "Warrant," the longest track by a minute, begins with a choral arrangement (or a synthetic one) before thundering over the horizon and singing about making a getaway. Choruses like these dutifully underscore ideas from the verse, act as constantly thoughts underpinning specific statements, everything coming back to "Got to get away / Yeah the warrant's on my head / Got to get away / They want me alive or dead." It looms over the rest of the album, outdoes the rest of the tracks, and ends abruptly never to be heard from again. Fitting that such a fidgety album would focus so much on escape.

We're in the future now, we're all doing a lot at once. We need new ways of discoursing with each other, of revealing our inner selves. Foster seems like a guy with a lot on his mind, so he makes busy music that doesn't linger on any one idea longer than it needs to to establish a pattern here and there before jettisoning. I like that. It's different, but fits well within the trend, making it possibly the best version of the current sound. It might be the musical version of tabbed browsing. When I listen to it, the tracks, these multi-sided jewels are impossible to keep from singing along, yet when it's over, I just sit stunned and think "Where was I just now?" To drop so deeply into something then be shaken out of it so completely and be able to walk away until next time... it's pretty remarkable. This is a piece of work you'll want to keep revisiting. It has a lot to offer.

Buy this album now: iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca


Thursday, August 4, 2011

Serious Contenders: Metric, "Gimme Sympathy"



I can't think of a single reason why a living breathing heterosexual male wouldn't get a shiver up his spine when Emily Haines sings "I can feel it in my bones!" There's something so sensual, so evocative about the lyrics to this song. When she asks "Come on, play me something like 'Here Comes The Sun,'" you know exactly what she's after. What a great piece of songwriting, possibly the best distillation of Metric's sound. Most bands have to decide whether to favour the guitars or the synths, but they texture the shit out of them and give them both something really interesting to do so that neither has to be left out. Intense, cool and sexy.