Stars: The North

As we crawl slowly out of this winter of 2013, I find myself thinking of this very good Stars album, which came out toward the beginning of it and seems to capture its character. On the title track, Torquil Campbell sings, "It's so cold in this country... every road home is long." That seems to sum up the album pretty well: although it's fairly lushly instrumented and accessibly hooky, the sound is very minor and subdued, with the wall of sound working to overtake the moody, theatrical vocals. The backdrop is pale but deep. The singers are hushed and aching, lonely and isolated and singing about it.

It's an interesting item after the band's previous album, The Five Ghosts, which I reviewed early enough on that I can't bear to look back on what I said. There were a number of powerful, mold-breaking moments on that album, and a number of wide shots that didn't land with me. The North has a higher floor and lower ceiling: they don't go out of their range as much, and as a result they wind up with an album that is a more consistent and overall enjoyable listen, but one with a less thrilling upside. I can listen to it the whole way through, and only a few tracks will stand out as being high points, and even fewer will stand out as being lesser ones.

It's made mostly out of chilling, frozen pop, which like much of Stars' music skirts an 80s-like line between dance and rock. "Backlines" transmutes from a guitar riff to a synthy chorus and builds string-laden denouement. The elements never clash because they are all with a single purpose. Their command over tone on this album is impressive. The liquid "Lights Changing Colour" and mystic duet "Loose Ends Will Make Knots" are among the finest, most Starsy in atmosphere. "Progress" improves on some of the stilted indie-beat of The Five Ghosts, revealing one of many moments where you really see the heart of the album. "Through The Mines" feels like a reminder that as good and popular as Of Monsters and Men is, Stars got there first and are capable of doing it as well as ever. Amy Millan's voice is a beautiful coo. As more and more top acts feature female vocalists, none has quite the bittersweet earnestness of hers.

Nestled between these moody atmospherics are some nimble indie pop tunes that are bright and upbeat but don't quite break the tone of the album, helped by Campbell's stately delivery. "Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When Give It" benefits from this restraint, with the music swelling beneath him and gradually overtaking him. "A Song Is A Weapon" is my favourite individual moment on the album, balancing the precious tone with a catchy beat and good lyrics.

The album cinches up its mastery of tone, its command of "swoony indie rock balladry" with the closing tracks, the staggering "The 400" with its choked up refrain of "It has to go right this time", and the tactful dubstep-lite of "Walls" with its call-and-answer vocals. Ultimately, the album leaves more suggested than outright stated, which is where it has the edge over its predecessor.

Stars are a good band, but sometimes hit and miss with their album packages. Here it all seems to come together. The songs stand out from each other but also stand together into a 43-minute piece that plays very well in a single sitting. I think none of the songs on it will be as well-regarded, years down the line, as "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" or "Reunion" or, for me personally, "Wasted Daylight." But this is the set they've probably been hoping they would put together for many years. Each song isn't a knockout, but as it goes on all the pieces go into place and the individual moments assert themselves for what they are. Pick it up if you were thinking about it, and you'll be glad you did.

Buy this album now: iTunes (Canada) //iTunes (USA) // Amazon.ca // Amazon.com

Sonic Sandwich: You Only Stroke Once

One thing that vexes me, that I guess you could say compels me to keep trying to write about music, and in particular argue with people who can't hear me, is The Strokes. I don't know why. All in all not a lot of critics have much negative to say about them. But at the same time, every new release of theirs seems to be met with a halfhearted smile, a shrug, and a saying "Is This It was really good, wasn't it?" I just don't think they get their due.

Their debut is a really good album, as evidenced by the fact that I'm talking about it right now, same as any of those critics. But it's in the past, and they have become a band that is constantly fiddling with their sound, adding and subtracting various elements with varying degrees of success but often coming out on top. I wish I could write a review of their new album, Comedown Machine, in a way that strayed away from this topic, but as the years roll by The Strokes are doomed to stay in the shadow of their debut. It's not enough to stay good after a strong first impression, people expect you to keep getting better somehow. Rock and roll is about serious works of art, not reliable collections of good (and diverse!) tunes.



And make no mistake, the tunes are there: every Strokes album has its share of rock solid tracks that I will love to hear until I inevitably go deaf. Angles, their reluctantly-praised 2011 effort, contains no fewer than four excellent tracks that could not have appeared on Is This It. If I was going to recommend only one album of theirs, I might even skip right to Room on Fire, the same way I'm starting to wonder if I maybe like the Arctic Monkeys' second album better than their first. When The Strokes finally put out at Greatest Hits disc, I'm sure everyone will act like they knew all along, and that the other albums were just weighed down by dross, but I find them thoroughly listenable in all the shadowy corners too.

I haven't given Comedown Machine the level of attention I need before I can really make a review, but I find it so far to be a moody, distant, but impressively constructed record, the underside of the gleaming dance-rock of Angles. It's different than the others, just like the others are different for each other, and I think it's time to step back and take notice that this is not the band that a lot of people think they are or want them to be. They're something much more rare: a changing animal, that spends one album in one skin before subtly shedding it to reveal the next. This was once standard operating procedure for top rock acts, and in retrospect they get praised for it, but there are tons of examples from back then, too, of critics and pundits being unable to appreciate a good thing while it was happening. And this retrograde way of thinking isn't called out, because hey, it's 2013 and The Strokes haven't been "The Big Thing" in about ten years. And fair enough. I just always think it's best to look at music as something you listen to., and this set holds up to that.

I've written extensively on the burden of expectations, and it's something none of us will ever be free from. My official stance now is to treat all these albums, as much as I can, as a debut album. Meet the new Strokes.

Cover: Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks, "Hey Bo Diddley"

Back when The Band was still The Hawks, they backed Ronnie Hawkins on this cover of Bo Diddley's original, which takes elements from both "Bo Diddley" (which is based on the "Hush Little Baby" lullaby) and "Hey! Bo Diddley" (which is based on Old Macdonald.) The thing that bites me is that growing up, I only knew this version from the oldies radio station, and assumed it was Bo's original. So until tonight I was mad trying to find the version with this exact phrasing.

I came to think of it because I was listening to "Hare Krishna" by Husker Du, and I thought "Hey, they're doing a goof on 'I Want Candy!' Wait, 'I Want Candy' is just a Bo Diddley beat! Oh yeah, like a million songs have that beat in them!" It's a great, timeless rhythm that keeps getting used in rock music (though you don't hear it much anymore) because it's solid and propulsive but also sinewy and suggestive. "Bah-bah-bah---a-bah-bah." Check out this quote from Wikipedia about its prevalence:

“Other songs employing the Bo Diddley beat include “(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame” (1961) by Elvis Presley, “I Want Candy” by The Strangeloves, “1969” (1969) by The Stooges, “Panic in Detroit” (1973) by David Bowie, “Mr. Brownstone” (1987) by Guns N’ Roses, “Hari Krsna” (lyrics are even sung to the tune of ‘Hey Bo Diddley’) by Hüsker Dü from their album Zen Arcade, “Faith (1987) by George Michael, “Desire” (1988) by U2, “Boa-Diddley” (1990) by Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub, “Movin’ on Up” (1991) by Primal Scream, “Woodcutter’s Son” (1995) by Paul Weller, and “Screwdriver” (1999) by The White Stripes.[50] Other examples include “Magic Bus” by The Who, “Rudie Can’t Fail” by The Clash, “Get Me to the World on Time” by The Electric Prunes, and “Party at the Leper Colony” by “Weird Al” Yankovic.[51] Some of the more subtle uses of the Biddley beat include “Hateful” (1979) by The Clash and “How Soon Is Now?” (1985) by The Smiths.”

Sonic Sandwich: People, Hell, Angels, Scary Monsters & Supercreeps

So, where ya been, Scotto?

I've been taking a little hiatus for the last month or so. Unlike the one I took last summer, there's no crisis or breakdown behind this one, I'm not frustrated or bored or angry at music or my ability to write about it. I spent January and February devoting a bit more time to a promise I made myself regarding other projects. But that didn't stop awesome music from coming out or being available in the back catalog. So part of what I was doing, between pushing fictional characters around in Word documents, is trying to come up with a way I could do this site regularly and not utterly drain myself every time I open up a New Post tab. Although I'm still not sure how it's gonna turn out, I'm gonna workshop some kind of possible new format that involves me just freestyling about stuff I've been listening to, what's out now or what old music I finally got around to. So basically... this site, still.

Just yesterday saw the release of the new David Bowie album, The Next Day, which you absolutely should be buying right now, if you haven't already. Back in January we we got a glimpse into this thing with the advance single, "Where Are We Now?" which was gorgeous and exceptional and both new and classic at once -- the rest of the album delivers on that promise. I think the great thing about Bowie releasing an album in 2013 is that we are now in a time when new work by old artists is very highly valued. Bowie was a working artist all through the 90's and up to the early 2000s and his new releases were, despite good marks from critics, received lukewarmly. Allmusic aptly describes him as being "taken for granted" during this period, as audiences maybe grew weary trying to suss out what his current "thing" at any time was. As someone who made his bones as an innovator, seeming to fall behind the pack was death, even as he was making good music ("I'm Afraid of Americans" rocks.) I remember when I was in high school and his last new albums were coming out, either Heathen or Reality, and the public response was basically "Oh, a new Bowie album? It's not Ziggy Stardust, it's not Heroes, it's not Let's Dance... so whatever." Then again I was 15 and not particularly paying attention so maybe I don't know for sure.

But in 2013, after a decade of absence, David's audience can be less self-conscious about being eager to receive him and appreciate what he does. At this point his "thing" can basically just be "Being David Bowie," whatever that may mean. I'll leave to Bowie scholars to pinpoint periods of reference: "This from Heroes, that from Station to Station, a bit of Hunky Dory and then Scary Monsters..." I don't really think like that, but some do and that's cool. But it sounds like Bowie and even better, it sounds vital. There's an audience for it, I daresay a huge one. There's an entire generation of folks like me who have now grown up voraciously absorbing music that was recorded before we were born. If you didn't buy any of those 90s Bowie albums, pick this one up anyway.

Also released last week was the third and, I think final, "new" Jimi Hendrix album. For those curious, as I was, it turns out that before he died he was working on a huge, huge project, and recorded maybe three LPs worth or more of material with his Band of Gypsys, but then it was caught up in legal disputes after his death, and released in inferior formats over the years. The previous two released were First Rays of the New Rising Sun and Valleys of Neptune. This one, People Hell & Angels, feels more gritty and human, than say, if your idea of Hendrix is "Purple Haze" or "Voodoo Chile." There are horns and backup vocals and things that didn't seem synonymous with Hendrix's traditional canon. Most importantly though, these are full-bodied, lush recordings, not rough sketches, demos or outtakes left off earlier albums due to inferior quality. These sound like they were either ready for release in 1970, or not far off and touched up very well. Considering that for 40 years his library has consisted of three albums, I think people should be very into this "new" Hendrix, I believe the last there will ever be. Considering I just recently promoted the Gary Clark Jr. album by saying "If you can't have new Hendrix you can at least have this," I would feel silly not putting my stamp of approval on this one.

Cover: Philosopher Kings, "Cry"

I think the Philosopher Kings' take on Godley & Creme's tune is one of those cases where the cover severely outdoes the original. The first version is a good song, haunting and hurtful in its way, but Jarvis Church's 90s band pumps it up into a danceable bit of soulful pain. They wring out hooks that are only slightly in the original and help it reach its full potential.

My Bloody Valentine: m b v

What am I supposed to say? What does it matter? Last week, My Bloody Valentine King-Of-Limbsed us with a new album. I don't know if there was any advance press for its release, I didn't hear it was happening until it was suddenly available for download, and then I downloaded it and suddenly I was listening to it. I did not know when I woke up that morning that I was going to end the day by listening to the first album this band has done in 22 years. Twenty-two years. That's a long time for expectations to build up. A lot of people have a lot of themselves tangled up in that previous My Bloody Valentine album, including me. I've listened to it many times in the past few years. I even wrote about it sometime early in this blog's run. And I was then and still am without a perfect expression for how much I love that album. It's spacy and distant and imposing and yet raw and personal and up-close. It seemed almost impenetrable, and then one day I got it. Maybe I don't understand it, but I get it. But this isn't Loveless we're talking about. This is what happens after an album like Loveless. 22 years after. Maybe that entails a certain amount of baggage, and if that keeps you from enjoying the new album, m b v, then I guess I can understand that but I don't agree. If anything, the years have improved this album for me, because it helps avoid the context, trimming the fat away from the usual expectations of a follow-up. It may have two decades of anticipation, but its arrival may have given it amnesty.

I think if they had come out with a new album within two or five years of Loveless, a lot of people would have had their ideas about what MBV should have done. What directions form Loveless were worth pursuing further, what should be discarded, what new avenues were or weren't worth pursuing. There's a lot that can go wrong with a follow-up project, especially something whose appeal is so nebulous yet all-consuming as Loveless's. People think that it belongs to them, that their interpretation of it, their idea of it is the correct one, and the follow up is a perversion of that. It's a no-win scenario so for years we got used to the idea that there would never be another My Bloody Valentine album. Then suddenly there is one. And you guys, it's really, really good.

It has that distance, that rawness, that coldness yet warmth, that slow-spinning hurricane of everythingness sounds, it has sounds that Loveless did not have and it lacks sounds that Loveless did have. At times it feels more rhythmic and maybe even more structured, but it also has "nothing is" which is a churning, mechanical sample for 3:34 very unpleasant-to-listen-to minutes but for some reason I keep letting it play instead of skipping, because it is part of the set and sitting at the end of this album it feels somehow earned. There are bits on this album that I love more instantly and completely than bits of Loveless, like that sad, staggering riff in "only tomorrow," which sounds like exhausted glee, excitement about being depressed, the million contradictions that MBV's music seems to inhabit. Delicate and brutal. "new you" is almost the pitch perfect MBV song you didn't know you were missing.

My Bloody Valentine has a monopoly on a certain sound... scarcely imitated and even more rarely duplicated. That they can play around within it, still sounding faithful and fresh, is very exciting. They took their time and were able to labor over this one for two decades -- okay I do not know how much of that time was spent literally working on music, but my point is they were given breathing room to decide exactly how an MBV album sounds and this is it. This is one. They are the makers of this music that I still don't fully understand but will revisit time and again to experience, to be in awe of the choices they made in creating it, the particular ways the guitars warp and drums chunk and vocals mutter.

Few things account for themselves as well as this band, these records. I have absolutely no business telling My Bloody Valentine how to make their records, nor telling people they should be into MBV. Quite honestly, not everybody has to. As much as it feels nice to be in this club, the point is that it definitely does not need to be for everybody. It's different from other things and as enjoyable as the only other albums by this band, which is what matters to me. It's a matter of taste and this satisfies mine, far above and beyond the call of duty.

My only gripe is that they didn't wait a couple of weeks to release it on My Bloody Valentine's Day. But if that means I got to hear it sooner so be it.

Buy this album right now! Seriously, do it!

Mixed Results: "80s & Beyond" (circa 2003)

A few years ago, a friend of mine, who has always shared my passion for a breadth of musical topics, asked me when I first became aware that there was music out there "that was good." Music that we maybe weren't just hearing because it was on the radio.

I couldn't pin it down... old music always had a ton of currency in my house. My parents were big into the major Oldies station, so I knew a ton of ancient songs that my classmates in grade 5 wouldn't have. By the early 2000s, my dad had nudged the radio dial in his Buick Century over to FM and a station that specialized in "The hits of the 80s, 90s and today." So we got a lot of Tears for Fears and Depeche Mode and Bon Jovi and U2 in high rotation, and I could count on hearing The Police or the Proclaimers or Jesus Jones on almost any car ride, sandwiched between recent hits by Sugar Ray, Goo Goo Dolls, Avril Lavigne or Mary J. Blige (it still blows my mind though that my dad once listened to a station that regularly played "Family Affair.")



Though I no longer consider it the apex of musical innovation, the station painted me a picture of the 80s as a fertile time for esoteric one-hit wonders. The early MTV era was like the wild west when any odd act could somehow emerge with a quirky video or strange hook and briefly conquer the world. This may explain my lifelong devotion to Dexys Midnight Runners. It's clear that's the running theme of this Mix CD, potentially the first one I ever made (around this time but possibly later, I made a CD for a girl, a classic rite of passage for music nerds, but its contents have been lost to time.) The only really surprising thing is that I put on "Roxanne" and "Don't Stand So Close To Me" instead of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," which I considered my personal anthem. Maybe even then I was dismayed by the low production quality.



My career as a musical scavenger begins here, finding stray tunes to call my own: hence, Dokken's theme to the third Nightmare on Elm Street film, Huey Lewis from Back to the Future, and The Buggles, well known to me as the answer to the trivia question "Who had the first video played on MTV?" I genuinely loved that song and thought it was profound. There's also the inferior English-language version of Nena's "99 Luftballoons" and two Combat Rock-era Clash hits, a time period I would soon all but disown. I liked thinking of these artists appearing suddenly on the international stage before I was ever born, then disappearing and leaving behind all these low-quality videos to fill VH1 specials. I was very, very aware that there was music outside my everyday context.



I wrote the phrase "80s and Beyond" on the CD because it included a few 70s tracks (Kinks, AC/DC) and a few 90s ones - Beck's "Loser," and two songs that captivated me in my actual youth, Green Day's "Longview" (which began to appeal to me a lot more once I realized I was living it) and Offspring's "Bad Habit," which maybe wasn't the best track on Smash, but certainly had the most cussing.



None of these are bad songs and some of them (Beck, Dexys, and yeah the Clash) are genuinely great. It's clear from looking at this set that I'm very interested in looking outside my own everyday context for music, but still don't have any discernible taste... a lot of them are songs I found one way or the other and let stick with me.

I just finished reading Rob Sheffield's "Love is a Mixtape," and while I would be deluded to say my life is anything like his (even my devotion to the art of mixing is lacking) it's gotten me thinking about different stages of my life, and what songs I put together, and why. You might see a few more songs like this in the future... you know, when I'm behind on reviews and need something to fill space.