(With the end of the year closing on us, I've decided to bang out some quick reviews in order to get through everything I enjoyed this year, with the hope of having enough time to reveal my album of the year choice sometime in the next couple of days.)
El Camino - The Black Keys
After the exposure they gained from Brothers (their best charting album and single at the time, 5 Grammy nominations, 3 wins, and being the soundtrack for just about every commercial in 2010), The Black Keys were probably under more pressure to produce than they have been in their decade-long career. They came through with El Camino, 11 tracks of exactly the kind of blues-inspired rock fans of the band have come to expect.
The easiest comparison for The Black Keys is The White Stripes, and while the analogy is favorable, it's also lazy. Yes, they are both two-piece outfits playing 12-bar-burners, but to call The Black Keys a Stripes knock-off doesn't give them enough credit. Over their career, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have pulled from the full history of rock to find inspiration. My two favorite albums from them, Brothers and Rubber Factory, appeal to me for their reach towards Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, respectively. On El Camino, with the help of producer/co-writer Danger Mouse, they continue their exploration of the blues, while moving even further back at times.
Lonely Boy, the first single from the album, is one of the ballsiest songs to be released in the past 10 years. Any bar fight scene should have this playing over it, including movies already made. (The idea of watching Road House with this album constantly in the background would make the experience 100 percent better, which would be about the same as not watching Road House.) Gold On the Ceiling is the best ZZ Top track since that song from Back to the Future 3, and has an intro riff that sounds like it was written by a drugged-up Joe Perry. Run Right Back and Stop Stop would fit right in on a 50's-rock satellite station, assuming anyone with satellite radio listens to 50's-rock.
Time will tell if I turn back to this album ages as well as Brothers has over the short-term, but the early returns have been enough to keep me looking like a fool to anyone who has seen me driving around listening to this album.
Helplessness Blues - Fleet Foxes
I do not care about production values. Not only do I not like them, it could be argued that I actively dislike them. A great example of this is the Foo Fighters, a band that has written some of my favorite songs of the 90's, as well as being fronted by the drummer for one of my favorite bands ever. Despite these factors working in their favor, I find much of their post-millennial output to be unlistenable, and it's due to the fact that they have polished themselves down to something that is no longer interesting. I like rawness and unpredictability in the things I listen to, even in the more precise artists I listen to. (Andrew Bird comes to mind here, someone who is a bit notorious for the work he puts into making an album, but still manages to sound like he is writing the songs in studio as he plays them.)
This outlook on music would hold up almost flawlessly for me, if not for the Fleet Foxes.
On both of their full length albums, they have achieved a sound bordering on seamless. The instrumentation, the melodies, the vocal harmonies (MY GOD!!), it all sounds like they spent weeks perfecting every detail. Maybe, because it feels like they never rely on that production to be the focus of their songs, and instead use the arrangements to let their songs shine at their brightest, that it never seems to bother me. Or maybe it's because it's winter, and the sound like falling snow, if falling snow would get it's act together and make the kind of sounds we all know it can make.
I'm not sure anything on Helplessness Blues hits me quite as hard as the best moments on their self-titles debut, but the album feels a bit more complete overall. The title track is most-likely the strongest track on the album, and it's hard not to have an easy smile on your face while listening to Bedouin Dress, and it's hard to pinpoint much that disappoints. (An Argument being an exception. I fail to see how the album, or the track, is any worse without a minute and a half of horn noise. Wilco has that covered.)
Either way, throw on the album, sit by a fire, and make the best out of grey skies.
The King Is Dead - The Decemberists
Listening to music is a little different for anyone who has ever played music. It's not that we enjoy it any more than someone else, or that it makes us any better than someone who hasn't, it's just different. It can bring an automatic response of comparison. One of my favorite feelings while listening to something new is of being blown away by the talent and ability of whoever it is I'm listening to (see the above review). Wishing I had the ability to write and/or perform a song makes me even more appreciative of what I'm hearing. This is a fairly common occurrence, seeing as how I'm sitting her writing about music instead of writing music. What's less common, but possibly more impressive, is hearing something so simple and seemingly easy that you feel like you could have written it, and you're mad at yourself for not coming up with it first.
Don't Carry It All is not an overtly impressive song. It's structure is fairly straightforward. The inclusion of violin and mandolin certainly add to the song, but they don't make it overly grandiose. And while Colin Meloy certainly has a rather unique voice, it's not like many people would be mad to hear someone else sing his songs. (To be clear, I like his voice, my only point is that I don't think anyone would call him the male Adele.) All of this, and it's still the best Tom Petty song since, well, Tom Petty.
Music in the internet/iTunes/Spotify era is a pretty fantastic thing. It gives almost any access to things that wouldn't have been available not that long ago. (I'm pretty sure I've made this point before, but let's just pretend this is for all the new readers, okay?) This has made for a landscape where there is a sound for just about everyone, which is a great. I like having access to music whose influences could come from, conceivably, anywhere (or even nowhere, I suppose). But there is something to be said for a band that writes fairly basic, Americana-folk-rock, that still manages to sound inspired, and The Decemberists manage to do it better than anyone (sorry, My Morning Jacket).
Don't get me wrong, The Decemberists are a very talented group of musicians, it's just that their talent as players takes a backseat to their ability as songwriters. The King Is Dead is 10-straight tracks of song-crafting expertise. It would make a strong case for the best album I heard this year if not for one other album this year.
But that is a review for another time, and that time will hopefully be tomorrow or the next day.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
Record Review: Showroom of Compassion
Cake is not my favorite band. I don't consider them to be the most talented group of musicians I enjoy (though, they are very talented), they don't always write the best songs, and while their live show is good-to-great, they are not transcendent. Despite all of this, Cake might be the greatest band currently making music. You probably disagree with this statement, but let me try and explain.
When you, as a random individual, think about what band you consider to be the greatest, you apply your own, personal set of standards and see how everything stacks up. These guidelines probably include some combination of the previously mentioned aspects of a band, and maybe a few others. And while I stand by my assessment of how Cake fits into those criteria, there is another way to look at it.
When a band achieves some level of fame, expectations are put on them. Some groups handle it and go on doing what they were doing, some crack under those expectations, and others deal with it by going in a completely different direction. Whatever they do, and no matter how good it is and how many new fans it gets them, these bands will lose some of the older fans, and those fans will say one of two things; "They sound exactly the same", which is another way of saying that they are now bored by this band, or "They changed their sound", which is another way of saying that they themselves are boring.
Cake has somehow avoided this almost entirely.
With Showroom of Compassion, Cake has made yet another album (this is their sixth full-album of new material) that is clearly the alt-country, funk, spoken-word form that only they can achieve, while still managing to sound like it's own unique album. It's not my favorite Cake album (I still have to give the nod Motorcade of Generosity), and I worry that some of the more "occupy"-themed songs will age in a less than flattering way. That being said, even without the time-stamp of the topic, Showroom, like all of Cake's albums, is full of songs that wouldn't fit on another Cake album.
Federal Funding and Easy to Crash are two of the more aggressively-sleazy toned songs I've ever heard from the McCrea and Co. (and are also the songs I'm worried about becoming dated, which would be a shame). The circular riff and vocal melody on Got to Move are enjoyable enough that they could go on for hours. I don't listen to much straight-forward country, but I would if more bands wrote songs like Bound Away. The album is filled with solid songs and few weak spots, but The Winter might be the best track on the whole album. An electronic-filled cold walk through the memory of a lost relationship, the song would be just as good stripped down to a simple acoustic-driven ballad.
I'm sure there are Cake fans who are disappointed with the album (and some who think it is their best), and time will tell how much I'll listen to it compared to their other albums. Regardless, it's a great record on it's own, and it comes after two decades of never letting us down. What's greater than that?
When you, as a random individual, think about what band you consider to be the greatest, you apply your own, personal set of standards and see how everything stacks up. These guidelines probably include some combination of the previously mentioned aspects of a band, and maybe a few others. And while I stand by my assessment of how Cake fits into those criteria, there is another way to look at it.
When a band achieves some level of fame, expectations are put on them. Some groups handle it and go on doing what they were doing, some crack under those expectations, and others deal with it by going in a completely different direction. Whatever they do, and no matter how good it is and how many new fans it gets them, these bands will lose some of the older fans, and those fans will say one of two things; "They sound exactly the same", which is another way of saying that they are now bored by this band, or "They changed their sound", which is another way of saying that they themselves are boring.
Cake has somehow avoided this almost entirely.
With Showroom of Compassion, Cake has made yet another album (this is their sixth full-album of new material) that is clearly the alt-country, funk, spoken-word form that only they can achieve, while still managing to sound like it's own unique album. It's not my favorite Cake album (I still have to give the nod Motorcade of Generosity), and I worry that some of the more "occupy"-themed songs will age in a less than flattering way. That being said, even without the time-stamp of the topic, Showroom, like all of Cake's albums, is full of songs that wouldn't fit on another Cake album.
Federal Funding and Easy to Crash are two of the more aggressively-sleazy toned songs I've ever heard from the McCrea and Co. (and are also the songs I'm worried about becoming dated, which would be a shame). The circular riff and vocal melody on Got to Move are enjoyable enough that they could go on for hours. I don't listen to much straight-forward country, but I would if more bands wrote songs like Bound Away. The album is filled with solid songs and few weak spots, but The Winter might be the best track on the whole album. An electronic-filled cold walk through the memory of a lost relationship, the song would be just as good stripped down to a simple acoustic-driven ballad.
I'm sure there are Cake fans who are disappointed with the album (and some who think it is their best), and time will tell how much I'll listen to it compared to their other albums. Regardless, it's a great record on it's own, and it comes after two decades of never letting us down. What's greater than that?
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Record Review
Over the next few weeks, I will be trying something a little new. I'm going to be reviewing some of my favorite albums of 2011, with the hope of record reviews becoming a regular feature here. They won't be in any particular order, just what I happened to find enjoyable over the past 11+ months.
Kiss Each Other Clean - Iron & Wine
Iron & Wine is a band that has become some kind of bizarro guilty pleasure for me. Not an actual guilty pleasure, as I make no apologies for liking them (and by "them" I really mean singer-songwriter Samuel Beam). What I mean is that they are a band that consistently makes music I enjoy and sometimes love, and yet seems to always be less than loved by critics, and the most positive reaction I get from people (assuming they've heard the music) is "eh", or something similar. It's hard to imagine Kiss Each Other Clean changing that too much (the album did peak at no.2 on the Billboard Chart, yet I don't know anyone who has listened to it, unless through myself), but I suppose that's the way it goes.
Over their first three albums, Iron & Wine have grown from simple, quiet beginnings of The Creek Drank the Cradle and developed into the more elaborate and nuanced, but still delicate sound of their most recent, The Shepherd's Dog. On Kiss Each Other Clean, Beam trades some of the backwoods charm of The Shepherd's Dog for a horn section, a few synthesizers, and what are possibly some of the most accessible songs he's written yet. Album opener Walking Far From Home sounds like it was written for the next album from The Postal Service, while Tree By The River is the kind of song young girls would listen to if they weren't listening to Jason Mraz or Boz Scaggs or whatever it is the kids listen to these days.
While it's a bit up and down through the first few tracks, it really takes off on the back half. Rabbit Will Run is one of the best songs of the year. A bass-and-drum run through the Everglades of Beam's Florida home and a lyrical story loaded with metaphors that cover almost every aspect of human existence, without feeling heavy-handed or forced. Big Burned Hand is a fuzzed-out trip into the back of a '72 Vista Cruiser, complete with hanging dice and the smell of cheap weed.
Kiss Each Other Clean has a way of guiding you into the most comfortable chair you can find, ready to just let the music pour over you. Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me does just that. The final 4 of its 7 minutes are spent in repetitive waves, Beam imploring us to experience everything life has to offer, good and bad.
While at times it seems as if he is still getting comfortable with his new instrumentation and arrangements, the final product is worth the effort. Four albums in to his career as Iron & Wine, it will be interesting to see if he tries to find a happy medium between his quiet beginnings and where he stands now, or if he will continue to expand his sound. With Kiss Each Other Clean, Iron & Wine have made sure that I'll be listening to find out.
Grade: 87
Key Tracks: Rabbit Will Run, Big Burned Hand
Kiss Each Other Clean - Iron & Wine
Iron & Wine is a band that has become some kind of bizarro guilty pleasure for me. Not an actual guilty pleasure, as I make no apologies for liking them (and by "them" I really mean singer-songwriter Samuel Beam). What I mean is that they are a band that consistently makes music I enjoy and sometimes love, and yet seems to always be less than loved by critics, and the most positive reaction I get from people (assuming they've heard the music) is "eh", or something similar. It's hard to imagine Kiss Each Other Clean changing that too much (the album did peak at no.2 on the Billboard Chart, yet I don't know anyone who has listened to it, unless through myself), but I suppose that's the way it goes.
Over their first three albums, Iron & Wine have grown from simple, quiet beginnings of The Creek Drank the Cradle and developed into the more elaborate and nuanced, but still delicate sound of their most recent, The Shepherd's Dog. On Kiss Each Other Clean, Beam trades some of the backwoods charm of The Shepherd's Dog for a horn section, a few synthesizers, and what are possibly some of the most accessible songs he's written yet. Album opener Walking Far From Home sounds like it was written for the next album from The Postal Service, while Tree By The River is the kind of song young girls would listen to if they weren't listening to Jason Mraz or Boz Scaggs or whatever it is the kids listen to these days.
While it's a bit up and down through the first few tracks, it really takes off on the back half. Rabbit Will Run is one of the best songs of the year. A bass-and-drum run through the Everglades of Beam's Florida home and a lyrical story loaded with metaphors that cover almost every aspect of human existence, without feeling heavy-handed or forced. Big Burned Hand is a fuzzed-out trip into the back of a '72 Vista Cruiser, complete with hanging dice and the smell of cheap weed.
Kiss Each Other Clean has a way of guiding you into the most comfortable chair you can find, ready to just let the music pour over you. Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me does just that. The final 4 of its 7 minutes are spent in repetitive waves, Beam imploring us to experience everything life has to offer, good and bad.
While at times it seems as if he is still getting comfortable with his new instrumentation and arrangements, the final product is worth the effort. Four albums in to his career as Iron & Wine, it will be interesting to see if he tries to find a happy medium between his quiet beginnings and where he stands now, or if he will continue to expand his sound. With Kiss Each Other Clean, Iron & Wine have made sure that I'll be listening to find out.
Grade: 87
Key Tracks: Rabbit Will Run, Big Burned Hand
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