Category Archives: reviews

2014, Bandcamp, EP, music, reviews

Stream: Animal Lover – “Guilt”

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Here we go. Raw and abrasive, Animal Lover is sounding more and more like the 2nd coming of Big Black the more that I listen. The squealing guitar’s harsh cut and ringing harmonics sound the part of Albini, but the rest of the band fleshes out the low end significantly better. What’s the same, though, is the passion, vitriol and energy with which they seem to attack their instruments, and the style of distancing the vocal toward the back of the mix. It sounds as if the singer is maybe being recorded live, sans-effects for the most part across much of the release.

After the screaming cloud of angular guitar noise that is “Plasme,” the opening track, we come to “Lucky Pastures” that immediately recalls the rhythm section from Liars’ first offering that aligned them to the dance-punk bands of the early 2000’s. That slightly crunchy, but still round, bass sound in combination with a punchy drum kit most definitely ties their sounds together. The spaciousness of “Lucky Pastures” provides enough of a contrast to the opening track to show a bit of their range. That toned-down (only a bit) idea is expanded on the album closer “Neighbors” that manages to only barely contain the previous barrage momentarily with a jazz backbeat, clean(er) guitar tone and delicate vocals before showing signs of wanting to blow everything to bits again.

By and large though this is quite a noisy offering. Visceral noise and feedback permeate a good portion of “Guilt” but there are moments, such as in the title track, where the bass and drums are left out in the open to lay down a thin sounding groove, only to explode back into the spiked assault from whence it came. As I keep listening I am hearing a bit of a likeness to Chat Logs, whom I wrote about a few months ago, which is worth a listen if you missed out the first time.

This one is going to be spinning here for a while. Get in on it. The 12″ 45 was just released and is currently available from Learning Curve Records. You can also catch Animal Lover live on the last few of their tour dates if you happen to be in the proximity of the Midwest. Check those dates below and check out the album above.

5-27 Washington, D.C. @ Union Arts DC
5-28 Columbus, OH @ Carabar
5-29 Louisville, KY tba
5-30 St Louis, MO @ MELT
5-31 Carbondale, IL @ Ski House
6-01 Milwaukee, WI @ Quarters

2014, albums, Bandcamp, music, reviews, songs, Soundcloud

Stream tracks from new Le Rug compilation “Press Start: The Collection”

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Le Rug has got pretty good timing, coming at us with a track like “Jailbait,” just in time for the Summer. This track is sure to end up on more than a few playlists designed to accompany roadtrips down a sunny highway to nowhere in particular in the coming months. It’s just one of those carefree and energetic rockers that’s catchy as hell from start to finish.

Of course, being that it is only one track from a 32 track compilation that spans several years, it is by no means representative. “Harold Camping” is a bit more varied in its approach, with the same wild vocal but a guitar sound that is more restrained. Each song throughout the compilation sounds new and familiar at the same time, and though I usually prohibit myself from saying such meaningless-sounding wordfiller type things, it’s really true. Though “Godstar” reminds me of maybe The Burdocks, in the sound of the vocals, and some of the melodies. The rhythms here are less angular, that is for sure, but the melodic sensibility is pretty similar.

Other tracks, like “Get it Over With” and “Dead in a Hole” explore a synthier side that isn’t necessarily any colder timbrally than the other guitar driven tracks, but certainly explore a whole other sound in general. The guitar is ever present, at varying levels of grit. The songs always have the ability to soar and find a way to pull the listener in.

The good news is that there is a whole lot more where this came from. These songs are coming off a 32 track compilation that is set for release June 17th, and can be pre-ordered right now on cassette (recommended) or as a download from Austin’s Fleeting Youth records. According to the press release:
Press Start: The Collection features 5 magnetic and pulsing post-punk releases from Brooklyn’s Le Rug (32 tracks overall)– 3 albums from when Le Rug was more active years ago and 2 new recent EPs released earlier this year.
For now though you can download the tracks above for free. Take some time to ruminate with them. No doubt you will find yourself wanting to listen more and more.

Fleeting Youth//Facebook//Twitter//Instagram//Soundcloud//

 

2014, Bandcamp, EP, music, reviews

Stream: Dream Attics – “Unbend”

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Chillwave dream pop from Milwaukee. Nick Tovarek and Shane English are Dream Attics, and they’ve released a fresh batch of songs to download directly from their bandcamp page.

Each of the songs covers the territory treaded by artists like Washed Out and Neon Indian with swirls of vintage synth sounds and vocals awash in reverb. Strong hooks abound throughout the brief entirety of “Unbend.” I think that the ~13 minute time span of the EP serves as a pretty good introduction to the band that at some points finds them reaching into slightly more rock territory with a few instances of guitar taking a bit of the forefront, with keyboard doubling. During those moments the mix really clears the way, and the washy, overall reverb-soaked sound dries up a bit making the guitar stand out a lot more in the texture than it already would just by virtue of being a guitar sound amongst synths. That part, however brief, does call to mind the sound of Joywave, a band from my hometown. It’s always nice to be able to make a hometown connection in any way that I can.

Head over to the Dream Attics soundcloud page and throw down some money to download the EP. You can also find them on Facebook.

2014, EP, music, reviews, songs

Stream: White Reaper – “Half Bad”

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Polyvinyl is one of my favorite labels out there today. They just have such a diverse roster, one that happens to include one of my favorites – of Montreal. But White Reaper, Polyvinyl’s newest addition, is really nothing like of Montreal. This band is punchy, energetic, and just on top of it. The rambunctious track “Half Bad” starts off with just about the best drum sound you could possibly hope for, and check that fill. How could a song that starts this way possibly be bad? The answer: it can’t.

This is going to be a perfect Summer-time, road trip jam. I’m sure you’re listening to it right now, but to my ears theirs is a sound that takes the grittiness of garage rock, the catchiness of some guitar driven pop, and the energy of punk, and they manage to mix it all together to great results. The catchiest thing is the little synth motive that substitutes for a chorus. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the scratchy vocal track, shouted and doubled to only add to the almost overwhelming amount of energy already present on the track. There is a bridge that takes things back a little tiny bit, though the catchy hooks stay dialed up throughout, and it’s only a matter of seconds before they can’t hold back any longer, tearing into one last chorus.

“Conspirator” helps bring the picture into focus as to what we should expect for White Reaper’s debut: more powerfully energetic rockers with pop hooks to spare.

Like I said, they are the newest members of the Polyvinyl family and that means that they have a release coming out. Their self-titled EP is available for pre-order right now on 180g clear pink 12″ vinyl, CD and tape. Pre-orders ship June 13th and the EP hits stores on June 24th.

The band is also touring right now with Young Widows. Check the dates below:
06/19 – Kansas City, MO @ Czar Bar
06/20 – Denver, CO @ Moon Room
06/21 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
06/22 – Boise, ID @ The Shredder
06/24 – Seattle, WA @ Chop Suey
06/25 – Portland, OR @ Bunk Bar
06/26 – Sacramento, CA @ Witch Room
06/27 – San Francisco, CA @ Thee Parkside
06/28 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Church On York
06/29 – Phoenix, AZ @ Rhythm Room
06/30 – Tucson, AZ @ Plush
07/02 – Austin, TX @ Holy Mountain
07/03 – Dallas, TX @ Dada
07/04 – Oklahoma City, OK @ Conservatory
07/05 – St. Louis, MN @ Firebird

2014, albums, music, reviews

Fennesz – “Bécs”

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Fennesz’s latest offering, “Bécs,” manages to find a way to balance electronic and acoustic compositional techniques where neither approach seems to take precedence over the other. From start to finish each track explores atmospheres that range from pure, amorphous clouds of sound that ebb and swell turning over and fold into themselves to allow various shadings of their harmonic palette become exposed and explored; to more traditionally beat oriented tracks that bring bright acoustic guitar sounds into the mix.

While “Pallas Athene” explores the former–the more amorphous sound-world–a track like “Bécs” places a more standard harmonic rhythm and progression into a structural role. The opening of that track investigates the overtones of a single attacked string, but before long the sound is granulated, it begins to feed back on itself, and a hazy cloud forms all around it until the very sound that opened the work sinks to the background. Though that string attack remains audible, one must work a little harder at times to really hear it and it becomes more a backbone than anything, the exact source of every sound that surrounds it. So, is it really that much in the background after all?

And these timbral, structural considerations aren’t the only way to look at this album. The emotive quality of something like the titular track should not be overlooked. The suspended melody and delicate harmonic underpinning, though shrouded in swirling granulation, is no less effective. When that cloud of overdriven haziness dissipates suddenly, though gently, at the end of the piece, one begins to truly feel the full weight of the track. That ending, the stripping away of everything, brings about a pretty satisfying resolution.

I would have to say that the standout track to me is “Liminality.” The 10 minute track moves from ambience to solo guitar, and back to electronics that sound similar to one of Tim Hecker’s works on “Ravedeath 1979.” The guitar line’s suspended dissonances ring out, and their resolutions are held back as far in the beat as possible, wringing as much tension out of each pitch as they can bear.

Overall, the album is successful at taking a fairly unique approach to electronic music, eschewing pure laptop sounds for a mix of synthesis and acoustics. Fennesz’s style of electro-acoustic music is at once engaging and exciting, intriguing and emotive, and simply put needs to be heard.

“Bécs” is out now through Editions Mego and can be picked up here on vinyl, CD, or as your choice of download. Samples of the album can be heard by following this link.

2014, music, reviews, songs, Soundcloud

Stream: Inutili – “Music To Watch The Clouds On A Sunny Day”

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Psych-rock jam. Italian psych-rock jam.

It was a few months ago (I think, to be honest the days all sort of blend together) that I wrote about a new tape that came out on Crash Symbols by Julie’s Haircut, an Italian psych-prog band that creates complex and lush arrangements across intertwined songs to create a work that is more or less album oriented. Well, here is something similar, but different.

Inutili is also a band from Italy, and they are also constructing epically long tunes, but they are approaching the composition of those songs from a much different angle. Inutili, which by the way means “useless” or “pointless” in Italian, is creating their music on the spot. Instant composition coming to life organically through improvisation. In the track above, a 19+ minute rocker called “Fry Your Brain,” nearly the entire jam is held together by a bass ostinato. Similar in fashion at the outset to something like Neu, or Can, the track gets noisier and noisier as it continues. Guitars thrash about, the drums become increasingly bombastic, erupting into frantic fills that expand until the last few minutes collapse completely into utter cacophony. That distorted, near white noise  of overlapping everything adds a bit of a garage rock dimension to the whole affair.

And below is another track – different release, same general principle. “Satori” gets down to the noise a little faster, and is a little less bass driven at first. At about 5 minutes in there’s a breakdown, ideas are gathered, things are regrouped, and the band starts to gel once again and takes off.

“Music To Watch The Clouds On A Sunny Day” is out now from Aagoo records and “Satori” is from the “Satori/Useless Asshole” album that comes to us from Boozy Records and Bat Shit records. Each label, for that latter album, released a limited run of 100 copies that feature different artwork. The Boozy releases are sold out, but there are still copies available through Bat Shit records.

Finally, if you follow the link to Soundcloud from “Fry Your Brain” you will find that the track is available for download.

2014, albums, Bandcamp, music, reviews, Soundcloud

New music from Thou: “The Sacrifice” and “Heathen”

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Brutal slow burning metal from the Baton Rouge’s most prolific band Thou.  I’ve posted one of their earlier releases for a few reasons. The first is that they have a new album available for pre-order and I’m highly recommending it; and the second reason is that if you go to the band’s bandcamp page you can download a whole slew of stuff for whatever price you see fit. This, of course, coupled with the fact that “Heathen” is barely a month old so both of the releases in this post are pretty much brand new.

Imagine Russian Circles, Earth and Explosions in the sky meeting up with Deafheaven. The music pushes forward with all of its weight while throat shredding vocals fight to be heard. With a 14+ minute track like “Free Will” there is plenty of time for an expansive buildup, and several contrasting sections of equally sludgy metal.

From just earlier this year “Heathen,” above, features 10 songs, with nearly half of them over 10 minutes in duration. Album opener and “At the Foot of Mt. Drisskill” feature more of the pummeling end of the spectrum while some of the shorter tracks such as “Dawn,” “Clarity,” and “Take off your skin and dance in your bones” clearly show a more plaintive side of the band’s songwriting with delicate guitar soliloquies draped in reverb and delay. Truly some beautiful stuff going on in those shorter tracks that provides a nice counterbalance to the heavier elements displayed on much of the rest of the album.

According to the press release the newest offering is going to be a little different: “Eschewing the crawl found on most of their long-players and upping the tempo a bit while retaining their well renowned doom and roar. Several new bludgeoners (“New Orleans Is a Hole,” “Pill,” and “Eulogy”) are joined with the masterful drone of “I Believe Because It Is Impossible” and, per usual, a ferocious Nirvana cover, this time putting “I Hate Myself and I Want to Die” through their apocalyptic grinder.”

You can hear the new release in its entirety below:

Definitely head over and pre-order “The Sacrifice” right now and then go over to the Thou bandcamp and download a bunch of their other stuff. If you order directly from Robotic Empire you can get $5 off if you buy “The Sacrifice” with their “Baton Rouge” EP. The new one is also going to be released on tape.

2014, albums, Bandcamp, music, reviews, songs

Stream: Keir Neuringer – “Ceremonies Out of the Air”

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Keir Neuringer’s latest is a double album that features 5 tracks of sax improv spanning almost 80 minutes and filling up every possible bit of space on the record. Not only is every possible physical space on the album filled, but in that time not a second is wasted. Neuringer fills the space with expanding musical material that seems to grow organically out of thin air. As you listen you can hear the ideas taking shape and developing into much larger, overarching musical ideas.

Armed with nothing more than an alto sax, Keir Neuringer may sound on the surface as though he is taking after Colin Stetson with his equally fascinating use of space and texture, not to mention circular breathing. But, the fact of the matter is that these compositions benefit from a different brand of spontaneity than Stetson is employing. The stream of consciousness that Neuringer is employing adds a whole other dimension to listening to the music. We’re clued in to the fact that the song is developing before our very ears. We are taking a journey more or less together. Add to that that all of the elements of any great composition are employed as Neuringer takes great care to nurture the overall shape of the structure as well as the dynamic and pitch range to form an improvisation that sounds like anything but. This is practiced and expert instantaneous composition at its finest.

The album is available now on special limited edition CD and vinyl, which can be picked up via Keir Neuringer’s bandcamp page, which can be found here. Take a listen to “i dreamt there was nothing wrong with my chemistry” above.

There is a bunch of other stuff to listen to on his bandcamp. Might I highly recommend his tape: “Afghanistan: And Bide Your Time.” It’s an EP with keyboards, vocals and percussion all performed by Keir. Politically charged and sounding like nothing else out there. Give it a listen. Limited tapes are still available.

2014, albums, Bandcamp, Chicago, music, Portland, reviews

Stream: Sons of Huns – “Banishment Ritual”

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People may think of Portland as the place where all hipsters either live or aspire to live, but the fact of the matter is that there is a pretty lively metal scene in the Pacific Northwest and Portland’s own Sons of Huns comes pummeling through your speakers with a bone crushing album that’s packed with crunchy riffs and chaos.

This one just needs to be turned up. All the way. Every track introduces riff after shape shifting riff, slithering through multiple time signatures and tempi all while putting their virtuosic fretwork on full display. A song like “Heliolith” just keeps churning out memorable riffs and then casting them aside, moving to the next one.

Though, to be honest, calling this an all-out “metal” album isn’t completely fair. It’s not that far off, but really the songs show a lot of the influence of classic rock and garage rock. Think something like Ty Segall’s latest band “Fuzz.” That band chugs along thanks to the shredding of Charlie Moothart, and Sons of Huns shreds in a very similar way, but are just a touch heavier. The bass-work is more detailed and finely tuned, sometimes taking the opportunity to double the guitar lines, like on “Horror In Clay.”

“Banishment Ritual” offers the best elements from the worlds of thrash metal, and garage/psych rock with even a little classic metal thrown in for good measure (think Motorhead). And, hey, “Rollin’ the Dice” even shows that they can throw a little bit of swing into the mix. There’s also the classical guitar “Leyenda” style opening to “Super Kanpai Rainbow” and the dual guitar riffage of Iron Maiden lurking in the buildup after the guitar solo of the same song. Nothing’s off limits, and they can pull it all off exceedingly well all while plastering things with extended blues based guitar solos.

The album came out this past November and was released on limited edition Coke Bottle colored vinyl, with only a few still available. You can still, of course, download the album. This is their first full-length, so expect much more to come from these guys in the future. They are currently out on tour, check the dates below and listen to the full album above, and also check out some earlier tracks, also available to listen to on their bandcamp page.

Apr 26
Aftershock
Shawnee, KS

May 08
Launchpad
Albuquerque, NM

May 09
Club Red
Tempe, AZ

May 10
Cheyanne Saloon
Las Vegas, NV

May 13
Echoplex
Los Angeles, CA

May 14
SLO Brew
San Luis Obispo, CA

May 15
Strummer’s
Fresno, CA

May 16
Thee Parkside
San Francisco, CA

May 17
Branx
Portland, OR

May 18
Highline
Seattle, WA

May 20
In The Venue
Salt Lake City, UT

May 21
The Marquis Theater
Denver, CO

May 23
Red 7
Austin, TX

May 24
Fitzgerald’s
Houston, TX

May 25
Three Links
Dallas, TX

2014, albums, Bandcamp, music, reviews

Stream: Dahga Bloom – “No Curtains”

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Gritty psych rock. Or maybe this is stoner-rock. Or maybe it’s stoner-psych rock, or psych-stoner rock. Well whatever it is it’s heavy. Thick and distorted bass chugging, growling, snarling vocals, trippy echoes and cyclic riffs that swirl around you to create a hypnotic daze. Add in some motoric rhythms and you’ve got yourself a great psych-rock, or whatever, album.

Right out of the gate, with the opening track “Supa” we get high-powered, quick tempoed driving blues based guitar and bass riffs with a breakdown that slows everything while the pressure builds only to explode again for the noisier, even faster still end of the track. “Wampum/Rotted Man” really lays on a thick layer of grit, with a distorted to all hell guitar line that slowly slinks down by evil sounding half step. That the tune carries on for over 9 minutes of sleazy, echoed places it firmly in the stoner-rock realm of Wooden Shjips and White Hills (though they are, according to their website, “fuzzed out motorik space-rock”). The song is split in two, as the title suggests, with a spacey feedback laden middle section that breaks away to a drum and vocal break as the guitar and bass slowly begin to re-assert their control over the sonic landscape.

I will have to say that my favorite track, for a number of reasons, is “Adolph Hipster.” First of all that’s some next-level song naming going on there. Secondly the uptempo guitar riff is maybe the catchiest of the seemingly hundreds of riffs that fly out of this record. The vocals are at their most disorienting and haunting throughout this one, making it sounds like a completely frantic and confusing affair.

“No Curtains” was released earlier this month, and like I said I would recommend this album to anyone that is into Wooden Shjips or White Hills or any other doom-y, dark stoner-psych bands. Maybe their sound tangentially touches upon Purling Hiss too, I could hear a slight resemblance there. Anyway, it’s available as CD or 160 g vinyl from the Captcha Records bandcamp.

You can also check out everything else that Captcha has to offer by going here, liking them on Facebook, following them on Twitter etc. etc. etc.

Dahga Bloom is also on Facebook.  Make sure to check out the album in full above. Turn it up loud.