Swans- The Seer

August 28, 2012; Young God
http://www.swans.pair.com/

It's not often that I feel compelled to write a review for a recent album that initially flew under my radar on release--after an album been in circulation a couple of months or more, most of the initial rush and novelty of writing about the contents of said record tapers off. In the rare times I'm spurred to write about music these days it either has to be something relatively hot off the presses or a lost oddity I feel the need to drum up as Something You Need To Hear Now. Everything else rapidly loses its luster.

Not The Seer. This is not one of those records you listen to a couple times and then feel compelled to spit out a load of typical music critic hyperbole for. Most releases that clock in at a daunting two hours or so have that effect, and doubly so when it's from an act that's been making music longer than some of its newer fans have been alive.

When Michael Gira at the tender age of 56 announced that he was bringing Swans back from the dead in 2010 with the emphatic disclaimer “THIS IS NOT A REUNION. It’s not some dumb-ass nostalgia act. It is not repeating the past," I immediately got very excited but also a little hesitant considering Jarboe would not be on a Swans record for the first time since Cop/Young God was released waaaay back in '84. Having regretfully little exposure to both the last few Swans albums or Gira's career in Angels of Light wasn't much help either.

That was okay because My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky (Jesus that's a long title I am not typing that out again) was largely a clean break. It didn't sound like the churning black sludge of their infamous '80s period that gave breath to the careers of myriad lesser acts--my favorite Swans era, incidentally. It didn't sound like the more melodic Goth-inflected records after that or the more streamlined psych-rock of The Great Annihilator. It wasn't a continuation of Angels of Light's dark folk direction either. It contained elements of all but was decidedly none of them. And it was great yet at 44 minutes, strangely unfulfilling. Not in the usual late-career mediocrity sort of way but I was seriously worried that this short burst of new Swans material would be a last gasp of creativity before Gira got bored and decided to fold it again.

Two years later and we get a double LP. Well played.

The Seer is just as big a break from the slightly more song-oriented My Father... as My Father... was from previous Swans albums. It's got all the darkness, minimalism, and dissonance of the '80s material but the focus is outward, more expansive and spiritual. Barked declarations of self-hating depravity are abandoned and Gira intones shamanic mantras like Nick Cave on peyote (that is far more positive than it sounds). The industrial vibe is also long gone--the credits reveal a kitchen sink of instruments ranging from lap steel to bassoon but, refreshingly these days, not a single obvious keyboard in sight.

The songs often stretch for post rock-like lengths."The Seer," "Piece of the Sky," and closer "The Apostate" at 32:14, 19:10 and 23:01 respectively are frigging epochs containing naturalistic expanses of organic ambience, guitar vamps, bursts of noise, tribal seances, and even a sardonic ballad midway through "Piece of the Sky" where an otherwise self-consciously grimdark line like "As the sun fucks the dawn" takes on a wry wit coming from Gira's wizened croon.

The shorter pieces are no less memorable. "The Seer Returns" has Jarboe returning for a truly spellbinding performance with an oddly catchy, bluesy shuffle despite its eerie apocalyptic aura. Taking up the WTF Cameo Spot from Devandra Banhart on My Father...'s "You Fucking People Make Me Sick," Karen O shows up with a surprisingly sweet and gentle vocal turn on "Song for a Warrior." Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low add their chanted vocals to the madness dance of "Lunacy," rivaled only by "The Daughter Brings the Water" for sheer skin-crawling effectiveness.

And then there's "Avatar," which simply defies description other than to say it effortlessly achieves the kind of effect that late-period Tool seems to be striving for minus any sense of that band's goofy pretension, or maybe a more subdued Neurosis. The teacher returns to school the young'uns, and it's easily the centerpiece of the record.

I've dropped all 120 minutes of The Seer twenty times since it came out and every time I hear something new. If that's not a hallmark for Album of the Year material, I dunno what is. Yet what would be a fitting epitaph to the careers of many long running, less creative bands is but one more marker here. Gira says it will not be the last of New Swans.

Fuck yes.

-SJ

Baroness- Yellow & Green

July 17, 2012; Relapse
http://baronessmusic.com/

If there's anything that'll seriously rankle metal elitists, it's any suggestion that one of their favorite bands is getting bored with having to be pigeonholed as metal. Blame the wave of extreme (and not unjustified) butthurt following Metallica's descent into Bob Rock-produced commercially viable hard rock--for a long time after that sordid episode, metal bands were largely scared shitless of showing any inclination of going soft, even as they tried to quietly incorporate more melody and depth into their sonic formula. However as a new wave of fanbase have discovered (or rediscovered) metal--a combination of mature adults who came back to the primal thrills of the genre after leaving it sometime after their adolescence, and younger hipsters who namecheck shoegaze-glazed black metal and sludgy riff throwbacks in the same paragraph as prime-era Sabbath and Motorhead--and have largely shoved the old loud/fast/heavy-at-all-times "authenticity" requirement to the wayside, a lot of bands have loosened up and started experimenting a bit more or branched out under different monikers to explore this outlet.

This is largely a good thing, but the outcomes are predictably uneven. Sometimes the results are great, sometimes outright terrible, but more often than not they are simply lukewarm. Opeth's recent retro-prog direction comes to mind. So do Baroness' Athens, GA peers Mastodon.  

Now I realize that our blog named Crack the Skye as one of the best albums of the 2000's, and I'm not here to argue with that judgment. But for me it marks the point where one of my favorite bands started jumping cartilaginous fish, and they were already seriously testing my goodwill with some of Blood Mountain's proggy digressions and goofy lyrics. I didn't like Crack the Skye at all, and I disliked 2011's The Hunter with its milquetoast-yet-trying-hard-to-be-quirky Adult Swim metal angle even more. Perhaps the reason for this was that they had lost their prior gifts in the process of leaving their tech/sludge roots behind, or they had just defined their niche so well that trying to branch out was bound to gut their sonic impact in some way. Whatever. Wasn't feeling it.

So when there was talk in interviews with lead guitarist/vocalist John Baizley of expanding Baroness' Southern-fried hybrid of classic Thin Lizzy-esque metal with a twist of sludge and punk into new territory, I was getting pretty suspicious that the band might lose it and that the special sauce that made both Red Album and Blue Record two of the best guitar-centric albums in the past few years was not going to be in evidence. AND on top of that it was going to be a double album, a classic sign of either supreme self-indulgence or throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks (often both).

I needn't have worried.

Yes, at 75 minutes and two discs, Yellow & Green is a bit lengthy at first go. And nothing here has quite the intensity of "Isak" or the instant earworm quality of half of Blue Record. But if this somehow qualifies as a disappointment (and yes there's already been a fair amount of backlash), then I can't fucking wait to hear what a failure from this band would sound like because Yellow & Green lands easily in best of the year turf. Period. Full stop.

If you liked Blue Record you'll feel right at home with Yellow, as it's a pretty organic progression of that album's excellent embrace of melody and hooks with meaty riffs and the best twin-guitar attack you'll hear today. Yet there's plenty of new tricks here, showcased to winning form with the best song on the release, "Eula"--a sweeping near-ballad that exudes the kind of murky grandeur that Mastodon used to excel in and features a bracing vocal performance from Baizley, who has tamed his midrange bellow into a fiercely emotive, sometimes multi-tracked instrument this time around. Then you have "March to the Sea," a quasi-rewrite of my favorite jam from Blue "The Sweetest Curse," this time backed with what sounds like cello (!)--a kickass combination. "Cocainium" starts with some dreamy keyboard-driven ambience and stretches out with ghostly vocals and a driving pulse courtesy of underrated drummer Allen Blickle. "Take My Bones Away" is the obvious single, both massively catchy and extremely dynamic it makes for a strong point of entry.

I'll bet the heavily instrumental and almost-jammy second half Green will inspire a lot of heated arguments over where this band is headed and whether it'll be any good, but you can lay that bitching to rest for the time being because if there's anyone out there that can make this kind of material more compelling right now, I've yet to hear them. "Green Theme" and "Stretchmarker" are staggeringly beautiful journeys that would render any attempt at words extraneous, leading into introspective anthems "Board Up the House" and "The Line Between" respectively which both fill that role admirably. From there Green does lose a bit of momentum but "Collapse" and "Psalms Alive" with their strains of psychedelia throw a welcome curveball, and the short yet melancholic and powerful "Foolsong" has the best lyrics on the album from a band that doesn't get nearly enough attention for penning some great ones, even outside the admittedly low bar set in metal.

Unlike many other transitional albums from metal bands moving out of their former element, there's nothing that Baroness does on Yellow & Green that sounds tentative or half-assed in any way. It sounds like the music they've always wanted to play, without betraying their previous works in the least. If this is the album that launches them into the realm of household name, it couldn't have been a better one.

Forget Mastodon--these are the Georgians you need to keep tabs on.

-SJ

El-P- Cancer for Cure

May 22, 2012; Fat Possum Records
http://www.definitivejux.net/

"I should have stayed asleep, waking up can get you killed"

... so a lot has happened since El Producto's last album, 2007's mighty opus I'll Sleep When You're Dead. A new President in the White House. The war in Iraq coming to an end (more or less). A financial crash and worldwide recession that still has everyone in a slump four years later. Bin Laden's death.  And Def Jux going on hiatus in 2010, just as a new and promising wave of hip-hop stumbled onto the scene.

Five years later, though, and most of the ol' bullshit is still hanging over our heads--Orwellian doublespeak, drone strikes on TV, TSA strip searches, domestic wiretapping, a failing war, a country split in two squabbling over the same political garbage while the same fat wallets get ever fatter.

Welcome to the New Normal, that 24/7 fog of overstimulated paranoia, creeping poverty and angry helplessness. And one Jaime Meline is very, very pissed off about it.

 "Kids sing along, this is all we have left bitch, sing a song"

That's not to say Cancer for Cure represents a retread for him. If anything can be said about El-P it's that he's one of the most forward-looking producer/MC's in the genre, and this album is the culmination of nearly twenty years behind the boards and the mic. The usual roster of Def Jux regulars--Aesop Rock, Cage, Mr. Lif, Vast Aire, et al--are out, but the replacements more than hold their own. Killer Mike, still rolling hard after his breakout success from this year's R.A.P. Music, drops in on "Tougher Colder Killer" alongside Despot. The bangin' centerpiece "Oh Hail No" has both a ground level, rhythm-in-your-bones verse from Mr. Motherfuckin' eXquire and a thoroughly ill blast of coked up imagery from Danny Brown that will have many heads rushing out to pick up last year's XXX (if they haven't already). Nick Diamonds provides a sublime, hazily crooned hook on late album highlight "Stay Down."

El-P's been keeping up. Worlds away from his halting and occasionally disjointed flow on first solo Fantastic Damage, the triple-time of "Request Denied" will leave jaw-shaped holes in the floor. However he hasn't traded an ounce of lyrical venom, and there are an elliptical flurry of bitter and incisive punchlines that will leave everyone within earshot puckering. From the overcaffinated Tropic Thunder-referencing (among other things) lead single "The Full Retard" to the sick interrobang of "Sign Here," El's dark worldview never wavers but has picked up extra layers of sarcasm and humor on the way through a miserable half-decade.

"To the mother of my enemy, I just killed your son"

But as usual, El-P's greatest asset are his beats, jammed full of dissonant piano hits, grimy loops, bent synths and droning klaxons, an aesthetic that still hasn't gotten stale--and these are some of the best he's ever dropped.

Residing somewhere between the stutter-step cyberpunk bangers of Fantastic Damage and the iron galaxy sprawl and industrialized funk of his last album, taking the best aspects of both and ramping up the aggression, Cancer for Cure's backdrop forms a perfectly grimy synthesis with the razor tongue screeds--abstract and exotic enough to retain the spaced vibe of old, but organic textures like the wounded animal horn skronks of "Stay Down" and the crashing jazzy percussion behind "Drones Over BKLYN"'s verses keep things primal and raw.

"You cannot throw me in the briar patch, bitch, that's where I live" 

Cancer for Cure's greatest moment arrives in the form of eight minute closer "$4 Vic/ FTL (Me & You)"--a rant styled similarly to I'll Sleep When You're Dead's "Poisenville/No Wins," El dedicates the album to fallen Def Jux labelmate Camu Tao (from lung cancer in 2008) and then proceeds to tear through that beat like raw steak and fucking dismantle all of society's dross with a hard focus worth more than a dozen lesser MC's. It's a triumph, one of the greatest things I've heard in a long time.

No one does this better right now on the bleeding edge of hip-hop, and if this album has disappointed anyone, they aren't listening hard enough.

"And I can no longer contain what's under my disguise, I've always had the cancer for the cure, that's what the fuck am I"

Pump this shit like they do in the future.

-SJ

Dirty Knobs- Ghost Geometry

May 1, 2012; Zac Bentz, Xero Music
http://zacbentz.bandcamp.com/album/ghost-geometry

Just a quick review to get us back on track.

We are big Zac Bentz/Dirty Knobs fans here at SB, and after the eight-hour sonic odyssey/mindfuck that was last year's Field Recordings from The Edge of Hell, I was definitely looking forward to some more epic dark ambient in that vein.

Along comes Ghost Geometry and despite being trimmed down to half the runtime of its amazing predecessor, it was well worth the wait and arguably even more cohesive and better.

It's hard to review something like this. Guess it basically boils down to... how do you feel about music truly bereft of plebeian reference points like melody, tempo, rhythm; of supermassive, slowly escalating drones and soundscapes that conjure imagery of huge spinning constructs in the outest reaches of space, endless reaches collapsing on themselves and reforming and collapsing again; each time different and strangely affecting yet empty and terrifying as the sustained notes and frequencies build inside your chest and stretch on to infinity; and after thirty, forty minutes, slightly ebb out only to expand ever further?

Either way stop standing on the fence. Click that link, put that dollar down, kill all the lights, crank the volume to window-rattling level, close your eyes and prepare for an extended voyage into the void.

You all want this experience; you just don't know it yet.

-SJ

Opeth- Heritage

September 14, 2011; Roadrunner
http://www.opeth.com/home/

[Long and rambling review ahead, get comfortable.]

This reviewer admits a special attachment to Opeth, as they were one of the bands that helped rehabilitate my increasingly shitty opinion of the metal genre going into the early '00s. By that point nu-metal held an absolute death grip on the airwaves, and off the airwaves was a neverending and deadening flood of testosterone-addled hardcore and a horde of brainless, atonal death metal bands all cloned from the same Deicide/Morbid Angel/Cannibal Corpse DNA--or so I thought. Black metal and Gothenburg were both relatively new and alien to me, and as a teen with interest in relatively old-school thrash and doom/stoner metal (Pantera was probably the most recent band I would even countenance listening to at the time--yeah, I know) among other things a lot of good shit was flying under my radar while I was waiting in vain for the next Master of Puppets to show up.

My first listen to a friend's battered import copy of Morningrise was a real revelation for me. Here was a band that embraced both beauty and fury, with a sepulchral atmosphere, epic and constantly shifting songwriting and lots of acoustic and electric instrumental shading that I'd never heard in the genre (or anywhere else) before. And the riffs, oh damn. Being a staunch hater of extreme vox at the time, I still occasionally struggled with Mikael Akerfeldt's blackened growl on that album but once the taste had been acquired the quest for more Opeth continued at a fast pace. I quickly counted them among my favorite bands, devouring everything from their masterpiece My Arms, Your Hearse (my current favorite) to the growl-free folk/fusion/prog outing of Damnation with relish. Opeth also introduced me to another future staple, the excellent neo-prog band Porcupine Tree fronted by producer/musician/songwriter Steven Wilson who had contributed both instrumentation and production to several Opeth albums. Without getting too sycophantic, I can honestly say that I owe a lot of my omnivorous musical perspective and tastes to Opeth.

Now with all this goodwill in mind, let me tell you why Heritage is an album best left on the shelf.

The biggest controversy over this album is the complete rejection of any and all metal elements. Akerfeldt is on record stating that death metal is "over" and reflecting a disdain in being pigeonholed as such. That's both fair and not unexpected, as the band's classical prog influences were always just as prominent in their work as the metal ones were and previous effort Watershed generally pushed full-on headbanging aggression to the back burner (save for "Heir Apparent," the only all-metal song they've released to date). The band has also seen a number of lineup changes since signing up to the Roadrunner label in 2005, such as the inclusion of a full-time keyboardist (Per Wilberg, who left the band right after Heritage) and the departure of long-time members Peter Lindgren and Martin Lopez who both contributed a lot to the band's overall sound, if not to its songwriting. They have since been replaced by Martin Axenrot and Fredrik Akesson on drums and guitar respectively, who while not untalented seem slightly less subtle in their playing and overall feel than their predecessors.

But ultimately these surface changes are relatively unimportant to Heritage. What does matter, however, is how fucking boring the result is.

It's not that the music is overtly bad. The band is playing more or less up to par, channeling the odd meters, wild syncopation and organ blasts of prime '70s prog heroes such as Mk I-IV King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator perfectly on pre-release "The Devil's Orchard" and "Nepenthe." The medieval melodies of "Folklore" could pass for Gentle Giant or early Genesis , and there's mellotron all over the place on the moodier "I Feel The Dark." The bizzare, psychedelic "Famine" drops in some exotic instrumentation, including Afro-Cuban flavored percussion from Weather Report alumnus Alex Acuna and even a goddamn flute solo that gave me very unwelcome Jethro Tull flashbacks. All this coupled to a warm production quality with deliciously smooth low-end worlds away from the common sterile and overcompressed digital sound of new releases lends this album a very retro, analog feel.

That's the problem, really--Heritage rarely rises above more than mere homage to Mikael's musical idols, and even when that vision is executed competently it has little else to say. At best, this could be the work of an anonymous neo-prog band; and at worst, like in "Famine" and "Nepenthe" it feels like a disjointed jam session. The only track that I find entirely successful and not a stale rehash is "The Lines In My Hand": a surprisingly concise, driving and well-executed song that comes in a tidy 3:48, features some nice Spanish guitar alongside great throbbing basslines and would've made a superb single if Opeth was inclined to do such plebeian things. Most of the old transitions and shading, Opeth's biggest selling point, are gone and in its place is a steady undynamic flatline. They try to hide this fault with eclecticism and snazzier playing, but after listening to something as passionately stormy and foreboding as "Demon of The Fall," "Moonlapse Vertigo," or "By the Pain I See in Others" it becomes glaringly obvious.

Then there are the lyrics, which have notably degraded as Mikael's voice has gotten ever better. Since Ghost Reveries I'd noticed an uptick in their use of explicit Satanic references, a rather silly device that they never really resorted to in past albums. Most of that is fortunately gone in Heritage, but some truly hackneyed lines remain. Hearing Mikael drop clunkers like "God is dead!" in the chorus of "The Devil's Orchard" or "Feel the pain in your brain, insane" on "Folklore" in that newly scrubbed angelic intonation is just cringeworthy. It makes you wish for a dose of that insidious and darkly majestic growl to purge it from memory.

The saddest thing is that Opeth has already released a far, far superior prog album that's over seven years old and still sounds like Opeth--that album would be Damnation, and for all the spontaneous menstruation that release produced within the metalhead fraternity it remains a more emotive and convincing listen that anything Heritage has to offer. So while ultimately I respect Akerfeldt's vision and what he was trying to do here, if this is the vein that Mikael wants to pursue he needn't have dragged the name of his current band into it. Go start that joint Steven Wilson project I'm sure you've been waiting to do forever Mikael--maybe you'll stir ol' Steve out of his post-The Incident malaise. Or, y'know, fold Opeth and go solo like many brave metal vocalists that have gone before, abandoning the old expectations entirely.

But Heritage, from the doofy cover art (seriously, look at it) to the light and inconsequential music, remains one thing my inner fanboy wishes I'd never have to call an Opeth album--a misfire.

-SJ

Dir en Grey- Dum Spiro Spero

August 3, 2011; Firewall/The End
http://www.direngrey.co.jp/english/e-information.html

Dir en Grey are a hard lot to pigeonhole. Formerly one of the establishing bands of the visual kei scene in Japan, a subgenre defined by flamboyant (some would say downright fruity) dress as much as the distinctly Japanese mishmash of post-hardcore, goth balladry and metal most of those largely mediocre bands play, Dir en Grey have since expanded to Western shores and have gradually evolved into something distinctly different and far better. They are often unfairly shoved into the Hot Topic/nu-metal/metalcore ghetto for their dramatic (at times bordering on overwrought) and bleak lyrical imagery and videos, or more recently dubbed as pandering sellouts by many of the fickle J-fetishists who originally popularized them here for their more metallic stylings starting with the 2003 album Vulgar.

All this static aside, Dir en Grey are unusually popular for a foreign-language band in the U.S., and they make pretty damn good albums to support that popularity. Dum Spiro Spero is one of them, continuing the development into transcendent sonic juggernaut began by its predecessor Uroboros while possessing its own darker, thornier and more complex nature.

From the eerie minor-key piano and disturbingly hellish distortion of intro "Kyoukotsu no Nari," a direct antipode of Uroboros' "Sa Bir," this intention is announced pretty early on--and then it launches into "The Blossoming Beezlebub," which sounds like nothing else prior from this band. Superhuman frontman Kyo displays the full extent of his vocal range here, from choir-like, barely lucid chants to a freakish shriek and strangled moans over dark, sinuous guitar melodies courtesy of adept duo Kaoru and Die, all rendered with a washed-out, nightmarish mix. It feels far shorter than a seven-minute song has any right to.

I was initially somewhat disappointed with following track and single "Different Sense"--it begins much like a fairly average deathcore song, right down to Kyo's new deep gurgling vox, blastbeats, and even full-blown guitar hero solos (a first for this band)--yet by the middle it has evolved into a "typical" Dir en Grey sound, with the powerful soaring vocals fans have come to expect. It breaks interesting new territory for the band, even if it seems a little derivative on first blush. Both "Juuyoku" and ""Yokusou ni Dreambox" Aruiwa Seijuku no Rinen to Tsumetai Ame" (don't ask me to translate that) are more successful, the latter a miasma of churning midpaced sections punctuated by eccentric thrashing breaks with Kyo once again going fucking nuts. Anyone that can draw frequent comparisons to Mike Patton is doing something very right. "Lotus," the other major single, is a traditional Dir en Grey ballad filtered through their latter-day sophistication--among the best they've done in that style, and one of the few tracks on here that clearly falls into such easy labeling.

Then there is "Diabolos," the token schizo epic in the vein of the previous album's "Vinushka" or Macabre's title track (still one of the best things they've ever done), and while it's a strong track I don't think it quite makes it to that esteemed level. It isn't formulaic by any means, but other than a few new vocal turns and a beautiful, shimmering section close to the end it doesn't feel especially innovative. Still even an "average" DEG epic shits on most bands, and "Diabolos" hardly impairs the momentum of the album. After a few quicker, thrashing numbers that somewhat blend together, the last two tracks end Dum Spiro Spero very strongly--the somber and gorgeous "Vanitas," and "Ruten no Tou" which effortlessly blends soaring choruses, creeping verses, some blasting sections and a stunning outro in a way that makes it more representative than anything else on the album and would've made the most logical single in my estimation.

Bottom line, Dum Spiro Spero is another solid entry in DEG's growing oeuvre, and if it falls short of the excellent Uroboros in accessibility and standout tracks, its uniquely murky and cryptic ambience and full embrace of metal influences combined with the darker, heavier feel of earlier albums like Vulgar and Marrow of A Bone make it an inevitable grower and show that the band is committed to the experimental path they've forged for themselves. At this rate their future material promises to be something to behold, and here's to hoping that next time it doesn't take three goddamn years to drop.

-SJ

Harmonium-Si on avait besoin d'une cinquième saison

1975; Polygram(defunct)

(Hey folks-it's been a while since I've reviewed something-2011 hasn't been blowing me away and I haven't talked about progressive rock in a while-so I decided to put up this review of one of my favorite prog albums from back in the day. This appeared slightly earlier on progarchives.com, and while I don't think anyone who reads this blog visits that site, I felt it was best to tell you just so you don't think somebody else ganked this if you ever wander across it on Google or something. Also, this one might be changed slightly for language and grammar and whatnot. Enjoy!)

Si On Avait Besoin D'une Cinquieme Saison, besides having one of the hardest-to-type titles of all time for non-native French speakers, is the rare album that deserves its lofty reputation and more, a work that is all at once grand, sweeping, warm and intimate. Virtually unknown outside of its native country of Quebec and hardcore prog circles, it is without question one of the most overlooked albums of the '70s and a triumph for folk music as well as of progressive rock.

Harmonium takes the folk elements of a group like Simon and Garfunkel and distills the weepiness from it, adding shades of jazz as well as symphonic elements that are fittingly august but tasteful and nuanced, leaving music that is emotionally charged but never overwrought or pitiful. Saison is a record that is truly joyful in places, with a coat of melancholy that keeps the experience layered.

More than that, it is an album that feels strangely private, like the band is putting on a special concert just for you. The vocals are often borderline whispered and even at its most grand the lack of percussion leaves the album feeling oddly compressed, as though it were composed in an open field but preformed in a small room. It leaves the music with a wistful quality that's hard to describe: The music feels like it was made to be bigger than the album that contains it, so instead of merely bursting to get out it scales itself back and translates all of its drama and glory into a form that's more easily expressed for recorded musical purposes. The effect is often nothing short of magical.

Speaking of magical, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the album's centerpiece, and Harmonium's magnum opus as a band, the side-length "Histoires Sans Paroles," or "History Without Words." It's an apt title as the song proves to be a mesmerizing instrumental work, immaculately composed and lushly preformed, something akin to Pink Floyd's "Echoes" as played by Nick Drake. Cosmic yet pastoral, harrowing and somehow comforting at the same time, the song is one of contemporary music's most overlooked epics and the quickest 17 minutes of your entire life.

In a pair of genres rife with unambitious groups who are content to ceaselessly mimic their inspirations, Saison is the rare progressive rock album that is as beloved by diehards as it is by the casual listeners who stumble upon it; it's a testament to the creativity and innovation that can inhabit both the progressive and folk genres simultaneously, an olive branch between complexity and emotional resonance, and a heartwarming work that quiets troubled souls and puts worries at ease even as it supplies a stage for its own enthralling emotional ride. It's the musical equivalent of a soft kiss and it's an album that nobody who desires a balanced music collection can afford to miss out on.

-CJ

1,2,3 - New Heaven

2011; Frenchkiss Records; Pittsburgh, PA

123land.net

I think it would be apt to discuss how I came upon 1,2,3 and their debut LP “New Heaven” before I really dig into the record. It was late, I was a little bit high, and I happened to be hanging out in a turntable.fm room hosted by The Antlers. There I sat, nervous and just a bit sweaty, keenly aware that I was chatting (oh so casually) with two of my favorite musicians, and getting a first hand taste of their respective music collections. The room, as far as I could tell, consisted of Peter Silberman (the Antlers’ frontman) Darby Cicci (their keyboardist) a Frenchkiss Records staffer, an odd assortment of fans and lurkers, and Holly Miranda who popped in and out sporadically. Count me old-fashioned, but none of this felt right to me at the time- like the rest of us of course, I’ve become accustomed to the internet’s slow euthanization of pop-stardom, but this, this direct contact, made me feel predominantly… queasy.

Seven odd years ago when I first downloaded The Shins’ “Chutes Too Narrow” from Limewire (and subsequently launched my first flat-out band mania) I never imagined that via the internet I would one day interact so flippantly, so casually, with one of my favorite bands. The whole Antlers thing felt so run of the mill, so banal, that in retrospect, it was almost boring- that’s not how the prospect of meeting and greeting my idols used to feel. When I think about just how normal and how boring the whole thing really was, I feel a very palpable malaise, and I’ve since lapsed into a spell of cynicism with regards to the pop music, and the popstar-killing blog culture that surrounds and defines it.

Putting aside the distress that this whole phenomenon has caused me (and the difficulty of reconciling the Antler’s extraordinary music with the reality of their overwhelmingly ordinary lives) it’s worth saying that it was in this very turntable.fm chatroom that I first encountered 1,2,3’s absolutely infectious single “Confetti.” And so I promptly opened a new tab, and quickly discovered two things: a name like 1,2,3 is infuriatingly “un-googlable” and 1,2,3’s “New Heaven” is a deliberate, cohesive, more-than-impressive debut LP that has me convinced of band’s talent. In my mind, good pop music should do a number of things: it should establish a new, unique voice that’s at once recognizable but inimitable, it should be simple enough to hook you within a listen or two but complex enough to take on a new character with each new listen, and it should have lyrical focus and depth that’s at once nuanced and general. 1,2,3 hits the mark on all counts.

Let’s not pretend for the sake of “journalistic integrity” that I didn’t glance over several reviews of “New Heaven” before sitting down to write this piece- especially today, when online critical outlets posses the eminent ability to make a band likable (more so, arguably, than bands posses themselves) critical reception is fair game for criticism. Pitchfork’s Ian Cohen writes of “New Heaven” “it's pure populism down to their lyrical concerns: girls, drinking, or being broke as fuck…” The drinking, the girls, the poverty- it’s all there, but its not as general, or as trendy sounding as Cohen would have you believe. It all feels real- everything on “New Heaven” rings true, as Snyder’s lyrical style deftly blends a gentle wit with keen observation, a bit of paranoia, a fear of stagnation and finally, cautious optimism. Most importantly, the record’s lyrics convey a clear and direct sense of uncertainty that lucidly elaborates the paradoxes of blog-pop, and displays an understanding of personal insignificance that is rarely- rarely- coupled with such satisfying pop music. At its best, the lyrical style of “New Heaven” seems to articulate exactly how it feels to be both a mostly unknown musician, and a bored, confused kid. The nuance of the lyrics, which require a bit of effort to pick out (especially because none of 1,2,3’s lyrics are available online [a rare thing, these days]) will not be lost on any aspiring musicians.

And that’s just the thing- the ears to which New Heaven will probably find its way, will largely belong, I predict, to aspiring pop musicians and/or critcs- it’s funny, but doesn’t it feel like that’s the way it goes these days? As pop music become easier and easier to make, produce and share, the people who really enjoy pop music are making it themselves, and sharing it, and for the most part its not half bad. So as the internet democratizes the sharing process, records like “New Heaven” seem to get lost in the noise; but it feels like 1,2,3 realizes all of this, and accepts it, and as a result, the record is infused with a knowing sadness, a kind of heavy shrug, that’s truly surprising and delightful. I count New Heaven among the best LPs of 2011 so far.

Tyler, the Creator - Goblin

2011; XL Recordings; Los Angeles, CA

oddfuture.com

Held up to his peers in the hip-hop world Tyler is a wimp. He talks extensively about his feelings, his unrequited love interest, jacking off, how he cuts himself, contemplates suicide, how he hates school, his missing dad. He appears on every single other indie music website, favorably or otherwise. White people may hate him, but white kids love him. He's skinny, wears skinny jeans, high socks, listens to Arial Pink, supports an off kilter fashion sense and green hats, talks about his asthma, plays piano, and hands out cupcakes to anti-violence organizations at Pitchfork Fest. He apologizes, acknowledges critics, adds disclaimers, talks to therapists. He breaks character as much as he has character in the first place. He has a tendency to swear on his life that he's a fucking unicorn.

Held up to his indie music peers (Goblin dropped on the same label as The XX, Vampire Weekend, Radiohead, M.I.A., Dizzee Rascal, and more), he's immature. He sports punk passion, minus the punk ethics, that went out of style with Nirvana, and shock tactics unseen and unwanted since the Butthole Surfers. His calling card, along with the rest of Odd Future, is the childish "Kill People, Burn Shit, Fuck School" and screams of "Swag". He his emotional self indulgence places him, in many's minds, alongside Insane Clown Posse. He has wild violent fantasies, and a heavy irresponsible streak, "I want to see a fucking mosh pit tonight. Fuck security. I don't give a fuck!"

Held up to normal human being standards, he's disgusting. He focuses his lyrics mostly on misogyny, date rape, ultraviolence, murderous rape, casual homophobia, and rape. He speculates about killing, in order, women of all sorts, his mother, any other authority figure, 2dopeboyz, Jesus, B.o.B., Bruno Mars, his friends, himself, and you. He pops Xanax like it's Tylenol and drops the term "faggot" more often than he drops the word "the".

He's also the only complete person in music today. And one of the only complete people in music ever, period. It always baffles me how we beg for multi-faceted characters in movies and one dimensional characters in real life. Pusha T is never gonna show the kind of internal conflict that Tyler does, and for good reason, he'd be laughed off stage. We want him to be one thing, one mood, a commodity that we can put on and always know what we're gonna get. But Tyler is a real person, and he doesn't censer himself. There's no real act. He's a fucked up kid so he writes lyrics about destroying everything, about rape and murder, but it also crosses his mind about how fucked up that is, and so that goes in the lyrics as well. And more often than not, especially on the title track "Goblin" you find yourself wandering around in Tyler's head, even more so than on "Bastard" before it, seeing everything that's going on. He snaps with incredible ease between his violent fantasy world, and the real world of girls that don't want him and critics coming down on his head and deep seeded depression. The man's fighting all the time.

And of course there's always a flip side with him, he is, famously, "A FUCKING WALKING PARADOX." And the flip side is that, despite all his emotional problems that bring this about, he is really fucking angry. Really fucking angry. At everything. And I can legitimize this through the rock cannon, site the Sex Pistols and Minor Threat and Fight Club and No Children and Doin' The Cockroach, but that would be backwards. Tyler is young and wants to burn down the fucking world, and no matter how immature that is, there is something vitally important in it being expressed. And he does it here in such an honestly fiercely angry way, the likes of which have been unseen in over a decade.

Now of the particulars of the album? Tyler consistently shows himself to be an incredible producer, creating thick ambient atmosphere to circle his off kilter beats over. And truly there are some incredible tracks. Surly you've already listened to the immaculate Yonkers, and if you haven't I urge you to run out and watch the video immediately. But there are downs to the album, you've probably heard already. It drops in the middle, with useless cuts like "Boppin Bitch" and "Fish" and sometimes it feels like the album as a whole has a hard time staying together. Bastard remains the better album. This is shit I would surly get on any rock band's case for, but here it hardly matters.

I often argue with people about the difference between skill and value, and truly a quick scan through every major genre of music will give you scores of people talented enough to do anything well, who just set out to the wrong goal. And doing crap with a high level of craft and skill is still crap. With Tyler the opposite persists, what he's trying to do is so novel and worthwhile that the fact that the album is poorly put together is almost a small technicality.

Goblin ain't an easy listen. It's not beautiful or quietly powerful or strained and moving. It's not a party album, and while it is fun, it's fun in a horrible, detestable way. It's not mature or melodically interesting. It's certainly not badass. But it's the most real and important thing out there right now.

Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight

2008; Fat Cat Records; Glasgow, Scotland

frightenedrabbit.com

"Is that you in front of me, coming back for even more of exactly the same?" sings Scott Hutchison on the leading track of the album. "You must be a masochist."

Is this indie pop? I've been wondering. Because there's nothing beautiful. There's nothing that could end Frightened Rabbit along side late decade main examples Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, and of Montreal. There's nothing beautiful. This is not music for warm days lying on the grass with your girlfriend. There's nothing cute.

And I don't want to spew rhetoric here, but sometimes there's nothing else you can do. Frightened Rabbit have a way of turning every instrument into percussion, mimicking the hard beating heart of the singer, wishing himself death and ruin. Trying to rip his arms off. Begging girls to leave him and declaring war. Hutchison sings with such a desperate calmness, like the pursued in a foot chase, pausing for half a second to choose witch way to run. Sure the songs are catchy but their more involved than that.

The music perhaps sets them alongside Los Campesinos, causing a cacophonous row using only indie pop techniques. But there's something about Frightened Rabbit, something about the modest and difficult honesty of the songs, or maybe it is just all based from Hutchison's delivery, but

It's hard to separate this album from your life. Its hard to look at this music. It seems almost self evident, part of the street outside, of the furnishing of your house, something thats there, undeniably, that's true without you trying to make it so. It should be so hard to listen to but it's just so easy. Something that's just part of life. That's what these songs are.

Bibio-Mind Bokeh

Whenever I listen to a Bibio album I always imagine that I must be experiencing something similar to raising a child: I'm constantly being let down, and I never know if it's my problem or his. On Ambivalence Avenue every polished, enjoyable electropop ditty was followed by a minute or more of sub-Eno ambient nonsense, with catchy dubstep ragers sandwiching unbearably precious folk excursions that made Moldy Peaches sound like Napalm Death. It was like a Crackerjack box that came with a toy whistle as well as a free scorpion: Equal parts delightful, useless and baffling. Mind Bokeh tightens things up a bit, and while its individual moments don't stand up with Bibio's best, none of it made me want to call Stephen Wilkinson and ask him what the hell he was thinking, which I suppose is a step up.

Be advised, there are still a handful of actively bad choices here. "Pretentious" wastes a solid minute of your time with a Roxy Music-ish saxophone solo tacked on at the end and "Excuses" begins with 1:30 of bass-y ambient warbling. You'd be forgiven for thinking that Wilkinson was up to his old shit just based off the first two tracks, and in truth the more annoying elements of his music never leave entirely. But things pick up with "Anything New", which is sort of like what you would imagine Passion Pit to sound like if somebody controlled those dudes' sugar intake, and "Wake Up!" has a grooving, psychedelic vibe that carries Mind Bokeh's relatively mellow vibes to the end. It's a largely conventional electropop album throughout that pleases at most every turn but never manages to excite or even really raise the listener's interest above passivity.

While consistent, standout moments are few and far between-"K is For Kelson" is the closest this album has to a breakout hit, and "Artists' Valley" starts out in a far more interesting place than it ends up-it doesn't devolve into total idiocy like "Haiku(When She Laughs)" did on Ambivalence Avenue, but one can't help but feel that Wilkinson wasted something with this song. "Take Off Your Shirt" is memorable, in that stupid-but-inoffensive way that a lot of indie pop is these days, and the rest of Mind Bokeh strolls to the album's 52 minute end time without leaving much of an impression at all. One gets the feeling that Wilkinson wanted to make a breakout pop hit, but he also wanted to keep a lot of his trademark bullshit in an attempt to remain true to his own artistic values, misguided as they may be. What you end up with is an indie pop album that forgot to shave mixed with an "experimental" album that doesn't seem like it wants to be there at all. It's an album that can't decide what to do and as such simply chooses to do nothing, and while that's less infuriating than an album that takes insane chances and misses about 1 in 3 of them, it's also far, far less interesting and doesn't serve as much beyond background music.

Wilkinson, at this point, needs to shit or get off the pot. He can be the next Phoenix and grab a comfy spot at the next Outside Lands festival or he can keep playing with his folk/ambient/funk toys and keep the core audience of weirdos who appreciate that horseradish, but he clearly, clearly can't do both. His Pop sensibilities preclude his Everything Else sensibilities, and vice versa, and that makes Mind Bokeh a consistently vague record with little of interest to offer any part of his potential, or even established, fanbase. Electronica is a crowded house right now, and if Bibio wants to stay on the radar he's going to have to pick a strength to play or fade into the mass. As a music listener, it's already hard enough to make up your mind on what to listen to; why waste time on an artist who can't even make up his own?

-CJ

A Token of My Extreme: Dälek- Absence (2004)

Ipecac Recordings; September 7, 2004
http://www.deadverse.com/

It may seem hard to believe these days, but hip-hop at its roots is a very experimental artform that flirted with the avant garde pretty early on. Proto-rappers The Last Poets had both controversial Afrocentric perspectives and strong jazz inclinations. Afrika Bambataa's "Planet Rock" was built on a sample from German electro-pioneers Kraftwerk. The Bomb Squad production of Public Enemy's greatest records owes just as much to skronking, astringent horn and sax squeals as it does to funk and rock rhythms. The Beastie Boys opus Paul's Boutique had a kaleidoscopic, pop culture-mashing production courtesy of the Dust Brothers that was postmodern almost before such a thing existed. Most Native Tongues-era groups heavily used jazz and house elements in their palette. Even as late as the early to mid '90s, producers like RZA and Prince Paul were finding clever uses for dissonant textures that took nothing away from their ability to create straight bangers.

And then the gangsta rap revolution and East/West rivalry boomed along with the rise of the Dirty South and mainstream rap settled into a sort of general stagnation, chained to too-smooth G-Funk and the outright lazy sampling of Puff Daddy/Diddy/whatever the fuck that shiny suit calls himself now, followed by crunk, Swizz Beatz, hyphy, Neptunes and Kanye. At the risk of sounding like some idiot backpacker, nowadays finding a truly creative hip-hop album is a task akin to picking diamonds out of elephant shit. White-boy indie rap often isn't much better than its flossin' radio counterpart, what with its necrophilia of hip-hop's good ol' days in lieu of anything original, or deliberate obscurity and wordiness to mask a lack of quality beats and energy.

From this middling and staid scene, Dalek (sorry, stupid keyboard won't let me make omlaut) is a NJ duo with music that rips the pretenders apart like a giant chainsaw. Lying in a strange no-mans-land between avant garde industrial, hip-hop and metal, they are probably one of the few (if not only) hip-hop groups that could get away with touring and even collaborating with the likes of Isis, Faust, The Melvins, and Godflesh without sounding entirely out of their depth. With MC dalek's intense Afro-conscious lyrics and very, very angry yet eloquent delivery plus Oktopus' devastating combination of traditional hip-hop drum and bass with what can only be described as Shoegaze From Hell, there hasn't been anything in the genre as urgent and bruising as Absence in a long time. This blows away even the similarly abrasive production jobs of underground god El-P, who is otherwise probably Dalek's closest sonic analogue. And yes they build that shit themselves--little to no sampling involved. Perfect for all the irrelevant rockist tards who love to dismiss the genre out of hand for its assumed "lack of musical talent."

The album begins with the six-minute fusillade "Distorted Prose," which rises from an impressive a capella intro (this guy can spit, no doubt) into a massive jet engine roar and later complemented by some thoroughly ill scratching from collaborator Still. It crashes to a shuddering stop and you're given a few precious seconds to catch your breath, a perfect summation of the overarching sonic violence barely contained throughout the album.

"Asylum (Permanent Underclass)" paints a brutally dystopic picture of blacks thrown to the wolves of American capitalism and the police state and unlike most similarly conscious hip-hop artists the backdrop matches the bleakness of its subject matter, with a pounding time change around the 3'30" mark. "Culture For Dollars" offers probably the catchiest chorus in the entire album ("Who trades culture for dollars?/The fool or the scholar/Griot, poet, or white collar?") and is one of the few tracks where Dalek's able rapping isn't nearly swallowed up by the oppressive din--probably the most accessible offering here along with the similar "Ever Somber." The title track's spacey interlude is followed by the tense and appropriately titled "A Beast Caged" and the nearly eight minute epic "In Midst of Struggle." The vicious clamor of "Eyes To Form Shadows" calls to mind a hip-hop Sonic Youth, dalek railing against walls of distortion and feedback between the wailing siren sonics that accompany the verses.

Absence is a focused, monolithic death machine, mostly for the better. Its only downside is that 57 minutes of grinding hip-hop colossus with not too much variation aside from the title track and similar instrumental "Koner" can get overwhelming, as can MC dalek's streams of agitprop--subtlety is not their strong suit here, and their later works are a bit better in this regard. But if you're reading this column I doubt you're looking for subtlety anyway. Bottom line, this is perfect hip-hop for jaded heads and adventurous metal/industrial lovers alike, and carries on the original pioneering spirit of the form without ever bending to B-boy anachronism (Jurassic 5, I'm looking at you).

Translation:

This album inhabits an interesting position, with enough hip-hop in it to not be immediately likeable by rap-metal dudebros (Rage Against The Machine this is not) or straight metalheads, while more mainstream oriented hip-hop heads might balk at the general aesthetic and rejection of conventions such as guest rappers and emphasis on voice. A healthy selection of Definitive Jux-related artists (El-P, Cannibal Ox, Mr Lif etc.) would probably be a good starting point for the uninitiated coming from the rap side.

It's also worth mentioning that the aggro-hop group Techno Animal (a collaboration with Godflesh/Jesu's Justin Broadrick) and their best album Brotherhood of The Bomb is very, very similar and definitely a good listen for anyone into this.

-SJ

Sufjan Stevens - The Age Of Adz

2010; Asthmatic Kitty Records; Detroit, MI

www.sufjan.com

Why don't I like Sufjan Stevens? Where do I start? His obnoxious cutesyness. His almost forced seeming sentimentality. His stupid fucking state project that only went two albums. His devotion to writing songs about Jesus. The tendency for the worst of the self-conscious and pandering to pick up ukuleles at parties and play Casimir Pulaski Day. As a man who loves indie-pop, to me Sufjan represents everything wrong with the genre.

Ok, calm down a minute. When I look back and examine, I suppose I never really listened to the guy, never thought it wise to give him a chance. Perhaps this distaste was just an extension of my doucheyness, perhaps it was just the idea of Sufjan Stevens that I hated. Besides, he is good friends with The National, and often makes subtle appearances on their albums (he played piano twice on Boxer). Nonetheless, to this day my perception hasn't changed. The thought of giving Michigan a spin seems so unappealing to me, I've never been able to bring myself past it.

And then he lost his mind. And the same girls at parties started telling me about his crap new album, his entry into techno pop and all sorts of other wild stories. And now I guess I'm a Sufjan Stevens fan.

Though perhaps he hadn't lost his mind. Perhaps it had just come to this. And certainly it fits in well as the fourth piece of the "party like the world is fucked because the world is fucked" mantra of 2010. And even though he retains his earnest-as-fuck delivery there is some real violence to these tracks. To the explosive choruses of "I want it all, I want it all to myself!" and the sensory overload of the title track. His gratuitous use of odd unfocused beats and auto-tune comes off as almost a Dylan-like fuck you to fans. This is self indulgence to the peak, this is the guy at the party falling over himself at a party after too much alcohol and too many failed romances and not giving a shit about anyone anymore.

But really, and I hate to admit it, the songwriting carries the album. Maybe it's that the party atmosphere let him get past the overwrought sentimentality that plagues the worst indie-pop, I don't know. Because when it comes down to it, these songs are sentimental. They are personal and trying and emotionally charged. Yet it doesn't get me down. It doesn't bug me the same way Casimir Pulaski Day does. It feels almost calmly honest, stated in a "this is just the way it is" affect, even over the apocalyptic instrumental whirlwinds. There's nothing precious about it anymore. Even the love song over finger picking and piano is just light and undramatic, nervously subtle.

But I'm still never listening to Michigan.

no i don't want to feel pain

Guest Review! Avril Lavigne-Goodbye Lullaby

[We're a pretty diverse bunch of reviewers over here at Styrofoam Boots, but it's not unfair to say that there are at least a few genres we don't(or won't) cover, teenybopper pop chief among them. That's where this installment's special guest reviewer, Charlie George, comes in. Drawing parallels to Ricky Bobby in having two first names, Charlie is an all-American teenager who loves Captain Beefheart and Electric Wizard as much as he does Alanis Morisette and Demi Lovato. Today he charges through the latter end of the spectrum and tells us why Avril Lavigne's latest is actually a damn good album. Personally, I think it's a very compelling review and an interesting take on an album I would otherwise have no interest in. Hopefully you'll agree by the time you finish reading. Take it away, Charlie!-CJ]

Celebrity gossip has always been frowned upon in my family. My parents have always held the belief that, since they'd probably get divorced after giving each other STD's anyway, there's no sane reason to keep up with, lets say, an actress's love life. But when Avril Lavigne, an artist who I've adored since second grade, was getting married to Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley, I had a strange sense of hope that she wouldn't fall into the same trap as all the others. After all, Avril has never been your typical celebrity: At the beginning of her career, she was correctly labeled as the "anti-Britney", penning lyrics as charismatic as her seventeen-year-old vocabulary possibly could; and while her Radio Disney friends have foolishly looked to the future of autotune for their music, each of Avril's albums have been drenched with nineties influence, from Radiohead and Pearl Jam at best to Blink-182 at worst. If the bottom did fall through for them, I thought, I must've been wrong all these years thinking she was something special; I would have to drink the KoolAid and learn to put up with Lady Gaga ripoffs for the rest of my days.

Well, the bottom did end up falling through for Avril and Deryck, but not in the way I expected. While I thought that this breakup would expose Avril as the overdue Britney Spears wannabe that music publications have led millions to believe, it ended up showing the world (me, at least) how talented, tasteful, and kindhearted she's always been. The product of her turmoil, Goodbye Lullaby, doesn't contain a trace of autotune whatsoever; moreover, it doesn't rely nearly as much on singles as her predecessors, and is meant to be listened to in one sitting. In fact, this album isn't even a Jagged Little Pill: Deryck and Avril worked together on this masterpiece, creating what is essentially the Radio Disney equivalent of Blood on the Tracks or (GASP!!!!) Pet Sounds. But with Whibley at the helm here, there's a sense of synergy through the tracks not unlike the modern classic White Blood Cells from the White Stripes. If I can vaguely describe the magic found here today, I'll be more than happy with this review.

The first half of Goodbye Lullaby is fairly light, focusing on the joy and excitement of being in love. It starts out with the short-but-sweet "Black Star", which, despite it's original endorsement for her girly fragrances, is still easily applicable to Deryck.

Now, it's important to note that, even with this deep topic, Avril never once reaches a state of pretension. This is especially true of this happy first half, mixing sixties girlgroup harmonies and genuine pop hooks with F-bombs and stories of getting wasted. For this reason, people have scoffed at "What the Hell"'s overly-commercial presence so early into the album. But to me, this just shows that, whether overjoyed or remorseful, she's always willing to have a little fun. Plus, if you give the track a few listens, I promise it'll grow on you. Trust me.

One thing you'll also notice is a surprising level of hi-fi value throughout the record. Like a female Jeff Mangum, Avril's guitar-playing (yes, she plays it herself!) in every track is so organic, you can't help but smile. What she lacks in technical prowess she more than makes up in emotion through her instrument.

Anyway, the rest of side one goes very nicely, with little to no filler. "Push" hints at the turmoil in their relationship, stating that "Even when it gets tough... Baby this is love". At the same time, it (along with several other cuts here) has a sound just like her debut album Let Go. But it's the much more solemn second half where Avril really reaches a Wilson-calibur psyche. "Everybody Hurts" has Avril repeating that "it's OK", even though she knows it's not. Or, as Dylan would say, "something is happening and you don't know what it is; Do you, Mr. Whibley?"

And like any tragedy, it only gets more tragic as time goes on. "Darlin" was one of the first songs she ever wrote, but it seems hand-crafted for Goodbye Lullaby, with her singing "There's nothing Else I can do but love you the best that I can". But her somewhat-content acoustic strumming turns into absolute melancholy near the end of "Remember When". From the beginning of that song, you'd never expect it, with a simple Coldplay-esque piano riff. But around 2:15, Avril screams in a way that would make Clare Torry proud, finally admitting "That was then, now it's the end".

But not unlike Trent Reznor in The Downward Spiral, Avril still has something to say. The last track, "Goodbye", is truly her equivalent of "Hurt". But not only does she match the late Johnny Cash emotion-for-emotion, but she has the same optimistic look on her destruction: "I have to go, I have to go; I have to go, and leave you alone. But always know, always know, always know that I love you so."

Guys, along with being an astounding record on it's own, Goodbye Lullaby has taught me something I'll never forget. Even though I'm flooded with stories of celebrity breakups everyday, I must remember not to scoff at them. These "celebutards", as my family would say, may seem to have no artistic value at first, pronouncing David Bowie's name wrong and getting into trouble with DUI's. But we must never forget that they have feelings, too. Feelings that, as crazy as it sounds, can sometimes turn into masterpieces like this. Sure, most girly pop albums are just lowest-common-denominator trash, but Goodbye Lullaby isn't like that. It's truly one of the most magical albums of the year. Thank you, and I hope you get the chance to give this a listen.

A Token of My Extreme: The Residents- Third Reich 'N Roll (1976) & Eskimo (1979)

Ralph Records; February 1976, September 1979
http://www.myspace.com/theresidents

It could be argued that in a sense, The Residents aren't even a band so much as a bunch of like-minded weirdos. Their primary mission has always been Art with a capital A rather than just music per se. They don't have the chops of Zappa or the free jazz inclinations of Beefheart and others, or the po-mo genre salad approach of John Zorn or Mr. Bungle--hell to some listeners they barely qualify as musicians. Through their occasionally somewhat primitive methods and masked obnoxiousness, The Residents have always been about grand statements of oddity, proudly trumpeting the Theory of Obscurity--the less commercial, the better. They are self indulgent, and damn proud of it.

How self indulgent? Well, let's see--they made a recording in '74 appropriately titled Not Available that they locked away for almost five years, on purpose, with the concept that it would only be released after the members had forgotten about it. The group records under the moniker The Cryptic Corporation, and all of their live outings have been in costume (usually their classic eyeball masks)--to this day no one knows who the hell does what. The live shows themselves are chock full of insane props, multimedia showcases and elaborate stage production that would've made Peter Gabriel-era Genesis blush. Every single album they've realized since their official debut Meet The Residents (which almost got them sued by Capitol and EMI for the cover art) has been a conceptual work in some way or another. A three-sided album, forty tracks of one-minute mock ad jingles, a surrealist Elvis biography, live storytelling, suites about Bible characters? Yes to all of the above.

In light of all that the two albums featured here are probably the least strange entries in their oeuvre. All relative, of course.

The group's second release Third Reich N' Roll has one of the most iconic covers of all time--a young-ish Dick Clark in Nazi regalia holding a carrot, while crossdressing mini-Hitlers traipse all over the fluffy pink clouds behind him. The whole concept is a bit of silly musical Godwin, comparing the staid oldies of corporate radio to fascism but fuck, with a cover like that you have to wonder what's in store for the buyer of said vinyl. And this doesn't disappoint. Made up of two side-long suites ("Swastikas On Parade" and "Hitler Was A Vegetarian"), The Residents assembled covers of '60s and early '70s pop standards and then took a giant shit on them in the best possible way.

After a brief sample of the German-translated "Let's Twist Again" the album flies off into some kind of maniacal proto-industrial/punk/Krautrock/WTF concoction, the source material violated by a kitchen sink of toy instruments, garbled and bizarre vocals, evil minor-key synths and random sound effects to the point where they are only somewhat recognizable. Ever wanted to hear "A Horse With No Name" as a funeral march? It's here. A German version of "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag" with dying-animal trumpet bleats? Yup. "Yummy Yummy Yummy" warped into some Middle Eastern raga? Check. Also one of the weirdest versions of FM sacred cow "Light My Fire" you will ever hear, and a truly sublime mash-up of "Hey Jude/Sympathy For The Devil" that is a great payoff after almost forty minutes of total headfuck. On some versions of the album there's even a gloriously abrasive take on "(Can't Get No) Satisfaction" that predates the '77 punk boom by a year or so.

Eskimo might be even weirder, and sounds like nothing else they ever did. Here they abandon Western music signposts (or anything else really) and record forty minutes of tribal chants, synthesizers and the occasional homemade wind instrument in a tongue-in-cheek attempt to capture what Inuit life must've been like.

And despite the group's inherent goofiness--they couldn't resist inserting buried references to Coca-Cola and other things--they mostly succeed. Eskimo has a truly unsettling, cold and alien ambiance that no other artist or band could come close to, a couple decades of black metal and electronica recorded since then notwithstanding. Tracks like "The Walrus Hunt" and "The Angry Angakok" with their hypnotic gibberish chants along with the creepy sound effects could really wig a listener out under certain, uh, "conditions." At times Eskimo achieves an eerie splendor reminiscent of the better Brian Eno or Steven Roach albums, and the outro of "The Festival of Death" even manages to be sort of pretty, kind of an anomaly when it comes to The Residents but a nice retort to anyone who thinks they're just being weird and anti-musical for its own sake. And it all ends the same way it began--with the sound of freezing Arctic winds. You'd probably have to look to anthropological field recordings to get something more authentic, and even then it probably wouldn't be as subtly engrossing as this album.

Through their fifty year long career few groups have defined arty iconoclasm better than The Residents have, and while their embrace of kitsch may strike some listeners as a novelty their broad creative horizons place them in the same growing realms as other champions of the American avant-garde. Whether it's from the inspired amateurism of early period or their later adventures in the live medium, they truly embody forward-thinking artistry in an era where many pose as the real deal and fall way short.

Translation:

If you want to hear oldies spoofed in some truly twisted and sick ways Third Reich N' Roll comes pretty highly recommended, obviously. Fans of Krautrock (some parts I swear sound exactly like Can) and early industrial would probably really enjoy this as well.

Eskimo is a bit of a harder sell. Despite being highly regarded among Residents fans it's one of those "your mileage may vary" albums, especially if you haven't heard any of the more notable ambient artists (the aforementioned Eno and Roach, and others). Try some of that first and see if it grows on you before coming here.

-SJ

R&B Double Shot: Frank Ocean-Nostalgia/Ultra, The Weeknd-House of Balloons

If you had told me at the end of 2010 that 2011 would be an amazing year for R&B mixtapes, I would've responded, "Maybe, but I don't listen to R&B, so that doesn't really affect me one way or the other". Well, it turns out that I would've been wrong, had that prediction been posited to me to begin with, because I do listen to R&B now and it's largely because "free" and "excellent" are two amazing incentives when it comes to giving a genre a shot.

Frank Ocean's Nostalgia/Ultra came first, so it gets the first review. Best known as the only member of OFWGKTA to not be completely hyped on rape, Ocean's disinterest in sexual assault automatically positions him as the best member of the group to make a pleasant, catchy and sweet if occasionally dark collection of infectious pop tunes. Luckily, there are higher bars than "not a rapist" to be considered when crafting good R&B, and Ocean manages to hit mostly all of them.

There's a pervasive wit to Frank Ocean's debut that helps transition some of the lewder moments in the album into coming off less crass and pompous and more like a natural extension of Ocean's sardonic personality(a verse about how filming a porno makes him feel like Stanley Kubrick, capped with the line "This is some visionary shit"). Indeed, while the production can sometimes seem like it's not filling out the song as well as it could be, the mellow sparsity gives Ocean's songwriting a chance to shine as he shifts from juvenile comedy to buttery seduction and even occasionally unmistakable sorrow with the ease of an artist twice his age. Whether you're chuckling at "Rolling around like I'm driving to a funa, roll" or becoming genuinely uncomfortable at "Can't let these boys see me crying/'Cause they ain't had no fathers neither, and they ain't crying", most every song has a line that's going to stick in your head. Ocean is a true lyrical craftsman, painting the Casanova lifestyle as being as glamorous as it is soul-crushing while never painting himself as a rake or a crybaby.

The Weeknd's House of Balloons, then, exists on the absolute opposite of the spectrum. Lyrics aren't the important thing here-production is, and oh my dear God is this album's production a thing of beauty. As opposed to Ocean's warmth and pervasive humanity, The Weeknd is a sex machine from beyond the stars, seducing not with sweet nothings but cosmic rituals that draw you in and flatten you with their otherworldly strength. The opening track's assurance that "You'll wanna be high for this" turns out to be one of the greatest instances of truth in advertising in the entire year of 2011.

If Krautrock were ever to be played in a club, it would probably sound something like House of Balloons. Project mastermind Abel Tesfaye's throbbing, eerie synthesizer production makes one consider Tangerine Dream as produced by Timbaland(or, if you like, Massive Attack producing Chris Brown) and the spacey autotune settings only compound the sense that The Weeknd's love is a cold, subtle, violent thing. Dreamy space rock and dream pop aesthetics combine snarling bass and club-ready beats to create an experience entirely removed from all of its influences, and the raw libido of Tesfaye's lyrics combined with the sterilized intensity of his production create an alienating experience for the listener, bringing you into a world where sex seems as passionate as it does robotic. Frankly put, from a purely sonic standpoint, I've never heard anything like it, not to this degree.

It's fitting, then, that with Nostalgia/Ultra's focus on songwriting and House of Balloons' focus on production, that they would both have the flaws you would expect of them: Uninteresting beats in the former and stupid lyrics in the latter. Neither crop up terribly often, but they're both persistent enough to lower the quality of their respective albums.

Occasionally, The Weeknd will mention "bitches" and "real niggas", and while that's expected, even appropriate, for rappers with a streetwise image, when you're the Jon Anderson of your respective genre you might wish to consider dropping the tough guy act and just focus on getting laid. Unfortunately, it crops up often enough to be distracting from the magnificent aural aesthetics, and occasionally Tesfaye will drop the ball in ways that defy the imagination. I played "Wicked Games" for my boss and when, in a passionate falsetto, he belts out "Let me seeeeeee that aaaassssssss" as though all the world hinged on his request, neither of us could resist cracking up right then and there. (Which is a shame, because otherwise it's by far the best song on the album)

At least The Weeknd is distinctly doing his own thing, though. Near the end of Nostalgia/Ultra, Frank Ocean displays a spectacular degree of laziness that threatens to derail the entire work upon first listen. "American Wedding" is, simply put, Frank Ocean singing over "Hotel California". He changes the lyrics, but he intones every line nearly exactly the same as the original song and doesn't make any alterations whatsoever to the backing track- it's hard to keep your jaw from dropping as he lets the entire song run from start to finish, with no changes, even down to the guitar solo, which he doesn't sing over. No shit, when he does the exact same thing with MGMT's "Electric Feel" for the closing track you're less awed at his contempt for anything resembling production ingenuity in these final moments than you are just glad that the song doesn't have an instrumental interlude that Ocean will allow to wail on totally without input.

Don't let the fact that I've spent the last couple of paragraphs detailing the relative flaws of these two albums sour you on them, however. They're both spectacular works otherwise, and I have a feeling they're both going to be on my top 10 for 2011 by the time the year wraps up. With Nostalgia/Ultra's captivating lyricism and House of Balloons' incomparable production, they're both strong testaments to the respective strengths of their genre and are well worth having in the collection of anyone looking for smart, memorable, creative music in an otherwise rather dire year. As long as you're not expecting total perfection-and you really never should when you go out looking for music-you'll find a truly worthwhile pair of albums in Frank Ocean and The Weeknd's respective debuts, and all it'll cost you is space on your hard drive.

Download Nostalgia/Ultra here.

Download House of Balloons here.

-CJ

Bandcamp Roundup: Cheap/Free Doom Metal

With the recent releases of Indian's Guiltless and Witch Mountain's South of Salem I thought this would be a good time to give you the scoop on some of the free doom(or at least, doom-y) metal I've been downloading from Bandcamp. As you may know, Bandcamp is an incredible resource for wasting time and a surprising amount of unsigned bands that use the site are very talented. So without further ado, here's a list of doom bands/albums that you can scoop up with no damage to either your wallet or your conscience.

Dirty Knobs-Field Recordings From the Edge of Hell

Would you consider yourself a fan of avant-garde music? Maybe one who enjoys music that's somewhat intense, a bit off the beaten path? Well check this shit out, dude: Field Recordings From the Edge of Hell is Sunn O))) meets Arnold Schonberg meets My Bloody Valentine meets Skinny Puppy meets Nurse With Wound in an instrumental wall of sound that's as psychedelic and horrifying as it is beautiful. And how long is it, might you ask?

Eight hours.

This is men-from-the-boys material, folks, and if you think you're up to it the baseline price is only one dollar. Grab your nuts and pony up a buck for one of the most singular musical experiences you'll ever hear. It's a more-than-fair cost to hear evolution in the making.

Download Field Recordings From the Edge of Hell here.

Arms of Ra-Arms of Ra

Now this is the kind of thing I was really looking for when I first set out on my doomquest. Arms of Ra have made an E.P. that's as intense as it is sonically interesting, mixing the fury and at times even the technical elements of the Dilinger Escape Plan with the bold, sweeping riffs of early Isis. The guitarwork is as sharp as a knife and the rhythm section, though layered, slow and sludgy, betray a captivating complexity upon multiple listenings. Arms of Ra is a promising young band with the potential to uproot most of their contemporaries with the threat of a full length release. Most excellent.

Download Arms of Ra here.

KOLOSS-END OF THE CHAYOT

END OF THE CHAYOT (and yes, the album and band name is in all-caps) makes a pretty compelling case for why some people don't like post-metal. If you've heard a Neurosis album, or even a Mouth of the Architect album, you've heard more captivating versions of the songs KOLOSS attempts to carbon-copy. Some vaguely interesting guitar work can't make up for the fact that this band adds nothing to a scene that in many ways is rightfully accused of borrowing too much from itself. Weak.

Download END OF THE CHAYOT here.

Wizard Eye-Orbital Rites

Wizard Eye makes the exact type of music you'd expect a band called Wizard Eye to make, by which I mean it's extremely goofy and pretty kickass. The vocals sound way too close to Phil Ansemlo for comfort and in truth there's not much here you haven't heard before if you have even a casual relationship with stoner doom, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't fuckin' kick on several occasions and that it wasn't a pretty fun listen. Don't expect to have your mind blown and you might come out the end of this album having had a pretty swell time.

Download Orbital Rites here.

Cleansing the Damned-Cleansing the Damned

A little bit industrial, a little bit doom and a lot okay, Cleansing the Damned is an album that often comes out a bit cornier than it does despairing or scary. The growled vocals have absolutely no heft and the lyrics aren't so much tortured as they are wimpy. The best parts of this release are the total left turns, like the song "Stimuli", which is more or less a spoken-word piece set over a gnarly riff and a drum loop, and the closing, eleven minute instrumental. The mechanical parts work better than the death parts, and I think if this guy (as this is a one-man operation) focuses more on his industrial stuff his future releases will turn out a lot better. He's a good technician but can't pull off the emotional highs needed to drag us into his world.

Download Cleansing the Damned here.

Tempest-Passages

Agalloch is listed on Wikipedia as being "doom", and while I find that patently absurd I guess that if Agalloch can be considered to have doom elements Tempest can too. Passages is an intriguing mix of black metal vocals and huge, swirling riffs that come roaring out the gates with refreshing intensity. This is a band that was born to make a 15-minute opus, but the crust punk trappings on some of the songs, while great for energy, hold Tempest back from being the epic endeavor they should be. For a debut E.P., though? Pretty frickin' great.

Download Passages here.

Are you an artist who uses Bandcamp? Do you release your stuff for cheap, free or Name Your Price? No matter the genre, send me an email and I'll do my best to give you a review worthy of the time you spent making and distributing your work for little cost. If you're a Bandcamp artist who'd like to see your music reviewed on Styrofoam Boots, hit me up at chrismichaeljones@gmail.com and I'll give your stuff a listen.

-CJ