BBC’s Radio 1 premiered another new Fleet Foxes song set to appear on their forthcoming album Helplessness Blues. It’s not quite the warm, sprawling title track released a month ago, but further establishes that Helplessness Blues will be more of the same good old folk that made everyone fall in love with their debut album. I’m usually one to criticize a stagnant sound, but personally, I’ll never tire of Robin Pecknold’s voice.
First off, let me apologise for the title: this isn’t the new DragonForce material you’ve all been eagerly awaiting.
It is, however, the UK power metal band’s Guitar Hero-fuelled hit ‘Through the Fire and the Flames’ limberly transposed to the marimba, with a little extra percussion courtesy of the boxy hitty thing that’s just out of picture but is eagerly fingered by the short-sighted man in the orange beanie.
With Activision having taken decision to end its Guitar Hero franchise, could Rock Band‘s next move be to corner the fake music market completely with a marimba upgrade? There’s no evidence to suggest that they will, but nor is there evidence to suggest they’ve ruled it out completely, so we’re going to have to file this one under probably.
I write this blog with one arm pinned behind my back.
That’s not the premise of some crazy St. Patrick’s Day drinking game. I’ve a trapped nerve in my neck and it really fucking hurts, and this is the only way I can relieve the pain and function with some level of normality. This is inconvenient in multi-fold ways: it’s the festive season, I have lots of writing do and (as previously discussed) it really fucking hurts. Yet I couldn’t let my ancestor’s (I know priests are nominally celibate, but then as now they were randy fuckers, one and all) feast day pass by without comment.
With the possible exception of the Jewish people, there is no nation that has relied as much on emigration and the diaspora to shape its traditions, and what we now know as St. Patrick’s Day is inextricably linked to the experiences of Irish emigrants across the world, particularly in the United States. More than that, Irish culture in general – and music in particular – has fed back and forth into American folk tradition for almost as long as the free world has been populated by we vulgar Europeans.
While the standard picture of Irish emigration has always been of the poor, tattered masses making their way across the ocean on “coffin ships,” the reality has always been more complicated. During the US Civil War, Ireland was an active recruiting ground for both the Union and Confederate armies, with almost 200,000 Irish taking…
It’s odd, as a journalist, to interview someone you’ve known for nearly a decade.
I’ve known Rody Walker in some capacity since I was 14. Two years older than me, Rody was the long-haired, shredded jean-wearing frontman of Ontario’s fastest growing punk band. It was 2003 and Protest the Hero, formerly Happy Go Lucky, were riding the momentum of their first real release A Calculated Use of Sound. Sure, Search for the Truth existed, and yes, “Silent Genocide” defined my teen years, but it’s a release everyone, the band included, discarded pretty quickly once ACUoS came out.
For a lot of angst-ridden Southern Ontario teens their EP was the shit. It had it all—verbosity, technicality and political eccentricity. Drummer Moe Carlson free-flowed in a way he hasn’t since, and Rody’s passionate if shrill delivery caused many of us to lose our voices at their frequent gigs.
I was 14 when all this happened. Rody was 16. I’m closing on 23, Rody on 25, and Scurrilous, the band’s third full length, is the first time his name’s been on a lyric sheet since. Understanding Rody’s lyrics means understanding Rody, and for some that’s not easy. The reason for this intro, as long-winded as it seems, is to preface such an understanding.
Ever since Kezia came out, Rody’s been known as the loud-mouth of the band, with good reason–he is, after all,…
A brand new National song has found it’s way onto the internet, with a particularly special premise for the seasoned slow-burning indie rockers; “Think You Can Wait” is the first song the band has written specifically for a film. Win Win is Tom McCarthy’s latest feature following 2003’s The Station Agent and 2008’s The Visitor (excellent films, I might add), as well as writing credits for Pixar’s Up, and it’s been getting a great reception on the festival circuit, including the currently underway SXSW. Starring Paul Giamatti and Jeffrey Tambor, amongst others, the film follows Mike Flaherty (Giamatti), an attorney, high school wrestling coach, and all-around sad sack, who uncovers a wrestling prodigy, only for the boy’s mother to turn up, from rehab and without a penny, and threaten to dismantle everything.
“Think You Can Wait”, which plays through the credits, is a moving, pensive song that seems to float along as gracefully as we’ve come to expect of the band, on the back of Berninger’s rich baritone and typically understated instrumentation and string arrangements. It’s a song that tucks in nicely between “Lemonworld” and “Runaway”, off their hugely-acclaimed 2010 release High Violet, though as a whole burns more in tune with the mood of 2007’s Boxer. “I’m out of my mind / think you can wait?”, Berninger wonders broodingly in the enigmatic lyrical style that, over the course of five LP’s, has carved itself into its own comfortable, idiomatic niche and as he wallows, “I’m trying / but…
If that headline got you clicking, you either already know what follows or you just want to know what could possibly bring these three popular British artists together. Or you just clicked. Whatever.
Four Tet and Burial have already produced music together with “Moth”, but today, the three announced a new 12″ single with two songs on it, titled “Ego” and “Mirror.” Later tonight, Four Tet premiered the tracks on his radio show on Rinse FM.
The Internet provided, almost immediately, radio rips of the tracks, and they sound much like you would expect. Dark, introspective, but at the same time pretty uptempo. Yorke sings with his typically spaced out, reverberated vocals as Four Tet and Burial combine on the production. “Ego” sounds more in Four Tet’s vein while “Mirror” takes a huge cue from Burial’s album Untrue, using the same rim click backbeats found on “Archangel”. They’re also really good.
At no more than a year older than me, it’s remarkable just how much Sandman Viper Command sound like seasoned vets. Of course they are: they released their first album a few years ago, not long after hitting their 20s, and they’ve spent the last few years touring relentlessly. Now, the Burlington boys with the ridiculous name are finally back with some new music. As good as their first album Everybody See This was, and it was pretty good, “Rough Love” might be better. The first single off their upcoming 7″ of the same name, the track shows the progression of a band that took a step back from school to live, breathe and study music. The Beatles influence is obvious, but it’s the song’s second half that catches my fancy, going from bouncy, riff’d out jaunt to an amplifier exploding blast of Iommi-fied groove.
Listen to it, won’t you?
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To coincide with the group’s debut release in North America – and their second overall – we’ve teamed up with the lovely Sargent House and the Richter Collective to offer you a stream of the Wexford trio’s eponymously-named second album.
Touted by none other than me as “a bold step and one that marks them out as one of the few breakout bands in recent years to genuinely justify their own hype,” The Second Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank builds on the frenetic math rock template of their debut and adds more deeply-textured melodies and Japanese video game music influences to the mix without sacrificing the triumphant sense of chaos that made the first record such a refreshing listen.
Read my full review of the record here (open in a new window) and stream the album via the player below.
This is the second of two posts. Read the first one here
Things got a lot heavier on Friday, both musically and alcoholically. Let’s just say that Saturday morning and I didn’t see eye to eye, but boy was it worth it.
Friday was an early-starter, since I was off to Sonic Boom Records to catch an early in store set by the dudes in Pkew Pkew Pkew (Gunshots), who, if you haven’t heard—and I’m betting you haven’t—are a shit-ton of fun. If you couldn’t figure it out based on their name, they take themselves less than seriously, and their sets are shout-y, hand-clapped and tambourine dominated riots. They’re what happens when indie rockers grow up on Rancid, and even though the crowd at Sonic Boom was real young and inexplicably sitting cross-legged, they were as fun as ever. From the hooks of “Asshole Pandemic” (asshole pandemic/why’s that fucking dick gotta be such a cock?) to the stomp of “Friends Don’t Let Friends Move In With Girlfriends”, their short set was a barrage of gang-vocals, synths and guitar(s) turned to eleven. The best part? I liked when Jordan (guitar) and Brodie (Vocals) high-fived with their tambourines. Yay, friendship!
Pkew Pkew Pkew (gunshots) – Asshole Pandemic
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This is the first of two posts. Look out for another coming soon, featuring reviews of Bombay Bicycle Club, J Mascis (of Dinosaur JR), Protest the Hero and more…
Canadian Music Week, or Canadian Music Fest—honestly, at this point I’m not sure which is which—is a blur for media and musicians alike. For five days, starting last Wednesday and ending tonight, Toronto is taken over. Bars, concert halls and even the prestigious Royal York Fairmont Hotel are held captive by dudes with beards, girls with bad haircuts and eager but demanding publicist types.
This year I decided to take it easier than I have in years past, and rather than blindly stumbling from bar to bar, I decided to pick and choose my spots. For me, Canadian Music Fest started on Thursday with the Wilderness of Manitoba who were, for lack of a better term, fucking awesome.
I’d only been exposed to them through a few videos posted over on the forums, but I liked what I heard. I liked it even more live.
Playing a relatively short 35 minute set, it’s pretty surprising how many sound shifts they went through. They started with cello accompaniment, and brought a lot more ambient sounds than you’ll typically hear in the Toronto folk scene. The drums were pretty overpowering—they were thunderous and crashing, again not something you’ll usually hear in folk. Not just in their first few songs but throughout their set there was a real sense of texture to their music,…
It has recently come to my attention that not only do some of you people have lives outside of Sputnik but that there is an entire new phenomenon in this earth known as “blogging.”
Apparently there are individuals who see fit to condense their thoughts on music into chunks of less than a thousand words (daft, I know) – perhaps with the aid of media devices such as video – and see fit to do so on this strange new “blogging” format. In the spirit of togetherness, I have decided to recognise this trend and compile a list of staff and user blogs. We may even add a blogroll at some point.
Please feel free to link to your blog down below and I’ll do my best to add you to the list. Unless I don’t like you. In which case, futch ya.
Living in the facebook/youtube age of instant celebrity can have its benefits. I was reminded of that today. For today, I have found “Friday,” a music video by teenage recording artist Rebecca Black. There are few words to describe what happens in the following video. This is a song about Friday. Which comes after Thursday. And is followed by Saturday. I won’t try to give you context as to who this is because there is none needed. This braces-heavy video is a ten car pile-up, simultaneously awful and mesmerizing. If you find yourself asking ‘Is this really happening?,’ the answer is yes. It is.
Once you have some context, I highly recommend watching this slightly slowed down version which turns Black’s anthem into comedy gold.
So there I was about to write yet another blog about yet another event that I had attended, when I thought to myself “Davey, you can’t write a full blog about the SoundWave Festival. It would turn out like ‘War & Peace’ and the entire SputnikMusic Blog machine would blow up. Plus, you need to stop talking about YOUR experiences (that’s what lists are for) and give the Sputnik-ites out there what THEY want”.
So last week I ran a poll (you probably missed it) as to what you all want & three main answers stood out: (1) Jonny Craig to give you the MacBook you paid for, (2) Sex & (3) Chan to review the new Aiden album about to be released. Those points seemed irrelevant to my blog, so I took the next three best responses and decided to roll them into this one all-encompassing blog. Ladies & gentlemen, I give you (1) Metal, (2) Huge headlining acts, & (3) A tour around Australia!
Prior to our tour beginning however, a disclaimer must first be aired for legal purposes: SputnikMusic shall take no responsibility for any motion sickness caused by unsteady hand-held cameras used in the making of the following videos. The same goes for deafness caused by varying volume levels, seizures caused by blinking lights, and blindness caused by the brightness of security vests.
Our tour today – just like the SoundWave Festival – starts in the north-eastern city of Brisbane, where it is sunny one…
Apart from the day itself being one almighty rock, punk & metal-fest that never fails to please, another great aspect of Australia’s SoundWave Festival are the related sideshows which take place. These shows (which have come to be known as Sidewaves) often see 3-4 bands from the festival placed together on the one bill. As you can imagine, they are exceptional value for money, as well as being an effective way to solve clashes on the day. Examples of Sidewaves this year were (a) Social Distortion, Gaslight Anthem & Feeder, (b) Rob Zombie, Murderdolls, Monster Magnet & Dommin, (c) Sum 41, The Blackout, There For Tomorrow & Veara, (d) Pennywise, Millencolin & The Mad Caddies, and (e) Stone Sour, Coheed and Cambria, Sevendust & 36 Crazyfists. The Sidewave I chose to stroll along to however was the “can’t miss” trio of Anberlin, The Starting Line & Bayside.
Having previously seen them live a couple of times, I already knew that NYC’s Bayside were one of the best live bands going around. It only hit me on this night however, that they are also one of the few bands who sound great right from the get-go. They either sound-check all day or are just that damn good. Kicking off with energetic new track ‘Already Gone’, the ‘Killing Time’ opener felt like it had been on their live set for the past decade, with the way in which the audience were singing along even if they had barely heard the song before.…
This is the second of two posts. Read the first one 
