The Opus is an instrumental hip-hop project out of Chicago, and they’ve just released their latest EP, Praying Mantis. The EP is jam-packed with seven dense tracks of strong beats and interesting samples, with a flair for ambient openings. Oddly, the EP begins with “Divorced”, labeled as a bonus track. I have yet to see a version of the EP without the “bonus” track, and I couldn’t imagine a better opening to the EP.
It’s a little bit difficult to call Crown on the Ground a pop song. While the vocals of Alexis Krauss are firmly rooted in accessible, catchy melodies, they’re caught in a whirlwind of Derek Miller’s (ex-Poison The Well) aggressive, in-your-face instrumentation, a flurry of dense guitar wailing, handclaps and loud, buzzing synths that engulf what is otherwise so sweet and simple. Go loud or go home. The best part is, for all its disorienting, decibel-abusing madness, it’s actually fun.
Their debut album, Treats, drops May 11th on M.I.A.’s NEET Recordings label.
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There’s a certain almost unexplainable grandeur about The National. It feels inherent in everything they do – the quiver in Matt Berninger’s baritone, the forcefulness of Bryan Devendorf’s drumming – and this quality was none more evident than last night at the Royal Albert Hall in London. As the lights dimmed and the five nearly still silhouettes on stage broke the nervous, excited silence with the first chords of “Mistaken for Strangers”, lead singer Matt Berninger beckoned the seated crowd beyond the standing pit to their feet, engaging them like a group of friends. The energy seemed to rush forward with every knee buckled upright, back past where I stood in the huddled standing crowd and on to the stage where these Ohio-born musicians had only just begun to charm a crowd that had long since fallen in love with them. They already had us in the palms of their hands.
The show continued with this same momentous energy, following with “Anyone’s Ghost”, before reaching one of the many highlights of the night, just 2 songs in, “Bloodbuzz Ohio”. A staple in their live set since early 2009, it elevated the already terrific atmosphere into something close to life-affirming, the crowd moving and holding on to every word as Berninger collapsed into the exhausted “I’m on a bloodbuzz….God I am” chorus. Boxer favourite “Slow Show” was another highlight, coming in about half way through the initial set. Like much of their performance, the song felt distinctly invigorated. Though still as…
It’s been a little over a decade since the alternative rockers Far last put out an album and yet, barely any of their luster was lost. On May 25th, At Night We Live drops as the follow up to their cult classic Water & Solutions. Opening A Night We Live, “Deafening” is certainly the heaviest Far track to date, and while it does not reflect the rest of the album, it provides a glimpse of how the band has changed since their hiatus. To purchase At Night We Live, click the album art provided above.
My first individual explorations into the world of music took the form of surreptitious MTV viewings in the attic of my house in third grade. Aside from the pretty amazing collection of animated shows (Beavis and Butthead, Aeon Flux, The Oddities, etc.), MTV was most memorable for offering me the titillating medium of the music video, a form of experiencing music I only used from the years 1993-1999. In retrospect, music videos of the era (and any era really) were half-baked visualizations of the already half-baked lyrics or tone of the song. The results of these concoctions can be amazing, so I’ve decided to create a weekly dedication to my favorite hamhanded creations of the mid-nineties.
It’s hard to go on a hunger strike when you have the munchies.
Temple of the Dog‘s “Hunger Strike” is the quintessential 90s music video. Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder moan about sociopolitical concerns on a beach (presumably on the Pacific Northwest coast). This performance is interspersed with stock footage of a lighthouse flashing its cautionary light and a foreboding (yet hopeful!) cloudy sky. Is this song protesting American excess? Is it a confessional about conceding to said excess? Do Cornell and Vedder know if “farming babies” is metaphor or literal? Such are the mysteries of a classic third grade throwback.
I don’t mind stealing bread
From the mouths of decadence
But I can’t feed on the powerless
When my cup’s already overfilled,
But it’s on the
Is Old Man Luedecke leading a banjo revolution? Probably not. But his latest album rules.
Regarding their late 2009 release Sigh No More, our own DaveyBoy suggested that Britain’s Mumford & Sons were, “delivering folk – and the banjo – to the masses.” While Mumford & Sons do employ the use of a banjo, they do so on an almost superficial level. On “Little Lion Man”, Sigh No More‘s obvious standout, the banjo is used as little more than a reaction to the guitar. It always sounds nice and it always works but it’s never the focus.
The banjo is definitely Old Man Luedecke’s focus. He’s a “banjo revivalist” based out of Canada’s east coast. I could lazily compare his music to The Tallest Man on Earth and I just did. Maybe now you’ll listen.
On My Hands Are On Fire and Other Love Songs, his latest release, Old Man Luedecke (née Chris) enlists the help of a guitarist, bassist and fiddler (he-he) but more often than not the emphasis is on his words and his banjo.
“Foreign Tongue”, which you’ll hear below, is a prime example of how Luedecke does more with less. A uniquely written song, “Foreign Tongue” evolves from a love song about a distant, unfulfilled love into the desperate plea of a shy and nervous man who’s clearly convinced himself of a love only he’s aware of. Its 21st Century ambiguity makes it…
Deftones have always had a sound that is broader than the metal tag they received thanks to their nu-metal roots and continued grip on the genre. Two genres in particular that have helped their music be both melodic and hypnotic are dream pop and shoegaze. It’s fitting then that M83 would decide to remix Deftones’ first single, “Rocket Skates,” from their new album Diamond Eyes. The remix does a great job of setting Chino’s vocals to buzzy synth lines, but this remix isn’t just a club banger. Somewhere along the way, the song takes off and becomes an intense, electronic march, employing an array of characteristic M83 organ tones and vocal samples. Though a bit ridiculous to be my Track of the Day I figured it’d be a nice way to commemorate the May 4 release of Diamond Eyes.
Anacrusis were a technical thrash band that started around 1988. Over the course of four albums they continued to perfect their sound – a sound that based itself around multifaceted vocals, razor-sharp bass and guitar tones, introspective lyrics and an aggressive thrash foundation. Unfortunately they broke up in the early nineties, but they have started to show signs of life again. Hindsight: Vol.2 Reason Revisited is the complete re-recording of the band’s second album by the original members. Reason was their first album to really display the technical and progressive tendencies that they would eventually perfect on their subsequent album, Manic Impressions. For your listening pleasure, three tracks from Reason Revisited.
— Terrified
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— Misshapen Intent
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— Afraid to Feel
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Yesterday Future Islands released their second LP, In Evening Air on Thrill Jockey Records. Our track of the day is the first single from that album, “Tin Man,” a track that has an upbeat but moribund energy. Future Islands combines sparse guitar lines with a steel drum and gruff but sensitive vocals that sound somewhere between Hot Water Music‘s Chuck Ragan and Pixies‘ Frank Blank. “Little Dreamer” is the final track of their first LP Wave Like Home which was released on vinyl earlier this year. “Little Dreamer” is a sweet ballad cast in the same lo-fi, bristly electronics of “Tin Man.” Future Islands are strange in that on paper they seems like a combination of common sounds – new wave, punk, indie, folk – but somehow they are leagues above all the other bands dabbling in similar genres.
Future Islands – “Tin Man”
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Future Islands – “Little Dreamer”
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After solo albums by practically every member in this indie supergroup, Canadians (and Virginian fox Neko Case) the New Pornographers released their fifth album today, the aptly named Together. I wanted to pick a lesser known song then their first single for this Track of the Day, but damn! it’s just too good. One of the most propulsive melodies on the record lit up by a killer lead vocal by Case and surprisingly apocalyptic lyrics coming from one of music’s sunnier bands. After her strong performance on this album and last year’s Middle Cyclone, I’d have to consider Case in my top 3 female indie vocalists.
“The ruins were wild / Tonight will be an open mic.”
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When Ronnie Drew died in the summer of 2008, having lost a two-year battle with throat cancer, his death was greeted with the kind of pomp and reverence usually reserved for a military hero – the Irish President and Prime Minister issued statements of condolence within hours, and streets were lined as his funeral procession came to a halt in Greystones, Co. Wicklow. At his funeral, it was telling that, of all the songs and poems that were cited, none was as poignant as the excerpt from a lament to Brendan Behan: “Words have no meaning now, silence is master, laughter and songs bow.”
Behan was a child of old Dublin, born shortly after independence to a family of revolutionaries. His father fought in the War of Independence and his maternal uncle wrote the national anthem, which persists to this day and graphically recounts an ambush attack on a troop of British soldiers in Ireland. Infused by that same spirit, at the age of 16 Behan joined the IRA (Irish Republican Army) and went on a rogue mission to England to blow up the Liverpool docks. He was caught and placed in a youth prison for three years, whereupon he wrote his memoir, The Borstal Boy; years later, he would write his defining work, the play The Quare Fellow, and had his brother Dominic, himself an ex-convict, write a haunting ballad to open the work.
The track is usually performed a capella with a single lead vocalist, in this…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of May 4, 2010. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.
Asia – Omega (King Japan/Zoom)
Avantasia – The Wicked Symphony (Nuclear Blast)
Toni Braxton – Pulse (Atlantic)
Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record (Arts & Crafts)
The Dead Weather – Sea of Cowards (Warner Bros.) Deftones – Diamond Eyes(Reprise Records)— Nick Greer
Extreme – Take Us Alive [CD/DVD] (Frontiers) Fall – Your Future Our Clutter (Domino) Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma (Warp Records)
Godsmack – The Oracle (Republic) The Hold Steady – Heaven is Whenever(Vagrant Records)— Kiran Soderqvist
Richard Ingram – Consolamentum {UK} (White Box)
Jogging – Minutes (Richter Collective) The Letter Black – Hanging On By A Thread (Tooth & Nail Records) Rene Lopez – People Are Just People (Liberation Label) Minus The Bear – Omni(Dangerbird Records)— Matt Wolfe
The Morning Of – The Way I Fell In (Tragic Hero Records) New Po*nographers – Together(Matador)— Rudy Klapper New Young Pony Club – The Optimist(America) — Davey Boy
Nonpoint – Miracle (Rocket Science)
Olafur Arnalds – …and They Have Escaped the Weight of Darkness {EU} (Erased Tapes Records)
Our Last Night – We Will All Evolve (Epitaph) Lisa Papineau – Red Trees (Sargent House) Mike Patton – Mondo Cane(Ipecac Recordings) — Tyler Munro
Josh Ritter – So Runs…
Black Moth Super Rainbow’s Tobacco, aka Tom Fec, has always had a knack for quality hip-hop inspired beats. On his first solo outing away from BMSR, 2008’s Fucked up Friends, he took his analog wizardry over to Anticon records, the home of Sole and Why?, and went all out. Following in the vein of his solo debut, “Fresh Hex” is the second single from Tobacco’s upcoming album Maniac Meat. One of two songs on the album to feature a guest spot from Beck, “Fresh Hex” is Tobacco at his best, his nightmarishly twisted beat thumps along as Beck relives his Odelay glory days. It’s one hell of a ride, even if it only lasts a bit over a minute and a half.
Tobacco – Fresh Hex (feat. Beck)
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“F**k-Nuggets”. That is the first word that entered my head upon the elimination of Siobhan Magnus last night on Season-9 of American Idol. Why? Well, you know when you just have a feeling that something is going to happen at a certain time? Well, I superstitiously predicted this exact occurrence for this exact date. Call it pessimism, a lucky guess or a dreaded sense of fortune telling, but it sometimes is just the way things work. For you see, it is not the American public that I am calling “f**k-Nuggets” (although they have clearly played their part), it is 4 of those 5 d!ckheads currently smiling at you from your computer screens.
“But Davey, the judges liked Siobhan’s performance on Tuesday night and weren’t the ones who voted her off” I hear you exclaim. That is not my issue. My issue dates back 3 weeks ago to April-7, when Cowell & Co. inexplicably decided to use their ‘Save’ vote on Offensive Lineman Michael Lynche. For the uninitiated, the 4 judges have the ability to save a contestant who has just been eliminated. However, there are two huge catches: (1) They can only do this once, and (2) they could only do it up until the Top 5. So why in the hell they would choose to do this when a contestant was eliminated in 9th position is beyond me… A fact
