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Punk Rawk News - by Craig Hill
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Fiction Family by Fiction Family
May 1st 2009 05:10
Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman and Nickel Creek guitarist Sean Watkins have set out to restore dude love’s lost notoriety with Fiction Family. The resultant self-titled record has plenty of charm despite lacking any “super band” qualities.
Those who became enamored with Foreman’s folky acoustic solo project will eat Fiction Family right up. The record isn’t as bluegrass-oriented as Nickel Creek, but fans of that band would also be remiss to skip this record. There’s a good mixture of styles here, ranging from the piano-rocker “When She’s Near” to the achingly sparse “Throw It Away” to closing knee-slapper “Look For Me Baby.” Somewhat surprisingly, the vocals are mostly handled separately.
As far as that goes, it just depends if you prefer the smoothness of Watkins or the rasp of Foreman. “Elements Combined” benefits from Watkins as his vocal melodies add a wonderful counterpart to the slightly eerie instrumentation. Watkins’ songs have a special way of taking you back in time, even if said time is before you were born. “Betrayal” is another subdued track, although Foreman leads the sorrow this time around. Not a shocker due to the name, but it’s not exactly a happy song: “I don’t remember much about that night / But I’m pretty sure it rained the day I died / I think it rained / I’m pretty sure it rained the day I died.” If these guys have anything in common it’s heartbreak.
While there is diversity on Fiction Family, it’s hard to call this a cohesive album. Watkins and Foreman worked on and off for 3 years before completing the record, and as such there isn’t that beginning-middle-end quality many tend to crave in their music. Most people won’t miss any grand scheme if you put Fiction Family on shuffle. Perhaps if there was more vocal intermingling between the two it would feel more collaborative, but as it is now, this could be two separate EPs packaged together. Foreman’s tearjerker “Please Don’t Call It Love” would benefit greatly from Watkins’ empathetic vocals. Watkins is providing instrumentation, but his involvement feels so limited. (“Mostly” is a good indication of what Watkins’ voice would add to Foreman’s.)
Fiction Family doesn’t sound like a group effort. Each man proves time and time again why he is so revered, but the listener doesn’t feel blown away in the slightest. Logic dictates that two good artists should make one great record. Fiction Family can only muster decent results. “We Ride” is essentially a The Beautiful Letdown b-side. For future recordings Watkins and Foreman should set aside consecutive days to work on an album. Tour schedules and pre-existing responsibilities make this difficult, but for a record to be collaborative there actually has to be a sense of togetherness.
Those who became enamored with Foreman’s folky acoustic solo project will eat Fiction Family right up. The record isn’t as bluegrass-oriented as Nickel Creek, but fans of that band would also be remiss to skip this record. There’s a good mixture of styles here, ranging from the piano-rocker “When She’s Near” to the achingly sparse “Throw It Away” to closing knee-slapper “Look For Me Baby.” Somewhat surprisingly, the vocals are mostly handled separately.
As far as that goes, it just depends if you prefer the smoothness of Watkins or the rasp of Foreman. “Elements Combined” benefits from Watkins as his vocal melodies add a wonderful counterpart to the slightly eerie instrumentation. Watkins’ songs have a special way of taking you back in time, even if said time is before you were born. “Betrayal” is another subdued track, although Foreman leads the sorrow this time around. Not a shocker due to the name, but it’s not exactly a happy song: “I don’t remember much about that night / But I’m pretty sure it rained the day I died / I think it rained / I’m pretty sure it rained the day I died.” If these guys have anything in common it’s heartbreak.
While there is diversity on Fiction Family, it’s hard to call this a cohesive album. Watkins and Foreman worked on and off for 3 years before completing the record, and as such there isn’t that beginning-middle-end quality many tend to crave in their music. Most people won’t miss any grand scheme if you put Fiction Family on shuffle. Perhaps if there was more vocal intermingling between the two it would feel more collaborative, but as it is now, this could be two separate EPs packaged together. Foreman’s tearjerker “Please Don’t Call It Love” would benefit greatly from Watkins’ empathetic vocals. Watkins is providing instrumentation, but his involvement feels so limited. (“Mostly” is a good indication of what Watkins’ voice would add to Foreman’s.)
Fiction Family doesn’t sound like a group effort. Each man proves time and time again why he is so revered, but the listener doesn’t feel blown away in the slightest. Logic dictates that two good artists should make one great record. Fiction Family can only muster decent results. “We Ride” is essentially a The Beautiful Letdown b-side. For future recordings Watkins and Foreman should set aside consecutive days to work on an album. Tour schedules and pre-existing responsibilities make this difficult, but for a record to be collaborative there actually has to be a sense of togetherness.
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Posted By: Craig Hill - Category: News
21st Century Breakdown by Green Day
February 12th 2009 14:19
Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown won’t land in stores until May, but it's worth waiting for this revival of political punk. Here’s a sneak peek at what Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt have been cooking up with legendary producer Butch Vig at the same California studio they recorded the Grammy-winning American Idiot, Warning, Insomniac and Dookie.
The 16-track album is broken into three acts: Heroes and Cons, Charlatans and Saints, and Horseshoes and Handgrenades. Dirnt said that the songs “speak to each other the way the songs on [Bruce Springsteen’s] Born to Run speak to each other. I don’t know if you’d call it a ‘concept album,’ but there’s a thread that connects everything.” The songs are defiant, but also defiantly hopeful, referencing the unsettled political climate as well as more personal and generational turmoils. Its blend of claustrophobia, freedom and urgency is well illustrated by the album’s cover art, which depicts a tight shot of a young couple kissing against a graffiti-covered wall.
The title track quickly kicks into a familiar Green Day three-chord blast, but morphs into multiple movements like some of the more rock-opera-heavy numbers on American Idiot. “My generation is zero/I never made it as a working class hero,” Armstrong sings, making a reference to the John Lennon track the band covered in 2007. After a big drum breakdown, the song winds into a slower “Bohemian Rhapsody” moment. By contrast, “Know Your Enemy” is a straight-ahead rock song with a chanty “oh-way-oh-way” refrain. Opening powerfully like an AC/DC track, Cool drums furiously as Armstrong sings “Silence is the enemy so give me revolution.”
“Before the Lobotomy” is one of a handful of Breakdown tracks where Armstrong breaks into an uncharacteristically sweet singing voice and voyages into his limber upper register. Lyrics are answered by darts of guitar, and the band inserts pauses and breathing room between the music and vocals. At first Armstrong sings of “dreaming of another place and time where my family are from” but as the song progresses he’s pointing a finger at “Charlatans of lost memories like the end of the century.”
“March of the Dogs” is the most punky and overtly political of the six tracks. Built on big punches of guitar and classic shout and response vocals, Armstrong spits, “I want to know who’s allowed to breed/All the dogs who never learned to read/Missionaries, politicians/And the cops of a new religion.” It’s a biting indictment of contemporary religion that starts intense and never lets up, even for a marching-drum bridge.
Armstrong’s serene vocals reappear on the mid-tempo rocker “Restless Heart Syndrome.” Returning to the line “know your enemy,” Billie Joe advises, “Know what ails you/impales you… you’re a victim of the system.” The track takes a dramatic kick into its loud section, and its neat four-chord structure turns on a minor note. And “21 Guns” has a dash of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” to it — the track opens slowly with acoustic guitar, adding piano and other instruments until it opens up into a big, lush, super-melodic chorus. “Lay down your arms, give up the fight,” Armstrong croons. “Throw up your arms into the sky, you and I.” After a quick guitar solo and what sounds like a few pretty lines of harmonium, the song concludes with a hopeful finality.
From Rolling Stone
The 16-track album is broken into three acts: Heroes and Cons, Charlatans and Saints, and Horseshoes and Handgrenades. Dirnt said that the songs “speak to each other the way the songs on [Bruce Springsteen’s] Born to Run speak to each other. I don’t know if you’d call it a ‘concept album,’ but there’s a thread that connects everything.” The songs are defiant, but also defiantly hopeful, referencing the unsettled political climate as well as more personal and generational turmoils. Its blend of claustrophobia, freedom and urgency is well illustrated by the album’s cover art, which depicts a tight shot of a young couple kissing against a graffiti-covered wall.
The title track quickly kicks into a familiar Green Day three-chord blast, but morphs into multiple movements like some of the more rock-opera-heavy numbers on American Idiot. “My generation is zero/I never made it as a working class hero,” Armstrong sings, making a reference to the John Lennon track the band covered in 2007. After a big drum breakdown, the song winds into a slower “Bohemian Rhapsody” moment. By contrast, “Know Your Enemy” is a straight-ahead rock song with a chanty “oh-way-oh-way” refrain. Opening powerfully like an AC/DC track, Cool drums furiously as Armstrong sings “Silence is the enemy so give me revolution.”
“Before the Lobotomy” is one of a handful of Breakdown tracks where Armstrong breaks into an uncharacteristically sweet singing voice and voyages into his limber upper register. Lyrics are answered by darts of guitar, and the band inserts pauses and breathing room between the music and vocals. At first Armstrong sings of “dreaming of another place and time where my family are from” but as the song progresses he’s pointing a finger at “Charlatans of lost memories like the end of the century.”
“March of the Dogs” is the most punky and overtly political of the six tracks. Built on big punches of guitar and classic shout and response vocals, Armstrong spits, “I want to know who’s allowed to breed/All the dogs who never learned to read/Missionaries, politicians/And the cops of a new religion.” It’s a biting indictment of contemporary religion that starts intense and never lets up, even for a marching-drum bridge.
Armstrong’s serene vocals reappear on the mid-tempo rocker “Restless Heart Syndrome.” Returning to the line “know your enemy,” Billie Joe advises, “Know what ails you/impales you… you’re a victim of the system.” The track takes a dramatic kick into its loud section, and its neat four-chord structure turns on a minor note. And “21 Guns” has a dash of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” to it — the track opens slowly with acoustic guitar, adding piano and other instruments until it opens up into a big, lush, super-melodic chorus. “Lay down your arms, give up the fight,” Armstrong croons. “Throw up your arms into the sky, you and I.” After a quick guitar solo and what sounds like a few pretty lines of harmonium, the song concludes with a hopeful finality.
From Rolling Stone
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Titus Andronicus
January 28th 2009 01:35
It has become commonplace to describe any band more than a decade old and with a few albums under their belts as "influential", as though it were a badge of honour. But surely influential is just another way of saying "easy to copy".
Wouldn't a truly great, original band have their own sound, one that is so, to use another phrase common among rock writers, "sui generis" that it can come from them and them alone? Well, today's new band, Titus Andronicus, have punched a great big hole in that theory by readily demonstrating the influence on them of a group one might have imagined were incontrovertibly sui generis: the Pogues.
The band, who formed in the spring of 2005 and take their name from a Shakespearean tragedy, might come from New Jersey but they have that ramshackle, close-to-collapse, London Irish charm, and it's hard to tell how many musicians there are in the band, so sloppily do they play; guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, horns and harmonica all running into and all over each other with inebriated abandon.
Hailing from Glen Rock, New Jersey, and featuring Andrew Cedermark (guitar, keyboard, vocals), Ian Graetzer (bass), Eric Harm (drums), Ian O'Neil (guitar, vocals), Patrick Stickles (vocals, guitar, keyboard, harmonica).
As for their frontman, he has a tendency to gabble and garble his words, like a mad drunk who can barely form an intelligible sentence but does so fast, and as a consequence almost dares the listener to assume he's a true urchin-poet, an approach to singing previously believed to be the sole preserve of Shane MacGowan.
Sorry, MacGowan through a megaphone. He sounds like Shane fronting the Strokes, because he appears throughout Titus Andronicus' debut album The Airing of Grievances to be using one of those devices that Julian Casablancas employs to make him sound permanently like a renegade cop shouting at bank robbers during a siege. And Titus sound like a Pogues re-energised by the 21st-century boot-up-rock's-arse provided by the Strokes. But to be fair, not just the Pogues. They also recall those other last-gang-in-town types the Clash, with a hint of Bruce Springsteen at his most overblown and Spectoresque, though obviously, this being an indie band, it's a tinny, hissy, cheap'n'DIY version of Springsteen/Spector.
And you're going to love it, if indeed you fell for the myth of the blue-collar male, all beer and loathing, as purveyed by everyone from the Boss to Paul Westerberg to the Hold Steady. And if you're into those bands whose couldn't-care aesthetic is designed – yes, designed; this is as artful a pose as, well, anything – to convey immediacy and, most crucially, authenticity. Oh, and if you can get past the comically hoarse vocals and wilfully (skilfully?) inept playing. There's a highly literate band here – track titles include Albert Camus and Upon Viewing Bruegel's Landscape With the Fall of Icarus – and if you're prepared to accept the context, the references to booze and fags and "fuck everything, fuck me" nihilism-as-lifestyle-option, then meet your new favourite band.
The buzz: "There's emo in the tortured lyrics and E Street Band in the arrangements."
The truth: They'll get a cult (critical) following for sure, but wider success will likely be hampered by their faux amateurism.
Most likely to: Get pissed, destroy.
Least likely to: Take a holiday in the sun – it'll ruin their "we-work-in-factories-all-day" image.
What to buy: The Airing of Grievances is released by Merok/XL on 2 February.
Wouldn't a truly great, original band have their own sound, one that is so, to use another phrase common among rock writers, "sui generis" that it can come from them and them alone? Well, today's new band, Titus Andronicus, have punched a great big hole in that theory by readily demonstrating the influence on them of a group one might have imagined were incontrovertibly sui generis: the Pogues.
The band, who formed in the spring of 2005 and take their name from a Shakespearean tragedy, might come from New Jersey but they have that ramshackle, close-to-collapse, London Irish charm, and it's hard to tell how many musicians there are in the band, so sloppily do they play; guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, horns and harmonica all running into and all over each other with inebriated abandon.
Hailing from Glen Rock, New Jersey, and featuring Andrew Cedermark (guitar, keyboard, vocals), Ian Graetzer (bass), Eric Harm (drums), Ian O'Neil (guitar, vocals), Patrick Stickles (vocals, guitar, keyboard, harmonica).
As for their frontman, he has a tendency to gabble and garble his words, like a mad drunk who can barely form an intelligible sentence but does so fast, and as a consequence almost dares the listener to assume he's a true urchin-poet, an approach to singing previously believed to be the sole preserve of Shane MacGowan.
Sorry, MacGowan through a megaphone. He sounds like Shane fronting the Strokes, because he appears throughout Titus Andronicus' debut album The Airing of Grievances to be using one of those devices that Julian Casablancas employs to make him sound permanently like a renegade cop shouting at bank robbers during a siege. And Titus sound like a Pogues re-energised by the 21st-century boot-up-rock's-arse provided by the Strokes. But to be fair, not just the Pogues. They also recall those other last-gang-in-town types the Clash, with a hint of Bruce Springsteen at his most overblown and Spectoresque, though obviously, this being an indie band, it's a tinny, hissy, cheap'n'DIY version of Springsteen/Spector.
And you're going to love it, if indeed you fell for the myth of the blue-collar male, all beer and loathing, as purveyed by everyone from the Boss to Paul Westerberg to the Hold Steady. And if you're into those bands whose couldn't-care aesthetic is designed – yes, designed; this is as artful a pose as, well, anything – to convey immediacy and, most crucially, authenticity. Oh, and if you can get past the comically hoarse vocals and wilfully (skilfully?) inept playing. There's a highly literate band here – track titles include Albert Camus and Upon Viewing Bruegel's Landscape With the Fall of Icarus – and if you're prepared to accept the context, the references to booze and fags and "fuck everything, fuck me" nihilism-as-lifestyle-option, then meet your new favourite band.
The buzz: "There's emo in the tortured lyrics and E Street Band in the arrangements."
The truth: They'll get a cult (critical) following for sure, but wider success will likely be hampered by their faux amateurism.
Most likely to: Get pissed, destroy.
Least likely to: Take a holiday in the sun – it'll ruin their "we-work-in-factories-all-day" image.
What to buy: The Airing of Grievances is released by Merok/XL on 2 February.
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The Body, The Blood, The Machine by The Thermals
January 19th 2009 13:51
Portland, Oregon natives the Thermals have been hovering on the periphery since their 2003 debut, delivering solid records to undersized acclaim. The band's third album, The Body, The Blood, The Machine, conjures an America piloted by some sort of Christian-fascist regime ("They'll pound you with the love of Jesus...They'll own your days/ They're only God's babies/ They follow, they know"), and traces the frantic, fiery flight of an ex-pat and his girl ("I can see she's afraid/ That's why we're escaping/ So we won't have to die, we won't have to deny/ Our dirty God, our dirty bodies"). The Body's story is just vague and gruesome enough to be weirdly terrifying, totally Orwellian, and grander, louder, and more electrifying than anything the Thermals have spit out before.
Original drummer Jordan Hudson ditched the band in 2005, meaning that during the recording of this album guitarist/vocalist Hutch Harris and bassist Kathy Foster were twitching for three, bouncing around from instrument to instrument, filling in the gaps, injecting percussion, keyboards, organs, bass, and plenty of guitar into their lo-fi basement punk. Produced by Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty, The Body is appropriately reminiscent of the Thermals' previous two full-lengths, but far more ambitious in narrative and sound-- the production is cleaner, Harris' vocals are less prickly and more impassioned, and every slammed chord soars. Both in theory and execution, The Body, The Blood, The Machine hits like a less playful, less suburban American Idiot, its apocalyptic, heavily religious iconography conveniently layered over pounding, Ramones-style pop-punk.
The Body's unrelenting lyrical gravity is also its single biggest strength-- this isn't the first time the Thermals have gotten political (on 2004's F*****' A, Harris bleakly instructed us to "Pray for a new state/ Pray for assassination"), but, from the opening organ chord of "Here's Your Future", it's clear that this is the band at its most somber-- when Harris seethes "So here's your future!" a few beats after inciting "the new master race," it's impossible not to feel like you should transfer all the energy you'd usually waste pogo-ing around your living room into scrawling letters to elected officials. "Returning to the Fold" employs a classic post-grunge melody, Harris' big, punchy wails poking through his guitar-web like it's 1994 and you're watching "120 Minutes" in your parents' basement. "St. Rosa and the Swallows" is a thorny ode to escape ("Passing the corners, we kissed in the rain/ Passing the old rusted warning signs/ What did they say?/ I think they said run!"), while closing cut "I Hold the Sound" is spare and weirdly engrossing, the closest the band comes to recreating the impossible catchiness of "No Culture Icons", before bowing out in a haze of feedback.
Foster's drums and Harris' weird vocal syntax (which contains echoes of the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle) are nicely propulsive, and The Body, The Blood, The Machine cuts off before it runs the risk of getting too repetitive. But the results of its 38 minutes are still chilling. Harris' imagined landscape is severe and grisly, leaving us all to sprint for cover, curling under desks, hands over heads, fingers crossed: These tracks land like bombs.
Original drummer Jordan Hudson ditched the band in 2005, meaning that during the recording of this album guitarist/vocalist Hutch Harris and bassist Kathy Foster were twitching for three, bouncing around from instrument to instrument, filling in the gaps, injecting percussion, keyboards, organs, bass, and plenty of guitar into their lo-fi basement punk. Produced by Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty, The Body is appropriately reminiscent of the Thermals' previous two full-lengths, but far more ambitious in narrative and sound-- the production is cleaner, Harris' vocals are less prickly and more impassioned, and every slammed chord soars. Both in theory and execution, The Body, The Blood, The Machine hits like a less playful, less suburban American Idiot, its apocalyptic, heavily religious iconography conveniently layered over pounding, Ramones-style pop-punk.
The Body's unrelenting lyrical gravity is also its single biggest strength-- this isn't the first time the Thermals have gotten political (on 2004's F*****' A, Harris bleakly instructed us to "Pray for a new state/ Pray for assassination"), but, from the opening organ chord of "Here's Your Future", it's clear that this is the band at its most somber-- when Harris seethes "So here's your future!" a few beats after inciting "the new master race," it's impossible not to feel like you should transfer all the energy you'd usually waste pogo-ing around your living room into scrawling letters to elected officials. "Returning to the Fold" employs a classic post-grunge melody, Harris' big, punchy wails poking through his guitar-web like it's 1994 and you're watching "120 Minutes" in your parents' basement. "St. Rosa and the Swallows" is a thorny ode to escape ("Passing the corners, we kissed in the rain/ Passing the old rusted warning signs/ What did they say?/ I think they said run!"), while closing cut "I Hold the Sound" is spare and weirdly engrossing, the closest the band comes to recreating the impossible catchiness of "No Culture Icons", before bowing out in a haze of feedback.
Foster's drums and Harris' weird vocal syntax (which contains echoes of the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle) are nicely propulsive, and The Body, The Blood, The Machine cuts off before it runs the risk of getting too repetitive. But the results of its 38 minutes are still chilling. Harris' imagined landscape is severe and grisly, leaving us all to sprint for cover, curling under desks, hands over heads, fingers crossed: These tracks land like bombs.
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To Lose My Life by White Lies
January 19th 2009 13:36
The London buzz band White Lies have been compared to Editors, Joy Division and The Bravery. On their darkly euphoric debut single, To OLose My Life, there are echoes of early 80s Human League and even Billy Idol and his White Wedding.
A tale of fear and paranoia, sung in black and ominous tones, it's also drenched in glorious retro synths and thunderous drums which give it a fun edge.
When the contagious chorus kicks in with the line: "Let's grow old together and die at the same time" it even reaches uplifting on the emotion-o-meter.
You can imagine the little Emo couple in Hollyoaks singing it to each other at night.
A tale of fear and paranoia, sung in black and ominous tones, it's also drenched in glorious retro synths and thunderous drums which give it a fun edge.
When the contagious chorus kicks in with the line: "Let's grow old together and die at the same time" it even reaches uplifting on the emotion-o-meter.
You can imagine the little Emo couple in Hollyoaks singing it to each other at night.
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Lemonade by Lemonade
January 19th 2009 12:31
Lemonade, so the old saying goes, is what you make when life serves you lemons. But for the three San Franciscans-cum-Brooklynites in the band Lemonade, it's what you get when music blogs serve a new dance-music subgenre, umpteenth post-punk revival, and hot world-music trend on a weekly basis; you process the best bits into something practical and satisfying.
The six extended tracks on the band's self-titled debut are rife with rhythmic density and intensity, but smartly sequenced into two halves that each follow the peak/valley/peak arc that rock listeners demand of Proper Albums. Lemonade seem especially aware of this conversion process. Their record vividly replicates that first sensation of losing yourself in a peak-hour, strobe-lit reverie, where the communal act of dancing teeters between liberation and disorientation.
Evocative opener "Big Weekend" establishes the theme, luring you in with familiar devices. Drummer Alex Pasternak lays down a kick-drum thump and cowbell clatter that approximates the polyrhythimic pulse of Liquid Liquid, while a 303 synth riff and frontman Callan Clendenin's Ibiza-evoking lyrics further enhance the 80s flashback. But following a mid-song breakdown, Pasternak's drumming turns more fiercely tribal and Clendenin's voice is refashioned into a stream of distorted and mutated squeals, providing an early indication that Lemonade's definition of dancefloor abandon also includes the bad-trip flipside, further revealed by the industrialized schaffel swing of "Unreal". The spastic, devolutionary disco of "Real Slime" provides a more explicit affront to ecstasy-induced enlightenment, with Clendenin admonishing his hippy-dippy target to "scrape the fluoride out of your encrusted third eye."
With their muscular, aggressive approach to dance music, Lemonade operate from a similar base as other percussive post-punk new-schoolers, from party-starting outfits like !!! and Professor Murder to more abrasive acts like Aa and Liars. But the trio strike a singular balance between weird and wired: eight-minute centerpiece "Nasifon" finds Clendenin's voice sliding further into indecipherability-- imagine Metal Box-era John Lydon bellowing out Sigur Rós' Hopelandic lyric sheet-- but layers it with Arabic-accented melodies, machine-gunned synths and a pounding 4/4 beat that would go over both in Williamsburg warehouse parties and Dubai super clubs.
And if the queasy, grime grind of "Sunchips" sputters on about twice as long as it needs to, it makes the arrival of spectacular closer "Blissout" all the more rewarding. On an album that's been mostly concerned with the feeling of losing control, "Blissout" provides Lemonade with a hard-earned moment clarity: Clendenin's uncharacteristically stoic vocal calmly rides atop a cheery hi-NRG beat and acid-soaked synths, before a twinkling piano refrain and chopped-up vocals announcing the band's name trigger a big-beat blowout, with Clendenin's ecstatic, echo-laden exclamations summoning the break of dawn. As the track fades, it's overcome by a chorus of sampled voices all uttering the same statement: "we're all having a good time." Given Clendenin's cryptic, fragmented approach to singing, you can't fault Lemonade for using these dying seconds to state the obvious.
The six extended tracks on the band's self-titled debut are rife with rhythmic density and intensity, but smartly sequenced into two halves that each follow the peak/valley/peak arc that rock listeners demand of Proper Albums. Lemonade seem especially aware of this conversion process. Their record vividly replicates that first sensation of losing yourself in a peak-hour, strobe-lit reverie, where the communal act of dancing teeters between liberation and disorientation.
Evocative opener "Big Weekend" establishes the theme, luring you in with familiar devices. Drummer Alex Pasternak lays down a kick-drum thump and cowbell clatter that approximates the polyrhythimic pulse of Liquid Liquid, while a 303 synth riff and frontman Callan Clendenin's Ibiza-evoking lyrics further enhance the 80s flashback. But following a mid-song breakdown, Pasternak's drumming turns more fiercely tribal and Clendenin's voice is refashioned into a stream of distorted and mutated squeals, providing an early indication that Lemonade's definition of dancefloor abandon also includes the bad-trip flipside, further revealed by the industrialized schaffel swing of "Unreal". The spastic, devolutionary disco of "Real Slime" provides a more explicit affront to ecstasy-induced enlightenment, with Clendenin admonishing his hippy-dippy target to "scrape the fluoride out of your encrusted third eye."
With their muscular, aggressive approach to dance music, Lemonade operate from a similar base as other percussive post-punk new-schoolers, from party-starting outfits like !!! and Professor Murder to more abrasive acts like Aa and Liars. But the trio strike a singular balance between weird and wired: eight-minute centerpiece "Nasifon" finds Clendenin's voice sliding further into indecipherability-- imagine Metal Box-era John Lydon bellowing out Sigur Rós' Hopelandic lyric sheet-- but layers it with Arabic-accented melodies, machine-gunned synths and a pounding 4/4 beat that would go over both in Williamsburg warehouse parties and Dubai super clubs.
And if the queasy, grime grind of "Sunchips" sputters on about twice as long as it needs to, it makes the arrival of spectacular closer "Blissout" all the more rewarding. On an album that's been mostly concerned with the feeling of losing control, "Blissout" provides Lemonade with a hard-earned moment clarity: Clendenin's uncharacteristically stoic vocal calmly rides atop a cheery hi-NRG beat and acid-soaked synths, before a twinkling piano refrain and chopped-up vocals announcing the band's name trigger a big-beat blowout, with Clendenin's ecstatic, echo-laden exclamations summoning the break of dawn. As the track fades, it's overcome by a chorus of sampled voices all uttering the same statement: "we're all having a good time." Given Clendenin's cryptic, fragmented approach to singing, you can't fault Lemonade for using these dying seconds to state the obvious.
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The Academy is... a new song
February 6th 2007 23:15
Pop-punkers The Academy Is... have released a new song ahead of the release of their second album, Santi. The song is entitled "We've Got A Big Mess On Our Hands," and for the time being is only available on their purevolume page. The song is a little more hook-centred than their previous songs, and is a darker take on their previous material. Santi, their second album and the followup to 2005's Almost Here is due to be released April 3rd this year through Atlantic Records. No news yet as to when the single is to be released.
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Fall Out Boy Unleash their Carpal Tunnel of Love
February 6th 2007 01:18
Fall Out Boy have released the video for "Carpal Tunnel of Love," the second single to be lifted from their latest album, Infinity on High. The video, a wierd kind of animation, remains a helluva lot better than the one for "This Ain't a Scene, It's a God-Damn Arms Race." There's just something about Pete Wentz making fun of himself that is a little too disturbing. Still, something about this song bugs me too - is it just me or is the chord progression in the pre-chorus ripped straight out of another of their songs from a previous album?
In any case, you can see the video and make up your own mind here.
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Angels and Airwaves hit the studio
January 21st 2007 23:57
Pop-punk band Angels and Airwaves have always been a little controversial, but its never been for their sound. Still, that hasn't stopped the Delonge-fronted four piece from entering the studio for a second uncontroversial album. An update on their website outlines the details:
"Angels and Airwaves are back in the studio! After much thought and consideration, the band got together and decided that it was time to regroup and write their second record. It's a very exciting time.. not only because of the GREAT success of their first record and the huge potential for the second, but they will also be the first band to use the MACBETH recording studio to it's fullest potential. Roadcases full of seemingly endless equipment have been unloaded and thousands of electrical wires have been plugged in during the past week to get everything ready for the recording process. As the band gears up for long nights.... you should also get ready for video and photo updates brought to you by Atticus and MACBETH here on AVA.com. While some bands seem to hibernate while making their album, AVA wants you to be apart of it every step of the way..."
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