We know, we know. We just posted an album review for Bay Area psych-rock sextet Sleepy Sun’s latest album, Fever, but we couldn’t resist doubling up on that action with this awesome video for, “Open Eyes.” Since Sean McCoy already penned 200-plus words on the band’s highly enjoyable new album, we’ll let this video speak for itself. Enjoy.
MGMT
Congratulations
Columbia Records (2010)
Genre: Indie
Rating: C+
If you can get past the fact that there is nothing like “Electric Feel” or “Kids” or really any remnants of what you thought MGMT used to be, there may be something for you within the strange new walls of Congratulations. In an attempt to sidestep being pigeon-holed and rewriting their debut record, Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden shifted gears, packed away their glitter and synths, and delivered a record that’s not so much for listeners wanting a repeat of 2007’s Oracular Spectacular as it is for those interested in following more than just the band’s singles.
Congratulations is part surf-rock, part psychedelic, with little bits of Belle & Sebastian styled folk-pop sprinkled in, and altogether kind of scattered. The album’s first single (though MGMT deny calling it such), “Flash Delirium,” is a linear movement with no repeated chorus, or any repetition for that matter. The song ends up sounding like a bunch of parts—some as random as its predecessor and its successor—that have been casually juxtaposed. Even if one is working well, it’s replaced quickly with whatever comes next. Other numbers, such as “Brian Eno” and opening track “It’s Working,” tend to fall into this same trap—giving Congratulations an overall sound like its creators threw everything at the wall and used it all, instead of only what stuck.
There’s nothing wrong with musicians distancing themselves from previous styles. It’s better to be a band putting a lid on the past and trying new things rather than remaining stuck in some sort of never-ending sophomore slump. “Electric Feel” ran its course so thoroughly that we don’t ever need its reprise, but what comes next for MGMT—no matter what it sounds like—should be more focused. There’s no question of whether MGMT can write songs, but instead, the question has surfaced whether Goldwasser and VanWyngarden will be able to edit their next ideas into some kind of sensible form.
-Todd Miller
Listen:
“Flash Delirium”
The enigmatic music outfit Indian Jewelry has announced its upcoming fourth full-length album, entitled TOTALED. To be released May 11 on We Are Free, TOTALED is another leap further down the rabbit hole of the band’s psychedelic, twisted sound, and is said to be “weird, dirty and to the point, a direct line to the one true Indian Jewelry under Heaven.” We’re not sure exactly what that means, but if this interview with Sick of the Radio and the subsequent track from TOTALED (album opener “Oceans”) are any indication, we’re all in for a sprawling bit of leftfield funk and outsider pop just in time for the summer. Check out the album artwork and tracklist below.
Oceans
Look Alive
Lapis Lazuli
Excessive Moonlight
Sirens
Vison
Tono Bungay
+++++++
Simulation
Diamond Things
Never Been Better
Parlous Siege & Chapel
Heaven’s World Destroyer
Touching the Roof of the Sun
Dog Days
High on Fire
Snakes for the Divine
E1 Entertainment (2010)
Genre: Indie
Rating: B
A little bloodletting, crashing war hammers, and dark religious imagery keeps the world a-turning. If you disagree then you’re probably not a fan of metal, and High on Fire’s Snakes for the Divine won’t agree with your easily upset musical stomach. The heavy output this Oakland trio smash onto their listeners sits upon a throne in comparison to the many modern metal acts that don’t believe in solos, throw singsong choruses in their songs, or think oversaturation via breakdowns is healthy. High on Fire know that metal needs to be loud, evil, and something chanted by an approaching army of Satan’s legion.
“Four thousand years of mystery surrounds the signs / the children scream aloud when pain and guilt align.” Don’t try to deny these lyrics. Given, many lines on this album are meant to draw images from your mind and not emotions per se, but that responsibility was rightfully claimed by the guitars and drums. All of the sweeping riffage and inimitable finger-work on the solos meld so well with the other instruments that it’s hard to really call them “solos” because they fit so elegantly into the whole sound. The drumming on Snakes’ title-track is such a succulent example of the kind of rolling percussion featured on the record; it feels more like punctuation for each word and sentence than just rhythmic timing.
It can be said that the more psychedelic, or “stoner,” qualities that have made High on Fire its own entity (2007’s Death Is This Communion being the required listening) are somewhat lacking on Snakes for the Divine, but tracks like “Bastard Samurai” and “How Dark We Pray” easily fill that void. Besides, frontman Matt Pike’s rasp is nothing less than the American equivalent of Lemmy—soaked equally in cigarettes and cheap booze, and spewing forth rumors of war amidst true, seething metal.
-Sean McCoy
Listen:
“Snakes for the Divine”
Liars
Sisterworld
Mute Records (2010)
Genre: Indie
Rating: C
With Sisterworld, the fifth full-length album from Liars, the band continues in its shape-shifting ways, and delivers a collection of songs that sound unlike anything else it has previously released. The massive percussion of Drum’s Not Dead is there, though a few steps out of the spotlight, and the angular bite of They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top still lingers about in certain places. Sisterworld is a moody, hazy, and occasionally dense album, and, as per usual, serves as the band’s next sidestep in a strange direction.
No matter what musical style Liars adopt, the trio consistently concoct themes and stories that serve as the backbone for each record. When making They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, an album based on the stories of German witch trials, the band secluded themselves in a cabin in the woods of rural New Jersey. They wrote and recorded Sisterworld entirely in their current hometown of Los Angeles, and attempted to capture and express a realm of their own making. The album’s press release mentions “discarded dreams amassed in LA,” and, at the core of it, that is exactly what it sounds like; a collection of dreams.
Whether the songs are jarringly abrasive (like in the murderous paranoia of “Scarecrows on a Killer Slant” and on proto-punk anthem “The Overachievers”) or eerily muted (like the awkwardly off-key sounds of “Drop Dead” and haunting piano melody in “Drip”), there is a murky quality in all of them that mirrors a dizzying montage in some art-house film. The constant back and forth between loud and quiet, along with the droning qualities of Angus Andrew’s vocals, creates an unnerving atmosphere that exists somewhere between this world and another plane. At times, this other realm can be an interesting place, but it can also be the worst place for a song—or an entire album, for that matter—to reside.
Sisterworld could never suffice as background noise. If you put it on while working, or cooking, or doing anything besides only listening to the album, you could easily forget it’s there. The whole album is detached from the usual realities of contemporary music, and exists in a strange and somewhat uninviting world where melody is second to mood. It demands your full attention, which is no easy feat without hooks, verses, or choruses to keep you interested. Liars accomplished what it set out to do on its new album, and created its own place. It just may not be inhabitable by many.
-Todd Miller
Listen:
“Scissor”
It may not be apparent from the serious tone of our album critiques or our dedication to all things online, but music writers do like to have fun too. Every once in a while, keyCMND will be posting an event going on in the near future that we think is worth checking out. That is, if you live within a 20-mile radius of the club, concert, or what-have-you. We are based in San Francisco, so most of these posts will be pertinent to the 415, but feel free to suggest anything you’d like to see covered via email, Facebook, or Twitter.
From the warped, groove-obsessed minds of C.L.A.W.S. and DJ Nay Nay (of SF no-wave outfit Tussle) comes the psych-disco dance party O.K. Hole. Once a month, the resident DJs pull together some of the most interesting live acts in the Bay Area for a night of beats, wonky sonics, and visuals you can almost taste in the Mission’s tiny little Amnesia bar. This month’s party features live performances from the noisy, percussive Jaws and Mi Ami frontman Daniel Martin-McCormick performing solo as Sex Worker. Drop some acid, take some shrooms, and come bug-out to epic dance tunes!
One of last years more enjoyable throwback releases, The Phenomenal Handclap Band’s self-titled debut, showed us there is still plenty to love in late-’60s psych-rock and soul as well as early-’70s disco and funk. The Brooklyn-based octet marries those styles together, along with some more modern approaches, for a sound that’s totally engrossing if not just conceptually interesting. Here, we have the brand new video for album cut “Baby.”
This piece of music film turns from a weekend in the country sing-a-long to sinister Psycho meets Rosemary’s Baby horror show in under three minutes. On the video directed by Stephen Agnew, Handclap Band member Sean Marquand shares, “Even when we weren’t filming, there seemed to be someone sneaking up on us in the forest. The video reflects some of the highs and lows of our weekend. There’s kinship and celebration there but there’s also an underlying paranoia attached to being at such a remote location.”
Moon Duo
Escape
Woodsist Records (2010)
Genre: Indie
Rating: C
Moon Duo’s debut full-length, Escape, pulses with the semblance of an evolved version of kraut-rock. The two-piece outfit leaves behind a weight of the instrumental “jamming” that their forefathers like Suicide and Silver Apples had in their utility belts, then swaps it in for the more droning and unorganized “noise” qualities of today. Much of the music opted for the children of the drug revolution was psychedelic, and these days we have googly-eyed rave maniacs in love with the repetitious qualities trance and genres of that ilk. Moon Duo works as a band that harnesses the positive qualities of trance music, but with live instrumentation, not just beats, backing it.
Escape is a treat you can dabble in every once in a while unless you’re a die-hard fan hungry for endless amount of fuzz-addled, droning noise-rock. If it is your cup of tea, you probably already have your own ibuprofen cocktail at hand, ready to gulp down with the onset of your imminent headache. Escape delays the cranial harming formula with its lo-fi garage sound, but can also turn its instrumentation against the listener, like at the halfway mark of the album’s first track, “Motorcycle, I Love You.” The song’s aimless guitar solo becomes nothing more than artillery to the ear drums, with little dedicated rhythm once the wash of noise is presented in full.
The real trouble is that half of Moon Duo is a member from Wooden Shjips, who does nearly the same gig, but better. Duo’s long-winded and expansive jams are more enjoyable with the volume knob at the half mark, but Shjips pushes a fuller sound, which lends to making Moon Duo, and their debut album, sound more like Wooden Shjips Lite.
-Sean McCoy
Religious Girls
Open Your Heart to Fantasy
self-released (2009)
Genre: Indie
Rating: B
The best thing going for Oakland’s Religious Girls is the four members’ complete lack of fear to do whatever they want in their music. There must be a motivational poster in their rehearsal studio that reads “YES: It Rhymes with Success” or some such saying. Blast beats, Casio synths, multiple vocal harmonies, crashing percussion, painful screams, warbling samples, elven yelping, and droning soundscapes have rarely sounded so coherent and focused while remaining inherently off-the-cuff. On their EP, Open Your Heart to Fantasy, Religious Girls take the ideas and sounds used by any number of noisy indie bands, and turn them into a seamless statement of their intentions.
When a band gets adventurous in this way, comparisons can be easily made. HEALTH, Black Dice, Battles, Animal Collective, et al can be used to draw parallel’s to Religious Girls’ sound, and they’d be spot on. However, its the special moments in Fantasy that give the outfit their own style. The end of opening track “E.S.L.” has one such series of passages which alternate between grindcore beats, a massive vocal chorus, and sparkling electronics before giving way to the bubbling samples that lead into “Canary,” a slow-coming burst of instantly lovable rhythm and melody that could be the EP’s strongest song. Around the two-minute mark of “Colorwheel” a set of high pitched vocal harmonies match up with shimmering synths and pattering percussion to give the EP a midpoint which you’ll want to replay again and again.
It’s a good thing Religious Girls haven’t set forth to record an album yet. You can hear a band rife with ideas and tenacity on Open Your Heart to Fantasy, but one that remains a bit too reliant on the music it identifies with. Religious Girls is still piecing together the puzzle of its influences, and, if given the right amount of time, could eventually coalesce all of the varied and disparate elements into something whole and unique for a debut album. They only need continue to say, “Yes.”
-Patric Fallon
Listen:
“Colorwheel”
Yeasayer
Odd Blood
Secretly Canadian (2010)
Genre: Indie
Rating: A
Odd Blood isn’t a reinvention. It’s not as much like Dylan finding God as like him finding the electric guitar. The (now) trio from Brooklyn traded in its tribal beats, vocal ensembles, and world-indie cross-genre for electronic pop-leaning songs produced meticulously with almost all synthetic sounds.
The record begins with “The Children,” a slow, haunting song that sets Odd Blood in a bold way. The track features a few eerie chord progressions, layer upon layer of sonic texture, monster-ish vocals shifted an octave down, and a smooth saxophone that brings everything together; telling the listener in effect that this will be altogether different from their debut, All Hour Cymbals.
The album’s second track and first single, “Ambling Alp,” is really where Yeasayer’s new approach is on display. Though, it isn’t necessarily a new song, as the band has been playing it live as far back as 2008, but this is the first time “Ambling Alp” has been recorded. The drums here are mostly synthesized, the bass is huge, the melodies are all synthesizers, there is no audible guitar, and singer Chris Keating’s voice is maxed to the tens on feel-good vibes.
At times, Odd Blood gets lively enough to rival anything inside today’s clubs (“O.N.E.” and “Rome”), poppy enough to garner radio play (“Ambling Alp” and “Madder Red”), and romantic enough to be featured in movie or television scenes (“I Remember” and “Love Me Girl”); the ones with the main characters getting back together and embracing in the pouring rain.
“Grizelda” is a fitting end cap for the previous nine songs. The vibe, like that of the album’s opener, is a little more reserved here. The dance beats are gone, but where “The Children” is like an invitation into the imminent party, “Grizelda” offers reflection and closure for everything that has just happened.
There already has been, and probably will be more, criticism for what people will call the band’s “reinvention,” but bands that release the same record over and over are easily forgotten. It’s the bands that are always moving and changing—doing so with high levels of skill and precision—that will keep our attention for a much longer time.
-Todd Miller
Listen:
“Ambling Alp”
It’s no secret that the new album from Yeasayer, entitled Odd Blood, leaked on the internet some time ago. Aside from the fact that such things are just about the norm these days, the band even went so far to address the issue on their Twitter feed, saying, “Presents are always spoiled for those who open them before they are supposed to.” It’s a true enough statement, but after fans heard the engrossing, leftfield pop of the album’s first single, “Ambling Alp,” can you blame them?
Today, the Brooklyn-based trio offered to share another bit of Odd Blood, the album’s second single “O.N.E.” If you head over to the band’s website, a free download of the song is available by giving up your email address. Hopefully, the track will tie over those having a hard time waiting for the February 9 release of Yeasayer’s sophomore album via Secretly Canadian.
Clipd Beaks
To Realize
Lovepump United (2010)
Genre: Indie
Rating: C+
Clipd Beaks owns up to a sound that could score a drug-induced dream sequence. Think of a David Lynch film that makes some immediate sense. The band’s latest album, To Realize, breaks occasionally between tracks, but plays more like one very long song. Nic Barbein fronts the Oakland three-piece with a soft voice that seems to float around the group’s instrumentation; rarely standing out as an independent sound. His ghostly vocals mesh with the band’s synthesized ambience and muffled drumming to birth an atmosphere that can be engrossing for the ears.
The majority of To Realize sets a very tranquil—near trance-like—mood, but a few songs chock-up to something all together spastic and jarring. “Broke Life” is one such track with its strategically hammered out guitar work over the subtly eerie background effects and Barbein peaking his voice into a dirty yowl. And if a band can do it well, horns are always a welcome sound, which is what makes “Home” one of the better tracks on the record. It’s a song that jumps between scenes of discordant instrumentation all at once followed by small stretches of crawling drumming/singing, with a frantic trumpet tying everything together.
Parts of Clipd Beaks’ second album do tend to wallow in their own murk, and usually for too long. These low points, like on “Desert Highway Music” and “On One,” threaten to alienate new listeners—catering more to fans that have already accepted their penchant for psychedelic indulgence. Still, To Realize is a horse of a different color that gallops strongly even when the songs pour out like mud from a faucet.
-Sean McCoy
Listen:
“Blood”
Dinowalrus
%
Kanine Records (2010)
Genre: Indie
Rating: B-
What a name. Seriously. Dinowalrus? That could mean so many different things. Creaky, lumberjack-flannelled yawn-rock? Radiated book-pop? Acid-addled space jams? Mouthbreather freak-jazz? Music-major drone? Or just something absurdly, impossibly evil like a Wolf Eyes knock-off. Dinowalrus could be so many niches, and, in a way, they are. On their debut album %, the band manages to synthesize all of those discordant ingredients conjured by their name into a sound that’s obscurely familiar and entirely new at the same time.
The prodigious amount of influence behind Dinowalrus’ work gives them a distinctly unpretentious quality. Each of the ten tracks on % work like pop songs—blossoming into life, they intensify in momentum before tumbling down into a walloping big finish. The fourth track, “I Hate Letters,” even features a guitar solo Slash might be proud of; it makes the band easy to root for, especially within the context of its very user-unfriendly noise scene.
For a band that focuses on slouched, sprawling, constantly-mutating improvisations, Dinowalrus is surprisingly euphoric in nature. Take lead single “BEAD.” While it has enough punchy yelps and fractured trumpet noodling to be unmistakably considered ‘experimental,’ the heart of the song lies within the frigid, near-electro-pop synthline that carries the track across its four minutes.
% can even get downright gorgeous sometimes. On “Haze on the Mobius Ship,” amidst a blearily-gargantuan guitar, the lead singer, known only by the singular name Pete, trades in his screech for a pensive, displaced lament. It’s actually a little jarring for a song so reverberatingly beautiful to come in the midst of a very tongue-in-cheek album, but it’s just another reason why % is so lovable and incredibly easy to recommend.
- Luke Winkie
Listen:
“BEAD”
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