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Dresden Dolls
Dresden Dolls
No, Virginia…
(Roadrunner Records, 2008)
For a band with such an outrageous live show, an outlandish cabaret-style spectacle where stilt-walkers and strip shows are equally expected, the music of the Dresden Dolls is surprisingly intimate. If the Boston two-piece’s music were as zany as its onstage antics, it would be easy to dismiss as a novelty, as a precocious act with a shelf-life clearly labeled on the front of their kickdrum. In reality, this is not the case. While there is a bit of a Weimar-era German cabaret quality to their sound, the band’s music owes more to decades of radio-friendly American piano pop and, quite interestingly, punk rock.
If you were to switch out frontwoman Amanda Palmer’s piano and replace it with an electric guitar doing virtually the same thing, a lot of the songs on the Dresden Dolls’ new album, a collection of B-sides and a handful of tracks they recorded earlier this year, would sound like whip-smart slices of punk fun, because deep inside Palmer’s Kander and Ebb façade beats a heart that’s equal parts sneer and smirk—the hallmark of every great punk rocker. That said, if you took away the piano, you’d loose the very core of what makes No, Virginia… a really fun and engaging album. Palmer pounds the ivories with a fearless abandon that effortlessly fills the empty corners of a sound that, while often minimalist, is never sparse or sonically lacking. Three-quarters of the way though the album, on their cover of the Psychedelic Furs’ “Pretty in Pink”, they introduce an organ sound, and it’s a pleasant realization that up until then the sonic palette has remained remarkably constant (other than some subtle background guitar fuzz on a track or two) without getting dull or repetitive.
Elf Power
Elf Power
In a Cave
(Rykodisc, 2008)
Back in my younger and more impressionable days, namely high school, I went through about a three-month period where the only bands I’d listen to carried the Elephant 6 seal of approval. I’d blame Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea for this condition if I didn’t feel at least a little guilty attaching a verb as pejorative as “blame” to a subject so dear to my heart as Aeroplane. Pretty much every band I discovered during that oh-so-poppy period of my life was something I really enjoyed, like Of Montreal and Olivia Tremor Control, which are bands that I still listen to on a regular basis. In fact, there was only one Elephant 6 band’s record that I bought that I didn’t whole-heartedly embrace, Elf Power’s debut, Vainly Clutching at Phantom Limbs. (Ironically, this first record was released solely through Arena Rock before the band’s attachment to Elephant 6 with their following release When the Red King Comes). The barebones lo-fi aesthetic, the off-the-wall lyrical weirdness, and all the freakin’ twee grated on my nerves. I listened to it and thought to myself, “I could make this,” and I wasn’t quite at the point in my life where I could ever imagine that being a positive thing.
Cut to today, when I popped in the Elf Power’s new album In a Cave and was pleasantly surprised at how nicely the band had developed—even though I really shouldn’t have been. Elf Power recorded their debut over a decade ago and, eight albums later, they’ve recorded an album of hazy yet bright pop songs that stay true to their Elephant 6 kin, while showing years of artistic growth. Really, more than anything else, In a Cave sounds like an Olivia Tremor Control record on Ritalin. The Olivia Tremor Control-like tendencies are no accident; former Tremor Controller Eric Harris plays on the album and shares songwriting credits with the band’s frontman, Andrew Reiger.
Young Knives
Young Knives
Superabundance
(Transgressive, 2008)
Let’s talk about repetition. Sometimes repetition is good, like when you’re jumping rope. But sometimes repetition is bad, like when your younger brother used to repeat everything you said until it made you so mad that you punched him in the face and then got in trouble. Repetition is a crucial part of music; one could argue that it’s the crucial element in crossing that subtle line between something being music and something just being noise. Say something once, it’s talking; say something twice, it’s music. For a musician, knowing how often to repeat a sonic phrase or idea is a crucial skill because understanding the successful use of repetition is the key to alternately confirming and confounding a listener’s expectations.
On their third full-length album, Superabundance, Oxford’s Young Knives take the idea of musical, particularly lyrical, repetition to a nearly absurd level. Nine of the 12 songs on the album feature over-and-over repeated lyrical refrains. In all of those cases, the phrase being repeated is also the title of the song. The chorus of the album opener “Fit 4 U” is “Fit for you / Not fit for you / Fit for you / Not fit for you.” The next song, “Terra Firma”, gives us a chorus of “Fight, right, we’ll escape / Terra firma terra firma / Fight, right we’ll escape / Terra firma terra firma.” Can you guess what the chorus of the next song, “Up All Night”, is? What about the chorus of “Mummy Light the Fire” or “Current of the River”? I’ll give you a hint: They’re just the names of the goddamn songs over and over again. The repetition isn’t limited to just the choruses, it happens in verses, bridges, intros, pre-choruses, breakdowns, everywhere! Lyrical profundity isn’t exactly required for the Young Knives’ brand of highly-caffeinated post-punk, but singer Henry Dartnall’s insistence on continually saying the same freaking thing begs the question of whether he’s being serious or if Superabundance is a concept album about a superabundance of endlessly repeating the same thing.
British Sea Power
British Sea Power
Do You Like Rock Music?
(Rough Trade, 2008)
It’s always nice when a band takes their name seriously, especially in this day and age. What does a name like Vampire Weekend or Somebody Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin say about either of those bands, other than all the good band names have already been taken? It’s refreshing that the name British Sea Power opens up a veritable treasure trove of information about the band and their third, and best, album Do You Like Rock Music?.
From the Ian Curtis-like vocal delivery to the Brit-pop-through-a-funhouse-mirror guitar lines, these guys have clearly drank up everything on the English rock scene of the past couple decades, picked out the bits that fit, and tossed the ones that don’t. The “British” aspect of their name is the simplest part to get, but it’s the rest of their name that really speaks to their music. Do You Like Rock Music? is a grandiose and cinematic album that recalls a small ship being tossed around by a mighty powerful storm. The songs aren’t built like traditional pop songs, and at first they don’t seem very structured at all. They ebb and flow, building tension, which is then suddenly released. It’s only after repeated listens that the band’s method—pop songs hiding under the waves of fuzzed-out distortion and wet symbol crashes—reveals itself.
The band’s most basic reference point is the dark post-punk of fellow Brits, Echo & the Bunnymen, and on their first album, 2003’s wryly named The Decline of British Sea Power, the band seemed content exploring the nooks and crannies of Echo’s sonic palette with great aplomb. Five years and two albums later, the band has gone in contradictory directions. Most obviously they’ve taken epically-swirling prog-rock from their debut’s best song, “Fear of Drowning”, and honed it down to a science. The effect is that every song, from the brief “Trip Out” to the lengthy “Lights Out for Darker Skies”, is equally epic.
Although there’s a strong Brit-pop undercurrent at work here, it only shows up sporadically; when it does, the band is at its best. This is in evidence on two of the album’s consecutive early tracks that instantly rank among the best things the band has ever done. “No Lucifer” features the repeated chorus “ea-sy ea-sy” that echoes the victory chant of British professional wrestler Big Daddy. This is practically criminal in its numerous build-ups of tension, as each time the momentum is sucked out, replaced by mellow, poppy keyboards. It’s the type of masterfully restrained songwriting that only a small handful of bands are capable of. But all of the songs’ accomplishments are made to look like child’s play compared to the album’s centerpiece, “Waving Flags”, a sweeping, deeply humane song about the influx of immigrants into England from Eastern Europe that commends them both for their work ethic and heavy drinking habits. “Are you of legal drinking age? On minimum wage?” asks singer Yan Wiliknson, “Well welcome in from across the Vistula. You’ve come so very far, so welcome in, don’t be scared.” Buttressed by a chorus of cathartic “oohs” and a marching drum beat, the song is custom-built to be a massive shout-along at live shows, which is absolutely perfect for the most overtly political song on the album.
The album title, unlike the band’s name, doesn’t yield much certainty in its description. Do You Like Rock Music? can be taken a number of ways: as a sincere peen to the relevance of the band’s chosen medium, as a fists-in-the-air, crowd-hyping rhetorical question, or as an ironic mocking of the pomposity of the former. Lost in the nautical swell of the band’s powerful kaleidoscope of sound, it’s abundantly clear that, no matter the intent of the question, the answer is yes, yes, a thousand times, yes.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
Harvey Danger: Where have all the merrymakers gone?
Harvey Danger
Where have all the merrymakers gone?
(Slash, 1997)
Sometimes there’s nothing more tragic than a good band with a hit song. This is especially true when the hit is the band’s break out song and it’s just a little too clever for its own good. Just ask Wayne Coyne. It took the Flaming Lips years to climb out from all the Vaseline, tangerines, and magazines of their hit, “She Don’t Use Jelly”, before taking their place as indie rock elder statesmen. More often than not, most bands don’t get that opportunity for a second chance to turn what initially appears to be a novelty hit into an actual career. That slow, near-inevitable slip into the dustbin of music history, VH1 to be specific, can be turned into an instant free fall by a ubiquitous pop hit.
Anyone who was listening to alternative rock radio in the late ‘90s can probably recite the lyrics to “Flagpole Sitta” in its entirely on the spot right now. If you know the song give it a shot—there might be some mumbling involved, but you might surprise yourself. Harvey Danger’s 1997 pean to self-love had all the makings of a disposable anthem: a catchy chorus, sly pop culture references, and a hook that could wiggle its way into your ear and unpack its bags for a stay. The rest of the story practically writes itself. The band released a lackluster second single that same year that didn’t come close to replicating the meteoric success of “Flagpole Sitta.” They then recorded a follow-up album, King James Version, which languished in obscurity due to record label restructuring. Eventually, it was released to little fanfare, despite positive reviews, in 2000. The next year the band went on an indefinite hiatus.
Ween
Ween
La Cucaracha
(Rounder, 2007)
“Fiesta”, the first song on the Ween’s new album La Cucaracha, is an example of a perfect Ween song—it takes almost the entire length of the song before you have any indication that the band playing the song is Ween and not a band whose full-time job is playing music in the genre that the brothers Ween are currently only inhabiting. In this opening cut, the band transforms into a horn-led big band pumping out brassy, dancey funk. That is until, about 2/3 of the way into the song, a drum fill suddenly and momentarily hits a computerized glitch, instantly yanking the song from it south-of-the-border party setting and onto your hard drive. If you have to ask “are they fucking with me?” then this is probably your first Ween CD, because if they weren’t fucking with you then it wouldn’t be Ween.
Screwing with your head and laughing in your face are two of the three important planks in Ween’s shtick. The other plank is that Dean and Gene Ween are quite possibly the two greatest songwriters of their generation and would probably be generally recognized as such if they didn’t spend the majority of their time writing carnivalesque children’s songs about AIDS, Philly soul cuts about Woolworth’s, and an entire album of country songs about the filthiest, most off-the-wall crap imaginable. But the thing about all these songs is that, not only can the band completely disappear into whatever style of music they are currently playing, but each of these songs is crafted with the sturdy melodies, delectable hooks, and inventive structures of those charming lads from Liverpool.
On their ninth studio album, nearly 20 years after they released their first, the band may have crafted the perfect encapsulation of Weeniness and, as a result, it’s both immensely entertaining and profoundly frustrating. One of the things that really brought together their finest albums into cohesive wholes was a central sonic conceit. Whether it’s The Mollusk’s nautical prog, 12 Country Greats’ Nashville authenticity, or White Pepper’s Beatles worship, each of those albums made sense as a unit. 1994’s Chocolate and Cheese lacked a central musical idea but the songs there were uniformly stronger then the ones that are on La Cucaracha.
This isn’t to say that this album is a dud. Far from it. There’s really good stuff here, but a lot of that stuff seems like it belongs on a previous Ween album. Without a big idea to rally around, the band’s natural inclination is largely to go back to what they’ve done before. For example, the backwoods stomp of “Learnin’ to Love” sounds like something left over from the 12 Country Greats sessions, as does “Object” with White Pepper, and “Woman and Man” with The Mollusk. That being said, these songs are still awesome. The 11-minute long “Woman and Man” is a particular standout, which starts with the kind of harmonized, meandering sing-speak that got people so angry at bands like Yes. They start the song by saying, “Once there was one, once there was only one / A foot, a hand, a tongue / Talking to no one and no one made nothing / To easy the balance it split in two / The whole, the line, became creation and we saw bodies falling from rib and from monkey.” But here’s the thing: the band goes from this auspicious beginning to a full-fledged, hard-rocking, jaw-to-the-floor prog jam.
However, there’s really only one song on the album where you can really hear Ween pushing the envelope and that’s on the closer, and first single, “Your Party”—a dark and moody song that tells the incongruously pleasant story of going to a really fun party. “We had the best time at your party,” goes the chorus, “the wife and I thank you very much.” Aided by sax legend David Sanborn, the song takes the band into the place where they most excel: somewhere they’ve never been before.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
The Thrills
The Thrills
Teenager
(Virgin Records, 2007)
Two albums after their debut of effortlessly sun-kissed pop odes to the West Coast, So Much For the City, burst the band onto the scene, the Thrills have decided to go home. From the blunt, matter-of-fact title, to the cover picture of a “bedroom at your parents’ house” make-out session, Teenager’s desire to revisit the band’s formative years lead the Thrills away from the Laurel Canyon sound that initially defined them, past the meticulously crafted Beulah-like pop gems of Let’s Bottle Bohemia and, finally, up the cost to Vancouver, where they recorded Teenager. The thing about Vancouver is that it can do a passable job of doubling for pretty much anywhere; that’s one reason why so many movies and TV shows are filmed up there. For the Thrills, who seem to be deeply affected by their recording environment, it’s supposed to double for Dublin. The problem is that Vancouver pretending to be Dublin isn’t remotely as furtive a place for the band’s imagination as was California. The result is a collection of mostly dull, workmanlike, mid-tempo rockers with only a few retaining even a fraction of the personality that their previous work had in spades.
The album is front-loaded, with its best tracks coming right off the bat. “The Midnight Choir’s” varied atmospherics alternating between dense, bass-driven verses and open, swirling chorus all bound together by catchy, angular acoustic guitar stabs is Teenager’s standout track. Unfortunately, each song goes progressively downhill from there. “This Year” falls short of the promise delivered by its nearly anthemic chorus. “This year could be our year,” moans lead singer Conor Deasy. The song is unable to hit heights that the band is striving for… but, well, at least they’re still trying.
The deeper you get into this album the more you wish that the band would at least do that much. Try. It sounds like they’re sleepwalking through every song, which wouldn’t be so bad given the melancholic nostalgia of the album’s theme, but it ends up having the effect of making every single song sound exactly the same. The sonic palette is rarely altered and hardly anything interesting or memorable ever happens. You can listen to this entire album over and over again and not be able to recall a single lyric, melody, or musical idea. While being bored is an important part of being a teenager, it shouldn’t necessarily be a part of listening to an album about a teenager.
The best albums about being a teenager (Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell comes to mind) aren’t really about the humdrum daily grind of being a confused, annoying, self-involved adolescent. They’re about what being a confused, annoying, self-involved teenager feels like. They’re about how every emotion seems like a life-or-death struggle imbued with the importance of the ages. They’re about love, lust, and not understanding the difference between the two. This album is none of those things.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
Liars
Liars
Liars
(Mute, 2007)
About five seconds into the Liars’ new self-titled album and it’s clear that the now Berlin-based trio have made a between album full of stylistic left turns. Call it their signature move. The buzzsaw guitars and pounding drums seem miles away from the delicately creepy atmospherics of last year’s Drum’s Not Dead. In fact, it actually seems like, with this eponymous album, they’re making a conscious move to return to form, back to the more straight-ahead rock sound of their first album, 2001’s seminal They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top. However, with a band as creatively challenging as the Liars, it’s never that simple.
Their debut album was lumped in with the myriad of dance-punk acts that hit around that time, more for their location in New York and their combination of programmed drums and angular guitars than because of any similarity to bands like the Rapture. With its thrash-about recklessness and 30-minute long midnight-groove of a closer, the album seemed like it was beamed down from Mars instead of brought over from Brooklyn. That being said, it was nothing compared to the bat-shit insanity of their experimental follow-ups They Were Wrong So We Drowned and Drum’s Not Dead.
Caribou
Caribou
Andorra
(Merge, 2007)
I never really understood all the hoopla surrounding the band Animal Collective. Yeah, on a basic level, I get it: a lot of people happen to think that the music they make is this side of a revelation, but I’ve never personally heard that magical spark that seems to be the linchpin of appreciating their music. This isn’t to say I haven’t tried, because god knows I have. A number of times. That I’ve made the number of attempts that I have at trying to appreciate their work can be attributed to my way too deferential attitude toward the indie taste-making hive mind. Also, I’d never say that I’ve never enjoyed anything of theirs that I’ve heard, because there are bits of it that I’ve enjoyed (like that one time when they almost had me convinced that I could win a rabbit). Well, the first time I put on Andorra, the new album by Caribou, who was previously known as Manitoba and, before that, Dan Snaith (because that’s his name), all I could think was this is what Animal Collective should sound like. Pretty freaking great.
The nine songs on this record are, at first listen, loosely structured, hazy campfire jams—a campfire equipped with a laptop and Wi-Fi. Much like on his last proper full-length, 2005’s The Milk of Human Kindness, Snaith is playing with the electronic elements he mined so effectively when he went by his Manitoba moniker, but is now taking those elements and applying them to the framework of free-flowing, dreamy pop songs that often end up sounding like what would happen if My Bloody Valentine plugged their guitars directly into their amps.
Mr. Osterberg, If You’re Nasty
by: Aaron Sankin
If the 30-year history of punk rock has taught us nothing else, it’s that there’s nary a song that can’t hold up to an increase in tempo, a whole bunch of distortion, and a shot of heroin in the ear. The pairing of Madonna and the Stooges isn’t all that strange either. Iggy opened for her once at a concert in Dublin in 2004 and Mike Watt’s (the Stooges new bass player) obsession with Madge is well-documented—he used to play a bass with her face emblazoned on the front, and a jam session of Madonna songs he did in the ’80s with Sonic Youth led to that band doing The Whitey Album, a full-length album featuring two Madonna covers, under the name Ciccone Youth. What really struck me about watching Iggy Pop, in his de rigueur uniform of leather pants and no shirt, was this: What is the source of this guy’s power and influence?
Mr. James Osterberg is not, by any and all objective standards, an especially good singer. His vocal contribution to the original Stooges albums falls somewhere along a continuum where atonal sing-speaking is on one end and a harsh, guttural growl resides on the other. Occasionally, like the chorus of “I Need Somebody” from Raw Power, he takes on the vocal style of a bizarro crooner, a half-joking parody of a barrel-chested, velour jacketed, nightclub bellow. The menacing, animalistic howl fits much better into the songs on their early albums than does the other singing styles he tries. But, in either case, the vocals and music are always disconnected. It’s as though he struts slightly below the music—constantly on the ledge of the jagged cacophony behind him, the proverbial seams always slightly showing.
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by: Aaron Sankin
published: August 13, 2008
in column: Over a Beer
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