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New Hold Steady Record Due Out in May
A press release through Shore Fire Media has announced that Hold Steady has a new record to be released on May 3rd via Rough Trade. The album is titled Heaven in Whenever, and both Craig Finn and Tad Kubler comment on the new release.
Kubler says, “this album is sonically more diverse. And I really believe it exposes new elements of the band that we hinted at on other records but weren’t able to fully realize until this one,” while Finn states, “I think Heaven is Whenever has a bit more open space. I see it as being less anthemic and more complex.”
Either way, sounds compelling. I wasn’t a believer ’til I saw the band live, so here’s a live clip, just for you:
Alela Diane: All in the Family
Alela Diane Menig grew up in Nevada City, CA, a former gold-rush town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The tight-knit community, anchored by a main street that has changed little since its heyday in the mid-1800s, is a haven for hippies and creative types, and its schools place a heavy emphasis on the arts. Alela spent her youth taking photos and painting, getting good grades, singing in the school choir, and occasionally heading out to see her dad, Tom, perform as the leader of the DeadBeats, a Grateful Dead cover band in which she says he “still shreds on the electric guitar.” But despite musical parents and a father who seemed to have a guitar in his lap at all hours of the day and night, Alela (”a-LEE-la”) was rarely inspired to write songs and play music.
And then her world got turned upside down.
Soon after Alela headed south for college in San Francisco, Tom and Suzanne Menig split up, a heartbreaking event that unleashed a torrent of unforeseen songwriting talent in their daughter. The songs were melancholic, focused primarily on the break-up and its aftermath, with her parents selling the home Alela grew up in and her mom moving to Santa Cruz. The creative outburst turned into 2006’s The Pirate’s Gospel, an album of lingering folk that announced Alela Diane, the name she records and performs under, as a formidable songwriter with a remarkably rangy voice. The album sold well in the US, and unexpectedly took off in France. read more
Jarvis Cocker
Jarvis Cocker
“Further Complications.”
(Rough Trade, 2009)
Maybe it’s because he relocated from England to France, the place where big dumb rock is as wildly popular as Jerry Lewis once was. Maybe he was looking to inject some teenaged flavor into mid-life. He wouldn’t be the first or last person to try it. So when I say “Further Complications.” is Jarvis Cocker’s Grinderman, which it seems to be, it’s also to say he’s no Nick Cave, even though there are parts of this mock cock-rock album that rise to the occasion. The feedback of “Fuckingsong” and the jangle of the made-in-England Stones/Pistols sound of “Caucasian Blues” are music to my ears. But it’s when I watched the street corner video for “Angela”, knowing it was Cocker rockin’ but having my brain process him as Chris Robinson, I had to admit that I prefer my second generation cock-rock unironic. Harsh? Perhaps I’m thinking about it all more than it merits, but I always thought of Cocker as a right-on Mark E. Smith kind of guy who doesn’t ever take rock too seriously, though this album, joke that it’s supposed to be, feels like he does.
If I were to throw out the name Jarvis Cocker to my music-consuming pals, for every one who knows and loves the legend of him, I swear there would be another who would ask, Jarvis Who? Any relation to Joe? No, amazingly, since England is a small country and both Cocker gentlemen are singers from Sheffield. For those who care to know more, I tell them that, at home, Jarvis is a celebrity, the one-time leader of Pulp and a frequent talk show guest who’s known for his cultural commentary, as well as for at least one very unpredictable act of public mischief: In 1996, he disrupted the stage in protest of Michael Jackson’s appearance at the BRIT Awards (it was in the middle of the big Jackson brouhaha). Someone had to say something, right? Cocker is the one to declare himself outraged at just about everything—which is, most of all, why I like him. And yet, underneath the sometimes hard-ass exterior, I sense he’s humane. His “Running the World” laid it on the line for the “Common People”, two of his best-known and beloved songs that deal in class matters, on which he’s frequently known to banter. Of course, we in the States don’t have much of a televised forum for a rock ‘n’ roll man in funny glasses delivering intellectual raps, with the exception of the occasional late-night PBS broadcast. And so, he remains mostly “Jarvis Who?” to US listeners of his generation.
Little Joy
Little Joy
Little Joy
(Rough Trade, 2008)
Isn’t it great when you stumble on a happy little album without any expectations or preconceptions of what it’s going to sound like? Somehow I managed to get my hands on Little Joy’s self-titled debut without having any idea that the band contains the drummer from the Strokes (the yummily-named Fabrizio Moretti) as well as this awesome Brazilian dude (Rodrigo Amarante of Los Hermanos) and some other girl with another awesome name (Binki Shapiro). And so these three notables come together to make one of the most effortlessly listenable records I’ve heard in a while. And it’s probably the most relevant album put out by a Stroke since 2001.
Nearly every song will make you want to sip girly drinks, the kind with mini umbrellas and Marciano cherries, while lying in a hammock, swaying by the beach. While it’s clearly nothing earth-shattering or life-altering—these are just breezy, acoustic melodies after all—it is the best summer record you’ll hear all winter. The bossa nova sway of “Shoulder to Shoulder” and the shuffling rhythms of “No One’s Better Sake” are just so warm, in the slinkiest, sultriest way.
It certainly helps that Amarante’s voice is somewhat akin to that of a more sobering Julian Casablancas, (especially on “Keep Me in Mind”). He’s just as sexy-sounding but—get this—he enunciates his lyrics. The Shapiro-sung songs shine as well. Sounding like a smokier version of Yo La Tengo’s Georgia Hubley, she enhances the melancholic nature of “Unattainable” and “Don’t Watch Me Dancing”, which are pretty sweet and wistful to begin with.
In a way, Little Joy are reminiscent of a male-fronted She & Him, mildly lo-fi and old-timey, but with a twist of rocking Tropicália. When at their best, as on album standout “Brand New Start”, your mom may ask something along the lines of, “Is this the Beach Boys?” And at the worst, Little Joy is perfectly content with the mellow derivativeness of the innocuous West Coast pop pastiche they create. But let’s face it. If you’re going to cop an aesthetic, it might as well be one that’s bursting with equal parts sunshine and sadness.
Overall, Little Joy’s debut is just as their name suggests—a minor record (its 11 tracks barely run half an hour) of go-down-easy folk-pop. It’s all so pleasant and likeable, and oftentimes that’s a hell of a lot better then trendiness. Maybe Fab should quit his day job and take up permanent residence in SoCal, because I’ll take this over the pre-cooked post-punk of those detached New York scenesters any day. Perhaps this really is it.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
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The Long Blondes
The Long Blondes
“Couples”
(Rough Trade, 2008)
The Long Blondes’ debut album Someone to Drive You Home dropped fully formed, with cinematic glamour and caustic descriptions of domestic disappointment accrued over the course of the usual years of toil and early singles. “Couples”, made in the wake of the dissolution of multiple relationships within the band (hence the quotation marks), refines the group’s lyrical ambivalence about adulthood, particularly romance—the winnowing of possibilities on one hand and the often illusory promise of sexual freedom on the other.
And with DJ-turned-producer Erol Alkan handling things, it also expands their sound to the further-spreading branches of the post-punk family tree. But it’s shorter and less cohesive (factors perhaps attributable to “Couples” having a shorter running start than Someone to Drive You Home, especially the latter’s B-side-loaded US release), the kind of album that’d make you excited for what the Long Blondes were capable of doing, if they hadn’t already done it.
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]
The New Hold Steady Album Art Is, Um, Weird?
by: Jocelyn Hoppa
Pitchfork is lovin’ the new album art for the upcoming Hold Steady record Heaven Is Whenever (set to release via Rough Trade in Europe on May 3rd and later in the US via Vagrant), but I’m not sold. At the very least, I wouldn’t categorize it as “badass,” as they have. We should all be pretty excited for this album, but the whole Christian vibe is kinda throwing me off. And not even necessarily because there’s a religious tone set with the title and art, because lots of great art and music uses religion for life metaphors. I think it has more to do with how cliche it is. Music is religion, etc etc. And also, it makes the album feel weirdly epic without even having the music to hear, heightening expectations beyond what should be reasonable if you can’t even hear a damn song. I’m not for the heightening of any expectations without some substantial evidence anymore. A little Italian guy once gave me that nugget of knowledge.
Singer Craig Finn has said that the new record, “ is about “embracing suffering and understanding its place in a joyful life. The lyrics speak a lot about struggle and reward.”
Check out the track lasting and confirmed tour dates after the jump. read more
by: Jocelyn Hoppa
published: March 15, 2010
in column: What Goes On
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