Posts by Jason:
The Antlers – Hospice Album Review
August 21st, 2009
mp3 – The Antlers – Kettering
mp3 – The Antlers – Bear
mp3 – The Antlers – Two
The Antlers “Hospice” is quickly ascending to the top of my year- end list; surpassing Animal Collective, who, I’m sad to say, lost points with their idiotic set list choice at Lollapalooza. Like any good work of art, The Antlers album leaves us with more questions than answers – probing our conscious by way of the unconscious – forcing death to the forefront of our minds by creating an alternate universe, a storyboard swathed in atmospheric piano and breathy synthesizers. I won’t insult your intelligence by giving a step by step introduction to each track, or the winding story that unfolds throughout them; to do so would ruin the experience. Instead, I think the focus belongs more on the soundscape of “Hospice”. The musical bed Peter Silberman has made is draped in white noise and glass shattering chimes; acoustic guitars and music box pianos; this alone takes a talented ear for sculpture – not to mention the McCartney-like ability to turn a sing song melody into deep and haunting conceit that sticks to you like a zebra mussel. For a bedroom recording artist; there is an existential demon that wno’t stop whispering: “One more synth, a little bit more eq, it sounds so much like everything else, quantize a bit more….you can do another guitar part…” and so on…The strength in the album lies in its ability to warrant second and third and fourth listens; you are forced into this due to its inescapable content and the undeniable texture that hides behind the previous listens. Anchored by the melancholy, the melody slips into your ears just as one might slip into sleep after sitting, bedside, all night, in a sterile hospital chair. Give into the sleep, give into the melody, and give into “Hospice”; your ears are beckoning.
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357 Lover – Diorama of the Golden Lion Album Review
July 29th, 2009
I think we can all agree that music is cyclical. As one style wanes, another comes in to take its place; 357 Lover‘s Diorama of the Golden Lion is jumping the gun a bit on this one. If bombastic falsetto and quarter note plinks are something that gets your engine going then, yes, these guys might be of interest. For me, and the rest of the people who don’t live in the 70’s, I think I only have enough room in my record collection for one Queen – and certainly I’m pushing it even by owning a album by Meatloaf.
They’d like to be grouped with these theatrical rock bands, and musically, the sound is uncanny. Real rock guitar solos (commendable), driving drums, and angelic harmonies all combine together like a musical pine tree: cumbersome and irritatingly huge. This is exactly what you get when kids who grew up on guitar hero learn how to play the real thing. Lyrically, these guys might as well be reciting children’s books. They bless us with gems such as “junior high was a very good time, dirty phrases and dirty rhymes, junior high was a very good time” – sung in a countrified, bar band style that makes me embarrassed for the singer. I’m all for the fun pop song, but really, if you feel the need to be nostalgic, could you do with without singing like a bad 80’s cover band? And I don’t know, maybe be nostalgic about something besides fart jokes and getting spit on? Eight songs in and I think this album would be more aptly called Diarrhea of the Mouth.
These upbeat, piano based major chord loving guys have it all together musically, and the production is bar to none, but more often than not, they end up on the wrong side of parody – sounding like Tenacious D singing about Dio – but they don’t have the acumen to realize the irony, or the restraint to realize they are a rock band and not a backing band for the next production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. I had sincerely high hopes for these guys, and I can tell by their webpage they definitely have a sense of humor – they should be able to show it through their music. In their defense, I have heard the live show is an unbelievable spectacle, which I do not doubt; the showmanship is more than obvious– but I like my rock dark, my lyrics serious, and my vocals with a little less bombast.
mp3 – .357 Lover – Time Cop
Regina Spektor – Far Album Review
June 30th, 2009
Never in my life has nonsense sounded so disarming. A few years back Regina Spektor brought me to my knees (figuratively), and brought tears to my eyes (literally) on a scorching hot August day in Chicago’s own Grant Park for Lollapalooza. At the time, I was pining over a certain cutie whom I knew – and thanks to Regina, she’s off about with somebody else; but I digress. So, needless to say I have a mixture of both animosity and awe for her soaring melodies and chirping hiccups and yelps.
It’s been a while since her last recording, (3 years to be exact) Begin to Hope – and in that time, I would’ve expected her to build upon her previous success, ie, “Samson”, “Fidelity”, and “Better”. Now, although the production has gotten decidedly more refined, with the likes of Mike Elizondo, David Kahne, Jeff Lynne and Garret “Jacknife” Lee at the helm; this uptick in clarity, and in instrumentation does little to enhance Spektor’s greatest quality: her slippery and shifting ambiguous songwriting. Previously, she had the uncanny and highly sought after ability to stop a person in their tracks, to force them to listen without physically demanding it. The songs would beckon questions and answers for the audience – compelling and repelling at the same time, and, in the live show I saw, was accompanied only by a piano. Only certain performers hold that innate power. She has it – but Far doesn’t.
All the ingredients are there, but the final product came out over-cooked. It’s like Michael Bay trying to create Frost/Nixon. The character of things is present, you can feel it, but the over-compressed, obvious builds and releases the music provides ruins the already powerful tension Spektor’s voice demands. Every single sound on the album is completely and totally commercial, but her voice and her lyrics are purposefully not. This juxtaposition works very rarely, but most audiences prefer to lean one way or the other – either completely falling into the weird, or staying safely in Coldplay territory. Unfortunately, due to this tear at the seam therein lies a void – a detached sounding record that neither resonates nor is cause for reflection. Of course, people will argue otherwise, and if you look hard enough, you’ll find what you love, but for my tastes she should’ve gone all Ani DiFranco and got all DIY on this bitch. It’s just more ammo for my “I hate the major labels” grenade launcher…
Sparklehorse and DJ DangerMouse – Dark Night of the Soul Album Review
June 30th, 2009
Comments Off Mp3: Passion Pit – Little Secrets
Album Review – Passion Pit – Manners
May 26th, 2009
Disco tunes for the indie generation. It’s so fitting that Michael Angelakos wrote the majority of this instantly gratifying album for a girl never to be had. Just like that fleeting moment of love, the pushing synths and the pounding kicks will stay with you longer than a two day hangover. If one were to take the time to listen to the vocals, you might lose yourself in some of the inconsistencies, luckily for us, and for our distinct nose for anthemic summer albums, the well recorded and thought out electro-indie-pop beats will keep our thighs burning and our hips grinding until, as the my new haircut guy so eloquently put it, our dicks will fall off. Case in point: The Reeling. I am declaring now, that choir backed chorus’s (chorii??) can only be sung over complicated polyrhythms and halting hard synths, like I’ve said before, the 80’s are back. We can pontificate on why this is happening – be it the growth of Generation Me, the cyclical nature of music, or the ever depressing news, but the bottom line is this: there has never been a better time technologically or otherwise, than right now. This moment is the one to lose yourself in, and Passion Pit’s taking you for a ride, familiar but strange, like that tingly feeling you get before meeting the love of your life – or missing her. With every second that passes this music gives us reason to rejoice our young, Cavalier nature, opposing the banality of straight laced instrumentation and straight laced lives. The game hath changed – and you can change with it, or be left behind. I like the way ya talk, Passion Pit, sign me up for the newsletter. 8 out of 10 seizing chickens.
