Album Review - Hi-Five Soup!

The Aquabats - Hi-Five Soup! (Fearless Records, 2011)

The Aquabats are an interesting band. Probably one of the more unique bands out there. For those unfamiliar, here's a summary of their story: Singer Christian Jacobs (who, on a side note, created Yo Gabba Gabba for Nick Jr) was raised on comic books and Saturday morning cartoons, so in his adult life he created a ska band influenced by that. But not just any ska band. A ska band that took on superhero identities (Jacobs became The MC Bat Commander) and created a back story involving them being the only escapees of an island nation under attack from aliens, so they use music to build an army to fight back. Then they dropped the horns and went synth-punk, ret-conned their story to explain line-up changes, and now they've released what might be their best album.

For the record, I am not among the legion of fans that got mad when they dropped the horns. I do enjoy ska, but good music is good music (seems odd saying that after trashing The King Is Dead yesterday for being to Americana, but this is a different sort of situation I think).  But their first non-ska album, 2005's Charge!! (Nitro Records), felt kinda awkward to me. Aside from a few tracks (mainly "Fashion Zombies ," check out the scene-mocking video) I wasn't much of a fan of it. But for Hi-Five Soup!, the group come across as much more capable of playing non-ska. The result is a much more satisfying slice of synth-punk, with influence from ska as well as pop-punk and hip-hop.

Hi-Five Soup! just might be my favorite album by the band. It's fun and peppy and everything the band should be by this point. Biz Markie provides a guest rap on "Radio Down!,"and Strong Bad (of Homestar Runner fame) sings a verse on "Pink Pants!" The guitar, drums and bass are all fairly standard but well-played pop-punk, but Jimmy The Robot kicks it up on the keyboards. The MC Bat Commander's vocals, in my opinion, wouldn't sound right in any other band, but his Saturday-morning-cartoon-superhero bravado fits in perfectly here. And the lyrics are fun. Children's songs, almost, but aimed at the punk crowd, specifically those old enough to remember the kind of television programming the band love so much (they even filmed a never-aired pilot for their own Aquabats series).

I feel kinda bad for The Aquabats. They're a great band, and they're lots of fun to listen to. But they can come across sometimes as gimmicky. Because of that, I know there are a lot of people that wouldn't even give them a chance. But I highly recommend this album if you like keyboards and Adam West's Batman.

Album Review - The King Is Dead

A lot of great releases this week and upcoming weeks, so let's jump right back into the reviews with my most anticipated release for this year so far.

The Decemberists - The King Is Dead (Capitol Records, 2011)

I've been looking forward to The King Is Dead pretty much since I finished listening to 2009's sprawling Euro-folk/rock epic, The Hazards Of Love. I was interested with how they would follow that up, and the answer is, with a stripped down, simplified collection of alt-Americana songs.

The songs are good. They are well written for the most part (some of the lyrics on "Rox In The Box" are questionable to me), and well performed. Strong Americana influence shines through, mainly in the harmonica and guitar parts that are spread throughout the album, as well as the banjo riffs that decorate many of the songs. Songs like the Dylanesque "June Hymn" and "Calamity Song" (which reminds me of Muswell Hillbillies-era Kinks) display a very midwestern-centric approach that's new to the band.

And that's the bad thing about the album. It doesn't sound like The Decemberists. The songs are great, but they just aren't the sound I had expected to hear by this point. I hate saying that, I feel like I'm saying they can't write songs that aren't the same kind they used to write. But after developing a sound heavily steeped in European folk, going country/western just doesn't fit. I enjoy listening to it, but it might as well have been a Tarkio album (Meloy's pre-Decemberists band) or a solo effort by Meloy.

Let me stress that I do mean the songs are well written and well performed. Just not in a genre that fits with the band. I still love the band, and I would recommend this album to other people (and, in fact, I already have). But I do hope on their next album they go back to what they do best.

Album Review - American Slang

The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang (SideOneDummy, 2010)

This album came out back in June, but since I didn't have this blog back then and there's nothing I want to review this week, I thought I'd review it now.

I didn't care much for American Slang the first time I heard it. I thought it was alright, but it didn't really grab me initially. It took a couple listenings for me to get it. The same happened with the preceding album, The Gaslight Anthem's SideOneDummy debut The '59 Sound. But I had loved their first album, Sink Or Swim, so much that I gave it a few more listens, and now I consider it to be a highly superior album. So when American Slang didn't hit me on the first listen, I gave it the same chance I gave '59. 

To me, '59 had a vibe to it, sort of a theme. Most of the album seems to be a nostalgic view of youth with songs like the title track, "Old White Lincoln" and "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" calling up images of high school and being in your early 20's. Even the iTunes bonus track, a cover of Robert Bradley's "Once Upon A Time," fits the theme.

Slang continues that theme, but twists it a bit. The first half of the album continues the nostalgic view of youth. Songs like the title track or "The Diamond Church Street Choir" feel like they would have fit right at home on '59. After that, though, the nostalgia starts to take on a darker vibe. Rather than celebrating the life lived, the album has a more "those were the good days," bitter vibe. This is most specifically seen on "Old Haunts," with frontman Brian Fallon pleading "don't sing me your songs about the good times, those days are gone and you should just let them go," then declaring, "God help the man that says 'if you'd have know me when,' old haunts are for forgotten ghosts." That last bit really stands out to me, as it stands in direct conflict with one of Fallon's earlier songs. "The Navesink Bank" from Sink Or Swim finds the singer saying exactly that, "Ah Maria, if you woulda known me when..." The lesson I take from it is that it's ok to look fondly on your past, as long as you remember that it's the past.

After one last burst of nostalgia in the form of "The Spirit Of Jazz," the album, and the bitter nostalgia, close out with "We Did It When We Were Young." The most melancholy song I've heard from TGA, "Young" is written to a woman from Fallon's past, a sort of "we had a good time, but now it's over and I'm with someone else" kinda love letter. Fallon declares that he "cannot hold a candle for every pretty girl" before closing out the album by saying "I am older now, and we did it when we were young." The iTunes version of the album comes with a bonus track, "She Loves You." The song is well written and well performed, and I love getting more music for my money, but this is one instance where I regret the presence of a bonus track. "We Did It When We Were Young" is just such a perfect closing track that its a shame for another track to start playing. It's like watching a movie that keeps going after the point where it should have ended.

Musically, the album builds on the modern punk meets classic rock and soul that TGA have been perfecting, but with more emphasis on the modern side. While I think '59 is a better album overall, Slang has its moments. Lots of great guitar work and Fallon continues his rough, honest delivery of the lyrics. The album has a few questionable moments though, most notably the opening of "Boxer," which is an otherwise good song.

If you've never heard TGA, this isn't the album I would recommend starting with. I would say start with The '59 Sound, but follow that up with American Slang.

Favorite tracks: "The Diamond Church Street Choir," "Boxer," "Old Haunts," "We Did It When We Were Young"

  

Album Review - Pretty Hate Machine (Reissue)

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine: 2010 Remaster (Bicycle Records, 2010)

In 1989, Trent Reznor released the first full length album under his Nine Inch Nails moniker, Pretty Hate Machine, on TVT Records. A commercial and critical success, the album cemented Reznor as a pioneer of the new American Industrial scene and an artist to watch in aggressive music.

The album is, simply put, amazing. Dark and moody, aggressive with some softer moments. But it is limited by its mixing and production. Later albums, such as the successful followup The Downward Spiral (which launched Reznor into the mainstream, mainly due to the popularity of "Closer" and "March Of The Pigs") and the tragically unsuccessful double album The Fragile, had significantly better production. It's not that the production of Pretty Hate Machine is bad, it just could have been better.

Well, now it is better. After years of bad blood between Reznor and TVT Records, Bicycle Records bought out TVT's catalogue, which included co-publishing rights to Pretty Hate Machine. Last week, Pretty Hate Machine was reissued in a remastered format that also included new cover art. In keeping with the Nine Inch Nails Halo numbering system, the reissue was given the number Halo 2R

The mixing is better all around, but two areas what really shine for me are the vocals and the bass. The vocals are much cleaner and clearer. Every bit of pain and despair Reznor recorded is blissfully intact for clear listening. And the bass is also clearer and more fun to listen to, especially on the tracks "Sanctified" and "The Only Time." The piano on "Something I Can Never Have" is also tweaked a bit, making the song just a bit darker (it's one of the darkest songs I have in my iTunes library). While the original is still amazing, the remaster, approved by Reznor, is a much better listening experience.

Another significant change is the art work. The original is pretty great (Reznor once stated that it is a picture of turbine blades distorted to resemble a ribcage), but the newer version (with a change in colors and word placement) seems more fitting to the new sound.

The track listing of the original songs is the same order, the order that Reznor intended. Which is good, as I have seen remasters that changed the order of the songs. The only change to the track listing is the inclusion of a cover of Queen's "Get Down, Make Love" (originally recorded for the promotional single release of "Sin"). It feels to me like it doesn't really fit with the rest of the album, but it was recorded in such a way that it doesn't feel too out of place.

Overall, Bicycle Music has taken an amazing album and somehow made it even more amazing. I would recommend this album to anyone who likes emotionally and sonically complex music, as well as to NIN fans that already have the original.

Album Review - Decompositions, Volume 1

Hour Of The Wolf - Decompositions, Volume 1 (Think Fast!, 2010)

(As far as I can tell, this release is only available on vinyl or digitally.)

Hour Of The Wolf are a frustrating band when it comes to releases. They have steadily released some great songs, but only in the form of singles, EPs and split releases. Their unique brand of hardcore punk has not yet seen a proper full length release. Rather than remedy this with an album of new material, the band have instead released a the first volume in a compilation of all those scattered tracks.

HOTW have been compared to Black Flag, Motorhead and even The Misfits, and quite frankly those are all valid comparisons. They have an old-school approach to hardcore that owes more to Black Flag than modern bands like Terror or Blood For Blood. The aggressive instrumentation does call to mind Ace Of Spades-era Motorhead, with the menacing punk rock charm of Danzig-era Misfits. But HOTW do what I love about my favorite bands, they take obvious influences and spin them into something that is all their own. They also remind me a bit of a rougher version of Kill Your Idols. Rough in a good way, of course, as hardcore never sounds right to me when it's polished.

Volume 1 is, in a way, basically a glorified re-release of the band's 2006 EP, Power Of The Wolf, with a new track the band wrote for the release ("Domestic Wild") as well as some covers (Black Flag's "Nervous Breakdown," The Nerve Agents' "Fall Of The All American," Kid Dynamite's "Breakin's A Memory" and The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog"). Think Fast! Records' statement about it says that this will be first time any of these songs are on vinyl, so that's not a bad for people who like vinyl. I would definitely recommend this to hardcore fans looking for a new band, but for people who are already fans that own the previous releases it isn't that great of a deal if you don't like vinyl. However, I just checked and the new tracks can be purchased individually on iTunes, but the release has not, at the time this is posted, been put on Think Fast!'s digital download store.

Album Review - Creatures Of Routine

The Sweet Revenge - Creatures Of Routine (Death To False Hope, 2010)

(Available for donation from Death To False Hope.)

Despite what so many of my friends say, there are still good bands starting out. They aren't on the airwaves, and just barely make album charts usually. But they exist, you just have to dig for them. A good example is The Sweet Revenge.

I found this album while going through the archives of Death To False Hope, a donation-based digital label (like Quote Unquote). While DTFH has some great bands and great albums, Creatures Of Routine really stood out to me. The Sweet Revenge kinda remind me of the melodic hardcore of Strike Anywhere and Rise Against as well as the harder pop-punk of Latterman or Chinese Telephones.

The album is fantastic. Sometimes I feel like I'm not a very good reviewer because I don't say many bad things about the albums. But I honestly have nothing bad to say about this album. Well written, well performed blasts of punk rock (and in one case, a blast of folk) with some of the best lyrics I've ever heard from this area of music.  I even like the album art, which is usually one of the last things I pay attention to with albums. According to a tweet from the band (the band actually tweeted at me in response to my own tweet!) their singer Clint did the artwork, and as a nice touch they currently use the same style all over their Myspace and Twitter Pages.

Upbeat tempos, great guitar work along the lines of Face To Face, amazing lyrics performed excellently. Easily one of my top albums of 2010 (I'm in the early stages of a Best Of 2010 list for the end of the year, and this album is one of the few that I've already put on the list). A band and album that definitely deserve more recognition than they are currently getting. Check it out on the link above. There's no risk to getting the album, but please donate to the band if you like it. You can also stream it without downloading.

Favorite tracks: "Full House," "Don't Look Down," "Burning Pictures," and "The Ballad Of The Silver Gun"

Album Review - Sweet Saint Me

Two Cow Garage - Sweet Saint Me (Suburban Home Records 2010)


The following review is the hardest I've ever written. It took me a couple weeks after hearing the album to write it, because I just loved the album so much that I felt nothing I could write would properly describe the quality of the music. The album is amazing, I just hope my review adequately reflects that:


If there were any real justice in the realm of music, a hard working, honest band like Two Cow Garage would be at the level Lady Gaga is at, or at least Ke$ha. But there isn't, and there are a lot of people who will probably never hear Two Cow Garage or their upcoming fifth album, Sweet Saint Me. Which is a shame, because it's one of the best albums I've heard all year*.


Sweet Saint Me finds the band with the same working class aesthetic that I loved in my first exposure to them, 2007's III. The band have gotten even better two albums later, honing their songwriting and musicianship. The album drips with blue collar Americana, making comparisons to early Springsteen inevitable. Several songs sound like they easily could have been on the Boss's first couple albums if you swap the voices. "Wanted To Be" in particular sounds like an unused track from Born To Run, and the band even reference the title track from that album on "Jackson, Don't You Worry." The Springsteen comparisons are obvious, but that doesn't mean Two Cow Garage are some rip-off act. Like Gaslight Anthem, TCG take Springsteen influence (as well as other Americana influence, such as Woody Guthrie, who is named-checked in "My Great Gatsby") and punk rock values and create something all new and unique.

Sweet Saint Me is an amazing album overall, an excellant example of great songwriting, both in lyrics and music. The guitar/piano opening to "Lydia," leads into some great opening lyrics ("I wanna be loved like an old soul song, I wanna feel like the second verse of 'Let's Get It On'"), which leads into a great chorus ("Lydia, you're much too young to have your teeth on the tip of my tongue, if just your lips were a little older"). The semi-a capella ending of "Jackson, Don't You Worry" just might be the most emotionally gripping 40-something seconds in underground music of the past several years. The excellent ballad-rocker "Angeline" leads to "My Great Gatsby," with an opening that is the hardest few seconds on the album to that point before settling into frontman Micah Schnabel longing for the return of Woody Guthrie and the troubadours, then leads to Micah screaming "This is not an alibi, this is who I am!" "Lucy And The Butcher Knife" comes even heavier than the opening of "My Great Gatsby," with driving drums that just won't quit backing chugging guitars and Micah and bassist Shane Sweeney trading vocal duties. And considering all the songs preceding it, I can't imagine a better song than "Brothers In Arms" to close out the album.

The album sat in my car for several days before I finally put it in my CD player. Suburban Home Records had hyped the album so much that I was afraid to listen to it, certain there was no way it could live up the expectations the label gave me. It then stayed in my CD player for over a week, and I listened to it several times. I just couldn't get over how great it was. It's one of few albums that I would honestly recommend to anyone, regardless of musical tastes. The album will definitely find its main audience among fans of Drag The River, Lucero and Gaslight Anthem, but I think it's universal and has the widest potential appeal of any of the albums I've reviewed on this blog.

Favorite tracks: "Lydia," "Jackson, Don't You Worry," "My Great Gatsby," "Soundtrack To My Summer"

*And that's quite a feat, considering this year also saw the release of Gaslight Anthem's American Slang, Guster's Easy Wonderful, Fake Problems' Real Ghosts Caught On Tape, and The Sweet Revenge's Creatures of Routine.

Album Review - TV/EP

Less Than Jake - TV/EP (Sleep It Off 2010)


Out tomorrow on the band's own Sleep It Off label, TV/EP is a collection of covers by my favorite ska-punk band, Less Than Jake. An EP of covers is nothing new, bands record those all the time (Atreyu is currently working on one of their own). Never content to go with the flow, LTJ took a bit of a different route with this release. All the covers are from TV, including sitcom themes, songs from cartoons, commercial jingles, etc. With some TV static noises and soundbites, listening to the album has the effect of flipping through channels, which according to interviews is what the band was trying to do. Mission accomplished.


Since this is a collection of covers, I can't really comment on the songwriting. There is a good amount of variation in the song choices. Some of the songs are newer, such as the themes to iCarly (a choice I could have lived without) and That 70's Show (which is expanded a bit from the version standardly shown on TV) and one of the songs from those FreeCreditReport.com commercials. There are also quite a few older songs, including commercial jingles (such as McDonald's and Hungry Hungry Hippos) and the themes for Diff'rent Strokes and Laverne and Shirley. The band shows a fondness for animation (hardly surprising, as one of their most loved songs is about Johnny Quest thinking the band is a bunch of sellouts), with the themes from Spongebob Squarepants, Animaniacs, and Scooby-Doo being some of the best songs on the EP.


The songs are well-performed, often outshining the original (at least for a ska-punk fan like me). The variation in content is appreciated (aside from iCarly). The artwork is a nice touch, reminiscent of classic cartoons, especially Looney Tunes. With 16 songs in under 12 minutes, they do achieve their goal of sounding like channel surfing, but I kinda wish they had gone longer. Maybe 40 songs in under 30 minutes. But I guess that would be too complicated with all the licensing fees. Maybe they'll do another one, but for now I'll just look forward to their next full length.


If you want to listen to the album now, go to www.lessthanjake.com/ where there is a video posted with footage corresponding to the songs, as well as some footage of the bands. It was still there at the time of this posting, but it is on Youtube if it gets taken down.

Album Review - Easy Wonderful

Guster - Easy Wonderful (Aware Records 2010)


Easy Wonderful, the sixth album from Guster, is a polished pop gem that I can't stop listening to. Well, I am actually physically capable of stopping, I just don't want to. Guster expertly blend folk, rock and pop on the self-produced album, and co-vocalists Adam Gardner and Ryan Miller trade off on some great lyrics.

Before Easy Wonderful, my only familiarity with Guster was what two of my friends played in their cars on road trips. Two songs always stuck out to me, "Satellite" (from 2006's Ganging Up On The Sun) and "Rocketship" (from 1997's Goldfly). Easy Wonderful demonstrates just the right mount of progression from both of those eras. Different enough that they aren't rerecording the same album over and over, but not so different that they've completely changed styles. More poppy than "Satellite," more upbeat than "Rocketship."

The interplay between acoustic and electric guitars is excellent. The bass is subtle but effective. It can heard behind the guitars, but is never thrust so far into the foreground that it's distracting, as I've often noticed in bands like Guster. The drums could be better, mainly because it sounds like percussionist Brian Rosenworcel was playing regular drums on all but a few songs instead of the hand drums he built his reputation on.

Guster have never been afraid of experimenting with non-traditional rock sounds, that that trend continues on Easy Wonderful. The keyboard intro, harmonica and what sounds like a mandolin on "This Is How It Feels To Have A Broken Heart" are well executed. "Stay With Me Jesus" as a folksy, Wide Awake-era Bright Eyes kinda vibe, but backed by an oddly distorted keyboard. There are some great horns backing "That's No Way To Get To Heaven," which is also one of the only songs I hear hand drums on. The band also employs the use of gang vocals, my favorite example being the chorus on "This Could All Be Yours."

All in all, a great album. A true pop gem that hopefully will cut through all the crap on radio to get some mainstream recognitions. Highly recommended. Favorite tracks include "Architects And Engineers," "This Could All Be Yours," and "This Is How It Feels To Have A Broken Heart."

  

Album Review - Real Ghosts Caught On Tape

Fake Problems - Real Ghosts Caught On Tape (SideOneDummy 2010)


Fake Problems have made a lot of progress in a very short time. Their first album, 2007's How Far Our Bodies Go, was a modern classic of folk-punk, cementing them firmly in the place of Against Me!, who had already abandoned the genre. They followed that up with their 2009 SideOneDummy debut, It's Great To Be Alive. On their second album, Fake Problems traded their acoustic guitars for electric and traded the folk prefix for pop. The difference in styles between the two albums is very noticeable, but both are unmistakably the work of a unique band.


That uniqueness carries over to their new album, Real Ghosts Caught On Tape. The band is now far removed from their folk-punk origins, fully embracing the pop side of punk rock. After listening to the album, I read some reviews, and several of them mentioned the 60's pop vibe. I fully agree. As I was listening I kept thinking, "it's like a modern day Kinks." Like, imagine if Ray Davies grew up on The Ramones, and that's kinda how the album sounds. "Soulless" in particular sounds like a proto-punk gem with a somewhat modernized sound. Yet for all the retro feel, this is a distinctively 21st century punk album. As we begin the second decade of the new millenium, I wouldn't be surprised if more punk albums started sounding like this. I hope not, because I hate cookie-cutter bands, but there are worse styles to be copying.


The album is full of fun beats and great guitar parts. "Songs For Teenagers," "Complaint Dept," and "The Magazines" especially have some very catchy, melodic lead guitar lines, while "5678," "White Lies," and "Grand Finale" have fun, danceable drums parts. This is an album that is going to sound great live. Especially "5678," which has an odd vocal effect that hopefully won't be used in concert (it's actually the only complain I have about the album).

The real strength (for me at least) is in the lyrics. Frontman Chris Farren writes some great lines. And the lyrical themes shift throughout the album, from depressing themes like self-doubt ("If confidence is key I must be locked out of the house") and addiction ("looking for drugs in all the wrong places," "I spent every last dime in a stranger's trunk"), to more positive themes like cautious optimism ("The future is brighter than you'll ever know now that we're on our own") and salvation ("I was soulless, broken down, hollow as a ghost, but you have brought me back to life and revived the hope").

Overall, it's a great album, and I recommend it. To anyone. And everyone.

Album Review - Demos (Matt Skiba)

Matt Skiba - Demos (Asian Man Records 2010)


I wrote a few days ago about my favorite split releases, and one of the ones I wrote about was Matt Skiba's split with Kevin Seconds. I've been an Alkaline Trio fan for years, and while I enjoy Dan Andriano, Skiba is by far my favorite member. So I was very excited when I heard a while back that he was releasing a whole album of solo work. I was lucky enough to see Alk3 at Warped Tour and picked up a copy of the album before it was officially on sale. And, as expected, I loved every minute of it.


The album has a different sound and style than the Kevin Seconds split. That release was all acoustic guitar, bass and drums (recorded by Skiba). Demos is more in line with his work with Josiah Steinbrick in the side project Heavens. I was expecting more like the split, so the various electric instruments and drum machines caught me a bit by surprise. In a good way, though.


The album is a collection of home demos Skiba recorded, and they do sound homemade. Some of the instruments sound almost strained, as though the equipment couldn't handle the audio levels. The vocals on some tracks especially sound a bit distorted, but I can't tell if they were meant to sound that way or if it was the limitation of the equipment. It doesn't matter either way, though, because Skiba makes it work. Every limitation or flaw just adds to the overall sound, which makes Skiba something of a musical genius in my mind.


I would definitely recommend this album to anyone who is a fan of Alkaline Trio, Heavens, the split, or just good music in general. The stand out tracks for me include "You Didn't Feel A Thing," "Haven't You," and "Special," which is the closest to the sound of the split.

Album Review - Hurley

Weezer - Hurley (Epitaph 2010)


There are some Weezer fans that will never get past Pinkerton. For them, every album since then has been a huge disappointment. I feel kinda bad for them. Weezer may not be rewriting that album, but the music they make isn't any less good. Hurley is a great album, from start to finish.


The name and cover art are kinda weird. But, as Punknews pointed out, they aren't the first punk band to do something like this. Honestly, I don't really care how odd it might be, the music is what matters to me. And Weezer brought some great songs to the table for this album. 7 previous albums and signing to Epitaph after their history with Geffen haven't caused them to lose any steam.


"Memories," the album's kick-off track and first single, is a high energy ode to the band's history. "Where's My Sex?" is just plain weird. "Smart Girls," about a fetish for smart girls, stands out in a pop culture where little is valued over looks. These are just a few of the stand out tracks, but the whole album is high energy and fun, with some great lyrics.


I don't really have too much more to say about it. It's just a good album in general. I really do feel bad for the Pinkerton fans that can't move on like Weezer did.

Album Review - We Chase The Waves

Short post today, I have to go get ready for work.

Sundowner - We Chase The Waves (Asian Man Records, 2010)


This album is absolutely fantastic. I first heard about Sundowner around the same time I started listening to Chuck Ragan and Tim Barry. I loved the idea of these punk rockers picking up acoustic guitars and making something different, so I was browsing iTunes in the "other customers bought this" section and came across Four One Five Two, Sundowner's first album.


Sundowner is the acoustic alter-ego of Chris McCaughan of Chicago punks The Lawrence Arms. There's an interview regarding this album over at Punknews.org. 


I've listened to the album in its entirety about 6 or 7 times since it came out on August 10th. The guitar parts are simple, but effective. The lyrics are often beautiful and Chris sings them very well. The album doesn't have the cello parts that Four One Five Two had, but the songs are so well performed that they aren't needed as much as they were on the first album. Highlight tracks for me are "Araby" (which I can't quite tell if it's a reference to James Joyce's short story of the same name) and "As The Crow Flies" ("I've got strings and calloused fingers, a scratchy throat, a melody that lingers," "I've got a bunch of notes I've scribbled down, I think I can make a song somehow").

Lawrence Arms bassist and co-vocalist Brendan Kelly also has a solo album expected out soon, which I am very excited about. So hopefully in the next few months I'll be able to write about that.

  

Album Review - Pin Points & Gin Joints

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Pin Points and Gin Joints (Big Rig, 2009)

There's not much new ground covered on Pin Points and Gin Joints, the eight studio album by Boston MA's The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. But The 'Tones perfected their style years ago, so why mess with perfection. I don't mean to say that the album is a boring retread of previous albums. Quite the opposite. Pin Points is an exciting, upbeat get-out-of-your-seat kind of album, While not straying from previous styles they've played, there is enough variation that they aren't playing the same thing over and over. The band went on hiatus shortly after their last album, 2002's A Jackknife To A Swan. This is their first studio release since getting back together (though a b-sides collection, Medium Rare, was released in 2007) and the band are as great as they've ever been. The horns are tight and the drums are consistently rocking. There's an interesting interplay between the reggae and ska oriented guitar parts and the distorted, alt-rock guitar parts. Joe Gittleman bounced back from the hiatus of his other band, Avoid One Thing, and is still rocking out on bass (listen to the interlude in the song You Left Right?). And of course, Dicky Barrett still has one of the most distinct voices in ska.

The entire album is great, but there are some highlight tracks (in my opinion): 

"Graffiti Worth Reading," with its insistance that "graffiti worth reading is rarely written on walls that are worth writing on."

"Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah" with it's easily singable chorus (the title line, which for any other band would be, well, kinda lame, but The 'Tones makes it awesome.

"The Route That I Took," in which the narrator examines the choices he's made. Touching but with an upbeat yet easygoing rhythm. My favorite song to listen to from this album.

"I Wrote It." It seems to me to be a kinda abstract examination of which is more important, the creative act or the end creation.

"Death Valley Vipers." Just fun to listen to. And one of the more unique songs on the album.

The only real problem I have with this album is the original release. It has nothing to do with the sound, the artwork, the band, or anything else, just the timing. This album came out in December and I bought it and listened to it in the middle of horrible snow. It was playing in my car as I fought to stay on the road in a Western New York winter. It just wasn't the right environment for the album. To me, The 'Tones have always been a band that just feels right when the sun is shining. I decided to review this album when I listened to it while I was driving on a sunny summer day. The band sound awesome any time, but they just have a summer feel to them (for me at least) and I can't help but feel like this album would have made a bigger impact on me at first listen if it hadn't been below zero. Overall, though, a great album by an amazing band, and I can't wait to hear their next one.

Album Review: The Mighty Regis - 21

The Mighty Regis - 21 (self-released, 2010)

Celtcore is a hard genre to be in if you don’t like being compared to other bands. No matter what a band sounds like, it will inevitably be compared to the Dropkick Murphys (if the band is on the punkier side), the Pogues (if it’s on the folkier side) or Flogging Molly (if it’s somewhere in between). A reviewer with more diverse tastes might even compare to the Tossers (for the folkier side) or the Real McKenzies (for bands that sway more Scottish than Irish). I’d be against these constant comparisons if most Celtcore bands didn’t fit so neatly into them.

Then I heard the Mighty Regis playing the Kevin Says stage at Warped Tour. If ordered at gunpoint to make a comparison, I would have to say they’re closest to Flogging Molly (with whom the Mighty Regis are friends, and in fact started at Molly Malone’s, the LA pub where Flogging Molly also got their start and their name). However, the Mighty Regis manage to cut a unique sound from the now widespread blending of Irish and Scottish folk with punk. I can’t quite explain what makes them so unique (I guess it’s an x-factor kinda thing), but you can hear it for yourself on the band’s latest release, 21.

The band doesn’t go for the diehard street punk vibe of Dropkick Murphys, staying more mellow and fun. The result is that this is a full-on party album instead of, well, whatever feeling the Murphys give people (for me, they just make me want to run around punching stuff). And unlike most albums by the Murphys or every album by their brethren Flogging Molly, there isn’t a single ballad on the album. The band never breaks down to just acoustic guitar and vocals with maybe some slight accordion or tin whistle. The closest the band gets is on the mid-tempo “Those That Gone Before” (to be fair, the song is just very light instrumentation and vocals for the first 45  seconds before the rest of the band kicks in) or the mostly instrumental closer “Jeni’s Whiskey.”

In only 3 albums, the band seem to have mastered the delicate blend of instruments involved in Celtcore faster than other bands of the genre. Dropkick Murphys are set apart from other punk bands by the non-traditional use of folk elements. Flogging Molly modernize Irish folk by adding electric guitars. The Real McKenzies started as a punk band and added bagpipes as revenge to their heritage loving parents that dressed them in kilts in their youth. By contrast, the Mighty Regis make acoustic guitars and mandolins sound perfectly natural next to electric guitars. For good examples, see “Paddy Don’t Live In Hollywood,” “Celtic Storm,” and “The Junkyard Dog And The Parlor Cat” (on that last one, I didn’t even notice the mandolin the first time through).

Overall, I think 21 straddles a fine line. Any previous fan of Celtcore should love the album, or at least fall on the more positive side of toleration. And I think most of my friends that don’t like Celtcore would be able to listen to it without wincing. Who knows, might even convert some of them to fans.

Just for fun, here’s a video of the band playing Flogging Molly’s “The Worse Day Since Yesterday” with Molly’s own Matt Hensley on accordion.

Side note: I didn’t mean to imply in that first paragraph that I don’t like Celtcore, but I feel like I came across as critical of the genre. I love Celtcore. I own several albums by the bands mentioned. I own both volumes of Shite & Onions and subscribe to the PaddyRock podcast. So I really do like Celtcore, I just feel like there’s not a lot of unique bands.

Side note 2: I do see the oddness of starting the post complaining about comparisons and then spending the rest of the post comparing. What I meant in the first paragraph was comparisons composed of “they sound like...” Later on, I mentioned the other bands to show the relative differences of the Mighty Regis. That may not be any better, but at least I didn’t just say “the Mighty Regis sound like Flogging Molly.”

This is the digital download version, for the physical CD click here: 21

Album Review - White Crosses

Now that my list of my top 10 favorite albums ever is done, I figured the time had come to start writing about other things. So I decided to post my first album review today. I wanted to start with Sundowner's new album, We Chase The Waves. But it only came out today and even though I've already listened to it (and loved it!) I haven't had time yet to really explore it. So instead I decided to start with an album that I've had a bit more time to absorb, as it came out back in June.

Against Me! - White Crosses (Sire, 2010)

White Crosses, the newest album from Gainesville punk experimentalists Against Me!, continues the evolution of their sound that began with 2005's Searching For A Former Clarity (in which the band exchange their acoustic-based folk-punk for a more traditional punk sound) and continued with 2007's New Wave (in which they exchanged the punk for Former Clarity for arena rock that alienated a significant portion of what remained of their earlier fan base). White Crosses is the band's most mature album yet, pushing their sounds to all new boundaries. Yet the album is also something of a step back, recalling the spirit of their earlier work much more than the previous two albums.

White Crosses is an album of unified diversity, by which I mean each song is unique and sounds unlike any other song on the album, but all the songs work together to create one solid artwork. The album kicks off with the mid-paced but high energy title track, a punk song with a sing-a-long chorus about wanting to smash white crosses on the lawn of a church. From there, it goes to the toe-tapping "I Was A Teenage Anarchist," which finds frontman Tom Gabel reconciling the band's earlier political stances with where they stand now, and to me seems reminiscent of Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages." Whatever fan slashed the band's tires for signing to Fat Wreck Chords years ago would probably be angered again over the use of piano in the next track, the driving "Because Of The Shame" (in which Gabel describes numbing himself emotionally, "because of the shame [he] associate[s] with vulnerability"). A brief return to acoustic guitars (albiet accompanied by electric) comes in the form of "Ache With Me" (I don't know what's up with the "chk-ka-ah," but the rest of the song is beautiful and touching). Album closer "Rapid Decompression" reminds me of something their Gainesville compatriots Hot Water Music might have written. The Deluxe Edition bonus track "Bob Dylan's Dream" involves an easy-going rhythm (which is nothing new for the band, who have done this many times in the past) and harmonicas (which as far as I know IS new for the band).

I won't go through every song, I just wanted to demonstrate the diversity of the album. It's a fairly short album (10 tracks that clock in at just under 36 minutes), but the band makes the most of the time they use. Not a single track is filler, and any song could have been a single, though the only single so far is "Teenage Anarchist" (but the band released a video for "Rapid Decompression." Long story short, I think this is a great album. Any bad feelings I had left from the disappointing New Wave has been erased and I can't wait to see where they go next. I think that while this album is more complex and diverse than anything they've done before, there's enough of the spirit of old Against Me! that older fans should be able to appreciated it.