KWCW

I love Spencer Krug. He’s the keyboardist and one of the vocalists from Wolf Parade, and other Canadian bands named after various animals, like Frog Eyes and Swan Lake. His “solo” band – not named after an animal – is called Sunset Rubdown. Their last album, “Shut Up I Am Dreaming,” feels like a kid manically scribbling outside of the lines in a coloring book. But overall, the album sounded like a Wolf Parade side project instead of something all of its own. Their newest album, “Random Spirit Lover,” makes the coloring book come alive, and it sounds like a crazy carnival with weird antics happening in each circus tent and in every booth of the midway. Don’t like carnivals? Neither do I, but it’s just what comes to mind, but that doesn’t mean that this album isn’t amazing, because it is, and I think it’s one of the year’s best. We finally hear Sunset Rubdown become something extremely different than Wolf Parade.

“The Mending of the Gown” starts up the album with a song that sounds like chickens running around with their heads cut off in fast-forward, riding trapeze all over a circus tent. The album continues to explore polar emotions with melodramatic explosions and with hidden melodies and quiet contemplation. Whenever there is a pause in a song, it is there for the emphasis of Krug’s lyrics, which keep getting better with each record. The lyrics are a lot more narrative this time around, and the narrative is a place for Krug to explore his lyrics. Krug has an effect to make what he says sound profound. In “Winged/Wicked Things,” Krug’s lyrics stand out when he shouts “Chaos is yours and chaos is mine / And chaos is love and they say love is blind”. It’s so simple but very powerful.

“Up On Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days” is one of the best songs on the album that builds up in Arcade Fire sing-along fashion, and transitions into “The Courtesan Has Sung.” Bouncing and echoing vocals and yelps build up to a melody that recalls the theme from Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands” – it sends shivers down my spine. The instrumentation on the album is amazing, bombastic, and dizzying at times, and Krug’s keyboard skills are still the anchor to this band, but the other band members get to show off their skills too with great guitar parts and haunting background vocals.

Sunset Rubdown has become more than just a side project of Krug’s, and has become a complete entity with its own sound filled with the eccentricities that Krug brings to all of his bands, but more amplified. If you haven’t heard of Sunset Rubdown and just think of a massage parlor when you hear “Sunset Rubdown,” buy this record and you will no longer think of fragranced oils, crystals, rocks and other things, because “Random Spirit Lover” is one of the year’s best.

Grade: A

-Matt Coleman

St. Vincent is the performing name of 24-year-old multi-instrumentalist Annie Clark, who is now making her solo debut after backing up such acts as The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens. On “Marry Me,” Clark surrounds her dexterous guitar work and quaint, angular soprano with keyboards, horn sections, children’s choirs, Moog, and strings to create a quirky and charming blend of singer/songwriter, wartime jazz/blues, and indie pop that is all her own. While her subject matter rarely strays from the standard love and heartbreak, Clark’s jesting wordplay and stately grace give her intricate arrangements a certain polish that keeps them above the mushy.
Grade: B+
-James Truitt

The fourth album from Montreal-based band Stars is extremely satisfying. It is less heartbreaking than anything they’ve done in the past. Problem: I love heartbreaking. However, this album is catchy and I also love to dance when I walk. The instruments, as always, are beautiful. One could easily listen to this album several times without listening to the lyrics and be entertained. After those first listens, however, the lyrics reveal themselves to be poignant and accessible. Another classic Stars move put to use on “In Our Bedroom”: the appearance of dialogue from movies or elsewhere, which adds a shot of pure human-ness into your listening experience. Heartbreaking? Not so much. Delicious? Absolutely.
Grade: A-
-Katie Presley

The Two Gallants newest effort − a 5 song EP/mini-album − represents the quieter, softer side of the group and centers on scenes from a break-up. For some 2Gs fans, the softer side of the band might fall short. On “All Your Faithless Loyalties,” originally released in 2005 on a Hurricane Katrina benefit CD and re-written for this EP, the changes − most noteworthy is the use of a simple verse-chorus structure − don’t work. That being said, the rest of the record is good. The 2Gs’ lyrical prowess, combined with the band’s staple of melodic drums and rolling guitar, never really disappoints. “Seems Like Home To Me” is a perfect example of the best side of the band, only slightly softer. “Linger On,” another good track, proves that the band can play well with a pianist. All in all, 2Gs fans will accept this record, newcomers will have an easy introduction into the band, and everyone will hope their upcoming full-length is more like previous albums than “The Scenery of Farewell.”
Grade: B
-Grant Margeson

On their fourth album, Austin sextet Okkervil River move onward from the world of 2005’s Black Sheep Boy, abandoning their familiar territory of unrequited love and extended-length epics. They’ve even gone so far as to embrace traditional pop structures, now sounding more like a rock and roll band than they ever did before. Despite this, singer-songwriter Will Sheff’s words have become denser, more intriguing, and are still every bit as powerful as they were on the band’s previous releases, exploring the worlds of celebrity, pop culture, and the blur between fiction and autobiography with a remarkable attention to detail.

The album opens fittingly with the sound of a projector spinning into action, leading into the first single, “Our Life is Not a Movie Or Maybe.” Sheff moves quickly through dozens of words to make his case that everyday life really just isn’t that interesting: “It’s just a life story, so there’s no climax,” he sings as he tears through film scenes, quickly zooming out as the band erupts into shouting, feedback, and cacophony without sounding alienating. It shows that they’ve discovered how to condense the power of their epics into something brief and almost radio-friendly without losing anything in the process.

Sheff’s obsessions dominate much of the material. “Unless It’s Kicks” explores the life of the touring band and the importance of fiction, as he explains the plight of the writer (whose own life couldn’t possibly be that compelling), the band (”midlevel,” “driving too long”), and “the ghost of some rock and roll fan” (who doesn’t know her idols at all). “A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene” cleverly explores the effects of seeing their own songs in the background on television without doing any advertising. Instead, the song hits hard with its dense, fast-moving descriptions and almost anthemic chorus, complete with girl-group harmonies.

“Plus Ones” plays with the idea of adding an additional integer to about a dozen other pop songs, making it quite possibly the only one to successfully reference ? and the Mysterians, David Bowie, the Zombies, and the Crests, among others, in under four minutes. “You Can’t Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man” returns to the story of a band, now washed up and not all that friendly: “And you look your age - which is thirty-seven, by the way, and not twenty-eight,” the rock and roll fan shouts back as the song ends in both pissed-off arguing and an upbeat horn outro. It’s a strange, yet powerful combination, much like the album closer, “John Allyn Smith Sails,” which narrates the suicide of poet John Berryman before becoming a warped reinterpretation of the traditional “Sloop John B,” sitting comfortably as the last twisted joke in an album full of them.

Many thought Black Sheep Boy was an unrepeatable high for Okkervil River, but The Stage Names proves that the band is still improving rapidly. It’s hard not to expect the followup to this album to be both completely different and even better.

Grade: A

-Andrew Hall

Call it “mature,” if you want. I call it boring. “Challengers,” the newest album from Canada’s sweethearts the New Pornographers, has made a change for the demure that is ill at ease when played for fans of their older, more fun-loving sound. A personification of this change: old songs = walking to class in the sun and dancing. New songs = background fodder for conversations in long car rides. Neko Case, one of the two lady singers for the pop outfit, takes a backseat for this album, which only hurts the effort. The lack of her intense vocals makes too much A.C. Newman just sound whiny, and even the well-honed harmonizing this band excels at can’t take away the annoyance factor in the many overly-repetitive hooks throughout “Challengers.” Where before the Pornos were young at heart and playful, fewer instruments and less creative production make their new sound simply sophomoric. Only a few of the songs here are really actually bad, but even the best doesn’t match up to the worst song on 2003’s “Mass Romantic.”

Grade: C+

-Katie Presley

Andrew Bird must be some sort of wizard. A Suzuki-trained violinist, he recorded several albums with his backing band, the Bowl of Fire, then began making solo albums in a barn-turned-studio outside Chicago, starting with 2003’s Weather Systems. He learned to play guitar in 2004 and sounded pretty competent by 2005, when he released The Mysterious Production of Eggs. He used his skills to create a remarkably accessible yet experimental pop record and became notorious for his live shows, in which he violently switches between instruments during songs and uses a system of pedals to create, through loops, the sound of several instruments at work while playing alone.

On this year’s Armchair Apocrypha, he delivers a very different album. However, this isn’t a bad thing. Whereas Eggs was rooted in acoustics, Armchair is driven almost as much by electric guitar, electronics and percussion as it is by Bird’s violin. Recent collaborator, tourmate, and Anticon member Martin Dosh contributes drums, beats, and piano work, adding another layer to Bird’s music and giving many of the new songs the sound of a full band to wonderful effect.

On opener “Fiery Crash,” Bird establishes his more electric approach immediately, starting the album with subdued guitar and allowing strings to weave in and out between verses, his voice sounding confident as always. Better yet is “Darkmatter,” on which Bird’s voice soars, reaching an unexpected high as the song comes to its chorus, letting drums and guitar rock out for the only time on the album. It’s stunning on first listen and pretty damn impressive five times later.

The album’s centerpiece is the seven-minute “Armchairs,” building over a minimal guitar riff, then slowly inflating as the verses are accompanied by Dosh’s piano playing, a variety of electronic sounds, and Bird’s strings, which come to demand attention as the song comes to a climax and Bird sings that “Time’s a crooked bow.” After a moment of relief, everything comes back to life, carrying the song to a striking conclusion. It’s been likened to Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” and with good reason. It’s easily one of the best songs Bird has written in this solo phase of his career.

Once again, Bird recycles his old ideas and creates something new, yet familiar, in the process. Much like “Skin is, My” was based off of a melody from “Skin” on Weather Systems, he reuses a melody from that album’s “I” to create “Imitosis.” “Simple X” is a Dosh instrumental with new vocals and lyrics by Bird, and it fits perfectly with the new material.

As a whole, Armchair Apocrypha proves that Eggs was no fluke, though given he’s now been making music for over a decade, that shouldn’t really be much of a concern. He’s willing to take risks, but he makes his new sound conform to his trademarks – his whistling, his violin, and his clever as hell lyrics – and as a result, he’s created one of the best albums of the first few months of 2007.

Grade: A

-Andrew Hall

I’ll just come out and say it: The Day I Turned to Glass is fantastic. Honeycut has crafted an album here that molds a myriad of styles into an eclectic, fascinating sound that is truly their own. But what is perhaps most impressive about this album is Honeycut’s ability to create something so varied and creative that at the same time is completely accessible and immediately familiar. Even when three or four styles are being combined in a wholly original and unexpected fashion, the music still feels entirely coherent and fully realized.

To say that Honeycut’s influences are diverse is certainly an understatement. As the album progresses, splashes of soul, funk, jazz, techno, bossa nova, pop, ambient, and rock, among others, come up, flowing together in unexpected, but incredibly pleasing ways. But what is perhaps most fascinating about the album is its apparent inability to fix itself on any of these styles. The focus of the songs is constantly shifting and evolving, bringing in new elements and discarding old ones long before they become stale. This may sound jarring, but Honeycut does it with such a smooth flow and such assuredness that the music never once loses you over the course of the album’s twelve songs.

The star of the show is unquestionably Hervé Salters, who provides keyboards, displaying a remarkable versatility with the instrument. Lulling, sweeping chords are accompanied by sharp, angular riffs and extremely funky basslines, making a rich milieu where one never knows what will come next, but when it does come it always seems perfectly natural and accessible. Bart Davenport’s distinct vocals, meanwhile, come in a confident, soulful croon, one of the only constants throughout the album, and Tony Sevener’s live, played-by-hand MIDI Production Center provides the drumbeats. Live horns and strings are also mixed in, contrasting the often electronic feel in a way that feels just as natural and exciting as the band’s constant genre mixing.

The songs themselves run a gamut of moods almost as wide-ranging as the styles they employ. The dark and funky title track, the simultaneously smooth and angular “Tough Kid”, a lush rock/pop number called “Shadows” and the horn-filled, Prince-inspired R&B of “Crowded Avenue” are the standout tracks, and all of them only reveal more and more subtle and often wonderful touches with each listen. Not all of the tracks are quite up to the standard of those four, but none of them are by any means weak and absolutely none of the album sounds out of place or like filler.

Honeycut, ultimately, almost defies classification. They’re extremely fun (often danceable, even), endlessly creative, and at the same time sound organic and electronic. It all adds up to a hugely enjoyable album that can be played through almost endlessly without losing its charm and makes a good soundtrack to almost any occasion or mood. It gets my vote for the best album of 2006, and if you give it a listen, I think it’ll at least make your top ten.

-Ben Stevens

OK, so I get it. In fact, I really like the idea. Japanese composer Tori Kudo (sometimes known as the “Master of Mistake”) has brought together 27 tracks full of free-jazz and complex layering, explicitly to be played by amateur musicians. In an age where every album is digitally produced, pitch & tempo can be adjusted to fix the musicians’ mistakes, and performers are expected to reproduce their music exactly like studio version, Maher Shalal Hash Baz stands out as a shining beacon of music in its imperfect glory. We’re not talking about making mistakes for mistakes sake, but rather letting the music go where the musicians and their ability takes it. Great idea! Unfortunately, the end result is an album where you will find yourself cringing at some point every track. Picture going to a middle school band recital and watching some poor kid butcher a note on his solo… that’s the kind of uncomfortable feeling some of these tracks will give you. That said, it is a very genuine, real sounding album (good thing) which has its moment of freak-folk-avant-jazz bliss (even better thing). And it does some wonderful stuff like replacing the bass guitar with a bassoon. Sadly, however, I can’t make myself want to listen to it more than a couple times.

I give this album 4.5/5 artistic visions and slaps in the faces of the culture of the perfect taking over music today, but only 2.5/5 desires to hit the “repeat all” button.

-Alan

Joanna Newsom - Ys
(Drag City, 2006)

Joanna Newsom’s first album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, was quite good. Her stories were compelling, her instrumentation unconventional and pleasant, and her voice, if nothing more, unique. Her follow-up, Ys, despite having only five songs, is something far grander, improving upon all of her qualities as a musician while changing the focus of both her music and her songwriting in general.

Seconds into the album’s first track, “Emily,” Ys’s dramatic change of sound becomes apparent as soon as the orchestra makes its presence known. While Newsom’s voice remains the focus of the music, the strings, arranged by Brian Wilson collaborator and musician Van Dyke Parks, take her once-minimal harp-and-vocals approach and instead place it in the aural equivalent of Cinemascope and Technicolor. The strings move around her harp and her voice, animating the music wonderfully.

Additionally, her singing voice - a source of controversy since the beginning of her career as a singer-songwriter - has clearly improved. Her singing is no longer anywhere near as raw as it was on either her first two EPs or her first album, yet her voice still feels more than adequate as a method of delivering these songs. It’s an improvement likely to help win her many new fans with this album.

As a whole, Ys is a stunning record and easily among the best of the year. The songs are epic, as proven by the seventeen-minute “Only Skin,” yet still intimate and fascinating. It’s a remarkable second album and proof that there is much ground yet to be explored in the world of experimental folk.

5/5
-Andrew Hall