Black Mountain - In The Future

I first heard about Black Mountain back when they were opening for Coldplay in 2005. Maybe a bit unfairly, I immediately dismissed them as something I probably wouldn’t like due to their tour partners. It wasn’t until last month that I finally heard In The Future (an album that originally appeared on this blog in my “Albums of 2008 That I Wanted To Hear But Didn’t” list), and I was a little shocked as to how wrong I was four years ago.

On paper, nothing Black Mountain does here should work. They somehow manage to use some of the most hokey sounding keyboard tones I’ve ever heard and fuse it with titanic-sized riffs that touch on a great deal of classic rock giants, ie: the Zeppelins, the Floyds, etc. Keep in mind that I really don’t care for either of those two bands, at all. I don’t know. I can’t really put a finger on why this album is so good. It just works. Some of the shit on here wouldn’t sound terribly out of place at a Lord Of The Rings convention, yet I can’t detect a smack of irony or pretension throughout this album’s 57 minutes.

Stephen McBean isn’t the flashiest singer, but that’s probably for the better- if he pushed it too hard, I don’t know if I’d be able to handle this album. OK, just to mention Coldplay again, I guess he sounds like a boozier, Canadian Chris Martin, but just barely. Even in constant-falsetto mode, as exhibited on “Stay Free,” things just click. Even when the 80's-science-TV-show synth comes in about halfway through the song, I just nod my head. I don’t care for Amber Webber’s vocal contributions as much, but I understand their place in the album. “Wucan” has the type of riffs that force you to constantly hit your rewind button- not advisable if one is driving. Throughout it all, Black Mountain displays a knack for the ebb-and-flow, letting parts gradually build to a roar before demurring to quieter sections.

Let me re-iterate how much of a shock it is to me how into this album I am. I usually can’t stand classic rock, or most of the bands that were involved in making it. Black Mountain have somehow made the genre palatable to someone like me. How, I’m not exactly sure. All I know is that this is the type of music that makes me wish I was in Dazed And Confused, driving around while everyone else in the car smokes weed in extremely comical and exaggerated ways.

-Erik

Telepathe - Dance Mother

I'd say I get the most fickle when it comes to electronic music. There are groups such as Ladytron that I really like, but I really can't stand a lot of the vapid, soulless shit that people with easy access to laptops have been cranking out for the better part of this decade. I don't know, I guess I just don't really feel much connection to the "New York lifestyle" so many people at my college have come to idealize- the non-stop party life, the deep immersion in the world of fashion, irony, etc. Summed up in a word, but explained by others way better than myself = hipsterism.

So that's one reason why Telepathe's debut album does not connect with me on any level. It's just some cold shit. I mean, it'll probably get them a few features written about them here and there, but I really can't see anybody being WAY into this album a year from now, or it even popping up on any year end lists. It's completely disposable. At best, there are two or three good songs on this album, and wouldn't you know it, they're right next to each other in the tracklist ("Can't Stand It" and "Michael"). The rest of the album I truly have trouble remembering.

Despite being produced by TV On The Radio studio wizard/guitarist David Sitek, Dance Mother is a tinny sounding affair, far from the lush production Sitek has lavished upon his own band. Pitchfork pointed it out in their review of this album, and I actually agree with them, that Sitek kind of deserves a lot of the credit for this album, more so than the duo that make up Telepathe. Melissa Livaudais and Busy Ganges just sort of chirp their way throughout the album, quite amatuerishly at best. Sometimes being way out of tune can be endearing (see: Los Campesinos), but in this case it's just obnoxious. And don't get me started on the song "Devil's Trident," which almost dips into Mars Volta levels of WTF-ness with the lyrics.

Oddly enough, for a group that is being marketed as electronic, the songs where they sound like a full band come off the best- the two that I mentioned above. "Can't Stand It" sounds like it could have been a B-side from either Ladytron's Witching Hour or Asobi Seksu's Citrus, with its swirling synths and surprisingly nimble vocal hooks.

In the end though, those two songs aren't enough to save this album from being just...blah. Another entry into an increasingly oversaturated scene. Being friends with TV On The Radio can only get you so far, I guess.

-Erik

The Big Sleep - Sleep Forever

I missed seeing The Big Sleep when they were opening for Minus The Bear in early 2008, but for some reason I'm not really regretting it, because I feel like their live show would probably play out very similarly to how their second album, Sleep Forever does. A few opening tracks of shreddage, followed by quiter stuff, and ending not with a bang as much as an "eh."

I don't really know what it is about this album, but it just doesn't even seem like the band is totally interested in what they're doing. Most of the songs here are instrumental, which means it might fall under the blanket term of "post-rock." At the same time though, some of these instrumentals probably would have benefited from vocals. My other main gripe is kind of weird, and it's the lugubrious tempo that every song seems to follow. The band obviously has some great guitar tones, so why do they find it necessary to just plod through every song? I could see them sounding a bit more Fucking Am-ish if they sped things up a little bit, but dirty enough to retain their own sound.

The two previously mentioned problems I have with this album make it a pretty fucking frustrating listen, and at times, the band's name and album title almost come too close for comfort when it comes to stuff I'm listening to.

For a band that makes most of their songs instrumental, it's almost funny that the most memorable moments of this album come from the songs that feature vocals. It's not even that the vocals are that spectacular, it's just that the band actually seems like they give a shit at these moments. Take "Bad Blood." There are riffs for days in this song, and although the vocals make it a little hard to focus on the guitars, it's good to at least see The Big Sleep a little more invigorated.

But for every good song like that, there's one like "Organs," which seems like nothing more that studio tomfoolery gone wild. Like, "oh hey, here's this organ..woah that sounds kind of cool. Let's record an entire track based around like one or two riffs on this thing. Shit!" It's just filler, that's all.

Usually I can forgive a band if they at least seem like they're giving it their all (see my Sinaloa review), but I just can't get behind a group who seems almost, well, asleep during their album.

-Erik

The Anniversary - Devil On Our Side: B-Sides And Rarities

School is out for summer, my internship is over, and I'm unemployed until I get back to Ohio, and even then, probably until June. What better thing to do than review stuff then?

This right here is a two disc compilation of B-sides and rarities from The Anniversary (obviously, if you read the title). For those who never listened, the closest comparison I can think of when thinking about this band's first album would be Motion City Soundtrack, except a few years older. However, while The Anniversary's first album was a complete sugar rush of keyboard infused pop-punk awesomeness, they made a complete left turn on their second album, the classic rock indebted Your Majesty. It was a turn I didn't get when it first came out, and it's one I still do not get to this day. In the end, I think Motion City Soundtrack has had a better overall track record than The Anniversary.

However, this does not diminish how important of an album Designing A Nervous Breakdown was to me. I picked it up when I was in 9th grade, and became immediately attached to it. I first heard the band through one of those Vagrant Records Another Year On The Streets compilations (incidentally, the first place I ever heard Rocket From The Crypt!), and man, I thought I was on to some really underground shit once I tracked down their album. I kept that album like a secret, only showing it to a few people. Which is why Your Majesty was such a slap in the face to me- as it showcased a band abandoning everything they were really haphazardly.

As for this collection, it's a bit like a see-saw in terms of my relationship with The Anniversary. The songs that sound more like Designing are fucking great, and it's interesting to hear some of those songs in rougher, demo form. However, some of the other stuff on here is just head-scratchingly bad. I remember right before they broke up, in a couple issues of Alternative Press, that they had been working on some new EPs, one of which was supposed to contain "campfire songs" and the other would contain more reggae oriented tracks. Well, some of those songs are on this collection, and the idea of The Anniversary playing reggae is JUST as bad as you think it is. Please, skip the song "Che" every time you listen to this. I think I found myself actually shaking my head a few times during the duration of Disc 2, which compiles most of the Your Majesty era rarities.

Oh, and who thought it would be a good idea to put those two live tracks on there of Josh Berwanger talking between songs? Especially when they aren't the most endearing ones, it really just kind of makes him come off as as huge of a prick people were perceiving him as during the Your Majesty days.

Anyway, this was good for the sake of digging up some Designing-era B-sides, but at the same time a little disheartening to basically chronicle the way I feel this band managed to shoot itself in both feet stylistically.

They still have a MySpace, by the way: http://www.myspace.com/theanniversary69

-Erik

Rival Schools - United By Fate

I don't understand this album. I don't understand this band, or the people in it. Rival Schools is composed of a veritable who's-who of the late 80's New York hardcore scene, and the post-hardcore scene that sprung from it. Members include Walter Schreifels, from the legendary Gorilla Biscuits and Quicksand, and Sammy Siegler, also an ex-Biscuit. I don't understand how people from so many good bands could make such a completely underwhelming album.

First off, what the fuck is post-hardcore? Does it even mean anything? If you look at it literally, it means "after hardcore." Well, this is a band that was started AFTER a bunch of these dudes were in hardcore bands, so I guess that qualifies. Apparently "post-hardcore" also means you write borderline radio rock songs that make fans of your earlier work scratch their heads and just sit there and wonder, "Why?"

Mainly, I could just see people buying this album based on the members' pedigree, and being extremely confused. They might check the liner notes, just to make sure they bought the correct album. First off, this album is produced as FUCK. I can almost anticipate a rock radio DJ beginning to talk at the ends of some songs. It's so slick, you could possibly go ice skating on it. That's not even mentioning Schreifels's vocals on this album, which inch closer and closer to aspiring-Cobain territory.

Ugh, I can't even focus on this. I'm just so baffled that people who actually contributed to an album as good as Start Today could be the same people responsible for such safe nuggets as "Good Things" or "Undercovers On," in my opinion two of the worst songs on this album, the latter of which throws in the "acoustic guitar over all the rest of the noise" trick that just pisses me off. I'm baffled at the apparently sampled drum parts on "Holding Sand" that sit right next to some near-nu-metal guitar riffs. I just can't wrap my head around this. If this is what post-hardcore really means, count me out.

It's official. Each project Walter Schreifels does, I like less and less. I really really like Gorilla Biscuits, I only like Quicksand's first album, and this, well this just doesn't do a thing for me. If anything, it just kind of makes my head hurt and confuses me. But, in the end, this album came out eight years ago, and I'm just another asshole with a blog and an opinion.

-Erik

Rocket From The Crypt - The State Of Art Is On Fire

Let me start this post by saying I think Rocket From The Crypt may be one of the most consistent acts to have ever existed. No matter the release, you knew what you were getting yourself into: absolutely searing rock 'n' roll with blaring horns, and John Reis' perpetually sleazy vocal style leading the entire charge. As much as I liked a couple of the bands that came out of the whole "Return Of Rock" revival at the beginning of this decade (ie: The Hives, The Strokes), they were hardly needed to play the role of saviors, since RFTC was still trucking along just fine during that time period.

Reis also may be one of the craftiest businessmen to play the major label machine. In addition to getting RFTC on Interscope, he also convinced them to sign his other band at the time: the even weirder/more abrasive Drive Like Jehu, who put out their final album Yank Crime in 1994 before disbanding. Despite putting out most of RFTC's main LPs on major labels, Reis was also offered the freedom to put out smaller releases on labels such as Sympathy For The Record Industry. The State Of Art Is On Fire is a prime example of this.

1995 was probably the most busy year for RFTC- recording and releasing three different things by the end of the year. Kicking things off with this, then the quirky Hot Charity, and ending the year with the fucking cannonball of an album that is Scream, Dracula, Scream. A banner year, for sure.

The State Of Art Is On Fire is unique in its approach, as it was pressed on a 10" record where one side is played at 33rpm and the other at 45. As a result, the A side is a ton gritter than the B side, which actually goes as far to showcase a kinder, gentler RFTC, with some of Reis' most tuneful singing coming in the form of the song "Ratsize." As I just stated, the A side of this record absolutely slays, and it sounds like the band themselves might actually have been on fire while recording it. 3/4ths of the songs on the A-side even have some sort of reference to fire in the title. An aborted concept album, perhaps? And how about the part at the end of the A-side where everyone locks into the same riff? Chills.

Had the production been cleaned up a little more, there would be no reason any of these songs could not have appeared on Scream, Dracula, Scream. They're dually some of the harshest yet melodic things the band ever put to tape, and it's a shame that this release doesn't get more attention, in my opinion. I was lucky enough to snag a copy of it from Looney Tunes Records off the Hynes Convention Center T stop, and was thus pretty excited to write about it!

-Erik

Cloak/Dagger - We Are

I'm really supposed to be writing a paper right now, but this album has made that basically impossible. I know I've been slacking on this blog for the past half-month, etc. Let's get into it.

I first saw and heard Cloak/Dagger when they were opening for Lifetime right after that band put out their phenomenal self-titled album (quick note, an album that stands just as high as Hello Bastards and Jersey's Best Dancers, making for one of the best 3-for-3 runs any band has had in my mind). They played to a slightly confused crowd, most of whom were actually there for The World/Inferno Friendship Society (another quick note: while I like the band, their shows are obnoxious experiences only because you're constantly getting slammed into by very nicely dressed ladies and gents who have no other desire beyond shoving you the fuck out of their way. Like, even before the band started playing). However, they had me sold.

Perplexingly, Cloak/Dagger contains one member of the underrated and defunct Renee Heartfelt, but they couldn't be any further from that band's effective Quicksand-aping. It's been stated a bunch of other times, but Cloak/Dagger somehow manages to slip into that comfortable slot between Hot Snakes and 80's hardcore. A couple of years after seeing them, I finally picked up their debut full length, We Are, at some used CD store that is currently slipping my mind. It would be months before it came up on my iTunes on my list of stuff to listen to.

Honestly, this is not the band I remembered seeing opening for Lifetime. It's a band that's like ten times better. A great deal of this credit goes to producer Chris Owens (who also handles guitar/vocal duties in the completely batshit insane Lords), a guy whose production work I have always admired. Owens really knows how to take a band and make them sound as raw as humanly possible without it devolving into a 2-track tape hiss/fuzz mess. The drums hit like punches to the stomach, and constantly seem to be on the verge of peaking, resulting in album that completely tramples the listener. Oddly enough, I see a lot of Owens in this band's vocal style, in which phrases are stretched out and given a little upwards inflection at the end of each line.

The first song on here had me a bit worried, as it initially seems like the biggest Hot Snakes rip of the bunch, namely the song "Braintrust" off of Audit In Progress. However, the aping quickly stops once "Sunburnt Mess" kicks in, which I swear could have been an unrecorded Minor Threat song. While there isn't really anything on We Are that sticks out head and shoulders above the rest, it's of little consequence. It's an album that doesn't give you time to breathe or think about things, where total destruction seems like its ultimate goal. There's hardly any room left between songs, and just when things seem like they're going to slow down a bit, after the mostly instrumental "JC Pays The Bills," "Hollywood Hills," immediately dispels that notion.

Basically, if I had to classify any album I've listened to in the past couple of weeks as a "complete and utter shredder," it would be this one. Hats off.

-Erik