Quarterly Review: The Best of 2009’s Second Quarter
I’m back! Thanks to job stuff and an overwhelming busyness, my duties as a blogger have gone by the wayside. Thankfully, this Quarterly Report is around to keep me on track. The music these last few months has been incredible and I can only assume I missed a ton. Hopefully I can rectify that by year’s end.
I plan to dedicate a little more of my time to this thing, so stay tuned for a few new “Check Your Blindspots” and “V&B Hall Of Fames.”
The joke, of course, with calling Post-Nothing my favorite album of the past three months is that it’s a) probably the most slight album on my list, b) part of a recent trend that reached its saturation point with Wavves’ latest release and c) part of a trend that I wasn’t particularly fond of in the first place.
So why now? Why Japandroids? The simple answer is that is that unlike literally all other lo-fi bands (even someone like Jay Reatard) there is no pretension in Japandroids’ music. This Vancouver band sound less like a pair of scenesters hopping on a trend than a couple of guys with a deep affection for late-90’s pop punk and an urgency to kick out as many joyous hooks as possible and repeat them over and over again until everyone is broken and sweaty, grinning from ear to ear. Whether the duo’s tweaking Thin Lizzy classics, worrying about dying (and those Sunshine Girls), getting horny over French girls or bragging about trips to the North Pole, Japandroids keep things lively, sincere and totally devoid of posturing (the album title should have been your first hint). Sure, it all just sounds like a couple of dudes bashing songs out in their basement, but sometimes that’s where the greatest inspiration is. Music never sounds so good as those moments where you’re completely locked in with your friends. Post-Nothing is the sound of your high school punk band totally knocking it out of the park.
“Young Hearts Spark Fire”
There’s just something about uplifting, highly deliberate pop songs that can alter every facet of your being. These songs can warm the heart, shake the ass and satisfy the brain. Both Phoenix and Passion Pit have done that, creating two albums of perfectly crafted pop (Phoenix leans toward the indie side, Passion Pit decidedly electro): sharp, focused and pristine.
I always kind of ignored Phoenix, but a recent SNL performance (about two or three months before Wolfgang was even released) really swayed me. Not totally sure what it was. The band couldn’t have sounded less spontaneous and the double (triple?) tracked lead vocals certainly were a cheat, but the songs they played (“Lisztomania” and “1901,” of course) were just such wonderfully, intricately crafted pieces of indie pop that I was immediately smitten. Of course, after these two immaculate concoctions, Wolfgang takes a brief dip with the overlong, overly dramatic intro to “Love Like A Sunset,” which sees Phoenix trying to go capital “I” important when it doesn’t need to. The rest of the album, however, rights the ship, with the band honing in on their ability to make sophisticated, adult pop songs, with the right mix a joy and ennui.
“Lasso”
Passion Pit is a little less “adult.” The hype and inevitable backlash surrounding Michael Angelako’s little creation is total kids’ stuff. I was lucky enough to miss out on that hype surrounding the Chunk Of Change EP, which probably means that my listening experience with Manners didn’t have the opportunity to suffer by comparison (like last year’s Fleet Foxes did). All I heard was a band taking all the best moments from several “pretty good” electro bands (Justice, MGMT, Hot Chip) and making an entire album of the best the genre has to offer. Sure the album is a total Urban Outfitters change room soundtrack, but I’ll be damned if this album isn’t stuffed with all the right apparel.
Lest you think all the Passion Pit has made me soft, I still know how to rock. And luckily for all of us, so do Andy Falkous and J Mascis. There is no direct link between the two bands and albums, other than the fact that their both rock bands and I was desperate to shoehorn both onto my list.
We’ll start with the elder statesmen of all things guitar-based sad sack rock, Dinosaur Jr. 2007’s reunion album, Beyond, felt like a tremendous fluke, with the band sounding as vibrant as they did in their 80’s heyday, but Farm is so much more than that. Farm actually makes me question if perhaps the band is currently in its heyday right now. Unlike the spunky and hook-filled Beyond, Farm feels a little bit more lived in, with songs stretching past eight minutes and tempos being slowed down considerably. Amazingly, these prove to be wise moves, as the songs change and evolve at the pace they should and the hooks reveal themselves organically. Of course, there are some total rockers like the bouncy “”I Want To Know,” Lou Barlow’s “Your Weather” and the wah-inflected “Get Over It,” but for every chunky crowd-pleaser, there are a couple of devastating slow burners like the scintillating “Said The People” and the jangly, playful “See You.” Of course, Mascis just kills it from top to bottom on the guitar (it’s been years since someone, anyone, has been this good at doing so much heavy lifting in service of a song with a single instrument), but his voice seems to just get better with age: he’s older, foggier, craggier and all the more beautiful for it.
Of course, while Mascis and crew are well-versed in the ways of making aggressive rock beautiful and wistful, Andy Falkous and company are happy to keep things nasty and brutal. While the monolithic Star Destroyer of Falkous’ previous band Mclusky leaves a large shadow, those keeping score will notice that FOTL have now outpaced Mclusky by releasing two front-to-back great albums to Mclusky’s 1.5 (Mclusky’s 2002 album Do Dallas is incredible, but the other two are cherry-pick worthy at best). Of course, being what is essentially five albums in to his recording career, Falkous has to add a few wrinkles to his overall sound and while he essentially sticks with the formula that has been working so well for him (pithy, pissy marriages between smart-ass charm and pummeling ugliness), Falkous adds enough to make Travels With Myself And Another his most diverse yet. Between the surprisingly sweet harmonies of “Throwing Bricks At Trains” to the big, honking hockey game keyboards on “You Need Satan More Than He Needs You” to the swirling acoustic guitars on “Lapsed Catholics” (sing it with me: “Lapsed Catholics are the worst” – Craig Finn is kicking himself for not getting to that line first), this is the most dynamic music Falkous has released yet. It’s still raw, sneering and relentlessly hilarious, but the expanded musical palette is just gravy.
4. Bill Callahan Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle
“I used to be darker / then I got lighter / then I got dark again.” Thus spoke Bill Callahan, deep-voiced sad sack, master of understatement and spokesperson for the Hall of the Mind-Bogglingly Consistent. Much of what makes Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle such a strong addition to the Callahan catalogue (which includes such stunning smog albums as Wild Love, Knock Knock and Dongs Of Sevotion as well as 2007’s underrated Woke On A Whaleheart under the Bill Callahn moniker) is that it sees Callahan returning to the world of the morose. Of course, this is largely in part due to a semi-recent break up with girlfriend Joanna Newsom (who began dating Andy Samberg of all people). Breakups are always a good artistic catalyst and this one’s no exception, with Callahan performing some his best work in a decade. Of course, at the top of the list is “Eid Ma Clack Shaw,” which tells the story about Callahan dreaming the perfect song, only to write it down and come up with absolute gibberish. While Callahan is mostly quite literal in his songwriting, a refrain like “Show me the way / to shake a memory” seems to dig a little deeper than Callahan merely trying to get some catchy nonsense out of his head. Elsewhere, Callahan plays on variations of Whaleheart’s highlight “Sycamore.” Album opener “Jim Cain” takes the wobbly-wheel arpeggios (albeit slowed down) while “Too Many Birds” apes the chord progression. It’s not exactly self-plagiarism; it’s the sound of Callahan finding a sound that works well for him and sticking to it. The end result is an album that’s sufficiently brooding, funny and mystifying – everything that has made Callahan so great for so long.
Of course I had to lump in all the metal albums together, despite the fact that none of them sound remotely like each other.
On the most populist side is Big Business, who have taken time out from kicking ass in the Melvins, to provide another slab of thunderous anthems that will stir your bowels and weaken your knees. While the band has added Toshi Kasai on guitar to add a little high-end action to the traditional bass-and-drums festivities, the genetic make-up of the band has hardly changed – these guys are still providing lumbering, low-end heavy slabs of big, beefy pop hooks. While Mind The Drift is more of a “grower” than previous Big Business albums, once this album sinks into you (“The Drift” got me first) it’s likely to become a favorite. Even three albums in, I’m still in awe of bassist Jared Warren’s voice, which produces a mighty bellow that adds to the hugeness of the songs without sacrificing an ounce of the melody. His voice is a beast, this band is a beast and the more I listen to Mind The Drift the more amazed I am by what these guys do.
“The Drift”
Speaking of pop hooks, no one ever accused Isis of being something the whole family could enjoy, but I’ll be damned if Wavering Radiant isn’t the lushest, most dynamic album in Isis’ noteworthy catalogue. Opener “Hall Of The Dead” gives the biggest indication of Isis’ dramatic leap forward in style and sound with it’s galloping riff and the pulsating keyboards. “Hall” sets the album off on the right foot: huge and sludgy, but also urgent and beautiful. Elsewhere the Floyd-ian atmospherics alter the ethereal quality of the band’s earlier work (“Ghost Key,” “Hand Of The Host”), while singer Aaron Turner effortlessly moves back and forth between devastating harsh vocals and truly epic melodic vocals. Isis is as huge as ever, but with Wavering Radiant they get a little more interesting.
Of course, least ready for public consumption is Sunn O))), who I once heard referred to as the Darkness of black metal (I think that was meant as an insult). I’m still not totally in love with these guys yet, but the other morning I came into work early (6:30 a.m.), threw on my headphones and listened to this album very loud. It devastated me. Whether you’re into this sort of metal or not, if you turn this mother up loud you will be destroyed. A track like the 16-and-a-half minute “Alice” is especially amazing, not really retaining any semblance of “metal,” but simply a long, creaky, sometimes terrifying, sometimes gentle and lovely exercise in mood, volume and tonal shifts. This album can set a mood.