Well, this certainly isn't where we expected to find Walter Schreifels. We don't mean physically, of course -- after all, there he was, hanging out at the sound booth before the show in his grey hoodie, and there he was up on stage plugging in a weird vintage guitar and rocking out. No, we mean stylistically. After blazing trails through hardcore, post-hardcore, indie rock and acoustic folk-pop, Mr. Schreifels has decided to go deep with the latest iteration of his solo guise, back to some of the early sounds that presumably he and many of us grew up with: sludgy, blues-descended proto-metal, a la Black Sabbath and its many followers. And, like we said, it was a surprising place to find Schreifels stylistically, not only because the choice finds Schreifels breeching the barrier represented by the punk revolution of 1976 and 1977 (and the subsequent, perhaps even more crucial, post-punk permutations), but also because working within a proto-metal, groove-oriented idiom seems to impinge somewhat on Schreifels' extraordinary gift for writing melodies. Even so, Schreifels and crew's fearlessly pure, carefree performance of all new material Wednesday night at Great Scott in Boston before an appreciative throng was a delight to behold.
We say fearlessly pure because Schreifels made no effort to curry favor with the crowd by playing anything from his deep, deep catalogue, which stretches back to 1987 when he began writing songs for New York Hardcore legends Gorilla Biscuits. Instead, Walter succinctly -- and confidently -- introduced a series of new songs (with his typicaly boundless charm, of course), one after the other, about 10 in total. That's about as many songs -- we'd venture -- as might comprise a forthcoming album? A planned Schreifels solo set for years has been referred to under the title Jesus Is My Favorite Beatle (see third item here), and it could be that is what fans were treated to the other night. Song titles we can recollect from the show include "Basic Cable," "Hyacinth" and "36 Chambers." We previously reviewed a solo performance by Schreifels right here in Sept. 2011.
Schreifels' present band features ex-members of New York hardcore mainstays Bold, Cults and Youth Gone Mad (although second guitarist Paul Kastabi looked a LOT like Styx' James Young), and Wednesday's show was the third of four dates (the final date was last night in Philadelphia at The Barbary) lined up to showcase this new band and the new material. One very enjoyable aspect of the set was how fresh and exciting the experience of playing the music seemed to be for Walter and the band. There was a lot of glee shared in quick glances between drummer Drew Thomas and Schreifels after many of the songs, and while there was a negligible amount of tentativeness, as well, that only added to the thrill of the show. For the most part the band executed some very tight dynamic changes, while also slowing down to work grooves and establish atmosphere with some more improvisational solo and noise sections. It's a far cry from the light, amazing pop songs on the 2010 solo set An Open Letter To The Scene, which we reviewed here, and which we named our second favorite record of 2010, and which you may stream via the embed below. But the fact that Schreifels can so deftly and convincingly shift styles without losing any of the appeal inherent in his songwriting is a tribute to his skill as a musician, and puts him in a rarified strata of songwriter populated by Clicky Clicky favorites like Kurt Heasley, among very few others. We eagerly await an album announcement.
[*We accidentally deleted this post from late December; here it is in all of its glory once more. -- Ed.]
Well, rock fans, it was a really strange year, one in which we personally and professionally -- and, yes, even to a certain extent here on the blog -- accomplished a great many big things. And all the ups and downs -- transcendent live sets on local stages, solitary post-midnight walks across frozen parking lots in the midwest -- had their soundtrack. Below are our picks for the 10 best songs of the year. These, as usual, are largely determined by our raw ITunes playcounts, although we also gave a little more weight to recent releases that would have been otherwise penalized by coming along later in the year. The list, most of all, is a chance to point to standout songs, regardless of whether the records they are sourced from garnered a slot on our year-end albums list, which we hope to publish before 2011 is gone.
There is an almost complete Spotify playlist of all the tracks that you can access right here; we say almost complete because for whatever reason Spotify doesn't have or won't recognize The Hush Now's wonderful 2011 set Memos. In the few instances possible, we've augmented our copy with embeddable streams, as well, which among other things affords you the opportunity to listen to a nice live recording of Ringo Deathstarr's superlative dream-pop ode "Kaleidoscope." We're already looking forward to big things in 2012. Thanks for reading,and keep an eye out for our aforementioned year-end albums list -- as well as a list or two from Mr. Piantigini -- in the coming days.
1. Johnny Foreigner -- "You vs. Everything" -- Johnny Foreigner vs. Everything
[listen at Spotify]
We struggled over the decision to make this song our song of the year, as opposed to "Alternate Timelines Piling Up." And what it came down to is that while "Alternate Timelines..." is stunningly beautiful and sad, "You vs. Everything" is a self-empowerment song. It's up-tempo. And we need all the adrenaline we can muster these days. Johnny Foreigner is no stranger to anthems, but here the band has finally gone ahead and pointedly created a break-neck paced, fist-banging anthem for you and me. It's one highlight from their year-topping third full-length Johnny Foreigner vs. Everything, which we reviewed last month right here.
2. Rival Schools -- "The Ghost Is Out There" -- Pedals
[listen at Spotify]
Our love for the chorus of this song is boundless. The melody, the ease with which fronter Walter Schreifels looses the syllables from his lips with his immeasurably emotive (tired/sad/happy/wistful/learned/heartbroken) and scratchy voice, the lyrics: it all kills us every time. Remarkably evocative, and yet we haven't any real idea as to what this song is about. But that is a sure sign of excellent songcraft -- the emotion and melody are extremely potent even if the intent is equally as fuzzy. Sing with us, now: "floating in spaaaaaace, the ghost is out there, so you're not alone." We didn't review Rival Schools' 2011 record Pedals, but it kept us company on a lot of cold winter mornings in a far-off place early this year.
3. Benjamin Shaw -- "Home" -- There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet
[listen at Spotify]
There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet will be lucky if it garners footnotes in the year-end lists of the wider, music-writing masses. But the fact is that as soon as we heard the record we sort of felt like someone had handed us a suitcase stuffed with a massive amount of unmarked bills. Or kittens. Well, ghost kittens. With bloody fur around their mouths. Dressed up as tiny little brides and grooms, top hats and veils, little holes for the tails, the whole bit. But anyway, Benjamin Shaw's record is a massive achievement, one that offers a singular but remarkably whole and detailed world view. That is no more apparent than during this epic song. We've seen other writers discussing Mr. Shaw's record that seem to suggest that the rich sonic appointments get in the way of the presentation, of, presumably, Shaw's voice and acoustic guitar. We vehemently disagree. The production on Cabernet is magically vivid and balanced and perfect, as "Home" perhaps best exemplifies.
4. Los Campesinos! -- "Hate For The Island" -- Hello Sadness
[listen at Spotify]
Gareth Campesinos! continues to decry when necessary the application by misinformed writers of the label "twee" to his band's music. Perhaps if he could get everyone to listen to "Hate For The Island" as many times as we have, he can save his breath and go back to tweeting about football and dames. The song is perhaps the most convincing argument that can be made to support the idea that while Los Campesinos! clearly began it's career as scrappy indie poppers, the band's present and future is more cerebral. This song is almost art rock, and the artfulness with which it is made speaks volumes about the massive talent that is propelling the
collective into a band middle-age that seems more promising with each new record.
The show-stopper from the band's best-of-2011 album isn't a big guitar anthem -- well, there are those, too -- but this bar room ballad, the definitive live version of which the band delivered to open its triumphant tour homecoming show in October. We've written for years about The Hush Now, and have seen them at least a dozen times live, but the band was still able to surprise us with this heart-string tugger. When the horn solo gently nudges itself in the door, it reveals a heretofore unrevealed facet of the band. Fronter Noel Kelly, who provides the horn solo here, probably can't rival Chet Baker on brass, but certainly the vocal performance on "Sitting On A Slow Clock" is worthy of the classic Chet Baker Sings. We reviewed Memoshere in September.
Another of noise-pop phenoms Ringo Deathstarr's perfect pop songs, in the mould of its early gems "Sweet Girl" and "Your Town." As the band broadens its pallet to incorporate more dynamic, electronic rhythms and bassist Alex Gehring's vocal contributions become more prominent, it is nice to hear that fronter Elliot Frazer is still willing and able to return to this creative well, apparently at will. Slowly spiraling guitar chords, yearning vocals, simple but unbeatable melodies. "Have you seen her, she's a kaleidoscope...?" Perfection. Check out this awesome live version from last summer. We reviewed Colour Triphere in May.
7. Age Rings -- "Caught Up In The Sound" -- Black Honey
[listen at Spotify]
Sadness and beauty and inevitability, this song's packed with all three and sheds chunks of all of them as its spring-loaded trudging drives the tune from behind a curtain at stage left, across the spotlit center stage, only to disappear behind the curtain at stage right, like a four-minute Beckett play. From its recursive opening lyric to the gently twirling backing vocal that carries it out, "Caught Up In The Sound" is a breathtakingly vivid, down-in-the-mouth love song. As we observed in our review, the song is the perfect closing track to the Midriff re-release of Age Rings' Black Honey, which we reviewed here in October.
We were really afraid this record was going to get hated on by the wider critical populace of the Internerds, as we'd seen (and heard, on the Sound Opinions podcast) some express distaste for the latest collection from Dan Bejar's Destroyer. Not because we need to have our love for this validated -- the relative anonymity of certain of our selections are certainly a testament to that. But as we were saying to the Koomdogg during a forthcoming episode of the CompCon podcast, we just found it hard to believe that a songwriter known to be a shapeshifter (in the same vein as our hero Kurt Heasley of Lilys) was going to be penalized for making a record that many would prefer to pigeonhole derisively as "soft rock." Our pal Bill from Soccer Mom actually has a great genre identifier for the smooth sounds of Kaputt -- "errand rock" -- which references the music his mom played in the car during his suburban upbringing. We totally get that. But we also think that there is a sufficient amount of New Order present in Kaputt along with the other smooth sounds to satisfy even the snootiest indie rocker. Either way, the collection is wonderful, and its dreamy chorus immediately wormed its way into our head and has never left. "Sounds, Smash Hits, Melody Maker, NME, all sound like a dream to me..."
All of this song is wonderful, and, indeed, all of Parrot Flies is wonderful. But this song has a moment, a huge, huge moment, that makes it the defining song Algernon Cadwallader's sophomore set. It's when the singer is shouting -- and he's always desperately shouting -- something like "and there's nothing bittersweet about that, and now something, something something something THE CHINATOWN BUS something something something" etc. Having never taken the Chinatown bus, we don't know why we find the reference so evocative, but we do. Something about the freedom to make mistakes, the freedom of being young and unencumbered by Life's Big Things. Something about joy, which is something that pervades not only this song, but the whole of Parrot Flies. We reviewed the record here in August.
10. The Henry Clay People -- "The Honey Love He Sells" -- This Is A Desert EP
[listen at Spotify]
This is a pretty damn excellent song, life-affirming in its outrageous pacing and punchy delivery. But what perhaps makes this so invigorating, such a breath of fresh air, is that we swear mere months before this EP came out, The Henry Clay People announced something like a hiatus from music. And as we quipped elsewhere, we're glad the hiatus didn't "take," because this song is a barnburner.
We're surprised as you to say that, after all these years and all these bands, Wednesday night was the first time we had ever seen Walter Schreifels, who has been affiliated with more awesome bands than the average American owns records, perform live. Mr. Schreifels founded and has been the primary songwriter in New York Hardcore luminaries Gorilla Biscuits, as well as post-hardcore giants Quicksand and Rival Schools, among other things. After more than two decades in so-called alternative music, Schreifels finally released in 2010 a solo record under his own name. Titled An Open Letter To The Scene, the more rootsy collection was astonishingly good [review here], and we named it our second favorite record of 2010 right here. Needless to say, we were tremendously amped for Wednesday's solo show.
And we were not disappointed. With apologies to our favorite musicians, there likely is no more charming a man in indie rock than Schreifels, who delivered his set from atop a stool via single-pick-up Gibson hollow body and occasional harmonica. We expected him to simply stand and play and then stop playing. But the extremely affable Schreifels spent a fair amount of time speaking as well, occasionally in the middle of songs such as "Arthur Lee's Lullabye." He gave incredibly funny accounts of driving his "champagne"-colored Toyota Camry, watching pro wrestling and dreaming about meeting Sammy Hagar in a room entirely filled by an out-sized hot tub. It's not an overstatement to say the easy-going Schreifels -- who drove himself to the show and carried and set up his own gear and manned his own merch table and interacted graciously to fans-- likely could have entertained the eager crowd simply by telling stories all night. But as it was, he delivered a sonically spare but terrifically enjoyable set of old and new material wedged between the thrilling (and substantially louder) melodic hardcore of locals Daltonic and scene veterans Samiam.
From An Open Letter To The Scene, Schreifels played "She Is To Me" (which was apparently written in Boston, and about which he quipped "it's a fuckin' wicked awesome song"), "Arthur Lee's Lullabye" and the title track. It was particularly thrilling to hear him dip back into the his repertoire for a reinterpretation of Quicksand's absolutely crushing "Too Official" (from that band's 1993 collection Slip) and Gorilla Biscuits' "Forgotten." Interspered throughout were some covers and snippets, including a bit of Boston hardcore legends' DYS's "City By City." After a hysterical bit of musing about what Ian Mackaye must think of a new pro wrestler who affects a Straightedge persona, Schreifels churned out a folksy rendition of the Minor Threat shouter "In My Eyes."
It was refreshing to see Schreifels not taking things too seriously, not putting his songs up on the same pedestal as fans. Instead, he would change up vocal melodies and timing, play a song in a different tuning (leading to a very funny explanation of drop-D), occasionally tune in the middle of a song, or -- as was the case with "Arthur Lee's Lullabye" -- stop mid-song to insert the recollection of the dream about hanging out with Mr. Hagar. All of this was done without dampening the emotional punch of the material, from the wistful la-da-da-das of "She Is To Me" to the angst of "Too Official." "An Open Letter To The Scene," dedicated to deceased Warzone singer Raybeez (from whom some of the words of the chorus to "Open Letter" were borrowed), closed out the night. Bostonians won't be without Schreifels too long. He returns to Boston, in fact to the very same nightclub, with the post-hardcore foursome Rival Schools Oct. 24. We can't wait.
>> Do you remember all the confusion about Yuck and Yu(c)k, how the latter was a side project of the former? Probably not, these are the things that trouble only the most ridiculously fanatic among us. Our position on this was why bother confusing us, just pick one name and we'll accept the fact that you make guitar music and quieter music. Well, our unspoken and un-offered advice has gone unheeded, but the good news is that things are now somewhat less confusing. Yu(c)k is now Oupa. We know, you are relieved. But this is important; in case you were not aware Oupa is the solo vehicle of Yuck fronter Daniel Blumberg, and we love Yuck. Oupa plans to issue in July (via an as-yet unannounced label) a full-length set titled Forget, and although the collection will likely contain some songs with which we are familiar, it's the new stuff that we are most excited to hear. Here's an embed of the presumed titled track to Oupa's debut, which is pretty enough, but not as gripping as "Automatic" or as devastating as "Weakend." One final tangential thought -- doesn't the art above for Forget remind you of this?
>> Let's just say at the top that we like old Mercury Rev better; Boces in particular. But even so, we think it is notable that the band's breakthrough record Deserter's Songs is being reissued May 15 by Co-op Music. The record, originally released in 1998 and Mercury Rev's fourth, so potently evokes specific good times. Nothing sexy, nothing exciting, just this: the first time we heard the record we had just flown into Charlotte, North Carolina, where our best friend picked up me and the missus and drove us in his Jeep on small roads out to a lake house in Morganton. The windows were open on the Jeep, the night was warm, and we cranked Deserter's Songs, and it was just perfect. The lead track, "Holes," in particular just haunts you. Co-op's reissue packages the collection with a second disc containing demos, outtakes and b-sides. To remind folks of how great this record is, the band is giving away the tune "Opus 40." Have a listen, maybe that first night it's warm enough for you to leave the windows open. European fans can catch the band when it unleashes a strand of live performances in mid-May; the full itinerary is at Mercury Rev's web dojo right here.
Mercury Rev -- "Opus 40" -- Deserter's Songs [reissue] [right click and save as] [watch your favorite digital storefront for pre-order information]
>> We really did not know this until H-Dawg From Accounts Receivable told us: apparently there is already another Walter Schreifels solo record in the offing. According to an interview with Alter The Press from April 2010 (you read that correctly, we're reading this a year late), a new Schreifels solo set was "85% done." The same interview says that the reason it hasn't seen the light of day yet is because Mr. Schreifels was releasing the Rival Schools record (the wonderful set Pedals, issued last month) in the interim and wanted to take time to properly promote that. In the same interview Schreifels states the new solo set will be titled Jesus Is My Favorite Beatle, but it is hard to tell whether he was joking or not. Considering how roundly excellent Rival Schools' Pedals is, we expect it will be promoted through the summer, but who knows? Either way, we are excited for the new solo collection, and we'll keep you apprised. Schreifels' debut solo collection An Open Letter To The Scene was our second-favorite record of 2010 [review here].
>> While we weren't the most rabid or vocal fan, we are sorry to see neo-emo luminaries Joie De Vivre call it a day. The band's song "Summer In New London," which opened their 2010 collection The North End, was one of our Top 10 songs of 2010, although we ended up being to busy to publish our list (we did give The North End a nod in our aforementioned albums list). Sorry Joie De Vivre. There is apparently one more album in the can that will be issued post-humously. We look forward to hearing what the members of Joie De Vivre do next.
What an amazing time for indie rock. Each year we take issue with proclamations that any given set of 365 days was better or worse than any other set of 365 days, but we were very excited by what we heard this year, and what we think we'll be hearing next year. Musical trends ignore the calendar, of course, but we feel like in 2011 a lot of music is going to be informed by sounds characteristic of our favorite bands of the early '90s. Just a hunch, and this isn't the place to make that argument, but we feel it. We're excited. For now, we'd like to celebrate the 10 best records of 2010, by our humble estimation.
Long-time readers will be familiar with our ground rules from lists in prior years; here it is in a nut shell. We look at our ITunes play counts, we see what was played most, and those are our picks. Simple. Some related comments: Arcade Fire does not make it into our list, and probably should, or at least would have come close. We didn't connect with Neon Bible, and as bracing as Funeral was, we felt like it was over-wrought in places. But The Suburbs, released (as we are sure you know) in 2010, really spoke to us; we connected with the themes of adulthood, distance and alienation. But we listened to the disc a lot in our car, and plays in the car aren't captured in our rankings. Sorry Arcade Fire. Other records that certainly should be heard include Bettie Serveert's Pharmacy Of Love, Joie De Vivre's The North End and Tears Run Rings' Distance, just to name a few. So what did make the proverbial grade? Read below, and avail yourself of the many streams scraped from Soundcloud.
1. Los Campesinos! -- Romance Is Boring -- Wichita/Arts+Crafts
Heavier, denser, and more focused than all prior efforts, Romance Is Boring -- to use a hackneyed phrase we hate -- finds Los Campesinos! at the peak of its powers. We've grappled with how to articulate the strengths of the Cardiff-based octet's record all year. It doesn't necessarily have Los Camp!'s catchiest jams -- indeed there are things that drive us crazy about the record (what is that grinding sound laced through the mix in the verses of "In Medias Res?" Why is it there? It reminds us of how a song on A Ghost Is Born was supposed to represent Tweedy's migraines). But the songwriting, composition and production is fully realized, impervious and whole. We really wonder where the band can go from Romance Is Boring, because the record is flawless. The musicianship of the players has wrongly taken a critical back seat to fronter Gareth Campesinos!'s personality and (at times comical, at times harrowing) lyrics; that is understandable, but if you mentally strip the words out of this set it is still gripping. That said, Gareth's performances here are amazing, and none more so than the cataclysmic album closer "Coda: A Burn Scar In The Shape Of The Sooner State," where the devastating and searing final lyric "I can't believe I chose the mountains every time you chose the sea" makes for the most crushing moments in recorded music in 2010.
2. Walter Schreifels -- An Open Letter To The Scene -- Dine Alone/Big Scary Monsters
As we quipped in a recent episode of CompCon, if you told us in 1990 that Walter Schreifels would release our favorite record of 2010, and that it would be a largely acoustic pop affair, we'd have thought you were crazy. But, of course, it is true. Mr. Schreifels has crafted what is perhaps the most listenable, catchy collection of the year. The fact that he is working in a sonic vernacular that to us seemed very unlikely (since we haven't really followed Schreifels' career closely since Quicksand) underscores the amazing songwriting and performance chops at his command. In fact, the more unlikely the scenario, it seems, the more convincingly Schreifels succeeds. A song about pop rapper Lil' Kim? Called "The Ballad Of Lil' Kim?" Ridiculous, right? Wrong -- somehow our hero turns out a scrappy, yearning and wistful pop classic. A song eulogizing hardcore like it was a person, called "An Open Letter To The Scene," with lyrics including "at the hardcore funeral I cried and cried?" Ridiculous, right? Wrong. This song is awesome. As is the rest of An Open Letter To The Scene. Schreifels returns with a new Rival Schools record in 2011, and the first single is great, to be sure. But it will be a very tall order for it to be as good as An Open Letter To The Scene, which is, in a word, superlative.
We know what you're thinking. "Really? This unassuming, straightforward and sometimes a bit silly collection of pop-tinged hardcore?" To which our response is this: do not to make the mistake of underestimating the self-titled debut full-length from this Philly-based foursome. Everyone Everywhere is sneaky, just understated enough to not attract much attention, but the collection is perfectly paced, packed with hooks and Hoovers up all the right influences (The Promise Ring, Superchunk). In a way it's like those drinks that were just banned in the US that had booze and tons of caffeine. Everyone Everywhere wins with glorious guitars and big vocal melodies, which power both soaring choruses like that of "Raw Bar OBX 2002" and the dream-like reverie of "Obama House, Fukui Prefecture." It all adds up to something surprisingly irresistible.
Calories' hotly anticipated, but delayed sophomore set was certainly worth the wait. The perennially under-rated Birmingham, England-based power trio here delivers characteristically hooky, brawling post-punk anthems while expanding its sound to include additional textures and temperaments. "The Brink" clocks in at nearly seven minutes in length, challenging Calories' reputation for bluntness and brevity, and deconstructs into a motorik jam. Two pleasantly disorienting set pieces, "Basic Nature 1" and "Basic Nature 2," set off sections of Basic Nature and offer evidence that the trio can thrive outside its winning format for fist-banging shouters. Even so, the record's finest moments are not the singles or odd appendages, but rather the desperate quasi opener "You Could Be Honest" and the upbeat album cut "Even Stephens," which touts melody to spare, bludgeoning drumming and a brilliant sinewy lead guitar in the chorus. Basic Nature is all of your favorite things, only better.
5. Johnny Foreigner -- You Thought You Saw A Shooting Star But Yr Eyes Were Blurred With Tears And That Lighthouse Can Be Pretty Deceiving With The Sky So Clear And Sea So Calm -- Alcopop!
While we predictably loved this EP from our first listen, the more we listen the more we feel like we under-estimated You Thought You Saw A Shooting Star But Yr Eyes Were Blurred With Tears And That Lighthouse Can Be Pretty Deceiving With The Sky So Clear And Sea So Calm. The more we listen, the more we hear the themes, the hurt and the desperation. Opener "The Wind And The Weathervanes" ends serenading, its final 90 seconds a stirring and beautiful coda of feedback and strings that almost makes you forget the stinging admission that the narrator's ex-lover was probably right. The coda butts against the thrashing opening of "Who Needs Comment Boxes When You've Got Knives," which at first seems like a ham-fisted bit of sequencing until one realizes the discord is entirely the point. Indeed, the achievement of You Thought You Saw... is how well it conveys the discomfort of being in one's own skin, stewing in one's own thoughts ("this is how he'll spend forever with you...," "I wish I had a part in this...") when the world seems to be moving on without you. There is solace in the goofy, beat-driven and D Plan-referencing half of "Elegy For Post Teenage Living (Parts 1 and 2)," and even deliverance in the cymbal crash and guitar crash of the verses and conclusion of the song's front half. Whether considered in parts or as a whole, the EP is further evidence that Johnny Foreigner is among the best bands working today.
6. The Henry Clay People -- Somewhere On The Golden Coast -- TBD
Ah, the thrill of the perfect pure rock record. Time was you could count on The Hold Steady to deliver the sort of goods delivered here, but while that act has begun experimenting out of its comfort zone (actually quite successfully: Heaven Is Whenever is a sleeper record full of charm), The Henry Clay People have stuck with its son-of-the-son-of-The Replacements sound and attitude. Somewhere On The Golden Coast is chock-a-block with rootsy, narrative shouters, melodic and self-deprecating odes to slackerdom. As we said in our review (link below), the People spread their wings a little wider here, going beyond the bar room for atmospheric, textures and feedback on the standout "A Temporary Fix." Of course, there are still plenty of rockers, including the driving winner "Your Famous Friends." You need this record, and having a back-up copy ain't a bad idea, either.
While the early warning was that this was a difficult record that the band created for its own satisfaction, the fact is Transference is characteristically strong. Perhaps, as we speculated on CompCon, the message was supposed to convey that Spoon's newest collection wasn't likely to win over news fans, wasn't likely to cross over into the more broadly embraced radio formats. At any rate, Spoon fans bought the record and have probably reached the same conclusion we have -- Transference is a taut, economical and flawless record of minimalist indie rock. Fronter Britt Daniel's lyrics are a bit more impressionistic, and there are some entrancing production flourishes (mostly just expertly applied delays and reverbs), but there are no missteps here, just great songs you can dance to or drink beer along with. Win.
We didn't review this record from Glen Rock, New Jersey's finest indie punk quintet. Frankly, we saw no reason to draft anything after reading our friend and former bandmate Jim's review (link below). So while we haven't spent much time thinking critically about this record, doing so would have missed the point. Titus Andronicus' music is visceral, pounding with a desperate energy and exalted angst. The fact that there is a U.S. Civil War theme draped around the collection, the fact that fronter Patrick Stickles coopts and spins Springsteen lyrics to his own ends, doesn't dispel the immediacy of the driving guitars or hollered vocals, or the emotional punch of a Boston/Jersey long-distance relationship collapsing -- one Fung Wah bus ride at a time -- like so many arranged dominoes. While chronicling a crippling break-up, The Monitor never broods, but instead revels in the anguish and pain, celebrates the strife, and all the while rocks right along the precipice of forcefully strummed, bluntly chorded chaos.
9. Distractions -- Distractions -- Plus Tapes/Infinite Best
This selection for the year-end list reminds us of that snarky t-shirt that proclaims "I Listen To Bands That Don't Even Exist Yet." That's because, as it turns out, our number nine selection is kinda sorta not out yet. The collection is a self-titled cassette put out by a Chicago-based outfit called Distractions. Said cassette version was serviced digitally to bloggers at the beginning of the summer to build hype for a pending reissue from Infinite Best. However, due to other stuff coming up, Distractions, remixed and remastered by Dev from Twin Sister and now titled Dark Green Sea, is not due for release until Jan. 18, 2011. We find it hard to believe that the cassette version can be improved upon, as it is perhaps the most specifically evocative set among the 10 we list here. Distractions just sounds like it was made by a Zombies-influenced pop band that has worked the same subterranean bar room in a seaside town for a decade. The tunes -- often awash in reverb, organ-led and paired with a deep baritone lead vocal -- just sound murky, even with the sunshiney melodies. Even if the lead track "All Night" was the only song on there, the record would be worth whatever anybody would charge for it. And that "anyone" at this point is Midheaven, the price is $13 for the LP, and you should just buy the thing now, because it is awesome. Pre-order Dark Green Sea at the link below.
10. Screaming Maldini -- And The Kookaburra EP -- Alcopop!
Note to indie labels that are not Alcopop!: keep an eye on Alcopop!, because the small label has two entries on our year-end list, which means it is doing something right, and you are probably doing something wrong. Screaming Maldini's And The Kookaburra, in case you didn't know, is the best pure pop record of 2010 -- well, EP, anyway, as the collection touts only five songs. Imagine, if you will, that Spandau Ballet was cryogenically frozen at the height of its popularity and then reborn today as a prog-pop entity with embarrassingly excellent songwriting skills: this is Screaming Maldini. And The Kookaburra's first three songs are brilliant, but the gentle, wistful penultimate track "I Know That You Know That I Would Wipe Away That Snowflake From Your Eye" is the winner of the lot, covering lover's rock territory with its spine-tingling chorus and then -- in typical Maldini fashion -- going widescreen and panoramic and diorama and maparium into a dizzying crescendo of horns and distorted guitar. It's the song that all pop will be measured against going forward. Screaming Maldini will release a new EP Dec. 18, and the act has also completed a new video that we wrote about here Saturday.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Walter Schreifels' new record is that it sounds completely effortless, like the hardcore/post-hardcore luminary is not even breaking a sweat, like the music simply exists out there in the universe waiting to flow through whenever Mr. Schreifels picks up a guitar and opens his mouth. There are, of course, other surprises: for example, sometimes when Schreifels here picks up a guitar and opens his mouth the music sounds like Squeeze, or John Cougar, or Maritime. But these surprises do not eclipse Schreifels' startling ease with acoustic pop in the wake of decades in which he helped define New York Hardcore with Gorilla Biscuits and then mapped successive escape routes from the genre beginning with the incendiary post-hardcore act Quicksand. More years and more bands followed, and now, finally, Schreifels released last week a record under his own name.
Let's reiterate: it is odd -- at least for those of us who have only anecdotally followed Schreifels' career for the last decade -- to hear one of the most important figures in hardcore music release a record of beautiful acoustic pop. Schreifels' web site contains a note stating this is the sort of material he has been playing in acoustic sets in recent years; the note also states the songwriter had been looking to The Beatles, The Byrds and Donovan for inspiration as he was writing An Open Letter To The Scene. But it is not the influence of classic rock bands that makes the record special, it is the synthesis of those bands and others, and a synthesis of that music and Schreifels' facility with hooks and emotive lyrics.
The addictive album opener "Arthur Lee's Lullabye" is perhaps as much about the legendary fronter of Love as it is about Schreifels himself proclaiming his own freedom from his musical past ("the scene, you don't need them"). The title track may be, as friend and Daily Buzzard scribe Jim suggests, Mr. Schreifels' eulogy for the hardcore scene or CBGB's (or both). Our take is the tune is a light-hearted shot at those who have taken hardcore and Schreifels so seriously that he is compelled to write a song that closes a chapter in his life. In that context, An Open Letter To The Scene is a classic Dear John letter. It's not you, reader, it's Walter. Even so, discussion of the larger themes at play does a disservice to the sublime moments scattered across the record: the da-da-da's in "She Is To Me;" the world-weary drawl of the first line in the second verse of "Save The Saveables;" the poignant, soft electric piano in the tragic "Wild Pandas;" the explosion of hooks that is the smile-inducing "Ballad of Lil' Kim." Because, in the end, it is about great songs, and not about where Schreifels has been or where he is going. An Open Letter To The Scene certainly summarizes Schreifels' musical past -- so much discarded snake skin -- but more importantly it frees him from its confines once and for all.
Walter Schreifels -- "Arthur Lee's Lullabye" -- An Open Letter To The Scene [right click and save as; MP3 via Schreifels' promo co. Okay! Okay!] [buy An Open Letter To The Scene from Dine Alone here or Big Scary Monsters here]
Wonderful lead track from musical journeyman/New York hardcore legend Walter Schreifels' forthcoming solo set An Open Letter To The Scene. Mr. Schreifels has been releasing music -- much of it capital I Important -- with various bands (Quicksand, Rival Schools, Walking Concert, etc.) for an astonishing 22 years; Revelation Records issued his first release, Gorilla Biscuits' debut 7", in 1988. Toronto-based Dine Alone Records releases An Open Letter To The Scene Tuesday; Big Scary Monsters issues the set in the UK May 10. The limited-edition vinyl version of the record is bright, translucent green and features as a bonus track My Bloody Valentine's "When You Sleep." Schreifels recently wrapped a strand of shows in the U.K., but he has numerous live engagements inked for the U.S. and Germany in the coming weeks.
05.05 -- The Studio @ Webster Hall -- New York, NY 05.07 -- North Star Bar -- Philadelphia, PA 05.08 -- Town Ballroom -- Buffalo, NY 05.14 -- The Tower -- Bremen, DE 05.15 -- Gruner Jager -- Hamburg, DE 05.16 -- Bunker Ulmenwall -- Beilefeld, DE 05.17 -- Schlachthof -- Wiesbaden, DE 05.18 -- Blue Shell -- Köln, DE 05.19 -- St. Gallen -- Gabenhalle, CH
>> Things are happening in Louisville. In December we made mention of the cracking alt. country combo State Champion, and then in early January we were pitched a largely quiet, folksy album from Louisville's The Parade Schedule. The latter act is primarily Matt Kinder, who is abetted Lilys-style by as many as 33 collaborators on his two-years-in-the-making debut full length Seeds To Be Planted, Trees To Be Cut. Mr. Kinder sings about the things you used to have that hurt you now because you'll never get them back: innocence, young love, you know, that stuff. His music evokes that feeling of laying in the cool grass in the yard on a humid summer night, lover's head resting on your shoulder as you pass a sweating beer back and forth. Elements of the production and mood suggest scene progenitors Palace Brothers to us, although the world of The Parade Schedule seems less gothic and generally more peaceful. Seeds To Be Planted, Trees To Be Cut was released last month by The Record Machine. While the tempo and dynamics pick up in places on the record ("Making A Way" is pretty southern rock, whatever that means these days), it is the pensive, acoustic tracks that hit home most. The paired tracks "Backyard" and "Dye Your Hair" present Kinder's music at its most goosebump-inducing. The former track in particular trades in the sort of palpable, wistful nostalgia we referenced supra. Sadly beautiful. Here's "Backyard."
The Parade Schedule -- "Backyard" -- Seeds To Be Planted, Trees To Be Cut [right click and save as] [buy Seeds To Be Planted, Trees To Be Cut from The Record Machineright here]
>> It's been 13 months since we reported that Philly-based shoegaze quartet Relay transmogrified itself into Arc In Round. Our verbiage from December 2008 includes praise for a track posted to MySpace titled "2" which reminded us not a little then of the now-recently reconstituted shoegaze phenoms Lorelei. Well, the latest iteration of the track is still awesome (now going by the Roman numeral "II"), we can report, based on three tracks Arc In Round placed on SoundCloud in late January. We checked in with band fronter Jeff Ziegler (who is also a very busy live sound guy and studio engineer) to get an update on what the four has in store for us. Mr. Zeigler reports that Arc In Round will self-release a debut EP by early April, and the band continues to put the finishing touches on that. A full-length record is apparently already in the can and a fall release date is likely; Arc In Round is also gathering up remixes to package with the planned releases. No labels are currently attached (officially, anyway) to either the EP or the full-length; Relay was signed to Bubble Core. While we all sit around and wait for the EP to drop, how about streaming the shoegaze-arific "II," a finished version of the track we raved about in that 2008 blog post that will be included on the planned full-length. If you can't get enough of that, two additional tracks are posted at the SoundCloud page: "Spirit" will appear on both the planned EP and full length, and "Said Astray" will appear on the LP only.
>> Another record we've spent a lot of time with over the last couple months is a planned EP from Chicago emocore outfit Castevet. The EP, The Echo & The Light, was to be released Feb. 23 in the UK by Big Scary Monsters; it also had the distinction of being Big Scary Monsters' U.S. division's planned first release. However, a publicist told us last week that Castevet and the label have amicably parted ways. For its part, Castevet is returning to the studio to re-record the tracks from The Echo & The Light and record two new songs, which presumably will become part of the final product. We're told the band is already talking to a new label and hopes for an early summer release date. Big Scary Monsters continues to aggressively charge ahead with other releases, include an amazing one-two punch of an Andrew W.K. single and a heavily anticipated Walter Schreifels solo set. Anyway, the shelving of what we suppose we'll call the erstwhile Big Scary Monsters version of The Echo & The Light makes the following MP3 of "Midwest Values" something of a collector's item. So dig it.
Castevet -- "Midwest Values" -- The Echo & The Light (erstwhile Big Scary Monsters version) [right click and save as]
>> One thing we failed to mention in our Johnny Foreigner post last week: the digital version of the forthcoming single for "Every Cloakroom Ever" will be issued Feb. 8, which is, like, really soon. Fans who pre-ordered the vinyl version of the single were promised high-quality MP3s, which would hope will arrive on the same date, as otherwise eager vinyl purchasers will end up being in the position of waiting for something it has paid for that the general public is out there happily snapping up. Are we projecting? Nah, just eager, as the prospect of two new b-sides we've not heard is terribly exciting. Anyway, start counting down the days.
