Chain & the Gang - In Cool Blood

DC lo-fi garage rockers Chain & the Gang have disrupted Secretly Canadian's mellow roster for some crunchy guitar grooves. Chain is also trading in their overtly political stance of past records for some playfulness. "Certain Kinds of Trash" you just don't see anymore - for example. ("...ashtrays, porno mags, nylon stockings...")

Production is simplified to a heavy bass mix playing simple rhythms while guitar scratches some broken melody while Katie and Ian trade lead vocals. These kind of garage recordings often lose a lot of vocal nuance and the listener is left not understanding anything. Not a problem here. Whatever the Gang want to say, you will hear.

What they have to say runs the gamut from the fun to the simple. The aforementioned trash song and pornish song called "Heavy Breathing" would be examples of fun. And extended jam for "I'm Not Interested (In Being Interested)" seems unnecessary. This would be a fun band to see live and share some beers with; but you won't your blood won't boil for them. It'll stay cool. (2.5 of 5 stars)

Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...

Fiona Apple took another 6+ years to get out a full length record. A follow up to what I considered her masterpiece, Extraordinary Machine. (Although admittedly, I was a bigger fan of the unreleased online version). A good year of this delay was record-company based. (Time to get off the majors, Fiona).

Fiona turns away from longtime collaborator Jon Brion on this one and worked mostly with her drummer. And maybe that's the key difference in this album's direction. The lush orchestration of EM (especially the online version) has been traded for pared-down piano-vocal with rhythm accompaniment. Sometimes with jazzy results. Very little else included. Not a bad thing, just a difference.

Of course, I'm a words man and Fiona has never been a stranger to spinning a yarn. She seems to have a bottomless notebook of different ways to express disappointment and anger. Another difference with "Idler..." is that quite often, we see Fiona turning the sword on herself. Her lyrics describe a tone of insecurity and self-sabotage in a way that she hasn't explored a lot before.

"While you were watching someone else, I stared at you and cut myself"

"How can I ask anyone to love me when all I do is beg to be left alone?"

Don't worry though, she still tears into the occasional John. "Regret" is easily the most biting with its chorus: "I ran out of white doves' feathers to soak up the hot piss that comes from your mouth".

And then, after eight songs of ire, she gets downright sexy for the album's two closers. "Anything We Want" seduces with "I kept touching my neck to guide your eye to where I wanted you to kiss me when we find some time alone". And then on "Hot Knife", Fiona channels Gene Simmons while presenting a rhythmic lyric in the round that repeats to the climax.

I feel like I should complete this review with a Fiona-album-title-size poem. But that would take me six years. (5 of 5 stars)

The Future Of The Left - The Plot Against Common Sense

One of my favorite bands of the nineties was called Cop Shoot Cop. They were part of a small New York scene called "No Wave". This was post-Nine Inch Nails so the electronics and agressive angst was also employed in No Wave. But instead of the more direct NIN British influenced, No Wave took more of NY punk's feel.

This album by UK's Future Of The Left has a similar feel to that much of the time. It's agressive, it's politically preachy, but it's also got tongue-in-cheek oblique lyrics which express some cynical faithlessness in humanity. "Where were you when Russell Brand discovered fire?" is an example.

On the first single from the record, they succeed brilliantly. "Failed Olympic Bid" Other songs try to be too cheeky without completing a rational thought. "Camp Cappucino", for example, may have some anti-commercialism intent- but it comes off too goofy. They have the Clever Song Title thing down. (re: "Sheena was a T-Shirt Salesman",  "Robocop 4- Fuck Off Robocop") But only a good half is worth listening to. And about half of those are worth listening to again. That's not altogether a horrible thing, it just means that FotL is not necessarily good for 18 songs. Edit.

Even if it doesn't always land, The Plot... is fun and unique, and even in light of my NY-band comparison, this band is 100% British. The hone in and harness their writing capability. It's there. The Future have one. (3.5 of 5 stars)

Japandroids - Celebration Rock

If a more perfect opening track ever met an as-perfect album title, it "The Nights Of Wine & Roses" from Celebration Rock. "We scream like hell to the heavens".

A pair of garage rockers fond of big choruses don't just stop there. This whole album is a collection anthems that beg to be shouted by a club or even an arena full of summer-sweated kids just beginning to find out what it means to be alive. (And maybe also to old fogeys who can find their youth somewhere through the haze.)

There are a ton of "Oh yeahs!" and "All rights!" in this collection. But instead of it sounding sloppy, lazy or naive, it sounds like the righteousness of of the ages amoung all of those who have earned these expressions. As pure and true as when Chuck Berry called it out. But there are also plenty of thoughtful and unique ways of spreading this joy.

"We all cut loose our gold

'Cause we need fire and only kindling can it buy"

 

"Remember that night you were already in bed
Said fuck it, got up to drink with me instead"

In eight short songs, Japandroids take the best of what The Hold Steady, The Gaslight Anthem and The Thermals have done pretty well, amped it up and created an even bigger fire. A highlight of the year. (5 of 5 stars)

The Walkmen - Heaven

Alright... a lofty title for the band's seventh album. But you know me, I give benefit to the doubt. And of it. Or something.

The opening track is way different than anything I've heard from the Men before. Most telling is how up front the vocals are. Hamilton Leithauser's voice has always been a raspy-Dylan style and he has, probably out of aesthetic necessity, had it undermixed. That vocal push is matched with the lushness of the production. It is a distinctive pop-oriented change as opposed to the distortion crunch of "The Rat".

The pop tones continue throughout, but I'm not trying to make sound overtly sell-out-y. The songwriting is a bit simpler than the Men have employed in the past, but still shows a uniqueness. "The Witch", for example with its straight ahead brushy backbeat is a contender for sex jam of the year. And even though it's as trite as the day is long, when the title track pleads, "Don't leave me/you're my best friend"; this writer may be sold every time.

Not just pop, but a light folk takes up a good half of the record. And the whole thing is blanketed in an air of hopeful optimism. No shoegaze cynicism here. Enough to where I would like to question if Hamilton has undergone any religious conversion. Or maybe he just had a kid. That's always good to turn a rocker into a big ol' softy.

But while I'm surprised and its mellowness, and it's youthful positivity- I did frequently enjoy the songs coming out. I'm very excited about seeing them present this in an outdoor park. It will work so much better than a dark club. (4 of 5 stars)