The Rumble Strips - Welcome To The Walk Alone

I have no idea what Cobra Starship sounds like, but reading as much as I have about them makes me think I will hate the record they released this week. So, I'm going for an unknown instead.

Mark Ronson (of Amy Winehouse fame) produces the second album by this UK rock band. The criticism around the record is that it's made too slick, polished and well, Ronson-ed for the ruckus that the Strips apparently showed on their first album (which admittedly, I didn't hear). I'm going to disagree. I was pleasantly washed over by the American soul production on the otherwise Kinks-inspired brit pop-rock.

"Not The Only Person" is a great example of what I'm seeing throughout the record. The verses have a snarl about them, not punk but not Coldplay either. Then the chorus swells like the Animals at their best to include a booming vocal and understated mix of horns and strings backing. See video below.

A couple songs about the fellas are distracting, you may skip them. "Daniel" and "Douglas" both tread water but to me like little more a time to get in a piss and a beer.

"Back Bone" on the other hand is like a James Bond theme. Ronson keeps the strings swirling in the background like we're afraid of the villain entering the room before Bond has freed himself from the laser death contraption.

All in all, I think Ronson very effectively captured some great songs and contributed his style accordingly. It's certainly a different application of Ronson's talents to throw on what would otherwise be pub rock, but I'm glad it was done. Bottoms Up! (4 of 5 stars)

Marmoset - Tea Tornado

"Minds aren't really that sacred" kicks off the simple lo-fi acoustic first track of Marmoset's new album. While it continues with the wimpy-dirge of "Empty Room" - "the more I try to talk, the more I just get lost" - I search for something that will bring the band to life. I like the fact that their songs come in and out without overstaying their welcome, but haven't been grabbed so far.

"Strawberry Shortcakes", for example, has the beginnings of a great song, but restricts itself to a bass rhythm (not even a melody). The vocal melody projected could easily have been incorporated throughout.

Track 5, "Come With Me" is actually the first song that does the job. If they just got off the reefer and downed a beer, this could blend very well into a GBV tune. As it stands, it sounds like a giddy Thurston Moore singing very optimistically about taking the "last chance". They follow it up proper with "Toy" which is timidly produced, but a jam nonetheless. (see below)

Some other tracks worth a spin, but sound too eerily similar too each other, are "Musing", "Gretchen" and "I Love These Things". Sure, "Baby, I can smell your illusion," is a dumb line, but there's a certain Afghan Whigness in their dance-ability.

At the end of the day, I may want to love this band, if they could only get their singer to wake up before recording vocal tracks. The lazy-indieness of them just doesn't carry them to the finish line. (2 of 5 stars)

Toy - Marmoset

Owl City - Ocean Eyes

There was VERY little released this week as a new recording. I had to search. And between Ashley Tisdale, J'Kwon, George Thorogood and something I've never heard of; I'm going to be listening to something I've never heard of. Even if it is synthpop and I just read a negative review of it.

First things first... I hear a sugary-sweet synth riff to a simple dance beat that reminds me of hearing the Human League at the Water Bowl in the summertime of Muncie when I was a kid. The first line of the first song: "Please take a long hard look through your textbook 'cause I'm history" tells me I'm going to be old and grizzled to get through this whole thing. But I press on.

Now, in vast contrast to the other electronic album I just recently heard by Son Lux, this guy loves his lyrics. He's actually very wordy. But this can be a bad thing too. We're mostly treated to teenage romance fluff like "I am the bird. You are the worm/We are made for each other" or "I'd rather pick flowers instead of fights". Other times, we get nonsense adult(?) things like "Hello Seattle, I am a mountaineer/I fall asleep in hospital parking lots and awake in your mouth" (Someone will have to explain that shit to me) Also- "It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep 'cause everything is never as it seems." (What does that mean?) Not to mention - "If speed's a pro, inertia must be a con 'cause the cold wind blows at precise rates when I've got my ice skates on"

The entire song "Dental Care" for example, leads in sounding like a clever-for-kids metaphor for having a positive outlook on life- and then just devolves into a trip to the fucking dentist.

It's all one-man synthesizer and vocoder. This Adam fella has a voice that sounds like a poppIER Ben Gibbard, all Cher-like and vocoded. What amazes me most about the project is that it's apparently huge and I've never heard a thing about him. A search of Owl City on youtube has just under 8,400 results. A search for "Sammy Hagar" has 2,500. I may have found somewhat of an answer when I got to the end of the record. "Tidal Wave" is a hugely optimistic, vaguely Christian tune that may have got some audience rallying around in those circles. And yes, that could totally exist in big numbers outside of my radar.

My point: your pre-teen will love this. It'll annoy you, but it will make her think that there are dreamy sensitive boys out there, which will make the prospect of falling in love that much easier to accomplish. As for me, I'm too old and grizzled for this. (1.5 of 5 stars)

Tidal Wave - Owl City

Magnolia Electric Co. - Josephine

Jason Molina releases his first album in a few years, and it is pretty much what you would expect. It's alt. country with soothing piano, slide acoustic and pedal steel guitar. The songs are about loneliness, sentimentality and peaceful breezy weather.

Other than that, there's not much else to tell. If you're familiar with Jason's past work, this will be familiar territory. You'll have your favorites and the rest of it will still sound good to you. I think it helped that I'm listening to it with the windows open on a nice mild summer day. The wind is blowing at me and the lawns are freshly cut.

The album is also fairly short. 14 songs at 45 minutes. Doing the math, that's an average of over three minutes per song. That means that the songs aren't belabored over. They come in, tell the story and move out. I just wished I had the patience to move so slowly for the full duration. (2.5/5 stars)

Whip-poor-will - Magnolia Elec...

The Dead Weather - Horehound

Being a big Jack White fan, I had to check out this new release. I admire his versatility and in the end, his songwriting skills. As Jack is taking more of a backseat on this release, focusing primarily on drums, I expect to like it proportionately.

First of all, I must make an up-front admission, as I am somewhat of a musical sexist. Eh- let's be honest, I'm an all-around sexist. But when it comes to chick singers, I just don't connect as well. If I'm trying to find something to connect to, sometimes chicks take away my ability to relate and I feel like I'm just another person watching. I dunno, but there's my disclaimer.

This album is definitely more of a jam than the tight songs of recent White Stripes or the harmony laced Raconteurs. It's deeper, swampier. The opener, "60 Feet Tall" and the instrumental, "3 Birds" even sounds like they're still trying to figure out the structure while playing it.

Jack is approaching the drums like he often approaches the guitar. With riffs. The beat that introduces "Hang You from the Heavens" is as awesome as the "The Rover" that inspired it. See below.

Oddly, being a Jack White fan, "I Cut Like A Buffalo", the one song that he wrote alone and sang is probably my least favorite.

As proven in the past, Jack loves his Dylan. This time, covering one of my favorites, "New Pony". DW jams it in their darker rock style, but those of us familiar with Dylan's street preacher swagger original will find this one a bit inferior.

In the end, the band cranks the Orange amplifiers, stomps the fuzz box and does a good job bringing a barn in Nashville to a dark bar in Detroit. My prejudice absolutely got the best of me, in the sense that while Alison's vocals are sometimes sexy, it rarely matches the dark passion that the fellas seem to be wanting to project. And the lyrics are too disjointed and vague to play a hand in keeping us grabbed. (3/5 stars)

We Were Promised Jetpacks - These Four Walls

Great name for a band. As I saw that and the category "Indie Rock", I knew I had my album of the week. As I dove into the first song, "It's Thunder And It's Lightning", I started to feel really satisfied with my choice. Started with a pretty typical indie rock riff. Felt very New-York, like Les Savy Fav for example. Except for the vocals. WWPJ are a Scottish band and that becomes all too evident with Adam Thompson's unapologetically thick Scottish accent. He sang strongly over the riff as the song crescendoed to something a little more feverish. A procedure that when employed like this reminded me a little of U2.

A then I realized that that was it. The same structure for their first song is almost exactly repeated on virtually every other song on the record. Starts out with a riff that is based on plucking two different notes of a chord one after the other. Drums kick in. Singer begins. Song swells, plucking turns into full chords, big jam on that chord for last minute of song. While most come in at an acceptable amount of time, the next-to-last track, "Keeping Warm" employs this structure over an eight minute time frame. And the last track, "An Almighty Thud" uses the same riffage, just on acoustic. The lyrics here about failure and fear seem interesting, but the song takes a minute too long while the guitarist jams some simple chord when it's not needed or earned.

Which is going to be the final thought for this record. Great name aside, this band has some growing to do and is, at this moment, not needed. (2.5 of 5 stars)

Killswitch Engage

A friend of mine who is a huge Killswitch fan called this record a horrible piece of shit. But he did so in a descriptive way that told me that I might like it. If these extreme metallers were going to chill it down and get all mopey and heart-breaky, then my ears might find a connection.

For starters, they got Brendan O'Brien as a producer. If anything screams "We're trying to cross-over to a wider audience!", it's getting B O'B as your producer. Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Rage ATM, KoRn, Incubus. This is a guy who gets shit onto modern-alterno-rock radio.

The production is evident right away. First track, "Never Again" (no- not a Kelly Clarkson cover) The verse is a razorblade-vocal screamfest & the chorus is repetitive, simple, and melodic. The video has prettier people in it than the band. Slipknot employs this tactic a shit-ton, and it's safe to say that they're way more successful. I'll bet that KSE is trying to find a common audience tangent.

To my friend's credit, he may have a point. If he is upset that the singer has employed some new relationship woes into his songwriting, then he's got very little to be satisfied with here. There are several examples of some cliché trite bullshit.

Can we start again?/We thought love was everlasting
- "Starting Over"

I've made so many mistakes and I've broken so many promises
I've searched inside and I'm empty/Will you save me?
- "Save Me"

Drifting from your memory/I'm lost without your love
- "Lost"

While the band makes room for those big choruses, for the rest of the time, they are working the room full of Iron Maiden riffs with flair. The single throws down an obvious tween-girl sing-along slow breakdown part. See video below.

So what can my friend expect? Either these tactics will be successful, meaning that future albums will employ the same on at least half the songs, and his enjoyment will be wained forever. Or it will fail, the band will go broke under the huge production costs, keep trying, but will grow more cynical as "the scene" changes, and will ultimately break-up. My advice to my friend.... at least you got 4 albums that you liked... (2/5 stars)