Happy Birthday

Early reviews for this Sub Pop album are praising it's retro-vibe. And it's first track, the single, "Girls FM" certainly has a hook that feels like it came from Tommy James' playbook, with some sunshiney '70s pop melodies in the chorus; which then seamlessly modernizes itself with some studio rhythms and alt-rock riffage.

On the other hand, without really changing their sound too much, Happy switches to modern lo-fi punk with "Cracked". But slong the album, I'm finding that the guitar has less of the cool indie garageness that makes Guided By Voices sound like The Who's little brother, and more like a deliberate pop songwriter, who's looking at the guitar as little more than a vocal harmonizer.

An allmusic review has already accused the band of stealing the "Subliminal Message" drum riff from Tom Petty' s "Don't Come Around Here No More". But I would go a step further back and say that they're really channelling Paul Young's "Everytime You Go Away". Regardless of the comparison, it's the dreamiest track on the record and one of my standouts.

After this style gets establish, as is often the case with the confines of garage rock, it becomes less interesting. So you head-bob along the beginning and then through the middle you forget that you're even listening to anything. So, you get songs like, "I wanna suck your straw. Pink Strawberry Shake, I love you".

Also often the case, the band throws some strong songs in at the end so you remember who they were. "Zit" is the highest energy punk track of the album. And even if it's lyrics are simple, it will make the rounds of mix tapes just from its awesome snottiness alone. The whole effort though, is not awesome snottiness. It's lazi garage rock for guys who don't want to work any harder at the music than they want to put into a job. (2 of 5 stars)

Frightened Rabbit - The Winter Of Mixed Drinks

A couple of years ago, A British band called Elbow released an album called "The Seldom Seen Kid" and I found myself in the unenviable position of trying to give a great review to an album, while relating it to a bunch of shit that I totally hate. I am confronted with the same issue here.

A Scottish band this time, although I do hate their name just as much. At its core, I had said that Elbow could have been any band from Manchester. Coldplay for example, but produced themselves to greatness. The Rabbit is similar in that vain. They could have strummed some acoustic guitars to the same songs and found some audience to help them sing along. And I would have rated them two stars lower.

Peter Katis produced, who has also laid down Interpol and the National. So I would not have expected greatness from this guy. But maybe the band just want to pull their own weight. While Katis does employ some orchestration and horn arrangements outside of the rock band, it sounds like he recorded them all after some drunken row at a Scottish pub. There's teeth and swagger to the arragements that's outside of his other artists otherwise "clean" output.

The Rabbit, I would compare something closer to early U2. Leader Scott Hutchinson is one Bono-like optimistic dude. He describes his hardships, his loves lost. But he always describes them at his back.

"Let's call me a baptist, call this a drowning of the past
She is there on the shoreline throwing stones at my back"
- Swim Until You Can't See Land

So this writer found the album quite lyrically sound. They're never lazy or trite. And it probably lends some authenticity that he sings with a native Scottish accent. And while Muse may easily declare their victorious intentions, Scott; who works just as hard to achieve the victory- works even harder to describe the journey.

So the hymns that I sung
Prayers for the fucked, from a bitter, forked tongue
Sing of history now
Though the corners are lit
The dark can return with the flick of a switch
It hasn't turned on me yet, yet
- Not Miserable

Exciting, inspiring, let's get drinking. (4 of 5 stars)

Rogue Wave - Permalight

RW release their first album since the premiere of their documentary following drummer Pat Spurgeon's battle with his kidneys. Not only that, but leader Zach also laid in bed rest with a neck injury for the past year, and don't forget the death of their bass player, Evan.

Well, Zach must have found Jesus or something, because he is as bright and cheery as Annie after her sugar daddy let her "girlfriends" join in the fun. Granted, seeing the positivity in Pat's struggle from his documentary, it would be hard not to be inspired and believe that all adversity can be overcome.

So these songs live between something that Ben Gibbard might collaborate on with Paul McCartney-- to the other extreme of sounding like a simple Owl City auto-tuned basement-made rip-off.

"Sleepwalker" employs a tremendous chorus harmony. And songs like "Solitary Gun" and "Right With You" benefit from having an upbeat live drummer behind him. "We Will Make A Song Destroy" could have been only slightly retuned and become the most commercial record that Radiohead ever made. So there's potential there, but it's evened out by the icky-childishness of the title track, for example.

And why does "You Have Boarded" abandon its power-beat and trade it for a lilting chorus instead a crossover high-harmony indie rock tune? Maybe it's me, but why does Rogue Wave keep bottling up the potential they have to set themselves apart with the components that they already have? (2.5 of 5 stars)

Sleepwalker - Rogue Wave

Quasi - American Gong

Not having a history myself with this decade-plus old band I was expecting more of some electronic indie cutsie duo. I was pleasantly surprised when the album starts out with a pair of fuzzed-out rockers. Generally we're looking at a skilled art-house mess of punk riffs, walking bass and head-bopping drums. Songs are structured in such a way that allows for a few bars of guitar solo, but that's where Quasi employ the synthesizer they put on that credit card.

With that, they move down to the first of what could be a pair of Sloan demos. "Everything & Nothing At All" is a jarring contradiction from the opening tracks. It's another simple, plodding piano-based indie-rock version of "Dream On". It hurts because it follows the two choice cut rockers, and would have fit better after the next epic "Bye Bye Blackbird", which spends its own time rocking part of its 6:35 length, but is bookended by sweet Beck-ish rhymes about, you guessed it, a bird.

The 2nd half gets back to some righteous goodness. "Death Is Not The End" is a morbid piano-ballad, heavy on the bass. The lyrics are cliché, but in a classic way, not a cheap lazy way. "Rockabilly Party" is exactly what it sounds like. Coulda been an Uncle Tupelo encore.

A good record. I feel like Quasi shines when they record in the red levels, and that's mostly the case here. I may suggest in the end to either fill the vocal gaps with someone who can play leads, or really punk it out and lose the gaps altogether. (3.5 of 5 stars)

Field Music - Field Music (Measure)

A British group making harmonic pop music with blasts of classic rock riffs sprinkled throughout and I can only think of one band. And while Field Music isn't specifically channeling Wings on this double album, it still feels very '70s AM to me. Not the sunny "AM GOLD!", but general clean, pop-rock. No real hint of electronic or hip-hop influence or anything much later than the last good Beach Boys album.

"Measure" for example, could be a disco-less ELO. A string quartet carries the main riff, the drummer avoids the straight beat to keep it interesting and the bass and acoustic guitar are up in the mix with real live instrumentalists behind them.

"Lights Up" on the other hand, sounds vaguely Pink Floyd-ish on a particularly good day. It's like Field Music took some of that determined drone of "Us and Them" and just changed the record speed to 45 instead of 33rpm.

"Let's Write A Book" is the first hint of a synthesizer relationship. It's got a Franz Ferdinand rhythm to it, and the riff is lawyer-notifyingly close to KISS' "Heart Of Chrome". It's good, but you're going to be checking to see if your phone is ringing on every chorus.

The second disc slowed down in pace and got outright atmospheric at times. The last track is little more than string notes fading in an out over outdoor ambiance. But I have a prejudice against double albums in general and think that if you've got that much material, you're probably failing to sufficiently edit. Overall, though- I like it a lot more than I thought I would for this style of music. And that's noteworthy. If you can hold some one's attention who's not into your style, then you must be doing something right. (3 of 5 stars)

Yeasayer - Odd Blood

Every so often, if I have nothing else to freak out about, I let myself be taken in by the hype. Hype rarely gets lived up to. But at the end of the day, you the listener can either come across something interesting or at the very least, keep your name in the hipster circles. By the way, it's completely UNhip to admit that you do any work to keep hip. So keep that on the DL.

But hipsters the world over are doing their little fun trick of calling this the album of the year, when of course, it's only February. They did the same thing with Animal Collective in 2009, and to give the scenesters some credit, at least they kept with it at the end of the year. Now, I for one, was bored to bleeding tears with Animal Collective, so I went into this with maybe a little prejudice.

But I came out on a rational end of it. Odd Blood is a good collection of songs. People are going to tell you it's "great", and I won't fight about that. The album starts the mixture with the correct basic ingredient: the pop hook. You can tell that Yeasayer wrote some songs first on piano, on guitar. Built a skeleton out of some melodies and some chord progressions. Good.

Next, and this is where the hipster gets involved; Yeasayer take those songs and add (*insert rare trait to set you apart quality here*) to make the songs uniquely theirs. In Yeasayer's case, that quality is polyrhythmic electronics. Odd rhythms are added, and those chords that I told you about before- they're broken up into busy electronic pieces. And it's all done in a way that's controlled enough to keep the song intact and bizarre enough to make it unique.

The record starts off well enough with "Ambling Alp", a Muse-goes-reggae inspirational song about overcoming your failures. This style of ever-changing beats over pop songs continues throughout the record, and to enjoy this all, you'll at least want to be a fan of Depeche Mode. Some, like "ONE", feels straight out of a 1985 British electronic documentary. Other times, the Yeas get completely no-dimensional and experimental in a way that works ("Mondegreen").

My favorite track is detailed below, give it a listen. Just from the electronic-popness of the album is going to keep a rocker like me from keeping this in rotation. But like I said, I won't argue with the "great" taggers. (3 of 5 stars)

Strange Reunions - Yeasayer

Glossary - Feral Fire

Southern indie rock from Murfreesboro, TN- the same town which hails a favorite of mine, the Features. And while that band employs more of a city, or even British vibe. Glossary are all good ol' boy. An upbeat fuzztoned collection, and I may have been secretly hoping for a Hold Steady kind of feel. But it's clear that Glossary are a bit naive and haven't stretched at all beyond they're drug of choice, PBR.

The closes thing they'll have to a single, "Save Your Money for the Weekend", is just as the press release says, "kind of a Southern version of Billy Joel’s 'Only the Good Die Young'". In that someone's trying to talk the pants off someone else. But it's also got that fun loving boppy chorus about it, so it's less like date rape.

Every song has a chick harmonizer to keep the band from completely stealing Bobby Bare Jr.'s gig. They turn up enough bass and distortion pedal to not be out of place at a Replacements show, even if the Glossary still have some livin' to do. "Your Heart to Haunt" is the ballad that will get your girlfriend on board because chicks all like to have that piece of ruination in their men forever. But she's may not stick around for the kiss-off "No Guarantee".

There are some pleasant moments, and I would totally appreciate this in a bar with a good beer buzz or next to a summertime bonfire, but other than that, there's not so much to keep you busy. (2.5 of 5 stars)

Bend With the Breeze - Glossar...