Beach House - Teen Dream

One of the best things about music is that it's great for all moods and emotions. One of the best things about writing about music is that you get to turn people on to stuff they wouldn't otherwise hear. Beach House meet both these criteria in spades.

Despite forming back in 2006 and releasing two other albums to date, 'Teen Dream' is their first Sub Pop release, the Baltimore duo of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally may have passed you by thus far.

Stop then and drink in the delicious, heady cocktail of dream pop that is Teen Dream. Ooh, it's fresh and intoxicating. Plays with the senses. Victoria whispers her French tinged vocals directly into your ear from the opening bars of 'Zebra' to the last breath of closing song 'Take Care'.

For lovers of all things Mazzy Star and/or Galaxie 500. Tell a friend. Damn it, tell the world, what they're missing. And then tell me if 'Silver Soul' isn't the one of the most beautifully sad songs you've ever heard.

http://www.myspace.com/beachhousemusic
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A Place To Bury Strangers - Live: 13th Nov 2009

You really have to hand it to Jukebox, they consistently manage to book some stunning bands you wouldn’t get an opportunity to see anywhere else and A Place To Bury Strangers are certainly no exception.
 
With the Brooklyn, NYC band’s recently released second album ‘Exploding Head’ (out on Mute records now) still very much box fresh and confidently swaggering all over the blandness of record industry ‘Best of..’ pre-Christmas releases The Other Rooms is swamped in a heady concoction of lacerating guitar and intoxicating beats as they tear through a set list bursting with intrigue and imagination.
 
The unassuming greatness of their self-titled debut album  - a collection of chaotic demos and EP recordings with brilliant songs like ‘To Fix The Gash In Your Head’ and ‘She Dies’ evoke the JAMC wall of sound and undulating Cure bass lines which brought wider renown and the deserved moniker ‘loudest band’ you’re likely to see. So it’s with unbridled anticipation that I’m here waiting to be literally blown away – late on Friday 13th (appropriately enough) when, sad to admit, I’d usually be tucked up under a duvet welcoming the land of nod.
 
It’s all in the delivery and jeez do they deliver? The scene stealing tonight definitely comes from ‘In Your Heart’, ‘Deadbeat’ and ‘Ego Death, all from the latest album but it’s genuinely impossible to isolate a few songs though from what is the most pulsating, squealing, invigorating performance Newcastle is likely to witness for a long time to come.

www.myspace.com/aplacetoburystrangers
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Mark Eitzel - Klamath

This has been a long time coming. There have been numerous collaborations and asides since his first solo album 60 Watt Silver Lining back in 1996, released after 15 years with American Music Club, but the naked, stripped back Mark Eitzel in reflective mood is the rarest of beasts, seen as frequently as Haley’s Comet these days.

It could be argued that this is a back to basics approach, an album recorded simply, at Eitzel’s own pace and featuring all sorts of small musical embellishments the subtly of which will in all likelihood not be reproduced when he tours the album in the coming months but this isn’t a criticism by any means. However, as quietly delivered as Klamath is, and it is a very respectfully and modestly whispered album, I do miss the angrier Mark Eitzel. The one with passion, with spit on his lips and a series of great axes to grind.

There was more life in that incarnation than the restrained cipher present here. I’m not simply clamouring angst for angst’s sake, at it’s heart Klamath seems to be in a happier place, most of the traditional vitriol and (self)loathing long banished into the past and I know that wishing pain on someone for the sake of their art is dumb and ultimately selfish it’s just that as a result Eitzel’s pain free music sounds slight and incomplete in comparision to his own extensive back catalogue.

It may say more about me than Eitzel that the lighter touches and lack of savage threat in these songs feels like a lack of confidence or substance. Perhaps without the stuff to rail against it’s harder to say anything with great meaning? Or maybe it’s unfair to even want that. Hey, we’re not getting any younger least of all Eitzel who turned fifty this year so maybe time has smoothed the rougher edges or perhaps a change is as good as a rest in recharging for any future releases dealing with ‘issues’. He’s always been a difficult read and a contrary songwriter capable of delivering beautiful hate at times, aimed at himself as much as others. So maybe now is a time to reflect.

The sparse feel of Klamath does hark back to certain points in the musicians own songwriting history with early American Music Club and the folkier influences of Nick Drake and John Martyn. As an exercise in late night acoustic stillness it’s exemplary. Wistful tones and social mores refracted back to the listener through his succinct lyricism and part confessional, part conspiratorial singing style.

Whilst Eitzel’s emotions are kept in check throughout the album it’s far from a toothless effort it’s just that rather than appear too judgmental there’s an aspect of seeing both sides of the story. Showcasing his songwriting maturity to hopefully a wider, newer audience than might otherwise be the case. It’s something he’s deserved for years, personally I hope it doesn’t make him too happy because I’m sure there still more life in him yet.

http://markeitzel.blogspot.com
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Times New Viking - Born Again Revisited

Delivered with characteristic klang and echoed distortion, Born Again Revisited sees tri-cornered Columbus pop constructivists Times New Viking notch up their fourth studiously lo-fidelity album in as many years.
 
Without a care for the convention of production values and (let’s be honest) rather stupidly delivering the album as a master tape on VHS, it’s a difficult juggling act to hold the core of their songs in your head whilst the maddening frisson of scrapes and reverb whirl hectically in the background. On the plus side most tracks are kept to around two minute mark in case your patience begins to ebb.
 
Essentially this is another installment of clever-dumb noisy rock ‘n’ roll tunes passing by so quickly you shouldn’t care about titles but ‘No Time, No Hope’ and ‘Martin Luther King Day’ manage to stick their head above the clamour long enough for particular attention.
 
Despite the DIY, arch-art they scatter over their musical output it’s a real surprise to find on repeated listens the familiar ghosts of early Pavement and Guided By Voices emitting from the tinny sound and before long the ennui turns to vigour as TNV's obvious sense of joy grips you as infectiously as swine flu.

www.myspace.com/timesnewviking
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Yim Yames - Tribute To

These collected half dozen songs seem an incongruous release right now. Particularly as Yim Yames (aka Jim James lead singer with My Morning Jacket) recorded them in the wake of George Harrison’ death in 2001. As the title suggests they are a ‘tribute to’ the ‘quiet’ Beatle, but why wait eight years?

James’ was obviously keen to mourn Harrison’s loss and celebrate his influence and as far as this goes it’s a fine EP. The sparse fragility and beauty of James’ keening vocal is supreme and at times the delivery is truly haunting. It’s a simple set up – one man and one guitar (occasional overdubs) in truly minimal, back to basics versions of familiar songs like ‘My Sweet Lord’ and ‘All Things Must Pass’ and the perhaps lesser known ones like ‘Behind That Locked Door’.

Knowing that this was recorded around the same time as My Morning Jacket’s ‘At Dawn’ – a band peak – lends an added frisson, but whilst this EP sees the light of day in aid of charity and it’s a cathartic set of songs I’m left with a desire to listen to James’ in full band mode, singing his own compositions.

www.yimyames.com
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We Were Promised Jetpacks - These Four Walls

Standing square on to their contemporaries 'These Four Walls' is nothing less than We Were Promised Jetpacks statement of intent and no little threat, if not of physical harm (and that’s debatable) then certainly of musical superiority.

Beginning with the never-more-appropriately titled "It's Thunder and It's Lightning" WWPJ kick proceedings off with a brooding tension which builds to anthemic status effortlessly and sets the tone for the album to unfold/unravel before you in barely contained intense recollection, schizophrenic fantasy and passionate honesty.

Throughout 'These Four Walls' the songs display a euphoric purpose and if you’ve ever wished Sigur Ros had more balls and daydreamed less then you’ll hit the jackpot here. Best of all worlds.

Selecting a few songs for isolated praise seems moot but the aforementioned lead track is a thrilling opener and ‘Conductor’, a plea to be a distinct voice heard above the masses is equally glorious. ‘This Is My House, This Is My Home’ displays a brief moment of reflective levity in an otherwise pacy rush to disquiet the listener whilst upcoming single ‘Quiet Little Voices’ mixes the powerful and tuneful to brilliant effect.

To be played at battle volume. Obviously.

www.myspace.com/wewerepromisedjetpacks
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Wolf Am I - Lead The Way

The initial burst of ‘We’re Alive, We Are The Future’ bodes we’ll for this debut featuring former ‘Kill The Arcade’ members but throughout there’s a nagging feeling of familiarity. It takes a few minutes, and couple more tracks, to put the pieces together.

There’s an obvious debt to bands such as Panic at The Disco (ground zero is ‘A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out’). Emotional soul-baring is littered with bands like these and many, many more – My Chemical Romance, Thursday, The Get Up Kids, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, At The Drive In etc. – so you’re obviously going to land slap bang in the middle of this (SCREA)EMO mix.

That’s not a problem if there’s enough to distinguish you from the crowd. It takes the wry lyrical dexterity of PATD or the anti-emo, pop-punk, goth vamp cool of MCR to rise above the vast sea of angst-lite bands out there and Wolf Am I are at least searching for their niche, the reflective ‘Armageddon, Come’ or triumphant ‘Lex Talionis’ being the best examples. So whist it’s not nearly enough to sustain an album at a gig you’d still go batshit crazy whatever they play, if that’s your skeleton print bag.

www.myspace.com/wolfami
www.mekongdelta.co.uk

Patrick Wolf - The Bachelor

What’s the time Mr Wolf? Time for your most revealing album yet? Time to disconnect from the self-inflicted madness of your own concocted ‘pop star’ dreamworld.

Patrick Wolf has always seemed too difficult to classify as he’s such a contradictory beast and the concept of The Bachelor and it’s companion The Conqueror – planned for release next year, rather than the double album as planned – is essentially ‘moving on’. Putting ‘things’ – an unedifyingly euphemistic term covering everything from relationships, desire, depression and ‘self’ behind him…erm, so what were his three previous album dealing with then?

I’ve never been one for cathartic, soul searching artistes bemoaning the woe-is-me world they live in – besides the very fact that such albums are such an elaborate construct of cherry picked idealogy and candour that they will never be the whole truth and hey, may not even be any of the truth at all. Maybe the intent at honesty and sharing is enough, not for me though.

There's no question that Patrick Wolf the romantic is at the forefront on The Bachelor but this time around he is perhaps more resigned than previously to life’s realities and disappointments, just like the rest of us.

www.patrickwolf.com
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