Sound It Out Records

I don’t know how you feel about it, but for me this whole thing with indie bands borrowing a more classic rock sound is still far from getting old. I can only suppose this is a logic progression/regression considering how much early 2000s dance rock groups took from late 70s/early 80s new wave (see: Faint, Rapture, not to mention the Interpol/Joy Division love affair). Whether you believe today’s indie groups are as good as your construction worker friend’s favorite old band is of course a matter of opinion, but here’s a list to think about/disagree with:

• the Hold Steady OR Bruce Springsteen?
• Fleet Foxes OR Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young?
• Stephen Malkums circa 2008 OR the Allman Brothers?
• Black Mountain OR Black Sabbath?
• Of Montreal OR the Kinks?
• David Vandervelde OR T.Rex?
• Ryan Adams OR Neil Young?
• My Morning Jacket OR Pink Floyd… OR Lynyrd Skynyrd?
• The Raconteurs OR 98.1 FM The Bear?

In any case, plenty of moments throughout Wolf Parade’s At Mount Zoomer immediatly bring Roxy Music to mind. Granted, nothing quite sounds like Roxy Music because Bryan Ferry’s voice is (thankfully) quite uncommon, but instrumentally speaking this album sounds like Wolf Parade’s take on 70s art rock.The translation goes something like this: lots of keyboards, minimal yet efficient guitar work, and the one thing the Mars Volta is yet to learn: concise prog-rock songwriting.

Truthfully now, At Mount Zoomer would be a mess of an album if the interesting keyboard parts weren’t there to hold it together. With a number of songwriters and singers chipping in, Wolf Parade’s second full-length is not exactly a focused work. That said, this is the kind of album that begs for the listener’s attention: try playing it as background music and you will keep turning it back up for this or that part (another familiar Roxy Music situation).

As it turns out, At Mount Zoomer is full of highlights. “Language City”‘s ups and downs take the listener from a mean drive to the smoothest of keyboard sounds; “California Dreamer” goes from keyboard-ridden suspense to rock n’ roll explosion; the closing trio of “Fine Young Cannibals” (!!!), “An Animal In Your Care,” and the 10+ minutes of “Kissing the Beehive” is epic art rock at its best. Aside from the production and the timely indie rock vocals, At Mount Zoomer could have been released 30 years ago – which would have earned it the title of most unfashionable album of 1978.

Upon hearing Deerhunter’s last album, 2007′s Cryptograms, I honestly thought the group had a promising sound… and a severe lack of focus. Unfortunately, seeing them in concert a few months later reinforced the latter much more than the former, leaving me wondering if Deerhunter was yet another noisy and discombobulated Pitchfork-y type of band.

The good news is that Microcastle all but demolishes that feeling, presenting a more focused, melodic, and surprisingly poppy side of the band. The album starts with a killer sequence of lite-shoegaze pop gems, “Cover Me, Cover Me,” “Never Stops,” “Little Kids,” and the brilliantly built title track, which at last fully unleashes the band’s rock-out, wall-of-sound approach that earned them an opening slot for Nine Inch Nails (this comment may sound weirder once you hear this record, a Deerhunter and NIN sound virtually nothing alike, but hey – kudos to Trent for picking good opening acts).

While Deerhunter’s previous albums were plagued with long, disoriented middle sections (I swear that only 3 or 4 of Cryptograms’ 10 tracks are actual songs rather than ambient noise and/or feedback craze), Microcastle manages to pack the band’s more experimental side within a few short slower tracks that serve as a 5-minute breather before the album’s centerpiece (and most awesome rocker), the excellent “Nothing Ever Happened,” in which Deerhunter summons the best of their shoegaze and punk references.

After trying and failing to do so in their last album, Deerhunter seems to at last have found their sweet spot – the right combination of restraint, experimentation, and the occasional rocking out (a quality that can be attributed to very few bands, most notably Radiohead); underlying it all is lead singer’s Bradford Cox’s knack for haunting melodies – his delivery on the closer “Twilight at Carbon Lake” is quite priceless.

With a hazy production that resembles early Stones Rose and Ride records, Microcastle presents itself as a timeless rock record; for Inanna’s sake, “Saved by the Old Times” even sounds a bit like the Kinks! This album is crazy good, and will be in plenty of “Best of the 2008″ lists.

RECOMMENDED IF YOU LIKE: Radiohead, Liars, The Cure, TV on the Radio, My Bloody Valentine

Fuck Vampire Weekend. Don’t get me wrong, the first album from those prep school dudes was pretty good, but there is NO WAY the Fleet Foxes’ self-titled isn’t the best debut of the year.

Picking up right where Panda Bear’s excellent Person Pitch left off last year and adding a potent dose of melody and structure, the Fleet Foxes crafted a remarkable work of indie-folk-rock (I refuse to call this “Appalachian rock” or “low-fi AM” or whatever else this music has been dubbed). In fact, the best possible musical comparison is that these guys sound somewhat like early My Morning Jacket; the crucial difference is that where early MMJ came out a bit sloppy, the Fleet Foxes’ debut is painfully well-crafted. Songs like “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” and “Blue Ridge Mountains” sound at once original and familiar, hitting the musical bull’s eye so many respectable artists aim for and grossly miss.

The production and the lyrics certainly contribute to the fuzzy, comfortable character of the album: the acoustic instrumentation is crisply clear; vocal harmonies often echo but are never messy; the overall timeless, chamber-music feel is only enforced by the vaguely personal but mostly pastoral lyrics (I mean, what else do you expect from tunes titled “Ragged Wood,” “Meadowlarks,” Quiet Houses,” and so on?).

This album is so consistent that it essentially lacks highlights; clocking in at less than 40 minutes, it is no more or less than one of the best albums of the year. And considering these guys have been making music with other groups for quite some time (including former members of Pedro the Lion and Crystal Skulls), it is safer to say that Fleet Foxes is not a fluke, but rather an exciting kickoff.

For fans of: My Morning Jacket, Panda Bear, Pedro the Lion, the Shins, Band of Horses.

Ladytron often refers to itself as “electronica with an edge,” yet they have been unfairly labeled as electroclash for quite some time. As far as made-up genres go, I’d rather call them a gothpop band: it is simply safer to say they play goth-tinged pop rock than, well, whatever electroclash is supposed to mean (keyboards smashing against the wall? Who knows). In fact, I have put a good deal of thought into this Ladytron band as of late, trying to figure out if there is anything special about them or if they are just competently gimmicky.

Facts are: Velocifero is Ladytron’s 4th full-length. It has 13 tracks. Some of them are sung by Helen Marnie (the traditional, poppy Ladytron vocals), some by Mira Aroyo (the harsh, Bulgarian-accented vocals), and–surprise,surprise–this time even Daniel Hunt shares leading duties in the album’s closing track.  The band continues to write well-crafted, brilliantly-layered pop songs, some with a rock edge (“I’m Not Scared,” “Burning Up”), some more dance-y (“Black Cat,” “Deep Blue”), and most of them somewhere in between.

While Velocifero seems like the most logical progression to Ladytron’s sound, it maintains the band’s tradition of not repeating the same sound two records in a row. While this may not be as big a leap as the one taken from 2002′s Light & Magic to 2005′s Witching Hour, the new album showcases Mira Aroyo’s vocal talents much more appropriately than Witching Hour (in which she was restricted to two of the album’s weakest tracks). Actually, quite the opposite happens here: the excellent “Season of Illusions” is easily Aroyo’s best vocal performance to date, while “Deep Blue” is–inserting fan bias–probably the most exciting song I’ve heard all year.

Despite solid early efforts like the glam rock of “Ghosts” and the industrial pop of “Runaway,” Ladytron once again saves the best for last (Marnie says that’s an intentional trick): from the Ace of Base-meets-Depeche Mode “Predict the Day” through the painf…I mean, beautifully ’80s “Tomorrow” to the excellent closer “Versus,” Velocifero is almost all hits… except that it’s doubtful any of it will actually become one. The album is an audio- but not a radio-triumph; something fans of the band will cherish and rave about, but that will likely not attract many new adepts (unless, of course, you’ve never heard Ladytron, in which case you’re up for a treat).

Hence the predicaments: is there a point to playing pop music besides selling out/records? If you play pop music, and you don’t make money, do you suck? What’s the point of listening to pop music anyway? Or any music for that matter? Think about it.

Recommended if you like: Garbage, Nine Inch Nails, Gwen Stefani, Depeche Mode

I can’t say I’ve been listening to Malkmus for all that long, but somehow I feel like I know the guy pretty well. You can tell grew up in California just from his breezy vocal delivery; and the very first few moments in Trash give away that 1) he likes to rock out on the electric guitar and 2) he was once a major stoner.

Malkmus’ fourth solo outing has been hyped as an indie-meets-jam band record, and I can almost agree with that. This isn’t exactly a polygamous marriage of Malkmus’ Pavement and The Allman Brothers, but there sure are plenty of passages that will take one straight back to the 1970s, most remarkably the 10-minute long title track. Mr. Stephen does come out as an awesome guitarist, but don’t expect any Anastasio-like display of virtuosity–Malkmus scores guitar hero points not in speed, but in creativity.

The nonsense lyrics could also fit both indie and jam bands; it’s hard to tell if Malkmus has a knack for metaphors, or if it’s just verbal incontinence. That’s irrelevant, because his limited vocals still manage to hit all the right notes. Thankfully, what stands out in Trash is the musicality: the song writing is notoriously unpredictable, yet beautifully melodic. Tough as it may be to understand how “Dragonfly Pie” goes from its heavy guitar opening to its xylophone tinged chorus, the whole thing has a surprisingly nice flow to it.

Oh, and the Jicks are pretty sweet too. Drummer Janet Weiss, of Sleater-Kinney fame, is possibly the best backing musician Malkmus ever had the chance to play with (I told you I know the guy well). If anything, she ensures Trash never comes out as a nostalgic experiment, bringing in the 1990s and 2000s along for the ride through her drumming (I am yet to find any evidence that the 1980s had anything to do with this album).

The average length of the tracks (only 4 of the 10 are clock under five minutes) allows the listener to settle in with each song. More than anything, Real Emotional Trash is a deeeeep album–not because it conveys a philosophical message, but because it brings forth much more than what one would expect at the beginning of each track, and let me tell you: “Baltimore” and “Elmo Delmo” are gorgeous abysses. One of the best albums of the year.

Recommended if you like: Pavement, My Morning Jacket, The Allman Brothers, Radiohead

I’ll go ahead and admit it: writing a Radiohead review is intimidating. First of all, it is safe to say that these Oxford dudes have one of the largest hardcore fan bases out of any band out there, so odds are a great number of readers will disagree with my not-so-humble opinion of this album. Secondly, it is a fact of life that Radiohead is one of the most creative, unique-sounding, “greatest” bands of the past 15 years. In Rainbows serves not only to reaffirm what the fans already know, but also as a good introduction for those not familiar with the band’s work.

As you may or may not know, IN THE FUTURE this album will be remembered for its groundbreaking “pay as much as you want” marketing and downloading strategy, but that’s not what I want to write about. What matters here is that In Rainbows is the best collections of songs Radiohead has put out in a decade, which should automatically catapult it to several “best of the decade” lists come December 2009 (really isn’t all that far away, is it?).

While In Rainbows isn’t quite as bold and adventurous as 2000′s Kid A, it does have its own unique feel to it. The right word to describe it would be lush (point made by the shoegazer feel of “Reckoner”, “Jigsaw Falling Into Place,” and the second half of “Bodysnatchers”) or perhaps sensual (in “Nude,” “All I Need,” and “House of Cards,” Thom Yorke teaches us that abstinence sucks). Yorke has referred to this album as the Radiohead’s “classic album,” comparing it to the Beatles’ Revolver (which makes one hope for Radiohead’s Sgt. Peppers’, White Album, and Abbey Road!).

Even though the band had been playing around with some of these songs for almost a decade, all 10 tracks hold together as one awesome State of the Band address. The first few seconds are somewhat deceiving: the electronic beats and paranoid vocals may fool you into thinking this is Eraser part 2 (Yorke’s solo album), but this feeling is gone in 40 seconds: once Johnny Greenwood’s slick, mellow guitar jump into the picture, you realize that, when it comes to Radiohead, you never know exactly what you’re getting into. In this case, the bulk of the album provides a smooth, relatively accessible ride through some… rainbows, crowning the run with “Jigsaw Falling Into Place,” one of group’s best singles to date. -MNB

Highlight/ Favorite Moment: The end of “All I Need,” the kind of music climax that makes this band essential.

Recommended if you like: good music

Even though the band itself probably wouldn’t appreciate it, it’s tempting to be superlative about One Beat. Arguably the all-female Washington trio’s best work, this may also be simply the best rock album by a female group; put it simply, it is time for the last few standing skeptical chauvinists to throw the towel and admit that girls DO rock.

Written and recorded less than a year after the Sept.11 terrorist attacks, One Beat serves as a perhaps the best portrait of early ’00s America along with Bright Eyes’ Lifted (not that the two albums sound ANYTHING alike). What’s striking, however, is how well the trio balances the already expected political- and/or feminist-themed songs (like “Far Away” and the appropriately titled “Combat Rock”) with soulful tunes (“Sympathy”) and shamelessly fun stompers (“Oh,” “Step Aside”). The final result is a testament to the group’s versatility and integrity; aside from the 9/11 backdrop, the songs carry clear references to Corin Tucker’s new life as a mother and Carrie Brownstein’s romantic misfortunes: her relationship with Tucker fell apart, but the band miraculously stayed together… “O2″ gives away how that must have felt.

The only thing noticeably missing in One Beat is filler. From the brilliant interplays–both instrumental and vocal–opening, self-titled track to the hauntingly beautiful “Sympathy,” One Beat again and again makes a strong case not for females in rock music, but rather for rock music as a relevant form of art and communication. -MNB

Highlight/Favorite Moment: the “whoo whoo”‘s in “Sympathy” are unforgettable.

Recommended if you like: Sonic Youth, Le Tigre, Gossip

Able Baker Fox is the new colaboration from former members of Small Brown Bike and the Casket Lottery. It sounds just like it should, which is very similar to what 2002′s Small Brown Bike/Casket Lottery split album sounded like. For full disclosure purposes, let me mention that I LOVE that split. It would have been really hard for me to not love Voices as well.

Voices is an appropriate name for this album, with three distinct voices lending vocals throughout. It’s obvious that these musicians are no strangers to one another and the songwriting is tight and comfortable. The songs feel very layered, and as one layer peels away often another will take its place. Melodic vocal harmonies on top of screaming background vocals, on top of explosive guitar riffs. Overall, this album is just awesome, the kind of album that makes you remember why you love music in the first place, the kind of songs that you ache to sing along with.

For fans of: Small Brown Bike and Casket Lottery (duh), Hot Water Music, Jawbreaker

PS: I’m pretty sure Aaron wrote this review, not me. Go figure! -Marcelo