4/24/15

This new Shakey Graves record is really something - I missed them when they were in town last wweek and that's a damn shame, because their sound is old-school blues at the very heart of it, dressed up in harmonies and trendy sounds for decoration. I love this record, "Nobody's Fool," as much as I love the fact this guy has been around for a few years, under the radar in Austin, and so it is made up of rarities and B-sides and one-offs, a delightful little taste test of his sound. His trademark is a suitcase kickdrum, which he fashioned himself and is odd to look at it and apparently pretty cool. I am not one to be sold on gimmicks, but his sound is just perfect for a chilly start to spring, hints of growth and green checkered among the grey.

Alejandro Rose-Garcia has a voice straight out of the south, grizzled and rough but able to glide across octaves as if on ice, or drunk. It makes me want to bury myself in Americana songs from now until the end of time, surround myself with sunshine and strings and tepid sadness.

This is one of my favorites so far - I can't find a solo video for it, but it's worth jumping the 23-minute mark to hear the simpler side of Shakey Graves:

"Dear friend of the girl i once dated
I hated the sound of her voice
and she left me no choice
I would rampantly tear all the
frames from the wall
just to make her remember
our life in the fall

So miss me once in a blue moon
if I don't return soon
I think there's something worth loving in me.

But I run from the touch of a loved one,
I could never live patiently.

Dear friend of the female persuasion
on lonely rotation through all of the boys in the town
I would instantly answer the phone if you call
just to make me remember the point of it all.

You miss me once in a blue moon
if I don't return soon
I think there's something worth leaving in me

but I run from the touch of a loved one
you could never love patiently
you could never love patiently
you could never love patiently
you could never love patiently

Yeah miss me once in a blue moon
if I don't return soon
I think there's something worth loving in me

but I run from the touch of a loved one
I could never live patiently."
~Love, Patiently
Shakey Graves, Nobody's Fool

4/22/15

"Didn’t I tell you that I could hear you running out?
Didn’t I find you when I knew you were hiding out?
Didn’t I see you when you thought you’d never stand out?
Didn’t I find you?"
~When You Thought You'd Never Stand Out
Copeland, Eat, Sleep, Repeat

Probably one of Copeland's best uses of the string section, little trills and arpeggios opening up early on before diving into a full-on orchestral fall. Something about this song is eternally stunning and stilling. The piano helps. So do the carefully woven vocal parts. Though I've thoroughly enjoyed the return of Copeland via "Ixora," and while I'm deeply sorry their tour won't be possible for me to see this summer, I find myself very much soothed and invigorated by their past catalog, today and forever after, as ever I was.

Some songs don't get old. They don't get tired. They just reveal themselves, new again, and deeper than before, steeped in warm memories but fresh again in the light of the still-cold present.

4/19/15

This new Lord Huron record is as lush and stunning as expected. What could've been a hipster flash-in-the-pan band is blossoming into a really full-fledged folk endeavor - one whose live performance, I can testify, is a powerful display of showmanship. Founder and frontman Ben Schneider is as talented and belt-worthy as the recordings make him sound, and he embraces the talents of his backing band, like with a clever decision to posit the drummer sideways, side stage, allowing the audience a vantage point rarely seen.

"Strange Trails" picks up where "Lonesome Dreams" left off, as elemental as its predecessor but a little more wild, a little more exploratory beyond the woods into pop-song structure influenced by folk leanings. I love the delays and echos, the constant percussive spine, and Schneider's cavalier-cowboy finesse. My favorite so far is opening track "Love Like Ghosts," a song I first heard through headphones drifting off to sleep. "La Belle Fleur Sauvage" is winning me over with its hushed blend of western twang and romantic gestures, "Cursed" is that perfect blend of sunny and lonely, and the end of "Yawning Grave" sounds like something that would tear down the house live. This album is a shade or two darker than the debut, lyrically speaking, but it's hardly depressing, more like sorrow moving through its expected motions of crawling back into hope in spite of loss, loneliness and mortality.

There's something very roots rock about Lord Huron that won't appeal to all indie listeners, especially those that have gone on to lighter/digitized fare from the dreadnought-focused groups, but I find this sound incredibly grounding. It's rather classic, too, with songs like "Way Out There" and "Frozen Pines" evoking The Eagles desert era. I love how unafraid to "go there" this band is, touching and toying with all the instruments and sounds they can find to create something rich. I love how easily I can turn on this record and tune out, how it sounds so vast and open and unashamed, much like all the landscapes it describes. I love how, just in the nick of the time when everything was starting to sound the same, I've rediscovered an artist's new approach to pass the time and distract my mind.

"Yes I know that love is like ghosts
Oh, few have seen it, but everybody talks
Spirits follow everywhere I go
Oh they sing all day and they haunt me in the night,
Oh they sing all day and they haunt me in the night.

Yes I know that love is like ghosts
Oh, and what ain't living can never really die,
You don't want me baby please don't lie,
Oh but if you're leaving, I gotta know why,
I said if you're leaving, I gotta know why,
Oh I sing all day and I love you through the night.

Yes I know that love is like ghosts
Oh and the moonlight, baby shows you what's real
There ain't a language for the things I feel,
And if I can't have you then no one ever will,
Oh, if I can't have you then no one ever will.

I don't feel it till it hurts sometimes
Oh go on baby, hurt me tonight.
I want ours to be an endless song,
Baby in my eyes you do no wrong.

I don't feel it till it hurts sometimes
So go on baby hurt me tonight
All the spirits that I know I saw
Do you see no ghost in me at all ?
Oh I sing all day and I love you through the night
Oh I sing all day and I love you through the night
Oh I sing all day and I love you through the night
Oh I sing all day and I love you through the night."

~Love Like Ghosts

Lord Huron, Strange Trails

4/13/15

"Not gone but fading fast,
So let me put to rest the only question that you'll ask,
We don't feel anything."
~Mene
Brand New


It's finally here.

Six years since their last release, with a criminally slow build-up of teasing and hint-dropping of new material, Brand New gave their fans something to listen to on this random spring Monday.

It's barely two and a half minutes. It rips fast and ferocious. It kinda makes you want to rage. It makes me want more - so much more! - of new riffs and Jesse harmonizing with himself on snarling hooks. "We don't feel anything," he declares - is that why we haven't heard new music in six years? Because for all your heralded brilliance and iconic anthems, you haven't had anything worthwhile to say since your last album turned into something of a disappointment? Oh. Thanks for clarifying.

I will take it.

"Mene" doesn't say much about a change in their direction as a band out of context - does a single mean an album? Does their live performance of this, followed so quickly by a recording, tease a larger forthcoming announcement? I would like to think so. It's new Brand New, and so the world has to stop spinning for a minute, all the blog posts have to be written, and all the speculation has to culminate with a whole bunch of question marks as to their next steps.

No one is worse to their fans than Brand New. As such, no one has more devoted fans, left parched enough for any drop of activity to swallow with gleeful greed (like that Instagram wipe-and-post over the weekend). I am going to play this song probably a dozen more times today, I am going to memorize it, I am going to learn all the words and hum the parts and I will go back and listen to the rest of their discography in celebration of a band that I cannot, will not give up on - even when they give fans very little to hang on for.In their defense, giving it away as a free download is a fan-friendly and biz-smart move.

I generally roll my eyes at old sayings and cliche phrases used as central tenants in reviews & writings, but this time, I can only think of one thing to say and it's as recycled as the best of them:

Good things come to those who wait.

4/12/15

First bike ride of the season took me on my favorite solo-cruise route - from Millvale along the Three Rivers trail, past PNC Park, around Heinz Field, across the bridge and down to Point State Park. The scenery changes quickly, the path goes from crushed stone to pavement to concrete with varying degrees of incline, and on the first free day I've had in awhile that just happened to the warmest yet, I could not resist putting on my headphones and going for a ride. 

Shuffle did not fail me, starting with a strong run of modern pop punk.

"I'm safe, and who ever thought that was difficult?
My nerves start to feel so frayed.
I'm trying to turn things around, but instead
I'll say 'Why do I feel so invisible?
Good things will come my way.'
I'm trying to turn things around, and I wait

'Till the day when I stop making big mistakes
And the clouds, they roll out of this whole damn state
I believe in a place and I wanna go
Honesty will leave me feeling livable
Once I change.

Now that I've found some time, all the pain won't bother me.
I've wanted to find what my head keeps filtering."~Good Things

The Dangerous Summer, War Paint

The trail was full of so many people - solo riders like me, couples jogging, small groups of  walkers or cyclists - so I knew better than to blast the volume and tune out. Never know when someone's speeding up behind you. I quit dodging the crowds for a bit when I got to the Point, and decided to stretch out and lay on the grass. Like divine intervention, or the mathematical realities of an 8-gig device, a sliver of "Clarity" arrived on cue. 

I laid there for awhile, listening to the same song over and over again. I put the volume up and watched the clouds, watched the fountain, and stretched my feet in time to the staccato strings. I let the rest of the album play the whole ride back.

"I promised I'd see it again
I promised I'd see this with you now.
I promised I'd see it again,
I promised I'd see this with you now.

I said, said, said it out loud over and over
Said, said, said it out loud but it did not help
I'll stop now just enough so I can hear you
I stay up as late as it takes"

~Just Watch The Fireworks

Jimmy Eat World, Clarity

By the time I made my way back to the trail head, I was just sweaty enough, feeling tension-free and exhilarated by the spontaneous ride. I switched back to shuffle and found myself where I started,with "Suburbia" piping through like a boisterous old friend you haven't seen in awhile. Usually, I plan rides for certain early mornings or with friends. It's a scheduled activity. But today, with my bike fresh from a tire tune-up on the back of my car, I decided to deviate from my to-do list in favor of what felt right, and it was worthwhile. What a change of pace, what a pleasant reminder of the control we have over our own destinies. 

I strapped my bike to the trunk of my car. I kept my headphones in.

"I’m not a self-help book; I’m just a fucked up kid.
I had to take my own advice and I did.
Now I’m waiting for it to sink in.

Expect me standing tall, back against the wall,
'Cause what I learned was
It’s not about forcing happiness;
It’s about not letting the sadness win." 

~Local Man Ruins Everything 

The Wonder Years, Suburbia, I've Given You all and Now I'm Nothing