3/6/13

OMGOMGOMG! THE WONDER YEARS ALBUM COMES OUT ON MAY 14, AND MARK TROMBINO MIXED IT OMGOMGOMG.



"I'm not even sad anymore, 
I'm just so tired most nights."
~Logan Circle
The Wonder Years, The Upsides

I am fully prepared for this upcoming album, with the promising title "The Greatest Generation," to soundtrack yet another summer full of life and love and sundresses and growing pains (can you still call them that in your mid-20s?). I've let someone break my heart every summer since 2010. We'll see what happens this time.

3/6/13

Apex Theory just had it going-the-fuck-on, such grooves, such a unique sound, but a face-melting breakdown ability and an incredible way of building up to it, like they're twisting time signatures into knots and literally bending the seconds into longer and shorter versions to fit their notes. It is seriously amazing what they do, I have not heard much if anything really like them before. Look at this EP, look at how it starts so slow and dreamy - 23 minutes of wave after wave of sound later it ends on a howl.

You don't make songs this strange and complex and beautiful by not trying at all, it doesn't just happen by sitting around saying "Hey, I feel like writing a song, think I'm gonna go write a song." You get there by knowing what you want, by working at it, by not caring how batshit it might sound to people who expect you to do something else or think you'd make more money doing something else.

Apex Theory, who became Mt.Helium, never took off too far, and the last LP was 2008, practically an epoch ago. Did no one get them? Did people not understand what they were doing? The fans they did have were obsessed, and still are, according to YouTube comments.

I love this EP. Not just because it's badass, but because it reminds me of different times, when day in and day out I felt emboldened by rebelliousness and a had a knack for the contrary. When I just felt like I owed the world nothing but to be me, answered to no one and gave zero fucks what anyone would say. What would she think of me and all these "accomplishments?" (their words, not mine).

Every now and then, it's good to remember where you came from. Working hard is working hard, and there's all kinds of benefits there. But I think nothing could be more rewarding than knowing you never sacrificed who you were. Every now and then it's good to remember what got you where you are. I'm not giving up yet.

"time to wrap your head around it/to grow, to grow/time to wrap your head around it/to grow, to grow out" ~Burglar Soup, Apex Theory, Inthatskyissomethingwatching

3/1/13

It's all in the words this time.



"The clouds move over Pontiac skies
Their silent thunder matches mine
I know this feeling from long ago
I wonder if it's gone now I know

So when she calls don't send her my way
When it hurts you'll know it's the right thing
Michigan's in the rearview now,
Keep your hands where I can see them
You took the words right out of my mouth
When you knew that I would need them
What am I supposed to do now
Without you,
Without you..."
~Michigan
The Milk Carton Kids, Prolouge
The rest of the album also seems very beautiful  - and there are lots of references to states (which I love), with a track I haven't heard called "New York" and a Minnesota shout out in the chorus of "No Hammer to Hold." Truly, the words are the star of this album, and everything has amazing, amazing harmonies to highlight that. Very Simon & Garfunkel. Everything is underscored by soft chord structures spruced up with some more of those twang-folks riffs, as well some really pleasant and gentle picking.

It's a soft-sounding album but most of the lyrics are anything but; they expose so much hurt and regret and longing. They sing on "One Goodbye": "The things you wanted/the things you would/the things that haunt/I never could."

"Michigan," though, sends arrows through my heart, every time. Please put this in my biopic.

2/28/13

"Shadows settle on the place, that you left

Our minds are troubled by the emptiness
Destroy the middle, it's a waste of time
From the perfect start to the finish line

And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones

'Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs
Setting fire to our insides for fun
Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong
The lovers that went wrong

We are the reckless,
We are the wild youth
Chasing visions of our futures
One day we'll reveal the truth
That one will die before he gets there
And if you're still bleeding, you're the lucky ones
'Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone
We're setting fire to our insides for fun
Collecting pictures from the flood that wrecked our home
It was a flood that wrecked this....

And you caused it
And you caused it
And you caused it

Well I've lost it all, I'm just a silouhette
A lifeless face that you'll soon forget
My eyes ae damp from the words you left
Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest
Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest

And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one
'Cause most of us are bitter over someone
Setting fire to our insides for fun
To distract our hearts from ever missing them
But I'm forever missing him

And you caused it
And you caused it
And you caused it "
~Youth

Daughter, The Wild Youth EP 

Daughter writes some pretty deep songs - this is the single that's got the most attention but thumbing around on YouTube yesterday showed lots of deep sad tracks to get lost in. Lots of sad, dark metaphorical lyrics, about regret and the unfaithful and pain and healing and that ilk. Sounds are sometimes spacey and air-filled, affected by computers just-so to highlight the somewhat unearthly quality of Elena Tonra's just-so-British voice, but lots of piano, too. I expect lots of Florence Welch comparisons, but Daughter is a bit more understated, I think. A solid choice for get-lost-in-your-head listening.

"You've got a warm heart,
You've got a beautiful brain.
But it's disintegrating,
From all the medicine.
From all the medicine.
From all the medicine.
Medicine.

You could still be,
What you want to,
What you said you were,
When you met me"

~Medicine 

Daughter, The Wild Youth EP

2/23/13

"Hate, hate, hate,hate, hate
It’s gonna overrun this town
As soon as the moon goes to nothing
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait
They’re always gonna run you down
It’s better to face my something"

~The Leopard and the Lung 

The Joy Formidable, Wolf's Law

When I first discovered  The Joy Formidable (I think it was sometime early last year on a radio station) I knew I'd stumbled upon something different. Something intense. Something fresh. Something firmly rooted in punk and thrashy rock 'n' roll unafraid of its own interpretation for the future. And when I saw Ritzy Bryant  murder the hell out of some pedals, I was only more excited to see what their second LP would contain. 

"Wolf's Law" feels like a collection of songs that build upon the best efforts of "The Big Roar," only there's more urgency here, a rapid onward assault replacing where there was more reflection. But that makes sense - Joy Formidable is moving forward, doing things like opening for Muse, and I think this record was a "go-big-or-go-home" moment for them. I think it's hella fun, and  I think it's a perfect choice to soundtrack a productive, independent-fueled Saturday. 

"Wolf's Law," released in January 2013, does not disappoint for first-round fans. There's the same ascension of tightly coiled riffs into an excessive avalanche of distortion and noise, and the same smooth melodic rocks anchoring said noise. The same tartness to Bryant's voice,only it's layered over and over itself on nearly every track, creating somewhat of a spacey harmonic fullness. It's also just a really fast record - in tempo and in structure. In that sense there's almost a prog-like transition sensibility(See "Maw Maw Song"). 

Lyrically we hear a lot of pointed aggression, the same honest-and-almost-accusatory narrative, but we also hear a lot of struggle in the face of ambition ("I had a reason but the reason went away/We keep hanging on," Bryant sings on "Bats"). One of the biggest surprises here was "Silent Treatment," a rather raw and beautiful dressed-down ballad right smack in the middle at track six. 

Maybe it could be easy for someone to look at The Joy Formidable and say "What do we need with another indie rock band?" But they'd be doing themselves a world of disservice, because Joy Formidable does what a lot of indie rock bands don't.They walk a lot of genre lines. Their influences are clearly the edgier side, the louder side, the dirtier side, which is all ultimately refreshing when every other new song on every other trendspotter playlist is more soft and timid and bearded than the next. Most importantly, they're undeniably true to their own sound (as their second LP proves) This is not a record for feeling sad or hopeless, but this is a record for finding ferocity in the face of any circumstance.

"I’ll take a quiet leave it
But I’m hot-wired, quick-feelinged
So I’ll take the silent treatment
I’ll take the silent treatment."

~Silent Treatment 

The Joy Formidable, Wolf's Law