Record Reviews

The Whigs

originally published November 30, 2005

Here’s the problem with the Whigs. They rode their wave of hype and attention for so long with nothing really to show for it, and so when they do finally turn out a debut album, it seems more like a sophomore slump. The hoarse, off-key vocals that Parker Gispert tosses off were charming at Tasty World, but sound pretty abrasive on the record, and the live illusion of rocking turns out really to be just some power chords and one phrase repeated over and over in a chorus. (Or maybe it’s just more fun to hear the Whigs when you’re drunk.)

With all the band’s effort put in to finally recording and releasing something - anything! - Give ‘Em All a Big Fat Lip has some pretty disappointing moments. But after a few listens most of the songs began to be, well, likeable. The album is basically the setlist to any live Whigs show, give or take a song. Maybe the trio got so used to those melodies after three years of performing them that there was no way to make the whole thing sound a bit more challenging and fun and less formulaic. The songs (especially “Technology” and “Violet Furs”) and all their perky hooks and easy-to-learn choruses sound primed for Top 40 radio play, but Lord knows they’ll need a grittier, indie-er sound if they’re ever going to play on “The O.C.”

The most promising is the album’s last track “All of My Banks.” With an ominous trombone and dark guitar licks, it’s such a treat and so foreboding that it almost doesn’t fit in with the rest of the sunflowery, matching-haircut pop rock. The keyboard intro that is nearly identical to “Half the World Away” is the only thing that resembles the rest of the album. Maybe, hopefully, that song can be the departure point for the Whigs’ next direction.

Ann Tuppenhut

Ann Tuppenhut

Record Reviews

Annie & Her Guns

originally published November 30, 2005

Holy shit, this is a good record - a dreamy, ecstatic trip through the ups and downs of being in love and all the urges that come with it. Even at her sweetest, Annie Merkley is still wily and seductive, her voice a smoky and sometimes coarse alto, like PJ Harvey after charm school, sipping a mint julep and messing around with a pedal steel. She lays bare her longing to have someone else all to herself, her naked fear of being alone, and her conflicting desires to have the self-intimacy of being either giddily in love or acutely depressed.

The first few tracks of Outlaw For Your Love are definitive make-out mood music with organ, vibraphone, cello, banjo and a chorus of Merkley beckoning her lover. The album shifts with “Like This,” a galloping, manic-depressive anthem to love. Never afraid to contradict herself, Merkley shrieks, “I love him so much I want to run down the street and scream it,” but a few seconds later moans, “I just can’t go on like this.”

A strong cast of backers - Trey McManus (The Drag, The Envelopes, Fabulous Bird), John Neff (Japancakes, Lona), Jesse Flavin (The Good Ship, Phosphorescent), Kera Schaley (Low, Nirvana) - delivers her spot-on instrument arrangements, and Merkley really shows her vocal chops, alternating gentle coos (“My Love, My Lover”), tender moans of ecstasy (“Drivin All Night”), and threatening wails (“Searchin On”). Listening to Outlaw For Your Love is like staying up all night talking to an ex-girlfriend, and while it’s intense, her honesty is absolutely refreshing.

Ann Tuppenhut

Ann Tuppenhut

Record Reviews

J-Live

originally published November 30, 2005

Nearing his 10-year mark in the underground hip hop scene, J-Live returns with The Hear After, the full-length follow-up to 2002’s All of the Above. A few tracks miss the mark: “Harder” echoes the overproduced sound of mainstream hip hop, complete with an unnecessary Santana-esque guitar solo, and “Whoever” attempts to blend a Latin rhythm and ultimately falls flat.

I prefer the more introspective J-Live, who thankfully shines through on a number of tracks. Not to sound like a prude, but the rampant sexism in mainstream hip hop is unnerving - not to mention dull. I’m sick of the parade of masculinity in the conventional infatuation with pimps, hoes and power plays. Apparently J-Live’s had it too, when he concludes “The Sidewalks” with “but then you wonder why we still getting stereotyped.”

“Brooklyn Public Part 1” is easily one of the best songs I’ve heard in the last six months. Over a simple drumbeat and piano riff, J-Live is at his finest here. Drawing from his life as a public school teacher, he recounts: “One class, 31 students, 32 chairs, 25 desks / I guess they’ve got to share / Nineteen textbooks and most are missing pages / Junior high, three grades, but six different ages.” J-Live doesn’t provide a solution to the problem (the song ends mid-story), but his narrative is a much-appreciated critique in today’s No Child Left Behind Bushworld. It’s refreshing to hear stories that reflect both sincerity and substance. While not up to par with his earlier work, The Hear After still surpasses most of this year’s tepid underground hip hop releases.

Michael Ramirez

Michael Ramirez

Record Reviews

P$C

originally published November 30, 2005

The debut of P$C (which stands for Pimp Squad Click) has auspicious signs: they’re a sort of clean-cut-looking group, making one think the album won’t just be an attempt to out-gangsta the next guy; they’ve got a few good guest stars, like Cee-Lo and Young Jeezy; and, most of all, they’re T.I.’s group, his version of Nelly’s St. Lunatics, and who doesn’t love T.I.? Unfortunately, they are the equivalent of many another rap group with a single star.

Production is good throughout the album, especially on the first track, “25 to Life,” where it’s full of chimes and marching-band rhythms and you can hear a dash of LP-crackle in the background, but the tempos are too repetitive. With a couple of exceptions that have more of an R&B flavor (“Walk This Way” and “Like a Movie”—the former of which is pretty tasty but the latter far too corn syrupy), almost every song moves along at the same mid-tempo pace, ideally suited to chanting and group work, but definitely wearing before you make it halfway through the 67-minute album.

And while T.I. knows how to vary his vocal inflections to skip around the beat, the rest of P$C can’t do much more than stay on it, leading to a lack of creativity on that end of things. There’s a slight Houston influence, but I tend to think of one of the strengths of Atlanta’s scene as resulting from its dexterity, and that’s what’s missing here.

Hillary Brown

Hillary Brown

Record Reviews

Ashlee Simpson

originally published November 30, 2005

The attention’s generally been back on big sister Jess lately, what with the split-up and all, and yet the fact remains that the older, blonder Simpson mostly has talents in the bikini-wearing department. Ashlee’s run of embarrassment may have de-emphasized her genuine abilities, but when you’re making an album, I’m not sure how live performance is all that relevant.

I Am Me contains a few confessional songs about the pain of being young and cute and widely mocked, like “Beautifully Broken,” which was a snoozer when she performed it on Saturday Night Live a few weeks ago, but even those tunes work in the context of the full album, which is impressively fun, rocking and tight.

Just think of her as our new Pat Benatar, with enough tomboy attitude to make for some fine videos without being actually threatening. “Coming Back for More” fits right into this slot and, if creepy daddy knows what he’s doing management-wise, should be the second single. It’s the kind of pouty, riffy number the kids can work on their bad-assedness to. The track “L.O.V.E.” is a contender to be a hit as well, making great use of the combo of Ashlee’s slightly sandpapery vocals, a mildly funky bass line and liberal echo effects.

I Am Me is tinged with mid-’80s rock/girl power and production, and it’s unexpectedly solid the whole way through (almost). The last couple of tracks are a downturn, but the whole thing’s only 40 minutes over 11 tracks anyway; it’s a professional, pleasant rock record with no pretensions.

Hillary Brown

Hillary Brown

Record Reviews

Ninja High School

originally published November 30, 2005

The sheer amount of information in the world is increasing exponentially. History offers no precedent. We, denizens of the much-discussed Western World, are overstimulated, and we’re looking down the barrel of new extremes in over stimulation. The best musicians are remarkably sensitive to this. Some, such as Will Oldham, seem to propose a reactionary retreat into traditional modes and pseudo-Biblical ambiguity. Ninja High School’s Young Adults Against Suicide, in its breathless rush to toss as much hyper-topical ephemera against the wall as possible, inhabits the opposite extreme. In its subtle, affable, distinctly Canadian manner, it seems happy there.

Certain digital artists might be better prepared than Ninja High School to over stimulate as a comment on over stimulation. The School remains betrothed to its DIY house-show aesthetic. It likes its dance punk organic, thanks. Its politics, while laced with humor, are radical and sloganeering (“It’s All Right To Fight”). Its blend of disco thump and pep-rally chanting obviously didn’t cost much to make, It pays its debts to Calvin Johnson and Kathleen Hanna with pure charm, adjusted for inflation.

For sure, this stuff is as righteously annoying as it is annoyingly righteous. Right now, its mix of earnest enthusiasm and breezy self-deprecation makes for spazzy good times. It could wear out its welcome as quickly as the Moldy Peaches; time and fate will tell. For a band so enamored with graceless disposability, it wouldn’t be too much the disappointment.

Emerson Dameron

Emerson Dameron