Record Reviews
Still, Small Voice & The Joyful Noise
originally published March 22, 2006
In the Bible the “still, small voice” is how God speaks to Elijah, and the “joyful noise” is one of the ways Christians are instructed to praise to lord. I have no firm idea what bandleader and songwriter Chip McKenzie’s religious convictions are, but his musical ones are solid as a rock. The six-song With Love For Our Enemies is wonderfully complete recording that already stands above many local releases this year.
Musically, the band straddles the line between the classic American pop of Tom Petty and Greg Kihn and the late-1970s British pop revival of Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe. Starting off with “To The Rafters,” the disc establishes its guitar-based simplicity off the bat. Slower than what one might expect, the band makes good use of keeping things moderate. The song is punctuated with a loudly strummed guitar, which remains the signature of the track. “5 Golden Birds” sounds as if it could very easily have been an outtake from an album by The Housemartins or The Smiths; its shuffling beat and pretty melody provide ample canvas to exhibit the vocals of bassist Trish Scurry, which rest just barely behind McKenzie’s.
Third track “Mercury Dime” is the thing that pushes this record from good to great. The verse progression is quite reminiscent of the aforementioned Petty, but the chorus is the shining part of the song. A descending chord progression filled out with lyrics that speak of broken people and constant fighting - it almost had me in tears. The next two tracks are similar in style and theme to these first three and one in particular, “Souvenirs,” is absolutely top notch. Final track “The Bridal Joint” is somewhat disappointing with its incongruous keyboard squiggles and sequenced beats provided by local hip hop artist Rorshak. This departure hardly ruins the record, but the song’s not as strong as the others. Either way, With Love For Our Enemies is a wonderful little record that is a welcome addition to the Athens music canon.
Gordon Lamb Still, Small Voice & the Joyful Noise is playing at the Caledonia Lounge on Friday, Mar. 25.Record Reviews
Mates Of State
originally published March 22, 2006
It’s easy to imagine where some bands rehearse. Even if you didn’t know, you could probably guess that Joy Division played in an abandoned warehouse, and it’s easy to envision the Wu Tang Clan practicing in a dojo with scissor kicks all around them. But where would Mates of State’s sunny, indie boy-girl, keys-drums aesthetic work? It’s hard to see their danceable amateur-pop emerging from a filthy garage or a church.
But it’s this very placelessness that makes me associate Mates of State with an airport. I can see them playing in a small, roofless shack on the outskirts of some moderately-trafficked runway in the Midwest. It’s mainly sunny, there’s a big sky overhead and a few takeoffs an hour. Things are barren but not disused; more like a clean table awaiting dinner.
Some songs on Bring it Back, the fourth full-length from Kori Gardner (organ, vocals) and Jason Hammel (drums, vocals) feel upbeat and productive, like smaller versions of the airplanes flying above U2 (“For the Actor”); some are sunset songs, hushed but not dim (“What it Means”); and on one, there even seems to be a Boston Pops concert on the other side of the fence (“Nature and the Wreck”).
But on their big food court song, “Fraud in the 80s,” they falter, if only by failing to live up to the monster hook that anchors the song, instead going with the sneering refrain, “You will surely find this pleasing to your ears.” It’s the best song on Bring it Back because it tries to do something hard - it wants to stop craning its head up and fly instead.
Michael Barthel Mates of State are playing at the 40 Watt Club on Monday, Mar. 27.Record Reviews
Gutshot And Thirsty
originally published March 22, 2006
Athens-based duo of Paul Stuffel and Jason McClellan, the guys behind Gutshot and Thirsty, play country and western, but rarely to they play them both at the same time.
More specifically, the type of low-country dirges they sing alternate musically between the murder-ballad-filled, heat-oppressed climes of Alabama and Mississippi and the lonesome, despair-ridden emptiness of the American Southwest. Although the style is most famously associated with folks like Doc Boggs and Jimmie Rodgers, Gutshot and Thirsty is much more in the genre of revisionaries like Jason Molina and the pre-fame Will Oldham.
Opening track “Get A Gun” is a spooky, Western instrumental that sets the stage for what’s to come next. With lyrics about devils, pistols and angels “Trumpets Are Com’n” is thematically a standard bearer for the whole album. An unrecognizable cover of Dinosaur Jr.’s “Freak Scene” follows this and is the only unnecessary thing on the whole record, but the arrangement does serve to lighten the mood of the record somewhat.
“Black Hair Girl” features a rising bass line that gives way to a nice finger-picking section augmented with minor chords. As luck would have it, it’s difficult to hear exactly what’s being sung all the time, but one line in the song “Heavy” is crystal clear: “If I knew then what I know now / I would still be alone.”
Side two of this LP features the single song “Death Is Here,” in which the singer welcomes his end over a bleak, mid-tempo country-blues tune. After the track ends, the vinyl continues spinning into a locked-groove, which requires the listener to actually rise up and take the needle off the record. This works great. The protagonist must be responsible and take charge of his actions if the sadness is to end. It’s fully possible, however, that I am simply looking too far into what is, in all likelihood, a simple manufacturing decision.
Songs About Women And Dying is a moody, sad, lonely, somewhat self-indulgent album. Music fans will note, however, that many times some of the best music has been described exactly the same way. This is probably one of those times.
Gordon Lamb Gutshot and Thirsty is playing at Little Kings on Saturday, Mar. 25Record Reviews
Centro-Matic
originally published March 22, 2006
Songwriters as good as Will Johnson just shouldn’t be this prolific. Alt-country songwriters like him are usually named Ryan Adams, and accordingly, they produce songs in scattershot fashion, averaging one gem for every five or so turds. But unlike the far more commercially successful Adams, whose songwriting has deteriorated with each album, Johnson has grown stronger with each effort. Fort Recovery only continues that trend.
Centro-Matic, Johnson’s decade-old outfit hailing from the Dallas suburb of Denton, doesn’t really specialize in anything. It just makes classic, durable, rock music. No guitar theatrics; no gimmicks. The centerpiece is (and always has been) Johnson’s voice, a baritone that sounds pieced together with rusty sheet metal and bejeweled with Neil Diamond’s rhinestones. You hear Johnson’s voice, and you ask: is this guy for real, or is he just trying to sound like a decrepit old wino having a fit of lucidity?
But before you can get too analytical, rockers like “Patience for the Ride” and “Triggers and Trash Heaps,” and creepers like “The Fugitives Have Won” take over your life, and you’re caught, a hapless bird that’s flown into a grocery store; difference is, there’s no need for escape.
Mark Sanders Centro-Matic is playing at Tasty World on Tuesday, Mar. 28Record Reviews
Liars
originally published March 22, 2006
Okay, Liars is a great band, one of the best of the millennium. That first album is a bit spotty, but the band’s subsequent transition from clumsy Gang of Four/ Birthday Party revivalism to creepy Chrome-cum-Can channeling has led to some of the finest non-traditional rock music in recent memory. 2004’s They Were Wrong So We Drowned remains one of my two or three favorite albums from that miserable year, and the EPs and singles that came before and since have been mostly excellent. So, why, then, am I not more thrilled by Drum’s Not Dead?
Inscrutable concept aside, Drum’s Not Dead is a really good record. The band’s ability to craft well-reasoned slabs of rhythm-centric minimalist noise-rock remains firmly intact. As long as it’s on the headphones, Drum’s Not Dead pleases me mightily. Once it’s ended, though, the magic vanishes, and I’m left with a vaguely unimpressed and unexcited aftertaste. Which makes no damn sense, as the last song is maybe the best thing on the record, and one of the highlights of the Liars catalogue. It does sound a bit too much like So We Drowned, but with less immediately inescapable hooks, and maybe that’s the problem. It’s just like the last album… but less good.
At its best, the insistent buzz of Drum’s Not Dead is like Kraut-rock in miniature. At its worst, it sounds like one of those portentous Gilbert/ Lewis tracks from Wire’s 154, which, in the grand scheme of less-than-good-things, isn’t that big a drawback. Still, although powerful in the moment, this album’s glory is transitory and fleeting.
Garrett MartinRecord Reviews
Colostomy Bag
originally published March 22, 2006
Featuring former members of Heroic Livers and the Pastel Knit Appreciation Society, Colostomy Bag is the new (only?) face of dirty kid bike riding thrash in Athens. What at first seems a touch gimmicky - thrash music with djembe hand drummer Andrew Shitstain fielding percussion - ends up sounding great and ferociously energetic, so long as the shit isn’t lost, so to speak. The boy-girl vocals of Christopher Stinkham, who also wields guitar, and Lacey Stool work well to further the absurdist dissonance of lineup. Lyrically, the band touches upon issues of gender equality and political correctness in the same fecaphiliac breath espousing revolution through taking a “poop on the Pope’s hat.”
A Vercundus Propositio, the band’s debut, is as accurate a representation of Colostomy Bag’s incendiary 10-minute set as one could hope to capture on disc. The vocals are a good deal more polished, and therefore more intelligible, than you’re likely to hear in their basement, where the band plays often with touring groups and local friends like Pillow Fort and Hot New Mexicans.
Some subtle additions to the final cut by bassist David Colons, such as a piano flourish on the intro track, denote possible directions of evolution in the band’s future. What ultimately started out as a good time seems to have stayed the course. With some hard work and a few more months of practice, they may be able to break the 15-minute mark on their set.
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