Record Reviews
Peaches
originally published July 26, 2006
The first thing you'll likely wonder after listening to the under-a-minute title track of Peaches' Impeach My Bush in which she chants, "I'd rather fuck who I want, then kill who I am told to" is: is this an album about sex or politics?
In the vein of electro-new-wave-synth-rock, Peaches returns with a slightly more sophisticated follow-up to her previous minimalist work. Peaches' scant approach to songwriting is still alive and well in this album, though she has expanded her instrumentation (live drums and more guitars!) and lineup with guest appearances including Joan Jett and Queen of the Stone Age's Josh Homme. Given the recent trend of throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the production and recording techniques of "innovative" bands today, it's refreshing to have an album of 13 relatively simple, yet catchy, songs.
Peaches has been spending quality time with that other potty-mouthed electro pioneer, Princess Superstar, and a number of tracks sound as if they could be outtakes from Princess's work or perhaps as if she ghostwritten a track or two, particularly "Hit It Hard." Speaking of influences, if Joan Jett had replaced AC/DC's Bon Scott, I imagine the band would have sounded exactly like the possibly autobiographical "Boys Wanna Be Her," which could be a theme song for her career up to this point. Peaches later turns the tables on men's girl-on-girl fantasy with her request for "two guys for every girl." Throw in a little incest and cockfighting, and you've got the gist of "Two Guys."
So is Impeach My Bush an album about sex or politics? Neither. Both. It's the party album of the year from the indie rock crowd's closest surrogate for Barry White.
Michael Ramirez Peaches is playing at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta on Thursday, July 27.Record Reviews
Keane
originally published July 26, 2006
British three-piece Keane can’t turn around without being compared to Coldplay. Really, equally valid comparisons could be made to Travis or even Ben Folds (who, like Keane, used to stick to a “no guitars” rule). Keane has only released two albums in its near-decade of existence. 2004’s Hopes and Fears spawned several hits in England and even netted the group a Grammy nomination here. Unfortunately, by 2005 it was time to make a follow-up, and Keane is now living the old industry adage that you have your whole life to make the first record, and a year to make the next one.
As such, Under the Iron Sea is a worthy follow-up. Though every song still comprises a drums/ bass/ piano rhythm section, keyboard player Tim Rice-Oxley decorates each song with layer after layer of keyboard sounds. For example, lead single “Is it Any Wonder” starts off with a sound you will swear is a guitar (it's not).
Tom Chaplin’s voice has also put some work into this record. Though he still has the pipes of a choirboy, he now throws in just a hint of Thom Yorke’s sneer where appropriate. It’s an instrument so pleasant it covers a multitude of banalities in the lyrics. Most of the songs are of the open letter variety, and Chaplin just loves the rhetorical question: Besides “Is it any wonder that I feel uptight?” the most compelling has to be, “Oh why did I rely / On fashions and small fry?”
Unlike Coldplay’s Chris “Fair Trade Now!” Martin, it seems Keane simply strives to be a decent pop group, not the savior of the damn world. And, to ask a rhetorical question, we can put up with one more of those, can’t we?
Tom BavisRecord Reviews
Thom Yorke
originally published July 26, 2006
Outside of placing the solo debut by Thom Yorke beneath a microscope and writing about the infinitesimal details of the plastic, there's not much I can write about The Eraser that hasn't been covered, oh, everywhere, during the week since its release. Yorke is the second Radiohead member to release music under his own name, and even with his genius, he has a lot to live up to in comparison with Jonny Greenwood's excellent Bodysong score.
I think it's essential to point out that Yorke almost certainly intended this as a modest record. He announced its release only a couple of months in advance, and it's arrived fairly quietly. With this in mind, the album's not that surprising, so you can settle in and enjoy it for what it is, which is a solid nine tracks - some jaw-dropping, but mostly subpar by the stratospheric standards to which Radiohead's music is held.
The title track features simple IDM beats anchoring an awesome piano loop. "The more you try to erase me," sings Yorke, "the more I appear." The lyrics are altogether more direct than Yorke's usual cryptic fare. "Black Swan" is a rubbery lite-funk cousin of "Optimistic" or "There There." The best is saved for last: "Cymbal Rush" is superb Warp Records fare, bubbling synth, piano, pings and minimal drones creating a fitting mood to round out a nice little album.
Put down the magnifying glass and you can enjoy The Eraser for what it is: bedroom Radiohead.
Michael WehuntRecord Reviews
Shapes and Sizes
originally published July 26, 2006
The debut by these north-of-the-49th parallel indie popsters begins with the very first second of the loping intro to opener “Island’s Gone Bad,” but the song actually shakes the dust out of its eyes and really begins at exactly 2:32. That’s when vocalist Caila Thompson-Hannant unleashes her voice over a little go-go beat like an expensive chandelier crashing onto the dinner table. She doesn’t regard what was thought pleasurable to the ear, but you want to keep listening anyway. You ask, "Where is this going?"
Answer: everywhere countrymates The New Pornographers considered themselves of too pure of pedigree or simply didn’t care to tread. Second track “Weekends at a Time” for example, melts from a frustrated pounder to a torch song, almost. And that was only an interlude to the synth-laden, prog-ish ending. By “Northern Lights,” a sweet, pseudo-Vaudevillian number, you’ve accepted the their intricate, irreverent slant on pop (they really do change channels like a schizo) and they’ve let you accept it. “Goldenhead,” the lone “straight” track on the record, sounds like a younger sibling of Sonic Youth (Sonic Tykes?). Rory Seydel’s guitar work is vital and imaginative throughout the record, but on “Oh No, Oh Boy,” it’s laid clear just how much a Thurston Moore, Jr. he can be.
It’s great fun to try and keep Shapes and SIzes under your thumb, but it’s impossible. Instead, just let the album roam, and trust that it knows where it’s going.
Andy StokesRecord Reviews
The Husbands
originally published July 26, 2006
First off, my absolute favorite thing about this album is not that it contains essential rock and roll tracks, but that the tracks contain the essence of rock and roll. Only one song extends past three minutes, with most running right around the two-minute mark.
If The Husbands have something to say, they make sure to say it very, very quickly. This type of garage-rock recording (seeming live-takes, very minimal studio expansiveness, etc.) requires what the band has done with it. But, even so, these elements alone don’t mean anything if the songs are crap.
But the songs aren’t crap. The Husbands' song structure is very similar to classic Pacific Northwest band The Sonics (“Cut Me Loose”) and The Monks (“Much Too Late”). While those bands were breaking new ground with their sound and The Husbands break no ground at all, there’s no denying that their single-note solos and occasional screamed/ barked vocals are part of the reason anyone even gives a shit about the "underground garage rock" scene anymore.
The major departure from The Husbands' template of fuzzed-up pop is the Joan Jett-worthy tearjerker “Just Ain’t Right For Me.” Thematically, The Husbands don’t really "explore" anything. These songs are more pronouncements; a quick glance at the song titles (“Never Again,” “Pretty Lil’ Baby,” “Bar-B-Que”) reveals as much as reading a lyric sheet would. If you ran across this album and chose to pick it up, you wouldn’t be making a horrible decision.
Gordon LambRecord Reviews
Stuart A. Staples
originally published July 26, 2006
Few albums are as appropriately titled, or as unnecessarily. From the first notes, the gentle, repetitive rhythms that underlay Tindersticks singer Stuart Staples' second solo album suggest a train. And as soon as Staples opens his mouth, it's clear he's on this train - not to go somewhere, but to get away from something.
The deep-voiced Staples has frequently been compared to Leonard Cohen, but where Cohen often sounds like he knows he's got something important to say, Staples always seems to be holding something back. He sounds like a friend reluctantly sharing bad news about himself. Despite this reserve, his voice is always warm, as though he wants to make sure his news isn't upsetting you too much.
The instrumentation recalls Tindersticks, with subtle keyboards and the occasional surprising horn section. But the songs are simpler and the arrangements suggest country as much as the English soul of the band's later recordings, at least until the upbeat "That Leaving Feeling." This duet with Mexican-American torch singer Lhasa de Sela seems intended to function both as the single and as a bullet-point summary of the album for slower listeners. Instead of suggestion or metaphor, there's an actual train, and rain. And pain. Hey, y'all! I'm leaving stuff! Leaving is sad!
Mercifully, understatement quickly returns. Leaving Songs is less a collection of great songs than a great creator of a mood, for listening late at night, while leaving something, or someone, or remembering leaving.
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