Aluminium
Aluminium
XL Recordings
originally published December 13, 2006
Aluminium, a new project that sets 10 Jack White-penned tunes to orchestral arrangements, shouldn’t work at all. It should be a disaster - maximalist arrangements of minimalist songs that eschew the two most compelling things about them, White’s voice and guitar. At worst it should be a pretentious embarrassment; at best, something that elicits a response not much more enthusiastic than “Huh. ‘Seven Nation Army’ sounds kinda cool on a cello.” It should be a novelty, like those “String Quartet Tribute” CDs that litter the racks of Best Buy, a collection of workmanlike “classical” interpretations that all blend together into one stringy blah.
Instead, Aluminium announces from the first track - a full symphonic reworking of the monotonous White Blood Cells instrumental “Aluminum” - that it’s a powerful piece of music that casts The White Stripes’ music in a new light. This “Aluminum” replaces the raw urgency of White’s original with the controlled chaos of dozens of musicians all going crazy at once: violins shriek and swoop and stab, cellos, piano and percussion keep up the off-kilter rhythm, and horns blare to either side. It could be the overture to a Russian opera or a baroque ‘40s noir film. It is completely unexpected and thrilling.
What producer Richard Russell and composer Joby Talbot have done with Aluminium is find elements in White’s music that were always there, but unacknowledged, and bring them to the surface. Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” is a touchstone, as many of White’s songs share its same insistent rhythm and crescendo into bombast - “The Hardest Button to Button” and “Who’s a Big Baby?” in particular. The latter is even a huge improvement over White’s original, replacing its infantile creepiness with a sinister, necromantic energy. “Astro,” one of the album’s highlights, comes on initially like a cousin of Gustav Holst’s “Mars, the Bringer of War,” all martial bluster, then shifts into woozy Chinese strings, and then explodes into a middle section that evokes mid-century urban America in a way that’s almost a cross between Charles Ives and George Gershwin, though the basic composition is nowhere near as complex as either.
“Little Bird” takes the Gershwin resemblance even further, closing with a string phrase that echoes the ending piano figure of “Rhapsody in Blue,” though it’s a transposition of the guitar lick that closes the De Stijl original. This element of White’s work is unexpected, but unsurprising in retrospect; the strong blues influence in his songs becomes this jazzy, distinctly American voice when played by an orchestra. Much of the credit here belongs to Talbot, as you can occasionally hear his arrangements and the players bump up against the limits of White’s songwriting; it would be interesting to hear them go even further afield, the way the jazz trio The Bad Plus does in its radical interpretations of popular songs.
And though White’s Zeppelin blasts do sound amazing in their new clothes, his more subdued songs aren’t quite as interesting: “Never Far Away” is lovely, but almost too tasteful. But despite a few flaws, Aluminium is much more than the interesting curiosity it could've been - it expands on the work of a great American songwriter while standing on its own as a vital song cycle.
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
So Divided
Interscope
originally published December 13, 2006
It's been a long few weeks for us, me and This Band Whose Name I Refuse On Principle To Retype In Its Entirety. We've been through a lot together, and now that it's over, I feel like I'm ending a relationship that, while marred by irritation and tedium, at least benefited from brevity. To listen to So Divided from a critical standpoint is to shield one's eyes from the supernova flame-out of Trail of Dead's career arc in veins artistic as well as commercial. I've hypothesized endlessly about what the band's disastrous decline means about punk rock, art and commerce, and found myself wanting and the shit I've laid to ink boring. So, here's my final attempt to salvage the time I've wasted on this album, because all in all, their 90 percent perspiration amounted to a lot of sound and bluster signifying nothing, so the lesson here is: effort doesn't always equal quality.
Then I say something: Trail of Dead's sophomore record Source Tags and Codes was lauded by a chorus of online proto-bloggers way back in 2002 as a perfect 10, and from what I remember, it was pretty close: a good formula combining equal parts punk furor and classic rock glory. These two elements have long enjoyed a healthfully abusive relationship, from Hüsker Dü's Yardbirds-on-speed mile-high rave-ups to Dinosaur Jr.'s gunky guitar-heroism. But when you're combining your dinosaurs and your juniors, it's a firm belief of mine that one must mindfully neglect the overblown rock god within and retain honesty and humility at all costs. Two albums later, Trail of Dead has tipped the scales squarely into the land of proggy overindulgence. Here we find the Texas quintet feverishly spending its major label money on writing overlong garbage and overproducing it to a blinding sheen. You may be sensing a theme here: “So Divided” is wholly “over”-everything, with no room for subtlety or nuance to be exposed.
Following an intro titled "Intro: A Song of Fire and Wine" (I shit you not), “Stand in Silence” periodically gets a good power groove going but gets pantsed by fruity Renaissance Faire faux-classical guitar. “Naked Sun” is a six-minute blues-rock song bemoaning rejection. “Eight Days of Hell” casts the band as mired in misery on a European tour. One begins to wonder: if the members are going to spend such a long time doing it, why would they continue to play music if it bums them out so much?
Folklore
Carpenter's Falls EP
Independent Release
originally published December 13, 2006
Golly, why doesn’t everyone who’s in a smallish local pop band only release EPs? Why doesn’t everyone who’s in any kind of band, big or small, make a habit of it? The EP is a wonderful thing, five to eight songs long, resolutely too short for even the most ADHD listener to get fed up. You know how ice cream often tastes better on the tiny pink sample spoons? That’s the EP, and just like the little spoons, it has the effect of leaving you wanting more.
Folklore’s teaser in anticipation of the upcoming album The Ghost of H.W. Beaverman does exactly that, while also existing in a separate sphere. That is, there’s some kind of narrative behind the upcoming album's lyrics, and there’s also some kind of story to the EP; songwriter Jimmy Hughes, also Elf Power's guitar player, can probably tell you what it is better than I can, but you don’t need to have a Master's in English to tune into the bell-accented woodsy warmth of the songs.
Live, Folklore manages to cram an impressive amount of sounds into a performance, but the recorded medium is even more accommodating of that desire. Electronic squeals are followed by a voice humming in each ear, ticky drums with ringing acoustic guitar, and so on. I’m a sucker for the log cabin coziness of “The Correction” over any of the other songs, but it all bodes well for the full-length album.
Warm in the Wake
Gold Dust Trail EP
Livewire
originally published December 13, 2006
Although it’s generally a cheap, irritating and audience-insulting way to review a record, some bands can be described only by name checking others. I hate to do this, especially when the band has obvious talent and passion like Decatur's Warm in the Wake does, but try as I might, I can’t find anything on here that doesn’t immediately remind me of something else. So, mindful of the painful process, here I go: the opening track “Tame Thoughts” sounds very much like Belle & Sebastian mixed with Of Montreal. “Hearts Vs. Heads” reminds me of Elf Power mixed with Of Montreal. “Golden Inhibition Destroyer” reminds me of The Pernice Brothers. “Good King” is straight-up Wilco. Or hands-down Wilco. Either way, Wilco. “What You Seek” sounds just like the Jeremy Enigk (Sunny Day Real Estate) solo album Return of the Frog Queen.
The last two tracks, “Ironworkers” and “Skeleton friends,” don’t immediately grab me as derivative, but if I had some more time, I’m sure I could pinpoint where they were originating. Albums like Gold Dust Trail are frustrating because this type of soulful, heartfelt mimicry seems to come from a very sincere place. But the line between tribute, influence and rip-off is so blurred here that only one of two things seems to be possible: either the band doesn’t know what it's doing or the band hopes other people won’t notice.
In the end, Gold Dust Trail is an unfortunate little EP because Warm in the Wake has made the mistake of only playing at parenting its music, when the band should've been actually nurturing and letting its sound grow out of the individual members' talents. Warm in the Wake wants so bad for its children to be like the other kids that it has wiped away any of the distinguishing factors it may have once had.
Eric Gaffney
Uncharted Waters
Old Gold
originally published December 13, 2006
Uncharted Waters is Eric Gaffney’s second solo offering and a nice companion piece to the recent deluxe reissue of Sebadoh III. The 27 songs that make up the disc evoke the warped pop sensibilities that countered Lou Barlow’s emotional frailty during Sebadoh’s middle period of Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock and Bubble and Scrape.
Framing Gaffney’s lo-fi MO next to Barlow’s considerably more polished songwriting and production on his Emoh debut is a revealing study in the genetic make-up of indie rock’s founding fathers. Songs like “Leave Me Alone” and “Shark Attack” are relentlessly homemade, while “Too Bad Luck” hones a rock-and-roll jeer. Gaffney’s untamed voice and out-of-tune jangle are tailor-made for basement recording. If songs like “In Line” or “Singing Iceberg” were captured by any more evolved means of recording, they would be nowhere nearly as infectious. These songs were recorded over a 10-year period, and intuitively shift back and forth like a time-lapse take on a decade of Gaffney’s swaying tastes and trends in songwriting. He stays where he’s comfortable, and as a result, Uncharted Waters is a last stronghold for the indie-rock ‘90s, when crappy fidelity anchored a thriving scene.
Clocking in at 70 minutes, Uncharted Waters is an endurance test, but every scrap of sound, every noise and every note is an essential part of what Gaffney does. It feels a little bit out of time and a little out of place, but it sounds better than ever.
Boyskout
Another Life
Three Ring
originally published December 13, 2006
When Sleater-Kinney broke up earlier this year, the consensus, meaning-wise, was that it signaled the end of an era, not just of the particular riot grrl scene from which S-K emerged, but of strong female rock bands in general. Aside from being demonstrably wrong (the overwhelmingly long list of still-vital "femmes qui rock" bands would begin with those bands populated by the former members of S-K themselves), it's remarkably insulting to the S-K ethos supposedly being lionized, implying that part of their project - to encourage more women to form bands - was a failure.
What, then, of Boyskout? A San Francisco quartet that reaches into the past to spin alternate histories of rock's cock- and art-forward into the present, the band even hews to S-K's "show me your riffs" ethos through the second track of this disc. Somehow, this means Boyskout sounds like the British grunge-updaters of Idlewild, all dark power chords and off-kilter beats and melodies that tease the root, albeit more controlled and throaty than the British cousins.
But on the third song, "You're Not Around," the members of Boyskout abandon all, splitting the difference between modern girl-group revivalists like the Pipettes and the '70s male punkers who took their inspiration from Motown's female wing. It trades a little bit of the energy (but none of the melody) for a more realistic sexuality that soaks through in coffee-stained backup vocals, and it's fantastic. Apparently there are even more sounds in Boyskout's repertoire. Great! Let's see what else they can do.
Daniel Hutchens
Love Songs For Losers
Autumn Tone
originally published December 13, 2006
Ahhh, those high-and-raspy vocal passages and prickly, blues-drunk guitars. It’s not a long-lost tape of boozy rockers The Faces cutting loose, but Love Songs For Losers is Bloodkin vocalist Daniel Hutchens’ second proper solo album and a most impressive one at that. Recorded over the winter of 2005 in a snow-covered Colorado burg, Love Songs for Losers presents Hutchens at his soul-searching best, pitted before a simple backdrop of acoustic and electric guitar, bass and little percussion.
Though not a concept album per se, there are several elements that Love Songs for Losers keeps coming back to. Blood - be it the adrenaline rush that moves “Love For Speed” or the symbolic menstrual blood brought into play on “Blood From the Rock” - is an equally foreboding and inspirational constant. So is the uncertain destiny of old rock and rollers as mulled over in songs like “Black and White Snapshots at the Bottle Tree Bar." When Hutchens tosses out red-eyed lines like “True love is just like a night spent in a $20 motel / With the front desk believing your alias and you halfway believe it yourself,” the "you" in question would be a true jackass to not believe the guy.
Hutchens always excels when attempting to exorcize those pesky personal demons through song. Though it prefaces his current status as a dad and family man, Love Songs for Losers is still no exception. Nonetheless, more longtime rock-and-roll frontmen should be able to manage a solo album this good every lagging sales quarter or so. (Thankfully it’s no She’s the Boss, nor a Let the Music Do the Talking.)Love Songs for Losers is, though, one of the brightest lights grizzled, real-life rockers have had pointed at them in quite awhile. Both Hutchens and the Athens music ‘scape in general are all the better for that.
Lionel Richie
Coming Home
Island
originally published December 13, 2006
Why, you may ask, is Lionel Richie’s new album even worthy of notice, considering that he’s fallen so far as to be parodied in a Starburst commercial? Well, it’s considerably more than some kind of novelty or ironic nostalgia. Richie might be the kind of pop culture reference who can merely be mentioned to elicit laughter, but he’s also just put out one of the strongest albums of his career.
This fact was evoked as a possibility upon the issuing of the first single from it, “I Call It Love,” a tender combination of plucked strings, keyboard doodles, gently insistent beat and Richie’s smooth vocals with a short bridge that ends with a killer harmony on the “and you’re my girl.” But it’s confirmed by the rest of the tunes on the album: the cruising groove of “Sweet Vacation,” the fingersnap-fueled “Why,” the relatively hyper and nasal “Up All Night.” Nearly every song is single-worthy.
None of these accolades should imply, however, that Coming Home is any kind of "retro" soul record. Richie is fully wrapped in the trappings of contemporary R&B, which is part of what’s so pleasing. The particular instrument tones mostly prevalent (bubble more than horn section, artificial over natural) show the same R. Kelly sound that pervades the current scene; it’s a little as though The Beatles had suddenly issued an album with a distinct Oasis influence.
Despite the slight drag toward the end with some more heartfelt, non-pickup-line numbers, Richie deserves some recognition for interacting with the now rather than resorting to the past for all his ideas.
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