Beat the Devil
Beat the Devil
Independent Release
originally published March 21, 2007
Shilpa Ray is not just the voice that upholds Beat The Devil with a rigid wail; the haunting drone behind the lyrics emanates from her instrument of choice - the harmonium. In a musical environment teeming with anti-mainstream bands still utilizing typical instrumentation, Beat the Devil stands out with sharp drums from Mitchell King (a former Athenian and member of Martyr & Pistol), understated and steady bass, thanks to Mishka Shubaly, harmonium and vocals. In other words, there is no guitar and there is no piano. Not that many people are paying too much attention to the instrumentation when Ray sings, howls, croons or wails like a siren - all of which she does equally well on the trio’s EP. Her voice feels at home rumbling with the bass and lilting above it all. Although, in all of this stunning vocalization, what may be complex and wonderful lyricism is mostly overlooked for danceable beats and scat-like interludes.
The EP covers a lot of bases. Opener "Plea Bargain" and also "Idiot’s Guide" hold down a psychedelic blues sound, while "Raging Bull Blues" ticks by at a pace that guarantees the tapping of at least one appendage. However, the stand out song of the recording would have to be "Shine in Exile." Ray refrains “baby, I’ve learned to live inside my head” as the music builds from lulling haunt to nearly hopeful melodic moans and the confession “I’m in love with myself.” It’s okay though; she wouldn’t be the only one in love. Beat the Devil is poised to hypnotize lovers of quirk and creativity.
Dean & Britta
Back Numbers
Rounder / Universal
originally published March 21, 2007
During a scene from Tell Me Do You Miss Me , the documentary that chronicles Luna’s understated 2005 farewell world tour, an unguarded Dean Wareham reveals that he more or less prolonged the life of the sonic-chic indie rock quartet because he fancied bassist Britta Phillips.
Turns out the feeling was mutual and what began as a side project on 2003’s L’Avventura has turned to marriage - and the simplification of their professional handle. It’s just Dean & Britta now, and Back Numbers is a likewise casual affair.
Clean, sparse and elegant, Back Numbers showcases Phillips' penchant for melting knees during darkish lullabies and Wareham’s unmatched sophistication at all times. But it’s when these artists step into under-witnessed, if not uncharted, territories that things get rich. Listen to Phillips' primal vocal wail during the duo’s wonderful resurrection of the Lee Hazlewood tune “You Turned My Head Around” and Wareham's vocals augmented by acoustic guitar and xylophone on “Me & My Babies” to confirm that this is a departure from Luna, Galaxie 500, Jem, Ultrababyfat and every other band and cartoon by which this pair has come to be defined.
Despite (and perhaps because of) a change in direction, Dean & Britta remain as vital as either has been, ever.
Pretty Ricky
Late Night Special
Atlantic
originally published March 21, 2007
If novelty's the way you're going to go to attract attention (and it's a perfectly legitimate route), then you had better ensure your novelty is appealing enough for more than one album or that you can continue to be inventive. Pretty Ricky hasn't proved yet that the group can make it work. The 2005 debut from the four brothers, Bluestars , had a dirty little come-hither quality that mixed Boyz II Men with Juvenile in an endless string of propositions that were at very least amusing. Late Night Special is more of the same, but despite the occasionally jaw-dropping lyrics (“I wanna butter that thang like a baked potato”) and the extremely similar musical sound (a couple of brothers crooning softly, and a couple more alternating between yelling “yeah” and promising to wax that ass), for the most part it doesn't hit the same sweet spot. The lead single “On the Hotline” built on a cascade of “pretty Ricky Ricky Rick-ay” mixed with “so hornay, so hornay,” bluntly makes phone sex seem about as attractive as cleaning the bathroom grout, but it does recapture a little of the original adorable cluelessness.
And “So Confused,” which contains the aforementioned baked potato line, is impressively weird, but R. Kelly's set that bar much too high both lyrically and musically for these dudes to measure up, even additively. With Pretty Ricky, the thrill is mostly gone.
VietNam
VietNam
Kemado
originally published March 21, 2007
The guitar-bass-drums combo and drug-nourished lyrics about dead friends and lost loves is pretty pedestrian fare by this point in rock history. Yet VietNam, a New York quartet formed just before the turn of the millennium, adds something to the stereotype of rock's tendency to treat excess as art. The guys simply sound convincing, from the first low-note plink of the piano on "Step on Inside" to the final violin and slide guitar sweeps of "Too Tired."
Frontman Michael Gerner, an ex-Texas resident, wails in the same harrowing fashion as the late Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon. Gerner's alternately optimistic and fed-up lyrics about scenesters sprawl across the music; with a hoarse, nasal sigh, he sings spontaneously, and at a few glowing moments, recklessly. His fellow VietNamese are, by comparison, relatively tame on this debut full-length CD. They play obediently enough: drummer Michael Foss, bassist Ivan Berko and guitarist Joshua Grubb evoke, at their mellower moments, the spirit of Fleetwood Mac, and, at the rougher times, the Stooges.
Mostly, the crew keeps the atmosphere at mid-tempo, granting Gerner the focus of listeners' attention. This would get annoying, since the vocals do sound preachy, and yet every song sounds fresh, aided by the diversity of styles here. VietNam resembles a '70s country bar band on "Hotel Riverview," psychedelic Velvet Underground acolytes on "Priest, Poet & the Pig," Otis Redding's backup musicians on "Apocalypse."
At every turn, on every chord, they pull off such mini-tributes perfectly. Such mastery comes from years of living together, playing together, touring together and, in rare cases such as these, learning that rock music, for all its cliches, can still be art.
Dälek
Abandoned Language
Ipecac
originally published March 21, 2007
When you're the only doughnut shop in town, you don't have to introduce new flavors of cream filling or start serving Frappuccinos to stay in business. And since the mid-1990s, Dälek's core duo - emcee/producer Dälek and producer Oktopus - have been the only doughnut shop in town with what they do. Over the last decade, no other rap group of note has incorporated progressive song forms and abstract textures into their music without calling into question their identity as a hip-hop act. With each album, these two have tweaked and tightened their songcraft, but they've perpetually failed to deliver the epochal pronouncement that they've always seemed capable of creating.
Abandoned Language , the duo's fourth album, is just different enough from its predecessors to merit a careful listen, but it's ultimately as flawed as any of the past affairs. The key differences are structural. This time, Dälek's choruses feel like genuine hooks, replete with atonal horn swells to offset the fog of static and feedback that obscures each song's verses. But MC Dälek has matured little as a rhetorician: while he raps with a steady, mesmeric cadence, his refrains lack skillful turns of phrase or gripping imagery. "Don't speak to us about strength and upliftment / The closest thing to paradise is mad distant" - sadly, that's as interesting as his rhymes get. He often skimps on lyrical content, too; his rails against pop music minstrelsy and "inept failures of corrupt governments" lack substantiation, illustration and examination.
He even subverts his noble goal of celebrating cultural plurality by leveling essentialist and racist claims - "The tongues I speak" are "intrinsic," while whites wear "the skin of God's bleached." Dude sure could use some cinnamon sprinkles, or something.
Minmae
835
Greyday
originally published March 21, 2007
Started by Sean Brooks to fill recording time left by his former group Thee Psychic Hearts, Minmae has been around since 1998. Brooks, bassist Josh Kempa and drummer Chris Calvert make up the current incarnation of the ever-shifting Portland group.
Ignoring all bandmember rotations, from album to album, Brooks finds a way to mold his haunting indie-rock creation, morphing gently between lyrical melodic songs like "Capitals and Caliphs" to hypnotizingly repetitive and muddy grooves, such as "Next Rounds on Me." Contrasting some of the band's earlier works, 835 shows a strong use of vocal melody, fun Korg riffs, and varying instrumental explorations, including a shortwave radio. Although there are still songs ending in a two chord drone-like jam, they are fewer. "He's Not My Man (He's Not My Jackal)" even leaves the typical indie chords and hard strum for a few moments of classical guitar and jazzy tenor sax (played by Brooks himself).
With the turn away from lulling psychedelic jams, and towards more poppy vocal lines, it might be nice to see Brooks really sing it out on a song or two. His dry voice can lend itself to the background, which does make a nice, smooth track, but doesn't get across the emotion or purpose of the lyrics. The guitars range from support chords to thick grungy riffs, in "The Sun and Mood Show" for example, and his vocals could too. Maybe next album.
Mew
Frengers
Columbia
originally published March 21, 2007
Denmark's Mew released its breakthrough album Frengers in 2003, but it's only now seeing a stateside release. Whereas last year's And the Glass Handed Kites… was almost a rock opera, Frengers shows the band in its simpler days, when merely being a sweeping epic rock band was more than enough. The 10 tracks here are less Sigur Rós than the newer material, but even as a young outfit Mew possessed more than its fair share of ambition.
Imagine Death Cab For Cutie (after giving Ben Gibbard a liberal dose of helium) with a new set of shiny synthesizers. There's a sense of precious wistfulness and emotional bloodletting within the high-energy propulsion of the music. I almost used the word emo, but that's not entirely accurate. "156" does sport lines like "Sincere, you can run away, leave your books behind you," so perhaps such naked earnestness would appeal to the emo kids. Elsewhere, "Snow Brigade" is all fuzzed-out synth-pop bliss. "Symmetry" is a beautiful piano-led ballad with sweet boy/ girl vocals.
Mew is obviously a band that has always been flooded with ideas, and it shows on this early collection. Some might be turned off by the drama-queen stuff and chipmunk voices, but it all clicks pretty nicely. For some shameless crying and cinematic shivers, Frengers is just the ticket.
Panda Bear
Person Pitch
Paw Tracks
originally published March 21, 2007
Being an Animal Collective completist is simply a bitch. Not only is the trio one of the most prolific bands around today, releasing roughly an album a year alongside several singles and EPs, but each member dabbles in a slew of side groups and solo projects. Among all these worthy discs and slabs of vinyl, without a doubt, Panda Bear is the crown jewel. Noah Lennox has in the past couple of years made it clear that he is the purest genius within the Collective, and it is when he is alone that he makes his most inspired music.
Young Prayer was a meditative rumination on death, a spiritual batch of melancholy heavily influenced by Gregorian chant. It was the first time Panda Bear proved he could step completely outside Animal Collective's formidable shadow and create breathtaking music on his own. But for many, the album was lacking in the tribal chaos and Beach Boy-worshiping of the full band's sound, and Young Prayer was relegated to "mood album" status. I've still never heard anything quite like it, and that's high praise. Person Pitch is the polar opposite of its predecessor. What's more, is it very likely might trump any Animal Collective record. There's no more question of who first built the altar to Brain Wilson. Nearly all the eight tracks here burst with sunshine and sheer giddiness, taking the good vibrations of Animal Collective's Feels and Sung Tongs and amping them toward the heavens. "Comfy in Nautica" is nearly all a cappella, but will have you dancing with spliced chanting and handclaps. "Bros" is 10 minutes of revved-up caffeine that blows the little deuce coupe off the road.
As much as the tribalism is an essential part of Animal Collective's sound, it is never missed on an album this inventive, joyful and plain fun. The band and its members are all in their prime, crackling with ideas and ambition, and Lennox is clearly the king of the hill. Every record merely hinting at pop this year will have a tough time even competing with Person Pitch .
The Zincs
Black Pompadour
Thrill Jockey
originally published March 21, 2007
Bloodlessness can work in your favor. A dim-eyed distance, an emotional remove, is an interesting element in some musical works. But artists mining this catatonic ideal must be wary of exuding less weariness and more an actual, real-deal snooze. James Elkington's songwriting vehicle The Zincs precariously sleepwalks this tightrope and finds itself hopelessly subject to the perils involved. Steady grooves and steady drones are the chosen form of expression here, with Elkington's baritone intoning (monotoning?) over the whole bit.
It's all remarkably studied, which would lead one to assume The Zincs are sticking their noses in Stereolab's cache of nerdy record crates. The production is clean, dry and with professional-level separation; Black Pompadour was recorded by John McEntire, of that other vinyl trainspotting icon Tortoise. The guitar tones are perfectly chosen and the licks are meticulously executed. These are players whose interests in armchair jazz-worship reach critical levels; we have here some very overarching attempts at tastefulness.
It all becomes so clear with further listens: The Zincs come from a truly academic, chin-stroking perspective, with some "really good musicianship" that adds up to a very dull sort of minimalism. Even the scant moments of guitar-strangling elbow-throwing seem carefully prepared and planned. It's sad, really; there are some good hooks here, but The Zincs are essentially folks who have immersed themselves so deeply in their research of rock music's world of sonics that they forgot to, y'know, rock, dude. To paraphrase a bandmate: apparently, in the future, no one has sex. Boring!
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