Perpetual Groove
LiveLoveDie
Tree Leaf Music
originally published April 4, 2007
The twangy, percussive grind of Stephen Stills' Manassas derailed by the pureed sonics and modern rock yawp of Matchbox Twenty: that's how opener "Save for One" goes. This track indicates the polished, reigned-in approach that Perpetual Groove takes throughout its third album LiveLoveDie. But fans of the local group's improvisational live shows needn't worry that their favorite band has gone pop. There are plenty of jam-tastic points of departure to be found in these songs' bridges and codas, and the group still mines the catholic row of influences - acoustic Americana, pummeling alt-rock, hypno-funk, half-assed electronica - with which its proggier prior efforts were assembled.
Occasionally, LiveLoveDie even rewards the kind of close listening that's impractical during the group's hedonistic concerts. In "It Starts Where It Ends," vocalist Brock Butler meditates on determinism; during the chorus, he takes comfort in remembering that day-to-day hardships are scripted "in the master plan," but by the song's climax, he's frustrated with the futility of human endeavor. "Still you try and try but you know," he sings, "some things in life will never go your way."
In fact, the burden of living under the subjection of an undefined, cosmically sovereign entity weighs on every track. Or so it seems when Butler's haranguing croon and the band's fireworks-heavy thwack (melo)dramatize stock rock-song topics like revenge, break-ups and country drives. P-Groove invests every moment with the sort of grandeur you feel when you're certain that everything's happening for a reason. But this bigness fails to translate into richness. For one thing, the album's over-compressed mastering makes each song's verse as blaring and sweeping as the subsequent crashing chorus; even Merzbow records boast a more dynamic sonic than this album does. Butler's lyrics also lack flavor and detail. They're littered with so many vagaries and antecedent-less pronouns that Butler fails to convey universal stories and sentiments, and instead tosses out anonymous palimpsests.
P-Groove's sound and fury might provide a headrush when consumed live, but when it comes to the subtle touches that make for perpetually rewarding albums, LiveLoveDie disappoints.
Perpetual Groove is playing at the Georgia Theatre on Friday, Apr. 6 and Saturday, Apr. 7.
Entropy
Crawl
Funk Shop
originally published April 4, 2007
Entropy’s creed “may the funk be with you,” blazoned atop its website, should really be restated as “listen to us, and the funk WILL be with you, like it or not.” The members of this formerly Athenian crew (with at least four constant members and a host of rotating contributors and live artists) can come across as funk purists, citing obvious influences such as P-Funk and James Brown and Prince as the geniuses that music should return to for guidance. But this is mostly for show.Crawl, the group’s second full-length studio album, following 2004’s Live+Rebel+Funk+Love, blends a healthy dose of throwback funk with more contemporary hip-hop and world-beat sounds. That hip-hop and rap lyricism style, though, is less T.I. or even Tupac, and entirely more Grandmaster Flash. Not that anyone said that’s a bad thing.
Highlights on Crawl include the R&B lost-love ballad "Anymore," the danceable title track, and "We Came to Funk," which is the stereotypical horn-and-keys-heavy funk jam. A live improv version should be at least three times the song's four-minute track-length; if it’s not, that would be a crime against the genre and all it stands for. Honestly though, Crawl is a feel-good, get-your-body-moving kind of album, with a few social commentary songs though still party-oriented. Entropy says we all have to “crawl before we walk,” but this kind of crawling kind of makes me want to go right to dancing.
Entropy is playing at the Georgia Theatre on Wednesday, Apr. 4.
Mr. Gnome
Mr. Gnome EP
Independent Release
originally published April 4, 2007
The liner notes for Mr. Gnome’s self-titled EP credits Sam Meister on drums, but these drums are so cold and clinical-sounding that it’s hard to believe they couldn’t have achieved the same result with a machine. In fact, were I to type “drums,” “guitar,” “female vocals that really do give this whole thing a chance of appealing to fans of Evanescence and such whether the band appreciates that comparison or not,” and “quiet/ loud dynamics that are fairly predictable when considering the tattered angel wings imagery included in the cover art, despite a sense that the band is trying pretty hard to be unpredictable” into my huge rock-and-roll generating computer, the resulting sounds would likely be very close to those found on this recording.
After about 20 seconds of the opening song, “Truffle Shuffle,” it is fairly obvious that Cleveland duo Mr. Gnome is hoping that you will be knocked out of your socks by the way they segue a simple little bluesy guitar line into a moody, loud, MTV2-ready groove. A similar trick is employed in the final track, “Long Three Years,” but instead of trying to make it “heavy” they go for “trippy” (I guess?) by way of wah-guitar and echo. Ladies and gentlemen, my socks remain firmly attached.
Mr. Gnome is proof that sometimes the harder you focus on avoiding by-the-numbers rock, the closer you come to creating your own clichés rather than your own sounds. Vocalist-guitarist Nicole Barille has skills that could be put to good use, if only she could figure out how to make them sound honest.
Mr. Gnome is playing at the Caledonia Lounge on Friday, Apr. 6.
Aegis of Athena
Code of Infamy EP
Independent Release
originally published April 4, 2007
It is possible in this world for a musical group to draw very heavily from its influences and retain its own sense of credibility while remaining innovative. The Shins, for example, can get away with sometimes bearing an uncanny resemblance to The Zombies because they undoubtedly bring something new to the pop table. This also works for Ted Leo’s obvious reverence for a young Elvis Costello. Sometimes I can’t believe that Isis has actually managed to become bigger than the band it started out aping, Neurosis, but there it is. In the metal underground, you have a group like Toxic Holocaust, which sounds exactly like the best of '80s thrash but which makes it work by being a logical continuation of the style rather than purely an imitation.
On their debut recording, the guys in Athens’ Aegis of Athena do not make it clear that they really understand this admittedly difficult distinction. There are certainly notes being played, and it all sounds very big and polished. But what I actually hear when I listen to these songs is not so much music as it is over-anxious youth and a wealth of misdirected talent. They can obviously shred, and are reasonably brutal, but I'm not moved by this shredding brutality. I have grown weary of the random-pile-o'-riffs structure that has dominated songwriting in this suburban melodic hardcore/ metal thing since, I suppose, the guys in Zao and Darkest Hour found out about At the Gates in the mid-'90s, and that approach is pretty much what Code of Infamy offers.
Good riffs mean nothing without cohesion, and the same old chugga breakdowns have never counted as good riffs. I sincerely hope that the men of Aegis of Athena will become more ambitious with their obvious and ample foundation of talent in the future; with some focus and clarity of direction, this group could be truly devastating.
Aegis of Athena is playing at Tasty World on Thursday, June 7.
Adult.
Why Bother?
Thrill Jockey
originally published April 4, 2007
The Detroit duo Adult. must've sent out promo copies of its new album, Why Bother? with some trepidation. After all, it's a record whose elements all scream electroclash - analog drum machines, distorted keyboard tones, cold female vocals speak-singing repetitious and nebulously hostile lyrics - and electroclash is dead. Or it's at least wholly disgraced; it certainly lives on in acts that have branched out from that basic formula into lush disco, pastoral reveries or straight industrial, but electroclash's conscious embrace of faddishness and pretensions to commercialism made it necessarily disposable, and taking on its signifiers is viewed as gauche enough to discredit anyone.
Electroclash gets a bad rap, but unfortunately, Adult. doesn't do anything here to redeem it. The lyrics could pass for Nine Inch Nails - one song, "Herd Me," goes "Yes, there's safety in your herd, but what if it's mad / A mad mad mad mad man might say... / 'Just follow me down, down to doomsday" - and Nicola Kuperus' vocal delivery could be interesting if it weren't wedded to these over-the-top sentiments.
It's likely Adult. intends its music to stand alongside electronic noise acts, especially Wolf Eyes, who seem to get a free pass by labeling themselves "experimental." But the band can't suppress its pop elements, as songs like "I Feel Worse When I'm With You" outline an energetic drive even as they annoy. It would be interesting to see Adult. follow its peers down the path towards more emotional complexity and textural openness, but here the duo sticks with its ersatz psychosis, to its detriment.
Adult. is playing at the EARL in Atlanta on Thursday, Apr. 12.
John Mellencamp
Freedom’s Road
Universal
originally published April 4, 2007
One can’t fault John Mellencamp’s first album of original material in five years for inconsistency or lack of professionalism. As per usual, the venerable Farm Aid partner sounds in fine form, as does his crack session band. However, if anything keeps Freedom’s Road from becoming more than a run-of-the-mill entry in his cannon, it’s that the thing just sounds too damn “Mellencampy.”
Mellencamp has long made an above-average living writing songs from the perspective of the average-wage-earning American. With tracks like “The Americans” and the Chevy-approved “Our Country” on board, Freedom’s Road is no exception. However, with a Democratic congressional sweep, Hurricane Katrina fallout and further public disapproval of Mideast violence all occurring within Mellencamp’s hiatus, lyrics deeper than “I try to understand all the cultures of this world / I am an American from the Midwest” - apparently intended as sarcasm despite the smile-o'-riffic melody - would’ve worked in favor of the contemporary Americana-themed album.
Freedom’s Road is not without some stiff punches, though. Joan Baez joins Mellencamp on the low-key “Jim Crow” and “Rural Route,” a summation of recent child abduction news stories, adopts an ominous country feel. In fact, several songs here employ a proven Mellencamp bit o’ trickery - serious, immediate lyrics set to a toe-tapping, happy-go-lucky tune. That’s nothing new as shown by catalog favorites like “Jack and Diane” and “Authority Song.” Unfortunately, much of Freedom’s Road lacks both the teeth and balls needed to make such a lasting impression. The former Johnny Cougar does, though, take a few direct swipes at The White House here, but you’ll have to skip ahead to the hidden bonus track to hear ‘em.
Cyann & Ben
Sweet Beliefs
Ever
originally published April 4, 2007
I am imagining the members of Paris, France’s Cyann & Ben in a small rocketship sometime in 2005, circling the moon and looking out of small windows at an Earthrise. As they think about their families back home, it occurs to them that their previous two albums Spring and Happy Like an Autumn Tree were mostly unfocused and stale affairs that seemed to somehow mope insincerely as though a druggier Stereolab while also striving (and, just barely, failing) to attain the cinematic poignancy of some of their post-rock contemporaries like Sigur Rós. Cyann & Ben see the stars without the filter of Earth’s atmosphere and yearn to do their mothers proud.
More importantly, they realize that they could convey the experience of this journey to the moon and back while retaining the distinguishing factors that kept their previous work from being totally forgettable. Sweet Beliefs could be the result of this hypothetical epiphany. The celestial synth noodling that was always their most promising and distinguishing dynamic factor has finally found cohesion with the incremental guitar chording and unambitious (but appropriate) vocals that continue to define their sound. The bandmembers finally seem to have figured how to make all of their instruments sing as one rather than as different parts clattering together.
Cyann & Ben have always been, and remain, a wistful group, though Sweet Beliefs is less morose and more confident in its approach to this end than before. Fans of latter-day Low certainly have something to enjoy here, and now that they have done a respectable job of creating an album (for this is certainly best when absorbed attentively as a whole) as opposed to a mere collection of mediocre songs, Cyann & Ben might actually have some appeal for patient fans of Mogwai and their ilk who can appreciate the synths and understated vocal approach.
While certainly not album-of-the-year material, the maturation exhibited by Cyann & Ben on Sweet Beliefs is akin to the difference between showing someone a stilted poem you wrote about how the sky makes you feel at sunset and showing someone a photograph of a sparse forest bathed in low light and letting them figure it out on their own.
Kebert.xela
kebert.xela EP
Independent Release
originally published April 4, 2007
"Class, you must be vigilant, and always remember to be very careful with the vocoder. Can anyone tell me why? You, in the back, go ahead. Because it will sound too robotic? Yes, that's a good reason. Also because it can easily sound very '80s, and you all know what that means, generally. The vocoder is a fickle friend and will turn on you without warning if you do not use it wisely. Most do not do this. Take a new example, and the reason I've brought this up today in class. Kebert.xela is a duo new here in Athens, and the debut self-titled EP from roommates Chris Howe and Doug Saylor is beginning to float the streets. Two tracks in particular wield vocodered singing.
"Now, '(Pre) Evolution' is a mild post-funk sort of thing, with basic computerized beats and some fluid guitar work. Not at all bad… until those vocals come in. These are only lightly tweaked, and that's a blessing. The closing track 'Morning of the Giants (Bloodvessels)' sports vocals that have been rendered pure science fiction, like a dying droid on another world. Let me just say, class, that it's fortunate that the majority of the seven songs here are instrumental.
"My other major contention is the percussion on the record. Take a moment to listen to the final song more closely, somehow tuning out the vocals. What can you tell me about the beats? Smithson? Exactly, they are largely generic to an extreme. Yes, those are basic computer handclaps quite overused. There are some natural live-sounding drums in here that prevent the piece from utterly failing, but the vocals and cheesy claps do detract greatly from an otherwise admirable post-rock-lite performance. Beats like these guilty ones also plague the rest of the music here.
"There's the bell. For next session, each of you shall produce an effective vocoder recording. Tread lightly, for as I said before, the vocoder is a fickle friend."
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