Jon McLaughlin
Indiana
Island
originally published May 9, 2007
For anyone familiar with the grassroots acoustic-pop scene and names like Dave Barnes, Mat Kearney and Marc Broussard, the name Jon McLaughlin might ring a bell. For the last couple of years, the young piano-playing songwriter has been touring with the likes of these, all while graduating from college, leaving his small hometown, and developing the sense of self any of us in our 20’s are busy doing as well. To say that he’s come a long way from Anderson, IN, and classical piano training would be an understatement. Indiana is McLaughlin’s first full-length on Island Records, where he signed in 2005 after a scout discovered him on the Internet. His current fan base grows mostly by word of mouth, and myspace, although the clear hope of the marketing department is that Indiana will catapult him into a mainstream pop heartthrob.
It’s a possibility. The album is glossy and easy. Songs that clearly originated as piano and vocals became orchestrated and, at times, over-produced in the way of many first major label releases. Songs like "Industry" and "Praying to the Wrong God" strike the ears as sing along friendly top-40 radio; while the real tracks worth checking out more than twice are "Beautiful Disaster," a simple and melodic song about the iconic broken girl in need of rescue, and the ever-catchy "Human," with the merciful “after all, we’re only human” chorus.
References to piano pop icons like Billy Joel and Ben Folds might be slightly premature, but with a few clever lyrical twists and a stronger edge, the potential might lie just under the surface.
Sonia Tetlow
From a Seed of Sand
Elbo
originally published May 9, 2007
Sonia Tetlow does not make my kind of music. She’s bluesy, for example, and the blues aren’t my thing; even the classic stuff doesn’t get that far under my skin. The production on her new album is absolutely vintage 1990s Atlanta, too, with that sharply echoing Rob Gal sound that makes the studio sound tiny. Her guitars are dirty in a way we’ve largely gotten beyond in our popular music.
All that considered, it’s impressive how much From a Seed of Sand endears itself even to the fundamentally suspicious. Tetlow’s voice is a large part of this - thin, breathy, wailing and ultimately haunting. The darkness in it isn’t studied, and it isn’t off-putting. It’s less Amy Lee and more about the enjoyment factor of being scared and perhaps a bit depressed, the feeling you might have gotten back in your school days being the only person left awake after a night of deep conversation, the sky lightening but the sun not warming anything yet. Is it a Louisiana thing? Folks from that state do tend to be able to go more over the top than the rest of us without annoying.
This record is quieter, more contemplative than some of Tetlow’s others, with hardly a song breaking a sweat in energy seemingly expended or tempo. It’s mostly a collection of three-minute mournful, country-influenced howls, from the opener (“Bittersweet”) to “Whiskey Dream” to the penultimate “Quicksand,” all driven by a guitar that mimics Tetlow’s cries, a banshee/siren having a late drink on her front porch, pulling you in against your will.
Paper Airplanes
Boyhood
54°40' or Fight
originally published May 9, 2007
Wichita’s Paper Airplanes have put together an absurdly epic sounding album for a debut. More than a couple tracks on Boyhood start small, guitar and drum, or solo piano, or techno beep, but soon grow into glorious layer-cakes of sound - chimes, fuzzy distortions, strings, multipart vocal lines, jingle bells, and enough drums for some entire albums.
All of this organized, extended mess calls to mind a little prog rock into what is otherwise an almost playful, albeit complicated, indie rock vibe. Every song has something different, each with its own slightly off-kilter melody and intricate choice of instrumentation. While "PDA" cites appropriately techie sounds that will make you check if you’ve blown your car speaker - maybe more than once - on "Appalachia" lead singer Marcus Stoesz croons “I shouldn’t look forward to my final day without first living” over banjo and cello.
The first half of the album might as well be a highlight of its own. Somewhere in the middle, though, Boyhood seems to lose some individualistic energy with each passing song. None of it is bad, but by the end, the anti-minimalist onslaught has worn you down like babysitting a toddler after a Halloween candy binge. Luckily Paper Airplanes let you down easily, ending with the most gentle track "Suburban Sprawl," only using a handful of instruments.
Paper Airplanes is off to a good start - epic songs about growing up and moving on, if a little overdone. Maybe just they’ll tone it down just one notch next time. The band's set to release another album, Noah’s Ark, this year so we’ll see soon enough.
Louis
Freak Show Revenge EP
Superphonic
originally published May 9, 2007
Any album that starts with the lyrics “I feel confident that a straight jacket is not in my future,” can’t be too bad. And this is just how Louis’ EP Freak Show Revenge begins. Luckily it doesn’t go downhill from there, but it doesn’t move too far either.
Louis is Louis Schefano, formerly as the drummer of Remy Zero and an early incarnation of former local band Little Red Rocket, and leader of late-90’s band Regia. After a short break from writing, Louis has returned with that gentle, lo-fi DIY sound that endears deep thinkers and low-key indie kids. His relatively simple guitar riffs, poignant lyrics about not taking your own advice and sad optimism all put to melancholy vocal melodies make for songs that cling to one's brain for hours after the five-song EP has stopped playing.
And there's something cyclical about Freak Show Revenge. Perhaps a play on repeat will lead to hypnotism into some gray, lulling existence. After all, the album peaks early at track two with the most upbeat song "My Own Good," and then returns to the slower droning sound found in the opening title track. Leave this on too long, and you might be the one in the market for a straight jacket. But you can’t be too upset about it; at least you’d feel calm.
Hot New Mexicans
Wah… 7"
Fast Crowd
originally published May 9, 2007
It’s been a long time since a band has evoked a feeling in me that has as much to do with false-nostalgia for a place I’ve never been to as it does to do with real nostalgia for a music. From about 1988 through 1994, specific instances aside, the world of punk rock was tuned directly to San Francisco’s East Bay, and if a record came from there, any ardent listener assumed it was at least worth checking out. Listening to those records caused me to form my own impressions of what that city and scene was like. When I hear those records now, I remember my impressions and delusions.
Hot New Mexicans are an Athens band whose music is urgent, playful and necessary, tuneful to the point of sing-a-long but with an underpinning of thoughtful lyricism. In “You’re All Wrong” the band disgustedly sizes up the casual dismissals we’ve all seen (“You never have to tell anybody that they’re okay / You never have to see anybody if that’s just fine / You never have to feel unsafe so just listen to what they say/pinched nose and wiped off handshakes / I know when I’m wrong / But this time you’re all wrong”). The song is fast-paced but the drums and bass fall out slightly right as singer Patrick Jennings exhaustedly delivers the punch of the last two lines. And it all happens in under two minutes.
“Rigor Mortis” is arranged similar to a country song with its piano lines and a chorus that drops into a minor key as it begins. It’s mid-tempo and appropriate given the lyrics, which, although not clear, are heart-rending.
A key to what ties this record to the East Bay for me is the handwritten artwork on the inside sleeve, which looks very much like that of ‘zine author Aaron Cometbus. Musically, though, it’s a shared - even if only subconsciously - aesthetic of mature, highly thematic lyrics steeped in a musical palette that runs a tight gamut. There was a time when the East Bay wasn’t self conscious, but honest. Hot New Mexicans are honest. One of the benefits of being slightly older than most of the folks who will hear this record is that I can enjoy relating it to a past but, also, more importantly, this record serves as a call for guys in the their 30s like me to shelve their nostalgia, and a reminder that the best has yet to happen. And that the best is always happening. For the 10 minutes or so that Wah… runs, Hot New Mexicans are happening.
Arctic Monkeys
Favourite Worst Nightmare
Domino
originally published May 9, 2007
The first album is the one you’ve had your entire life to make. The second album is the one you’ve had about a year to make, while balancing the pressure of Herculean expectations, a drugged-out supermodel girlfriend and bandmates who say “you forgot where you came from and don’t care about the music anymore, man.” That said, the UK’s most instantly successful band of teenagers is back with a follow-up.
The Arctic Monkeys have managed to put together a collection of hooky dance-rock songs that don’t outshine the tracks on the band’s debut, but don’t fall under their shadow either. Basically, the Arctic Monkeys devised a way to evolve ever-so-slightly - enough to please old fart music critics, but not a large enough change to scare away the teenage girls who comprise the majority of the band’s fanbase.
The first five or so tracks on Favourite Worst Nightmare seem pretty obvious for an Arctic Monkeys record: rowdy hard rockers with distinct and fuzzy guitar hooks played at ungodly speeds and, of course, the charming voice of singer Alex Turner. Explosive album opener “Brainstorm” sets the pace - think a hefty dose of speed chased with a sludgy Himalayan dark roast. This pace remains essentially unchanged for five songs. “Only One Who Knows” brings this momentum to a firm halt with reverb-heavy, one-strum guitar chords and toned down vocals. This is just about the only respite on the entire album. From there, the record continues to move at a fevered pace.
Favourite Worst Nightmare does very little to expand upon the Arctic Monkeys' debut; it emphasizes what the band does well: making catchy, rapid-fire, fuzzed-out ditties with distinguishable parts and Cockney vocals. The formula obviously works well for the pimpled UK foursome. Most impressive.
Snatches of Pink
Love is Dead
8th House
originally published May 9, 2007
Chapel Hill's Snatches of Pink has been around for a couple of decades, and with only one original member still aboard - singer and guitarist Michael Rank - it's hard to believe that the latest album Love is Dead can still rally the same enthusiasm Rank's former efforts evoked. But regardless of lineup, Rank & Co. are still making the same slurred high-spirited, raunchy, blues-y, rock and roll that's made them underground darlings since the late '80s. This newest offering sounds like someone dragged Keith Richards' drugged-out ass back into the studio for some raw guitar licks and genius arrangements.
Except it's even smarter than that. The lyrics are impassioned and ecstatic at times, and desperate and neurotic at others. "Alice" is one such track that manages to blur the emotional line between self-pity and stoicism, "I ain't got nothing no more, ain't gonna be here no more, ain't gonna wait here no more." One can only imagine how impressive a live show must be, but make no mistake, this isn't stadium rock. This kind of band sounds like it does best in a smoke-filled seedy bar somewhere outside the city limits of Caution.
The first track on the album, appropriately named "Rocks," does just that. With its sexy, slinky attitude and fuzzed out guitar, this track should be played with the volume set to 11. "Smiles," "High Plains" and "Miscue" are also ridiculously good, but again, trying to find a track that sucks is like trying to bite your own teeth; it just won't happen.
The Sum
Everyone EP
Independent Release
originally published May 9, 2007
The local husband and wife team of Chris and Felicity Combs make up The Sum, who in turn make lovely, moody pop sounds on the debut EP Everyone. Self-recorded and produced, the six-song collection moves together quite well and sounds pleasantly balanced, avoiding the common pitfalls of over-production and echo-y bathroom rough cuts.
Felicity sings and plays the piano, while Chris mostly sticks to guitar and mandolin. The setup might be a little traditional, and basic, but not much else than an occasional drumbeat is needed. Felicity’s clear and powerfully feminine voice calls to mind Nichole Nordeman or Kat Maslich of Eastmountainsouth, and carries the songs, mostly ballads, with ease. Each track can boast insightful lyrics that flow easily and poetically with the music.
If there is a complaint here, it’s that the music is almost too pretty. "Black Mountain" has some unexpected jazzy turns, but songs like "Fool’s Gold" and "Everyone" forget to remind you to keep listening despite poignant and soulful wording. On the whole, the EP gives off a calm, inspirational mood to please acoustic pop fans and lovers of chill coffeeshop ballads.
Robin Thicke
The Evolution of Robin Thicke
Star Trak / Interscope
originally published May 9, 2007
So what makes the guy - who’s mostly known for sampling “A Fifth of Beethoven” in his debut single “When I Get You Alone” five years ago - think he can put out a 72-minute CD of mostly slow jams? Maybe it’s the fact that the Neptunes signed him to their label, or maybe it’s the underlying narrative of loss, rehab and redemption that runs through most of the more boring songs.
Thicke’s always had a pretty voice, like Timberlake with some of the edges smoothed, that works best in a hushed falsetto, and songs like “Lost Without U,” a Latin-accented number with muted runs of strings and a repeated distorted cymbal crash, use it to wonderful effect. The problem with the album is that it’s too long and too slow. “When I Get You Alone” was a rush of indulgent ridiculousness that couldn’t help but hook you, but The Evolution of Robin Thicke doesn’t have anything with that kind of energy;. The exceptions here are “I Want Everything,” which could almost be in a vintage Warner Brothers cartoon featuring a caricature of Carmen Miranda, and “Cocaine,” which captures a paranoid and addictive world-view. Otherwise, it’s pretty much all gentle bossa novas that you’re supposed to put on in the background as you make sweet love to your woman.
There’s a place for that, but, even if Thicke’s happier and better adjusted post-evolution, the crazy hot monkey love that his earlier stuff felt like was a little more fun. We dance slower as we get older, apparently.
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