Misfortune 500

Before This Winter Ends

Independent Release

originally published May 16, 2007

I've been trying to figure out what Misfortune 500 is aiming for with its new album Before This Winter Ends. The only answer I can come up with is that they're just playing rock and roll. You remember rock? Which for someone in my position is the equivalent of a food critic writing that a particular restaurant's steak tartar tastes like raw meat. In other words, "Duh."

The Athens quartet has been around town for a few years now, quietly studying the annals of the last two decades of good-old rock music. A hundred bands come to mind when listening to Before This Winter Ends - some over the course of the eight tracks, while some just pop up during a particular song. "Coercito Mentis," for example, is like a sexy Tim-era Replacements tune, its contained swagger and whiskeyed vocals sending up a blurred lament. It's the ballad. "Don't Fall," conversely, sounds like an amalgam of U2 and the Killers with a dash of Face to Face. It's anthemic and that's the key, really the one unifying quality of the record. That post-punk revival movement that's still going strong right now has obviously rubbed off on Pascal Cureton, Natalie Gazaway, Lemuel Hayes and Chisolm Thompson, and I continuously hear the heartfelt punk of the early to mid-'90s: the aforementioned Face to Face, Samiam, et al.

The bottom line is it's a fine line, and given the wrong mood, very, very easy to bash this kind of band and its sound; it's a sound that is, inevitably, derivative, but the truth is I have nothing but mostly kudos to hand out. Misfortune 500 is better than most of the current groups of this ilk, and Before This Winter Ends is among the best-produced local products I've heard in some time.

Michael Wehunt

Misfortune 500 is playing at the Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta on Saturday, May 19.

Mice Parade

Mice Parade

Fat Cat

originally published May 16, 2007

Adam Pierce is good at being in limbo. His seventh album under the name Mice Parade (Scrabble fans should pay close attention to the name) finds the New Yorker and friends caught in a twilight zone between intricate post-rock and the coffeehouse. This is certainly an increasing occurrence, as more and more bands that used to travel the tried-and-true roads of noisier post-rock are now speeding down shinier pop freeways. Hell, most genres are hopping on this bandwagon. Of course, Mice Parade has never been Mogwai, by any means. Pierce's music has always been built upon ingenious drumming and stunning guitar strumming, and the new album is no exception.

But as with his last full-length, Bem-Vinda Vontade, focus has once more shifted to vocals. They're everywhere. Former Múm singer (and wife of Avey Tare from Animal Collective) Kristin Anna Valtysdottir once again lends her stoned asthmatic fairy voice, here dueting on the breezy "Double Dolphins on the Nickel." Pierce's voice reminds one more and more of a monotone folk singer, so it's surprising that the pairing works so well. Elsewhere, Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier shares the mic with Pierce on "Tales of Las Negras," which somehow carries a Radiohead vibe. Another telltale sign that Mice Parade has "grown up" is the decreasing reliance upon computers. More than ever, the nylon guitars wow, the songwriting clicks and the drums often sound like they have to be programmed.

While nearly every Mice Parade release is both enjoyable and enough of a departure from the previous record, there's just not that extra something worth a return to Pierce's music time and time and time again. He's almost to that magic place, though, and Mice Parade is as good a place as any for the uninitiated to start.

Michael Wehunt

Mice Parade is playing at the EARL in Atlanta on Wednesday, May 30.

Athens Boys Choir

Jockstraps and Unicorns

Independent Release

originally published May 16, 2007

Think back to your first kiss and how it felt like a bevy of bats trapped in your guts. And you were wondering if all that time you spent practicing with a pillow or smooching the back of your hand was worth it. Want that tingle in your belly again? Track three called "Daffodils and Macramé" on Athens Boys Choir’s latest album Jockstraps and Unicorns helps recreate that sensation.

Or you know that feeling of Athens’ pride you get when the outside temperature reaches the mid-60s in February while all your friends Up North have seven inches of fresh snow? That’s the feeling of civic self-esteem you’ll get when you hear track one, aptly titled "Athens, GA."

With Jockstraps and Unicorns, you’ll know why Katz - now the solo member of Athens Boys Choir - has caught ears; his spoken word poetry and musical hybridity will leave you with a jimmy-crack-corn smile.

While this album has some jive tunes, it also has, at times, a somber mood. Katz’s social commentary is evocative and profound. Like Athens Boys Choir’s first three albums, Jockstraps and Unicorns has love poems, dance songs, and covers a bushel of taboo topics. Although Jockstraps and Unicorns probably wouldn't have made the best Mother’s Day present, listening to it will leave you with an up-to-no-good Southern smile.

Kelli Bivins

The Innocence Mission

We Walked in Song

Badman

originally published May 16, 2007

We Walked in Song is the latest album from the husband and wife duo of Don and Karen Peris and bassist Mike Bitts, featuring 11 of the most ethereal sounding songs this side of the Mason-Dixon. One of their strongest albums to date, We Walked in Song contains wistful and blithe acoustic melodies over sparse drum and electric guitar. The seamless arrangement and overall organic nature of the album is due in part to the album being mixed and recorded by Don at his home. Karen Peris' voice is like that of some melancholy angel, juxtaposing intense feelings of longing and regret with those of hope and wonderment. Vocally, Karen has been compared to such artists as Hope Sandoval, Harriet Wheeler and Emmylou Harris, but her ability to inflect her own harmonies as if her voice was an instrument itself belie any strong resemblances to the other singer-songwriters.

Lyrically, the words come like unpretentious springtime poetry: "The time of mistakes - will it ever change to another time, like a season when the snow will slide off the house and leave the house clean?" Pastoral references and rustic rural settings litter the album. We Walk in Song, however, peaks rather early, with the second track "Happy Birthday." The rest of the album stays on a pretty even keel, never escalating past urgent crooning.

If you're ever in need of being lulled to sleep or if you ever wanna wake up and view the world through rose-colored spectacles, We Walked in Song is an album for you. It's easy like Sunday morning.

Charley Lee

Todd Snider

Peace, Love and Anarchy (Rarities, B-Sides and Demos, Vol. 1)

Oh Boy!

originally published May 16, 2007

Unofficial East Nashville goodwill ambassador Todd Snider serves up a collection of rough takes, b-sides and live tracks on Peace, Love and Anarchy - a cohesive stopgap release from the easygoing singer-songwriter. Collected from the vaults of Snider’s stay at the John Prine-helmed Oh Boy! label, the collection nicely tidies up tracks that are either making the rounds for the first time or have previously been dripped down to Snider devotees through numerous bootlegs.

“Combover Blues” and “Deja Blues,” the latter written alongside Texan songsmith Billy Joe Shaver, are the kind of humorous, nose-thumbing tunes that Snider’s long been known for and, though only a single entry from the lost Todd Sings Jerry Jeff album sessions turns up here, Snider’s rendition of Mr. Walker’s ramblin’ ode “Stoney” is a fine pick, indeed. Elsewhere are a few unreleased acoustic songs written with another Texan troubadour, Jack Ingram, as well as the full-tilt rocker “Cheatham Street Warehouse,” dedicated to a favorite stage of Snider’s and featuring four-on-the-floor accompaniment from several onstage comrades such as guitarist Tommy Womack and pedal steel man Lloyd Green.

Peace, Love and Anarchy is and is not your standard rare'n'bare-type album. Demos, live tracks and other loose change comprise it, but the quality of the material included makes it a welcome visit rather than a forgettable castoff. After all, Snider’s songs - with nicotine warble and goofy wit in check - consistently make for good company with or without the fuzz pedal on.

Michael Andrews

Pit Er Pat

Pyramids

Thrill Jockey

originally published May 16, 2007

Pyramids is the second full-length from Pit Er Pat, a trio from Chicago that works primarily with bass, drums and organ. Among the members from Pit Er Pat's many notable attributes is the fact that they aren't overly antiseptic. They have some personality that often breaks through the icy veneer of their pristine musical experimentation. That's fairly unique for an art-rock band from Chicago, especially one whose album is produced by Tortoise's John McEntire.

Most of this personality is due to the awkward voice and lyrics of vocalist and organist Fay Davis-Jeffers. She sounds and scans like a tentative schoolgirl, or like Marissa Nadler - if that new-fangled folk singer put a little less effort into sounding antiquated and naïve. Davis-Jeffers' singing is natural and guileless, and thus alternately endearing and annoying. On the lilting duet "Time Monster" her voice is appropriately dreamy yet grounded. On "Baby's First", though, the very next song, her singing is awkward and uncomfortable enough to sound like outsider music.

Pit Er Pat's music can be similarly off-putting. Atmosphere often takes precedence over memorable melodies. Davis-Jeffers and her partners Butchy Fuego (drums) and Rob Doran (bass) are both highly skilled at their chosen instruments, but they don't offer a whole lot to latch onto other than simple admiration of these skills. Musically Pyramids is pleasant but aimless, a record full of discursive jams based around repetitive but rhythmically complex patterns and phrases. It's certainly impressive, but rarely exciting.

This contrast between musical precision and disarmingly unsophisticated singing is the most interesting aspect of Pyramids. It's not quite a unique predicament, and in fact at times it makes Pit Er Pat feel like a less accomplished and nuanced Gang Gang Dance. Still, Pit Er Pat has developed an intriguing, if not always fulfilling, sound, and hopefully the trio can continue to refine and improve it on future recordings.

Garrett Martin