The Everybodyfields

Nothing Is Okay

Ramseur

originally published September 12, 2007

Despite the rainbowy cover of the new record, The Everybodyfields are neither twee nor happy, being instead miners of the trad-Americana vein similar to their compatriots and occasional tour buddies the Avett Bros. Where the Avetts lift one up with their harmonies and banjo, the Everybodyfields are determined to get you good and depressed. If you just broke up with your loved one, this would be a pretty good record to spin while you pour the tequila.

Tennessee's Sam Quinn and Jill Andrews mostly alternate vocal duties (he is stretched-out and taffy-like, more obviously mournful, androgynous; she is pure and Kim Carnes-ish at the same time, with a stronger voice), but do best when they mingle, like on the opening song, "Aeroplane," a dark tale of disastrous dreams. It's all quite well done, but the occasional ray of sunshine would be nice. Depression melts distinctions away to prolong itself, and these miserable songs run together a bit, even if one really tries to separate them from each other. It's a mood more than anything else, and while it's an extremely effectively rendered mood, it doesn't allow a lot of breathing space. Nicely recorded, smart, with a great range of countrified instrumentation, but ultimately Nothing Is Okay is a little somnolent.

Hillary Brown

The Everybodyfields are playing at the Melting Point on Thursday, Sept. 13.

Vic Chesnutt

North Star Deserter

Constellation

originally published September 12, 2007

Vic Chesnutt packs more vocal eccentricity into one syllable than freak-folk warblers like Devendra Banhart can into entire albums, and he's penned some of the richest, most literary pop lyrics of the last two decades. But he's always been aware that one auteur does not a fantastic album make, so he's often tapped top-notch musicians to help him flesh out his songs. Through the course of his career, he's called on talents as diverse as chamber-pop collective Lambchop and Brian Wilson-collaborator Van Dyke Parks, not to mention an all-star cast of Athens-based players.

For North Star Deserter, Chesnutt partnered with a diverse crew whose aesthetic seems (at first) distant from his own. Members of scads of incestuous, Montreal-based instrumental rock outfits like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Hangedup, and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band lend their talents, as does Fugazi's Guy Picciotto. These accompanists add sawing strings, ambient field recordings, tormented electric guitars and, ultimately, lots and lots of volume; for once, Chesnutt's songs are as cinematic as they are poetic. In "Everything I Say" - one of the many tracks that exceed five minutes in length - the wall-of-sound works to dazzling effect: acoustic mumblings burst into scathing air-raid siren wails, and then anthemic guitar licks fire off like anti-aircraft bottle rockets.

More often, the atmosphere isn't apocalyptic, but eerie. "Over" and "Warm" creak and tiptoe along, chilling as a recently deceased grandmother's empty parlor. "Splendid" is the kind of hazy, echoing lullaby you'll find throughout Low's and Galaxie 500's repertoires; Chesnutt and his bandmates appropriate the style with verve and dignity.

So yes, tremendous songs. And I haven't even mentioned the lyrics, and I won't. If you know Chesnutt's word-craft, you know that a handful of paragraphs can't do it justice. I'll leave you with an absolutely unqualified endorsement of North Star Deserter, and I'll leave the business of figuring out what these wonderfully wrought songs mean up to you.

Phillip Buchan

Vic Chesnutt is playing at the 40 Watt Club on Thursday, Oct. 18.

The Black Lips

Good Bad Not Evil

Vice

originally published September 12, 2007

In February, I reviewed the Black Lips' live album Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo. Back then I said that the Atlanta quartet was finally starting to become its own reference point, rather than requiring mention of the usual list of forebears whose spirits it has always been so adept at channeling. That live document from Tijuana remains the perfect way for Vice Records to have introduced the band to the rest of the country. Known for their live shows, the Lips' raw energy spilled off the disc.

Good Bad Not Evil is the document on which the band's future hangs, and it's a fine statement. Thirteen short chunks of what the Lips do best, fusing psychedelic pop straight from the garage with the boozy blues-proto-punk of the Velvet Underground. Most immediate is the production quality, which is typically shoddy with a band reaching toward this sound and era. The rhythm guitar is a blur throughout most of the album, and the rest of the instruments' tinny sound doesn't help overcome that. But it all works; sloppy abandon, drunken revelry and reckless attitude make up for any true shortcomings.

It all comes together most perfectly on Good Bad Not Evil's sparsest song. "Veni Vidi Vici" is a slight, trebly wonder that doesn't even aspire to a garage's ambience but is undeniably catchy. Even more addictive is "Bad Kids," a stomping shout-along. The Black Lips seem to have learned, even as they've accrued years and chops under their belts, that the simplicity of their formula shouldn't be messed with. And Good Bad Not Evil succeeds strictly because of this. The line between good mess and mess mess is thin indeed, and not even the flatly stupid Ween-C&W of "How Do You Tell a Child That Someone Has Died" can knock this band off its tightrope.

Michael Wehunt

The Black Lips are playing at the 40 Watt Club on Wednesday, Sept. 12.

Machine Go Boom

Music For Parents

Collectible Escalators

originally published September 12, 2007

Sloppy pop is so cool. There are the classics of rigid, formalist pop - the Beach Boys, the Big Stars - and that's all well and good. Sometimes, though, it's nice to hear self-imposed amateurism for the sake of authenticity, the feeling that rock is populist, not just for the elite, talent-borne. Machine Go Boom falls into the current indie-pop zeitgeist, but has the same kind of lo-fi diffidence of a Times New Viking or Sebadoh, instead of the overkill instrumentation and multi-part harmonies of New Pornographers or Arcade Fire.

Cleveland's Machine Go Boom's new one, Music For Parents, is plenty sloppy, and a grand collection of slow tracks, fast tracks, sad tracks and happy tracks. The slower numbers tend to drag ("Niagara Falls" lumbers for four-and-a-half sluggish minutes), but the up-tempo songs - the majority here - are punk-and-pugilistic blasts of absurd, knock-out lyrics and three (or four, maximum) chords.

Machine Go Boom also uses synthesizers to great effect. The riffs are never complicated, and always hummable. Good thing, because the songs stick on first listen. "M.I.A." is stunning, the synth and tribal percussion backing a great vocal melody. Future car commercial material there. The closer "Lazy Weekend" so accurately captures that oh-well contentment of having done nothing with the weekend, because it will be back in five days, and you can just try again then.

A little publicity, more touring and possibly a stroke of luck will help Machine Go Boom bring its fun-pop statement to dejected, baroque-gorged listeners - a hopeful sentiment, because Music For Parents is a constantly thrilling statement.

Scott Reid

Machine Go Boom is playing at the 40 Watt Club on Tuesday, Sept. 18.