Cloud Cult
Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying through Tornadoes)
Earthology
originally published April 30, 2008
The environmentally-minded pocket orchestra from Minneapolis really rolls out the lush, verdant tapestry on this one. The band’s aspirations of drama are undisguised as it liberally applies strokes of swooning melodies and cresting crescendos. In this quest, Cloud Cult seems resolute in leaving no stylistic stone unturned. In addition to its primary trinity of chamber, folk and Flaming Lips-esque dream-pop, quirky flourishes like hip-hop drops (“It’s What You Need”), breaks (“Hurricane and Fire Survival Guide”) and vocoders (“Love You All”) spring up capriciously to add to the mix. Polished and unapologetically florid, the resulting ensemble sound rolls out in a cavalry of layers. The many disparate threads are intricately woven together in earnest, but the palette from which they draw is sometimes a bit too sprawling to achieve sustained impact. Not helping is the tendency of the band's baroque, Polyphonic Spree propensities to sometimes steer things toward melodrama. That said, Cloud Cult demonstrates an undeniable ability to create moments of real beauty. With pitch-perfect melody and excellent construction, “Everybody Here Is a Cloud” is the ideal actualization of everything the band aims for. Other high points include the triumphant, emotional swells of “No One Said It Would Be Easy,” the dynamic tension of “The Tornado Lessons” and the propulsive mood of “Hurricane and Fire Survival Guide.” Though occasionally prone to being naively obvious, Feel Good Ghosts is an accomplished effort and a work of sonic maturity.
Leerone
Imaginary Biographies
Fussy Music
originally published April 30, 2008
Leerone never was a cornflake girl, but that probably was a great idea. On her latest offering, Imaginary Biographies, Leerone wears her influences (most notably Kate Bush and Tori Amos) on her sleeve, which causes a few awkward moments to spring up throughout the album’s 11 tracks. But just because Leerone’s influences are immediately recognizable doesn’t mean there aren’t good songs within the album. “Care for Some Whiskey?” features a wonderful bouncy chorus that contrasts starkly with the song's rather down-beat turnaround. Other bright spots include “Share,” which features the best and most original melody on the entire album, and the album’s opener, “To Fill the Void,” harkens back to a hazy, brighter '70s-inspired sound that is featured nowhere else on the album.
Lyrically, Leerone still has a lot of growing to do. “Happy+Homemade=” features some of the most mind numbingly embarrassing lyrics that listeners will hear in a while. “Junk/ Piece of Mind” is another song that attempts at being profound and lyrically important, but falls so short that it instead reads like the ramblings of a 14-year-old.
While Leerone isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel on Imaginary Biographies, it reveals a portrait of an artist still coming into her own sound, which at times can create mistakes that are almost as intriguing as its successes (like on “Knocking,” where the chorused piano and bass-heavy rhythm section immediately bring Fiona Apple to mind).
Fishboy
Albatross: How We Tried to Save the Lone Star State with the Power of Rock 'N' Roll
Happy Happy Birthday to Me
originally published April 30, 2008
This Denton, TX-based pop band knows how to make a joyous, ramshackle noise. At no point on the new album do these men not sound like they're having an absolute blast. They tear through jittery, jangly pop songs like a caffeinated Kinks, lacing their simple tunes with rambunctious drum fills, playful keyboard melodies and the occasional festive horn part. Fishboy is tight, too, wasting no notes on bad ideas or billowy ballads. These guys know how to play fun, catchy rock and roll.
Oddly, Fishboy puts a great deal of energy into creating the impression that it's somehow something other than a good, simple pop band. As its lengthy subtitle tells us, Albatross is not simply a collection of songs, but a narrative-driven concept album. Its tracks tell the story of a boy who, at the encouragement of his father and a parachute-shaped ghost of Buddy Holly, attempts to save Texas by writing over 2,000 songs and playing them in nightly gigs, which he finances by robbing a bank. Along the way, he falls in love and lands in jail. He ends the record safe at home, at last at peace. It's a fun story, but propelled by outrageous events rather than well-chosen words, it's also a shallow story.
As such, this record's too self-consciously quirky in a too self-consciously indie pop fashion to appeal to anyone outside of that subculture. Perhaps that was Fishboy's intention, but it's a shame to hear such accessible pop songs tarnished by such a codified brand of obscurantism.
British Sea Power
Do You Like Rock Music?
Rough Trade
originally published April 30, 2008
To paraphrase Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker leader David Lowery, what the world needs now is an overly earnest rock band like we need a hole in our collective heads. With that being said, before listening to British Sea Power’s latest album it’s in your best interests to start fitting yourselves for that hole.
Through 12 tracks and 12:44, British Sea Power takes listeners on a journey that is more than just the hyperbolic nature of rock and roll. Nestled in the tiny nook between ham fisted “serious” rock and irony drenched indie rock, Do You Like Rock Music? represents British Sea Power throwing down a gauntlet to the rest of us mere mortals - a new band has arrived, and it has things to say.
But what British Sea Power has to say is neither political nor personal. Instead, it’s a testament to a singular belief that while rock and roll may not give its fans life everlasting, nor will it solve all of their problems, it can make even the numbest among us believe in the power of mid-tempo heartfelt rock.
Beginning with a fade in chant (“All in It”) and ending with a sound collage (“We Close Our Eyes”), Do You Like Rock Music? treats listeners to a gently rolling sonic cascade that Coldplay wishes it could do. But while Coldplay gets lost in its own self importance, British Sea Power never seems to be aware of the scope and beauty of the art it's creating. Do You Like Rock Music? is a work of art that is charming in its own unassuming way.
Extra Life
Secular Works
Planaria
originally published April 30, 2008
At first brush, Secular Works sounds like a capital-S Serious affair, the sort of album that's too avant-garde to grasp quickly, and too layered and multi-faceted to enjoy merely as an experience or spectacle. Every bit of this music is disarming: the drummer plays loudly, colorfully and in tricky cadences, at times calling to mind Tony Williams, the great fusion percussionist; guitar ranges from clanging to screechy to noodly; a viola slides and saws in the background, lending the songs a horror-soundtrack air; group leader Charlie Looker sings in a thin, alienated manner similar to that of '80s cult favorite Arthur Russell. And from these elements, Extra Life forges slow-building eight-minute songs. All of which is to say that Secular Works is a pop album in only the loosest of senses.
Sadly, these songs offer no return on the intellectual investment they demand. Sparse, repetitive arrangements call attention to Looker's voice and lyrics, and this is unfortunate, as he expends a great deal of energy singing phrases that are uninteresting, both narratively and stylistically. Looker lacks a poet's ear for sonorous language and compelling imagery: "You are the long thin vine on which I swing across the Vine Abyss." And his lyrics fail on a larger scale because they address their subjects only in an abstract, formal level; when he sings about revenge in "Blackmail Blues," he gives us no specifics, just a platonic outline. In marrying dry, overwritten lyrics to avant-garde music, Extra Life attempts to say too much and ends up saying far too little.
Future Ape Tapes
Fuck the Future
Double Phantom Records
originally published April 30, 2008
The presence of an introductory and a concluding number on the debut record of local prog-hopper band Future Ape Tapes suggests that it has a concept of sorts behind it, a mythology the group has constructed to explain itself, but figuring it out from the album alone would seem to require more time and effort than it may be worth. Instead, you may want to ignore those two tracks and dive into the meat of the album, an eclectic mix of retro-nostalgia, reggae, excessively restricted antimelodic rap and danceable fun. That is, it’s almost all interesting when considered as a full package, but you can’t help wishing for a little more consistency over creativity, a tether for the ballooning bundle of ideas and influences to keep it closer to the ground. “Left to Def” nods to the past with a cheerfully funky backing track covered by nimble boasting, and “Help I’m a Cop” is an impressively entertaining parfait of chaos, layered with paranoia-inducing loops and overlapping vocals. These two songs, more than others, show what the group is capable of, but they can easily go off the rails, as on “The Awakening of the Future Ape,” which has some intriguing sounds making up its base, but also partakes of the weaknesses of freestyling, with parts that could have been improvised in the living room after a long night drinking. It’s not that focus is exclusively what’s needed for Future Ape Tapes - the fractal nature of their sound is some of what makes them notable - but more of it might contribute to improved results.
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