album review: 'case/lang/veirs' by case/lang/veirs

I've talked before about team-up records and the very delicate balance that so many have to take. Ideally you want a synthesis, where everything comes together into one glorious whole that leverages the strengths of all three acts while minimizing the weaknesses. And let me stress how rare it is this actually works - more often than not one artist overshadows the other or they don't have chemistry or the entire experiment ends up being less than the sum of its parts.

That's when you have two artists - it gets even more complex when you have three, and yet enter case/lang/veirs. For those who are confused, case/lang/veirs is a concatenation of three artists' last names, all three female singer-songwriters who have amassed a pretty amount of critical acclaim: k.d. lang, Neko Case, and Laura Veirs. If you're only familiar with the mainstream, the name you probably recognize the most is k.d. lang and her signature song 'Constant Craving' as a part of the mini-wave of Canadian female singer-songwriters that got big in the 90s like Alanis Morrissette. Now if your frame of reference for female Canadian indie songwriters skews a little later, you probably recognize Neko Case, member of the New Pornographers and critically acclaimed in her own right. The last artist you probably don't know as well unless you know your underground indie folk, but Laura Veirs has actually worked with Neko Case in the past, and she also put out a stream of well-received singer-songwriter records in the 2000s. Now keep in mind that all of these women come from very different sides of indie rock and folk: Neko Case has always been on the rougher side of alternative country and Americana, k.d. lang started in a similar area but has also made pop and even collaborated with Tony Bennett, and Laura Veirs plays more to the ramshackle, smoked out ethereal side of folk rock that guarantees I'll be digging through her discography with rabid abandon the second I get some spare time. With all of that in mind, though, I can see the intersection point and why they'd want to work together, so what does this collaboration give us?

video review: 'singing saw' by kevin morby

Well, so this sucked. I'm genuinely curious how people are going to respond to this review - it's a critically acclaimed release, but it's also a smaller one, so I have no idea how much of a response it's going to get one way or another.

Anyway, next up I've got a bunch of albums to get through before I cover Aesop Rock, so I might fit in Death Grips ahead of time... stay tuned!

album review: 'singing saw' by kevin morby

So I don't cover a lot of music from the indie folk rock scene - and believe it or not, I actually have a reason. Several reasons actually, the first being volume, because it seems like every other week I hear about a new up-and-coming indie folk songwriter that I need to hear and most don't really impress me. I used to define it as a general aversion to the 'white guy with acoustic guitar' subgenre, but it runs a little more complicated: when you strip down the sound to the bare essentials, those essentials all need to be great working order or the flaws stand out all the more. And yeah, part of it is the fact that when you've heard so much singer-songwriter music, your bar when it comes to compositions or lyrics tends to be quite high - and I'll be blunt and say that a lot of this material can get tedious or pretentious if the writing or instrumentation doesn't step up.

And those were a lot of the thoughts I had before looking to cover Kevin Morby, most notable as being the former bassist of indie rock band Woods before going solo in 2013. And when I checked out his two previous records to this... well, they have their moments, I guess. I was never really gripped much by the songwriting - it always felt a little too self-serving and lacking in storytelling chops, with none of the writing having any sort of flair or punch - but a lot of the production and composition was nice, and I always appreciated a commitment to solid mix balances. But it wasn't until the second album Still Life where I saw the long shadow of The National hanging over Kevin Morby, especially in the vocal production and the blend of alternative country and modern folk rock influences - and look, I love The National, but I don't need a sleepier version of a group that already has trouble with momentum.

That said, this record has been getting a suspicious amount of critical acclaim, so I figured what the hell and checked out Singing Saw - how did it go?

video review: 'not to disappear' by daughter

So, this was an album that happened. Not really a huge amount to say about it, it's just decent. Probably will have more to say about Panic! At The Disco and Anderson .Paak, so stay tuned!

album review: 'not to disappear' by daughter

So let's talk a bit about expectations. 

Now as a critic, it's ideal not to have any at all when you go into a fresh release, especially out of the indie scene, because what might have been positioned as the single might not be representative of the group as a whole - the label wants something to sell, after all. And my opening expectations of the English indie folk trio Daughter were built around the expectations that they had soundtracked a bunch of TV and were known to run closer to the darker, more atmospheric brand of folk music. In other words, I thought I knew what I was getting checking out their 2013 debut album.

That wasn't exactly what I got, as their atmospheric side was less ambient and more smoky noise and post-rock, guitars that smouldered in feedback and seemed to be precisely on edge to explode against the booming percussion and Elena Tonra's haunted vocals. It was an instrumental shift that gave the group some unique personality - perhaps closer to a more accessible Chelsea Wolfe - until I started digging into the lyrics. Suffice to say the writing didn't really impress me, more suited for the emo side of shoegaze than for the darker atmospherics that Daughter was targeting, and the fact that the album never really exploded gave the sound a certain calculated petulance that I felt I should like more than I do. 

They did have a unique enough sound, though, and I was inclined to check out the follow-up this year, that was reportedly heading a more rock-inspired direction. So what did we get from the sophomore release from Daughter called Not To Disappear?

video review: 'b'lieve i'm goin down...' by kurt vile

Well, this was a surprisingly easy review. Glad I did it, though, pretty solid album.

Next up will either be The Underachievers or Disclosure, gotten plenty of requests for both. Stay tuned!

album review: 'b'lieve i'm goin down...' by kurt vile

I think I've been a bit unfair to Kurt Vile in the past. 

See, when I covered his album Wakin On A Pretty Daze in 2013, I was still very much in the learning curve when it came to album reviews, and finding an entry point into his woozy brand of half-stoned meandering rock music was tricky for me. I definitely found a lot to like about his knack for a solid hook, his fascination with smoky Americana, and his lyrics that knowingly walked the line of profound and asinine, depending on what level of irony you operated on. Where I initially took issue was how it seemed like with every record his textures were getting cleaner and more polished and losing some of the jangling momentum he had brought when he used to be a member of The War On Drugs - even though I'd agree with most that Childish Prodigy and Constant Hitmaker were uneven, I liked the rougher edges on those albums and they have some of my favourite cuts.

As such, by the time we reached the meandering and cleanest-to-date record Wakin On A Pretty Daze, I could appreciate the writing and a lot of the hazier melodies and hooks, but the cleaner production just didn't really gel as well as I liked, especially with some of the more tightly regimented electronic beats and pseudo-psychedelic textures. I missed the momentum and grit, and yet it seemed like with every record we were losing that, so when I heard that b'lieve i'm goin down was going to be even cleaner, I wasn't sure what I was going to get here, especially with buzz suggesting this album was emphasizing even a bit of a country sound. So okay, very different entry point than fuzzed-out psychedelia and lo-fi indie rock, I can work with this - so what did Kurt Vile deliver here?

video review; 'abyss' by chelsea wolfe

Well, this record took way too long to cover. Brutal album, and a hard one to cover, but glad I did it.

Next up, probably Lindi Ortega. Then Melanie Martinez, Frank Turner, Jess Glynne, and apparently B.o.B. decided to drop an album from out of nowhere, so this could get interesting... stay tuned!

album review: 'abyss' by chelsea wolfe

It's weird, I think I'm simultaneously growing into and growing out of gothic music.

Because like most teenagers who listened to a lot of metal and who later went on to listen to Sisters Of Mercy, Bauhaus, Depeche Mode and The Cure, I've got more than a passing familiarity with the bleak, hollow-eyed chill of most gothic-flavoured art. And while I never really went through an angry white boy phase, I found the appropriation of religious and horror iconography, icy darkness, obsession with death, and provocative sexuality fascinating. 

But as I got older, a lot of the 'glamorous' side of goth culture lost its appeal to me - not entirely, but the more adolescent whinging that focused on brooding darkness for its own sake just got tired, and you should all know by now how I feel about nihilist art that can't innovate on the premise - just kind of gets boring after a while, to be honest. But at the same time, the gothic material that aimed higher, for something more primordial and existential, that added more texture to the tragic stories and added the ugliness of humanity to the mix... ah, now that's a lot more fascinating to me. It's one of the reasons why I've always liked Nick Cave, for instance.

But what about an act like Chelsea Wolfe, an LA singer-songwriter who began her career in lo-fi folk that added sludgy and brittle riffs and drone-saturated soundscapes to create a particularly bleak brand of music that showed up on the haunting The Grime and the Glow and the slightly cleaner but no less creepy and outright excellent album  Apokalypsis. Her 2013 album Pain Is Beauty cleaned things even further, added more strings and operatic instrumentation, and while the improvements in writing, melody, and Swans-esque crescendos definitely stood out and I really do like that album, it also left me wishing more of the grime and edge could return.

As such, you can bet I was looking forward to her next album Abyss, which reportedly was diving deeper into the howling doom metal-inspired nightmare that always lurked around the corner in her music - what did we get?

video review: 'beneath the skin' by of monsters and men

Eh, I do wish this was better, and I'm not sure how long it's going to stick with me, but still damn solid.

Okay, Algiers, FFS, and Sun Kil Moon for sure, but there's this Hilary Duff album that a part of me really wants to cover... eh, we'll see. Stay tuned!

album review: 'beneath the skin' by of monsters and men

I didn't expect to get as many requests to cover this album as I have.

And on some level, that's exciting, because it meant that Icelandic band Of Monsters And Men had somehow managed to make an impact in popular culture beyond just 'Little Talks', the song that somehow managed to chart just high enough to lodge a place on the pop charts in 2013, two years after it was released. And I'll admit, it was off of that song that I dug into their pretty damn solid debut album My Head Is An Animal. Now to put things in perspective, the reason 'Little Talks' did as well as it did was because Of Monsters And Men had fortuitous timing - the folk boom was kicking into gear, and they had the benefit of a horns section, potent melodic grooves, and interweaving male and female vocals to stand out from the crowd and especially from Mumford & Sons. Of course, the huge benefit that Of Monsters And Men also had was a wind-swept haunted swell to the production, some noisier electric guitars that never compromised the texture, and pretty damn solid songwriting that wasn't afraid to get weird in terms of a more feral brand of poetry. Or to put it another way, there's a reason why 'Little Talks' ran away as my favourite hit song of 2013 - because it's goddamn amazing.

So why haven't I been jumping all over their sophomore release? Well, part of it was a certain amount of trepidation: I wasn't initially wild about their opening singles, and early buzz wasn't great, especially emphasizing that the album reportedly had more filler. This was a concern for me, because if I were to level one big complaint with their debut, it'd be that their sound can have a certain uniformity to it if the songwriting or melodies don't stand out. It's not a bad sound by any stretch of the mind, but it can get a little repetitive. 

But look, I still like this band, so I dug into their sophomore album Beneath The Skin - was it better than expected?

video review: 'carrie & lowell' by sufjan stevens

Well, this took WAY too long to get to - it happens, but man, I want to ease back on wait times for these records. 

Now only one more record to knock off my backlog, but first, let's tackle something light, shall we...

album review: 'carrie & lowell' by sufjan stevens

Man, it's taken me too damn long to get to this review, especially considering this is a guy I've been wanting to talk about for a while but have always had a hard time nailing him down. Because of the many, many artists I've talked about, Sufjan Stevens is damn close to one of a kind - and for the longest time, I had just ignored him because on my first few listens through his debut, he was just another quirky singer-songwriter from the indie scene that had critical acclaim and little else that really stuck with me.

And man, was I wrong in spectacular fashion. After a hard left-turn into weird electronica, Sufjan Stevens dropped the absolutely incredible Michigan, a tribute to his home state that had such an incredible balance of sound and tone it's incredible. Sufjan might not be the biggest presence as a singer - one of the reasons I've found him difficult to get into in the past was that he tended to feel overtaken by his instrumentation - but his writing and hooks were impressively detailed and eclectic, with a vibrant energy and life that made the odd kitsch of his instrumentation incredibly endearing. Is it a little over-long, off-kilter, and oddly corny at points? Yeah, but I didn't mind it, because the songwriting was so well-grounded and human that it clicked incredibly well.

Ever since then, though, Sufjan Stevens' work has struggled to recapture that balance. The closest for me came on Seven Swans, which eased things back perhaps a bit too much to bring the songwriting into tighter focus - which I'll admit clicked because most albums exploring religion with Stevens' complicated brand of framing have a lot of potential to really connect with me. His follow-up state album Illinoise went in the opposite direction and was even more elaborate, and while it did hit some spectacular highs, it didn't quite stick the landing as well for me. And then came The Age Of Adz, a weird, warped record diving back into electronics in a way that felt even more garish than before - and honestly, it doesn't quite connect, at least for me.

So when I heard that Sufjan was stripping things down to folk again and opting for a much tighter, personal focus, I was looking forward to it, especially considering the titular characters of his late mother and stepfather are placed in greater focus. Of course there'll always be moments of indulgence that are quintessential parts of his records, but it's been over a decade since Seven Swans - so what did Sufjan Stevens deliver as he came home?

video review: 'i love you, honeybear' by father john misty

Dear god, I love this record. Seriously, it'll be one of my favourites of the year, bar none - so witty and charming and ridiculous, it's been on constant loop for the past couple days, definitely can see this holding up.

Okay, tomorrow is Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

album review: 'i love you, honeybear' by father john misty

So let me ask you all what might seem to be an interesting question: how seriously should we take music?

And I don't mean this in the tiresome argument that, 'oh, you take music too seriously, most people don't care about bad lyrics and they just want to dance and it's popular and on the radio and ergo it's good' and all that nonsense that I hear whenever I review a bad pop record. No, this is more related to music with more of a comedic or whimsical tone - and that in some cases, it doesn't get a lot of respect. Let me put it this way: it's very rare outside of specific comedy records that an album or an artist being funny or light-hearted is praised, at least not as a primary focus. And I'm guilty of this too - I love the albums from Run The Jewels and Open Mike Eagle last year for their composition and technique and raw emotional power, but I didn't really highlight that they also had a real sense of humour and wit beyond their dramatic emotional pathos.

The frustrating thing is that comedy can have real emotive power just like drama, and I'd argue it's even more difficult to achieve, especially if you're looking for something with staying power. And going for something like carefree whimsy is even harder - by its very nature it's frivolous and flighty, something that might bring a ready smile but it's extremely rare it can connect on that deeper level on its own merits without resorting to darker, dramatic cliches. I guess the closest thing I can think of are the Discworld novels by Sir Terry Pratchett, but he's a one-of-a-kind genius and is frequently praised for it.

So why bring this up? Well, when I started listening through the 2012 debut album Fear Fun from Josh Tillman under the alter ego Father John Misty, I really got a sense of that whimsy managing to stick for me. The album is a little difficult to describe - reminiscent of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, but instead of hazy hippie earnestness, Fear Fun was a rambling, semi-coherent record from a caricature of a hippie cult leader who is not only entirely self-aware, but careening out of flights of drug-addled cartoonish silliness. But there was wit and insight and a bacchanalian feel to the lyrics that was really infectious, even if to some extent it was completely full of shit. Josh Tillman may have initially built his reputation as a serious artistic folk singer-songwriter and some wildly exaggerated by everyone except him work with Fleet Foxes, but he sounded way more comfortable in a more lighthearted vein. Now the album did suffer for its more serious moments and its more conventional instrumentation, but I still recommend it and I was definitely curious to really dig into his sophomore followup I Love You, Honeybear - how is it?

video review: 'are we there' by sharon van etten

I think this review came out pretty damn solid, just about as solid as the album.

Next up, I'm talking 50 Cent, then probably Clipping and (finally) The Roots before I dive straight back into country. Stay tuned!

album review: 'are we there' by sharon van etten

I've gone on the record before stating that the nebulously defined subgenre of 'white guy with acoustic guitar' tends to turn me off. It's not that there isn't some serious talent in that category, but like with all minimalist setups, if every element isn't on point, it's all the more noticeable and glaring. I admit it's a bias - it's a genre that's as old as most music itself - and I can definitely respect the instrumental talent that can be brought to the table, but that's not always what you get with your typical middle-of-the-road adult alternative acts.

So what about white girls with acoustic guitars? Does it bug me as much? Well, as much as the parallel exists and as much as there is some music in that particular genre that turns me off, I'll admit I've been lucky enough to find more singer-songwriters in this vein that I like and who don't exasperate me as much as their male counterparts. Granted, that doesn't mean I don't have my issues here - they can succumb to the same lazy songwriting cliches and tactics as anyone, and they can bore me just as badly.

Fortunately, one of the exceptions has been Sharon Van Etten, an American singer-songwriter who stepped into the indie folk scene with the good but unremarkable Because I Was In Love in 2009. For me, I was immediately struck by the straightforward passion of her vocal delivery - she didn't mince words or was afraid to show real vulnerability, and there were occasional flights of nuance that cropped up in her songwriting. And after the rougher, shorter, more abrasive, and much better record Epic in 2010 and the much more vulnerable album Tramp in 2012, I was intrigued where Sharon would be aiming to take her newest album, especially given her recent tours with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and his reputation for visceral, gripping songwriting. How did that turn out?

album review: 'the moon rang like a bell' by hundred waters

Let's talk a bit about folktronica.

The genre term was originally coined in the very early 2000s to describe a new genre fusion between traditionally organic folk music and electronica, typically driven by sampling of that instrumentation. And at first glimpse, it was a fusion that made no sense to me: folk was typically a richly organic genre defined by singer-songwriters and intricate lyrics, while lyrics tend to be the last thing that's relevant in most electronic music, especially the material intended for dance. And yet, over the past year with the success of Avicii's debut album TRUE, folktronica began inching into the mainstream, driven partially by the small folk resurgence in 2012 and the continued acceptance of EDM on the mainstream charts. 

Now I was really hard on Avicii's TRUE, and I reckon that while I don't think the album works all the way, it has grown on me a bit for some reasonably decent songwriting, shockingly solid organic elements, and great melodic composition. My issue with that album always came back to the fact that the electronica elements felt underweight in comparison with the richer folk sounds, but it was a sign that perhaps the genre fusion could work, and thus I resolved to keep my eyes open for any possibilities this might crop up in the future.

Enter Hundred Waters, a newer indie band from Florida who achieved some measure of critical acclaim with their self-titled debut album that critics were branding folktronica. And it was a very different animal than Avicii - or indeed from Skrillex, who signed them to his vanity label in 2012 - instead taking more cues from quieter, more understated electonica in the vein of James Blake. Hundred Waters opted for fluttering hollow synths against tightly composed guitar lines, every piece coming together to create beautifully organic compositions. Now I wouldn't say that self-titled debut was perfect - I was unsure how much I liked the very breathy vocals from Nicole Miglis, and the songwriting had moments that came across as a little too precious and cute for my personal tastes - but there was talent here and while I wished the folk elements were played up a little more in the compositions, I was interested in their sophomore record The Moon Rang Like A Bell. So how did that go?

video review: 'i never learn' by lykke li

Holy shit, this album was great. Seriously, I hope her singles blow up like nobody's business, because the mainstream is perfect for this sort of thing right about now.

Okay, next I'm going to talk about Styles P, because I need more time for Epica. Stay tuned!

album review: 'i never learn' by lykke li

I've talked before about my general aversion to cutesy, small-minded indie pop, especially the type that sticks close to conventional instrumentation and plays up the twee element to eleven - but at the same time, it's a genre that has other facets, and subverting those expectations can often be just as rewarding. I've talked before about St. Vincent, who undercut her classically-inspired instrumentation with subversive lyrics and experimental edge, but she's not the only one who has tackled this playing field.

This brings us to Lykke Li, an artist who I originally expected to dislike a lot more than I do, especially off of her first album Youth Novels. It was a minimalist, underwritten exploration of young, immature emotion, all delivered through Lykke Li's high girlish vocals - and yet it worked. Lykke Li had a great grasp of melody, a phenomenal grip on atmosphere thanks to stellar production, and the balance she held between saccharine sweetness and unnerving wisdom was impressive. And in a natural step forward, her second album Wounded Rhymes improved every element, deepening and expanding the soundscapes while bringing forward a much more assertive presence behind the microphone and cleaning up some of the clumsier songwriting. It's definitely a solid record that showed Lykke Li was a force in indie pop to be reckoned with, and I was psyched for her newest album I Never Learn, not just for the album but for the potential mainstream breakthrough it could represent. After all, she was only getting better and if there was a time where minimalist, melody-driven indie pop could have a crack at the mainstream, it'd be now. As great as 'I Follow Rivers' was - and make no mistake, that song's amazing - it came out in 2011, the charts were still locked in the club boom, they weren't ready for Lykke Li yet. So, I picked up her newest album and gave it a few listens - is this the smash for which we've been waiting?