video review: 'leave me alone' by hinds

Hmm, still can't nail down whether it's my internet or my computer that this managed to succeed where others failed... more testing is needed here.

Okay, next up will probably be Bowie, if only because nothing is out right now that I'd otherwise care about beyond it, so I'd expect something this weekend unless something new strikes my fancy - stay tuned!

album review: 'leave me alone' by hinds

Okay, so Rachel Platten's major label debut was boring mediocrity... and we're still in early January and I need something to talk about. Maybe the indie scene will have something interesting, something with a little fire...

Well, in this case I went straight to Pitchfork and to my surprise found a group that I did recognize from a few years back when I was randomly browsing YouTube. They were a Spanish indie rock quartet called Hinds, and I do remember hearing some of their early singles back when they were still called Deer. And I remember mostly liking a lot of what I heard - basically I'd describe them as a poppier Ex Hex by way of The Black Lips, but younger, lighter, more exuberant and more scattershot as a result. It was rough around the edges and kind of disjointed, but at least it was interesting, and I figured that digging into a debut - that dropped a lot later than I would have expected, given that the recording was reportedly finished back in spring - could be pretty fun. So I checked out Leave Me Alone - peculiar title for what I thought was a pretty loose and upbeat band, so what did we get?

video review: 'pom pom' by ariel pink

And that's the second review of the night. Whew.

Okay, Charli XCX, let's see if you've managed any sort of marginal improvement, so stay tuned!

album review: 'pom pom' by ariel pink

It's time we talk about one of the most artists in the indie scene, and one of the more polarizing ones too. This is an artist that critics and his cult audience absolutely loves, but to most others, even other indie music fans, he's considered either a joke or a disgrace. An artist that manages to fuse elements of the psychedelic and deranged with elements that either can come across as charmingly retro, painfully outdated, or just plain kitsch in the most mundane of ways.

Yep, we're talking about Ariel Pink, outsider pop artist and one of the most intriguing figures in the indie scene for over a decade. Originally a fan of gothic rock, he became enamoured of the lo-fi cassette culture of the 1980s, which combined for his knack for melody and odd vocal percussion led to a runny, smeared-over style of music that I'd call a gimmick if it wasn't so painfully sincere. The best way I can describe it is kitsch, the blend of old cast-off pop culture - bargain barrel long-forgotten disposable pop and rejected music for training videos and PSAs - with lyrics that often get a lot more dark and graphic than one might realize or be able to make out through his lo-fi recordings. It's unsurprising that his material doesn't translate well live, because it's material crafted from rejected and outdated normality, and that doesn't exactly fit well blown up to a stage. 

And yet there's something real to this that I like. I dig the sincerity and the occasional unsettling or surprising elements in the lyrics, I like his focus on melody and the warm texture in the music. And most of all, I like that he takes the forgotten junk of pop culture and tries to cobble together something real. It's pop art, sure, but it's the best kind - pushing rejected junk through a singular artistic lens, and after getting noticed by Animal Collective and signed to their label, a vision that proved surprisingly influential. And suddenly, a guy who never intended to be popular dropped into the spotlight, and he and his band Haunted Graffiti dropped a critically acclaimed record Before Today in 2010. Now that album was pretty damn excellent, probably one of his best efforts to fuse his aesthetic to a record that proved incredibly compelling. It was also probably his most accessible album to date and with the success of songs like 'Round & Round' he drew a bigger fanbase than ever. And thus it almost seemed like this follow-up Mature Themes was designed to push them away, by going harsher, darker, and nastier in its lyrical content. And it wouldn't be hard to believe that - it was a shame the album lost some of the warmer textures and killer melodies along the way which made it a fair bit less compelling. And thus I wasn't exactly sure where Ariel Pink was going to go with his newest record Pom Pom, his first full-length studio record that was not made with his band The Haunted Graffiti, but I definitely made sure to check it out. How is it?

video review: 'manipulator' by ty segall

First review of tonight, and it's pretty damn solid, definitely like and recommend it.

Tove Lo review coming momentarily, stay tuned!

album review: 'manipulator' by ty segall

Occasionally you see people working the music industry who generate an insane amount of music. They've got work ethics like none other, they drop albums every year, they write perform and even collaborate and seem to do it all. And it's even rarer to find acts who can maintain some vestige of consistent quality along the way, because let's be honest, if you continue churning out material, eventually you're going to slip up. And for some critics, it becomes something of a waiting game, eager if you're not a fan or nervous if you are. 

And if you're a fan of lo-fi indie garage rock, the name that leaps to the top of your list would be Ty Segall. Originating from San Francisco, he's managed to drop a frankly astounding number of records, collaborations, and projects since 2005 - and the amazing fact is that the majority of the albums are pretty damn solid, be it on his own, with his band, or with Fuzz, Mikal Cronin, and White Fence. And that's not counting the truly excellent records he's released, the most notable being the noisy and aggressive Slaughterhouse with the Ty Segall Band in 2012.

Now in recent years, some of the darker edges of the 60s blues and psychedelic rock have bled into Segall's work, which coalesced most on 2013's Sleeper, a more acoustic leaning album that showed consistency but didn't always click for me. That's more because the quieter focus meant more emphasis on the lyrics, which have probably been my one big hangup with Ty Segall. Now he's not a bad lyricist, per se, but a lot of his songwriting has fallen into his brand of simple and aggressive self-deprecation that can lack nuance. And that can work when you're playing fuzz-saturated raucous guitars and howling into the microphone - not everyone is trying to be Perfect Pussy, after all - but a more acoustic ambiance naturally draws more focus to the songwriting.

That said, Ty Segall's music has steadily been becoming more polished with every release, and with early reviews suggesting his new album Manipulator was his most lush, expansive, and long to date, I wasn't sure what to expect. So what did I get?

video review: 'here and nowhere else' by cloud nothings

And that was the second album that I had to get out of my system! Whew, that feels good.

Okay, this week we're going headlong into hard rock and metal, because Gotthard, The Oath, Delain, the solo record from Tuomas Holopainen, and hell, I'll even throw Ratking under this umbrella - they all dropped albums and I'm going to cover them. Hell, I might even cover Emmure's new album!

Just kidding, that won't happen. I actually value my time.

album review: 'here and nowhere else' by cloud nothings

It's always a risk when a band makes a choice to go dark.

Because let's face it, while there have been several acts who have made the shift work, it's always jarring for the initial audience and there's the long list of bands whose careers imploded by making a 'dark' album. And depending on the critical or popular acceptance, it can shape the course of bands for better or for much worse.

So when power pop group Cloud Nothings announced they were working with legendary audio engineer Steve Albini and were tackling darker material, some original fans had to been feeling uneasy. This was a band who had been steadily advancing with pretty damn solid power pop that skirted the edges of lo-fi, and the question of whether they'd be capable of delivering the same quality - even with Albini, who worked with The Pixies and Nirvana - had to have been raised.

And yet in 2012, they delivered with Attack On Memory, a goddamn great album that showed the band taking huge steps in a more interesting and dynamic direction with a great melodic focus, solid lyrics, and a concept dedicated to rectifying their fans' preconceived image of the band. And what was better was that the album actually turned into a pretty solid commercial hit on its own, being many people's - including mine - first exposure to the band. And thus when they announced a follow-up without Albini or their former guitarist Joe Boyer, I was curious to see where they'd take their musical direction - would they advance even further or would they backslide?

album review: 'wakin on a pretty daze' by kurt vile (RETRO REVIEW)

Believe it or not, I don't go into albums looking to hate them or bash them. One of the reasons I review a lot of material is because I'm looking to be surprised or caught off-guard by something of shockingly good quality. I want to find that special album that blows my mind in a dozen conceivable ways. And more importantly, to quote Abed from Community, 'I like liking things'. Hell, at the beginning of the year, you probably couldn't have told me that one of the most pleasant surprises of the year was a 4-part album from a white female rapper called Skitszo, but Colette Carr's debut album was actually surprisingly decent.

That being said, it's extremely difficult to not immediately form an opinion in your mind about what an act will sound like when you first hear about them, and I'll admit that can adjust your expectations in one way or another. I'll admit that going into critically-acclaimed indie rock albums, I tend to have a sharper critical opinion than, say, a Backstreet Boys album. And knowing my own tastes, if anything, makes it all the worse, as my ability to prejudge material is all the sharper.

So when I heard about Kurt Vile's new album, it was hard not to immediately cast more than a few judgments on the guy without even hearing a single song. A critically acclaimed, Pitchfork-adored lo-fi indie rocker primarily on a laid-back guitar with hazy, borderline incomprehensible vocals and lyrics that could only pretend to make sense on a good day? You bet your ass i prejudged the hell out of this guy and very nearly decided to ignore this album entirely. As I've said before, I don't have a lot of patience for white guys with acoustic guitars, and if they're half-stoned or have pretensions to depth, that limited amount of patience drops to a critical low. And sure, there's Beck, but he proved to have extraordinary amounts of talent, both in instrumentation and songwriting (to say nothing of his particular brand of insanity), and I can't say many of the lo-fi acts that followed in his wake did much to blow me out of the water.

And so before reviewing Kurt Vile's Wakin On A Pretty Daze, an album title that just screamed stoner indie rock in the worst possible way, I took a deep breath and plowed through this guy's discography, prepared for song after song of bland, pretentious nothing that I'd be able to jettison out my mental airlock the second it was over.

I didn't get that, and believe me, that was as much of a surprise as anything. Even as I say this, I'm still a little flummoxed why Kurt Vile works while so many other act like him have either bored or infuriated me. And while I wouldn't quite call myself a fan of his material, I found myself liking much more of his songs than I actively disliked.

Let's start with the songwriting, which is arguably the spot I would have come down hardest if he had been any of his contemporaries - and while there is a certain profundity that shows up in his material, there were more nuggets of insight in his ramblings than I expected. It's almost impossible to know how many levels of irony or sarcasm Kurt Vile might be operating on, which adds a layer of ambiguity to his presentation I found intriguing. On top of that, he doesn't tend to leap into the trap of acoustic love songs - hell, I don't even think Kurt Vile could record a truly effective love song even if he tried. Most of that comes down to his delivery, which I would describe as something of a cross between Beck and Wayne Coyne if the latter was actively smoking pot over dropping acid. And while he does abuse vocal affects and reverb more than most, it contributes excellently to a certain atmosphere that completely justifies Kurt Vile's appeal.

You see, I'd almost hesitate to call Kurt Vile an acoustic act - a lot of his material might have roots in acoustic rhythmic guitar, but it is often swallowed up in distortion and static that permeates the track, creating a rich expansiveness that still manages to feel organic and real. It may flirt with psychedelia at points, but that's only to suit the hazy, dusty feel of the tracks. Many critics have drawn connections between Vile and the gritty guitar-based singer-songwriters of the 60s and early 70s, and I can definitely buy into that aesthetic, particularly when it feels as authentic as it does.

And, of course, it helps that Kurt Vile is a gifted instrumentalist and songwriter all on his own. The guitar lines are often mesmerizingly simple, but contain enough shifts and complexity to keep me wanting more, and the natural free-flowing nature of the writing is a perfect fit for it. I'm reminded of Kacey Musgraves in a very good way, and like with her, they share the same affection for downbeat, rural Americana that feels all too real, particularly because Vile doesn't hold back from including himself in his message. It feels like the events in Vile's songwriting could have really happened to him, or are thoughts coming from a real place, and that does wonders for the atmosphere of the album.

That being said, I do have my gripes with Kurt Vile, particularly considering the fact he seems to be losing some of that richer instrumental texture with more recent albums. The distortion is peeled back, the vocals are cleaner, everything feels that much more polished, and I don't feel that's the greatest choice for preserving the atmosphere. But on the other hand, it does do wonders for exposing the smarter elements of Vile's songwriting, which I do appreciate, even though I wish more of that distorted grit would return. So does Wakin On A Pretty Daze deliver on that?

Youtube review after the jump