video review: 'paradise' by pop. 1280

Again, this review took way too long to get out, but it's finally here. Next up is Santigold and Dori Freeman, so stay tuned!

album review: 'paradise' by pop. 1280

I guarantee the majority of you did not see the review when I covered this band the first time.

And frankly, I'm amazed that in the summer of 2013 and after a random browse through Pitchfork that I decided to cover them, more out of bored curiosity than anything else. And while I haven't really revisited much of that record, I do distinctly remember Pop. 1280 as a weird, twisted, dark little band, driving some surprisingly solid melodies through the noise to create a hollow, rattling somewhat industrial flavour, with lyrics that seemed to alternate between punk railing against the machine and the craven horrors that humanity engaged in to survive. And while I wasn't always wild about frontman Chris Bug's delivery or the haphazard mixing, I did think their sophomore release Imps Of Perversion was a step in the right direction to emphasize the band's strengths that got overshadowed in the rough noisy murk of their debut.

And thus when I heard that their third album had opted for an even bigger, even more electronic-enhanced sound, further polishing and building off of the foundation of their last release, I was definitely interested. So, better late than never, I dug into their third album Paradise - what did I get?

video review: 'adore life' by savages

Well, not quite as great as I was hoping, but still a fair bit better than a lot of critics have given it credit. Highly expect this one will get a critical reappraisal.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN, followed by Megadeth - stay tuned!

album review: 'adore life' by savages

This has been one of my most hotly anticipated albums of the year.

And really, if you go back to listen to Savages' incredible debut album, you'd see why. Silence Yourself may have been preceded by stark proclamations that many could read as reaching for impact, but the music could back it up, a haunted cacophony of noisy guitars, pummelling bass grooves and drums, and Jehnny Beth's harsh but starkly emotive delivery, walking the line between sultry and righteous rage. And that's before we get into the writing, blunt on the surface but nuanced in the framing that contorted relationships through a fiercely dominant but complex sexual picture. In other words, with every listen it only gets better and it was definitely one of my favourite albums of 2013.

And yet since then, Savages seem to have eschewed anything that would hem them in artistically or away from the more intense, difficult music they want to create. This first manifested in 2014 with the performance art piece Words To The Blind, an improvised collaboration with Japanese acid punk group Bo Ningen that delved into failures of communication across a divide that could only be spanned by regressing down to the simplest and most raw of moments - especially considering that failure of communication wasn't shy about implicating the audience in their own lack of understanding. And thus when I heard that their full-length sophomore release was partially inspired by Swans... well, I wasn't surprised, especially considering the themes and repetition that underscored To Be Kind. So I was prepared for a tough but inevitably rewarding listen with Adore Life - did I get it?

video review: 'sun coming down' by ought

Believe it or not, this one took a lot longer than you'd think. Really a tough one to dissect, especially when you can't find all the lyrics.

Right, so next... honestly, no clue. Could be Fetty Wap, could be Destroyer, we'll see! Stay tuned!

album review: 'sun coming down' by ought

So close to this time last year, give or take a month or two, I finally decided to cover the debut of the Canadian indie rock group Ought, More Than Any Other Day. Based out of Montreal, cracking with the hyper-literate jittery energy you'd expect from university students recording while the student population was protesting, it won a lot of critical acclaim from critics for the obvious parallels to Talking Heads or maybe even Vampire Weekend. I was a bit more ambivalent on the group, mostly because no matter how much I liked the smart lyricism and the interweaving chaotic sound of the record, it definitely overstayed its welcome, occasionally wasn't as nuanced as it tried to be, and ultimately left me with a distinctive feeling of anticlimax at the end.

Since then, Ought has been touring extensively, patching a new album together between shows and reportedly doubling down on their influences from Sonic Youth or maybe even The Fall, cranking up the energy and groove. On the one hand, I didn't have any problems with this - Ought never seemed like a band lacking in nervous energy, but I've been looking for some more aggressive indie rock as of late and this could probably satisfy. On the other hand, it didn't look like the band's issues with succinctness had gone away - only eight songs, yet your average song length is about five minutes, with the longest at nearly eight. But hey, if the music doesn't drag, I'm not going to complain, so what does Ought deliver with Sun Coming Down?

video review: 'algiers' by algiers

Nearly forgot to post this. And I really shouldn't have, because the album is fucking excellent.

Anyway, next up... heh, you already know. Stay tuned!

album review: 'algiers' by algiers

There are some genre fusions that sound so insane that you'd never expect to see them work. Ambient music and country, for instance, two genres that rarely have ever crossed... until Devin Townsend created Casualties of Cool, one of the best albums of 2014. Or take, say, the entire genre-mashing careers of twenty one pilots, and they put together Blurryface, one of my favourite records of this year. My point is that oddball genre fusions can blow up in your face, but they can create something special and defiantly unique, especially in a world where the internet has proven anyone will try anything once.

But then there are the genre fusions that the second I heard about it, it made way too much sense, the sort of material that made me sigh and wish that I had thought of it first. Algiers falls into that category, an American band from Atlanta reportedly fusing post-punk, gospel, and industrial sounds for a distinctly unique debut to be released through Matador Records, the same label that's been responsible for giving us Savages and Iceage. And really, considering how much post-punk and goth culture crossed over in the late 70s and 80s, with the latter incorporating so much religious iconography it's not surprising Algiers might take a stab at pushing through a less classical and more gospel-inspired take. And given how strong the critical reception has been, I decided to give it a look - was it worth it?

video review: 'escape from evil' by lower dens

And that's two. Much better, and seriously a slept-on record.

Next up... damn, I might as well talk about Mumford & Sons. Stay tuned!

album review: 'escape from evil' by lower dens

So there are some indie acts that just fly under the radar and nobody beyond the hardcore fanbase seems to know. I've barely gotten requests for this act, the buzz has been negligible, and even despite the fact this new record has been very well-received, nobody besides critics seems to care.

And this is something I've noticed about certain acts getting critical acclaim - it rarely means much at all for the actual act outside of very specific circumstances, and it needs to be spread wide enough to drive buzz. But even with that it might not be enough - I can think of a slew of indie acts that because they didn't get the right big performance or that huge hit single, they might have the love of critics but nobody else. Even in the age of the internet, where certain sites like Pitchfork want to define the narrative of what is popular, or where we have music critics who have accumulated enough subscribers to nearly reach half a million people, it's not often enough.

So with all of that in mind, let's talk a little about Lower Dens. Beginning with a shoestring budget in Baltimore in 2010, their debut album immediately reminded me a lot of The War On Drugs in terms of the spacious, hazy shoegaze-inspired mix and willowy vocals of Jana Hunter, but that's where the similarities ended. For one, the bass and guitar tones were far more reminiscent of post-punk, and the melodic grooves were simply phenomenally balanced against the crisp, stripped back percussion. They added more electronic elements with Nootropics in 2012, which eased back some of the haze and added sharper, more defined grooves and some synthesizers, and while I definitely think it's a damn great album, I think I liked their debut a tad more, although songs like 'Brains', 'Lamb', and especially 'Candy' were huge standouts.

And when I heard they were heading towards even more of a pop-friendly direction... well, to be honest, I was a bit mixed on it. I had no doubt in my mind that Lower Dens could write some stellar hooks if pressed for it, but I didn't want to see them shoved towards synthpop like so many other bands in their vein and lose some of their unique identity. So what did we get from Escape From Evil?

video review: 'citizen zombie' by the pop group

Man, I wish I loved this as much as some critics did, but in the end, it didn't quite connect as powerfully as I was hoping. Eh, it happens.

Next up, Billboard BREAKDOWN, and then Cannibal Ox or Purity Ring - stay tuned!

album review: 'citizen zombie' by the pop group

So when I talked about The Mavericks' comeback and reviewed Mono, it was at least a comeback that could be explained relatively easily - the group had split apart amicably, it had only been a decade, there was a growing market for old-fashioned country in the wake of bro-country's ascendance, it made sense why they'd take a shot at it.

If only the resurgence of The Pop Group made that much sense. Sure, post-punk has returned more to the spotlight in recent years, especially in the independent scene, but The Pop Group weren't exactly a traditional 'post-punk' group, at least however you can define that nebulous genre. While they might have kept the clear striking guitar textures and deep, washed out mix, it can easily be argued The Pop Group had more in common with funk crossed with free jazz, dub, avant-garde spoken word and noise that most post-punk. And as such, they were held as influential by no-wave acts like Swans to noise acts like Sonic Youth to other post-punk groups like The Birthday Party, which spawned Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. 

But The Pop Group always seemed to have a ramshackle approach that barely seemed sustainable for a few songs, let alone the two albums they managed to release in the end of the 70s - and I have to admit, of the post-punk of that era, The Pop Group is a band I appreciate more than like. Many of their songs had great elements that fired in all sorts of weird directions, but cohesion was always a problem - and it makes sense, considering the band was comprised by a group of teenagers who had more talent and imagination that cooperation. It certainly explained the lyrics, which had some evocative imagery but definitely uneven writing. Internal fighting eventually split the band apart, with the members eventually joining several other punk bands... until 2010, where talk of the band's reunion started. It took five years until Citizen Zombie was finally released - how was it?

video review: 'viet cong' by viet cong

Well, that'll probably be it for album reviews until after MAGFest, but I think I might just have time to get one more Billboard BREAKDOWN in... stay tuned!

album review: 'viet cong' by viet cong

So I've talked before about how various musicians in indie rock have a reputation for having multiple projects running simultaneously in order to try out different styles and sounds or simply find the one that manages to catch fire. The funny thing is that in the age of the Internet, acts can very quickly build an underground cult following, and with sites like Pitchfork covering many of these projects, it means that critical acclaim can befall an act without sales or additional popularity coming along. And if the artists want to move along and try new things, it can mean they leave their fanbases hungry for more and following after whatever these artists try to assemble next.

And the more I started digging into Canadian indie rock group Viet Cong, the more I expected that some of the hype surrounding this band was coming from this phenomenon. Two members of the group, drummer Michael Wallace and bassist Matthew Flegel were previously from the critically acclaimed art rock group Women, who briefly made a splash in the late 2000s with two pretty damn great records before breaking up midtour, which took a jangly lo-fi yet exceptionally melodic and hook-driven sound and paired it with skeletal production that drew comparisons to a darker, more stripped-down Beach Boys or especially The Velvet Underground. As such, I could definitely see the interest now being taken in Viet Cong - even though that band was advertising their sound as having a much stronger post-punk influence. But hell, I like post-punk, so I made sure to give Viet Cong's self-titled debut a couple deep listens - what did we get here?

video review: 'words to the blind' by savages & bo ningen

Wow, this was a welcome surprise. A little late to post it tonight, but still a great album all the same. Next up... not sure, really. Need more time for TV On The Radio, but I probably could talk about Pink Floyd soon... so stay tuned!

album review: 'words to the blind' by savages & bo ningen

Let's talk a little about collaboration albums. Outside of hip-hop, pop, and occasionally country, it's fairly rare to see artists from two different acts work together on an official collaboration, especially when you venture towards the more indie genres. Sure, you get your supergroups or when a member of another band jumps on a song or two to provide some additional texture, but team-ups between two distinctive bands or musical acts is a hell of a lot rarer, especially over the course of an entire album - mostly because it doesn't always tend to work. It's not like a guest rapper jumping on for verses, this is the fusion of distinctive artistic styles in songwriting and instrumentation, and most often it results in both acts meeting in the middle with watered-down blends of their own unique styles, or one group completely subsuming the other.

And yet this year one of the collaboration albums that has been high on my personal radar was this one, an enigmatic single track stretched over thirty five minutes to "album" length. The first contributing group was the all-female post-punk group Savages, who you should all remember from last year dropping one of the best records of 2013 with Silence Yourself, delivering a brutally cutting message through potent and explosive instrumentation. The second group is the Japanese acid-post-punk group Bo Ningen - and I'll admit right out of the gate that I wasn't all that familiar with them, and what I did hear was a little disconcerting and not exactly to my tastes. For one, the tone of their material was a lot more spasmodic, jerky and off-kilter between melodic and dissonant intervals that didn't seem to have the coiled intensity and grit of a band like Savages.

Now it turns out they've collaborated before - lead vocalist of Savages Jehnny Beth has contributed vocals to a few Bo Ningen songs, but their most recent collaboration 'C.C.' featured a lot more messy, noisy guitar lines and a frantically overstuffed mix that didn't flatter anyone, especially Bo Ningen lead singer Taigen Kawabe with his skittering, shrieked vocals. And considering this project was a single track, I was very concerned this could prove to be a real ordeal to sit through. But then again, Savages has earned enough goodwill with me, so I steeled myself for whatever might come and listened through Words To The Blind - what did we get?

video review: 'plowing into the field of love' by iceage

And that makes two. And I'm barely conscious.

Next up will come after I sleep. Stay tuned!

album review: 'plowing into the field of love' by iceage

Last year when I wrote about the excellent debut album from Savages Silence Yourself - an album that landed on my year-end list of the best albums of 2013 - I talked about my odd introduction into post-punk, which wasn't through an old music collection or friends or an angry white boy phase, but two scattered collections of punk songs, singles and deep cuts. Since then, I've had a much greater chance to delve into the subgenre over the past year in my spare time, partially through hanging out on the edges of the dwindling goth scene in Toronto and half through increasingly deep dives into obscure music that has never touched the charts and only gets acclaim on - you guessed it - sites like Pitchfork.

And this time we'll be talking about Iceage, a Danish punk/post-punk act that immediately became a critical darling upon the release of their first album New Brigade in 2011. And really, it's easy to see why - not only was every member of the band younger than me, they had a knack for hard-edged melodic grooves and extremely explosive drumwork that brushed against hardcore but then was tempered with gothic lyrics that weren't so much angsty but bringing a certain brand of visceral, descriptive bleakness that was unsettling in its own right. They followed that album a year later with the more personal and much meatier record You're Nothing, which took the gothic edge of their debut and honed it much finer, striking directly at human insecurities and everything people do to conceal them, not shying away from putting themselves directly in the line of the fire. It was their first record on Matador - the same label as Savages, unsurprisingly - and it was a natural fit. That being said, I've never been a huge fan of Iceage - I sure as hell respect them, but their occasional choice to sacrifice great melodic grooves for a tempo change or out of nowhere breakdown occasionally frustrated me. Yeah, I know they're a punk act, but when the songs they do write are so strong, breaking them apart in that way kind of irked me.

That said, I wasn't surprised when the critical acclaim started pouring in for their newest album Plowing Into The Field Of Love, so I made sure to give it several listens - how did it turn out?

video review: 'echo bench' by echo bench

Hmm, surprised how well this turned out. I talk about the newest Echo Bench album and address a few criticisms from previous videos. Outside of my reviews, I've been working to catch up on MGMT and am working on bringing together my opinion on LMNO's new album. 

Third wave of albums is coming up, so it's going to get crazy here in a few days.

album review: 'echo bench' by echo bench

I'd like to start this review with a necessary clarification that I really didn't was necessary until fairly recently, specifically in some of the comments that were posted on certain videos. This is not a response to these comments and I won't be naming any names, but I do feel I need to get something off my chest before I get into the meat of this review.

And here it is: one of the big reasons that my reviews are so long in comparison with others is that I want to ensure that people going through them are completely informed regarding my state of mind before I dive into what I like and dislike about music. I want all of my cards to be on the table in full view, and since I prize honesty, I want to make sure that you're aware of all of the factors that could influence my opinion, one way or another. 

Now this has led to a criticism I didn't really expect: the comment that since I went into said reviews with expectations, I was thus unfair to the artists in question. And there's a simple response to this: yes, I did go in with ideas and potentially even expectations regarding what said albums might entail - I'm a human being, and it would be intellectually and emotionally dishonest for me to curtail those expectations and not speak without a fully informed opinion that is uniquely my own. 

That being said, there is a marked difference between expectations and keeping an open mind, and this is where I feel the majority of said comments missed the point. Sure, I might have gone in with expectations, but I was open and willing to believe that I might be wrong in some capacity. I never go into reviews 'wanting to hate' something - if anything, I want to be proven wrong, I want the artist to step up and smash all of my preconceived opinions about their work. Is it the artist's job to prove themselves to me exclusively? Well, of course not, but it is the artist's job to make art that is compelling or is informed by some purpose, and it's my job as a critic to interpret that purpose and pass judgement on whether it works or not. And thus, when it comes to every act, be it country or hip-hop or metal or indie rock or even the shallowest of pop and EDM, I try to keep an open mind and try to understand their appeal. And while I might have creeping feelings of dread opening up some albums, I'm always willing to give them a fair shot, and i'm constantly seeking to improve my knowledge of acts so I can make my judgments fairly.

And yet, I'm going to get excited about some albums, and I'm going to dread reviewing others. I'm not going to stop having expectations, because said expectations inform my opinions and thus my reviews. And since I am an optimist, I will reaffirm my commitment to go into albums with hopes for the best. And so when I got a copy of the debut self-titled album from all-female post-punk trio Echo Bench and was informed they were reminiscent of acts like Savages (who I reviewed very highly earlier this year) and Joy Division, I was excited. I made sure to temper my excitement with some measured forethought - indie rock debuts are tricky things, and the high, high standard Savages set should definitely not be the same for every act in their vein - but I was excited and intrigued just the same. So, how does the Echo Bench album turn out?