video review: 'metamodern sounds in country music' by sturgill simpson

Holy shit, this album is amazing. Man, I needed an album like this, because this record is phenomenal.

Okay, the Black Keys next. Stay tuned!

album review: 'metamodern sounds in country music' by sturgill simpson

So here’s a friendly tip for all of you new music critics out there: if you’re going to start doing a review series like I do and want to make a year-end list of the best albums of the year – as of course you’ll want to do – it’s a very good idea to keep an eye on the genre charts and fellow critics to track albums that you may have missed early in the year. Because trust me on this, you do not want to discover midway through the next year that you might have missed a record that could have had a chance to make that year-end list.

Now granted, it’s damn near impossible to hear every record that gets some manner of acclaim – especially because even aggregators like Metacritic aren’t perfect, especially when you have albums that are removed from the mainstream. And nowhere is this truer than in country music, especially from the independent circuit. And thus, when I put out my year-end list of my top albums of 2013, I got questions why High Top Mountain, the critically acclaimed debut album from Sturgill Simpson, did not make my list. Well, the truth of the matter was that I hadn’t had the chance to listen through it when I made my list, a mistake that I knew had to be rectified as soon as possible.

So now that I’ve heard High Top Mountain, would it have made my year-end list? Well, it would have been damn close, that’s for sure. The album is great across the board, with great raw texture in instrumentation and Simpson’s thick accent, and the songwriting brings the same rich flavor to the table. Most intriguing to me was that through the hazy guitar tones, the album was rooted the psychedelic country tradition, an outgrowth of the hippie-movement throughout the late 60s and 70s. A distinct oddity in an typically conservative genre, Simpson’s socially-conscious lyrics about weed, crime, and unemployment rang all too true in crossing outlaw energy with psychedelic texture, creating a unique album that easily deserved the acclaim it got.

And thus, it wasn’t surprising that country music critics – myself included – were extremely interested in Sturgill Simpson’s follow-up record, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, a record that promised to be even weirder and more experimental than his last record, something that only enthused me even more. And determined not to miss him twice, I took a look at the album: how did it go?

video review: 'supermodel' by foster the people

Well, you asked for it.

Up next... ugh, you'll see. I'm not looking forward to it, but I might as well get it out of my system once and for all.

album review: 'supermodel' by foster the people

If you were around me talking about music in 2011, you probably heard me drop into a rant at some point about Foster The People and their big hit single 'Pumped Up Kicks'. Hell, I even reviewed their debut album back when I wrote my reviews on Facebook, and while I'm not proud of that review by any stretch, I remember the seething hatred I had for this band and everything for which they stood.

Looking back two-and-a-half years later and after a relisten to Torches, I can say this: there are worse albums. Honestly, while I still don't like 'Pumped Up Kicks' for its terrible framing, its insincere posturing, and Mark Foster's awful falsetto, it's not worth the #3 spot I gave it on my list of the Top Ten Worst Hit Songs of 2011. Hell, looking back on Torches as an album, it's very much of its time: a perfectly primed dose of indie pop-rock that could have only gotten airplay in 2011 thanks to the wispy production, the whistling, and the growing acceptance of that brand of indie music.

Now that's not saying Torches is a good album - it's really so painfully mediocre it hurts, mostly due to an overstuffed upper range and synth line, a lack of good guitar melody when you could hear it at all, an over-reliance on percussion and not interesting percussion at that, Mark Foster's godawful vocals, and lyrics that were trying way too hard to be self-aware and wink at the camera. I've heard people make the argument that Torches was parodying and criticizing the would-be hipsters that embraced it, but I don't buy that, half because the insincerity was way too smug, half because the lyrics weren't nearly smart or well-framed enough to justify it, and half because unlike acts like The Beastie Boys or Ke$ha, they forgot to make the music actually 'fun' for those who didn't get the joke. Instead of working on multiple levels, Torches by Foster The People didn't work at all, only leaving us 'Helena Beats' as the best song of the album.

But what proved a lot more disturbing for me was how successful and influential Foster The People were, especially in the commercially viable indie pop/rock scene. I can trace the musical and popular lineage of bands like The Neighbourhood, Bastille, Young The Giant, and even acts like Imagine Dragons - a band I actually like - to Foster The People. They ended up sparking a mainstream explosion of percussion-driven, reverb-swollen, mix-overstuffed indie electronic rock records - which is kind of hilariously ironic, because it meant that if Foster The People really were going for parody intent, nobody got the joke. And thus, I shouldn't be surprised that Foster The People were back with a new album titled Supermodel, this time with a bigger target in mind, that being consumer capitalism? I prepared myself for the worst - what did I get?

video review: 'sun structures' by temples

Well, this was a welcome surprise. Man, this was a phenomenal album.

Next up will probably be Crosses... and then Eric Church. Strap in, folks, it's going to get interesting.

album review: 'sun structures' by temples

It's common practice in today's age of ubiquitous marketing that whenever there's a new movie coming out, the actors in that film pull double duty and appear on the talk show circuit to promote the film, whether it be great or terrible. And at this point, I'm honestly bewildered at why anyone would buy into that style of promotion - not only is it blatantly direct marketing, most of the actors involved seem to be exasperated to be doing it (see Bruce Willis' breakdown on live British TV regarding A Good Day To Die Hard - and having seen that POS, it's not hard to see why). I mean, the actors have a stake in the film, why the hell should anyone buy into their assertions that the movie is worth seeing instead of, say, the critical press?

But let's take this a step further: what happens when you get celebrity endorsements for acts where there's no connection between them whatsoever? Well, to place stock in that sort of endorsement, I'd argue that it'd come down to the expertise said celebrity brings to the table. For instance, I got a comment when I reviewed Young The Giant's Mind Over Matter that my opinion was somehow invalid because Morrissey liked that album - and on the face of it, it's a hard argument to beat. Morrissey is a critically-acclaimed musician with decades in the industry, so why shouldn't his opinion be held higher than mine?

Well, I could easily point out the long list of things Morrissey likes that are garbage and the even longer list of things Morrissey hates that aren't worth hating, but instead I'd like to take the high road and talk about a debut album endorsed by a member of The Smiths I can tolerate. This brings us to Sun Structures by the band Temples, a psychedelic rock act that has been acclaimed by Johnny Marr and Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher as one of the best new bands in England. Now that's high praise from two of the most influential names in English rock in the past thirty years, but even on that note I was skeptical. Celebrity endorsements might be indicators of quality on a roughly defined scale, but everyone has different tastes, and I'm not going to be a hypocrite and parrot the praise of legends without giving the band an evaluation myself and discovering why I might like or dislike the band outside of additional press. So, what did I think of Sun Structures by Temples?

video review: '...like clockwork' by queens of the stone age

Well, that should take care of the last of my major retrospectives, and it's a great one to end off on, I think.

This is the last big week for album releases, so I'll endeavor to knock back some of the big ones and a few last retrospectives before my year end lists, so stay tuned!

album review: '...like clockwork' by queens of the stone age (RETRO REVIEW)

For the longest time this year, I ignored Queens of the Stone Age and their newest album entirely.

And really, that was a big mistake, mostly linked to the fact that I had a few major misconceptions about the band that I only really knew from the few singles I heard from Era Vulgaris six years ago. As I've said a number of times, I skipped over most rock throughout the 2000s and jumped straight into metal, and Queens of the Stone Age were one of those bands I just ignored because I assumed they were just another post-grunge or hard rock band that somehow managed to get rave reviews. 

As I said, big mistake, and I've spent the past three weeks listening through the band's discography and realizing the major errors in my thinking. For one, Queens of the Stone Age are one of those acts that really defies genre classification: they've done hard rock, they've flirted with psychedelia and alternative metal, and while they've worked with Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, I wouldn't call them a post-grunge act by any stretch. Also, they're awesome, as in one of the best rock/metal acts of the decade. I stand by my opinion that Era Vulgaris is their worst album, but it's by no means bad (it mostly suffers from the same listlessness that Tonight... Franz Ferdinand had when they made a 'nightlife' album). As to my favourite Queens of the Stone Age record, I'm honestly going to go with Lullabies To Paralyze, simply because the nightmarish fairy tales that Josh Homme wrote about added a lot of twisted flavour to the songwriting, and the album had simply phenomenal grooves and melodies that I really loved.

And thus, having completed my heel-face turn on Queens of the Stone Age, I was psyched to listen through their newest album ...Like Clockwork - albeit six months too late. And I'd be remiss not to mention the importance of this record, or the troubled production process that preceded it. Long-time Queens of the Stone Age drummer Joey Castillo was fired about a third of the way into the recording and replaced by Dave Grohl, and Josh Homme recruited singers like Trent Reznor, Alex Turner, Jake Shears, Elton John, and even former Queens of the Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri for backing vocals. And this was their first album in six years - did ...Like Clockwork manage to work?

video review: 'mgmt' by mgmt

Yeah, I suspect that many people will likely take issue with this particular review, but I stand by it. 

Now comes the influx of country reviews - three coming up over the next few days while I work to get through Manic Street Preachers' discography in preparation for that album. Stay tuned!

album review: 'mgmt' by mgmt

You know, psychedelic rock might be one of the most frustrating genres of music I've ever encountered, at least on the level of songwriting.

Keep in mind this is speaking as a fan of psychedelic rock - as anyone who saw my Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros review can testify, I'm a sucker for 'old hippie rock' and those attempting to emulate it (even if they don't completely manage to recapture it). And bands that dive straight into the weird, acid-tinged swirl of psychedelia often create some indelible imagery and powerful songs to support it. The Flaming Lips are often the band I'll point to who have managed to capture the raw insanity that birthed psychedelic rock in the mainstream today, and one of the reasons that particular band is so damn good is that they managed to capture more than just the flash of acid hallucinations, but the fragments of deeper meaning lurking behind said illusions, which they then fused together into compelling wholes. 

But here's my big issue with the themes and bands often present in this genre: they either go for complete, uncompromising sincerity towards light or darkness (like Edward Sharpe or, if we're going over to the progressive side, acts like The Flower Kings) or they flip the script, using upbeat psychedelia to contrast with twisted, grotesque imagery or incredibly dark lyrics. It's a rictus grin, a painted smile used to conceal the horrors beneath. Instead of the acid high, it's the acid freakout. The really frustrating fact is that the majority of psychedelic rock is lodged within one of these two camps and nowhere else, with the latter growing more and more popular today in this age of increased irony and general cynicism, particularly for the hippie ideal. And as I have mentioned before, I don't respond as well to bands playing that dichotomy, because I feel a certain purity of theme is lost. Yes, psychedelic rock can plunge into darkness (The Flaming Lips proved that this year with The Terror, one of the best albums of the year and one that scares the crap out of me), but when bands seek to play the dichotomy, I can't help but lose a certain deeper connection to the material in a lot of cases, most of the time because too many of the bands seem entirely too self-satisfied with coming up with the idea.

So let's talk about MGMT, a neo-psychedelic indie rock act that amassed a certain amount of critical acclaim by playing that dichotomy very well - and yet one with which I cannot really feel a connection. Now, let me make it clear that I don't think either of their first two albums are bad (Oracular Spectacular is better than Congratulations, though), but I have a hard time truly getting invested in them because the band is very much enamored with the concept of exploring, taking upbeat melodies and delivery and fusing it with some pretty dark lyrics all things considered, with the glaring contrast being one of the grandest selling points of the album. It doesn't help that it's very clear their albums are draped of layers of irony and sarcasm which makes any shred of authenticity very hard to find in the whole experience - which I suspect is part of the point, but it really doesn't resonate with me. 

However, I'm not entirely sure that MGMT plays to their strengths as much as they should. Their first album gained a lot of press and acclaim due to their fusion of psychedelic indie rock with complex and yet catchy rhythms that had a striking amount of populist appeal - so when the band made a left turn into art rock with their second album, they alienated a lot of fans. For me, that wasn't quite the issue, as it basically felt like a less catchy, more backwards-looking version of their first album, returning frequently to the fount of late 60s and early 70s psychedelia and prog rock and not doing a lot beyond that, particularly lyrically. That being said, as a fan of progressive rock, I can say that MGMT's attempts here are well-intentioned, but more than a little overstuffed, and their better tracks are their simpler experiments.

So, with all of that in mind, did MGMT manage to make something that I found compelling on their third swing, with a self-titled album three into their career (something I always take issue with, by the way)?

video review: 'a.m.' by arctic monkeys

So the second wave of album releases has begun, starting off with an album from a band that I never really liked. So with that in mind, does this mean I can overcome my issues and talk about what will likely be a divisive album? Let's find out!

album review: 'edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros' by edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros

Today, let's talk about the hippie movement.

As someone who has always had an interest in cultural demographics, I've always been a little fascinated by the hippie movement, particularly considering its presence in the music of the late 60s and throughout most of the 70s. So many great acts of the era can be linked directly to it and the countercultural force it was for a brief time. Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Janis Joplin, hell, pretty much all of the psychedelic rock genre owes its existence and most of its fanbase to the free love, free drugs, inner peace nirvana that the hippie movement preached. In terms of an era where cultural progressives owned the industry (rather than the other way around), it was unlike any other.

So what the hell happened? Well, pretty much what anyone with a brain could have expected. The 'intellectuals' of the hippie movement went into prog rock and avant-garde music that became too pretentious to be sustainable, the music industry digested the musical and visual aesthetic and dumbed it down for the mainstream, and midway through the 70s, a group of angry punks smashed whatever free love was left to pieces. It's a sad testament to the legacy of the hippies that Seth MacFarlane was able to sum it up aptly in the words of his talking dog on Family Guy: 'We lost the values but we kept the weed'.

Now to be completely fair, there were always gaping holes in the hippie ideology that you could fly a spaceship through, namely a complete ignorance of consequences to all the free love and free drugs. The pacifism was nice, but human nature made it abundantly clear that pacifist thinking and radical politics weren't a combination built to last (the radicalization of the leftist movements in the 70s proved this). Speaking on the topic of the philosophy, most of it was a product of the drugs and lifestyle that spawned it, and was thus incoherent, unfocused, and surprisingly shallow - without a clear message, there was never going to be societal change on the scale the hippies wanted. And on the political side (most commonly recognized as the Yippies), there may have been some movement towards social and racial equality (driven by some of the great leaders for social change of the time), but without changes on the institutional level, most of the greater 'change' died in a sputtering heap. And as for the progressive movement... well, I'll just let Will McAvoy from Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom explain (along with some rightfully required ruminations on the Tea Party):

The sad thing is that he's not wrong about any of it, hippies or Tea Party (yeah, I said it), and you can go further and trace this to how 'hippie music' and psychedelic rock suffered their painful decline throughout the 70s. But what I think was more damaging was how the image of the hippie movement was further ridiculed as 'out-of-touch' or so high that any fragments of coherent or interesting ideology is drowned out in baked-out nonsense. And really, that bugs the hell out of me, because there were nuggets of real truth and wisdom, about the human condition in that culture that gets swept away and ignored. Now I'm not exactly surprised that material was ignored - often times it was more grounded and had some serious teeth - but it was enough to justify the hippie movement's philosophy, if not its execution.

And funnily enough, issues with problematic execution are where I always used to stand on Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, another band I'd categorize as a 'silent majority' act that broke through in 2009 with their debut Up From Below. A musical project run by singer-songwriter Alex Ebert, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros resemble nothing less than an act attempting to recapture the 60s hippie aesthetic, but never quite grasping the meat of the message. 

Now don't get me wrong, I like what this band represents, and there are definitely elements of their material that I find extremely compelling. For an act that debuted in 2009, they sure as hell do a good job sounding like an act from the golden era of psychedelic rock, particularly in production. I like the interplay between the vocalists, I like the harmonies and the stomping choruses, I like the breadth of instrumentation, and I even like some of the more ridiculous and grandiose moments that only seem to work half of the time. If anything, what makes Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros stand out to me is their musical 'texture', particularly on their first album - the mix is organic and layered masterfully, yet done in a way that we don't see the seams. I don't know who does the production work for this band, but Jimmy Eat World needs to hire them as soon as possible!

But unfortunately, I know the exact reasons why Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes never worked for me: there was never any edge. Sure, the music had the sound of a hippie record, but there was no edge or hint that their lyrics meant anything, or were going to take any chances - in fact, any attempt they did try to stretch themselves lyrically on Up From Below they sounded laughably out of their depth. They did try to improve things with their second record Here, but in doing so, they also cut back on the larger scope and feel of the band, and some of the texture leaked away. If I might make a TV comparison, the second season of The Newsroom has a lot fewer mistakes than the first, but it also lost some of the grandiose bombast and utter insanity that made that first season so compellingly watchable. Simply put, if you shoot lower, you're going to fail less, but your successes won't mean as much either. 

What Here also revealed for the band was that the project's focus was solely on Alex Ebert. Now, granted, some of this was bound to come out - the album was a concept piece exploring one's difficulties with religion and spirituality - but with that knowledge comes a lack of inclusiveness that really runs contrary to the hippie ideal. Any attempts at having Ebert balanced by the other vocalists just fell painfully flat because it was so obvious where the lyrical focus was fixed. And while the album might have had a more coherent tone and narrative throughline, it still lacked the edge that would truly make the album distinctive. 

So a year after that album's release, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros have come back with a self-titled album two into their career, something that just happens to be a serious pet peeve of mine. Does the band manage to overcome that peeve and create something of substance?

Youtube review after the jump

album review: 'the terror' by the flaming lips

I think I'm obliged to say this as a professional: the majority of music that is designed to be 'scary' and 'intimidating' fucking sucks.

This is another incident where the fact that I am a music critic and have heard a ton of music speaks to a disconnect with the average music listener, but I think part of it comes down to my growth of musical knowledge. As I've said before, I jumped pretty much from boy bands and Eminem straight to power/symphonic metal, thus skipping the rap rock/rap metal/thrash period that most young teenage guys go through. But really, the more I think about that, the more I'm grateful I avoided those trends, because any retrospective examination into those genres has just filled me with contempt, disgust, and revulsion. And as someone who can get back into the teenage mindset enough to tolerate even the occasional Simple Plan song, there's no goddamn excuse for the dearth of quality in this genre.

So yeah, I'll come out and say it outright: acts like Hollywood Undead and Killswitch Engage and Atreyu and Underoath and Bring Me The Horizon just plain suck. Musically, they aren't within spitting distance of quality metal and content-wise, they just bore me. Too much of this material is wrapped up in unfortunate sadomasochistic tendencies (you know, always talking about the BLOOD and the PAIN and the SUFFERING and all that nonsense), and it's very rare that any of it is all that compelling. On top of that, it's hard for me to consider any of these acts remotely 'scary' or even all that intimidating, particularly recent entries in the genre. I think most of my issues with these acts comes back to similar issues that I have with the American horror film industry, namely that there is no subtlety or pacing. In the pursuit of over-the-top 'gorn', too many acts come across as way too ridiculous to take seriously, the music of immature white boys who don't have the sophistication or patience to take in something better. The slightly better side of the genre features acts that aren't taking themselves all that seriously but are still trying to come across as 'scary', and this tends to remind me of the trashy, too-hip-for-the-room schlock otherwise known as 90s horror films. 

But either way, it's not scary to me. The obsession with gore and tits in some of this material is exploitative, but it's not compelling exploitation and it has nothing to say. I'll make an exception for some of Marilyn Manson's material because he has occasionally made some interesting albums, but even that stuff relies too much on shock imagery and the musical equivalent of a jump scare. And sure, that can be startling or revolting, but that doesn't horrify me or even come across as particularly memorable. I think some of it is desensitization, but really, outside of the occasional political polemic Marilyn Manson includes (which you tend to see more of in the industrial punk/metal scene), there's just not much there.

I think the other big problem with my retrospective examination of these genres is that I'm a fan of Eminem, who is probably the only artist I can think of who balanced being scary with being listenable. That's another issue I have with most of the modern metalcore or horrorcore acts: the overproduction stands out, making the songs appear too polished to really get under my skin. Hell, this even happened a bit with Eminem's Relapse (although I'd argue that overproduction choice was part of the point of that album, showing just how heinous and simultaneously pathetic Slim Shady really was). 

But let's ask the question why The Marshall Mathers LP, arguably the best horrorcore album ever made, works and actually does come across as genuinely scary to me, even to this day. Well, there are a number of elements that contribute here: Dr. Dre's minimalistic, grimy beats, the bleak production, the tone of menace present even on the lighter tracks, or the fact that Eminem always brings an intensity that feels genuine (one of my recurring problems with horrorcore rapper Cage, by the way). But what I think made the album work the best was the grounding of it all in real, human places. Songs like 'The Way I Am', 'Kill You', 'Stan', 'Marshall Mathers', and especially 'Kim' are creepy and unnerving not just because of the instrumentation and subject matter, but the fact that they feel like they're grounded in human emotion and come from a very real, very dark place. Eminem isn't trying to ingratiate himself to you or come across like a decent human being, he's intentionally exposing his very worst impulses to the microphone and daring you to listen. This purposeful alienation really adds an interesting concept to the rest of his career, particularly on subsequent albums, and some could read that alienation and subsequent loneliness and disillusionment with fame as founding factors for his next three albums.

But I'm getting off-track, because what the ultimate point I'm trying to make is that even today, Eminem managed to nail the elements that make music genuinely scary for me, stuff that can send a shiver down my spine. And really, no other artist who has followed him has really managed to capture that same fear.

Until now. Because The Flaming Lips, the experimental rock act known for some of the strangest and psychedelic experiments in music have just released their thirteenth studio album The Terror - and it scared the shit out of me.

album review: 'the flaming lips and heady fwends' by the flaming lips

Short version: it's incredibly weird and the mix of the psychedelic and avant-garde will throw some people off, but in terms of beautifully coherent and powerful art, you're not going to find a better album this year. Highly recommended.

Have you ever contemplated the end of the world?

It may seem like a vague, strange, almost-silly question, drenched in unfortunate implications and terrible pop culture (particularly in this year), but it's something that's fascinated the thinkers, great and small, throughout time. Everyone wonders what the end of the world would be like, what will happen to this tiny planet suspended in the galactic cosmos. Less often is the question of what one would do at the end of the world, and outside of Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World, a Steve Carrell/Keira Knightley movie that's currently one of my most anticipated movies of the summer, most people don't have good answers to the question. Why?

Well, perhaps because the question is loaded, because you're not only forced to contemplate your death in the question, but the chance that everything around you, everything you've ever cherished and loved, will be gone with you. No memories left behind, no fond recollections, no legacy, no... nothing. It was what Melancholia tried (and arguably failed) to capture - the possibility that everything you've ever done will amount to precisely nothing as everything you define as existence collapses and vanishes around you - ultimately, what does everything mean then?

The closest I've ever heard to capturing this vision was the prog/space metal epic from Ayreon 01011001, but that album's themes were more linked to the greater questions of human existence and the significance of life, lacking the necessary focus to truly contemplate this question in any significant detail. I'd also argue the album, while very strong, didn't quite nail down the necessary emotions to truly encapsulate what makes this question so significant. That album, loaded with bombast and intensity, didn't quite capture the little emotions, the quiet thoughts that were necessary to make the question truly resonate. Because, like it or not, not all of us have the courage or force of will to stare straight into the apocalypse with open arms.

The Flaming Lips have the courage, and with their newest album, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends, they probably do the most thorough and deep exploration of the question that I've ever heard, with collaborators on every track to lend additional facets to the digression.

And it's glorious.