album review: 'little machines' by lights

The more I think about it, the more I'm surprised I didn't really get into Lights when I was at university.

I mean, at first glimpse she was the sort of act I'd typically like. Indie pop with a focus on melody, Lights sparked a lot of early comparisons with Owl City with the release of her first album The Listening in 2009, mostly for her keyboard-driven catchiness, her usage of autotune to augment the synthetic sound, her occasional song related to faith, and her lyrics that toed the line between twee and outright adolescent. In fact, it was probably that last part that kept me keeping some amount of distance - her voice had more presence and power than Owl City's, but her lyrics never quite approached the same level of cleverness that occasionally saved Owl City. And to go by that first album, it'd be very easy - and somewhat unfair - to throw the Manic Pixie Dream Girl label on Lights - emphasis on 'girl' because with songs like 'Pretend' there was a certain 'regression to childhood' tendency that had some nuance but rubbed me the wrong way, even if the ultimate message of her album did imply maturity was the natural end goal.

Well, apparently Lights wasn't a fan of those particular comparisons, because most of the cutesy image went out the window for her sophomore release Siberia, at least in terms of her instrumentation. The soft, fluttering keyboards and effects were jettisoned in favour of heavy, icy dubstep-inspired synthpop, which gave the album a darker, grittier feel - and yet for some reason, it didn't really carry over into the lyrics or Lights' presentation. If anything, despite Lights' admittedly solid grasp of interesting poetry, the subject matter felt a little more mundane and pop-friendly, lacking some of the nuance that had characterized her previous work. On top of that, Siberia has not exactly aged well - while it might have preceded the dubstep-flavour that would come into prominence in 2012, it feels very much of its time in terms of mix balance and production, and as someone who has never really been a fan of the upper-to-midrange pop brand of dubstep, it didn't always work for me.

So I have to be honest, I had no idea what to expect with Lights' newest album 'Little Machines', but I was definitely curious to find out, in addition to supporting another promising and interesting Canadian artist. So I checked out the album: what did I get?

video review: 'the big revival' by kenny chesney

Well, this gave me way more to talk about than I was expecting. Good to see that happening, even though, like with Tim McGraw, I don't expect this to get a lot of traffic.

Okay, next up will probably be Lights, but it could be Opeth or Ty Segall either, so stay tuned!

album review: 'the big revival' by kenny chesney

Okay, if you've been listening to country music beyond just the past year or two, you've probably noticed that certain acts tend to take their party/relaxation songs to the beach or the Caribbean. It's lightweight, it's generally harmless, and occasionally it can be a fair amount of fun if you get acts like The Zac Brown Band or Jake Owen. Then again, both of these acts realize it isn't exactly a good thing to spend too much time at the beach, which is why Jake Owen's most recent single is an acoustic ballad and the Zac Brown Band are recording with Dave Grohl.

But you occasionally run into acts in country music that don't ever seem to leave the beach, and undoubtedly the most popular of these acts is Kenny Chesney. He may have started out in neotraditional country back the 90s, but in the very early 2000s he found a niche in lightweight country that seemed destined for all-inclusive resorts and cruise lines. And to his credit, it was a niche that fit him well, and he and his arsenal of cowriters produced a fair number of pretty good songs.

But as the decade wore on, astute listeners came to realize the beach for Kenny Chesney became less of a lane and more of a crutch, especially as he pumped out album after album of material that all sounded pretty similar. Sure, he'd occasionally drop an interesting collaboration or strike a more melancholy pose, but in the fourteen album released across his career, about eight or nine of them were firmly lodged in the beach. Kenny Chesney so thoroughly dropped himself into the Jimmy Buffett mold that there were many accusation of ripping Buffett off, but I'd argue that's not quite fair. As much as Jimmy Buffett has written some asinine songs, he wasn't afraid to be loose and silly and weird, and occasionally he did write some stellar songs. Kenny Chesney to me has always seemed like more of a workman with a little more dignity - he'll put out accessible, solid enough albums with plenty of songs that miss the point of 'Margaritaville', but he's never going to write 'A Pirate Looks At Forty' or a 'Cheeseburger In Paradise', and that means I've never really been that interested in him.

That said, Kenny Chesney's newest single 'American Kids' did seem like a bit of a departure for the guy and while he only has four writing credits on this album, he is working with some of the better songwriters in Nashville right now, so I figured what the hell and gave 'The Big Revival' a chance - what did I find?

video review: 'sundown heaven town' by tim mcgraw

I honestly don't expect this review to get a tremendous amount of traffic... but then again, you never know, and I wanted to say my piece on Tim McGraw anyways.

Okay, next up... you know, I think I'm about ready to talk about Opeth, but I might need something in the middle first... okay, stay tuned!

album review: 'sundown heaven town' by tim mcgraw

It's hard, as a critic, to talk about some acts with which you grew up. These are bands that are lodged in your formative psyche and though you might not have heard the songs for years, you still remember every line as if it was yesterday. Despite the fact I have not listened through a Shania Twain or Garth Brooks or Alabama or Sammy Kershaw album in years, I can still remember the songs whenever they inevitably come up at karaoke... well, okay, it's mostly the Shania Twain tracks because of every girls night out party ever, but the point is that I find Come On Over a hard record to judge because I grew up with it and she dropped twelve goddamn singles thanks to songwriter and future Nickelback producer Mutt Lange.

And this is something of a similar issue with Tim McGraw, one of the most popular and successful country acts of all time thanks to a quiet, sensitive middlebrow sensibility and a knack for hiring good songwriters. Unlike contemporaries Alan Jackson and George Strait, Tim McGraw has been using the Nashville songwriting machine for decades now to make material I like to describe as an auditory Xanax, especially around the time of his long-lasting marriage to Faith Hill in the late 90s. The funny thing is that Tim McGraw was a good enough performer with a strong sense of populism, so while he barely wrote any of his albums, they still managed to produce pretty damn solid singles that stuck in the memory.

But in recent years, Tim McGraw has been in a bit of a complicated situation behind the scenes, and it's shown through in his music as he's struggled to keep up with the times. The larger issue was with his label Curb Records, which milked his name into the ground through a pile of increasingly redundant greatest hits albums that traded off his late 90s success. Eventually he was able to claw his way out of his contract and move to Big Machine with Taylor Swift, but the artistic flailing on that record was noticeable. And sure, 'Highway Don't Care' was okay, but 'Truck Yeah' was easily the stupidest song he had ever released, leaving that 2013 record a bit of a mixed bag. And off of the opening single 'Lookin' For That Girl', which featured some of the most egregious Autotune I'd ever heard in country song, I was pretty concerned. That said, he did manage to return to his comfort zone of middlebrow tracks with 'Meanwhile Back At Mama's', a duet with his wife that was pretty good but not exactly inspiring considering Miranda Lambert made 'Automatic' this year, so I didn't have any idea what to expect. But I figured, 'Hey, it's Tim McGraw, and at the very least my mom would appreciate me doing this review, and I need to improve my YouTube demographics testing', so I gave Sundown Heaven Town a couple listens - what did I get?

video review: 'songs of innocence' by u2

I went into this hoping this was going to be good or that U2 was actually going back to their roots. Wishful thinking, I know, but man, still a disappointment.

Okay, I need to talk about some country and clear my head, so probably Tim McGraw next. Stay tuned!

album review: 'songs of innocence' by u2

On September 9th of this year, Apple unveiled its newest tech lineup, which included the newest iterations of the iPhone and the Apple Watch, the latest tech gimmick to try to replace the common wristwatch and will likely fall into the same fate unless Apple fetishists embrace it. But that wasn't the only thing revealed at that press conference - because rock band U2 announced that their newest album Songs Of Innocence would be arriving in your iTunes that very day for free should you choose to pull it off the iCloud.

And consumers revolted. Suddenly the big story was the backlash leveled against U2 for not only allying with Apple - which they've done extensively in the past - but that U2 had suddenly injected their newest album into everyone's iTunes library whether they wanted it or not. And the response was emphatic: people did not want this album, to the point where Apple released a tool specifically designed for iTunes users to get rid of the album instead of just waiting for the iCloud download window to expire. And honestly, I was a little shocked by this reaction - I mean, it's free music from one of the biggest rock bands on earth who hadn't dropped an album in five years, why the backlash?

Well, I suspect part of it is that people tend to be protective of what they put in their iTunes libraries, but the larger truth is that many people tend to have complicated feelings regarding U2. They started as one of the most potent and explosive mainstream rock acts of the 80s, known for earnest, explosive power, sweeping scope, and socially-minded lyrics... until Rattle & Hum exposed the mind-boggling pretentiousness and swaggering rock arrogance beneath it that made the band come across as more than a little preachy. Without warning, the band pulled a 180 and went straight for the self-aware shields of irony with Achtung Baby, throwing earnestness aside for a highly artificial image of cool that paid diminishing returns as the 90s wore on and U2 drifted more towards electronic music. This experimentation eventually ended in the flashy and intentionally empty-feeling record Pop, the mixed reception of which pushed U2 back towards the earnest, politically-minded anthems that made their fortune in the 80s. Unfortunately, the shift took a while to stick, mostly because the instrumentation lacked visceral punch and Bono's lyrics had taken a turn for the self-indulgent. And while they would fix some of the former - it was plainly apparent U2 was never going back towards the explosive power of War any time soon, which would probably be my favourite U2 album after The Joshua Tree - the lyrics remained spotty across 2004's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb and 2009's even more scattershot No Line On The Horizon. And considering the opening buzz for this album was that it was going to be produced by Ryan Tedder, Paul Epworth, and Brian Burton aka Danger Mouse, the last whose work has taken something of a downturn this year on the new albums from Broken Bells and The Black Keys, I wasn't really looking forward to this album. But hey, it's U2, one of the greatest rock acts of all time, surely they could pull something together, right?

video review: 'jealous gods' by poets of the fall

Dear god, this album kicked all amounts of ass. Epic and yet accessible and somehow making it all work, it's easily one of the best of the year. GO GET IT ALREADY.

Okay, next up - finally - is U2. Stay tuned!

album review: 'jealous gods' by poets of the fall

There are some bands that when you look through their discography or their charting singles, you wonder why on God's green earth they became famous. Because even bucking the trends of the time, even without a catchy or interesting song or even good song to their name, there are acts that will somehow rise to the top of the charts. And then five years later people will look back on that time and wonder why the hell these guys became popular.

And then there's the opposite case. A musical act that for all intents and purposes should have been huge - maybe the trends were on their side, maybe they had infinitely catchy hooks, maybe they just made awesome music - and yet for no discernible reason, they never blew up in the mainstream the way they should. And we're going to be talking about one of those bands today, the Finnish alternative rock act Poets of the Fall. These guys released their first album Signs of Life in 2005 and ever since then have been releasing record after record of quality music that pretty much encapsulated everything I liked about alternative rock and metal. They had a great melodic focus and the instrumental heft to back it up, they wrote fantastic, hook-driven songs with introspective and emotionally compelling lyrics, and lead vocalist Marko Saaresto had one of the most compelling and expressive voices in the genre, a rich liquid baritone capable both of grit and melody.

So why didn't Poets of the Fall become huge in the US? Well, I've got a few ideas, the first being that the band opted for a more sophisticated and melodic presence when alt rock and metal of the time was going in the exact opposite direction. And with the decline of mainstream rock radio, I'm not surprised that Poets Of The Fall never blew up beyond their home country. The other thing - and this is coming from a fan of the band that thinks they've never really made a bad album - is that Poets Of The Fall didn't really make consistent albums. Their early output, especially their third album Revolution Roulette, was pretty uneven as the band worked to strike a balance between gorgeous melodic ballads and their more hard-edged material. 

But in 2012, the band seemed to finally hit that sweet spot with Temple of Thought, a strikingly potent release that fused their melodic focus with sweeping heaviness that made the album one of the best of the year. So you can bet I was hotly anticipating their newest record Jealous Gods - so how is it?

video review: 'the union' by the glorious sons

Finally got around to talking about these guys, and man, it was worth it. Solid, thought-provoking record, definitely worth a look.

And coming up... one of my most hotly anticipated albums of the year. No, not that one. And not the U2 record either (though that review is coming soon). Stay tuned to find out!

album review: 'the union' by the glorious sons

So let's return to the Canadian music scene for a bit. Now as I've mentioned in the past, I now live in Toronto which is one of the major hubs of indie rock in Canada, mostly thanks to a thriving alternative community and multiple universities near the downtown core. And what's even better is that said indie rock scene and those who get invested in it tend to have a fairly tight-knit community, to the point where if you know the right people, buzz tends to circulate pretty quickly. It also means that buzz tends to die fairly quickly if the word doesn't get out, which can be the death knell of indie acts.

So when I start getting requests for Canadian bands not just from you guys, but from friends who are actively involved in the indie music community, it means one of two things: it means that buzz has reached some form of critical mass and we're looking at a possible radio or even mainstream breakthrough; or I've got something really special on my hands. And when requests starting coming in for the debut album of The Glorious Sons, after a very well-received EP Shapeless Art last year that was described as blending the sounds of 90s hook-driven alt rock and pub-friendly indie rock, it definitely caught my interest. So I made sure to pick up their debut album The Union when it dropped and gave it plenty of listens: how is it?

video review: 'the water[s]' by mick jenkins

Well, okay, I planned to cover The Glorious Sons today, but things don't always work out as planned and I've wanted to talk about Mick Jenkins for a while now. In any case, great mixtape, definitely worth everyone's time and definitely looking forward to seeing whatever else this guy drops.

Okay, next up is The Glorious Sons, so stay tuned!

album review: 'the water[s]' by mick jenkins

Let's talk a bit about concept albums. They've got a bit of a complicated reputation among critics, with some considering them high points of an artist's creative ambition and skill, and others calling them moments of excruciating hubris that show artists disappearing up their own ass. And let's make this clear, there are cases where both of these are true, but for the most part I tend to like concept albums, if only because they show an artist taking an ambitious risk and not just resorting to the default subject matter.

So let's go further and talk about concept albums in hip-hop, and when I say that, I'm not referring to albums that opt to have a narrative or a story or a subtle underlying theme. I'm talking about records that are focused on a single concept, usually abstract that the rapper then proceeds to explore in detail throughout an entire record. When you take a look from that perspective, the number of concept albums dwindles down to a precious few, appreciated by critics or hardcore hip-hop nerds but few else.

But as experimental hip-hop continues to grow and become more accepted, I knew it was only a matter of time before concept records in hip-hop returned. Enter Mick Jenkins, a Chicago MC who released his first mixtape with Trees and Truths last year that got a fair bit of critical scrutiny. Not only did he display a good flow and real wordplay, he also had interestingly textured production and some intriguing deeper themes in his work. Now I didn't quite love Trees & Truths - it felt a little long, the biblical elements felt a little shaky, and the ubiquitous pitch shifting got exasperating, but it was enough to pique my interest when he dropped his second mixtape The Water[s] this year. Now let me stress that I don't normally cover mixtapes, but considering the absurd critical acclaim this tape has gotten and the assertions that it comes together as more of a fully formed concept album than most, I figured I might as well try something new. So I gave The Water[s] a listen - what did I find?

video review: 'el pintor' by interpol

Pretty pleased with this review, all things considered, because this album was a tough nut to crack. Hopefully it'll deflect attention from the Team Breezy attempted circlejerk going on in the last review, but I doubt it.

Okay, next up I want to talk about The Glorious Sons, but Tim McGraw and Poets of the Fall aren't far down the line, so stay tuned!

album review: 'el pintor' by interpol

It's a well-known fact that at the beginning of the 2000s, we saw a wave of shockingly good, career-defining records from the indie scene that didn't just define the possibility of a garage rock revival, but the shape of indie rock going forward. Bands like The Strokes, The Vines, The Hives, and The White Stripes were the first, but bands like The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, The Arctic Monkeys, and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs weren't far from the punch. But the truly alarming thing was that many of these bands would fail to carry forward their success throughout the rest of the decade, either flaming out, breaking up, or delivering significantly mixed results throughout the next ten years, or at the very least cursed with constant comparisons to their early days that they'd never be able to live down.

And one of the most notable of those bands was Interpol, a New York based indie rock band that exploded into the indie scene with the critically beloved Turn On The Bright Lights and Antics, two records filled with memorably chunky riffs, tight bass work, and great drumming. And yet a shift to a major label brought their 2007 record Our Love To Admire that saw the bass shoved back to a mix that had aspirations to grandness that the band couldn't back up instrumentally and certainly not lyrically. Interpol had always been a band caught between the grand earnest insecurities of teenage dreams and being smart enough to know better, but Our Love To Admire saw them trying on more of an assertive rock star persona and man, did it fit uncomfortably. They left that label for their self-titled fourth album in 2010, and while it did work a little better, it was also a sign that the darkness, rock star gravitas and internal frustrations had taken its toll on the band. Interpol had tackled dark material before, but this was the first time the music had mirrored the subject matter and while it felt cohesive, it was not an album most fans were eager to revisit.

So with the departure of their bassist Carlos Dengler, Interpol managed to pull things together for their fifth album El Pintor, an anagram for the band's name and Spanish for 'the painter'. So, what did the album deliver?

video review: 'x' by chris brown

My least anticipated album of the year... and it arguably turned out to be pretty mediocre and actually a step above the true atrocities Chris Brown has dropped. Go figure.

Okay, Interpol next. Stay tuned!

album review: 'x' by chris brown

One of the hardest thing for any critic to do is to separate one's feelings regarding the artist from the art itself. It's something that can be anathema to some people, because to them the artist's presence is so intertwined with what the art is that they can't see the separation, and thus they perceive any attack on the art as an attack on the artist, an attack that is often undeserved or might be considered unfair.

That's not quite the case here - because Chris Brown's music is easily the least interesting and least hateable element of his persona. It's not worth my time to go through the banner list of all the terrible things this guy has said and done over the past five years, as well as the fact that he's clearly learned nothing from it thanks to a total lack of accountability, but all of that can distract many critics from judging the art fairly instead of judging the artist. And it gets even harder when it becomes plainly apparent the artist's life and experience has influenced his songwriting, so where does one draw the line?

Well, here's my policy: it becomes important to understand why certain songwriting choices were made, but ultimately the art has to stand on its own regardless of the artist's life/experiences. And on that note, Chris Brown has made some of the worst music of the past five years. And when I say 'worst', I mean that Graffiti and Fortune were some of the worst albums of their respective years and deserve nothing more than scorn and derision because they are absolute torture to listen through. Even Forgiving All My Enemies had its fair share of turds like 'Deuces' and 'Look At Me Now' and 'She Ain't You' interspersed between the upbeat dance tracks that were the saving grace of that record. 

And thus I've had a certain amount of morbid curiosity in looking up X, the long-delayed record from Chris Brown that promised to go more towards R&B than dance pop - which made sense, given the changing trends on the charts, but every single one of the singles was giving me a really bad feeling about this record. But I figured I'd try to be fair and give Chris Brown the chance he heartily does not deserve and I listened to this record: how is it?

video review: 'bulletproof picasso' by train

So this happened. Overall, a fundamentally broken album, but still entertaining to talk about. Be sure to check out Mark's work over at Spin It! Reviews, he's got some solid material over there.

Okay, Chris Brown, you finally got around to releasing X, hit me!

Wait, bad choice of words -

video review: 'preparanoia' by lmno

Wished it was a little better, but overall a good record from a rapper I really do respect. Check it out.

Okay, tomorrow we could have a pretty interesting surprise - either that or Interpol, so stay tuned!

album review: 'preparanoia' by lmno

So last year, I received a request to review a hip-hop album from a rapper I had never heard of before, and yet managed to turn out as one of my favourite albums of last year thanks to great, well-structured bars and phenomenal production from a guest producer who I've already covered twice this year. That producer was Evidence, and the album was called After The Fact, by the prolific, highly skilled, and impressively monotone MC LMNO. 

And over the past year, I've begun to see more and more why LMNO has managed to carve out his niche defiantly outside of mainstream rap: not only does he produce new material at an impressive rate - not counting 2010, where he released ten albums worth of material in one year - but his delivery was icy, crisp, multisyllabic, and near devoid of inflection or drama. He was the sort of rapper who could deliver bars until the end of time, although his flat brand of intensity could prove to be a little difficult to tolerate.

Yet even with that, I really did respect his wordplay and creativity, and while it was a little disheartening to see him part ways with Evidence for his newest album Preparanoia, I still took the time to check it out regardless. What did I get?