album review: 'ty segall' by ty segall

It seems like Ty Segall has done more in the past ten years than several artists do in their entire careers. Starting from the pits of garage rock before exploding towards the abrasive fuzz of lo-fi, the garish trappings of old-school glam rock, and a whirlwind of noisy psychedelia in between, he doesn't so much burn through musical genres so much as pick up additional layers and ideas wherever he ventures, piling them into a gleefully nihilistic pot that would eventually wear out its welcome if it wasn't so captivating in a twisted way.

Now I've covered two of his albums already on this show, neither quite being my favourites of his assorted work - those would be the more acoustic and yet gorgeoulsy melodic Sleeper and the absolutely insane project he did under The Ty Segall Band, Slaughterhouse. His 2014 project Manipulator was probably his most ornate affair, his 2016 album Emotional Mugger his most ugly and alien - both firmly grounded in unsettling conceptual territory that lent to some very good songs... but not quite great albums as a whole. And so I wasn't entirely surprised that he was opening 2017 with a self-titled release, the second of his career, reportedly rounding up some of his old band to compile all the accumulated ideas... but it was a name in the production credits that really caught my eye: legendary producer and professional curmudgeon Steve Albini. Make no mistake, his name alone tends to do a lot to rope me in, so you can bet that if Ty Segall was pulling a band together for a wild recording, it'd probably cut hard, so you can bet I wanted to hear this. So what does Ty Segall deliver?

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 18, 2017 (VIDEO)

Well, this was an absolutely miserable week to get through... sorry, folks, but Migos is crashing hard and Sam Hunt is somehow getting worse. Fuck, this was hell to get through.

But on a different note, I've got Ty Segall next, so stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 18, 2017

To say I have some mixed feelings about this week would be understating it. On the one hand, I'm reasonably happy with a few shifts in our top ten - we've got a returning #1 I actually like and it looks like it'll have some staying power. On the other hand... this was the week Migos came in force, and nearly half of our new arrivals involved them - and that's not counting another song that seemed destined to even further sink my regards for the artist into the earth's crust, but we'll get to that in a bit.

video review: 'not even happiness' by julie byrne

Man, this was a frustrating review - and one that I planned to get out on the weekend to get ahead of my schedule. Shame that plan kind of went up in smoke given a mild amount of insanity this weekend... eh.

Next up, Ty Segall, and then Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

album review: 'not even happiness' by julie byrne

So I've talked in the past about the 'white guy with acoustic guitar' subgenre - hell, it seems like most music critics on YouTube have at least cited it at this point - and I think like most of us who regularly use the term, we're obliged to explain our interpretations of it at some point. For me, my distaste tends to come for a certain languid, lazy, and yet overly polished and sanitized brand of it, that doesn't aim to push into any interesting lyrical or instrumental directions and simply serves to fill a very safe, middlebrow niche, calculated to the point where it undercuts any sense of feigned sincerity. But that's not dismissing acoustic-leaning indie folk, because while there are a considerable share of stuff that will tilt into that style and lane, usually you'll see a bit more flexibility and innovation than in the mainstream, which can definitely add some colour. I might have many, many issues with Mark Kozelek, but he's a distinctive enough auteur that I'd never outright discount him under this label.

Similarly, while there are fewer of them I'd also argue the label can apply to women as well - they aren't immune to bland artistic bankruptcy - but again, it's not to discount the ones that opt to push into interesting directions. Take Julie Byrne: going back through her debut on Bandcamp you could make the argument that the quiet domesticity and small details would make for the sort of material I'd otherwise find tedious - and yet while I'd be lying to say any of her work was exciting, I found myself mostly liking the filmy cassette quality and muted somber tones of that 2014 debut record Rooms With Walls And Windows. There was a distinct homegrown texture to the instrumental tones and her delivery that did have a certain amount of charm to it, and yet while I was never entirely hooked, I did find a fair amount to appreciate. She aimed to follow it up this year with Not Even Happiness... which yes, was promising a cleaner sound, which did raise some concern, but hey, maybe it'd be interesting, right?

video review: 'vessels' by starset

You know, I wish I could say this was disappointing... but the truth is that I didn't really have many expectations to begin with on this one. Just kind of a slog all around.

But next up, this Julie Byrne project looks interesting, so stay tuned!

album review: 'vessels' by starset

Space rock. Perhaps one of the oddest subgenres of rock I've ever covered, it's never amassed huge popularity or become widely recognized... mostly because unlike the majority of musical subgenres, the term is based on subject matter rather than sound. Well, okay, that's not quite entirely true - musical tropes like huge waves of synth, muted electronic touches to distort human presence, and a commitment to gigantic expansive mixes do tend to crop up, but it's generally used as a catch-all term for music that focuses on science fiction and space. And it's included a surprising breadth of artists, from 70s acts from David Bowie, Pink Floyd, and Hawkwind to the 90s resurgence among acts like Failure, Flying Saucer Attack, and some records from The Flaming Lips, to the growth and success of acts like Star One, Angels & Airwaves, and Muse at one end of quality and Thirty Seconds to Mars at the far other end - and that's before you factor in the huge number of progressive acts who have helped develop and expand the sound into a recognizable aesthetic.

In other words, it should be no surprise that I'm a fan of this genre - not just because I'm a sci-fi nerd, but also because the commitment to bombast and big ideas can be pretty compelling if well-executed. So enter into that scene Starset, an Ohio rock band that wanted to tell those big sci-fi stories with the sort of midi-touched cinematic swell that could make for potent space rock - hell, the frontman had a PhD in engineering, this should be right up my alley. Unfortunately, the more listens I gave to their debut album Transmissions the less I liked it, mostly because the band was a lot less Ayreon and a lot closer to Thirty Seconds To Mars and Breaking Benjamin of all people, who they described as their primary influences. And that definitely shows through in underwritten songs, underwhelming lyrics, and a lot of space rock touches and textures that didn't really have the compositional strength in the melodies and performances to be more memorable - I appreciate spacey bombast, but there needed to be more heft in the writing and storytelling for it to really stick with me or rise to the best of the genre. And when Starset announced that their sophomore album Vessels was going towards pop instead of heavier metal... well, okay, that wasn't precisely bad, it'd certainly be defining its own unique lane. Hell, it could even work with their more basic lyrical construction and delivery, so how does Vessels turn out?

video review: 'near to the wild heart of life' by japandroids

Well, this was actually a fair bit of fun. It's not as strong as Celebration Rock, but still, if you're a fan, you'll dig this.

Next up, though... yikes. Stay tuned!

album review: 'near to the wild heart of life' by japandroids

So here's a confession about me: I didn't really cut loose or run wild in high school. 

I know, that's totally shocking, but the truth is that for as much as I was dipping my toes into metal and anarchist philosophy in the mid-2000s, I wasn't really a wild kid. A big part of that was sports - I was huge into track & field and I basically managed to drag all of my D&D group along with me onto the team - a big part of it was my own academic ambitions - I went to university out of province to study physics of all things, I needed high grades - and if you couldn't tell by the previous D&D reference, I'm a huge nerd. Coupled with the fact I went to a private Catholic school with a graduating class of less than forty kids that was really too small for many cliques, I was involved on the debating team and a bit of musical theater, and my parents gave me a considerable leash to prove my responsibility, which included access to a car, I didn't really have a drive to rebel that hard outside of a few too many car accidents.

Look, the reason I'm saying all of this is that despite liking a lot of the pop punk explosion in the mid-2000s, it wasn't really the soundtrack of my teenage angst... mostly because I wasn't really an angsty kid growing up. Hell, my sullen misanthropic phase was in my second year of university, and the soundtrack to that was mostly Top 40 club hits - it was a weird phase, let me tell you. But it also can make for a fascinating listening experience going back to acts like Japandroids, a Canadian punk duo who dropped their debut album Post-Nothing in 2009 full of scuzzed out guitar work and anthemic crunch that made their material natural for unsettled for teenage emotion, complete with the sharper writing that made them a critical darling nearly immediately. And when they followed it with the even catchier and sharper Celebration Rock, which took much of the lo-fi sound and refined it into more incisive, recklessly exuberance, it looked like Japandroids could go in any direction and still connect with remarkable power. And yet five years later, what did they deliver with Near To The Wild Heart Of Life?

video review: 'road less traveled' by lauren alaina

Well, this was way better than I think anybody expected. Good pleasant surprise with this, definitely dug it.

Next up, Japandroids, stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 11, 2017 (VIDEO)

Well, this happened - I'm actually pretty happy they changed the formula, but still, it's disappointing the load of crap we got.

Anyway, next up is Lauren Alaina and Japandroids, so stay tuned!

album review: 'road less travelled' by lauren alaina

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but here it is: I'm starting to miss American Idol.

More specifically I'm missing the cultural phenomenon that came with American Idol and its ilk as a method to bring prospective singers into the limelight, specifically onto the Hot 100. Yeah, The Voice tried and we still have groups coming from The X Factor making an impact, but if I look back over the past decade in pop, outside of Glee arguably shifting things for the better, American Idol really did have an impact. I wouldn't say it was stellar or that there weren't some low points - I've seen From Justin To Kelly - but if we consider net impact, I'd take Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert, and the few other fleeting hits we got over what Vine has done to the Hot 100 in the past few years!

And while in its waning years American Idol certainly had diminishing returns, one thing I tended to notice was that the runners up also tended to get a boost to their careers, sometimes even overtaking the winners that year in sustaining the limelight. And this takes us to Lauren Alaina, who rode her success as a runner up behind Scotty McCreery to a debut album in October 2011. And I wish I could say it remotely surprised me: if you can imagine what pop country in 2011 sounded like, living in the heyday of Taylor Swift before the bro-country onslaught, packaged on an album from an American Idol winner, you know exactly what this album sounds like - bright acoustics, a little more polished than it ever should be, more country touches than you'd hear in the next few years but entirely too precious in its writing and framing to resonate outside of a very specific target audience. And yet from there, it seemed like her career couldn't get traction - she underwent throat surgery in 2014, finished recording this album in 2015... and yet only now in January of 2017 is it getting released. Now to be fair, Mercury Nashville was probably waiting out current trends in country in the hope that she could gain a bit more airplay traction, and she did put out an EP in 2015... of which four of the five songs showed up on this album anyway. And again, it's been six years since full-length albums - granted, she's faring better than Scotty McCreery, who left Mercury Nashville two years ago and hasn't really been heard since, but still, these were not good signs going in, especially when I took a look at the production credits. But okay, how did it turn out?

video review: 'a girl, a bottle, a boat' by train (ft. the lp club)

So this album completely sucked. No real way around it, it's a stinker and it deserved to be called out. And after a great deal of pain and frustration, me and Ethan did just that, and good riddance to it all.

Next up, though... Lauren Alaina, this could be interesting. Stay tuned!

billboard BREAKDOWN - hot 100 - february 11, 2017

So this was an important week on the Billboard Hot 100 - which on the surface might be a surprising statement, given that it didn't seem that out of the ordinary, at least on the surface. But for those who pay attention, something big happened this chart cycle: Billboard changed their formula. And despite what I might have said earlier on Twitter, upon giving it more thought, I'm actually entirely behind this change - looks like Billboard got it right for once!

video review: 'dear avalanche' by lights & motion

Man, I was so hoping this record would be so much better... eh, it happens, I guess, but still painfully disappointing. Gah.

Next up, though, Billboard BREAKDOWN, so stay tuned!

album review: 'dear avalanche' by lights & motion

So here's the truth of it: for as much post-rock as I've heard, I tend to like the genre... but I also don't tend to seek it out that much.

And I'm not really sure why that is. Yeah, I don't deny that some of it is because if I'm going to be listening to this sort of atmospheric, blurred over melodic rock tones I might as well take that next step and listen to black metal, but the truth runs a little more complicated than that. For one, a lot of the post-rock I've tended to hear doesn't have a lot of lyrics, and I've been well-known for citing that as a big factor behind a lot of my favourite music. But it also ties back to that for as much post-rock as I've heard, a lot of it starts to blur together, more than it otherwise should. I like the tones, I like the renewed focus on melody, I really like the commitment to crescendos and musical dynamics... but beyond that, a lot of these pieces don't tend to hook me as deeply as I would like.

So take Lights & Motion, for instance. This is a Swedish post-rock act, the solo project of Christoffer Franzén, and it's known for a certain cinematic swell and scope. And from the brighter guitar-driven tones of his debut in 2013 with Reanimation to the piano-driven Save Your Heart to the more lush and orchestral Chronicle in 2015, it was easily some of the prettiest and most serene post-rock I've ever heard - it's no surprise it's been picked as backing orchestration for a lot of modern TV and movie projects. But on some level that might be part of the issue - Lights & Motion make music that generally sounds appealing but doesn't exactly have a distinctive tone and feel beyond a couple of obvious comparison points to Explosions In The Sky - which yes, makes it ideal for advertising, but that financial blessing can also be a hidden curse. And yet thanks to Patreon the newest project Dear Avalanche wound up on my schedule, with buzz suggesting more strings textures to be shift and changed, along with more vintage synthesizers. And this raised some mixed feelings for me: I don't mind cooler synths, but Save Your Heart was easily the softest work this guy has put out by playing to that piano mold, and that type of melancholy can run out of steam quick in my books. But whatever, I was curious to hear more, so how was Dear Avalanche?

video review: 'puxico' by natalie hemby

Well, this was a lot better than I expected. Still not sure if it's precisely great, but I'll definitely support it all the same, it's a solid album.

But next... whoo boy, this'll be fun. Stay tuned!

album review: 'puxico' by natalie hemby

So I've talked a fair bit in the past about the 'Nashville songwriting machine', the list of names that you'll see crop up again and again if you dig through the liner notes of mainstream country. And while for a while I tended to have something of an allergic reaction to this industry... well, on some level I get it. For a mainstream public who is can't stand major change and would recoil from most auteur-driven music, you need people behind the scenes to help fill time on the radio, or at the very least enough songs to fit albums cranked out every few years.

But here's the thing: with the recent upheaval and swings back towards neotraditional and indie country, you're not just seeing a fair few artists grab hold of writing duties for themselves, but several long-time veterans who put in their time behind the scenes step out into the spotlight. The big name, of course, is Chris Stapleton who released Traveller in 2015, but go a year earlier and you'd see Eric Paslay, or a year later and you'd get Lori McKenna and her spell-binding record The Bird And The Rifle. And now one of the newest artists to step to the forefront is Natalie Hemby, most well-known for her affiliations with Miranda Lambert, Sunny Sweeney, Little Big Town, and a fair few of the more contemplative and borderline experimental side of the Nashville sound that came in the aftermath of bro-country. And while there are a few duds on that list, there's also a fair amount of quality, which left me intrigued enough to check out her debut record Puxico, named for her grandfather's hometown in Missouri. And I wasn't sure what to expect - normally songwriters who have worked behind the scenes for a while before going solo are not the most striking performers, but that's where writing can do a lot of heavy lifting, and I have no qualms with that whatsoever - hell, more often than not I'd prefer it. So what did we find in Puxico?

video review: 'new world alphabet' by ubiquitous synergy seeker (USS)

So this is certainly an album. Yep, an album alright... shame it really isn't better than the debut EP and full-length, that was some quality fun music. This really should be a lot better.

But eh, next up... well, I'll see where the Patreon shakes out. Stay tuned!

album review: 'new world alphabet' by ubiquitous synergy seeker (USS)

So let's talk about the Canadian alternative scene a little bit. 

Now for those Americans in the audience, alternative and indie rock never really went away in Canada, not quite thriving in the same way as the pop music that still monopolizes mainstream radio, but there's a real chance you'll actually hear alternative rock if you turn on the radio, mostly because the Canadian Radio-Telecommunications Commission requires the radio play a certain amount of Canadian content. So not only does this mean a large quantity of the overblown streaming trends haven't quite crossed over in the same way, but in order to fill time radio producers have had little choice but to pull from Canadian acts that have the flexibility to get a little weirder and rougher.

So into that scene comes Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker, otherwise known as USS, an alternative dance duo that might as well have been imported straight from the late 90s in their fusion of drum n' bass with crunchy pop rock. And it's a little tough to directly define the genre and style of this group - think of a frenetic blend of Cobra Starship, Fatboy Slim, a little Primal Scream, and all with the sense that you really shouldn't take them too seriously. And hey, that was fine with 2009's pretty damn fun Questimation, which followed the even better EP Welding The C:/... but despite their 2014 EP Advanced Basics being their most successful EP to date, their splatter-painting approach to genres seemed to be having diminishing returns across the board, from less articulate lyrics, flatter production, less interesting delivery, and slower tempos. But hey, maybe that was just EP experimentation, and though the lead-off single to their newest record seemed to be going in even twangier, more lethargic territory, maybe they could capture some that frenetic momentum on the rest of New World Alphabet, right?