La Roux

WEEKEND VIDEO

"Bulletproof" La Roux 2009 iTunes

Elly Jackson is the perfect London pop star of the moment: a 21-year-old loud-mouth bossypants with appallingly awesome hair and a vacant stare of a voice. Along with co-writer and fellow synth dude Ben Langmaid, she's ruling U.K. radio with splashy dance hits about sex and betrayal. The definitive gem on the duo's debut album is "Bulletproof," where she vows, "I'm not turned on to love until it's cheap" — and in La Roux songs, love is always cheap, not to mention tainted. Jackson and Langmaid are not coy about their 1980s New Wave inspiration — "Bulletproof" sounds exactly like Yaz, right down to the way Jackson sneers the words "put me down." But that just gives them an extra jolt of glam arrogance.

~ Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone

Grizzly Bear

"Cheerleader"
from the album Veckatimest
2009
iTunes



The neo-classical precision of Grizzly Bear's music — the feeling that its choral harmonies, woozy orchestrations, and slippery waltz signatures aren't just written, but composed — has only grown more pronounced since Yellow House, but somehow that meticulousness never becomes lifelessness. Veckatimest was named after an unpopulated island, but it's teeming with life, mystery, and surprise — the biggest of which may be its potential for crossover success. As early glimpses of the ethereal, doo-wop-derived earworm "Two Weeks" and the swooning psychedelia of "While You Wait for the Others" hinted, Veckatimest is more song-oriented than its predecessors without sacrificing any experimental tics, making for the band's most satisfying record yet.

Distressed electric piano, disembodied choirs, and the instantly discernible strings of Nico Muhly color the album's meditations on distance, as seen in the bitter retreat of the galloping opener "Southern Point" ("You'll never find me now") and the hushed, heartbreaking refrain of "All We Ask" ("I can't get out of what I'm into with you"). But for all Veckatimest's talk of space, its brilliance lies in subtle, interlocking moments such as the backward guitar disrupting the lockstep girl-group groove of "Cheerleader," the way the watery ballad "Dory" shifts seamlessly from genteel to creepy, or the cinemascope cacophony that ends "I Live With You." As with Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion (a record it seems likely to vie with for album of the year), Veckatimest offers more than just an inventive exercise in collage: It's like hearing the past few centuries of music playing in symphony, which sounds — thrillingly and reassuringly — like the future.

~ Sean O'Neal, The A.V. Club

Tegan and Sara

"Hell"
from the album Sainthood
2009
iTunes



Tegan and Sara, a Canadian rock duo made up of twins Tegan and Sara Quin, just released their new album Sainthood. Encompassing love and all that comes with it, the album was apparently inspired by the Leonard Cohen song "Came So Far for Beauty." The earnestness and raw emotion in his lyrics, "I practiced all my sainthood / I gave to one and all / But the rumors of my virtue / They moved her not at all," certainly touched the sisters' hearts. Regarding love, Tegan and Sara assert it is something they are "committed to seek and obsessively discuss [...] until the end of time." Indeed, their new album accomplishes just that.

Although the album's first two songs, "Arrow" and "Don't Rush," have rather repetitive lyrics, both tracks have wonderful dance beats. Probably geared more toward pleasing current fans than gaining new listeners, these two songs are great for when you want something familiar to dance to.

"Hell," the next track on the album, delivers much more in terms of both lyrics and melody. Its passionate, rapid-fire vocals offer the perfect outlet for the duo's overflowing emotions. While the next song, "On Directing," has much more mellow backing instrumentals, there is again more than meets the eye. Lyrics like "Go steady with me / I know it turns you off / When I get talking like a teen," further develop Tegan and Sara's ideas on relationships and love in general.

Likewise, the song "Red Belt" has remarkably insightful lyrics and a very catchy melody — when you get over the repetitive nature of both. "I wish you'd call, but I know that you're out tonight / My ears fill with the sound of you kneeling [...] Kneel to condition all the feelings that you feel" is both a comment on the pseudo-religious adoration that can stem from being in love, as well as the emotional differences between people sharing such a bond.

In "Night Watch," the intriguing introductory instrumentals lead into the opening vocals "I've got grounds for divorce," which set the proverbial stage for a darker, more introspective track. Another track with somber undertones, "Paperback Head," is an apparent commentary on the vapidity of some females and offers advice via lyrics like "Rope up your mind / Keep the suitors in line / Must draw your own aid / Must shift your affairs." With “Paperback Head," the twins make a serious point that people need to think independently, an important message so many women seem to have forgotten.

"Alligator" and "The Ocean," two songs about the problems with romance, have distinctly different tones. "Alligator" maintains a lighthearted mood throughout, but lyrics like "No hissy fits / Mind my manners / Won't make a scene over you" expose a bitterness deep at the song’s core. On the other hand, "The Ocean" begins with a melancholy tone, which contrasts with the song’s fast-paced melody. When you listen closely to the lyrics, however, they are far more hopeful than depressed: "I know what I want / And what I want's / Right here with you."

Ending with the buoyant track "Someday," which retains that feeling of hope for the future, "Might do something / I'll be proud of someday / Mark my words / I might be something someday," the album accomplishes its goal and leaves listeners with the warm, fuzzy feeling of being loved. Sainthood is a truly remarkable work of art and is a wonderful addition to Tegan and Sara's repertoire.

~ Sarah Grzezinski, The Badger Herald

Jay Reatard

"It Ain't Gonna Save Me"
from the album Watch Me Fall
2009
iTunes



As far as persona goes, this middle-school dropout from Memphis is as misanthropic and explosive as Iggy at his peak. But, as negative, bellicose, piss-drinking fuckups go, he certainly does work hard. Since the 1990s, he's issued a steady stream of music under a confusing array of auspices, including the Reatards, Lost Sounds, and Terror Visions. His 2007 solo album Blood Visions staked his considerable claim to the punk tradition that sounds like melodic, smart-assed '60s garage-rock LPs spun at 45 RPM. Toot sweet, he signed with Matador and released two collections of singles. Now, we've got Watch Me Fall, a cleaner, more complex record, to be sure.

While his earlier work was compared to the Ramones, Husker Du, and an avalanche, Watch Me Fall does not sound as though it's at risk of falling apart. On "It Ain't Gonna Save Me," "Hang Them All," and "Can't Do It Anymore," he's as fast, strident and bratty as ever. And yet, all of these, and much moreso the rest of the album, isn't as noisy as before. It's all clearly identifiable as pop. More than any other obvious spirit-of-'77 touchstone, Watch Me Fall recalls the Buzzcocks. The sneering cynicism never overrides the barely diffused melodic discipline. Brains trump brawn. Reatard doesn't need to shout anymore.

Not coincidentally, Watch Me Fall exposes a much broader emotional range than his previous records. "I'm Watching You," "My Reality," and "There is No Sun" are as tuneful and poignant as the Byrds. He can still talk a grip of shit, but even "Rotten Mind," in which the self-loathing and paranoia are as plain as a bad hangover, is delivered with the dignity and efficiency of a Big Star audition. Call it "poisoned bubblegum."

The relative, uh, "maturity" of Watch Me Fall makes it less immediately striking than previous Reatardation, and it may be less enduring for it. It's certainly tidy enough to turn off more than one regular Dusted reader, I'd guess. And, for better or worse, his mucho-affected glam vocals are as cartoonish as ever and significantly higher in the mix. But, for punks, edgy power-pop seems as though it's one of the few long-term routes that isn't a dead-end.

~ Emerson Dameron, Dusted

Neko Case

"Magpie to the Morning"
from the album Middle Cyclone
2009
iTunes



Neko Case has journeyed some distance since her first solo work a dozen years ago, growing from a tenderly tough alt-country songstress into the visionary and poetic pop auteur of Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. Middle Cyclone picks up the trail blazed by that previous album, taking it down darker roads and into deeper thickets, keeping the baroque dream-pop imagination while moving away from the succinct songcraft of earlier efforts.

The songs here have engaging, melodic hooks to spare. But they are often strung together in tumbling sequences that push against the limits of expected form. It's an approach that makes sense, though, as Case's lyrics this time out are at once more descriptive and dense with imagery and more disconnected in narrative flow than they've been before. That said, there is often a cinematic gestalt to the way words and sounds work together to create mood and vivid atmosphere. ("Prison Girls," for instance, with its spy guitar and minor-key tropes, is a noir movie in and of itself.)

All of this is well-served by the carefully-wrought, textured arrangements and production, not to mention the contributions of the backing musicians: the layered chime of Paul Rigby's guitars; Barry Mirochnick's spacious and orchestral drumming; Joey Burns' dark and plaintive cello and bass bowings, to name just a few of many crucial tints and shades. The compelling backup vocals from Case, Rachel Flotard and Kelly Hogan add resonant internal echoes to the main story and melody lines, combining madrigal elegance and Shangri-Las cool.

Above it all, of course, is Case's voice. She's singing more intimately and with more dynamic range and emotional transparency than ever before. This can be heard to great effect on "Magpie to the Morning," where she takes on an innocent-yet-knowing persona to spin a dark fairy tale that's clothed in a melody and arrangement dreamily reminiscent of 1960s Nancy Sinatra's collaborations with Lee Hazlewood. And the intimate and disarming way Case delivers her lines on "Middle Cyclone" — "Can't give up acting tough / It's all that I'm made of" — might hit the listener like Dylan's corkscrew to the heart. Even when the musical mood threatens to lighten and lift a bit — as on the jangly, but ferocious "People Got a Lotta Nerve," or vintage power pop covers of Sparks' "Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth" and Nilsson's "Don't Forget Me" — this remains a record that conveys the shadows of dark deeds and desperate loves, that chronicles heartbreak, loneliness and vengeful acts of roadside violence.

~ Kevin Macneil Brown, Dusted

Tape Deck Mountain

"In the Dirt"
from the album Ghost
2009
iTunes



On their debut album, Ghost, San Diego's Tape Deck Mountain (the trio originally released everything on cassette tapes) sound like they're striving for sonic immortality. Many of the seven proper songs (not counting two interludes) sound like tributes to heaven: soaring music that could be the background for a ritual sacrifice. "Ghost Colony" mixes the sludge rock of Kyuss with the bombastic guitar solos of Explosions in the Sky (though not the latter's song length), while "80/20" is all glorious creepiness, hearkening back to Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie, albeit with hollower vocals. Guitarist/vocalist Travis Trevisan has the messianic vocal style down perfectly — think Thom Yorke, Jason Pierce, et al. — as each line sounds more beckoning incantation than mere utterance. Cryptically funny lyrics, though, keep the album from falling under the weight of its own ambition, as on "In the Dirt," when Trevisan sings, "Please don't marry that asshole Larry, I know he'll move the place you're buried — next to me, in the dirt." Elsewhere, "Scantrons" discuss those annoying fill-in-the-bubble multiple choice tests from high school over a slow, galloping beat. Bizarrely beautiful.

~ Jason Newman, LimeWire

Vampire Weekend

WEEKEND VIDEO

"Cousins" Contra 2010 iTunes

Last month, Vampire Weekend gave fans new tune "Horchata" gratis. Last week, they released their official first single from Contra (due January 12), the frenetic, bouncy "Cousins." VW's Rostam Batmanglij and Chris Baio recently sat down with Rolling Stone to discuss the genesis of the song and its live debut south of the border.

"'Cousins' is a song that we recorded in Mexico City. It's got probably the most demanding bass part Chris [Baio] has wrote for himself, and probably the most demanding drum part Chris Tomson ever did for himself," Batmanglij says. "So it's a demanding song." Whereas "Horchata" was a laidback slice of California pop, the "Cousins" groove kicks off fast and the energy never stops with rapid fire drums and frenzied guitars.

After conceiving the song, Vampire Weekend quickly introduced the track to their fans. "When we were in Mexico, we were working on the song, maybe it was like a Tuesday or Wednesday and that Friday we played it in Guadalajara," Baio told RS. "So it was sort of like 'Okay, we've been chipping away at this, now we get to share it.'"

As for whether the audience embraced "Cousins" after its live debut, Batmanglij said, "I put myself in the audience's shoes, like when I go to see a band that I love and I hear them play a new song for the first time, there’s always an element of it's never going to hit you the way the ones you've heard so many times before have. But I look at it as just kind of a gift, so you try to savor it."

~ Daniel Kreps, Rolling Stone

Pixies

WEEKEND VIDEO / TONIGHT IN CHICAGO!

"Gouge Away" Doolittle 1989 iTunes

July 13, 1989:
Being picked up by a major label apparently hasn't brought any peace to Pixies singer-songwriter Black Francis. The same nightmares that inhabited the band's two brilliant independent LPs, Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa, are in evidence again on Doolittle. That's disturbing for Black Francis but great for the rest of us. A quick look at the song titles — "Debaser," "Gouge Away," "Wave of Mutilation," "Dead," "I Bleed" — is all it takes to realize that Doolittle is going to be another frightening, compelling whirlwind from this Boston quartet.

Which isn't to say that Doolittle is Surfer Rosa remade. Rosa was a guitar-saturated frenzy. On Doolittle, producer Gil Norton showcases the Pixies at their most diverse — distilling the band's sound and relying heavily on the strong rhythm section of bassist Kim Deal and drummer David Lovering. The pace of the songs ranges from the breakneck speed of "Crackity Jones" to the more relaxed, melodic pop of "Here Comes Your Man." Even the imagery is diverse. On "Hey," Francis sings, "Must be a devil between us / Or whores in my head," while on "La La Love You," Lovering takes over vocal duty, tongue firmly in cheek, to sing, "All I'm saying pretty baby / La la love you, don't mean maybe."

The emphasis on more textured production has in no way taken away from the band's intensity. Francis is at all times in command of the album, quietly stringing us along before turning on us and screaming for attention. It's about time everyone started taking notice."

~ Chris Mundy, Rolling Stone

Wye Oak

"Take It In"
from the album The Knot
2009
iTunes



Certain critical terms get taken as pejorative when they're merely descriptive: "Droning," for example, doesn't necessarily mean boring or moribund. When used to describe a sound, "drone" usually means "a low hum," and when employed by a band as skilled as Maryland's Wye Oak, a low hum can convey a rich palette. The duo's second album The Knot drones the way Yo La Tengo drones, or Spinanes when they were around. Lead singer-guitarist Jenn Wasner is a belter who lets up only to step on a pedal and let fly with some loud, distorted, moaning guitar. Drummer/organist Andy Stack keeps a straightforward beat, while adding some additional reverberation and shade with his keyboards. The songs on The Knot range from the pounding, cavernous "Take It In" to the lilting, catchy "Siamese," but all of them rely on a few simple sounds vibrating steadily in their own individual spaces, before rolling on top of each other like lovers who've been waiting all day for a little privacy. (Many of the album's songs are about couples in crisis, which only adds an extra layer of tension to The Knot's sound.) Wye Oak isn't breaking any new ground in the exciting field of drone-exploration, but the band's tone is striking — like a tuning fork with the blues.

~ Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

Girls

"Hellhole Ratrace"
from the album Album
2009
iTunes



Girls, the San Francisco duo of Christopher Owens and J R White, arrives with shoulders shrugged, head slightly down. Its debut album, titled Album, is a lean ramble, in no way ostentatious. Knowingly or not, Mr. Owens has the tender brooding of Buddy Holly down cold, with a touch of Elvis Costello's shakiness in his voice. But Album isn't clean: it's flayed and ragged and hazy. Like so much of the noise and psychedelia lately infesting the indie-rock underground, underneath the slop lies terrific instincts for clean, artful melody. In that vein Album is one of the year's most bracing pop releases, and one of the best, a devastatingly fresh reframing of the pop songbook. Mr. White lends versatile support on these numbers, which pilfer elementary punk, country-rock, and 1950s-vintage shuffles. (A beautiful instrumental with stirring gospel organs is called "Curls.") But Mr. Owens is the revelation, with deliciously malleable voice and attitude: desperate on "Ghostmouth," snide on "Lust for Life," pleading on "Lauren Marie" and on "Hellhole Ratrace," just plain old winded. The feelings are complicated but the songs are raw — like templates for others to copy.

~ Joe Caramanica, The New York Times

Zaza

"Sooner or Later"
from the EP Cameo
2009
iTunes



Your typical singer that possesses the airy whispery vocal styling tends to take a back seat to the instrumentation that accompanies it, but that is not the case with modern shoegazers Zaza. These mystical, dreamy vocals hold just as much weight as the swirl of sound that gives Zaza's music the shoegaze name. Their new EP Cameo features six tracks of exalting audible pleasure.

While the EP's power wanes slightly in the middle, songs like "Arms Length" and the subtle "Repetition" do maintain a viable stance in their quest for epic greatness. But it's the first two tracks, "The Call" and "Sooner or Later" respectively, and closer "Faith in the Faithless" that find Zaza filled with anthemic grandeur. Not only do these songs call upon the shoegaze gods to rain down mountainous doom in the form of melodic noise, they do so in a way that is so aesthetically pleasing it's enough to bring even the strongest of men to tears.

Zaza is a drug — a beautiful, mind-numbing, addictive drug. This type of hypnosis should be illegal. Thankfully, for the trustworthy listener, it's not.

~ FensePost

Orba Squara

"The Trouble With Flying"
from the album The Trouble With Flying
2009
iTunes



Orba Squara, which is basically New York-based musician Mitch Davis, is one of those musical acts who is hard to hate. Even if one is not a fan of bouncy uplifting pop songs which is Davis' forte, one can’t ignore the fact he is a talented musician.

On his past recordings, Davis has played numerous instruments and not just your normal ones either. A few of the more unique instruments he has tinkered with include: mandolin, sitar, violin, glockenspiel, and xylophone.

Davis' love for more organic sounds continues as he plays a bunch of those above mentioned instruments on his new album entitled The Trouble With Flying. The 13-track recording is the follow up to his debut Sunshyness which was most notable for "Perfect Timing (This Morning)," a song that was played on a popular iPhone commercial.

Even though the sound of both discs is similar, there is a significant difference now — The Trouble With Flying is a more consistent collection of songs and it is a nice step forward for Davis. The biggest improvement on The Trouble With Flying is that it works better as an album because it is more theme-oriented than singles-oriented. (Sunshyness had eight other tracks licensed for movie and television projects.)

The theme of Davis' newest release is best encapsulated in the title track. The song's lyrics deal with man's tendency to miss out on life and experience different things because of our fear of trying something new or our depending on technology too much.

The track's words become more even special because of the engaging Spanish-Portuguese vibe a prominent viola gives. Surprisingly, there is also a unique bluesy sound to it, thanks to the appearance of classic rock guitarist/singer Billy Squier.

The title track isn't the only highlight though. The opening track, "Treasure Map," and "Picture Perfect" are simple yet fun songs that feature catchy melodies and bouncy acoustic guitars while still tackling the album’s themes.

The biggest drawback to The Trouble With Flying though lays in Davis' vocals which don't vary much from song to song. His high pitch works fine on the more uptempo numbers but it detracts a bit from the quieter ones. The best example of this is "Millionaires" which ends up sounding like a children's ditty or a mediocre Broadway show number.

Even so, there is a good flow from song to song on The Trouble With Flying and its lyrical content and use of unique musical instruments is intriguing and rewarding.

~ Todd Sikorski, Skope

Handsome Furs

"Radio Kaliningrad"
from the album Face Control
2009
iTunes



Similar to their 2007 debut, Plague Park, the Handsome Furs' sophomore effort is super moody and a little on the brainy side. Named after a practice common to upscale Russian nightclubs in which people are admitted based on physical attractiveness, Face Control places itself in a stark, scrubby, post-Soviet Russian landscape. And for anyone interested in that level of listening, Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry's haunting Russian storylines will hold some interest. That said, the braininess of this album isn't the main attraction. At its core, Face Control showcases the Handsome Furs' wonderful way with song. The album feels weirdly familiar, full of gritty hooks that conjure up Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty — you could call it computerized roots rock. "Talking Hotel Arbat Blues," for all its rumbling, computerized bells and whistles, is built on a downright prehistoric rock riff, the one behind songs like "Summertime Blues." Getting back to basics like this is a radical move, and there are times when Face Control has problems getting out from under the shadow of Springsteen. But most of the time this newfangled approach to howling, heartfelt rock & roll feels really, really good. Rollicking, fire-slicked tracks like "Evangeline," "All We Want Baby," and "Radio Kaliningrad," with their gorgeously dark underpinnings, make it clear that Face Control makes good on all the promise Plague Park had to offer. For an album set in Russia and made by an artsy indie rock duo from Montreal, Face Control feels shockingly down-home American — the kind of music that would normally find its home in crumbling Rust Belt towns. Barring all that, it's just a solid album, and just another example of Boeckner and Perry's tingling creative chemistry.

~ Margaret Reges, allmusic

The Bravery

WEEKEND VIDEO

"Slow Poison" Stir the Blood 2009 iTunes

Between prepping the release of their new album, Stir the Blood, and branching out creatively, the Bravery have been busy lately. It's no surprise that the video for their new single, "Slow Poison," is just a bit trippy.

"Synesthesia is when your brain sees music as colors. That is what my brain does, and these are the colors I see when I hear this song," lead vocalist Sam Endicott tells Spinner of the video's concept. "As in the song, the astronaut is lost, searching for his angel. Except, in the video, she's a sexy space cyber solaris siren. In space."

While working on Stir the Blood, due out on December 1, Endicott also started writing for other artists; most notably, he co-wrote Shakira's international hit "She Wolf" with John Hill. Bassist Mike Hindert worked with a number of bands on the side, and launched the label Merrifield Records. Keyboardist John Conway built a studio in California, where he helped write and record guitarist Michael Zakarin's solo album.

Meanwhile, the "Slow Poison" video — directed by Ryan Honey and Orion Tait — was shot in Atlanta on October 19, between stops on the band's current tour.

~ Ashley Iasimone, Spinner.com

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros

WEEKEND VIDEO

"Home" Up From Below 2009 iTunes

Ask anyone who's held hands with a stranger or danced barefoot in the front row at an Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros gig: The ten-piece folk-rock ensemble's shows are more like shamanistic tent revivals than rock concerts. Former Ima Robot frontman Alex Ebert, the singer-songwriter mastermind behind the group, embraced his hippie heart after losing his major-label deal, moving and getting back to basics. "I didn't have a cell phone, we didn't have Internet," says Ebert, who embarked upon his new life with girlfriend Jade Castrinos.

On their recently released debut LP, Up From Below, Ebert channels his psychedelic tendencies into tunes that are alternately joyful ("Janglin," "Home"), jaunty ("40 Day Dream") and gothic ("Desert Song"), with echoes of the Arcade Fire and The Mamas and the Papas. Ebert attributes their sound to a conscious effort on his part to connect with his most childlike musical impulses.

Those childlike impulses come through in the band's name, too: There isn't an Edward Sharpe in the group, and Ebert named the band after the characters in a novel he was writing about a boy who transcended his dismal world by tapping into some sort of universal music.

Recording Up from Below took the Zeros more than a year and a half, during which time they scrapped their sessions and started over with only analog tape. "It's been a serious fucking saga," says Ebert. "But it allowed us to develop into a family, which is really what I wanted. I really am a firm believer in utopia, otherwise I have no reason to be here."

~ Jenny Eliscu, Rolling Stone