She & Him is a story of musical serendipity: Two artists, each renowned in their own creative fields, meet and recognize a certain shared nostalgia. The result is destined to be one of the musical highlights of the year.
Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward first met to record a version of Richard and Linda Thompson's "When I Get to the Border" for a movie soundtrack. Immediately struck by one another's talents and finding an instant rapport, Zooey let slip that she wrote her own songs which she recorded alone at home on her computer. Somewhat shy about anyone hearing these musical morsels she eventually sent the demos to Matt who was instantly impressed. They soon reconvened at his Portland studio to begin work.
Embracing the warm sound of early analog recordings, Volume One -- out March 18 -- is more than just a showcase for Zooey's rich and endearing voice; it's a distinctive and endlessly charming album. The songs themselves give a respectful nod to the likes of Dusty Springfield, Linda Ronstadt and the Zombies while Matt's production gives them just the right amount of golden era sheen. Whether Zooey's channeling Ronnie Spector as on "I Was Made for You" or joining Matt in turning the Beatles' "I Should Have Known Better" into a seductive hula guitar duet, the results are always captivating.
The Beatles, in their last years, grew tired of their hysterical fans and stopped doing live shows. The Texas singer-songwriter known as Jandek and a few other reclusive artists have released albums without touring.
While Chris Walla is neither a hysteria-producing sex symbol nor a mysterious recluse, he is staying home and not giving tour support to his new solo album, Field Manual, being released by Seattle's Barsuk Records yesterday. He's simply too busy.
Walla, a charter member of indie-rock heavyweights Death Cab for Cutie, has been immersed in the new Death Cab album. So rather than getting out on the road with his new record, the Death Cab guitarist-producer is promoting Field Manual with a few phone interviews while he tinkers away at the final mix from a basement studio in his Portland home. That's where he settled last year, fleeing his longtime home of Seattle.
You might say that, like death, taxes and spam, solo albums are inevitable. The 32-year-old Walla, after a string of increasingly successful Death Cab albums, decided he needed to get bits of songs that had been floating around in his head written and recorded.
"More than any specific direction for the record, what was more important for me was to finish the record by any means necessary," said Walla, who is also a highly in-demand producer, working with bands like the Decemberists, Tegan & Sara and Nada Surf.
He describes his Field Manual lyrics as "political but still really personal. With the exception of 'The Score' they're mostly not protest songs, [but] observations of stuff at the forefront of what's on my brain." He sings all the leads on the dozen songs, and played most of the instruments himself.
The solo album, he said, is "a little schizophrenic, all over the map. The Death Cab record feels much less like that. I was trying to explore all those places that I'm interested in, all sorts of different things Death Cab never gets near. That's the biggest thing. I think it's a really sort of scatterbrained variety of stuff. Sometimes it works to its advantage, sometimes it's more like a mix tape."
California balladeer (and Jack Johnson protégé) Matt Costa loads Unfamiliar Faces, his second full-length with folk, indie, and psych-rock tunes -- some hits (''Mr. Pitiful''), some misses (''Lilacs''). With a plucky guitar, harmonica, piano, and sun-burnished vocals, Costa knows how to work gospel's euphoric uplift into secular music, though he follows the blueprints of his idol (a ''Hurdy Gurdy Man''-era Donovan) a tad too closely. Thankfully, his old-timey charms don't overwhelm; it's more a reminder that in the Age of iPod, crackly vinyl is still worth cherishing.
Although from different parts of the country, White Denim's founding members Josh Block (drums) and James Petralli (guitar/vocals) met in Dallas. The pair eventually moved to Austin and formed the alt-rock outfit Parque Torche. After spotting bassist Steve Terebeki performing with another local act, Peach Train, Block and Petralli asked him to join them for what would eventually become White Denim. The trio's self-titled 2007 debut EP, Let's Talk About It, is available now via iTunes.
Let's Talk About It offers a quality dose of hearty garage rock and punk rock aesthetic, it's pretty addictive. The swooping guitars, jumpy percussion and hollow vocals on the hallucinogenic "I Can Tell" is a slight nod to Dr. Dog, but "Let's Talk About It" is equally raw. This Mando Diao-like piece urgently blasts an echoing guitar riff before devolving into a bewildering cacophony of trance-y beeps and sticky bass lines. Really, White Denim's infectious rawk zooms from one realm to another, finally dropping listeners in the midst of the raucous Camaro rock frenzy of "Darksided Computer Mouth."
White Denim is quite literally as eclectic as their sound. Bass player Steve Terebeki says, "We are all obsessed with food, the letter D, 18 wheelers, plants, and trailer parks." Look out for all of these in future White Denim lyrics.
Hot Chip have always been the sort of band happy to flaunt their intelligence, but the smartest trick they pull on Made in the Dark is to show a little wisdom, too. 2006's The Warning was a fine record, albeit one sometimes difficult to take seriously thanks to its taste for pop pastiche -- here's the Prince track, there's a 2-step garage track -- or the occasional ironic wisecrack. On their third album, though, it's satisfying to report Hot Chip sound like no one but themselves. That is, shuffling, synthesiser-smeared electro-pop with a gooey emotional core and, in the shape of Alexis Taylor, one of the greatest white-boy soul voices since that of his hero, Green Gartside of Scritti Politti. "Ready for the Floor" sounds halfway between Detroit techno and the soundtrack to a Nintendo RPG, Taylor's clear, honest vocal reaching out hopefully: "I'm hoping by chance/ You might take this dance," while the album's title track is a slow piano ballad that finds him laid blue over the ruins of a love affair. There is mischief, too of course: take "Wrestlers," a dinky R&B track where the group show off their knowledge of wrestling slang. Even when they're ready to rumble, though, Hot Chip show off the sort of emotion and elation we've rarely seen since the glory days of New Order, and that's high praise indeed.
Beach House, a lovely duo from Baltimore, will release the follow-up to their self-titled debut at the end of February. Until then, they're teasing us with a sample track, “Gila.” The new album, Devotion, will feature more Mazzy Star-ish tunes rich with layers of piano, slide and organs, a welcome format for the pop duo stereotype. No jangly, yelling choruses here: just sentimental and softly delivered tunes about love, feelings and yes, devotion.
Wading through the music scene's waters as a singer-songwriter is tough. Women have it hard enough, trying to live up to examples set by Joni Mitchell or Kate Bush. But men have a whole other caliber of legend to be dealing with: that string of gone-too-soon cases including Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, and Elliott Smith. Add to this the sheer number of buskers trying to break out, especially in a city of strivers like Los Angeles, and the odds are stacked against Ferraby Lionheart. He makes music mostly by himself, and he regularly plays L.A. clubs like Hotel Cafe and Tangier, which are thick with aspiring troubadours. With his debut full-length, Catch the Brass RingK, Lionheart turns in a diamond in a field flush with mediocre talent.
On his fifth release, The Wishes and the Glitch, Eric Elbogen embraces change of all sorts, while still retaining his unique sound. Since last year's Impeccable Blahs, much is different, as his Brooklyn-based three-piece, Say Hi to Your Mom, changed address (now Portland, Oregon), membership (adding Sam Collins), and even name (now just Say Hi). These and other changes have not caused Elbogen to radically reinvent his sound, but he has also not stuck himself in the mud. Wishes embraces more of a fuzzy, expansive sound, and Elbogen's vocals are often given more force. Yet beneath it is still the same solid songwriting core.
The move to Cascadia provides the fodder for Wishes' strong opener, "Northwestern Girls." Such a 'mundane' subject for a song is something of a change, in and of itself: Impeccable's tracks were all about vampires, and the three records before that were focused on robots. With its very fine beat and growing chorus, the limited but effective "Girls" provides a nice introduction to Say Hi's new approach yet still is able to stand on its own.
It is an infrequent occurrence that a modern rock band only comes to prominence with their third album but it is, however, unsurprising that it took two years for the White Stripes to strike commercial gold. Due to their deliberately unpolished and unprofessional approach to recording it was obviously deemed to be unnecessary for the band to spend years honing their sound and their songs before releasing their first album. Their eponymous debut was therefore knocked out to little and exclusively local fanfare and, although the following De Stijl saw their exposure increase and their momentum gather pace, it is still too noticeably raw for the more fickle of indie hipsters. One thing that has always been a constant, though, is Jack's superb guitar playing and it is altogether unsurprising that the band never sought fit to recruit a bassist as even with a single instrument he creates enough energy and power to match most other rock 'n roll combos. Although they have undoubtedly wrung nearly every ingenious trick available out of their limited instrumentation (hence the prominent piano on the fifth album, Get Behind Me Satan) on their debut it is kept relatively unsubtle and unsophisticated, with Meg's childish drum-beating providing sufficient accompaniment to Jack's wailing, hyperactive vocals and vicious guitar playing. Furthermore, unlike on future albums, none of the arrangements are particularly long or clever with the album consisting of 17 tracks, all of which fly by pretty quickly. The album opens strongly with the anthemic "Jimmy the Exploder" and the hysterical onslaught of "The Big Three Killed My Baby." Jack also pays his loving respects, as he does on the next album, to his blues heroes of yesteryore with covers of the blues standards "St. James Infirmary Blues" and Robert Johnson's "Stop Breaking Down." Although Jack has always liked to protest that he prefers to listen to the "real" classics, rather than the hits from the rock 'n roll era, his squealing cover of "Stop Breaking Down" surely owes more to the Rolling Stones' version than Mr. Johnson's. This is further reinforced with the cover of Dylan's 1975 classic "One More Cup of Coffee," with Jack wonderfully recreating Dylan's wailing, even if the arrangement is -- obviously -- nowhere near as full. Jack tries to vary the mood and pace on occasions but the likes of "Suzy Lee" and "Sugar Never Tasted So Good" are still obviously inferior to the primal rock'n roll rages of "Astro" and "Broken Bricks." Although such blasts are a pleasure to behold, the whole album is rather unavoidably primitive and although it is no surprise the Stripes went on to greater things it is also no surprise that the general public took a little while to cotton on.
A troubadour with a penchant for the country blues, and a frenetic drummer weaned on prog metal. In lesser hands, that's a recipe for cacophony. But for San Francisco-based duo the Dodos, the varied talents of Meric Long and Logan Kroeber are the building blocks for a sonic stew that is subtle and minimal but exhilarating and moving at the same time.
The duo's forthcoming sophomore album, Visiter, was written on the road and recorded with a focus on capturing what Long and Kroeber do best: deliver spine-tingling live sets. It hits stores March 18 on Frenchkiss Records, home to Les Savy Fav, Thunderbirds Are Now!, and the Big Sleep.
While Kroeber's sticks-on-metal clackety clack and Long's nimble finger-picking carry the load -- and have threatened to blow the roof off many a live venue -- it's Long's disarmingly adept songwriting that is the real star here, running down multilayered tales with ease.
In the war that is the music industry, a band can very quickly go from scamming for beers in the tiny bars they play, to opening for big name acts at larger venues. They can go from an indie label to a major and then back again within the course of a year. And those marquee acts can move on to bigger and better things, as the little band-that-could gets kicked back to the bars, and beer scams, and this time they can be even lower on the bill supporting an even more mediocre band.
Such has been the career trajectory of Chicago's the Redwalls. This quartet are unapologetic Beatles rip-offs -- in their early days they were, in fact, a Beatles cover band -- but their charm is irresistible if you ever see them perform live. Like the originals, these shaggy haired boys in suits and boots look to be having the time of their lives when they're on stage. Their harmonies are tight, they take turns on lead vocal duties, and they've written some catchy pop songs that may not be comparable to anything Lennon/McCartney wrote, but still fall under the heading of good song.
On their third full-length, their post-Warner Bros. release on the independent Mad Dragon label, the band is evolving away from their Brit-pop roots. Justin Baren occasionally trades in his Lennon voice for one closer to Jack White or even Iggy Pop (check out "Hangman"), and the smooth edges around the rhythm section have the slightest of crust upon them. When compared to Universal Blues and De Nova, this disc has more of a garage rock base and it suits their sound.
Of course the big, groovy pop songs are still there for your tasting, "Modern Diet" is this album's "Falling Down" (the best track on 2005's De Nova), and "Summer Romance" is the upbeat ballad set to make the girls swoon.
This band is the constant underdog, and people will always love to shove them down because of the way they wear their influences on their well-ironed sleeves, but I adore them. So long as they're making music as fun as this, I'll always root for them.
One Foot in the Grave appeared not long after the noisy freak-out of Stereopathetic Soulmanure, and its quiet, folky textures couldn't be more different than those of its predecessor, or the genre-bending Mellow Gold, for that matter. Recorded before Mellow Gold, the record showcases Beck as a postmodern folkie, and the results are revelatory. Stripped of the intoxicating production that dominated Mellow Gold, Beck's songs prove to be wonderful, vibrant tunes, teeming with emotion, haunting wordplay, and simple, memorable melodies. It's alternately haunting and jubilant, and Calvin Johnson's occasional harmonies lend the record an intimate warmth. It's a gentle record, and its collection of small gems are every bit as impressive as the songs on Mellow Gold or its 1996 follow-up, Odelay.
Aloha began as a moderately abstract post-rock outfit, but there has always been a distinct pop influence even in their most cerebral efforts. Light Works, which at seven songs is just over half-an-hour is either a short album or a really long EP, brings the band's gentle indie pop side completely to the fore: gone are the extended instrumental musings, the jazzy vibraphone solos, and the overall sense of musical connection to the softer side of the Chicago school of post-rock. In its place, Light Works offers seven sweet-and-sour chamber pop tunes built on acoustic guitars, chiming keyboards, minimal bass and percussion, and Tony Cavallario's lighter than air vocals. The Shins and Sufjan Stevens would be obvious contemporary touchstones, especially on songs as straightforward as the sweetly poppy "The End" and the gently wistful "Passengers." But the most on-the-nose comparison to the sound of Light Works is mid-period Talk Talk, circa The Colour of Spring. There's a similar sense of spaciousness to these effortlessly pretty and determinedly non-rocking tunes. The proggier end of Aloha's fan base might find Light Works distressingly insubstantial, even verging on (horrors!) "commercial," but for their last couple of albums, Aloha have slowly been moving in this more song-based and concise style anyway, so this is more of a culmination than a change of direction.
MGMT -- commonly known, erroneously, as the Management -- is Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, two self-described art provocateurs who met as undergraduates at Wesleyan University in 2002. Without ever intending to form a band, the duo began experimenting with electronic music, testing the conventional limits of songwriting and pop structure. Their music caught the attention of some NYU students, who created the independent Cantora label to release MGMT's EP Time to Pretend. Now signed to Columbia Records, MGMT digitally released their major label debut in October.
With enough groove to please the play-something-we-can-dance-to crowd and enough sardonic wit to satisfy even the hippest hipsters, MGMT immediately gained a hardcore cult following after the release of Time to Pretend. "Let's make some music / Makes some money / Find some models for wives," they sing on the title track, a dark take on the rock 'n roll fantasy life of excess and disillusionment. The infectious "Kids," consisting purely of synth and drum machine, just might be destined to become one of the most ironic party anthems ever, sporting a chorus of "Control yourself" that begs to be sung along to with total reckless abandon. On their forthcoming debut LP, Oracular Spectacular, MGMT take things in a more psychedelic-pop, guitar-driven direction. The result? An even better cut of "Time to Pretend," plus great new tracks like "Weekend Wars."
While there's obviously no shortage of artists willing to soak up a retro stance, most prefer to focus on the giddier aspects of those older idioms, placing the emphasis on upbeat melodies and a cache of hooks sufficient to supply a fishing trawler. Not that Wisely lacks his share of ebullient refrains, but his is a more thoughtful delivery that probes the subtler undercurrents of those '60s sensibilities. On this, his fourth album billed to his own name (as opposed to the eponymous Willie Wisely Trio), Wisely takes a pensive approach that encourages a closer hearing the first time around, as well as many subsequent returns. It's a cerebral sound that drapes the mellow and measured "It's Gonna Be Beautiful," "Unfamiliar" and "Cracked World View," but the rich arrangements, wistful refrains and Wisely's resonant vocals give the music a cool steadiness and assurance. Wisely manages to run the gamut when it comes to pure pop indulgence; "Nothing But Wind" meanders along on a tangled, spiraling trajectory while songs like "Tokyo Arbor" and "Vanilla" are nothing if not absolutely effusive. The willowy "Ella" and "Through Any Window" pay obvious homage to Paul McCartney's breezier outflow (Macca guitarist Rusty Anderson is listed among the contributors), but on the whole, Wisely's too astute a songsmith to be confined to any specific influence. A flawless effort from start to end, Wisely affirms the fact that its namesake remains one of pop's most shamefully overlooked artisans.
Odds are you have never heard the Perishers and known exactly whom you were hearing.
Two years ago, this fine Swedish ensemble released one of the best albums of that year: Let There Be Morning. Their music has been featured on TV shows and in commercials, but they have yet to break out in the United States with the level of success that they have acquired in their homeland. It is time for this to be corrected.
The good news is that Victorious is every bit as good as its predecessor. The Perishers' music is mellow. I'd say they were Sweden's answer to Coldplay, but frankly, too many bands today get falsely compared to Coldplay. Plus, singer Ola Klüft sings in a more even, straightforward, almost deadpan manner, which is probably less polarizing than Chris Martin's famously flexible falsetto. (For the record, I love all three Coldplay albums.)
The Perishers' sound is very organic; not overly produced or synthetic. It almost sounds completely live. The guitars are mostly acoustic. The bass and drums usually guide the way through these songs. It's not unusual to hear the occasional slide guitar, organ, or banjo part for punctuation. The stark, Michael Penn-esque "Never Bloom Again," manages in just two minutes and 18 seconds to deliver the kind of chills many bands can't deliver in five minutes. Klüft sings, "Lightning struck, now it's silent and dark. I'd like to try to light a candle, but for that I'd need a spark." With an eerie lightly strummed electric guitar chasing beneath these lines, along with a cool dose of Martin Gustafson's keyboard atmosphere, these seemingly simple lyrics really pack a punch. The more withdrawn and sparse the arrangements get, the eerier the Perishers get, like a band that may not see the sun as often as they'd like.
At the same time, however, there is a heavy dose of romanticism beneath these eloquent orchestrations. Lyrically love and romance play a big part. On "8am Departure" for instance, Klüft suggests that his lover call in sick to work so they can "make out all day and maybe take the dog for a walk, maybe have a picnic by the water, just sit there and talk." All the time, he's lamenting that he has to take a flight, taking him far away from her. It's one of the more honest portrayals of love and longing, and the quest for ideal levels of domestic bliss that I've ever heard on a record.
"Carefree" is the most upbeat track on the disc. Imagine the jangly bounciness of some of the Smiths' best work without Morrissey's heavy-handed "how sad am I" foppishly overdone operatic delivery, and you've got the picture. The title track and "Is It Over Now?" are both heavy-hooked tracks waiting to be picked up by some radio station willing to take a chance. On the biting "Almost Pretty," Klüft compares a wedding to a funeral and declares, "When the light's just right, you're almost pretty." It's this dark core and frankness that make the Perishers a truly special band.
If all this sounds interesting to you, pick up Victorious and discover one of the best bands waiting for the big time. While you are at it, pick up Let There Be Morning as well and see if you don't agree that that album's main single, "Trouble Sleeping," really was a missed hit. Radio really needs to pay attention to bands like the Perishers -- this record is excellent.
Listen to American Hearts without any prior knowledge of its creator, and you'd never guess that A.A. Bondy is the former singer of rock band Verbena. Then known as Scott Bondy, it is said that the A.A. stands for August Arthur. It's this odd elusiveness that adds to the mystique of his solo debut. After detaching from his grunge-rock roots, Bondy has reinvented his identity, morphing into a Bible belt preacher man with songs drenched in religious imagery and Jesus references, most notably with lyrics such as "I don't wanna talk about Jesus, I just wanna see his face," from "Rapture (Sweet Rapture)."
His journey started and ended in a barn in Palenville, NY, where Bondy recorded and mixed the album in its entirety within the space of a month. The product is a worried, tongue in cheek record combining the solidarity of folk rock with the loneliness of the delta blues. Well played and thoughtfully produced, the songs are short and to the point, simple yet filled with traditional home spun lyrics and sung with the distinct grain of Bondy's raspy voice. It listens like a sentimental tribute to a bygone era where your best friend was your next-door neighbor and all questions could be answered by remembering that you were an American. These musings are evident in the title song's acoustic pleading, "Don't tread on me, for I am your brother, I was born with an American heart."
An album steeped in overwhelming emotion ends on a somber note with "Of the Sea," a tale of a couple drowning in a shipwreck. Meanwhile "Vice Rag" is a caustic nod to the joys of drug and alcohol abuse ("Sweet, sweet cocaine, won't you be all mine") as sung from the perspective of an addict asking Jesus to take his sinning hand, followed by "Killed Myself When I Was Young." Not exactly music for the dinner table, but ultimately the spirit of this record is one of hope that peaceful reconciliations, both politically and personally, are possible even in the darkest hours of despair.
Sub Pop stalwarts the Helio Sequence have always been masters of atmosphere, no stranger to the epic and echoed build-up. While the group stays grounded in pop songwriting, their music absorbs a demure and warm ambiance from soft keyboard textures, loose guitar lines and gentle but eerie, emotive vocals. Sounding polished and radiant on this title track from their upcoming fourth full-length, the Helio Sequence has perfected the art of rise and fall.
"Keep Your Eyes Ahead" begins as a swiftly flowing number with a purpose, band's vocalist/guitarist Brandon Summers spilling supportive direction in a wash of reverb -- "get your head on right," he urges. Particular details, like those about "high-top shoes" and walking home from school, help to color a vivid piece as the song teeters between command and plea. Yet as the drums get a little snappier and the guitars turn a bit grimy, a humming and ambient murmur begins tugging from all directions, threatening to scramble the track into oblivion. As the whirling climax builds, ethereal chants intertwine, drowning in sound. But it's the way the Helio Sequence right themselves from the dramatic swirl and put the scattered pieces together again that's most impressive -- a true display of precision and poise. Keep Your Eyes Ahead drops Jan. 29 via Sub Pop.
That statement is true in a lot of ways -- from the Athens, Ga.-based rock trio's volume-knob-defying presence coming out of the speaker to the buzz surrounding their appearance on many a music fan's radar since their debut release, Give 'Em All a Big Fat Lip, hit shelves in 2005.
But ask frontman Parker Gispert why he, drummer Julian Dorio and former bassist Hank Sullivant made a splash at all, and his responses might make you think you've made a mistake.
"It was definitely humbling and a good feeling to know that the writer was into the band," he said, referring to a 2006 article in Rolling Stone placing the Whigs on its list of Ten Artists to Watch. "At the end of the day, it was someone's opinion about the band, and just as many people might think we're nothing."
Maybe, but similar pieces of critical praise have appeared in outlets from National Public Radio's Song of the Day to American Songwriter Magazine.
Bring up references in many of those articles about the band following in the footsteps of fellow Athenians REM, and Gispert will shy away from the comparisons, passing them off as flattery the band is undeserving of. Instead, he'll talk about local psychedelic and grunge rock groups such as Elf Power and the Olivia Tremor Control that he looks up to and how they've influenced the group's sound.
Since losing Sullivant, who is now touring with electronic-rock duo MGMT, the Whigs have made do with a series of guest bassists. Their upcoming second album, Mission Control (out Jan. 22) includes work by Adam Saunders, a childhood friend of Gispert's. The band also has worked with Craig McQuiston, of another Athens band, the Glands, and they are currently touring with Tim Deaux.
While this might make any semblance of continuity seem like a pipe dream, the band is actually benefiting from the injection of new artists into the lineup, even if temporarily, Gispert said.
"I think it's actually something that's helped spur creativity and been a really positive thing, in retrospect," he said, adding that they're not scrambling to find a permanent replacement. "We got to keep writing songs and play with different people and make the new record playing with friends and people we look up to."
For all his modesty, the one thing Gispert does seem willing to admit to being excited about is Mission Control, which they recorded at the Hollywood Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles.
This is a far cry from the sweaty confines of a frat house where the band recorded and self-produced Give 'Em on equipment they bought (and later resold) on eBay. Although the album was critically acclaimed -- including making Entertainment Weekly's "The Must List" -- the band wanted to be more true to themselves this time around, Gispert said.
"The first one was a little slower than the songs were performed live, and we did some more overdubs on the first record," he said. "(This time) was just about putting the emphasis on making the album be a reflection of what the band does live."
Funk is something of an ineffable quality. Sure, there are technical musical definitions, but that's the equivalent of explaining beauty with quantum physics. Funk is the type of thing that makes you bob your head, raise your eyebrows, and slowly but surely, perhaps even unbeknownst to yourself, break into a strut as you're walking down the sidewalk. It's a bit of an attitude, a bite, a pinch, a stiff kick in the ass, with all the best intentions. It's the smooth shake of a deep guitar and the harsh prick of the beat that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Whatever it is, Grand Ole Party has it.
Since the 2006 release of the Danger at Sea EP, this North Carolina-based group has risen from obscurity to slightly-less obscurity, playing scattered shows around the East Coast, and appearing on North Carolina public radio. These indie rock folkies -- made up of two disillusioned Iowans (Phil Moore and Mark Paulson) and a Raleigh-based artist (Beth Tacular) -- have stayed true to their Raleigh roots, however, melding acoustic indie and southern rock into an accordion-infused debut album, Hymns for a Dark Horse.
Featuring Brad and Phil Cook on the upright bass and banjo, respectively, Hymns for a Dark Horse strikes a folksy balance between acoustic-heavy instrumentals, sing-a-long-able oohs and ahhs, and romantically melancholy lyrics. "In Our Talons" is a standout track, with its accordion-rich choruses and not-so-subtle message. While the instrumentals steal the show on "My Oldest Memory" -- the perfect upbeat treat in a slow-moving album -- the vocals steal center stage from the string parts in "Dark Horse," a sweetly sad indie-folk trip. The album winds up with "Olive Hearts," a tambourine-infused, harmonized ode to -- what else? -- the passage of time. As Bowerbirds croon to "the wives of drunks" and "the husbands who tagged along for good luck," they seem a little overwhelmed and a little unsure of what exactly is going on. But they seem to think it's going to be okay.
For brothers Ryan and Hays Holladay, the craft of songwriting has always been closely linked with that of recording. From their earliest days of musical collaboration in elementary school, they employed computers and tape machines to not only document their songs but to begin sculpting their sound. A sound that could be called a distant relative to pop music. A sound that would later become the musical foundation for the Epochs.
The band's self-titled debut comes in February. It is a big, varied sounding record. Ranging from the bombastic electronics on "Opposite Sides," to the seething orchestration and manipulated guitar of "Mouths to Feed," to the playful ryhthms of "Giving Tree," it never stops in one place musically long enough for it to be pigeonholed into a category. And it is this restlessness that gives the group its unique sound.
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