The Sunshine State really is the perfect place for Rachel Goodrich. When she sings, you can almost see the cartoon bluebirds flocking to her sweet, high voice, but she's no Goody Two-shoes. Goodrich is the perfect in-between: You want to eat ice-cream sundaes with her, then chug tequila down at the boardwalk.
After years of playing in various Miami bands, starting at age 15, the Florida native retreated to the bedroom and started writing songs on her own. Out of necessity, she added ukulele and kazoo to fill out the sound of just her and a guitar. She plays a Rickenbacker live and fastens her kazoo in a harmonica holder for solos.
"That came from recording on my own," she says of her multi-instrumentalism, "and building songs as I would hear and see them, which involved different sounds and colors. Playing a different instrument each time is inspirational, and naturally these instruments carry different vibes."
Vibe is what Goodrich exudes, and her quirky sense of style and humor reflect her 24 years. There's a youthful glow to last fall's Tinker Toys, her debut LP, released on her own Yellow Bear label, wherein she sings about buying weed, missing the sun, and loving jelly beans with a self-aware smirk and a bit of Holly Golightly's tongue-in-cheek delivery. Aided by upright bass and trombone, it's a giddy mix of rock and pop she's dubbed shake-a-billy.
"I must have heard or said something that rang a bell," she explains of the inspiration for songs. "It starts off fun and adventurous. I get excited, into it. Then I think about it way too much. I can't just write it down and call it a day. I have to make sure I love it and know this is something I want to sing aloud."
Passion Pit's Ayad Al Adhamy knows that the speed with which his Boston-based electro-pop group has ascended from MySpace anonymity to buzz-bin ubiquity tends to make for prime backlash fodder. But the keyboardist insists that he and his bandmates aren't especially worried, thanks to one simple fact: They're not pretty boys.
"I think it helps that we're so dorky," Al Adhamy says with a laugh. "People are like, 'Aw, they're not that handsome.'"
According to Frenchkiss Records president Syd Butler, capitalizing on Passion Pit's regular-guy charm is central to the label's rollout of its debut album, Manners, due May 26.
"If these guys were coming out in Gucci suits," Butler says, "people would be like, 'Who are these asses?' But they're not models — they're genuine and nerdy, and they haven't been corroded yet. People feel like they're their neighbors. We want to promote that aspect."
True to those humble roots, frontman Michael Angelakos formed Passion Pit in 2007 not as a band but as a Valentine's Day present: He originally recorded the six-song Chunk of Change EP for a girlfriend at Boston's Emerson College, then watched as the song "Sleepyhead" caught fire last year throughout the blogosphere. After quickly assembling a live outfit, Angelakos spent much of 2008 playing shows; Frenchkiss rereleased the EP in September, and in December the group signed to Columbia in the United Kingdom.
Bassist Jeff Apruzzese acknowledges that the rapid rise was a wild ride. "It's just been snowballing since I started playing with these guys," he says. "All of a sudden it went from a show with six other bands at the Middle East (club) in Cambridge (Massachusetts) to a sold-out tour in Europe. I'm still surprised when we show up in Pontiac, Michigan, and we're playing to 300 kids."
Al Adhamy remembers a gig in Paris for which the members of alternative rock band Phoenix called to get on the guest list. "That's when I was like, 'Hold on — this is crazy.'"
For Manners, the band's goal was to make a record that "doesn't have to cater to a small group" of in-the-know bloggers, Al Adhamy says. "It has the option of a bigger audience. I think it could be on the radio."
It already is in the United Kingdom, where BBC Radio 1 has spun the album's lead single, "The Reeling."
In Apruzzese's view, Passion Pit's position sets the band up to reap rewards from both the indie and major-label spheres. "Because we were originally signed to Frenchkiss in the U.S.," he says, "that gave us some leverage in terms of allowing us to have creative control and not being sucked into a 360 deal where the label takes 35 percent of everything and tells you what you can and can't wear."
Though his current contract with the band calls for only one more album, Butler is advising Passion Pit to think long-term. "I try to remind these guys that just because they're big on the blogs or in their hometown, that doesn't mean they're actually big," he says. "I tell them, 'If you want a career in this business, you have to earn it. You're 21 right now. You have 30 years ahead of you.'"
As spring is arriving, you may think now is the perfect time to build a garden. However, after a few hours in a hot sun getting covered in dirt may remind you that building a garden is not the easiest thing to do. Even with all your prep work, the seeds might not take root and you'll run into a weed problem in a few days. It is kind of similar to the process of releasing an album. You may think anybody could do it, but after a few hours of work and sweat, you may end up with your songs but, like a garden, you have to watch out for those bad weeds.
Minnesota indie pop group One for the Team knows firsthand the struggles after recording and mixing their own albums in their Minneapolis apartment. Their previous release Build It Up was a fun lo-fi gem, but the production quality, like a weed, seemed to choke out some of the life of the songs. Perhaps that is why on their latest release Build a Garden, they decided to pair four new songs with re-recordings of four songs from Build It Up.
Of the re-recorded songs, "Questions and Panthers," "Best Supporting Actor," "Cry," and "Oh No," they keep it lo-fi, but the recordings have significantly improved and not just in quality. It's kind of ironic that the recording quality went up when some of the electronic elements from a song like "Questions and Panthers" was dropped. This song was already one of my favorites from their previous release, but they made it tighter both lyrically and instrumentally — a commonality for all the songs they reworked. While I have always loved "Questions and Panthers," 'Cry" had bored me before. Now that it has been tightened up with a nice guitar-line that keeps it moving, it is much more listenable. If Garden State weren't already released, these would have been perfect additions to the soundtrack.
Of the new songs, "Best Supporting Actress," "Yard," "Garden," and "Ha Ha," though all delightfully charming, some were more stand out than others. I could have done without "Yard," which sounded like the audio was recorded through a wall of jello, but fortunately they made up for the lack of quality in that song with the others. None stand out more than "Best Supporting Actress." Grace Fiddler's vocal harmonies with Ian Anderson stand out a bit more on this song and together, sounding a bit like the gang vocals of Tilly and the Wall. Instrumentally, the guitar riff in this song seems like it was lifted right out of a Rogue Wave song, which fits well with the vocal stylings. I could have listened to this song over and over.
In conclusion, it's simple, but sweet and you'll shake your hips. Give One for the Team a listen.
Papercuts make the kind of albums that are easy to ignore or write off as simple and unchallenging indie pop. The smooth textures and gentle surfaces of the production, the breezy melodies of the songs, and the quiet sweetness of Jason Quever's vocals and lyrics don't overwhelm or stand up and demand attention; instead they kind of seep into the pleasure center of your brain if you want them to. The two albums previous to You Can Have What You Want were bright and sunny, but very calm and almost serene. This record isn't much different — maybe a little more layered and gauzy at times, but still overflowing with pleasant melodies and nice sounds. Quever as always sings the lyrics as if in a dream, drifting over the rich arrangements with a light and feathery touch that brings to mind a collegiate and slightly shaky Colin Blunstone (or a less shaky early Neil Young.) He doesn't bowl you over with emotion but he conveys great feeling in his limited range, and on some of the songs, he comes close to breaking hearts with his boyish sincerity. Other times, he captures the ominous spookiness of the lyrics perfectly with his hushed and near conversational singing. Indeed the album seems to be a concept album about a possibly post-apocalyptic world full of suffering and weirdness, which is quite different from the previous album's subject matter. Quever keeps things pretty obscure and hinted at; he's not beating you over the head with any great statements. Again, he's letting the message sneak into your brain quietly and wrapping it in lovely arrangements that would sound good no matter what he was singing about. In that regard, Papercuts are very much like fellow low-key weirdos Grandaddy and Midlake. You Can Have What You Want falls a little short of the last record, Can't Go Back, just because it isn't as jaunty or light-hearted, but it is still an impressive work that should go a ways in providing some proof that the band has more depth and power than one might have thought if they just stuck to the surface.
Live
"Lightning Crashes" Throwing Copper Original release date: April 26, 1994 iTunes
On Throwing Copper, Live tightened their sound, added crashing crescendos for dramatic effect, and injected some anger into their sound and songwriting. They also eased up a bit on the Eastern philosophy; the result is a more cohesive, memorable record overall, and quite an improvement from the sometimes overly precious Mental Jewelry. And for all of Mental Jewelry's ideologies, Throwing Copper is ultimately a more passionate and successful album, thanks to tracks like "I Alone," "Selling the Drama," and "All Over You," all of which received heavy radio play. The rebirth-themed "Lightning Crashes," the album's biggest hit, was written in memory of Barbara Lewis, a classmate who was killed by a drunk driver in 1993. Other standouts include the Kurt Cobain/Courtney Love-inspired "Stage," the apocalyptic "White, Discussion," the bass-driven, obsessive "Iris," and the dark "Dam at Otter Creek." Of course, Ed Kowalczyk couldn't resist throwing in a song like "T.B.D." (for the Tibetan Book of the Dead), based on Aldous Huxley's slow descent into death, aided by heroin. Its melodrama is a bit much, even for Live, and is just a sign of things to come on their next album, Secret Samadhi. But Throwing Copper is still a huge improvement from Mental Jewelry, and is the least overtly preachy Live album to date.
The emergence of this Jacksonville quintet means that the state of Florida has another thing to celebrate proudly alongside its manatees and space shuttle launches. Black Kids have enjoyed a speedy trajectory on their way to success on this side of the Atlantic, signing to the Universal subsidiary Almost Gold recordings last year.
That they have appeared to have achieved their rise through sheer quality of songwriting is refreshing to say the least, and proof of it is absolute on this overtly likable debut LP. Rarely does the phrase "album full of singles" ring true, but Partie Traumatic is bursting at the seams with well-crafted, infectious pop songs, all capable of taking plaudits in their own right.
From the opening dialogue of "Knock knock! Who's There?" on "Hit the Heartbreaks," you're positively hooked. "Listen yo Your Body Tonight" oozes confidence out of every pore, carrying the listener along on a wave of synths and love-related advice, while Radio 1 favourite "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You" soars effortlessly, bouncing between high notes without a moment's respite. Reggie Youngblood's vocals have an alluring knack of sucking you in, at times through a combination of being hushed in verse and huge in chorus.
While the title track stands out for its wonderful drama and urgency, "Look at Me (When I Rock Wichoo)" also sticks out as an addictive, electrically-charged anthem, set to turn a fair few frowns upside down in the nation's indie discos in the coming months. There are elements of The Cure, dashes of Suede, and occasional nods to Brandon Flowers on display, but they don't encroach on the listening experience in any way; the overall variety and quality of songcraft is such that you're too busy being swept away by the tunes to care about anything else.
Partie Traumatic has all the makings of being one of the albums of the year, thanks to this band's glossy, yet emotional, take on modern guitar pop. So great is the record's charm and charisma, that it is in the process of setting up Youngblood and his gang to be yet another example of an American band to follow the White Stripes / Strokes / Killers model, honing their skills and making waves over in Albion before a triumphant return Stateside to take on their homeland.
Anyone who had the pleasure of experiencing Black Kids' Wizard of Ahhhs' EP last autumn will have seen this coming. Even though the mood is often one of trepidation when you set out to listen to the re-vamped, re-recorded versions of songs whose original demos showed so much promise and appeal, you just had an inkling that this lot were going to pull this off beautifully.
The hardest thing about telling the story of Sixto Rodriguez is deciding whether to start in Mexico, South Africa, Australia, or Detroit. He was born in Detroit to Mexican immigrant parents and spent his entire musical career there in the 1960s and early '70s. Rodriguez made two albums of socially conscious rock, which flopped, in part because his label, Sussex, was distributed by Buddah Records, an AM-radio powerhouse that had little access to the adventurous FM spectrum for which Rodriguez's music was better suited.
Though he was shut out from his audience at home, a curious thing happened in the Southern Hemisphere. The blunt urban commentary and the unique sound of his debut, Cold Fact, struck a chord in Australia and New Zealand, to the degree that in 1979 and 1980, Rodriguez, who had built himself as a musician playing dives, gay bars, strip clubs, and other out-of-the-way corners of Detroit, was able to mount a theater tour in Australia. The real surprise, though, was lying thousands of miles across the Indian Ocean, in South Africa, where Cold Fact became a counterculture hit and was accepted as a rock classic. It sold about 60,000 copies during the Apartheid era (very good numbers for South Africa) and was bootlegged many more times than that.
So how did that happen? Well, the reasons are all audible on the record — for one, there's the aforementioned uniqueness of its sound. The album is a patchwork of folk, psychedelic rock, and pop production, built around a workman-like voice and simple melodies. Co-producers Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey were Detroit veterans who worked with Harry Balk's Impact label, and later Motown after it gobbled up Impact (Coffey played the iconic wah guitar part on the Temptations' "Cloud Nine"). They'd chosen to work with Rodriguez for the simple reason that they liked his music, and they brought their considerable arranging and playing skills to bear on Rodriguez's ultra-basic guitar/voice compositions.
The more direct reason his music spread so widely in South Africa, though, was the lyrics, which played as unbelievably subversive to young (predominantly white) South Africans living under a cultural system that was so repressed it considered the entire medium of television too corrupting to be allowed into the country. In a police state like that, songs with lines like, "I wonder how many times you've had sex / And I wonder do you know who'll be next" — never mind the drug-dealing references and anti-establishment messages — had automatic currency, the kind that caused listeners to circulate it amongst their friends. Ironically, the military was the most fertile ground through which music like this spread, as compulsory service for whites spread records throughout the male population by easy word of mouth.
Listening to this excellently remastered reissue of Cold Fact (a reissue of the follow-up, Coming From Reality, is apparently in the works), it's not difficult to hear why so many South Africans placed it on the shelf next to Black Sabbath and the Beatles and figured that's what the rest of the world was doing, too. It is one of those rare lost albums that turns out to be a genuine classic. "Only Good for Conversation" is a startling rocker with heinously distorted guitar, "I Wonder" sets the gravest of concerns to a carefree beat with a swinging bass line, "Rich Folks Hoax" is wonderfully dark psych-folk, and the subtle, varied orchestration on "Crucify Your Mind" and "Inner City Blues" helps highlight the message. Opener "Sugar Man," a plea to a drug dealer to "bring back all those colors to my dreams," surrounds a hypnotic vocal with a complex psychedelic arrangement complete with horns, oscillators, strings, and xylophone.
Though its concerns were timely for its day, Cold Fact wears very well, and never sounds particularly dated at any point. Since being contacted by persistent South African fans (one of whom tells his story in the generous liner notes), Rodriguez has toured there, selling out 5,000-seat venues, a feat he'll probably never repeat at home. This reissue, the first time any of his work has appeared on CD in the U.S., takes a step toward gaining him some of the deserved recognition that's eluded him.
Some artists fight against obscurity. Miike Snow flaunted it. For months, the name "Miike Snow" was shrouded in mystery, even after separate remixes of the Miike Snow song "Animal" by the Crookers and Treasure Fingers were unleashed online with a roar heard 'round the blogosphere. Well, the buzz remains, but the anonymity jig is up — Miike Snow is no mystery man, but rather three of them: it's a band made up of American producer Andrew Wyatt and Swedish producers/songwriters Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg. Wyatt was a member of Black Beetle, the A.M., and most recently Fires of Rome. As for Karlsson and Winnberg, well... they may not be household names outside of the DJ scene, but they've had a hand in writing and producing tracks for both Madonna and Britney Spears, including the latter's Grammy-winning "Toxic." Clearly, these guys know how to craft irresistible, club-ready pop tunes, and the release of Miike Snow's self-titled debut this June on Downtown Records should put them on the radar for good.
In advance of the June 9 release of their new album, The Eternal, Sonic Youth's new label Matador is offering a free MP3 version of the album's first track, "Sacred Trickster." The song's something to get excited about, and maybe even dance to — no mean feat when you consider this is a band who've always seemed to make soundtracks for people listen to while they stand around smoking and trying to look cool.
After years of absorbing a little too much squeaky-clean production at Geffen Records, I figured Sonic Youth had traded in their edge in favour of resting on their we-are-indie-pioneers laurels. But the move to Matador has clearly reinvigorated the band. "Sacred Trickster" features some of the strange, discordant experimentation that was SY's stock in trade throughout the group's late-'80s, early-'90s heyday, alongside a straight-ahead hooky chorus that will convert those who were always intimidated by the band's wall of cacophonous sounds.
The 2:11 single breezes by at such a click that you might be fooled into thinking it's unbelievably simple. Not so. Sure, it begins with some wonky, deliberately on-again, off-again guitar chords that recall both the New York no wave bands and some of the gleefully inept experimentation of Slanted and Enchanted-era Pavement. But "Sacred Trickster" progresses in small increments and layers, accelerating away from those initial chords toward more urgent tail-chasing guitars and drums, before finally giving way (somewhere around verse 2) to a frenzied section where the guitars mimic the sound of a frantic moth's fluttering wings. This rivals some of the best cuts on SY's Goo.
Kim Gordon helps to propel things forward, spitting out infectious lines like "Getting dizzy, sitting around" with a little extra force and enthusiasm than she's usually known for, and investing her repeated "uh-huhs" at the chorus with a perfectly insolent edge. When it comes time for her to cry out, "What's it like to be a girl in a band?" it's a meta question that needs no answer. Judging from this insanely addictive first single, being in a band is something that the members of SY have mastered several times over.
Dan Keyes wants you to dance your ass off. At least that's what his new release as Young Love, One of Us, will have you doing. At this point, I'm unwilling to relegate this album to any certain genre because when it comes down to it, Young Love just makes "shake your booty" music. No, it isn't crunk — but Young Love manages to borrow from a little of everything. You'll hear Prince-style guitar riffs, bass-lines straight out a Chic album, and Timbaland-esque drum breaks mixed with some angular, classic-rock radio friendly guitar riffs.
While the album is pretty much a solid win, it does have highlights. "Get Me Up" is a jam straight out of the Minneapolis funk scene with some fluttering falsetto vocals and a crowd-rousing chorus. The lead single, "Black Boots," is arena ready with reverb-ed out guitars and some infectiously addictive hooks that will replace any crack habit with just one listen (although I dare you to just listen to it once).
When I said the album is pretty much golden, I meant just that. There is one detriment to One of Us as a whole and of course, it's the ballad, "Down on Me." It's heartfelt and honest, but when you get a party bumpin' like Young Love has for the past five tracks of the record, the last thing you want him to do is slow it down. Luckily, the album picks up again and refuses to step back into ballad-territory again.
For all of you listeners out there with a sweet tooth (or ear), Young Love's penchant for sugar coated hooks and soaring riffage, One of Us is sure to be a mainstay in your MP3 player of choice for the summer. Just make sure you're ready to lose some calories from all the rump shaking.
Over the last half-century, the tag "Dylanesque" has been slapped on so many mediocre folksingers clutching battered Moleskines that it's become a meaningless joke, a critical hiccup, a silly, lazy way of invoking an age-old raspy voice/acoustic guitar combo. It's gotten so bad that, in 2008, yammering on about the cliché of dubbing someone "the next Dylan" has become a cliché in itself. Still: It's exceptionally hard to talk about Scandinavian folksinger the Tallest Man on Earth (also known as Kristian Matsson) without mentioning Bob Dylan's early years, mostly because Matsson manages to embody Dylan's effortlessness so well (Dylan was trying really, really hard, sure — but he sang like he didn't give a shit), infusing his songs with a detachment that, miraculously, is neither cold nor alienating. Like Dylan, Matsson is so natural a songwriter that these tracks feel predetermined, tumbling out of his mouth with an ease and grace that's increasingly uncommon.
Matsson released a self-titled five-song EP in 2007; Shallow Grave is his full-length debut. The production is appropriately scrappy, and it seems relatively safe to assume that the album was recorded live with one microphone — accordingly, we hear the scratch of fingernails on string (and, on occasion, the chirping of birds in the background), made privy to each tiny exhalation and sigh. Matsson is an adept fingerpicker, and his guitar is easily as central as his voice, which is high, crackling, and rich. Much like Dylan himself, Matsson has mined the American south for inspiration, and his frantic strumming and front-porch poetry recall everyone from the Carter Family to Lead Belly to, most noticeably, country bluesman Mississippi John Hurt.
"The Blizzard's Never Seen the Desert Sands" sees Matsson caw little poems ("And the bells up in the tower they will ring/ And the frightened little choirs they will sing / They will tremble, all their voices") over plucked banjo; "The Gardener" features a robustly strummed guitar melody and more half-cogent ideas ("I know the runner's gonna tell you / There ain't no cowboy in my hair / So now he's buried by the daisies / So I can stay the tallest man in your eyes, babe"). Matsson's lyrics don't stand up as well on paper as they do in song (some have all the logic of fairy tales), but each of these cuts has a distinct, if muddled, narrative — sparrows, tranquilizer guns, curtains, unicorns. Road stories, love stories, prayers.
Matsson's melodies are remarkably pliant, and while it's understandable to be skeptical of another skinny dude with a mustache, a guitar, and a worn-out copy of The Anthology of American Folk Music, the more time you invest in Shallow Grave, the more you'll realize how unusually memorable it is. Ultimately, Shallow Grave transcends comparison — which is saying an awful lot, given the popularity of its prototype — and Matsson is a natural-born folksinger, earnest, clever, and comforting.
Cage the Elephant is a Kentucky five-piece, known for wreaking havoc wherever they lay their guitars. It's also the name of the first album from the explosive band, which was recorded, in true garage style, in 10 days. There's no over-production or waste on this gritty piece of rock and it shows the band to have the exuberance of The Vines, the social relevance of Hard Fi, and the slide guitar of Beck.
More succinctly, "It sounds like a punch in the face," says singer Matt Schultz. "In One Ear" is a definite two fingers up at the music industry ("I'm an antisocial anarchist who sounds like so and so ... Rock 'n' roll is dead I should have stayed at school'') and "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked," the second single from the album, certainly makes you sit up and take notice. It's a sing-along rhythm and blues anthem for the disaffected. Expect to be hearing this blast out of cars for weeks.
Matt and his guitar-playing brother, Brad, have had some musical catching up to do. Having been brought up in the Christian south, they didn't get to listen to much varied music as children. This doesn't stop them citing influences as diverse as Bob Dylan (well, you've got to haven't you?) and Jay-Z, as well as...erm, Kenny G on their MySpace page. Mind you, "Back Stabbin' Betty" has a certain funky, strutty, Iggyness to it. Mostly, though, they sound like so and so.
Whilst the plucky intro to "Judas" makes you want to get up and dance, the refrain is more soulful. Thankfully the drumming of Jared Champion kicks in with the multi-layered chorus, leaving your emotions all over the place in one fell swoop.
And the name? In one interview they explained it comes from Indian philosophy where the elephant is the symbol of strength and goodness. "It seems like people want to cage the elephant," they said, "it seems like they want to cage all the good in the world." If you want to learn more about Indian philosophy read the Upinishads, but if you want to release some good time rock 'n' roll, listen to this album.
The guitar distortion that eats up much of the air on Swoon — the fine, at times genuinely exciting second album by Silversun Pickups — comes in many forms, including wounded-bear roars, pissed-off-snake hisses and black-syrup rivers of drone. In one song, "Panic Switch," singer-guitarist Brian Aubert is a fuzz orchestra unto himself, opening with a dirty grunting lick, jumping into the chorus with an iron wall of strum and stuffing the bridge with rusted treble. At one point, he hits thick, humming notes that slither over Nikki Monninger's bass and Christopher Guanlao's drums like impatient snakes. There is also an uncanny resemblance to the great toothpaste-fuzz lead in Iron Butterfly's 1968 freakout "Iron Butterfly Theme."
In their own way, this Los Angeles quartet are boldly retro, drawing from the noisy distress of Nineties alternative rock, particularly the neopsychedelic convulsions of Smashing Pumpkins and the British om-pop band Ride. Swoon improves on the Pickups' 2006 debut, Carnavas, with less slavish writing and more articulated dynamics. In "Growing Old is Getting Old," Aubert sounds like he's singing from behind the bass and Joe Lester's dusk-light keyboards. Later, as the rest of the band bolts forward in the mix, so does Aubert, his guitar chords verging on screams. "Sort Of" is a wily Cure-like mix of viscera (tumbling drums, explosive guitar) and vocal anxiety.
The Pickups know how to create a mood, not always when to break it. "Draining" is all shuffle and sigh, a dip in momentum after the decisive violence of "Panic Switch." But there is a purpose here, to find daylight and enjoy it, that is totally pop. "We slide into delight," Aubert sings in "Growing Old," in overdubbed harmonies that are more Prefab Sprout than Pearl Jam, as distortion swells around him. His band still has some growing to do, but it knows how to have fun with fuzz and where to find the beauty in noise.
Arguably no other indie-rock band was as lyrically antiestablishment during the Bush era as Portland's the Thermals. The band's 2006 release The Body, the Blood, the Machine seethed with pointed invectives against the Christian fundamentalist, nationalist crusade that seemed insurmountable during those years. The Thermals's previous two albums were equally as opposed to the right-wing hegemony, though nowhere near as cohesive in its critique or anger. And despite the decisive victory of a candidate who promised "change we can believe in," the Thermals make clear they're still keeping a close eye on the powers that be throughout the hopeful yet skeptical Now We Can See.
More hip-hop than rock in his lyrical gymnastics, ringleader Hutch Harris crams as many words as possible into every song. On the title track, he explains the prevailing consciousness of the past eight years ("Baby we were savage, we existed to kill / Our history is damaged, but at least it was a thrill"), yet he questions his peers' unguarded optimism ("But now we can see now that our vision is strong / We don't need to admit we were wrong"). Elsewhere, Harris seems fixated on death and the natural cycles that lead to and arise from it, with multiple references to the sea, ground, air, and sky. "I Called Out Your Name" reads like a love letter from the deceased to the living, while "Liquid In, Liquid Out" could easily be a nursery rhyme explaining the basics of physiology.
Musically, the Thermals deliver a cleaner, more refined version of the raging anthems found on Body, the band's worship of '90s indie rock ringing through louder and clearer than ever before. They've traded the raucous rockers for more mature though still acerbic songs doused in infectious melodies. Bassist Kathy Foster sweetens many songs with her welcomed backing vocals; she also deserves kudos for performing all rhythm section instruments throughout the album (newest drummer Westin Glass joined just after the recording sessions). Yet while the band seems more at ease with the slower pace and sturdier rhythms, they still find time to dabble in succinct punk fury, as they do on "When We Were Alive." The Thermals might be getting older, with their music maturing in tandem, but they're also getting better.
As much as we like seeing them live, we were happy to see that White Rabbits got off the tour bus for a little while, headed into a dark basement in Brooklyn and emerged with It's Frightening, their second full-length album, set for a May 19 release on TBD records.
It's Frightening is the follow-up to Fort Nightly, and features the production talents of Spoon's Britt Daniel. The album was recorded in just four weeks, with the band breaking just once to play the Transmusicales Festival in Rennes, France.
"Percussion Gun" is the first single from the album, and the first few seconds will reassure you that the band’s raucous and unique percussion philosophy has not changed. After that, it's all about the melody, the guitars the draw you in and the keys that pick it up and make it new about half-way through. Translation: you won't be disappointed.
April 13, 2004:
Start with a guitar and a few rhythmic bass lines. Add a synthesizer, some sporadic piano, an occasional faux-techno beat, and Kevin Barnes' melodic, sunny day poetry. Wrap the whole thing in Beatles/Beach Boys-esque pop-rock and aural soma, and you've got Satanic Panic in the Attic. Within the first eight seconds of "Disconnect the Dots" you've already got it figured out. You're in for something different.
Satanic Panic in the Attic is the latest addition to Of Montreal's six album catalog, which includes numerous re-releases, a tour only release (Then Who Will Protect Big Oil, Our Children?), some old four track recordings and probably just about everything else the band has ever put on tape.
Quality is definitely better than quantity, and Of Montreal's six albums released over the course of seven years is no exception. In the past I've found that their stuff was laden with a steadfast "we must be retro" mentality. All of their older albums consisted of a few really good tracks and a whole lot of filler. I'm not saying that I didn't give The Gay Parade or Aldhil's Arboretum a spin here and there — they just weren't among my favorites. But however useless some of Of Montreal's older stuff may have been, they managed to add something new to their sound. There was constant progress made toward improvement on every album until they finally got it. Their music took priority over idealism, resulting in Satanic Panic in the Attic being, by far, their best release yet.
The day that I got Satanic Panic, I have to admit, I wasn't exactly thrilled to give up 43:34 to Of Montreal. I wrote off the fine-tunings on all of the other albums as small attempts with no progress made, mostly because I didn't realize what they were doing until I heard this record. My first reaction was "Huh?" I took the disc out of my cd player to make sure it was Of Montreal. It was. I never expected something so good to come from them; like I said, they always had their moments, but it was mostly just singles and filler before this point.
Surprisingly, what started strong stayed strong this time around. Experimentation away from the retro rock shell proves fruitful from the opening of "Disconnect the Dots," and doesn't take a break until it all ends with the crash of a gong in "Vegan In Furs." Don't get me wrong here, they didn't completely do away with their former style; rather, they just ingeniously accentuate it with other influences — namely disco, rockabilly, and a little more jazz than usual. The outcome is a less redundant, more diverse, new and improved Of Montreal. Its good to see so much potential finally put to use, but if they're not careful, this could be the beginning of another five-record stagnancy spree.
Thanks in part to the likes I'm From Barcelona, The Concretes, Peter, Bjorn & John, Salty Pirates et al, Sweden has, over the last decade or so, become synonymous with the breezy and cardigan-and-sandals wearing branch of indie pop. It would be no understatement to say that the Scandinavian country has become the genre's spiritual home; so much so that those fine practitioners of the art Camera Obscura upped sticks from Scotland to and sailed across the North Sea to work on their last album Let's Get Out of This Country.
Yet this only tells part of the story, not to mention a stereotypical disservice for, as displayed by the dark, electronic gurgling of The Knife, Sweden is more than capable of producing bands whose dark and unsettling outpourings trample the notion of twee well into the ground. On first inspection, Fever Ray — the first solo outing of Karin Dreijer Andersson, one half of the aforementioned The Knife — hardly represents a move away from her day job. Yet repeated plays yield layers of dense beauty that outflanks her previous work.
The key here is atmosphere. Fever Ray travels from shadows to light and all shades in between with an almost casual grace. For instance, the murk of opening track "If I Had a Heart" develops to reveal a peculiarly idiosyncratic vision that is at once beguiling and curiously oppressive. Using her voice as an instrument as much as a vessel for conveying inner thought, Andersson peels away layers of her psyche to stark effect. "When I Grow Up" finds the singer employing Oriental dynamics that blend seamlessly with the electronic pulses that surround them as elsewhere, "Seven" becomes a creature of warm, haunting beauty.
Fever Ray is an album that burrows itself into the brain before nestling down for the long haul. By taking electronics forward but without sacrificing accessibility, Andersson has fashioned an album that demands and receives full immersion. Its brooding personality is, on occasion, challenging and awkward, but this is something that's worth getting to grips with.
Many bands have bucked the trend of rock music's basic structure, forgoing the standard guitar, bass, and drums in favor of other combinations. The 2-man rock band, composed of a guitar player and a drummer, a sort of basic survival kit for the format, streamlines rock and roll to its most basic elements. Bands like The White Stripes and The Black Keys have a raw sound that can be described as simply riffs and beats. A working formula is achieved by subtracting band members as a way to reach a more visceral sound. This approach is more fruitful than the one taken by The Presidents of the United States of America, a band that subtracted the number of strings on their instruments as an avenue toward minimalism but arrived at something more akin to limitism than minimalism. Though they have twice as many members as the duo format, Quebec's Winter Gloves take a decidedly subdued approach to their songs.
The Montreal quartet of Winter Gloves creates beautiful indie pop, sans bass player. Instead they add the presence of a Wurlitzer organ. The ten songs of the group's first proper album, About a Girl, sound lighter than air, drifting along untethered by heavy bass notes.
The opening track, "Factories," lays soft rock melodies over post-punk foundations, a theme that runs throughout the record and creates a sound comparable to the soft-focus Hollywood close-up. Songs on About a Girl are all soft lines and dreamy tones; they take the sharp, pointy blades of post-punk and dull them to harmless tips.
"Let Me Drive," a track that would sound equally at home in a club or on a car stereo, refutes the Washington Post claims that there are no more pop songs written about cars. When the chorus slows down and the band lets up on the accelerator, the intent seems solely for the purpose of speeding up again once the verse comes back in. Even while listening to it when not behind the wheel, the song has the feel of being in traffic.
Elsewhere on the album, songs like "Hillside" and "About a Girl" sound cute, but not quite twee, as Winter Gloves enter Grandaddy territory of gentle and diffused indie rock. On "I Can't Tell You" and "Party People," the band reaches for Coldplay's shallow, sonic depth, but instead grasp something more. They follow through on an idea to completion, willing to risk the chance of something new not working out as well as something they've done before.
Although songs on About a Girl sound like they stop rather than end, it is a thoroughly enjoyable listen and a solid debut that grows better with each listen. Winter Gloves play to their strengths, creating catchy, dreamy indie pop. They are much stronger writing upbeat songs rather than ballads. The album does include a couple weak moments, but ultimately, the band is at it's best when they combine the two, like on the album closer, "Pianos 4 Hands."
Courtney Love completely revamped Hole before recording their second album, keeping only Eric Erlandson in the lineup. That is one of the reasons why Live Through This sounds so shockingly different from Pretty on the Inside, but the real reason is Love's desire to compete in the same commercial alternative rock arena as her husband, Kurt Cobain. In fact, many rumors have claimed that Cobain ghostwrote a substantial chunk of the album, and while that's unlikely, there's no denying that his patented stop-start dynamics, bare chords, and punk-pop melodies provide the blueprint for Live Through This. Love adds her signature rage and feminist rhetoric to the formula, but the lyrics that truly resonate are the ones that unintentionally predict Cobain's suicide. For all the raw pain of the lyrics, Live Through This rarely sounds raw because of the shiny production and the carefully considered dynamics. Despite this flaw, the album retains its power because it was one of the few records patterned on Nevermind that gets the formula right, with a set of gripping hooks and melodies that retain their power even if they follow the predictable grunge pattern.
Phoenix
"Run Run Run" Alphabetical Original release date: March 29, 2004 iTunes
March 29, 2004:
Phoenix are back with their second album, Alphabetical. Like the single, this is an album made to bring out the sun which aims to please, with poppy tracks galore and complete lack of any lyrics in French. Alphabetical is beautiful and melodious, yet still not quite on a par with some of their debut album. There is no mistaking the fact that this album will help them make a name for themselves, with Radio One already showing a keen interest in current single "Run Run Run." Every record store you go in, every pillar you walk past, you will see and hear the name Phoenix. The album will have you clicking, clapping and dancing; making the perfect accompaniment to that barbeque party you were planning on hosting this summer. The hip-hop feel to some of the beats and [Thomas] Mars' style of vocals, especially in "Victim of the Crime," will also gain the attention of new fans. Just watch out for this band, with another album even on a par with this or their last album and they will be in the most elite fan's list of bands to namedrop.
Harlem Shakes' 2007 Burning Birthdays EP was a brief but brilliant sampling of sunny, sure-footed pop that promised plenty of possibilities for this Brooklyn-based band. Now, a year and a half later, all that potential pays off on the group's first full-length, Technicolor Health.
"Nothing But Change Part II" opens the album in a fevered frenzy of pop parts held together by Lexy Benaim's slyly clever lyrics and an obvious abundance of exuberance all around. Hand claps and high harmonies carry along on joyful rhythms and frenetic beats. Encapsulated in this one song is everything you need to know about this band and this album, and it's all here to encourage, or perhaps compel, further listening. Every element exists to ensure each time you hear it you'll want to hear it again. Harlem Shakes releases musical endorphins here, and the enthusiasm is irresistible. "One down and nine to go," crows Benaim near the end, reminding us this is still only the first track!
"Strictly Game" incorporates a Latin rhythm and a cautiously hopeful outlook as the hook declares, "This will be a better year." This is the sort of song that becomes the soundtrack of a summer — if not an entire year — like "Float On" or "Wake Up." The irrepressible optimism, combined with the addictive accessibility of the arrangement, virtually guarantees this will be impossible to get out of your head. But that's okay, because you won't want to as certain syncopated lyrics lift you with its simplicity:
"Make a little money
Take a lot of shit
Feel real bad
Then get over it
This will be a better year"
Technicolor Health, recorded with Chris Zane (The Walkmen, White Rabbits), boasts some impressive guest collaborators: Stuart Bogie (a contributor to TV on the Radio and Antibalas, among others), Jon Natchez (of Beirut) and Kelly Pratt (also of Beirut and a touring member of the Arcade Fire). The band cites Randy Newman and Carlos Santana as influences on Technicolor Health, and both can be heard, respectively, in the witty word play and world rhythms. Despite the obvious song-crafting skills the Shakes share with those two, the dynamic delivery actually sells these songs.
Like so many of the tracks on this album, "TFO" is an exercise in escalating tension and euphoric release. It comes on, climbs up and builds until it bursts into thunderous percussion, torrents of bright, colorful keys and surges of sharp, slashing guitars. "We got time to waste some time / We got time to waste some time, now" sounds almost profound when surrounded by this sort of musical complexity.
"Niagara Falls" has the forceful, forward-rushing quality its name evokes, complete with a rippling cascade of a piano melody. A swelling swoop of guitar echoes in the vocal phrasing, which likewise brings to mind the picturesque place name. There's something so seductive about a song where every element, even the title, is engineered to add to the overall effect. "Sunlight," another sprightly pop gem, makes the most of the connotations inherent in its title, and it does so with warm, radiant tones and a sparkling Leslie speaker-like effect on the keyboards.
"Natural Man" is all shimmering harmonies and shout-along chorus, but then, that also might be said of most of the songs here. There's not a bad one in the bunch, but along with "Strictly Game," "Natural Man" is a natural favorite. "Radio Orlando" stands out, too, courtesy of its chiming choral of guitars that twine and turn upon each other. Technicolor Health closes with the title track, and though it's more of a slow burner, it still fires on all fronts. A heartbeat rhythm and shining sustain-soaked guitars swell with such a feel-good vibe, the listener gets carried out on a wave of glowing goodwill that has been growing across all ten tracks. Technicolor Health is as bright and vital as the title implies. With Harlem Shakes on the case, the prognosis for the future of pop looks positively rosy.
"Lips," by Micachu, might just be the most thrilling single of the year. This, in its entirety, is what it consists of: a scratchy 16-second intro of roughly strummed guitar with seemingly random treble notes scuffed over the top; the main melodic figure repeated four times in around 10 seconds; a verse (or a chorus), sung by Mica Levi (who is Micachu), in which the words seem to have been chosen for rhythmic impact rather than their poetry, which lasts a further 10 seconds; then the melodic figure repeated another four times with a more boisterous background than in its initial incarnation, followed by another verse, and another eight repetitions of that main figure. Then it stops. It lasts 80 seconds, and every one of those seconds is perfect.
Levi says she doesn't have the attention span to listen to long songs. "I'm quite bad at concentrating for a long time, and I get bored." She likes what she calls "the mini thing," though she wants you to know that Lips isn't some thrown-together stew of scraps. "It just seemed to be complete," she says. "The traditional structure is there."
Brevity is one of pop's greatest virtues. The record that refuses to bore you is the one that you find yourself listening to for hours on end, trying to work out how something so slight can seem so weighty. Would "C'mon Everybody," or "Keep a-Knockin'," or "Rave On" still sound so thrilling today if they had been five minutes long? Would the Ramones' first album have made such an impact had it been 45 minutes long instead of 28?
The thing about pop is that it doesn't really have much to say, so why draw attention to that lack of substance? The real substance often lies in those moments of wonder, and that's apparent in the way people talk about songs — the way they say they love the bit where the guitar drops out, or the chord change before the chorus. Everybody adored Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love" simply because that Chi-Lites sample sounded so amazing in the intro, so why not make records comprising only the good bits, with the boring bits cut out?
People have told Levi she should write longer songs. She tells them she will, and then she doesn't. And she finds herself drawn to shortness, regardless of what format she's working in (she studied composition, so it's not all pop). "I wrote a string quartet that's 10 minutes long, with eight movements," she says, "and one of those was 10 seconds long. But it would be good to develop things over a longer stretch of time."
Her listening habits tend towards cherishing the great moment over the extended play, she says. "A lot of songs I really like, but before I get to the end I step to another one. There have got to be more people in the world like that." (There are: some of them work in A&R, where a common piece of advice to young bands is to make the songs shorter and get to the good bits quicker. It's advice more musicians should heed.)
Levi also says she listens to dancehall and hip-hop mixtapes, which dispense with boring longueurs all together. "It's just bits of each song," she says, "and lots of mucking about. "
Her debut album, Jewellery, won't disappoint those for whom the multi-part epic is the enemy of enjoyment. Only two of its songs break the three-minute mark, and though one reaches 24 minutes, it's the last one on the album, and more than 20 minutes of that is silence, before a burst of noise at the end. This is not a Yes album, for which we can all be thankful.
The roots of grunge are varied and tangled, and they formed primarily in Seattle. But the emergence of Nirvana, and the stardom that came to singer-songwriter Kurt Cobain, happened in part via an assist from the New York-based post-punk band Sonic Youth.
Danny Goldberg, along with partner John Silva, managed Sonic Youth. Since the group's members were always looking for new artists to join them on the road, they recommended Nirvana, which was seeking management.
Goldberg recalled seeing Nirvana play live for the first time at the Palace in Los Angeles shortly after his company signed the band in late 1990. "I was stunned how intimate the relationship was between Kurt and the audience, even with material that a lot of people didn't know," he said. "There was something about the way he performed that made him seem like a member of the audience and being on stage at the same time."
In truth, if Goldberg and his partner hadn't signed the band, Nirvana probably would have been huge anyway, because the word was out. Goldberg acknowledged that others were after the artists. Cobain and Nirvana had created a sound, a movement, a zeitgeist, that grabbed a generation by its lower flannel and wouldn't let go until events caused it all to end.
One of those events occurred on April 8, 1994 — 15 years ago — when Cobain, 27, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound (the medical examiner would later estimate he died on the afternoon or evening of April 5.) Nirvana was no more. Because of the tragic ending, the legacies of Cobain and his band are usually linked in the collective memory with the depression that tormented the singer. Yet many in and around the "grunge" movement — and that term came later, after much music had been made and the outside world needed a label — recall that period with wistful joy.
"There were no rules," said Chris Cornell, lead singer and guitarist for Soundgarden, one of the major acts that came out of the Seattle area around the same time as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, among others. "That was how the real alternative term started. It was supposed to mean anything that was an alternative to the popular mainstream.
"Seattle was a town where often larger acts wouldn't come, but small indie acts that were traveling around in vans would go, because they would go anywhere. So we got everybody coming through."
Cornell said it was that lack of attention and the focus on the art itself that led to a purity in the music of the time. "It was about isolation, a provincial isolation scenario," said Cornell, who released Scream, his third solo album, earlier this year. "There was no big media, no dangling carrot of big media.
"We didn't have stars in our eyes. We worked normal blue collar jobs to subsidize our music, to buy guitars, guitar strings, wah wah pedals. Nobody at that time came to Seattle to mine the unsigned bands. In the absence of the allure of success, there was a genuine outpouring of this musical inspiration. There were no distractions."
'Be authentic, don't be formuliac'
Into that climate came Cobain, who grew up in Aberdeen, a logging and fishing town outside of Seattle, and "had a lot stacked against him before he ever picked up a guitar," said Charles R. Cross, author of the definitive Cobain biography, "Heavier Than Heaven." Cross had worked at a local music magazine in Seattle and was there during Nirvana's rise.
"He came from a family where alcohol and depression were rampant," Cross said. "In some ways I'm actually surprised he managed to make as much music as he did."
Cross recalled a time shortly after Nirvana's hit album Nevermind was recorded, but not yet released. "He got evicted from his place because he couldn't pay $175 in rent," he said. "After he recorded this album that would make him a star, there he was, sitting on the curb with all his stuff."
The late 1980s weren't considered a golden era of popular music. Hair bands had filled the landscape like herds of rock and roll Afghan hounds. Punk had long been dead, and serious music buffs were yearning for something new and meaningful.
"It was reflective of a musical shift," Cross said of Nirvana and grunge in general. "Just prior to Nirvana going in to record Nevermind, one of my favorite stories is that the group that was in the studio recording right before them was Warrant, a heavy metal hair band.
"If there was a theme to grunge, it was be yourself, be authentic, don't be formulaic. Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, in some instances you had ugly men making powerful music. What was important was the sound and not the look."
Nirvana's sound was largely crafted by Cobain, with great assistance from drummer Dave Grohl and bass player Krist Novoselic. "His singing style especially became the default template for rock music," said Sasha Frere-Jones, pop music critic for The New Yorker magazine, of Cobain. "You could look at David Cook. Alice in Chains. Nickelback. He changed the way singing was done."
Cobain's songwriting was also helped to stir a generation. "Kurt Cobain was one of the most important writers in American rock history," said Larry Mestel, CEO of Primary Wave Music Publishing, the company that owns the rights to Nirvana's songs. "I think 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' was a song that changed the way people in the '90s viewed music, everything from how unique the video was to the sound itself."
'All the bands were friends'
There was a period, around the late '80s to early '90s, when all was well, when the alternative bands that sprang from the Seattle area had started to develop a degree of commercial success, yet hadn't yet been marketed to mass consumption. It was during that time that a feeling of camaraderie was as organic to the scene as worn jeans and work boots.
"It was a long, slow process," Cornell explained. "It isn't like you woke up one morning and there was Nirvana and Pearl Jam. It was a long, involved, incestuous process. One thing that ran true is that everybody was dedicated to making music. We all knew each other. We all had a friendly, healthy rivalry.
"Johnny Ramone made a comment to me once that the Seattle scene was the first scene he ever came across where all the bands were friends. In the New York punk scene he grew up in, everybody was a rival."
Throughout the grunge phenomenon, Cobain was enigmatic and complex. "He was easy to get along with, other than when he was on drugs," Goldberg said. "Then the darkness turned on himself. On heroin he was zonked out and remote.
"In general, I found him to be very sweet and very smart. He was tormented, he had chronic stomach pains, he was prone to depression. But he had no struggles when it came to his music. He had absolute crystalline clarity when it came to everything about Nirvana, from the music to T-shirts to album covers. He made the final decisions on all the mixes. Personally, he was very nice to me and my family."
A lot happened aside from Cobain's death that signaled the end of grunge. Basically, it's the old story in the entertainment business: Something starts out pure and good, it is discovered and exploited by those with dollar signs in their eyes, the product suffers, and what made it all special to begin with disappears.
"Living in L.A., I see how in the music scene a lot of people have trouble keeping bands together because members dart off whenever they see an opportunity," Cornell said. "That eventually happened in Seattle. By the mid '90s, it turned into the Sunset Strip. Musicians came from all over the world.
"A good friend of mine who ran a vintage or used guitar and musical equipment store said around 1998 he had so much equipment because people were leaving by that time and giving up the dream. It wasn't what it used to be."
'It's one of the hardest things I've had to deal with in my life'
Cobain's suicide wasn't the death knell for an entire movement, but it was the beginning of the end. He and his music meant a lot to a lot of people, and when he took his own life, he effectively replaced hope with melancholy.
"It seems remarkable that it's been 15 years," Cross said. "I was one of the first people to hear he was dead before the public found out. The guy who found his body called a radio station, and they called me. I remember picking up the phone, getting the message and being in absolute shock, wanting to deny it."
When he looks back on it today, Cornell, the Soundgarden frontman who shared the same musical growing pains as his grunge brethren, still feels the hurt of losing Cobain.
"That's been one of the most difficult things I've had to deal with in my life," he said. "Kurt, as well as several other people who had so much promise and talent, who made me look forward to the future of music and the art form, the limitless music they would create, and then to have all those possibilities completely disappear in front of you. No re-releases or revamping or newly discovered masters can ever take the place of a newly created song or a perspective of somebody who would have been in his forties.
"It's one of the hardest things I've had to deal with in my life."
But before the label was put on the genre, before Nirvana became a band for the ages — "I think this is one of the few cases where you couldn't overestimate how important it was," The New Yorker's Frere-Jones said — there was the music that doused the flames of hair-band hell and reminded people what rock was all about.
Mary Cellini managed a record store at La Brea and Sunset in Los Angeles. She was dating a guy at the time who booked acts at a club called Raji's, which is no longer around but had been a hotspot for punk and alternative bands. She was introduced to Cobain and his girlfriend/wife Courtney Love through her boyfriend.
She remembered one night at another club, The Roxy, in which Nirvana had the crowd in, well, nirvana.
"I'm not doubting or lessening the fact that Cobain had his personal demons," she said. "I'm just saying there was a whole other side to him and his music that was funny and positive.
"One Nirvana show sticks out in my memory as being one of the best live music nights of my life. It was at the Roxy right as their album Nevermind was being released. From the first guitar strum we and the rest of the audience were in heaven. Everyone was moving in unison in a bubble of total joy and excitement. Our favorite moment was spotting a family pogo-ing together arm in arm. There was a father, mother and two kids just bouncing to the music with the biggest smiles on their faces, at the center of the mosh pit.
"I view Cobain and his music as a gift. There have been many times over the years when I have been down or sad and in many of those moments I have often thought of that night and smiled."
Recording its sophomore effort Mean Everything to Nothing was a difficult task for Atlanta pop band Manchester Orchestra.
The band's debut album, 2007's I'm Like a Virgin Losing a Child, was a coming-of-age chronicle that expressed the hopes and aspirations of then-19-year-old vocalist/guitarist Andy Hull. But whereas the songs on the debut were voiced by a fictional cast of characters that Hull created to obscure his emotions, the personal songs on Mean Everything to Nothing are him.
"I was able to be more honest when singing as someone else," said Hull, who is now 22. "Now I've realized, although it's incredibly difficult, it's more powerful to just say it myself."
But it was difficult for other reasons as well. Mean Everything to Nothing was produced by Joe Chiccarelli in conjunction with Dan Hannon and Manchester Orchestra. Chiccarelli, Hull said, was "very old school."
"It's all done very gradually and by finding the right tones and the right everything, basically," Hull said about the recording process with Chiccarelli. "And doing 20 to 25 takes in a day — it's a long process."
To inject energy into the project, the band — which also includes bassist Jonathan Corley, drummer Jeremiah Edmond, keyboardist/vocalist Chris Freeman and guitarist Robert McDowell — tapped longtime friend Hannon.
"He joined this record about halfway through and really pumped fresh blood into it," Hull said. "Having somebody else's ear after you've been doing it for so long and then taking it in the direction we originally wanted to take it in ... for a minute, it's like we lost our direction of where we were going. It was just so mindless, over and over and over again."
That original direction, he said, was to make a "big, mammoth-type of record."
"We just tried to make the biggest-sounding record that we could," Hull said of the collection, which hits stores April 21. "That was our goal. The last record we had released, we [wrote and recorded it] when we were much younger. So this is just very easy and smooth to write and difficult to record, but mostly because we were doing it all live. It's good. I like it."
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