From a label known for supreme downer doom dirge comes this surprise debut by a group of happy, heavy, hot-rockin' throwbacks called The Want, from Jersey. Playing it in the store had amazed customers asking if this was an obscure '70s hard rock reissue. It's not just the tunage that's retro, but the production is authentic '70s sounding too. Amazing. Channelled directly from the likes of Zep, Budgie, Captain Beyond, Free... Great stuff, recommended (despite their violation of two of Allan's many pet peeves: an album title like "Greatest Hits vol. 5", and the unnecessary use of the Greek alphabet on the packaging).
This is the first we've heard from this duo, one half of which is the singer for Danish post punkers Iceage, and fans of that band will find much to like here. If anything the sound is even murkier and dirgier, recorded in a basement on a four track with minimal instrumentation, the biggest surprise being a sort of house music / electronic vibe, which is not so evident on the A side, which opens up with a blast of murky, sludgey post punk pound, laced with synths but still mostly a gloriously gloomy blown out lo-fi dirge, although the second track definitely gets more rhythmic and tripped out, a looped and soaring epic, abstract and warmly noisy, a droned out melodic drift, that while muddy and murky, manages to soar majestically, creating a strange sort of blissed out shoegaze psych-drone. The flipside though is the jam, still wreathed in the same murk as the A side, but here applied to a stripped down skeletal house music, pulsing and pulsating, minimal and washed out, still super lo-fi, but rhythmic and hypnotic, with plenty of ravey synth, crusty 4-track thrum, all driven by a muted 4 on the floor throb. Crazy cool. Definitely can't wait to hear more!
Wow! Progressive Rock from Bolivia? Who knew?
Wara's first album from 1972 (the liner notes say they have recorded 16 albums as of 2004, but this is the first we have heard of them) is a strange hybrid of South American psych with classical symphonic elements, Andean native musical structures, soaring harmonies and boogie rhythms.
Incorporating a classical string section with flute and oboe alongside the shredding fuzz guitar, simmering organ and drum breaks, this is unlike any South American psych we've heard in awhile. While Wara is more of a psych band than a prog outfit, they lean towards '70s proto metal vocal theatrics and Beethoven rather than the Beatles, using long songs with varied passages of loud and soft dynamics. Killer!
Some releases go in and out of print with remarkable and frustrating frequency. Such was the case with the early M. Ward album Duet For Guitars #2. It was first released in 1999 by Co-Dependent Records. Then Howe Gelb took a shine to it and re-released it on his own Ow Om label in 2000. 'Twas quite the perfect place for it to be! Seems Mr. Gelb was absolutely overcome by Ward's music, and chose Duets For Guitars #2 to be the first non-Giant Sand release on his label. Perhaps, it'll have the same effect on you!
Now pretty much a decade since it was originally recorded, Mr. Ward has settled into the comfy label home of Merge Records. This early album is getting its re-re-release into a stable environment to an eager, adoring and ever-growing legion of fans.
To get y'all caught up... yes, this wonderful album actually predated M. Ward's 2001 'debut' full length End Of Amnesia which we loved so much. Duet For Guitars #2 was a set of instrumentals and vocal numbers which he recorded back in 1997. If you like the somber, gruff deep voiced Americana beauty of Gelb's band Giant Sand or that of Tom Waits, Neil Young or Bob Dylan even, well then, M. Ward is definitely not to be missed.
Busy guy, that M. Ward! Every precious second that he saves not writing out his full first name is surely put to good music-making use! All kidding aside, although his She & Him collaboration last year with actress Zooey Deschanel didn't really charm the pants off of many of us here, his solo offerings sure have. This time it sounds like he decided to try a little (or a lot) of something different. On songs such as his cover of "Rave On", it sure does sounds like he dusted off his Zeppelin and T-Rex albums for a bit more inspiration. And perhaps coming full circle, you can hear some similarities between M. Ward's music on Hold Time and that of one of his earliest boosters/benefactors Howe Gelb. Much more so than ever before. This unexpected eclecticism and eccentricities might toss a few of his devotees from the fan wagon, particularly those hankering for more of his familiar warm rustic Americana - as is found on his last two awesome, immediately captivating albums Post-War and Transistor Radio. Don't be too hasty though. We suspect this might be a 'grow on you' kind of album. Guests include the abovementioned Deschanel as well as Lucinda Williams, Grandaddy's Jason Lytle, and Devotchka's Tom Hagerman.
Between this new album from M.Ward and those from Jason Molina and Lambchop, whoa, this is quite the week for country rock excellence!
Always such a welcome sight and sound! On the opening song, M. Ward comes drifting back on his somber raft of haunting, heavy-hearted Americana. Post-War is his much anticipated follow-up to his excellent album Transistor Radio. Ward picks right up where he left off and even rollicks things up a bit. There's an increased sense of both immediacy and intimacy to these recordings. His mood, atmosphere and energy meters are all set to 'full'. The album slips in comfortably right between My Morning Jacket's At Dawn album and Sparklehorse's Good Morning Spider. Listening to all three in a row is a supreme pleasure. Don't believe us? Try it for your yourself! Adding a nice surprise touch, Neko Case slips in to add some unmistakable backing vocals to his great cover of Daniel Johnston's "To Go Home". Ah Mr. Ward, you just get better and better and better.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
M. Ward picked the dandy Daniel Johnston cover out of his last album Post War's song selection to be the title track of this new ep. The song features Neko Case on backing vocals and she reappears on the fourth tune here too -- the splendid cover of Jimmie Dale Gilmore's "Headed For A Fall" which also features the star-studded support of Jim James, Mike Mogis, and Nels Cline. It's one of those songs that you'd hope would never end, but it does and you can't help but press 'play' once more. Two other non-album tracks round out the ep with Howe Gelb also dropping in for "Cosmopolitan Pap". Wonderful!!
This long time aQ favorite now available on vinyl!! Here's our review from when we listed this way back in 2003 on cd:
After releases on Howe Gelb's Ow Om label and Future Farmer Records, M. Ward finds his new album a welcome and fitting home on Merge Records, and what a splendid one it is! It might get filed under "country/folk/Americana", but Ward doesn't stay within the confines of these genres. He's much more of a vagabond, bringing a great deal more to his slightly skewed aural canvas - very akin to Tom Waits or the aforementioned Gelb's Giant Sand. For example, lend an ear to the warm rollicking pop of "Vincent O'Brien" with its plinky piano and driving tempo or the creeping, almost funereal cover of David Bowie's "Let's Dance". Pretty darn fine! Vocally, Ward has drawn comparisons to the weathered, emotive pipes of Waits, Vic Chesnutt and Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous. It can go from hoarse and near-spoken in one song to gentle and sweetly pleading in the next. He's backed up by The Old Joe Clarks with some extra field recording input from Grandaddy's Jason Lytle. So timeless, otherworldly, and intriguing. Recommended.
After releases on Howe Gelb's Ow Om label and Future Farmer Records, M. Ward finds his new album a welcome and fitting home on Merge Records, and what a splendid one it is! It might get filed under "country/folk/Americana", but Ward doesn't stay within the confines of these genres. He's much more of a vagabond, bringing a great deal more to his slightly skewed aural canvas - very akin to Tom Waits or the aforementioned Gelb's Giant Sand. For example, lend an ear to the warm rollicking pop of "Vincent O'Brien" with its plinky piano and driving tempo or the creeping, almost funereal cover of David Bowie's "Let's Dance". Pretty darn fine! Vocally, Ward has drawn comparisons to the weathered, emotive pipes of Waits, Vic Chesnutt and Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous. It can go from hoarse and near-spoken in one song to gentle and sweetly pleading in the next. He's backed up by The Old Joe Clarks with some extra field recording input from Grandaddy's Jason Lytle. So timeless, otherworldly, and intriguing. Recommended.
MPEG Download: "Vincent O'Brien" [/audio/mwardvincent.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "Vincent O'Brien" [/audio/mwardvincent.m3u]
Wow, so well worth the wait! This highly anticipated M. Ward album has finally surfaced, and it's fucking fantastic!! Oooh sorry, shhh, maybe that was much too loud and boisterous an exclamation for such a beautiful work, but hopefully that gives you an ample impression of our enthusiasm for this release!
It was recorded at a number of different studios around the country with a number of different awesome performin' and producin' participants (such as Howe Gelb, Vic Chesnutt, John Parish, Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley, My Morning Jacket's Jim James, and The Old Joe Clarks), and it traverses as much of the mood and folk music spectrums as those of the geographic and personnel.
The first impression that struck us was that Transistor Radio sounds as though Mr. Ward has brought his songbook a lot closer to that of Ms Jolie Holland (or vice versa... expect much more cross-pollination between the fan camps of both artists). The recordings have that brittle old tyme-y feel but the vocal performances are overflowing with heartfelt gusto. The addition of Ms Lewis' vocals on songs such as "Big Boat") do much to reinforce this sonic kinship. Also materializing in a few of the songs is a fevered twang akin to Howe Gelb, Giant Sand or Calexico which makes sense when you find out that some of these songs were recorded at Wavelab Studios in Arizona (where those artists all record). Warm, earthy, haunting and sooo damn gorgeous! Definitely an album for sharing! Very very recommended!
Well, "Columbodia, Missouri's" own Warhammer posse showed up not too long ago here at aQ enroute to all corners of the country and they stopped in long enough to rock the asses of the San Francisco scene in a wickedly intimate "bus show" (AQ pal and former A Minor Forest-er has a huge mobile venue, IN A BUS, with a stage, a solar powered generator and an engine that runs on vegetable oil!) and to hand us off a a big pile of their new self-released second cd entitled An Ethereal Oracle.
By the looks and sounds of it, the title holds true to the old adage "what you see is what you get". That is if you can figure out what an ethereal oracle is -musically- speaking.
While the mind-melting debut Uber Om was more of a big loud thud upside your melon, An Ethereal Oracle is more like some forbidden fruit. That something or someone, you've been warned about, you know it's dangerous, potentially deadly, but you just can't resist. It's the temptation of the darkside, the dangerous, you know you're in for it, you know you're done for, you just can't ever be sure when. Or how!
The record starts off with a long scary radio broadcast track, you know, like one of those Emergency Broadcast System things warning you about "the big storm approaching", and just when you start feeling REALLY nervous, you start to get dizzy, everything becomes blurry, your head is spinning, your ears are ringing, you feel flush, you start to sweat, goosebumps, the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end, you try to resist, fight it off, but it's too much, you are completely under its spell.
You let the jagged guitar lines, birds chirping in the distance, strange what-the-fuck acoustic folk fuckery, drugged out laid-back droned-out blissful warmness and full on red-line space jam experimental shredding pummelry drag you into the darkness. Before you know it, you're bruised and bloody, naked and tied up with broken guitar strings, ears ringing and bleeding, you have strange WH48K images burned into your flesh, laying atop a pile of bloodstained broken drumsticks, surrounded by a Stonehenge like circle of towering totem like amps, in front of which stand the mysterious members of Warhammer, smiling wickedly as they prepare to do it all over again.
And that's only the first half of the cd!
Limited to 500 intricately illustrated/hand printed/hand assembled copies, and we only have about 30 left of the ones we got.
So act fast...
A few months ago, Andee received a cd-r in the mail. In a spray painted DVD case, with a photo of Patrick Swayze inside. Hmmm. The band was called Warhammer 48K (the name of a sci-fi miniatures wargame as Allan would later inform us) and the record was KILLER. So killer in fact that Andee had already begun trying to figure out a way to put it out, and Jason (having heard it from Andee) was even considering starting his own label to put it out. Well, before either of those things could happen, the band already had gotten a friend's label to press them up and suddenly showed up in our store with a box of cds. Well, for a record to have that much of an effect on Andee and Jason, you can just imagine what a serious slab of kick ass rock this must be. Falling somewhere between the indie mathy metallic crush of bands like Unwound, Lync, the Narrows, and Karp and the post rock sludge metal of bands like Conifer, Baroness, and Tides, but with their own unique sense of dynamics and some strange and strangely original riffs. From loping minor key slowcore, to super dense complex dual guitar riffing, to pounding full on metal, to lurching sludge rock, to noisy indie mathrock, to massive squalls of downtuned riffing and squealing feedback, this is heavy and epic, catchy and weird, noisy and freaked out, super dynamic and totally original.
The pride (or is it "the scourge"?) of Columbia, MO, the slippery spazzy sludgy spacy (post)rock combo known as Warhammer 48k return with this crazy 3" cd-r limited to 666 copies. Knife Hits picks up where they left off on their recent full length, Uber Om, which was a massive hit 'round here; packing all the nooks and crannies with a big smear of gooey dripping chaos. Pounding rhythms and thick sludgy guitars, a sort of indie rock but dipped in heavy metal and rolled in jagged shards of punk rock and then splashed in the face with a bracing cup of icy cold POP. Heavy but not metal, catchy but not poppy, sludgy but not 'sludge'. The bastard offspring of all the 'rock's, post, math, space, indie and of course HARD!
This (literally) compact disc comes nestled in a 3" petri dish, the top half has a transparent sticker that makes it look like a little piece of stained glass, the bottom half is layered in colored wax drippings, over some abstract artwork that makes it look kind of creepy and smeary - but perfect for the music (barely) contained within!
Denver's hip hop punk rock retards the Warlock Pinchers, who flourished in the late '80s/early '90s, are either the stupidest band ever, or the most genius, probably the former, although we think it's some impossible/improbable mix of the two. You may have heard their classic anthem "Morrissey Rides A Cockhorse", a heady, hooky dose of borderline homophobic Smiths bashing, but like all of their jams, it's all in good (stupid) fun.
Their proper albums are chuck full of big dumb beats, crunchy metal riffs, big dumb rapping, and irresistable choruses, they're one of those bands who practically everyone we know LOVES, which makes way less sense once you hear them.
Bomb The Franklin Mint is tough to recommend to anyone but diehard fans, as it's a collection of early recordings, demos and practice sessions. That's not to say that this doesn't rule, it does, but it rules in a way that maybe only WP fans can really understand. Imagine very early Beastie Boys, but way more simplistic, the beats totally primitive, the guitar playing rudimentary, and the lyrics, alternatingly ridiculous, over the top, offensive and/or funny as fuck. And on these early jams, all that stuff is even more magnified, the sound even more raw and lo-fi and capital D dumb, but so fun and funny and infectious and fuck it, AWESOME.
We'd probably recommend tracking down Deadly Kun Fu Action / Pinch A Loaf and Circusized Peanuts first, the proper records do in fact rule, big time, fucked up and funny and funky, but listening to this, even the demos and practice sessions sound pretty bad ass, but then we LOOOOOVE the Warlock Pinchers, so we're not exactly objective. So fans, buy this, you definitely want it, especially for the old stuff, the first tape, most of which we'd never heard, for the rest of you, give it a try, check out the sound samples, prepare yourself for some awesomely inane over the top lo-fi goofiness, and you never know, you just might end up as weirdly obsessed as we are... [Only one sound sample, per the band's request]
Heavy Karp/Melvins-style rock from up Portland way, on this four-track ep that we're listing mainly to point out that these guys are lame for naming their band Warlord when they should have known that the name was already taken by the far superior *real* Warlord, who recorded Yes-meets-Maiden prog metal for Metal Blade back in the '80s.
Oh yeah! The Guerssen label strikes gold again with another rad reissue of totally obscure psych-pop, this time out of France, circa 1975. Unless you're one of the two hundred people who actually got a copy of this private press record the first time around there is no way you (like us) have ever heard Warlus before. The timing couldn't be better on this reissue, as its stoned and breezy sounds would be so at home in today's underground. Imagine if Ariel Pink or Kurt Vile were coming of age in the '70s, this might be the home recording they would have made. We also hear hints of the more stoned and drifty side of Thee Oh Sees, even.
While this duo were French they sang in English and this, combined with the group's lo-fi and D.I.Y aesthetic, makes Walrus sound almost like some kind of amazing proto-Shrimper release. We're reminded of the psych-pop of Roger Rodier and, at times this makes us imagine a more melodic Jandek joining forces with fellow outsider Bob Trimble, covering Kinks songs! Or something equally awesome. The songs are intimate and woozy, with nice sound experiments sprinkled throughout. We've been hooked on this the second we heard it. Highly recommended!
In our reviews of the two most recent compilations on Castle Face, the Group Flex flexidisc book set Son Of Flex, and the Velvet Underground tribute, we singled out a group called Warm Soda, as being a new favorite, and in both reviews we mused "Who is this band?" And now we're kicking ourselves for not realizing it, but Warm Soda is the new group / project from big time aQ fave Matthew Melton, who has played in both Bare Wires and Snake Flower 2, as well as releasing a clutch of killer solo jams. And we're happy to report that Warm Soda pretty much falls in line sonically with all of those groups/records. Jangly garage pop, that unlike much of the current crop of garage rocker newbies, is much more beholden to classic seventies power pop and AM radio rock, the sounds here so genuinely seventies sounding, it would be easy to believe this was in fact a reissue of some long lost power pop gem. And really for all its garaginess and all of it's fuzzy riffage, Warm Soda is all about classic songsmithery, and hooks galore. Fans of another aQ fave Purling Hiss (whose new record is also reviewed this week) should flip for this big time. Think Dwight Twilley band, the Kinks, the Stooges, Cheap Trick, the Mice, even modern groups mining the same influences, like Redd Kross, and yeah, Purling Hiss, total Yellow Pills garage pop radness, with plenty of swagger and crunch, jangle and pound, but the sort of hooks most other bands would KILL for, and which Melton seems to toss off like it ain't nothing. Just check out the samples and you'll be hooked!
Hard to pick out a favorite track here, every listen, we become obsessed with a new song, or re-obsessed with a previous fave, needless to say, this is one of those rare records, where EVERY song is a potential fave, and in a perfect alternate universe, a total radio hit. And really, it's not just the music, but the sound, the production, appropriately lo-fi, but not shitty low fidelity, more like old analog tape style, early reel to reel 4 track, the sound lush and rich, and when things get distorted, the sounds ooze and bleed into each other, the way only old school analog recordings seem to.
Along with the Purling Hiss, and the Tony Molina solo record, another contender for pop record of the year on the same list!! Includes a download coupon as well.
Hooray! Warm Soda! We were largely captivated around here at aQ HQ by these local garage popsters previous opus Young & Reckless Hearts last year (in fact it appeared on this particular aQer's best of the year list!) and just a little over a year later we are gifted with another giddy dose of nostalgic, high energy pop songcraft, all endearing naivete and lovelorn starry eyed wonder, like the house band at the best coming-of-age middle school prom you never went to, clad in glittery cumberbunds & slightly too small tuxedos (but it a cool way). Equal parts garage rock, boogie woogie, classic powerpop, stuttering '70s punk & glam rock glitter stomp, Warm Soda recall uber-classics like The Buzzcocks, T. Rex, radio pop era Clash, Big Star, maybe even early Strokes?? - all while retaining a sound all their own, wrapped perfectly in a murky syrupy production - the vocals way up front with the tightly wound drumming & punchy guitar work serving the perfect backing. There's a sense of "simpler times" running through Warm Soda's music (even down to the classic American diner themed album cover) almost like wistful doo-wop/girl group songsmithery funneled through a wilder 1970s lens, the lyrics all yearning and lovestruck. In a way, they're sort of like if the TV show Happy Days was a band! Anyway, whichever ridiculous metaphor you choose to go with, it's probably best not to overthink rock music this simple, fun and pure. Just pop it on and feel great for half an hour. What better recommendation is there??
Record number two from local retro garage power pop geniuses Warm Soda, fronted by none other than Mr. Matthew Melton, who avid readers of the aQ list no doubt remember from his previous outfits, the equally genius Bare Wires and Snake Flower 2. But with Warm Soda, Melton and crew continue to hone a practically perfect strain of Yellow Pills style power pop, that sounds, right down to the production, and the songwriting, straight out of the seventies. In fact, if this was 1978, we can only imagine these guys would be HUGE, playing with Dwight Twilley and Cheap Trick, and heck, it's not hard to imagine a Warm Soda Live At Budokan record, cuz holy shit, if we dug the first Warm Soda record, this one is even better. In fact, EVERY time we play this in the store, someone comes up to see what we're playing, and often ends up surprised that it's in fact actually a NEW band. But it's easy to see why, Warm Soda's sound is pitch perfect, jangly fuzzy guitars, woozy super melodic basslines, simple propulsive drumming, and Melton's whispery croon, and of course the SONGS, which are amazing, so catchy, the sort of songs, that even on first listen, sound like you've heard them before, and get immediately lodged in your head, and even after only hearing them a couple times, you'll find yourself humming them days later. Assuming it was something you might have just heard on the radio. The production too, somehow manages to sound modern, while still sounding exactly like some classic vintage recording from back in the day. And the way the choruses are all fuzzy and washed out and reverb drenched, it's hard to explain, but they seem to just soar. We could go on and on and on, as we like to do, and describe this record song by song, but why bother, if you dug the first record, or any of Melton's other projects, you NEED this, and if you've never heard anything, all it should take is a couple of the samples below to convince you, that like us, you might have just found your new favorite retro-garage power pop record!!!
Local favorites. Ex-Harm Farm. A bestseller.
Not sure how we managed to properly review anything from these Kentucky weirdos (just a tossed off two line review for a previous cd on Troubleman), but holy shit, just discovered a little stash of these, their 2007 two track full length on Release The Bats, and it's a head caving chunk of tripped out noise drenched schizophrenic collaged avant psychedelia. Two sprawling tracks, the first, a nearly 15 minute epic, beginning with a barrage of serious sonic weirdness, slipping from white noise hiss, to twisted tape experiments, warped voices, crumbling distortion, chaotic noise, eventually morphing into some gorgeously lugubrious tarpit riffage, which in turn develops into some hazy, druggy, slowed down psychedelic noise rock, which then begets some pounding feral punk rock crunch, before the whole thing begins to collapse and crumble into a slowly decaying sprawl of stumbling, creeping sludge and noise and skree.
The second track, even longer at over 16 minutes, is some sort of woozy, warbly outsider noise folk, like No Neck and Avarus and Sylvester Anfang channeling Captain Beefheart, but reeeeealllly slowly, and abstractly, rubbery detuned bass, atonal guitar strum, jagged shards of distorted chordal clang, swirls of tripped out FX, moaned crooned garbled vox, wreathed in echo and delay, the whole thing creeping and crawling and slithering through gauzy fields of distorted whir and twisted abstract psych bliss drift. Wow. And only got a few copies left...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This strangely named band makes some strangely contorted indie rock with anguished male singing and churning guitars. A post-punk and post-rock head-on collision. Personally we prefer the absolutely bizarre disjointed (or is it doublejointed?) control/catharsis of Chicago's deconstruction crew U.S. Maple. But if you're seeking something with a little more Kentucky swamp sludginess, Warmer Milks might fit yer bill!
Maybe best known for counting actress Shannon Sossamon as a member, Warpaint managed to downplay any sort of celebrity hype and create a brooding doomic chunk of gloomy murky indie rock loveliness. Equal parts shimmery shoegaze, mumbly slowcore, and soft focus noiserock, the band slip easily from hushed whispery jangle to full on psychedelic freakout to classic fuzzy sixties pop. These six songs are super varied, but do manage to sound perfect together. "Stars" is all Mazzy Star meets Blonde Redhead, glimmering, moody and minor key, the vocal harmonies so lush and angelic, the music perfectly warm and lugubrious. "Elephants" features weirdly processed vocals, over heavy drumming, chiming guitars, lots of reverb and delay, and gets all Sonic Youthy part way through.
"Billie Holiday" might be the best track on the record, so warm and druggy and dreamy, with sixties girl group vox, muted guitars, droning synth/strings, and a killer main hook. Although "Krimson" might be a contender too, with it's looped sounding main melody, throbbing bass, and super emotive vocals, the sound is very early nineties indie rock, but manages to sound all modern at the same time, and so so good. A super fantastic ep for sure. Surprised Warpaint aren't way more popular than they are. Could be because this was originally self released in a super limited run, and is only now getting reissued, so odds are, a record this cool won't stay a secret for long....
Ever since their Exquisite Corpse ep from a while back, we've been pretty much totally smitten with Warpaint, a witchy, washed out, slowcore female four piece from LA, whose sound plays like a much more mysterious and mature take on the whole hazy reverb heavy dream pop that seems to be so ubiquitous these days.
Like on that ep, the sound on The Fool is gorgeously languid, dark and haunting, the music is muted and minimal, guitars unfurl lazily, the drums mostly simple, but occasionally augmented by extra percussion, little flurries of tribal rhythms, and the vocals, so emotional and ethereal, drifting wraithlike over jangly guitars, spidery melodies, and soft billows of bass, hints of Sonic Youth, Blonde Redhead, the Breeders, surface here and there, but it's usually in the form of a borrowed bit of guitar sound, or a stray bit of melody, the sound of Warpaint manages to sound lush, while remaining washed out and woozy, pop songs blurred into impressionistic sonic smears, drum machines churn out muted beats, while guitars chime over the top, almost-krautrock grooves become blissed out dreampop drifts, acoustic guitars swirl and shimmer, gnarled bits of angular riffage collide with powerful dramatic croons, the whole thing a constantly shifting songsuite of gloriously dour, folk flecked, minimal dreamdrift downer rock. Breathtaking.
It's been 4 years since Warpaint's full length debut, The Fool, and this beguiling girl group hasn't lost any of their dreamy mystique, despite gunning for a lusher and glossier production. Sonically, the band is tighter than ever before, more centered rhythmically, and wielding a greater prowess on electronic and atmospheric elements. But they still have a dark pop witchiness that comes out in interesting ways, not just in the moody swirling hypnotic foundations of their songs, but in dubby bass-centered jams like "Disco/Very", that shows the band only getting stronger and fiercer with age. Their sound more highly polished, Warpaint still channel bands like Electrolane and Blonde Redhead in their best moments, but are taking it a step further in defining their sound and completely owning it. Recommended!
It's been ages since we've seen folks freaking out and getting so excited about a record months before it was even released. But that's exactly what happened with this 12" by Washed Out. And while we tend to be a bit skeptical of blog-hype we have to say we whole heartedly agree with all the excitement surrounding Washed Out, because they/he do deliver, and what they deliver is some fantastic and infectious terminally chill pop.
The name Washed Out suits the sound so perfectly as the six songs on Life Of Leisure really do sound like some amazing washed out version of New Order, or Ariel Pink if he wore all white and cranked out a bunch of covers of Hacienda classics. Much like the Neon Indian record we recently raved about, Washed Out operates in that same realm of faded 80's nostalgia, and Ernest Greene's vocals are so casually seductive and smooth. Kind of like the male equivalent to the slow burning bedroom jams of Nite Jewel or a way stoned Cut Copy.
One of our customers said this was like the ultimate make out jam or post-sex chill out record and we can't really argue with that. Unless you were one of the lucky few to grab one of the crazy limited cassettes this is probably the first chance to get a physical copy of Washed Out songs and all six of the tracks on here are totally great (not a bummer in the bunch) and it also comes with a digital download. These might not last long so you know what to do......
If there was ever a perfectly named band, it's definitely Washed Out, whose woozy dreamy chillwave retro pop seems to get more and more, well, washed out, with every release. On more than one occasion, when this new one was playing in the store, some of us were totally convinced it was some old eighties pop band, sounding like it could have been plucked right off the soundtrack to some classic John Hughes movie, shades of Simple Minds, Dream Academy, OMD, New Order and the like. Paracosm takes all of those classic old school new wave pop-isms, and runs them through a (slightly) more modern filter, everything shimmery and crystalline, delicately psychedelic, the record even opens with bird song (which pops up throughout) and soft swirls of cascading zither like melodies, before the sound proper kicks in, all hazy and lush and a little bit looped, laced with swoonsome strings, laid back lazy rhythms, softly crooned sad boy vox, all wistful and yeah, washed out. If you dug the other WO records, this one will push all the same buttons, and it's most definitely our favorite set of Washed Out songs since Life Of Leisure! Divine pop dreaminess!!
Washed Out's debut, Life Of Leisure, stands high above the crowded field of chill wave records that came flooding out over the last few years. It was a refreshing new sound that mixed a sensual dance floor sensation wrapped in a warm and yes washed out sensibility. Along with Neon Indian, Washed Out's debut has had the most lasting power of the many like-minded records from that same time.
Like any new trend or style, it's always interesting to hear what bands do on their follow up record. Was it just the cool sound they tapped into, or is there something more behind it that will make them an artist with serious staying power? Washed Out proves with Within And Without, to be the latter. There is such an intimate and infectious way in which Ernest Greene crafts his songs. The album's cover art showing a guy and girl in bed with their naked bodies wrapped around each other, really is the perfect representation of the sounds Washed Out creates. It's music made for long make out sessions, and post-sex bliss. Filled with slow burners that sizzle with such understated perfection. Next time you're alone with that special someone, you can't ask for a better soundtrack to help set the mood.
WHILE THEY LAST, buy either the cd or lp version of Within and Without, and get a free bonus 7"!
Imaad Wasif, formerly of lowercase, the Folk Implosion, Alaska! and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, struck gold with his last record Strange Hexes, a gorgeous record of moody, melancholy, emotional post rock, verging on classic rock, with a little twang, a little of that Woven Hand / 16 Horsepower sort of apocalyptic folk, all woven into perfect songs, some rocking, some drifty and balladic, his voice powerful yet delicate, the arrangements simple and elegant, the songs so so catchy.
This is the second 'solo' record from Wasif, and features a whole bunch of killer guests, Bobb Bruno (Polar Goldie Cats, Goliath Bird Eater), who played on the first record, Dale Crover from the Melvins, and a bunch of other folks. If anything, Voidist is more polished and less rocking than Strange Hexes, some might call it mature, but it just seems like an amazing rock record. The production is lush, the songs are dark, but emotional and still catchy, and the sound is not super underground at all, this is the sort of record we would expect to hear all over the radio, there's a little Muse-like Bombast, some dramatic crooning a la Rufus Wainwright, some Death Cab like pop jangle, a bit of twang, seems like folks into Bright Eyes and that sort of dark emotional indie pop stuff would go nuts for this. But stick around, Voidist has a surprise up its sleeve. Hang out for the last song, a serious rocker that sounds like later era Cave In with super distorted heavy riffing, big drums and soaring dramatic vocals. In fact quite a bit of this record sounds like Cave In circa their Raidohead phase, which is not a bad thing AT ALL. That last track is the only really truly heavy track on the disc, but it serves as a good balance for the rest of the record's warm washed out drift and twang flecked post rock. And like the last one, we find ourselves liking this more and more with every listen.
Not sure how many folks remember lowercase, but they were definitely one of our favorite SF bands back in the nineties, a brooding dark rhythmic post rock with a total AmRep noise rock edge (they put out a couple records on AmRep appropriately enough). Lke most bands do, the duo (sometimes trio) called it a day, and the two lowercasers went their own way. Drummer Brian Gurgis went on to play in local noisepop combo Track Star, indie reggae outfit Still Flyin' and recording solo as Si, Claro, while Wasif's career trajectory took a much stranger tack, first a stint with Lou Barlow in the Folk Implosion, a brief stop in a group called Alaska! with Russ Pollard from Sebadoh / Folk Implosion, and even a pretty sizable part in the film Laurel Canyon (where he sported a fake British accent!). After touring as a second guitarist for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Wasif recorded a solo record released on Kill Rock Stars, finally forming the group Two Part Beast (with Bobb Bruno from the Polar Goldie Cats) which brings us to Strange Hexes, which is quickly becoming one of our most listened to records recently. Not noisy, or all that aggressive, instead, the sound of Strange Hexes is dark and brooding, falling somewhere between Woven Hand, Wasif's old band lowercase (or any nineties slowcore post rock outfit, Codeine, Seam...) and Jeff Buckley. Sounds strange, but it's really not, it's quite lovely, a dark twangy indie rock, Wasif's vocals rich and emotive, soaring and slithering over clever arrangements and lush instrumentation.
Album opener "Wanderlusting" is fantastic, epic and majestic, with a killer hook, an awesome main riff, a sound heavier than almost anything else on the disc, even offering up some serious Sabbath worship part way through, and Wasif's vocals suit the sound perfectly, rough and raw, but still somehow soft and smooth. The follow up "Unveiling" is another dark slow rocker, with a killer hook that sounds like it was transplanted straight out of some classic rock jam, but spread out into something much folkier and driftier, always with a barely restrained bombast, sounding like under different circumstances, that these songs could explode into full on Muse-like stadium rock, but the fact that they never do, adds all sorts of tension and drama to the sound. The rest of the record is just as great, each song an expansive mini epic, with folky flourishes, subtle twang, brooding moodiness, dark heavy riffing, lots of hooks and heartfelt emotional vocals.
It's tough to explain what it is exactly about this record that has us so entranced, other than the usual stuff that makes a rock record rule, the songs are awesome, the arrangements are great, the playing is top notch, and Wasif's vocals seal the deal, so distinctive, his voice having definitely developed into something really really special.
Featuring members of now defunct SF outfit New Thrill Parade, and loosely affiliated with the now seemingly hyped to death 'witch house' movement (due mostly to their cd-r on witch house flagship label Disaro), Water Borders have evolved into one of the strangest and most fascinating bands in the bay area. On their last record they sounded a bit like Coil, but on this 4 song ep, they sound, well, like pretty much nobody else.
The title track is a thick miasma of glimmering high end, lush synth swells, looped percussion, haunting 'witchy' ambience, and deep crooned vocals, and a sound that grows more caustic and corrosive as it goes, the vocals following suit, getting more manic and maniacal, the sound suffocatingly intense and explosively freaked out. "Rome" features Glasser guesting, a creepy post industrial dronescape laced with fuzzy synths and crumbling melodies, Glasser's ethereal vocals locked in a doom-ed duet with those creepy bellowed WB vox, a gorgeously twisted electro-doom-cabaret ballad, melodic but also mesmerizingly damaged. That same track gets remixed and blossoms into something simultaneously more washed out and psychedelic, and more driving and propulsive, whirring loops, repetitive melodies, a low slung dubstep beat, some thick fuzzed out bass, some weirdo processed vox, all very spacey and groovy, sounding like a jam that some enterprising DJ might use to confuse the fuck out of a dancefloor.
And finally, the title track gets remixed by Petals, which just so happens to be former aQer Cameron, and whose mostly unheard recordings rule, it's only a matter of time before some big label catches on and so does the rest of the world, but for now, revel in this grim, freaked out, darkly psychedelic reworking, all low end thrum and pulse, some feral grunts and growls, everything gauzy and blurred and even more haunting that the original, a black ambient electro gloom creep, that builds to a thick industrial pound the whole thing held together by a fragmented melodic loop, that will stick in your head like crazy.
SO recommended. We definitely need to hear more Water Borders, and heck, more Petals while we're at it...
Finally!!! The hotly anticipated debut full length from San Francisco weirdo electronic duo Water Borders, aka Amitai Heller and Loric Sih, formerly of SF rockers New Thrill Parade! And HOLY SHIT does Harbored Mantras deliver the goods! All of us around here have been eagerly awaiting this and are so psyched to finally be able to share this freakily futuristic and subversive bass goth with everybody. Hopefully, by now, avid aQ list readers are well familiar with the warped soundworld of Water Borders from past records on killer labels like Skrot Up, Disaro, and the Hungry For Power label run by kick ass blog 20 Jazz Funk Greats. While all that material was definitely amazing, and excitingly forward thinking, their proper debut, "Harbored Mantras", might just turn out to be a total game changer. It makes sense a bleeding edge label like Triangle would put it out, as it's an obvious attempt to diversify and re-direct their already stunning canon. The future is simply bigger than 'witch-house', and the keen eyes of the powers that be at Triangle seem to understand this all too well. (Also see the beautifully stark Ayshay ep featured elsewhere on this list for further evidence).
It's a rare sonic artifact that successfully bridges the gaps between such disparate and divergent influences and comes out on the other side as something utterly unique. but Harbored Mantras does just that, and then some. Most of the reviews thus far and even the press release from the band itself have gone over the groups influences ad nauseum, but for the most part, they are pretty right on, we too hear Coil, we hear modern UK bass music, we hear echoes of Gavin Friday at his most expressive and brooding. All apt comparisons for sure. But what's so interesting to us is the manner and method in which Water Borders implement these influences to effectively create a fresh crossover. Water Borders' sound successfully inhabits multiple musical universes in ways that are both subtle and surreal, yet somehow impossibly calculated and perfectly executed. It's a churning gothic weirdness, it's well informed dance music, it's textural and moody, while at the same time solidly rooted in lyric based song form. The songs that constitute "Harbored Mantras" solidly convey a dark vision of the present and future. Technophobic paranoia, social inequities, workaday drudgery, narcissistic identity crisis, and the ever-changing nature of communication are all strands that are woven into the spirit and soul of this record. There's much to be discovered in this piece of work... let's get to the tunes.
The album opens up with the slow burn of "Tread on Them". We're greeted with the sounds of long forgotten bones clattering in a blackened wind, while a ritualistic metallic clang creeps into the foreground. Heller's creepy baritone enters atop this hissing texture and suddenly with the introduction of bass we're sent falling into WB's bottomless sound-cave. The low end frequency is a dark and dubby stomach ache drone, creating a different type of club vibe. Euphoria replaced with claustrophobia. The sound is functionally cathartic, like good dance music ought to be, but the feeling is still foreboding. "Yelling long live success" as we waltz on top of the vanquished, feeling a deep shame all the while for acts willfully committed to arrive at the top of this heap... "What Wiwant" ups the energy with a nervously syncopated 2-step. Disassociated hand percussion and the ever-present bass wobble creating an absolutely hypnotic head-nod trance. The song is a driving banger swaddled in ominous synth textures, working you up to a frenzy while never letting you leave the hazy nightmare. "Waldenpond.com" is a brief respite from the chaos, offering up a beautiful slab of gloomy triphop. The guest vocals from Group Rhoda are a gorgeous addition to the WB's sound, strongly contrasting Heller's guttural croon with plaintive melody. The tempo is slower here, kind of a groovy, opiated dream state where melodies and textures swirl atop a dubbed out rhythm track. The vocal production is particularly stunning on this one. For the first half of the tune Group Rhoda's vocals are shimmery and ghost like, floating atop the beat with dense reverberation and spacious delay. About half way through the track the vocals are sampled and arranged rhythmically, becoming part of the beat itself. This clever production tactic lends itself well to creating an arc within the song... where we once sought comfort in the gauzy atmospherics we now are suddenly bucked off that cloud, hurled into a more jarring moment. The line "I hate the night" bouncing in our brains, awakening visions of a parallel world where identity is fragmented and "reality" is confused. And that BASS! Caustic, deep rumbles shaking us to the core. All elements combining to give an overall feeling of discomfort, albeit one that you can get down to. "Bad Ethos" is a harshly negative slo-mo industrial track. Lots of noisy mids and highs droning on and on with some seriously demented histrionics going on with Heller's vocals, the deep dark bellow replaced with a high end evil screech. Next up is arguably THEE cut of the record, "Even in the Dark". Originally featured on the group's Disaro disc, but now revamped and made even more MASSIVE! Starting with a minor key arpeggiation, the bass slowly creeping in and the vocals murky and misanthropic. Suddenly those same vocals become more discernible, albeit DRENCHED in a reverb glaze, revealing probably the strongest melodic moments of the record. The underpinning is still the throbbing pulsations heard throughout, but now with an intense element of high end melodic skree, tom toms ping ponging across a vast cavern, synths clawing at the ears, a cacophonous tumult resulting in an undeniable urge to erase the self and finally dance off that cliff that "Harbored Mantras" has been beckoning you toward throughout.�
From here on out, the album remains driven towards this death trance mood, incredibly focused in its intent. It's alienating and disturbing but at the same time engaging and creative. Moments of beauty, moments of chaos...a fully developed record with an incredibly consistent vibe. This is what we mean by game-changer. It's at once a part of the now, but also something wholly different and utterly challenging, not easy listening at all. Never pandering to the trends, but at the same time so current and powerful! An infinitely rewarding debut record from an outfit that promises to keep on pushing their futuristic sonic agenda. Absolutely essential!!!
Local duo Water Borders makes their debut with this 6 song ep, and anyone with a sweet spot for electro-goth weirdness will find plenty of reasons to rejoice. These guys earned their stripes in the enigmatic New Thrill Parade, whose status at this time is uncertain. Whatever the case, this stuff is right up our alley and sure to appeal to anyone digging the current revival of all things gothy, and yet Water Borders' take on things seems much more effortless and not concerned with racking up scene points. The songs seem to swirl within the self-contained atmosphere, with spooky keyboards and simple but incessant throbbing rhythms forming a nice cocoon for the dramatic and crazed vocals. Some of this stuff reminds us of Coil, while other numbers bring to mind a more, cough, "organic" version of Six Finger Satellite circa Machine Cuisine with more of an emphasis on actually singing. The sounds are both noisy and surprisingly majestic, and we are definitely digging the demented dance floor vibe on songs like "Even In The Dark". Limited to 100 copies, so don't snooze on it. A nice surprise, we can't wait to hear what these guys whip up next!
Ye olde '70s prog rock treat time here, folks, particularly for those (like us) who like lots of flute in their prog! Coming to us via the excellent Guerssen label, who last list brought us William Nowik's Pan Symphony In E, this reissue of Belgian proggers Waterloo's one and only album First Battle from 1970 reveals another one-off gem from the dusty prog past that we had never heard of before but now are digging big time. This group's music is infused with the paisley psych poppiness of the likes of The Beatles and The Kinks, but also provides lots of pounding organ and flute rippage, making for a bombastic prog bounty indeed, a catchy one as well. Presumably influenced by certain of the British progressive rock outfits of the day, such as the The Nice, Jethro Tull, and Mk1 Deep Purple, this gets heavier too, sounding at times not unlike Uriah Heep, but with flute! It's got it all, really: sunny pop balladry, groovy brass rock arrangements (a la Blood Sweat & Tears), jazzy moves too (including some scat singing in the midst of 11 minute epic album closer "Diary Of An Old Man"). And plenty of flat out flashy instrumental action, guitars organ drums and FLUTE all in full force, charging forth on the battlefield of rock like triumphant prog troopers.
Fits in well with some other prog obscurities we've recommended previously... Blast Furnace comes to mind, also Supersister, Tetragon, Bachdenkel, Culpeper's Orchard, etc. Once again, we're wowed by the wonders of the reissue realm. How many more bands like this can there be??
To be sure, 'cause of how poppy this is, it might not be for those ONLY looking for the super dark or weird - though some of the lyrics ARE rather strange, like ferinstance the line "Can't you tell me where black children come from, daddy?" from the song "Black Born Children". What's that about? Also, don't expect any conceptual side-long song suites here, no this ain't Yes, in fact by prog standards only one song (the aforementioned "Diary Of An Old Man") is a double digit epic, the rest stay within the normal temporal parameters of pop single radio play, 2-3 minutes or so. But if you like the lighter (though no less tighter) side of prog, then check this out. It can only be regretted that Waterloo's First Battle was their last. Although, this reissue buffs up the original record's ten tracks with six extra bonus cuts from post-album singles and such. And, the cd booklet provides an in-depth history of the band in the liner notes, including mention of 'em jamming with members of Magma at one point!
For some reason, we just assumed these guys were Australian, could be that they had some records on Aussie labels, or that they have a very Australian sounding, murky post punk thud, gloom-sludge garage rock sound, but it somehow made even more sense when we discovered Watery Love was in fact members of late great Philly noise rockers Clockcleaner. So after a handful of killer 7"s on labels like Siltbreeze, Richie and Negative Guestlist, along comes the debut long player from these dirgey thud-punks, a downtuned garage-y churn, blown out and fuzzy, the bass thick and gristly, the drums a caveman pound, the vocals, a strange sung/spoken croon alternating with throat shredding howls, the lyrics twisted and demented, some tracks creepy crawly, muted and muddy, others wild and unhinged and noisy and punk, the vocals on those tracks exploding into a feral atonal bellow, the guitars following suit, the riffing eye waveringly obtuse, exploding into wild squalls of feedback drenched shreddery, but the sound is ultimately rooted to a knuckle dragging plod that manages to be both tranced out and mesmerizing, as well as unhinged and chaotic, and yeah, fans of Aussie outfits like Total Control, as well as the In The Red stable of garage-noise punks, will dig these guys big time.
Never heard of these guys, apparently they're from the US and are another band that sound like they should be on Siltbreeze, or maybe on AmRep circa 1995, they have that Aussie swampy noise rock blues vibe (a la Lubricated Goat or King Snake Roost), which is even further driven home by the A side, which is a Cramps cover, and after a squall of guitar squiggle, they erupt into a churning swampy groove, all detuned riffage and yelped vox, pounding caveman drums, some seriously rad wah wah guitars, the whole thing loose and heavy and noisy and very live sounding.
The B side is more of the same, churning, chuggy primitive sludge punk dirgery, loads of feedback, sung/spoken vox, tangled melodies, some killer riffing, all leading up to a crashing chaotic outro. The sort of jam we would expect to discover via Brian Turner's radio show on WFMU, which of course means this rules!
Out of all the proto-new age records that have become available again this one is quite unique and utterly weird. Often stated as the very first psychedelic album, it is more a document of of the intermediary space when beatnik bohemian sensibilities were beginning to transform into hippie communal expression.
British born philosopher Alan Watts, who popularized Eastern philosophy for Western audiences from his base in the San Francisco Bay Area of the late fifties and early sixties, emphasized the link between the practices of Zen Buddhism and psychotherapy, and proposed that if the sane man couldn't let himself lose control every once in awhile, he wasn't truly sane. So what we have here are freeform recordings from 1962 of wordless group chants, drum circles and primal scream therapy tempered instrumentally by circular repetitions of out of tune piano, percussion and flutes. Babbling call and response, vocal trills and whistles over caveman rhythms with occasional spoken philosophical passages by Watts himself, it has early influential links to later communal psych records like Parson Sound, Amon Duul and Taj Mahal Travellers. Though its outright and blatant freakiness may be an acquired taste for some, those who have a penchant for the sort of recordings featured on the famous Nurse With Wound list, especially Alan Sondheim's group Ritual ALL-770, this may be right up your alley!
Holy shit is this great! We knew Wavves were capable of some serious pop genius, but this new one seals the deal. You can sometimes forget how good a band is, when nonmusical stuff overshadows the actual music. Relationships, breakdowns, tour drama, whatever. It had been a while since the last Wavves record, which we LOVED, but ever since, most of our exposure to the band has been via tabloid stuff, and little blurbs here and there, about cancelled shows and tantrums, and then Wavves mainman Nathan Williams was on the cover of one of the last issues of Spin, with his girlfriend Bethany from Best Coast, and it wasn't so much about their bands, as their romance, which definitely rubbed folks the wrong way (and made it less of a surprise when Spin folded). But like we said, we loved the last Wavves, and pretty much every one before, but this one is some seriously next level fuzz pop genius. Granted, the band have gradually been shedding much of their scrappiness, the days of snotty lo-fi garage punk blowouts and rough edged hook heavy stumble pop are gone for these guys, this new record firmly establishes them as the sort of band that could, should and probably WILL give Weezer a run for their power pop money. Seems like Jeff The Brotherhood recently made the same leap, their last record was a game changer for them, transforming their scrappy two piece metallic punk pop into big riff crazy catchy stadium rock, but we saw them open for Best Coast at a huge beautiful theater, and while the songs may have been polished and poppy, the band were still willfully bratty, their set up a little ramshackle jumble in the middle of a massive stage, and after a handful of killer noise pop, the treated the crowd of Best Coast fans to 10 minutes of squealing feedback. Similarly it's hard to imagine this won't be the record that does if for Wavves, and it's equally hard to imagine that they won't continued to be the same noise pop punks they always were, just trafficking in something way more polished and radio ready. Not that they weren't already huge, but this record is definitely leaps and bounds past the last one. And sure there are plenty of weird bits here and there, and some programmed drums, some psychedelic bits, and they still have a definite lo-fi experimental bent, and lyrically, lots of swears that would have to get beeped on the radio, but almost all of the songs here are classic power pop anthems in the making, fuzzy and rocking, hooky and heavenly, even the slow brooders, are gorgeous dark ballads, replete with female vocal harmonies, and warm chordal swirls, but in-between all that stuff, are some of the most kick ass indie rock noise pop jams we've heard in AGES.
Might be too polished for the punks, but they're just missing out. If you dig Weezer, Jeff The Brotherhood, The Ovens, Redd Kross, Male Bonding, Sloan, Surfer Blood, all that big hook heavy pop, this could very well be your new favorite record. It just might be ours...
The bands that you really end up loving and having life long relationships with are often the bands who you follow through all their incarnations, from their most primitive and noisy to when they flesh out and refine their sound, removing all the extraneous layers and creating something seemingly far removed from that first chunk of raw sound, but in reality, to you, it's just another side of that amazing artist. And it's the bands who you love in all their various sonic shadings and with all the twists and turns that become the ones who are the soundtracks to our lives. Guided By Voices, Pavement, Jawbreaker, all bands who we have loved from their sloppiest and most raw incarnations to their most poppy and catchy outings.
Wavves seem to be on the way to joining that elite crew. After unleashing two smoking records of way blown out garage pop burners, Nathan Williams has returned with a much more refined, up front and catchy gem of a pop record. As much as we loved the sound and aesthetic of the first two Wavves records we knew that the reason it struck such a chord with us was because we could tell this was a kid who had the gift of writing memorable and catchy pop songs, no matter how obscured those songs were by fuzz and crunch.
King Of The Beach ditches most of the blown out distortion and trades it in for even more colorful hooks, addictive melodies and songs that will be stuck in our heads for the rest of the summer and beyond. It's not like it's all totally slick or overproduced, in fact there is a really cool washed out sound that glides through much of the record, but instead of it being about going all into the red, it flows more freely, creating a perfect beachside vibe of an album. Williams is still singing about boredom, girls, the betrayal of friends, being a fuck up, etc., all long standing ingredients for some of the best mischievous pop of all time.
It hit us the other day why we love this record. It reminds us so much of so many of our favorite bands who injected punk spirit into such memorable pop songs. Bands like The Descendents, Screeching Weasel and Lifetime, who represented the great possibility of pop-punk. There is that same kind of impassioned, snotty, smart and spirited side to King Of The Beach that's been making us jump up and down in pure wide eyed grinning joy when we listen to it blasting as loud as it can.
The record also offers up the most varied collection yet of Williams' recordings, songs that evoke '50s girl groups, hand clapping head shaking ecstasy and stoned and whirling garage pop ravers. Start to finish this is an undeniably great pop record. Total contender for record of the year!
In the few months since we first gushed about our new found obsession, a weird little buzzy noise pop band called Wavves, it seems like a ton of other folks have been feeling the same way about the urgent, catchy, blown out and energetic sounds this young lad from San Diego has been whipping up. Already following up the great Woodsist debut is a new record on the bigger Fat Possum label, but not to worry the sound is still way blown out and in the red, and the songs still make you wanna sweat and jump and play with your friends in the burning sun. What makes Wavves so great is that they really are drawing from such classic sources yet infusing new life and energy into those sounds. Imagine the best parts of the Beach Boys, the Ramones and the Misfits, all channeled into some buzzy lo-fi shredder and you begin to understand the world Wavves calls home. Since we still have the debut on heavy rotation it caught us a bit off guard to find a brand new full length already, and another self titled one, but we get the feeling that Nate Williams (just 22 years old) is at one of those special creative peaks where songs are just bursting forth with no end in sight. And heck, we're not complaining, not one bit, cause when the songs are this damaged and catchy and kick ass, he can keep cranking them out FOREVER. Here's to a THIRD self titled record, BRING IT ON!!
We've got ourselves a new obsession! We knew very little about Wavves before we put this disc in but oh my god once we did we became so instantly addicted. This is some TOTALLY BLOWN OUT beach party crusty pop that's as bombastic as it is so totally catchy. We think they're from San Diego and that makes perfect sense, cause these songs just make you want to skate and hang out by the ocean getting baked by the sun and throwing caution to the wind. Imagine No Age and Thee Oh Sees collaborating together or what it might sound like to play the Beach Boys and JFA at the same time. This is some seriously gritty grimey pop that makes you glad you still have that shitty car stereo, as this was meant to be blasted in the most lo-fi blown out way possible, while driving around getting lost in these sun soaked washed out anthems. Filled with such contagious youthful exuberance it's making us feel like we're 19 again, in the best possible way.
There is such a bold urgency to this record, it grabs your attention and never lets go and we never want it to. As soon as it's over we pretty much only want to listen to it over and over again. We're reminded a bit of Holy Shit, Abe Vigoda, and the great and often overlooked 90's noise-pop outfit Further. But what makes Wavves so addictive is that they aren't a one trick pony, the few atmospheric electronic interludes and slower spacey tracks are just as potent as their wide eyed and full throttle jams. We've got a feeling there is a great future ahead for Wavves and what a totally awesome way for it to start. So rad!!!
Not sure if there's still a romantic connection between these two bands, but there's certainly a sonic one, both obviously sharing much of the same musical DNA. This second installment in the two groups' Summer Is Forever series. Best Coast cover Nirvana's "Dumb", and what was already a gorgeous creepy crawl, becomes even more murky and moody, the sound super lo-fi, stripped down and skeletal, brittle guitar strum and echo drenched, wasted vocals, all wreathed in a blurred, hazy fug. Wavves offer up a brand new original, a sublime slice of super catchy, beachy, garage/power pop jangle and crunch. Also lo-fi, but less like moody murk of Best Coast's track, and more a sort of Joe Meek-ish, home brewed retro surf-psych, which most definitely harkens back to the group's less polished early sound. Both sides/tracks rule! And as is often the case with these sorts of things, guessing these are probably pretty limited too�
