30. Best Coast – Crazy For You (Wichita)

Let’s begin this review by saying that I think Bethany Cosentino writes fantastic pop songs, and that I like Best Coast’s big, fuzzy, shimmy double-guitar sound a whole lot, and that I was really, really looking forward to their debut LP. Let’s continue it by saying that despite all that, “Crazy For You” proved pretty difficult to love.

Best put it this way, I think: it’s very easy for a song-writer to listen to Jonathan Richman or Neil Young or whoever, and think, alright, I’m gonna write songs about exactly how I feel at this very minute - that’s honesty and integrity right there, and fuck ‘em if they don’t like it, etc. Until a few years ago, I’d certainly have told you that that’s what it’s all about. But the big crux is – not everybody is Jonathan Richman or Neil Young or whoever, and not everybody can make every emotional hiccup sound as urgent as they can. It’s a hard mark to hit, and if you miss it and lose the listener’s sympathy, well there’s only so far a good sound and a gift for melody can take you.

The opening ten seconds of every song on this record sounds brilliant, but, well, k’know… track one here, Bethany sings about some guy she wishes was her boyfriend and how she wishes he’d pay her more attention. Track two, she sings about how he’s a bit of a pain in the ass, but she can’t function without him cos he’s just so sweet. Track three, she’s bummed out cos he says they’re ‘just friends’. Track four she’s sitting around at home being miserable cos he’s not around, track five is a slow one and kinda ditto. Track six she’s sad cos he lied to her and never tells her how he feels, track seven she just sings “I miss you so much” again and again in this awful, pleading monotone, then it speeds up and gets cool for about thirty seconds. Track eight, she apologies for losing his favourite t-shirt, misses him and promises not to be “such a brat”. By track nine, you’re just thinking OH WOULD YOU JUST FORGET ABOUT HIM AND GET OVER IT FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, HE SOUNDS LIKE A JERK ANYHOW.

(Whilst we’re on the subject, it really bugged me that lots of critics picked out the verse that goes “I lost my job / I miss my mom / I wish my cat could talk” – I think that’s about the best and most likeable bit on the whole record! Cut her some slack guys, sheesh, this isn’t a fucking Joanna Newsom record.)

Obviously there is nothing wrong with people writing songs about their own feelings and experiences and yadda yadda yadda, but this kind of needy, unedited hand-wringing is just not very becoming on anyone. I guess the feelings expressed must be real, and I guess that’s sad, but five different mid-tempo three chord songs with variations on “I miss you, I need you” as their chorus line do not need to be heard all over the world and played in concert every night.

To repeat: I think Cosentino Is an amazing song-writer. I think “Something In The Way” and “Wish He Was You” and “When I’m With You” are some of the most sublime pop songs of the modern era. Every song here has the potential to join them, but a bad case of the grumps has gotten in the way, and that’s a drag.

You should maybe give this one a go anyway though if you liked the singles, cos it’s still a pretty good listen – it sounds a bit like Weezer with girls and no bass, I guess. It’s fuzzy and easy-going and whizzes by nicely. But it should have been spectacular.

Mp3> Goodbye


29. The Rantouls – In The Village of Rantoul (Chocolate Covered Records)

Every year needs one dumb-ass, ramshackle bubblegum album for use in drooling and grinning and dancing around in obsolete swimwear and over-sized sombreros. Hell, every year needs a pile of ‘em, but whatcha gonna do. For now The Rantouls will do nicely.

Often, modern ‘bubblegum’ of garage origin will be of a decidedly mixed vintage, wantonly throwing in power-pop and punk-pop and what-have-you. All well and good, but The Rantouls sail on purer waters, relentless in their pursuit of that Buddah Records / 1910 Fruitgum Company / Gentrys sweet spot. Three chord guitar/bass/drums music in which no melody is too obvious, no lyric too simplistic, no sugared up Bo Diddley/Archies steal too shameless. Music that steadfastly refuses to allow entry to even the tiniest, teeniest bit of ‘rock’ or its attendant macho moroseness.

This is a formula that can easily get ad-jingle throwaway, can seem like a joke even, when executed by those not fully committed to the material. The Rantouls though are believers, outlining their faith in no uncertain terms on this LP’s title track, during which they promise to take us across the seas to a land where “you just do what you want to do / the kids don’t go to school” and “everybody knows / you don’t even have to wear any clothes”. And take us there they do, in purely musical form at least, singing of chewin’ bubblegumbo, cuddling up, drinking from a little brown jug, flying in a hot air balloon and a little girl with an Indian drum. Ten songs, twenty minutes. That’s the way we like it! Chug-a-lug!

Mp3> Cuddle Up


28. Topaz Rags – Capricorn Born Again (Not Not Fun)

The second of a supremely unlikely THREE Pocahaunted side/successor projects to appear on this list, Topaz Rags use this LP to expand most satisfactorily on the strange and enticing sound explored on their earlier singles. Broadly speaking, this involves mixing the wordless vocal chants and head-nodding grooves of Poca-h with an approach that sees the vocals reduced to a almost subliminal role and favours acoustic(ish) instrumental interplay over psych/noise/blare, additionally incorporating with what I can only describe as a strong ‘LA noir’ vibe. Y’know: sinister late night jazz, Anger/Manson occult overtones, haunted Lynchian sprawl; candles burning in dark basement rooms as the sunshine blasts menacingly outside. All that stuff.

In the wrong hands – most hands - such preoccupations would lead to kitsch at best, idiocy at worst, but Topaz Rags are good at keeping things balanced, keeping their hand hidden, keeping their heads down. Carefully avoiding any big ‘signifier’ sounds, piano, bass and swooshed cymbals drive these songs forward with a gentle, trance-like sense of gradually evolving repetition, reminding me somewhat of Australian ambient/improv trio The Necks (a group whose work I like *a lot*, although I’ve somehow managed to go six years on this blog without mentioning the fact), if ever they were to start recording short, spooky songs with witchy vocialists instead of hour long sound-drifts. The simple, repeating figures here have a fiendish, comforting quality to them - like drifting off to sleep when you know you’ve got to keep watch to save your skin - and lengthy closer “Mind Power” in particular is a bone fide flesh-creeper. Occasional dub echoes or reverb gulches may intervene from time to time, but this is something quite, quite different from either the established psyche/noise scene that Not Not Fun and Pocahaunted grew out of, or from the more “witch house” friendly aesthetic of LA Vampires or Psychic Reality.

Working in a field in which the default methodology has long been to plug in all the pedals and let rip at length, the restraint and attention to detail evident in Topaz Rags’ music is extremely effective, the results beautifully chilling, exuding the kind of atmosphere you could cut with a knife. A ceremonial one, preferably. More than any other outfit around at the moment, this band are taking the whole psyche/drone/creep-core aesthetic to some strange and fascinating new places, and for that we must thank them.

Mp3> Sightings



27. Rolo Tomassi – Cosmology (Hassle Records)

Whilst I have endless admiration for Rolo Tomassi’s obvious talent and ambition, the impetuous, hand-break-turn nature of their earlier recordings frustrated me somewhat. This new one though (second LP proper, I think) finds them finally figuring out how to combine their disparate influences into something that sticks – namely a thunderous mixture of thrash metal, screamo post-hardcore and cosmic synth-prog excursions that sets out to knock you to the ground and keep you there for the duration, rather than having you scratching your head every thrity seconds, wondering what the fuck’s going on.

The quiet, ‘spacey’ passages have at last been convincingly incorporated into the metal-core song structures that surround them, and the clean vocal melodies work in tandem with the unhinged screaming. Hearing the two strains merge into a fully-formed, multi-limbed beast on album highlight “Kasia” is little short of awe-inspiring. ‘Big Metal Moment’ of the year for me I think!

Eva Spence’s vocals are, as ever, astonishing – perhaps the pre-eminent example of a woman fearlessly taking on the mantle of post-Napalm Death/Mayhem ‘vo-kills’, with visceral, spine-tingling and, uh, AWESOME results, her mid-song transitions from wounded werewolf to queen-of-Venus space diva are, uh, enough to break down my limited vocabulary for such things, so let’s just say MORE AWESOME.

Joe Nicholson’s guitars have riffs to spare, with a clean, treble-heavy thrash sound that cuts through like a guillotine, and James Spence’s keyboard odysseys (always the big divisive factor on earlier releases) really come into their own here too, full of otherworldy ‘Plant Caravan’ luminescence and sweeping analogue drama. So, uh, yeah – awesome.

In other news, this album was apparently produced by that Diplo guy. I dunno what he’s all about, or what he brought to the table, but he does an alright job if I’m any judge. The sound is perhaps a bit too clean and high-end for my liking, lacking the overdriven throb and chaotic murk I prefer my metal coated in, butat the same time it is hard to deny that it suits the band’s star-gazing, prog-damaged intent perfectly, and hey, if you’re gonna compete with the bad boys in the thrash stakes, you gotta keep it squeaky clean, subject to clear, digital daylight, however much grind and punk is still lurking in the mix. A few moments here and there take an unwise lurch in the direction of ‘emo’ (2003 definition), particularly when the guys sing, but that aside, this record is an avalanche of awesome and Rolo Tomassi’s best to date for my money.

Mp3> French Motel



26. The White Wires – WWII (Dirtnap)

Hey, you know what would have made the ‘Scott Pilgrim’ movie about ten times better? If they’d got Ottawa’s White Wires to do the music for it! Seriously, check out some their silly videos on youtube – they’ve got that Sex Bob-omb vibe down perfectly. They sound exactly like the music sounded in my head when I was reading the comic book. And they’re even from Canada for christssake.

Perfect, utilitarian heart on sleeve punk-power-pop reigns supreme across the entirety of this second album by ‘em, and it’s the kinda stuff I always love. The constant sugar rush of “WWII” may lead to hyperglycaemia or headaches if experienced in one sitting, but for four or five song bursts, played loud, it will get you where you’re going in double-time with a big idiot grin on yr face.

I love the bouncy, heart-on-sleeve energy, and the relentless 1-2, 1-1-2 drumming and chk-chk-chk-chk-chking hi-hats and the big, fuzzy bass sound and the breakin’ the speed limit barre chord guitar. I love how they have lots of songs that have the same name as more famous songs (“Let’s Go To The Beach”, “Roxanne”, “Be True To Your School”, “Bye Bye Baby”), but aren’t them. It’s great. It does its job. I love it. What more can I say? This is not exactly the kinda music that invites in-depth criticism – just another happy bulletin from the land where it’s always summer and “Rocket To Russia” is the king.

Anyway, long story short, I guess they got Beck instead cos they had money to waste and he cost more. What can ya say, life sucks.

Mp3> Be True To Your School (‘til You Get Kicked Out)

Labels: Best Coast, best of 2010, Rolo Tomassi, The Rantouls, Topaz Rags, White Wires

Yet More Singles...

Five more gangs of salty customers trying to make our hair stand on end.

Drunkdriver – Knife Day b/w January 2nd
(Fan Death)

Good grief, this is horrifying. Starting with a long drawn out scream, “Knife Day” launches into a pile of sloppy, violent, sociopathic hardcore being blasted out the other end of a wind tunnel and EQed to death, harsh frequencies pummelling like a wifebeater’s fat fists through the tape hiss. “January 2nd” meanwhile sounds like a giant pig monster just stumbled upon punk club and started fucking it with slow, grinding determination as the punks within scream in terror and confusion. I know it’s naïve of me to listen to a basement hardcore/noise record and think “gee, these guys are pissed off about something”, but gee, these guys are pissed off about something.

http://www.myspace.com/drunkdriverusa
http://www.myspace.com/fandeathrecords

Florida – Icarus b/w Once Yr In It (Shadowplay)

Spooky homemade mutant rock here from…. well, Brooklyn actually – fancy that. These guys have a pretty distinctive sound going on though, centred on ominous, slowed-down vocals combined with normal speed instruments and quite crisp recording, to eerie and dramatic effect. Really strong song-writing here too; ‘Icarus’ could almost be some bastardised Duran Duran/Depeche Mode hit, veering briefly toward a declamatory Sabbathian sing-song metal chant on the chorus, with backing that clanks and hisses more like some lost Pere Ubu-worshipping art-punk ensemble from the dawn of time. I know that doesn’t really make much sense as a description, but neither does trying to jam a band like this into any of my critical reference point boxes, so you’re just going to have to put up with it. On the other side, ‘Once Yr In It’ is a more strung out and distant affair, with slithering hand percussion and low acoustic strumming, like an admirable attempt to fuse the sound of this decade’s surplus of avant/creepcore ensembles with, like, y’know, a band that does songs, until a truly majestic lead guitar rises from the campfire halfway through to take us home. When I say ‘majestic’ of course, I also mean creepy. Everything on this record is creepy, and creepy is good. It’s all out-of-time, hard to nail down, like someone’s attempt to make a haunted band. Basically, if you like the wonderful vintage Halloween photo on the cover, you’ll probably like the music within. It’s an inspired image/sound combo.

http://www.myspace.com/plasticpalms

Girls of the Gravitron – Malthusian Love Song EP (Boom Chick Records)

Band from Memphis. Debut 7”. The song on the A-side immediately hits all the warning buttons, sounding on the surface like a hideous, don't-give-a-damn basement-fi fuck-around that makes me want to yell YOU GUYS ARE JUST SPOILING IT FOR THE REST OF US, and go and listen to something recorded with more than one microphone. It would have been unwise of me to do that though, as the two offerings on the B-side soothe and surprise in an extremely pleasant manner, causing me the return to the A with fresh ears. Recording is still needlessly muffled, over-compressed scuzz throughout, but there are some really beautiful, twisted tunes going on here, sung by a guy who sounds like a gently lethargic alien hillbilly and backed up by a rollicking good band mixing foot-tapping garage rock n’ roll with some lovely, light-of-touch psychedelic slide guitar moves zapping out of the top of the mix like shiny eagles, sounding for all the world like some previously unheard wonder-juice guzzling ’67 session excavated from the International Artists vault alongside all those 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola rarities. And you’d better believe that’s a recommendation. Third song ‘Violent Appetites’ gets a particular thumbs up from me. I wish the vocals weren’t so distorted, because I’d like to hear the lyrics that go with the oddball song titles, but that aside this is effortless freak-rock goodness, and well worth a listen.

http://www.myspace.com/girlsofthegravitron
http://www.myspace.com/boomchickrecords

Topaz Rags – Tarot Harem (Not Not Fun)

Yes, Tarot Harem. If that doesn’t give you a pointer re: where these guys are coming from, nothing will. As you might expect, this initially sounds like music to accompany somebody’s tiresome idea of a sinister, LSD-fuelled Mansonite occult happening. Apparently the first 78 copies came with a free tarot card taken from the Crowley deck. What larks! “Tarot Harem” mixes disembodied Pocahaunted style female moaning with clattering, vaguely free drumming and a hypnotic five note bass figure that’s really annoying me, because it sounds like a total rip from another piece of music that I know I know really well, but I just can’t place it.

(Oh yeah, I’ve got it now – it’s, er, the guitar bit that underpins “Your Cells Are In Motion” by Jackie O-Motherfucker? Clocking that and then actually bothering to write it down perhaps counts as the geekiest moment of my life thus far. I mean, I don’t even like Jackie O-Motherfucker, aside from that one song, that I used to listen to a lot on a mix CD. Christ.)

Anyway, the other song here, “Black Honey” (ooh, those titles), is effectively identical to “Tarot Harem”, but with the bass and drums hitting a different, ‘slowly trailing victim through the streets’ kinda groove, and the addition of sparse, creeping piano notes. As on Pocahaunted’s recent ‘Passage’ LP, (which I couldn’t really get into), the free-form vocals here are largely devoid of effects and allowed to roam free, rendering them deeply silly in places. I mean, it’s just a few steps away from throwing in some whistling wind and clanking chains from yr sound FX records really, isn’t it? Still, all adds to the atmosphere I guess. And, without wishing to sound like an old grump, it’s actually the straightforward instruments rather than the ghostly groanings that are doing the bulk of the work in Topaz Rags, and they’re doing it very effectively too, and with a lot more subtlety than you’d have reason to expect. Do I hear some ghosts of distant LA noir jazz creeping in around the edges….? Let’s hope they stay around the edges; that’s where they work best. Peer at Topaz Rags from the right angle and you might even find them soundtracking some Maya Deren instead of some Ted V. Mikels. Even within the mightily oversaturated realm of avant-freaky creepscapes, this stands out as a pretty decent and well thought out addition to the catalogue of such things. Nice work.

>http://www.myspace.com/topazrags
http://www.notnotfun.com/

Vermillion Sands – In The Wood (Fat Possum)

I’ve played this single many times of recent, and I can’t quite get an angle on it, although I think it is very, very good and unusual. Hailing from Italy, and winning points from the outset for the J.G. Ballard reference, Vermillion Sands are led by one Anna Barattin, who possesses a raspy, gutsy singing voice that’s faintly reminiscent of Drugstore’s Isabel Monteiro. Having said that, I just listened to some old Drugstore stuff to check, and actually there’s not THAT much similarity, but nonetheless, the comparison may serve to give you some idea of where Vermillion Sands are coming from, emotionally speaking. This 7” sees Barattin and her band bust through three wonderfully idiosyncratic, low-key garage-folk-punk tunes that combine a slightly eerie rural ambience with ramshackle, Basement Tapes good cheer and choruses slow n’ steady enough for you to sing along before you’ve even clocked the words. Powered along by clanging hollow-body guitars, rough fuzz riffs, tambourine and meaty Vox organ swirl, these are some really great songs that demand repeated listens, their exuberant three-sheets-to-the-wind execution belying some dark and foggy feelings buried beneath. “I always felt sick and sad and lonely,” Barattin sings on the chorus of ‘May’ as the band whoop it up behind her, “if only I could move from my bed”. In the wood indeed. Getting more compelling as it gets more familiar, this one’s a flat-out winner.

http://www.myspace.com/thevermillionsands
http://www.myspace.com/fatpossumrecords

Labels: Drunkdriver, Florida, Girls of the Gravitron, singles reviews, Topaz Rags, Vermillion Sands