Genre: Folk, Rock
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Genre: Rock
Follow: Official Site | Facebook | Bandcamp

Genre: Rock
Follow: Official Site | Facebook

Genre: Folk, Indie, Acoustic
Follow: Official Site | Facebook | Twitter |
Buy: iTunes

Genre: Rock
Follow: Official Site | Facebook | Twitter |

Purchase this album on: iTunes | Amazon
Follow this artist on: Facebook | Twitter

“Oh the horror!” Ok, I had to throw that one out there. I can remember a while back I had posted a picture online of a particular group that in some ways I considered my guilty pleasure. Someone later asked me “Hey, who are those Emo Power Rangers you posted up last week?”. For some, this is what summed up the British band The Horrors. For others (mostly Nylon reading 15 year old girls) they summed up a band with the appeal of a Tim Burton silent film remake of “A Clockwork Orange”. In 2007 the british psych-rockers released their first album Strange House, a blast of Surf Rock, Punk, and Psychedelic mayhem. Not only did they cement themselves as something different amongst a very British music scene, they cemented themselves as indie fashion icons. Their style was a chaotic mess of black and white, hip boots, Halloween inspired 60′s haircuts, and classic fashion items with the word “skinny” inserted before each title.

They certainly took the world for a spin with their still dark, poetic and glamorous second album Primary Colours, which was produced by Portishead’s songwriter and guitarist Geoff Barrow and music video director Chris Cunningham (most famous for his disturbing Aphex Twin music videos). Moving away from the screeching punk and spoken word direction, we are greeted with a lush baritone voice from lead singer Faris Badwin. Not only had they recreated their sound into something mature yet edgy, they took their trademark fashions into a classic and almost Mod inspired realm, which echoed a bit of Nick Drake. The band had become something more mature and a group with more depth and perspective.

Finally, we are reached with yet another momentous leap in direction with their current release Skying, out now on XL Records. Still flowing with the gloomy and post-punk feel of Primary Colours, this album sets a new standard in creativity and progressiveness for the group. With vocals much sweeter and even touching on the whispery-croon of Jarvis Cocker, again Faris Badwin creates new atmospheres and shades. Guitarist Joshua Hayward has given way to his crushing freight train guitar tones and effects and adds a much more standard yet tasteful texture to the keyboard/synth driven tracks across Skying. Bizarre keyboard layers and almost 80′s inspired synth riffs dot the album like monsoon rain thanks to keyboardist Rhys Webb. Although this album has the trademark sounds that the band has established, the direction is still not on the same path and leaves you at a comfortable limbo in some instances. The catchy and simplistic riffs and melodies are left behind in some cases and mood inducing endeavors are taken instead. What melody is there is still subtle and may take some mental re-play to discover what idea is being portrayed. The idea that is found though is in many cases just as rewarding in the end.

The main tracks which ring out from the get go were the melancholy pop tune “You Said”, an almost Dylan-esque Positively 4th Street lyrical attack titled “I Can See Through You”, the catchy “Dive In” and the inspirational and anthemic “Still Life”. The album as a whole is strong in that it creates wonderful mental imagery and shows growth and creativity. My only qualms with this album are the still under developed bass and drum sections. Simplicity is indeed a good thing. Less can still be more. In this particular instance I feel it does some of the songs a disservice. If you want to experience something new or for some of you a familiar sound with a fresh new twist, then Skying is a great listen.

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With the debut of their first album “The Western Boundary,” Rat Trap has already made a wave in their coastal city of Santa Cruz. This five-person band shines a bright light back on quality folk music and offers a fresh twist on a genre that sometimes goes unnoticed.

When I heard Rat Trap’s “Songbirds” I was instantly transported back in time to when I first heard music by Bright Eyes. However, Rat Trap definitely takes on a more positive and upbeat stance than Conor Oberst. There is a charming effervescence that seems to radiate from the whole album. And as their album art denotes, there is a carefree lightness that is carried throughout each song, a lightness that can only be achieved through genuine guitar compositions and simple lyrics. The soft twangs from the intricate guitar once again reminded me of one of my other favorite bands, The New Amsterdams, a band known for their rhythmic guitar sequences and soothing melodies.

One thing I noticed, and appreciate within folk and acoustic music, is that the lead singer Grant Simmons effectively takes on a sort of narrator position. He only sings when he needs to, or when he thinks his lyrics will be pertinent to the story. This narrative made me wonder what was coming next, and whether I would still have the same emotions as I did at the start of the song. But even with the simple lyrics or “intrusions” from the narrator, I was never disappointed. I found it simple to hum along and take part in the story, even enjoying the unraveling of it.

Rat Trap’s “Insomnia” and “Untitled” especially remind me of summer, making me think of the ocean, long car rides, and sharing strawberry lemonade with my friends. One of the best things about summer is the relaxing music that accompanies each summer task. And Rat Trap definitely achieves that sense of “summer reminiscing” that I long for in folk music.

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Songs are just collections of tones and rhythms, books are just lengthy arrangements of letters and spaces, and films are nothing more than moving images synchronized with sounds. It’s all stupidly simple, yet our hearts swell for crescendos and we weep at the end of Steel Magnolias. Why do we care and where is the line drawn between what moves us and what doesn’t? It’s all so baffling, but Taking Back Sunday are here to help!

With their self-titled album, the band provides a great example of entertainment that fails to make an impact. Having been among the frontrunners of the misconstrued “emo” craze of the early 2000’s, Taking Back Sunday are no strangers to writing music with the aim of being relatable. What they may not be familiar with is missing that mark so thoroughly. After writing two albums (Tell All Your Friends and Where You Want to Be) of pitch-perfect pop punk tunes for heartbroken Myspace users, the band swapped emotion for innovation, twisting their sound with touches of rugged alt-rock swagger on the fantastic Louder Now and the less fantastic New Again. Here, on their eponymous fourth record, they seem caught between feigned emotion and innovation, landing in a limbo where they gain no traction no matter how furiously they spin their wheels.

And oh, how they spin. Track after track, the band try to salvage their own songs with one bright idea or another, even going so far as to lift the entire aesthetic of sister band Brand New’s Daisy for “El Paso”, the album’s thrashy opener. In the end, it all seems disjointed: half-baked verses sticking awkwardly out of either side of jumbo-sized choruses that pop up as predictably as pictures of cats on the internet, but with only a fraction of the enjoyment. Adam Lazzara’s lyrics don’t exactly shine either. His snarky brand of melodrama has been compressed into oblivion, making most of the lyrics on the album either woefully ho-hum (“I’m sorry, come back”), curiously preoccupied with Christian imagery, or vaguely nonsensical.

All this disappointment would be much easier to swallow if Taking Back Sunday was a complete disaster. Instead, gleams of what the album could have been shine through the dreck like glimpses of a cake in a dumpster, wasting its potential among the trash. “Best Places To Be a Mom” could be heralded as the second coming of classic Taking Back Sunday were it not sandwiched between two totally mediocre tracks. “You Got Me” is just bursting with energy and even the aforementioned “El Paso” has its charms. It makes one wonder at what point the sessions that spawned these high points went haywire and produced the rest of the album.

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In this age of indie rock stars, no one is more synonymous with indie as a new musical continent than Bon Iver, the musical brainchild of songwriter Justin Vernon. Given his affinity to beards, acoustic guitars, tiny remote cabins, and soft-spoken vocals it’s pretty hard to tear myself away from that connotation. Bon Iver is now more than just one man, more than just a lone collection of songs written in a remote Wisconsin cabin. With the release of the self-titled album Bon Iver, we are greeted with a tidal wave of sonic exploration.

Taking flight with the beautiful and haunting “Perth”, the album sets a pretty golden standard for itself. Thankfully Vernon is able to keep this standard rolling throughout the entire album; a hard task indeed. Almost every title pays homage to a city, which one is meant to assume has significance for the sound or direction each tune takes on. Maybe each track is his portrait of some dimension to each place and it paints a beautiful world I’d be lucky to see.

The production for this album is immensely creative and in many ways can harken back to a prog rock direction. Any sense of a standard song structure is completely abandoned, leaving a complete mish-mash of intertwining parts. This is definitely apparent when the album decides to throw you a curveball every 30 seconds or so and therein lies one of Bon Iver’s greatest strengths. It was impossible for me to guess what would come next, and many times I was completely taken aback at how interesting and creative he was able to make each song. If you are a fan of lush arrangements, then Bon Iver delivers a healthy dose.

Lyrically, this album lacks a clear motive, and I found it to be the main weakness of the project. To be fair, after second glance, I don’t think Vernon intended lyrics to be orthodox. Not only is the music meant to create a portrait, but I believe by their very sound and delivery, the lyrics are meant to do the same. Definitely not something for the lyrically minded. Sadly there was one minor venture which I found downright silly, which was the album closer “Beth/Rest” which sounded like a straight up 80′s electro-pop ballad. The kind of thing you’d expect to hear during the sex scene in the movie “Ghost”. Beyond this though, the real stand outs on this album are “Perth”, “Holocene”, “Wash”, and “Calgary”.

The final word on this album for me is the immense and cinematic power it holds. Not only does it paint pictures in my mind, but I find its depths an inspiring change to the two dimensional “artistic” stance that so many trendy bands take. With Bon Iver, we are shown that being artistic is not just a matter of how weird you are, but how much honesty and simple beauty you use and employ when creating a piece of art.

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Friendly Fires have regularly been deemed a disco/punk band, but if you give Pala one listen they can easily be described as mostly disco/80’s funk instead. They could also be described as a band that would play in the credits of a late 80’s/early 90’s Hollywood blockbuster movie. Their self-titled debut had more attitude and energy, qualities that are absent in Pala and instead have been replaced with a disco ball. It is a shot in a different direction and this at times works in favor of the Friendly Fires.

Consistent throughout the album is singer Ed Macfarlane’s powerful, soulful vocals. His range and vocal tonality is amazingly diverse. Through the romantic wails of “Blue Cassette”, the boy band like falsetto of “Hurting” or the sexy suggestive nature of title track “Pala”, Macfarlane does not fail to impress.

I am more partial to the sounds of the track “Running Away” in all its Electro Clash goodness, but I do appreciate that Friendly Fires are exploring techno/dance pop production song structure and soundscapes.

So whether they are strapping on their fenders or tapping on their drum machines and synth pads, I really think Friendly Fires Pala is a great effort to try something new by borrowing from noises of old. The melodies and interesting rhythm sections should keep your interest through “Pala” as it did mine. I can’t wait to see them live when they come through town and see how they achieve what they have aimed at on stage.