- Quick message before I get into the music stuff: On the week of November 25, a war will be fought, between good and evil, light and dark. I am, of course, speaking of the fact that New Moon and Ninja Assassin are being released within the same week. If you value good cinema, you will dissuade everyone you know from seeing New Moon and towards seeing Ninja Assassin. The only language that Hollywood understands is money, and if we can send a message to them that we need more movies like Ninja Assassin and less movies like New Moon, it's gonna be with our wallets. This is not a simple little game, possibly the entire fate of an industry is on the line, you know what you need to do.
Blood Bank - Bon Iver (Sample)
This is only a four-song EP, not a proper album, but it is our first chance to hear Bon Iver working as an actual band, rather than a Justin Vernon pseudonym. What are the differences? Well, the songs here certainly have a much more full-bodied sound than For Emma, Forever Ago, incorporating muted percussion, twinkling pianos and fuzzy country-twang electric guitars into the basic acoustic-and-voice constructions of the songs. "Beach Baby" even has a vague Carribian inflection provided by a wavering pedal steel. Crucially, though, these feel like logical extensions of the sound Vernon already established, not "evolution" for its own sake, as all the songs here fit the same vibe that For Emma had, even if they are mostly warmer. Vernon also doesn't push his voice into a higher register as much here, settling for more of an inviting mumble. Lyrically, it's about the same vague melancholy images that intrigue but don't really add up to much, with the exception of the title track, which is a cute story-song about a romance between two blood donors; I'd like to see Vernon pursue this avenue of lyrics more, he does it well.
Now, all I've just said only applies to the first three tracks on the EP. The closer, "Woods", is a strange experiment: consisting of nothing more than several overlapping auto-tuned vocal tracks by Vernon, it starts of rather shaky but eventually develops into a an actual Bon Iver song, albeit one that's reached by some off-kilter means. It's an interesting diversion, but I don't think I'd want much more than one song like it. Fortunately, the rest of the EP seems to indicate that Vernon wants to evolve this musical project by much less radical, but no less effective, means.
Further Complications - Jarvis Cocker (Sample)
On paper, Further Complications looks like one of the worst ideas ever conceived; taking Jarvis, mostly known for dryly-witty, heavily-produced Britpop, and teaming him with producer/weirdo Steve Albini, who is still holding strong to his basic, no-fuss, no-overdubs credo, seems like it would sap the elegance from Jarvis and the raw power from Albini's production. Surprisingly, then, this album is actually very good, albeit quite different from Jarvis' solo debut and his work with Pulp.
The only sounds here that really feel like the Jarvis we know are little details like the backup vocal "ahhs" on the title track, the juke-joint saxophone on "Homewrecker", the handclaps on "Angela". Otherwise, Albini hasn't modified his signature production style at all: the drums and bass are very dry, the guitars scratch and growl all over the place, Jarvis' voice isn't cleanly separated from the music; it's just a very "live" sounding record, overall. In a lot of ways, these songs feel like standard Jarvis or Pulp songs, cut down to their bare essentials (usually a hammering blues-punk riff, a blunted rhythmic stomp and a set of cleverly mean lyrics), though they do tend to have a more herky-jerky Stooges-ish quality to them. Some, like "Angela", do descend perilously close to standard-issue bar-band boogie but even there, the lyrics are still clever and he even pokes fun at the cliche in "Caucasian Blues". Cocker's voice, too, has more spit-and-grit to it, like he's singing through gnashed teeth half the time, indulging in full-throated shouts another bit and semi-parodically crooning the rest of the album. Even the slower tracks, like "Leftovers" and "Hold Still", are rubbed-raw, both sonically and lyrically. Reports indicate that this is a "breakup album" but it doesn't feel like the standard blue-toned melancholic affair that term implies. Certainly, one can read the obvious into the title and chorus of "Homewrecker" and "Hold Still"'s plaint that "kittens are cute/but a full-grown cat can be cuter" befits a near-40 divorcee.
Perhaps it's because Cocker is too clever to descend into standard "woe is me" whining, but he seems far more critical of himself than anyone else on this record, "I Never Said I Was Deep" ("but I am profoundly shallow") being the peak of this. With a goofily swooning chorus and a slight twinkle in the guitars, it would seem to be the album's lightest moment but then Cocker gets to lacerating himself: "If you want someone to talk to/ you're wasting your time", "you're going over my head", "my morality is shabby/ my behavior unacceptable". And then there's the money line, probably one of the funniest and most wince-inducing you'll ever hear: "I'm not looking for a relationship, just a willing receptacle". The rest of the album is also gnarled with barbs like that which I'll allow be a surprise should you choose to listen.
If one song here is a misstep, it's the wordless motorik of "Pilchard" (which, in Jarvis' own words, he "never got around to writing") but, still, that's a minor complaint. It's a winner of a record that might prove, with it's no-frills production, proudly loud rock and stinging lyrics, to be a worthy successor to Elvis Costello's This Year's Model, one of my absolute favourite records.
The only sounds here that really feel like the Jarvis we know are little details like the backup vocal "ahhs" on the title track, the juke-joint saxophone on "Homewrecker", the handclaps on "Angela". Otherwise, Albini hasn't modified his signature production style at all: the drums and bass are very dry, the guitars scratch and growl all over the place, Jarvis' voice isn't cleanly separated from the music; it's just a very "live" sounding record, overall. In a lot of ways, these songs feel like standard Jarvis or Pulp songs, cut down to their bare essentials (usually a hammering blues-punk riff, a blunted rhythmic stomp and a set of cleverly mean lyrics), though they do tend to have a more herky-jerky Stooges-ish quality to them. Some, like "Angela", do descend perilously close to standard-issue bar-band boogie but even there, the lyrics are still clever and he even pokes fun at the cliche in "Caucasian Blues". Cocker's voice, too, has more spit-and-grit to it, like he's singing through gnashed teeth half the time, indulging in full-throated shouts another bit and semi-parodically crooning the rest of the album. Even the slower tracks, like "Leftovers" and "Hold Still", are rubbed-raw, both sonically and lyrically. Reports indicate that this is a "breakup album" but it doesn't feel like the standard blue-toned melancholic affair that term implies. Certainly, one can read the obvious into the title and chorus of "Homewrecker" and "Hold Still"'s plaint that "kittens are cute/but a full-grown cat can be cuter" befits a near-40 divorcee.
Perhaps it's because Cocker is too clever to descend into standard "woe is me" whining, but he seems far more critical of himself than anyone else on this record, "I Never Said I Was Deep" ("but I am profoundly shallow") being the peak of this. With a goofily swooning chorus and a slight twinkle in the guitars, it would seem to be the album's lightest moment but then Cocker gets to lacerating himself: "If you want someone to talk to/ you're wasting your time", "you're going over my head", "my morality is shabby/ my behavior unacceptable". And then there's the money line, probably one of the funniest and most wince-inducing you'll ever hear: "I'm not looking for a relationship, just a willing receptacle". The rest of the album is also gnarled with barbs like that which I'll allow be a surprise should you choose to listen.
If one song here is a misstep, it's the wordless motorik of "Pilchard" (which, in Jarvis' own words, he "never got around to writing") but, still, that's a minor complaint. It's a winner of a record that might prove, with it's no-frills production, proudly loud rock and stinging lyrics, to be a worthy successor to Elvis Costello's This Year's Model, one of my absolute favourite records.
Hometowns - The Rural Alberta Advantage (Sample)
It's often hard to associate a band with a specific country or geographic area, especially with the vast majority of musical artists striving to have universal appeal and, thus, bleaching-out local colour from their lyrics and music. It's refreshing, then, to see a band be as forward about where they come from as the Rural Alberta Advantage; it's right there in their name!
That aside, though, Hometowns succeeds primarily for two reasons: The first is its semi-intangible capturing of place within music. The lyrics are peppered with references to the "Rockies" and the "great lakes", open fields and night skies dominate the imagery, "Frank, AB" is a tribute to that town's mining industry, but it's something less concrete than that. The music, even though the band incorporates many different instruments, always maintains a crucial sense of open space; it sounds like the small towns they're singing about. The thing that keeps the lyrical preoccupations from simply being town-pride cheese is that one always gets the sense that the band is looking back on happier times after having moved on to another place, especially with "Don't Haunt This Place"'s desolate description of a "west side apartment". In this way, the album's title makes sense as the whole record seems to reflect the sort of wistful longing for one's home that comes after moving on from it, usually with moving away for education. With its purposeful focus on particular places, characters and concepts, Hometowns could be a sort of Canadian answer to Springsteen's Jersey-centric early albums, particularly Born to Run.
The second reason the record works so well is the Advantage's incredible musical dexterity. The opening song alone is able to work in twinkling glockenspiel, swirling synths, mournful cello and rough-cut percussion without ever sounding lost or arbitrary. "Rush Apart" and "Edmonton" show that the band are well-versed in country, the horn-heavy and death-haunted "Luciana" feels a like a lost Neutral Milk Hotel song, the choppy post-punk riff on "Drain The Blood" is a bit anomalous but still works well. One thing that does remain the same throughout all of the songs is the masterful percussion work, never showy, always propelling and tasteful.
If I could muster a complaint it would be that Nils Edenloff's nasal voice takes a bit of getting used to but once you're settled to it, it feels like just the right sort of voice (kind of sloppy, not technically precise) to voice these sentiments. Oh, and reports indicate that the band are a lot more energetic live. I may be able to confirm/deny this in late August (Virgin Music Fest in Barrie, fingers crossed), but I can't say for now.
And, really, when a band covers this much stylistic ground and comes up with a ballad as beautiful as album closer "In The Summertime", I'm willing to forgive a slight down-tick in energy.
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