Cold Cave
Cherish the Light Years
Matador Records

Cold Cave, the New York-based, synth pop outfit began as the solo project of Wesley Eisold, the former lead singer of several hard core groups including American Nightmare, Give Up the Ghost, Some Girls and XO Skeletons. And although Eisold is the primary creative force behind the act, Cold Cave has a regularly occurring cast of collaborators including Dominick Fernow of Prurient and Jennifer Clavin, the former lead singer of Mika Miko. But considering the reputations of each contributor’s previous work with their previous bands, Cold Cave may very well seem like a decided and unexplained musical left turn. Of course, it’s not surprising to come across indie rockers, punk rockers and metalheads experimenting with electronica and other genres – think of Transplants with Rancid’s Tim Armstrong and Blink 182’s Travis Barker; or even more famously, Damon Albarn with Gorillaz and others.

From the high energy buzzing and churning guitar chords of opening track, “The Great Pan is Dead,” to the slow-burning “Villains of the Moon,” Cold Cave’s latest, full-length effort is slickly produced and densely layered. On a good pair of headphones or pumped out on a stereo system, Cherish the Light Years stomps, buzzes, churns and struts about; however, on repeated listens, I’m afraid that despite how great the material sounds, you can’t beat the sense that it’s been done before . . . many times over. “Pacing Around the Church” with its keyboard and synth-laden hook is strangely reminiscent of a much more muscular version of The Killers’ Hot Fuss. “Confetti,” one of the best songs on the album sounds a helluva lot like New Order with a woman’s backing vocals. The Movement album for some reason came to mind. And for a strange but likeable addition on a track, I happen to love the horns on “Underworld USA.”

For a debut full-length album, Cherish the Light Years becomes increasingly frustrating with repeated listens. Certainly, for those listeners who are unfamiliar with the bands that may influence Cold Cave, this album may very well seem like a revelation; however, for more erudite listeners, it feels wearyingly unoriginal. It’s a shame because Eisold has a voice that demands attention but hopefully Eisold and company can break free of some of this particular project’s influences. Until then, they will probably be a footnote within this decade’s music.

Release Date April 5, 2011

Track Listing

1.    The Great Pan is Dead
2.    Pacing Around the Church
3.    Confetti
4.    Catacombs
5.    Underworld USA
6.    Icons of Summer
7.    Alchemy and You
8.    Burning Sage
9.    Villains of the Moon

Youth Sounds
Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow

You may remember that a couple of months ago, I reviewed the New Orleans-based quartet, Youth Sounds’ debut The Bit Parts EP, which was an elegantly simple album that managed to convey an ethereal fragility while reminding me a lot of Great Northern’s Trading Twilight for Daylight. So when I received a review copy of the band’s latest and now most recent effort Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow, I was curious as to how the band would continue to develop and refine their sound, especially in light of their impressive debut.

What I will say about Tomorrow… is that it continues Youth Sounds’ winning formula of uncannily stunning harmonies, relatively simple arrangements while combining the power, indie pop of Bit Parts’ “Strangers Would” and “What Is It Like.” Although the album is short – it feels as though its maybe 20-25 minutes long – the album does reveal itself over repeated plays in unexpected ways. Whereas their debut had beautiful moments that defied easy categorization, this album feels much more straightforward and a bit conventional. That ain’t a bad thing, if done correctly but on a certain level I kind of felt as though I wanted a little bit more of a challenge and a little bit more weirdly fragile beauty along with it. “You’ll Be The Death of Me” is perhaps the closest moment to that, thanks to Erika Mejia’s gorgeous, hushed vocals. “It’s Hell,” the album opener, has bit of an anthemic pull that the band hadn’t shown before. And as a whole, the material still manages to sound beautiful – on Tomorrow… the guitars routinely sound like chiming bells and they manage to add subconscious emphasis to the lyrics. And although the arrangements are simple, there’s a sense of the overall sound being subtly layered from several distinct parts.

Admittedly, Youth Sounds’ newest effort to me is a bit flawed – the material doesn’t feel as challenging as some of their debut EP’s songs.  But honestly saying that the material is conventional is about the worst thing I can say about this one, because where it works, it works. In what may very well be a year of rather disappointing releases, Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow is certainly one of the better albums I’ve come across this year.

Released on February 22, 2011

Track Listing

1. It’s Hell
2. Whatever Works
3. Foolish Love
4. You’ll Be The Death of Me
5. We’re No One

Art vs. Science
Magic Fountain EP

The Sydney, Australia-based trio Art vs. Science can trace their history to one specific moment – the Daft Punk concert in 2007 that Dan McNamee (keyboards, guitars and vocals) attended with his two high school buddies and former bandmates Jim Finn (keyboard, guitar and vocals) and Dan Williams (drums and vocals) when McNamee perhaps inspired by the show, asked his two buddies to start up a dance-pop band. And as the origin story goes, the trio somehow managed to have a show booked – without having any specific, fully fleshed out songs.  Under pressure, they managed to quickly churn out 7 songs, 48 hours before their first set as Art vs. Science.

In their native Australia, the band gained wider recognition by winning local radio station Triple J’s Splendour (we’re spelling it the British/Australian/Canadian way here) in the Grass Unearthed, competition. “Flippers” and “Hollywood,” two of the songs which appear on the Stateside EP, Magic Fountain received plays on Triple J’s rotation with “Flippers” hitting their top 100 of 2008. And from there, the trio received tons of recognition including the “Breakthrough New Independent Artist” and “Best Independent Dance Album,” back in 2009, if I’m not mistaken.

Now, nearly three years after the release of their first Australian EP, the Magic Fountain EP may very well be North America’s introduction to the trio. And what I’ll say early on about the EP is that it’s fun to listen to – ridiculous, obnoxious, childish, thoughtless fun. The intro to the title track, “Magic Mountain” somehow reminded me of the introduction of the Chemical Brothers track, “Come With Us” off their Come With Us but as though Fred Schneider of the B52’s were singing in front of One Day as a Lion, the side project of Zach de la Rocha and Jon Theodore – in other words, buzzing, droning keyboards but with danceable backbeats. “Parlez Vous Francais,” is one of the silliest songs I’ve heard this year, complete with basic French phrases shouted in unison like a bunch of schoolchildren on a sugar high. It’s ridiculous, obnoxious and strangely catchy, much like the Electric Six – think of the E6’s I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being the Master. Two of the stupidest songs on the album are by far the most infectious. I’m still singing the chorus to “Flippers” and “Parlez Vous Francais” days after I’ve played the album on my iPod.

Although fun, Art vs. Science’s work on this EP is guilty of being frivolous and almost too ironic (yes, that’s possible) – to the point of being difficult to ever take seriously. Worst yet is how familiar the material seems. Sadly, there isn’t much on their Stateside debut that doesn’t sound immediately remind you as someone else that you’ve probably listened to at some point before. Indeed, part of it is from the fact that some of the material here is three years old but the main thing is that it just isn’t that original. But hopefully their full length album, which will drop in Australia in the next few days will improve on their current material.

Release Date (US): March 11, 2011

Track Listing

1.    Magic Fountain
2.    Friend in the Field
3.    Flippers
4.    Parlez Vous Francais?
5.    Hollywood

Cut Copy
Zonoscope
Modular Recordings

Indie rock superstars and critical darlings, Cut Copy started from some rather humble beginnings – the creative project of Melbourne, Australia-based DJ and graphic designed Dan Whitford in 2001. As a solo project, Whitford released the single “1981” and an EP titled, I Thought of Numbers before he recruited bandmates Tim Hoey, Mitchell Scott and their original drummer, Bennett Foddy in 2003. As a quartet they released their first full-length album

By 2004, they released their first full-length album, Bright Like Neon Love, which garnered a lot of attention as they started their first international tour in 2005, playing gigs with bands such as Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and Daft Punk.  2008 marked the release of In Ghost Colours. Pitchfork, which is known to be particularly tough – and well, snarky – considered the album, their fourth best of 2008; Metacritic, the website that assigns a normalized rating out of 100 from reviews of mainstream critics, ranked the album pretty well, giving it a 79. All well and good, if (and only if) you care about what critics have to say. At the end of the day, it’s about what a song, an album or a particular artist’s work makes you feel and think – and how a song or an album can manage to define you and your life.

I doubt many of you reading this would say that there wasn’t a song or an album that became an intimate part of your life, and that comforted you in a time of need or reminded you of a loved one. Although I got into In Ghost Colours late last year, it’s an album that immediately resonated with me on several levels and I’ve been obsessed with it ever since. Simply put, it’s full of the sweaty energy of rock shows in basements and of nightclubs, of restless, youthful energy, and the ecstasy of being hopelessly, madly, desperately in love. Musically, the album sprints by quicker than you think but the arrangements are densely layered and on repeated listens reveals something different every single time.

After the massive success of In Ghost Colours among critics and fans, Dan Whitford spent months working on rough synth and vocal skeletal versions of songs with the idea of reworking and revising the band’s sound. Whitford has been quoted as saying that the band wanted to go for a more tribal sound, inspired by visions of a tropical jungle. What you’ll immediately recognize on Zonoscope is that many of the songs feel stripped down to pulsating bass, shimmering snyth lines and more four on the floor tempos – much like early 80s disco pop. It should be no surprise that the synth line in “Take Me Over” may sound a little bit like the synth lines off Madonna’s first album – think of a song like “Holiday” and you’ll see what I mean. Or how much “Pharaohs and Pyramids” and “Blink and You’ll Miss a Revolution” sound incredibly like Yaz. “Sun God” the longest song on the album is yet another certified club banger. Seriously, play these songs on a decent set of earphones or through a good stereo set up – the songs thump and bang to life. “Strange Nostalgia for the Future” and “This Is All We Got” both sound as though they could have possibly been on Colours as it sticks to mostly guitar, bass, drums and synths for floating, psychedelic effect.

However, as great as it sounds, Zonoscope suffers from several glaring weaknesses. I don’t think Whitford could ever go down as one of the best lyricists of our generation but some of the lyrics on this effort just sound incredibly dumb and fall flat. The material on the album just didn’t immediately capture me the first time like their previous effort, and I think it’s because it’s sounds too much like the 80s New Wave and pop music that inspired the band to make music in the first place. There are songs I really dig on the album and in fact, Zonoscope is a good album – the sad thing is that it’s not a great album. In my mind it’s one of the better albums I’ve heard in a fairly disappointing year of releases but I can’t say that it’s the best album I’ve heard this year.

Release Date February 8, 2011

Track Listing

1.    Need You Now
2.    Take Me Over
3.    Where I’m Going
4.    Pharaohs and Pyramids
5.    Blink and You’ll Miss a Revolution
6.    Strange Nostalgia for the Future
7.    This Is All We’ve Got
8.    Alisa
9.    Hanging Onto Every Heartbeat
10.    Corner of the Sky
11.    Sun God

The Hundred in the Hands
The Hundred in the Hands
Warp Records

Allegedly named after the phrase the Lakota Nation gave to the Fetterman Battle/Massacre of 1866 in Wyoming – a battle in which Crazy Horse led his warriors to a victory that resulted in the death of 100 white soldiers, the duo of Jason Friedman and Eleanore Everdell formed The Hundred in the Hands while playing random tracks of French House music, minimalist techno, Wire, the Cure, New Order, Black Star, J. Dilla, De La Soul, 60s mod music (think of very early the Who, the Animals and the like), ska and dub, as well as Moroder/Molton-style disco (think of Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby”) while driving across the US. When Friedmen and Everdell returned to New York, the first song they wrote was “Dressed in Dresden” and from that point they spent the next year writing and recording the songs that comprise their self-titled full length debut.

Building up from a relatively quiet start to slick synthesizer lines, plinking keyboards, thumping bass and drums and the seductively ethereal wisp of smoke that is Eleanore Everdell’s voice on “Young Aren’t You” to the quiet ending of “The Beach,” THIH’s album is slickly produced and polished. And although it sounds great, the material just isn’t as original as it should be or needs to be. I love the buzzing guitars that cut and slash their way into the mix on “Lovesick (Once Again)” but the song reminded me a lot of both the Cardigans, Portishead and similar acts. “Pigeons” with its emphasis on synthesizers and booming, four on the floor drum machine and bass guitar is reminiscent of New Order, Portishead and the Killers’ Hot Fuss.  “Commotion” with its angular guitar played with tons of reverb, quick paced drumming, reminded me of Editors. Even a song title like “The Beach,” seems to draw immediate allusions to New Order’s Substance 1987.

I have to admit that putting the words I have to say on paper – virtually in this sense – hurt a bit because I sincerely want to love THIH and the lovely Eleanore Everdell. I can hear Everdell sing entries in the White Pages and be enthralled. Her voice, in my mind, is that lovely. But sadly, dear readers, the album is frustratingly unoriginal.  Sure, for those listeners who may be unfamiliar with the great New Wave and Post Punk acts of the mid ‘70s – mid ‘80s, The Hundred in the Hands debut may very well seem like a revelation, introducing them to a world of amazing and new music that has influenced the current music that they love. However, unless THIH improves upon their sound or breaks free from the yoke of their influences a bit, they’ll be nothing more than a mere footnote of this decade’s music.

Release Date: September 21, 2010

Track Listing

1.    Young Aren’t You
2.    Lovesick (Once Again)
3.    Killing It
4.    Pigeons
5.    Commotion
6.    This Day is Made
7.    Dead Ending
8.    Gold Blood
9.    Dressed in Dresden
10.    Last City
11.    The Beach

My friend Jenn and I pushed our way through a crowded Cameo Art Space last Friday, a few songs into the Pablco Piccaso set and we were both immediately impressed. Their music struck me as being dark, seductive and anxious. We’re talking about oddly syncopated drums, buzzing, angular guitar lines and the like. Their lead singer, an incredibly thin, nerdy looking guy – the sort who kind of looks like he could be the in the IT department of your company – yelped, screamed and crooned with an incredible baritone voice that reminded me of having an uncanny resemblance to Jim Morrison and Ian Astbury of the Cult.

After that impressive set, Violens got on the stage. And I must admit that seeing a band seeing a band at various parts of a lengthy tour can offer a strange, mixed bag of results. Early in a tour, you may see a rougher, rawer version of your favorite act and later on you may see a much more polished, cleaned up show. And sometimes seeing a band at different venues can offer different results – one venue may have frustrating acoustic issues while a different venue may have the best sound set up you’ve ever heard. The last time I saw Violens at Santos Party House back in December, their show was marred by sound issues and more. Their Cameo Art Space show was by far the superior of the two shows I’ve seen. The band seemed much more energetic, more focused, and even tighter than what I remembered. Perhaps it was the smaller venue or a crowd that was much more receptive to the tunes on their fantastic Amoral, but the material as I was hearing it again just seemed to translate better. “Acid Reign,” “Full Collision” “It Couldn’t Be Perceived” and other songs popped to life. Live, I think both Jenn and I were reminded of why we loved Violens’ Amoral album, as the songs are so well written.

There were three things that were admittedly in my opinion a little troubling – as my friend Jenn said to me as we were leaving, “they didn’t really connect with the audience” which was true to some extent. The new material that they had testing had seemed at least live to be okay but nothing spectacular. And either we were having such a great time that we didn’t notice it or the set seemed extremely truncated. Still even with those complaints, it was a decent show; it just unfortunately wouldn’t be on my list of best shows I’ve seen this year.

Wire
Red Barked Tree
Pink Flag Records

Much like their counterparts in Gang of Four, Wire has also been influential despite the fact that some of their most legendary, important work was released more than 30 years ago.  Bands and artists like the Minutemen, fronted by the great Mike Watt, the Manic Street Preachers, R.E.M., Henry Rollins, Minor Threat and the Cute have all publicly expressed their fondness and admiration for Wire while bands such as Blur, Bloc Party, Elastica, Fischerspooner, Franz Ferdinand, My Bloody Valentine, Guided by Voices and others owe the primary songwriting duo of Colin Newman and Graham Lewis as much of a great debt as they do Gang of Four. But that’s where most of the comparisons between the two great bands stop. Whereas Gang of Four’s newest album was the band’s first full-length album of new material in about 15 years, Wire’s latest, Red Barked Tree is their twelfth full length and comes three years after their last album, Object 47.

For a band that has been known to constantly experiment and refine their sound, Tree reminds me a bit of some of U2’s later work – think of All You Can’t Leave Behind and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb – in the sense that the songs on their new album feel familiar, as though they could easily be the grown-up response to their legendary Pink Flag. You’ll hear the distorted buzzing of Newman’s guitar, the off-kilter funky bass lines, the same dryly British humor on songs like “Now Was,” “Two Minutes,” and “Bad Worn Thing.” If anything, these songs accurately capture what Wire actually sounds like live these days – and they contain an energy that’s irrepressible and infectious. They snap to life and proudly announce that they’re taking names and kicking ass. If you hear “Two Minutes” and “Bad Worn Things” and not want to at least bob your head, mosh or slam dance, there’s something seriously wrong with you.

Songs like “Please Take,” “Adapt,” and “Red Barked Trees” on the other hand are spacious, slower and moodily atmospheric. On paper that sounds like it would be interesting but unfortunately, the slower material here plods and drags making Wire’s latest a bit of a frustratingly uneven effort. Admittedly, I expected a little bit more and was a bit disappointed. I’m not convinced that Red Barked Tree will be among Wire fans’ list of favorites but at the end of the day, there has to be a part of us, as audiophiles that are glad to see that these guys are still out there and producing music.

Release Date: January 11, 2011

Track Listing

1. Please Take
2. Now Was
3. Adapt
4. Two Minutes
5. Clay
6. Bad Worn Thing
7. Moreover
8. A Flat Tent
9. Smash
10. Down to This
11. Red Barked Trees

Collapse Under the Empire
The Sirens Sound
Sister Jack Records

The Hamburg, Germany-based duo of Chris Burda and Martin Grimm formed Collapse Under the Empire back in 2007. And by last January, Burda and Grimm released three self-released, self-produced albums, the Paintball EP (released in 2008), Systembreakdown (released in 2009) and Find a Place to Be Safe (2010). The two full-length albums have won over several European publications such as Q Magazine, Rocksound, Strangeglue and others – one publication named Find a Place to Be Safe as one of their best albums of 2009. The Sirens Sound officially dropped here in North America last October with the occasional shout out from a random blog or two but apparently the blogosphere has been shamefully quiet. On occasion we receive hard copies of albums to review and Collapse Under the Empire’s latest was in our mailbox – mailed directly from Germany.

Having a run time of about half an hour, the compositions – yes, compositions – have a cinematic feel, as though each song on the album can add subtle coloration to a movie sequence’s mood and tone, while moving the story along towards its dénouement and conclusion. Somehow, in my mind, I’ve established The Sirens Sound as the soundtrack of an action movie set in a dystopian future all too frighteningly similar to our own, complete with the deepening socioeconomic divisions, economic and political instabilities, increasingly scarce resources, civil uprisings and wars that we see on the nightly news. . .

Each of the album’s compositions is densely layered, managing the precarious balance between the elegantly simple and the incredibly complex, in a compelling way. Sonically speaking, the material reminded me of the Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based Irata and their self-titled album released on Silber Media, and of Sigur Ros. Sirens Sound’s quieter sections of keyboards, synthesizers and the highest guitar chords – that high C, E, G, and F– are moments of hauntingly delicate beauty. “A Different Complexion,” is full of chiming guitar chords played with slight reverb, fuzz and delay pedals, and keyboard and synths that seem to soar upward. “The Sirens Sound,” the title track, starts off with moody organ and synth, and bursts of high-hat reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond, I-V” before an extended section of jagged, power chords. The beginning snyth section of “Beware/Lost” reminded me of the beginning section of the Who’s “Eminence Front” but unlike that old Who song, the guitars often alternate between sounding much like droning airplane engines and a gentle buzz. Like Irata, the gentle beauty of the material can suddenly shift into towering, muscular power like on “Violent Skies,” “Grade Separation” and others. Although the songs have moments of uncanny familiarity, the fact still remains that their combination of delicacy and power are stunning.

Release Date: October 5, 2010

Track Listing

1. The Sirens Sound
2. Grade Separation
3. Violet Skies
4. Beware/Lost
5. A Different Complexion

Gang of Four
Content
Yep Roc Records

I’ve got a question for you: what does R.E.M., the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Clinic, Liars, the Rapture, Radio 4, Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party all have in common? Interestingly enough, all of these somewhat disparate bands have had members publicly cite Gang of Four as a reference point or as major influence on their musical lives. (As yet another strange bit of proof that the six degrees of separation actually exists, consider this: Gang of Four’s Andy Gill produced the Chili Peppers debut album.) And although the bulk of their legendary material was released between twenty and thirty years ago, Gang of Four’s influence has at times quietly rippled through a great deal of the music we’ve grown up with, loved and are currently playing on our iPods right now. With the release of the much-anticipated release of Content, Gang of Four drops their first full-length in a little over fifteen years – and oddly the timing couldn’t have been more perfect or more fitting.

Much like the so-called reunion albums by acts like Mission of Burma, Wire, New Order, the Verve and others, Content isn’t some nostalgic trip down memory lane or a clichéd return to past form. But strangely enough, while listening to Content, I kept being reminded of New Order’s Get Ready in this sense: they both subtly introduce a musical change of direction, all while being familiar, frequently to the point where a listener could have mistakenly forgetting that they disappeared. You’ll easily recognize the oddly syncopated and mathematically precise drumming. Try to keep count of the beats per measure – in parts you’ll hear the basic 4/4 time, in other songs it sounds like they’re all playing 5/4 or some strange time signature. The material is still propelled forward by incredibly funky bass and buzzing guitars. King and Gill’s lyrics are shouted and crooned throughout, and they cover some of the same territory – incisively poking fun at modern consumerist culture. Hell, songs like “I Party All the Time,” “You Don’t Have to Be Mad” and “Who Am I?” all sound like they could have been on Entertainment! or Solid Gold but filtered through Brian Eno records and U2’s The Unforgettable Fire. The songs on this new album have a sleek, moody ambience that’s mysterious and kind of sexy.

Admittedly, I personally find the last couple of songs on the album to be boring. “It Was Never Gonna Turn Out Too Good,” has a section that sounds borrowed from “Fitter, Happier” on Radiohead’s classic, OK Computer. Yes, I’m talking about the vocals being fed through a vocoder to sound like a robot. Still it’s great to have the originators of the post-punk sound come back and kick the pretenders out of the way with an inspired comeback. I’m glad to have them back and I think you’ll be too.

Release Date: January 24, 2011

Track Listing

1.    She Said
2.    You Don’t Have to Be Mad
3.    Who Am I?
4.    I Can’t Forget Your Lonely Face
5.    Never Pay for the Farm
6.    I Party All the Time
7.    A Fruitfly in the Beehive
8.    It Was Never Gonna Turn Out Too Good
9.    Do As I Say
10.    Far Away

Youth Sounds
The Bit Parts EP

Unofficially, the New Orleans-based Youth Sounds got their start when siblings Erika and Federico Mejia sang in church choirs and taught themselves music when their parents could no longer afford lessons.  In 2009, the Mejias decided that they would officially form a band, adding two more members Adrian Frye and Taryn Mejia for the sessions that would become their independently-released EP, The Bit Parts which was released last August. And although, this EP captures a band early in its career, the blogosphere has been gushing about them lately – and after listening to the album, I can see why: it’s been a while since I’ve heard a debut album that’s impressed me the way that this one has.

The arrangements throughout this short EP are elegantly simple – guitar, drums, keys and the like with some atmospheric background noises here and there – and gives a lot of space for vocals. “Smoke and Mirrors” is a stunningly gorgeous song in which Erika Mejia’s voice sounds as transient and ethereal as smoke gently crawling up a window. Musically, roughly two-thirds of the song is moody and hushed before it explodes into a torrent of sound until the song’s conclusion. “As Strangers Would” and “What Is It Like” are perhaps the more straightforward, power pop songs on the album as they’re full of unexpectedly full bass, power chords – and most importantly, some very pretty melodies. Interestingly, the album reminded me a lot of Great Northern’s fantastic, Trading Twilight for Daylight. It’s a shame that such pretty melodies are so increasingly rare. But I’ll say that for a debut, The Bit Parts EP is certainly impressive.

Release Date: August 3, 2010

Track Listing

1.    As Strangers Would
2.    Smoke and Mirrors
3.    What Is It Like