February 2019 reviews

These reviews ran in February in the Waterloo Region Record.

The Bangles / The Dream Syndicate / Rain Parade / The Three O’Clock – 3x4 (Yep Roc)

Yes, the Bangles are back. And yes, it’s a nostalgia trip. But it’s not what you were expecting.

The L.A. band had a string of Top-10 hits in the mid- to late ’80s, but most people don’t know that they were spawned from a broken social scene that called itself the Paisley Underground, including the three other bands reassembled on this album of new material. (Most people, including me until recently, also don’t know that Bangles’ bassist Michael Steele was in the original lineup of Joan Jett’s Runaways.) While the Bangles went pop, the Dream Syndicate were underground favourites, particularly their album The Days of Wine and Roses. Rain Parade featured Dave Roback, who later formed Mazzy Star. The Three O’Clock were signed by Prince (you know, the guy who wrote “Manic Monday”) to his label, Paisley Park. The collective influence could be heard in artists ranging from R.E.M. to Lenny Kravitz.

“3x4,” which had a limited-edition Record Store Day release in November and is now widely available, finds the old friends back together and covering each others’ songs. Those 12-string electric and acoustic guitars have been dusted off, those four-part harmonies have been whipped into shape, and everyone plays and sings with the vim and vigour they had 35 years ago. It’s particularly great to hear the Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn sing the Bangles “Hero Takes a Fall,” an unflattering song written about him.

No, there’s no “Eternal Flame.” But the spark that started this fire is still alive. (Feb. 15)

Stream: “That’s What You Always Say” by the Bangles; “Hero Takes a Fall” by the Dream Syndicate; “Getting Out of Hand” by the Three O’Clock

Broken Social Scene – Let's Try the After EP Vol. 1 (Arts and Crafts)

Speaking of 2000s nostalgia, Broken Social Scene—the band of a thousand false breakups—gets silently stronger all the time. It’s almost as if 2002’s “You Forgot It In People” was a fluke, because their records have been stronger in this decade than during their supposed prime. This four-song EP hedges their bets and plays to their strengths, which is a solid, if uncharacteristic, decision. For a band known to throw everyone and everything on every track, a little less goes a long way. (Feb. 15)

Stream: “Remember Me Young,” “1972,” “All I Want”

Don Brownrigg – Fireworks (independent)

It was 12 years ago that this Newfoundlander, based in Halifax, put out an album called Wander Songs, on the same label that brought us Great Lake Swimmers. Wander Songs was a tiny, perfect collection of sad folk songs, tied together with Brownrigg’s warm, empathetic voice. There was one album between now and then, but Brownrigg’s ventures outside the Maritimes, as far as I know, few and far between. So it’s a delight to reconnect with his charms on this new record, which is so good that he even manages to breathe new life into a cover of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner”—a bold move that would overshadow most songwriters’ entire records, but not this one. (Feb. 22)

Stream: “From You,” “Nowhere At All,” “Room for Me”

The Cosmic Range – The Gratitude Principle (Idée Fixe)

I, for one, am grateful that U.S. Girls’ Meg Remy hired this band to help shape her 2018 masterstroke In a Poem Unlimited (which was my choice for album of the year—sorry, Grammys). I’m also grateful that Matthew “Doc” Dunn, the bandleader, decided a few years ago to pivot away from an avant-garde scene that seemed to want to purposely alienate its audience, and start setting his brand to exploratory experimentalism to (somewhat more) accessible psychedelic jazz grooves. Just like obvious influence Sun Ra, space is the place for this band—not that there’s much space to be found in the layers of texture created by such a large and talented ensemble. Not that it matters: more is more with this band, where instruments habitually wander away from traditional sonic expectations. On “The Observers,” a keyboard solo—I think it’s a keyboard?!—that sounds like someone strategically releasing air from a balloon in the most musically way possible. Strange and trippy times call for strange and trippy music, so might as well head out to the Cosmic Range. (Feb. 15)

  

Stream: “Breathing Water,” “The Observers,” “The Gratitude Principle”

Theon Cross – Fyah (Gearbox)

I don’t listen to a lot of bands with tuba players. (Maybe I should.) It’s safe to say, then, that I’ve never listened to a solo album from a tuba player who goes out on their own as a leader. There’s a first time for everything.

Theon Cross rocks the sousaphone in fiery British jazz quartet Sons of Kemet, who put out one of the best albums in any genre in 2018, Your Queen is a Reptile. The live show was even better. The star of that band is saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, but live it became obvious that every member there more than pulls their weight.

Here, Cross hooks up with two other standouts of the vibrant London scene: saxophonist Nubya Garcia and drummer Moses Boyd. While there are some tracks that resemble Sons of Kemet’s Caribbean/New Orleans mashup, Cross also dips into slinky funk—an extended tuba solo on “Letting Go” is set to a beat akin to Bill Withers’s “Use Me”—rock rhythms (“Radiation”), smooth(er) jazz (“CIYA”), and deliriously dextrous Afrobeat (“Candace of Meroe”). 

This could well send me down a rabbit-hole shaped like a tuba. Or not: because I can’t imagine any tuba album being better than this. (Feb. 22)

Stream: “Activate,” “Candace of Meroe,” “Letting Go”

Joe Jackson – Fool (Ear Music)

It’s been 40 years since Joe Jackson’s debut album, Look Sharp, and so he’s celebrating with a tour featuring that and four albums representing each of the three subsequent decades—1982’s Night and Day, 1991’s Laughter and Lust, 2004’s Rain, and this new album. It’s a good gimmick, and helps casual fans overlook the many misses in Jackson’s career, which equal in number to his hits—and by “hits,” I’m referring to artistic peaks rather than commercial ones.

Look Sharp was and is a burst of snarky guitar-driven pop energy, informed by punk, new wave and ska. It’s a sound he rarely returned to after 1979, until 2003’s surprisingly strong throwback Volume 4. Fool has much more in common with the other aforementioned albums: piano-based, often ornate pop with Latin influences. Jackson’s critics claim he’s too clever for his own good, but so what? Yes, he’s always sounded like a grumpy old man—even 40 years ago—but his piano playing and the stellar cast of musicians he surrounds himself with, including stalwart bassist Graham Maby, consistently elevate even his weakest material.

Fool is not going to win Jackson any new fans, but it’s more than enough to satiate the faithful and hold its own in a set list peppered with favourites. Which, with rare exceptions, is all any artist of his vintage can ask for. (Feb. 1)

Stream: “Strange Land,” “Friend Better,” “Fool”

LCD Soundsystem – Electric Lady Session (Sony)

Since this band “broke up” in 2011, there’s been a 5LP live album to go with a concert film, a lukewarm “comeback” record in 2017, and now a “session” album featuring the live band playing 60% of that last studio record, along with three covers. On paper, at least, LCD Soundsystem is running on fumes at this point.

That said: their output in the mid-2000s still sounds untouchable, and there’s an incredible chemistry between them that is evident here. To its credit, this set doesn’t recycle the songs fans have heard 1,000 times before (“Get Innocuous” being the sole exception, and it’s not like that’s even in their top five most-beloved tracks). It breathes life into some of the mediocre material from the last two records. Most important, the covers are all a delight, whether they’re morose and goth (the Human League’s “Seconds”), joyous (Chic’s “I Want Your Love”) or both joyous and morose, as on the essential take here on Heaven 17’s “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang,” on the latter two of which keyboardist Nancy Whang takes the lead vocal.

Come for the covers, stick around to hear a band losing their edge but defiantly soldiering on. (Feb. 15)

Stream: “You Wanted a Hit,” “I Want Your Love,” “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thing”

Elizabeth Shepherd – MONtréal (independent)

Every so often a profile will run of an artist, in which they confess they were ready to abandon their creative pursuits entirely out of frustration, but decided to give it one more go. The resulting work is the best thing they’ve ever done. That’s true of the new album by Canadian jazz singer/songwriter/keyboardist Elizabeth Shepherd.

The musician was schooled in Montreal but made her name in Toronto (one of her previous albums was called Parkdale), and moved back to Quebec after having a child, living in the Laurentians north of Montreal. Her tribute to the titular city is based on interviews she did with various locals of different background, who provided her with oft-untold stories, including those about Indigenous, black and LGBTQ communities in the city. It also gave her an excuse to track down one of her heroes, jazz piano legend Oliver Jones. She used all that material not only to write the 11 songs here, but to make a coffee-table book and short films for each song.

The result is much more than a high-concept make-work project. Shepherd sounds entirely on top of her game here, on every level—her instrumental skills, both delicate and funky, are always a delight—but particularly when she sings en français.

If she does decide to call it quits, she’ll do so while she’s ahead. But this suggests she has a lot more to give. (Feb. 8)

Stream: "Our Lady," "Jedlika," "Suits and Ties"

Royal Canoe – Waver (Paper Bag)

If you caught Terra Lightfoot’s Longest Road tour earlier this month, you saw the astounding singer Begonia. She’s part of a thriving Winnipeg scene in which Royal Canoe—featuring her songwriting partner Matt Schellenberg—is a central part. Royal Canoe is a synth-heavy, prog-pop-R&B combo that lies somewhere between the wigged-out funk of Beck (to whom they once paid a concert-length tribute) and the avant-garde whatever-it-is that Tricky does (they’ve toured with him) to the jazz groove of BadBadNotGood (no connection there, to the best of my knowledge). Superior musicians all, they truly find their groove on this, their fourth full-length (and their fourth record label) in the last 10 years, on which their pop skills move to the forefront, without sacrificing the egghead jazz-school chops that make them who they are. (Feb. 22)

Stream: “What’s Left in the River,” “Black Sea,” “Ashes, Ashes” (feat. Nnamdi Ogbonnaya)

 

William Tyler – Goes West (Merge)

Tyler is a Nashville guitarist, recently relocated to L.A. (hence this album title), whose instrumental music conjures the vast expanse between the two cities. He’s a fine finger-picker in both folk and classical continuums, whose meditative music draws from jazz, electronic composition and, yes, “new age,” a much-maligned musical genre of the ’80s that’s been critically rehabilitated in recent years--including by Tyler himself. He links the works of Windham Hill artists like Michael Hedges and George Winston with the decidedly less commercial and more outre work of Takoma Records’ John Fahey and Robbie Basho. In a lovely article for the website Aquarium Drunkard, Tyler writes about the link between the two camps: “Just because one group of artists sold millions of records and the other championed his own brand of joyful disruption, and at times toiled in obscurity, doesn’t mean that they weren’t and aren’t all united in a kind of strange outsider brotherhood. I like to think of all of this music being connected by something other than ‘new age’ … I think of it as ‘cosmic pastoral.’” Suitably, then, the acoustic-guitar-based Goes West (as opposed to Tyler’s earlier, electric explorations of psychedelic Americana) sounds like the soundtrack to a documentary about an abstract painter of Arizona landscapes. And reading his essay while listening to this music inspires curiosity about all of Tyler’s forebears. The man is as much of a deep thinker and historian as he is a composer and master instrumentalist. (Feb. 8)

  

Stream: “Alpine Star,” “Not In Our Stars,” “Rebecca”

La Force

La Force – s/t (Arts and Crafts)

Ariel Engle made my favourite recordof 2013, “In the Pines,” as one-half of the duo AroarA. Five years later, on her debut as La Force, Engle has once again announced herself as a major talent—this time under a new name, and with her alone in the spotlight.

In the interim, she and her friends Leslie Feist and Snowblink’s Daniela Gesundheit formed a trio called Hydra, mainly as a social club with which Engle could play summer festivals with her newborn in tow. She then followed Feist into the latest incarnation of Broken Social Scene; Engle joined the already-crowded band on their comeback record, 2017’s “Hug of Thunder,” and easily carved out her own space beside the starpower of Feist and Emily Haines. Broken Social Scene also features Andrew Whiteman, who was not only Engle’s partner in AroarA, but off-stage as well. He co-wrote the music for La Force, but this is her project. She’s more than ready for her close-up.

For starters, she’s an arresting vocalist, every bit as compelling—if not more so—as her more famous friends. (The sole distraction on the album is on “Upside Down Wolf,” where she sounds remarkably like Cat Power—for an artist whose voice is so otherwise distinctive, this presumably accidental homage is somewhat jarring. It’s still a great song, though.) Her melodies are lovely, often based—as the best folk songs are—on as few chords as possible, if not just a plain drone (like the opener, “The Tide”).

But where Engle truly shines is in her rhythm: not just in the live and/or electronic percussion behind her, but in the role that every instrument plays on this record, starting with her own guitar playing. Latin rhythms often percolate underneath, not always in recognizable ways, though the bossa nova vibe of “Mama Papa” is undeniable. The overall production aesthetic is that of slick, art-rock torch music with more than a few nods to ’80s new wave (see the redundantly titled “Epistolary Love Letter”), with thoroughly modern technology; there’s nothing retro here, other than a sheer devotion to craft. As perfect as this record is, it also leaves the future of La Force wide open. This is an artist who could easily pivot in any which way: into darker corners, into sunnier settings, situated anywhere in the world.

Even though all her other projects have been with dear friends and loved ones, once this record makes the rounds, Ariel Engle’s own work will never be seen as an adjunct to someone else. Viva La Force!

La Force is on tour now. She plays Adelaide Hall in Toronto on Thursday, September 20. Full dates here.

Stream: “The Tide,” “TBT,” “Lucky One”

Geezers and pleasers

So many artists from the so-called "indie rock" boom of the early to mid-2000s resurfaced in 2017, many with comeback records after a long hiatus. Meanwhile, the new album from the War on Drugs was considered the high-water mark of the genre—which only confirms that whatever was once known as "indie rock" is all but dead. Which makes the few triumphs below even more valuable.

Broken Social Scene – Hug of Thunder (Arts and Crafts)

It’s hard to believe Broken Social Scene didn’t already come up with that title earlier in their career. It defines both their sound and their live experience: a warm embrace, almost suffocating at times, all the biggest emotions laid bare and expressed through gesture. Vulnerability presented with a small army of friends. A big, big love with a big, big sound, forever and ever, amen.

Broken Social Scene took a hiatus after touring 2010’s Forgiveness Rock Record, which is a good thing: this was never a band built for the recording/touring cycle, and time apart has always benefited the project. This time out, singers Leslie Feist and Emily Haines are noticeably back in the fold, joined by Ariel Engle (AroarA, Hydra). The horns also play a larger role, giving everything an extra heft. With so many solo outlets for the individual members, Hug of Thunder benefits from a united sense of purpose: everyone involved knows what this particular band does well, and hence we have one rousing song after another that also happen to be filled with sonic shades that tickle the tiny corners of your headphones, the kinds of songs U2 has been trying to write for the past 25 years and failing, songs marry pop melodies, stadium ambition and experimentalism. Even the lower-key, more subtle material seems designed to echo out across large festival fields.

As with any band this size, and with this level of talent and competing egos, the real trick is avoiding bloat and excess. With this group of old friends, it sounds like that gets even easier with age. (July 6, 2017)

  

Stream: “Halfway Home,” “Skyline,” “Please Take Me With You”

Filthy Friends – Invitation (Kill Rock Stars)

Since the demise of REM in 2011, all members have been laying low. Michael Stipe has popped up on a couple of late-night talk shows for a skit or two. Mike Mills is trying his hand at symphonic works. Peter Buck has been putting out solo albums quietly on a tiny, independent, vinyl-only label. All seem more than happy to have nothing to do with the machinery of rock’n’roll.

Except here comes Buck with a powerhouse new band, on the venerable punk label Kill Rock Stars. It features musicians from the Fastbacks, REM’s touring band, and--King Crimson?! It’s fronted by Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker, who recently restarted that power trio after a nine-year hiatus.

Yes, it sounds a lot like the singer from Sleater-Kinney fronting a more raw version of REM. Buck’s sound and songwriting style is unmistakable, and certain tracks here harken back to REM classics. “Windmill” is a more than obvious nod to Television’s “Marquee Moon,” a key touchstone for both Buck and Tucker. On the other hand, “Come Back Shelley” slinks like T.Rex (the band), which would have been hard to detect in either of their other bands. Tucker doesn’t feel compelled to constantly channel the aggression that Sleater-Kinney so often demands; she sounds more than comfortable toning it down here, in ways she didn’t on her own solo records, while never dulling the unique edge she’s always had in her voice. While there is softer material here, like the breezy, almost jazz closer “Invitation,” Buck and company were obviously attracted to Tucker for what she’s known for in the first place; a voice like hers can’t be tamed for long.

“Holding on to the past won’t make it repeat,” she sings on the opening track. Between the pedigree on hand here and the strength of the new material, Filthy Friends are looking forward to a time when their CVs don’t matter as much as the new music they’re creating. For a bunch of old folks on their second or third go-around, they sound excited and hungry--and not at all too old for rock’n’roll. (Aug. 24, 2017)

Stream: “Despierta,” “Faded Afternoon,” “No Forgotten Son”

Iron and Wine – Beast Epic (Sub Pop)

In many ways, Beast Epic winds the clock back to 2004’s Our Endless Numbered Days. There are no dub reggae grooves, no jazz excursions, no crescendos, no danger of veering into jam-band territory--even if all those things were welcome extensions of Beam’s aesthetic. Instead, it’s 11 three-minute songs where you can hear the squeaks of the strings as Beam moves around the neck of the guitar, even when he’s surrounded by a full band that applies the most delicate of touches throughout. For what it’s worth, he’s also returned to the Sub Pop label that gave him his start, after two bigger-budget records for major-label affiliates.

Just in case listening to Iron and Wine didn’t already always make you feel older than you were, Beam admits that this, more than any of his others, is made by a middle-aged man. He recently said, “Where the older songs painted a picture of youth moving wide-eyed into adulthood’s violent pleasures and disappointments, this collection speaks to the beauty and pain of growing up after you’ve already grown up. For me, that experience has been more generous in its gifts and darker in its tragedies.” The best of times, the worst of times: that pretty much sums up your 40s, doesn’t it?

Beam could easy cash out by writing less oblique lyrics, by doing acoustic covers of pop songs (his take on the Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” helped launch his career), by decorating his songs with more conventional arrangements. He has a beautiful voice and writes beautiful songs: that’s all he needs. But that’s what he did on his very first album. Every album since, even here on a somewhat back-to-basics record, he’s still full of surprising ideas and pushing himself. Middle age isn’t about giving up. It’s about trying harder. (Aug. 24, 2017)

Stream: “Summer Clouds,” “Last Night,” “The Truest Stars We Know”

LCD Soundsystem – American Dream (Columbia)

The hotly anticipated comeback album by the band who taught indie kids to dance opens with… a ballad that sounds like a Cure B-side from 1990.

Many LCD fans were upset that after announcing a break-up and playing a triumphant last show at Madison Square Gardens, filmed and recorded as Shut Up and Play the Hits, that they’re now back on the festival circuit just four years later. Those fans are going to be even more upset to hear an album like this sullying LCD’s legacy. What’s worse, bandleader James Murphy—always a self-aware guy, to say the least—appears to know it, as he sings: “I’m not dangerous now / the way I used to be once / I’m just too old for it now / at least that seems to be true.” Self-flagellation is one thing; doing it on a poor track with even worse lyrics is another crime entirely.

Much of American Dream sits at mid-tempo, which is fine: bands change and mature, and one can’t expect the adrenalin rush of the first two records over and over again. (Also: The Cure’s Disintegration is a great record.) But the slower tracks here, with the exception of the title track—which bears an odd resemblance to “Worlds Away” by ’80s Vancouver band Strange Advance—are dire and dirge-like. Ballads have never been James Murphy’s strength, and that’s not about to change any time soon.

Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire have already had trouble this year convincing people that the magic of 2004 is still alive. LCD Soundsystem isn’t helping their case.

Stream: “Call the Police,” “American Dream,” “Emotional Haircut”

The National – Sleep Well Beast (4AD/Beggars)

This is the National’s seventh album. They’re inexplicably popular. They’re the somnambulant Arcade Fire. U2 with zero charisma. They’re ostensibly a rock band, but their music sounds like divorced bankers opiated on too much expensive red wine.

Not much has changed here, unless a few more synths here and there are considered revolutionary for such a static band. The production is marginally more interesting, on songs like “Empire Line” and “I’ll Still Destroy You,” both of which tap into the hypnotic trance of German art-rock or West African guitar music—in the most subtle ways possible, of course. Singer Matt Beringer still sings like he’s five minutes away from falling asleep. The rest of the band backs him begrudgingly, playing as if they had something better to do.

Beringer says this is a midlife marital crisis record, and that he cowrote many of the lyrics with his wife as a way of working through their troubles. “Blame it on me, I really don’t care / it’s a foregone conclusion,” he sings in what sounds like an act of mutually assured destruction on “Carin at the Liquor Store.” “I’m going to keep you in love with me for a while,” he claims on “Dark Side of the Gym.” Good luck with that. (Sept. 7, 2017)

Stream: “Nobody Else Will Be There,” “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness,” “I’ll Still Destroy You.”

The War on Drugs – A Better Understanding (Warner)

Grizzly Bear – Painted Ruins (RCA)

“Is the War on Drugs rock’s new torchbearer?” That headline comes from a publication not known for hyperbolic pop-culture pieces: The New Yorker. Maybe the magazine’s target demographic—and its arts editor—has forgotten what rock’n’roll is, or what it sounds like. Or maybe this is just another nail in the coffin of rock’n’roll, rock music, indie rock, or whatever you want to call it.

Almost every song by the War on Drugs is approximately the same tempo, and it’s not one likely to raise a pulse. Almost every song has chugging acoustic guitar and electric pass and pulsing keyboards, with some guitar leads snaking around the lead vocals. Sometimes there is some xylophone or bells to make you think of “Born to Run.” The songs that don’t have any of those elements are too narcoleptic to mention, though the 11-minute dirge “Thinking of a Place” underscores just how rarely this band actually goes anywhere.

Sure, some of this album is pretty. And I’m sure a War on Drugs song sounds great when you’re stoned. But unless you’ve been pining for Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham to have produced a Grateful Dead album in 1977, there’s likely not much for you here.

Nor is there much hope for aging indie rock fans in the latest from Grizzly Bear, who, like the War on Drugs, are making their major-label debut in 2017. Grizzly Bear are like Radiohead with fewer interesting bits and more obtuse song structures. To their credit, they’re wonderful harmony singers, and certainly have more sonic imagination than the War on Drugs or most guitar-based bands. But their songs are all sharp angles and seemingly assembled by cut-and-paste. It’s cleverness without charisma, full of smarts but no swagger. Maybe the vocals are too distracting, placing the band in a pop music context when they’d be better off liberating themselves from any structural formats at all. As it is, this is egghead experimentalism that doesn’t coalesce in any fashion. At a time when the most experimental pop music is coming from R&B corners, listening to a band like Grizzly Bear seems archaic and unnecessary. (Aug. 31, 2017)

Stream the War On Drugs: “Up All Night,” “In Chains,” “Holding On”

Stream Grizzly Bear: “Wasted Acres,” “Mourning Sound,” “Glass Hillside”

Wolf Parade – Cry Cry Cry (Sub Pop)

What year is it again? New albums by Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Feist, New Pornographers, and now Wolf Parade—it’s like the last 15 years never happened. Except a lot has happened. Those artists were at the epicentre of an explosion of Canadian rock music that set a new template for years to come. That they’ve all remained vital, together and in separate projects, is a testament.

Wolf Parade went on hiatus in 2010. Dan Boeckner has had three bands since: Handsome Furs, Divine Fits and Operators. Spencer Krug abandoned his other band, Sunset Rubdown, to record solo records as Moonface. Drummer Arlen Thompson and guitarist Dante DeCaro busied themselves with low-key projects on Vancouver Island.

During their first incarnation, Wolf Parade always sounded like they were in a hurry: every song had a propulsive intensity, played as if it were the last gig of their lives. Everybody in the band sounded like they were falling over each other on a postage-stamp-sized stage in a dingy bar on St. Laurent in Montreal. Now they’re older, wiser, living on the West Coast, and some of the chaos has subsided. Due to their own maturity and the presence of producer John Goodmanson (Sleater-Kinney), every instrumentalist is heard more clearly in the mix—especially drummer Arlen Thompson, who really shines.

The overall intensity remains: Wolf Parade are as virile and vital as ever. And with Boeckner and Krug both writing songs that complement each other perfectly, this is as good a comeback as one could ever hope for. (Oct. 6, 2017)

Stream: "Lazarus Online," "Valley Boy," "Weaponized"