March 2013 reviews

The following reviews ran in the Guelph Mercury and Waterloo Record this month.

Highly recommended: Justin Timberlake, Devendra Banhart, Blue Hawaii, Billy Bragg

Apparat Organ Quartet - Pólýfónía (Head in the Sand)

This Icelandic group claim to be the only organ quartet in the world—who's going to argue? Joined by a propulsive rock drummer, the keyboardists play every kind of antiquated synth or organ they can get their hands on, sing through Vocoders, avoid pre-programmed tracks, and write sci-fi stadium anthems. This is not the slick techno of Daft Punk, nor is it the improvisational raw synth rock of Toronto's Holy Fuck. This is Kraftwerk on steroids. Yes, it's a schtick, and your tolerance for it over the course of an album may be limited, but rarely does keyboard music sound this visceral. They're making their first trip here for Canadian Music Fest later this month, with three shows in Toronto. Roofs will be raised. (March 14)

Download: “Konami,” “Polynesia,” “Macht Parat Den Apparat”

Devendra Banhart - Mala (Nonesuch)

In the early 2000s, there are few artist who squandered such great potential as Devendra Banhart. With a wonderfully elastic, Jeff Buckley-esque voice, an inventive approach to lo-fi recording, quirky songs and a pronounced Latin influence, his first three albums were magical. Of the three albums that followed, two of them were indulgent, silly, often embarrassing, and eclectic to the point of confusion. If Banhart has fans left still ready to follow him, they deserve to be rewarded. And now they have.

Mala was made by just Banhart and long-time sideman Noah Georgeson in a home studio where they purposely tried to limit their options. The result is a sonically consistent, playful recording that plays up to all of Banhart's many strengths and eccentricities. It’s also a focused collection of solid songs that give his voice a chance to shine. Latin rhythms, garage rock, electro dreaminess and plaintive acoustic tracks blend perfectly together in a subdued, experimental eclectic vibe not unlike Yo La Tengo—in fact, this may be a better Yo La Tengo album than that band's latest. Even the deadpan duet with his fiancée, entitled “Your Fine Petting Duck,” which starts out as an acoustic tarantella before somehow morphing into a techno pop track sung in German, somehow makes perfect sense in the context of the album—which is saying a lot. (March 14)

Download: “Won't You Come Over,” “Hatchat Wound,” “Fur Hildegard Von Bingen”

Belle Star – s/t (independent)

The Belle Game – Ritual Tradition Habit (Boompa)

Wild Belle – Isles (Sony)

It was almost 10 years ago that every new band seemed to have “wolf” in their name. This month, for whatever reason, the debut albums by Belle Starr, The Belle Game and Wild Belle all came out within a week of each other. Though they couldn’t be more stylistically different, it’s still easy to get them confused.

Wild Belle is the Chicago brother-sister duo of Elliot and Natalie Bergman, who play an odd, modern hippie/hipster take on roots reggae. Elliot plays baritone saxophone, all manners of keyboards and electric kalimba; Natalie is the disaffected, flat vocalist who also handles some keyboards. How they ended up signing to a major label is a mystery—did they have the same Sony A&R rep as synth-pop weirdos MGMT? The Talking Heads’ rhythm section, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, get a shout-out in the thank yous, and it’s easy to hear the connection with their Tom Tom Club. While the sound is initially intriguing—especially the kalimbas and baritone saxophone clashing with the lo-fi electro reggae rhythms—it wears thin quickly, primarily due to Natalie’s limited vocal range.

Vocals are not an issue for Belle Starr, which unites three Canadian fiddle players—one of whom, Miranda Mulholland, has played extensively with Great Lake Swimmers in recent years—who also sing gloriously together and, um, happen to be incredibly easy on the eyes, almost as if someone purposely put these three women together to target the CBC and folk festival demographic. Sadly, “New Girl Now” is not a Honeymoon Suite cover, though they do tackle songs by Bruce Springsteen and Justin Rutledge—which is a risky venture, because the originals don’t approach the same craft.

The Belle Game is a new Vancouver band that sounds like—a Vancouver band. Rainy-day ’80s noir pop never dies in that town, and powerful vocalist Andrea Lo soars over low-key instrumentation (pianos, vibes, trumpet, strings) that occasionally swell into the dramatic and anthemic. There’s a lazy, hazy air to the recording, not unlike that on recent records by neighbours Brasstronaut or Kathryn Calder. There are elements of equal greatness here, but this is still a band finding its feet. (March 28)

Download Wild Belle: “Keep You,” “It’s Too Late,” “Another Girl”

Download Belle Starr: “Tougher Than the Rest,” “Charity Kiss,” “Arthur’s Air”

Download The Belle Game: “Wait Up For You,” “River,” “Blame Fiction”

Blue Hawaii - Untogether (Arbutus)

Mozart's Sister - Hello EP (Merok)

Young Montreal group Blue Hawaii features vocalist Raphaelle Standell-Preston of Braids and her partner, one-time Berlin resident Alex Cowan, both part of the same scene that spawned Grimes (a former roommate), and who are currently opening for Montreal buzz band Purity Ring. 

The vocals are often clipped and the melodies fractured, though nonetheless gorgeous throughout. The beats are glitchy yet deep, not a common combination in experimental pop bands using electronics, nor is it particularly easy to pull off—but if anyone can, it will be a group from Montreal (or Berlin), where electronic music is part of the lingua franca. 

There are no sappy anthems, and given the choice between an obvious answer and colourful abstraction, they opt for the latter every time. There are no big hooks, but none are needed; it's easy to be carried adrift on the lush harmonies and lulling beats. There are obvious nods to Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush and Bjork here—even a dash of very early Eurythmics at their most experimental—with modern R&B programming and James Blake-ish abstraction. Untogether is a bold, stunning and beautiful album, and enough of a tabula rasa to translate into any language.

Somewhat similar is Mozart's Sister, the project of Montreal's Caila Thompson Hannant. While her approach is just as left-field, she's much more interested in pop hooks and conventional vocal bravado--which she's already put to work in her supporting role in Montreal party band Think About Life (she was also one half of Shapes and Sizes, who were signed to Sufjan Stevens's label, and she played bass in Miracle Fortress). This EP puts a polish on some earlier, Internet-only tracks and shows that she's thinking bigger than just a bedroom project. (March 7)

Download Blue Hawaii: “Follow,” “Sierra Lift,” “Sweet Tooth”

Download Mozart’s Sister: “Contentedness,” “Mozart’s Sister,” “Single Status”

David Bowie - The Next Day (Iso/Sony)

When the 66-year-old David Bowie announced his first album in 10 years, there was much rejoicing. But wait—has anyone but the most fervent fans listened to anything Bowie has done in the last 20 years? Were we all really expecting greatness from a once-great artist who, while still exhibiting excellent taste in his public endorsements of new artists, has done precious little to enhance his discography after his first two decades of classic records?

There's plenty about this record that justifies the hype: Bowie is in fine voice and the fiery arrangements show that he's not ready to mellow out any time soon. He may open the album singing,  "Here I am not quite dying / my body left to rot in a hollow tree," but you'd never guess that from his performance. The production by long-time producer Tony Visconti casts off any trend-chasing attempt at modernity and hearkens back to his late '70s recordings—like, oh I don't know, maybe 1977's Heroes, the album cover of which is recycled here in full, with the title scratched out and a large white box over the 35-year-old image of Bowie. It's almost as if Bowie was saying, "I know everyone is going to listen to this digitally anyway, so why bother with a new album cover?"

Bowie has announced he's not going to tour—perhaps ever again—and because fans had given up on the idea of new material, he's free to do whatever he likes. More power to him. Ultimately, though, that makes it disappointing that a), he's mostly content to retread past glories instead of going out on a limb, and b), that the songs here are merely okay--if anyone other than Bowie was singing them, it's unlikely anyone would care. The Next Day may well be the best Bowie album in 20 years, but just like everything else he's put out in that time, it's primarily for the diehards. (March 14)

Download: “Dirty Boys,” “The Stars (Are Out Tonight),” “(You Will) Set the World on Fire”

Billy Bragg - Tooth and Nail (Dine Alone)

Though political folk singer Billy Bragg has been incredibly active in the last two decades—as an activist, touring act and author—fans are unlikely to recall any of his new songs that match the power of his work in the ’80s. The notable exception was when he teamed up with Wilco to set music to Woody Guthrie poems, on the highly successful Mermaid Avenue series.

Bragg returns to Americana here, recruiting producer Joe Henry and some key sidemen (pedal steel player Greg Leisz, Canadian bassist David Piltch) to help him make a full-blown Neil Young-style country album, written and recorded as quickly as possible in Henry’s California house. Bragg’s voice has reached a lovely, low maturity—albeit still with the heavy Essex accent that is his trademark—perfect for the tear-in-his-beer heartbreakers he’s written this time out, the kind of classic country ballads Elvis Costello keeps trying, and largely failing, to write. Bragg is in such fine form here that he even pulls off the hardest trick in the book: writing a song about songwriting that actually manages to be universal and emotionally poignant (“Handyman Blues”).

Bragg can’t avoid the political, of course, though recently he’s redirected his topical songs away from his albums and made them available as instant downloads. Here, however, the pointed “There Will Be a Reckoning” succeeds as a timeless all-purpose anthem, while “No One Knows Nothing Anymore” somehow sidesteps becoming a tired tirade from a grumpy old man.

Determined not to be a total sad sack or doomsayer, Bragg ends the album singing (and whistling) “Tomorrow Will Be a Better Day.” And no doubt it will be, if this album is indicative of a creative rebirth for Billy Bragg. (March 21)

Download: “No One Knows Nothing Anymore,” “Handyman Blues,” “Do Unto Others”

Grapes of Wrath - High Road (Aporia)

Interesting album title, for a trio that took two decade-apart increments to bury long-simmering resentments among the original members. Last year a reunion tour by this '80s Kamloops, B.C., group garnered rave reviews, and that energy obviously poured into recording sessions with producer Darryl Neudorf (Neko Case, Two Hours Traffic)--an energy that wasn't necessarily there the last time the two songwriters, Tom Hooper and Kevin Kane, got together in 2000. As contemporaries of R.E.M., it's great to hear a band that didn't burn out by sticking around too long, so the Grapes' particular take on new wave Byrdsian paisley pop sounds remarkably rejuvenated here. Kane and Hooper split the song list down the middle: the March break pop anthem “Mexico” soars; the acoustic ballad “Take On the Day” is a worthy successor to earlier triumph “All the Things I Wasn't”; the psychedelic ballad “I'm Lost” is luxurious; the harmonies throughout, of course, are magnificent. Well worth burying the hatchet for, and another fantastic chapter for a band who were dangerously close to being a distant memory for many. (March 21)

Download: “Mexico,” “Take on the Day,” “Waiting to Fly”

How to Destroy Angels - Welcome Oblivion (Sony)

Trent Reznor announced recently that he's resurrecting Nine Inch Nails after a four-year hiatus. In the meantime, he's been focusing on film scores—his work on The Social Network bagged him an Oscar—and this new project with his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, only now releasing their debut. “The more things change / everything stays the same,” she sings, and nothing here is a radical departure from Reznor's past, other than the fact that his vocals are not front and centre, and the overall sound is moody rather than menacing. Reznor's main strength continues to be as a producer first and foremost: he's capable of crafting creepy but astounding aural environments. As a songwriter, however, there's very little to latch on to here--which is a real shame considering the possibilities Maandig brings to the group. Perhaps Reznor is best at soundtracks and Nine Inch Nails, and not much in between. (March 7)

Download: “Ice Age,” “Keep It Together,” “The Loop Closes”

Low - The Invisible Way (Sub Pop)

When you’ve been a band for 20 years (and a married couple for longer), sometimes you need a friend and fan to come in and remind you what you do best. And so after three albums of necessary sonic detours—some of which took their trademarked hushed sound and dead-slow tempos and introduced crashing electric guitars, uptempo numbers and electronics—Low called on Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy to sit in the producer’s chair.

Tweedy had invited Low to open a Wilco tour several years back, which means that unlike previous outside producers (Steve Albini, Dave Fridmann) he witnessed their strengths at work night after night: what better prep before heading into the studio? That means the band has never before sounded this focused; being the hushed minimalists they are, they've always been meticulous and deliberate, but Tweedy ensures that they never settle for succeeding on mood alone. These songs sound refined, crafted. Hence The Invisible Way is, perhaps, if not the best album of Low’s career (that would be the sprawling The Great Destroyer), it's certainly the most consistently strong. 

Drummer Mimi Parker takes the lead more often than usual here, and the frequent occasions where husband Alan takes the high falsetto harmony above her are as transcendent as always. Only the penultimate track, “On My Own,” a dirge-y, noisy number with a monotonous, endless closing refrain of the phrase “happy birthday" threatens to derail the entire album, before Mimi returns with a minimal piano song that concludes everything on yet another lovely note—and there could never be too many of those on any given Low album. (March 21)

Download: “Plastic Cup,” “So Blue,” “Just Make It Stop”

Palma Violets - 180 (Rough Trade)

Here's a next-big-thing rock act from Britain that actually sounds like they can deliver. Obviously recorded live—tempos lurch and accelerate, and they play with the energy of four young dreamers breathing down each others' necks mere inches away from each other—180 doesn't boast any fancy production tricks or unusual sounds; everything here could be sourced from a local vintage store; every song could be sourced from vintage records, for that matter. Any group of geeks who meet playing Clash songs around a campfire at a music festival (in this case, Reading) could arguably achieve the same thing, but Palma Violets have the garage-rock Holy Trinity of swagger, soul and—for the most part on this somewhat uneven album, which stumbles toward its finish line—songcraft, immediately elevating them above other pretenders to the throne. Lou Reed turned 71 this week; these young turks could be his grandkids, doing him proud. (March 7)

Download: “Best of Friends,” “Step Up the Cool Cats”

Rhye - Woman (Universal)

The makeout album of summer 2013? If the lavender and chamomile tea leaves in your cup started singing softly in your ear, it would sound a lot like this. The album begins like a vintage Disney film, with a string section playing an opening theme before being joined by low brass, swooping harps and a wordless choir. Then the soft, sexy beats come in, and sweet nothings whispered by an androgynous voice with Brazilian bossa nova detachment—which is one way of saying it’s a man who sounds an awful lot like a woman. And not just any woman, but Sade, whose shadow looms large over everything on the debut by this hotly tipped duo—one of whom is the Toronto singer Mike Milosh, who toiled in obscurity (with three albums to his name) before hooking up with a Danish producer in L.A. before building considerable online buzz in the 12 months before this album appeared. It's like The XX settling down on a Caribbean island, or Feist setting up shop in a spa town after Let It Die. There's no faulting the mood set here, though it's impossible to imagine ever listening to it in the foreground outside of candlelit dinners and film placements. (March 21)

Download: “Open,” “3 Days,” “One of Those Summer Days”

Sound City - Various Artists (Sony)

Dave Grohl is a first-class geek. Why else would the Foo Fighters founder make his debut as a documentary film director with a movie about a sound mixing board—not an artist, not a label, not even a studio, but a piece of technological equipment that means nothing to anyone who's not a professional musician? The board in question was used to make classic records by Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Tom Petty and others, including Nirvana for Nevermind, which is when Grohl's fascination began. When the studio housing it went out of business, Grohl had it shipped to his garage and invited some of the film's interview subjects over to record new songs. You can't fault Grohl for his affability and intentions: who else would put '80s pop star Rick Springfield and the vocalist from L.A. hardcore punk band Fear on the same album? Who else would think to match the singer from Slipknot with the guitarists from Cheap Trick and Kyuss? Most importantly, who else could convince Paul McCartney to write and record a new song with the surviving members of Nirvana? 

The McCartney song is a delicious WTF moment that actually works, strange as it is to hear the 71-year-old Beatle screaming, "Mama, set me free!" (Is his mama even still alive?) The same is true of a surprisingly muscular Rick Springfield, who does more than just triumph over low expectations: he kicks some serious ass. Sadly, the same cannot be said of almost everyone else here. Stevie Nicks sounds great, and writes a new minor-key song with Grohl perfectly suited for her, yet the lyrics are frighteningly awful. The rhythm section of Rage Against the Machine prove, after more than a decade as Audioslave, that they've lost any groove they once had. And everyone just sounds like watered down versions of their normal selves, including Grohl. Stunt-casting supergroups rarely work; this album is no exception. (March 14)

Download: “The Man That Never Was” (feat. Rick Springfield), “Your Wife is Calling” (feat. Lee Ving), “Cut Me Some Slack” (feat. Paul McCartney)

Suuns - Images Du Futur (Secretly Canadian)

It's not just electronic acts from Montreal making waves; Suuns accomplish just as much with only one keyboard in their arsenal, on top of a live rhythm section and dreamy guitars. They're rooted in '70s German art rock, with metronomic rhythms and lightly arpeggiating melodic lines underscoring disaffected vocals; much more soulful than shoegaze, more electrifying than the electronic crowd, and, on “Bambi,” capable of some an icy yet visceral post-punk disco throwdown. Singer Ben Shemie communicates using slurred, monotonous vocals with major attitude, recalling the British band Clinic, who made one great album before spinning their wheels for the next decade; this is the album Clinic should have made years ago. Suuns add some essential rock'n'roll energy into Montreal's avant-garde scene, and they're hitting their stride on this, their second album. (March 7)

Download: “2020,” “Minor Work,” “Bambi”

Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience (Sony)

Ever since Michael Jackson’s death, everyone agrees it’s unlikely anyone will ever replace him or replicate his success. Which is true, for myriad reasons. But if anyone is going to come close, it’s Justin Timberlake—and this is his Thriller.

Timberlake’s appeal is obvious: other than his looks, his dancing and his boy band history (’N SYNC had the biggest-selling album of the 2000s), his elastic, falsetto voice continues to improve, he’s pushing himself musically, and he’s got his own Quincy Jones—producer mastermind Timbaland—in his corner, turning traditional R&B on its head, nodding to the past and vividly envisioning a bold new future.

Timberlake takes his time: not only did it take him seven years to follow up FutureSex/LoveSounds, but the opening track here, the Al Green/D’Angelo channelling “Pusher Love Girl,” takes eight minutes to unfold—one of three tracks here to do so. Nothing about this album is indulgent, however: songs are suites that shift gears with no shortage of ear candy colouring every corner of the sonic spectrum.

“Don’t Hold the Wall” opens with doo-wop harmony before introducing Indian percussion and samples set to a Southern hip-hop beat and crickets in the background; four minutes later it all breaks down leaving only an Exorcist-style minor piano key motif with a child’s voice, before the whole thing halts for a sparse, bass-heavy techno beat that sounds a lot like driving through late ‘80s Detroit. “Let That Groove Get In” has a New Orleans groove executed by electronic drums, a tight horn section and a sample of field recordings from Burkina Faso. The one downtempo song, “Blue Ocean Floor,” features seven minutes of backward-tracked swells and Timberlake in choir-boy mode; it’s entirely enchanting. Lead single “Suit and Tie” has a snare drum that sounds like a submarine ping, and harp-like piano sweeps run like an ostinato throughout. It’s hard to imagine any other modern pop artist attempting such ambition while still making catchy, accessible music.

Much of the credit, of course, goes to Timbaland, who after being ubiquitous in 2006—behind the boards for Timberlake and Nelly Furtado—managed to fall off completely, being almost entirely MIA in recent years. This is as much a comeback for him as it is for Timberlake, and it sounds like he’s been bottling up seven years worth of his best beats. Maybe Timberlake had a contract specifying first right of refusal.

The only place Timberlake stumbles is lyrically. There’s nothing wrong with an album of silly love songs, including one about travelling in a “Spaceship Coupe”—which is no longer science fiction when sung by one of the only pop stars who could actually afford extraterrestrial travel. But Timberlake has more than a few laugh-out-loud moments here: “If you’ll be my strawberry bubblegum, then I’ll be your blueberry body pie”?? And what’s with “Suit and Tie,” where he chants, “I be on my suit and tie / s--t tie, s--t tie”? Thankfully, there’s too much else going on to ever notice or care.

Rihanna might be the defining R&B artist of the last 10 years because of her endless stream of #1 hits, but you’d never listen to one of her albums all the way through. Timberlake wants and gets pop thrills, but he also knows what it’s like to crawl inside a rich musical world for over an hour. Apparently he’s ready to release another album later this year, but we’re going to absorbing this one for a long, long time. (March 28)

Download: “Don’t Hold the Wall,” “Strawberry Bubblegum,” “Let the Groove Get In”

Magnet-ic Yields, fall 07

Reviews today from the fall issue of Magnet, which also contains my feature on Battles.

Most of these appear in the print edition; Bishop Allen is online only; Siouxie got nixed for a Q&A article in the print edition.

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DEVENDRA BANHART
Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon

Authenticity is such a bore. Where is the real Devendra Banhart? Here, he’s Elvis Presley one minute, Iggy Pop the next, and Caetano Veloso most of the time. Often it’s not even clear if that’s still him on lead vocals, during the doo-wop or Nu Yorican soul excursions. Devendra likes playing dress-up, and doesn’t care if you like it or not. Witness the reaction when he emerged from two near-perfect finger-pickin’, flamenco-tinged freaky folk albums as a self-described “White Reggae Troll” whose touring band stunk too much of patchouli for most horrified hipsters.

His last fuller-than-full-length, the sprawling Cripple Creek, was a schizoid, cringe-worthy mess of the good, the bad and the goofy. He’s no less of a ham here, but this time it’s actually funny—never more so than on “Shabop Shalom” where he rhymes “foul mood” with “Talmud” and asks in a doo-wop voice, “Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?” The 70s boogie of “Lover” and full-on gospel of “Saved” are equally joyous and ridiculous. In between, he’s still spins the type of delicate, fragile folk that captivated us in the first place, though now he’s more likely to layer psychedelic atmospherics or link it directly to Brazilian tropicalia. Even his reggae tendencies are redeemed, on the haunting, dubbed-out and minimally percussive “The Other Woman.”

The more he pushes these various personas, the less sense we expect him to make, and the more rewarding he becomes. “I’m scared of ever being born again/ in this form again,” he sings, but what form he’s referring to is anyone’s guess. It doesn’t sound like he’s scared of anything at all. (XL; xlrecordings.com)

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BISHOP ALLEN
The Broken String

Two Harvard grads open up their second album expressing trepidation about the dubious business of playing pop music for a living: “You’d think I’d understand that a rock’n’roll band doesn’t mean a blessed thing.” What could be cause for resignation instead emboldens songwriters Justin Rice and Christian Rudder to settle for nothing less than excellence.

Since their graduation from 2003’s Charm School, Bishop Allen spent the ensuing years on a writing spree, writing 56 songs for 12 EPs released in 2006; most of this material is re-recorded from that productive period. In that time, they matured into everything you’d ever want in a joyous pop band: neither twee nor tough, smart but not sarcastic, ornamental without being overbearing and epic when they wanna be. Toy pianos and ukuleles manage to avoid cutesy trappings, as do subtle mariachi moments. Lyrically, the Bishop has an acute eye for observational detail, as on the Zelig-like “Click Click Click Click” or the character studies of “The News From Your Bed” and “Flight 180,” populated by lonely souls crying out for emotional connections.

Coupled with their classic pop smarts, these details give the distinct impression that ten years ago Bishop Allen were carefully studying Wilco’s Being There and Ben Folds Five’s debut album; The Broken String easily takes its place alongside those classics.
(Dead Oceans; www.deadoceans.com)

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JENNY HOYSTON
Isle Of

In her day job as singer/guitarist in Erase Errata, Jenny Hoyston practically takes a back seat to her monstrous rhythm section, content to yelp and add scratchy guitar patterns to the no wave groove being thrown down behind her. Yet hiding behind that detached exterior is an artist who actually does know her way around a melody, and on her debut disc under her own name Hoyston proves to be remarkably diverse. No wonder she leaves us dangling with the album title: Isle Of… what? Opening with a Mary Timony-style rocker and a bluesy punk stomp that could be cut from The Gossip’s songbook, Hoyston then moves through acoustic country territory and what sounds like an 80s bedroom collaboration between Anna Domino and ESG. Though this shares some traits with her lo-fi—and comparatively unremarkable—Paradise Island project that preceded this, Isle Of is a full realization of the somewhat timid and tentative moves heard there. “Everyone’s alone,” sings Hoyston, and here she proves that with or without her band, her creative well runs deeper than one might think.
(Southern; www.southern.com)

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IRON & WINE
The Shepherd’s Dog

When we first met Sam Beam, it was kind of obvious from his hushed, solitary bedroom recordings that he didn’t get out of the house much. Three young children in the family will do that to you. But after the success of 2004’s Our Endless Numbered Days, Beam found himself on the road with a full band—and sometimes much more than that, as witnessed on a carnivalesque tour with Calexico where upwards of a dozen people might be on stage at any given time.

The Shepherd’s Dog finds the normally clean and lean Beam pigging out at the sonic candy store, with vocals run through Leslie speakers, harmoniums blended with slide steel guitars, hand drums and sitars, and backwards tape underscoring pedal steel swells. One track (“Wolves”) sounds like he hired both Bill Laswell and Daniel Lanois and all of their favourite session players for some dub excursions.

It sounds like a lot, yet thankfully in this case more is more, thanks to the ability of returning producer Brian Deck (Califone) to weave these psychedelic layers around Beam’s bluesy song structures, and keeping his harmonies with sister Sarah front and centre. Beam’s lyrics are more imagistic and cryptic than ever (“If Christ came back he would find us in a poker game”), yet that only seems appropriate, considering the beautifully disorienting aural backdrop behind them.

To help avoid this from becoming a total rock redux incarnation of Iron & Wine, Deck also leaves drum kits out of the picture, preferring subtle percussion to ensure that conventional anchors don’t weigh down the explorations. By maintaining his intimacy while armed with the palette full of colours found here, Beam sets himself far apart from the rest of the hush-and-shush crowd. (Sub Pop, www.subpop.com)

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CASS MCCOMBS
Dropping the Writ

Cass McCombs doesn’t sit still very often. He’s the kind of troubadour who rides the Greyhound with a few 20-dollar bills in his pocket and little else. He dodges muggers and probing interviewers and anyone else that wants a piece of him. He hears divine voices (“infinity whispers in my ear”) that urge him “onward, Christian songwriter.” But for a guy who spends most of his time on the road reading Gideon’s and auditioning new bandmates, Dropping The Writ is remarkably consistent.

McCombs had an extended stay in London recently, and one wonders if, while there, he was tossed into a time machine set to 1987, recorded during a week of rain and fog with 4AD musicians, and came back home with the master tapes. Unlike, say, The Clientele—a modern band with a direct line to melancholic, pastoral pop of the 60s—McCombs sounds thrice removed: like the Shins interpreting a Robyn Hitchcock cover of the Zombies. Spacious arrangements leave plenty of room for lush layers of vocal harmonies, and—unlike many cloying crooners—McCombs is at his most endearing when he stretches his tenor with minimal effort.

The propulsive opening track “Lionkiller,” with its rolling triplet guitar line, is itching to be mashed up with Battles’ “Atlas.” That’s one of the only immediate thrills found on this album of subdued and subtle pleasures, where the pervasive weightless atmosphere is a deceptive distraction from McCombs’ songwriting strengths. (Domino)

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SIOUXSIE
Mantaray

If you’ve heard the opening track and first single “Into a Swan,” you’d be forgiven for thinking that the transformation Siouxsie is singing about has something to do with becoming Shirley Manson’s doppelganger. The song sounds like Garbage, literally—and isn’t half-bad, if for whatever inexplicable reason you happen to be jonesing for some radio-friendly 90s alt-rock.

Once that’s over with, the 50-year old punk and new wave legend makes the kind of transformation you’d always hoped she would: into a sultry Euro chanteuse with more than a few shades of Shirley Bassey, though she’ll always be Siouxsie Sioux. “Here Comes That Day” sounds like something off her own classic Peepshow album, with its stuttering staccato saxophones, rumbling tympani and vampy vocals. That song opens a mid-album hat trick that continues with “Loveless,” driven by chugging metallic guitars, a Bonham beat, malleted percussion, sawing cellos and Massive Attack-style atmospherics.

“If It Doesn’t Kill You” finds Siouxsie chanelling the pathos of a wartime torch singer, counseling her listeners, “Don’t be bitter/ don’t be gloomy”—words that sound more than a tad ironic from the godmother of goth. The rest of the record won’t convert any recovering Evanescence fans, but it sure sounds better than anything Robert Smith has done in the last 15 years. (W14; w14music.com)

October 07 review round-up

More files from the mainstream daily papers the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and the Guelph Mercury today.

In alphabetical order: Baby Eagle, Devendra Banhart, Jully Black, Broken Social Scene (Kevin Drew), Chris Brown/Kate Fenner, Chamillionaire, The Go! Team, Joe Henry, Iron & Wine, Joni Mitchell, the Rizdales.

Not appearing here, but that did run in the paper: will.i.am, Stacey Kent, James Blunt, the Acorn, San Serac, Sally Shapiro. If you work for any of these people and need a clipping, let me know.

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Baby Eagle – No Blues (Outside)

The Constantines’ Steve Lambke branches out on his second album as Baby Eagle, expanding on the sparse settings that marked his first foray into solo acoustic material. This time, he traveled to to Sackville, NB, to team up with Julie Doiron, members of Shotgun and Jaybird and Feist’s touring band, all of whom provide eerie accompaniment to Lambke’s haunting lyrics. His thin, reedy voice is the litmus test for listeners, especially in such a stripped-down context as opposed to the Constantines’ rock onslaught. It isn’t ideally suited for this material, yet when it cracks—which it does often—it creates an intriguing sense of desperation to songs like "Driving Blind" and the title track. (October 18, 2007)

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Devendra Banhart – Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon (XL/Beggars)

One must be wary of the artist who thinks they can do everything. Here, Banhart tries on a closet full of new clothes: a young Elvis, a Haight-Ashbury hippie, a snarling psychedelic punk, a Brazilian troubadour, a gospel preacher, a singer in Santana, a spaced-out reggae singer who has lost his drummer.

There is great danger for this to descend into a schizophrenic mess, the work of an egomaniac who doesn’t know when to say no—which, truth be told, was the fate that awaited Banhart’s last album, Cripple Creek. But Thunder Canyon revels in its diversity, and Banhart never takes any of it too seriously. After all, anyone who writes a Jewish doo-wop song called “My Shabop Shalom Baby” can’t be all bad.

Not that he’s always goofing off. The chameleonic Banhart clearly loves all these musical genres without irony, and his songwriting adapts no matter what corner of the world he finds himself in. His spine-tingling vocals are always the focus—even if you’re not always sure that it’s still him on lead vocals. (October 4, 2007; a different review runs in this month's Magnet)

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Jully Black – Revival (Universal)

Jully Black has been a star in the making since she was a Toronto high school student guesting on some of that city's hottest hip-hop singles. Her vocal talents have never been questioned, but until now she never had the right material to truly shine on her own—despite the fact that she's written for Destiny's Child and Nas. That changes starting now.

After touring with the Black Eyed Peas several years back, she bonded with their drummer Keith Harris, who produced this, her second major label release and a surefire breakthrough. With Harris at the helm, Black finds the enviable middle ground between neo-soul revivalists like Amy Winehouse and mainstream R&B like Mary J. Blige. Skittering beats, rock guitars, punchy piano riffs and gospel backing vocals all help strike a fine balance between big soul numbers—like the lead single, a cover of Etta James' “Seven Day Fool”—and contemplative ballads such as the socially conscious “Just a Moment” or the tribute to her late sister, “Catch Me When I Fall.”

It's hard to top the opening four songs—which include the feminist reggae anthem Queen and the party-starter DJ Play My Song—but Revival never sags. Soon enough Jully Black will be known for much more for her music rather than being a celebrity correspondent for E-talk Daily. (October 25, 2007)

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Broken Social Scene Presents: Kevin Drew – Spirit If… (Arts and Crafts/EMI)

The overwhelming amount of talent in Broken Social Scene—which of course includes Feist, Jason Collett, Stars and Apostle of Hustle—threatened to crush the band entirely on their 2005 self-titled album, where an avalanche of sound overwhelmed any sense of direction or solid songwriting.

Co-founder Kevin Drew adopts a much more subtle approach here, allowing tiny details to colour a series of songs that outline his own personal turmoil (read: divorce) of recent years. It’s just as dense as any other Broken Social Scene album, yet everything breathes much easier. Drew doesn’t want to hit you over the head this time out; many of this album’s greatest pleasures are all but inaudible if you’re expecting the epic art rock he’s built his reputation on. It even appears deceptively slight upon initial listens.

Guests include all the usual BSS suspects—including Feist, Stars’ Amy Millan, most of Metric—as well as some personal heroes of Drew’s: Pavement’s Spiral Stairs, Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis—and, uh, Tom Cochrane. (Skeptics alert: forget “Life is a Highway”—go back to Red Rider, right up to the “Boy Inside the Man” days.)

Because this is (kind of) a solo album, Drew also prints his lyrics for the first time, and mixes his vocals up front. Unlike his earlier songs—where the abstraction allowed the listener to project whatever they liked onto them—these are simultaneously more direct and yet still leave plenty of room for the listener’s own imagination. He also moves effortlessly from ambient electronics, acoustic folk, propulsive pop and raging rock—and even better, sometimes he makes it all in the same song.

Best of all, Spirit If… is never predictable, even in the carte blanche world of Broken Social Scene. (October 11, 2007)

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Chris Brown and the Citizens' Band – Oblivion (chrisbrownmusic.com)
Kate Fenner – Magnet (katefenner.com)

Brown and Fenner's careers have been intertwined for over 20 years now, ever since they were high school students in the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, and then later as a duo. It used to be that Brown was the socially conscious poet and songwriter behind Fenner's rich and resonant voice; as time goes on, Fenner has become a songwriter who can stand on her own and Brown's voice gets better with age.

Now that they're charting separate paths, they still share the same backing band and Brown writes three songs on Fenner's second solo album. One of them is the majestic epic “Paris,” where Fenner delivers one of her finest vocal performances with a Cohen-esque lyric that also stands as one of Brown's best.

He saves a few more knockouts for his own album: the inspirational title track; the gripping political screed “The Gates” (which boasts the opening line, "The rapture came, and it only let them down"); and “Image of a Man,” a powerful ode to the passing of Johnny Cash that features Sarah Harmer on backing vocals. Yet for Brown, it's all or nothing. Despite his all-star Citizens' Band of New York City's finest session players, little else on Oblivion manages to match those three tracks.

Fenner's Magnet, on the other hand, steers a more even keel, from the stately opener “Autumn Trees” to the Fleetwood Mac-ish soft pop of “Leo” and “How Hard It Is,” and concluding with the torchy piano cover of Paul Simon's “Some Folks' Lives Roll Easy,” with renowned jazz player Jason Moran. (October 25, 2007)

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Chamillionaire – Ultimate Victory (Universal)

Anyone who thinks Southern rap is a one-dimensional pimp-and-ho show ala Hustle and Flow should meet Chamillionaire. Granted, the Grammy-winning MC (whose smash single “Ridin’” even warranted a Weird Al parody) spends almost half of his 80 minutes here on just such material. But he also pens some pointed political material that’s practically unheard of in this corner of the genre. Rather than blinging it up, his self-consciously materialistic rhymes actually possess insight into Bush-era America’s relentless pursuit of capital. After Iraq and Katrina, Chamillionaire would argue—Soprano-style—that cashing in however you can is not only fair game, but the only way to survive while the country burns. Yet even when telling straight-up ghetto tales, his strong storytelling still packs more into a single verse than 50 Cent does in an entire album. (October 18, 2007)

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The Go! Team – Proof of Youth (Secret City/Fusion 3)

Double-dutch schoolgirls rap over 70s TV show themes: it doesn’t get any deeper than that descriptive blurb on the second album by this UK act, whose 2005 debut was a delightful sugar rush that sounded like Beck DJing a 60s pop club night. Many of those tracks were built on borrowed beats—few, if any, were used with permission. Now that The Go! Team are left mostly to their own devices, the thrill is gone. Maybe legal difficulties prevented the band from using the samples they wanted. Or, more likely, maybe this one-trick pony ran out of ideas very quickly. Not a single track here provides the debut’s initial pleasure: the vocals are shrill, the fun seems forced, and the cameo by Chuck D of Public Enemy is just plain weird. The youth of which they boast proof has a lot of growing up to do. (October 11, 2007)

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Joe Henry – Civilians (Anti/Epitaph)

Though he’s been a singer/songwriter for over 15 years, with a worthy discography of his own behind him, Joe Henry is better known for producing vintage-sounding comeback albums for soul artists such as Solomon Burke and Bettye LaVette. Such is his reputation among musicians that the notoriously independent Ani DiFranco chose him as her first outside producer ever—a move that resulted in her best album in years.

While Henry’s recent solo work found him getting too wrapped up in ornate production, here he strips everything back to basics. His torchy vocals wrap themselves around songs about squandered goodwill and civil wars of various stripes, set to a wealth of waltzes anchored by guitarist Bill Frisell and Toronto bassist David Piltch (Holly Cole, k.d. lang). Henry is a classy guy, his aesthetic best dressed up in ragged dinner jackets and well-aged red wine, struggling to maintain poise and dignity amidst decay.

Yet such is the sustained mood that all the songs blend into each other, demarcated only by Henry’s killer one-liners particular to each narrative. He also indulges his flair for the theatrical: he’s been hanging around enough soul vocal vets to think that each line deserves maximum drama, though his own talents are much better suited to understatement.

He never misfires completely, however, and this is one of the finest singer/songwriter albums of the year. But he could take some lessons in brevity. (October 11, 2007)

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Iron And Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog (Sub Pop/Warner)

Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam was never your typical folkie in the first place. Even though his first two sleeper hit albums were acoustic affairs with hushed vocals, he managed to transcend many of the clichés that come with the genre via extremely subtle shades and sometimes surrealistic lyrics—none of which distracted from the welcoming warmth from his campfire-friendly vibe.

The Shepherd’s Dog is the kind of album that all fans of acoustic acts dread the most: the one where the artist decides to expand their sonic template and invite all sorts of friends on board, just to see what happens. So here we find electric guitars, African rhythms, sitars, harmoniums, vocals run through Leslie speakers, trippy keyboards and other treats layered into Beam’s skeletal song structures.

It’s a credit to his sense of restraint that for Iron and Wine, more actually is more. Beam’s songs lose none of their intimacy while painting with plenty of new colours. He avoids any overt rockism by eschewing drum kits and using various hand percussion instead. As a result, even the heaviest moments here are never overbearing, and his excursions into dub reggae and psychedelia possess a weightless grace that makes them all the more engaging.

Sam Beam is never going to be just another guy with an acoustic guitar. This is not only stuffed with more memorable songs than most of his peers, but the headphone-friendly production pushes this clear into classic territory. If you were entranced by Beam’s beauty in the past, The Shepherd’s Dog suggests that he’s only beginning to bloom. (October 4, 2007; a different review runs in the current issue of Magnet)

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Joni Mitchell – Shine (Hear)

Joni Mitchell doesn’t thank George W. Bush in the liner notes to her new album. But if it wasn’t for the moral chaos that is Bush’s legacy, it’s unlikely the legendary songwriter would have been roused from retirement for her first album of new material in nine years.

Five years ago, Mitchell announced her retreat from the music industry. As she watched the world go to hell in a handbasket, however, the guitarist picked up her pointed pen and her long-neglected piano to write a scathing series of songs about the end of the world as we know it. Everything from holy wars to a scorched earth to “cellphone zombies” feed into her frustration, with mixed results. Often it sounds like Al Gore wrote these lyrics, rather than the subtle poet that Mitchell is at her best.

Unlike much of her work of the past two decades, Mitchell strips things down here to little more than guitar, piano, a rhythm section and some saxophones—no layers of heavy synths, treated electric guitars or jazzy passages to muck everything up. It gives the work a greater gravitas, and her apocalyptic narratives are given plenty of room to breathe—even if her reduced vocal range still shows the effects of years of smoking.

She throws a bone to old fans with a version of “Big Yellow Taxi.” While it fits right in thematically, its jaunty rhythm—subdued as it is here—is out of step with the other sombre tales of “mass murder mysteries.”

Mitchell does betray some reserved optimism in the title track and the closing “If,” which is adopted from the Rudyard Kipling poem. But the mood of the album is best summed up with the embittered line: “If I had a heart, I’d cry.”

Now how does that go down with your coffee? (October 18, 2007)

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The Rizdales – Radio Country (rizdales.com)

It's little wonder that rockabillly legend Wanda Jackson often taps London, Ontario's Rizdales to be her backing band. Not only are they well schooled in classic country, but they share her sardonic view of romance on songs like “High Heeled Homewrecker” and “I Could Tell You Lies.” Husband/wife duo Tom and Tara Dunphy pen poisoned valentines to each other with subtle wit and the kind of rich character writing that the genre has always excelled at. To top it off, both are compelling vocalists and Tara is responsible for the fine fiddle licks. (October 25, 2007)

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