Journal – Unlorja (2010)

Journal is a mathcore band based in Sacramento who released Unlorja, their debut album, last year. For the most part, Journal present pretty much what I’d expect from a mathcore band and they do it well if not spectacularly. In truth, Unlorja does more to get me excited about this band than about the album itself.

For starters, this is obviously very heavy, a bit spastic in places, fairly technical (if not brilliantly so), and has a proggy sense of schizophrenia. My gripes are twofold. Journal spends a bit too much time on instrumental passages that feel arbitrary and I could have done with a bit more variation in some places.

The vocal styles on this album are very diverse, ranging from a frenzied shriek to a growl to a typical hardcore holler to something like crooning on “Festooned with Snakes.” The clean vocals, which pop up here and there are the only ones I could really do without. They just sound so colorless and bland.

If you’ve heard more than a few extreme metal albums, you’ve probably heard better guitar playing than this but, make no mistake, these guys are good. There are snippets of straight up death metal, of pseudo speed metal with rapid fire soloing, of melodic post-hardcore, but I wish Journal did a better job combining the different facets of their sound, rather than just kind of shifting between them. Since the band was insistent on including instrumental passages—there are three short interludes totaling about three minutes in length—I wish they could have made them a bit more interesting.

I also wish the drumming were more varied. It’s basically just blastbeats for 80% of the record, and not a much in the way of intricacy. It might help to think of this as mathy deathcore. These guys don’t really intertwine chaos and melody like The Dillinger Escape Plan. They don’t create the sort of bone-crushing heaviness of Converge, nor do they have the songwriting chops of Botch.

The final track on the album is a half-hour long narrative called “Affinity,” in which a woman’s voice tells some sci-fi story about two warring races over orchestral sounds, some pretty acoustic guitar, and heavy passages that fade in and out periodically. By this point, the album’s been playing for almost 50 minutes, and this track is kind of a snorefest but I do appreciate the fact that this band is willing to be as melodic, as spacey, and frankly, as un-metal as they are on this track. I just wish they did a better job incorporating that into the rest of the album.

Unlorja is adequately heavy, chaotic, and technical but this really could have been whittled down to something about 40 minutes long. I think these guys could come out with something really great but Unlorja isn’t it.

The Go Team – Rolling Blackouts (2011)

This is an atrocious mélange of dance-pop clichés, hip hop posturing, boring electronics, admittedly-passable-but-mediocre pop songs, and chanting that make me afraid of the evils the human voice is capable of.

I like some dance music. I like some hip hop. I like sweet, charming pop songs (I know the lyrics to far too many Rilo Kiley songs). I’ll go from LCD Soundsystem to Mos Def to Mates of State and call it a productive afternoon, but you can’t mindlessly mash these things together and call it “indie pop.” There’s no genre that doesn’t require at least some degree of cohesion.

The dance parts on Rolling Blackouts are annoying to no end. They should have been omitted entirely. Every time they chant, I expect to hear a “check it” or an “uughh” or a “come on now” or something stupid and cheesy like that. The album opener, “T.O.R.N.A.D.O.” sounds like Blood Brothers trying to cover an Insane Clown Posse track. I hated this album from the second I heard him or her sing “it’s a T.O.R.N.A.D.O.” Never mind that I couldn’t make out any of the other words. It could have been Bob Dylan for all I care, that one line damn near ruined my evening.

I think “Apollo Throwdown” owes some serious royalty money to Schoolhouse Rock. “Yosemite Theme” is a pointless, boring four minutes of electronics that even the late king of pop would have struggled to shake a knee to. Then, in the last twenty seconds, an obnoxious voice comes back chanting something about “from the front to the back.” At least it’s better than “Bust-Out Brigade.” That’s a real song title; you cannot make this stuff up (unless you’re The Go Team). The beat to that song is just totally overdone. The horns are obnoxious. I cannot imagine how one could dance to this, or who would try for that matter.

Then there’s the rapping. I like hip hop when it isn’t some prepubescent moron trying to sound like someone you wouldn’t want to run into when walking home at 2:00 a.m. I’m sure The Go Team’s “rapper” is at least old enough to vote but that voice reminds me of Little Bow Wow (who I guess isn’t little no’ mo’). Songs like “Voice Yr Choice” make Kris Kros sound good. If the six-year-old me heard this, he wouldn’t be jumping.

“But, come on Max, there’s a good message to that song.”

“Really, what could they possibly be trying to communicate?”

“You gotta, you know, keep, keep it real, man.”

“Oh shit, that’s how I ought to live my life? Thanks Go Team!!!”

No, it’s like having a seven-year-old try to tell me to donate money to help the environment. I just ain’t buying it.

Despite all my gripes, The Go Team seem like a sweet, mellow pop ground at heart. They don’t do it as well as Belle and Sebastian or Mates of State or even Camera Obscura and Stars, but there are songs on this album that really hit that mark. They kick me in what I call my twee bone, the part of me that can digest sugary sweet pop songs that deal with overdone topics using clichés and a crystalline female (or effeminate male) voice. Maybe that’s what my appendix is for. Honestly, the songs on Rolling Blackouts that go for this sort of sound are not all that bad, but the threat of that stupid chanting or rapping hangs over this album like a rain cloud over Seattle.

If the entire album were made up of songs like “Ready to Go Steady” or “Buy Nothing Day,” I could see myself enjoying this, but for every pleasant song there’s a “Back Like 8 Track” or a “The Running Range.”

Either The Go Team have no idea who they are or I just don’t get it. Sometimes they want to be Belle and Sebastian, sometimes they want to be Junior Boys, sometimes they want to be TLC, and then, on the title track, they decide they want to be, I dunno, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. The band doesn’t do any of these styles well enough to be all that worthwhile on their own, so when they give us this pu pu platter of different strains of pop music, I cannot look past the lack of cohesion to anything that makes this album worthwhile to me.

Destroyer – Kaputt (2011)

I’m enjoying this less with each listen. I liked Rubies (2006). I sort of liked Trouble in Dreams (2008). I was lukewarm on Streethawk: A Seduction (2001). Kaputt uses the same melodies too often–the pounding dance beat, the smooth jazz sax and trumpet, shimmery synths. The general tone of the album is a bit bland to my ears.

The first track, “Chinatown,” just feels so flavorless, which is weird since Dan Bejar seems to be trying too hard to “flavor” Kaputt. Someone should have taken his saxophone away before this thing got recorded. The eight-minute “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker” spends about three minutes creating a chilly ambient atmosphere before abruptly turning into a pop song. By “pop song,” I mean overwrought narrative that is too abstract to really mean anything with a drum beat you can dance to and, of course, brass. The title track has a nice flow to it, with synths right out of some fun new wave dance track, except Bejar’s narrative isn’t delivered with enough muscle or personality for it to really work. The point at which I get tired of the jazz motifs and the silly dance beats gets sooner with each listen. My least favorite track is “Downtown.” I absolutely loathe the background vocals on that song. On the songs that don’t work, and on parts of the songs that do, all the elements Bejar throws together don’t mesh especially well, nor am I especially thrilled about any of them in their own right.

It isn’t all bad though. “Savage Night at the Opera” has a nice sense of tension to it. The entire song sounds like it’s being sung as an afterthought. Imagine Bejar being dragged away from someone by security, and he’s quickly trying to get his message in before he can’t anymore. I don’t know if that’s a good description of my impression of the song (actually, I do know, and it isn’t) but there you go. That song features more guitar and synth than saxophone (thank god). There are also a few alright moments on tracks like “Blue Eyes,” “Poor in Love,” and “Song for America,” but nothing that makes me give pause anymore.

Then there’s the last song, “Bay of Pigs,” an eleven-minute piece that is multidimensional convoluted [divided into more than one distinct section]. The first half of it is Bejar more or less talking over warm synthesizers, chimes, piano, and various electronic effects. The final four minutes of the song are really the only moments on this album that his dance-folk-pop stuff appealed to me. It has an energy to it, it flows nicely, and is devoid of brass instruments.

Four minutes is not enough to convince me that this fifty-minute album is as good as it is probably going to be received. Kaputt spends too much time not really doing much at all. It also spends too much time trying to do different things within too small a space. For instance, songs that can’t decide whether they’re meant to be danced to or sort of “chilled out” to. Maybe you’re meant to be able to do both (you can’t) or be confused by the seemingly incongruous moods (that does happen). It isn’t that every song sounds exactly the same, but the things they have in common often happen to be my least favorite things about this record.

Asobi Seksu – Fluorescence (2011)

Style(s): dream pop, shoegaze

Label: Polyvinyl

Track Picks: “Trails,” “Leave the Drummer Out There,” “Sighs,” “Counterglow”

I’m excited to have some music from the new year. This is Asobi Seksu’s fourth LP and my first real experience with the band. They’re a four piece from New York who play something toward the poppier edge of shoegaze. My first impression was that they have a surprising amount of personality for a band who has anything to do with shoegaze, and that has everything to do with the vocals being so high in the mix. Lead vocalist Yuki Chikudate sings with a lot of gusto and her voice is anything but monotone. Also, many of her lyrics deal with love and loss, already an emotionally-charged topic, but she gets very descriptive and introspective with them.

I found Fluorescence to be catchy more often than not, and the atmosphere that surrounds the album is one of warmth despite the general haziness created by the guitars. The synth tones create a shimmery tone often, and the guitars are buried by the production. They can be heard and they lend a slight sense of foreboding, but throughout the album they wage a losing war with the synthesizers. Asobi Seksu have a good sense of melody, and many of these songs are just plain catchy. This album is mixed in a way that favors melody over atmosphere, and that works for them.

Favorite Albums of 2010

No blurbs or explanations. Why is an album on this list you ask? Because I liked it better than all but [0-29] other albums I’ve heard. In total, I probably heard about 500 albums this year, maybe 300 of which I gave multiple listens, and about 100 of which I expect to listen to from time to time.

30) Against Me! – White Crosses

29) Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record

28) Jaill – That’s How We Burn

27) Broken Bells – Broken Bells26) Here We Go Magic – Pigeons 25) Jakob Dylan – Women + Country24) The Kissaway Trail – Sleep Mountain 23) Bongripper – Satan Worshipping Doom22) Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – The Brutalist Bricks 21) Kylesa – Spiral Shadow20) School of Seven Bells – Disconnect from Desire19) Menomena – Mines18) Flatfoot 56 – Black Thorn17) Arcade Fire – The Suburbs16) Matthew Dear – Black City

15) Versus – On the Ones and Threes

14) Agalloch – Marrow of the Spirit

13) Band of Horses – Infinite Arms

12) Misery Index – Heirs to Thievery

11) Jonsi – Go

10) Shearwater – The Golden Archipelago9) Aloha – Home Acres8 ) Holy Fuck – Latin

7) Alkaline Trio – This Addiction

6) Midlake – The Courage of Others5) The Tallest Man on Earth – The Wild Hunt4) Murder by Death – Good Morning, Magpie3) The Gaslight Anthem – American Slang2) The Besnard Lakes – Are the Roaring Night1) The National – High Violet

Carissa’s Wierd (2004)

Artist/Album: Carissa’s Wierd–I Before E

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 7/10

Styles: Slow, rustic pop/rock

Label: Sad Robot

Favorite Tracks: “Die,” “One Night Stand,” “Blankets Stare”

Carissa’s Wierd (who spell weird wrong on purpose) played slow guitar-based pop. The band broke up shortly after releasing this, their third LP. Their vocalist Mat Brooke and percussionist Ben Bridwell went on to form Band of Horses (who I love), and Brooke later left that band to form Grand Archives (who I like). If you’re familiar with these two bands, you may have some specific expectations of Carissa’s Wierd, but they probably wouldn’t be entirely accurate. This band’s music is a lot more rustic and autumnal than either of the other two. The guitars like to ring, in that shimmery sort of way that Band of Horses use to such great effect, but the vocals set this band apart. They are so low in the mix that it’s often difficult to make out what is being said, and so the vocals provide a melody but it’s buried under layers of guitars, strings, and pianos. Brooke sings in a hushed, breathy voice, not too much like his singing in Grand Archives. Think Death Cab trying to cover Smashing Pumpkins. The female vocalist, Jen Ghetto (that’s her real name), is a bit more assertive in her vocal delivery, but when they sing together it works really nicely. On the tracks “Die” and “Drunk with the Only Saints I Know” her voice lends a bit more color to what’s going on. If you can get past the production quality, there is a lot of really lush, pleasant, and well-written stuff here. Some of these tracks are live versions of previously-released material, but there isn’t a whole lot of annoying stage banter or crowd catcalls to be heard.

1349–Demonoir (2010)

Artist/Album: 1349–Demonoir

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 5/10

Styles: Black metal/blackened death metal.

Label: Prosthetic

Favorite Tracks: “Atomic Chapel” “Demonoir”

Demonoir is black metal band 1349’s fifth LP, and they play a sort of melodic black metal that often treads very close to dark ambient. Of the thirteen tracks on this album, seven are short (1 to 2 minutes with the exception of the last which is almost 4 minutes) interludes. These are placed between each of the six fully fleshed-out songs, as well as bookending the album. The interludes are all more or less the same, sounding like wind blowing with some static in the background. They’re probably designed to create an atmosphere, but they really don’t do much other than disturb the momentum of the album. As far as the actual songs go, 1349 are not the most intense of black metal bands. The guitars don’t buzz and hiss, and are actually relatively melodic for this type of music. The drums, which basically pound the crap out of the snare for the duration of each song, get old really quick, and they are probably too high in the mix. The crisp production really dulls the edge a bit here. Having never been much a fan of this type of music, I appreciate this band’s more melodic take on the style, though I cannot help but think they lack a certain spark that makes black metal an intriguing genre in my eyes. It just lacks the requisite intensity. Another gripe of mine is that the music is a bit schizophrenic. 1349 love to change melodies and switch between contrasting tempos on a dime, which doesn’t do much for the atmospheric effect of this album. The vocals are growled, as opposed to screeched, and would probably fit batter on a death metal album than on this. I much prefer death metal to black metal, but as far as growlers go, this doesn’t hold a candle to the best in the business. I liked the bridge to “Pandemonium War Bells” that starts shortly after the five-minute mark, and the piano on “Atomic Chapel” is a nice touch, but other than that, there isn’t much here, either for black metal aficionados or fans of heavy music with a casual interest in this genre. Demonoir leaves me feeling as though 1349 were shooting for something they couldn’t quite reach. The interludes don’t create much of an atmosphere, the actual songs are not especially intense.

God is an Astronaut–Age of the Fifth Sun

Artist/Album: God is an Astronaut—Age of the Fifth Sun

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 6/10

Style(s): Post-Rock, Electronic

Label: Viva Hate

Favorite Tracks: “Worlds in Collision,” “In the Distance Fading,” “Age of the Fifth Sun”

God is an Astronaut’s fifth album, Age of the Fifth Sun, finds the band branching out slightly after releasing four pleasant, but rather safe albums. Despite some stylistic differences between this and their last few albums, it still feels like their formula is growing somewhat stagnant and I hope the band expands on the things they try here on their next album. God is an Astronaut’s brand of post-rock uses electronics to create a cool, serene, but somewhat mechanical atmosphere. Synthesizers create a layer of sound on which the band builds, but the guitar melodies really steal the show. However, their music does tend to be a little bit formulaic, though always pretty. It was starting to get old by their fourth album, 2008’s self-titled. As far as post-rock goes, their music is very active, not at all subtle, and they really rely entirely on melody and atmosphere, whereas post-rock tends to take listeners on a journey, God is an Astronaut don’t really go that far with their songs. They change a bit, but certainly not as much as most bands of the style. As far as the new elements go, there is a greater reliance on ambiance, some tracks really scaled back their approach and instead of launching into a melody they would sort of ease into it, or even just let the track be mostly ambient. The second new thing, which is really just for one song, is an experiment in post-metal that forms one of the motifs of the title track. This song, one of the band’s best in my opinion, really makes me think they are capable of a strong, heavy album, but I would be somewhat surprised to hear them take that direction much further. God is an Astronaut have not released a bad album, but only their most die-hard fans really need all five. I would suggest 2007’s Far From Refuge as the one to check out first, but there isn’t a huge difference in quality from one to the next. I just think that, unless they find some way to breathe new life into their music, their future albums are going to sound more and more like retreads of their first few.

Surfer Blood-Astro Coast

Artist/Album: Surfer Blood—Astro Coast

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 6/10

Style(s): Indie pop with a bit of 60s influence

Label: Kanine

Favorite Tracks: “Floating Vibes,” “Take It Easy,” “Slow Jabroni,” “Catholic Pagans”

Surfer Blood’s debut is a reverb-laden guitar-pop album that owes about as much to 60s pop as it does to modern post-punk. The vocals hit some Beach Boys notes, and they dabble in surf rock, but there’s also plenty of low end to be found. There isn’t a whole lot Surfer Blood do that’s unique, and I didn’t feel like they brought a lot of flair to what they did, but there isn’t anything here that really offended me. I was kind of lukewarm towards Astro Coast. It would be nice if they would try some different things, but I found stuff to like. The guitar riffs on “Floating Vibes” were gripping. The falsetto vocals on “Take it Easy” work surprisingly well. I liked the laid back vibe of “Catholic Pagans.” A lot of Astro Coast fades into the background, not because all the songs sound the same (they don’t) but because they don’t always sound like they’re trying to hard, for lack of a better way to put it. It comes across as rather lite, but I can see myself listening to this from time to time. This has been out since January and it took me a while to get around to.

Yellow Swans–Going Places

Artist/Album: Yellow Swans—Going Places

Totally Subjective Number Rating: 7/10

Style(s): Drone, Ambient, Noise

Label: Type

Favorite Tracks: “Foiled,” “Opt Out”

Yellow Swans disbanded in 2008 but Going Places, which took until this year to be released, is their final album. They had put out multiple releases, including splits, EPs, and live albums every year since 2002, so it’s hard to say they’re leaving anyone high and dry. But after experiencing only a few of their albums, I am inclined to believe we’re losing a good act here.

Yellow Swans’ music is certainly in the realm of drone, with its penchant for ringing guitar noise, but it isn’t just about the guitars. The guitars really cover everything with a buzzing, dissonant sheen, but there is a lot going on beneath them. You’ll hear percussion and various other effects and the album really does a good job of sounding like a lot of things. For some reason I kept getting images of wild, untamed nature. I would liken the guitar sound to wind blowing by a closed space. Kind of like blowing over the top of a bottle (that hollow whistling sound it makes), but amplified a great deal. The great thing about this album—and everything I’ve heard from Yellow Swans—is that the guitars don’t simply drone on but their texture shift as the songs progress. You’ll get a definite sense of progression from these tracks and they really never take too long to say what they need to say despite an average length of about 7 and a half minutes.

Yellow Swans leave me thinking of drone and noise but that doesn’t really cover it. Going Places does not belong in the same class as bands like Sunn O))) (they’re not as bleak) or as Earth (they really don’t owe all that much to metal). While they may use similar instrumentation (in similar ways) to most noise acts, this isn’t all that noisy. It lacks that schizophrenic insanity that noise tends to employ, and it really isn’t all that rock-oriented. Some of the guitar notes I heard on “Opt Out” are probably as “rock” as this album gets. I would say the second half of the title track is about as noisy as it gets. While Yellow Swans borrow their guitar textures from noise and use them in ways of drone artists, I think what they’re doing is a sort of dark ambient with a distinct linear trajectory to the songs.