While he’s logged studio time with the New Pornographers, Crystal Stilts, and Black Dice, sound engineer Charles Bursts’ first solo album, Come Home and Feast, belongs to a different style and era altogether – ’70s soft rock, or yacht rock. His warm, comforting voice recalls James Taylor; his music Boz Scaggs circa the country of Moments and the disco/soft rock of Silk Degrees. It’s by no means bad, but the 10 songs collected are so middle-of-the-road pleasing that it’s hard to love or loathe too strongly.
While it shows signs of indie jangle, like on “Girl on the Rocks,” the record skews towards unhurried, country-flecked fare, as evidenced on tracks like “Blow the Fire Out” and “House Arrest.” It’s nice enough, but the record doesn’t seem to take off until track seven, “I Came Back For the Children,” which isn’t a good sign.
“I Came Back For the Children” has an R&B pulse that the rest of Feast could benefit from. Again I invoke Silk Degrees, as this song is danceable disco/country, as contradictory and offensive as that description might sound to punks. Another standout is “The Long Way,” a midtempo hootenanny.
But these highlights are too few and too late. Come Home and Feast makes for decent background music, but nothing about it if of utmost importance. It’s an easygoing package from start to finish, making it a great record to feel indifferent towards.
I first heard about NakatomiPlaza after a few friends saw them play with the now-defunct politipunks in Marathon. My roommate pegged them as a potential interest for me, and he was right. I picked up their then-current record, Private Property, and was blown away by its passion. It was a little spotty in places, but overall, still it holds up as a solid post-hardcore album. My fandom rose quite a few notches after the band’s next release, the J. Robbins-produced Unsettled. It was a huge leap forward artistically, cementing in my mind that maybe NakatomiPlaza could be my Jawbox – punk work ethic combined with blistering musicianship. The fact that Robbins produced it made perfect sense to me.
The band played Pennsylvania (my homestate) a few times in support of Unsettled, and I caught their live show a few times out in Doylestown. D-town is about a half-hour away from me – maybe an hour with traffic – but I never really tapped into its punk/hardcore scene. When I found out NP were playing nearby, though, I make the trek. After a lengthy drive north on 202, I saw them perform at Siren Records with JenaBerlin. And man, they were tight despite being stripped down to a trio. Vocalist/guitarist Oscar Rodroguez could shred. It’s funny to me that it took a Brooklyn band to make me appreciate Pa. more, but there you go. Since that drive, I’ve been able to see Paint It Black, Fake Problems, O Pioneers!!!, Crime in Stereo, and plenty more in Doylestown record stores, bars, and church basements. And with ample parking!
What was crazy to me about NakatomiPlaza was how normal and nice the trio was. Rodriguez and vocalist/bassist Al Fair were actually awkward and humbled to meet fans. I talked to drummer Lou Maiolica about his day job as a plumber. I think I pulled a muscle trying to sound normal in front of these folks. I’m not good with people I respect. But they were cool about it, and played D-town a couple more times, to my delight.
It turns out my Jawbox association with NakatomiPlaza might have been a little too accurate for my liking. Like Jawbox, NakatomiPlaza broke up after four records, all of which were criminally underappreciated. Their swan song, the 11 tracks that constitute Ghosts, has been available in one way or another for the last month or so. The band offered mp3s of the record online with a “pay what you feel” price tag in August, as well as physical copies on their farewell tour. A final physical version will be offered to the masses come Sept. 29, while online retailers like Amazon and iTunes are already carrying the digital version.
Ghosts makes me think two things: 1) This is awesome, and 2) Please don’t break up. In a way, it’s both a logical progression from Unsettled – guitar pyrotechnics abound, like on the solo for “4017” – and an overview of the band’s 10 years together. There are throwbacks to Private Property’s screams, and two of the tracks, “The Ghost Intrigue” and closer “The Finish Line,” are finished versions of demos from the Frog Octopus Wolf EP. Though the band’s angular post-hardcore will appeal to At the Drive-In fans, there are some indie inflections, like on the string-laden ballad “Words.” Of course, “Words” features another searing guitar solo at its conclusion, so maybe calling it a “ballad” is an exaggeration.
Musically, this is a great way to go out. Ali Hassan’s (Bouncing Souls, Loved Ones) production is a little dry – opener “Bomb Shelter” feels like it could use more power – but he still captures the band’s essence. This is a kickass rock record. Lyrically, though, this might be one of the saddest albums of 2009. While some of this material is pre-Unsettled, it’s hard not to take a lot of the lines about feeling weary and worn out as indicative of the band’s dissolution. Heck, one song is called “Requiem.” Some of it might be in my head, but lines like “We’re barely living but we’re hoping to go soon,” “‘Cause I don’t feel it / I don’t feel it coming in so I’m going down / I’ll find a way out,” etc., certainly carry that angle to them. And it’s hard not to think “The Finish Line” was purposefully set up as the closing track.
“You call yourself tired / I’m just as tired as you are” sing Rodriguez and Fair in unison. Then they hit the chorus – “Who cares if they fire us / We’ll just quit.” It’s ostensibly a song about touring and worrying about everything being OK back home. Here, as the last song of the last NakatomiPlaza album, that feels inverted. When Rodriguez talks about being scared, it feels like he’s talking about his future after the band. He started the group, and now he’s breaking it up, uncompromised and still beautiful.
Which is exactly why I don’t want NakatomiPlaza to end. This band has had plenty of bad luck, sure, but they still sound so good on their terms. I’m hoping for some sort of posthumous recognition, because NakatomiPlaza got better with every release. And I keep thinking that, maybe if the economy wasn’t so poor and Unsettled hadn’t had all those distribution issues and more people would just listen, Omar, Al, and Lou would still be kicking out jams.
Hey kids! Ya like fun doncha? Try slamming down some Artist Vs Poet, the new EP from *SLAM! BANG! POW!* Artist Vs Poet! Fearless Records, the label that gave you Punk Goes Ragtime, Punk Goes Fast Food Jingles, and Punk Goes French New Wave Film Scores 1959-1969 Volume Trois, presents this Texan pop act in the vein of All Time Low and Fight Fair. These guys set themselves apart with songs about girls, nasally vocals, and a really brightly colored album cover. It’s totes awesome, kids! KIDS?! LOOK AT ME!
All over-the-top sarcasm aside, Artist Vs Poet dabbles in ultra-clean power pop masquerading as pop punk. Kenny Vassoli-esque vocals and touches of electronica color up some otherwise drab arrangements, spit-shined by Mike Green (Paramore, Set Your Goals, and, uh, Paris Hilton). Dude’s had a big hand in the next generation of pop punk, which in a way hurts the band. Artist Vs Poet sounds like Paramore without the pipes, hooks, or relative “umph,” something made even more apparent thanks to the guy who helmed All We Know is Falling.
Even by earnest mallpunk standards, Artist Vs Poet (a.k.a. Quadrilateral Vs Square, a.k.a Thing Vs More Specific Thing) is bland, bearing more in common with the Click Five and Tinted Windows than they’d probably care to admit. If there’s such a thing as anti-Orgcore (clean production/vocals, cookie cutter angsty lyrics, and not sounding like the Lawrence Arms at all), surely this must be it.
The year is almost over, and with it, the Bouncing Souls’ 20th anniversary bonanza. The band played a few birthday gigs, filmed a variety special, and is almost finished debuting a new digital download on the first of every month. 20th Anniversary Series: Volume Three collects three more of those downloads on vinyl (Mine’s on tour-only green with black and red splatter, suckaz) plus another bonus track. The series thus far has been strong, but Volume Three might be the best yet.
Volume One and Two followed a similar formula – two punk rock tunes on the first side, a mid-tempo and a mellow acoustic number on the flipside. Volume Three ditches that idea. “Ghosts on the Boardwalk” opens with some haunting feedback that saturates the whole song. Given that it’s a song about summer and the seven-inch is coming out in September, “Ghosts” takes on an appropriately wistful tone in the vein of Hopeless Romantic’s “Night on Earth.” Its companion on the A side, “Boogie Woogie Downtown,” is the numb twin to Volume One’s “Gasoline.” The song is similarly bitter at the world, but the music’s subdued style is a departure from the band’s raucous material. It’s a logical follow-up to “Ghosts on the Boardwalk,” but man is it a bummer.
“Badass” opens the B side and completely washes away every melancholic thought anyone ever had ever. A fist-pumper akin to a less synth-soaked version of Team America: World Police’s “America, Fuck Yeah,” the song lists things that are badass. This includes Bruce Lee, snakes, vocal solos, and The Pete’s mom. It’s a little out of place compared to the rest of the seven-inch, but it’s a really fun song, so shut up. As for bonus track “Uke Chek Girl,” it’s exactly what Souls fan should expect: Maniacal Laughter’s “Quick Chek Girl” performed on a ukele. But this isn’t exactly “Souls Go Hawaiian!”, although that would be a totally sweet movie. Rather, frontman Greg Attonito gives the song a somber makeover. It’s a chill way to end an already relatively placid record.
While three-quarters of its songs were released over the summer, Volume Three works better as an autumnal record. It’s a little nostalgic, both for company and kung-fu movies. But regardless of the season, it’s still good.
My Weakness is Strong, Patton Oswalt’s first comedy album since his knockout 2006 record Werewolves and Lollipops and the little kiddie film that could, Ratatouille, finds the stand-up comic at a crossroads. Recorded February 28, 2009 at the Lisner Auditorium in Washington D.C., the CD/DVD combo is his first “grown-up” record, as the best jokes tend to focus on his wife and hopes for his (at the time) unborn daughter.
Granted, these topics lead to the time he and his wife disturbed an orgy and then tried to play it off (“He comes out of the bathroom, and he got dressed in whatever was there. And here’s what was in the bathroom: A pair of girl’s sweatpants that he has put on backwards so the word ‘juicy’ is across his groin… which, I hate to say, probably factually accurate”) and how he quit drugs to be a better father to his daughter (“I’m not afraid that I’m gonna be on acid and put her in a microwave or something. What I’m afraid of is… [she remembers] having breakfast with her dad and he was like. ‘What are you having there, Lucky Charms? Alright, let me tell you the whole conspiracy behind Lucky Charms”).
For the most part, Weakness really is strong. Oswalt jokes about his vices (drugs, depression, weight issues, and hating everything), and it’s hi-larious. Plus, it’s all-new material. The topics are well-worn for Oswalt (time traveling to the ’90s, etc.); the jokes are new. But here’s the thing, while Oswalt once kidded about how he never wanted to be one of those stand-ups that talks about his family ad nauseum, such jokes are now his strongest material. Cracks about religion (the track “Sky Cake”) and airplanes (“Airplane”) feel unfinished. There’s a clear, solid set up in spite of the hacky premise, but the punchlines need work, which isn’t going to happen since the guy is already planning his next batch of material. Even bits that are hysterical (“Rats” in particular) tack on certain unnecessary humor codas. Most of the limp jokes are near the end of the record, though, and Oswalt pulls back up in time for closing bit “The Magician,” a story about a magician who “hate fucks the crowd with magic.”
Werewolves and Lollipops was a great stand-up record – and the one that got me back into comedy CDs. My Weakness is Strong, by comparison, is just good. But it’s kind of like complaining about how the Clash only made one London Calling. Give ’Em Enough Rope and Sandinista! are still worth your time too. Oswalt has said that each of his records is a snapshot of where he is in his life. Hopefully, Weakness is a hint of where Oswalt’s next album will go: still angry, but a lot happier from fatherhood too.
The "Rats" bit:
And here's a classic from Werewolves and Lollipops:
Four years after the hugely awesome and critically loved …And the Glass Handed Kites, Danish prog-poppers Mew finally return with No More Stories Are Told Today I’m Sorry They Washed Away No More Stories The World Is Grey I’m Tired Let’s Wash Away. Yes, I did double the word count on that sentence by mentioning the full title (and with only one comma!). And yes, I did copy and paste the title. But while Stories’ name is a self-indulgent mouthful, the songs contained within are anything but. Fans get another round of proggy, shoegazey, post-whatever dance tunes. More rocking than Sigur Rós, M83 or Jesu, dreamier than Mogwai, and more technical than Ride or My Bloody Valentine ever got, Mew somehow sound distinct yet familiar, impenetrable yet welcoming.
If Kites was ambitious for being conceived as a single continuous song, Stories outmatches it in less than a tenth of the time with its opening track, “New Terrain.” The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) would’ve loved this song in the ’80s. Tipper Gore wasted a lot of time looking for hidden messages in songs played backwards. “New Terrain” is actually one of the few to contain such a trick – play it backwards, and you get the vinyl-only closing number “Nervous.” Stuttering second track and lead single “Introducing Palace Players” is where the record really kicks in, and it carries a hint of Kite’s hit single “Special” in its DNA. More dreamscapes follow from there.
Oddly enough, any complaints worth leveling against Stories in comparison to Kites are the same that also plagued Kites. Namely, it’s a more “difficult” record. Stories doesn’t have obvious singles like Kites’ “Special” or “The Zookeeper’s Boy,” although “Beach” would definitely be a good third single. But then again, a lot of people thought Kites, with its single song cycle, wasn’t as listener-friendly as 2003’s Frengers. Additionally, the lyrics don’t seem to do anything other than provide syllables – will anyone top the technical proficiency and emotional depth of Asia’s “Heat of the Moment?” – but Sigur Rós sings in a freaking made-up language, so whatever.
It’s not so much what vocalist/guitarist Jonas Bjerre says but how he says it, which is true for most rock music. He emotes beautifully from line to line, lending a resonance that is felt more than strictly understood. Which is perhaps the best way to explain Stories, and Mew in general. These songs are damn entertaining, the most accessible prog rock to come out in years. And while the average listener might not be able to play songs like “Hawaii” or “Cartoons and Macramé Wounds,” he or she should definitely recognize those songs’ dance value.
Slithering, shrieking classic rock in the style of Led Zeppelin, Mountain, and the Answer (Remember them?) refuses to die on Zelazowa’s new album Elephants on a Mousehunt. Slugging through 13 songs in 45 minutes, Elephants would be worthy of a Rolling Stones comparison, but at least they wrote a few good tunes. While Mick and the gang built off of their blues influences, Zelazowa goes for a bare-minimum approach.
There’s little to distinguish one track from the next, outside of guitar intros. Sometimes the band comes out swinging, like on opener “Today is Tomorrow,” and sometimes they go for a moody build-up, a la “Everything We Are” or the slow, druggy “Baby Blue (Listening to the Earth Shift).” Regardless, the Beatles-by-way-of-the-Vines sound almost always ends with frontman/guitarist Bryan Weber sounding like his balls are being dipped in battery acid. I can’t condone that kind of torture. Quite frankly, listeners and testicles both deserve better.
While the band occasionally shows glimmers of Soundgarden-style grunge, Zelazowa is mostly just another cock rock bar band. So, for those of you who miss Velvet Revolver (all none of you), try Zelazowa.
