Fans of Suuns are no strangers to the band’s peculiarity—the Montreal band’s debut album Zeroes QC unwound with erratic electro spurts and pounding post-punk furor. And like Zeroes, Suun’s new release Images Du Futur is enchantingly strange, offering dark, twisting landscapes where contorted guitars and Ben Shemie’s paranoiac vocals rise out of the pervasive sonic gloom.
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Good Light, the newest release from Tennessee’s Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, would be the perfect soundtrack to a nostalgic, romantic film set somewhere south of the Mason Dixon line: it’s got sweet, folksy acoustic love songs and rollicking southern rock jams. And it’s no wonder that the band first sprung to popularity after excerpts from its 2005 album Washed in Blue appeared in Lifetime and Showtime television series. But like many things appropriated for television and mass consumption, Good Light sacrifices some of its verve and originality for smoothly polished, somewhat superficial tunes that are sure to please the masses.
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Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, otherwise known as the musician and Maine-native Aly Spaltro, masters the art of storytelling on Ripely Pine, her most recent album. Each track forms a mini-narrative, constructed with arcs and climaxes, rising and falling in gentle lulls and hypnotic dénouements.
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Posted in High Fidelity, Reviews
The Lives Inside the Lines in Your Hand is a title that could signify different things—that this will be an album of poetically profound introspection and thorough reflection, or that it’s trying much too hard to achieve that kind of depth. Unfortunately, Matt Pond’s newest album tends toward the latter. This isn’t to say that Lives isn’t a pleasant listen; rather, Pond’s pop sensibilities are on overdrive, stifling any quirkiness in a varnished exoskeleton, a veneer of catchy choruses and saccharine melodies that sacrifies passion for polish.
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Eels is a strange group—headed by rasping, sensitive frontman Mark “E” Everett, backed by a rotating crew with a slew of strange monikers (the Chet, P-Boo, Koool G Murder, and Knuckles, to name a few), and known best for its successful concept album trilogy released in 2009 and 2010, Homre Lobo, End Times, and Tomorrow Morning. And while Eels has a long track record of solid albums, Wonderful, Glorious just falls flat.
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As vague as its title may be, Somewhere Else is an aptly evocative moniker for this debut album from Copenhagen’s Indians, fronted by Søren Løkke Juul. Although the band has only been together for a year, it’s quickly caught international attention with spare, haunting music that resonates like otherwordly strains echoing through the cold expanses of Scandinavia.
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Beta Love, the third album from the Syracuse-based band Ra Ra Riot, captures the band in the midst of what is, hopefully, transition. After cellist Alexandra Lawn left the group in February of last year, Ra Ra Riot has sought to transform its sound from the elegant baroque pop of 2010’s The Orchard into something a little more technologic.
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Fade is an appropriate title for New Jersey natives Yo La Tengo’s thirteenth studio album. After more than two and a half decades and a dozen records, countless line-up changes, and label switches, the band seems to be stretching itself a little thin. Yo La Tengo’s albums have been praised for maintaining an understated air, but this one is more underwhelming than subtle.
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The city of Rome inspires a wealth of images—the weathered arches of the Coliseum, people strolling down cobblestone streets with pastel-colored gelato and designer heels, the ruins of the Forum standing silent and aloof against the horizon. And now Danger Mouse, aka Brian Burton, has teamed up with Italian composer/arranger Daniele Luppi to present us with his own homage to the Eternal City. Rome is a sweeping, cinematic undertaking of an album five years in the making, an assemblage of darkly melodic psych-pop and orchestral flourishes that recall the soundtracks of ’60s Italian films and spaghetti westerns.
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After years of playing with Here We Go Magic, Kristina (Teeny) Lieberson set off on her own with a new band, TEEN, comprised of her sisters and friends. TEEN released its first album, In Limbo, earlier this year to great acclaim, and TEEN has been one of the most refreshing break-out bands of 2012. We spoke with Teeny about the band’s creation, her songwriting practices, the band’s recent tour, and her plans for the future.
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Posted in Features