16th Sep2009

Owen – New Leaves

by nickwan

Not only has Mike Kinsella brought lists of confusion to those who want to play his songs since he rarely ever plays in standard tuning, but does it in such a way that makes you think “damn… this doesn’t sound like it’s that hard”. When it comes to simple sounding music, Mike Kinsella in his “Owen” persona takes the cake. The layers of instruments, the simple use of distortion, and yes… the weird time signatures that pop in and out of the record, make his new album New Leaves his best album to date, and a contender for album of the year.

Mike Kinsella is no guitarist by design. Originally the drummer for influential Chicago indie band Cap’n Jazz, Mike Kinsella found his way to the guitar in his own studio outfit dubbed American Football. A few years pass, and Owen is created. His first album being completely different from his next albums, this newest album is the most “kick back” to his older upbeat sound. New Leaves takes the intricacies of At Home With… and the indie-pop sound of I do perceive. and fuses the two into this new creation.

The Polyvinyl site (Mike’s label) officially states that this album was recorded over the course of two years, with three producers other than Mike to help him with the noise. Unlike At Home With…, New Leaves doesn’t set out with the intent to be that “at home” feeling album. Although, as usual, Kinsella brings the notion of an “at home” feel not for one entire song but rather in and out of songs — never once does this album encounter just a solo attempt with guitar and vocals as his previous albums have showcased in at least one song.

Something that definitely is a kick back to I do perceive and those songs would be the electric guitars. Although they sparsely appear throughout his discography, I do perceive had the bulk of the electric vibe to it. This album, New Leaves, definitely brings that attitude and feel back. Songs like “Never Been Born” and “The Only Child of Aergia” showcase this brilliantly. As for the more At Home With… flavor, “Ugly on the Inside” is the best earthy-acoustic sound produced on this album, with reminiscence of “Sad Waltzes of Pietro Crespi” off of At Home With… Although, some people might be surprised to hear that “Good Friends, Bad Habits” is not the original acoustic demo he posted on his MySpace page a few months ago. On the contrary, it doesn’t sound like it at all… however, if you ever get a chance to see Mike live, you will be surprised usually to hear what the acoustic versions of most of his songs sound like.

The pros for this album: Mike Kinsella is not afraid to go back and revisit those old sounds he once created. Many artists today feel like tampering with older stuff is almost on a level of unoriginality. Mike Kinsella uses his predefined sound as more of a base rather than a complete rip off to start his album. I would definitely say it is most different from other albums he has put out. Another pro is that there isn’t any of those “Owen-esque” bridges or outros that last half of the length of the song (e.g. “Bad News” and most of his first album, self-titled). Some people might not think that’s a pro, but I am a firm believer of a studio vs live sound… and the infinite outro is definitely an on-stage-only execution.

The cons for this album… when will you ever actually hear any of these songs? Much less, with a band? I know he played with a band in promotion of this album ONCE in his hometown of CHICAGO… but unfortunately, the last time I flew out to Chicago for a show with Mike Kinsella was when he put together a Fugazi cover band and right after one song downtown Chicago had a black out. Sweet flight over, bro. Mike Kinsella is a father first, also. Touring for him is seldom and usually to the east coast. Plus, he usually never headlines… so his sets are anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes long. Another con, going along with the live sound theme, is the idea that all these songs not only have band components to them but they are practically integral. With the past albums, and most pronounced with At Home With…, Mike Kinsella used a backing band in the studio only to make the (usually acoustic) guitar and vocals more accentuated.  Rather, this newest album has a lot of bass guitar and piano that become the main rhythm or most memorable lead to the songs where they are featured. To be honest, the first time I saw him play “Bad News”  I honestly thought to myself “holy shit, he’s playing the rhythm and lead at the same time…” so, with that in mind, it’s possible he surprises us with his guitar madness yet again.

In the race for album of the year, this album is my personal favorite of the year. The five most memorable albums thus far have been: Owen – New Leaves, David Bazan – Curse Your Branches, fun. – Aim and Ignite, Brand New – Daisy, and Ace Enders & a Million Different People – When I Hit the Ground . The next most exciting album for me to hear will be Tegan and Sara’s new album Sainthood along with AFI’s upcoming album Crash Love. It’s always possible that Glassjaw might throw a new album out there… but who’s to say? Far is expected to have an album out for sale before the year end as well, so there is definitely plenty of music to look forward to still… it’ll just be hard to top this album.

This album doesn’t officially come out until September 22nd, but if you were lucky and got the pre-order then it’s been at your doorstep since yesterday at the earliest.

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01st Sep2009

David Bazan – Curse Your Branches

by nickwan

After extensively touring throughout the US, Canada, UK, and Australia for the past 3+ years, Bazan has crawled his way back into the studio to put out his first full-length LP, Curse Your Branches. Released today, Bazan’s consistancy for his Seattle-bred sound is only furthered by these 38 minutes of indie love. Never leaving the realm that he pioneered with Pedro the Lion years ago, Bazan only expanded the amount of instruments he could play and has implimented them all into this record, blending his sound he gathered from his Headphones project and the singer/songwriter style he also garnished in 2006 with his EP, Fewer Moving Parts. It’s hard to find much wrong with David Bazan, from his live show to this newest release, and maybe that is what is his biggest enemy… consistancy.

Years ago, coming up in the late 90′s, the term “slow-core” started popping up. This was used to describe bands who weren’t part of the alternative rock scene (composed of bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, etc), nor were they moving along with the indie bands of the time (i.e. Jimmy Eat World, The Get Up Kids, etc). This music was a lot slower and a lot more… sigh… sad and depressing. Some classic pioneers other than Pedro the Lion of this unfortunate labelling of a genre would be, in no particular order, Carrissa’s Wierd (Seattle), early Death Cab for Cutie (Seattle), Elliott Smith (Portland), Rocky Votolato (Seattle), and to a somewhat further extent The Red House Painters (San Francisco). This music, slowcore, is nothing more but glorified slow songs that are pretty easy to get intimate with on an aural level. Usually not the most technically difficult music, the arrangement usually matches the root meaning of the song, as the song itself is mostly in form of a story of some sort. It’s not very common for a slowcore song to have little to no meaning.

Now, there are tons and tons of bands taking influence from these artists. We’ve seen what slowcore-electronica could become (e.g. The Postal Service, Headphones). That electro-style has been popular for the past decade and has yet to stop inflitrating every nook and cranny of the rock world. We’ve heard the gamut of bands the mainstream consider “emo”, from the very well known Dashboard Confessional to the very unrecognized Jeremy Enigk, this music has subtly stretched further than most of these artists have realized.

Coming back to this album, David Bazan has not sacraficed anything of his own style for this album. And this should stand as a testament to this music he has helped build; this album could just be the quintessential slowcore album. Three albums in this genre have really struck me as “impossible” or “too good”, Pedro the Lion’s Achilles’ Heel, Pedro the Lion’s Options, and Death Cab for Cutie’s The Photo Album. Curse Your Branches is close to topping at least one of those albums for me.

The album, song for song, is too consistant in the sound in my own honest opinion. This does two things for the record: 1) it solidifies it’s stance in the scene this music will be promoted towards and 2) fails to bring about any change for Bazan in terms of style or music in general. For someone who isn’t very into this type of music, or is trying to get into this type of music, it would be very easy to mistake the discography of Bazan’s work, from Pedro the Lion to now, as all the same band. Very unfortunately for Bazan, all three entities he has played under are very different. But not different enough. This, again, plays into holding his own style… however, how many times can you sing the same song differently? Minus the Bear suffered from that bug with their past two releases… there is only so many songs about having sex, beaches, and drinking one person can write until each song is the same. How many songs about questioning God, break ups, make ups, and the music industry can Bazan write?

The most dissenting songs from Bazan’s style are “Please, Baby, Please”, “When We Fall”, and “Bearing Witness”. Both songs have this beach-campfire vibe about them. I’d say Bazan has never wrote a song like this before, but for some reason… it doesn’t sound different from what he’s done before. It’s different enough for this album to stick out though. Also, whoever is the new bassist(s) for this album, you’re doing one hell of a job.

Two songs that I would consider “the best” of the album, “Heavy Breath” and “Curse Your Branches”. These songs really tie together every single thing Bazan is about. Synthesizers, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, a full band attitude, and a very vocally driven performance via lyrics in song. It’s hard to believe that any other people were playing instruments on these two songs since everything about these songs SCREAM “Bazanbazanbazan”.

Between my two favorite releases this year, Ace Enders and fun., David Bazan is close to topping the unofficial charts. This album is way lo-fi when it comes to production, probably not hitting on much other than mixing and mastering. The personnel on this record isn’t much more than Bazan, a few familiar friends, and the will to make the most perfect slowcore music right now.

This album is definitely a breath of fresh air in a place where the scene has been swooped on by musical-rock (fun., Forgive Durden, Say Anything), as well as… well, that other indie rock (Ace Enders, The Gaslight Anthem, Black Kids, Brand New etc). The next breath of fresh air could possibly be from one of my all-time favorite artist, Owen New Leaves. But that’s not until the 22nd.

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16th Jul2009

Skies on Fire – 2009

by nickwan

Skies on Fire - 2009

It’s been a few years and these New Jersey natives are still together. Pretty good when Eddie Cuddy, lead singer/guitarist, is peacing out for college in the fall. Much more importantly, these kids aren’t in college and they are blowing a lot of their competition out of the water.

The album is five songs and not shy of a definite departure from their first demo they put out,entitled So Far, So Good, which came out a Summer ago. The biggest difference: the mood. Leaving the realm of angsty aggressive indie rock into the realm of indie rock mixed with indie pop, SOF is doing one of two things at the moment: either really putting their heart into their instruments or faking it really really really well.

Another big departure from the last demo, production quality. The singers aren’t being shafted on vocal tracks this time, and it shows. On So Far, So Good you could hear the rushed recording that accompanied the instruments. This new venture seems like a lot more time went in to this album, inside and outside of the studio. Also, the more prominent use of some sort of click track seems like it’s helping too. On the first album, there were a lot of tiny production errors. Summed together with post-production errors and a rushed recording session, you can see how things could get some what messy despite their best efforts. This new demo is really flourishing in what kind of studio band SOF can be.

The biggest similarities to other bands that come off the top of my head are a local band and one of my favorite bands: You, Me & Iowa and The Get Up Kids. It’s pretty clear if you compare YMI’s latest album, called The Adventures of You, Me & Iowa, and this demo what kind of slot SOF might fall into. As for TGUK, one of my favorite bands ever, something YMI doesn’t have is two singers, like Matt Pryor and Jim Suptic are to TGUK. The big thing that this does for SOF is that diversity in their music won’t just have to come from how they make their music sounds but from the shared singing duties they could potentially utilize.

The five songs on this CD are solid for the most part, but the only thing that is driving me into a “wtf” state is the identity crisis shown on the CD. When I talk about diversity on a CD I don’t mean how many different genres you can cram in before every single radio station can play a song off your newest release. Consistency in the sound is maybe the thing lacking on this album… but that doesn’t take away from the music. It’s still good music. The first song “Out of the Grey” shows off this indie pop side of SOF pretty clearly with the first half of the song. No distorted guitarist, keyboards, a lot of indie pop stuff that the scene is creaming over right now. Then the second half of the song is this heavy jamb from whoknowswhere. Unexpected, yes. Unwarrented? I’m not so sure. But that does set the stage for the rest of the album. The second song “Tail Light at a Distance” is the most throwback to SOF’s older songs. Crunchy with dah-dah-dah’s and singalong choruses written to be sung along to. I’d be pissed if the entire CD sounded like this song, but I’d also be pissed if they shunned what they did so well a year ago. “Good Enough”, the third track, is where we see a singer change. This is a slower jam that some might call the scenester nu-ballad that every single band ends up writing. Complete with sappy-sad lyrics and a volume fade out into the sunset. “Photography” is a song where endless solos aren’t just saved for the live show anymore. It’s got this east coast vibe to it, but after sitting through 5 minutes and 36 seconds of that last song I have to admit I wasn’t really in the mood for another slow jam, despite my love for swing/jazz snare beats. From 3:30 to 4:33 is a cheese filled solo from a decade these kids weren’t born in. Then from 4:33 to 5:19 (which is the end of the song) you have some vocals and soloing over that. Endless. At least until the song itself ended. The only two songs that were similar were “Good Enough” and “Photography”, and knowing Eddie Cuddy I really don’t think he’d like it too much if that was the kind of sound his band produced for a full length CD. As for the last song on the album, “Winter”, this is the shortest and maybe the most New Jersey of all the songs on here. Once again loud and heavy, it’s got this “Cat Scratch Fever” vibe to it that makes you think “are we going down to the shore?”. Not trying to knock it, but to end the CD on that track really seals the deal for the identity crisis, and I don’t mean Thrice’s album (or their current state as a band).

The pros: for each song, awesome solid songs produced and recorded great. Great vocals to boot, which is hard to find from a few high schoolers.

The cons: I’m never a fan of going to a show and being confused as to what the next song will sound like. Some bands can do it, but those bands usually walk a fine line between doing it well and ruining themselves. This line is much finer for a band whose pond is quite small. So the personality disorder is definitely my own personal con to this album. The other con would be two similar sounding slow songs right after each other. There isn’t much room for error in track listing a demo CD, and it seems that if there was an area that lacked anything it was the track listing. The first song has a slow jam to it for the most part, the second song is definitely a pick-me-up to the album. To keep the integrity of the album currently, I might suggest listening to the album in this order: Out of the Grey, Tail Lights at a Distance, Photography, Winter, Good Enough. However, if I were to listen to this CD/decide the tracklisting… I would make Tail Light at a Distance the LAST song on the CD. Maybe it might sound better if it were Out of the Grey, Photography, Winter, Good Enough, and Tail Lights last? Still, two slow jams…. but maybe catching them early is better than leaving two songs that are 5:30 a piece right after each other. Who knows.

Aside from the second half of this review, of me railing the album of it’s faults, I do believe that overall I like it. Out of 5, I’d give it 3.5/5. It might have been higher if there were one or two more songs on this demo, preferably one more fast song and an acoustic song. Also, it would have been a lot lower if the Photography solo was any longer.

This has been tagged for relay. If you want to download this album, I would suggest heading towards the SOF myspace website: www.myspace.com/skiesonfirenj

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