To call Layabouts chest-beating/car-loving/girl-banging rock n’ roll as being derivative is to say rock n’ roll is derivative of rock n’ roll. If you stay true to the message, the music you make is un-fuck-with-able.

Spain’s Layabouts make the kind of music that only Europeans are capable of — the totally irony-free in-your-face verse/chorus punch that you get from decades worth of worshipping/emulating the bones of The Ramones, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC et al. In Spain they would be worshipped as heroes. In Spain they probably are worshipped as heroes, with all the groupies and excesses imaginable to four guys rocking hard in leather jackets and tight jeans.

Nothing about Layabouts is half-assed or lacking spirit. They just happened to miss the last rock n’ roll train back into fashion which The Datsuns (remember them?) and The Hives and the like clambered on almost a decade ago. The stadium rock frenzy of “It‘s All Dead“ and Queens Of The Stone-Age homage “Numbers/Figures” prove that Layabouts can walk the walk and incite small riots, but when your opening gambit is a track called “Rock‘s Dead“, it‘s best not to get all rock lyric critic on their English-as-a-second-language asses.

If you like your music brain-searing loud but without a cerebral core, or if you‘re a Spaniard with a raging rock boner needing release, Savage Behaviour is calling your name.

Much like how Cults crafted glitzy indie pop songs infused with New Wave elements and quirky introductory audio clips, Summer Camp’s debut LP Welcome To Condale is built from the same ideas. The main difference being Cults couldn’t really seem to sustain the formula for an entire record, cramming their best ideas in the front and steadily losing momentum towards the end; whereas Summer Camp have made something far more consistent and enjoyable.

Despite this, Summer Camp’s particular brand of indie pop does take a bit of acclimation. Multiple listens are all but mandatory, as their songs have a tendency to mix delightfully catchy tunes with multiple genre style shifts and can be a little overwhelming at first. It’s easy to miss what makes them so good upon first impressions. The album’s opener “Better Off Without You” is a perfect example. It’s one of the most fun songs on the record, but manages to go from an old brass sample, to Beach Boys surf rock, to a thumping New Wave verse and soaring chorus in less than a minute. The way it progresses through its heightening chord changes, the way its lead singer can be so simultaneously brazen and tender; strip away the distracting elements and it’s a world-beater of a song that feels like a kiss-off to everything holding us as a listener back.

Welcome To Condale hints less at the chillwave seeds planted on Summer Camp’s EP, but the band’s songwriting is still as strong as ever. “I Want You” and “Nobody Knows You” create nice, melancholy dream pop-scapes while “Losing My Mind” and “Down” are a bit more peppy, musicially speaking, demonstrating Summer Camp’s knack for 80’s glam-rock. You can hear echoes of The Cure in the synth keyboards of the title track, and “1988” closes things off with another strong anthem about youth and times gone by.

This is really what a debut album should be: plenty of youthful enthusiasm, a strong showing of well-written songs, and plenty of room for growth. Which is not to take away from Welcome To Condale, rather it implies that what we’ve got here is not the best Summer Camp has to offer. For the most part, the British duo has been coated in mystery and that layer of intrigue serves their throwback music perfectly. It’s a quintessential getting-to-know-you record for the music blogs to latch on to, chalk full of enough great music to keep fans’ interest piqued until the band’s next musical offering.

Does anybody remember Bongwater? That late 80’s, early 90’s shambolic psyche-rock outfit featuring actress Ann Magnusson and Shimmy Disc’s Kramer? The sixty-eight second opening track “Pete Jogs Poodle” from San Francisco three-piece Wet Illustrated’s debut perfectly encapsulates the tripped-out wonder of Bongwater. There’s a TV on in the background, someone’s playing something that sounds like a zither drenched in LSD but minus Ann Magnusson’s drunken dream inspired pay-off. “Pete Jogs Poodle” has nothing to do with the dozen other tracks on 1x1x1, but any reason to namecheck Bongwater bodes well.

1x1x1 reveals itself to be a mixture of passed-down pastoral Flying Nun-isms and lo-fi pop rambunctions reminiscent of the late, lamented genius of Jay Reatard or the skewed squall of Times New Viking. Which is to say a lot of noise is made, a lot of random feelings are snottily shouted out — “this noise is going to my head”, “I don’t wanna go down to the marketplace today” — and guitars are given an all-out thrashing. There’s more on the menu than just kicking up a racket though. “Herman’s Head” throws a simple keyboard riff into the mix, doubling up on the melodic pull, and the layered jangle of “Born Stoked” sounds like The Feelies meets Sonic Youth revealing one of the album’s highlights. It all sounds good on paper, doesn’t it?

The two best tracks here are the final two on the record when Wet Illustrated pull back a little and play with mood and texture. “(Where I Wanna Be) Buried” is as gloomy as it sounds, underpinned by some ferocious guitar interplay and the soft rumble of drums that would fit perfectly on side one of Daydream Nation, and the instrumental finale “Luxury Waives” which sounds like another band entirely. It’s accidentally beautiful, serene even, despite a tornado of guitar feedback hiding behind its chiming counterparts. If only Wet Illustrated had given the two tracks that bookend 1x1x1 more consideration, this album could’ve showed any number of possibilities.

Wet Illustrated epitomise the band that would be awesome to play in, but the end result isn‘t exciting enough to distinguish itself in a way that lodges into the brain and refuses to shift. It tries pretty hard, but at best 1x1x1 playfully kicks and shouts and boogies away for a neat half hour or so, which if that’s your thing, Wet Illustrated are surely calling your name, but for now, let’s see what they do next.

Ah, the Christmas record. You probably had one growing up. I’m sure I did, but that memory has been wiped clean as what was once sugar to the ears as a child evolved into audio torture as an adolescent. This isn’t to say that Christmas albums are bad, they’re just an acquired taste. They also have the life-span of milk and if you drink too much, you’ll make yourself sick.

What Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward have done here is simple and easily explained — assemble some of their favourite seasonal standards and perform them in their own warm and inimitable style. With such a wealth of tracks to choose from Deschanel and Ward have thankfully avoided going down the “Frosty The Snowman” route and balanced the album in an uncomplicated, old-timey way that recreates those Christmas albums of the 50′s and 60′s.

As She & Him, both Ward and Deschanel have established a musical style that borrows heavily from the same period as these songs, so their ability to effortless inhabit the world of Christmas’ past is unsurprising. Some obvious highlights are Deschanel’s tender reading of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”, and Ward assuming lead vocals on “Christmas Wish” and his almost-there guitar solo on Brenda Lee’s “Rockin Around The Christmas Tree”, but it’s largely the warmth from Deschanel’s sitting-by-the-fireplace vocals that has any red-blooded male hanging off her every word.

Elf fans will have cause to rejoice as the memorable scene between Deschanel and Will Ferrell is played out again on “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, with Deschanel swapping her original part and injecting a playful feistiness with a reluctant Ward. A perhaps mutual fondness for The Beach Boy’s 1964 Christmas Album is revealed as two tracks appear in “Christmas Day” and “Little Saint Nick”, and ….  dear god, is there really any point talking about what these songs sound like? THEY SOUND LIKE CHRISTMAS. Look in your record collection. Do you see any Christmas albums? No? Well then here’s a safe, inoffensive place to start.

For neither of these talented artists to contribute original material here is a wasted opportunity. It would’ve been interesting to see what they’d come up with, but perhaps that is something for another time. What we have here is what it says on the box – A Very She & Him Christmas, and very it is. To be honest Christmas albums depress the hell out of me, and Ben Gibbard is the luckiest son of a bitch in the world. There, stick that in your stocking.

With each new Wilco LP, the discussion seems to gravitate away from the album itself and instead revolve around Wilco the band and their presence/importance within the contemporary rock scene. After the two consecutive masterpieces of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born, it’s not hard to see why. Wilco had evolved before our eyes, from an alt-country half of Uncle Tupelo to an avant-garde, modern rock trailblazer. They stood up to their label, exchanged band members, and eventually became synonymous with consistently strong experimental records and impeccable live shows. If anything really negative could have been said about their last couple albums, it was that the bar was set so high from previous work that it made critical success for their less-than-perfect records nearly impossible. Critics didn’t want to see Wilco mess around or simply write good songs, they wanted rock immortality.

The Whole Love seems to be a really tidy compromise; experimentation is reintroduced, and the noise of early-to-mid 00’s Wilco has returned without abandoning the trend of the focused 70’s rock elements from their last two albums. In other words, production is tight, while the songwriting is allowed to roam a bit. The record bookends musical oddities, with a seven-minute opener (“The Art of Almost”) that is soaked with chaotic instrumentals and a discordant jam; and later a twelve-minute acoustic closer that rarely strays from its form, making only subtle musical changes throughout while still managing to be gorgeous and compelling.

It’s a bit of a stretch to call this Wilco’s best album, but absolutely a no-brainer to name it their most well-rounded. The effortless shifts in sound and direction could only be achieved at such a high level by a band who’s been there and done that. “I Might” is a resounding organ-driven rocker, but it bursts in off the heels of the clouded album opener. “Black Moon” meanders in with its melancholy Neil Young cues after the rollicking, joyful “Dawned On Me” guitars simmer down. Elsewhere, cuts like “Born Alone” remain in their own delightfully eccentric universe, showing off an air-tight percussion and bass section while expanding upon the whims of the electric guitars by gradually moving the song away from its perky melody until it finally gives way and pushes it down a spiral of key-changes and finally fizzles out. It’s rare to find songs that challenge so much while they reward, and The Whole Love is filled with them.

Let’s hope that, as much fun as it might be to break down Wilco’s discography every time they put out something new, this album can put to rest any lingering doubts about the band. There’s something almost supernatural in the enjoyment of these springy rhythms and carefree hooks, as well as the more complex, less-than-readily-accessible art-house pieces. Wilco has expertly combined the less complex songwriting of their more recent work, with the expansive imagination of their earlier stuff, and all without showing the stitches where they sewed it all together. They’ve solidified themselves as the greatest American band playing today, possibly of all time, and they don’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.

HTRK
The Garage, London
October 24, 2011

HTRK have always been a difficult band to love. Once you got used to their narco-minimalism and faceless anonymity that pervaded their artwork, you realised they weren’t a band seeking attention, merely like-minded souls to tumble down their rabbit hole. They weren’t looking for you, you were looking for them. They ply romance as being one of their tenets, but their music is neither romantic nor seductive. More confessions of bitterness and jealousy from a self-loathing voyeur unable to look away from what attracts them, or the last words of a dying emotion. This was no affectation, no conscious design to portray themselves as intense individuals creating challenging music, but more an attempt to give voice to their own inner demons, their own fears and weaknesses.

It’s hard to be objective about a band when your introduction was through the same member who decided to take own his life in March of 2010.  Sean Stewart was the beautiful heart of HTRK, his bass-playing a formidable and driving presence in their sound, both live and on record. Listening to the band perform without him for the first time, having missed their ICA return late last year, is a moment filled with sadness while being conscious that something is missing, something important, the sense of nostalgia that pervaded HTRK’s songs now made visible. Unspeaking throughout the show, both vocalist Jonnine Standish and guitarist Nigel Yang have the hardest of tasks ahead of them. The detached stare of Standish, gazing out beyond the assembled, is impenetrable as ever and so little appears to have changed, yet so much has.

Work (Work, Work) is a valiant attempt to salvage the last moments of HTRK in its original incarnation, but it falls short in delivering the same haunting allure that was found on their debut LP. Where HTRK were once a hypnotic, transfixing experience, the effect now is disjointed and disorienting, a stuttering collage of fragmented beats and shards of guitar with Standish a ghostly emotionless presence. Again, so little appears to have changed, yet so much has. The absence of that bass groan, the absence of Sean, has shifted an unconscionable weight between Standish and Yang that neither seem able to carry. It’s unfair to expect the transition to be a smooth one, and perhaps it’s an adjustment that both audience and artist need time to get used to.

To immerse yourself in HTRK’s world is to call upon your greatest fears and insecurities and to fall in a fallow heap on the floor. It’s the chill sound of sensory deprivation that envelopes and preys up the mind. Occasionally it teases, thin ripples of romance and eroticism, as found on their debut Marry Me Tonight, but still dysfunctional and warped to the core. It is something only the willfully perverse would invite though their door.

Picking up the pieces following the suicide of bandmate is an excruciatingly tough and precarious position for a band to find themselves in, especially one whose sound is so emotionless and bleak, loved and unloved. Stewart’s basslines, still intact from when Work (Work, Work) was in the early stages of being written, are a potent and sad reminder of his immeasurable talent and his lynchpin position in the band.

Work (Work, Work) finds HTRK trapped by circumstance. Quoted as wanting to let the album come out as is, unfinished from when Sean took his life to let those recordings be the final word for that era of the band, Work (Work, Work) captures a band trying to restructure and redefine their sound with mixed results. The ghostly minimalism that is their calling card, the flatlining 808 pulse and metallic clang remain, but Stewart’s undulating throb which added an element of dread and discomfort to their sound no longer anchors and amplifies vocalist Jonnine Standish’s dispassionate murmurs.

The mood is confusing, which does factor in upon the disorienting nature of HTRK, but it leaves the listener questioning what is Work working towards? The closing ‘Body Double’, appears to blackly comment on their decision to continue as a band while pointing the way forward, with the lines “There’s nothing personal about it/It’s just business, baby”, playing out into the final muffled refrain, “New blood for hire…”. This is a sad record, and clearly a difficult one for any band. Work (Work, Work) should be regarded as less a new beginning and more a moment for HTRK to collect themselves before moving forward.

New Jersey’s four-piece Real Estate made some real waves with their self-titled debut album, a concise gem of a record filled with bright indie jangle pop rock songs. Less than two years later, they’re back with another set of ten brief songs, an almost identical LP in regards to length, but quite different thematically.

Both of Real Estate’s albums were released in the fall, but Days is the first to really sound like an autumn record. The songs are glazed with garage rock production, heavy on the echos, and with a melancholy bent. Just as melodic, if not more, than on their self-titled debut, but with a tendency for sweeping choruses and instrumental-heavy tracks. Each cut stands alone by itself really well, and works even better as an album.

Think Belle & Sebastian at their simplest, or Rogue Wave at their quietest. “Easy” opens the album with restrained spunk, a very pleasant melody wrapped around slightly gloomy guitars and chords that vary from the confident to cautious in a matter of seconds. “Green Aisles” follows suit with a slower tempo and plenty of instrumental filler. The construction of each of the songs would be fairly repetitious (jangle guitars, drums, repeat) if Real Estate hadn’t been so good at nailing the melody and the ethereal vocals. Martin Courtney’s gentle treatment of the lead vocals blends in seamlessly with the music and is easy to lose in the mix without focusing in on them.

“It’s Real” is about as catchy and spirited as the album gets before retreating into another introspective cut, “Kinder Blumen”. There’s a lot of subtle charm to the album, such as “Younger Than Yesterday”, a laid-back nod towards mellow 90’s alt-rock, and “Wonder Years”, a delightful little folk tune (remember the Belle & Sebastian comparison?) complete with do-do-do-do chorus and layered harmonies. Real Estate closes the LP with “All The Same” which eventually breaks down into a mini jam before finally sputtering out.

The extra creativity on this final song could have been useful throughout more of the album, as I’m sure some listeners will tire of the band’s narrow musical palette, but it also caps off an otherwise flighty album with a seven minute instrumental flourish, and is a welcome twist to the norm. Where Real Estate really shine is their ability to craft sweet, simple songs underneath a moody, yet gorgeous, shell. This more than trumps the lack of variety, it makes it a non-issue, and should ensure Real Estate’s sophomore record will have a place amongst 2011’s best.

Lydia Loveless
Rumba Cafe, Columbus, OH
September 30, 2011

A couple of songs into Lydia Loveless’s album launch and it’s difficult to tell where Lydia the singer ends and Lydia the person begins. It’s simply hard to imagine a woman like this, barely in her twenties, and standing a little over five foot tall in her boots, could be so worldly and explosive. And yet, there she is, muttering a string of f-bombs during a song break because she can’t get her guitar tuned quite right. The attitude, the weathered, sarcastic smile. The edge. That’s pretty damn tough to fake.

Even tougher to fake is the music. Call shenanigans all you want on the girl’s rough-and-tumble subject matter, her music is pure throughout. Loveless’s voice glistens like Loretta Lynn, and powers forward like Neko Case. Her chord structures throughout the songs are simple and repetitious, but built underneath some expressive guitar and stand-up bass lines. A blend of genuine country music and power pop has surely been attempted in the past, but never over punk chords and lyrics about psycho ex-boyfriends and guzzling gasoline.

At the end of the evening, it’s hard to imagine Loveless being anyone but herself. Her silly banter with the band and the crowd in between songs keeps everything at familial levels despite venue shortcomings. The emotive looks of frustration and eventual satisfaction as she sings through deeply personal material. She even admits with timidity to being nervous thinking no one would show up, to a roar of applause from the audience. It’s this combination of personality and talent that makes Lydia so fascinating, and the transparent reality of it all drives it all home. The music world had better get ready for a little Columbus edge. Lydia Loveless is most certainly on her way.

There’s something far worse about a great band making an unmemorable record as opposed to a bad one. Because a bad one often results from sweeping experimentalism, or personal issues in an artist’s life that carries over into the music in a sloppy way. And it’s remembered, sometimes for just being so lousy, or maybe divisive within the artist’s fan base. An unmemorable one is simply that, unmemorable.

2010’s Destroyer of the Void was unmemorable. It wasn’t bad by any means, just not worth committing to memory. I think it was out of my mp3 collection within a couple months. Try as I could to recreate the absolute magic of their previous album, and first Sub Pop record, Furr, Void offered bland, drawn-out songwriting with very few benchmarks or eyebrow-raisers. Now, only a year later, Blitzen Trapper have a new set of songs, and this time around they’ve kept things brief, accessible, and a lot more fun.

American Goldwing bursts out of the gates with “Might Find It Cheap”, with a blast of distortion and chugging guitars underneath BT’s trademark acoustic riffs and jagged chord progressions. This song is a massive breath of fresh air, and sets the listener’s stage pretty nicely for the rest of the album. Goldwing isn’t here to take too many chances or mess around, but rock-n-rolling is just fine. Most of the album’s songs carry this mantra of having fun and keeping things loose: “Fletcher” is a Tom Petty mountain-rock cautionary tale, “Your Crying Eyes” injects a little old school R&B into an obsessive relationship, and the title track is a mini-southern rock tale of leaving home and finding an identity.

When Goldwing finally does pull back, the results are just as enjoyable. “Taking It Easy Too Long”, probably the best song on the album, is a gorgeous little slide guitar and harmonica country ballad about indecisiveness and waiting. “Stranger In A Strange Land” follows suit subbing a piano for the slide guitar. There’s hardly a song on the album that doesn’t have something to like. BT are at their best telling stories of degenerates, murderers, and lost souls as exaggerated and timeless as their specific brand of old west rock and mountain folk music. They borrow from everyone from Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie to Led Zeppelin but the sound is distinctly theirs.

Blitzen Trapper have been around for a while, and the sound they’ve cultivated is rich and mature. Many of the same elements that made Furr such an instant classic are here, but they’re more subtle and at ease. This record feels like a band who’s comfortable with who they are, and unafraid to write songs that reflect it.