As we creep towards the end of the year, today’s new album release Tuesday is particularly sparse. If you’re looking to buy some new music, perhaps you might be interested in a singles collection from Gorillaz, a new EP from reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, or Mungolian Jet Set’s new record. Additionally, reissues of two classic Smashing Pumpkins records, “Gish” and “Siamese Dream”, are also available today with plenty of bonus material for hardcore fans. In the land of Pick Your Poison, enjoy some interestingly great tracks from Anomie Belle, Beat Culture, The New Tigers, Old Monk, Young Antiques and Yuzima. Star Slinger’s reworking of an ASAP Rocky track is pretty great too, and holiday music fans can download Tristen’s version of “Frosty the Snowman” or stream Red Wanting Blue taking on a Dr. Seuss classic.
Welcome back! Really that’s more self-congratulatory than anything else, as we were off for a couple days thanks to an extended Thanksgiving weekend. If you celebrated, I hope your turkey day was excellent and delicious. I also hope that if you went Black Friday shopping that you didn’t get too stomped on and found some great deals. With the economy in relative shambles, any good deals are better than no good deals. Today’s Cyber Monday, so if you’re looking to buy gifts online, I hope you find some great options that way. Here at Faronheit, every edition of Pick Your Poison is free. That’s the best deal you can get, right? Have a look at the tracks available below, and might I advise you to have a listen to songs from The 65s, Hunters, Morning Claws, Sharon Van Etten, Twig Palace and The Naked and Famous’ remix of White Sea (which is a side project of M83’s Morgan Kibby).
Sometimes even the crappiest of bands makes for the most engaging of shows. That’s not to suggest The Kooks or The Postelles are crappy bands, but to put it another way, neither one of them will generate a huge amount of underground hype, largely because their music isn’t diverse or experimental enough. You don’t need such things to become successful, but they certainly do go a long way when looking to earn some respect from intense music lovers. If your songs are bright enough and catchy enough though, a fan base will come along with them in spite of loads of indications (i.e. bad press) you should ignore it. It boggles the mind sometimes how a band like Nickelback goes on to sell millions of albums while bands like Real Estate or Destroyer continue to live in relative obscurity. For The Kooks, their success is easy to hear as they’ve essentially provided a modern update to The Kinks’ Britpop stylings. Hell, change the “oo” in Kooks to “in” and you get Kinks. The band’s first two albums were lovely in how plainly catchy they were, and apparently two crappy reviews from Pitchfork means your third record gets entirely ignored. But they’ve also been getting steady radio airplay around the world, starting with “She Moves in Her Own Way” and branching out to “Always Where I Need to Be”, “Shine On” and most recently “Junk of the Heart (Happy)”. Their star continues to rise, in spite of some rather intense criticism. Similar things could be said about The Postelles, though their road to success appears to be a little tougher. Sonically their self-titled debut also updates a classic sound, that of 50s pop in the vein of Buddy Holly with the flourishes of The Strokes. It should come as little surprise that The Strokes’ Albert Hammond Jr. liked the band enough to put them under his wing and produce a portion of that first record. The Postelles may be having more difficulty getting people to listen to their record, but once they do so many are won over. It helps as well that the band has been touring almost non-stop in the last year and have been building an audience with some high energy shows. Their touring with The Kooks feels like a match made in heaven, given their somewhat similar sound and fun live sets. So in spite of having rolled through Chicago earlier in the month while touring with The Wombats, The Postelles returned to the Windy City on Saturday night, opening up for The Kooks at The Vic. It was one wild time.
First off, I want to give a quick shout out to the Chicago band Yawn. I like those guys quite a bit, and they were the first band on the bill Saturday night when doors opened. Yawn was actually joining The Kooks on tour as Saturday night was also The Postelles’ last night on tour with The Kooks. But I missed Yawn’s set and can’t very well write about it, but having seen them before and being familiar with their latest record “Open Season”, they’re well worth keeping an eye on. Have a look at their official website to learn more about them.
After dodging some seriously heavy raindrops on my way to The Vic, I arrived with just enough time to shake the water from my hair and catch the start of The Postelles’ set. The crowd was surprisingly heavy already, though it was a sold out all ages show, so perhaps parents dropping off their kids just wanted to get rid of them as soon as possible. Just kidding, there was a good mixture of older teens and 20-somethings on the whole, but nobody much older than that. Spending so much time at 21+ shows has ruined me in some ways I guess, because the energy and enthusiasm of the rather youthful crowd was intense. Everybody seemed intensely excited to be there, the bands included, and at times the screams got so intense I felt they were giving me hearing damage. I expected such raucous cheering when The Kooks were on stage, charming British lads as they are, but things were just as lively for The Postelles. It makes more sense if you know their music and have seen them live though, because the hooks suck you in easily and make it a breeze to sing along to as the band gets extremely playful and moves around the stage like they want to engage you in every way possible. They had no reservations about climbing atop the monitor speakers at the front of the stage for a quick guitar solo or intense vocal moment, and every time they’d do it, there would be screams of excitement from the crowd. Their 30 minute set saw them powering through much of their debut album, hitting particularly hard with singles like “123 Stop” and “White Night” along with deeper cuts like “Stella” and “Hey Little Sister”. There were people standing around me that had never heard The Postelles before but wound up singing the choruses to half the songs anyways because they’re so damn catchy, and with so many clapping along and jumping around you’d have to be a real Scrooge not to have had a great time. Towards the end of their set they polled the crowd as to whether they should cover Elvis or The Ramones, and it appeared to be a relatively even split, so they chose The Ramones because they’d done Elvis the two nights prior. Their cover of “Beat on the Brat” was remarkably good, and if you’re interested in hearing a version of it, there’s a covers EP available for free download below (email required) with that and songs by The Smiths, Joe Jones and Wreckless Eric as well. Before closing out their set, The Postelles played one new song that will likely appear on their next record. Naturally, it wasn’t a change in direction but a continuation of their already established sound. And yeah, that was pretty catchy and fun too. You might not walk away from a Postelles show sharply impressed with the material you heard, but if you can switch your brain to the “fun summer popcorn action movie” setting rather than the “intense drama award-winning movie” one, you’re almost guaranteed to have a blast.
The Postelles Tour Dates:
December 6th – Bootleg Theater – Los Angeles, CA
By that same token, The Kooks have not only a lot of the same things going for them, but they’ve got more material and success to back it up. Their 90 minute set was a 21-song steamroller that struck a strong balance between old material and new, singles and deep cuts. They started their set with “Is It Me?”, one of the catchier numbers on the new record and a good slower, quieter build to a more energetic chorus. The crowd was into it, but perhaps that was more the result of general excitement over the band finally being out on stage. Cameras in the air everywhere, and Luke Pritchard hopping up on the monitors at the front of the stage really did the trick right off the bat. If that didn’t work out for them, they slammed into high gear immediately afterwards thanks to “Always Where I Need to Be”. Hands were in the air and people dancing like they just don’t care. That feels like a cliche thing to say, but it also happens to be true, so keep that in mind before you judge. The set list appeared to be designed as an effective parsing out of the band’s best known songs with a consistent atmosphere of energy in between. The middle of the set was when the crowd appeared most lost, what with a couple newer tracks and some deep cuts from earlier records. Pritchard’s solo acoustic version of “Seaside” was a definite highlight that provided everyone with a brief moment of calm before the second half of the set got even more nuts. The Kooks closed out their set with a 1-2-3 punch that built the crowd up to an extremely high point and naturally left them wanting more. The combination of “Ooh La”, “Shine On” and “Do You Wanna” was ultimately what pushed the show over from great to excellent, the band growing more ferocious and intense with every minute. Pritchard worked the stage like a young Mick Jagger, swaggering one minute and egging the crowd to cheer louder the next. There wasn’t a whole lot they could do in the encore to top what was accomplished during the main set, but it was smart of them to save a couple big ringers for last. Non-album cut “Saboteur” was an interesting choice to start the encore considering it was the only thing on the set list that wasn’t on any of the band’s three records. The title track and first single from “Junk of the Heart” scored big points given its constant radio presence in Chicago, and “Inside In/Inside Out” classic “Naive” ultimately closed out the evening. As the band quickly worked towards that finish, the crowd maintained their energy and enthusiasm the entire time. It was an amazing thing to behold, and probably a testament to both the band and their fans that so many just didn’t stop for a minute to catch their breath but simply jumped, danced and sang along like it was one of the greatest concerts they’d ever seen. For some of them, it probably was. I may not think the world of The Kooks’ music, but I have a certain appreciation for what they’re trying to accomplish. They may not be getting any better on record, but live they’re simply not to be missed. It wasn’t the best show I’ve seen this year, but it made me feel young and just a little bit…naive once again.
Set List:
Is It Me?
Always Where I Need to Be
Sofa Song
Matchbox
Rosie
She Moves in Her Own Way
Sway
Runaway
Eskimo Kiss
If Only
Seaside
Tick of Time
See the Sun
How’d You Like That
Mr. Nice Guy
Ooh La
Shine On
Do You Wanna \**ENCORE**/
Saboteur
Junk of the Heart (Happy)
Naive
Alright friends. It’s Black Wednesday, otherwise known as Blackout Wednesday. If you’re headed out drinking (who isn’t), stay safe. We’ll be taking the day off tomorrow to celebrate Thanksgiving, which I want to wish the best to you and your family on such a holiday. Enjoy plenty of turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Then, if you’re up for it, best of luck shopping on Black Friday. I’m still deciding whether or not to take an extended 4-day site vacation or post something on Friday. You’ll know it when and if it goes up. For now, enjoy this pre-holiday edition of Pick Your Poison. Highlights include tracks from James Leg, Justin Robinson & the Mary Annettes, Marissa Nadler (with not one, but TWO covers), and Micachu’s remix of Matthew Herbert. By the way, this holiday weekend, I’m thankful for YOU, dear reader.
It’s new album release Tuesday, and I don’t have much for you to check out this week. Things are getting sparser and sparser as we run towards the end of 2011. Kate Bush’s new album “50 Words for Snow” is just about the only new new release, that is to say if you ignore all the collections of greatest hits, singles, holiday songs and live albums. So do with that what you will. In today’s Pick Your Poison, be sure to give at least a passing glance at tracks from Ben Kweller, Boots Electric, Br’er, Deleted Scenes, Fol Chen, of Montreal and Wooden Wand and the Briarwood Virgins. There’s also a pretty good Freddie Gibbs track in the Soundcloud section up for your streaming pleasure.
Happy shortened work week to you all (Americans, that is). Big four day weekend coming right up, and that includes Black Wednesday as well, the busiest bar night of the year. I hope you’ve been preparing your liver. As we wind down to the end of 2011, Pick Your Poison will be arriving in smaller, more infrequent doses. Not that I WANT it that way, but December is primarily devoted to “Best of” lists and new music releases all pretty much get thrown by the wayside. So I have less mp3s making their way to me, and in turn I’m only able to give you what I’m getting. For now, we’re still operating at about a normal level, but look for that to change starting next month. I’ll fill you in on those details as they emerge. Enjoy today’s edition though. I can recommend tracks from The Duke Spirit, Lambchop, Laura Gibson, Miracles of Modern Science, Swimming and Tycho.
The Swedes really know what they’re doing when it comes to nostalgic pop. Point to anyone from Peter, Bjorn and John to the Shout Out Louds and The Radio Dept. and there’s plenty of evidence to support such a statement. One of the latest Swedish imports to hit the worldwide music market is Korallreven, an electro-pop duo that’s also coincidentally a side project of Daniel Tjäder from The Radio Dept. Given that band’s increased success and critical acclaim over these last few years, crafting tighter and better songs than ever before, there’s the hope that Korallreven might take on some of those same qualities. Like any good side project however, it seeks to form its own distinct identity. Tjäder and his Korallreven cohort Marcus Joons took their time in crafting their first full length, partly due to wanting to make the highest quality songs possible and partly because The Radio Dept. were doing quite a bit of touring, something they hadn’t done much previously. With the end of 2011 looming close and nearly 2 years of sporadic work put into it, “An Album by Korallreven” crept into the marketplace in the hopes of soundtracking your holiday season.
Okay, so “An Album by Korallreven” doesn’t have any holiday affiliation to it, outside of being released the week before Thanksgiving. If you wanted to forego the traditional Christmas songs and put it on instead, it might make for a nice respite, and the general warmth of the record certainly provides comfort with the outside temperatures plummeting. Sonically Korallreven falls into the same category as a number of bedroom electro-pop acts that have already released albums in 2011. Using Air France or jj (or The Tough Alliance and Tanlines if you like) as strong examples, the songs on “An Album by Korallreven” play in the quieter electronica pool, taking a relaxed approach to beats while still playing around with pop-infused hooks that won’t let you go. It’s not quite fast enough to dance to much of the time, but it’s gorgeous and remarkably addictive instead. Such feelings make sense, given the entire project was first conceived while Joons was taking a holiday in Samoa. A quick Google image search for the South Pacific island for those unfamiliar with it will yield thoughts of pure paradise filled with crystal clear waters, pure white sandy beaches, waterfalls and palm trees as far as the eye can see. Weather-wise, it’s about the exact opposite of Sweden, and it most assuredly has inspired many a creative mind. But the island permeates so much of this record, from the Samoan-like backing choirs to the song title “Sa Sa Samoa” to the consistent use of the word Samoa in the lyrics to a number of songs. Between that and the chanting of, “A dream within a dream” on “Keep Your Eyes Shut”, you’re stuck in a gauzy haze for the album’s entire 45 minutes.
The idea of spacing out or falling into an altered state while listening to “An Album by Korallreven” is very nice and very tempting, but not always simple to accomplish. Most of us are busy people with things to do, and if you turn on this record as backing music it’ll function as purely pleasant and unmemorable. Such is the flaw of an album such as this. There’s nothing outright bad about it, things just kind of stagnate after a short bit and never fully wake up again. Even if you do sit down and focus on these very lush songs individually, what this record is really missing is heart. It’s all glossy postcard beauty without actually feeling the sun on your skin or the sand between your toes. The equivalent of visiting Hawaii but only on a layover where you never get to leave the airport. The most redemptive and enticing moments on the album come courtesy of guest vocalists. Victoria Bergsman has a great resume that includes being a former member of The Concretes, a current member of Taken by Trees and taking a most memorable guest vocal turn on Peter, Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks”, and she very much makes her presence felt on this record via the opening song “As Young As Yesterday” along with a reggae/Balearic turn on “Honey Mine”. Both are two of the record’s best moments, along with Julianna Barwick’s looped vocal turn on “Sa Sa Samoa”. But Korallreven also prove they know how to write a strong song without a guest vocal, as previous singles “The Truest Faith” and “Loved-Up” prove.
What “An Album by Korallreven” lacks more than anything else though is progression. Yes, these 10 songs are diverse enough to make them individually stand out, but stylistically there’s not a ton of variation. For a duo that have been working on this debut full length for over two years, they’re still at that same spot where they first grabbed everyone’s attention all that time ago. They’re offering no new twist or appear to be truly challenging themselves in any way whatsoever. Granted, much of their sound involves heavily drawing upon the past, but they don’t sound like they’re having a whole lot of fun doing it. Instead they feel coldly committed to establishing mood and hooks rather than offering the listener a more engaging and spontaneous experience. They do a great job with it, but in this day and age we’re going to need just a little more from them to make it truly stand out from their similar counterparts. For a dead of winter warm-up record though, you could definitely do worse.
It’s Friday. I heard the song of the same name by Rebecca Black today for the first time in a few months. As a result I was able to confirm that my ears do in fact still bleed upon hearing that song. Let’s jump right into this weekend-starting mp3 selection that is Pick Your Poison. I’ll advise you to affix your ears to tracks from Andrew Johnston, Damien Jurado, Hospitality, Imperial Teen, Mannequin Men and Mwahaha (which just so happens to feature tUnE-yArDs). In the Soundcloud section, please enjoy a new song from Little Boots. It’s pretty dynamite.
Thanksgiving is officially one week away. I don’t know about you, but I start to prepare my stomach well in advance for such an occasion. Turkey and mashed potatoes are my standbys, even as I personally dislike stuffing and cranberry sauce. Still, you pile food on multiple plates and just sit and eat for a few hours. Get a pair of extra stretchy pants just in case. Anyways, now’s typically when I begin to starve myself, eating lighter meals and snacking less, to create that hunger and arrive to the feast completely ravenous. I’m not overweight, but on Thanksgiving I eat like I am. It’s fun, and the holidays. So yeah, just a reminder to everyone as I tend to forget myself and it sneaks up on me. If you’re reading this from outside American shores, I hope this Thursday and next Thursday are both great, normal days for you. Let’s talk Pick Your Poison. Recommended tracks today come from Brown Shoe, The Lanskies, Monument Valley, Neal Morgan, Novi and Rejectioneers. In the Soundcloud section you should have a listen to tracks from Craig Finn (of The Hold Steady), Metronomy and Mint Julep. Joshua Hyslop has something for all you Christmas music fans as well.
There’s something to be said about going it alone. Most bands wallow in genuine independence, going unsigned either because they’ve yet to be discovered or are simply not good enough to become courted by record labels. As much as people claim that the record industry is dead in the water and that the current model of music distribution is broken, the fact remains that at least 90% of music coverage is devoted to “signed” artists. They have people paid to do PR for the artists they represent, so emails get sent out, phone calls are made, CDs are mailed, and the writers create the coverage in response. Most artists don’t have the time or funds to do all that hustling themselves. What’s rare are the artists that earn a significant amount of buzz via their own homegrown independent efforts, and then say no to labels when they come calling. Such is the case with Brooklyn’s own Caveman. They’ve only been around for a couple years, but have steadily built a fan base courtesy of playing everywhere around New York with high profile indie bands such as Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Here We Go Magic and Cursive. Their dynamic live show matched with a powerful set of songs has drawn the attention of many high profile publication as well as a few record labels, but the band is devoted to their fans first and foremost. After eyeing a number of potential deals, the chose to go the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah route and stay independent. They formed their own record label, called Magic Man!, and first unleashed their debut album “CoCo Beware” digitally in September with the physical release arriving in stores this week. They’re playing a big role as one of the breakout bands of 2011, and if you’re not already in the know, now’s the time to start shifting your attention in Caveman’s direction.
Caveman’s sound is at once easy to recognize yet difficult to describe. That may be because they tend to come across like a hybrid of a few different bands. If you go simply from “CoCo Beware”‘s opening track “A Country’s King of Dreams”, the tribal drums and vocal harmonies will probably bring to mind Animal Collective. They’re a little too clean and pop-perfect to fully sell such a comparison though, which should be a comfort to those that find Animal Collective too obtuse. Others may argue the band oversimplifies things. There’s nothing wrong with casting your net for a wider audience provided you don’t dumb it down, which Caveman does not. There’s a great sense of front-loading on this album with the smooth synth-infused chug of “Decide” and the Real Estate-meets-The Dodos vibe on “My Time” both bearing the marks of catchy singles, but the stylistic twists the band undergoes over the course of 10 tracks keep you engaged even when things slow down. There’s a common thread of James Mercer musical projects via “Old Friend”, which sounds like a Shins song filtered through the more psychedelic and synthetic lenses of Broken Bells. The result feels a little more exhilarating than it has any right to be. The spacey guitars and intensely harmonized backing vocals feel like they were ripped straight from Grizzly Bear’s playbook on both “Great Life” and “December 28th”, though you definitely get the sense those guys would have done a little more with each of those songs. The final three tracks on the record play up the psychedelic side of the band a little more, which is why “Easy Water” has a MGMT-like thing going for it, “Thankful” touches on some Talking Heads and closing track “My Room” could be placed on a mixtape next to virtually anything from Here We Go Magic.
With all this name dropping going on, where’s Caveman in all this? Just because they can do a great job sounding like a number of different bands doesn’t mean they should be regarded with the same love and respect. What stands out the most in spite of all the similarities is that the songs on “CoCo Beware” are pretty damn good. These guys know how to write a hook, and sometimes that’s all you need. Plenty of bands try to imitate their heroes or imitate a certain sound that’s “hot” at the moment, in the hopes of gaining success from it. You don’t need talent to slap together a bunch of songs that sound like The Beatles. You need talent to make people believe they’re listening to The Beatles when they’re not. Play a Caveman track for a friend unfamiliar with the band, but who has a reasonable grasp on musical knowledge. It could be virtually any song on the album, save for maybe the instrumental “Vampirer”, which moody and cool as it is, stands out simply because it is an instrumental. Ask that friend what band he or she thinks is playing. An answer should come relatively quickly, though it will be the wrong one. For fun you can also see how long you can continue to lie to them and claim it’s the other band they named. The grand point is that on their debut album, Caveman are still actively seeking an identity. They’ve got bits and pieces of one, and have wrenched a number of very good songs out of it, but that air of distinction isn’t fully developed at this point. Most assuredly it will come with time and as their fan base continues to grow. Most likely the fans will dictate the direction they move in from here. At this very moment though, Caveman are a promising young band with plenty of life ahead of them. Even more if their live shows continue to earn raves from friend and foe alike.
In today’s music news bit, it would appear that Lou Reed now has his own pair of designer headphones. He’s partnered with Klipsch to create his own unique pair of earbud headphones that retail at $400. You read that right, earbud headphones for $400. They go on sale next month, and are signed by Reed himself. The first 50 people to buy them also get Reed’s signature on an album, though there’s no word on exactly what album that will be. Let’s all pray it’s not “Lulu”, right? My hope was that they’d be noise cancelling headphones you’d be able to wear while “Lulu” was playing nearby to keep your ears from bleeding. Okay, let’s move on to today’s Pick Your Poison. If you’re so inclined, some of today’s highlights include tracks from Ace Reporter, Boris, Electric Flower, Escort, The Lost Lovers Brigade and The Spinto Band. Also interesting is the collaboration between Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet) and legendary jazz drummer Steve Reid, joined by Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson. It’s definitely not what you’d expect.
New album release Tuesday. As we venture deeper into November, it’s becoming more of a holiday albums and greatest hits time of year. There’s still plenty good out there though. This week sees new releases from Annie Williams, Carter Tanton, Caveman, Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover of “Community” fame), The Do, Drake, Ed Hale, Goldmund, Korallreven, Los Campesinos!, Odonis Odonis, R.E.M. (greatest hits), and live records from Sigur Ros and Tegan and Sara. There’s a couple EPs from Crystal Stilts and Races out this week as well, along with Can’s 40th Anniversary reissue of their amazing “Tago Mago”. So you’ve got those to look at possibly purchasing. In today’s Pick Your Poison, be sure to consider downloading tracks from Apparat, Gary Go, Ice Choir, Rams’ Pocket Radio, Sick Figures and Zambri. Yes, you saw right, there’s an mp3 from Chris Carrabba aka Dashboard Confessional below. He’s covering R.E.M. and it’s not horrible. Also doing a cover, Cuff the Duke’s cover of Dum Dum Girls’ “Always Looking” is pretty solid as well. In the Soundcloud section, be sure to stream a song from Lo-Fi-Fnk if you’re so inclined.
Most bands that survive for at least a few records almost always have one of those “game changing” albums during which they make a radical adjustment to their sound. The thinking is that the shift in direction will keep the band themselves from getting bored while challenging current fans and courting new ones. Musical trends change too, and sometimes a band doesn’t want to sound like they’re “behind the times” or are desperate to sound like whatever’s hot at the time. These shifts are all the more noticeable the higher profile the band is, which is why U2’s transformation in the 80s was so noteworthy, and why Radiohead’s move towards all-out electronica on “The King of Limbs” resulted in a lot of backlash (see also: the knife twist between “OK Computer” and “Kid A”). But sometimes a band changes their sound in the most organic way possible: slowly developing it record by record. Such truths are most evident provided you’ve been keeping up with a band from song 1, and the younger the band members are at the time, the better. Such is the case with Los Campesinos!. The Welsh collective first came to everyone’s attention via 2007’s “Sticking Fingers Into Sockets” EP, then a bunch of fresh-faced college dropouts with pop culture obsessions and heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics. Their sound was undeniable winsome indie pop, complete with glockenspiels galore, shout-along lyrics and choruses that were catchy as all get-out. The exclamation point at the end of their name said it all, along with song titles such as “You! Me! Dancing!” and “We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives”. Such fun and addictive simplicities were maintained on the band’s 2008 full length debut “Hold On Now, Youngster”, but very shortly thereafter things began to change.
Several months after the release of their first full length, Los Campesinos! released the 10-track “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed”, a limited edition “mini album” containing all new songs that was recorded a couple months prior during a brief break from touring. The title alone said volumes about it, but track titles like “Miserabilia” and “Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1” also helped to spell it out for you. The quick tempos, shouty choruses and glockenspiels all began to take a back seat to heavier guitar work and singer Gareth Campesinos’s hyper-literate lyrics. Their sly, winking humor was largely replaced by astute commentaries on the pitfalls of relationships be they romantic, friendly or familial. Think of these transitional stages like a child growing into an adult, with those first couple pieces of music containing an almost child-like innocence, the “mini album” getting darker and dirtier as puberty set in, and then their last full length, 2010’s “Romance Is Boring” parlaying that growth into young adulthood. What are some of your main goals between the ages of 18-25? Drinking and fucking tend to be the two most easily associated with the era, and that last album had both, though much more of the latter. It should come as no surprise then that the band decided to title its fourth (or third, depending on what qualifies) long player “Hello Sadness”. You get one quick guess as to what the general mood of the record is.
For those playing the home game, if you said the mood of “Hello Sadness” was sadness, you would be correct. You win the award for Most Obvious Correct Answer. And while the lyrics do paint an overwhelming portrait of sad-sackery, the good news is the music doesn’t fully embrace that same sentiment. Listening to a bunch of heartbroken or suicidal songs in which the tempo goes overly heavy will likely put you in the same sort of mood the album evokes, and not a lot of people want to listen to albums that bring them down both verbally and sonically. That’s one of the biggest hurdles “Romance Is Boring” faced, and though the band handled the darker stuff extraordinarily well, that record dragged much more than it soared. The cute keyboard-spattered “By Your Hand” opens “Hello Sadness” and it it immediately pushes back against the downer vibe on the last record with one of the band’s catchiest melodies to date. The lyrics may be all about hoping a girl will kill you rather than break your heart, but the instruments bounce along with such zeal it almost makes the experience seem pleasant. The full band sing-along of the chorus is classic Los Campesinos! by now, and while it’s not the sugar rush of a past opener like “Death to Los Campesinos!”, it maintains a bright appeal in spite of its morbidity. Even the title track, with the sentiment of, “goodbye courage/hello sadness” chugs along like a modern adaptation of 80s dark-tinged pop classics, the bass line akin to some New Order gems and Gareth’s vocals take on an almost Robert Smith-esque quality paired next to his Dickensian imagery.
Speaking of Gareth’s vocals, he’s matured them along with the band, pulling away from some of his trademark yelps and not trying to stretch his range beyond what he’s capable of. The result is better control and power, a wise choice given he’s not sharing lead singing duties as much since Aleks left the band (this is their first record without her). While Gareth has always been a fine singer given the outpouring of dramatic shit he spouts off from song to song, this is the first Los Campesinos! record where all his vocals emote in exactly the way they need to. He spits fire on “Hate for the Island”, adopts a snotty punk attitude on “Songs About Your Girlfriend” and is frought with worry on “Baby I Got the Death Rattle”. Given that this record was written and recorded reportedly after Gareth suffered a pretty big break-up, these songs are probably that much more personal to him and you can largely hear it in his voice. It’s a shame then that his lyrics aren’t quite what they used to be. For a band that once even titled a song “We Are All Accelerated Readers” and then pretty much proved it with hyper-literate witticisms that commented on eveything from Rousseau to “Jane Eyre”, there’s a certain sense that things are a bit blander and less clever on “Hello Sadness”. The cleverness factor may be down a bit, but the smart wordplay largely remains intact. It’s difficult to criticize lines such as, “Your body above me, sobbing down/My cheeks wet from your tears/They extinguish each of the burning thread veins/Flow down to my ears/Now they rest in two tiny reservoirs/That overfed the wedded canals” when the images they conjure up are impressively powerful. Even the most depressing lines about death are made that much more engaging to listen to because of the way they’re phrased. “My memories are sepia/But the photograph is not/An historian is fucking with them/As deadly as garrotte”, he sings on “Every Defeat A Divorce (Three Lions)”. You might need a dictionary to truly understand what he’s getting at, but that’s also part of what makes the lyrics so damn good. Some might argue the use of such challenging vocabulary is really Gareth’s way of bragging about how smart he is, but by that same token none of the classical authors felt the need to “dumb down” their words. That’s not to say Gareth is on par with classic literature, but most assuredly nobody else is penning songs quite like him these days.
Perhaps the reason that Los Campesinos! toned down their sillier bits is because like any full grown adult the days of goofing around are largely over. Then again you’re only as young as you feel, and we all probably know a few people over the age of 40 that could use a bit of maturity. It’s not like the band is all of a sudden filled with middle-aged adults either. They’ve yet to reach their late 20s but come across like they’re twice that age. Have they grown up too much, too fast? Their albums have all logically progressed from one into the next, but would they have been wrong to have stayed lighter and poppier for another record or two? Probably not, and given that “Hello Sadness” is a relatively serious adult album, where can they go from here? That will probably be most dependent on whatever headspace Gareth is in at the time. At least on this latest effort they’ve found their pop edge again. There really hasn’t been much to call single-worthy on the band’s last two efforts (even as there have been singles), which is why “By Your Hand” and the title track seem a little like a sonic regression to their earlier days. The overall balance of the record is a little off too, with the front half bringing far more energy and hooks while the back half is a more subdued and depressing affair. The key transitional moment and true crux of the album comes via “Every Defeat A Divorce (Three Lions)”, a five minute electric guitar-heavy excursion that is both harsh and gorgeous, lively and stagnant. It stands as a great testament to just how far Los Campesinos! have come in four short years, and is also a gentle reminder that as much as it crushes our spirits, sometimes sadness is worth welcoming into our lives.
Yargh. On Friday, I mentioned I was sick. I had just come down with a nasty cold. Guess what? A weekend’s worth of rest and vitamins and whatnot did not immediately cure my cold. Big surprise. It’s probably going to take a few more days. If I wind up babbling incoherently on this site about whatever topics, I apologize. That would be the cold medicine talking. Let’s get straight to today’s Pick Your Poison then. I’ll affix gold stars to tracks from Bridge Underwater, Dead Confederate, Futurebirds, Luke Roberts, A Place to Bury Strangers and The Valery Trails. In the Soundcloud section you might enjoy streaming tracks from Ellie Lawson, Kramies and Neon Hitch.
Ugh. I’m sick. If there’s one thing I hate with extreme prejudice, it’s getting sick. Some of my friends and family have labeled me a hypochondriac simply because I refuse to drink from the same glass/bottle/can as somebody else or share a utensil such as a fork or spoon. Occasionally I’ll open a door handle with my wrist as well, or avoid shaking someone’s hand by going for the fist bump. Pardon me for being careful. I’m not washing my hands more than a few times a day (99% of the time it’s only when I use the restroom or before a meal), and if that seems excessive, well then maybe I am scared of germs. Even a minor cold knocks me out of commission for at least a few days so I can recover. I’m not calling in sick to work or anything, but I’ll avoid going out to socialize and will sit around on the couch drinking hot tea and napping as a means of nursing back to health. The point being, this is the worst time for me to get sick. I’ve got about 10 crazy fun events planned for the next week, and if I’m sick I’ll either cancel going or will force myself to go and have a miserable time as a result. Not fun. So I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that this is a momentary illness, that my sniffles and sore throat will magically vanish with a couple days of vitamins and some good old R&R. We’ll know better on Monday. Until then, here’s a Pick Your Poison that’s sure to help what ails you. Tracks I’ll recommend today come from The Antlers (covering The xx), Elliott Brood, Paul Brill, Sunbears!, Walter Rose and Young Dreams. In the Soundcloud section there are a few interesting artifacts. You can stream tracks from Betty Wright and The Roots (with Lil Wayne), Dad Rocks! (with Charles Spearin of Broken Sosical Scene), and remixes of songs from Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. and Lady Gaga (done by Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs).
