Slinky, soulful, strange - Ex Tropical bristles with island-adjacent rhythms, delivered via vintage keyboards, analog synths, Sonic Youth guitar squalls, dodgy chords, and other left-of-center tones, gloomy Grandaddy in too-bright paradise.
Much too bright.
It's all a bit off: a bit nervous, an alien recreation, vacation remembered long after // felt through a psychedelic haze. It's the sounds, and its the human crash: there's neo-soul seduction, mixed with indie vulnerability, mixed with a Dylanesque flatness. All that splitting and crossing keeps you on your toes, but keeps this from settling into any particular role or purpose or mood.
Maybe that's part of the idea: like a good hard trip, you're fascinated, but never quite comfortable, watching everything just shiiiiiiiiiift onby 3.5/5
Thursday, September 3, 2015
#1843 Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul
Four phases of listening to this album:
1) Well, I do hate Oasis, but this isn't too bad. They're going for it a little. Can't quite get past that Oasisness though (this last about 2 tracks)
2) Alright, alright, whoever these mystery British dudes are, they kinda rock. Propulsive and heavy. They kinds sound like Oasis, but like, good (this lasts about 2 more tracks)
3) This sounds kinda like the Beatles with the saturation turned down. Wait a minute... fuck! This *is* Oasis (you guys even copied being really into India from the Beatles, huh?) (4 tracks)
4) I'm bored.
I really tried to keep an open mind about this. And there are places where you forget that you're listening to Oasis, where you can hear the actual rock and roll chops through the dickish veneer. But they just can't keep it up. It gets sloggy and boring and pedestrian and phoned in and so very Oasis by the end. Still points for being better than expected on that first half there 3/5
1) Well, I do hate Oasis, but this isn't too bad. They're going for it a little. Can't quite get past that Oasisness though (this last about 2 tracks)
2) Alright, alright, whoever these mystery British dudes are, they kinda rock. Propulsive and heavy. They kinds sound like Oasis, but like, good (this lasts about 2 more tracks)
3) This sounds kinda like the Beatles with the saturation turned down. Wait a minute... fuck! This *is* Oasis (you guys even copied being really into India from the Beatles, huh?) (4 tracks)
4) I'm bored.
I really tried to keep an open mind about this. And there are places where you forget that you're listening to Oasis, where you can hear the actual rock and roll chops through the dickish veneer. But they just can't keep it up. It gets sloggy and boring and pedestrian and phoned in and so very Oasis by the end. Still points for being better than expected on that first half there 3/5
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
#1842 CeeLo Green - CeeLo Green is the Soul Machine
"CeeLo's such a weirdo" I think to myself. Again and again, it comes to mind, with a reluctant smile. He wallows in it, calls out his own penchant for singing // rapping // sing-rapping, sultry and jokey and murder-rapping back to back.
"CeeLo's been given the power, to take you where you wanna go" the chorus of ladies declares. "He can do anything!" they follow.
He sure has, and he sure can. The Soul Machine is totally unbridled, an 18 track braindump meticulously constructed and left unedited outside hands. And CeeLo's such a weirdo. Shades of Andre 3000 is an understatement.
It's an hour long, but it feels longer. Luckily almost everything's catchy: bustling and bursting, and even as it slogs its charming and tuneful, overflowing with tripled up vocals, horn hits, soul guitars, synth buzzes, start-stops, and go go go's, all to make you smile despite yourself 3.5/5
"CeeLo's been given the power, to take you where you wanna go" the chorus of ladies declares. "He can do anything!" they follow.
He sure has, and he sure can. The Soul Machine is totally unbridled, an 18 track braindump meticulously constructed and left unedited outside hands. And CeeLo's such a weirdo. Shades of Andre 3000 is an understatement.
It's an hour long, but it feels longer. Luckily almost everything's catchy: bustling and bursting, and even as it slogs its charming and tuneful, overflowing with tripled up vocals, horn hits, soul guitars, synth buzzes, start-stops, and go go go's, all to make you smile despite yourself 3.5/5
#1841 The Auteurs - After Murder Park
Swooping and seasick - 90's British cheekiness offset by that Albini production, keeping the guitars sharpened, the drums loaded. Like an Arcade Fire ancestor, there's melodrama and ennui to spare, casting out with a swoon and a shout and a wallow and a woop.
The edge falls off too many songs, but when they go for it, like on the start-stop stabbing Land Lovers, there's thrilling stakes to explore 3.5/5
The edge falls off too many songs, but when they go for it, like on the start-stop stabbing Land Lovers, there's thrilling stakes to explore 3.5/5
#1840 Nada Surf - Let Go
It's all there on the opening Blizzard of '77: obvious chords, acoustic strum, pretty vocals swinging through microballad detail-hopping...but with this little tinge of something special again and again: some small little turn of phrase, an off-center rhyme, an out-of-place tone, a hitch in the structure.
And so it goes: the 90's pop-rock shtick skeleton, dressed up with a dapper air that makes you want to buy it a drink.
It tips into pure saccharine at times (Inside of Love), and rides most of its choruses way too hard, but there's a little bit of magic, a little bit of These Guys Got It that makes Let Go well worth your listen 3.5/5
And so it goes: the 90's pop-rock shtick skeleton, dressed up with a dapper air that makes you want to buy it a drink.
It tips into pure saccharine at times (Inside of Love), and rides most of its choruses way too hard, but there's a little bit of magic, a little bit of These Guys Got It that makes Let Go well worth your listen 3.5/5
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
#1839 Rowland S. Howard - Teenage Snuff Film
Made #1 on that list I've been looking at - seems like that's a gotta checkit out.
Night dark, shapes moving, Howard sulking and slipping and strutting and slinking though every neon puddle and beerlight backalley, droning and muttering and melting down.
Thrilling bass keeps the knives out, a backdrop of mourning strings and guitar screech keeps the heat on, endless Joy Division throb meets Gang of Four bristle. We tingle with the spark and prick in the air, like something's about to happen. Or maybe it already happened - we and forgot it and live in shadow aftermath.
Words pour out oily and black, menacing in the specifics and their insinuations alike.
Brilliant and impossible, will probably yield endless details if you can make it through the listens, grim and harrowing and haunting and discouraging of any visitor to return 4/5
Night dark, shapes moving, Howard sulking and slipping and strutting and slinking though every neon puddle and beerlight backalley, droning and muttering and melting down.
Thrilling bass keeps the knives out, a backdrop of mourning strings and guitar screech keeps the heat on, endless Joy Division throb meets Gang of Four bristle. We tingle with the spark and prick in the air, like something's about to happen. Or maybe it already happened - we and forgot it and live in shadow aftermath.
Words pour out oily and black, menacing in the specifics and their insinuations alike.
Brilliant and impossible, will probably yield endless details if you can make it through the listens, grim and harrowing and haunting and discouraging of any visitor to return 4/5
Month in Review: August '15
Mostly just keeping up with a trickle of new stuff, listening to new record by old favorites like an old person.
Album of the Month
The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms - a bristling, thrilling post-punk album bursting with nervous energy
Also Recommended!
Vundabar - Gawk - grownin'-up second record from my favorite local band, it's a propulsive, surf-flecked gem
Regurgitator - Art - Australian rock band makes their what-next 3rd album, watches dozens of ideas breaking off and burn up on re-entry
Royal Headache - High - Australia again! Less visceral energy than their trilling debut, but with hooks and hearts to spare
Album of the Month
The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms - a bristling, thrilling post-punk album bursting with nervous energy
Also Recommended!
Vundabar - Gawk - grownin'-up second record from my favorite local band, it's a propulsive, surf-flecked gem
Regurgitator - Art - Australian rock band makes their what-next 3rd album, watches dozens of ideas breaking off and burn up on re-entry
Royal Headache - High - Australia again! Less visceral energy than their trilling debut, but with hooks and hearts to spare
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