Iron & Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog

The hushed whisper and acoustic creakiness of Iron and Wine’s early output could hardly have predicted the growth that has been seen on the bands’ subsequent releases. The Shepherd’s Dog marks the continued evolution of the indie-folkies, which was first seen on the outstanding Woman King EP, and later on the collaboration with Calexico, In the Reins.

While on earlier albums guitarist/vocalist Sam Beam was synonymous with Iron and Wine, the backing band that surrounds his hushed vocals has taken on a greater role, turning the onetime solo project into a wholly collaborative effort. Once again produced and engineered by Brian Deck (Red Red Meat, Modest Mouse), the album steps in and out of styles, while using transitional instrumentation to weave the albums contrasting parts into a whole.

The striking compositions meld the finest parts of Iron and Wine’s early work with rhythm and percussion that borrows heavily from dub, Afrobeat and blues. His evocative voice is layered upon itself, while pedal steel and twinkling pianos mimic his haunting whisper. Lyrically, Beam borrows heavily from biblical imagery as he negotiates with disenchantment and devotion. The Southern-gothic imagery is both guarded and evocative of a musician in the throes of reestablishing his religious and national identity.

The album’s disparate parts slowly fold into one another finally reaching a climax on the closer, “Flightless Bird, American Mouth.” The experimentation fades into the background, while the rhythm section holds back until a minute and half into the song, bringing closure to what is an ambitious portrait of disillusionment.

9.1/10

Though their name hints at an influence of psychedelics, White Rabbits haven’t got anything to do with Jefferson Airplane, or feeding your head. And although they’re residents of NYC, originally from Missouri, their sound isn’t geographically linked to either. Of their six members, two are full time drummers. Their use of various percussion instruments, tinkering, then pounded pianos have led to a self described, “honky-tonk calypso,” sound. Their constant use of shakers and maracas, and their admiration of prohibition era clothing, is reminiscent of last years “it” band, Cold War Kids.

Album opener, “Kid On My Shoulders,” is a can’t miss. A hypnotic bass line waits under rapid guitars and menacing three part harmonies. It closes with a rousing chant and sweeping chorus of “Ooohhhs.” It’s heavy, fast, and a likely single. My sole grievance is that they never venture too far from this formula. They pull it off equally as well on “Dinner Party,” “Ballroom gloom meets back porch stomp,” “Take A Walk Around The Table,” and album closer, “Tourist Trap.” “I Used To Complain Now I Don’t,” sounds like a tribal take on The Strokes, and I’m not sure if I like it. The rest of the album sort of blurs together. It makes for a fun, and danceable, live show, but it’s not a record I’d play through more than once or twice.

I give this album a 6.9 on Carl’s, “I’m consistently too kind,” scale of review.

Radiohead – In Rainbows

You’ve heard all the rumors. Radiohead, a British rock group, recently released their seventh full length album on the Internet… for free. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Where can I, a law abiding college student, obtain a free copy of this trendy new intangible record?” My answer is “Sssssssssssshhhh, if you’re very quiet you can hear it seeping under your roommate’s door, knock before you enter because he’s probably doing his best Thom Yorke impression over the subtle finger plucking melody of ‘Weird Fishes/Arpeggi’ with his hand over his heart. He’s been at it all night and to catch him in the act would be more embarrassing than to catch him masturbating.”

When recommending a band to a friend it can be difficult to find a good place to start. It’s a question of accessibility and finding the album that best represents the band’s other works. This question does not apply to Radiohead. There are no training wheels for this band; you’re a big boy now… here’s Kid A. In Rainbows is a challenging record, the melodies meander, the vocals float nearly hookless over conventional instrumentation, and the lyrics are heartfelt and sincere. Rainbows is the return of a full band that is putting away its hyper-literacy and irony for modest organic sounds and human sentiments. Mortality (“Videotape”) paranoia (“Nude”) and love (“All I Need”) are the core themes of every Radiohead record. What makes In Rainbows different, is the fact that Thom Yorke no longer uses aliens, android children, or desperate dying rabbits as filters for his experiences. In Rainbows is not only a great Radiohead record, it’s also a testament of a twenty-year-old band growing up in the liner notes.

The new Harlots album shines like a polished pearl atop a mountain of shit. In a genre glutted with mediocre Converge and Pig Destroyer impressions, breakdown-overloaded astructural deathcore, and boring Neur-Isis look-alikes, Harlots have managed to put out a record that is inspired, interesting, and unique.

Though Betrayer does clearly draw from the schools of thought listed above, it is not subservient to them. When the album gets brutal (which happens early and often,) some riffs may be reminiscent of something you might hear coming from Scott Hull or Kurt Ballou’s guitar, but only if you separate them entirely from their context. Even though some riffs on this album may seem derivative when looked at note by note, the way they’re played, the way the guitar tone sounds, and the way that they fit with the rest of the music is original yet coherent. The squeals, speed, and brutality on this record are unlike anything else being put out. The sound is like Car Bomb meeting Today is the Day meeting Agoraphobic Nosebleed.

The truly exceptional moment on this record is the fourth track, the nine-minute “Dried Up Goliathan.” Drawing from sludge and post-rock influences, the track is the absolute best that I’ve heard from the post-metal school in the past few years. With effective builds, crushing climaxes, and tastefully executed clean vocals, it doesn’t get any better. Even if you’re not into the skullcrushing violence that takes up most of this record, you’ve got to take a listen, at least just to this track.

This album may not be groundbreaking; but it does post-metal amazingly well, and with a coherent identity. And god damn if that isn’t good enough for me.

Sometimes, packaging doesn’t lie and the fact that Grayshot’s latest EP, Waiting Days, comes in a startlingly white case embossed with Ikea-approved designs is not insignificant. You see, this Minneapolis duo makes the aural equivalent of their cover: bland, inoffensive, evocative of something good, yet ultimately unsatisfying.

The problem is that Grayshot don’t really have an identity. Waiting Days sounds like the kind of “sweeping,” “operatic” pop music that has found a mainstream foothold in the wake of bands like Coldplay, Snow Patrol, and Keane, (two of which are referenced in the band’s bio) slickly produced and ready to be dropped into the closing scene of Gray’s Anatomy. None of the instrumentation, production, or vocal choices showcase originality or spirit beyond popping in a copy of A Rush of Blood to the Head and furiously taking notes. If you want to know what the album sounds like, simply close your eyes, imagine the words “sweeping” and “melody,” and you’re probably hearing Grayshot or something like it.

Honestly, it’s really hard to review an album that doesn’t stray outside of a very narrow formulaic range. You can’t really tear it to pieces because there’s nothing there and you can’t really praise it because, well, there’s nothing there. It just exists in all of its vanilla-flavored glory.

Here’s what it comes down to: If you’re really in need of a fix of sensitive-guy, pseudo-indie balladeering, then, yeah, support your locals and buy Waiting Days. Otherwise, you may want to hold out for something with some signs of life.

Marlah is what happens when suburban kids lose their girlfriends and pick up guitars to fill the void in their broken and empty hearts. Marlah is a band living in a suburban Twin Cities vacuum, and These Curses is a very accurate depiction of suburban naiveté. Curses spans the same range thematically as singer Ben Holum’s vocals. By the 12th minute the album becomes un-listenable because by this time Holum has already exhausted his three-note repertoire. The same occurs thematically, where hearts, irreverence, and a vague call for revolution dominate.

The least intriguing aspect of These Curses is Marlah’s insistence to be the paradigm of teenage angst. Curses is the result of a band deciding beforehand to pigeonhole themselves in the melodrama of emo. In fact, the trend of muted guitar bridges, punk drumming, and dramatic pauses is only broken through once the course of the album with the sixth track, a 57 second keyboard solo ironically titled “Unplug the Piano.”

These are the same things that make emo a great genre of music. Marlah’s brand of emo is the creation of a band with limited life experience drawn from living in a suburban vacuum, where kickflips and taking care of business at that drive in movies are the two most important concerns. Together those themes would both be more fun and more believable sentiments than, “our eyes will meet again until the loss of blood makes them close.”

The Minneapolis music scene doesn’t garner international attention (or national for that matter) on too many occasions. Prince, the Rhymesayers crew and some notable artists flying under the radar are basically the extent of the Cities’ musical notoriety. Now, however, we have Motion City Soundtrack – the powerpop quintet repping our hometown to the fullest.

On September 18, the group released Even If It Kills Me, their 13-track third studio album. I am glad to say that we should be proud to have them call Minneapolis home. EIIKM is upbeat, synth-heavy and self-deprecating; everything a good pop punk album should be. Frontman Justin Pierre’s voice is perfect for the style and his lyrics are more clever and unique than 90 percent of the pop music out there today.

The album starts off with its strongest track “Fell in Love Without You” – a fast-paced, robot-influenced ode to moving on. “This Is for Real” is the basic and catchy second song and second single. It’s a great example of the completely fitting and justified over-production that carries throughout the album.

The band’s sound ranges on this album a little more than its previous efforts “Commit This to Memory” and “I Am the Movie.” The song last “Last Night” could almost pass for a late Blink-182 song, while “The Conversation” sounds like something out of Ben Folds’ playbook. The song that will probably bring the most attention to EIIKM is “Broken Heart,” the album’s first single. The track is representative of the entire album – it’s sad and depressing but it’s packaged in such a way that you can’t help but smile when you hear it.

Motion City is a standard for what pop music could be: lyrically strong, good musicianship, fun and catchy. Hopefully these are some trends that will catch on.

Rating: 7.5/10

Something has been keeping me awake for days. Insomnia? Methamphetamines? No. It is The Go! Team’s new album, Proof of Youth.

Like their past album, the newest release is chocked full of what I like to call “Go!-ness” Imagine a high school marching band combined with rapping, cheering, and breakneck electronica, and you have something close to The Go! Team’s style. Proof of Youth is like pure energy. Play it on a lazy afternoon, and by the second song you’ll be off the couch and running a marathon. I was in the middle of the album as I jogged around Dinkytown the other day, and I ended up saving a puppy, kicking a field goal, and hitting a homerun, all while mentally writing this review.

As hard as it is to take the album seriously, it’s not difficult to see the uniqueness of the band’s style. Their sound is completely original and provides a certain indistinguishable satisfaction. However, while the album is certainly enjoyable, it abstains from trying anything new. It has its moments amidst the chanting and trumpets, tracks like the purely instrumental “My World,” but the formula remains the same. Both of their albums require a certain mood to be enjoyed, and may come off as obnoxious to those not expecting a bombardment of “Go!-ness.”

Proof of Youth is like a triple-shot of caffeine. It fills you with energy, but to those not used to the feeling, may leave you overwhelmed. Once adjusted, it will keep you up all night. And, like caffeine, may have you wanting more as it winds down. Proof of Youth receives a 6.6 on Jerimiah’s absolute and indisputable scale of musical astuteness.

Sky Blue Sky

The kings of America’s alternative music scene are back. Often heralded as the state’s only answer to Radiohead, these six fellas from Chicago had grown increasingly loud and experimental on their last two studio albums. Both albums, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born, were met with the loudest of critical acclaim and fan adoration. Then with the 2005’s live release, Kicking Television, Wilco proved themselves an onstage juggernaut, popping eardrums and blowing indie minds nationwide. On Sky Blue Sky, the band is taking a step back; re-embracing their alt-country roots and often electing to turn down their amps, even if only a notch or two. The album numbers 12 in pristinely crafted, jammed-out, traditional stLiterary meet soaring, psychedelic middle-to-ends, and clocks in at just over 51 minutes.

Now when you hear that the new Wilco album is, “turned down,” “softened,” or “understated,” remember these comments are made comparatively within their own catalogue; other bands surely uninvolved. Louder than anything ever defined as country, and, at times, as rocking as anything you’ll discover this summer, it’s well worth any curious music fan’s time. The sixth track of the album, “Shake It Off,” is a perfect example of the bands dreary, front porch sitting strums evolving into a genre-hopping explosion. It creeps timidly forward for the first minute thirty, suddenly mounts to a bouncy, Little Feat stompin’ jam. Another minute and half -later, the mood drops to a provocative, dark-side keys interlude, before bursting into a classic spell of stop and start rock. Three minute opener, the sweetly building “Either Way,” sways and ponders while front man Jeff Tweedy’s typically tormented lyrics venture to the realm of optimistic. Next is, “You Are My Face,” an ultimately harrowing, though initially assured, Wilco jem. The bending keys give way to pounding piano as the mood changes, prompting a thoughtfully dark, then eerily screeching guitar solo from the group’s newest addition, the prodigious Nels Cline. The six minute clocking, “Impossible Germany,” is as good of a time as it was for your 5th grade presidential fitness mile. A rolling piano fused with single note perfection for the first half drifts lazily into a second half of Tweedy/Cline guitar interplay showcasing mastery in their unique class.

Panda Bear – Person Pitch

Panda Bear, whose real name is Noah Lennox, recently lost his father. The result was Young Prayer an album of soft clapping and wailing mourning, as he fights through his loss with music. “Where are you?” are some of the only discernable words, but if you listen closely, you can put together the phrase, “This is how I’ll talk to you.” The result is an album that is like dark magic, a musical limbo and oddly soothing sound of the living communicating with the dead.

His sophomore album, Person Pitch is a gentler branch off of the freak-alt-folk sound of his larger band, Animal Collective. With songs like “Leaf House,” which sounds like someone singing through a pinched tongue during a ritual, and “Grass,” an up-beat, tribal-percussion tune with a violent chorus of “Pow! Pow! Pow!” is known for doling out the ugly right along with their unconventional madhouse of sounds. Panda Bear ditches the shocks and fury of his band, and creates songs just as strange, but kinder to the ears.

“I’m Not,” is more a meditation than a song. The echoing voices reverberate like ripples in a pond, creating a sense of being in a deep cenote, a sacrificial well in Mexico, surrounded by water, vines, and lurking bones.

“Dressed In Nautica,” and other songs feature a vocal chorus like a Beach Boys song faded in the sun. No element is prevalent enough to give the song a defined structure, so that they all float aimlessly like old radiowaves masterfully blended.

Listen to Person Pitch alone, and experience the sound of the lighter parts of your subconscious.