Posted in Reviews

Review: Balance and Composure – Separation

Balance and Composure – Separation

Released: May 10, 2011
Label: No Sleep Records
Purchase: iTunes | Insound | Amazon

Fans of Balance and Composure have been eagerly awaiting a full length release for quite some time now. After releasing two mature EPs and arguably the better side of a split with Tigers Jaw over the last three years, Balance and Composure finally appeased fans with news of Separation, comprised of twelve tracks.

Upon first listen, however, it’s quite possible avid followers of Balance and Composure will be disappointed. Moving towards a more streamlined sound definitely contributed to a loss of “oomph” and raw emotion from the band’s music. However, this more concentrated approach does give Separation a sense of cohesiveness and focus, attributes vital to a successful album.

Separation excels most on songs where Balance and Composure’s 90’s influences are the most apparent. “Stonehands” delivers in this aspect, showcasing both emo and grunge influences, though vocalist Jon Simmons tends to sing a bit nasally especially on words with “long e” vowels. A better culmination of 90’s style and Simmons’ vocal performance is the title track. On the chorus, Simmons utilizes his perfected “sing scream”, a gritty yell, but with definitive pitch. It’s a technique Jesse Lacey of Brand New and Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra also use, though Simmons’ style feels more passionate.

As a whole, though, Separation seems like more of a turn towards alternative rock. While Balance and Composure do perform this genre with ease and more than competently (take the southern rock vibe of “Galena” or grit and angst of “I Tore You Apart In My Head” for instance), at times the record leans toward typicality, most notably on “Void”, an unfortunate pick for an album opener.

The loss of emotional immediacy might be due in part to the album’s generally flat production. Producer Brian McTernan’s past work has been inconsistent, dipping especially on Emarosa‘s latest self-titled release. WhileSeparation is definitely an improvement for McTernan, the drums sound tinny and lack tone and it’s nearly impossible to tell the band has three guitarists. The production just doesn’t feel as dynamic or raw as a band like Balance and Composure, one who thrives on straddling the crossroads of technicality and passion, needs to fully excel.

However, after multiple listens, Balance and Composure’s passion permeates McTernan’s iffy producing job. Tracks like album standout “Patience” exude intense feeling in the music. Balance and Composure mean every lyric, every guitar strum, every bass line, and every snare hit. Though perhaps Separation only fully demonstrates this with the listener’s patience (yes, I went there), the album isn’t a regression from past work. Balance and Composure is still miles ahead of most other bands operating in their genre. The reason?

Authenticity.

7.7

Standout Tracks: “Patience”, “Galena”, and “I Tore You Apart In My Head”

Review: City and Colour – Little Hell

City and Colour – Little Hell

Released: June 7, 2011
Label: Dine Alone Records
Purchase: iTunes | Insound | Amazon

Recorded to tape in a church sans-computers and fancy recording booths is Dallas Green’s third studio album “Little Hell”, a beautiful record that changes up Green’s pure man-and-guitar sound, yet still maintains the unique City and Colour feel that listeners have grown to love.

Since his debut, the singer-songwriter has grown both musically and creatively. Little Hell is a true indicator of said growth; mixing up the track list with full band rock songs, trademark acoustic songs, and introducing synths and strings to diversify the instrumentals. It’s difficult to describe Little Hell accurately, as it doesn’t fit into one specific genre like Bring Me Your Love may have; however, each song is sung sincerely, and crafted with the utmost care.

The signature minimalist acoustic sound is not all lost in Little Hell, as “Silver and Gold” and “Northern Wind” primarily consist of just the man and his guitar, with the latter being a heart-on-sleeve song taking roots fromBring Me Your Love’s “The Girl”.

“Whether a natural disaster ripped it from it’s foundation
Or an economic tragedy tore apart it’s family
They’re all empty.”

“Natural Disaster” is a full band song that tackles the problems in our world, created by “natural disaster(s)” and “economic traged(ies)”. Given the subject, it’s surprising this song does not drip with melancholy. Regardless, this imagery-ridden track is one of Little Hell’s standouts.

Title track “Little Hell” begins with a riff bearing slight resemblance to those of Death Cab for Cutie. “Will we get out of this little hell?” is a stunning end to the song with Green’s smooth, effortless vocals and slow tempo band instrumental.

“Weightless” is a departure from Green’s more acoustic tracks, introducing an indie rock feel driven by the drumbeat rather than guitar. Interestingly, it works. Green’s distinct voice does not lose its clarity when singing loudly and contrasts unusually well with the dirty, flange-y guitar riffs.

Little Hell is by all means an emotional ride. “Hope For Now” concludes the record, beginning with a soft acoustic sound before the lyrics crescendo the song into a full band, deep guitar blasting second half with Green replying to “If I could sing one song and it could save someone’s life”, chanting “Then I would sing, all that I could sing”. This is a song that you truly feel.

Little Hell is not quite a complete transformation of one-man band City and Colour, but it is a work that reflects the change Dallas Green has gone through in his life since Sometimes. The fact Little Hell did not inherit an acoustic sound may disappoint some; however, Green is at a new stage in his career, in his life, and it is no surprise that his music changes accordingly. What hasn’t changed though, is Green’s second-to-none voice and musical talent that merits him to being one of the best singer-songwriters alive.

8.8

Standout Tracks: “Hope For Now”, “Little Hell”, “Natural Disaster”, and “The Grand Optimist”

Review: Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

Released: May 2, 2011
Label: Sub Pop
Purchase: iTunes | Insound | Amazon

Indie-folk darlings Fleet Foxes shot to fame in 2008 with the release of their highly acclaimed self-titled debut album. Their vocal harmonies and organic, grassroots lyrics and music that define the band were a unique addition to the prevailing music scene. With the release of their follow up, Helplessness Blues, the band faces the challenge of dealing with their fame and living up to the high bar they already set. With a new level of accessibility, they manage to not only reach this bar, but even surpass it.

All across the board, the band displays a previously unseen level of confidence. Singer Robin Pecknold steps more into the spotlight, not shying behind the backup harmonies, though fans of these harmonies should know that they are still adequately present. The music has much more character, with stronger melodies and more varied instrumentation, such as the violins of “Bedouin Dress” or the effective flutes on “Lorelai”. There is also more experimentation in the musicianship, tending away from the traditional verse-chorus structure, especially in its two-part songs, “The Plains/Bitter Dancer” and “The Shrine/An Argument”.

More important than all of these new strides, however, is the improvement in the lyrics. The band’s slice of Americana on their debut was refreshing, but as enjoyable as the imagery and stories were, the lyrics rarely felt deep or relatable. Their success prevents them from revisiting many of these themes, but they have been supplanted with charming, universal musings and beautifully touching tales of love. In an album packed full of high points, the lyrics are the biggest of them.

“Sim Sala Bim” is an excellent combination of all of these developments. It starts with a calm description of a dream, but vanishes with a swelling burst of strings, leading to the questions, “What makes me love you despite the reservations? What do I see in your eyes besides my reflection hanging high? Are you off somewhere reciting incantations, ‘Sim Sala Bim’ on your tongue?” This climax gives way to a relaxing denouement, the same mood as the beginning. A review of The Avett Brothers’ most recent album said that the reviewer didn’t want to listen to it at work for fear of being forced to tears. In this song and several others on Blues, the threat is just as present.

Several other songs employ similarly engaging song structures. “The Plains/Bitter Dancer” builds with the band’s trademark cascading vocal waves, but later evolves into a sound reminiscent of Simon and Garfunkel. “The Shrine/An Argument” has four movements. Hearing the first, with its surprisingly racing intro and Pecknold’s intense, haunting vocal dynamics, listeners may find it difficult to top, but the tonally darker second movement certainly gives it a run for its money. The blatantly ugly and chaotic woodwind outro is the sole weak part on the entire album.

Although not listed as a two-part song, the titular track is perhaps the most dichotomous. The musically and lyrically reflective second half answers the helplessness blues proposed in the first. Deep, catchy, musically interesting, and five minutes of nirvana in general, it stands out as a strong contender for track of the year.

With such high strengths, one might expect that other songs suffer in comparison, but nearly every single track holds its own even in such great company. The mildly swinging “Bedouin Dress” is a fun jaunt down memory lane. “Lorelai” makes excellent use of its bouncing ¾ time with an exceedingly simple, yet beautiful melody. Instrumentals occasionally feel like wasted tracks, but even “The Cascades” is a highly pleasurable journey. Drummer Josh Tillman takes center stage driving closer “Grown Ocean,” which effectively sums up the experience of the entire album.

The only track that doesn’t compare with the rest is “Blue Spotted Tail.” Although it has a poetic structure similar to “Someone You’d Admire,” “Tail” fails unlike “Admire” because its lyrics go slightly too far over the philosophical deep end. While “Why in the night sky are the lights hung? Why is the Earth moving ‘round the sun, floating in the vacuum with no purpose, not a one?” may seem like deep lyrics, they feel out of place on the album and ultimately boil down to meaningless passing thoughts.

“Tail” aside, the album is packed with strong songs and even stronger songs. I felt that I didn’t appreciate their debut as much as everyone else, but such is not the case with Helplessness Blues. The songs have more personality and the lyrics are greater than I could have expected. Just as their debut was oft-pegged for album of the year, Blues is a worthy follow up already in contention for the title this year.

9.4

Standout Tracks: “Sim Sala Bim”, “Helplessness Blues”, and “Lorelai”

Review: Tyler, The Creator – Goblin

Tyler, The Creator – Goblin

Released: May 10, 2011
Label: XL Recordings
Purchase: iTunes | Insound | Amazon

Fame is a rather unfortunate phenomenon, an idea that rapper Tyler, The Creator certainly understands. The past few months have been a whirlwind ride for Tyler and his Odd Future friends, from Tyler and Hodgy Beats’s fear-inducing performance on Jimmy Fallon to the formation of the group’s own Odd Future Records record label. Goblin, Tyler’s first official release on a record label, has been surrounded by an incredible amount of hype, blowing up the blogosphere and getting Tyler, as he puts it on the first song, “cosigns from rappers that I don’t even like.” This hype and the young rapper’s sudden exposure to fame undoubtedly affected the creative process Goblin, but is it for the better?

Unfortunately, no. Although Goblin features a much-improved Tyler – in terms of both lyricism and storytelling – the fame that Tyler is dealing with hinders the album and restricts his creativity, causing the album to fall well short of his first release, Bastard. Goblin, to put it simply, is weighed down by the burden of matching the massive hype and pressure surrounding it. In the days of Bastard, Tyler made music for himself, something he has stated in the past and again brings up on opening track “Goblin”, but now, his music is no longer just for him; whether he likes it or not, he has become a sort of cult hero and his music is as much for them as it is for himself.

His fans aren’t the only ones listening to his music, however. Because of his naturally dark subject material, Tyler is forced to qualify his lyrics, spending a large chunk of the album pointing out that his stories of killing and misbehavior are in fact stories. On “Radicals”, Tyler opens with the lines “Don’t do anything that I say in this song. It’s [expletive] fiction. If anything happens, don’t [expletive] blame me, white America.” For all intents and purposes, Tyler can be compared to a young Eminem, albeit one who is way more apologetic.

Apologies, precautions, and qualifications aside, the lyricism on Goblin shows a natural progression from the days of The Odd Future Tape, Bastard, and even last year’s Radical. He’s still an angsty, obsessed teenager with numerous problems and his favorite target is still his missing father. The one problem, however, is how erratically hit-and-miss his lyrical style can be, leading to the inconsistency of the entire album, one of the main flaws of the album. Goblin contains a few very good songs, but also a handful of very bad ones.

When Tyler is on his A-game, he is, in fact, a “walking paradox.” As Wolf Haley, he spins tales of misogyny, juxtaposing with Tyler’s vulnerability in his personal search for love; Wolf Haley commands his “Wolf Gang” followers to revolt against everything, while Tyler worries that people may blame him for others’ wrongdoings. The only problem is, cringe-worthy moments like the muddled “Radicals”, the utterly boring “Fish”, the swag-rap tribute “Bitch Suck Dick”, and the incredibly tedious posse-cut “Window” weigh down the album, especially due to the album’s length — 74 minutes of Tyler’s minimal beats, variety of voices, and Dr. TC-framed-dialogue.

Goblin is essentially and fundamentally very similar to his first album Bastard, featuring Tyler discussing his life problems with his counselor Dr. TC. The production is also incredibly similar; Tyler’s never been lavish with his beats, electing to take a minimal, jarring style similar to that of his idols The Neptunes. Unfortunately, his beats begin to bore as the album drags along, showing that Tyler still has plenty of room to grow. To put it simply, his other beats pale in comparison to the masterful, eerie beat of “Yonkers”.

Goblin, in essence, is a strong effort by the nineteen-year-old rapper. He provides an ominous yet introspective look into his life, showing that he is not entirely as indestructible as he seems. While it may not have lived up to the hype, Tyler and Odd Future are still breaking new ground with Goblin, building a huge following of extremely dedicated and loyal fans who will no doubt eat this release up.

6.2

Standout Tracks: “Yonkers”, “She (feat. Frank Ocean)”, “Tron Cat”, and “Golden”

Review: Panda Bear – Tomboy

Panda Bear – Tomboy

Released: April 12, 2011
Label: Paw Tracks
Purchase: iTunes | Insound | Amazon

Most finely tuned machines are beheld without conscious awareness of the intricacies and technical attention that has been involved in their construction, and their users blissfully ignorant in their expectation of service. Only once exploded is it apparent that the functions these machines serve are enabled only through the purposeful arrangement of all component parts toward an intended function. We become conscious of the fact that these units, complete and unassuming, are the result of a multiplicity of tiny mechanisms interrelating, communicating, affecting one another to produce a wider experience that is elaborate in its execution but impressively focused in delivery. The next, subsequent, realization is that this construction took skill – immense skill – and most of us would be ill-equipped and unable to create anything like it.

In this regard, Noah Lennox’s (Panda Bear)Tomboy is the musical performance racer of finely tuned machines.

In today’s alternative music scene, experimental electronica albums are a dime a dozen – often eventuating to be, ironically, hackneyed in their pursuit of nuance and originality. Lennox, of Animal Collective renown, is no bandwagon-hopper. Over the last eleven years and eight releases he and his Animal Collective comrades have been trailblazers of trip exploring the frontier of freak, with a steady stream of Lennox solo work supplementing their catalogue with characteristically hazy, washed out experimental electronica under his moniker Panda Bear.

This is electronic music, but not in the typical sense. There are no massive, tacky bass drops in Tomboy – any crescendo is supported by lavishly layered samples and loops. There is an almost classical sensibility in Lennox’s approach to electronic music, perhaps telling of his childhood background in the cello and piano. New sounds are introduced in concordance with one another and with a long amplitude attack and as a result the tracks tend to feel painstakingly created rather than a cobbled together graduation leading to a single cheap thrill. Songs are dynamic; some tracks begin and end in completely polar genres (“Last Night at the Jetty” meanders through ambience and chamber pop on its transition to rambling freak-folk).

Tomboy is drenched in distortion. Fuzz soaks sharp, bold loops with a softness that subdues them. The use of reverb contains the album’s sound, envelops otherwise domineering musical aspects (the percussion in “You Can Count on Me”) and wraps them in a softness that consolidates into a single musical experience what is essentially a collection of competing loops. The album is also almost exclusively poly-phonic – rarely do we experience abate from swirling, pulsing noise, which lends to the uncommon moments when the fuzz is stripped back a striking sense of clarity.

Individual songs seem to have no message independent of the album, and derive their meaning from their function/position within the record. On an intra-track level the songs blend into one another, to the extent that during a prolonged listening session the ocean of fuzzy reverb makes to disguise the separate songs into a single cohesive experience.

There is a strangely accessible side to the record. Lennox barely alters his voice’s strained lilt throughout the album, the constancy of his vocals adding continuity between tracks – comforting in its familiarity as a friend would be in a foreign country. For listeners completely comfortable in the album’s intimidatingly unconventional sound, though, this fixed voice is occasionally mired by predictability and may stagnate by the end of Tomboy.

The album’s main shortcomings are interconnected with this same familiarity and constancy. While immediately a very rewarding and immersive album, there is little fundamental deviation between tracks (also between this record and Panda Bear’s back catalogue as a whole) and as a result it simply doesn’t stand up to repeated listens. It is an enjoyable, intricately detailed experience, but ultimately not a deep one.

Tomboy will not be Lennox’s magnum opus, nor is it genre-defying, but it is a stunningly complete album experience and proof that he is damn good at what he does best. And why shouldn’t he be? He’s clearly had enough practice.

8.5

Standout Tracks: “Afterburner” – the current popular favorite, and with good reason: a throbbing bass line and buckets of fuzz make for a track effortlessly laid-back and enjoyable.