It’s that time of year again, the leaves have changed color, it’s getting colder, the winter is creeping in on us, and yes there will be drunken Halloween parties. Being the generous individual that I am I am going to share with you my custom Halloween mix of 2008. So dress up as Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin, a French Maid with a breezy chemisier, or just as a sorority girl in her underwear and enjoy the tunes that I have compiled for this Halloween season. After all, you’re the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.
Horse Shoes is a band out of Orlando Florida that features brothers Jacob and Caleb Graham as well as Drew Driver. If you’re as obsessive compulsive as I am you might remember Jacob Graham from Goat Explosion, the Jon Pierce fronted band that was created in the wake of Upstate New York New Wave revival group Elkland being “Shot in the face” so to speak.
Horse Shoes is an indie pop group that draws inspiration from 80′s alternative pop bands like The Smiths, New Order, and more contemporary groups like Starflyer 59. The culmination of these influences is sublime chiming pop music with a smidge of the irony and emotion of Morrissey and all of the gentle ringing melodies and fragile vocals one might find similar to early New Order. They are currently working on their debut EP.
Woven is a band from Los Angeles, CA who have used refined noise to create a stunningly beautiful album in their latest release “Designer Codes”. Layers and layers of synth and clanking percussion fade in and out over their strong rock song structures. A lot of the time they sound like some of the more progressive work of The Cure submerged in a synth haze and cross polinated with trip hop. Every time I listen I imagine someone driving through the California desert with light refecting off of their sunglasses.
According to their Myspace, Jak and Sophie of Before I Explode met in a queue, a very long queue, and from that point started to collaborate over MSN. The result of their collaboration is the most beautiful dream pop I’ve heard this year. Simply beautiful. The beats click and thump like a gentle rain against a window while Sophie’s beautiful voice and Jak’s instrumentation provide luminous melody. Once you play a song you’ll be hooked. Before I Explode! is one to watch in 2008-2009.
“Actually, it’s Atlanta based rock group Dearestazazel! Wow!”
Dearestazazel employ their unique talents to making a number of epic and musically complex songs that are driving and catchy on their new album Be Mine. The synth and guitar often entwine in a sweetly serpentine way that sometimes yields something akin to Violator era Depeche Mode and sometimes yields something more like a dark sped up Def Leppard thanks to some sweet riffs and the wailing of Peter Felix Armstrong.
I’ve never heard a more complete merging between so seemingly disparate genres. Welded and soldered together in such a manner to rock stadiums with a sound that will catch the ears of fans of the New Pornographers and Van Halen.
Melbournes’ finest, Cut Copy, return with a new album, “In Ghost Colours”, that plays like a DJ set. The elements of their songwriting have definitely been beefed up. The acoustic guitar is more than a few times front and center and their lyrics have never been so distinguishable. Remember when the Rapture released “Pieces of the People we Love” and how it sounded so much more polished and more coherent than their previous work? “In Ghost Colours” is like that, but Cut Copy were always pretty polished from the beginning, now it sounds like they wrote a song, played it, recorded it, and then remixed it.
Those expecting the raw ferocity of “Twilight” from “Bright like Neon Love” aren’t going to find it here. They will find, however, many jams ready to roll out for an outdoor festival. Even though the guitar doesn’t show up and dominate the music, it does often show up and provide nice melody and rhythm for the most fully formed song structures so far in Cut Copy’s career. Often times Cut Copy uses cheeky sonic references and tricks reminiscent of more traditional club music. It’s like they’re winking at the audience when they pull out a quick house chord progression loop. Using elements like that they manage to turn something that is so easily tacky and cheesy into something that elevates the fun of the music as it is channeled through their sound. Another interesting approach to the production of this album are the ambient sound breaks, where the official songs chill while drones and pleasing hums spiral about until the next song kicks off. This is a little tiresome when listening to the songs on shuffle, but in the order of the album, it makes the anticipation for the next song even greater. I imagine they’ll definitely do the interludes like that live.
With their new release, Cut Copy will gain a wider following, more recognition, and if all was right with the world at least one car commercial licensing deal.
Natalie Portman’s Shaved head is a 5 piece out of Seattle that rivals the likes of CSS and Does it Offend You Yeah? with their clever hipster fashion references and relentless electro/power pop. Their new album ‘Glistening Pleasure’ drops July 15th and it is a bangin’ album. The concepts of the songs are amusing alone, like “Sophisticated Sideways Ponytail” and “Beard Lust” but wait there’s more, they erupt into a full on indie dance party often calling to mind the Cure’s experimentation in the early 80′s with pop/dance and the falsetto layering of the Dandy Warhols. If you’re in the mood for some reckless abandon with a shot of coy self awareness NPSH can provide you with a good time.
It’s been 4 years since their last album and The Cure is slated to release their 13th studio album later this year tentatively titled “13″. This also marks the first contribution of famed guitarist Porl Thompson as a full time member of the band since his departure from the band in 1995. His mark can be heard clearly on the new single “The Only One”, which hearkens back to The Cure’s earlier halcyon days of hyper melodic and sickeningly sweet love songs like “In Between Days” and “Friday I’m in Love”. Not that I’m complaining, it’s a fun song. The b-side “NY trip” is a lower tempo number filled with swirling Wah-Wah guitars and Robert Smith’s trademarked warbling enhanced by minimal vocal effects. It’s remarkable that after all this time, even though the Cure themselves are getting old, their music is not. The Cure – The Only One
Division Day is an ambitious band hailing from California. They fought through the ranks of CMJ in October of 2006 to get a mention in the New York Times. Their sound is pretty eclectic, ranging from radio ready ballads that are catchy and sensitive, to relentless assaults of sound. Division Day’s greatest strength is their ability to pull off variety so well, when they slow down the tempo and bring in the keyboards it works just as well as when they pull out the soaring guitars. They run a virtual gamut of textures and themes throughout their latest album “Beartrap island”, from Cure-ish moody ballads that remind me of a captain leading a ship in the winter to a far off destination to a frontiersman running through a newly discovered forest. All throughout the earnest vocals of Rohner Segnitz ground the spectacle of each song like a navigator with his eye on a multitude of destinations.
Kentucky based dance rock band VHS or Beta released their new album “Bring on the Comets” on Aug 28. If I were to use just one word to describe the album it would be “ambitious”. Producer Brandon Mason(Secret Machines) helps bring about a more sweeping epic feel to “Bring on the Comets”. Gone is the slippery post-punk production, and here to stay is a monolithic pure pop production. The sweeping guitar lines and simple keyboard melodies sometimes evoke the sense of wonder that the band is going for, like on the title track “Bring on the Comets”and debut single “Can’t Stand a Single Word”, and other times the guitar gets so heavy that it feels chunky instead of funky, like on “Love in My Pocket” and “Burn it All Down”. As per usual, VHS or Beta always sound the best when they employ nimble guitar work over man machine drum and bass, like on “Fall Down Lightly” and “Time Stands Still”. It’s surprisingly satisfying to hear an acoustic guitar in the mix on occasion. Vocalist Craig Pfunder also steps up to add to the sonic agility of each song by laying down hook after hook of his Robert Smith/Simon LeBon/Dave Gahan-esque vocals. Ironically though, as the bombast of each song settles, everything comes through stronger.
It’s that time of year again, the leaves have changed color, it’s getting colder, the winter is creeping in on us, and yes there will be drunken Halloween parties. Being the generous individual that I am I am going to share with you my custom Halloween mix of 2008. So dress up as Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin, a French Maid with a breezy chemisier, or just as a sorority girl in her underwear and enjoy the tunes that I have compiled for this Halloween season. After all, you’re the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.
