Well hello again, MP3 junkies! Welcome to Songs Of The Week #86 & #87!
For those of you who are new to the SOTW column, here's the story: TCDroogsma and MinneSarah are both fans of The Current's Song Of The Day podcast. They're also both opinionated and have access to computers. Seeing an opportunity to let them indulge in their MP3 habit and put them to work writing reviews we created the Songs Of The Week column. Over a year later later and here we are.
Unfortunately, MinneSarah is continuing her sabbatical this week. Without his co-reviewer, TCDroogsma got lazy and took a week off. Fortunately, taking a week off from reviewing songs didn't mean taking a week off from listening to the songs. He's back this week & making up for lost time with a double-dose of reviews.
As always, we strongly suggest that you follow this link and subscribe to the podcast yourself. It's free and it's fun for the whole family!
To that end, once you've given each song a spin or two, feel free to cast a vote for your favorite song of the week in the poll to the right side of the page. The artist who accrues the most votes wins the validation that comes from winning an anonymous internet poll, arguably the loftiest height to which a modern musician can aspire.
So... Droogsy... thoughts?
01. No - Leave The Door Wide Open (from the album El Prado)
TCDroogsma:
Back in SOTW #15 MinneSarah & I reviewed No's single "What's Your Name?" Both of us came to the conclusion that, while it was an OK song, it was basically a case of the sum of a bunch of other indie band's traits not adding up to an especially compelling whole.
"Leave The Door Wide Open" still sounds like it's aping somebody else's sound, but fortunately the sound that it's aping is The Killers circa Sam's Town. Singer Bradley Hanan Carter & Co. aim for a sweeping, epic sound and, for the most part, succeed. Carter's lyrics, particularly, strike the tongue-in-cheek-tone that Brandon Flowers used to be able to nail in his sleep. "We make some noise inside a room and call it art..." is, at different times in the song, delivered with nonchalance & passion, leaving the listener to wonder whether he's serious, super-serious, making a commentary on his band's commercial ambitions, or mocking the concept of pop music as art altogether. No may or may not be finding their own sound (it's legitimately difficult to say), but until they do they'd be wise to keep crafting songs with hooks like this.
Final Score: 4/5
02. Lost In The Trees - Past Life (from the album Past Life)
TCDroogsma:
Their must be something in the water in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Lost In The Trees is yet another band to come out of the college town to somehow strike the delicate balance between epic & personal, aiming for big ideas while providing just enough little flourishes to make it feel like you're hearing something in the song that nobody else hears.
"Past Life" provides enough "indie rock 2014" signposts to leave the song sounding very much of the moment. There's echoing vocals, keyboard pulses, and some nonsense about staircases, lover's eyes, and nature. The real star of "Past Life," however, is the guitar work. The band aims for hooks in just about every manner possible, but the lead guitar work provides the most memorable wrinkle. The bouncing guitar figure that opens the song (and returns halfway through each verse) is light & catchy in a song that threatens to be bogged down by ideas. When the riff is finally spun into a full-on solo at the end of the song it feels like everything that was holding the song together comes unraveled brilliantly. There's a lot of very good ideas at work here and Lost In The Trees deserves credit for balancing them well.
Final Score: 3.5/5
03. Trust - Capitol (from the album Joyland)
TCDroogsma:
"Capitol" is a peculiar track that grew on me over the course of the week. The song opens with some garbled noise before giving way to a clear, catchy keyboard line. That, however, gives way to Robert Alfons' mumbling, which then gives way to a clear, catchy chorus that somehow thrives on Alfrons' nasal delivery. You see the pattern here?
While "Capitol" is a frustrating song due to it's essentially non-existent verses, at its core it's a lesson in pop song structure. The song ebbs & flows brilliantly (if predictably). By letting the pieces fall apart during the verses, Alfons is able to make the chorus sound like a glorious payoff even if, in a vacuum, it wouldn't amount to much. Alfons deserves a ton of credit for playing to his strengths to turn "Capitol" from a struggle to a single.
Final Score: 4/5
04. Gardens & Villa - Colony Glen (from the album Dunes)
TCDroogsma:
Going over the lyrics to "Colony Glen," Gardens & Villa seem to paint a picture of a mutually-maintained secret that involves the murder at Colony Glen. It's a curious subject, but they manage to pull it off reasonably well.
Unfortunately, the lyrics are matched with a very "2014-by-the-numbers" synthesizer bounce that actively detracts from the devious lyrics. The song is aching to breath, to give more weight to the lyrics, but in the end the can't (or won't) concede aiming for the instant pleasure of dance-pop to take the chance on something darker, more memorable, and potentially terrible. It's a risk/reward proposition and Gardens & Villa played it safe.
Final Score: 2.5/5
05. Howler - Indictment (from the album World Of Joy)
TCDroogsma:
I don't own a Howler album, and yet they just might be my favorite local band. Everybody jumped on Jordan Gatesmith when he (justifiably) called on the Twin Cities music scene as insular, narcissistic, & thin-skinned. He was right on all accounts and the fact that he was deemed a pariah by the local music "press" essentially proved his point.
However, none of that would matter much if he & his bands didn't have the tunes to back up their smartass remarks. With "Indictment" as the lead single off their World Of Joy LP, it's pretty clear that they do. The band works up a pretty straight-forward rave up while Gatesmith (who sounds like he spent his time between albums smoking filter-less Lucky Strikes) spits some early-20's lessons about not wasting your time on fading youth, pitching fits... really giving a shit about of the trivialities of young manhood. It's hardly groundbreaking stuff, but the band bring enough snotty conviction to the track to remind you that there's no gimmick in rock music quite like youth.
Final Score: 4/5
06. The Drive-By Truckers - Pauline Hawkins (from the album English Oceans)
TCDroogsma:
Despite the fact that I own three of their albums and have seen them live, I've never totally bought into what The Drive-By Truckers are selling. I realize that it's ridiculous for a guy who's a huge fan of The Hold Steady to criticize a band for writing fictional narratives as songs, something about their old-timey Southern tales just fails to get me too enthused.
"Pauline Hawkins" is a fine, harmless number that is unlikely to make believers of the non-believers. Patterson Hood (who sounds more & more like Wayne Coyne everyday) fires some mean-spirited shots at a lover while the band works up their typical southern rock racket. Frankly, the most telling description of "Pauline Hawkins" is also the most basic. "Pauline Hawkins" is a new single from The Drive-By Truckers. You don't really need any more information than that to have a good idea of what it sounds like.
Final Score: 2.5/5
07. Tycho - Awake (from the album Awake)
TCDroogsma:
Tycho is the working name of Scott Hansen, a musician & photographer out of San Francisco. He's also an artist who frequently turns up on my "suggested artists" list on Last.fm and is being played frequently by my Last.fm friends. I was kind of excited to see what all the fuss is about.
"Awake" is a a fine instrumental song that is difficult to place. It's built mainly on some smooth electric guitar work with a canvas of ambient keyboards underneath. Hansen works up a pleasant, inconsequential sound that's less club-friendly and more Volkswagen commercial. It's sunny sound provides pleasant background noise but not much else. Hansen seems to understand that it's hard to make a grand statement in a song without lyrics and, as such, just aims for something pleasant and harmless.
Final Score: 3.5/5
08. Stone Jack Jones - Jackson (from the album Ancestor)
TCDroogsma:
I don't know much of anything about Stone Jack Jones and it seems neither does the rest of the internet. He's from West Virginia. He was unable to serve during the Vietnam War due to bouts with epilepsy. He released an album back in the 2006, relocated to Nashville, and returned in 2014 with Ancestor. Also, he can ride a horse.
"Jackson" is a delightfully off-kilter song that, while owing something to the old Nashville country sound, remains rough around the edges. Jones recounts a searching Jackson for a lost love, but meanders into descriptions of the townfolk, the sky, & the corn along the way. He sounds like a man who knows what he wants (or, rather, knows what he doesn't, which is to "lose you"), but he also sounds like a man who's spent enough time in his life looking that he's not going to waste his time. By the end of the song Jones has found a glass of whiskey rather than his lost love. The cycle begins again.
Final Score: 2.5/5
09. Stepdad - Running (Does That Mean You Care?) (from the EP Strange Tonight)
TCDroogsma:
One of the most difficult things a musician can accomplish in 2014 is writing a synth-based song that stands out from the crowd. Stepdad accepted that challenge and very nearly pulls it off.
"Running (Does That Mean You Care?" pulses along predictably, but becomes memorable thanks to a good old-fashioned sped-up sample that sounds like Kanye West remixing an old Cut/Copy track. Singer Ultramark fashions a world-beating hook out of the chorus, giving the song more personality than a sample every could. Stepdad's aiming to be the kind of a the well-populated synth-pop hill and with "Running" they've staked their claim.
Final Score: 3.5/5
10. And The Professors - Turn-Of-The-Century Recycling Blues (from the album Our Postmortem)
TCDroogsma:
I spent a whole week with "Turn-Of-The-Century Recycling Blues" before realizing Adam Levy of The Honeydogs was the man behind the song. Suddenly, this well-crafted, expertly executed pop song made a lot more sense.
I'm sure Levy has no desire to read about his full-time band in relation to this one, but it's difficult to make the distinction. Frankly, he should probably consider it a compliment that he's been crafting pop songs with such consistency that it doesn't matter what he calls the band he's fronting. "Turn-Of-The-Century Recycling Blues" finds levy & company going full McCartney, bouncing along on percussive piano, swooping strings, & group harmonies. The song's texture is rich & pleasant while it's lyrics, which recount the World's Fair, appeasing Hitler, & the Dust Bowl. I barely understand what Levy's getting at, but it doesn't really matter. If you like pop music you'll love this one.
Final Score: 4/5
Well there you have it, MP3 junkies! Two week's worth of songs downloaded, reviewed, & filed away!
As always, please keep in mind that neither Newest Industry nor our contributors are in any way affiliated with the artists above, The Current, or MPR. We're just music fans with laptops and a bit too much time on our hands.
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