[music]
Rough-hewn The Grizzled Mighty doesn’t play nice Seattle duo The Grizzled Mighty is sometimes billed as “blues rock,” but the description doesn’t quite hit the mark. My mother likes blues rock, and my mother would not care for The Grizzled Mighty. She’d be put off by the cover of its latest release, Thick Hand Grip, which is an illustration of a hand holding three, um, thick and veinylooking long objects. Thick Hand Grip’s five songs are sludgy, drawnout and hypnotic in a way that reminds me of some metal bands. Ryan Granger’s echoey vocals are overshadowed by his twisting, jammy guitar work and drummer Whitney Petty’s determined skinpounding. The Grizzled Mighty takes an admirably irreverent approach to infusing rock with blues, which might offend anyone drawn by the “recommended if you like The Black Keys” descriptions. If this is blues rock, it’s blues rock for head-banging and slam-dancing. It’s low-down,
trashy and sweaty. It sounds like it has the potential for an excellent time. (Kate Whittle) The Grizzled Mighty, Skin Flowers and Shahs play the Palace Fri., May 17, at 9 PM. $7/$5 in advance at Ear Candy or stonefly-productions.com.
Sera Cahoone, Deer Creek Canyon Sera Cahoone is stationed in Seattle, but her basic Americana sounds more like a drive around the Olympic Peninsula in autumn. The extended guitar picking, the ease with which she turns from poetry to guitar slide to near-bluegrass—it all sounds familiar but sprawling. There’s a vastness to her music; you can pinpoint where it came from, though not what it is. Deer Creek Canyon, while nothing out of the ordinary, is still enchanting with its diversity of arrangements. It’s a disciplined take on Laura Gibson—less experimental, more personal and individual. Or maybe she’s more like Eisley—heart-on-the-sleeve,
flighty when necessary. “Nervous Wreck” is the first spark of excitement four tracks in, unless you prefer the percussion-less charm of the title track. “Shakin’ Hands” really rounds out the argument that this is driving music. If you don’t picture ponderosas passing overhead, then you must not enjoy a good soundtrack. Deer Creek Canyon glows like a summer drive with the windows down, but just don’t expect it to give you any new scenery. (Brooks Johnson) Sera Cahoone opens for Blitzen Trapper at the Palace Lounge Mon., May 20, at 9 PM. $15 in advance at Ear Candy and stonefly-productions.com.
Uncluded, Hokey Fright Aesop Rock’s opening verse on “Delicate Cycle,” the third single from Uncluded’s Hokey Fright, is a thicket of rhymed spondees that is maybe about having parts of your body amputated. Then Kimya Dawson, the former member of The Moldy Peaches who is the other half of Uncluded, chimes in with a verse about working in her parents’ laundromat, and the whole thing snaps into focus. That’s Uncluded in a nutshell: Dawson is as modest and evocative as Aesop is ambitious and baffling. The two do not so much complement each other as take turns offering respites, the way coming up for air complements a long swim.
Lyrically, Dawson and Aesop function as counterpoints to each other’s styles, but musically, the match is less intuitive. Hip-hop and weirdo folk guitar emphasize different beats in an immutably technical sense, and the compromise between the forms makes Hokey Fright something of an interesting failure. Dawson and Aesop have similar sensibilities, but the logistics of combining their approaches have muted both. Whether you consider Uncluded a Dawson side project or an Aesop Rock side project depends on your musical background, but fans of each artist will have to work to like them together. (Dan Brooks)
Fall Out Boy, Save Rock and Roll Considering the context of this album—the resurrection of a pop-punk-turned-pop-star band three years into a hiatus—it’s not half bad. Fall Out Boy has always done well to capitalize on the sounds of the time. When the Chicago boys broke through in the early aughts with From Under the Cork Tree, they sounded like the edgier brothers of the All-American Rejects. With Save Rock and Roll, they sound like an opener for Fun. Pete Wentz and co. have grown in the way a teenager listens to songs in her bedroom until she gets to hear some remixes in a club. That might explain the excessive boom-chick drums.
On the first few tracks, Patrick Stump sounds like he finally grew into his voice, still reminiscent of Adam Levine. He pushes a little too hard and the writing is still adolescent, but at least the last human element of this band is alive and well. It sounds like most of the poprock instrumentals came out of computers. Even where the guitars are supposed to lead, someone in the studio must have said, “Put a synthesizer there!” The band has finally grown enough to quit faking it and cut out the punk entirely—if it was ever there to begin with. (Brooks Johnson)
missoulanews.com • May 16 – May 24, 2013 [19]