album Reviews Feature albums
The WalkmEn
Love Parade
Fat Possum/Bella Union
Half a cow/deathrow
4/5
3.5/5
Lisbon
Lisbon is the perfect soundtrack for a night drowning your sorrows in a lousy bar… but only if you’re lucky, and only if the love you’d lost was a grand one. The Walkmen’s sixth studio offering is gentle, awkward, educated and desperate. The familiar drunken-gypsy theatrics are there, but in a crisper, slicker incarnation. Stripped of lo-fi indie noise, vocalist Hamilton Leithauser could have been revealed as a fraud — but he isn’t. Layers of different instruments, from tambourines and violins to a perambulating brass band, may have been too theatrical to stomach without Leithauser’s vocals. Rambling, rich and reminiscent of Bob Dylan, the vocals warmly wrap whatever halting tempo changes or music history references the band can produce. Two years in the making, the influence of engineers who worked with bands like Tokyo Police Club and Les Savy Fav is clear, and positive. The Walkmen’s sound is in no way compromised by cleaner production, their characteristic sweet desperation and whimsy still appears in ‘Stranded’ and ‘All My Great Designs’. But it’s tracks like ‘Angela Surf City’ and ‘Woe is Me’ where the most fun is to be had. Lisbon slams down a confident signature sound and demands another round of just the right amount of past influence. This album achieves that to which what most bands aspire — to take the best parts of their musical influences and, without replicating them, take them somewhere worthy and new. ~Rachel Urquhart
Neil Young Le Noise Reprise/WEA
4/5
With a guitar, voice and a range of effects and layers of sound, Neil Young continues to defy expectation on Le Noise. His lyrics are less oblique than in the past, ‘Walk With Me’ is a simple request for his wife to do just that, but the voice is as timeless as it’s ever been, the melodies and guitar work ragged yet gloriously so. The past is ever present, both lyrically and in the production which brings to mind the sound of his work on the Dead Man soundtrack, with jagged chunks of electric guitar dominating the aural landscape. ‘Love and War’, one of two acoustic numbers, catalogues both his life and the themes of so much of his best work. It’s not a flawless album, some of the effects and loops feel more about style over substance, something Young has been accused of many times before, but it’s a rich rewarding album deep in a rich and rewarding career. ~Roger Killjoy
20 reverb
magazine issue #053 — December 2010
A Strawberry Situation
Sydney (and sometimes Newcastle) band Love Parade are offering the fruits of their labour ahead of their debut album, giving a taste of what’s to come with new EP, A Strawberry Situation. Taking vocal cues from Split Enz co-founder Phil Judd, front man Nathan Jolly is manic and love-struck on opening track, ‘It’s Happening Again’ and the warbling, downward spiral of ‘Come Alive’. There’s something really irrepressible about these guys as ‘Strangers with Secrets’ slams forward with the groovy, driving rhythmic combination of Rhys McGowan (drums) and Ben Law (bass). ‘Pink Shoes’ is a poppy little ditty that zips out in under two minutes, with such a great, telling lyric, “All that glitters/Will make your friends bitter/You know it’s true”. Keyboards are the focal point of Love Parade’s sound and most songs are dominated by the much-loved keyboard sounds of the 60s, as James Law masterminds an electric Rhodes, a Mellotron and sometimes just a plain old piano - interjecting spritely kicks and melancholic shimmers wherever he pleases. Standout track, ‘As Spring Hits the Valley’, hits a Grateful Dead nerve (they weren’t just a jam band, people!) with the mere simplicity of an acoustic guitar and a couple of tortured vocals. Their psychedelic forefathers would be so proud right now. ~Matt Petherbridge
Heartbreak Club Our Horse Is Dead independent
4/5
Teaming with producer Ed Rose (Motion City Soundtrack, The Get Up Kids) and equipped with stroppy synthesisers, Newcastle punk-poppers Heartbreak Club have crafted a bunch of sweet heartwarming punk-pop songs that frankly don’t suck! First single and opening track ‘Are You Leaving Me?’ is filled with blazing, euphoric horn stabs as front man Teddy Hernandez cries out to his old lady “don’t leave me, don’t leave me”. In a weird synchronicity, ‘Chin Up’ starts up like that new Kings of Leon song everyone hates, but goes somewhere much more interesting, sincere and hilarious as Teddy ironically pleads “You shake me, shake me much harder than a British nanny do”. It isn’t all just punk raucous though; ‘Depths Unseen’ is a throw back to the 80s with orchestrations and a tear-drop drum machine whilst ‘Jeepers’ is a plaintive acoustic ditty, urging his lover to “shed skins and make like the weather”. The strength in Heartbreak Club’s song writing is that they are focused on matching their furious energy with a level of inventiveness that most bands of similar sonic inklings would pass over. Our Horse is Dead is intelligent, ironic and self-deprecating and leaves you with a sense of immersion – the cornerstones of any great geek rock album. ~Matt Petherbridge
Bring Me The Horizon
There Is A Hell, Believe Me I Have Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let’s Keep It A Secret Visible Noise
3.5/5
A dynamic album, flying from raw and raging heavy metal to steady, soft rock. Furiously intense tracks evolving from vicious beats, crowd chants and thick, heavy riffs; Bring Me The Horizon has made a conscious effort to include softer moments in There is a Hell… Throughout the album are bridges featuring acoustic guitar and guest vocalists; including Josh Franceschi of You Me At Six in ‘Fuck’, Josh Scogin of The Chariot in ‘The Fox and The Wolf’ and Lights’ feminine charms in ‘Crucify Me’ and ‘Don’t Go’. Screaming vocals used in ‘Blessed With a Curse’, ring out over moments of near-silence as well as over the heavy instrumentals, breaking through the curtain of sound achieved when metal bands try to fill every second with as much noise as they can. The result is that the tracks are differentiable; while the album as a whole still maintains the metal-core intensity expected from Bring Me The Horizon, each track takes on a life of its own. ~Jess Saxton
Die Antwoord $O$
Interscope/Universal
1.5/5
There are two main questions around Die Antwoord at this current part in time. What strange planet do they hail from and how the hell did they manage to get a recording deal? We may not ever have the knowledge or technology to answer those questions. However, we can come to the conclusion that they are a strange form of musician the likes we have never experienced before. Viral Youtube sensation ‘Enter The Ninja’ has to be seen to truly understand Die Antwoord’s intentions. The obscure, synthesised vocal introduction from Yolandi Visser, followed by Ninja’s hilariously solemn attempt at rapping is a true experience to behold. His use of the ecstatic Afrikaans language and poor grammatical phrasing is a prominent feature of their debut album and unfortunately it is simply painful (or comical for some) to hear. ~Josh Clements
Cee Lo Green The Lady Killers Elektra/Warner Music
4/5
Cee Lo Green’s latest solo effort, The Lady Killer, has proven to us once again why he is the epitome of cool. His beautiful funk and soul inspired vocals are perfect for the pop singles he has provided on this recording. The obvious singles include the humourously explicit ‘F**k You’ and the synthesised groove ballad ‘Bright Lights, Bigger City’. Green retains conventional 60s soul elements that add a nostalgic feel to the record, while also managing to include modern musical styles without comprehending tradition. He accentuates every facet of his bombastic vocal ability, which is most recognisable from his collaboration with Danger Mouse in Gnarls Barkley. The Lady Killer is a fun and vibrant album that will be highly engaging for most pop and mainstream audiences. ~Josh Clements
Of Montreal False Priest Polyvinyl
3.5/5
After nine studio albums I still haven’t been able to make up my mind about Of Montreal. Kevin Barnes and co have gone from twee-pop meanderings to psycho-sexual bursts of funk-inspired electronica with mixed results. 2007’s Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer, possibly the band’s most cohesive record, had its fair share of Prince-inspired bubblegumfunk but often fell short of the mark. So, with equal parts trepidation and hope, I settled in for Of Montreal’s tenth studio effort, False Priest. This time around, Barnes has gone all-out on production, courtesy of ex-Kanye West cohort John Biron, and the improvements are palpable. The sizzling treble and thick bass of the opener ‘I Feel Ya Strutter’ (the album’s standout track) continues throughout the strut-worthy ‘Coquet Coquette’ and falsetto funk of ‘Hydra Fancies’. Biron provides a kind of hook, of sorts, to hang Barnes’ meanderings on in a way that was absent on his self-produced efforts. The problem, though, is that all of these songs appear on the first half of the album. To be fair, this is definitely the kind of dense and sometimes difficult record that is bound to reveal much, much more on subsequent listens. Although, if your not already a fan of Barnes’ idiosyncratic yet haphazard approach, you may not like what you find. ~Stephen Bissett
Fitz and the tantrums
Pickin’ Up The Pieces Dangerbird/alberts
4/5
When this slab landed on my desk it was dismissed as yet another snotty punk band with nothing much to say – well what would you expect from a band called Fitz and the Tantrums? After slipping it in to the stereo, I was given an important lesson in not judging a book by its cover as Pickin’ Up The Pieces, the LA seven-piece’s debut effort could very well pave the way for these guys to be the poster children for neo-soul. These guys clearly come from the revisionist school of song writing. Bearing a reverence to 70s funk and Motown, you’d be forgiven for thinking these guys were firmly stuck in a time-warp but there is something about this album that makes it sound as fresh as a daisy — even if they were playing an ice-cream social in 1967. There is little to find fault with on this ten-track gem that is heavy on the Hammond, sax and “testify” type hand-clapping over cheesy guitar riffs. Right from the boisterous horn-driven title track it’s obvious that Fitz and Co have an agenda – to grab hold of you with some infectious old school beats and melodies. Other standouts include the soulful crooning and twinkling keys of ‘Money Grabber’ and the, dare I say, awesome ‘Rich Girls’. The band seems to have eschewed a slick production for a more ‘rough around the edges approach’ and this only serves to ram home this old school aesthetic. With burbling bass, blistering brass, and some courageous caterwauling from Fitz, Pickin’ Up The Pieces might just be the catchiest release of 2010. ~Stephen Bissett
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