Through the Eyes of the Dead Skepsis Prosthetic Records It’s plain to hear South Carolina’s Through the Eyes of The Dead have spent some quality time with Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Decapitated and the like. And good on ‘em; death metal in the 90s was rad. But four LPs into their career, it’s reasonable to expect the band would have moved beyond gluing together their favorite parts with a watery paste of false harmonics and chromatic solos. But expectations, like Skepsis, are bound to disappoint. The pleasure of listening to Skepsis doesn’t come from hearing new and novel ideas in the field of metalcore. And it doesn’t come from carefully and expertly constructed song craft, either. In fact, TTEOTD’s songs tend to jump between parts and rely too heavily on genre tropes and predictable song structures. Where we can squeeze a few drops of enjoyment from this dry lemon of metal-by-numbers is in its demand to go find a better album and listen to that, instead. Bryan Reed
Tokyo Rosenthal Ghosts Rock & Sock Records Where to start with this veteran Raleigh-based singer/songwriter/ multi-instrumentalist and this new release. His exotic moniker? The sepia, hooded cover shot that makes Rosenthal look like an Americana monk? A guest list that includes pedal steel hero Al Perkins, Peter Holsapple, and co-producer Chris Stamey? How about 10 nothing-short-of-solid
re
30 shuffle Seven Reviews
songs, with a healthy handful going well beyond that? “Inside Your Skull,” bolstered by splitpersonality steel from Perkins, is a curiously successful rocker. “Still She Thanks God” showcases Rosenthal’s amiable vocals and his way with a melody, while the gently swinging title track is sonic soulmate to Jesse Colin Young’s “Sunlight.” And the album closes with a nifty, fiddle-blessed take on “Goin’ on Saturday” from journeymen Aztec Two-Step. That tag fits Rosenthal, too, as commentary on his travels - from Long Island to the West Coast to North Carolina, with a stop in Edmonton for a key to the city (long story) - and the memorable songs hatched along the way. Rick Cornell
Toro Y Moi Causers of This Carpark Records As Toro Y Moi, Chaz Bundick makes a universally likable fruit salad from the ubiquitous laptop/ sampler-based (though wholly different) pop stylings of Animal Collective and J Dilla, which are now Slint-like in their widespread influence. A bedroom-funk, emo synth-sprinkle gives the record its own legs to stand on, and highlights here are the gorgeous, anthemic “Blessa” and the glitchy, Kanye-approved “Talamak, both previously available. But the real triumph is Bundick as producer, his palette enormous and his ears always open to happy accidents. The happiest of them all is a specific compression of the bass beat into a deep, soft suction that’s become his signature sound, and thereby Greater Metropolitan Chillwaveington’s – it’s something like when your Jeep’s passengers drop the back windows, creating the foompfoomp-foomp of a helipad takeoff over your radio jams. Maybe this is why it works. It’s music made by, for and about those of us on that perpetual cruise to the oceanside. Topher Manilla
Transmission Fields Transmission Fields Spectra Records Calling a band radio-ready is often seen as damning praise. After all, most (commercial) radio plays about as many songs as there are spaces on a bingo card, and each of those spaces is usually filled by a band playing one hyper-predictable, super-specific genre cliché or another. What’s more, there’s no longer any “free space” in the middle for anything different or unique to gain traction. Too bad for radio, then, as this self-titled release, eminently hummable/ harmonizable, is a little gem for those who like their pop rock like R.E.M. or Built To Spill make it: a little angular, a little obscure, and a lot of fun. Guitarist Neil Hunter’s spidery, Peter Buck-esque riffs, just as high in the ever-insistent mix as Lee Neitzel’s easy/beatific vocals, takes listeners back (and hopefully, forward) to an era when rock radio didn’t mean also playing an endless game of Spot the Influence. Timothy C. Davis
Tropa Love Songs & Alibis Outside Recordings “Wind In,” the penultimate track on Love Songs & Alibis, the latest from Charlotte producer Brian Darden Patterson, or Tropa, depends entirely on a wonderful stutter-and-start beat: A narrow bass blast lunges forward and phases slightly. A coruscated keyboard pings to the foreground. More bass—now, a full, head-nodding line, rubbery but slight—slides into
place, gliding in elegant zigzags between those persistent thuds. Patterson reverses the track, offering the allusion that it’s all flying out of place, only to right the pattern again, letting the inversions tessellate momentarily. It’s disorienting and dizzying. These sorts of surprises are woefully underutilized on this competent but circumscribed piece of electronic stargazing. Patterson’s clinical funk and textural blipscapes come carefully designed and meticulously executed, but his persistent aim for understatement sometimes bends these beats into blurs. Everything here feels learned and borrowed, meaning that Patterson’s work as a composer isn’t enough to offset his music’s beige wallpaper glow. But if that’s mostly the point—to build a background that deserves immersion as much as it invites it—Patterson succeeds. Grayson Currin
Stephen Warwick & Secondhand Stories Talking Machine Self-released Charlotte songwriter Stephen Warwick, accompanied by his backing band, Secondhand Stories, offers 11 songs on Talking Machine, a direct and compelling record that, though it clocks in at just over half an hour, offers plenty for both fans and the uninitiated. In terms of tempo and mood, the album graphs almost like a bell curve, with “Golden” and “Keep on,” opener and closer, respectively, deftly playing the somber and subtle foils to the meat of the record, which is filled with playful, sometime borderline raucous tunes that reveal influences ranging from vintage country to modern indie/folk. But it’s album highlight “Tiger II” that best marries the two styles, initially showcasing Warwick’s voice and simply strummed acoustic guitar before building to a gorgeous, rocking crescendo. And, yes, both song and album may end too quickly for some, but that’s what the repeat function is for. William Morris
fin₇