Not-so-new album review: Family Band’s “Miller Path”

October 28, 2010 Leave a comment

At eMusic we have this really cool program called eMusic Selects, where we exclusively release music from unsigned (or “undersigned”) bands we really love, in hopes that we can help them sell some records and they’ll get signed by a bigger label. Some past Selects bands have been Best Coast, Hooray for Earth, and a couple of recent favorites Breathe Owl Breathe and Hurray for the Riff Raff. One of the releases in our last round is Miller Path by Family Band, a Brooklyn trio whose guitarist has only been in metal bands before this one. It’s dark, spooky, sorta like Cat Power’s Moon Pix. Good timing for Halloween, huh?

And speaking of Halloween, check out our staff’s “Guide to Darkness” that we posted today!

My eMusic review of Family Band’s Miller Path:

“I’ve been wasted here and I sense movements of beauty,” sings frontwoman Kim Krans on “Hatred,” the opener of Family Band’s debut LP Miller Path. It’s hard to know exactly what she means, but there’s no denying its chilling impact. Family Band’s music is like that: dark, eerie and often cryptic, but also beautiful. It’s not surprising to learn that guitarist Jonny Ollsin has been playing in metal bands for the better part of two decades; even though there are no thrashing powerchords or throat-shredding screams, metal’s intense bleakness lurks in every corner of Miller Path, creating a sound the group has dubbed “heavy mellow.”

Family Band’s rage is a quiet one, best summed up by another line in “Hatred”: “It is hatred that makes the horse run strong.” That image of Krans internalizing her pent-up anger and channeling it into determination and power is grim, almost frightening. The songs have themes of death and nightmares, but the darkness is contained — it’s tightly coiled in Krans’s alto, and it’s what fuels the strength in her voice. At times, she channels a Moon Pix-era Cat Power, most apparently on the soulful “Fantasy,” one of the record’s more stripped-down numbers, which finds Krans singing, “Open up your memory, let those floodgates spill/ Baby, I will get you home.”

Family Band is Ollsin’s first non-metal outing, and you can still hear echoes of his musical background in the spiraling, minor-key guitar arpeggios that decorate many songs. He originally made an agreement with Krans (who is also his wife) that major chords were out of the question, though he conceded a few times, for the better, not only in the chord structure, but also in the lilting guitars and blues-guitar march in “No Sound.” Drummer Adam Cimino’s atmospheric, non-intrusive technique reinforces the album’s fluid feel: Sometimes all the song needs is a steady tambourine hit (“Hatred”) or a cymbal- and rim-click-driven waltz (“Diamonds”). (Since this recording, Cimino has been replaced by former Yeasayer drummer Luke Fasano.) But even when the drums are more prominent, intertwining with Ollsin’s guitar and Scott Hirsch’s bass, they’re still very much in tune with the rest of the album’s calm-yet-foreboding soundscapes. For every spiraling, muted guitar run, spooky whistling effect, and dissonant hook, Miller Path has just as many moments of gorgeous resolution.

Family Band’s MySpace

Video of Family Band’s “Hatred”:

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New album review: Allo Darlin’

October 6, 2010 Leave a comment

Sigh. This record is so lovely. I liked the music immediately, but it took paying close attention to the lyrics to understand what made it better than any other twee indiepop album. So, now I am in love — with this record, but the record makes me want to be in love with an actual person. And c’mon, they sing the chorus of Weezer’s “El Scorcho” in one song (video below), and actually pull it off. Favorite songs are “Silver Dollars” and “Kiss Your Lips,” but really it’s all wonderful.

My eMusic review of Allo Darlin’s self-titled LP:

The self-titled debut from London-based quartet Allo Darlin’ is about falling in love — on dancefloors and at parties, on Ferris wheels and in the kitchen — and the fluttering, anxious feeling of wondering of where you’ll end up, or who you’ll end up with, after the bar closes. There are mentions of Polaroid pictures, Woody Allen films and favorite Weezer songs, soundtracked by jangly pop hooks that owe as much to the Cure as to Cyndi Lauper. The Weezer number in question is Pinkerton‘s “El Scorcho” — which in itself name-drops Public Enemy and Green Day — and Allo Darlin’ manage to not only mention it in “Kiss Your Lips,” but also weave its chorus perfectly into the song, sing-shouting, “I’m a lot like you so please, hello, I’m here, I’m waiting/ I think I’d be good for you and you could be good for me.”

Fronted by Elizabeth Morris, who also plays in Tender Trap, Allo Darlin’ make clean-cut indie pop that’s heavy on tambourines, shakers, ukulele, and surf-pop guitar and bass licks. It’s unabashedly twee — “Heartbeat Chilli” is backed by Morris’s ukulele as she sings wistfully about spaghetti with heartbeats in the recipe, and “The Polaroid Song” has flute trills amid lines about stocking up on the instant film before it expires — but it’s balanced with Morris’s disarming earnestness and impressively quick wit. After a few spins, it’ll be hard not to cling on to her every word.

If you need more convincing, some of my favorite lyrics + a video are after the jump.

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New album review: Glasser’s ‘Ring’

October 5, 2010 Leave a comment

My eMusic review of Glasser’s debut LP, Ring:

Cameron Mesirow’s one-woman project as Glasser began as just a voice and GarageBand, filling a couple of short EPs with intricate percussion and abstract, echoing vocals. But on her debut full-length, Ring, it’s hard to differentiate between the real and the synthetic — and that’s just part of its beauty. Like its name, Ring is a cycle: It starts and ends with the same hollow drum and claves-like clicking, and each song in between slides right into the next. There are bells, xylophones, pianos, synths, horns and flutes behind Mesirow’s vocals, which are often a delicately-layered combination of words and abstract sounds reminiscent of Björk or the ladies of the Dirty Projectors. The thunder-backed “Home” has different pitches of “ohhhhs” over strings and a xylophone, and in the cavernous “Plane Temp” she uses new-agey chants and short, breathy hiccup sounds.

The couple of tracks that appeared on Glasser’s Apply EP have been filled out and improved from their barebones beginnings. “Apply” serves as Ring‘s opener, thickened by lower-register drums and stronger, more controlled vocals, while on “Glad,” Mesirow gracefully swoops in and out as she sings, “Somebody said, ‘Hey, slow down, wait for me.’” With its complex textures and lyrics referencing fire, ghosts, loneliness, broken homes, clouds and rain, Glasser’s disarming debut should be taken in the same way: in no hurry.

Glasser’s MySpace page

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New album review: Breathe Owl Breathe’s ‘Magic Central’

October 5, 2010 1 Comment

I’m pretty embarrassed that it took me until living in New York to listen to Breathe Owl Breathe. They’re from Michigan (my home state) and I’m pretty sure I had about a million chances to see/hear them when I was in college. But alas, it took me longer than it should have. But it’s better late than never, huh? Anyway, this group is so lovely: Their style folk music is unlike anything I’ve heard in terms of the combination of instruments and unique voices, and this record is home to some of my favorite lyrics I’ve heard all year. I’m sad I didn’t get to see them play in Brooklyn last week (although it was because I went to see Tallest Man On Earth instead), but they’ll be my No. 1 priority next time they come through here, especially since I’ve heard their shows are pretty magical.

My review of Breathe Owl Breathe’s Magic Central on eMusic:

Michigan trio — and eMusic Selects alums — Breathe Owl Breathe’s charismatic brand of folk stems as much from make-believe fantasylands as it does earnest human emotions. The group’s fourth LP, Magic Central, isn’t a drastic departure from their past works: It’s founded on Micah Middaugh’s acoustic guitar and laced with Andréa Moreno-Beals’s cello, Trevor Hobbes’s ragtag percussion — including various chimes and bells, tambourines and shakers — and an organic smattering of banjo, dissonant piano chords and violin. But it’s slightly cleaner and more upbeat, with more focus on melody in Middaugh’s conversational, often half-spoken vocals. While Middaugh’s voice typically takes the lead, Moreno-Beals’s contributions are also crucial — her smoky, Feist-like croon complements Middaugh and especially comes through in tracks like the soulful “Icy Cave Dancers” and “Dog Walkers of the New Age.”

As with all of BoB’s work, Middaugh’s playful storytelling is as much of a treat as the corresponding soundtrack. In “Parrots in the Tropical Trees,” his voice swoops in and out as he sings, “Tidal wave, what gives you the entitlement to wash me away?” Later, “Dragon” is about a love that others might not approve of, masked as a story about a dragon and a princess who are pen pals. It’s prefaced with a spoken story explaining the situation, which proves to be one of the album’s most endearing moments. It’s refreshing to hear folk music that’s as adventurous as the characters that inhabit the songs.

Breathe Owl Breathe’s MySpace

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New album review: Death Cab for Cutie’s ‘Plans’

September 3, 2010 Leave a comment

We just got Death Cab for Cutie’s Atlantic records on eMusic (Plans, Narrow Stairs and the Open Door EP), and I reviewed Plans, which I probably listened to more than anything else during my freshman year of college (that made it sorta tough to write about).

eMusic review:

After Death Cab for Cutie’s 2003 album Transatlanticism led to countless song placements in TV shows and films, it seemed like a natural progression for the band to leave longtime indie Barsuk for a major label — Atlantic. (Adding to the band’s high profile: Give Up — the debut LP from the Postal Service, Death Cab frontman Ben Gibbard’s project with Dntel’s Jimmy Tamborello — had been released only months before.) Transatlanticism had been the group’s cleanest work to date — lush, cinematic layers of sound had replaced the subtle fuzz that used to loom over every track — and Plans follows a similar formula. But where Transatlanticism was about the past — breakups, memories, long-distance relationships — Plans finds Gibbard looking to the future. Ultimately, it’s a question of who’s going to love you and, therefore, who’s going to watch you die. That’s to say: The lyrics haven’t gotten much happier, but the band’s found its sound and is sticking to it.

Several of the songs revolve around love after death: In the ethereal single “Soul Meets Body,” Gibbard sings “If the silence takes you/ Then I hope it takes me too;” in the stripped-down-acoustic “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” he croons, “If there’s no one beside you/ When your soul embarks/ I will follow you into the dark;” and in the grim, piano-driven hospital song, it’s “Love is watching someone die/ So who’s going to watch you die?” as his character paces the waiting room. It might sound grim, but Gibbard’s never been one for conventional happy endings.

Though Plans is missing rock anthems akin to Transatlanticism‘s “The New Year” and “The Sound of Settling,” its sound is just as a massive — much of which can be attributed to Chris Walla’s increasingly sharp production work. Opening track “Marching Bands of Manhattan” begins with a stuttering reverbed guitar and an organ, then a series of steady chords and tambourine shakes before the drums and bass kick in. “What Sarah Said” is founded on arpeggioed, sometimes-layered piano chords; in “Your Heart Is An Empty Room,” an organ warps together with shakers and slowly-building electronics. There are no big surprises on this go-around, and maybe Plans sounded, in a way, like settling. But what it really did was lay the groundwork — and give them the audience — for the experimentation that came next.

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New album review and music feature: Lost in the Trees

August 31, 2010 Leave a comment

I’ve been neglecting this blog for too long … going to try to play catch-up over the next couple of weeks.

Anyway, there have been a couple of records released this year that pretty much made my head explode. Lost in the Trees’ All Alone in an Empty House is one of them. They’re an orchestral folk band with a classical slant, and the music is big, emotional, sad, haunting, and hopeful. The record was originally released in 2008, but most of it was rerecorded and a couple of songs were added for this version, which is out now on ANTI- Records. Hopefully these pieces will give you some idea, but this band really is phenomenal.

Interview with Ari Picker of Lost in the Trees on eMusic

my eMusic review of Lost in the Trees’ All Alone in an Empty House:

Lost in the Trees’ All Alone in an Empty House begins with a grim tale of fighting parents, dying infants, isolation, depression and abuse. Its opener, the title track, starts with a delicately fingerpicked acoustic guitar line over the sound of creaking floors but, verse by verse, it builds, adding strings, horns and backing vocals as frontman/composer Ari Picker’s voice gets stronger and more intense. When the storm dies down, Picker sings softly, “I know no one is perfect/ We’ve got a hole in our heart/ No one is perfect.” It’s a powerful beginning, and while Picker’s story — much of which is true — doesn’t end in complete resolution, Empty House proves to be more about hope than pain.

In “Walk Around The Lake,” Picker professes, “Late at night I’ll stay up and write a book about my life/ So no one would ever make all of my mistakes.” The song incorporates a dramatic and spooky string waltz, acoustic fingerpicking and soaring violin lines, and then a powerful blues guitar line cuts in to create one of the record’s most exhilarating moments.

The musical and emotional turning point comes in “Fireplace,” wherein everyone shouts together, “And with a burned soul/ Healing is painful/ Asked to forgive when you’re still angry/ If I can’t heal my heart, forgive me,” and later, “So surround yourself with good people/ I know it’s painful but we can stand/ And if this man can’t walk/ Lend him a hand.” The song is upbeat, with a hard-driving electric guitar line over Picker’s acoustic and it sets the emotional tone for songs like “Love On My Side,” “Wooden Walls of this Forest Church” and the Neutral Milk Hotel-channeling “A Room Where Your Paintings Hang.”

Though Empty House was first released through Trekky Records in 2008, all of the vocals and most of the instrumentals were rerecorded and two songs have been added for ANTI-’s edition, which was produced by Scott Solter (St. Vincent, Spoon). There’s more confidence, control and articulation in Picker’s voice, and the arrangements are tighter and more fluid. Where some indie rock or folk artists use strings and horns as accessories, the classical, symphonic elements here, along with Picker’s acoustic guitar, provide the foundation for nearly all of Lost in the Trees’ songs. Empty House also has two guitar-less instrumental suites, near the beginning and end of the record. After the second, the set concludes with the optimistic “For Leah & Chloe,” in which Picker sings, “Pain’s made me who I am/ But I don’t want your pity please/ I’ve learned more than I could share/ I healed my heart on a walk in the dark.” While Picker’s story is bleak, Empty House has enough heart and emotional power to help others heal too.

Lost in the Trees’ MySpace

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New album reviews: Regina Spektor’s ‘Begin to Hope’ and ‘Far’

June 13, 2010 Leave a comment

We recently got Regina Spektor’s Sire catalog on eMusic, so I reviewed her latest two records. It’s kinda funny, I finished these right before Memorial Day weekend, whereas last year I spent my Memorial Day weekend writing about her, but for a big story for Billboard. I’m pretty sure it was one of the more stressful weekends of my life, at least in terms of writing, and I’m glad that didn’t happen a second consecutive year.

My eMusic review of Begin To Hope:

2004′s Soviet Kitsch might have been Regina Spektor’s breakthrough, but Begin to Hope is the album that made her the face of quirky piano-pop; you’d be hard-pressed, in 2006, to find a heartbroken girl who wasn’t singing, “You are my sweetest downfall/ I loved you first.” Spektor’s songs are honest, mostly-innocent heartbreakers that are spiked with unexpected lines about cocaine (“Hotel Room”) and dudes wanting “to feel the bulges in their pants start to rise” (“Summer In The City”).

Musically, Begin to Hope is both grander and more stripped down than its predecessor: The ballads “Samson” and “Field Below” are accompanied by little more than Spektor’s piano; “Edit” and “Hotel Song” use drum-machine beats and synths; “On The Radio” has strings and handclaps. It’s all fronted by a playful, perfectly articulated mezzo-soprano that sometimes breaks out into “ah-ah-ahs,” beat-boxing or other vocal effects. Though not typically autobiographical, every Spektor song tells a story — but from the heartbreaking “Samson” and “Fidelity” to the defiant refrain of “Aprés Moi,” every story on Begin to Hope became an anthem.

My eMusic review of Far:

On far, Regina Spektor’s fifth LP and first since her mainstream breakthrough Begin to Hope, the pop songstress sets romance mostly aside and instead considers life in broader strokes. While it wouldn’t be a Spektor album without a couple of love songs, most of her stories here are about death, feeling lost and — more so than in the past — faith and religion. In “Laughing With,” she suggests that God is laughing at everyone; in the haunting “Human Of The Year,” which is set in a cathedral, she likens religious idols to everyday people, singing, “The icons are whispering to you/ They’re just old men/ Like on the benches in the park/ Except their balding spots are glistening with gold.”

More than anything, far is a mainstream pop album with no shortage of hooks: Tracks like “Eet” and “Laughing With” were made for commercial radio. Longtime Spektor fans, though, will likely gravitate most toward “Folding Chair,” in which Spektor does her best dolphin impression, and the synth-backed “Dance Anthem of the ’80s,” which starts with Spektor making cymbal noises and singing in unison alongside a simple piano line. The lyrics on far require a bit more deciphering than those on Spektor’s previous releases, but even if you have to dig a little deeper to find the meaning, her wit rewards the challenge: The best line in “Machine” is “Living in your pre-war apartment/ Soon to be your post-war apartment” and in the most literal number, “Wallet,” she sings about finding a man’s wallet and trying to track him down via his Blockbuster card.

The biggest change on far comes from behind the scenes: It’s Spektor’s first record since Sire leader Michael Goldstone left the label, and while she kept David Kahne on as a producer, she also added three more — Mike Elizondo (Eminem, Fiona Apple), ELO and Traveling Wilburys’ Jeff Lynne, and Garret “Jackknife” Lee (Snow Patrol, Bloc Party). It’s surprisingly hard to tell who worked on which track — they’re all slick, many with strings, occasional horns, random percussion and, of course, Spektor’s piano at the forefront — but it seems unnecessary to have so many people on board. Thankfully, far is still very much her own, and it doesn’t feel like the work has been compromised.

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New album review: Samantha Crain’s ‘You (Understood)’

June 8, 2010 1 Comment

My eMusic review of folk singer/songwriter Samantha Crain’s beautiful sophomore LP, You (Understood), out today on Ramseur Records:

In “Blueprints,” the second track on Samantha Crain’s sophomore LP You (Understood), the Shawnee, Oklahoma, folk songwriter sings, “Into your eyes, I climbed/ I have no eyes of my own.” In a way, it sums up the premise of the record: Crain wanted to document relationships and incidences with 16 different people in her life. Most songs seem to be written from Crain’s perspective, but there’s no doubt that she had to examine every topic from both sides in order to effectively tell the stories. And while she might be singing about specific people, Crain excels at finding the universal themes in each narrative.

The mournful and haunting “Wichitalright” considers the overwhelming choices confronting Crain’s generation of 20-somethings; she assures them, “You can take it slow/ You don’t have to know it all.” Amid spiraling electric guitar and ghostly “oohs” on the tempo-shifting “Toothpicks” — a song inspired by the repetitiveness of touring the country — she sing-chants, “Permanence is just not my way of being.” Similarly, “Blueprints” finds her musing, “That’ll be a pretty day, when I cannot find my way/ ‘Cause lost is nothing to be afraid of.”

You (Understood) has a slightly harder edge than 2008′s Songs In The Night: Bluesy, glitchy guitars accelerate “Holdin’ That Wheel”; “Two-Sidedness” employs intertwining electric guitars between choruses and crests with a lengthy bagpipe solo. But tracks like “Santa Fe” — which features labelmates Frontier Ruckus on vocals and banjo — and album opener “Lions” highlight the soulfulness that made Crain’s first effort, as well as this one, so captivating.

Lovely video of “Santa Fe” (featuring Matt and Dave from Frontier Ruckus):

Samantha Crain’s MySpace
Frontier Ruckus’s MySpace

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New album review: Peter Wolf Crier’s ‘Inter-Be’

May 25, 2010 Leave a comment

My eMusic review of Peter Wolf Crier’s debut LP Inter-Be:

Peter Pisano and Brian Moen — the Minneapolis duo known as Peter Wolf Crier — have an affinity for hazy, jangly pop fronted by Pisano’s tenor, which falls somewhere between Justin Vernon and M. Ward, equal parts smoky croon and spirited falsetto. Album opener “Crutch & Cane” clinks with tambourines and piano at the chorus, while “Demo 01″ thrives from a quivering, slightly crackling guitar rhythm and fluttering piano trills. Another highlight, “For Now,” is urgent, with usually only two or three words per line accompanied by swirls of female vocals laced between verses.

Inter-Be is largely about loss of strength, betrayal, and faith. “Untitled 101″ is the most literal — a hymn in which Pisano earnestly croons, “Lord show me your face/ Show me once and I’ll keep you all my days/ Will be tamed not conspire to treasure seek/ Once my eyes find your skin in reach.” In other songs, legs are frequently used as a metaphor to measure his state of well being: In “Crutch & Cane” it’s “Save my legs, take what’s left,” in “Down Down Down” it’s “Be battered, wear proud your crown/ Don’t betray your knees/ You’re going down, down for good,” in “Untitled 101″ it’s “Although bruised I’ve got life within these legs,” and in the closing track “In Response,” Pisano sings, “You know I spent my days blaming broken legs.” Peter Wolf Crier aren’t breaking ground here, but their gorgeous brand of cavernous and refreshing folk-pop works just fine.

Peter Wolf Crier’s MySpace

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New album review: Damien Jurado’s ‘Saint Bartlett’

May 25, 2010 Leave a comment

My eMusic review of Damien Jurado’s billionth album, Saint Bartlett:

“I’m still trying to fix my mind,” sings Damien Jurado on “Cloudy Shoes,” the Wayne Coyne-channeling opener of his latest LP, Saint Bartlett. The melody doesn’t change much throughout the song, but that and the string-laden backing are steady and soothing — fitting for a piece about someone going through hard times. Later, in “Rachel & Cali,” the Seattle-based singer/songwriter admits, “There’s too many people here I don’t know/ …I just don’t feel confident in crowds.” Jurado’s biggest strength has always been his ability to tell sad stories, and Saint Bartlett shows he’s still on the same page.

Nearly half the album’s tracks are named after places — “Arkansas,” “Wallingford,” “Kansas City,” “Beacon Hill,” “Kalama” — and they seem to be perhaps a reminder of where these stories take place. The mournful and haunting “Kansas City” is about someone whose estranged father reappears after his mother’s death and finds Jurado singing, “All was left to me, that’s why he’s returned/ I know that I should have been thrilled.”

Saint Bartlett was produced by Richard Swift, and he and Jurado take on every instrument throughout the set, rather than his regular collaborators, Eric Fisher and Jenna Conrad, the latter of whom sang on much of 2008′s Caught In The Trees. “Arkansas” is driven by a girl group-influenced ’60s piano line supported by strings; “Wallingford” is washed with reverby electric guitar riffs; “The Falling Snow” uses a tinny organ and layered vocals. It’s in many ways a departure from past efforts, but even with fewer musicians on board than the last time, Jurado’s sound is the biggest it’s ever been.

Damien Jurado’s MySpace

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