Television Personalities - A Memory Is Better Than Nothing [2010]

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Here We Go Magic - Pigeons [2010]

In a year when Brooklyn bands dominated the music discussion, Here We Go Magic's self-titled debut still managed to stand out enough to turn a few heads in 2009. Frontman Luke Temple, taking the lead of the more established Brooklyn bands, had headlining spots at CMJ and opened for Grizzly Bear and the Walkmen, among others. Temple put together a full backing band in the process. Pigeons, Here We Go Magic's second album and first on Secrety Canadian, was recorded on a winter retreat to upsate New York. The recording session was sandwiched in between two extensive North American tours.
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Suckers - Wild Smile [2010]

Before we get to the new Suckers album, let’s run down a quick list of overused adjectives that get thrown around a lot in reviews. You know, words like psychedelic, dreamy, blissed-out, druggy, expansive, lush, and so on. You get the idea. These terms get used, sometimes, because they’re useful keywords that give a quick insight into what you might expect from an artist. But they’re also sometimes used—and I’ve done this, admittedly—in place of really figuring out what’s going on with a band’s sound. They’re used because what the band does is slippery, and rather than spending 500 words tracing a sound back to its disparate roots, we go with a quick phrase. It may be economical, but it’s also, let’s admit it, a bit lazy.

This all comes up because, well, Suckers are damned slippery. Wild Smile, their first full-length record, denies easy summary or genre tags. It’s hard to pin any of those adjectives on these guys. And yet they are the words that came to mind as I listened to the record over and over again. Why? Because Wild Smile is awfully good, but it’s really hard to explain what makes it that way.

There are a few things that stick out about Suckers, though, on this record. The first is that these guys are songwriters. It sounds simple, sure, but what these guys achieve on Wild Smile is no small feat. They craft eleven distinct and catchy songs. Each track has its own feel, and yet as a whole they come together nicely into a cohesive, arresting musical world.

And while that world has walls around it, they are far off in the distance. The rhythm section on Wild Smile is downright stunning, both grounding these lofty songs and giving them the space to roam. The drums can clang away on “Roman Candles”, loosening up the track, or tighten up on songs like “Black Sheep” to reign in the wandering keys. The bass rumbles subtly on “You Can Keep Me Running Around” or snaps off notes on “Martha” to fill the space between those thundering drums and the high plink of the guitars. The combination of the barreling rhythm section, the spiraling high-on-the-neck guitar riffs, and the layers of vocal melodies—with all the echo and space around them—could be mistaken for something hazy and impressionistic.

If Wild Smile were just that, they’d have a decent record on their hands. But if you live with this record awhile, you’ll find that is a clear-eyed and carefully constructed set of songs. They don’t rest on blurry sound, like so many lesser bands would. Is there reverb and gauzy texture to all of this? Of course. But the sharp riffs of “Before Your Birthday Ends” and the arresting melodies of “A Mind I Knew” cut through the atmosphere rather than hiding behind it.

Above all that, though, the band has a secret weapon: frontman Quinn Walker. What ultimately separates Suckers from a lot of other new bands is their undeniable energy. Instead of resting lazily on atmosphere, and meshing his voice in with all these tangling sounds, Walker brings a circus hawker’s wild-eyed zeal to these tracks, not to mention something close to vocal schizophrenia. He goes from lilting croon to quick-fire yelp on “King of Snakes”, baits us with an unassuming mumble on “Save Your Love For Me” before unleashing an unworldly falsetto, and holds onto a smoother version of that falsetto for the soul-jam of “Before Your Birthday Ends”. It also helps that, along with his crazed energy, Walker lacks even a hint of self-seriousness. In fact, he may test you with that ultimately campy vocal delivery on “Before Your Birthday Ends”, or with the whistling into to “Roman Candles”, which may remind you of the closing scene of Full Metal Jacket both in how silly and unsettling it is.

But therein lies the charm of Suckers. They are a tight-as-hell band with an original and arresting sound, but they’d rather stomp their feet than stare at their navels. I don’t know what to call the sound they find on Wild Smile, and I don’t always know what to make of its goofier moments. That, though, is exactly what makes it such a compelling record. Whatever you call it, whatever title you try and stick this unruly, wonderful album under doesn’t matter. Because the name you give it has nothing to do with how, come album closer “Loose Change”, you’ll be singing and clapping along with the rest of your band. And that thing on your face while you do it? I believe they titled the album after that.
popmatters.com
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Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today [2010]

Surely even normal kids growing up in Hollywood must, at times, feel like they're missing out on something – transplant the most mundane memories from your youth to a town 20 car minutes south of those famous cinema hills, with all their fun and iconography, and imagine the envy and frustration that'd rot at your gut whenever you had to spend the night at home alone babysitting. Ariel Pink, aka Ariel Marcus Rosenberg, grew up in Pico-Robertson, a town of aforementioned ilk, and his first memories of pop music came from the radio he'd hear every day driving to Beverley Hills High School. Without wanting to play dumb Freud, it's rewarding to view Pink's arrival at this point in his recording career through the filter of his Hollywood childhood, and all the associations with Alicia Silverstone's emerald green eyes the phrase conjures up.
Before Today is supposed to be Ariel Pink's breakthrough album. Primarily that's because it was made in a real studio, paid for by a real label with real money – 'til now, all of his music has emerged from his bedroom, where'd he kneel to record albums like The Doldrums and House Arrest, much of the time playing ‘the drums’ with his mouth. These albums sounded like retreat into an own world – they were covered in a thick film of lo-fi noise hum and melodies were evasive, often flitting and strafing through that fuzz as if an infant was mad with control of a car's AM radio dial. Fortunately, they were also insanely good records – the extent of Pink's pop nous has been clear for a while now, and much of Before Today does sound like an unleashing of that, particularly lead single Round and Round with its 10cc-recalling synths and bassline stolen from Sade's Hang On To Your Love. The album's highpoint arrives in its first bridge, as Ariel ‘answers the phone’ amid guitar waft that sounds like billowing net curtains on a hot summer's day.
Other highlights arrive in the 70s Bowie funk snark of opener Hot Body Rub, Bright Lit Blue Skies' quietly euphoric pop radio charge, L'estat's synth whirl and Reminiscences' pleasant, aquatic drift. In fact, every track on this superb album is a winner – and, draped in the quiet glamour, fun and stateliness of bygone radio pop-rock, evidence that Ariel has emerged from his bedroom to exact his revenge on Hollywood's Hills.

bbc.co.uk/music
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The Drums - The Drums [2010]

It isn’t difficult to fathom how The Drums became the most name-droppable of new bands. New York acts have always travelled well, often making it big in Britain before doing likewise back home, but this savvy quartet also have exquisite timing. As the world self-flagellated over its financial woes last year they released an EP whose standout track featured the memorable refrain, “Oh momma, I wanna go surfing / oh momma, I don’t care about nothing”. Well, even a one-legged recluse could relate to that.
Let’s Go Surfing – written on the day of Obama’s inauguration, hence the optimism – makes a welcome return on their eponymous debut LP, and while the rest of the record isn’t quite so extravagantly escapist, it’s still a welcome espresso-rush of hooks and harmonies, with a healthy dose of lyrical darkness thrown in to ease the digestion.
Follow-up single Best Friend kicks us off, a sort of tragic human take on the story of Greyfriars Bobby (loyal mutt awaits return of dead master, spawns range of attractive commemorative mugs), with frontman Jonathan Pierce in sub-prime Morrissey mode, moping around on the bonnet of his late friend’s car. Manchester’s influence provides much of the ominous grey that clouds these songs’ sunny skies, in fact. Book of Stories and It Will All End in Tears both sport uplifting Phil Spector-like walls of sound, but also trebly Peter Hook basslines and choruses that are actually, on second listen, slightly heartbreaking.
But only slightly. The outlook here is more Love Theme from The Breakfast Club than Love Will Tear Us Apart, and like the finest John Hughes movies, all words are awash with teenage hormones and thus shouldn’t be taken too seriously. The Drums are no longer teens, admittedly, but their record skilfully conjures a time long before credit crunches, when the most important thing in the world was your current squeeze.
“You’ve got to believe me when I say, when I say the word forever,” croons Pierce, in the doo-woppy Down by the Water. “And whatever comes your way, we’ll still be here together.” Of course, they probably won’t be. But it’s nice to dream, just for a while.
bbc.co.uk/music
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THE RADIO DEPT. - CLINGING TO A SCHEME [2010]

Swedish dream-poppers shrug off the 'nu-gaze' tag for good on this charming winner of a full-length.

Nu-gaze. Like glow-fi, it’s one of those manufactured terms that is apt to make a music listener, be it indie rock critic or just casual fan, groan with annoyance. As a rule, people’s backs go up at the idea that some convenient, shorthand taxonomy could sum up a band’s entire artistic aim. Usually it’s the sort of thing that’s terribly inaccurate, not even appropriate for a record label’s press kit, and it’s the kind of dangerously short-sighted laziness that can actually keep potential new converts away from a deserving band. Nu-gaze? Really? I’ve even heard Titus Andronicus saddled with this term, and I can’t picture a less shoegaze-sounding band if I tried.

Call the Radio Dept. another unfortunate victim of this trend. Their earlier two efforts,Lesser Matters and Pet Grief, were instantly compared by salivating journa-clones to everyone from the cherished My Bloody Valentine to the Cocteau Twins to the effing Pet Shop Boys. Do the Radio Dept. really sound like these bands? That’s up to you. I say no, not really. But one thing’s clear, our Swedish friends are up to far more interesting work on their latest, Clinging to a Scheme, then just aping the nostalgic genres of ‘90s past.

First single “David” has the kind of surreal trip-hop bounce of latter-day Blur, another group once tagged as indebted to the ghosts of shoegaze past (as hard as that is to believe in 2010). Johan Duncanson has one of those voices that is utterly affecting in its disaffectedness, the apathetic lack of attachment sounding more emotional and harrowing in its defeated glory than any more ragged, extroverted effort by many of his contemporaries. There’s not a hint of over-driven walls of guitar here, just ambient keys breathing away over the beat, spinning into air.

Elsewhere, opener “Domestic Scene” nestles down on a beautiful bed of gently picked guitars before a sample cuts in at the start of “Heaven’s On Fire”.  “People see rock and roll as youth culture, and when youth culture becomes monopolized by big business, what are the youth to do?” a concerned voice asks, before the band answers with a good-time party jam that seems to snipe back: “just relax and enjoy it.” 
The album holds up this sort of consistency remarkably well over its brief thirty-five minute running time, moving from JAMC-Joy Division style mash-ups on “This Time Around” to mellow IDM on “A Token of Graditude”. The only hint of shoegaze influence here comes on “The Video Dept.”, which honestly bites more from Chapterhouse and Ride than heavier bands like MBV or Slowdive. The only real misstep here is “Four Months in the Shade”, which comes across as a feedback-soaked Crystal Castles experiment and little more. Thankfully, gears swiftly shift before gorgeous opener “You Stopped Making Sense” takes the wheel. If not for some of the more modernistic instrumentation, this could be one of Belle and Sebastian’s mellower jams, and ends the album on a perfectly appropriate high note.

Hopefully, Clinging to a Scheme will be enough to finally dispel the nu-gaze tag for the Radio Dept., and maybe it will help prove the futility of boxing bands as talented and unique as these into a tiny, neatly-labelled box. Probably not, at least not on the last count, but the fact remains that this is a solid, feel-good winner of an album that applies enough variety to feature in a number of your day to day routines and make them that much more special by association. Isn’t that what all great albums, nu-gaze or not, should do? Make no mistake, this is a very good, and very nearly great, album. So skip the one-sheet classifications, pick it up and judge for yourself.
popmatters.com
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THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS - TOGETHER [2010]

Trying to pinpoint the genius of the New Pornographers is a bit of a fool’s errand. The problem is that they do so many things exceptionally well, from crafting big hooks to winding through impossible melodies to cloaking meaning in clever wordplay. Most bands would kill to excel in just one of these areas, but the New Pornographers consistently combine all of them with an almost irritating nonchalance.

With just about every member of the band simultaneously maintaining a successful solo career or side project, it’s easy to see how so many ideas—and good ones, at that—end up in the New Pornographers’ songs. Perhaps, then, the real genius of the Pornographers is their ability to be both bewildering and catchy. Even though their albums are crammed with eccentric melodies, unexpected turns in songs, and a cumbersome sharing of duties from one song to the next, somehow their music never collapses under its own ambitious weight. What’s more, though their albums are growers, even the first listen reveals the band’s charms.

This has never been more apparent than on Together, the follow-up to 2007’s Challengers. Whereas that album was an uncharacteristic mellow detour in the Pornographers’ discography, Together is an unabashed return to the big, bold, and brainy power-pop of Twin Cinema, the 2005 LP that won critical acclaim from all corners and cemented the band’s reputation as a rare supergroup that actually deserves the title. As on previous albums, the creative frenzy is anchored by three forces: the Pet Sounds-inspired sunshine of de facto leader A.C. Newman, the detached vocal Bowie-isms of Dan Bejar, and the enchanting vocals of Neko Case. The push and pull of these three forces give the Pornographers their unique sound, at times colliding into one another unexpectedly, at other times effortlessly working in unison, at other times miraculously doing both.

Viewed from that perspective, Together couldn’t be more aptly titled, for it’s full of moments when those distinct influences interact in wonderfully odd ways. In “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk”, for example, Newman cautiously lays a melody over a stuttering chord progression before the song’s chamber pop explodes into ‘70s guitar rock, with Case’s ethereal voice lifting the song into the atmosphere before it falls back down into Newman’s meticulous verses. If, perhaps, George Martin would have produced Cheap Trick, the result might very well have sounded like this.

Of course, such exhilarating moments are what you get with a band armed with so many weapons. Thankfully, one of those weapons is used to fuller effect than on previous New Pornographers albums. While it seems like a no-brainer to put Neko Case’s inimitable voice in every song, she’s been underused on previous albums, often relegated to supporting vocal roles that can seem like afterthoughts. Perhaps this has been due to the band members’ competing projects, but it’s a shame regardless. Here, Case’s presence is heard throughout the entire album. On “Crash Years”, another power pop gem that combines everything from strings to jangly guitar to whistling, her urgent, ethereal wail propels the track from start to finish. On other tracks, Case comes in to take over the chorus, such as on “Your Hands (Together)”, a blistering rocker that absolutely sears during her parts. The best moments, though, are when Case uses her voice to punctuate Newman’s, coming in slightly behind his to give the song tension, such as in the verses of “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk”.

Not to be outdone, Dan Bejar offers up his share of classic moments, many of them quite unexpected. “Daughter of Sorrow”, for example, can only be described as David Bowie fronting Stereolab, with Bejar’s eerie, outer-space croon giving way to effervescent background cooing. It’s an odd pairing, no doubt, but one of the best moments on the album. And then there’s “Silver Jenny Dollar”, another Bejar-led track that is blissfully bouncy pop, the perfect backdrop to a summer drive.

To say that Together is the New Pornographers’ best album yet would be a brave statement—but only because the band’s body of work is so obscenely strong. Moreover, to make such arguments is a waste of time. The bottom line is this: Together is another masterstroke from the New Pornographers, one of those rare albums that reminds even the most jaded ear of the joys of pop music.
popmatters.com
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WOODS - AT ECHO LAKE [2010]

Woods improve exponentially on their stellar Songs of Shame, and come out the kings of Brooklyn lo-fi

It’s probably easy to hate on Woods. The band plays what has been invariably described as “spooky campfire folk” with a serious hippie-1960s-classic rock influence, which would be all well and good if they came from where their music sounded like it came from (say, Vermont). Fact is, however, they’re from Brooklyn. Yes, another Brooklyn hipster band, and this one with the audacity to sing songs about woods and lakes when anyone who’s been to Brooklyn knows these things exist there in very short supply.

But what separates Woods from the rest of the bands in their circle (Jeremy Earl, songwriter, guitarist and lead falsetto warbler, runs the band’s label, Woodsist, also home to Real Estate, among others) is the sheer quality of the songwriting. Earl has the talent of making simple proclamations (“Oh, how the days will rain on you”) seem impossibly deep, existentialist, philosophical. While peers like Real Estate traffic in reverby, hazy nostalgia, Woods pursue a straightforward emotional honesty and sincerity, another thing seriously lacking in Brooklyn these days. It’s rare to find a band in modern indie-rock so far removed from the hipster irony and apathy that surrounds them. It’s also commendable; one thing that stands as indie rock’s greatest detriment is its fear of confronting adult, human emotions, retreating instead into nostalgia and feigned childhood innocence. Woods don’t play that game here. Everything is laid naked, as bare-bones as their recording approach, a lo-fi aesthetic that’s justified (unlike some bands) in that the tape-hiss intimacy is a perfect reflection of the frailty of the music therein. There’s a timeless quality to these songs that most bands would surely kill to replicate.

At Echo Lake is Woods’ most enduring document yet. While the stellar Songs of Shame had some killer tracks (“Rain On”, “The Number”), it also had “September With Pete” and other desperate padding/filler. There’s no filler to be found on At Echo Lake. The album’s brief, Weezer-like runtime of twenty-nine minutes is justified in that the music never overstays its welcome. That unfettered approach results in gorgeous two-minute pop-folk songs that simply make their point and leave. If only other bands knew such restraint and self-control (hello there, Yeasayer). It’s what takes Woods beyond mere potential and into the realm of a truly great band with this release. Full of perfect songs, not one of them filler, each one diverse and experimental yet never straying too far from the typical Woods sound, this album may well stand as a future classic release.

At Echo Lake opens with “Blood Dries Darker”, a classic-rock raveup and by far the album’s longest song at four-and-a-half bluesy minutes (the guitar acrobatics on this album impress almost as much as the songwriting itself does). “Pick Up” follows, more of that spooky campfire folk that was only occasionally present on Shame, but which thankfully makes more than a mere cameo appearance here. Album standout “Suffering Season” is third, one of the few tracks sounding truly “produced” here, full of chiming Byrds guitars and Pet Sounds/Phil Spector bells-and-whistles. It’s a new sound for the band, and a welcome one, before “Time Fading Lines” slips in, a gentle country ballad in the vein of “The Number”, but even better. At the album’s halfway mark, even “From The Horn”, a psychedelic instrumental jam, has its place as the perfect interlude and placeholder before moving onward. Lucas Crane’s tape effects hover in the background, all feedback and blurry rumbles, but they serve to effectively underline the sonic point of the acoustic leads, and manage to sound less anachronistic than bands with similar aims.

And so the album breathes from there. “I Was Gone” has a vaguely Latin feel, minor key and swirling, while “Deep” showcases a Paul Simon/Brian Wilson arrangement that brings Earl’s soaring falsetto to a new, spine-chilling level. The album closes perfectly with “Til The Sun Rips”, showing off some of the most gorgeous harmonies this side of Fleet Foxes before this journey to Echo Lake draws to a close.

The progression between Songs of Shame and At Echo Lake is simply stunning. The prior was a collection of songs, mishmash, some very good, others dull or verging on pointless and derivative. At Echo Lake is a body of work, a single statement of artistic purpose, and one that shows a band standing head and shoulders above many of its brethren in the Brooklyn indie-rock crowd. The greatest compliment one could give to Earl and Company is that they are doing something truly unique in an often uncreative genre that in 2010 is verging dangerously on self-parody. That they’ve done it on their own terms is something very special, indeed.
popmatters.com
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THE MAGNETIC FIELDS - REALISM [2010]

"The Magnetic Fields is a New York-based group fronted by Stephin Merritt. Recent albums released under the name “The Magnetic Fields” usually consist of synth-pop music in a 1980s style underlying clever lyrics which are often heavily ironic. While synth-pop often forms the foundation of their music, The Magnetic Fields’ music borrows from many other styles, notably country, folk and indie pop.
The band was originally formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1990 by friends Merritt and (percussionist/pianist/vocalist) Claudia Gonson. While 1991’s Distant Plastic Trees and 1992’s The Wayward Bus (now most easily available together as a compilation, The Wayward Bus / Distant Plastic Trees) are sung by Susan Anway, all subsequent albums are principally sung by Merritt himself.
Longtime members include: Gonson, (cellist) Sam Davol, and (banjo player/guitarist) John Woo. Contributors include (but are not limited to) the singers Susan Anway, Dudley Klute, Shirley Simms, and LD Beghtol, and the accordionist/writer Daniel Handler (famous for writing the childrens’ books A Series of Unfortunate Events under the alias Lemony Snicket).
Their most popular and best-selling album to date is 69 Love Songs issued on Merge Records as a triple album filled with many fairly short songs that are reminiscent of early Beatles productions" LAST.FM
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FIELD MUSIC - MEASURE [2010]

"Field Music is an experimental pop band from Sunderland, UK, formed by brothers Peter and David Brewis and their schoolfriend, pianist Andrew Moore. They have recently reconvened after an extended hiatus with a new line-up featuring guitarist/keyboardist Kev Dosdale and bass player Ian Black (Andrew having taken time out to train as a chef). A new double album is due to be released in February 2010.
The band’s first album, the eponymous “Field Music”, was released in 2005, followed in 2006 by a collection of b-sides and early tracks entitled ‘Write Your Own History’. During this time they toured with fellow bands from the North East England, such as Maximo Park and The Futureheads, as well as sonic adventurers from further afield, including Melbourne’s Architecture in Helsinki and Portland’s Menomena.
In 2007, they released ‘Tones of Town’, a critically acclaimed song cycle, which captured a particularly English variety of post-industrial frustration. However, sensing that a quick follow-up could lead to a dilution of ideas and purpose, the band announced a hiatus shortly after the album was released. In this time Peter and David each released solo albums as The Week That Was and School of Language respectively.
All of their albums were self-produced at their own ‘8Music’ studio in Sunderland"
LAST.FM
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LOS CAMPESINOS! - ROMANCE IS BORING [2010]

"Los Campesinos! are an indie pop band which formed in Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom in 2006. The band consists of Gareth Campesinos! (vocals, glockenspiel, keyboards), Kim Campesinos! (vocals, keyboards), Tom Campesinos! (guitar, vocals, keyboards), Neil Campesinos! (guitar), Ellen Campesinos! (bass, vocals), Harriet Campesinos! (violin, keyboards, vocals) and Ollie Campesinos! (drums). Aleksandra Campesinos! (vocals, keyboards, glockenspiel) left the band in 2009 to focus on her study. She was replaced by Gareth’s sister Kim in September 2009. The band’s name translates to “The Peasants” (or “The Farmers”) in Spanish.
The band performed their first gig in May 2006 at a student union club night, and went on to play a number of increasingly well-received gigs around Cardiff. An early demo was recorded featuring the songs Death To Los Campesinos!, It Started With a Mixx, Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks, and live favourite You! Me! Dancing!. The songs were posted on the internet, bolstering the popularity established by their energetic live shows and earning them airplay on Beth & Huw’s evening show on BBC Radio 1 Wales. The band’s reputation continued to grow, and in August 2006 landed them a slot supporting Canadian supergroup Broken Social Scene.
In November 2006, the band were signed by Wichita Recordings, who put out their first single on 26 February 2007, a double A-side featuring new songs We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives and Don’t Tell Me To Do The Math(s). In April the band signed to Canadian label Arts & Crafts for Canadian and North American releases. In June 2007 the band released You! Me! Dancing! on limited edition 7” coloured vinyl, accompanied by a handful of dates playing Bath, Newport, Cardiff and London." LAST.FM

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ASOBI SEKSU - REWOLF [2009]

"Asobi Seksu is an indie rock/dream pop band which formed in 2004 in New York City, New York, United States. The band consists of Yuki Chikudate (vocals, keyboards), James Hanna (guitar, vocals), William Pavone (bass) and Larry Pavone (drums). The band’s name in Japanese consists of two words, “asobi” meaning “play” or “for fun”, and “sekkusu” the Japanese imported word for”sex” .
Their sound has been said to draw influence from the shoegazing movement of the late 1980s to early 1990s, which was coined to describe the textured and effects-heavy sound of alternative rock in that era.
Asobi Seksu released their eponymous debut album in 2004. The band regrouped with a new rhythm section for their second album, Citrus, which was recorded in Gigantic Studios, New York City with producer Chris Zane.
One Little Indian Records re-released the band’s first album Asobi Seksu and the follow-up Citrus in 2006.
The band changed its name to Asobi Seksu from the previous name, sportf*ck, when they signed to their current label.
According to the band’s official website “James and Yuki have almost completed writing songs for the new record and will be hitting the studio, once again with producer Chris Zane, this summer (2008). The new album will be released on Polyvinyl Record Co., the band’s new US label.” LAST.FM

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BOAT - SETTING THE PACES [2009]

"BOAT's third album, Setting the Paces, sticks to the formula the band had previously utilized. Short, snappy tunes with rambunctious vocals and humorous lyrical content, with debts owed to Pavement, Television Personalities, and the Banana Splits, and with a bouncy energy that makes the album very easy to like, even when the words stray over the line from clever to silly. This time out, the band has tightened up the sound; the guitars have more bite, the beats are more propulsive, and the overall feel is more rock than pop. [..] If you are inclined to find songs about stalled minivans, muscular friends, and math skills kind of ridiculous, you may have trouble getting into the album. Anyone else will find the lyrics to be refreshingly off-kilter and occasionally moving in an odd sort of way. It's not easy to pull off this kind of humorous indie rock, but on Setting the Paces, BOAT come through like champs." AMG

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THE MARY ONETTES - ISLANDS [2009]

"The Mary Onettes are an indie rock band formed in the town of Jönköping, Sweden in 2000. Inspired by guitar pop from the 80’s and indie bands from the 90’s, The Mary Onettes were successful in releasing one EP with Sony/BMG before being dropped. Their sound has been likened to Echo & The Bunnymen, The Church, The Smiths, The Cure and The Jesus and Mary Chain.
The band have since been picked up by the Labrador record label, where they released their debut EP Lost. Their 10-track debut album The Mary Onettes was released in 2007."

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YO LA TENGO - POPULAR SONGS [2009]

"Oh demon reliability! Oh demon longevity! These twin curses can plague any decades-old band in an age when careers are measured in months. Yo La Tengo can count themselves in the rare company of this group, elder statespeople operating in a genre where they're influence-grandparents. And alongside peers Sonic Youth and the Flaming Lips, YLT have to operate under the bane of their own consistency at a time when the new and a compelling narrative are over-celebrated. All three of those bands have reached a steady state where reinvention is unnecessary: They're so frequently good they don't even get a redemption story. Hell, Wavves already is set up for one of those.
Fortunately, as Yo La Tengo celebrate a quarter-century of existence with Popular Songs, their twelfth album, there's still plenty to like without a PR push. The Yo La Tengo repertoire has expanded steadily over the years, and the genre experiments of years past have slowly assimilated into their creative process until it's hard to remember the mere Velvets-jacking indie pop band they once were. The easy way to draw fickle attention to your dozenth album would be a drastic makeover, but Yo La Tengo are wise enough to choose continuity over the easy angle. And as far flung as these dozen Popular Songs may be, any Yo La Tengo scholar can easily trace their DNA back through their discography.

Now, forget I said all that for a moment, as the opening track and single, "Here to Fall", is the exception to the rule. Nearly guitarless, with a menacing electric piano and cinematic strings lifted from an Isaac Hayes soundtrack, it's an ear-catcher for anyone expecting the same old same old. If there's an antecedent here, it's the treasured "Autumn Sweater", but beaten and wary and a little dangerous, Ira Kaplan refusing to play the kindly, reassuring grandfather: "I know you're worried/ I'm worried too."
But it's a darkness that quickly lifts. "Avalon or Someone Very Similar" is upper-register psychedelia, dreamy and chipper. And when the drony keyboards and hazed-out Georgia Hubley vocals combine on "By Two's", we're safely back on familiar ground-- in this case the late-night dream cycle of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, arguably the band's last unmitigated success.
Some will surely find the return trip to that well a welcome reprise, others a tired retread-- pick your side and know whether you will Enjoy This Album. Because there are more historical echoes here, particularly in how Yo La can crank out a fuzz-pop anthem ("Nothing to Hide") or fragile, vaguely-countrified indie pop ("When It's Dark", James McNew's "I'm on My Way") in their sleep. Fortunately, they don't phone it in on those tracks, and slip ‘em into I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One and most people wouldn't know the difference.
Elsewhere, the band indulges its expanded palette by riffing on Motown, funk, and organ-boogie (not sure how else to classify "Periodically Double or Triple"), as they've been doing off and on for most of the decade. For most bands, the costume-swapping would be a novelty act, but Yo La Tengo, who prove their cover-band chops every year on WFMU, have hung these sounds permanently in their closet by this point. "If It's True" is pure Funk Brothers karaoke complete with a spot-on bridge and AM-radio strings, but Hubley and Kaplan's back-and-forth duet is too adorable to nit-pick.
After nine tracks, the only thing missing would be the usual YLT epic, and well, the band doesn't disappoint. In an odd bit of sequencing, all the long tracks are clumped together at the end, forming a trilogy of nine-minute-plus jams with wildly varying results. "More Stars Than There Are in Heaven" is the only one that could have slipped into the front half of the album unnoticed, a gorgeously unspooling meditation that suits its ethereal title. But the stark acoustic riff that makes up most of "The Fireside" is interminable, and "And the Glitter Is Gone" is 16 minutes of the usual Kaplan noise-skronk that will tempt all but the most devoted YLT fans to cut the album short.
Thanks to whoever pushed them to the back, those missteps are easily ignored, leaving a 10-track record (of a more reasonable length) that can compete with anything since the band's heyday. It's easy to overlook the sound that's on display through the bulk of Popular Songs as more of the same, but it's also uniquely Yo La Tengo in a way that has taken 25 years to reach vintage status. Experience can be a crutch, an excuse to tread water in comfortable waters. But Popular Songs wears its age well, a calm but firm reminder of an indie rock perennial it's all too easy to take for granted." PITCHFORK

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ATLAS SOUND - LOGOS [2009]

"As we've gotten to know Bradford Cox over the last couple of years through shows, interviews, and blog posts, one of the Deerhunter frontman's most appealing qualities is his deep and nuanced appreciation of the music of others. Some musicians listen to records to see how they work, check out the competition, or trawl for ideas; by all available evidence, Cox feels records, deeply. If he was born without musical gifts and couldn't sing or play an instrument, one can imagine him working at a record store, amassing an enviable collection while driving people on a message board crazy with the sureness of his detailed opinions. Whatever you think of his exploits as an indie rock media figure, Cox's music fandom is easy to identify with and also offers a portal into his own work.

Atlas Sound, Cox's solo alias, in one sense serves as a sort of laboratory for figuring out what makes some his favorite music tick, away from the expectations of his main band. Two collaborations on Logos, the second Atlas Sound full-length, are excellent examples of how music listening can be absorbed into original work. First is "Walkabout", a track Cox wrote and recorded with Noah Lennox from Animal Collective, whom Cox got to know during a European tour. Though Cox's music shades dark and Lennox's is often flecked with uncertainty and doubt, "Walkabout" is the sunniest pop tune of either of their careers. Coasting on a buoyant, twinkling keyboard sample, it is a starkly catchy and irresistible, a clattery post-millennial Archies tune that straddles perfectly the border between simple and simplistic. Interestingly, it also sounds very much like a Panda Bear tune.
Then there is Lætitia Sadier of Stereolab, who wrote the lyrics and sings lead on Logos' "Quick Canal". The song opens with some gorgeously textured organ chords and soon a steady-state beat and drums rise up in the mix, setting the kind of relaxed-but-propulsive neo-krautrock scene that Stereolab perfected very early on. Here Cox gets to play the part of the late Mary Hansen, adding "la-di-da" trills behind Sadier as she intones phrases in her unfailingly lovely, for-the-ages voice. He even throws in a "Jenny Ondioline"-style rupture about halfway through, sending the track into a breathtaking shoegaze section for its final four minutes, wherein it floats magisterially on a pillow of shifting guitar feedback. "Quick Canal" is almost nine minutes long and it doesn't waste a second.
On these tracks, the confidence Cox shows in melting his aesthetic into the soundworld of other musicians is striking-- both are unqualified successes, very different from each other but among the best things Cox has ever done. But they also sound a lot like the music his collaborators are known for. Cox's sympathetic support and sense of how to construct songs with others suggests a desire to expand the parameters of what Atlas Sound can be. And given his willingness to let others take the microphone on an Atlas Sound project on these cuts, I can't help but go back to Cox's words on Logos before the album was released, which suggested that this was to be less introverted and that was "not about me."
And then I remember that the cover of the album consists of a photo of Cox with his shirt off and the lyrics in the first two songs start with the word "I", which suggests that we probably shouldn't take these statements very seriously. While the songs may or may not be "about" Cox in the strictest sense, the overall vibe is at least as introverted as 2008's Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, and every note bears the same signature. With its strummed guitars, hushed double-tracked vocals, and tunes more reliant on ambiance and feel than melody or rhythm, Logos feels every bit as diaristic and personal, but with Cox, that's a plus. At this point, we're not looking to this guy for commentary on the outside world; we want to hear him wrestle with private demons in the sanctuary of his bedroom, bathing every sound in reverb to give the illusion of space and as a sonic balm against loneliness and figuring out how to make music as affecting as the stuff he loves to listen to.

So tracks like "The Light That Failed", "An Orchid", and "My Halo" (the latter two, though different in tone, are further entries in Cox's growing line of melancholy waltz-time shuffles) function primarily as the kind of eerie, blown-out mood music he has become very good at. They are amorphous sketches that still manage to convey feeling, capturing the sort of sad, exhausted, and fragile emotional state that is Cox's area of expertise. "Shelia", a taut pop song with a great chorus hook, is a change-up, though the repeating refrain "No one wants to die alone" fits with the rest of the record's themes. And "Washington School", with its dissonant chime of metallic percussion that sound like gamelan or evilly out-of-tune steel drums, contains the record's most interesting production, with thick drones reminiscent of Tim Hecker and menacing rhythm track.
So some things are different, some are the same, but all of it works well together. It's true that every time Cox ventures out of his comfort zone on Logos, you wish that he'd go even further and embrace extremes-- of tunefulness, tradition, noise-- that don't necessarily come to him naturally. He may yet take a big leap with Atlas Sound, but here the steps away, though rewarding, are tentative. For the rest of the record, Logos feels familiar and assuring, another affecting dispatch from a corner of indie music that is increasingly starting to seem like one Cox pretty much owns." PITCHFORK

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