Les Savy Fav - Root For Ruin [2010]

n their more than dozen years of existence, Les Savy Fav have gained a reputation as an exhilaratingly wild live act. While the band is known for working up a sweat-drenched crowd chaos, though, their career trajectory has been one of a band focused on truly honing their hard-charging craft. LSF's last full-length, 2007's Let's Stay Friends, represented the full realization of their sound, with exacting, catchy-as-hell songs that possessed the neck-snapping kinetic energy that was found in rougher form on previous records. A polished "crossover" effort, yeah, but also fun and rollicking in all the right places.
Root For Ruin, the band's fifth proper LP, re-asserts that sound rather than expanding upon or altering it. There's not many surprising moments on this record; if anything, it feels like the first Les Savy Fav album that sounds more comfortable in its own clothes than twitching to tear apart its own skin. This isn't necessarily a bad thing: LSF still excel at constructing miniature explosions of songs, even if they sound a bit tidier now.
Guitarists Seth Jabour and Andrew Reuland prove to be aces in the hole for this record, continuing to prove their worth as two of modern indie rock's smarter, more bruising axe-wielders. They layer colorful lines over each other like it's a competition, bringing the hook-laden pain on the smashing, bashing opener "Appetites" and "Lips n' Stuff". Elsewhere, they create nervewracking warning calls on "Excess Energies" that dovetail in and out of Tim Harrington's metronomic shouts. On the whole, there are still very few bands that do this arty, shitkicking stuff as well as Les Savy Fav do.
And yet Root For Ruin feels slightly sluggish, more so than any of the band's previous records. The distinct lack of new ideas plays a small part in this letdown-- "Dear Crutches"' dripping guitar line sounds a little too close to "The Sweat Descends", a standout on 2004's kickass singles collection Inches-- but mostly it's the presence of a few lukewarm cuts that make the record one of LSF's more minor efforts. "Sleepless in Silverlake" and "Let's Get Out of Here", notably, bring the album to a near-flatlining halt. The latter is a midtempo would-be rager that never takes off the ground, while the former is the life-in-Los-Angeles snoozer that you hoped Tim Harrington would never write. The slow jams aren't the only duds here, as the speed-addled "Calm Down"'s monochromatic chorus squarely locates the song on the wrong side of the "post-hardcore" tag.
Dull tempos, disengaging moments, recycled ideas-- all egregious offenses, yes. Luckily, Les Savy Fav have earned a decade's worth of goodwill to cushion a just-OK album or two landing in their discography, which makes Root For Ruin a well-deserved victory lap, if nothing else. The lone pair of surprising songs on Root For Ruin, the dissonant howler "Poltergeist" and menacing closer "Clear Spirits", serve as a gentle nudge as well that this band surely has some creative juice left in them. Let's hope they utilize it well in the future, because Les Savy Fav simply being Les Savy Fav can't retain its charm forever.
pitchfork.com
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Arctic Monkeys - My Propeller [2010]

Those Arctic Monkeys release a new single from their current LP, Humbug, in 'My Propeller' on March 22. Surprise, surprise there's also a video for it, directed by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern. The single is another Oxfam related one, in that the charity will be selling the 10" version of the single exclusively in their 148 shops across the country.
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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 NATIONAL - HIGH VIOLET [2010]

For The National's Matt Berninger, personal demons often take on literal forms. "It's a terrible love and I'm walking with spiders." "I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees." "I was afraid I'd eat your brains, 'cause I'm evil." Berninger's deep, deadpan baritone, when dressed up in intricately lovely arrangements, can make The National's music seem remote at times. But his words are the stuff of blood and guts; the stuff of emotions so powerful, they're downright gruesome.
No mere navel-gazer, Berninger knows how to enshroud his gloomy observations in mystery and nuance, and he's surrounded by music that broods and swells at all the right times. EPs and an odds-and-ends collection aside, High Violet is The National's fifth album, and it spends a good deal of time gently roughing up the glimmering beauty of its divine predecessor, Boxer. But the new record still achieves the balance that's made the band so widely beloved: It locates the sweet spot between majesty and mopery, catharsis and wallowing, soaring grace and wounded confessionals.
Formed in Cincinnati and based in Brooklyn, N.Y., The National finds Berninger collaborating with two pairs of brothers: Aaron and Bryce Dessner (both guitarists, with Aaron also playing piano) and Scott and Bryan Devendorf (on bass and drums, respectively). High Violet, their first new studio album in three years, will stream here in its entirety until its release on May 11. Please leave your thoughts on the album in the comments section below.
npr.org

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THESE NEW PURITANS - HIDDEN [2010]

"These New Puritans (formed in 2006) are a four-piece band from Southend-on-Sea, United Kingdom, consisting of Jack Barnett, his twin brother George Barnett, Tomas Hein and Sophie Sleigh-Johnson.
These New Puritans’ sound is difficult to nail down, as they utilise a wide variety of instruments and sounds, from bassoons to huge synthesised drums. Influenced equally by hip-hop, synth pop and alternative rock, the Southend-On-Sea fourpiece have received large amounts of critical praise in theearly stage of their career. ‘Hidden’ features an even wider variety of sound, utilising Foley recording techniques andchoirs as well as their usual ensemble of instruments.
These New Puritans were commissioned by Hedi Slimane to compose the soundtrack for the 2007 Dior Homme show. The band’s debut album “Beat Pyramid” was released in the UK in January 2008." LAST.FM
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SWANS - THE GREAT ANNIHILATOR [1995]

"After a three-year break occasioned in part by wrangles with the Sky label, Swans returned in 1995 with a vengeance, as always pursuing their unique muse of dramatic, ever-more textured music. Gira and Jarboe work with a fantastic core band this time out, including returning veteran Westberg, who trades off guitar duties with Steele, at points playing together with him, a magnificent combination. Other returning musicians include Kizys and Parsons, while newer players like drummer Bill Rieflin from the Chicago Wax Trax! circle join as well. As is par for the course by now, Swans seem incapable of producing a bad album, Annihilator being crammed full of astonishing songs to prove it. Everything's a little more stripped-down here, possibly due to having a central band, but it's still all very lushly arranged and created, perfectly balancing force and restraint. Leadoff single "Celebrity Lifestyle" is one of the catchiest things the band has ever done, but it's still uniquely Swans -- a minimal, throbbing song matched with a sharp lyric on starlust and what it might mean. "I Am the Sun" pounds as hard as any early Swans track, but the use of careful space between blasts, Gira's heavily echoed, out-of-nowhere vocal (accentuated by equally vivid background vocals from Jarboe), and tempo shifts clearly demonstrates the constantly evolving nature of Swans music; the band is never content to simply repeat the past. Jarboe's own standout tracks include "Mother/Father," a brawling number showcasing both her and the band at their full-on best, and "My Buried Child," with her softly husked take on a terrifying Gira lyric, which is carried by a roiling rhythm. This is followed immediately by the sweeping, cinematic "Warm," where she contributes wordless vocals. Once again, Swans have created an epic, incredible work of art." AMG

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CHROME - HALF MACHINE LIP MOVES [1979]

"With Lambdin out and Spain barely there at all, everything rapidly became a Edge/Creed show in the realm of Chrome by the time of Half Machine Lip Moves. The basic tropes having been established -- aggressive but cryptic performance and production, jump cuts between and in songs, judicious use of sampling and production craziness and an overall air of looming science fiction apocalypse and doom -- all Edge and Creed had to do was perfect it. Starting with the fragmented assault of "TV as Eyes," which rapidly descends into heavily treated conversational snippets from TV and deep, droning keyboards, Half Machine sounds like a weird broadcast from thousand of miles away where rock is treated as an exotic musical form. Creed fully gets to shine here, his pitched-up/pitched-down guitars as good an example of psychedelic assault as anything. Sprawled all over the beeps and murmurs of the songs, not to mention Edge's still self-created drumming and Iggyish vocal interjections, it makes everything sound utterly disturbed. If not as obsessed with tempo shifts and full oddity as, say, Faust, Half Machine is still pretty close to that band's level of Krautrock playfulness and explosion. Two of the relative saner numbers are practically power-pop, at least in Chrome terms. "March of the Chrome Police (A Cold Clamey Bombing)" has Edge sneering an actual vocal hook over a brisk beat, even while Creed gets progressively more fried on the guitar and rumbling echoed laughter and barks erupt in the mix. "You've Been Duplicated," meanwhile, also has something of a vocal hook, only buried under so many levels of distortion that it might as well be a malfunctioning keyboard being played among the clattering percussion and other sounds. A suitably strange cover shot of a fully head-bandaged mannequin seemingly floating in space completes the package." AMG

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MAGAZINE - REAL LIFE [1978]

"Magazine were an influential British post punk band founded in 1977 by former Buzzcocks singer Howard Devoto and guitarist John McGeoch. The other members of the band’s classic lineup included bassist Barry Adamson, keyboardist Dave Formula, and drummer John Doyle. The band burst onto the scene with the single Shot by Both Sides and released five albums before disbanding in 1981. In 2009 the band resurfaced for half a dozen life performances in the UK, with Noko (who collaborated with Devoto in the late 80s in Luxuria) filling the position of guitarist. These performances, which earned very favourable reviews, took place in February in Manchester, London and Glasgow. Later the same year there were more festival appearances." LAST.FM

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THIS HEAT - DECEIT [1981]

"Out of all the boundary breaking that occurred during the fertile era of post-punk, This Heat's Deceit is one of the most expansive, imaginative, and remarkably wild records to have been produced during the time -- and very possibly the last three decades. It's an impressive procession of tangential shards that encompass tape collages, Middle Eastern motifs, barbaric vocal clamoring, and occasional pointy-jagged-atonal guitar passages that alternate between hypnotizing and shooting clean through your spine. The typical structures of jazz, world music, and rock & roll are heaved into a blender, cooking up a post-punk paella that's about as relaxing as a crosstown walk through a hail storm. It ends up hardly resembling anything it takes cues from. As with a good number of the album's ten tracks, random peeks into "Paper Hats" at the minute markers will hardly sound like the same song. And that song hardly resembles any of the others on the record; yet, it encapsulates what makes the whole thing so exciting. The song in question trots along arrhythmically with some bass, drum, and spindly guitar interplay until sputtering into a wreck of those instruments and who knows what else -- this 20-second interruption, which resembles the Junkyard Gang's idea of warming up, abruptly gives way to a march down a Twilight Zone-themed corridor of snaky guitar, pulsing high hats, and creeped-out atmospherics. If you can make out any of the lyrics (the ones in "Independence" should ring a bell, though), you'll realize the mushroom clouds and political figures depicted in the sleeve aren't the only evidence that the record is about war and nukes. Know this -- if you really want to be thrown around a room, there's hardly a better source. No greater record has been made in an abandoned meat locker." AMG

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DIE! DIE! DIE! - SELF TITLED [2005]

Originally hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, but now based in the indie hotbed of Dunedin (the heart of the Kiwi pop scene since the early days of Flying Nun Records in the '80s), Die! Die! Die! are an abrasive noise pop trio with hardcore punk roots, as befits their rather antisocial name. However, while singer and guitarist Andrew Wilson's ranting vocal style and dissonant, slashing guitar parts sound directly inspired by Big Black (whose leader, Steve Albini, recorded their self-titled debut) and the New York no wave bands of the late '70s, the ultra-tight rhythm section of bassist Lachlan Anderson and drummer Michael Prain comes from the danceable neo-funk tradition of Gang of Four and A Certain Ratio. The aforementioned debut album, Die! Die! Die!, was released in New Zealand in the fall of 2006, followed shortly thereafter by a four-track EP of all new material, Locust Weeks. Die! Die! Die! was released on the SAF label in the United States in early 2007.

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SIEKIERA - NOWA ALEKSANDRIA [1986]

TRACKLIST:

A1 Idziemy przez las 4:39
A2 Ludzie wschodu 4:24
A3 Bez końca 3:21
A4 Idziemy na skraj 3:27
A5 Na zewnątrz 6:05
B1 Nowa Aleksandria 3:16
B2 To słowa 3:15
B3 Już blisko 2:45
B4 Tak dużo, tak mocno 4:07
B5 Czerwony pejzaż 4:49

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FOETUS - THAW [1988]

TRACKLIST:

A1 Don't Hide It Provide It 4:29
A2 Asbestos 5:01
A3 Fin 0:37
A4 English Faggot / Nothin Man 3:38
A5 Hauss-On-Fah 5:56
B1 Fratricide Pastorale 1:59
B2 The Dipsomaniac Kiss 4:12
B3 Barbedwire Tumbleweed 3:25
B4 ¡Chingada! 3:16
B5 A Prayer for My Death 7:01

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KILLING JOKE - KILLING JOKE

TRACKLISTA:
1. "The Death & Resurrection Show" – 6:56
2. "Total Invasion" – 5:28
3. "Asteroid" – 3:24
4. "Implant" – 5:18
5. "Blood On Your Hands" – 6:00
6. "Loose Cannon" – 4:12
7. "You'll Never Get To Me" – 6:19
8. "Seeing Red" – 5:27
9. "Dark Forces" – 6:26
10. "The House That Pain Built" – 6:13

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PASS: morbidmindz.blogspot.com