Issue#55 [Album] Reviews

Reviews of the latest by A Camp, Robyn Hitchcock, Malajube, M. Ward, Röyksopp, Sepultura, Telepathe and Vetiver after the jump.

[1] A Camp
Colonia
Reveal
Oh man I did not like this album at all. I really wanted to like it. I really wanted to write a positive review. This album has so many things going for it in my books that I was sure it would be easy to write a positive review. First, it’s Swedish. I really like Swedish music. Second, ex-figure skater/Cardigans front woman Nina Persson is the main collaborator. I really like The Cardigans. Third, James Iha of The Smashing Pumpkins plays guitar. I was never into them, though. Unfortunately, 12 songs about how love is worse than death is just really boring to me. The musical arrangements are also exceptionally boring, although exceptionally well produced. I listened to this thing on repeat for like six hours and not a single hook was woven into my head. I suppose maybe that’s an accomplishment in itself. Sorry A Camp. I wanted things to be different for us
2/5
-Tyler Fedchuk

[2] Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus
Goodnight Oslo
Yep Roc
While I did my time at the defunct A&B Sound on Seymour Street in Vancouver, I found myself obsessed with Syd Barrett and thought it a shame he never came out of seclusion. My friend Michael told me about this guy consumed with Barrett named Robyn Hitchcock and his band The Soft Boys, which were lumped into the first wave of British punk but took a decidedly poppier and, dare I say, psychedelic approach. If you haven’t already, download his catalog (and The Soft Boys’ indispensable Underwater Moonlight. On Goodnight Oslo, Hitchcock’s second outing with The Venus 3, the self-proclaimed Mummy’s boy from Cambridge is poised between 2006’s Ole! Tarantula and Spooked. His idiosyncrasies are concealed in the gentler songs, while the clattery drum thump, familiar jingle-jangle of Rickenbackers, and whimsical lyrics illuminate them in the boisterous ones. ‘Your Head Here’ chugs along like Leonard Cohen on a locomotive. ‘I’m Falling’ is among the best of his serene songs. And something about ‘Intricate Things’ recalls ‘My Wife and My Dead Wife’ from Fegmania! With former Soft Boy Morris Windsor and The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy guesting, fans will find Goodnight Oslo familiar; as familiar as Syd Barrett, another Mummy’s boy from Cambridge, is to Hitchcock himself.
4/5
-Adam Sabla

[3] Malajube
Labyrinthes
Dare to Care
Malajube are Canada’s Francophone gem. Labyrinthes, though you may not have anticipated its coming, is Malajube’s second release on Dare to Care Records following 2006’s Trompe-L’oeil — which if you remember liking, you can expect to like Labyrinthes also. Malajube are still poppy like a hair flip to the side or a spill of tea on lady thighs. But, Labyrinthes builds a more ominous tone with a varied selection of minor chords and beat breaks, particularly in the beginning and towards the end of the record. It feels like entering woods of white trees. Then, as you walk a little further, the trees thicken with leaves and mechanical robins and wind chimes and synth sounds ring in your ears. Then, a thunderstorm starts and everything grows dark and then… the album ends. Maybe they are hoping for a series of dark music videos. If so, “Luna” will nicely summarize the record. The louder “Collemboles” plays with droning noise and leads into the acoustic guitar picking of “Hérésie,” followed by another very poppy and clean track, “Dragon De Glace.” And if there’s one thing that Malajube have down, it’s the art of naming. That said, if you didn’t understand French before, you definitely won’t understand Julien Mineau‘s vocals because they are completely overpowered by the cymbals. But, the instruments are at all the right levels.
4/5
-Stefana Fratila

[4] M. Ward
Hold Time
Merge
Only about one in 10 people have really listened to M. Ward. Sure, everyone got up to hear She & Him, but that was mostly due to Zooey Deschanel’s lovely face, not to M. Ward’s piece in ‘the Him.’ So, I’ve always wanted the record which gives M. Ward the recognition he deserves to be an indisputably solid record. Hold Time does prove what M. Ward does very well: production. The songs softly tap your ear drums, all the instruments are gently played, easy to take in. There’s also Lucinda Williams, Zooey Deschanel, and Tom Hagerman (of DeVotchKa) guest performing. But, the songs blend into one another and the album turns into ten tracks of Chinese Translation tempo (which is easy to love, and also easy to ignore). That said, with his tender voice, there will never be an occasion when M. Ward isn’t what you want to hear. Never Had Nobody Like You begins almost exactly like Iggy Pop’s Nightclubbing, but as soon as you figure that out, it becomes less of a maybe-rip-off and more of evidence of an I-do-how-I-please attitude. There will always be time for M. Ward. In fact, M. Ward seems like he will always have time for himself, so, really, things are just getting started.
4/5
-Stefana Fratila

[5] Röyksopp
Junior
Astralwerks
Röyksopp, like Felix Da Housecat, are in a higher class of electronic music performers as they make full-length pop LPs instead of bloggable laptopisms. With their third release, Norway’s top act (sorry Annie) solidify their place in the charts instead of the club, and this is no accident. Using a virtual plethora of tempos, time signatures and pretty much every Scandypop singer available, Junior is easily as good as the duo’s debut Melody A.M. If you’re not familiar with Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge’s music then enjoy this record if you’re a fan of any of their guest vocalists; Erlend Øye (of Kings of Convenience and The Whitest Boy Alive), the super-human (and sometime Snoop Dogg collaborator) Robyn, this month’s cover artist Lykke Li, and Karin Dreijer who you may know as the chick from The Knife. If you’re not comfortable with me using the word “chick” then replace it with “singer” or “trollup”.
3/5
-Trevor Risk

[6] Sepultura
A-lex
Steamhammer
I get it now, this 11th release by Sepultura (A-lex) is a “re-imagining” of A Clockwork Orange. That would explain the ambient garbage, weakly trying to paint some cinematic portrait of dystopian England, right? It would also explain the song “Ludwig Van” and its half assed attempt to include music that the character Alex is obsessed with in the book, riiiight? Not really…. It is very successful at doing what most concept albums do, songs written by whatever band, with some window dressing to loosely connect it to it’s source material. In all fairness, I haven’t picked up a Sepultura album since Roots Bloody Roots, (which was well over a decade ago.) but they sound exactly how I remember them, even with both Cavalera brothers out of the band. Overall they could have ditched the filler on songs like “Sadistic Values,” where Sepultura devolves into a shit attempt at Alice in Chains, including all of Lane Staley’s vocal affectations. They should have just kept all the killer, which there is a bit of. On “Filthy Rot” they bring back their chanting and tribal drumming from the Roots era, and on “The Treatment” where it’s just old school thrash. The whole Clockwork Orange thing though…. Leave that shit for pussy bands like Radiohead. Nice try Sepultura.
2/5
-Troy Sebastian Alden

[7] Telepathe
Dance Mother
Phantom Sound & Vision
Girls in New York can be kind of intimidating. Chances are they have a better job and more money than you and are tougher than you, even if they’re dressed like fashion editorial fantasy girls come to life. A poor boy’s only saving grace is the fact that girls outnumber (straight) dudes something like 10-1; you’re not gonna get any respect, but play your cards right and you might just get a warm bed to crawl into. What does this have to do with Telepathe? Well, listen to the way Melissa Livaudais and Busy Ganghes harmonize the word “motherfucking” on “Chrome’s On It.” It’s crystalline, sweet, and barbed with a tip of menace that suggests (as actually stated earlier in the song), “First you gotta know my name / Then you gotta learn my game,” or else fuck off, dude. The rest of the album treads a similar line: soaring, semi-detached harmonies, echoing synth, thudding bass, skittering drums. It’s a weird, beautiful love child conceived in a girl-group/electro/dirty South/shoegaze orgy. But now I’ve over-sexualized the thing. I guess this is the closest I’m gonna get to writing a love letter to this band.
4/5
-Chad Richard Buchholz

[8] Vetiver
Tight Knit
Sub Pop
What a boring record. When the Seventies easy-listening hippie-crystal-gripping-acoustic-folk-narf revival movement is over, this record will be looked back on like a penny on the road: flat and pretty close to worthless. The upbeat glimmers of hope on Tight Knit are marred with lyrical absurdity and/or extreme lameness. “Everyday” was a quick sniff of morning puke that I will undoubtedly hear again in a commercial for a well marketed, semi-environmentally-friendly car; possibly a Hyundi Benkweller or the Honda Jackjohnson. It would be ridiculous not to mention that there are some great (and I mean great) ideas and fantastic sounds on this record, most often revealed in clever horn arrangements and synth lines that are on first listen subtle additions, but with deeper analysis prove are in fact the weight that carry most of the songs. The weight, but never the focus. Too bad… narf.
2/5
-Hayz Fisher