Issue#58 [Album Reviews]

Reviews of the latest by Au Revoir Simone, The Dandy Warhols, Gossip, Hayden, Major Lazer, Minto, Mos Def and Moto Boy after the jump.

Au Revoir Simone
Still Night, Still Light
Our Secret
I like Au Revoir Simone for all the same reasons I could critically dismiss them if I felt so inclined. ‘Pretty, patient, delicate-sounding music by three pretty, patient, delicate-looking girls from New York, singing three-part harmonies about love and heartbreak and sometimes getting drunk in the back of taxi cabs. Then placing those harmonies over rudimentary synth/keyboard/drum machine combinations, stretching the combination over 12 songs and almost 50 minutes, sounding completely sincere, as if irony never existed and love was real…” Reading that synopsis (my own) on paper without already having the history with the band I do, I’d probably sneer and turn that new Thee Oh Sees record back up a few notches. But somehow, a couple years ago, I stumbled on Verses of Comfort, Assurance & Salvation and found my romantic, confused little post-teenage heartstrings gently having the shit plucked out of them by these girls. For some reason I thought I had changed and that Still Night, Still Light would fall on uninterested ears. Now, despite my anticipated cynicism, here I find myself, a man solidly embedded in his mid-20s, unable to tough-guy my way out of liking this album.
Chad Richard Buchholz

Download it here

The Dandy Warhols
The Dandy Warhols ARE Sound
Beat The World Records
A great bassist said recently, “I love the music industry right now, it’s like post World War II. All the Nazis are now in jail and everybody is deciding how they’re gonna pay.” Nothing proves this statement correct like the “new” release by The Dandy Warhols. In the Spring of 2003 the Dandies released Welcome to the Monkey House, a record co-produced by Duran Duran keyboardist Nick Rhodes. It was then mixed by Russell Elavedo, Grammy award winning producer of Alicia Keys, The Roots and D’Angelo, a tutor and producer in last year’s Red Bull Music Academy, and all around great guy. Capitol Records didn’t like it. “Who’s gonna play this on the radio? It’s not black. It’s not white. What is it?” said Andy Slater, former president of Capitol, and they released some other mix of it, that admittedly, was kind of okay. Well Capitol, you can eat it. The Dandy Warhols run their own label now and have treated us to the record the way it was meant to be heard. The album and a few song titles have been re-named, and the entire record is a moving experience peppered with nostalgia, which will leave the listener with a brand new feeling about albums. The business is new again, and it’s a butt-load of fun. Capitol, pretty soon your iconic building is all you’ll have left.
Trevor Risk

Download it here

Hayden
The Place Where We Lived
Universal
Last night I stayed out until three in the morning making rather merry for a friend’s birthday and this morning at around seven I was made to wake by a rather thunderous storm. So I got out of bed and made some coffee and prepared myself to make some peace with Hayden. Some 10 years ago I saw him at Zaphod’s in Ottawa and for whatever reason he disowned “Bunk Bed” on stage and for whatever reason that didn’t sit well at the time. So this is my first listen to the man since then. I’m not a man who deals in connotations so you’ll know what I mean when I say this album is pleasant. My first-listen favourite is “Let’s Break Up,” a catchy little number with a hook about “a half glass” that I liked. I review all these albums but few of them make it into rotation. Early morning, thunderstorm, coffee, a good book maybe in a shuffle with Basia Bulat, Loretta Lynn and Deltron 3030 instrumentals (for balance). Grown up and relevant without being adult contemporary. Friends again.
Bix Brecht

Download it here

Major Lazer
Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do
Downtown
The debut album from Major Lazer is predictably a hit. The song “Pon De Floor” has a fun, fresh, catchy and unique sound that has inspired legendary DJ acts like Benny Benassi and 2 Many DJs to include it in their sets at high-profile parties around the world. The album, produced by top 40/club music darlings Diplo (M.I.A) and Switch (Santigold) marks the first significant collaboration by the two. It has the kind of sound you’d expect from two boundary pushing producers with appetites for electro and world-music featuring guest vocals by underplayed artists like Vybz Kartel and Mr. Lexx. The only thing a bit weird about it all is that Major Lazer is a cartoon character. For whatever reason Dilpo and Switch decided to make up an imaginary Jamaican guy with a laser gun for an arm that wears a matching vest and beret, and then have that guy release a full album. Not only did they release it as a cartoon character, Major Lazer maintains a Twitter account, appears in photos with Jack Nicholson at Lakers games and does interviews in half-assed patois. If you’re able to ignore the racially suspect context, the end result is an album that you can simultaneously laugh out loud at and shake your ass too. Easily the party album of the year.
Kellen Powell

Download it here

Minto
Lay it on Me
Minto Music
Meet Minto. Formerly called The Smokes, Minto are a Vancouver five-piece who got their name from a mining town in New Brunswick. It’s a fitting moniker as they’re a hard-working band whose brand of rock has a distinct blue collar Canadian feel to it. Think of it as the aural equivalent of Tim Horton’s coffee. Lay it on Me was recorded and mixed by Steve Albini who’s famous for being at the helm for Nirvana, The Pixies, Low and, most importantly, Bush X. Their trek to his studio in Chicago proved to be worth way more than the cost of plane tickets and lodging as this is a damn fine rock record. When it’s loud it rocks. When it’s quiet it’s soothing. The guitarmanship is ridiculously catchy and lead singer Ryan Hoben, easily Vancouver’s most huggable frontman, comes across as your friend, your coworker and your preacher. Better listen to the man and accept Minto into your heart.
Michael Mann

Download it here

Mos Def
The Ecstatic
Downtown
Okay, if Mos Def wants you to take anything away from The Ecstatic it’s that he’s a Muslim. I mean it’s cool, I’m one too, I just choose not to remind everyone that I am every three minutes for the duration of a 50-minute album. Oh yeah, he also wants to remind you that he’s still pretty good at rapping. I mean, with the exception of the Slick Rick cameo this is a lackluster Mos Def album. But keep in mind that a lackluster effort from Mos Def is the equivalent to the best shit any of these ringtone rap kids will put out. If you once carried around a backpack a lot, you will be interested to know that Oh No, Madlib and the late J Dilla all contributed beats for this album. The Dilla track being the highlight because it features Talib Kweli and will make you want to listen to “Respiration” a million times, which is a decent trac… oh hold up guys, Mos just called me. We’re trying to figure out which way Mecca is…
Zia Hirji

Download it here

Moto Boy
S/T
Songs I Wish I Had Written
I’m starting a rumor and this is how it goes: Back in the Eighties, before her leap into Hollywood, Cameron Diaz was one of The Cure’s biggest groupies. She and Robert Smith would have wild, unprotected sex until one day she became pregnant. They decided to put the baby (and some lotion) in a basket and send him upstream to Sweden, never to be spoken of again. Well, the baby grew up and looks just like his mother with a voice reminiscent of his father. His name is Oskar Humlebo, the unapologetic drama queen known as Moto Boy, and he has recently released a debut album of the same name. Motivated by such things as love, longing, sex and dirt, his sound is as enchanting as it is disturbing, something like a cracked-out choirboy. If you have a sense of humor when it comes to melancholy, you’ll enjoy songs like “Beat Heart” and “Blue Motorbike”. If not, don’t bother. Although I’ve tried to resist the comparison, it’s impossible to ignore the ghost of Jeff Buckley on almost every track, and for that reason as well as the Diaz-Smith imprint, have three stars you flamboyant Swedish meat-bawler.
Jules Moore

Download it here

Gossip
Music For Men
Columbia
Beth Ditto wears many hats. She is a fierce fashionista, a cult hero, but first and foremost, Beth Ditto is an amazingly soulful singer. She carries the soul of Gossip while projecting pure emotion through every note that comes out of her mouth. Music for Men is nothing short of a picturesque landscape for a full gender spectrum. Vocalized with an intensity that appears to have grown up out of the fiery ashes of Standing in the Way of Control, Music for Men is a systematically apathetic tsk tsk where SITWOC was a bratty “fuck you.” With opening track “Dimestore Diamond,” Music for Men sets the tone for a musical story that is a call-out to our inner selves that live on the fringe. Love-tainted ballads “Love Long Distance,” “For Keeps” and “Love and Let Love” all drip with angst that is devoid of puberty but rather that of a well-rounded femme militia. Every song hits upon each heavy topic with the accessibility of a high school journal kept private for fear of misunderstanding. Music for Men gives a peak into that comfort like a well-worn coat that fits perfectly.
Danielle Sipple

Download it here