Issue#59 [Album Reviews]

Reviews of the latest from The Almighty Defenders, Girls, The Hidden Cameras, The Raveonettes, Taken by Trees, TV Heart Attack and Yo La Tengo.

The Almighty Defenders
S/T
Vice
Look deep into my cobra. Now here, take this crushed velvet sack of broken instruments and opium bagels, go into the garage and make Mama Vice some magic. And so it went for two of said record label’s finest. The Black Lips have joined forces with tickle-trunk twosome The King Kahn & BBQ Show (aka Mark Sultan and Blacksnake) for The Almighty Defenders. Written, recorded and mixed in one week, the result is a new indie super-album of the same name, a stew of the best ingredients from both parties. With jams like “All My Loving” that light a stick of boogie and shove it straight up your bungus, to softer melodies like “Bow Down and Die” that drool out a desperate plead, “does he hold you like I hold you?” Together the six wizards are channeling the restless ghosts of Jerry Lee, Little Richard and The Falcons in this great bigamous marriage of Fifties doo-wop, punk and Seventies genitalia psychedelia. What is that exactly? This album. Four out of five tambourines.
Jules Moore

Girls
Album
True Panther If Phil Spector had his way with Elvis Costello he would take away all of his shoes but tell him he could leave if he wanted to. Elvis would have no choice but to stay. He would be sad. He would write slow songs about getting away to a better place. Phil would care in his own way, he would make sure that Elvis had very nice things and he would never pull a gun. But Elvis would never be happy. He would sit alone on the cold floor in Phil’s cavernous mansion and write songs to the echoes in the hallway. His own voice would be his audience. Phil would come home from a long day at the studio and pause standing at the front door, just listening. He would later record those songs and it would come to be known as “Elvis’ Sound.” The Beach Boys and the Beatles would want “Elvis’ Sound” and they would try, but they would never really truly get it. They just weren’t sad enough.
Hayz Fisher

The Hidden Cameras
Origin:Orphan
Arts & Crafts
I found the perfect soundtrack for sitting at the Incheon Airport, waiting to fly home. Origin: Orphan starts with a long, ominous hum which builds into pounding drums and strings and Joel Gibb’s dramatic vocals messing around a bit and then fading away. The song feeds my teary nostalgia for events that have happened even just this past summer. But before I take out the barf bag to get deathly homesick for gay men and blissed out 2 a.m. bike rides, “In the Na” pipes in and I’m okay. “Colour of a Man” could definitely be made into a Korean traditional flute anthem. The beautiful “do do do’s” in the choruses? I could very well be on the KTX going through the lush, green mountainside right now. “Do I Belong?” gives me a spring for my step as I walk to the gate and it’s perfect for remembering why I can’t wait for home: “waking up with you beside me, how can I go wrong?” The “wa-ooh-wa-ooh-wa-ooh’s” in “Underage” and the low little bits of (ha!) “The Little Bit”, and the rollicking lullaby of “Silence Can be a Headline” end this lovely record so well. I’m again feeling wistful, but happy.
Natalie Vermeer

The Raveonettes
In And Out Of Control
Vice
The Raveonettes have always made records that were easily the best records put out by anybody that year, but an eyelash away from being a perfect ten. If a listener were to criticize their previous efforts, the one thing, the ONLY thing that could be said on the unhappy side of them was that maybe the albums sounded like they were one big movement, rather than treating each song individually. This isn’t always the worst possible idea, but particular fans may grow tired of the concept. Well, congratulations are in order for the Danish duo. They finally did it. They made their forever record. They’ve grabbed the music world by both ears, and made the best rock record possible. When Sharin Foo says “Fuckers” right before the chorus of “Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed)” try not to punch something with excitement and anger. The song “D.R.U.G.S.” marks the only time in contemporary music where the listener will actually put THE VERSE on repeat. Choke back tears during the album’s finale “Wine” and curse out loud that “Bang” wasn’t released in the summer, because in a summer devoid of the elusive “summer hit,” we all could have used that particular number. Thank you Sune and Sharin. You’ve pitched a perfect game.
Trevor Risk

Taken By Trees
East of Eden
Rough Trade
Victoria Bergsman, the woman we know as the girl in Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks,” has put out a kind of ‘Indian’ themed album under her solo project, Taken By Trees. Although her voice is definitely beautiful on every track, the record is mostly kind of lame. Listening to East of Eden makes you ask questions—questions like: “Is this supposed to be good?” or “Why am I listening to children repeatedly chanting something I don’t understand?” While the combination of sounds and instruments of an unfamiliar nature creates a setting of maybe… Pakistan (where the album was recorded), it also sometimes sounds really distant. Like the unreachable tabla! Perhaps the only familiar aspect of the record is her cover of Animal Collective’s “My Girls” (turned into “My Boys”) which is kind of cute. Aside from that, this album will only satisfy those who frequent trendy, nouveau-Indian restaurants and those who want to be satisfied.
Stefana Fratila

TV Heart Attack
Lost In The Sway
Thorny Bleeder
My immediate reaction to Lost in the Sway is one of nostalgia, which is weird because I’ve never heard TV Heart Attack before. I imagine an alternate and timeless reality where I do my grade six math homework while listening to CHEZ 106 in Ottawa. They’re playing a superset with Terrence Trent D’arby, Midnight Oil and a U2 track off War but my pencil stops being for learning and starts being for air drums when “A O” comes on … then it’s back to fractions. Meanwhile back in this reality “The Ghost Inside” spends four minutes in that perfect straight swing beat pioneered by Bonham (think bridge from “Dazed and Confused”) and shined up and sold to the masses by Three Doors Down’s “Kryptonite”. TV Heart Attack would have been a fantastic radio band when radio was relevant and if they’re not right now it’s radio’s fault (and loss). Six songs in 20 minutes is smart, there is no room for filler, there is no time to become unfocused; this record is what it is from start to finish. I also really like “Wolves” but don’t have room to say anything witty about it.
Bix Brecht

Various Artists
The National Parks – A Film By Ken Burns OST
National Parks Film Project
Ken Burns is prolific. His documentaries captivate and educate, and in his productions he uses some of the best in the business. These are true musicians, dedicated to their craft, producing wonderful music and some of the cleanest mandolin tremolo I’ve ever heard. Unfortunately, folk music gets slept on, maybe that’s because it’s so honest. You feel the humanity in the music, you catch yourself making profound statements about the good ‘ole days when, “a man could stand tall, knowing that his sweat and tears were feeding the ground on which he walked.” See it was a simpler time then, a nation newly formed struggling to find its identity, while becoming a place of refuge for dreamers. If there is such a thing as strength, America (‘Murica’?) made its own. And the locals? Well, “we gave ‘em about as much choice as a fiddle in a fire. A man had three things to eat: beef, beans, and his own soul. On the bright side this is God’s country, our country, our God, our hopes, our dreams, our ‘Murica.”
Dr. Ian Super

Yo La Tengo
Popular Songs
Matador If birds of a feather fly together, then the Hoboken-based trio of Yo La Tengo has stuck around for 20 years and over 12 albums by their willingness to ruffle their own feathers and see what comes out. Returning from their migration as soundtrack scorists, their new Popular Songs reminds us why we’ve always loved these genre-hoppers: the LP is neither scattershot nor measured; it’s simply a jam of what the group can and wants to play. The ambient “Here to Fall” becomes the indie-rock sucker punch “Nothing to Hide,” the Motown wink “If It’s True” becomes the 11-minute lulling of “The Fireside,” before the dissonant shredding of 16-minute closer “And the Glitter is Gone.” It’s sweet, raucous, and fun, and it’s always pitch perfect, no matter which way the wind blows.
Nojan Aminosharei