Issue #67 Album Reviews

Reviews of the latest from Black Mountain, Kathryn Calder, Chilly Gonzales and Grinderman…

Black Mountain
Wilderness Heart
Jagjaguwar
I lay back down on my bed. Black Mountain’s follow-up release to 2008’s In the Future begins to play. I remember a PowerPoint presentation about Mars coming closer to Earth, about space (keyboards) and metal (mostly recorded in LA). I feel underwhelmed although I know that this album has an exciting enough story: Stephen McBean fell in love with a California girl, Dave Sardy reunites with the band for the first time since producing their Spiderman 3 track and Randall Dunn joining in alongside his past work with Sunn O)))—the two of them sharing the title of producer. I imagine loving this record. I have to imagine because apparently what I find boring, Black Mountain doesn’t.
- Stefana Fratila

Kathryn Calder
Are You My Mother?
File Under Music
I imagine Kathryn playing piano and singing as her mom clasps her hands to her heart, grateful to witness her daughter’s songs in the living room. Kathryn’s crisp and sweet vocals receive compliments from the harmonies of friends (like NP bandmate Neko Case, ahem) who come over and pick up a guitar or tap on some drums at different points in the evening. There are cookies baking in the oven, the wood-burning stove is glowing and a scrapbook of Polaroids is being passed around. The arrangements are simple and the melodies last long into tomorrow’s hums while cleaning up. Everyone is happy for their time together but there is a hint of sadness apparent, knowing this moment won’t last.
-Natalie Vermeer

Chilly Gonzales
Ivory Tower
Arts & Crafts
Well this was an unexpected treat. Gonzales, (or now Chilly Gonzales), had the lead single off Ivory Tower produced by Boys Noize, and instead of the “lathe sawing a drum machine in half” sound I was expecting from the song, it sounds more like a collaboration between Phillip Glass and Juan Esquivel. The album is a soundtrack to a movie about chess (which is awesome), so many of the tracks are mainly atmospheric piano melodies with little or no drums. However, “You Can Dance” is a nice little boogie track that stands out on its own and will probably be well received on dance floors in the months to come.
-Kellen Powell

Grinderman
Grinderman 2
Anti
Half-naked 50-year-old men thrusting their pelvises in bronze armour. And so goes the first publicity shots for Nick Cave’s post-punk, post-Birthday Party, post-Bad Seeds, post-Grinderman (1) album, Grinderman 2. Owner of one of the most recognizable voices since Elvis, Cave is still singing in the key of doom and writing lyrics that suggest we humans are, and have always been, a sad and lonely bunch of heathens worth nothing more than our weight in stories and scar tissue. In a recent interview, Cave and his weirdybeardy-brother-grim, Warren Ellis, said that forming Grinderman was “a way to escape the weight of The Bad Seeds.” Really? I didn’t get that from this at all. Grinderman’s sound and subject matter are heavier than Santa’s bowels on Boxing Day. “Worm Tamer” and “Beringer Blues”—while viciously good—are the sonic equivalent of chewing raw flesh. That said, if a Bad Seeds-esque love ballad is what you’re after, one “When My Baby Comes” is sure to lick the wounds left by the other eight.
-Jules Moore