Music Reviews – Issue 74

[1] Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Hysterical

Apparently in the age of immediacy, when you take two years to follow up an album, people think your band broke up. Such is the case for Brooklyn/Philly band CYHSY. Guess what?! They never broke up! They just took some fucking time (2 years used to be industry standard) to create a record. Sorry Professor Youtube Tweety  McFacespacer. Sorry they can’t create ART fast enough for you.  Sorry your MTV-ADD-ADHD-OCD-fake DD’s- love- for-Justin Biebs-sense-of-decorum won’t allow you to sit and wait patiently for a new body of work from an artist you used to love fifteen minutes ago… when it was cool.

Sorry not everyone can put out a new album every 30 seconds like Ryan Adams. Maybe if you stopped living life at a hysterically unsustainable pace and listened to CYHSY’s new album Hysterical you would hear how they’ve expanded their sound, incorporated lush strings, beautiful synths, and generally taken their song writing up like six notches. Slow down and listen to Hysterical as it was meant to be heard – long play, start to finish. It’s called an ALBUM.

- Jay Brown

[2] NewVillager – S/T

So many girls I know adore Kate Bush. I like her enough, but she can be at little too ovulate-y for me sometimes. She reminds me of my girlfriend’s mum; totally cool and I am always pumped to have lunch with her, but sometimes I wanna watch Doctor Who and discuss the inner workings of time travel. NewVillager is Kate Bush for nerdy guys. Finally we boys have a band we can listen to while cloudbusting. Riding the razor’s edge between artsy fartsy and party hardy, NewVillager’s self title debut is both calming and exciting and finds an astral plane to live on next to Yeasayer and a bottle of ouzo.

- Trevor Risk

[3] The Rapture – In The Grace Of Your Love

With their new album, The Rapture have decided to dance with who brought ‘em. Returning to DFA, the band are reunited with James Murphy and Tim Goldworthy who produced their debut album Echoes. On In The Grace Of Your Love they give their fans a healthy reminder of what made them appealing to begin with. Producer Philippe Zdar (Phoenix, Chromeo) makes you recognize immediately that it’s The Rapture, which is the most a band can ask for. With a little play in the clubs hopefully we can relive those moments from 2003 when nighttimers would claw over each other to fist pump the hardest to “House of Jealous Lovers.”

- Trevor Risk

[4] Ladytron - Gravity The Seducer

On their latest album, Gravity the Seducer, Liverpudlian synthpopsters Ladytron have done the unthinkable and gotten even sadder. The ‘Tron have more or less had a lock on the angsty-yet-danceable market since the early ‘00s, but on Gravity, they largely throw away the first half of that equation and just focus on feelings.

Don’t get it twisted, Ladytron haven’t completely abandoned the dancefloor. Songs like “Ritual,” “Melting Ice” and “Ace of Hz” will definitely get waify, black-clad girls to bust a semi-ironic, noncommittal move, but the rest of the album is a marked departure from the accessible, pop-y sounds of 2008’s Velocifero.

That’s not to say Gravity is a bad album. There’s actually a lot to recommend on it. The building, atmospheric “White Gold” is a one song journey, while the skittery, minimalist “Ambulances” is a perfect example of how a band can evoke a lot of emotions with relatively little sound.

Folks who got into Ladytron because of their alt-dance anthems like “Seventeen,” “Ghosts” and “Destroy Everything You Touch” will find Gravity The Seducer a little tough to swallow, but fans of smart, deep, dark pop music will love it.

– Chris Dart