album of the week: 9.4

Bloc Party
Four
(2012)

why you'll love it:  Strong approachable rock release, with subtle innovation

why you'll hate it:  Bloc Party continues to defy fan service, maybe a bit too mainstream

I hate talking generes, but gotta make a point here, so... 

BLOC PARTY is a BRITSH ROCK BAND that got their big break with a POST-PUNK REVIVAL debut album called Silent Alarm!  It isn't until their very latest release, Four, that I've finally taken notice of their "hey, fuck genres" manifesto their discography paints.   Silent Alarm was a big deal.  It brought back a very popular sound from the late seventies in bands like XTC and Gang of Four.  I feel if not for that release, you wouldn't have bands like Foals seeing success.  I, and most people, saw their electronic ballad filled (Weekend in The City) and electro-clash (Intimacy) follow ups to be huge swing-and-misses in terms of continuing the Silent Alarm legacy.  How can a band un-learn how to do what made their debut so great?

Surely I thought Block Party was done.  Four caught me by surprise for even existing.  Discovering that it is a loud and heavy Foo Fighters sized rock album surprised me even more.  Then came the revelation that I should have known all along.  Bloc Party never drifted astray from their roots.  They have no roots.  Silent Alarm just happened to be the stye of music they wanted to experiment with first.  It just so happened to make the biggest impact on everyone.  They never intended to be a "post-punk" band, just as well as never wanting to evolve into overclocked break-beat whatever the heck that was going on in Intimacy (hey, I liked that album.  People give it way too much shit).  They're just shifting from sound to sound with no real destination, just to be different.

So yeah, Four is Bloc Party leaning hard on their guitars and turning the amps way up.  I love Kele Okereke's maniacal delivery in "3x3" as the beat rains down like a monsoon.  "Kettling", "Team A", and "We Are Not Good People" all rock with a fury.  In fact, I like this album more than Foo Fighters' latest rocksplosion, Wasting Light.  There are a few ballads that fall flat ("The Truth" and "The Healing"), but a few that nail it.  "Real Talk: is one of my favorite tracks on here, sounding just like a John Frusciante song.

There is also some creative experimenting with an otherwise straightforward rock approach.  "Octopus" uses a skipping reverb effect that makes it the closest thing to a return to Silent Alarm that they have ever done.  They may have done it begrudgingly, or maybe I'm looking too deep into the yawns and sighing before the track starts.  "Coliseum" starts off with a strange backwoods cajun beat before unleashing the heaviest blast of rock on the album.

The two clunkers at the end of this album don't even factor into my final opinion.  I think this album is one of the best of the year, and Bloc Party's strongest release to date.  Obviously nothing is going to unseat Silent Alarm as everyone's favorite (present company included), but this is the release that makes me finally "get" Bloc Party, and makes me respect how bold and experimental they are for a very popular mainstream band.

gettin' way too excited about other nerdy things

PSA: another Dungeons & Dragons game played by Penny Arcade creators (Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins), PvP creator (Scott Kurtz) and a professional actor dude (Wil Wheaton) was recorded for your enjoyment.

Like I say every time I post one of these, I have never played, nor ever intend to play D&D, yet I find these sessions to be absolutely hilarious.  You probably will as well.

Album of the Week: 9.3

The Birthday
VISION
(2012)

why you'll love it:  Booze soaked garage rock.  Catchy and gritty.

why you'll hate it:  Lacks focus and charm of older Birthday releases.

Time for our annual check in on rock god, Chiba Yusuke, and his current band, The Birthday.  Just when I thought the group had become a fine tuned classic rock machine in 2010, out stepped a founding guitarist.  It almost seemed like the band was rebooting with 2011's aggressive and frenetic I'm Just A Dog.  Which totally rocked - don't get me wrong.  I just felt like it was… a step back.  Something that resulted in consequence, not so much artistic desire.  

What I feared stepping into The Birthday's latest album, Vision, was more of what had just come.  Thankfully, the band's classic influences are beginning to soak into you young guitarist, Fuji Kenji.  His pacing is slowed down here to something fans of The Birthday are more familiar with.  I was really impressed with the reservation in songs like "Riot Night Serenade" and "Kicking You".  Some of the most rocking songs, like "Guerrilla", come down like a sledgehammer, rather then a fast-and-furios approach, heard on the last album.  Very little of this album has what defined their last effort, which, again… I still loved.  It just sounded too much like Chiba's old material in previous bands, and not what makes The Birthday special.

That's not to say Vision is a complete "back to form" album either, but I think it's a fair compromise between what they once were and where they want to go.  This is a big, loud, cocky rock album.  Even the hardest songs have this arena ballad feeling to them.  Oddly enough, it's the most ballad-y songs that I enjoy here the most.  "Storm" is the kind of song they've been trying to pull off for years, but never quite nailed until now.  It's epic, fun, catchy, and easy to get swept away in, without sounding too gimmicky or like a beer commercial.  The Birthday have been known to occasionally show this Aerosmith side to them in past singles, so radio friendly songs like "ROKA" and "Love Sick Baby…" didn't throw me off all that much.  In fact I really began to enjoy them, and they fit in with the strutting pace of the album.  The only song I can't really get into is "Because".  I think that is only due to "Storm" being a much better closer though.

There is a great collection of songs here, but The Birthday still seems to be in search of a personality after the lineup shake in 2010.  I wouldn't exactly call what they do classic rock anymore.  They're one of the few bands out there that still have an old-school rock and roll approach, but those Led Zeppelin and Television influences are becoming less apparent.   That's cool, because so many Japanese bands are so unashamed about sounding too similar to the bands they take after.  But at the same time, they're not on the cutting edge either.  So they're just aloof;  which is only a concern for someone like me who's trying to write about and define them.  Truth is, the whole album rocks, even though there isn't much of a headline to tag it with.  Still some of the best rock you can find today.

Gettin' way too excited about videogames

OK, let me set the clip up for you.

- In December 2011, Brad Shoemaker live streams his attempt to get the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare achievement, "The Mile High Club", in which you must make your way through a plane of terrorists on the game's highest difficulty setting, and do it in under 60 seconds.

- This live stream lasted FOUR HOURS and was not completed.

- Yesterday, Brad attempts the challenge again, with Harmonix's Eric Pope providing support, and rallying twitter with #TeamBrad

- The stream went on for 80 minutes, until...

I was fist pumping so hard.

album of the week: 9.2

Fang Island

Major

(2012)

why you'll love it: adventure-rock, lots of arena sized guitar riffs.

why you'll hate it: Not much more to it. Not as "epic" as the debut album

Ever walk away from an exploding car in slow motion? Who am I kidding? Nobody really has done that. Ever take a speeding truck off road and - no, that won't do either… OK, how about this -

Ever go jogging and jump over a dog? Have you ever beat the original Super Mario Bros in one sitting? What about set off like 8 fireworks at once, and think "man I need a soundtrack that goes just for this moment!" That is the moment Fang Island tries to live in with every song. Big guitar solos, and crescendos piled on top of crescendos.

With their sophomore release, Major, Fang Island tries to branch out a little bit with a couple slow burners and ballads; but they're fully aware of what they still are, and the "epicness" that their fans demand of them. Because of this light exploration, Major comes off as a nerfed version of their praised self titled debut. If you're new to Fang Island, you would probably receive this album better than old fans have.

The exploration on Major, while admirable, fails in being the next big step for the band. If anything, it distracts from their strengths. I wouldn't consider this album a disappointment though. There are still a fair amount of devil horns to throw up for this LP.

I'll take what I can get.

Album of The Week: 9.1

Liars

WIXIW

(2012)

why you'll love it: Creepy and memorable. Genius application of electronics

why you'll hate it: slow, droning vocal delivery. Devoid of rock and guitars.

Hello. I'm back in business, and just in time. When I took my break, I only had one review left in my chamber (this one). Now I have at least three (maybe 4), plus the dozen or so albums that are out this month! I've gone from drought to flood, and wondering if there are enough weeks to be caught up before the end of the year. Oh well. One album at a time. I deliberately left this one hanging since June for a good reason - I think it's the best album of 2012 so far. If you haven't picked up WIXIW yet, that is a shame; because its subtle greatness may get lost in the shuffle of flashier releases over the second half of the year.

Liars is an experimental rock group that have been deconstructing and rebuilding themselves almost every trip into the studio. They started out 10 years ago as a "Don't call us a fucking" dance punk band. With bitterness, they scrapped that sound for the noise rock edge they became most well known for. Once that became too predictable, they morphed into the creepy atmospheric band you hear on WIXIW.

Admittedly, this album owes a lot to Radiohead's electronic renaissance of ten years ago (from Kid A to Hail To The Thief). The track "Ring on Every Finger" even sounds similar enough to Radiohead's "Myxomatosis" that it could be considered a cover. The reason you don't see so many people on the internet calling foul on this record is because of all the bands to take a page from Radiohead, Liars possesses the depth and complexity to make it their own.

Now here comes the hard part of this review… trying not to evoke the magic word that renders all experimental music null - "pretentious". To describe Liars' songwriting (especially from the past few years) is like having a dream about real life. Their music videos convey the feeling of the songs perfectly. It's the world around us, but something is wrong. Time isn't lining up right, you feel drunk, little things aren't what they should be… I held off writing this review for so long in order to share more insight into the songs on WIXIW, but found that the mystery is what I enjoy. It's what keeps me coming back. I don't want to know more. It's not about figuring out the puzzle. It's about being lost in the fog.

Wait! No, don't turn away! Give me one more chance! WIXIW isn't a mess of an album, or convoluted just for the sake of it. Despite the big question mark, the whole thing is quite accessible on the ears, and there are melodies throughout. The abrasive feedback on just about every other album is entirely nixed for muted synthesizers. Sonically, the most someone could complain about this album is that it is boring, but not hard on the ears whatsoever. Subtlety is what makes this album so great. The whole thing just gives you that "I've got a bad feeling about this" vibe, and you can't quite put your finger on it. The way the songs are composed just gives the tiniest itty bitty touch of paranoia or claustrophobia.

Going just by this month alone, there is still a ways to go for 2012, but the hypnotizing mystery of WIXIW still has my imagination soaring every time I listen to it. Like everything Liars does, it's not conventional, and will turn many people away, but this feels like the most important album they've made. Its subtlety makes more of an impression on me than any of their noisy experiments have.