album of the week: 11.3

Grizzly Bear
Shields
(2012)

why you'll love it:  Grizzly Bear continues to refine their rich and natural sound

why you'll hate it:  Basically a sequel to their last album with diminishing returns

It's the last hour of the last day of the week; so I'm still in time!  It's been a busy short week for me at work before having to travel for Thanksgiving, so I haven't had much time to talk about what I've been listening to the past seven days - The lastest from a very popular modern indie act: Grizzly Bear.  Their 2006 breakout LP, Yellow House turned a lot of heads with very rich acoustics and a down to earth sound.  They're right up there with Animal Collective as one of those bands that are put on a pedestal these days, but their respective sounds couldn't be further apart.  Where Animal Collective is transmitting from space, Grizzly Bear is more like in a log cabin.  

Veckatimest (2009) shaped Grizzly Bear into a modern radio-friendly song structure, and Shields seems to be little more than polishing that idea.  That's not entirely a bad thing (unless you really loved the denseness of Yellow House).  The production is still a marvel.  I love the echoey guitar and drums, the subtle application of electronics and distortion, and the choir-like vocals of the band.  "Sleeping Ute" and "Yet Again" are fantastic songs, no matter which way you cut it.  "The Hunt" (dull) and "Sun in Your Eyes" (annoying in its efforts to sound epic), are.. well... not.  I'm afraid songs like "What's Wrong" and "Half Gate" would be better if by now the Grizzly Bear formula wasn't so predictable.  

Shields starts off very strong, but the album doesn't seem to have the same soul or lasting power Veckatimest had; nor the attention-grabbing appeal of Yellow House.  Also, nine songs (+ an instrumental segue) that sound just like your last album, sort of leaves a "huh... this took three years?" impression.  It's very soothing and well performed album, but just doesn't live up to their reputation.

album of the week: 11.2

Jeff Rosenstock
I Look Like Shit
(2012)

why you'll love it:  depressing lyrics done right, fun DIY style

why you'll hate it:  Not as wacky as a typical BTMI! album, sometimes too cheap

Next week is Thanksgiving, which means I only have about 4 or 5 reviews left until the end of the year posts.  Which means I better make sure the next 4 or 5 albums I pick have a good shot at creeping into that stuff.  Which means, I gotta get the FUCK out of September releases.  Looks like I'll be backed up heading into 2013.

I've been sick all week.  I feel like shit, so it only seems fitting to choose I Look Like Shit; a solo effort by the jaded ska-punker everyman, Jeff Rosenstock.  Last year, Jeff wrote my favorite album (Vacation) alongside his band, Bomb The Music Industry!  I Look Like Shit has a lot of what made Vacation special: a departure from BTMI!'s typical ska-punk sound, and a shockingly relevant and brutally honest introspective look at society and loneliness.

This is presented by Jeff as a collection of demos and unfinished songs, as if you're about to listen to a dozen random low quality mp3s.  He's selling himself short here.  Truth is, this album is mixed and planned out better than some actual studio releases (See my AK-FG review last week).  Songs bleed into each other at times.  There is a compelling introduction track, and a big fun finish.  While it's obvious where he's making ends meet by using a drum machine and more acoustic guitar than usual, he could have EASILY gotten away with saying this was a planned and produced solo album from the very beginning.

Jeff's depressing lyrics are something I've become accustomed to, and even look forward to.  I was really turned off by the way he used them with otherwise typical wacky BTMI! music, in Adults!!!: Smart!!! Shithammered!!! And Excited by Nothing!!!!!!! (2010), but loved the way they juxtaposed with the 60's beach party pop background in Vacation.  So maybe I'm a big hypocrite  I Look Like Shit doesn't have the same style as Vacation, but still suits the general theme of this album (depression and death) well, without distracting from it or making the whole thing too overwhelming.

Lots of great songs on here.  "The Trash The Trash The Trash" is my favorite.  It's got a lot of great examples of the stupid excuses we make for not doing things when depressed.  "Little Blue Pills" and "Bonus Oceans" are fun as well as resonant.  "Amen" seems to revel in its lack of subtlety.  After that soul-crushing ballad, a cover of 銀杏BOYZ' "I Don't Wanna Die" picks you up by the scruff, brushes you off, and sends you home happy.  This enthusiastic performance of a seemingly random, already over-the-top song is probably what listeners will remember most about this album.

With a little confidence, this release could have been dressed up and finished to stand right alongside BTMI!'s Vacation; but I assume the mindset that led to this billed as a collection of unfinished failures that would otherwise be thrown out, is exactly what goes into the kind of perspective that makes the songwriting so relatable.

album of the week: 11.1

Asian Kung-Fu Generation
Landmark
(2012)

why you'll love it:  Even when it sounds like they're not trying, lots of catchy riffs here

why you'll hate it: stale, and flat.  Poor selection of songs over last two years

Alright, friends, I have a bone to pick with this album, so consider this your warning, I will rant over the next few paragraphs.  If you want a shortened review, here it is:  This is lackluster and sloppily thrown together collection of songs.  They can be very catchy in moments, when given a chance, but fail to exemplify the dynamics and ingenuity of this band over the last four years.  There you go.  if that is all you need to know, you can stop now.

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Asian Kung-Fu Generation suddenly became a band that i begrudgingly liked in 2008.  Their album, World, World, World was a tight, rocking, emotional, fun, you name it - everything done right - indie rock album.  I didn't want to like an album titled World, World, World.  I even cringe a bit when I tell my friends in the car that this band I am listening to is named Asian Kung-Fu Generation.  Most of all, I didn't want to like a band that has been hijacked by Naruto headband wearing goofballs (thanks to the band's history of contributing songs to various anime title sequences.)  But there before me, stood a damn good indie band!  And throughout the next three years, they continued to be a damn good indie band.  These guys don't do anything wild or progressive.  They just know how to write catchy songs, weave in some pretty impressive guitar melodies and drum fills, and create something that transcends the language barrier with ease.

Landmark not only fails to represent the band I mentioned above, but is also a TERRIBLY constructed album.  First of all, it's not much of an album.  It's a collection of songs, recorded when or who knows where, with no sense of flow or motif.  The production is also flat as cardboard, which is quite a surprise to me, as their last album (2010's Magic Disk) provided a wide spectrum of sound.  I'm mostly going to focus on the arrangement and choice of songs here, because it truly boggles my mind.

"All right part 2" opens.  It's a fun little pop song, a bit too saccharine for them, I think; but was likable for a song released OVER A YEAR AGO.  (Almost) every year AK-FG curates a festival, and releases an exclusive song on the respective compilation CD.  The song sounds fine for that occasion, but not here.  It's not a strong "OK here we go, let's kick this off" opening song.  Everyone already knows it, and it fails to represent how the rest of the album goes.

The choices of what made the cut and what didn't, only get more confusing.  "All right part 2" (released summer 2011 on a compilation) opens the album, while "Marching Band" (a single released in December of 2011) is not found at all.  "Marching Band" is a slow song, but I thought it's pretty experimental for them, and has a nice emotional build.  Also, it's a single, for Christ's sake!  Since when is a single not on an album?  Even crazier, why would the single not make it, but the b-side would?!  That's right, "N2" is the b-side to "Marching Band", and also a pretty bad song.  It's vocal filter sounds like garbage, and it's a momentum killing drag of a song that should not be at track 2, if on the album at all.

All that stuff I said about AK-FG being a total package indie band must sound deluded when you hear "1.2.3.4.5.6. Baby" and "AとZ".  The swells and emotion put into "1.2.3.4.5.6. Baby" mixed with the lyrics (which are, get ready for this… "1.2.3.4.5.6. Baby") make it sound like a joke song.  Follow that up with a song that is basically reciting the alphabet, and at this point I was saying aloud to my stereo "You're kidding me, right?"

If you haven't switched off by now, the rest of the album isn't all that bad.  "大洋航路" is probably the catchiest song on here.  It's spunky, and enthusiastic.  But nothing about it lives up to to what the band has been capable of in the past.  "Bicycle Race" is basically a lackluster version of "新世紀のLove Song".  "それでは、また明日" will probably end up being the most popular song to come of this album, because it harkens back to their energetic more punk influenced sound that got them all that sweet Bleach money.  I'm not so crazy about it.  I think that's a "been there, done that" path, and the band is better than that now.  "1980" and "Railroad" have some CATCHY signature guitar riffs to them, but that's it.  "踵で愛を打ち鳴らせ" is the best song, by far.  This well crafted, well paced, emotionally charged song is a reminder why I've swallowed my pride for this band.  "Anemoneの咲く春に" at least sounds like a closer, but it's yet another just OK song for a shrug of an album.

The track listing is still what gets me here.  Looking back on the past two years of material from this band, you could put together a good 30 - 40 minutes of music.  I still don't know why they're using songs and b-sides from LAST YEAR, when there were b-sides (Like "Reload Reload") and compilation songs (like "夜を越えて") from this year that were totally great (and totally unused).

If you have read me put in a good word about this band in one of my "year in review" posts, but never checked them out, this is not a good place to start.  This albums sounds like something a bored and disinterested band would phone-in.  With a little care in production and willingness to create an album with flow and structure, this could have been a solid release.  Not a very strong one, but certainly not as stale as this.

album of the week: 10.5

Ben Folds Five
The Sound of The Life of The Mind
(2012)

why you'll love it:  Ben Folds still a fun songwriter, some nostalgic fun

why you'll hate it: Sounds too much like Ben's later solo stuff.

Reunions always scare me, but I think it's just something I'm going to have to get used to as I get older.  They're all the rage lately.  A few have managed to exceed my expectations (Devo, and Hot Snakes), while some others have just made me wish memories would just stay in the past (Pixies, At The Drive-in).  Not sure where I stand on Ben Folds Five quite yet.

Ben Folds, and his lovable sophomoric personality, have never went away.  When the band broke up in 2000, Ben immediately went on to a solo career, writing the same kind of songs. So it's actually Robert Sledge's fuzzy bass, and his harmonies with drummer Darren Jessee, that are making a big triumphant return.  The pounding rhythm section that opens up this album ("Erase Me") elicited an audible "fuck - yes" from me within seconds.  "Michael Praytor, Five Years Later" (the best song on this album, no doubt), continues to evoke the sound that defined their first two LPs.  The self-titled LP (1995) and Forever And Ever, Amen (1997) are fantastic albums, musically and lyrically.  Ben Folds does an amazing job on those albums of representing a culture of snarky wallflowers, without ever becoming a stereotype or generic poster boy for "nerd rock" or whatever.  While Ben Folds Five will never be as iconic as Weezer, I feel they hit the bullseye in moments where "The Blue Album" just barely misses the mark.

Over the next 35 minutes, the tint on my rose-colored glasses begin to fade.  I'm convinced half of this album MUST be comprised of leftover melodies and lyrics from Ben's solo work.  Rob almost entirely checks out for a bunch of these songs.  It's just Ben, and some violins.  Maybe a little background drums from Darren.  These songs, aren't all that bad.  I think "Sky High" is the only one that rubbed me the wrong way, and "Hold That Thought" has some pretty cute songwriting.  It's just that -- I'm not here for a new Ben Folds album, well, I mean… not this time.  I'm here for the "Five"… well I mean, the two, but… you know what I mean!

The three remaining songs are… ok.  The title track is a bit too much like their final album, before the reunion, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner (1999).  I think most fans agree that the album did not make the same impact of their first two.  "Draw A Crowd" is a pretty good example of how once Ben Folds became famous, his perspective and world around him changed; and so did the songwriting a bit.  He's still definitely the same person; and I kind of respect that he addresses this in his songs by using real examples in his life of fame and fortune.  But that still doesn't change the fact he is no longer on the outside looking in.  That is why there truly will never be another Whatever And Ever, Amen from these guys.  Ben just isn't going to fake it and try to write another "Battle of Who Could Care Less" or "One Angry Dwarf…"  

"Do it Anyway" is the closest you will get to that old style.  It sounds like an old-school song, and sung with a lot of "umph", but it is no doubt coming from that safe and secure perspective of somebody who has already succeeded.  Writing for the underdog will never-ever capture the perspective of the underdog.

So yeah, I don't know what to think of this Ben Folds Five return.  Objectively, this is pretty good stuff.  The album doesn't suck, and those first two tracks are KILLER; so I can't just brush this aside and pretend it never happened.  On the other hand, it's easy to see this as a huge disappointment compared to the rest of their discography.  Compound that with the fact that this is a reunion album that for the most part fails to recapture the band's signature sound (seriously where did the bass go for half of this album?!); and confirmation that the first two albums were lightning in a bottle.

The album is a disappointment, but I want to hear more from this reunion.  I am just letting the current take me wherever on this one.

this is what the week has been like

Hurricane Sandy really did a number on my area.  My power was knocked out for 5 days, and I apparently I was one of the lucky ones.

This is what the storm did to my old hometown.  I know a couple people who have totally lost their homes.  It's been a pretty lousy week.

I moved back into my place today though, and aside from a gas shortage, things in my little bubble appear back to normal.  Looks like I'll be doing two reviews this week to make up for last.