"ramble til the butcher cut him down" (Hop Along - Painted Shut)

Hop Along
Painted Shut

why you'll love it: Substantial and unpredictable songwriting

why you'll hate it: Raspy vocals, tough to follow

A vice of adulthood I sometimes find hard to shake is just plain not putting up with things I don't have to do.  It's easier to just carve out my little slice of life and not deal with the rest.  This is evidenced in going to shows.  Now a days,  I just show up late to catch the headliner so i don't have to stand around and watch an opening band I statistically won't like or remember. Hop Along has been one of the very few over the last 5 years to prove my dumb habit wrong.  I saw them open for The Thermals in 2013, and was absolutely floored.

It's hard to explain without experiencing it for yourself...  They are among many indie-emo acts with a tinge of country influence.  They don't even do it "better" than most.  What kept Hop Along in my conciseness for two years was their ability to upend my expectations.  I remember thinking "I have no idea where this song is going." as Frances Quinlan croons one line, yelps the next, and whispers the third.  Songs would rev up, and halt, until finally creating that magical moment where it all clicks together.  That's Hop Along's great talent, which carries through in their latest release, Painted Shut.

Songs like "Texas Funeral" and "Waitress" crash up and down like choppy waters.  It's enough to make some listeners seasick.  There are some wonderful songs buried under all of the heaving, and discovering them is half the fun.  It's the same kind of buzz I got when Animal Collective finally clicked with me ("...wait, this mess of synthesizers and feedback is actually a pop song!").  Not all of Painted Shut isn't a puzzle waiting to be solved, though.  "The Knock" is almost entirely memorable hooks, without sacrificing any of Frances' hectic delivery.  "Powerful Man" is the upbeat and danceable song on here (ironically, as it's about witnessing child abuse).  "Sister Cites" goes for a more driven, constantly accelerating style to close things out.  It's an older tune, but a banger for sure, so it's great that it's been given a home.

The only songs that I don't feel work are the acoustic numbers.  There is no backing band to provide those dramatic builds and crescendos, or complicated layers.  A lot of what makes Hop Along stand out in the indie scene goes away with these songs. Without the band, Quinlan's abrasive delivery comes off like that of a crazy person, and not in a good way.  It's not that Hop Along doesn't know how to make a soft heartfelt song.  They just need only a little bit of power to punch through the atmosphere.  "I Saw My Twin" and "Horseshoe Crabs" are built on soft melodies.  They eventually turn into big numbers, but the ride to the moment is a pleasant build.

Painted Shut has been getting a lot of attention for all the right reasons.  You may have seen it praised on the few relevant music news and critique outlets left on the web, and you'll very likely see it again on my top ten at the end of the year.  Frances Quinlan is on the road to be one of modern music's best storytellers.  The band has had a slow start.  It's nice to see them get some recognition for their hard work.  Hopefully it sparks a more steady output of music.

"Thought I Found my black box" - (blur - The Magic Whip)

blur
The Magic Whip

why you'll love it: Vintage blur + modern Albarn chops

why you'll hate it: Won't win over any non-fans

Reunions sure are en-vouge this decade, huh?  So much that announcements are now being met with a diminished response.  After years of teasing, blur seemed to get bunched in with that tepidness when The Magic Whip started to become a reality.  In the face of nostalgia fatigue, The Magic Whip is one trip fans should certainly take.

Blur is no stranger to a crowded scene.  In the 90's, their bratty sardonic take on Great Britain's class gap was often imitated.  Blur played a big role in keeping British music relevant throughout the 90s.  Sensations like "britpop" and a rivalry with Oasis seemed drummed up by a media machine they had no interest in appeasing.  An attitude made clear at the turn of the century, with the experimentation in blur's last two albums, and the rise of Damon Albarn's (singer) collaboration, Gorillaz.

Those last few years of change made it tough to predict what kind of sound blur would go for in 2015.  I can't help but think they made the perfect decision.  The Magic Whip has the perfect mix of 90's quick witted indie-pop and the high production melodrama of their later years.  I'm a fan of Think Tank (2003), blur's divisive last album.  It was made without founding guitarist, Graham Coxon, and had plenty of Gorillaz-like electronic and dance influences.

Thankfully, Coxon's return didn't sway the band away from these songwriting ideals.  The Magic Whip is drenched in otherworldly production.  "Go Out" has a driving beat kept fresh with frayed ends coming off every strum.  On an album rife with ballads, each with a memorable gimmick, it's "My Terracotta Heart"'s underwater-like mix that makes it my favorite.  Songs like "Lonesome Street" and "I Broadcast" have a delivery straight out of Parklife (1994), but a futuristic synth punch-up.

Few pop experiments on here miss their mark.  "Ice Cream Man" has lyrics just a hair too silly.  Combined with a maudlin delivery, and goofy synth loop, the song is a boggling concoction.  All ideas that have worked well in the past for blur, but not together here.  "Thought I Was A Spaceman" has lyrics a little too on the nose, but would have been a standout on the last (and least) Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach.  Uplifting summer beach pop thrives on "Ghost Ship" and "Ong Ong".  These songs could have easily nosedived into Erlend Øye like pretentiousness, or Jimmy Buffet laziness, but blur walks that line with precision.

The Magic Whip will be a personal album of the year contender, and I'm not even a huge blur fan.  Every song just has so much character that it's a hard album to forget.  The far east notes in "Pyongyang", the blunt delivery of "There Are Too Many of Us"... Every song has something worth coming back to enough times for the whole 12 track affair (not a single one worth skipping).  Albarn's songwriting has improved so much with Gorillaz.   It's great to have it brought back home.

"more life" - (Beauty Pill Describes Things As They Are)

Beauty Pill Describes Things As They Are

Why you'll love it: Pop music for smart people

Why you'll hate it: Lacks punch, sometimes aloof

Here's a common thought for a lot of the posts on this blog.  "This album is a bit too long.  If they had cut tracks until there were only 30-40 minutes, this would  make much more of an impact."  Beauty Pill Describes Things As They Are is no exception.  Although, if there was one excuse for a low-energy experimental pop album to last over an hour, Chad Clark has it.  If not for modern medicine and some luck, he'd be dead today.

With a very real cardiovascular scare hopefully in the rear view, Clark dusts off Beauty Pill, which had been on the shelf for nearly ten years.  You wouldn't figure it from his delivery, but Clark grew out if the DC punk scene and the Discord Records label.  So let's review what we know so far - Reunion album, new lease on life, experimental pop music using modern production tools for the first time, a socially-minded songwriter... yeah, ok, I think you've earned the right to make a hour long album.

What makes Beauty Pill stand out is what also dooms them to obscurity.  It's coffeehouse volume pop, with tinges of French and Japanese influences; but twee catchiness isn't the objective here.  As a result, the music never is quite as fun as it probably leads itself on to be.  Cynicism spurts out of every lyric like beheading in a samurai film.  The words are razor sharp, but Clark's style has never been visceral.  More like a wallflower, he softly dismantles culture's mixed messages ("For Pretend"), social injustice (“Steven & Tiwonge”), and his own profession ("Exit Without Saving").  All these songs could easily be microphone swinging bangers without changing a single word.

Beauty Pill Describes... is clearly meant to be enjoyed as a "sit down and pay attention" sort of album.  It's lyrically dense, with a lot to say, and there are well layered melodies than can be picked apart with repeated plays.  I have to admit... my favorite tracks are because of hooks that just plain refuse to get boring.  "Near Miss Stories" is Clark's deepest dive into what almost was end of his life, but it's the riff bouncing from line to line in the verses that has me playing it over and over.  "Afrikaner Barista"'s weird time signatures and warped synth lines sound like a jukebox in The Black Lodge.  The only true knock I have on this album is Jean Cook's vocals.  They just don't do anything for me, and I feel her songs coincidentally meander around to no real satisfaction.

I keep going back and forth on what I think about this album.  At face value, it's no surprise to me I've never heard of this band until this year.  As a fan of Stereolab and 4 Bonjour's Parties, Beauty Pill scratches the itch for soft and classy pop music that I often get.  If not for that itch though, this band would probably drift past me like smoke.  It's another one of those bands that I love for existing, but my appreciation for the actual product is never as enthusiastic.

"those old songs sound like they've been here forever" (Built To Spill - Untethered Moon)

Built To Spill
Untethered Moon
Why you'll love it: Positive energy.  Wild guitars

Why you'll hate it: Buncha plain white dorks

Once something is labeled "an institution", it starts to become taken for granted.  It's a term I see more commonly used as an excuse rather than a complement.  Built To Spill more than earned a reputation in the 90s.  Bands like Dinosaur Jr. nudged it, but it was Built To Spill (among others, hello Pavement) that marked a sea change from the era of Nirvana's doom & gloom into a more charming and witty dawn of indie rock.  Doug Martsch's twee lyrics met with his threatening guitar skills made for an effective bait-and-switch.  Especially in their crowning achievement, Keep It Like A Secret (1999).

Call it a poor decision, or a lack of pop inspiration, but the 2000's saw Built To Spill going in the opposite direction of what made Keep It Like Secret such a fan favorite record.  Instead, the complex noodling of Perfect For Now on (1997) became the style Built To Spill pushed into the next 15 years of records.  A direction that yield mixed results.  Ancient Melodies of The Future (2000) is a yawn of an album, and 2009's There is No Enemy is as pleasant (and uneventful) as a Sunday drive.  Only You in Reverse (2007) stands out for really pushing the limits of long adventurous songwriting.  Thanks to the instrumental talent, Built To Spill's "boring years" have been an easy pill to swallow.  Although, that "but they're an institution" excuse had started to creep in...

Doug Martsch admitted writer's block in the years after There is No Enemy, which eventually led to a breakdown between him and a long-standing rhythm section.  With a new backup band, Martsch has seemingly found the fountain of youth in Untethered Moon.  There is an undeniable kick of energy from the very start of "All Our Songs".  The pace has packed up.  The drums are louder.  The guitars once again have a stinging ring to them.  The very next song, "Living Zoo" proves that what you just heard before was no fluke.  Built To Spill is finally picking up where they left off in the late 90's!  As the intro revs up, "Living Zoo" has electricity that still gives me goosebumps on the 20th listen.  That youthful feeling goes as far back as 1994's There's Nothing Wrong With Love, with "On The Way"'s authoritative acoustic guitar stroking and "Never Be The Same"s cute as all get-out chorus baseline.

Long twisted songs still are a staple of the band.  "C.R.E.B" and "Some Other Song" represent the best of what Martsch has been composing for the last fifteen years, well accented with a heavy dose of fuzz.  The real goliaths are saved for last, though.  "So" has such an epic build.  A BTS staple often heard in the late 90's but hardly replicated in the 00's.  Finally, there's the experimental closer "When I'm Blind".  This song JUST GOES!  Six minutes of Martsch in a clumsy back-alley fistfight with his guitar.  It is the They Live of guitar solos!

All the while, Doug Martsch emanates positive charm.  The sharp wit of his early years have dulled, but there is a real enjoyable tone in his voice, and lovable dorkiness to his introspection.  A lot of people may be turned off by a band that sounds like it's fronted by Ned Flanders, but Built To Spill's... Idaho-ness juxtaposes their gritty experimental sound in a way that sets them apart from most indie acts.  There is just something more genuine to a musical act that isn't always trying to be cool.

Untethered Moon is the follow up to Keep it Like A Secret that everyone was afraid to ask for, in the presence of how good Built To Spill's previous two records have been.  It's so clear now; this is the sound Built To Spill has existed for.

"01100111 01101100 01101001 01110100 01100011 01101000" (Squarepusher - Damogen Furies)

Squarepusher
Damogen Furies

why you'll love it: incredible glitchy madness

why you'll hate it: sounds like total nonsense

Too much of a good thing is very real.  For decades, Squarepusher has been serving up jazz influenced electronic music, with production and concepts far ahead of its time.  From 1995 to 1999 alone, we’re talking nearly 6 hours of instrumentals.  Many of which spit directly into the eye of ABACB pop song formatting.   Many use deafening static, or periods of silence/drone to accent that jazz trope of “the notes he’s not playing.  Every so often, a live bass guitar makes an appearance, but Squarepusher’s core sound is a mash up of Futurama’s Hypnotoad, playing a YMO LP at 77 RPM, and that one weird channel on your TV you’re not quite sure why you get.

I couldn’t be happier that this kind of music exists.  As a fan of “glitch art” in general (yes, I know how trite that sounds in 2015, but I’d be lying otherwise), Squarepusher’s aggressive outputs aim to stay one step ahead of, and against the trends of electronic music.  I anticipate every one of his releases, but the Squarepusher bulldozer of crushing machines seemingly never stops.  Those 6 hours of instrumentals have more than doubled over the past fifteen years (and that isn’t including his side projects, such as Shobaleader One).  I went into Damogen Furies with an expectation to be initially floored; but knowing it’s all just going to go into the Squarepusher vat to congeal with all of his other (mostly) similiar sounding tunes.

Damogen Furies may stick a bit longer, though, for one very good reason.  Clocking in at under 45 minutes, it’s mercifully short.  It could stand to be two tracks shorter, but some fat trimming really has come a long way to get much more repeated listens than even my favorite Squarepusher albums (Hello Everything or Feed Me Weird Things).  Having only 8 songs helps keep more tracks in your memory bank by the end of the album as well; because, believe me, Damogen Furies packs just as much shell shock as any other hard hitting Squarepusher album.  The fucking ballistic live video for “Rayc Fire 2” (wordlessly) says it all.  The construction of this song is like a high speed Rube Goldberg machine infused with a world-record breaking domino track, powered by the infamous Max Headroom cable hacker.  “Baltang Arg” is a fucking wormhole in audio form.  When I finished listening to that song, I expected to see Maggie Simpson tell me “this is indeed a disturbing universe”.  “Kontenjaz” and “Stor Eiglass” share tinges of twee melodies, but as you can tell by the song titles, Squarepusher isn’t trying to make you dance.  Any fun you have is purely coincidental.  This is art music.  Either you are drawn to it, or you aren’t.

I hate to break down a work of art to something as glib as that last sentence, but Squarepusher isn’t changing for anyone.  It’s still a whole lot of glitchy noise, which I somewhat mean as a term of endearment.  Damogen Furies, like most of Squarepusher’s vicious archive, sounds like a beatdown by gang of coked up Xerox machines.  Is that a good or bad thing?  That’s for my therapist to determine….