After a really fun and fulfilling year of writing here, I’m hanging ‘em up. Thanks to everyone who took a minute to read my posts. I had a great time writing them. Enjoy the new J. Cole album guys.
I’m not sure what a good song would be to accompany this post. I’m just going to put up the song I happen to be listening to right now.
If you look at the history of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and compare it to the history of one John Anthony Frusciante, you might draw some interesting conclusions. Before Frusciante joined RHCP as their lead guitarist in 1989, the band trafficked in a kind of hardcore punk style that appealed to absolutely no one who didn’t brush their teeth to hardcore punk. Once Frusciante joined the band, he helped them record Mother’s Milk and Blood Sugar Sex Magik. The former was a badass piece of funk-rock that went Platinum, and the latter was one of the best albums of the last twenty years. Then Frusciante developed a really bad drug habit and left the band, leaving them to record One Hot Minute, which sucked, in 1995. By 1998 he had kicked the habit and returned to the band just in time to record Californication, By the Way, and Stadium Arcadium – you know, the albums that got you through high school – in less than a decade. And now he’s gone again. The story of 2011’s I’m With You, then, is how the coolest alternative rock band in the world will get by without him.
The band responded to Frusciante’s departure by hiring Josh Kinghoffer, an experienced session guitarist who had toured with the band before. The first thing you hear on I’m With You is some acid-rock feedback off Klinghoffer’s guitar. ”Monarchy of Roses” is a perfect opening statement – Klinghoffer is letting us know that a new guitarist has arrived. Frusciante’s riffs could cut diamonds; Klinghoffer’s sound like they belong to Queens of the Stone Age. When Flea’s bass line joins Chad Smith’s pounding drums in time for Anthony Kiedis’ chorus, you get a fresh-sounding but somehow totally vintage Chili Peppers song. Flea takes over on the follower “Factory of Faith”, as the world’s preeminent rock bassist is wont to do. Then Chad Smith turns in the best performance of his career on “Brendan’s Death Song”, ending a very promising first movement.
But “Brendan’s Death Song” does something it shouldn’t: it sets a tone. Smith pretty much runs the show on this album. His drums are turned way up on every song, and Flea’s bass gets buried in the process. (Until his insane solo on “Goodbye Hooray”, he’s a non-entity for songs on end.) Smith’s dominance is weird and troubling because he has always been the worst member of the band. This is his best album as a Pepper, but as a fan I don’t really care how good he sounds. If I’m watching a football game, I’m happy if my team’s tight end has a great game. But I’m a lot happier if my quarterback and running back do the same.
Smith’s emergence can only be attributed to Klinghoffer’s weakness. After the first few songs, he stops being himself and starts trying to be Frusciante. He can’t do it, and the whole band knows it. When I listen to the album I can’t help but think that Frusciante would have never let Smith get away with what he did to this record. The tight end does not call the fucking plays. When you’re the lead guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, you have a responsibility to park your ass at the front of the stage and take over. Klinghoffer acts like a rhythm guitarist on this album, and most of the songs are instantly forgettable as a result.
I’m With You isn’t a terrible record. “Meet Me at the Corner”, “Goodbye Hooray”, and “Police Station” (until its infuriating piano solo) are all standouts. It’s just Chili Peppers-lite. Kiedis et al wouldn’t let Klinghoffer be Klinghoffer and instead asked us to pretend that Frusciante never left. You could call that an act of devotion to fans who have waited five years for a new album. But I think it’s more like an act of forgivable cowardice.
About a year ago, I wrote about the tragic and inevitable death of garage rock. I jumped the gun. Sleeper Agent is making a stand.
These guys have all the trademarks of a great garage band. They’re from a boring suburb (Bowling Green, Kentucky). They’re young (singer Alex Kandel is 18, and the oldest band member is 26). They like to drink (guitarist Tony Smith and drummer Justin Wilson formed the band to fund trips to the bar). And they’re cool and fun and incredibly promising.
Sleeper Agent’s debut album, Celebrasion, was released two weeks ago. They play very fast and very loud. Wilson and Smith don’t take any breaks – the drums are always crashing and the guitar is always chugging along. What they lack in technical impressiveness they make up in persistence. If you’re looking for something you could never play yourself, move right along. But stick around for a few songs and I doubt that’ll bother you. “Force a Smile” and “Bottomed Out” are really good, but not much actually separates them from some of the weaker songs on the album. Their formula is simple. By never straying far from it, they make sure that every song packs a punch.
Then there’s “Get It Daddy”. They’ve made their career out of this song, and deservedly so. It’s an absolute monster; it’s a song the Hives and the Vines wish they’d made. It starts with a simple guitar riff. Then Kandel sings a few lines that don’t make any sense. Then the chorus builds slowly, and finally it explodes. It’s the archetypal garage rock chorus: stupid, meaningless and maddeningly catchy. The whole band shouts it at once, and you know they’re all wasted, and it’s just fucking perfect.
Everyone has to grow up eventually, but I hope Sleeper Agent never does. Their angst is way too much fun. And if they do get older, they’d better move into a place with a garage. Now someone get these guys some pizza bagels.
Portugal. The Man‘s sixth album, In the Mountain In the Cloud, comes out tomorrow and I want it. ”Got It All (This Can’t Be Living)” was released in May and its video is about as bizarre as any I’ve ever seen. I’ll admit that nothing says ‘you probably just can’t appreciate what we’re going for‘ quite like singing expressionlessly as a sled dog tears at your intestines in the snow.* Not to mention naming your band Portugal. The Man.** However, I was lucky enough to see these guys a few weeks ago at B.O.M.B.Fest and I can confidently say that their brand of indie rock is harder, cooler and more impressive than most.
This video is funny and shocking and weird, which is how videos should be. Its qualities do not in any way represent Portugal. The Man’s honest and straightforward sound, which is how music should be. They’re allowed to act like weird kids and play like cool kids. Right?
The song starts at about 8:55.
* Spoiler alert: The video ends with the lead singer singing expressionlessly as a sled dog tears out his intestines. But not before he gets shot in the face by an unidentified assailant.
**Got the reference. How ya like me now?
Incubus, one of my favorite bands of the past two decades, will be releasing If Not Now, When? on July 12. If Not Now will be the seventh studio album of their twenty-year career. Two songs from the new album, “Adolescents” and lead single “Promises, Promises” have already been released. Together, they represent the second time in the last eight months that I’ve been let down by a guy I once considered one of our last true rock stars.
Last October, I reviewed lead singer Brandon Boyd’s first solo album, The Wild Trapeze. To summarize: while the album did not lack for creativity, I thought Boyd cluttered the album by experimenting with too many different sounds. I worried he was losing some of the edge and the taste that let Incubus – and pretty much nobody else – seamlessly merge hard rock and power pop. A return to the band has not solved that problem. In fact, “Adolescents” and “Promises, Promises” make me think his best days are permanently behind him.
The two new songs share two troubling qualities. The first is that they’re terribly written. And the second is that they’re shockingly, inexplicably soft.
Since Boyd’s naturally dramatic voice can turn pretty much anything into a soaring chorus, I’ve never really cared about Incubus’ lyrics before. Now that I think about it, though, I’ve never cared because the lyrics have never been embarrassingly bad (well, almost never – but that was in 1995). This time there’s no question about it: Boyd embarrasses himself on the new songs. I can’t believe that Boyd, to whom choruses come easier than anyone in the world not named Anthony Keidis, chose this stanza to tie up “Adolescents”: “Out of sight, out of mind/we’re out of time/we’re out of mind/out of mind/out of mind/yeah.” Or this gem, as “Promises, Promises” comes to a crescendo: “So promise me one thing, would you?/Just don’t make me any promises”. This guy.
As bad as the lyrics are, I find them no more depressing than the general sound of the songs. The rhythm section inexplicably stops playing about halfway through “Adolescents” on the tail of an uninspired guitar solo. Even Boyd’s trademark “oooh”s sound hollow. ”Promises” is a power ballad that lacks the edge and genuine emotion that made “Dig” and “Drive” such great songs. Fifteen years after it would have been acceptable, they’ve turned into the fucking Wallflowers.
I’m writing this way about Incubus because I remember and appreciate how awesome they once were. If I had to play “Pardon Me” to defeat The Accuser in battle for the sake of the human race, I’d feel pretty good. But until I forget I ever heard these new songs, Incubus’ classics will merely represent the unrecoverable past of a band that made one album too many.
“Adolescents”
Fake Problems‘ third album, Real Ghosts Caught on Tape, was released last October. They share a label with The Gaslight Anthem.
Imagine if Wavves cared a little more about clean production and big choruses. Or if terrible pop punk bands like Sugarcult cared a little less about changing your life with those things. You’d get a pretty fun song, right? Something slacker-ish, but not lazy. Passionate, but not melodramatic. Catchy, but not oppressively stupid. Enter “Soulless”.
I like to begin most of my RAIBTLOF posts by describing what I don’t like about the profiled band. I like this strategy for two reasons: first, it makes the band’s good qualities redeeming instead of just pleasant and second, it provides a kind of disclaimer that is useful on a hip-hop blog. Because let’s face it: the bands that I profile are pretty much exclusively – sometimes extravagantly – not famous, and it would be arrogant of me to pretend that they are so because the world lacks taste. So with that said:
Dominant Legs has to be one of the worst band names in pop music. It is vapid and meaningless and gives you no idea what to expect from their music. Great band names like Free Energy or Foxy Shazam (or Black Sabbath or Slayer, if that’s your thing) give you more than just ease of classification. They give you a way of identifying with the band that becomes kind of special when you listen to their music. ’Dominant Legs’ gives you nothing. The name itself might stand in the band’s way as their career progresses.
And that’s a shame. Because Dominant Legs, an indie pop band from San Francisco whose lead singer tours with Girls, makes good music. Depending on your mood, maybe even really good. Lead singer Ryan Lynch and keyboardist Hannah Hunt released one EP, Young at Love and Life, last summer. Lynch’s voice is spacey, but surprisingly soft and intimate. When Hunt chimes in during the chorus of the title track to proclaim that she too is “so young at love and life”, you pardon the platitude and believe them.
Lynch’s voice is good, but not powerful enough to sustain just him and his guitar. Luckily, Hunt is a competent backup singer and she knows how to handle the keyboard. The songs really take off when she and the ubiquitous synths from “Young at Love and Life” and “About My Girls” get going. ”Clawing Out at the Walls” uses African drums and looped guitar to the same effect. It lacks the simplicity of the other two standouts but features Lynch’s best vocals. The rhythms are unfailingly catchy and the decipherable lyrics (Lynch’s vocals are usually quieter than the synths) are sunny.
I almost just used the word ‘formidable’ to describe that combination, but I’m glad I caught myself. It’s actually the opposite of formidable. Dominant Legs’ sound is catchy, but gentle and unimposing. There’s some substance behind the music if you look for it, but Lynch and Hunt seem to guess that you won’t. And they’re right to do so. Welcome to the summer.
“Young at Love and Life”
Blissful.
I thought about starting and ending this post with the sentence: “Starfucker makes pretty much exactly the type of music you’d expect from a band named Starfucker.” After a few more listens to their self-titled first album and their brand-new third release Reptilians, though, I’ve decided they’re a little too good for that. So in case you were curious or didn’t have such a vivid image of what a band called Starfucker might sound like:
The four band members started playing together in Portland, Oregon in 2007. They wear women’s clothing on stage and, in a bizarre coincidence, share a label with Of Montreal (and Japandroids, for long-time AIMH readers). They make synth-heavy dance-pop that has clearly spent a lot of time under the studio knife – rare is the song in which I can recognize every instrument being played. When I suggest that these musicians might not have been classically trained, I’m probably being too diplomatic. Nor are they going to change any lives with their poetry; most songs only have one or two verses, and they’re mostly platitudes about how bad he needs you to stay, girl.
However. These guys know exactly what it takes to make a song catchy, and Starfucker (that’s STRFKR to you, under-17 crowd) uses their synths and keyboards for every cent they’re worth. Starfucker and Reptilians are impressively consistent albums that bring at least a substantial riff or two on every song. They know and kind of respect why you’re listening to their music – they are no pointless interludes or eight-minute genre explorations on either album. When it’s good, you’ll get songs like “Hard Smart Beta” and “Millions” that hit you with the synth and studio effect and generally keep the chains moving. When it’s great, you’ll get “Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second”, “Julius” and “Death as a Fetish”, all of which are fully formed pop songs a la Passion Pit. The great ones (I’ll give “Pop Song” some love too) are as good as any indie pop I’ve heard recently.
Maybe “as good as any indie pop I’ve heard recently” doesn’t sound like such a glowing compliment. I meant it as one, but I guess I understand the sentiment. I’d remind you, though, that these guys started a band and called it Starfucker. They’re not interested in being taken seriously. So if catchy, unserious pop is your thing, scroll down and check out a band worth looking out for.
Sorry I’ve been away for a little while. Unfortunately, I didn’t spend my absence combing the internet for brand new bands for you guys, but here’s one of my favorite new(-ish) songs from a band that should turn some heads in the near future. Dawes’ first album, North Hills, came out in June 2009 on one of my favorite labels, ATO Records. ATO was founded by Dave Matthews and currently features John Butler Trio, My Morning Jacket, Widespread Panic and Ben Kweller, among others.
“When My Time Comes” is an impressively profound song and has a video to match. Lead singer Taylor Goldsmith’s voice is friendly enough to make you want to tune in to his philosophical ramblings, and you’ll be glad you did. The music isn’t anything special – if you can stand Mumford and Sons you’ll be all set – but this is the increasingly rare kind of song where that doesn’t really matter. The first few verses are pretty grim, but in the last line of the song Goldsmith reaches a redemption that befits a narrative much longer than the song’s five minutes.
Dawes’ second album is due out sometime in 2011 and I can’t wait. I don’t think I’ve ever done this in a post before, but here’s a link to the lyrics for “When My Time Comes”. Enjoy, and call me out if you think I got the meaning of the song all wrong.