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The Dandy Warhols
Distortland
If you were ever to be jealous of a
band’s projected lifestyle, these cats
would be atop the short list. “Rules
be damned, we have all our own sh-t
and we’re cool, man!” was clearly
the mandate from Courtney T-T as
The Dandys promptly drove their
magic bus through valleys of LCD
Soundsystem, all the while looking
like nonchalant elders and confusing
their tired peers.
Catcher In The
Rye
will warm your heart and loins
in equally pleasurable measure, as
will the hard-edged tech of
Semper
Fidelis
. But it’s
STYGGO
that ticks
every Dandy box with a bouncy and
infectious gusto, all the while oozing
effortless panache. An amazingly
trippy, arrogantly fun and reflective
record – further proving not only does
this band not care, they don’t need to.
Hats off!
Chris Murray
Ben Harper & the
Innocent Criminals
Call It What It Is
The reunion of any band after nine
years would seem to signify a
return to familiar, if not nostalgic
territory, but Ben Harper is mostly
right-on when he says he and
his band are "here to forge new
ground."
When Sex Was Dirty
is
a suitably filthy fuzz-rock workout
for starters.
Deeper and Deeper
is steeped in Tom Petty harmony.
Things get more predictable in the
agitated slide blues and seething
social comment of the title track,
which posits that "it's a crime to be
black" and "what it is" out there in
America "is murder". There's shades
of John Lee Hooker, reggae and a
cheeky grinder called
Pink Balloons
.
Whatever can he be thinking of?
Mostly there's 11 good reasons to
do what these guys do: hit the road.
Michael Dwyer
Yeasayer
Amen & Goodbye
This NewYork outfit have spent
several albums inventing and
reinventing new modes of operation
and musical expression. From their
early expansive psych-pop jams to
abstract electronic and deconstructed
dance music, very few songs have
trodden the same path twice. The
making of
Amen & Goodbye
took
Yeasayer from their home in the
city to the Catskill mountains and
back again: an intensely creative
process beset with obstacles, such
as studio invasions from goats or
the time when rain damaged a large
portion of their recorded work. The
resulting songs here are among their
most adventurous to date, blending
the analogue with the digital, and
the spiritual with the physical and
chemical. Lullabies for end times and
experimental pop forms for the
next world.
SimonWinkler
Lontalius
I'll Forget 17
The processed vocals and minimalist
beats of the opening track on
the debut album fromWellington
teenager Eddie Johnston – AKA
Lontalius – suggests we’re in for
a tasteful but safe collection of
modern pop: after all, he first came
to attention with his YouTube cover
versions of chart hits. But after a
minute or so,
A Feeling So Sweet
glides gracefully into a languid
acoustic jangle and it soon becomes
clear that Lontalius is coming from
a much more organic place than
the plastic pap that dominates
the charts. While the hushed
electronic grooves of
All I Wanna
Say
wouldn’t sound out of place on
commercial radio,
I’ll Forget 17
is
mainly about chiming guitars and
lovelorn melodies, no more so than
on dreamily melancholic tracks such
as
Kick In The Head
,
Glow
and
It’s Not Love
. Clearly a talent to
watch.
John Ferguson
31
REVIEWS
MUSIC
MUSIC
The Last Shadow Puppets
Everything You've Come To Expect
Small point of order: It's not actually a supergroup
when only one guy is anybody. But the presence
of Arctic Monkey-chief Alex Turner made The Last
Shadow Puppets a major British indie event even
before his 2007 debut with Miles Kane (The Rascals,
apparently) and James Ford (Simian Mobile Disco, for
heaven's sake) turned out to be so damn good. They almost blow it on the
follow-up, long delayed due to escalating Monkey business, with an opening
track that jangles and sneers in the generic northern indie mold of The Verve/
The Charlatans et al.
Miracle Aligner
is where
Everything You've Come To
Expect
suddenly lives up to its title as a rapturous, ascending melody rides
the luscious '60s pop melodrama that was the Puppets' original calling card.
Dracula Teeth
is James Bond meets Shaft, with the crucial strings of Owen
Pallet properly unleashed. The panic of
Bad Habits
breaks the swooning
spell at the midway point but the Orbison-esque Bolero of
Sweet Dreams,
TN
snaps back on track like a good whack to the side of a black-and-white
telly and John Lennon's ghost makes
The Dream Synopsis
the finale worth
hanging around for. "Is it boring when I talk about my dreams?" Not when you
invite the string section to breakfast, darling.
Michael Dwyer
Babymetal
Metal Resistance
Despite what many believe to be
the case, the heavy metal genre
is the most diverse and accepting
of all musical styles, even if it’s a
manufactured entity like Babymetal.
Like all things Japanese, Babymetal
is quirky and eccentric, but what
else would you expect from an
act that labels their music "kawaii
metal", as in “cute metal”? The
biggest hurdle for many will be their
ability to adjust to the sickly sweet
J-Pop vocals of Su-Metal, Yuimetal
and Moametal. The music itself is a
mixture of the recognised aspects
of DragonForce, Meshuggah and in
some instances, Prodigy, making for
an interesting experience.
Simon Lukic
Parquet Courts
Human Performance
With a golden triangle of mood and
sonic similarity possessed within
this one outfit (Modern Lovers, The
Strokes, Talking Heads), Parquet
Courts are easily one of today's most
exciting indie outfits. There’s a sublime
maturity to the punkish fun always
present: “Mid-sentence tremors,
mind at its weakest – one way of
shaking the thoughts that it sleeps
with” is just one of the poetic ditties
from the title track. Dancing between
avant-garde (
I Was Just Here
) and the
squint-and-you-can-easily-imagine-
Iggy-singing-it-late-at-night of
Steady
On My Mind
, you’re soon thrust into
the sermonic urgency of
Berlin Got
Blurry,
complete with a Shadows
guitar and a knowing snarl Elvis
Costello could relate to. A flag-waving
addition to the prolific output of these
creative anomalies.
Chris Murray