RVW: The Flaming Lips – The Terror

As a forecast for this record, preceding single ‘Sun Blows Up Today’ was both completely contradictory and strikingly pertinent. The Terror contains next-to-none of the intoxicatingly giddy (and apparently marketable) energy of that track, a product befitting the kind of band who would record with Ke$ha, have their greatest chart success with ‘The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song’, and are perhaps more renowned, amongst the uninitiated, for man-size hamster ball crowd-surfs at their concerts. Instead though, The Flaming Lips’ latest LP is experienced like the aftermath of the apocalyptic event that gave that red-herring a name, a 55-minute document of trauma.

Tracks segue together like Dalí clocks melting, the vocals interpose between rising above, weaving through, and falling into, the mix: whether they’re delivered as shamanic chants or in a falsetto intermittently sweet and strained. At points, any semblance of melody is simply given a royal seeing to by drone, feedback, and synthesised throbs, which range in volume and intensity like a seismograph registering earthquake tremors. Indeed, at their most insistent and powerful (I’m particularly thinking upon ‘Turning Violent’ here), it feels like the palpitations of the planet’s collective heartbeat.

The Flaming Lips have always engaged in studio experimentation and sonic manipulation, so the dissonance and syncopation present on The Terror are not necessarily surprising, but it is nonetheless rattling for the sheer darkness, scale and omnipresence with which it is employed.

Nowhere is this clear than on the thematic heart of the record, the epic ‘You Lust’. Whilst the first 15 minutes feel as though no time at all has passed, this track encompasses the preceding length entirely within itself, as it proceeds to squarely match the band’s description of it as “disturbing and unrewarding”. The former is epitomised particularly by Wayne Coyne’s venomous, hissed delivery of “Lust to succeed” – perhaps the closest The Terror comes to a chorus – and the discomforting drawn out and unfulfilled sonic tension they capture, seems the ultimate expression of the hopelessness that seems to have been taken into the studio
with them.

Between a prolific release schedule, marijuana jelly, 24-hour long songs and a record-breaking 8 concerts in the same time-span, a preference for ‘sonics rather than songs’ might be entirely understandable, and it goes some way to elucidating a hint of the emotional landscape that lies behind the record.

Yet, there is nonetheless a beauty here, which elsewhere might well have been an exhausted quantity. There’s the isolated moments amidst the bleak and blaring: the sparse elegance to the weary ‘Be Free, A Way’, and the gradual emergence ‘Try to Explain’ has – like a time-lapse of a flower coming into bloom, bursting here with enveloping vocals and the rarest flourish of strings. But it is through the overall fulfilment of the trajectory of the album as an album, that the most satisfying outcome is reached. Because, as much as Coyne’s mad, circumlocutory press release appears to suggest otherwise, this is a band that definitely appears to know what it is doing when it comes to their art.

The oppressive atmosphere is part of a process here, (perhaps even a narrative?), of the working through of deep-set torment and international dystopia – the record seems to speak to both. “The wonderful freedom of no chord changes” Steven Drozd claims to have felt in the composition and recording of the record, heightens the impact of the full release of furious power which characterises the end of the record. When the drums kick in on the almost-industrial final track: ‘Always There…In Our Hearts’, it’s undeniably the record’s most cathartic moment. Out of the barren haze, imposing darkness and looping artificial abstraction comes a sense of some humanity returning, epitomised by the closing snatch of conversation we hear.

At the end of the world bring headphones. 8.1/10

MARCH RECORD RVWS

YOUTH LAGOON – Wondrous Bughouse

Wondrous Bughouse finds Trevor Powers emerging out of hibernation, armed with an album dedicated to the formative advice extended to him at the centrepiece of his debut: “Don’t stop imagining. The day that you do is the day that you die.” Where that imagination – both musically and production-wise – seemed kept within the confines of his childhood home, here it explodes outwards, reaching into space. Like all fantasias however, the expression comes packed with both the gorgeously fanciful and the darkly surreal.

The anthemic qualities and grandiosity on display here, not just through a production upgrade but within the songwriting itself (the majority of the tracks exceed the five-minute mark and contain multifarious leaps and lurches in sound and mood), expounds a new self-confidence in Power’s explorative compositional capabilities. The melody of ‘Raspberry Cane’ has this anxious, psychedelic Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young at the wrong RPM quality; the wooziness that infuses ‘Dropla’ gives way to the urgently emotive, eyes-screwed-shut refrain “You’ll never die / you’ll never die”. ‘Mute’ meanwhile, is humongous, propelled by crashing drums and celestial synths, building through a guitar solo that would have seemed near-inconceivable two years ago, all the way up-until the final, triumphantly teetering piano-line – undoubtedly the album’s highlight.

Throughout these moments of grandeur though, the pervading abstract edge of the album always breaks through. The endearing bedroom-pop melodies and personal lyrics that characterised Year of Hibernation give way here to the overarching sonic vision of a disintegrating cosmic circus. A lyrical fixation on death and grotesque imagery, and songs punctuated by dissonant pulsating loops reach their most queasy and discomforting on ‘Attic Doctor’ and ‘Sleep Paralysis’. When you buy into the aesthetic these aspects prove to be immensely successful. But, particularly when combined with the occasionally grating pitch of the vocals, songs sometimes have the effect of being pushed too far. It’s a bit like witnessing a shrill 4-year old sing/squawking ‘adorably’ on an ancient home-video.

Like all coming-of-age stories, Youth Lagoon’s music has its flaws, errors of judgement and mishaps, but the truth is having broken free of the small-town boundaries he was looking to escape, Powers has returned with a clutch of truly memorable songs and an album of impressive and exciting scope. It’s a 2K13 recasting of the ‘Summer of Love’ from the perspective of a boy who gets anxiety attacks and has spent too long indoors with an iPod full of Elephant 6. And that, in many ways, is wonderful. 7.8/10

PEACE – In Love 

Great band name by the way, no idea why that wasn’t already taken. There’s, t-shirts, a pudding sponsorship, and of course oh so many album titles available: …and Quiet, Five Minutes of…, World…, the late-career desperation of Give Peace a Chance, before the fond farewell of Peace Out – I should work in marketing. Anyhow on that point, having seen the bounteous hype (and the requisite backlash), but yet somehow having managed to avoid engaging with their actual material, it was with equal portions of trepidation and relish that the respectable difference that Peace had thus far maintained from my eardrums, less Berlin wall and more garden-fence, was broken down.

Disappointingly though, the resultant meeting constituted much of the exhaustion and redundancy which underlay the tedious punning which opened this review. For all the plenitude of youthful exuberance in many of their songs, and apparent in their music videos, over the course of a record it becomes increasingly depleted, to the extent that the ultimate end-product is of the par-baked variety.

The hooks and riffage galore that make up their wares are catchy and commendable, but the actual substance of the record – the lyrics and production in particular – are at best cookie-cutter and efficient, and at their worst embody the Delicious EP’s watermelon, excessive sweetness descending into the saccharine and consequently exhausting the possibility for, and failing to achieve, any semblance of engaged emotion beyond a somnambulant foot-tap.

Similarly their songs themselves are referential if not outright derivative, to the extent that listening to the album is just as much, if not more, entertaining if you take it as a kind of aural comparison puzzle game you might play with your friends in Zuckerbergland (other social media networks available).

There’s bountiful Charlatans on display, ‘Toxic’ and ‘Sugarstone’ are all Oasis, ‘Waste of Paint’ has plenty of Blur going on, and I’m pretty certain Foals have a lawsuit when it comes to the intro of ‘Wraith’. On the latter there’s even a point where the synth-line that breaks through (and then drops out just as quickly as it was hinted at), sounds like they’re about segue into a Calvin Harris cover, (which would probably work fine on your next Live Lounge appearance actually – get on it boys).

But, whilst there’s undoubtedly a place for revivalism, and all of these touchstones at the very least make them an easy band for a hack to describe, when it actually comes to the record itself it is clear that any of the edge, any of the appeal, of their forebears and influences has been entirely sandblasted away. Even more so, particularly when so many of those Britpop bands (Suede, Blur, Pulp) have made comebacks of late, and reminded any erstwhile followers of both how it’s done and the flaws of such a sound, Peace’s offerings seem even more substandard.

Perhaps most depressingly of all though, the knife is further twisted when the songs that are missing from the conventional tracklist – ‘Drain’, ‘Scumbag’ for instance – are actually their most impressive efforts, a hundred times more interesting for their spaced out grungy weirdness, and the suspicion is that Columbia might have had more than their fair share of input into their exclusion.

It is with the latter in mind though that Peace actually manages to avoid an outright drubbing. The ability to compose the hypothetical mapping out of their whole career at the top of this review, is entirely symptomatic of their easily identifiable influences and hollow impression they leave in their wake. But the very possibility of such a career is afforded by what they do well, an ear for catchy, energetic grooves, combined with their evident penchant for the more frantic, raucous elements of bands like brief contemporaries, and the now sadly deceased, WU LYF. Hopefully we’ll see some more of the latter next time round. 5.4/10

TRCKRVWS: 

LOW – ‘So Blue’

One half of everyone’s favourite musical Mormon couple, guitarist/vocalist Alan Sparhawk, recently spoke of his trepidation at the introduction of piano into Low’s song-writing on the upcoming The Invisible Way, but any sign of second-guessing their choice is initially undetectable, the piano-line first kicking the door of the track down with a burst of intensity, and then proceeding to constitute the structural spine of the entire track. It’s not a flourish but instead a vital mechanism, working in conjunction with the pound of the drums and Mimi Parker’s hymnal vocals throughout, in order to heighten the dramatic edge of the repeated rise and fall.

I say ‘initially’ though, because frustratingly it becomes clear that whilst the drama is potent and the build powerful, neither ultimately leads anywhere, the catharsis promised never quite being attained, instead being restrained, just at the peak of the crescendo. The essence of this frustration, this atrophied catharsis is perhaps represented lyrically by the chorus: ‘‘So blue / with you”. For a simple line it’s immensely tonally complex, expressing deep melancholy and heartache but held up against and undercut the ultimate sense of holding-on despite the sadness. With the delivery not being particularly inclined to either, this sense of being stuck in a rut reflects the inability of the track to completely rise out of the gloom, instead slipping in the ascent. Which is all very clever and admirable, but in praxis leaves the track steeped in flawed, slightly monotonous, majesty.

LORD HURON – ‘Lonesome Dreams’

Having received perhaps more than their fair share of critical flak for their rationally refracted or reductively recycled (depending on who you asked) Americana and folk-inflected sound on their debut, the title-track ‘Lonesome Dreams’ provides as much evidence necessary for agreement or rebuttal. Undoubtedly, wherever your ears turn their influences and peers can be encountered (there some My Morning Jacket, here some Fleet Foxes…), certain melodies and harmonies, certainly some lyrical themes: “But I don’t really know this place / And it’s lonesome here in the wide-open space” are shared. However, where the thin-line between stylistic correspondence and outright theft is drawn, and why Lord Huron find themselves on the right side of it, is summed up in the language of dreams in which these recognisable refrains are expressed. Such a manner reflects the extent to which these ideas and sounds are tied up with the American cultural fabric: and evidently, as long as life is long, people are young and the world is wide, musicians, American or otherwise, will be getting lost and writing songs about it.  The overriding note is one of proficiency rather than progression, but the music itself is robust, harmless, heartfelt and eminently appealing.

GHOSTPOET – ‘Meltdown’

 The first single to drop from Some Say So I Say Light, the upcoming follow-up to the Mercury Prize-nominated Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam, finds Obaro Ejimiwe a.k.a. Ghostpoet maintaining his healthy diet of both. The general tone and form of his sound – the half-slumbering, reflective sung-rap vocals over grime meets trip-hop production – is still in place, but the song-writing has tightened up, production values appear to have been bumped up also, and both contribute to an atmosphere of added clarity. The toms in particular really pop, and there’s added beauty and romance through the organic instrumentation employed and which suits him well. Such an instrumental tune-up appears to match the thematic outcome of the song, fighting through sadness, bitterness and regrets in order to move on from a relationship and hopefully make something better of himself out of it: “But baby it’s my heart, this time I gotta follow it.” All of the above contribute to the sense that ‘Meltdown’ stands as a document of an artist in good musical stead, ready to step up and make his mark.

FEBRUARY RECORD RVWS

ICEAGE – You’re Nothing

Having managed to calmly stride through, rather than being thrown off of, a media circus that oscillated between alternating assignations of them as punk-rock saviours or Nazi hell-spawn in the wake of their acclaimed debut New Brigade, Iceage return with a record presented seemingly with no point to prove.

Where the record lacks some of the more instrumentally distinctive moments of previous tracks like ‘Collapse’, what they trade them in for is a cogency and cohesion which reflects an increased confidence in their performance. This in particular is what demarcates Iceage for acclaim in a genre that some might argue peaked in significance and inventiveness some time ago [perhaps Fugazi took it with them went they went AWOL?], and though innovation might not be foremost on the agenda, they do everything that should be their bread and butter naturally, charismatically and exceedingly well. Songs like the killer title-track, ‘Wounded Hearts’ (packed with gang vocals that threaten to absolutely kill live), and ‘Morals’ (all the more intense for the introduction of piano and its tempo reduction), come in spades, fundamentally quality down to their very bones.

Amidst the musical tumult and raucousness that dominates and ensures that they’re less creeping glacier than pounding snowstorm – despite a worthy experiment into the more wholly atmospheric with the instrumental ‘Interlude’ which with perhaps some track-list repositioning and development into a full-fledged track instead of a fading out might well have been a highlight – where Iceage really shine for me is the lyrics of frontman Elias Rønnenfelt.

The vocals increased clarity in the mix is much appreciated for this particular reason, as, though laconic, in their sparseness they’re honest, nuanced and developed enough to circumvent the accusation of a cynical mind that the mantric choruses: “Excess”, “Pressure”, “Do you hear me?”, “Where’s your morals? – all perfectly designed for scrawling in exercise book margins – actually give cathartic release both on the page and in their forthright, compelling delivery.

The overriding sensation to be left with is that there’s a heightened density to Iceage this time round, a satisfying added weight to the songs in both the production and composition, which is reinforced by the brevity at both the level of individual tracks and as a recorded totality, blow after blow being levelled to the extent that it threatens exhaustion on end-to-end, and repeat listening (…but that’s kind of point).

This is a work of refined power, both recapturing and emboldening the essence of what justifiably brought Iceage to widespread consciousness first time around. 7.4/10

FOALS – Holy Fire

 

Forging ahead after the successful artistic shift that came under the banner of their Utah cult mantra-esque Total Life Forever, Oxford five-piece Foals have returned.

The most immediately identifiable development, and perhaps the most interesting for the options it creates, is that they’ve found out how to get to 11 on their amplifiers – and they know how to use it. First single ‘Inhaler’ possesses an outright monster of a riff, muscular and rip-roaring, which despite now lacking the element of surprise has exchanged the sensation of startlement for an anticipatory excitement that comes with the release it affords amidst the song’s claustrophobic breathless tone, and ‘Providence’ similarly pound and rages amidst the distortion as it reaches its moments of crescendo.

Alongside the extra toys in the box though, the group still make increasingly well-defined use of their now staple sonic stomping grounds: the precise fret-board mathematics with which they first caught our ears, the uber-infectious and festival-ready ‘My Number’; the atmospheric spaciousness previously wielded to such transcendent effect on ‘Spanish Sahara’ and ‘Olympic Airways’ which particularly dominates towards the album’s closure – reaching its most sublime on album highlight ‘Milk & Black Spiders’.

Crucially, with this increasing repertoire and refinement comes a sparer use of any individual aesthetic, facets of all the elements of their sound, old and new, instead rising and falling to prominence throughout an album that operates like a Galileo thermometer, fluctuations in mood and temperature instigating appropriate shifts in song-writing and production.

It’s this developing freedom of their abilities in and artful awareness of their craft that makes ‘Holy Fire’ such a resounding accomplishment, certainly on the level of the instrumental; but there are still some nagging complaints which prevent the record asserting itself as runaway success – notably lyrically. For every gem of absolute heart: “Cause I know you’re still with me, / You; my compass and my sea”, Yannis offers clunkers like “sticks and stones don’t break my bones” and “I’m the last cowboy in town”, occasionally mistaking his heightened capacity for clarity with overt simplicity, which whilst not bringing down the tracks as a whole, they do momentarily cause a hiccup in the overriding sense of ‘Holy Fire’ as the ultimate realisation of the band’s ripe promise.

Yet, Holy Fire’s aptitude for brilliance comes to such an extent, that the patient time that needs to be afforded to the areas that will benefit from it most is easily earned. There’s much to admire, moments to love, and plenty to suggest 2013 could very much be Foals’ year. 7.6/10

AUTRE NE VEUT – Anxiety

 

The willingness for ostensibly ‘indie’ musicians to experiment with the sonic palettes of pop and R&B (with a concordant reverse), has been a movement in the ascendancy with each passing year of the new Millennium: Dev Hynes and the Quin sisters being perhaps the two most prominent figures at the threshold in the past year.

Arthur Ashin a.k.a. Autre Ne Veut occupies similar avant-pop territory on his second LPAnxiety,frequently alighting upon the very breaking wake of a number of the most popular blogosphere sounds of the 2010s: How To Dress Well’s lo-fi soul, Frank Ocean’s post-modern resurrection of the ‘Minneapolis sound’, Grimes’ manic ADHD instrumentation, even elements of cloud-rap production.

It’s a record equally steeped in melodic pop-sensibility and itchy experimental texturisation, with the real stand-out feature being Ashin’s silky, supple falsetto, particularly when employed at its most stacked and harmonic with female accompaniment.

A number of the songs are quite brilliant: ‘Promises’ a two-minute snippet of everything that Ashin does so well without wholly committing perhaps the best litmus test for new listeners to try on these sounds for size; the pitch-shits and children’s choir-esque backing vocals brilliantly build the epic tone of ‘Ego Free Sex Free’ until it completely soars by its final third; ‘Play by Play’ is perhaps one of the songs of the year, tumbling into life and then building up to a magnitudinous and magnificence that is rewarding to both immediate and invested listening.

But where the first half of the record is immensely listenable, the instrumentation composed immaculately to build a rising tide of tension or emotion to gets heart-beating or feet-moving – whichever is required – the latter half is often paced somewhat awkwardly, issues occasioned by the a few musical missteps that unsettle tracks so frequently and intelligently flow-based. Momentum is lost with the comparatively minimalist, down-tempo ‘A Lie’ at the halfway point, and from here on out where previous songs had felt so essential, closers ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ and ‘World War’, for all the space allowed to them fail to lead into anywhere particularly fresh or captivating to the ear, lack the emotional weight of contemporaries records like Total Loss, with the ultimate result that that though they are still sophisticated and well-performed, they simply aren’t as memorable or interesting as the singles.

In short, there’s undoubtedly a fairly spectacular EP bequeathed to us here, heralded by a song which I’ll treasure for the rest of the year, amidst a record that promises so much. There’s proficiency by the spade-load here, and it’s only let down by an increasing lack of that certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ as the record progresses which hinders some of the tracks’ ability to fully explode into life; which leads me to the reflection that perhaps it is my all-consuming greed as a listener, rather than any overt failing, that led to the sensation of disappointed hope for more moments of the same immense satisfaction. 6.4/10

 

 

Five-Finger New Music Punch: February

2013 has continued with its surging momentum resultant from being utterly packt to the brim with great music from artists new and old, with some fresh and exciting to be found behind every added layer of the giant pass-the-parcel of the blogosphere. Let’s dive in shall we: 

James Blake – ‘Retrograde’

Perfectly suited for this exceptionally chilly month, I didn’t realise quite how much this track had caught hold of me til’ I found myself with it revolving round and round in my head on my brain-deck a couple of weeks after it first made its première with Zane Lowe. It’s immensely atmospheric and soulful, with the power of the siren-sound that builds into the chorus and foregrounds the expressive delivery of “Suddenly I’m hit” being particularly memorable. All of the above is particularly heartening for exemplifying a growth in songwriting prowess that should ensure the upcoming Overgrown keeps the impressive body of work Blake has built up in the last few years on the right course.

Doldrums – ‘She Is The Wave’

The whole of Lesser Evil is well worth your attention, full of intrigue, energy and inspiration, with some similarities in soundscape to fellow Canadian synthpop purveyors Grimes and Purity Ring, and whilst this ditty perhaps isn’t the best track on the record, it’s undoubtedly one of the most immediately accessible and a great introduction to the Doldrums aesthetic.

Apparat – ‘A Violent Sky’

Having never been wholly drawn in by Apparat’s electronic work, it was with some surprise and a great deal of satisfaction that I encountered Krieg und Frienden. Originated as a soundtrack to a stage production of War and Peace and that possesses sophisticated musical elements of both, with power and beauty in equal measure – one of the standouts of the year so far.

Phoenix – ‘Entertainment’

“YAYAYAYAYAYAY!” is pretty much the only reasonable reaction to the return of Phoenix and this track in particular. It immediately captures your attention with a striking, catchy, joyous and strangely Japanese sounding synth riff, but it grows, builds and soars as it progresses and it sounds like it’ll make a sterling opening track for Bankrupt!

Foals – ‘Out Of the Woods’

I’m yet to really return to the record as a whole since reviewing it and quite liking it earlier this month, but this track from its latter half has stuck in my mind, perhaps for there somehow feeling so atypically Foals whilst very clearly coming about as the outcome of the journey their sound has been on since ‘Hummer’. Vocally and instrumentally ‘Out of the Woods’ is perhaps one of the stand-outs of the record, there’s a sensibility to it which is somewhat reminiscent of The Cure when I hear the marimba which runs throughout (…????) and the straggly, warm mandolin (….????) bridge, which is definitely a good thing. The diversity of sounds Foals encompass on this record is one of the better parts on it, accomodating the aggressive ‘Inhaler’ and the romance of tracks like this with equal comfort.

Also check out Mogwai, Girls Names, Grouper, Dan Friel  and Iceage,

Superbonus: Justin Timberlake – ‘Mirrors’

I’ve been particularly giddily excited by the return of JT, who spent the month tearing things up with the video for Suit & Tie, unleashing memorable performances at the Grammys and the Brits in particular, and perhaps most significantly for the upcoming 20/20 Experience releasing this absolutely sterling new track, a captivatingly current and yet unashamedly romantic epic which sums up just how far he’s grown since in the decade since ‘Cry Me A River’.