Music Review: Bloc Party -
Silent Alarm
9/10
by Christopher Ahearn
If there’s any one band leading the race for the next coveted spot as an “underground sensation” replete with a one way ticket to an appearance on The OC, it would have to be Brit-rockers Bloc Party on the heels of their new album Silent Alarm which hits stores this week.
With Silent Alarm, Bloc Party cuts through the bullshit to deliver 13 tracks of straightforward, unapologetic rock. The album is all driving guitars, charging drums, and addictive baselines. Though they change things up by tweaking song tempos, employing several delicious breakdowns, and playing with the loud/soft dynamic, Bloc Party never forgets their main focus: making the tightest, catchiest album humanly possible. Their sound is somewhat of a cross between The Police and modern dance-core, kicking it up a notch in the ass-shaking area while still maintaining their arena-rock sensibilities.
Silent Alarm opens with a bang, diving headfirst into “Like Eating Glass,” a quick-paced assault of propulsive drums and searing guitars. Like almost all of the songs on the album, there is nothing new here. This is just an updated version of the same rock song that’s been blasting from car stereos and teenage bedrooms for 20 years, but that doesn’t matter. It isn’t the amazing technicality and studio proficiency that Bloc Party displays here that makes the album so great, though it certainly doesn’t hurt. It’s the fact that they’ve taken all of the regular songwriting formulas and tricks, and condensed them perfectly into one brilliantly executed album, producing just over 50 minutes of pure aural joy.
Songs like the chugging “Positive Tension” burn themselves into your memory with its haunting chorus of “Run, Run, Run,” promising to get stuck in your head for days, while the catchy handclaps in “Price of Gas” assures that it will become a fan favorite at concerts and in the car. The album’s lead single, “Banquet,” is poised to become an instant dive bar classic, as it opens with a Franz Ferdinand-esque hook that quickly descends into one of the best toe-tapping beats in a rock song since, well… Franz Ferdinand. I would not be surprised at all to see it playing in regular rotation on MTV2, and hear it lending its indie-cred to pop radio a la “Float On.”
Silent Alarm is such an excellent album that it can be almost completely forgiven for the fact that it is utterly unoriginal. When you’re so damn good at what you do, who needs ambition anyway?
GENERAL PATTON’S WAR
CD Review:
General Patton vs. the X-Ecutioners
10/10
by Raph Tombasco
Mike Patton has gained certain notoriety in the music industry as a maestro of the macabre. His progressive, avant-garde approach to singing and songwriting has been present in his music since his early days as lead singer of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle. Since the passing of those bands, he has formed his own record label (Ipecac), worked with countless artists including John Zorn, Bjork, and Dan the Automator, and formed two bands of his own (Fantomas and Tomahawk). Never the type of musician to sit still on one project, Patton thrives on collaboration with musicians of all styles. For his latest release from Ipecac Records, General Patton vs. the X-ecutioners, he produced, arranged and mixed his recording sessions with the renowned turntable squad for a genre-bending, worldwide audio assault.
Similar in execution to the live DJ battles that have become the staple of raves and parties across the country, this concept album manages to capture a sound that goes beyond generic scratching and beat matching. This is Hip-Hop and R&B a la Patton; a strange and exciting blend of heavy beats, vocal acrobatics and unbridled instrumental experimentation.
In accordance with the war theme maintained by the title, artwork, and audio samples of the album, the first track, “X-Men Doctrine and Declaration,” begins with a brief clip from a vintage war film and blasts off with a torrent of rapid-fire scratching. It is here and in other songs like “Kamikaze” and “Vaqueros y Indios” that Rob Swift, Roc Raida, and Total Eclipse of the X-ecutioners display their mastery of the turntables, putting their own spin on keyboard, guitar, drum, and bass tracks, most of which are provided by Patton. In the operatic “Battle Hymn of the Technics Republic,” they match bullet fire with scratches and various sampled explosions as a doomsday orchestra, and heavy metal guitar builds toward a menacing crescendo. This manages to flow smoothly into the following song, “Fire in the Hole,” which plays like a tribute to old-school rap and is one of the album’s catchiest tunes, aside from the anthem “Loser On-Line (L.O.L.).”
Their intricate work on the turntables is a major highlight throughout and provides the perfect basis for Patton to unleash his vocal skills. The percussion samples they mix in “War cry/R&B Hallucination/Jungle Operations Exfiltration System” blend with Patton’s layering of multiple vocal tracks for an intense build-up of bongos and djembes. Through his meticulous programming in songs like “Low Altitude Vocal Parachute Extraction System,” Patton manages to make his voice sound as if it were being distorted through the vinyl manipulation of the X-ecutioners.
As the two musical forces face off against each other by means of spastic tempo changes and breakdowns, General Patton vs. the X-ecutioners straddles the line between avant-garde and pop. While certain tracks like “Improvised Explosive Device” and “Convulsive Antidote for Nerve Agent Auto injector” lack traditional song structure and only last for about 40 seconds of the album’s 46-minute runtime, they provide for a seamless segue between the longer, more coherent songs.
General Patton vs. the X-ecutioners is one of a kind. It manages to combine two very different yet ultimately compatible units and a plethora of styles to boot. Where one track is a chaotic mix of audio ranging from the Big Band sounds of the 1920s to the old-school Hip-Hop of the 1980s, the next offers a solid beat that bridges the two disparate elements and introduces many more. The album breaks all genre conventions with its blend of rap, trip-hop, jazz, salsa, opera, and rock. It also boasts some of the best work from Patton and the X-ecutioners, and stands on its own as a unique musical statement.
DAMAGING TO THE EARS
CD Review:
Fear Before The March of Flames-
Art Damage
1/10
by Lara Nardone
For people who like to hear themselves think, the new album Art Damage by Fear Before the March of Flames might be a bit painful to listen to. It’s incredibly hard to even distinguish between the songs, as they all seem to sound very similar to one another. The first song on the album, “Hey Kid I’m a Computer Stop All the Downloading,” starts off the immense screaming marathon that continues on into the next song “Should Have Stayed in the Shallows” and on and on for the rest of the album. The album attempts to hold all this passion and aggression in what they are trying to accomplish, but instead it comes out as just a screeching chaotic mess.
The majority of the songs on the album are all fairly short, two or three minutes each, which meld into one another to last a total time of about 29 minutes. That’s 29 minutes of blood spewing out of your eardrums. In fact, the only song where there isn’t constant screaming is entitled “A Tyrant Meets His Maker,” but unfortunately it is only 57 seconds of relaxation. It’s actually quite a soothing melody, soft-toned and without lyrics, but it really doesn’t make up for the other 28 minutes of constant bellowing.
Perhaps it’s just hard to really concentrate on the music with all the aggravation of the fierce screaming. Maybe they’re just trying to add to their “passionate” state, but there are so many other bands out there that scream out every lyric instead of singing it; why should this sound any different? The problem really is that it doesn’t sound very different from other types of music such as this.
The album isn’t a complete waste, but it’s not really worth the time to even pick up and listen to, unless by some chance you’re somehow a fan of this band. But if you’re just a fan of screaming heavy music then you’d be better off looking up the ones out there who have some sort of consistent talent. There really isn’t anything special about this album that separates it from the rest.
However, there are some fairly interesting pictures inside the album booklet with the lyrics. Also, surprisingly enough, the lyrics aren’t even that appalling (but that doesn’t quite matter because they’re inaudible).
If you’re a fan you could pick up the album Art Damage and hit the show in Buffalo on February 26 but bring plenty of tissues for the constant flow of blood that will be spewing out of your ears.
FIT FOR A KING
CD Review:
Iron & Wine - Woman King
8/10
by Bobby Ellis
It seems Sam Beam’s musical fingerprints can be seen all over the entertainment landscape lately, and with his new EP entitled Woman King, he proves again that he just keeps getting better.
The title track for Woman King opens the EP. From the get-go it’s apparent that this between-album EP is not just leftover material, but an accomplished and concise musical statement. In the song, Beam, with the assistance of his sister Sarah, chants patiently his visions of a not-so-distant future, which more resemble an archaic and almost post-apocalyptic view of any eventual female-fronted monarchy. Beam’s finger-picked guitars come in twanging, as if stepping slowly through the marshes of his native Florida. “Woman King” is an ideal first song for this EP, exhibiting perfectly Beam’s further transition from his first low-fi solo recordings to a more layered and accessible hi-fi sound.
“Woman King” is followed by a song that could be argued as Sam Beam’s best to date, and is the standout track on the EP, “Jezebel.” Die-hard fans might notice this song from the Iron & Wine demo recordings that eventually won Beam his spot on the artists roster at major indie label SubPop Records. Here, the song is elaborated on while leaving Beam’s usually heavily harmonized voice vulnerable and bare during some verses, accentuating his lovelorn lyrics, “Who’s seen Jezebel? Will the mountain last as long as I can wait? Wait like the Dawn as it aches to meet the day.”
Beam’s lyrics are just part of the charm of his generously vivid songs. In many ways he is quickly becoming a deep-south version of Elliot Smith, with his songs taking on a new element of accessibility. “Freedom Hangs Like a Heaven” shows well this element, with its playful and poppy melody that literally bounces, helped along by a steady rhythm section of tambourines with tin can breakdowns. The similarities with Elliot Smith don’t stop with their off-kilter pop mentalities. Like Smith (and Nick Drake before him), Beam’s voice is an interesting and distinguished one that delicately surrounds pained experience with a smoke-tinged beauty.
Overall, Woman King is a complete musical thought. It draws the listener in with its songs, but from there keeps interest with its timeless stories and Beam’s careful ruminations on femininity, past and present. At just six songs, it is a succinct and satisfying listen: always pleasing, and never overstaying its welcome. Some reviewers have criticized Sam Beam for being too prolific, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find any fault with an artist who has never failed to deliver constantly evolving and rewarding music. Iron & Wine’s Woman King truly is a royal achievement.
SWEATIN’ LIKE A CONFUSED ADOLESCENT
CD Review: Sweatin’ Like Nixon
5/10
by Michael Dedek
Progressive rock has not yet ascended to pop music culture, either indicating that the genre has some inherent flaw or that it is not subject to the dirty hands of the corporation-body. Though being out of the corporate grasp opens up more artistic freedom for a band, bands that are exempt from mainstream status are not immediately privy to high artistic praise, and they shouldn’t be.
As their second album (self-titled) indicates, Sweatin’ Like Nixon, a progrock band from Buffalo, is not lacking in instrumental prowess. The guitarist has enough talent to be considered a rising Joe Satrinani or Eric Johnson, as his style aligns with that of these artists, while the drummer produces beats similar in rhythmic quality and precision to the beats of Alan Evans from Soulive. Sweatin’ Like Nixon lives up to the progrock tradition of demonstrating exceptional instrumental skill and of combining sounds and genres that have not previously been mixed.
Sweatin’ Like Nixon’s unique combination is a particular form of funk and rock—and even lounge music, as in the song “Three Times a Day”—but as the band forces too many styles into single songs, Sweatin’ Like Nixon breaks up their compositions into incongruent parts that lack smooth transitions. The instrumental piece “Alien Nation” begins as a funk/jazz tune but suddenly jumps into heavy rock riffs, squealing guitar solos and heavy drumming resulting in a veritable cacophony. Many songs on this album, such as “The Numbers (Failure 469)” and “I Can’t Feel,” suffer from this flaw. Sweatin’ Like Nixon tries to combine styles that do not compliment one another, breaking the sense that you are listening to a continuous piece of music. It is hard to believe that what you hear is actually one song and not three.
The lyrical style of the band also fluctuates song to song. Though this is more admissible than the harsh internal transitions that occur in nearly every song, Sweatin’ Like Nixon cannot seem to locate a lyrical identity, as they cannot locate a melodic one. Are we to accept “I Can’t Feel” as a serious love song, when the rest of the album sounds like The Presidents of the United States of America but with more strings and talent? Baby feeding and the disgusting qualities of baby food are the subject of Sweatin’ Like Nixon’s “Three Times a Day,” and the song “Philip Says” addresses the archetypal hard-working father, in all his ironic complexity, and, like an adolescent boy, plays with the troubling condition of a stressed-out, blue-collar father without being conscious of the malignity of the situation. The song sounds like a 14 year old raging against his father who just grounded his son for puffin’ cheeba and slurping beer in the basement.
If Sweatin’ Like Nixon could maintain a consistent style, not even throughout an entire album but for a single song, they would be a select band; for there are moments, such as during an affecting jam in “The Numbers (Failure 469),” where the music resonates with a primal dance instinct, but this is usually broken up by an amazing but boring and over-the-top guitar solo. If you’re interested in listening to songs from either Sweatin’ Like Nixon’s new self-titled album or Tunes For the Young People to Enjoy, go to www.sweatinlikenixon.com and click on “Tunes.”
RUN FOR THE DOOR
CD Review:
The Exies - Head for the Door
3/10
by Bobby Ellis
The Exies have somehow successfully packed every bad pseudo-grunge rock cliché of the past 15 years into one CD. Why isn’t this thing flying off the shelves?
Head for the Door begins ambiguously with a fuzzy bass line before leading into the crunching riff of leadoff track “Slow Drain.” This device of alternating hard and soft riffs is interesting for a second, but takes its toll on the listener after about two songs. The vocals of lead singer Scott Stevens kick in eventually, and you would swear that he is the reincarnation of Stone Temple Pilots-era Scott Weiland. Not only are Stevens’s vocals nearly identical to Weiland’s, but most of the songs themselves sound like they could have fit in comfortably with a collection of B-sides from STP’s earlier work. This similarity may not be coincidental, as this time around the band has recruited the producing talents of Nick Raskulinecz, who worked with the real Weiland on the recent Velvet Revolver debut.
The first single that was chosen for Head for the Door is “Ugly,” which unfortunately is not a cover of the popular and more accomplished Bubba Sparxx hit of the same name. It is, instead, yet another boring, medium-paced hard rock anthem which could have been written and played by one of a thousand other bands. Lyrically, The Exies never stray from very safe and slightly depressing whining, combining the “cheer up emo kid” theatrics of Dashboard Confessional with a vaguely aggressive jock-rock attitude. At no time is this more apparent than on the track “What You Deserve,” which sounds like it might have been written by the same people who write Ashlee Simpson’s songs for her. Basically, this is the kind of CD you put on if you’re the captain of the football team and the prom queen just dumped you, and all you want to do is rip someone’s face off, but you’re still trying to portray a deeper side that you probably don’t even quite understand in an effort to still be able to hook up with some sensitive and misguided cheerleaders.
In the end, the greatest letdown of The Exies’ Head for the Door is that it isn’t an album by the bands they so openly aspire to be like. They certainly have some talent, but seem like a band more likely to play your Super Sweet Sixteen party than put out a solid, original album. Ultimately, you’re better off just cutting out the middle man and buying a Nirvana or STP retrospective. And if you’re really hard up for some uninteresting nu-rock, you could probably still find the Puddle of Mudd debut somewhere.
