Georgie Fruit's Last Stand

Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping

9 / 10

by John Hugar

Kevin Barnes is one of the strangest, most intriguing figures in rock. For years, his band Of Montreal was fairly unknown beyond the realms of indie-rock. Then, in 2005, its visibility greatly increased when he re-worked a track from the album The Sunlandic Twins for an Outback Steakhouse commercial. It’s one thing to license a song for an ad, but it’s quite another to take the time to write lyrics for it. His most interesting move, however, came in 2007. On Of Montreal’s 8th album, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, he created a character named Georgie Fruit, a middle-aged African-American who had gone through several sex-change operations. Not only did he sing from his/her point of view on several songs, he took the time to portray the character on stage. Clearly, he’s a lot more than your typical indie-rock dude. The band’s newest effort, Skeletal Lamping, might be their most ambitious project yet. Not only does Georgie make a return appearance on several of the tracks, but the band tries out several genres of music, resulting in a diversity previously unheard on the band’s records. It’s a sprawling, epic project, and it may the group’s best effort yet.

The album gets under way with “Nonpareil of Favour,” which is in itself a testament to the diversity of this band. They go through four genres of music in a five minute-span. It starts out as a pleasant power-pop number, slowly transforming into prog-rock in the vein of Fragile-era Yes. Before you know it, the guitars turn up, creating a blistering metal track that eventually comes crashing down into something that sounds like 60s psychedelia crossed with The Mars Volta. The most impressive thing here is not the number of styles the band tries, but how seamlessly they are able to transition from one to another. None of the excursions taken on this song seem unnatural or disrupt the flow of the music. Everything feels just right. From there, we move into “Wicked Wisdom,” a funky jam with an irresistable groove that is bound to stick in your head. It also happens to be the first track on the album sung from Fruit’s point of view, providing a humorous insight into his/her world with the lyrics “I’m just a black shemale, and I don’t know what you people are all about.” Trust me, when it’s sung by a white guy from Georgia, a line like that is pretty funny.

We learn more about Georgie’s tribulations on “For Our Elegant Caste,” which exemplifies the PG-13 rated nature of this album with lyrics like, “We can take it soft-core if you want, but you know I take it both ways.” Clearly, Barnes is not taking this character too seriously. He does a nice job of making us sympathize with Georgie’s problems without being heavy-handed about it. Instead of whining about his/her issues, Georgie states them in a matter-of-fact, even optimistic manner. The album manages to be light-hearted without losing its emotional resonance. One of the album’s few sad moments comes in the beautiful “Touched Something Hollow.” Georgie’s desperate “Why am I so damaged?” gives us a real glimpse into the emotional hardships of the character. The key, though, is that Georgie never asks us to take pity, just to understand. This isn’t an album about being lonely and depressed, this is an album about being different from the norm in society, and all the ups and downs that come with it.

Now, some of you are probably saying “But I’m an uptight fundamentalist conservative! I don’t like to hear about black transvestites! How am I going to like this album?!” Well, fear not my Sarah Palin-loving friend, there is plenty of non-lyrical content for you to love as well. For one thing, the songwriting here is brilliant. You’re unlikely to find a musician with a better knack for pop hooks then Kevin Barnes. Also, there is no fear of this album ever getting repetitive. From the catchy trip-hop of “Women’s Studies Victims,” to the Bowie-esque glam of album closer and debut single “Id Engager,” this album is all over the map. What is most impressive, though, is just how uniformly good this it is. With an album trying so many disparate genres, you’d expect there to be a few slip-ups, but instead, every track here is strong and vital to the album. Anyone can play it safe and make a great album, but to take this many risks and come out with such a quality result is nothing short of a triumph.

The term “indie-rock” has been bastardized to death lately, leaving many to wonder if it still contains any meaning. That being said, this album exemplifies the term beautifully. It is truly an independent rock album. No one is out there asking for psychedelic-prog-power-pop albums about black transsexuals, but that isn’t going to stop Kevin Barnes from making them. He is an incredibly talented musician, and he is not going to compromise his vision for anyone. With Skeletal Lamping, Of Montreal have created what may be their masterpiece. Despite the off-kilter tendencies of Georgie, this is an album that everyone can relate to. Take for instance, the opening lyrics of “St. Exquisite’s Confessions”- “I’m so sick of sucking the dick of this city.” Now that’s a universal message if there ever was one. And so is this album.

How to Lose Viewers

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

2.5 / 10

by Natalie Schnorr

After seeing How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, there are a lot of questions that are in need of answers. Most importantly, who the hell gave a green light to this movie? Has the writers’ strike and its shiteous scripts finally caught up with us? Was a deaf mute put in charge of casting? To call this a film is a gross overstatement. It’s more like 109 minutes of trash accidentally caught on camera by Robert Weide.

Leading this garbage parade is Simon Pegg (Run Fatboy Run) as Sidney Young, an unfortunate yuppie with a knack for being the center of embarrassing attention and not much else. He ends up falling into a job as a celebrity-profiling journalist at an über-trendy New York magazine. Nothing else has to happen before you realize just how horribly miscast Pegg is. There’s no arguing Pegg’s forte is the loveable loser with witty quips, but be assured that you will find nothing to love about Pegg here. It’s still undetermined whether this is Pegg’s fault, or just an unlucky consequence of being associated with such appalling efforts.

At the new job, he meets fellow quirky intellectual journalist Alison Olsen, played by Kirsten Dunst (Marie Antoinette), and his gigantic stereotype of a boss, played by Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski), who seemed like he had been told to watch The Devil Wears Prada and “do that.” From then on it’s your typical fish out of water tale, only not funny or entertaining in the slightest. Peter Straughan’s script is chock-full of bad slapstick and cheap gags. And if those gags don’t result in a gag reflex all your own, the clichés will. Never have I seen anything that made use of bad clichés as well, or rather as poorly, as this movie. Understandably, most of what’s coming out of Hollywood has been recycled or reused in some way, but How to Lose Friends plays out like Straughan “wrote” the script by cutting and pasting from prior horribly overrated cinematic waste.

Once the anger regarding your lost time and money subsides, you’ll finally get the laughs the trailers promised, and of course they will be horribly degrading. Probably the most laughable moments are when the movie takes a nasty spill and decides it’s a romantic comedy, with Pegg and Dunst as the objects of each other’s affection. You can’t get uncomfortable forced affection like that unless E! is rerunning footage of Tom Cruise teetering up his step stool to plant one on Katie Holmes. It gets even better with Dunst’s portrayal of a sleeping girl, which is as bad as Mariah Carey’s waking moments in Glitter. It wouldn’t even be an exaggeration to compare Dunst’s work to Sleepy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, except that the latter character was more convincing.

At this point, it’s hard to tell whether How to Lose Friends and Alienate People is simply just your occasional piece of picture refuse, or what is to be the first of many, many disappointing films that were pushed through during the writers’ strike to ensure studio executives a buck. With the skyrocketing prices at our local cinemas, the idea of sitting this year out does not seem half bad. There are a lot of questions posed by How to Lose Friends that hopefully will never be answered, but one thing is certain- Kevin Reynolds owes Robert Weide a thank you, because finally there is a movie shittier than Water World.

All Girl Summer Kinda Fun Band

AGSFB - Looking Into It

6 / 10

by Michelle Matthews

The irony of a group called All Girl Summer Fun Band releasing their highly anticipated third album, Looking Into It, at the beginning of autumn is pretty reflective of the album itself: too little, too late.

All Girl Summer Fun Band, or AGSFB, is a Portland-based quartet featuring a twee-pop all-star line-up with Kathy Foster of The Thermals on drums, bass and vocals, Jen Sbragia of The Softies on guitar and vocals, and Kim Baxter on guitar, keyboards, and vocals. After the first song on the record, “Not The One For Me,” kicks in, it’s immediately apparent that AGSFB decided to kick up the distortion and dirty-up their signature sickeningly sweet, clean sound. The change is a positive one at first, harkening a definite 90’s feel à la the Breeders.

But by the time the song “Oh No” comes on, it becomes painfully obvious that while the riffs sound more mature, the actual songwriting and lyrics seem to have degraded in quality. While it’s unfair to expect someone to compromise the rock due to biological limitations, Baxter’s pubescent sounding voice was always complimented by the adolescent subject matter of the first and second records (refer to “Grizzly Bear,” “Lipsmacker Kiss,” and “Video Game Heart”). When contrasted with the heightened attitude of the new record, it falls flat rather than standing out as one of the focal points of their sound like in previous albums.

Essentially, the problems with the album stem from the fact that they spent five years between their last record, 2, and this release, and that bassist Ari Douangpanya left the band after giving birth. The album is simply over-written. They were obviously aiming for a more sophisticated and rock-oriented twee-pop sound like Canada’s Gaze (featuring Rose Melberg, Sbragia’s former The Softies band-mate), but the diversion from their former straightforward twee-pop sound doesn’t work. The few songs on the record that aren’t trying too hard, such as “Trajectory,” or the title track “Looking Into It” are just kind of boring, and miss the spark that fans are used to.

The lyrics are also a huge downfall for the album as a whole. While their lyrics have never been T.S. Eliot Prize worthy, they’ve attempted to write about more grave topics such as greed and death with the same lack of sophistication that they used to write about how Jason Lee is cute (“Jason Lee”), cute boyfriends (“Later Operator”), and about cute boys from tour (“Tour Heart Throb”). This makes the songwriting feel less clever and adorable, and more contrived, like it were bad high school poetry.

That’s not to say the entire album is terrible. A few of the moodier songs that lack the heavy riffage are where this album shines, specifically with the song “Rewind” and its somber, twinkly keyboard accompaniment.

If you’re unfamiliar with AGSFB, don’t bother with this release. If you’re a die-hard AGSFB fan, or post-riot grrrl enthusiast, I’d recommend picking it up. After being dropped by K Records, I imagine they will either go their separate ways or wait another five years for a release. In the meantime, this mediocre release might start to grow on you.

Not Keen on Keane

Keane - Perfect Symmetry

6/10

by Lauren Ciarpelli

English band Keane has always had a signature sound, driven by layered piano tones and catchy, upbeat hooks. This approach seemed to work for them on the first two albums, Hopes and Fears and Under the Iron Sea, as they have sold millions of copies of each and have also received a Grammy nomination for best new artist. The group consists of bassist/pianist/composer Tim Rice-Oxley, vocalist Tom Chaplin, and drummer Richard Hughes, and strays away from standard rock band fare with a complete lack of guitar. Keane takes a surprising break from this successful formula with the release of their newest album, Perfect Symmetry.

Treading away from their previous acoustic affairs, the band has injected the album with an abundance of synthesizers. Keane takes off with opener “Spiralling,” a rave party of a song that displays more dance/electronic influences than any of the others, using multiple synth tracks, upbeat drums, and Tom Chaplin’s catchy vocal melodies. The next three tracks emulate a similar optimistic style, which is thankfully interrupted by “You Don’t See Me,” a piano and drum based ballad with ambient background keys that imitates their original style.

No matter how upbeat the musical style may be, it does not overshadow the depressing and angry lyrics throughout the entire album. During “You Haven’t Told Me Anything,” crybaby Chaplin whines, “Nothing turns out like you want it to / No words can mend this fix I’m in / Hearing those words that I’ll never play/ Right between the eyes I don’t feel a thing.” Even in the song “Love is the End,” he continues his crescendo of depression, stating, “All the principles of love don’t save us.”

Keane seem to enjoy mind-fucking the listener. Compositions that could comfortably provide the soundtrack for a young fawn exploring its first spring morning in a fresh field of daisies are shot to a bloody pulp by Chaplin’s erratically depressing lyrics. It seems that if he didn’t have the band to give him emotional support, Chaplin would probably be discovered facedown in a bubble bath. The mix works as well as water and oil do together, leaving the listener baffled. On top of this, when Keane finally descend into a more downbeat groove, wussy Chaplin finds his pacifier next to his optimism, providing an utter state of confusion.

Perfect Symmetry seems to be Keane’s experimental album, however, the new sound comes off as way too forced, especially when placed next to some of the tracks that do resemble the old sound. The songs are catchy and unique, and maintain the band’s core sound, but fail to provide the amount of charm that they have been known to provide previously.

Oasis Soldiers On

Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul

7.5 / 10

by Luke Hammill

The key to Oasis’ universal appeal is the fact that the Gallagher brothers, the band’s central and only continual members, are huge pricks who write catchy songs that do a pretty good job of convincing people that they aren’t huge pricks. Their latest release, Dig Out Your Soul, is the band’s first new material since 2005. Lead songwriter and guitarist Noel Gallagher said of the new album, “We’ve been focusing ‘round the grooves more this time, the last album was quite ‘songy.’” The result is a cohesive collection of songs that sound refreshing despite not straying too far from the Oasis formula.

“Bag It Up,” a very strong opener, sets the tone for the remainder of the album and provides one of its best moments. Frontman Liam Gallagher wails, “Someone tell me I’m dreaming / The freaks are rising up through the floor,” after a wonderful chord change that’s stylistically reminiscent of The Beatles, one of Oasis’ most obvious influences through the years. Liam’s singing is very strong throughout Dig Out Your Soul, and though his brother Noel may be the band’s biggest songwriting asset, it is Liam’s voice that fuels Oasis’ sound, keeping their simple three-chord structures fresh and interesting. Liam is not the only worthy singer, however. Noel provides a fantastic vocal performance on the churning “Waiting for the Rapture,” one of the album’s strongest songs.

Although Noel handles most of the songwriting duties here, the other band members contribute as well. Liam provides three songs, most notably the heartfelt ballad “I’m Outta Time,” which Noel has described as “one for the ladies.” Placed in the middle of the record, the song is a nice intermission from the louder, abrasive sound Oasis has come to be known for; a speech sample from a John Lennon interview conducted mere days before his death only adds to the emotion. Dig Out’s closer, “Soldier On,” also penned by Liam, combines a groovy main riff with folk-influenced verses, and the repetition of “Soldier on” is a nice montra to end the album with. Rhythm guitarist Gem Archer and bassist Andy Bell crash the family party, contributing “To Be Where There’s Life” and “The Nature of Reality,” respectively. Bell’s song boasts some of Dig Out’s best lyrics: “The nature of reality / Is pure subjective fantasy / Space and time and here and now / Are only in your mind.” Apart from this song, the other lyrics on the album deal mostly with love.

Crafty production makes Dig Out Your Soul a very consistent, cohesive listen throughout. Effects such as sirens and excessive feedback allow the songs to flow together, as if they were linked by a common theme. The album is sometimes a victim of its own consistency There is no “Wonderwall,” “Champagne Supernova,” or “The Importance of Being Idle” here; no one moment that makes the listener say “Wow.” Oasis’ most memorable songs throughout the years have been the “songy” ones, but with the aim to make this album “less songy” they seem to have missed out on creating any new classics. Despite their new “grooves” being somewhat refreshing, Oasis’ formula is sometimes too simple to maximize on this potential opportunity. A band that is more comfortable with jamming could definitely expand upon many of Dig Out’s ideas. Another problem is that Oasis’ trademark guitar-heavy sound is sometimes too guitar-heavy, leaving the rhythm section virtually inaudible (though, this has been a problem throughout Oasis’ entire career). Nevertheless, these are only minor problems and they do not stop Dig Out Your Soul from being an overall entertaining and refreshing listen, reminding us that good pop music still exists, even if it’s made by pricks.