Weekend Record Wrap-up: 13-19 December

If this blog were a magazine, than the days of the week would be the pages. And the last pages of magazines are usually where you find the reviews. It is by following this line of reasoning that I have come to devote the last page (day) of the week (issue) to a re-cap of the albums that I have acquired in just the last week, from Sunday to Saturday. Hence (and in a somewhat particular order), the Weekend Record Wrap-Up:

Built to Spill – There Is No Enemy, 2009: Warner Bros. I’ve been known to enjoy some Built to Spill from time to time. I’ve never seen them live, but I have enough of an interest to have tracked down almost their entire discography (save their two earliest releases, before they signed to Warner Bros.) and in my estimation this is one of the best albums they’ve put out. It might be too early to say that they peaked in 2006 when they released You In Reverse, but I can say with whatever degree of certainty opinions may contain that that’s their best album to date. There is no Enemy retains a lot of what made You in Reverse so likable in the first place: trippy, jammy guitar loops and processed synths, all very thick and layered. While some tracks might take this a bit too far (“Done”, for instance), I think the only thing hindering the enjoyment of aspects like that is the impatience of the listener. Got something better to do than listen to some sweet indie rock? Well please, don’t let us keep you. Not a bad follow-up to You In Reverse, though that remains my personal favorite (and Keep it Like a Secret would take third). I would recommend them both, for comparison. 7.5/10 [Listen If You Like: Dinosaur Jr., Treepeople, Pavement]

Foals – Antidotes, 2008: Sub Pop I have just come across this band, and for now I’m reasonably impressed. Though lacking the intricacy and density of say, Don Caballero or Battles, Foals still manages to imitate the sound pretty well, while not making the whole experience too cerebral. This might make them more accessible than bands like The Edmund Fitzgerald or Shellac, but the poppy dilution and relatively rudimentary time signatures aren’t going to earn them any street-cred with crowds of fans who listen to their music with a protractor. 7.5/10 [Listen If you Like: Q and not U, Minus the Bear, Bloc Party]

Marduk – Wormwood, 2009: Regain Records Alternately swift and sludgy, rarely never brutal, Marduk is pretty much what I imagine when I imagine black metal (or thrash metal, or sludge metal, or whatever the nerds are calling it). Aggressive riffs and machine gun double bass; I can take it in small doses, but it’s really not for me. I could hardly imagine what a lengthy festival, say three days of nothing but these kinds of bands, might mean for someone like me. Just one big high-gain communal marble gargle. I’d be a changed man. The chances that the change would be from living to dead are fairly good, so I think I’ll keeps mah distance. But if you like metal more than me, than you’ll probably like this album more than me too. 5/10 [Listen If You Like: Dimmu Borgir, Napalm Death, Funeral Mist]

Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures, 2009: Self-Released 2 or 3 times listening is what it might take to really get into this record. Unless you’re into that kind of thing. I don’t know. But it's always worth checking out a supergroup. 7/10 [Listen If You Like: Queens of the Stone Age, Led Zeppelin, Muse]

Jay Z – The Blueprint: 3, 2009: Roc Nation I’m a little late getting my hands on this one too, but (and especially since I don’t listen to radio) that just means it hasn’t been played out yet. I haven’t killed this album like I did the Kid CuDi one a few months ago (who even manages to make an appearance on one track with HOV), but that’s because there’s more on this album that’s worth listening to. Best since the Black Album.

8.5/10 [Listen If You Like: Jay-Z, Hip-Hop music, music in general]

Cobalt – Gin, 2009: Profound Love Records The metal’s alright, but it doesn’t really bring a lot to the table. I’m spoiled by innovation, and when it’s lacking I’m disappointed. Overall, Gin isn’t a bad album; it’s just that the bear and chicken, squawking growling vocals is more than I can stand. The whole chain-gang slave chant thing was a little weird too. It’s certainly brutal enough, I just can’t think of a time when I’d want to listen to this album, specifically, when another one wouldn’t do just as well. But just as with Marduk, if metal is what gets you off, you’ll most likely like this more than me. 4/10 [Listen If You Like: Opeth, car wrecks, industrial accidents]

Baroness – Blue Record, 2009: Relapse As a fan of prog-metal (prog-anything, really), this albums is pretty far up my alley. There’s not too much I can think of to say that wasn’t said two posts ago, so I guess just go listen! 8/10 [Listen If You Like: Mastodon, High On Fire, The Sword]

The Mountain Goats – Life of the World to Come, 2009: 4AD Releasing their 17^th studio album in 18 years, the Mountain Goats are determined to prove to us all that quantity does in fact, outweigh quality. In a physical sense at least. The fact that this album is overtly biblically themed does nothing to help it’s case, but my main gripe is that it just feels and seems and sounds like more of the same. This could be attributed to the single, Genesis 3:23, having been released over three months prior to the album and by the time the album came out I had no longer associated the single with it, and hence the eerie familiarity. Or it could be due to the fact that this band has been releasing albums for longer than over a quarter of the world’s population has been alive. This album might please old fans and maybe attract some new listeners, but they will never (EVER! And I say this with all confidence…) write a better song than No Children, the pathos of which was only fully realized when juxtaposed as the opening theme for adult swim’s Moral Orel for one single episode. (PLEASE! If you are squeamish or easily offended, I would advise you not to click that last link. But if you haven’t seen this before and your funny bone’s got a bit of a bend to it, it’s thoroughly enjoyable. ~HL) 6.5/10 [Listen If You Like: Death Cab For Cutie, Deerhunter, Asobi Seksu]

"What are you trying to tell me kid, that you don't like Zep?"

Them Crooked Vultures- Them Crooked Vultures, 2009: Self-Released

Though rumored to have been in the works for years, an LA-based group calling themselves Them Crooked Vultures have released their first album together just last November. Having chosen this record based solely on it's name and recent release date, I was a at first little disappointed by their self-released, self-titled debut. It sounded like too many other bands I had heard before for me to really consider it. I’ve been experiencing this sonic déjà vu a lot lately, I have gotten used to hearing nothing new.

It was at or about the third or fourth track that I figured this band, TCV for short, deserved a little more looking into. Turns out the reason TCV sounds like so many other bands I’d heard before, is because TCV was so many other bands I’d heard before. It seems I had stumbled upon another supergroup, giving new meaning to the phrase “Power Trio”. With a combined career length that spans almost a century of Rock and Roll, the lineup is certainly impressive. On guitar: Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal); on drums, where he belongs, in my opinion: Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Probot, Foo Fighters); and on bass guitar, and pretty much everything else: Mr. John Paul Jones (Led Zepplin).

Tracks like “Elephants”, “New Fang” and “Reptiles” sufficiently get the Led out, and you can definitely hear the influence Homme has on most of the album (most notably on the tracks “Gunmen”, “Dead End Friends” and Spinning in Daffodils”) . Also, Dave Grohl is infinitely preferable to me sitting down than standing up. He is a rock drummer before he is anything else. If this band were made up of different people (people who I weren’t pretty confident knew what they’re doing), this album would definitely come off as hackneyed and sloppy. The fact remains though, that they’re all pretty good at what they do, which makes it that much easier to get away with ripping themselves off. And nobody really cares when you do that anyway.

While lyrics like “fictionary” won’t earn them any points in my book, I’m willing to overlook such obvious grammatical foibles in the presence of heavy riffs and some nasty synths. Nothing about their name suggests a strict adherence to the conventions of written (or spoken) English anyway. Despite never actually going up to “eleven”, this album does know how to rock. It’s an album that you more than likely will have to listen to more than once. It’s a grower, not a shower (and yes, that is a cock rock analog).

Overall: 3 thumbs up, or 7 out of 10

Baroness, Blue Record: relapse, 2009

What is regarded as the follow up to 2007’s Red Album (named Metal Album of the Year, by Revolver magazine), Baroness’s Blue Record has clawed its way to the top of Decibel’s 4o Most Extreme Albums of 2009. It’s pretty good. Baroness has a familiar sound that made it easy for me to connect to them. I had not heard their full length debut, so Blue Record was for me to be their introduction. The most present (and persistent) influence on the album, that I can detect at least, is Mastodon. Their brutal harmonies and southern riffs, down to the tone of the guitar on tracks like “Jake’s Leg”, “Swollen and Halo” or “War, Wisdom and Rhyme” reminded me of Crack the Skye, which had been released in March, 7 months earlier. Now I’m not here to argue over who paved what. As far as I’m concerned, this is just what metal from Georgia sounds like. I’m also not here to pretend that I know enough about metal to say that Blue Record is the best or most extreme of anything (I do know that I happen to like Crack the Skye a wee bit more, but that’s due to a deeper loyalty to Mastodon). I am here though, to tell you how good Blue Record is, and it is pretty damn good. It’s not just good for a metal album, it good for an album. So good that I give it four thumbs up:

Monsters of Folk, Folking Rock

Monsters of Folk began in 2004 as a collaborative effort between Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Conor Oberst & Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes), and M. Ward. Their self titled debut in late September 2009 was highly regarded by critics, which may or may not come as a surprise. Rolling Stone, Q, and Mojo magazines all gave the album four out of five stars and Under the Radar gave it a 7 out of 10 (which may not seem high, but they didn’t give anything higher than an eight this season; because it’s cool to like stuff – just not too much).

I certainly wasn’t disappointed with what I heard, but sometimes people with nothing nice to say, say something anyway. One publication that didn’t join in the praise party was People, who weren’t inclined to give higher than 2 ½ out of 4 stars. Chuck Arnold, in an October issue of People magazine writes, “There’s so much talent…that you kind of expect more from them.” Which is not unfounded, just perhaps a bit misguided. I understand that as the audience we set the bar a little higher for supergroups; our expectations, ready to be exceeded if not matched, are already in place from their main projects, of which we are presumably so fond, so when we’re not blown away the only thing left to feel is disappointment. But what Else have they been up to? It’s not like they’ve been hording these songs for 5 years and have just now decided to bestow their genius upon us…

Since 2004, M. Ward has released three albums, one EP, and one album with She & Him (another collaboration with actress Zooey Deschanel with a follow up planned for release sometime next year), as well as contributing on a handful of other albums by other artists. Bright Eyes has put out three albums and two EPs and Jim James, and in addition to two albums and extensive touring with My Morning Jacket which brought him twice to the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival (which I saw), once to Mountain Jam (which I also saw), and to Madison Square Garden on New Year’s Eve 2009 (yep, saw that one too), has also released under the name Yim Yames a Geroge Harrison Tribute EP which has led some critics to compare this supergroup with the likes of The Traveling Wilburys (though a more fitting analog might be The Highwaymen, as they had four members and the Wilburys five, but it’s the same point to be made). On top of all that, and touring together, they’ve all been on each other’s albums. Thereby, as individual artists, they have each contributed to the other’s body of work, and in a sense Monsters of Folk is just the concentration of a large collaborative effort.

So what the fuck, Chuck? What do you want from Monsters of Folk that the combined 15 (or so) albums of its members haven’t given you in the last five years? You should consider yourself lucky they even let people like you listen to music. The vocals are unmistakable, but the musical influences are often far more subtle. Rather than a bone-crushing contest between creative giants, it appears to be business as usual for the Monsters. From what I perceive their roles in their respective main projects to be, it is not a stretch to imagine that they wouldn’t take the chance to let someone else steer the ship for a while, and just navigating. There seems to be a fairly even distribution of creative influence, so if you (reader) are a fan of any of their other works, there will definitely be something on here for you. However, If you’re just looking for another My Morning Jacket or Bright Eyes release to hold you over until the next “real” album comes out, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment, so if you don’t like it you have no one but yourself to blame.

Chuck Arnold, Student Body President - Class of '56

(A New Kind of) Muscial Record

Record: Deepest Concert (geographically, not metaphoraclly)

Record Holder: Katie Melua

Back in October, 2006, Jazz/Blues artist Katie Meula played two half hour sets on the Troll A Offshore Gas Platform in the Troll Gas Field, at a recorded depth of 994 ft (303m) below sea level. The scant audience of 20 rig workers had won tickets to the event. Presumably, they had all called the same radio station that day, as it is the only radio station whose signal is strong enough to be picked up that far off the coast of Norway. This record proves once again that there are trolls pretty much everywhere, all over the Norwegian countryside.

Record: Fastest MC

Record Holder: Chojin (born Domingo Edjang Moreno)

Spanish rapper Chojin, with one of those little upward slanting accent marks over the 'i', broke the record for fastest MC by pronouncing (and pronouncing correctly) 921 syllables in one minute in front of Guinness officials in Madrid in December, 2008, surpassing the previous record of 852 syllables. This may sound astonishing, but it sounds to me only slightly faster than the average native Spanish speaker. See for yourself. This Beat's from Europe...

Record: Longest Individual Drum Marathon

Record Holder: Russ Prager

In March of 2009, good ol' boy Russ Prager showed the world that sometimes slow and unsteady can win the race too, by drumming for 120 hours at a Guitar Center in Sacramento and claiming the title of Longest Marathon Drummer. While this is all very impressive, there seem to be few regulations regarding what constitutes 'stopping' and how many slip ups results in disqualifications. Here he is at hour 22, and again 10 hours later... Champions don't make excuses, Russ.

When consulting the Guinness Book, most of the musical achievements could be easily placed into two categories: feats of size or feats of speed. Aside from being an awesome name for an amphetamine-addled metal band, The Feats of Speed is something we, as Americans, should excel at and SUV's, the super-size and Enzyte all testify to the fact that we want bigger and harder. Therefore, the obstacle is ours to overcome. Let's build the largest, longest, loudest synthesizer this world has ever seen. And let's do this as fast as possible...

The Greatest Albums of the Last Decade: A Record Collection in Retrospect

“I can tell you how I got from Deep Purple to Howlin’ Wolf in 25 moves…”

As the first decade of the 21^st century wanes, I am more inclined toward reflection, reconnection and introspection. But apart from channeling the late Johnnie Cochran, I’ve also been sifting through the sandbox of my (digital) record collection, one figurative grain at a time, moving the mountain as it were, and in the process creating a whole new filing system. For instance, if I want to find the song Landslide, by Fleetwood Mac, I have to remember that 'I bought it for someone in the fall of 1983' pile, but didn’t give it to them for personal reasons. It’s comforting. But that’s already too many High Fidelity references for one day. In the last ten years, 950 new releases (give or take a few) have one way or another, at one time or another, found their way into my hands. From this I have chosen to distill the best; the hundred greatest albums of the decade.

As I see it right now, there are two fundamental problems with this idea: one that I can solve fairly easily, and one that you as a reader can solve for me (which also sounds fairly easy). The first problem is that not all albums are created equal, yet all deserve reasonably equal consideration. How can a double disk, 28 track album be weighed equally against an album whose scant ten tracks clock in at barely over thirty minutes? How can two things that are inherently unequal be measured equally against one another? Rather than incite a race riot, I decided to leave the paradoxes to Zeno and have concieved a whole bevy of auxiliary categories, or divisional awards, to recognize the albums that didn't, couldn't, or shouldn’t have made The List. That is the fairly easy solution to the first problem. The second problem is that the pool of potential candidates is so vast that ultimately it’s impossible to keep track of everything that’s come out in the last ten years. Things have fallen through the cracks.

This is where you, the reader, can help. Send me your favorite albums. Not the actual albums, just the names of the artist and the title. It doesn’t have to be more than a few, or even just one. Tell me what's up. What’s moved you the most? What CD did you buy, or download, or hear somewhere that you couldn't get out of your head, that you still listen to, and that hasn’t grown old? Throw your favorites into the mix and see where they fall among the 100 Greatest Albums: 2000-2009. This window for submissions will be open for the next, oh say, 4 weeks. Sometime around New Year's, The List will be posted and all submissions (while just as appreciated) will only be considered for the auxiliary categories. There's no time to waste. Happy listening, and happy reading.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Proving For Over a Quarter of a Century That You Can't Kill Rock and Roll, and it Completely Refuses to Die...

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