indie rock

Review: Cymbals Eat Guitars – LOSE

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There were several new albums released last week that I had been waiting to grab for months, so it should come as no surprise that this week I’m recommending something from that lineup.  However, in the days prior to last Tuesday, my preliminary research (listening to a whole bunch of old albums/reading the occasional interview) was focused on a different new release in anticipation of a potential future review, an album different than the one mentioned in the above title; considering the other band’s track record, it was a safe assumption that it would have been the “album of the week”.  But it’s the newest release from Cymbals Eat Guitars that has pushed its way into heavy rotation in my music library, and it’s LOSE that is currently climbing up my ever-shifting list of top albums of the year.

LOSE stands out as a guitar-focused, indie rock album at a time when the approach seems almost anachronistic.  Musically it often works as a throwback to a more refined version of emo from early in the last decade (especially in regards to the vocals, which can often be a bit abrasive when it comes to hitting certain notes), though I hesitate to use the term because of its negative connotations these days.  Though the album’s lyrical inspiration was the loss of a close childhood friend during the early years of the band, it’s a mature response that never comes off as pouty or whiny, a characteristic that puts the group above many of the more famous emo acts.

LOSE kicks things off with the stellar “Jackson”, a contender for album opener of the year along with Lost In The Dream‘s “Under the Pressure” and Turn Blue‘s “The Weight of Love”.  “Jackson” is a song that doesn’t telegraph its intentions from the outset, declaring to the listener that “this is going to be one of those epic songs, and you’ll know it from the second we start playing”*; instead, it begins gradually, adding layers of instruments and emotion over the course of its running time.  The build is so natural that it comes as a complete surprise that you start air-drumming and singing along at the top of your longs 3/4 of the way through the song.  By the end though, when reflecting on what you just heard, you can say “oh, I see how they got there.”

*Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, because I love several “epic” songs whose scope is obvious from the outset, but I think it’s more difficult to successfully accomplish the feat in this manner

The album keeps the momentum going with the next two tracks, “Warning” and “XR”.  The former offers an intriguing variation of a traditional punk/emo motif, riding an uptempo riff with a slight tweak in the connecting notes between the chords that is jarring to hear on first listen, but makes sense in context.  “XR” is a harmonica-driven blast of whip-fast earnest punk rock, that makes it seem like the band had been listening to a lot of The Monitor by Titus Andronicus, without actually ripping them off.

The other major highlight of the album is “Laramie”, a big sweeping ballad that pushes and pulls the listener with an abrupt back-and-forth start-stop rhythm, that then switches gears and shifts into a rowdy driving rocker halfway through.  It’s not style-mixing for the sake of it, however; the combination feels organic in the band’s hands.  LOSE ends with “2 Hip Soul”, which follows a similar template, but when it shifts it calls back to the opener “Jackson”, eventually devolving back into the solo piano that began that song, in effect making the album an infinite loop.

LOSE is an incredible accomplishment for Cymbals Eat Guitars, who in some sense lost their way a bit with Lenses Alien after their catchy debut Why There Are Mountains.  However, when looking back it’s easy to see that Lenses Alien was a necessary step in their development, as the band developed their chops a bit more and experimented with different ideas, but simply failing to recall their knack for the memorable melodies that marked their debut.  LOSE combines the best of their previous work, and even then the sum is greater than its parts.

Review: Alvvays – Alvvays

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Summer may be winding down, but luckily it’s not over quite yet; there are still a couple more weekends for you to enjoy some sunshine and relaxation before the horrors of autumn begin.  However, you might be getting a little annoyed with listening to the same Summer Mix playlist on your iTunes–a perfectly understandable concern.  To that end, it is worth checking out the self-titled debut of the sunny beach-pop band Alvvays.

(Ed. note: from what I’ve read about the band, despite the odd spelling, the name is still pronounced “Always”)

There have been several bands that have mined this vein of indie rock in recent years, most notably DIIV and Real Estate; the trademarked trebly guitars laced with reverb, the simplistic percussion, and the general laid-back vibe are all present on the album.  Even though there are many strong similarities between these groups, the upbeat disposition of many of the songs as well as the unique vocals of Molly Rankin help distinguish the group from its peers.  Whereas Real Estate would be perfect for spending the day relaxing by the ocean, Alvvays fits better as the soundtrack to help get you amped on the car ride to the beach.

The album begins with a 1-2 punch of “Adult Diversion” and “Archie, Marry Me”, and it’s easy to see why these two songs were the first singles.  “Adult Diversion” is propelled by a bouncy arpeggiated guitar part and airy vocals, a combination where one can note the apt comparisons to DIIV, but the true engine is the driving bassline, which provides both momentum and a great counterpoint.  “Archie, Marry Me” is a a great pop song with a big chorus, with a style that recalls the Dum Dum Girls and their attempts to capture that 60’s nostalgia haze.  While it’s easy to get caught up in the big sweeping hooks, the best part of the song is actually the feedback-drenched lead guitar in the second verse that provides a necessary subtle edge to the gauzy production.

The album is not without its problems, as the momentum begins to sag around the middle with “The Agency Group” and “Dives”.  The latter is actually a well-done ballad with enough unique touches that are promising for the future, but within the context of the album it just ends up being a drag.  Alvvays is able to avoid falling off the rails with the energetic “Atop A Cake” and its extremely catchy chorus, which should have you singing “How can I lose control when you’re driving from the backseat” long after you’ve finished listening to the album.  Other highlights include “Ones Who Love You”, a great slow number that gradually builds into a shocking climax of “You can’t feel your fucking face” before breaking back down once again, and the midtempo song “Party Police”, which is built around an intriguing minor-key guitar lick and finds Rankin hitting an unexpected high note like Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries or Sinéad O’Connor.

When Alvvays is hitting on all cylinders, it’s a fun ride; unfortunately, there are a few too many moments when it stalls.  That said, it’s a solid debut that can easily find a place in any future Summer Mix, and the band displays enough talent that it’s worth watching what they do in the future.

Review: Spoon – They Want My Soul

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We’ll just get this out of the way early: They Want My Soul is a fantastic album, and is a worthy addition to the Spoon canon.  Once again, the band pulls off the incredibly difficult trick of writing a record that is true to their song, without sounding as if they’re recycling the same old ideas.  Each track that reminds the listener of an older Spoon song doesn’t come off as a retread but instead forges new territory, and then the other songs finds Spoon branching off into new and exciting territories while still maintaining their identity for articulate, incisive music.

Each Spoon album reveals itself over time to have certain musical themes–Girls Can Tell focused on quiet, somber reflections, Kill The Moonlight found an edge through its use of piano, Gimme Fiction pulled back with its use of guitar, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga was straight pop music, and Transference deconstructed pop music.  If I were to pinpoint a musical theme with They Want My Soul, it’d be something along the lines of seeking to revive one’s inner spirit.  It seems self-evident if one looks at the album title itself, and the fact that for the first time in their career have a song and album share the same title seems to underline this.  The song itself brings to mind a similar sentiment expressed in Wilco’s classic “Theologians”, but done this time with a bit more aggression and rebelliousness–not just in the lyrics, but in the attack of the guitars.  There similar strains of this sentiment throughout, such as in the swagger of a song like “Rainy Taxi”, or in the defiance of “Inside Out”, with its aversion to “holy rollers”.

Spoon even is able to accomplish something that most rock bands at the turn of the century could only hope to pull off, and that’s to incorporate dance and electronic elements without coming off as gimmicky.  “Outlier” is what Better Than Ezra was trying to accomplish with their album How Does Your Garden Grow? (and that’s coming from a rare fan of that album), in that the electronic percussion and dance beat seem to be an organic part of the song, and the processed guitars and keyboards actually enhance the song by providing both neat-sounding noises and actual melodies.  “New York Kiss”, a collaboration with Semisonic’s former leader Dan Wilson (and the writer who helped Adele into a sensation, most notably with “Someone Like You”; a collaboration that’s hardly been mentioned in most reviews for the record) is an even deeper foray into dance territory, and is an irresistible pleasure to boot.  My only issue is that I can’t think of the specific early-2000’s rock act that it reminds me of, but that in and of itself does not detract from the joy that naturally comes through when bouncing around to its beat.

Considering those two songs, it then becomes extremely irritating when you find critics complain that TWMS sounds like a typical Spoon record; go back and listen to those two songs, and then remind me again where Spoon delved into those styles previously.  And these are people that are actually paid to write about music and presumably have ears.  That said, when Spoon goes into their wheelhouse, they can still pack a punch.  There’s their usual excellent cover, this time a version of Ann-Margret’s “I Just Don’t Understand”, where the band once again adopts that smokey and dark jazzy swing that they do so well, as well as their own brilliant original “Do You”.  I’m glad that radio has switched over to this single instead of “The Rent I Pay” (a song where the previous criticism of repetition was more valid, but a song whose quality is strengthened when placed within the album as a whole than as a stand-alone track), since it’s hard to get enough of that deep groove and those ooh-ooh-ooh-oohs.  Careful listens eventually reveal nifty little details, like the delicate layering of subtle background synth parts or the parabolic nature of the ooh-ooh parts, all while maintaining an infectious melody throughout.

That pretty much encapsulates the album as a whole as well–it’s been playing constantly in my car, on my stereo, and on my iPod since its release, and like all the Spoon albums before it, it’s unlikely to wear out its welcome anytime soon.

The Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Dilemma

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The story of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is one we’ve seen countless times before, and just as unfair as with many other cases–band debuts with huge buzz and overnight success, becoming a shorthand for the Hot New Thing, difficult followup alienates the tastemakers and the band’s profile begins to dwindle, band now exists in shadow of former glory and is now shorthand for “hey, weren’t we crazy back in [insert year]?”  Granted, since we’re talking about indie rock bands in the new millennium, the full scale of their trajectory is of a much smaller scale than previous decades, but it’s a familiar pattern nonetheless.  Even we here at Rust Is Just Right, fans of the band that we are, have added insult to injury by letting their most recent release pass by without much comment, letting it get lost amid a sea of other stellar releases that week.

However, since the newest iteration of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is set to play Portland this Sunday, now is the perfect time to correct our previous omission and attempt to put the band’s career in context, and also to help give the band a needed reassessment.

The story of the unexpected success of the band’s debut is still remembered today, as the band was able to sell over a hundred thousand copies of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah even without the benefit of record label support, based purely on the power of word-of-mouth and shares through music blogs.  The album eventually made its way into the hands of various critics, and with a helpful push particularly from Pitchfork, the band became indie darlings and were selling out big halls while at the same time individually mailing out copies of their record.  To give you an idea of their success at the time, the opener on their tour was The National, who were supporting their just-released classic Alligator.  Today, it’s a different story, as The National can headline festivals while CYHSY plugs away at tiny clubs, but there’s no hard feelings–Matt Berninger does a guest vocal spot on the band’s new album.

While the story remains compelling, many might be surprised that the actual music still holds up years later.  Clap Your Hands Say Yeah didn’t exactly spawn a legion of odd-voiced, delicate indie-dance rock imitators, so their unique sound stands out even today.  The sparse arrangements serve the songs well, and the melodies remain strong and filled with hooks.  If I hear “Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood” or “In This Home On Ice” pop up on my iTunes, I can still sing along with ease.

It was with their next album, Some Loud Thunder, that the band began to lose support; you can probably pinpoint the exact moment, which is when the heavily-distorted title track opens the album.  I believe that initial impression turned off most people, as many probably reached for their album once it started playing and asked “Did I get a warped copy?”  However, I personally eventually found some charm to that abrasive opening, and admired the ballsiness of the band’s maneuver to dare people who were merely hoping to catch the tail end of a trend to keep listening.   The opening lines are also a brilliant response to the incredible hype that the band had received: “All this talking, you’d think I’d have something to say, but I’m just talking.”  There was no hidden agenda; the guys were just interested in making music.

The album also features a couple of the group’s best singles, the twisted-but-goofy “Satan Said Dance” and the dramatic “Yankee Go Home”, but they failed to gain traction outside of a devoted fanbase.  Otherwise, the album was filled with dreamy textures and various sound experiments, which work well if one is committed to listening to the album but can present problems for the casual listener.  But when you strip away all the extra layers, there are still beautiful songs below the surface.  For example, here’s a gorgeous if haunting solo acoustic performance of “Underwater (You and Me)”.

After the intentionally confrontational Some Loud Thunder, the band regrouped with the bouncy and fun Hysterical, trading experimental rock for more keyboards and a dance beat.  It’s certainly an enjoyable record, and one that works extremely well live, though only a handful songs leave any sort of lasting impression.  “Same Mistake” is an energetic rave-up, and “Adam’s Plane” is a nice dramatic ballad that builds to an epic finish, but in between those two songs the album merely seems to float from one track to the next.

Even with a pivot toward more crowd-pleasing material, the band’s audience continued to shrink.  During the Some Loud Thunder tour, they sold out the Roseland Theater, one of the biggest venues in Portland; for the Hysterical tour, they downgraded significantly to the Hawthorne Theatre.  Despite this, the band’s performance actually improved, as the smaller size of the venues seemed to be a more comfortable fit.  The band was also helped by the fact that the people who showed up to see them were actual devoted fans, who had a great time providing an energetic response to the material and dancing along to the music, and yelling out the lyrics as needed.

After a few years off, the band returns in a radically different form, existing in recording form as basically a duo.  Alec Ounsworth and his distinctive voice remain as he tackles most of the guitars and keyboards as well, with some help from drummer Sean Greenhalgh.  The result is a careful, more subdued record that falls more in line with recent bedroom-pop-like efforts, and one can sense an element of restraint throughout the album.  The result is an unusual combination of an air of calm mixed with a bit of unease, as the sounds themselves are soothing but they’re seemingly pushing against an unseen force to prevent a full explosion of emotion.  Keyboards are a more dominant presence on the album, with single-note guitar lines cutting through to provide some edge and movement at particular moments, such as in the single “As Always” (embedded above) or to propel the momentum forward, as in “Coming Down”.

Overall, it’s an intriguing step forward for the band, and one that shows that while the band may be content to have a lower profile, the important thing is that they are still committed to releasing new music.  Looking back, it was clear that the “living room” tour that the band did a few months prior to the release of Only Run was an indication of this new direction, and perhaps a sign of things to come.  The band has shifted to an even smaller venue this time as it passes through Portland, as they perform within the intimate confines of Mississippi Studios.  But if previous events are any indication, it will be an even better experience.

Sophomore Slump or Underrated Gems? Yuck and Cults

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In recent years I developed a scientific but informal method to determining the best albums of the year.  It’s scientific in its attempt at objectivity (number of plays over the year), but informal in that the order was only for the purpose of guiding friends as to which albums they would get the most bang for their back.  For the year of 2011, this process determined that the self-titled debut of Cults was the fourth-best album of the year, while Yuck’s album (coincidentally enough, also a self-titled debut) took the crown at number one.  Since then, I can honestly say those assessments hold up, since I continue to listen to those albums on a regular basis (in fact, if I re-ranked the list, I’d bump Cults up into the number two slot, close behind Yuck (sorry Girls and The Antlers)).

Is there a reason to pair these bands together, besides future narrative convenience?  In a way, probably.  As has been the case for most rock bands for over a decade now, both of these bands took their major inspirations from the past and offered their own reinterpretations of their favorite old bands.  If you want to be mean, you could say the urge was not to push boundaries and create new genres, but to affirm a love of the old sounds that they had heard before, and hey what do you know, let’s try to do the same things ourselves.  I myself don’t want to be mean, so don’t pin that accusation on me (others, however, have no problem whatsoever with this approach and react in a way that makes you want to ask if there’s anything you can do to console them, because it seems as if somebody in the band ran over their dog (possibly on multiple occasions)).

What distinguished Yuck and Cults from their colleagues was the era of their particular nostalgia.  While several bands trafficked in 80’s revivalism (from post-punk to top-40 sounds) or hearkened back to 70’s arena rock, Yuck and Cults chose different routes: early-90s guitar-rock for Yuck and 60’s-era pop for Cults.  After years of call-backs to Joy Division, Gang of Four, or God forbid, Led Zeppelin, critics at least would have a different set of bands to name-drop in describing each group’s sound (well, Dinosaur Jr. at the very least–that was the one that got the most references from what I’ve read for Yuck; I never saw too many specifics for Cults).  But reminding me of some of my favorite bands only gets you so far; I was more than anything impressed with the execution of each band.

Take “Get Away”, the track that kicks off the Yuck album: the super-fuzzed-out rhythm guitar instantly catches your attention, and then the delicious lead guitar line, both in terms of melody and tone, kicks in through the mix with a circular riff that matches the song’s theme.  But it’s the little moments that add up that make me truly appreciate the song:  the excellent use of feedback as lead parts in the second verse, a post-chorus that truly builds on the chorus and leads perfectly back to the verse, and a bridge where everything drops out but a bassline reminiscent of the Pixies before everyone jumps back in for one last go-around.  It’s early 90’s alternative done with an ear for perfect songcraft, and the only thing that’s infuriating is that the band members are even younger than I am.

For Cults, the comparisons are more general: the sunny nature of Madeline Follin’s vocals and the bright happy melodies do a lot to evoke an air of nostalgia, and bring to mind memories of Phil Spector and old-time girl groups like The Ronettes.  It takes a lot to make this style seem like more than a gimmick, and over the course of an album Cults managed to do this successfully.  There are subtle modern touches that provide enough of a twist to capture your attention, especially with the drum programming, and the seemingly carefree vocals mask lyrics that are more melancholic than expected.  And I have to love a band that’s willing to do not only music videos, but videos that can be best described as “the director decided to get stoned and watch Lost Highway, and oh yeah, let’s make it a bizarre love story too”.

It’s easy then to imagine the excitement I felt when I learned that these two bands would be releasing new albums in 2013.  I was excited to see what new influences the bands were willing to explore, or if they decided to stick with their old formula, that frankly sounded fine as well–it was a win-win as far as I was concerned.  But soon after the announcements of the new albums, bad news followed: Yuck announced that lead singer Daniel Blumberg had left the band (and would record an album as Hebronix), and Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin had broken up as a couple, but in both cases, new albums were going to be released anyway.  This was just the kind of news that makes a fan more than a bit wary of what could possibly be released, or worry that there would even be a release at all.

Each banded handled the turmoil in different ways: Cults agreed to several interviews detailing the process of making their new album and providing further background of the romantic-but-not-band breakup, and Yuck just started releasing music.  The first single after Blumberg’s departure that Yuck released was “Rebirth”, which is just too on-the-nose to not be something that was planned.  It did signal a new influence for the band, as they seemingly had decided to switch their focus from American alternative-rock to British shoegaze, and it seemed that the band had internalized the latter style as well as they had the former on their debut.  In a normal year, I would have said that “Rebirth” was the best My Bloody Valentine song released that year; since hell froze over and My Bloody Valentine actually released a new album last year, I would revise my statement and say it was the third or fourth-best MBV song of the year.

The Cults approach worked too, because at least with continued engagement with the press indicated that a follow-up was not a tossed-off effort, and that they were committed to continuing the band.  And their choice of a teaser single took the opposite approach of Yuck: from a stylistic perspective, “I Can Hardly Make You Mine” would fit right in at just about any point in the track-listing of Cults, though there were some subtle differences in the instrumentation that pointed to some growth (synths that were higher up in the mix, a more dominant guitar part, and livelier drumming all pointed to exciting possible new directions for the album).

With these songs, optimism began to build up once again, and I gladly purchased Glow and Behold and Static as soon as they were released.  I then went through my usual ritual, ripping the CD and importing the tracks onto my iPod (to be played during the next workout), and then putting the physical discs in my car (to be played on my next drive).  And just as was the case with their debuts, my reaction to each album was that of near-instant love.   Now here we are a few months later and both albums remain in my car as part of the regular rotation, and when I write up my review of the best albums of 2013, both albums should have a place on the list.

But apparently I’m in the minority with this opinion (well, a minority of a minority–we’re talking about indie bands that are somewhat obscure even by indie rock standards).  While Static actually has a similar Metacritic score to Cults, it failed to generate as much press or buzz, and failed to appear on year-end lists at the same rate that I remembered that their debut did.  And there was a huge nosedive in critical appreciation of Glow and Behold as opposed to Yuck.  Another bad sign was the lack of local promotion for either of their shows in Portland, which is pretty amazing considering that the backstories for each album should be a hook for both critics and their subsequent audience.  The articles practically wrote themselves.

At least with some critics, it appeared that some were unwilling to let go of the past.  This is especially evident in AllMusic’s review of Glow and Behold, which can’t seem to accept the fact that the band decided to continue without Blumberg, and subsequently would not sound the exact same.  It may be just that I personally found the increased emphasis on shoegaze to be a more interesting route to take than an attempt to ape Blumberg’s whine, or that I had fonder memories of Teenage Fanclub than others (when Yuck first came out, I remarked that it seemed like they were the one band that learned that Bandwagonesque was SPIN’s album of the year over Nevermind and seemed to agree with the result; the Teenage Fanclub influence was even more pronounced on Glow and Behold, with the album’s more focus on brighter melodies and cleaner guitars).  It was the same case with the more negative reviews of Static, though in a way in reverse: reviews would say how there was little deviation from the first album, when there was an entire two-thirds of the album that had a darker mood and more challenging instrumentation than anything on the debut.

So it’s clear what my answer to the title question is, and for what it’s worth, the few of my friends that care about this sort of thing tend to agree.  I’m fine with enjoying great songs like “We’ve Got It” and “Middle Sea” (a song that would be near the top of my list of best singles of the year) on my own, but I just hope that we won’t end up seeing more great bands like these two get caught up in the downswing of the hype-cycle, despite continuing to produce great music, as we’ve seen plenty of times before.  In other words, when album number three comes out, I’ll be there.