Brakes - Touchdown (2009)

At the heart of Brighton 4-piece band Brakes is a supergroup of sorts formed of members of British Sea Power, The Electric Soft Parade and Tenderfoot. They released their debut album Give Blood back in 2004 as a casual side-project to surprisingly positive critical acclaim. A wild, unpredictable mix of one-minute-long in-your-face rockers, country-pop numbers, great cover songs and comical swipes at the music industry, the album was a breath of fresh air at a time where every single guitar band in the UK tried to replicate the sound of Gang of Four. The side project became a full-time job for the four Brakes members and they quickly returned with a sophomore album one year later. Boosted by a bigger budget, tighter songs and polished production, The Beatific Visions was a logical step forward for the band. Three years later, Brakes are back with Touchdown, and they’re sounding better than ever.

This lot have become notorious for genre-hopping their way across one album, and they’re back at it on this third effort. Touchdown offers a stunning variety of styles ranging from radio-friendly pop-rock to country and even jocky cock-rock. Compared to their previous two albums though, everything feels a lot more concise. Opener “Two Shocks”, easily one of the best songs of the album, gets the ball rolling with a cool Silversun Pickups riff, some great lyrics from frontman Eamon Hamilton and a heavy-as-hell guitar finale. “Don’t Take Me To Space(Man)” is next and it’s one of the more radio-ready songs on there, recalling Oasis with the straight-forward guitar, Noel Gallagher life-embracing lyrics and big-time chorus. Speaking of songs with commercial potential, there’s no doubt in my mind “Worry About It Later” and “Hey Hey” will appear in trailers for big-budget American movies at some point during the year. The cute indie pop sound of the former would be the perfect soundtrack for the latest Michael Cera comedy and the Vines meets the Subways monster-riff of the latter should score the latest American Pie spin-off.

Elsewhere, Brakes pay tribute to their 80’s alt-rock heroes and the result is nothing less than stellar. “Crush On You” takes you all the way back to Surfer Rosa and the glory days of the Pixies while “Oh! Forever” is 100% The Jesus and Mary Chain (a band they’ve already covered beautifully on Give Blood). The band manages to push both songs beyond simple homage and turn them into full-fledged Brakes songs that could compete with the best from their catalogue. Continuing the trend established on The Beatific Visions, Hamilton is a lot less humoristic in his writing and vocal performances. His lyrics aren’t any less clever or enjoyable though, as shown on the lovely “Why Tell The Truth (When It’s Easier To Lie”: “I’m gonna tell you why it is that I drink my days away, it’s ‘cause the beer helps the cigarettes go down” Another returning trend from their sophomore album is the inclusion of a sprawling, slow-paced closing number, and this time they even added a hidden 60’s pop song at the end.

This is by far the best and most consistent album of Brakes’ short career. They managed to retain the genre-crossing playfulness of their debut while trimming down the filler and greatly expanding their song-writing ability. The numerous musical allusions will delight all the Indie geeks out there while the big-time rockers like “Hey Hey” are a perfect fit for the radio stations. Touchdown has a little something for everyone and strengthens Brakes’ status as one of the more reliable bands in the UK right now.

8/10

Harlem Shakes - Technicolor Health (2009)

According to Wikipedia, the Harlem Shake is a type of dance that dates back to the early 80’s but became mainstream in 2001 when rapper G-Dep had it featured in the video for “Let’s Get It”. Now, the band the Harlem Shakes are actually NOT from Harlem. These pricks are from Brooklyn. But it has come to my understanding that they are big fans of Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and the entire Badboy roster, hence the reference to the G-Dep video. These facts have been checked and double-checked. Anyway, the Shakes bursted into Indie Consciousness around 2007 with the release of a fun little EP called Burning Birthdays. Their addictive garage pop led them to be compared to everyone from The Strokes to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! (due to the frontman’s yelpie singing). Since then, they’ve spent a lot of time touring with every buzz band you can think of (Vampire Weekend and Arctic Monkeys just to name two) before eventually heading to the studio to record their proper debut full-length with New York producer extraordinaire Chris Zane (Les Savy Fav, The Walkmen, Asobi Seksu). Hopefully all of this insane name-droppage improves my traffic. YEAH!

Technicolor Health starts off on a really optimistic note that pretty much sets the tone for the whole record. Opener “Nothing But Change II” obviously refers to upcoming changes (in OBAMERICA) while the chorus for “Strictly Game” goes “This will be a better year!” Given the recent political happenings in the US, you can’t help but make instant links to the promising new administration and Obamarama. Beyond the optimistic lyrical content, the music itself is quite uplifting too. The songs are really well produced and offer a sparkling mix of jangly guitars, bubbly keyboards, various percussions, catchy horns and a truckload of doo-wop-inspired harmonies. Some of the songs on this debut are a little less immediate than the ones from their ’07 EP, but all of them are a lot more fleshed out. Some brand new classic rock influences have crept into the mix and the singing even recalls young Bob Dylan/old-school Americana in places. The lyrics are also surprisingly enjoyable throughout. I rarely pay much attention to the lyrical content of my 2009 INDIE POP ALBUMS, but there are some real gems spread throughout.

The New Pornographers is one band that definitely springs to mind when going through the album’s massive amount of hooks, harmonies and synth-laden melodies. Like AC Newman and the Justice League of Canada, the Shakes are quite adept at writing enjoyable pop songs with great choruses. Seriously, these songs will be stuck in your head for a while. I wouldn’t be surprised if “Sunlight” ended up in some sort of iPod ad before the end of the year because that thing is catchy as all hell. “Winter Water” also delivers the goods, both in terms of monstrous choruses and clever lyrics. Meanwhile, “Natural Man” builds up on energetic percussions and guitar strumming before exploding into an epic finale where the whole band really goes for broke. What I’m getting at here, is that there’s not a bad track on this album. Technicolor Health is pretty much the perfect title for this colourful collection of vibrant pop songs.

The Harlem Shakes have got the ideal sound to be this year’s Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Voxtrot or Tapes n’ Tapes; the infamous Blog Band of 2009. Luckily for them, their songs have enough depth to survive any potential hypestorm. Hopefully they get the push they deserve, because this album is really good stuff.

8/10

Wavves - Wavvves (2009)

Wavvves is the second album by one-man noise rock army Nathan Williams. Based out of California, Williams made a name for himself as part of the very of-the-moment LA noise scene, playing shows with the likes of No Age, Mika Miko and HEALTH. Since then, Williams and co. have drawn obvious comparisons to fellow lo-fi guitar bands such as Times New Viking, Black Lips and anyone who ever played The Smell in LA. I haven’t actually heard the Wavves eponymous debut album, but I was game enough to give this a shot out of love for noise rock with a melodic edge and all of that shit. Turns out this second Wavves album does indeed take a lot from the current crop of noisy guitar bands, but filters it through Beach Boys (obligatory reference) harmonies and experimental ambient pieces.

After an electro-flavored ambient intro, “Beach Demon” hits you like a sledge hammer to the balls with a crazy-ass bassline, raw guitar shredding, fuzzy harmonies and simple but effective lyrics. “GOING NOWHERE! GOING NOWHERE!” The song establishes the recurrent, very PUNKRAWK lyrical theme of teenage nihilism, setting the tone for noise-punk anthems like “So Bored” and “No Hope Kids”. The former drills its simplistic chorus right into your skull with heavy doses of reverb and a killer Jesus and Mary Chain solo while the latter recalls early-Ramones catchiness with brilliantly-basic lyrics anyone can relate to: “Got no car! Got no money!” It goes without saying that all of these songs were recorded in a cardboard studio and that you can’t even hear the bass under the insanely-clangy guitars, but it’s all part of the charm. Although not as instantly-awesome as the previously mentioned tracks, “To The Dregs” and “California Goths” offer the same kind of simplistic pleasures: anthemic lyrics, 60’s pop harmonies and trashy guitars.

“Weed Demon” is the perfect center-piece here, and the most endearing song of the album. The drummer sits this one out and Williams goes solo with his electric guitar and some backing harmonies. The song is basically comprised of a single riff repeated over and over while Williams does his best Ed Droste impression, but like most of the best tracks from Wavvves, “Weed Demon”’s brilliance comes from its simplicity. Elsewhere, the ambient tracks prove to be a bit flat and often feel like cheap Deerhunter out-takes, but none of them are straight-up offensive or anything. The real problem with this album lies in the last four tracks, which range from very skippable to fucking-unlistenable. Seriously, “Beach Goth” is a total clusterfuck and “Killr Punx, Scary Demons” is pretty much the worst shit I've ever heard. There’s some other filler song I already forgot about and then you’re left with a depressing, anticlimatic closer in “Surf Goths”.

To say this album is front-loaded would be an understatement, considering I have no desire to ever listen to Wavvves’ last part ever again. Unless you pay me with Asian prostitutes or something. Thankfully, a bunch of songs off the first part will absolutely rock your nuts off. Recommended for fans of No Age, early JAMC and the Ramones. Try to avoid the last 4 songs though.

7/10

White Lies – To Lose My Life (2009)

Rising from the ashes of happy-go-lucky indie rock outfit Fear of Flying, White Lies are this year’s token Joy Division tribute band. Following in the footsteps of Interpol and Editors, they’ve been hailed as “the heirs to Ian Curtis’ gloom-pop throne” by the Guardian. Or something like that. Now, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with this album and I’m finding all these Joy Division comparisons rather puzzling, because honestly White Lies sound absolutely nothing like them. There was more to Joy Division than Ian Curtis’ bleak lyrics and dark Jim Morrison-esque singing. There was a raw, punk rock type of energy behind the music that elevated Curtis’ unorthodox moodiness on a whole other level. White Lies’ sound is on a completely opposite spectrum. To Lose My Life’s production is crisp-clean, the hooks and choruses are fucking huge and the massive power chords are more akin to arena-rock than anything else. There’s nothing punk rock, or even post-punk, about this lot. And I couldn’t care less because this album is rock-solid.

Yep, their lyrics might reference death, murder, suicide and all sorts of depressing shit, but this is a band that wants to reach THE MASSES, no questions about it. Also, I feel like pointing out that the frontman’s over-the-top Ian McCulloch/Anthony Hegarty singing hybrid makes it a bit hard to take the lyrical content too seriously, so fuck all of that. Let’s just embrace the bombast of it all, because there songs are BOMBASTIC. The album is book-ended by two ridiculously-epic songs that show exactly how White Lies are more suited for stadiums than most, if not all of the current post-punk revival bands they’re being compared to. Opener “Death” grabs you instantly with its grand, cinematic atmosphere. The song builds up slowly around an infectious bassline, new wavey synths and sparse reverbed chords. The climax hits you like a ton of bricks as stadium-sized guitars drop in and crush everything in sight for an epic finale. Meanwhile, closer “The Price of Love” takes the band’s penchant for the grandiose to a whole other level with a mix of Spaghetti-western guitar chords and escalating strings all leading to a massive world-conquering chorus. These songs are huge, like U2-huge.

In between these two monsters are 8 songs that could all be released as singles. That is how pop-friendly these guys are. Recent bands like Interpol can be heard as reference points once in a while, but the resemblance is subdued rather quickly by the album’s sheer amount of familiar pop rock hooks. The title track’s fuzzy, menacing bass sets-up a rather tense mood that eventually turns into fist-pumping fun with a big cheeseball chorus (“Let’s grow old together! And die at the same time!”) meaty power chords and another guest appearance from the string section during the bridge. “Unfinished Business” brings back the opening track’s build-up feel with goth-like organ and scratchy guitar slowly leading to an explosive pop-rock finale. Elsewhere, “Nothing to Give” channels Ocean Rain-era Echo and the Bunnymen by putting the string-section to the forefront and the result is rather solid.

As you’ve probably gathered by now, there’s nothing terribly new or innovative about White Lies, the singing and lyrics are corny and overly dramatic, and yes they do take cues from a lot of 80’s British bands (though not the ones you’re thinking of), but it’s hard to deny the hookiness and sheer immediacy of this 10-track debut. These guys are ready for the big venues and unlike a lot of their peers, they’ve got the songs to back up their U2-sized ambitions. Now let’s just hope they didn’t blow their wad on this one album.

7.5/10

Malajube – Labyrinthes (2009)

Since their 2004 debut Le Compte Complet, Malajube have become a household name in the world of francophone indie rock. The singles off their sophomore album Trompe L’Oeil got heavy radio airplay, the videos were aired constantly all over Musique Plus (French Canadian MTV) and some of their songs even appeared in cellphone commercials. Basically these lads found themselves in quite a comfortable position for a band with such an INDIE sound. Blurred-out vocals with inaudible lyrics, garage rock guitars, fuzzy keyboards, sound textures often bordering on the psychedelic. For fuck’s sake, the Pitchfork review for Trompe L’Oeil manages to name-drop Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade and Animal Collective. None of these references make a whole lot of sense, but still, the Malajube sound isn’t exactly mainstream. Thankfully frontman René Levesque, drummer Patrick Huard and the rest of the band always showed a knack for delightful pop hooks, elevating Malajube above the rest of their INDIE SCUM peers. So all of this crap brings us to the third Malajube album, Labyrinthes.

I’m gonna say this right now, this is Malajube’s Difficult Third Album. These dudes have been listening to a shitload of prog-rock and it shows. Maybe too much? UH OH. Opening track “Ursuline” gives you a good preview of things to come: it clocks in at 7 minutes and offers a bunch of rhythm changes, crazy-ass drumming, eerie piano and a “Whoa, dude” psychedelic conclusion with spaced-out harmonies, bells and backwards vocals. This isn’t the same fun-loving indie pop band that got comically taped up to walls in the video for “Le Métronome”. This stuff is SERIOUS BUSINESS. First single “Porté Disparu” puts the piano to the forefront and shows that despite their recent move to Prog-City, the guys for Malajoob can still write a hook. Really good piano-pop number with shiny guitars and a lovely, melodic chorus courtesy of lead singer Robert Charlebois. At first I was confused by the band’s decision to put out this track as the first single, but it’s really the best song on there, no questions. It’s not as instantly-catchy/loveable as “Montréal, -40°”, but it is a fine, fiiine song.

“333” brings back the prog-rawkage of the opening track in a big way. The song starts off as your usual Malajube rocker and then settles right into an acoustic breakdown before proceeding to kick you square in the balls with ridiculously-epic riffing reminiscent of Muse. Of course the song ends with a drugged-out outro filled with dreamy surf guitars. DIG IT, SUCKA (Booker T, 2003). “Les Collemboles” delivers the goods using the same kind of premise. It starts off as a solid little song that wouldn’t feel out of place on Trompe L’Oeil and suddenly shifts right into skull-crushing prog-metal guitar annihilation. And then there’s the rest of the album... which turns out to be rather forgettable.

Despite the heroic solo tacked at the end, “Casablanca” pretty much sucks. It sounds like Malajube doing a shitty radio jingle, or cheesy elevator music, I don’t know. There’s a couple of acoustic-guitar-driven tracks near the end of the album that kind of sound like cheap Radiohead in places. In a puzzling move, the production of “Hérésie” actually highlights the lead singer’s vocals, exposing some rather-shitty lyrics in the process. With a title like “Dragon de Glace” (Ice Dragon), I expected some epic rocking shit, but the song turns out to be flat as hell. I honestly think these guys thought they could get away with putting these mediocre songs on the album by adding CRAZY GUITAR OUTROS to all of them, but yeah, they remain mediocre songs.

In the end, Labyrinthes is a solid, but uneven third effort from the French-Canadian indie rawkers. “Ursuline”, “Porté Disparu”, “333”, “Les Collemboles” are definitely keepers and show that the band can thrive outside of their usual comfort zone (catchy, radio-friendly indie pop). Despite some serious clunkers here and there, fans of the band should enjoy the album. Meanwhile, newcomers should stick to Le Compte Complet or Trompe L’Oeil.

7/10

The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic (2000)

The New Pornographers were one of the first notable Canadian supergroups/collective-type bands of the 21th century. They pretty much kickstarted the whole trend of gathering a bunch of bearded Canadian dudes and Feist-lookalikes to make indie pop music for the MASSES, leading the way for the likes Broken Social Scene, The Arcade Fire and Simple Plan. The New Pornos are kind of like the Justice League, as in they were all previously established Canadian Men and Women before forming this whonky supergroup. Lead singer Carl Newman used to rock Canucks all across the country as the frontman of cult post-punk outfit Our Lady Peace, Dan Bejar aka. “The Destroyer” made a name for himself by writing the theme song for beloved Canadian wrestling hero Bret “The Hitman” Hart, while Neko Case worked as a backup singer for Céline Dion during her Las Vegas residency. I’m not even sure if she’s Canadian. Other people also play instruments in the band, but no one gives a shit about them.

Mass Romantic is the band’s debut and it boasts one of the worst album covers I have ever seen. Other than that, this record is pure awesomeness. Newman and his army of maple-syrup junkies take the sound of 80’s power pop and give you a timeless, instantly-loveable batch of songs. The crunchy guitars of Cheap Trick, the bouncy synths of The Cars and melodic hooks of Big Star can all be heard throughout, yet the end result is something that sounds completely unique and fresh. The opening title track is the ideal introduction to the world of the New Pornos: chugging guitars, playful synths, fun vocals from Neko Case with super-melodic backing vocals from Newman and hooks all over the place. Beach Boys harmonies set-up a rocking guitar finale of ultimate power pop bounciness. And yeah, that’s just the first song, homie. By the way I just noticed I’ve been referencing the Beach Boys in all three of my Track Attack reviews, so either I don’t listen to enough music, or Brian Wilson’s influence is OMNIPRESENT in modern indie rock. Choose or lose.

There’s quite a difference between Bejar’s song-writing approach and Newman’s on this album. Newman clearly goes for all-out pop action with brilliant vocal hooks, upbeat melodies and great choruses. Meanwhile, Bejar’s sings like an asshole about “breaks in the continuum”. His songs seem more carefully paced and often build towards an uplifting finale instead of maintaining the same pop tone throughout. For example, both “Execution Day” and “Breaking The Law” (a Spanish-folk cover of the Judas Priest classic) start off rather down-tempo (especially compared to the Newman songs) but take eventual left turns into shiny pop vibrancy with soaring vocals, group chanting and what have you. These songs aren’t up to par with his best work with The Destroyers, but they are very good songs none the less.

The record offers a truckload of high points, but one of my personal favourites on there is “Mystery Hours”, as it’s sort of the song where Newman and Bejar completely bond as song-writing lovers and then proceed to blow your mind. The song has a big-time glam rock feel, with Newman delivering a very Bowie-esque vocal performance on top of crazy synths and nasty T. Rex-like guitars. Bejar’s love for good old Ziggy Stardust and Mark Bolan is quite well documented, hence the impression of SONG-WRITING FUSION between him and Newman. Shit goes completely ballistic for the chorus with rapid-fire drumming and a ridiculously-catchy hook. Then you have an epic breakdown with some nasty riffing and nifty synth line. Fuck me sideways, this is a great song.

Mass Romantic’s only low point is “To Wild Homes”, not exactly a bad song, but it definitely lacks the structure and instant catchiness of the album’s other tracks. And for some reason the vocals are completely buried in the mix. FUCK. The rest of the album is power pop brilliance that you will love and cherish.

8.5/10

Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping (2008)

I always had a soft spot for Of Montreal and their particularly homo-erotic brand of whacky pop music. Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer was one of my favourite records of 2007 and I love the shit out of The Sunlandic Twins. No homo. Now, I recently saw a TV interview with OM head-fairy Kevin Barnes where he listed his favourite bands of the moment: Animal Collective, Deerhoof, Ariel Pink and Gang Gang Dance. He went to explain that he appreciated the way these bands tried to experiment and push music forward. Keeping that in mind, you could say Skeletal Lamping is Barnes’ attempt at being an experimental douchebag and “push music forward” in new, unexpected directions. The main issue at hand here is that the album is an absolute clusterfuck.

Straight-up pop songs following the usual verse/chorus/verse structure are a rarity on this album. Most tracks here have multiple segments and incessant rhythm changes. Opening track “Nonpareil of Favor” sums up Of Montreal’s new song-writing approach (aka. Being total dicks) quite well: it starts off as a bouncy little pop number with catchy synths, cools off for the mid-section and then kicks right into No Age-esque noise rock trashing. And that’s actually one of the less-offensive attempts at experimentation on the album. Spread throughout the rest of the album amidst the billion structure shifts: camp-tastic falsettos, direction-less blips and bloops, various psychedelic noise wankery, silly CRUNK BEATS and some of the most retarded lyrics you will ever come across. “We can do it softcore if you want, but you should know I take it both ways!” actually pops up as a chorus at some point. Also quote-worthy: “I’m so tired of sucking the dick of this cruel cruel city!” in falsetto-mode. LOL, you are a WILD DUDE, Kevin Barnez.

The best songs of the album are those that keep things simple. “An Eluardian Distance” definitely kicks my ass with its awesome trumpet riff and badass guitar solos, “Gallery Piece” offers perfectly-fine Of Montreal disco pop action with its dancey drums and itchy guitar, while closer “Id Engager” proves to be the best track by being the less left-field: crazy party vibe throughout, melodic harmonies, relatively-sane lyrics and a great chorus. The sad thing is that those few good songs don’t hold a candle to the better songs from OM’s back catalogue.

In attempting to create a cohesive (?) concept album where every ridiculously multi-segmented track (sort of) flows into the next, Of Montreal ended up with a completely disjointed mess of an album. The constant “song within a song” bullshit feels more like “tacking a bunch of under-developed song ideas together” than proper experimenting. Also, it makes the album damn near impossible to digest because there’s so much shit going on at all times. Most of the OM signatures (funky basslines, Beach Boys-esque harmonies, dancey synths and what not) can be found throughout the song segments, but the lack of structure seems to ruin any potential melody and renders most of Skeletal Lamping instantly-forgettable. Hopefully Barnes and crew get their shit together for the next album and don’t turn into a complete joke band. Fuck.

6/10