Ryan Adams - Ashes & Fire

1. Dirty Rain
2. Ashes & Fire
3. Come Home
4. Rocks
5. Do I Wait
6. Chains of Love
7. Invisible Riverside
8. Save Me
9. Kindness
10. Lucky Now
11. I Love You But I Don't Know What To Say

After going certifiably loopy on last year's III/IV, a "double-album concept rock opera," the alt-country bard goes for the diametric opposite on this gentle crop of pared-down roots-rock ballads full of fitfully earnest emotions. Lead single "Lucky Now" literally revels in Adams' newfound reformation -- "Love can mend your heart, but only if you're lucky now," he sings with wizened nonchalance atop flickers of piano.And he puts that mature foot forward consistently on this record, from gorgeously spare harmonies with Norah Jones on "Kindness" to the barely audible twangs of guitar on "Come Home." He's purely elegant throughout...www.spin.com

We Barbarians - Headspace EP

01. Headspace
02. The Wait Is Over
03. Stroke By Stroke
04. Strange Overtones
05. Chambray

We Barbarians aren’t particularly original, drawing on plenty of famous sounds from the last 10 years, as well as other, older influences. There’s an opening guitar that reminds you of Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up”, and a final track that sounds like a New Order or U2 composite. These two tracks are the EP’s strongest. “Headspace” jiggles and jangles from that Arcade Fire opening gambit, floating into an affirming, dancing-about-in-your-room chorus that you can hum along to on any day. “Chambray”, again exhibiting a strong chorus, is the first of many instances of the band leaning toward U2. That proves to be a positive asset, as long as the band slows down the tempo, letting David Quon belt out slow, powerful vocal lines.

Even if there is a lack of originality, We Barbarians have produced a very good EP. The sense that they’re part of a “sound” doesn’t matter in the slightest. In fact, it may even be a strength.While it’s easy to pick out some of the possible inspirations for their music, there’s a sense that they’re very conscious of their influences, and, as such, use them respectfully. “Strange Overtones”, for example, takes on something of the Echo and the Bunnymen sound without stealing it. “Stroke by Stroke”, slowed down, might be Vampire Weekend-ish, but again, it’s very much its own song. Given everything that comes with “respectful use,” Headspace takes on a sense of depth that’s quite rare for an EP.

What’s more, everything is incredibly well-produced: clean, crisp, with just the right level of reverb. Everything that happens on these tracks occurs with serious clarity and purpose, both in the studio and in their mining of ancestral power...www.consequenceofsound.net

Wild Flag - Wild Flag

01 Romance
02 Something Came Over Me
03 Boom
04 Glass Tambourine
05 Endless Talk
06 Short Version
07 Electric Band
08 Future Crimes
09 Racehorse
10 Black Tiles

Has there really never been an all-female, indie-rock all-star band before Wild Flag? They're late, it's true, but also right on time. They arrive just as everyone is working out some major romantic nostalgia for those Clintonian grunge '90s, which initially greeted singer-guitarists Carrie Brownstein and Mary Timony as post-teen riot grrrls destroying the underground with their first bands (Excuse 17 and Autoclave, respectively), back when women were still trying to prove they belonged up onstage at all. But now, thanks in large part to the absence of their biggest bands (Sleater-Kinney for Brownstein and Helium for Timony), the stage feels empty without them.

The self-titled debut of Wild Flag -- which includes Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss and keyboardist Rebecca Cole (ex of Elephant 6 band the Minders) -- aims to make all that history irrelevant. Yes, even for those of you who fell into a summer-long, depressive K-hole in the wake of Sleater-Kinney's 2006 split, prepare to fall in love again. And if you never loved that band in the first place (yes, we exist), appreciating Brownstein's voice, but not in tandem with Corin Tucker's bleat, prepare to fall in love for the first time. Given the history here, it'd be reasonable to expect a "mature" rock record from this quartet, or at least a few of the bittersweet lamentations mandatory for all ex-punks pushing 40 (call it "Wilco syndrome"). Instead, Wild Flag offers odes to volume and youth ("Romance," "Future Crimes"), suggesting the barely contained frenzy of teenagers. It's all the fury you want, but executed with the capability and confidence of lifers.

Timony is the real revelation here. She's always boasted a distinctive sound and style -- heavy fuzz undercut by sighs of unexpected melody -- but her post-Helium solo career gradually revealed more and more of her inner shredder, which fuels Wild Flag's dynamic chemistry. Brownstein's style is all punk basement burner -- single-note runs and urgent, shunted rhythm -- freeing Timony to unapologetically riff. She blazes on, under, and through every song, trading overdriven leads with her new cohort. It's a genuine twin-guitar magic best exemplified by the second half of "Glass Tambourine": Cole's burbling electric-piano lead quickly morphs as the two guitarists dive deep into a psychedelic bliss-out, distortion pedals dialed to ten, a-chooglin' in the hot scuzz.

Wild Flag is also influenced by plenty of bands these women haven't populated themselves. The way Brownstein's blunt guitar lines and Timony's winding leads play off and against each other, before synchronizing and exploding in the choruses of "Future Crimes" and "Short Version," recalls the classic interplay of Fugazi, another indie all-star quartet with essential, distinctive components. Brownstein offers a wonderful echo of Patti Smith, her voice hiccupping and reckless and rising in rage as she howls, "If you a want a pretty picture / You better look away." Timony sings with shades of Chrissie Hynde's elegant restraint, though the album's showier guitar work owes more to Pretenders guitarist
James Honeyman Scott.

Despite these bits of homage, Wild Flag's success is all their own. They're the band that you've been waiting for, but guess what? They're even better than you expected. Brownstein, Timony, Weiss, and Cole honor an already staggering two-decade legacy by simply starting a new one...www.spin.com

The Kooks - Junk Of The Heart

1. Junk of the Heart (Happy)
2. How'd You Like That
3. Rosie
4. Taking Pictures of You
5. Fuck The World Off
6. Time Above The Earth
7. Runaway
8. Is It Me
9. Killing Me
10. Petulia
11. Eskimo Kiss
12. Mr. Nice Guy

Having already positioned 2008's Konk as their "mainstream bid," these Britpop traditionalists return with a rather-quite-poppier follow-up that may be both their best and blandest yet. As previous attempts at laddish charm like "Jackie Big Tits" have proven, wit lies outside the Kooks' still-youthfully greasy grasp. The middle of the road was always their destiny, it seems, and they arrive with blatantly pleasant but character-free ditties to accompany you while shopping for a smart new Ben Sherman shirt, though those ditties likely will be forgotten the moment 
you exit the store...www.spin.com

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Lenses Alien

1. Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name)
2. Shore Points
3. Keep Me Waiting
4. Plainclothes
5. Definite Darkness
6. Another Tunguska
7. The Current
8. Wavelengths
9. Secret Family
10. Gary Condit

Old-school indie purists could use a modern hero, and while it may be unfair to peg Cymbals Eat Guitars as '90s revivalists, their second album will speak to fans of Built to Spill's squall, Superchunk's chug, and Modest Mouse's string-bending strangeness. Frontman Joe D'Agostino, a.k.a. Joseph Ferocious, belongs in such lofty company: His dense, inventive songs evoke imagistic glimpses of mucus and ice-covered cars, moving from a gentle keen ("Plainclothes") to a desperate scream. Gorgeously harrowing album closer "Gary Condit" plays both sides, its prettiness collapsing into ferocity before disappearing entirely...www.spin.com

Blitzen Trapper - American Goldwing

1. Might Find It Cheap
2. Fletcher
3. Love The Way You Walk Away
4. Your Crying Eyes
5. My Home Town
6. Girl In A Coat
7. American Goldwing
8. Astronaut
9. Taking It Easy Too Long
10. Stranger In A Strange Land

Only a year after releasing Destroyer of the Void, Blitzen Trapper is back with a new album. American Goldwing is a slight step away from their “usual space-aging technology and pawn shop Casio aplomb,” as band member Eric Earley put it. The album moves, “into the sounds we grew up with, the hard guitar rock and country picking of our younger years,” said Earley. Acoustic plucking and harmonica take the driver’s seat in this album, but mesh well with the previous Blitzen Trapper sound. “It’s me trying to evoke a true American nostalgia,” Earley explains.

Earley explains on the band’s bio page on their current label Sub Pop’s website that when he was a kid, his brother had a Honda Goldwing motorcycle. One day he hopped on the bike pretending he was, “racing along some lonely road.” The bike tipped over and pinned his leg. Earley said, “Writing American Goldwing felt much like that, like being pinned beneath a giant motorcycle, and its vision is that inescapable past, those feelings of being trapped in a small town, that fine line between the rural and the suburban settings that define much of America, that line between love and loss that occurs when you find yourself ‘taking it easy too long / sticking around this lonesome town.’”...www.pastemagazine.com

Milk Maid - Yucca

01. Such Fun
02. Can't You See
03. Oh
04. Dead Wrong
05. Girl
06. Not Me
07. Kill Me Again
08. Same As What
09. Back Of Your Knees
10. Sad Song
11. Someone You Thought You'd Forgot

There are different ways to approach the band purgatory of "indefinite hiatus." You could maintain a dignified silence, either letting the memory of your band live relatively untarnished in the hearts of fans, or maybe building up feverish anticipation for a lucrative reunion tour. You could start a blog, an acting career, or some other non-music project. There's also always the possibility of starting a new project to satiate your musical urges. Like many artists, Martin Cohen, bassist of UK lad-rockers Nine Black Alps, has chosen Door No. 3, recording songs under the name Milk Maid primarily from his Manchester apartment.

From the blast of distortion on opener "Such Fun" on, Yucca clearly basks in the influence of a few 1990s lo-fi indie greats. Guided by Voices have been the chief comparison so far, but Cohen isn't as strong a singer or as gifted a melodicist as Robert Pollard and where 11 songs make up Yucca's 33 1/2-minute running time, GBV could easily cram at least two dozen songs in that window. Milk Maid is more similar to a group like Sebadoh in musical and lyrical content, combining mostly sunny, pop-friendly melodies with macabre imagery and the occasional spate of abject self-loathing-- at least in the handful of lyrics that you can make out.

Cohen injects a little irony into "Such Fun", delivering the bouncy, jaunty tune-- and its chorus of "'Round, 'round, 'round, and over again"-- with an affect so distant, that it sounds like he's lamenting a tedious exercise, regardless of the slightly more energetic backing vocals that punctuate the hook. "Dead Wrong" puts an emphasis on the former word of its title, with the song's first few lines splattered with blood from dismembered limbs and stab wounds in the stomach. The first verse of the 49-second "Kill Me Again" simulates the back-and-forth of a lovers' spat, with Cohen singing, "Kill me again... And then I'll kill you." Most of Yucca's violent images are delivered as a metaphor for a deteriorating relationship, relating to the death of a romance as death in the most literal terms.

Reportedly inspired by the recording approach of Sic Alps, but mostly lacking the bloodthirsty snarl the San Francisco basement dwellers capturing on tape, Yucca is almost split evenly between propulsive, driving, pop-influenced garage-rock tunes and downtempo almost-ballads covered in a thick topcoat of fuzz. The catchiest of these-- "Can't You See", with its acoustic guitar drowned-out by heavily distorted electric guitar, late-album climax "Back of Your Knees', the buoyant power-pop of "Not Me"-- are torn wide open by ear-splitting guitar solos, ably and excitingly straddling the line between noise and pop. While its lyrics-- especially the hook of "She was American / She was an American girl"-- aren't especially gripping, "Girl" provides a refreshing cool down in the midst of the blown, overheated amps exploding across most of the collection.

A melancholy sway marks "Someone You Thought You'd Forgot", finding Cohen using his voice to deliver a kind of sadness that perfectly matches the song's chords. The song itself makes for an appropriate closing track-- it feels like the soundtrack for saying goodbye to someone, all long faces, downturned eyes, and slow, monotone speech. It's softer feel also illustrates the dynamic range Cohen has as a songwriter on his first solo outing, one that isn't especially revelatory or inventive, but does offer a solid starting point for the second chapter of his career...www.pitchfork.com

Thee Oh Sees - Castlemania

01. I Need Seed
02. Corprophagist (A Bath Perhaps)
03. Stinking Cloud
04. Corrupted Coffin
05. Pleasure Blimps
06. A Wall, A Century 2
07. Spider Cider
08. The Whipping Continues
09. Blood On The Deck
10. Castlemania
11. AA Warm Breeze
12. Idea For Rubber Dog
13. The Horse Was Lost
14. I Won’t Hurt You
15. If I Stay Too Long
16. What Are We Craving

Over the past decade, San Francisco's Thee Oh Sees have morphed from a showcase for skronk-savant John Dwyer's sensitive side into the hardest working band in garage-rock. Their output is prolific and their live show combustible. But on Castlemania, Dwyer opts to go it alone. With the exception of live-band regular Brigid Dawson-- who, along with the Sandwitches' Heidi Alexander, contributes some backing vocals-- the shaggy-banged songwriter handles almost all of the instruments. Drummer Mike Shoun and Guitarist Petey Dammit aren't out of the picture permanently. They're just off-duty until the fall, when Thee Oh Sees are scheduled to release yet another full-length record.

Castlemania is a fairly introspective affair, at least by Oh Sees standards. It's Dywer's most melodious batch of songs since 2006's mostly acoustic Cool Death of the Island Raiders. Without the heavy full-band artillery he leans toward skewed bubble-gum pop, fleshing out the guitars and drums with flutes, bells and thrift store synths. It was recorded, at least in part, at Dywer's former group house. "This here is the last record worked on at 608c Haight Street in San Francisco (very near and dear to my heart and heavy in my memories) before control was assumed by rich assholes," he writes in the liner notes.

Not that this is Thee Oh Sees' answer to Nebraska. Even at his most reflective, Dwyer's songwriting retains a sinister, "Sesame Street"-on-LSD sensibility-- simple melodies and creepy lyrics, frequently delivered in a whacked-out monster-voice. "It don't feel too good to be dead in the 21st century/ I am dirt but I can be/ A home for wayward hungry seeds," Dwyer growls on "I Need Seed", deploying a Looney Tunes-worthy narrative in a song about death. It's summery retro nuggets pinned into the red, shot through with a healthy dose of drugs and dread, while "Pleasure Blimps" finds him singing of machines stripping away flesh over shimmering glockenspiel lines and 12-string guitars.

All in all, Castlemania is a fairly loose and scattered record. There are plenty of oddball tangents, including a stripped-down and spooky cover of West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's "I Won't Hurt You" and the forlorn mellotron and sax instrumental, "The Horse Was Lost". Songs frequently melt down into racket rather than stop on a dime. But it's good to hear Dwyer step away from his backing band's big guns, if only for a moment...www.pitchfork.com

We Are Augustines – Rise Ye Sunken Ships

01. Chapel Song
02. Augustine
03. Headlong Into The Abyss
04. Book Of James
05. East Los Angeles
06. Juarez
07. Philadelphia (The City Of Brotherly Love)
08. New Drink For The Old Drunk
09. Patton State Hospital
10. Strange Days
11. Barrel Of Leaves
12. The Instrumental

To put We Are Augustine’s debut album, Rise Ye Sunken Ships, in the proper context, one needs to understand the major inspiration behind this brand of energetic and emotional indie rock.

A piece on WeAreAugustines.com, written by Ryan Berg, gives the backstory. Jim, the brother of lead singer and songwriter Billy McCarthy, had a very troubled past. Since high school, he lived in homeless shelters and on the streets of California after succumbing to excessive substance abuse. He was also committed to psychiatric hospitals on multiple occasions.

Billy and his sister tried valiantly to help, going so far as to let Jim stay with Billy in New York. That only lasted a short time, as Billy realized that treating Jim’s condition was beyond his capacity.

Jim eventually used a knife to attack a worker in a shelter where he was living. He then found himself in prison and diagnosed as a schizophrenic, unfit to stand trial and too dangerous to stay with the general public.

For four years, Jim remained in solitary confinement, his only escapes being small stints at more psychiatric hospitals.

While staying at one, he overheard he’d again be relegated to solitary confinement.

He panicked.

Then hanged himself.

Their mother, also a schizophrenic and addict, came to a similar demise. Lying on a cot in a homeless shelter, she overdosed on sleeping pills and cocaine.

Next to her bed, she had scribbled two things on the back of a business card from a local mortuary: her children’s names.

Billy, Jim and their sister never knew their father.

Unlike the direction of artists like Bon Iver and The Antlers, who created hauntingly pretty works after having their hearts broken with For Emma, Forever Ago and Hospice , respectively, We Are Augustines takes the opposite approach with Rise Ye Sunken Ships.

It aims for redemption and triumph through nimble electric guitars, propulsive drums, pulsing bass lines and Billy McCarthy’s brazen and distinct howl. It all blends to form frustrated yet pensive sonic scenes.

Throughout the record, the songs’ emotional undercurrent hinges on the subject and content. Music is either angry and dark (“Patton State Hospital”, “Juarez”) or a blend of major and minor-keyed, more exultant pieces (“Book of James”, “Chapel Song”).

A few songs are quieter and stick to a gradual pace, notably “Barrel of Leaves,” a piano-lead ballad, and “East Los Angeles,” an acoustic guitar procession. Their quieter tempos, sparse instrumentation and resigned lyrics bring a welcome change of context and pace.

The most memorable and emotional song comes in “The Book of James,” where Billy and Jim trade perspectives. With lifting trumpets, sweeps of electronic accentuations and frantic handclaps, the two brothers sing back and forth to each other. Billy: “He stood there in his shoes, unable to move. / Kid, I drove all night here / to tell you I love you.”

Then Jim: “I stand in my shoes / unable to move / with my hat in my hands / at the bottom of the ocean.”

This song, one of the highlights of the album, also contains one the record’s flaws: A few breakdowns last too long. In “Book of James,” the momentum already hit its peak around the three-minute mark, but the music continues with a mostly instrumental outro that lasts nearly two minutes.

The other flaw involves the similarities between ingredients and textures, creating difficulty in differentiating some passages of songs from others. But that’s being picky. Rise Ye Sunken Ships is an album of desperation, hope and frantic pleas to a loved-and-lost brother. All those emotions are adeptly channeled through the compelling and aggressive indie rock.

Even the instrumental concluding track feels triumphant, with steady horns gradually ascending and descending, snippets of what sounds like radio interference, thwacking drums and slips of electronic ambience driving the song forward before everything slowly fades into a distorted crackle and then nothing...www.pastemagazine.com

Mister Heavenly - Out of Love

1. Bronx Sniper
2. I Am a Hologram
3. Charlyne
4. Mister Heavenly
5. Harm You
6. Reggae Pie
7. Pineapple Girl
8. Diddy Eyes
9. Hold My Hand
10. Doom Wop
11. Your Girl
12. Wise Men

Eight years ago, the smart money would've bet against Nick Thorburn becoming one of the more industrious alumni to emerge from the early-2000s Canadian indie-rock uprising-- his endearingly unstable former band, the Unicorns, could barely make it through a set without experiencing some sort of breakdown (be it technical or psychological). But while he has since emerged as the autonomous creative force behind the prog-pop ensemble Islands (tellingly, it was his face alone that graced the cover of 2009's Vapours) and recently released a low key solo album under the name Nick Diamonds (I Am an Attic), Thorburn has not forgotten what made the Unicorns so special: the alternately cheeky and tense dynamic between himself and ex-bandmate Alden Penner. As such, Thorburn has never shied away from the opportunity to match wits with a creative foil, teaming up with Jim Guthrie for the countrified Human Highway detour and, now, squaring off against Ryan Kattner-- aka Honus Honus of Philly carnival barkers Man Man-- in Mister Heavenly.

Thorburn, of course, is no stranger to high-concept side projects (namely, his flirtations with hip-hop in Th' Corn Gangg and Reefer) and, on paper, Mister Heavenly initially reads like a similarly orchestrated lark. The band-- rounded out by Modest Mouse drummer Joe Plummer-- was reportedly devised around a self-explanatory sub-genre they dubbed "doom wop." The stunt-casting of actor Michael Cera as the band's bassist during their spring 2011 tour reinforced the assumption that Mister Heavenly would be a casual, low-stakes endeavor with which Thorburn and Kattner could amuse themselves before returning to their main gigs. But Mister Heavenly's Sub Pop debut proves to be something far more lasting and rewarding: Rather than serve as an outlet for their well-documented eccentric streaks, Thorburn and Kattner's good-cop/bad-cop dynamic yields some of the most tightly focused, immediately engaging songs either principal has produced.

Ironically, it's Plummer's band that seems to wield the most influence on the outset, with Thorburn's ominously quiet verses on the opening "Bronx Sniper" yielding to an immodest, un-mousey grunge crunch and an especially Isaac Brock-ian howl from Kattner. But, as bracing an introduction as it is, the song's angst-rock ballast does not provide the best showcase of Mister Heavenly's charms. These are more readily revealed when the band settle down and put their modernist spin on early, pre-Beatles rock'n'roll balladry and 1960s tropical pop. Parallel-universe golden-oldies like "I Am a Hologram", "Diddy Eyes", and "Hold My Hand" may not fully live up to the transgressive promise of the "doom wop" descriptor but, like fellow 1950s-rock enthusiasts Black Lips and King Khan in their gentler moments, Mister Heavenly approach their AM-radio inspirations with just the right balance of devotion and deviance. (To wit, on the winsome title-track-cum-band-mission-statement "Mister Heavenly", Thorburn is not so much claiming to be the man of your dreams as resigning himself to the impossibility of living up to the matinee-idol ideal.)

Out of Love's playful spirit sometimes crosses the line into unnecessary indulgence-- the rocksteady rhythm of "Reggae Pie" sounds like it'd be fun to groove on in the practice space, but probably didn't need to be featured as the album's longest track (complete with false ending), while the 98-second song that actually bears the title "Doom Wop" doesn't even attempt to honor either half of the equation. (Oddly, its sludgy slop-rock sounds uncannily like a tossed-off Ty Segall demo.) However, at no point does it feel like the players are simply using Mister Heavenly as a dumping ground for leftover song scraps they couldn't work into their primary projects: Every song here comes off like a true, collaborative union of the singers' singular personalities, with Thorburn's calm, childlike voice and Kattner's wizened old-soul rasp trading verses and choruses in surprisingly complementary fashion. The effect is mutually corrupting-- by the time we reach the wonderfully warped pen-pal exchange "Pineapple Girl", Thorburn sounds like the creepy one while Kattner acts as the stabilizing force. Really, no one would ever accuse Islands or Man Man of lacking character and presence, but once Thorburn and Kattner return to their bands after this dalliance, you'll be excused for thinking they'll sound a little bit incomplete without one another...www.pitchfork.com

Crystal Antlers - Two-Way Mirror

1. Jules' Story
2. Seance
3. Summer Solstice
4. By The Sawkill
5. Two-Way Mirror
6. Way Out
7. Fortune Telling
8. Always Afraid
9. Knee Deep
10. Sun-Bleached
11. Dog Days

After a couple seconds of light feedback, drum adjustments, and general milling about, "Jules' Story" roars to life and assures us that Crystal Antlers are still a band of volcanic force maintaining the long-haired spirit of 1968 on their second LP. There's enough hurtling Echoplex riffs and organ squall to freak out the squares, but it's all wrapped in three-minute chunks, with verses, choruses, and bridges, prog-psych with all the boring parts sucked out. But despite that opening, just about everything else surrounding the band has changed, and not necessarily for the better. After inking a deal to legendary indie label Touch and Go on the strength of their scalding EP, most listeners caught up with them on 2009's Tentacles. That record was far from a flop, but it was nonetheless a mild letdown, an album saddled by unsteady direction and brittle production. But even if it delivered the goods, it might not have mattered: due to an assortment of financial troubles and a subsequent "drastic downsizing," Tentacles stands as the last new record released by Touch and Go.

And while there are times here when Crystal Antlers forego their whiplash unpredictability and seem almost too in control of their sound on Two-Way Mirror, they're clearly reinvigorated. The most noticeable changes are almost completely cosmetic: though they'll never be pretty, Mirror is far easier to face head-on, dialing back the trebly sizzle of its predecessor into a more comfortable, analog warmth. But the major point is how they've managed to fully integrate slivers of gentler sounds-- hints of surf-rock, lo-fi folk, and drone-- and it feels like growth as opposed to acquiescence. Though Crystal Antlers took steps towards accessibility on Tentacles, bassist/vocalist Jonny Bell went along for the ride kicking and screaming. Not sure when the "On" switch got hit, but Bell finally can be described as a "singer" more than a mere "vocalist," and the lyrics feel like the product of a point of view rather than placeholders.

The success of Two-Way Mirror as a whole is mostly borne of fine-tuning, but "Summer Solstice" is the keeper on account of its
being the most stunning display of ambition here. It's a near-total stylistic dismantling proving the distance between Comets on Fire and The Photo Album-era Death Cab For Cutie could be traversed in three minutes. A churning, distorted bassline cuts through chimes; vigorous tom-rolls and an ascending chorus of halting sighs are very much in the style of Ben Gibbard, albeit far chestier. Even without the video, there's still an undercurrent of vulnerability that you never really got from these guys before, and it's a legitimately new and exciting direction. Previous singles "Andrew" and "Little Sister" were nice enough on their own in terms of pushing Crystal Antlers to something more melodic, but sliding into black-lit blooze rock felt like an otherwise restless band taking the path of least resistance.

It's a triumph of novelty meeting execution, and the best moments here are when they go the furthest lengths not to repeat themselves. I'm sure it'll slay live-- most Crystal Antlers songs do anyway-- but clearly experimental tracks like the drone-and-bongo instrumental "Way Out" and the self-explanatory acid-folk of "Sun-Bleached" serve as chances to let the surrounding assault sink in. In addition to being a strong return to form, Two-Way Mirror gives Crystal Antlers some much needed momentum after an unfortunate run of bad timing and bad luck. Though they're from Long Beach, they do offer some sort of peripheral artistic brotherhood with the teeming retro movement going on in San Francisco. Sure, they might not have the classicist songwriting chops of the Fresh & Onlys or Sonny and the Sunsets, but none of those bands rock this hard either. That stuff is for summer BBQs and backyard parties; Two-Way Mirror is what to spin at the point when you stop caring about noise complaints...www.pitchfork.com

Cut Off Your Hands - Hollow

01. You Should Do Better
02. Nausea
03. By Your Side
04. Hollowed Out
05. Oh Hell
06. All It Takes
07. Fooling No One
08. Down And Out
09. Buried

I saw Cut Off Your Hands live in 2007. They had just lost a gig on a children's TV show in their native New Zealand because of their name. When they were booked for the performance they'd been called Shaky Hands, but a threat of legal action by the Portland band Shaky Hands forced them to change it. Their somewhat sarcastic choice of a new moniker cost them a payday. It either didn't phase them or motivated them, because when they got on stage, they were nearly out of control. Vocalist Nick Johnston likes to get into the crowd, and his performing style amounts to a cardio workout.

They've grown up quite a bit since then, and though I've heard they're still wild on stage, the music they make in the studio has moved on from their post-punk roots. Hollow, their second LP, sounds much closer to the late-1980s/early-1990s work of British rock bands in the vein of Kitchens of Distinction, the House of Love, and the Trash Can Sinatras. There's a distinctive, clear-toned chime to the guitars, an airy drum sound, and the occasional backing vocal joining Johnston in unison-- it all adds up to something with the feel of that era. It has a dash of classic punk-informed NZ pop like the Bats, too, and should be right in the wheelhouse of anyone who pines for the long-ago days of classic college rock (or simply likes indie rock with a little sweep to it).

The band opens the album deceptively, with a shuffling drum beat similar to the one from Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz". When the rest of the band comes in, it turns to be a soft-hued and propulsive bit of swooning jangle pop, not some kind of rave-up. "Hollowed Out" offers an idea of what Echo and the Bunnymen might have sounded like in the mid-80s if Ian McCulloch had taken a less operatic approach to singing, while guitarist Michael Ramirez gets a nice showcase for his textured layering on "Down & Out". The band as a whole is at its finest on the slightly psychedelic "Nausea": Johnston's slightly flat singing on the verse sets up the key change and lighter tone of the catchy chorus surprisingly well.

"Nausea"'s easy-moving rhythm highlights one of the band's strengths-- they never sound plodding or like they're struggling to push the songs along. The airy recording aids the band's light touch, too-- the album glides by like it's on skates, its 34 minutes whipping by in an instant. The songs on Hollow are modest-- there's no closing epic, and the choruses are catchy but don't aim to be anthems-- but the band seems to have found its true strength here in a sound that's pretty far removed from the implied violence of its name...www.pitchfork.com

Other Lives - Tamer Animals

01. Dark Horse
02. As I Lay My Head Down
03. For 12
04. Tamer Animals
05. Folk Songs
06. Weather
07. Old Statues
08. Woodwind
09. Desert
10. Landforms
11. Head East

Tamer Animals, the sophomore release from the Stillwater, Okla., five-piece Other Lives, is meticulously written and arranged and, at times, vividly cinematic. In the wrong hands, this music could feel labored or overstuffed, but thanks to the makeshift orchestra's shaggy ringleader, Jesse Tabish, these wistful Americana-styled tracks (influenced by Tabish favorites Sigur Rós and Godspeed You! Black Emperor) rarely feel forced. Instead of the big studio sound of their self-titled debut, Tamer Animals feels organic and lovingly crafted, a record whose lushness often invites you to simply collapse into it.

Other Lives fits nicely with the pastoral richness of Fleet Foxes (whose influence is felt in the vocal harmony arrangements here) and the elegantly wasted music of Kurt Vile. On "Landforms", crestfallen strings swell with Tabish singing about the "oceans and plains," and you can almost taste the salted air. The dark, hymn-like "Weather" is similarly visual, but prophetic and baleful. "The sun is getting closer to the world," sings Tabish, clearly not talking about soaking up rays.

Tabish has enlisted a group of players that holds these intricate pieces in place. It's not as if the songs here feel heavy or overloaded-- in fact, most of them are positively buoyant, thanks to the richly colored interplay of all the instruments and the spacious production. Nearly every member pulls double and triple duty on cellos, violins, clarinets, keys, trumpets, and drums, and in a live setting, the band constantly shifts and repositions to hit every mark. On record, these professional assets come through even stronger.

Still, Tamer Animals isn't without its flaws, the quality of the vocals chief among them. For something so painstakingly made, it's strange that most vocal takes-- including some of those terrific harmonies-- sound oddly flattened. On an album about leaving behind the things you love, this seems like one element Other Lives should've made more of an effort with, as the pained stoicism in Tabish's voice doesn't always match the grandiosity of the music.

But that grandiosity makes it feel as if Other Lives are coming from a million different directions at once. "Old Statues" has the whispery endlessness of a spaghetti western soundtrack; the string draws nicked from Radiohead's "How to Disappear Completely" impart a deeply haunted vibe to the provincial lope of "For 12"; "Woodwind" channels the magical spook of a Grimm fairytale. Even if the emotional intent often feels recycled from other records, Tamer Animals is a record that takes you places....www.pitchfork.com

Dolorean - The Unfazed

01. Thinskinned
02. Country Clutter
03. The Unfazed
04. Hard Working Dogs
05. Fools Gold Ring
06. Sweet Boy
07. Black Hills Gold
08. If I Find Love
09. These Slopes Gave Me Hope
10. How Is It

I’m alone as I write this. Alone as I listen, which is usually the case, letting sound bounce off empty walls or across alternating headphone channels as I try to find a memory or analogy that helps you connect to an artist through my experiences.



It’s a no-win scenario. I won’t be able to convince a stranger that a song is anything more than it is anymore than I can convince myself that music hasn’t become an art form consumed and digested as instantly as any culinary experience.



It doesn’t matter if it took years to write and months to record, songs are embraced or dismissed as if our memories and relationship to song are defined like our sense of taste. Too acidic. Overcooked. Needs seasoning. No matter what I say, you are going to scroll to the bottom and hit play. Thirty seconds; here’s your golden ticket or an indifferent dismissal. Sorry, but the journey ends here. It’s that fast and that finite.



It’s sad that we don’t give records time to grow, give them the air needed to mature. We, as “reviewers”, try to convince you we spend more time and care more deeply, but it’s a smokescreen. Usually it’s masked by an old sportswriters trick; focus on specific moments to make you think we’ve given a record more spins and more thought. “Watch Jordan’s textbook perfect footwork before he takes off for the monster flush” is no different than pointing out exhales and pauses, layers and transitions. It’s all a way of clouding the simple fact that we like or dislike the record for the same reasons you do. It’s all just taste and new content. No one can consume a new record every day.



This long winded intro signifies a change in how I’ll write on herohill and hopefully, how you’ll read. I won’t obsess over the details, and hopefully that will help you connect to this blog and the songs I love. If you scour blogs for music each and everyday, I probably don’t know more about music than you and certainly don’t know what makes you as passionate and consumed as I am, but I can tell you why a record impacts me. Nothing more. Nothing less. For the first time in a while, those feel like those words worth writing...www.herohill.com

Victorian Halls - Charlatan

01.Girls Kiss Girls
02.Glass Depth Mood
03.Burn Me Up Like A Was-Kissed Letter
04.A Crush is A Crush
05.Black Maria
06.Upper East Side
07.La Di Da
08.Sugar Champagne
09.It All Started in the Hall...
10.Lucky 16
11.Dear, this is Desperate
12.Martini Elegance

The marketing campaign for Chicago four-piece Victorian Halls is very clever in that it never mentions a certain band from the Pacific Northwest called the Blood Brothers. Defunct since 2007, the brothers of blood twisted and distorted the post-hardcore model into demented carnival tunes. Victorian Halls go for the exact same vibe, although through a mainstream emo/dance-pop filter (almost akin to post-Bloods band Jaguar Love), right down to the crazed, whiny vocals that were shared by Blood Brothers co-vocalists Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney, but here are handled solely by frontman Sean Lenart. But that doesn’t stop Lenart from completely aping both Whitney and Blilie, to the point that it gets uncomfortable. Like, dude, the statute of limitations on ripping off punk/hardcore vocalists is a little more than four years, you know? Piano-driven blasts such as “Burn Me Up Like A Wax-Kissed Letter” and “Dear, This Is Desperate” are so Blood Brothers-esque that Victorian Halls should be ashamed. Trouble is, the band have heaps of promise when they aren’t so busy being copycats; dance floor stompers like “It All Started In The Hall...” and “Glass Depth Mood” would be even more impressive if it weren’t for that damned copycat screech. Someone needs to tell these guys that there will only ever be one Blood Brothers and imitation is only flattery if it sounds good...www.altpress.com

Miles Kane - Colour of the Trap

01. Come Closer
02. Rearrange
03. My Fantasy
04. Counting Down The Days
05. Invisible
06. Quicksand
07. Inhaler
08. Kingcrawler
09. Take The Night
10. Telepathy
11. Happenstance
12. Colour of The Trap

When Miles Kane absconded from his day band The Rascals to knock out the scintillating Bacharach update that was the Last Shadow Puppets album with Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner, he clearly found his niche. For this, his solo debut, Kane carves for himself a position as one of alternative pop’s prime retro-visionists as firmly as Brian Cox has cemented his role as the universe’s smiliest harbinger of doom. Not since The Bees’ A Minha Menina has 1960s psych-soul sounded so fresh; authentically swathed in Tornados twangs and spooky cellar-pop atmospheres, Colour of the Trap could have been unearthed from some hidden basement lair beneath Joe Meek’s old studio. You half expect to blow on the sleeve and dislodge a cloud of dust.

While so much Ronson-sealed retro is all about re-upholstering Motown for the nostalgia market – the equivalent of digitally colouring in old footage of Aretha Franklin – Kane knows that the true power is in the spirit of the time, and this he sets about capturing with a craftsman’s eye. So Inhaler makes a buzzy, rootsy, garage gospel-blues racket out of what might well be a song about asthma treatments, while Quicksand squishes all the miniskirt-flapping thrills of the entire 1963 run of Ready, Steady, Go! into three minutes of twinkling pop brilliance. There’s detail and reverence in the Stones riff stabs of Come Closer, the Bolan bounce of My Fantasy, the Spaghetti Western surf of Counting Down the Days and the Hammond helltones of Kingcrawler that make them feel like lovingly reassembled dinosaur skeletons given new flesh.

That all of the songs recount romantic misdeeds and obsessions only serves to conjure all the more a period when 99.99% of all pop songs were about girls and the remaining 0.01% were about surfing or satellites. But how long can Kane keep his time-travel pop sounding relevant? Colour of the Trap, impressive an achievement as it is, is begging for diminishing returns. First the Shadow Puppets, now this… let’s hope Miles shows us what he can do with the current decade next time, or he’ll date as ferociously as a pre-nuptial David Walliams...www.bbc.co.uk

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - Mirror Traffic

01 Tigers
02 No One Is (As I Are Be)
03 Senator
04 Brain Gallop
05 Jumblegloss
06 Asking Price
07 Stick Figures In Love
08 Spazz
09 Long Hard Book
10 Share The Red
11 Tune Grief
12 Forever 28
13 All Over Gently
14 Fall Away
15 Gorgeous Georgie

No one is your perfect fit / 
I do not believe in that shit," Stephen Malkmus confides over lightly distorted electric guitar on "Forever 28," from the 45-year-old father of two's fifth album since his former band, Pavement, split more than a decade ago. Then, coloring those chords with jazzier notes, he warbles, "Don't you know that every bubble bursts / Kill me." His current band, the Jicks, soon join in with a sunny bounce that recalls Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky."

It's a moment that epitomizes Mirror Traffic, a patient, inviting album that feels like a fresh start from a guy whose recording career spans multiple boom-and-bust cycles, both for indie rock and the economy. Pavement's best-of compilation and globe-trotting reunion tour last year left the perennially underachieving group finally resembling what some critics had been calling them all along: the preeminent band of the '90s. Produced by another of that decade's so-called slackers -- Beck Hansen -- Malkmus and the Jicks' latest responds to all that success, in true Malkmus fashion, not with blatant nostalgia, nor with some pathetic stab at timeliness, but with a thoroughly beguiling roll of the eyes.

Malkmus and the Jicks may reside in Portland, Oregon -- where, per Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein's Portlandia, "the dream of the '90s is alive" -- but unlike, say, Billy Corgan, both Malkmus and Beck have continued to evolve since their Clinton-era commercial peaks. Over the course of his four post-Pavement albums, Malkmus has toyed with electronics (2005's Face the Truth) and explored 1970s gnarled-guitar workouts (2003's Pig Lib, 2008's Real Emotional Trash). And Beck? Since wrapping up his major-label deal a couple of years ago, the 41-year-old Los Angeleno has been in the full bloom of a career revitalization, most recently producing Thurston Moore's superb Demolished Thoughts.

Where Real Emotional Trash began on a quasi-autobiographical note, Mirror Traffic opener "Tigers" leads with a farcical scene worthy of Will Ferrell: 
"I caught you streaking in your Birkenstocks / 
A scary thought / In the 2Ks." And where that last album was Malkmus and the Jicks' most stylistically unified, Mirror Traffic is both more varied and more focused. Malkmus dismisses sit-ups as "so bourgeoisie" over Wes Anderson-ready chamber pop, revels in "putzing 'round the Internet" over spidery guitar and warm keyboards that inexplicably crackle with cellphone distortion, and condemns himself as a mortally doomed "one-trick pony" over pedal-steel-drenched, Updike-referencing alt country.

Millennials who chafe at Generation X's shrugging anti-dominance and Pavement's mocking of arena-rock idols, take note: Malkmus and Co. are not half-assing it here. Pavement, even at their best, never had anything like the Jicks' adroit nonchalance. Captured here mostly over two days in L.A., after the completion of a 2009 world tour, 
the band have the punchy, relaxed assurance of a group of pros who know exactly how many beers they can drink and still hit 
their marks.

If Mirror Traffic has an overriding theme, it's not the coming-of-age goose bumps of new-school '90s acolytes Pains of Being Pure at Heart or Yuck. It's impending death. "I know what everyone wants / What everyone wants is a blowjob," Malkmus howls on stoned romp "Senator." How can he be sure? "You are fading fast / You are fading fast / You are gone." The album's last words are "fall to dust." At least Malkmus prefaces them with a blaze of ragged guitar glory...www.spin.com

Jebediah - Kosciuszko (Deluxe Edition)

CD1
01. Lost My Nerve
02. Oxygen
03. She's Like A Comet
04. To Your Door
05. Control
06. Under Your Bed
07. Battlesong
08. Freakin' Out
09. The Lash
10. High (Horse)
11. Are We OK?

CD2
01. More Alone
02. Patty Powell
03. Harpoon (Acoustic)
04. Yesterday When I Was Brave (Acoustic)
05. Feet Touch The Ground (Acoustic)
06. Teflon (Live In Manchester)

Opener and first single Lost My Nerve is the perfect kick-off as it resounds with original fans eager to hear one of Australia’s most eminent pop-rock bands create familiar sounds swathed in nostalgia. However, newer, and presumably younger, fans will be roused and attracted to the searing rock ‘n’ roll that collapses into a heady two-minute-long guitar freak-out. Oxygen is next with a rock-y intro that’s really just a face for a pop song complete with catchy hooks. Album highlight She’s Like A Comet follows; its chilled-out reverence to the subject of the song is sweet, with earnest lyrics and a danceable tune.


In contrast, To Your Door is slower with more eccentric instrumentation and rhythm, which is less fun-inspiring than She’s Like A Comet but necessary to ensure differing paces and interest for a cohesive album. However, the following track, Control, is the standout on the album. It’s musically light, breezy and summery and lyrically optimistic and positive towards the beginning. But, halfway through, grunge takes hold and the song is propelled to a darker, more powerful place as singer Kevin Mitchell (Bob Evans in another life) yearns: “I kicked my plans to the side of the road / I wanna live more but I can’t let go / I wanna live more, more than before,” and asks “where do I go now? / Because I don’t wanna be in control.” It’s songs like these that made Jebediah so popular in their heyday – rock songs with enough pop elements to appease the masses, but without ‘selling out’ to tackiness and commercial styling, which proved to be a common fate for comparable bands of their generation.


Similarly, Battlesong implements a classic slow-rock structure, which could easily be heard-it-all-before boring. But drummer Brett Mitchell’s use of traditional military percussion rhythms (appropriate, considering the song’s theme) and a Jebediah midas pop touch prevent this dire fate. The following Freakin’ Out sparks things up as well. Driving percussion, emotive lyrics and a red-hot, hard-hitting intro make this a fine example of Jebediah’s ability to write songs that are both a complex, lyrical narrative and simply a damn good pop song.


High (Horse) is another standout on the album. Its verses are sparse, highlighting Mitchell’s voice (which is really good) and its choruses are a frenzy of fast drumming and loud guitar flourishes. But, closer Are We OK? really hits home. The delicate intro is the first sign of restraint on this otherwise dynamic album and is beautiful in all its sensitive glory. Mitchell sings with a certain reminiscence, Chris Daymond’s hazy guitars are strung out and willowy while Vanessa Thornton’s deftly applied, barely-there bass provides enough depth to prevent shallowness, but doesn’t overshadow the other subtle instrumentation.



Ultimately, Kosciuszko is a successful return for Jebediah. Hopefully, and deservedly, fans will be salivating to get their sweaty hands on a copy, propelled by the huge amount of radio airplay of the singles. However, now they’re back on the horse, I hope the wait for a follow up is nowhere near as long as this one. The anticipation will be life threatening...www.beat.com.au

The Drums - Portamento

01. Book Of Revelation
02. Days
03. What You Were
04. Money
05. Hard To Love
06. I Don’t Know How To Love
07. Searching For Heaven
08. Please Don’t Leave
09. If He Likes It Let Him Do It
10. I Need A Doctor
11. In The Cold
12. How It Ended

Back on June 23rd The Drums uploaded a little YouTube clip titled "Portamento" which is also front and center on their updated website. It is 2:45 minutes in length and it showcases blurry clips of the band playing to start out then continues showing random black and white videos/pics through out. At one point in the video, chimes of PORTAMENTO come in. The music to the video is very mysterious and dark, but at the same time it makes you want to hear more.

This has to be an indication that The Drums have something up their sleeve for the release of their sophomore album. It is unclear if the name of the album is actually going to be called 'Portamento'? Or if that is the title of an individual song? Rumours are floating around that lead singer Jonathan already stated that "Portamento" was the name of The Drums second album...www.fakeplastictunes.com

Portugal. The Man - In the Mountain, In the Cloud

01. So American
02. Floating (Time Isnt Working My Side)
03. Got It All (This Cant Be Living Now)
04. Senseless
05. Head Is a Flame (Cool With It)
06. You Carried Us (SHare With Me the Sun)
07. Everything You See (Kids Count Hallways)
08. All Your Light (Times Like These)
09. Once Was One
10. Share With Me the Sun
11. Sleep Forever

Portugal. The Man can seriously play any type of music they want. It’s really surprising to me that its taken them this long to gain national attention, but with the help of Atlantic Records, it has finally happened. Most fans worry about the “selling out” factor for any independent band joining the big leagues, but I’m here to reassure you: this hasn’t happened to Portugal. The Man. Quite the contrary actually, the Oregon by way of Alaska group has held their own in a sea of actual “sell outs” and un-original music. They have clearly gained better skills in recording cohesive records and learned to impeccably alter their sound, again, all thanks to the change in labels. In The Mountain In The Cloud is the newest album by the Approaching AIRballons, Portugal’s recording name, and it’s one of the best endeavors they’ve ever endured. Though this effort provides new soundscapes, sonic experimentation, and lots of synths, it does have its flaws. Still, it comes close to perfection.

Delving deep into the Glam Rock back catalog made famous by David Bowie, this album proves that it’s really hard to prescribe them to any genre. In The Mountain In The Cloud is unlike any record they’ve made. Their sensibility towards pop is still here but is refined enough to prove this is the next step in Portugal. The Man’s career. Where some may describe Censored Colors as Progressive Chamber Pop, while The Satanic Satanist was a true to form Psychedelic Pop record, their latest effort undeniably lends their style to Ziggy Stardust and T-Rex of the 1970’s. Not only does the record sound like Bowie, Marc Bolan and Portugal had a love child, but it still has that distinctive sound which is carried through on each record. Heavy synthesized atmospherics, eccentrically distorted vocals, sonic experimentation and spacey art rock takes form on this latest endeavor, but it’s all held together with their infamous harmonized pop vocals. It is evident that every album they made thus far has built each individual plank on an ever greater ladder; a ladder to their future. But what is next for this band?

Like every other Portugal. The Man album, it’s ambitious, but surprisingly the minor flaw that bothers me the most is that John Gourley and his men don’t take many real chances with this record. The issue I have with In The Mountain is that while they definitely have gotten better at song writing and no doubt treaded on new territory, their latest endeavor hasn’t gotten past the simplicity of verse/chorus/verse songwriting. I understand they want to recreate the striking song writing of The Beatles era rock music, but they have already proved themselves in that department. The men of Portugal are talented musicians. This is proven by their elaborate live shows with jamming sessions that ensue multiple times during a set. While this might be more of a personal issue, I do believe if there was higher risk taken, they could have done so much more with their sound. While I understand the need for some singles, hell Pink Floyd had “Money” on Dark Side of the Moon for that reason, but any fan would still love to see them indulge in their more progressive side more thoroughly. There are a few songs that tease at this, but stop far before anything turns into a sprawling “instrumental” section.

“All Your Light(Times Like These),” “Once Was One,” “Sleep Forever” and “Floating (Time Isn’t Working My Side)” are the shining moments in this opus that define the possible future for them. The band’s made seven albums in six years and with each year of recording, the style changes and their genres morph into a clearer sonic vision. And while those four tracks listed above were the closest to their live instrumental setting, the production value was what made the rest of their seven songs on this record almost perfect as well. Andy Wallace, the Grammy award winning mastermind behind Nirvana’s Nevermind and Jeff Buckley’s Grace, perfectly mixed this recording. Portugal’s amazing sound was brought to life due to his talent, but Santogold’s John Hill helped bring their songs together. Acting as producer, Hill stretched the very imagination of a band that has already created such an impressive catalog. Casey Bates who is a longtime friend and producer of theirs, has also come back to wrangle together every sound they’ve previously explored. Without a doubt this experienced group of people brought them to that next level of artistic expression. Though because of John Gourley’s unique view of the world, and his band’s great adaptation towards the different styles and genres they previously explored, the members moved themselves to their next plateau.

Portugal. The Man has found their sound with In The Mountain In The Cloud, and it’s exactly what any fan, me included, wants. I understand that this record carries on their ability to create amazing songs, but with a little fine tuning of priorities, their future artistic endeavors will be perfect. Any future is bright when a group radically changes their already unique style every recording. But if the quartet really wants to create a memorable record among their massive catalog, they need to utilize their rare talent to create such a raw energy of flawless psychedelic prog rock that hasn’t been made since Pink Floyd or King Crimson. Let me end on this: if they are willing to take the chance, Portugal. The Man could be the next group to create an album like Dark Side of the Moon or Wish You Were Here. This time next year we’ll know for sure...www.cinemablend.com