Portugal. The Man is one of the most hard working bands right now. Don’t believe me? Look at their back catalog, they release a stellar album every year and tour like nomads. The kind of hard work can be rewarding for the listener and certainly is with their fifth studio album, American Ghetto. Those signature drum loops and neo-soul beach sound is back from last year’s Satanic Satanist, but more prevalent and noticeable. It’s almost like they took a poll of what people loved the most about their last few albums and created American Ghetto. A bit of tease for those of you wishing for warmer weather, but once it comes, this will be playing in your car stereo non-stop. Highly recommended.
A-
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[mp3] Portugal. The Man – The Dead Dog from American Ghetto (2010)
A few years back a band called Gratitude featuring Far’s Jonah Matranga burst onto the rock scene with minimal success. Jonah left (as he usually does) and did his own thing while the rest of the members went on to start Attention. Attention is basically Gratitude’s 4-minute rock song formula with guitarist Jeremy Tappero belting out the vocals this time around. The album is nothing new whatsoever. I do give respect to any band that self records, produces, and finances their own effort, which is what these guys did, and it’s pretty impressive considering. It actually fits rather well with the Jimmy Eat Worlds and Switchfoots. Does this make it a bad record? Not really. It’s fun for those of you planning to buy the new Foo FightersGreatest Hits and it’s pretty catchy. However catchy is easy and so is this record.
C+
Attention– Whatever Gets You Through The Nightfrom Everything Takes Forever (2009)
Atlas Sound – Logos (Kranky, 2009)
This is the second solo album from Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox following his debut Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel from early 2008, and what an amazing piece of work it is. While Walkabout, featuring Panda Bear of Animal Collective, is the star indie-pop jem on this record, the whole album is a genuine walk-through the mind of a brilliant songwriter. With the dream-like folk aspects of The Light That Failed, the endless sound-scape that is Shelia, and hypnotic West African guitar of Criminals can cause detachment from one’s physical surroundings. Logos is a tender and honest piece of work that will be appreciated for years to come.
San Francisco quartet Birdmonster have been known as a cross between Ted Leo, a mellowed out Fugazi, and a youthful Springsteen. On Blood Memory, that seems to ring true. Singer/songwriter and guitarist Peter Arcuni’s clear vocals are quite heartfelt and end up sounding like Stars vocalist Torquil Campbell at times. Aside from their keen melodic sense, the musicians alternate between acoustic strumming and electric thrumming; fast songs and leisurely ones, like the Simon and Garfunkel-ish I Won’t Be Long / True Romance and the Morrisey influenced Day To Day. But this EP’s polished brand of folk-rock may come off too Americana for the mainstream and too mainstream for the Americana. There seems to be no happy-medium, just medium.
B-
Birdmonster – Mine To Sayfrom Blood Memory EP (2009)
With Embrace, the Santa Cruz-based retro-rock act Sleepy Sun has really worked through its influences, delivering a classic portion of new stoner/headphone rock. The band’s suitably named debut treads through the catalog of many a classic rock and folk artist’s greatest hits album, picking the best bits from Rainbow and Black Sabbath here, Mountain and Wishbone Ash there, as if these kids’ folks had good taste in 70’s classic desert rock, but not much else. It’s alluring to call the extensive, mesmerizing White Dove an “epic jam,” simply because it’s over 9 minutes long. But the song’s great male and female vocals find Bret Constantino and Rachael Williams howling like wolves of rock while hugely massive in some parts and quiet and moody in others. Besides which, it really is a great epic song, not quite up to par with the song suite from Rush’s2112, but surpassing anything similar by Uriah Heep. The rest of the record is eclectic without ever straying far from heavy, psyched-out prog-rock with touches of contrasting folk. The album is however, teasingly too short. It’s quite apparent that this album got the magic touch of producer Colin Stewart, who made Black Mountain’sIn The Future such a blazing rock record.
The Antler’sHospice is a smart, quaint, and often transcendent little pop record. The roots of the album seem to lie in Bear, a woozy, gorgeous song that sets the up-down emotion of the record. Lyrically it’s a breezy and hypnotic piece of work that relaxes the listener. The music is an elastic and very smart update to synth-pop and the melodies are crystal clear, while the unmistakable layering of each song is spartan and pretty. Forget the tags that have been thrown up against this music—Poptronica, Slow-Core? What the hell is that anyway? The tension of this album builds and releases at incremental moments. It just might haunt you hours after listening to it—begging you to return to get it’s message heard.
A -
The Antlers – Bear from Hospice (2009)
Sleepy Sun and The Antlers play at the Independent in San Francisco today at 9pm with Misty Mountain. The Antlers then go on to support Minus The Bear.
As if The Flaming Lips hadn’t already changed the face of experimental pop music already, they release one of their best and least accessible albums of their entire catalog. This album is proof that the band has a perfect understanding of ‘evolution of pop music’ and recognizes that the game has changed. Hardly a song on Embryonic isn’t repeatedly distorted and epically gigantic–taking the listener to the very place the band lives; in the deepest reaches of abstract pop fun. As with any album by the band, it’s hard not to imagine an alternate universe where foreign dances are practiced and psychedelic dreams are required in order to survive–this is classic Lips with an extra dimension to explore. The most immediate songs, like Convinced Of The Hex and See The Leaves are very close to early trip-hop dance numbers that sound like Debut-era Björk with desert-like dustiness of Queens of the Stone Age. The album is a bit lengthily [runs an exhausting 73 min.] but it does not feel that way at times. The best part about Embryonic for me though was that the guests [MGMT and Karen O] add a nice touch to the record yet don’t overstay their welcome. This album was a nice surprise and will be known to me as The Flaming Lip’sIn Rainbows.
The Flaming Lips– Convinced Of The Hexfrom Embryonic (2009)
El Perro Del Mar – Love Is Not Pop
As the title suggests, El Perro Del Mar’s (Sarah Assbring) new album shares with the listener an affectionate wit and a melancholy tendency towards life’s daily routines and relationships. Yet it also boasts and expands on the affected pop elements explored on her breakout 2006 debut album. It’s no wonder she’s often mentioned in the same sentences as fellow Swedish babe Lykke Li. But don’t think of this as a cookie cutter swed-pop album. It’s minimalistic and melancholy while holding onto this childish mood. I’m not sure if it’s an album actually, it’s more of an EP with a handful of ‘meh’ remixes. Fans of El Perro will eat this up, as this is in no way straying away from her signature dream-pop sound. It’s a nice piece of work, but one can’t help but desire her to expand a bit.
El Perro Del Mar– Change of Heartfrom Love Is Not Pop (2009)
Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring
The second studio album by the English band Noah and the Whale differs from Noah and the Whale’s debut album, Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down, due to the break-up between lead singer Charlie Fink and former member Laura Marling, whose departure from the band lead to the absence of female vocals. Is this a bad thing? Absolutely not. This album is enormous in so many ways. Add Noah and The Whale to that list bands that have taken the Arcade Fire blueprint and built a fucking skyscraper out of it. Charlie Fink embraces the very essence of loneliness and hopefulness and creates an emotional journey that makes the listener remember what it was like to have their heart broken. The epic opener The First Days of Spring and the murky Slow Glass alone make this album a must-own for fans of cloudy folk-rock with a story. Even the unusual instrumentals and the hilariously upbeat Love Of An Orchestra solidify this record as one of the best of the year.
Tertia is the third album from the post-rock instrumental New England band Caspian, whose marriage of raw power and delicate beauty has drawn comparisons to the works of like-minded indie acts Explosions in the Sky and Mogwai.
Tertia, to be released September 15, 2009, features 10 tracks, loaded with intricate, heavily layered guitar melodies and awe-inspiring soundscapes that flow nearly flawlessly together. Tertia contains plenty of mystifying melodies and mountainous crescendos much similar to their previous releases, You Are The Conductor (2005) and The Four Trees (2007), yet seems to go a step further, adding more diversified layers and variety to the songs. Songs on Tertia often change pace and contain a much broader range of beats and melodies. These additions make the 7-9 minute long tracks much more entertaining, avoiding issues like the sometimes monotonous and boring moments in their previous release. Even the track La Cerva from their split with The Constants breathes new life.
Caspian possess a keen ability to create vividly illustrated stories without the use of a single word, spoken or sung, in their music. Instead, the band chooses to create their stories through pure instrumentation. The same holds true for this album, which open with a whisper and ends with a snarlingly epic conclusion. Perhaps the theme of the album is an ideal reflection of Caspian themselves, a band that insists on finding its own way and settles for nothing less than instrumental perfection. With their third magnificent release, Tertia, the agenda of the newly surfaced Caspian is now clear: to create wonderfully artistic instrumental music combined with intriguing storylines that will make us all stand in awe for years to come.
I wrote a short blurb about this band a few months back seeing potential in a whimsical and well structured act that could easily fill a room as soon as they establish an audience. I bought their album when it was only a buck ($1) and put it off to the side for the time being. Then I got a promo copy in the mail and put the hard copy in my car for those short drives to town.
So after several full listens, the album grew on me and is now more than just a combo of Arcade Fire and Beirut. While it may sound like an entire Swedish gypsy marching band playing modern songs as mournful ballads and upbeat rock, Fanfarlo’s first album, ‘Reservoir’, is largely a cumulative effort of many talented musicians soaking themselves in culture and genuine folkpop and danceable marches. Throughout ‘Reservoir’, the band augments its five-piece lineup with brass and string sections, weaving near-cinematic, folk-influenced chamber pop that slots in somewhere between Andrew Bird delicacy and the robust creative honesty of Neutral Milk Hotel. All of this builds and breaks the melodies under Simon Balthazar’s deep-voiced crooner vocals, swaying to the dreamy beats like a whacked out gypsy space-folk band that has experienced all the heartbreak, love, and death as one would at the end of their life’s journey.
Kata Rokkar is a place where you can download free mp3 from artists and bands that I currently love and listen to. They are only for sampling purposes and to influence you to go out and support these artists by purchasing their records and going to their concerts. If you are a record company or an artist that is displeased with a song being displayed, feel free to contact me and I will remove it ASAP. Thank you and enjoy!
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