Pop 'stache

Once any recording artist has passed the ten-year mark, it often comes as a surprise to many fans for the artist to continue writing and conceptualizing new records on a consistent basis. Andrew Bird is no exception to this category. Even after sixteen years of songwriting, including various side projects and six solo studio albums, the violin virtuoso continues to demonstrate his expertise in fiddlestick techniques, leaving no margin for error on his newest release Hands of Glory. Serving as a companion piece to the well-received, experimental Break It Yourself released earlier this year, the new album continues with tracks that embrace folksy melodies infused with a country-western feel.

In his press release, Bird explained that on Hands of Glory he hoped to “adapt my music completely to the atmosphere of the space and the season.”

Bird accomplishes this aim from the get-go on the opening track “Three White Horses.” The slow drum beat and steady bassline, complemented by the muffled guitar pickings and Bird’s wails, bring to mind the imagery of a rustic pathway in the autumn: leaves turning gold and red and dancing erratically as they drift to the ground. He furthers this idea by the danceable, upbeat guitar and violin riffs on his cover of “Railroad Bill,” typical of the county fair ambience. Ironically, the song is as far away from family friendly, as Bird describes the narrator’s tale of violent revenge against Railroad Bill.

Bird also adds a reworking of Break It Yourself’s “Orpheo Looks Back” (titled “Orpheo”). While “Orpheo Looks Back” possesses a wild, more youthful essence with cheery whistles, “Orpheo” captures a slower and more tranquil style. With a sadly, sweet violin solo, prior to the last verses, the somber feel of “Orpheo” transitions listeners easily to the final track, the instrumental (plus uninterpretable croons from Bird) “Beyond the Valley of Three White Horses.”

While many of the tracks seem to prove themselves as “experimental” for their distance from Bird’s characterized folk tunes and structures that we are all familiar with, the recording process for Hands of Glory proves to be the most remarkable factor of the LP’s experimentation. Using only a single microphone with all acoustic instruments, Bird recorded the entire album in a church and barn with his live band (yes, those are actual crickets chirping outside on “Beyond the Valley of Three White Horses”). In doing so, the hollow-bodied “recording studios” provide the warm feeling of wide-open spaces and countryside romanticism that envelopes the songs on the album.

Although many listeners might view Hands of Glory as an EP instead of an album due to the new material being limited to two songs, Bird proves the new record to rightfully deserve the “album” label. All the songs on the record, including the covers of Townes Van Zandt, the Handsome Family, Alpha Consumer, and the Carter Family, as well as “Orpheo” and the new material, capture the overarching themes perfectly, an essential feature for any record. Whether or not this suffices for listeners, Hands of Glory proves itself as a remarkable work of auditory art, providing listeners an escape from their bores and worries to a picturesque, bucolic dreamland of folksy relaxation.

Andrew Bird – Hands of Glory tracklisting:

1. “Three White Horses”
2. “When That Helicopter Comes”
3. “Spirograph”
4. “Railroad Bill”
5. “Something Biblical”
6. “If I Needed You”
7. “Orpheo”
8. “Beyond the Valley of the Three White Horses”

Some fans were introduced to Godspeed You! Black Emperor in 1998 upon hearing “East Hastings” off of their debut album F#A#∞, featured on the soundtrack to the instant cult-horror classic 28 Days Later.  Others were dutifully hooked with their incredible 2000 double-LP Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven.  Their third full-length, Yanqui U.X.O., was dismissed as a mediocre and formulaic follow-up to their back catalog.  Truth be told, it’s not an awful record and the harsh criticism may have been more a product of “How do you keep someone down on the post-rock farm after they’ve heard Lift Your Skinny Fists.”  Godspeed did continue to tour after the release of Yanqui, but there were no future releases on the horizon.  The announcement of a new record after a decade of studio silence, ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!, came as a total surprise a few weeks ago.

The opening track, “Mladic,” is the first of two 20-minute tracks on ‘Allelujah that have been a part of their live performances since 2003.  It begins with a sampled vocal loop, “With his arms outstretched!”  immediately drawing the listener in (unlike some of GYBE’s earlier samples which sounded discrepant at times).  “Mladic” calls Super Furry Animals Olde Welsh song titling to mind and begins like the assembly of an army, slowly building in classic GY!BE fashion to a charging siege against a medieval castle.  Trebujets launch fireballs at the nine-minute mark leaving a valkyrie in their wake.  The castle crumbles a few minutes later, but out of the sonic rubble comes a vengeful juggernaut swinging a symphonic mace.  The track ends with metallic percussion as though Stomp were unleashed in a commercial kitchen.  It just works.  And it will bring a smile to all those post-rock/metal fans.

The two shorter tracks on the album (read: only six plus minutes long) “Their Helicopters’ Sing” and “Strung Like Lights at Thee Printemps Erable” come as a separate 7-inch accompanying the LP.  “Their Helicopters’ Sing” has as much brooding gloom as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.  The title’s confusing plural possessive is out of mind as soon as the surging drone is sliced by bagpipe blares recalling David Watson’s contribution to Glacial’s On Jones Beach earlier this year.

If any track exemplifies ascension it’s “We Drift Like Worried Fire” which is arguably Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s best work to date.  Unlike some instrumentals, “We Drift…” isn’t mere background music; it’s a whole other world for a listener to attentively immerse oneself in, a track that climbs, plateaus, climbs, rests and then sprints.  A plucked titter of four notes over feedback is methodically reinforced by filtered Walkmen-esque guitars, warm strings and a thumping bass drum for half the song.  At the midway point the listener is awarded an anti-solo as a breather before GY!BE depart on a steep hike on the darker side of the same peak.  Skittish cymbals give way to a rattling snare and menacing string bass before pounding drums and a minor to major chord switch allow the song to rise like a rocket.

“…Printemps Erable” is likely a reaction of sorts to the ongoing student protests in Quebec (GY!BE hail from Quebec after all) which began eight months ago regarding the proposed increase in university tuition; it has been referred to as “The largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian History,” though the track itself hardly feels reactionary.  Instead it seems to work in tandem with the album cover.  It plays like a hazy, krautrocky portrait of a fallout shelter with specters of scud missiles soaring overhead.  The greedy listener may wish for a third gargantuan closer, but it might be overkill for an LP.

Where other post-rockers may find themselves meandering during longer tracks, the well-seasoned Godspeed You! Black Emperor present two cohesive epics and two contemplative segues.  For a band that had laurels to rest on, ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! acts as a down comforter.  If GY!BE never releases another record they have nothing to apologize for, but if they choose to continue to record and release, godspeed and God bless.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! tracklist:

1. “Mladic”
2. “Their Helicopters’ Sing”
3. “We Drift Like Worried Fire”
4. “Strung Like Lights at Thee Printemps Erable”

Like a wistful and contemplative cowboy roaming the range, Lord Huron emerges with their first full-length album, Lonesome Dreams. They bring with them the winds of the West—cowboys, intrigue and even a slide guitar.

What once began as a solo project for Ben Schneider has grown into a five-piece, including Mark Barry (percussion and vocals), Miguel Briseno (bass and percussion), Brett Farkas (guitar and vocals) and Tom Renaud (guitar and vocals). Originally hailing from Michigan, Schneider had moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in visual arts. After spending a week on the shores of Lake Huron during a trip home in spring 2010, however, he was inspired to further pursue his musical interests. And within the same year, he churned out two EPs: Mighty and Into the Sun.

Although often compared to Fleet Foxes, My Morning Jacket and Mumford & Sons, Lord Huron has a sound all their own: avant-garde Old Western meets folk (with an underlying sprinkle of rock-a-billy). Layers of guitars, percussion, harmonicas, wind chimes, tambourines, strings and vocal harmonies produce a rich texture in Lonesome Dreams. It’s especially impressive considering it’s the group’s first full-length album.

In “Time to Run,” the first single released from Lonesome Dreams, the beat is contagious. As with many of the album’s tracks, this song starts off slow and picks up about a minute in. The song’s video is only further evidence that Schneider is talented musically, artistically and visually. Following his vision, the video is a mini-movie  encompassing all things Western.

Love, relationships and landscapes (especially lake shores) are common threads throughout Lonesome Dreams. “The Man Who Lives Forever,” is introduced with a bouncy steel-drum. “Said that death is a deal that you cannot refuse / But I love you girl and I don’t wanna lose you,” Schneider sings. But the relationships Lord Huron sing about extends further than just girlfriends — to lifelong friendships. In the toe-tapping, hand-clapping “Brothers,” they sing: “Some brothers your born to, some you meet along the way / What makes them the real deal is knowing they’ll be there when things go south, no matter what.” In the background, all the songs have a dreamy feeling is transported to a mountainside, along the shore of a lake or out on a lonely, desolate range where the sky stretches as far as the eye can see. The album is a storytelling experience that is deeper than just what’s audible.

Listeners can descend into the sepia-draped Lonesome Dreams, where nostalgic visions of cowboys, sunsets and the Old West are abound.

Lord Huron – Lonesome Dreams tracklist:

1. “Ends of the Earth”
2. “Time to Run”
3. “Lonesome Dreams”
4. “The Ghost on the Shore”
5. “She Lit a Fire”
6. “I Will Be Back One Day”
7. “The Man Who Lives Forever”
8. “Lullaby”
9. “Brother”
10. “In the Wind”

Where you’re from affects so much about who you are, and where your creativity sprouts from. Just this month, Titus Andronicus have cemented themselves as Jersey’s best dancers, and P.O.S. reestablished his fortress of Upper-Midwest aggro-rap. Where you’re from can be a badge of honor, an inescapable trap, a madcap love affair, or just another place on the road.

For Kendrick Lamar, his hometown of Compton plays a little bit of all of these roles. Almost a decade into his career, already on his second moniker and now releasing his second proper LP, good kid, m.A.A.d. city, Lamar has been tied to the dangerous rap incubator in both intended (Dr. Dre’s seal of approval) and unintended (his birth) ways. Good Kid is a remarkably cogent “short film” on the diametric oppositions that frequently tear Lamar into disfigured voices and personal projection. Or, as he says at two distinctly different points on the record – “C-O-M-P-T-O-N my city’s mobbin’ in the streets” and “Kendrick, AKA Compton’s human sacrifice.”

The particular excellence of Good Kid lies in how easily it would be to listen to the album and derive no unordinary west-coast schizo-rap narrative past the occasional reference to praying. Where Lupe Fiasco’s conceptual sophomore effort The Cool beat the listener over the head with an overwrought and hard to discern narrative, Good Kid works almost just as well as a collection of raps. Opening singles “Backseat Freestyle” and “Swimming Pool (Drank)” are deceptive. On its face, the former is a cataclysmic Hit-Boy joint about asserting that great rap quality, power. The latter is another west-coast staple, the swoony drunk anthem with gorgeous chorus. And this is a perfectly acceptable interpretation. It’s wrong, but it’s acceptable. What you’d miss is that “Backseat” is a alternate universe Kendrick about how he acts when freestyling with his “homies” in the van. “Swimming Pool” isn’t so much clubby as woozy, a lamentation on the affects alcohol has on the lower income community. Interpreting the singles as they are, then, leads to a remarkable reading of clear-headed criticism, elicited by a kid with more perspective to speak on those issues than most professors.

One of those main themes, one that ties the record’s narrative together, is homies. Homies are most directly referenced in the synthy “Art of Peer Pressure,” but their presence invades most of Good Kid. It’s the homies who get K-Dot, the main character of Lamar’s audio play, faded and pissed off about getting rebuffed by two hoodies just 250 feet away from getting laid like he had never believed. It’s those same homies who “fuck yo truce” and fight violence with violence. It’s the kind of homie Lamar dives into on the first verse of the beautiful, heartbreaking “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst.” Yet even if he’s not riffing on this longform narrative (and he deviates into equally pristine short stories on most of the tracks), Lamar seems to understand that most everybody he talks about and inhabits is less than blameless. Money, drugs, guns, impressionable youth taught that revenge is a dish best served anytime, uninvolved parents obsessed with Dominos; good kid is almost hopeless, an endless minefield of wrong decisions, of which the choice between Bloods and Crips might be the safest of all.

But what keeps good kid from descending too far into its own maze is Lamar himself. Recklessly intelligent, Lamar spits out meaningful platitudes like he’s got a book full of them. “The one in front of the gun lives forever” goes the chorus of “Money Trees.”You living in a world that come with plan B / cause plan A never relay a guarantee / and plan C never could say what it was” on the strangely affectless “Real” or the entirety of “I’m Dyin’ of Thirst.” Despite that he’s been in the rap game spouting consciously for a number of years, it seems like Kendrick is only now beginning to read from his strongest book of stories.

The wobbly, neuvo-west coast trunk rattlers here help reinforce Kendrick’s point. Every beat reinforces a narrative theme. “Good Kid” is a hazy Pharell bit that plays like a movie soundtracking for influencing one’s mind. “Poetic Justice” uses a slithery Janet Jackson hook to form a slow-grinder out of Lamar’s thesis that money corrupts most around it. Tracks frequently cut out for a second then come back completely different, then when we hear Kendrick’s voice again, it’s almost unrecognizable. Beats serve Kendrick, Kendrick serves his narrative.

Then there’s the slightly out of place closer. “Compton” is a joyous, buoyant number almost identical to “We Major,” and features the deep baritone of Lamar’s new benefactor, Dre. His verse isn’t bad, and neither is the beat. Both are quite good actually. And Lamar flexes his narrative just enough to make the hook seem sad and glorious at the same time. But it doesn’t match what the album needs for a closer.

Sad, since good kid, m.A.A.d. city is so conceptually beautiful and perfectly executed. Lamar, even in his young age, knows how to reach the most ears as possible – accessing a classic trope (west coast OG rap) and revamping it to serve the dark-hop supernova occurring in today’s culture. Yet, through his machinations on how to create hits (and he has created at least three here), Kendrick Lamar never really gives up the ghost, never deems to sacrifice his mission statement. Because he knows how important this record could be to his hometown. And in a way, good kid, m.A.A.d. city might be exactly what Compton needs, from one of its most reluctant heroes.

Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d. city Tracklist

1. “Sherane AKA Master Splinter’s Daughter”
2. “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe”
3. “Backseat Freestyle”
4. “The Art of Peer Pressure”
5. “Money Trees” (feat. Jay Rock)
6. “Poetic Justice” (feat. Drake)
7. “Good Kid”
8. “M.A.A.D. City” (feat. MC Eiht)
9. “Swimming Pools (Drank)”
10. “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst”
11. “Real” (feat. Anna Wise of Sonnymoon)
12. “Compton” (feat. Dr. Dre)

The difference between a punk and pissant is what happens after the molotov gets tossed. For the past two years, rap has felt bloated by a variety of squawking young things spitting about rape, death and generally menacing society. Whether the two headed monster at the top of Odd Future (Tyler, The Creator and Earl Sweatshirt) or the next level anger-therapy of Death Gripz, the rap game is getting more vocally punk, if not militantly so. But notice that Death Gripz didn’t jump off that ledge, and Tyler only ever manages to get into fights with equally outspoken audience members.

Stefon Alexander, P.O.S., exists in the ultra-fertile middle ground between those anger-rap talking heads and the moralistic midwest underground populated by friends Astronautalitis and Alexander’s label Doomtree. He inhabits the dark-rap headphone music sphere, most notably on the thoughtful, excellent Never Better. But when his blistering vocal style is getting co-opted by rappers far below him, Alexander’s dark-rap needs of a bit of an update. Thus, We Don’t Even Live Here. An alive, emotionally caustic sprint through the best that the Minneapolis rap scene has to offer, P.O.S.’s fourth album is his most accessible outside of headphones. Party rap for the militant, regularly brilliant above all else.

“I’m probably not welcome at your protest,” Alexander mentions on the percussive racer burglary of “All Of It.” The worst part of this statement is that it says more about us than Alexander. What Occupy and other underground movements have done is bring issues to the fore, but for an anarchist like Alexander, the fun’s not in pointing out the flaws, it’s destroying them. “We break in / just so we can smash out,” or so he goes on the even faster “Weird Friends.” In a easy to toss off bridge from that song, he laughingly insists to an un-mic’d friend that a certain thing isn’t broken, it’s better. That world view informs all of the near-perfect second half of We Don’t Even Live Here. Just when you think P.O.S. can’t go any faster, he pulls out his own version of chopped vocals for the chorus of “Weird Friends.” The beats play into this too, always on the industrial side of manic.

Self-sustainability and isolationism permeate Alexander’s worldview. Being a rapper from the upper midwest can do that to a man, but the increasing cache of Alexander’s Doomtree commune has ticked a box inside Stef’s head. Now, instead of feeling like an outsider in a world of misanthropes, We Don’t Even Live Here is a celebration of a specific outsider culture. Anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, anti-just about everything, We Don’t Even Live Here’s opening salvos (the alarming “Bumper” and blues-rap rock out “Fuck Your Stuff”) builds a world out of pissing people off simply because everything we own is fake. From a marketing perspective, We Don’t Even Live Here’s thesis makes you feel almost criminal for buying a record like this. But such is the reality of a gang with a rigid socio-economic mission statement.

Alexander’s seldom sidekick, Lazerbeak, doesn’t get mentioned enough keeping up with Stef’s constantly gestating snarl over multiple album. Here he speeds up the tempos of almost all of his beats, forcing Alexander to flex his intricate rhymes around skittering and skuzzy undercurrents of bass. On one of the funkier trips, “How We Land,” Lazerbeak incorporates scattered hi-hat hits with vox-warped sing-songiness from Stef and a atypically flow-y Justin Vernon. Nothing seems out of place on We Don’t Even Live Here. Everything fits the thesis, above everything feeling like a genuine love letter to anarchy.

Which is what separates P.O.S. from all the other miscreants that have sprouted up past him in the past two years. While they just want to watch the world burn (hell, Tyler “killed” the other members of Odd Future on Goblin), Stefon is huddling with his friends in the cold north, comforted by a participatory anarchy that doesn’t just scream “fuck the world,” it says “fuck shit up, it makes you better.” It’s easy to burn stuff down. P.O.S. does a lot of it on We Don’t Live Here. But the more important thing, the thing that infuses the album with the life it has, is the camaraderie Stefon Alexander shares with his crew to build a model for self-improvement in the flames.

P.O.S. – We Don’t Even Live Here tracklist:

1. “Bumper”
2. “Fuck Your Stuff”
3. “How We Land” (feat. Justin Vernon)
4. “Wanted/Wasted” (feat. Astronautalitis)
5. “They Can’t Come” (feat. Sims)
6. “Lock-picks, Knives, Bricks and Bats”
7. “Fire in the Hole / Arrow to the Action”
8. “Get Down” (feat. Mike Mictlan)
9. “All of It”
10. “Weird Friends (We Don’t Even Live Here)”
11. “Piano Hits” (feat. Isaac Gale)

It’s hard to imagine that, two years down the road and listening to Local Business, Titus Andronicus’ 2010 masterwork The Monitor would sound positively pretty. Yet there’s that beautiful reverb backing up “A Pot in Which to Piss,” or the entirety of “To Old Friends And New.” It’s all gorgeous in construction and execution, the culmination of a conceptual framework working within the confines of a resurgent genre (punk-rock, after all). Spending over an hour with singer Patrick Stickles barking metaphor about the Civil War sounds about as taxing as it isn’t.

In a sense, that is why Local Business was the only way for Titus Andronicus to take their third record. Comparatively short (49 minutes, still longer than Airing of Grievances), devoid of deranged-come-brilliant concept and brashly unadorned, Local Business is a direct descendant of Stickles’ growing cache in the punk community. It also carefully distills exactly what live audiences have always seen in the band – they’re basically The Replacements playing Springsteen covers.

There’s a tradeoff to the stark tonal difference between The Monitor and Local Business. The last three minutes of “Pot In Which To Piss” are destructive beauty at its most pristine while still managing to work in “urine and excrement.” Local Business is still a close at hand, visceral experience, yet much less overtly dramatic, content to let Stickles roll over his words with impressive velocity while keeping the backbeat from overpowering the proceedings. The most dramatic results come from the “In a Big City/Small Body” couplet, but after a few listens there’s a clear reason – Owen Pallett plays violin just under the guitar track. It adds a few extra pounds to cuts that Local Business can sometimes need, as the songs can sometimes lack dramatic heft.

That lack of heft isn’t a bad thing, by any means, and actually liberates Titus to make rambling rock blasts that will undoubtedly play fantastically live. The first quartet sprints through Stickles’ crammed notebook with little regard for literal lyrical clarity, focusing purely on how propulsive and forceful the band can make their five-piece sound. This also makes the lyrics more of a buried treasure – if you’re lucky enough the first time through you’ll hear one of Stickles’ sweetest lines: “behold my brother’s beautiful baby/ it’s obvious to see/ the world’s been makin’ plans to go on without me.”

Were the record a full-bore blast of neo-punk energy, Local Business might feel more like an exercise. Yet the last three tracks significantly expand Titus’ rock n’ roll vocabulary. “In A Small Body” drifts on the precipice of pop-rock while diatribing about the nature of free will. “I Tried to Quit Smoking” is a roughshod expansion of “To Old Friends And New,” only with a far more sinister closing line – “I was screaming kill, kill, kill, Ronald Reagan.” Then, most magnificently, “(I Am The) Electric Man” is pure E Street jam fare, an effervescent, light-hearted piano-driven thesis on exactly why Titus Andronicus aren’t just idiot kids playing punk music. Stickles’ lyrical dexterity is expanding too, but the most important quality here is how close he is screaming them to you.

The proximity into which Patrick Stickles draws you with his lyrics, more than anything else, is what keeps Titus Andronicus from falling back to the pack. It’s easy to mistake such intimacy for a Conor Oberstian clamor for importance, but Local Business is so viciously nihilistic that its tough to tell if Stickles is talking to you or himself throughout the record. There are impossibly gruesome screams into a pillow (“My Eating Disorder”), sardonic, sometimes outright mean spirited speeches that touch on the impossibility of anyone to make an effect on earth (“Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape With the Flood of Detritus”). The impossibly alliterative breakdown in “Hot Deuce” somehow forms a destructive, sorrowful narrative about the inevitability for all men to remain true.  And then there are the jokes. Dismiss “Food Fight” and “Titus Andronicus Vs. The Absurd Universe (3rd Round KO)” at your own peril. There’s a sequential reason why they go respectively before and after “Eating Disorder.” Titus songs may sound like parties, but they are so jam packed with complex ideals that, were they read properly, accurately anoint Stickles as a forebear of the punk movement he’s growing from Shea Stadium BK.

Stickles never allows himself much time to breathe and appreciate his intelligent verbosity, and that has sometimes made Titus lyrics hard to decipher through Stickles’ spitfire yowl. But that difficulty, the necessity for fans to either buy into the product or not fully understand the Local Business pathos, is what ultimately makes the record so rewarding in its relative slightness. It’s not the titanic weight of The Monitor. It’s not even the youthful irreverence of Airing of Grievances. Titus have moved on to the next phase, and Local Business is exactly what fans need to be able to understand the complex friendship that exists between Patrick Stickles, his listeners and his band, rapidly becoming an elite rock outfit.

Titus Andronicus – Local Business tracklist:

1. “Ecce Homo”
2. “Still Life With Hot Deuce on Silver Platter”
3. “Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape With the Flood of Detritus”
4. “Food Fight”
5. “My Eating Disorder”
6. “Titus Andronicus Vs. The Absurd World (3rd Round KO)”
7. “In a Big City”
8. “In a Small Body”
9. “(I Am The) Electric Man”
10. “I Tried to Quit Smoking”

Australian psych-rock outfit Tame Impala made waves with its throwback style of psychedelic music on their mellow debut, Innerspeaker, in 2010. Now, Tame Impala is laying into new, heavier territory with its second studio release, Lonerism.

Lonerism is like some weird trip. The whole album has an atmospheric low-fi touch, while still being well-produced. The music moves in on you and before you know it, your head is in the clouds.

The drums reverberate while astral synth leads launch into groovy breakdowns that bust out of nowhere. Sweeping over much of the album are flanging guitars that seem to swoosh over your head/ears giving the album a dreamy feeling that’s hard to wake up from.

One gripe listeners will have with Lonerism is that some points on the album blend together too well, making it hard to distinguish from track to track. The album is saturated in effects, but it’s a sound that if removed would take away from what Tame Impala does best.

“Nothing So Far Had Been Anything We Could Control” has flanging guitars that sound like surreal jet planes careening across a kaleidoscopic sky, like much of the album does, but is still a sweetly stellar track.

The tracks that stray from that signature sound stand out even more by contrast. “Elephant” has a fat, bluesy hook that builds into a sunny jam with a wet sounding synth lead. “Keep on Lying” falls apart in odd ways with delaying samples of voices/noises over a heavy fuzzed out guitar that smooths back into the main riff, a la “Interstellar Overdrive” by Pink Floyd.

Lonerism opens with the blasting “Be Above It,” which has a driving rhythm made from drums that thicken with noisy delay the track title uttered in loops (“Gotta be above it, gotta be above it, gotta be above it…” etc.) A warbling synth is laid across Parkers’ poppy vocals, which err more to the side of the Beach Boys or the Beatles, who both influence Tame Impala’s psychedelic overtones.

Front man Kevin Parker has a slow-moving, dream pop sensibility and a distorted guitar slung around his neck that he soaks in fantasy effects. Parkers’ sensitive vocals give the noisy psyche-rock vibe a soft twist, like a more spacey Pet Sounds (with fading outros to boot.)

One of the high points of Lonerism is “Music to Walk Home By,” and the pointed suggestion is worth following.

The driving rhythm and low-fi laser synth attacks blast alongside a euphoric jam that could be the soundtrack to a walk through one’s hometown.

Parkers’ dreamy vocals and solo piano on the final track “Suns Coming Up” come off like a Beatles B-Side that never fully formed and suddenly ceases with the slap of a delayed guitar that continues to play over odd samples of footsteps and water rolling in.The sky that was once cluttered with flanging jet planes clears away and the album leaves the listener with the rising sun over the horizon.

Lonerism is focused on introversion/isolation in cluttered world, but the final calm moments seem to offer an optimistic relief from that heavy trip. Tame Impala certainly employs a great number of effects, but Parker and folks don’t hide behind their pedals. As a result, Lonerism stands on its own as a fine work in the hall of psychedelia.

Tame Impala – LonerismTracklist:

1. “Be Above It”
2. “Endors Toi”
3. “Apocalypse Dreams”
4. “Mind Mischief”
5. “Music To Walk Home By”
6. “Why Won’t They Talk to Me”
7. “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”
8. “Keep on Lying”
9. “Elephant”
10. “She Just Won’t Believe Me”
11. “Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control”
12. “Suns’s Coming Up”

His obsession with Jack Kerouac probably beats this drum most clearly, but Ben(jamin) Gibbard is special to a very tight subset of people – collegiate millenials more willing to download Third Eye Blind than Pavement. He’s a qualitative respite from both vacuous pop and impressionistic, stodgy indie rock. For those people who have followed Gibbard down the rabbit hole, his first solo effort, Former Lives, will feel essential, a window into the creative process of a hero. But for most, the record will appear a clearing house for half-cooked compositions and only slightly engaging storytelling, proving that what made Gibbard’s Death Cab For Cutie work special may have been the other members of the band.

Former Lives seems inevitable now that it exists. Gibbard has toured extensively solo, and has never shied away from doing extra-Cutie projects (The Postal Service chief among those). In a way Gibbard is a bit of a cipher, able to blend his perfunctory storytelling bent into any sort of environment required of him. What makes Former Lives so frustrating, then, is that it feels like Gibbard tries to hard to blend into a wall that isn’t there. Half a dozen of the tracks here hit a sort of immediate aural indie-rock pleasure center, then fail to go anywhere notable with that framework. Individually, songs like “Dream Song,” “Teardrop Windows,” “Lily” or “Lady Adelaide” play as weightless mixtape fodder, something mid-tempo to stick between the real stars as palette cleanser. It’s a problem, then, that Former Lives has no real standout tracks, and ends up flailing when it tries to innovate.

Gibbard insists that the tracks from Former Lives are culled from many years of tossed off Death Cab ideas and original compositions Gibbard felt would be more appropriate as his work. Indeed, many of the songs can be directly tied back to former iterations of the seminal Seattle indie-rock band. “Bigger Than Love,” one of the better songs on the record, feels ripped from Narrow Stairs-era Cutie, while the excruciatingly cloy “Something’s Rattling (Cowpoke)” recalls the worst parts of Gibbard’s somewhat misguided collaboration with Jay Farrar for the soundtrack One Fast Move Or I’m Gone. It’s not as if the songs aren’t reinvented for Gibbard’s current sensibilities; it’s only that those sensibilities are relatively boring.

Part of this could be due to Gibbard’s narratives, as well. Never an overly passionate or emotive songwriter, Gibbard’s voice seems to have deteriorated with the passage of time. Former Lives feels like it wants to be close to the listener, drawing you in with it’s tales of love and loss. Yet the closest we ever get to a concrete, sincere feeling is Gibbard’s pretty little line in “Oh Woe,” “It’s been a basement of a year.” Gibbard may not want to directly evoke his broken hearts (of which he insists there are three on Former Lives), but everything else here seems so awkwardly distant that it’s tough to get a handle on exactly what the listener is supposed to be feeling.

The best song of the group, “Duncan, Where Have You Gone?” illustrates the problem of Former Lives most clearly. Adequately over-produced, with vocals swirling across a traditional Gibbard tale of loss, “Duncan” is a sonic outlier from the rest of Former Lives, a possible reason for why the song feels like such a breath of fresh air. It feels like the most necessary of any of the tracks here – not necessarily a Death Cab worthy cut, but something a little better than the odds n’ sods that fill the rest of the record. Completists may find something of value in this collection of Gibbard’s collected solo work, but for the most part there’s little here to attract new listeners or former fans disillusioned by the piddling Codes & Keys.

Benjamin Gibbard – Former Lives tracklist:

1. “Shepherd’s Bush Lullaby”
2. “Dream Song”
3. “Teardrop Windows”
4. “Bigger Than Love”
5. “lily”
6. “Something’s Rattling (Cowpoke)”
7. “Duncan, Where Have You Gone?”
8. “Oh, Woe”
9. “Hard One to Know”
10. “Lady Adelaide”
11. “Broken Yoke in Western Sky”
12. “I’m Building a Fire”

Synth-heavy tunes has essentially become a staple for bands within the indie pop genre, notably those under the genre label “dream pop.” San Francisco’s Tamaryn, consisting of New Zealand-native vocalist Tamaryn and multi-instrumentalist/producer Rex John Shelverton, demonstrated its musical talent to evade this stereotype on its debut album The Waves by blending hazy vocals with shoegaze guitar melodies. Following with their second full-length release Tender New Signs, Tamaryn continues its unconventionally-crafted dream pop sound, bringing its listeners’ heads up into the clouds to sit while the world spins ’round.

Much praise for Tamaryn’s musical growth on Tender New Signs is due to Shelverton’s instrumental talents implemented in the songs’ writing. Noticeably on the tracks “I’m Gone” and “Prizma,” the multi-instrumentalist lays a wide range of sharp and striking guitar riffs alongside bouncing basslines beneath Tamaryn’s heavy but airy vocals. These melodies carry the songs, adding variety and flair that catch the listener’s attention when entranced by Tamaryn’s ethereal vocals.

Fortunately on Tender New Signs, Tamaryn’s still retains its garage-reminiscent authenticity while incorporating even darker dream pop and shoegaze sounds, especially on tracks like “The Garden.” Tamaryn explained to Pitchfork regarding their first album:

“We recorded everything ourselves in our practice space, but it is not lo-fi. I always want to make it more epic and beautiful, but I don’t want it to be totally laptop-y sounding either, so it’s hanging in the balance. It’s really cool what you can do with a guitar and a Fender Twin and a space echo. We don’t use any digital pedals or electronics. We don’t use any pedals at all, really.”

This musical rawness can be rare to find in the dream pop and shoegaze genres. Many dream pop artists rely on technology for pre-recorded sounds and editing as a crutch to cover up any blemishes in their songs and create the signature airy vocals, while shoegazers often incorporate so many effect pedals to their guitars’ sounds that their works wind up becoming auditory car wrecks. Tamaryn, fortunately, finds its sound in an organic form on Tender New Signs, sharing with the listener its authentic artistry of basic sounds. The intro to “The Garden” exemplifies this perfectly. After flooding the listeners’ ears with raw guitar chops that send chills down the spine, the bittersweet vocals provide a remedy to calm the listener into a melodic trance. Although compiled together in such a simple manner, Tamaryn creates a work of art many artists strive and fail to achieve on their own.

Tender New Signs has brought about some musical development in Tamaryn’s sound, displaying in full the duo’s abilities to create a continuation of the dream pop-shoegaze hybrid sounds heard on The Waves. However, many will not dismiss the fact that the album carries some flaws. Differentiating between the band’s debut and sophomore records can be a difficult task, as the two albums sound almost identical in their vocal styles and mood. Additionally, while Tamaryn’s voice carries the crooning dream pop-style vocals well, they often sound muffled, like she is singing through a plastic bag, making it difficult to discern the songs’ lyrics. Nonetheless, Tamaryn knows its musical direction and will keep listeners locked under Tender New Signs’s hazy entrancement.

Tamaryn – Tender New Signs tracklist:

1. “I’m Gone”
2. “While You’re Sleeping, I’m Dreaming”
3. “Heavenly Bodies”
4. “No Exits”
5. “Prizma”
6. “The Garden”
7. “Transcendent Blue”
8. “Afterlight”
9. “Violet’s In A Pool”

The Giving Tree Band’s  fifth studio release, Vacilador, blissfully honors Americana, and in light of that begs a question.

Is it the responsibility of musicians to expand upon the soundscape that they emulate and tread new ground? Naturally, musicians take from the styles and artists that influence them, and of course it shouldn’t be required or expected of every musician to expand as time progresses.

Yet, The Giving Tree Band’s Vacilador still runs the risk of being another album among myriad bluegrass/folk/Americana acts that have bubbled up from the wake of the ’60s and ’70s. However, failing to recognize the great songwriting, and dedication to the music of the past is a mistake.

Vacilador kicks off with “Cold Cold Rain,” a wild cowboy tune that bursts with bluegrass goodness, and that energy rides throughout the album’s entirety.

What this album lacks in innovation or originality, it makes up for with that lively energy.

Jam-based sections, such as “Silent Man,” which burst with guitar and piano solos, popping up amidst the clean, country rock, sound like they were plucked straight from the live catalog of the Grateful Dead. An even more obvious nod to the Grateful Dead’s influence is the powerful cover of “Brown Eyed Women,” which The Giving Tree Band gives a fresh spin.

Much of the album is blended with a swelling Hammond B3 organ that gives Vacilador a sound akin to Bob Dylans’ work. “Miss You Now” and “I Can’t Stay” are great examples of that Dylan-esque organ, and the calm picking on the acoustic guitar in these two pay homage as well.

Despite the obvious inspiration, “Miss You Now” is a well-executed love song that The Giving Tree Band has made all its own. With a quaint simplicity, vocalist Eric Fink beckons for the return of an old lover who wanted to “break free, like a fruit from the tree”.

The Giving Tree Band has also been drawing comparisons to The Band with its knack for solid writing and folk/bluegrass tinged rock and roll. But that Americana feel takes the back burner for a few bluegrass/country tunes like “Quiet Star,” and “Ragweed Rose.” These songs would make Neil Young proud and deserve to be sung beneath the night sky of Appalachia.

“Limbo” is a cheerful tune with small cameos of silly whistles, and glockenspiels similar to the Fab Four. The latter half of the song has some very distinct allusions (it comes close to “A Day in the Life” at times), and the lyrics “Do you know my eyes exhale love, as easy as a flower” wouldn’t be out of place in any of The Beatles’ work.

The highlight of the album is “River King.” It starts off with almost hip-hop sounding drums and a little jam on the standup bass. A bluesy guitar and violin brings the song into a jovial country tune that rides through the end. Tracks like “River King” give Vacilador the feel of a summer afternoon along a riverside in good company.

The Giving Tree Band takes the sound of its influences to heart and applies them well to Vacilador. However, the band doesn’t carve out a niche all to itself, leaving one with the desire for something inventive and pioneering. Yet, each song on Vacilador is a tight package, and the album as a whole works well. Perhaps this a testament to tried and true musical styling of the past.

The Giving Tree Band – VaciladorTracklist:

1. “Cold Cold Rain”
2. “Higher Than The Levee”
3. “Brown Eyed Woman”
4. “Miss You Now”
5. “Dead Heroes”
6. “Silent Man”
7. “Quiet Star”
8. “Once or Twice Before”
9. “Limbo”
10. “Ragweed Rose”
11. “I Can’t Stay”
12. “River King
13. “Forgiveness and Permission”
14. “Thief”

Total Loss is the second album from Tom Krell’s solo-electronic project How To Dress Well. Krell’s sound is an amalgamation of genres that blend into something that fell out of his dreams.

Total Loss is a highly emotional album that without a doubt comes straight from Krell’s heart.

The album resembles a letter, or a statement from Krell to those close to him. The song “Set it Right” starts off with a crushing wall of sound a la Washed Out that dissolves into that quiet letter where Krell goes through a list of friends and says “I miss ya” to each one of them. It’s at this point that the listener that the letter fully manifests as a thank you to all the people that helped him get to where he is now, a testament to all the long nights Krell spent honing his craft and unique sound while wearing headphones and noodling around on his laptop.

Musically, the album takes influence from all over the place. There are songs that sound like a sunny version of Black Moth Super Rainbow (“Ocean Floor for Everything”), there are moments that sound like an interlude on a Sigur Ros album, (“World I Need You, Won’t Be Without You (Proem)”). The echoed-underwater-sounding-piano sample on “Say My Name Or Say Whatever” could pass as a riff from legendary electronic producer Bibio and the deep bass drops in the quiet parts of the track give off an eerie goosebumps feeling similar to James Blake.

The musical influence and scope of this album is the sort that shares something new with each listen, growing with them through each go around. The use of multiple layers and reverb on the almost whispered vocals (“It Was You”) sounds like what Bon Iver’s side project Volcano Choir could have been with a taste of Michael Jackson and grooving R’n’B.

“Talking to You” features some plucked violins and enough jaw-dropping attention to detail that it could without a doubt be part of a film score.

This doesn’t mean that the album is perfect. The first half of the album moves quickly and sucks the listener straight into Krell’s world. However, the second half is hit or miss with songs like “How Many?” and “Struggle” that sound too much like other tracks on the album.

Total Loss at times is like Monet’s series of paintings that show the same landscape in different seasons for young twenty-somethings listening to their headphones alone in their bed at night.

How to Dress Well – Total Loss tracklisting:

1. “When I Was In Trouble”
2. “Cold Nites”
3. “Say My Name Or Say Whatever”
4. “Running Back”
5. “& It Was U”
6. “World I Need You, Won’t Be Without You (Proem)”
7. “Struggle”
8. “How Many”
9. “Talking To You”
10. “Set It Right”
11. “Ocean Floor For Everything”

Flying Lotus, alias of Los Angeles producer Steven Ellison, has come a long way from creating beats for Adult Swim.

His 2006 debut 1983 had listeners (read “stoners”) saying, “This sounds really cool, man, but I think if I had like a synth and Garage Band or some shit …”  Those same listeners shut their mouths and turned their speakers up two years later with the release of Los Angeles, knowing that FlyLo was clearly doing something which exceeded their capabilities (e.g. “Camel” and “Golden Diva”) and Call of Duty had an exciting new soundtrack for them to play along to.

As a man among electronic boys, Flying Lotus set a standard for electronic artists including himself when he released the infinitely more cerebral and complex Cosmogramma in 2010 to critical acclaim. When talks of a forth LP were hitting the press, the question became: “Where could he possibly go from Cosmogramma?”  It seemed that one more dissonant snare-tick, washed out synth or Thundercat bass-riff could have risked sonic implosion.

However, Until the Quiet Comes is just as complex and engaging as Cosmogramma, but far less aggressive in its presentation.

It’s also a much more introspective record – a absorption of mood and atmosphere as opposed to witnessing a projective explosion. On “DMT Song,” Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner sings “I can take you to a world where you can spread your wings and fly away.”  That carefree bliss stands true for a handful of tracks including the aforementioned, but a good deal of the songs feel darker and weighted in mood, as if the listener is less flying and rather suspended, sometimes comfortably, in an isolation tank in an altered state of mind.

The album is almost narrative in its structure.  The first six tracks are a seamless collective of jazz, hip hop and electro that establish a tone and increase in complexity; the quick and anxious “Tiny Tortures” perhaps being the inciting incident. “Sultan’s Request” functions as a crisis, jarring the listener with it’s harsh synth, which sounds as though it was lifted from an original Nintendo Prince of Persia level. The climax lasts from the honey-sweet “DMT Song” through the beamed-up mothership jazz funk of “The Nightcaller” and “Only If You Wanna.”

Flying Lotus also stands out in his ability to attract featured artists that are impressive and unafraid to play to FlyLo’s fiddle.

Most notable is Brainfeeder cohort Thundercat whose bass provides a frolicking backbone to more than a few of the tracks on Until.  Thom Yorke makes a hilariously creepy reappearance on “Electric Candyman.”  In a wraith-like whisper he echoes Destiny’s Child’s “Say My Name,” before the percussion devolves into the erratic beat of a tell-tale heart.

Erykah Badu fits right in on “See Thru to U” complete with a jazzy beat and skittering cymbal-work and the song ends with an eerie a capella that one wouldn’t find on any of her solo records. With the aid of Niki Randa’s soft vocals, “Getting There” is easily the best hip hop track on the album.  Finally, Laura Darlington, the only collaborator who has been with FlyLo since his first full-length, is a perfect match for “Phantasm” with her gorgeous, wispy delivery.

If Until has a failing, it is one that befalls every “anti-album;” songs are not allotted enough time to breathe.  This album has no shortage of head-bumpers or finger-snappers, but some of the less-than-three minute tracks feel stunted.  The listener yearns for extended versions of tracks like “Heave(n)” and “All the Secrets,” both of which coincidentally have a hip hop Amnesiac feel.  Instead, the listener is forced to accept an intelligently packaged portfolio of skeletal sketching in the place of human form.

Until the Quiet Comes is an album shrouded in mystique. Numerous spins answer some questions but reveal countless others. Its moodiness and wide range of genre exploration, instrumentation and tonality assure a spot as one of the most impressive albums of this year, and though some fans of Cosmogramma might find Until to be a “retreat record,” it would be difficult to argue its enhanced accessibility over the former.

Flying Lotus – Until the Quiet Comes tracklist:

1. “All In”
2. “Getting There feat. Niki Randa”
3. “Until the Colours Come”
4. “Heave(n)”
5. “Tiny Tortures”
6. “All the Secrets”
7. “Sultan’s Request”
8. “Putty Boy Strut”
9. “See Thru to U feat. Erykah Badu”
10. “Until the Quiet Comes”
11. “DMT Song feat. Thundercat”
12. “The Nightcaller”
13. “Only if You Wanna”
14. “Electric Candyman feat. Thom Yorke”
15. “Hunger feat. Niki Randa”
16. “Phantasm feat. Laura Darlington”
17. “me Yesterday//Corded”
18. “Dream to Me”