Pop 'stache

There’s a fine line between progressive-rock noodling and post-rock instrumental flights of fancy, and Hella do a hellacious job of walking that line. At times, it’s hard to know if one is listening to King Crimson or Jane’s Addiction, especially given there are no vocals to be found in the Hella-toire. 

Is this record called Tripper because they are going on a trip, or are they tripping the light fantastic and tripping over their own feats? There are enough starts, stops, and jarring tempo changes to justify the impression that the latter is the intent.

On Tripper, Hella find themselves at the junction of busy math-rock a la Battles or Polvo and classic-rock jammingness of Led Zeppelin or Phish.  But if this is truly part of the math-rock tradition, perhaps intersection or some other geometric term would be more fitting. Alternately, if the “balls to the wall” rocking here means they want to align themselves with the jammingness of their prog-rock/dusty forebears (unlikely, but then again, bell-bottom blue jeans are making a comeback), maybe crossroads would be a better phrase to use.

Although there is a Battles comparison to be made, Holy Fuck comes to mind as well (on a number of levels). That phrase is especially fitting when one learns that Hella is a duo on Tripper — their fifth record overall but their first since 2007. Spencer Seim (guitar) and Zach Hill (drums) have been playing together for more than 10 years, since they were in high school, and it shows in the their tightness and in what a well oiled machine they are.

Although they don’t have the lingering melodies and subtle atmospherics of Japandroids, that duo also provides a useful reference point.

The record begins in media res with “Headless,” as if to point out that there is no beginning and no end to this music. On “Osaka” their freneticism bubbles along in such a way that the listener can almost feel blisters forming on their fingers. It almost sounds like an early Metallica instrumental (if a bit jazzier) before it mercifully fades away, midcontemplation. With “On The Record,” fears that Hella might groove themselves off the record seem legitimate, as the racing, start-stop action jars head-banging necks like a roller coaster designed by a sadist. In contrast, “Furthest” sounds as though it could be the opening salvo in a Southern roots-rock revival combo like Ponderosa, but it quickly whirls apart like some kind of Fatboy Slim remix of a Creedence Clearwater jam. “Psycho Bro” rocks — rocks hard and rocks repeatedly. If early 1990s instrumental guitar stylists Pell Mell provided the world with rhyming guitars, these boys are giving listeners speed-rapping guitars (or at least one very busy guitar).

Today, more than 10 years into the 21st century, it’s a legitimate question to ask whether anything new can be done with guitar and drums. Maybe and maybe not. But regardless, until the answer to that question can be found, there’s some good rockin’ to be had on Tripper. And given that the digital download is available via their label for less than eight bucks, this might be the first best-music-deal of the fall. For those who like their rock sans vocals, complicated, fast and loud, they can’t go wrong, and repeated listens are rewarded. However,the right mood is recommended — this is definitely not music to go to sleep to. This is music to wake up to, and one can’t help but be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with this jolt of electric energy. 

Hella — Tripper Tracklist:

1. “Headless”
2. “Self Checkout”
3. “Long Hair”
4. “Yubacore”
5. “Netgear”
6. “Kid Life Crisis”
7. “On The Record”
8. “Furthest”
9. “Psycho Bro”
10. “Osaka”

Should MTV Scandinavia give the award for Bewildering Album of the Year, I Break Horses’ debut Hearts would take the cake.

Maria Lindén and Fredrik Balck have spent a better part of the last three years in Stockholm putting together the nine-track album, Hearts, as well as two music videos. With marked influences including My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and The Jesus and Mary Chain, the duo has learned the ropes of shoegazing from some of the very best. Lindén previously said that she always loved the Smog song “I Break Horses,” yet despite the band’s name, Smog was not necessarily a major musical influence. According to The Iceberg (an art project focusing on finding truth in artists’ work through interviews — including topics of song lyrics and band names), “Seeing it [I Break Horses] written down, within the more abstract context of a band name, it seemed to be nicely ambiguous. Some names tell you what kind of music you’re getting, and I liked the fact that ‘I Break Horses’ didn’t at all. It also didn’t feel like a pretentious name, so it was a fairly straightforward choice.”

If “nicely ambiguous” is what they were going for, undoubtedly, it was achieved. Despite an enigmatic surge, an overarching carnal and earthly theme is strung throughout the album, especially with song titles “Pulse,” “Hearts,” “Cancer” and “Wired.” Lindén’s ghostly, reverberant vocals bring warmness to otherwise cold and mechanical instrumentals.

The couple has a striking ability to make all the songs sound different — which is a feat in itself with any shoegazer band. Just when you expect the song to continue on its seemingly endless path of hollow crooning and repetitive beats, a handful of the songs (“Hearts” and “Load Your Eyes”) take a surprising and welcomed change when least expected.

In addition to the debut album, the band also released a couple of music videos. In collaboration with director Alex Southam (aka “Oof”), videos for “Hearts” and “Winter Beats” are an enchanting balance of visual pleasure and obscure imagery. The video for “Hearts” brings the song to life with choppy, yet stunning, film splices of mountain and pasture landscapes. Movement is an apparent theme with the lake water, clouds and roadside in constant motion. Whether the video brings more clarity to the song’s meaning, however, is still up for debate. “Winter Beats” has a familiar Oof-ness (lots of time-lapsed clouds) with a mix of quirky images that could only parallel Donnie Darko. Both videos can be viewed on the band’s website. Again, neither video lets listeners in on the secrets of the songs’ meaning. But, alas, plenty of pretty visuals are in store.

Despite nearly indecipherable lyrics and disconcerting videos, the album as a whole earns its weight in redeeming qualities: Its unconventional composition of cold and warm, light and dark, soft and hard are curious and alluring. This isn’t the kind of album you would listen to for motivation or for staying awake on a cross-country road trip. No, you also won’t hear any of these songs on the playlist while whirling around the rinks at Skate World. I Break Horses is not that kind of band. Listeners, instead, are more likely to discover a parallel universe with their naked eye or bend spoons with their brains than dance to or decipher the lyrics of these songs. Hearts is a thinking album; or perhaps good background music for a creative endeavor or for a party at the very end of the night.

The band is signed with Bella Union, an independent, artist-run label that also has released music from Fleet Foxes, Andrew Bird, Explosions in the Sky and Wavves, among many others.

I Break Horses — Hearts Tracklist:

1. “Winter Beats”
2. “Hearts”
3. “Wired”
4. “I Kill Your Love, Baby”
5. “Pulse”
6. “Cancer”
7. “Load Your Eyes”
8. “Empty Bottles”
9. “No Way Outro”

The first track on Balam Acab’s debut album, Wander/Wonder, contains a genuinely shocking surprise. The intro track, appropriately titled “Welcome,” is about five minutes long, and four of those minutes consist of a dreary, post-apocalyptic drone. But in that last minute, the song throws a curveball and something powerful happens: The track’s looped samples of dust and ruin peel away to reveal something lighter, something vibrant, something absolutely beautiful.

It’s hard to capture in words, but the magnificent contrast between the dark and empty first half of the song and the lush, serene end is near-perfect. It’s almost breathtaking in the way that it happens and flawless in its transformation. This might sound overblown, but it truly is a powerful moment and a great start to a fantastic album — and hopefully a fantastic career.

If pushed to categorize Balam Acab, one might be tempted to call it ambient music — it is certainly a slower, downtempo affair, where sounds are given a large amount of space to grow and interact — but there are a lot of different elements at play here that keep Wander/Wonder from being so easily defined and sorted. It’s sort of synth-heavy, but it isn’t really an electronic album. It masterfully uses syncopated loops and samples, but it definitely isn’t a dance album. It has a very retro, naturalistic feel, but it’s absolutely still fresh, exciting and new.

The standout track on Wander/Wonder is “Apart,” which is probably the closest the album really gets to a true “single.” It has a stronger driving pulse of drums than any of the other tracks, and it is the only one that can be taken out of context and fully enjoyed. Other tracks on the album are all equally strong, but they don’t really stand on their own as much as they contribute to the album as a whole and grand unified vision.

This is not a radio-friendly recording, where you can pick one track you like and listen to it until your ears bleed. This is an album meant to be experienced from start to finish, stronger because of the way the tracks interact and build when played together in sequence.

It’s a bold move to make an album that can’t be chopped up for use in commercials or played in short bursts over FM transmissions, but here it pays off masterfully. At only 36 minutes long, a full runthrough of Wander/Wonder isn’t an excessive time commitment; the record breezes on by and leaves the listener ready for more.

One could probably spend a hundred pages trying to explain each little sound texture, each nuance, or each vocal sample and how they all play off of each other but still couldn’t really explain what’s at play within Wander/Wonder. It’s just something you have to hear and evaluate for yourself. So stop reading, go out there and listen to a track, or two, or all eight. You might just find one of the most interesting and unique albums released in months.

Balam Acab — Wander/Wonder Tracklist:

1. “Welcome”
2. “Apart”
3. “Motion”
4. “Expect”
5. “Now Time”
6. “Oh, Why”
7. “Await”
8. “Fragile Hope”

How would you imagine an egg-salad and sauerkraut sandwich tasting? Can you picture the eggs and sour cabbage waging an unholy war on your taste buds and stomach? It sounds awful to think about. They’re just two things that while sometimes good on their own would never work slapped together haphazardly on a sandwich.

In the same vein, Eyes Set to Kill’s newest release, White Lotus, feels hastily put together, badly thought out, and leaves a horrible taste in the mouths of listeners.

The first half of the album is five songs and one short filler track that all try to maintain the illusion that this is a post-hardcore album by a post-hardcore group. However, it really brings nothing new to the genre that you haven’t heard before.

The songs all sound like b-sides Paramore or Evanescence put in a vault and decided not to release. There’s heavy double bass, fast guitar riffs, and growling male and high-pitched feminine contrasting vocals aplenty.

It’s the standard formula for the genre, and they follow it to a T. However, none of it is appealing because none of the tracks really standout from each other, much less from anything else in the genre. In fact, the album’s first track, “The Secrets Between,” and it’s fourth, “Harsh,” both seem to start with the same exact drum beat. Simply put, there’s nothing here that hasn’t been done already, and there’s nothing here that seems to be worth a second, or even a first, listen.

The second half of the album is where that bad taste in your mouth is cemented in and becomes nearly impossible to get rid of. The band seemingly decided to give up on this album having a cohesive sound and slapped four acoustic tracks onto its end. These last four tracks don’t fit at all with the sound of the rest of the album, and they just seem badly thought out from the start.

One of them is an acoustic version of the already hard to listen to “Harsh,” and another is entitled “Untitled” which contains amazingly uninspired lyrics about lost love such as, “I can’t see your face / Your writing’s on the walls / Your writing’s on the walls. Your letter is in the place / I wish that you would call / I wish that you would call.”

The other two acoustic tracks are covers of Nirvana’s “Polly” and Hole’s “Doll Parts” that both add nothing original to the songs and hold none of the pain or raw emotion that can be found in the originals. Good covers are acceptable additions to any album, but these horrible covers just add to an already overwhelming list of bad things found on this album.

There’s not a sound on this album that you couldn’t find done better already in the world of music. There are even a few sounds that you’d be better off never hearing, such as their atrocious cover of “Polly.” If you come across White Lotus or an egg-salad and sauerkraut sandwich in the wild, do yourself a favor and avoid both. Your senses will thank you.

Eyes Set to Kill White Lotus Tracklisting:

1. “The Secrets Between”
2. “Forget”
3. “Stuck Underneath”
4. “Harsh”
5. “Where I Want to Be”
6. “Erasing Everything”
7. “Doll Parts”
8. “Untitled”
9. “Polly”
10. “Harsh (Acoustic)”

Whenever a truly progressive prog metal band becomes conscious of and embraces their prog side, they often become bloated versions of themselves, sometimes losing their direction or purpose. This, of course, spreads beyond metal, but lately a lot of the big names in metal have gone this route. Recent works by Mastodon and Between the Buried and Me exemplify this to differing degrees of success. The former was able to don the prog cloak, simultaneously pushing their sound forward without losing their identity while the latter aimed to recreate a past opus but resulted with a needlessly excessive, sometimes laughable, parody of themselves (although not all bad).

Opeth’s Heritage falls somewhere in between. It’s a logical progression from their 2008 release Watershed, which pointed toward a full-on prog sound while still retaining some of their death-metal leanings. Heritage drops the death metal completely, but unlike the 2003 experiment in soft prog rock, Damnation, Heritage still keeps things pretty heavy.

The title track opens the album with a two-minute piano prelude. It sounds like Mikael Åkerfeldt is now trying to create something epic. Their strongest openers from the past have been startling and dynamic. There’s no element of surprise in “Heritage,” and really, there is no element of surprise in Heritage. Attempts at surprising transitions are forced and disconcerting, such as the tribal beat and spooky sounds at the beginning of “Famine,” which abruptly and oddly shift into soft piano. It’s not worth analyzing the rest of the eight-minute mess. “Nepenthe” incorporates a circusy keyboard riff, which would be surprising if the band didn’t do the same thing three years earlier on “The Lotus Eater,” only this one lasts longer and has really boring shredding over it.

Per Wiberg’s keys clearly aren’t necessary anymore, and on this album, it sounds as though Åkerfeldt wrote complete songs and then had to find a way to squeeze some keys in. It’s not surprising that he and the group parted ways after this recording.

The entirely clean-sung vocals bring the unfortunately weak lyrics to the front. Åkerfeldt’s lyrics rarely were something the masses could connect with, but there was still artistry behind them and conviction in the way he sang. Some of the band’s darker lyrical content in the past has worked much better with growls. When, in “The Devil’s Orchard,” Åkerfeldt sings “God is dead,” it’s like there is no meaning. A statement like that can’t be made lightly, but that’s how he’s done it.

Despite the fact that Damnation was designed to break the mold, it was still an honest representation of where the band was and where they were heading. It sounds more natural than Heritage, which sounds more like a band struggling to survive and progress.

Perhaps this can be chalked up to personnel changes. This is guitarist Fredrik Åkesson and drummer Martin Axenrot’s second album with Opeth. These two are faster, cleaner players than those they replaced, but this works against them just as much as it works for them. Åkesson’s added abilities have lent themselves to more complex guitar interplay, but that comes at the expense of really strong riffs and melodies. Axenrot often sounds like a session drummer, lacking the flavor of former drummer Martin Lopez, who brought an unusually groovy backbone to Opeth’s heaviness.

There are still moments where everything is on-point. The greater portion of “Häxprocess” has awesome acoustic lines and a sturdy rhythm section with tasty embellishments popping in and out. Plus, Åkerfeldt’s unmistakable guitar work still has the chance to shine from time to time.

In trying to be a prog band, Opeth have lost a lot about them that was progressive. The dudes have chops, and they always have, but for the first time, it seems the band wants the listener to notice. Heritage is dynamic, but it feels like the dynamics are there because it’s expected of them. Åkerfeldt’s work hasn’t been nearly as prolific or powerful as it once was, but at least he’s not content to stagnate.

In keeping with the more cheesy tendencies of prog rock, Heritage boasts an astonishingly tacky album cover with several “symbolic” images. The album itself isn’t as awful as the artwork, even if some songs suffer from overthinking and idea-cramming. And many fans, especially those of Watershed, will definitely dig this.

Opeth – Heritage tracklist:

1. “Heritage”
2. “The Devil’s Orchard”
3. “I Feel the Dark”
4. “Slither”
5. “Nepenthe”
6. “Häxprocess”
7. “Famine”
8. “The Lines in My Hand”
9. “Folklore”
10. “Marrow of the Earth”

Pop music is at an interesting place at the moment. Mainly because, if and when it is considered at all, the various degrees of its legitimacy are spread out all over the place. Take Justin Timberlake, for example. At some point in the last four years, we came to realize that it was officially no longer cool to hate him or his music. But that idea is beginning to age, and we now find ourselves wondering what the most respectable way to perceive him is. Is it more respectable to appreciate his largely unrelated comedic abilities and regard his music with fond nostalgia, saving our real respect for other artists on the pop spectrum?

Consider these: The Dodos make pop music, and it’s arguable that they are solidly respectable to enjoy publicly while encountering minimal wrath from fellow music lovers. Katy Perry makes pop music, and she is respectable and hilarious to enjoy un-ironically. Robyn is somewhere in between, and musicophiles will laugh accordingly.

And now there’s Eleanor Friedberger. Friedberger—sister of the brother-sister (“indie rock,” declares Wikipedia) duo The Fiery Furnaces—has released her first solo album called Last Summer that belongs very much on the respectable side of the pop music spectrum. Regardless of how cringe-worthy the phrase “pop music” may or may not be at this point, Friedberger’s work is simply killer.

There are a couple of key aspects that push the album toward the serious, quality- and art-conscious side of the pop spectrum—namely the lyrics and production—that fall under the album’s glowing, unifying theme: memory.

Friedberger’s lyrics are rich in memory, teeming with imagery and romance. She writes great poetry, complete with the requisite ability to move listeners and inspire knowing swoons. She melds the specificity of her references (“I imagine Governor’s Island as “Shutter Island”/Imagine Christopher Walken as a dancer named Ronnie/It just don’t seem right”) with the universality of vulnerable and quiet yearning. These concrete memories at times act as dense webs through which listener cannot quite break through to share the same mental space with her, but that seems entirely appropriate to the theme and function of memory itself; its true presence forever lies just out of our reach.

Her delicate, softly wavering voice is not particularly stunning in terms of range, power or raw emotional conveyance (versus, say, Fiona Apple) but it is wildly trustworthy, which—given the storytelling theme of the album—is nearly perfect.

Friedberger is a lovely spokeswoman (“His mom went blind with the third baby/Oh shit, that’s crazy”) for the act of retroactively looking at behaviors, decisions and random happenings of the past. Her delivery is brave, rich, young, gracefully unsure and fittingly hurt, yet still detached enough to keep good—if at times slightly ahead or anxious—timing to this unique, piano-driven, indie-pop rock that is entirely her own.

“One Month Marathon” features Friedberger’s voice at its loveliest. She is closest to us at this point—as is her heart, making it the album’s only wound; its one single outright admittance of sadness. Her voice whispers with gentle strength, and her lyrics plead for her vulnerability to be reciprocated (“Can I see through your mirror?/Can I come in your store, baby?”). It is a quiet standout.

What Friedberger’s lyrics do for cultivating the album’s nostalgia factor, the production does for transforming its catchiness into enriching addictiveness. The sparse, esoteric musical details that pepper Last Summer create divinely infectious moments in each song; moments that feel redeeming to rewind and hear again. These details stick in your craw in the most delightful, heartbursting way. For example, on “Inn of the Seventh Ray,” the combination of the echoing vocals, the clean and punchy piano sounds (seemingly recorded in a small room), and the hungry distortion of electric guitar take it from solid pop songwriting to smart, magical, memory-laden realms.

Some works of art have endings so unique and fitting that they transcend any and all predictability. When those gorgeous final 41 seconds of Last Summer fall upon the listener, a smile will be the only appropriate response. It’s hard not to by happy when Eleanor Friedberger is making such solid pop music, and that it continues to open up even further with each listen.

Eleanor Friedberger – Last Summer Tracklist:

1. “My Mistakes”
2. “Inn of the Seventh Ray”
3. “Heaven”
4. “Scenes From Bensonhurst”
5. “Roosevelt Island”
6. “Glitter Gold Year”
7. “One-Month Marathon”
8. “I Won’t Fall Apart on You Tonight”
9. “Owl’s Head Park”
10. “Early Earthquake”

In La Liberación, CSS sound as though they’re rationing out their talent to stay afloat. Fun and poppy is expected for the Brazilian quintet, but the album lacks newness or excitement. As the group’s third release,  La Liberación holds true to the CSS electronic sound — alternative dance music with synthesizers and flighty lyrics in tow.

CSS (Cansei de Ser Sexy, which is Portuguese for “tired of being sexy”) have a thirst for partying that is reflected in the music. Their inherent high-energy, party lifestyle is embodied not only in their bouncy beats, but also through their lyrics.

When CSS released their first studio album, Cansei de Ser Sexy (2006), listeners got an alarming taste of what one can only assume was the sweet sound of early South American hipster, new-rave discotheques. The second release, Donkey, came along reiterating that sound — cantankerous, in-your-face lyrics and all. And with this third effort, the wow factor is still weak. We get it, CSS, you are fearless and you like to rock all night. What else have you got?

La Liberación does have a few refreshing sounds, embellished by a reggae beat, which is especially exemplified in its first single, “Hits Me Like a Rock.” Perhaps CSS is using the single as a good marketing tool and selling point for the rest of the album. Because of the reggae addition, the song deviates from the familiar indie-electro sounds of past albums; it’s one of their more eclectic tunes.

La Liberación opens with “I Love You,” which is probably the most quintessential CSS song on the album with a steady, dancy drum beat and synthesizer. “I thought I was a traffic light/You always see me there but never realize/And like a car crash, you change my scene/You bumped into me, and now my light is always green.” And no love song, of course, is complete without a cowbell clanking around in the background.

To mix things up, the band has some outside help on a handful of songs (“Hit Me Like a Rock” features Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream; “City Grrl,” Ssion; “Partners in Crime,” Mile Garson; and “Red Alert,” Ratatat). “Partners in Crime” is the closest thing to a ballad on the whole album. Garson’s contributing piano work is a stark contrast to CSS’s normal tempo. But they make the collaboration work well.

If more songs were like this one, the album would have more depth and substance. To credit CSS, “You Could Have It All,” also employs a substantial balance of piano and guitar. If their synthesizer-to-stringed instrument ratio were any lower, we wouldn’t recognize CSS’s music.

Ratatat’s influence is immediately evident on “Red Alert.” Since La Liberación, as a whole, lacks cutting-edge sounds, it helps to bring on other artists to help the album’s appeal. The song opens with keyboards, a slower beat and a lot of bass. The song’s tempo is more somber, and the overall tone is darker than any other tunes on the album. Also, lead vocalist Lovefoxxx raps the lyrics more so than sings them.

A third album for any band is tough. Groups are tasked with either reinventing themselves or putting a new spin on an already worthwhile sound. As for CSS and La Liberación, however, they’ve done a decent job of polishing a sound they’ve proved can draw an audience.

CSS – La Liberación Tracklist:

1. “I Love You”
2. “Hits Me Like a Rock”
3. “City Grrl”
4. “Echo of Love”
5. “You Could Have It All”
6. “La Liberación”
7. “Partners in Crime”
8. “Ruby Eyes”
9.  “Rhythm to the Rebels”
10. “Red Alert”
11. “Fuck Everything”

The base elements that made Florence and the Machine such an astronomically successful British pop act are the same things that will prevent Nikki Lane from becoming Florence’s American counterpart. While she shares a similar fascination with the retro-female sounds of yore (British minstrelsy for Florence, country western for Lane) and has the distinct ability to craft hooky pop songs in her own vein, Lane is hamstrung by her decision to idolize and imitate those nonironic, older-skewing country stars that never get mentioned outside of their genre, with the occasional Tarantino movie excepted. That said, Lane’s debut, Walk of Shame, is a clever and punky update of some of the sounds that too often get forgotten in the race to sound “new.”

This is not to say that Walk of Shame is decidedly “retro.” The closing song, “I Can’t Be Satisfied,” sounds ripped from the Dixie Chicks’ songbook, with pounding electric guitars and drums accented by a little-too-down-home fiddle lick. “Come Away Joe” sounds like a She & Him song, which may sound ridiculous as an argument for Walk of Shame not being retro, but listen to the tune and it makes sense. Lastly, “Comin’ Home to You,” even if it drops “Chantilly lace” as a fancy getup, sells itself a bit too close to modern country-folk love ballads, again excepting the fact that the lyrical subject (coming home to a man after being on tour) is a decidedly new topic for female driven songs of this ilk.

When listening to Lane, it’s not like you’re transported back to a time when Patsy Cline or Loretta Lynn were dominant forces on the radio. You’re merely reminded of that time, better informing your knowledge of Lane’s reference points.

The first half of the record is a jolly tempo burster with shimmy-shake drum beats and low-end-hanging guitar work, punctuated with Lane’s pleasantly original verse. “Lies” is a Debbie Harry shrieker, while “Walk of Shame” gleefully paints Lane as a one-night stander, but not in that cloying and subtly sexist way most country women are singing now. First single “Gone, Gone, Gone” is straight out of “Kill Bill,” and it’s only flaw may be that it was created 10 years too late to be included. Along with the lively “Comin’ Home to You,” the first third of the record is saucy and modern, exactly what Lane should be doing to get herself noticed.

It’s a shame, then, that the rest of the record slows down a bit too much. While “Look Away” and “Sleep For You” are pretty little sashays piqued with perfectly antiquated pedal steel, “Save You” trends too far toward Saddle Creek, and “Blue Star in the Sky” is rehashing old material. “Hard Livin’” seems uninspired save for Lane admirable knack for writing clever, but not off-format, lyrical narratives (this one telling a man to stop complaining until he can buy her a nice house).

Lane’s style is familiar but not tried or pandering, which has its distinct advantages and disadvantages. Because country western, especially the style Lane trades in, hasn’t trended hip yet, Lane must weather a storm of “meh” from people who dismiss the genre entirely. Maybe she’ll catch on, and Walk of Shame certainly deserves to, but for now, Lane seems hamstrung by being in the right place at the wrong time.

Nikki Lane – Walk of Shame Tracklist:

1. “Lies”
2. “Walk of Shame”
3. “Coming Home to You”
4. “Gone, Gone, Gone”
5. “Sleep for You”
6. “Look Away”
7. “Hard Livin'”
8. “Save You”
9. “Come Away Joe”
10. “Blue Star in the Sky”
11. “I Can’t Be Satisfied”

As if their debut and subsequent EP weren’t obscure enough, San Francisco indie music dream machine Girls are readying to send off their sophomore full-length, Father, Son, Holy Ghost on Sept. 13.  The obscurity in their music comes from a mixed bag of crazy backstories and taboo lyrical delivery.  Frontman and guitarist Chris Owens touts being a product of communal living, growing up in the Children of God movement, which started back in the 1960s.  Having not been allowed to listen to music outside the commune, the band’s delivery is a product of Owens’ imagination and a release that shows no signs of letting up any time soon.

At first listen, this record comes off as a mere extension of their last two endeavors.  But through a multitude of whimsical and sometimes way-out-there style tweaks and musical magic, Owens and crew have done a spectacular job of making this round two better than Album (2009) and just as tasty as their EP, Broken Dreams Club (2010).

Girls have taken their eccentric attitude to new heights with this album.  They haven’t completely strayed from their normal formula of lamented lovers laureling or the idea that no one understands a drug addict, and in all honesty, it’s good to have music that their core audience can identify with.  What steps this album up a notch is a sound that reaches out and grabs those who normally wouldn’t find themselves at a dive bar on a Tuesday during dollar beer night listening to a long-haired whiner make sweet sex with his microphone.

The beauty of this record comes by way of tracks such as “Die,” which has the makings of a acid-washed hippie psychedelic trip taking court with the fastest that Owens has ever sang in his entire life.  The bassline is trippy, and the guitar is a page ripped right out of a stadium-rock anthem.  Foo Fighters’ frontman Dave Grohl would approve of this song.  Of course, the end brings the listener back down to Owens’ way of thinking and the slow-jam stoner session rounds out with a subtle flute in the background.

Another gem of a good tune and the album standout is “Honey Bunny.”  This song invokes everything from the West Coast, making it a total dream location, and this song the backdrop for a fun-in-the-sun surf date on a hot, summer Saturday.  Owens and his troupe stay true to their roots, though, with the repeating of, “They don’t like my boney body, they don’t like my dirty hair, or the stuff that I say or the stuff that I’m on.”  The deep tom drum and surf guitar riff is a rip out of a Gidget love song.  It’s fast, catchy and fun from every angle.  Even when the song slows at the end, it’s just Girls’ polite way of letting the listener down to the next tune without completely dropping off the face of the Earth.

Throughout the record, Girls tangles with a multitude of attitudes, including a reach in the direction that Elvis Costello goes down, with the track, “Saying I Love You.”  There is a handful of their signature sounds throughout with “Forgiveness” and “Vomit,” both of which showcase Owens’ deep and otherwise depressing guitar styling and the range of his supporting cast.  Nothing beats these guys live, and with an album of this magnitude, there is nothing stopping them from soaring into rock ‘n’ roll greatness.  The talent is there, the sound is there, and the attitude is unmatched.

Sure, Girls may have a touch of influence from other music in their sound and they may be a bit slow when it comes to a majority of their tunes, but the world needs a band like this to help it stop and smell the roses.  Or maybe in their case, stop and get messed up in the roses.  Either way, when the old crooners such as Elvis Costello are dead and gone, it’ll be Girls who will keep the tradition alive and more likely take it to the next level and make album after album worth listening to no matter the situation, time or place.

Girls Father, Son, Holy Ghost Tracklisting:

1. “Honey Bunny”
2. “Alex”
3. “Die”
4. “Saying I Love You”
5. “My Ma”
6. “Vomit”
7. “Just a Song”
8. “Magic”
9. “Forgiveness”
10. “Love Like a River”
11. “Jamie Marie”

Jenny Hval is a dark and cryptic multigenre artist whose new musical album borders on performance poetry, tribal rhythms and chants,  Xiu Xiu’s softer side and from left field, Fleet Foxes.

Viscera is not for the faint of heart. It is for people who want a challenge; it is for people who want to dig into the album, who want to search for meaning and think long after they listen.

Viscera is an album that tells stories. Hval went to school in Norway for creative writing and has a published book of prose that was nominated for the Southern Literature Prize in Norway in 2009. She has fiction and stories on her website, and there are even digital versions of the lyrics on Viscera.

The first thing about Hval that will catch your attention and drag you into her world is the vocals’ sound and the melodies;  Hval’s voice sounds like a black-circus contortionist’s would.  It is extremely engaging to read the lyrics along with the album, which is an activity that has become increasingly harder to do in today’s digital MP3 world. Hval has found a way to surpass that in a way nobody else has yet.

If you feel on-the-fence about half spoken-word half acoustic ballads, you’ll still keep listening to find out where you stand. You’ll keep reading, and it’ll grow on you. The lyrics, since Hval has a background in prose and poetry, are extremely dense.

Hval’s tongue is a double-edged sword because her lyrics roll right off the tongue and work extremely well musically, just as much as they do poetically. You can interpret the album all sorts of ways. Hval uses a sniperlike precision with her inflection to change the meaning and feeling of her words throughout the album.

This music is very cinematic. It isn’t something that you could throw on at a party, but you’ll be actively participating in trying to figure out what is going on and what Hval is really saying in the songs. Certain songs use the full band and sound, like the 1990s riot-grrl bands such as L7 or Hole.

“How Gentle” sounds like Fleet Foxes with the simple and pleasant acoustic guitar work and single drums keeping slow but steady beats. The songs such as this on the album are dreamy and almost make you feel like you’re floating in a field of grass with nobody around for miles.

The music isn’t abrasive like Xiu Xiu because it won’t make you shutter. You won’t have to turn down your iPod headphones in fear of going deaf or bleeding from the ears, but it’s got the same level of intimate and personal confession that artists such as Xiu Xiu convey.

You really feel like you’re looking through a hole in Hval’s head and can see in her imagination and daily thoughts as she’s dreaming away. This album is something that pushes music forward as an art form while not sounding too over-the-top or theatrical.

Jenny Hval Viscera Tracklisting:

1. “Engines in the City”
2. “Blood Flight”
3. “Portrait of the Young Girl as an Artist”
4. “How Gentle”
5. “A Silver Fox”
6. “Golden Locks”
7. “This Is a Thirst”
8. “Milk of Marrow”
9. “Black Morning/Viscera”

At a time when the screamo genre was in disarray — many of the genre’s innovators had broken up, and the term itself had been co-opted and reassigned as marketing scheme for decidedly un-screamo acts such as Hawthorne Heights — it felt as though the moniker were destined for failure. However, small contingents of artists were making the case that screamo could move in new directions without losing its radical spirit.

Georgia’s Circle Takes the Square found a way to create a progressive sound on the band’s debut full-length, 2004’s As the Roots Undo. Smoothing out genre’s signature quiet-loud dynamics and integrating jazzier, Fugazi-esque transitions, the group found a way to make this discordant style groove. The album’s stellar sonic production — something often lacking in many of the genre’s classic albums — brought the machinelike musicianship to the forefront.

As the Roots Undo won the group massive praise from critics and fans alike, making a suitable followup no easy task. After seven years, the group unveiled a four-song EP — the first in a trilogy — titled Decompositions, Volume I, Chapter I: Rites Of Initiation.

Rites Of Initiation shows that Circle has moved in a decidedly more metallic direction. Opening with “Enter by the Narrow Gates,” bassist/vocalist Kathy Stubelek belts out lyrics that read like a fantasy novel come to life as guitarist/vocalist Drew Speziale chants alongside Stubelek’s guttural aggression. Circle makes use of techniques that were utilized well on As the Roots Undo, but with the intent to create a piece that stands as a unique EP instead of merely a collection of songs.

Each song flows seamlessly into the next, proving that the seven-year recording absence was not in vain.

The lyrics sound more like a Tolkien novel than those from a genre that cut its teeth on raw emotion and political discourse, showing that Circle is playing with all of the genre’s conventions. “There are forces at work here beyond/This Realm of Self in which we reside,” is only a small sampling of the dense lyrical allegories being doled out over the EP’s four tracks.

On Rites Of Initiation, Circle Takes the Square have no interest in repeating themselves. This new EP pushes the group’s ambition even further, displaying that Circle is heading in a direction that few other screamo acts have had the courage, or the capabilities, to approach. With such ambition comes both stunning triumphs and occasionally unfocused moments. Despite the small missteps, which never last more than a few seconds here or there, the EP is an intense first act. At just more than 23-minutes, these songs warrant their length and create a universe all their own. Subsequent volumes in this series have a lot to live up to, but given this EP’s strengths, there is little doubt that Circle Takes the Square is going anywhere but up.

Circle Takes the Square – Decompositions, Volume I, Chapter I: Rites Of Initiation Tracklist:

1. “Enter by the Narrow Gate”

2. “Spirit Narrative”

3. “Way of Ever-Branching Paths”

4. “The Ancestral Other Side”

Family of Love is a five-song EP by DOM. In each song, the band can weave you into a snuggly, fuzzy and dreamy cocoon or make you dance as if you were (to run with the cocoon cliché) a butterfly.

Family of Love’s songs go above standard pop songs to make your listening experience almost like taking a drug. Each track takes you to a very specific nirvana. When the songs are examined closely, you see the band is extremely (almost violently) serious about making music. There are catchy keys and riffs, and songs such as, “Damn,” “Family of Love” and “Telephone” are infectiously catchy with simple single-note and staccato perfection. It was as if The xx took all the ecstasy to cheer up while still writing about the same highly individual and deeply personal life situations and just coming out and saying, “Yes, I might be making fun of myself, but it’s so catchy you can’t do anything about it.”

Using all the negative things a band can be branded these days, DOM have still kept their integrity as songwriters and musicians. The small details are the ones that make Family of Love what it is.

“Family of Love” puts you into the euphoric blur that Ecstasy and Wine (My Bloody Valentine) does and makes you dance like Foster the People or MGMT. “Damn” is the same way, but that little bit of surf rock-inspired guitar work and faster tempo are the song’s strengths. While  “Telephone” (the EP’s opener) is a more down-tempo pop song with dark themes and an almost comical approach to emotions  portrayed in the lyrics. The band uses a sample of a telephone being dialed that plays along to the riff in cheeky, bittersweet glory.

DOM has perfected their craft of songwriting on this EP because they have managed to bring immediately to your attention the small details that you might miss on your first or second listen. You’ll be so engaged that you will think the five songs are longer than just nine seconds short of 20 minutes.

DOM are not just some band floating around releasing singles. They might be poppy, but they are so good at being poppy they make you think, “Why do anything else?”

DOM – Family of Love Tracklisting:

1. “Telephone”
2. “Family of Love”
3. “Damn”
4. “Happy Birthday Party”
5. “Some Boys (feat. Emma)”