Pop 'stache

Be advised, rappers: Apollo Brown’s faire includes some of the most ingenuitive instrumentals available on the market. In a genre where borrowing is common and stealing is an expected part of the game, there’s a feeling of community among verse writers and beat makers. Not many producers have the audacity to put out an album composed solely of instrumentals and expect it to sell. This product though, is one that will attest to its own worth.

A Detroit native, Brown is part of a lineage that traces its origins to J Dilla with his jazz-hop and broken beats—a scene that has only silently exploded in the last decade or so. Make no mistake, there isn’t a shortage of glitched-out, jazzy or overdriven beat makers—they just haven’t been given the exposure that a million would-be “producers” have, relying on tired 808s, siren sounds and voice-altered hooks. In short, a million would-be Swizz Beatz. Nor is Brown in a class all of his own these days; his sounds are reminiscent of younger acts such as B. Lewis, Oddisee and Casual Women, who are not content to mash with contemporary “beats” releases.

Clouds begins with the laugh-out-loud yet genuine epigraph song, “Sound of Guns,” where a blue-eyed baritone croons, “Have you ever dreamed of a place/Far away from it all/Where the air you breathe is soft and clean/And children play in fields of green.” It may seem like an ironic sentiment, but the 26 songs that follow all seem to be a part of that world. Rather than concern himself with gangsterdom, Brown pans bizarrely into the pastoral, and the result works.

These aren’t just songs begging for a quick 16 bars, these are slow-tempo, grooving and contemplative loops. If they are as repetitive as a hip-hop beat, it only helps to instill the music in the listener’s mind—you don’t have to think about Clouds, it just happens.

Though Brown has put his name on previous efforts with MCs (on the albums Gas Mask and Study), his songs seem more open when not siphoned by a rapper’s verse into one interpretation. The exception would be “Shoot the Heart,” a sunny ballad that samples The Pharcyde for the hook, “I should quit chasin’ and look for something better/But the smile that she shows makes me a go-getter.”

This is a languid and breezy album, but never beyond head-bopping goodness.  Check out the jolty sampling on “The 11th Hour,” complete with booty bass.  Intricate and smooth textures line the album, on “Drinking Life,” a string sample balances on a minimalist synthesizer exploration, while a funky, descending rhythm section drives the thing along. It’s a bright, sunny yet soulful take on hip-hop from a producer who has no need to list his credentials.

If it is a bit bulky, a bit repetitive or without direction, Clouds at least succeeds atmospherically. If you don’t plan to rap over it, then you can at least plug in, tune out and dig its chill vibes.

Apollo Brown Clouds Tracklist:

1. “Sound of Guns”
2. “Blue Ruby”
3. “Never in a Million Years”
4. “Balance”
5. “The 11thHour”
6. “Wisdom”
7. “Black Pearls”
8. “Shoot the Heart”
9. “Push”
10. “One Chance”
11. “Human Existence”
12. “Know the Time”
13. “Heirloom”
14. “Seed of Memory”
15. “Bridge Through Time”
16. “Just Walk”
17. “Shadows of Grief”
18. “Time Passed Autumn”
19. “Choices”
20. “Father and Son”
21. “A Conscious Breath”
22. “Drinking Life”
23. “Imagination”
24. “Tao Te Ching”
25. “Heart of Glass”
26. “The Bagdad Sun”
27. “A Day’s End”

As his first effort in a number of years, The R.E.D. Album is meant to represent something of a comeback for gangster rapper Game, thanks to his renewed blessing from hip-hop heavyweight Dr. Dre. For the majority of his career, Game has relied on the premise that the good doctor had anointed him as the savior of West Coast hip-hop, despite the fact that Dre all but abandoned him after his debut LP, The Documentary.

Though it appears the two are back on good terms, Dre’s contributions are limited to a lackluster guest verse on the song “Drug Test” and a series of interludes in which he dictates the life and struggle of Game’s life-to-date. To put it simply, The R.E.D. Album is sorely missing Dre’s touch. Plenty of capable producers provide beats (including Pharrell Williams, DJ Premier and DJ Khalil, among them), but by and large, the album is musically indistinct.

Luckily, Game’s a pretty decent rapper—especially when he wants to be. The ferocity he shows on songs like “Ricky” and “Born in the Trap” is daunting, riding a dexterous flow and exploring the breadth of his lyrical capabilities.

The moments of prowess are fleeting, however. Unable to ride an entire album on his limited skills, Game enlists the help of radio rap’s all-star team, to decidedly diminished returns: Rick Ross and his typically boastful baws-ness appear on “Heavy Artillery”; Lil’ Wayne, who provides the hook for tracks “Martians Vs Goblins” and “R.E.D. Nation,” does what he does best and makes an appearance solely for the sake of making an appearance; and finally, Toronto’s golden boy Drake, whose popularity continues to defy his complete lack of skills as a rapper, as evident when he proclaims “I love your ass like Millhouse loves Lisa/I love your ass like the Ninja Turtles love pizza” on the song “Good Girls Gone Bad.”

Not all the cameos are worthless, however. Tyler, The Creator, head honcho of hip-hop’s perennial polemicists Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, raps alongside Game on “Martians Vs Goblins,” which finds the two LA natives taking shots at such varied individuals as LeBron James, Bruno Mars, Tyler Perry and Captain America. Meanwhile, notable newcomer Kendrick Lamar hops on the opener “The City.” Perhaps it’s due to the simple fact that both Tyler and Lamar have yet to saturate the landscape of hip-hop, but amid all the usual suspects, their contributions feel inventive and, most of all, unsullied.

Still, “The R.E.D. Album” remains a lethargic and often tedious experience. Clocking in at 21 tracks and 73 minutes, nobody in their right mind would have the patience to sit through the whole thing, particularly when Game begins to repeat himself (the ballads “Hello” and “All The Way Gone,” for instance, are completely indiscernible). Moreover, the Chris Brown-aided “Pot of Gold” is perhaps the album’s most disingenuous track, trying to shine a light of positivity on an album filled with dark themes. Contradictory is nothing new in hip-hop, but by the time the track comes around, it elicits nothing more than exasperation.

Yet Game trudges on. For better or worse.

Game – The R.E.D. Album Tracklist:

1. “Dr. Dre Intro”
2. “The City”
3. “Drug Test”
4. “Martians Vs Goblins”
5. “Red Nation”
6. “Dr. Dre 1”
7. “Good Girls Go Bad”
8. “Ricky”
9. “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly”
10. “Heavy Artillery”
11. “Paramedics”
12. “Speakers On Blast”
13. “Hello”
14. “All The Way Gone”
15. “Pot Of Gold”
16. “Dr. Dre 2”
17. “All I Know”
18. “Born In The Trap”
19. “Mama Knows”
20. “California Dream”
21. “Dr. Dre Outro”

Thee Physical isn’t a concept album, but it is about as close to a musical philosophy or concept that listeners will get in their electronic music the rest of this summer. Lyrically, Thee Physical is a mix between a Philosophy 101 and Human Sexuality 101 courses, while at the same time sounding half tongue-in-cheek and witty enough to be fun and lighthearted with song names like “Trancegender.”

Thee Physical is not your average “electronic music for ecstasy people” album, because Pictureplane would be more likely to play a small venue than a 100,000 person drugged out dance floor and because there’s some sort of message behind the music and songs. It would make more sense to group Pictureplane with Nine Inch Nails than DJ Tiësto. Certain songs on the album tackle absurd and “out there” topics and concepts. For example, ffofo “Post Physical” tells the listener that Travis Egedy has a connection with someone so intense that they are “post physical” and don’t need to touch anymore to be so close. However songs like “Trancegender” don’t make much sense with lyrics like “You could be my boy/And I can be your girl/Trancegender/We can be trance,” that aren’t really backed up by why or how this can happen other than in a cheeky song. “Body Mods” is another example of the cheekiness with lines like “Look at us changing our reality/With our body mods.” However, the way Egedy and his female vocalist present these lines is what makes the listener able to take them without feeling like they’re doing something wrong. The setting of this dark electronic soundscape surrounding all the distorted vocals is the sugar coating the ridiculous lyrics need to not sound so, well, ridiculous.

Instrumentally however, Pictureplane’s newest feat is an amalgamation of 1990s R&B radio hits (Ace of Base, Real McCoy) with the female vocals and cheesy over-reverbed synths, mixed with conventions of the modern glitch genre with the strange chopped-up and screwed music and vocal samples, with a throwback to some 1980s industrial aesthetics such as with the heavily distorted vocals. The opening track “Body Mods” contains the album’s strongest melody hook and it isn’t even played by an instrument. Within 10 seconds of starting the album you’re attacked with a reversed and chopped up sample of a vocalist saying something indecipherable that has been meticulously edited out of the realm of human intonation and into the musical realm. Think of The Books, or the chorus of Missy Elliott’s “Work It,” which most likely got stuck in your head in 2002.

There are also slightly offbeat instrumental parts of Thee Physical that work at times and don’t at others.

In “Body Mods” the main rhythm keyboard riff throughout of the song is built upon (even that vocal sample) is slightly off in a glitch fashion, but it works. The rest of “Body Mods” doesn’t feel like it’s weird or that there is something wrong with it. However, during “Black Nails,” Pictureplane takes a similar approach by having a slightly askew keyboard melody start the song and build the rest of the song on that structure, and it works for the most part, especially again when the heavily chopped-up and sampled vocal clips come in. But around the two-thirds mark of the song Pictureplane attempts a “buildup” that you’d hear at a conventional rave/dub step show these days, but there are a few notes that are not only off beat, but throw the rest of the song off beat. There are some major technical difficulties that happened during the arrangement of “Black Nails” that aren’t “glitchy” but real mess ups.

However, this “human approach” to electronic music is also an underlying theme of Thee Physical, so maybe Pictureplane is fine with the album having some mistakes. It’s a shame that “Black Nails” could have been the album’s best song if it had some more time put into it, but again that is sort of the idea of the album. Maybe this “nothing is truly perfect without a little bit of imperfection” concept is blowing the minds of kids raving on ecstasy right now, but it won’t fool anyone who thinks about what these lyrics on the album are actually saying.

Pictureplane – Thee Physical Tracklist:

1. “Body Mod”
2. “Black Nails”
3. “Sex Mechanism”
4. “Touching Transform”
5. “Post Physical”
6. “Techno Fetish”
7. “Real is a Feeling”
8. “Trancegender”
9. “Negative Slave”
10. “Breath Work”
11. “Thee Power Hand”

It’s been 13 years since Champaign, Illinois’ Braid released Frame & Canvas, an album that served simultaneously as quartet’s crowning achievement as well as its swan song. A 2004 reunion tour saw the group revisit its triumphs, but ultimately, it was nothing more than a victory lap. After seven years of silence, Braid returns with the four-song Closer To Closed EP, an effort comprising three new songs as well as a cover of singer/songwriter Jeff Hanson’s “You Are the Reason.”

Closer to Closed will certainly alienate fans who hoped the band would somehow rewrite “Capricorn,” but it feels like the place Braid would have ended up, had they stuck around for another decade. The interplay between guitarists/vocalists Bob Nanna and Chris Broach is as unique as it ever was, as they effortlessly meld angular riffs into something bouncy and borderline soothing.

Even though the group’s technicality was never in question, the vocal work on early records was characterized by off kilter approaches that worked only in the context of ’90s emo. On Closer To Closed, Nanna and Broach have streamlined their vocal styles, allowing for stunning performances without denigrating the raw emotion behind it. The Broach-lead opener “The Right Time” sees him trade in his desperate yelps and enthusiastic “yeah”s for pitch perfect execution backed by falsetto harmonies as it becomes the most accessible song in the band’s repertoire.

Braid’s impressive rhythm section made up of bassist Todd Bell and drummer Damon Atkinson proves to be just as strong as it was more than a decade ago.

Atkinson’s proficiency—as well as J. Robbins’ production—keeps the three-minute jam at the end of “Universe or Worse” from becoming grating, and his off-time fills give the song an air of danger—that its tightly wound melodies could come undone at any time.

After a lengthy recorded absence, Braid has not lost any of the charm that made it a standout act during its initial run. Instead, it has found a way to utilize its mid-’90s flares without merely rehashing them. Closer To Closed may not be as inspiring as the albums released during Braid’s heyday, but it suggests that the chemistry between the band members is as strong as it ever was.

Braid – Closer to Closed Tracklist:

1. “The Right Time”
2. “Do Over”
3. “You Are the Reason” (Jaff Hanson Cover)
4. “Universe or Worse”

Mates of State often have a tendency of sounding whiney and immature when they reach the loudest or most focal point of the song. It’s easy to notice this pattern as the album progresses from beginning to end. By the fifth song, you might be wondering if it gets any better.

It really doesn’t. The same things happen at the end of Mountaintops that does in the beginning.  It doesn’t get worse; it simply stays at the same level.

Much of Mates of State’s work seems to be focused on the sound rather than the words. The words lack in substance, and it’s fortunate that Mountaintops is so bountiful in its mixing quality that it covers a bit of lost ground where there is an empty presence in songwriting charms. It’s cool how the group chooses to use drumstick beats and vocal rounds on Mountaintops to fill the back of the tracks.

What’s also neat is the juxtaposition of traditional instruments like acoustic guitar, bouncy piano and even horns with interesting electronic beats. There isn’t another act that can successfully pull off the combination of new and old, vintage and modern, and do it so well.

Take for example early jam “Sway.” It’s a light and lively song that’s sure to get anybody in the right mood. Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel switch off in taking lines and ultimately come together to make magic when their voices trail together making harmonies. When this happens, all is right in every aspect of musical greatness.

The lyrical work, contrarily, remains very simplistic and juvenile.  Many of the tunes are too light and feathery in their mood to the point where it could be mistaken for children’s music. “Total Serendipity” speaks of “marigolds growing between toes” and “pots of gold sitting at the rainbow’s edge.”

It’s quite like eating candy for supper: indulging in such peppy tunes for a full set is sure to cause a stomachache before the end of the album.

The other two greatest songs on the album fall toward the end. “At Least I Have You” is a fast-paced ode to one another. It features chiming anthem type of backings and becomes very wonderful in its message when the bridge includes chipper “la la la la”s that completes the effect of the song precisely.

A slower indie pop track is titled “Desire,” a melancholy story of differences in love. When the female vocalist chimes, she is innocent and tame. When the man sings, he is upset and dangerous. We, as listeners, feel two things at once even though they are singing the same lyric. This is a rare moment of excellence on Mountaintops.

The usual Mates of State sort of husband-wife harmonies actually get very old once the listener is able to catch onto the repetition. Listening in black and white, it’s just an indie duo with a fancy for electronic beats and a way of finding space for both piano and guitar to complete the effect. Aside from a little bit of experimental variation, this same kind of music is all that they’ve done since their start as an act in 1997. Maybe it’s time Mates of State rethink their musical strategy, because although they’re trying to keep up, their efforts are mostly outdated and underwhelming.

Mates of State – Mountaintops tracklist:

1.  “Palomino”
2. “Maracas”
3. “Sway”
4. “Unless I’m Led”
5. “Total Serendipity”
6. “Basement Money”
7. “At Least I Have You”
8. “Desire”
9. “Changes”
10. “Mistakes”

Portugal. The Man is an assemblage of freaky, psychedelic melody makers who have been hovering around the music world for damn near a decade. Their sound bears no equal, their stage presence is captivating and their latest record, In The Mountain In The Cloud, is at a caliber to be considered a torch passed on from acts like The Flaming Lips. Every track on Portugal’s latest record screams depth and intensity.   Since their move to Atlantic Records last year, they’ve crossed a barrier where their sound is more refined and their presence on the scene is bigger.

They never seemed like the type of band who would need to make the hurdle to a big label like Atlantic: they’ve already got a robust fan base, their earlier works  usually fair well within rock and other experimental cliques, and they have no real heartburn with early leaks of their albums—something major labels have zero tolerance for. All things considered, it is a good fit thus far and has yielded some serious success for the band from Portland, Ore., by way of Alaska.

This album is completely overcome with strains that it’s easy to stroll through the record exclusively without giving the lyrics a second thought. One could just sing along to the choruses and have a blast while doing so.  The untried rhythms are catchy and the flow conjures feelings of exasperation through high energy and profound thought.

The most intriguing part of In The Mountain In The Cloud  is the poetic leitmotifs and their place within the music. All of these songs have a chorus that one can sing along to. They are blissful and even victorious. But when one actually thinks about the lyrics, they give an air of someone unsure of themselves, like in the tune “Got It All (This Can’t Be Living Now),” or even a little lost in the world, such as in the song “Senseless.”

Their big label polished sound comes out in this album, though. Their responsiveness toward a more pop-driven sound is still here but cultured enough to prove this is the next step in Portugal’s collection.

Censored Colors was steered into the prog-rock genre, while The Satanic Satanist was a tried, tested and true psychedelic record, their latest effort indisputably has a Bowie-esque appeal to it through and through.

“All Your Light (Times Like These)” is a fantastic tune in this creation that defines an unstoppable future for Portugal. The Man. They’ve made seven albums in six years, which is an impressive résumé for such a growing mainstay in the psychedelic/experimental genre.  With each year of recording, their panache changes and their sound morphs into a clearer aural concept.

There is always a moment when a killer band such as Portugal. The Man signs with a major label where fans hold their breath. The expectations are higher from the label and thus throw a band with a good thing going off track. Luckily, Portugal has made the transition in stride and has maintained a base of excellent talent and style and has transformed their sound in a perfectly progressive way. There is no doubt that any future endeavor in the studio will yield equally as impressive results.

Portugal. The Man – In The Mountain In The Cloud Tracklist:

1. “So American”
2. “Floating (Time Isn’t Working My Side)”
3. “Got It All (This Can’t Be Living Now)”
4. “Senseless”
5. “Head Is A Flame (Cool With It)”
6. “You Carried Us (Share With Me The Sun)”
7. “Everything You See (Kids Count Hallelujahs)”
8. “All Your Light (Times Like These)”
9. “Once Was One”
10. “Share With Me The Sun”
11. “Sleep Forever”

French native, David Letellier, better known as Kangding Ray, has crafted another melodically creepy album released on German electro label Raster-Noton with too much intensity to handle. Well, almost.

Eerily layered synth beats dance around heart-pounding bass lines and repetitive loops of distortion blend into the heavily textured, OR, a colder follow-up to Automne Fold, released in 2008, and Stabil in 2006.

Through mixing real guitar lines and drum beats with machines, the now Berlin-based Kangding Ray creates an atmospheric soundtrack with depth and darkness that will challenge the eardrums in any case. To the electronic virgin or the seasoned veteran, OR is strangely addictive.

Like a sci-fi thriller, Kangding Ray adventures through the psyche with ups and downs, side-to-sides and turns every which-way to confuse and stimulate. Does it work? Well, yes. The intrigue is taunting; as if the brain is baffled and in need of resolution.

In the opening track, “Athem,” Letellier is a minimalist-turned-electro guru as the track expands through clicks, glitches and hauntingly sparse lyrics. Depth is added through arrhythmic sound bites layered precisely atop one another.

With influences of jazz, dub step and noise-rock, Kangding Ray finds ways to blend music into a genre seemingly his own.

By using his extroverted political stances, emotion is created in what is usually known as an emotionless genre. In past compositions, KR has protested against expansion of nuclear reprocessing plants, strived for immigrant rights and contributed to memorial events. Unlike most electronic musicians featured by Raster-Noton, Kangding Ray coats his synthesizer with thoughts of cultural struggle.

This is not music to listen to on a sunny day. The beats pulse through your veins, just aching to come out. Kangding Ray is a genius in this sort. He insures that his listeners don’t just listen to the music; it becomes a soundtrack.

Kangding Ray – OR Tracklist:

1. “Athem”
2. “Mojave”
3. “Odd Sympathy”
4. “Pruitt Igoe (Or Version)”
5. “Or”
6. “Mirrors”
7. “Coracoid Process”
8. “En Amaryllis Jour”
9. “Leavailia Scheme”
10. “Monsters”
11. “La Belle”

Taking a kaleidoscopic stance on post-rock, Portland-based Grails boast a sound that can easily be described as diverse, though such a description would only begin to scratch the surface. Throughout their career—which started earnestly in 1999—the band has amassed dozens of LPs, each one covering a myriad of sounds and styles.

But while the band may incorporate a number of genres—everything ranging from metal to country to Indian—they’ve consistently found their footing in psychedelia, integrating spaced-out soundscapes into more traditional foundations.

Their latest effort, Deep Politics, continues this approach, with typically sterling results. As ambitious as it is ominous, the album is a difficult yet rewarding foray into an aural mishmash and ranks among the band’s most masterful works to date.

The best of instrumental music opens itself up to be as eclectic as possible. Grails, thankfully, does its best to eschew any formality in favor of a varied and multi-textured sound.

The album boasts a decidedly cinematic aesthetic. Each track paints a vivid picture, as if each one ought to be paired with a particular film genre. “All The Colors of the Dark,” for example, is a clever send up of the soundtrack that accompanies an Italian giallo film of the same name. Bruno Nicolai, an Italian composer, was something of an apprentice to the legendry Ennio Morricone, who scored such classic films as “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.”

More than anything, it’s Morricone’s signature touch that seems to finds its way onto most of Deep Politics, with songs like “I Led Three Lives” and the closer “Deep Snow” sounding like they’re taken straight from an acid-washed spaghetti western. The music conjures up images of dusty trails and rolling tumbleweed, of whiskey shots and rusty pistols: in other words, it’s mood music, set to distinctly recognizable iconography.

However, the band doesn’t adhere strictly to this method. Though the go-to tactic is clearly twangy guitars and rolling percussions, there are more tedious elements of glacial sludge metal (“Future Primitive”) and brooding techno music (“Daughter of Bilitis”).

The album teeters on incoherent in spurts—especially when attempting to incorporate elements of Eastern-influenced psych, Ravi Shankar style—but by and large, Grails do an exceptional job of not forcing anything, letting seemingly incongruous textures coexist best as possible.

There’s an organic quality to Deep Politics that keeps the album fluid. It ebbs and flows nicely, rarely sticking on a single idea for too long. Structurally, it follows a typical loud-quiet-loud composition, but the shifts in tone, even when abrupt, seem to come at the most sensible moment. Save for a few examples that lead to speculative head scratching (like the second half of “I Led Three Lives” and the snaky guitar riffs on the spaced-out “Corridors of Power”) the album possesses a kind of organized chaos.

But that’s precisely the point. On Deep Politics, Grails have created an album that accurately be labeled as an experience: that rare kind of “headphones album” that seems to necessitate a dark room and a few lit candles. Even during its more aggravating moments, patience is rewarded with another breathtakingly symphonic blast of noise that cuts through the tension.

Deep Politics is an album that requires rapt attention and repeat listens.

Grails – Deep Politics Tracklist:

1. “Future Primitive”
2. “All the Colors of the Dark”
3. “Corridors of Power”
4. “Deep Politics”
5. “Daughters of Bilitis”
6. “Almost Grew My Hair”
7. “I Led Three Lives”

The name might lead you to believe you’re about to tread on a new and foreign soundscape—don’t be fooled. Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s self-titled debut rides down musical streets paved by their pioneers. Their music creates an intersection where the garage rock ethics of bands such as the Arctic Monkeys meets the lo-fi, chill of Neon Indian and syrupy psychedelia of Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd.

Right from the start of the album the simple, hip-hop influenced drum work of Julien Ehrich comes alive on “FFunny FFriends.” It causes a few seconds of uncontrollable head-bobbing which is soon kicked into a full-blown groove by a swinging guitar that drops in just at the right moment. The next few songs on the album fall within this same format. “Bicycle,” “Thought Ballune” and  “Jello and Juggernauts” all have steady drum beats as their backbones from which the sounds of Ruban Nielson’s bouncing, ’60s-inspired guitar and Jake Portrait’s rumbling bass grow to flesh out the rest of the song. This is not to say that the songs of this album all sound the same. This album is very good at portraying all the variety that can be found in simplicity.

This album like many other band’s first major releases isn’t perfect. While it never gets in the way of enjoying any of the tracks, lyrics such as “How can you love me, when you don’t love me, baby?” often feel overly simplistic. Also, a strange, almost creepy falsetto in “Little Blu House” and nearly unintelligible vocal distortions throughout “Strangers are Strange” make it seem like the group isn’t totally comfortable with the sounds of their singing.

It will be interesting to see in the future where they go and how they grow in this regard. Thankfully, a lack of deep lyrical content or flawless vocals don’t keep a song from being danceable.

While “Ffunny Ffrends” and “How Can You Luv Me” were the first two singles and have garnered the most attention for the band, their solid pop sensibilities are far from the most intriguing sounds contained within the analog-drenched world of this album. That falls to two tracks on its backend. “Nerve Damage!” is a strange beast of a song that starts out with a rambling guitar and a distorted hum until those both drop out for a sound only describable as surf thrash before the song brings us back to the guitar and hum we started with. The last track, “Boy Witch,” feels as if it could be some forgotten post-punk flavored song The Beatles left off Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra is both a promising debut from a new band and an album that sounds like it’s craving a lazy day on the beach or a hot summer night. It will be interesting to see what avenues of sound that future offerings from the band might chose to cruise down.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra Unknown Mortal Orchestra Tracklist:

1. “FFunny Friends”
2. “Bicycle”
3. “Thought Ballune”
4. “Jello and Juggernauts”
5. “How Can You Luv Me”
6. “Nerve Damage!”
7. “Little Blu House”
8. “Strangers Are Strange”
9. “Boy Witch”
10. “I Want to Be Left to My Own Devices”
11. “Cyrus’ Theme”

As “the folk artist” moves a million ways in every direction, the title no sooner reinvents itself than sheds its previous traits—Sub Pop Records has been smack dab in the middle of it all. With the likes of The Shins, Fleet Foxes and Iron & Wine to its name, it would be almost impossible for the label not to have some sway on the genre. Then there are smaller forces. Fruit Bats, the pseudonym of erstwhile Chicagoan Eric D. Johnson, has been quietly making records of some note for a decade.

Known previously for his rootsy fingerpicking and soulful, vulnerable falsetto, Johnson has taken a step forward with his latest. Tripper is a thoughtful, narrative piece full of lush soundscapes. According to Sub Pop’s website, the album is built around an imagined road trip between Johnson and a hobo acquaintance he met once on a train—the thinker and the outlaw. It’s pretty clear from the title track, a sort of conversation between the two, that this is an album for the transient. But it’s not just for those on the move, “Heart Like An Orange,” is a mellow ballad about being the new kid in a Floridian town, complete with all the angst, the bashfulness and the mistakes.

This one is worth a listen if only because it’s something new. Tripper was first recorded with the band in studio but was closely followed by Johnson thoroughly going over the recordings with producer Thom Monahan adding more synthetic elements, organs and digital sounds. This doesn’t mean Johnson has abandoned fingerpicking altogether, the album ends with “Picture of a Bird,” classic Fruit Bats sound. The tape echo on his microphone, (see “Tangie and Ray,” or “Shivering Fawn”) gives a vinyl-like warmth and charming old-timey feel to the record.

The crown jewel of the work might be “The Banishment Song,” a rambling but powerful ballad, which demonstrates something slightly different from the artist, a near six-minute story about an exile who’s sent from a place of rule and order to a “fucked-up world,” at least until the banisher gets cold feet himself: “I’m gonna roll with you.” Opening with small taps, bird sounds and lo-fi acoustic picking, it eventually builds into a droning, piano-filled heartache complete with handclaps. It seems contrived but with such little effort to conceal it, listeners must think Johnson wants you to know it.

Fruit Bats’ decisions are not always toward the indie, nor are they the pop-sensible, “Dolly” seems a ready-made hit with its bopping guitar riff and playful lyricism but it’s completely overwhelmed by the blasting organ pipes.

Balance is something Tripper foregoes in favor of layering. At times his words seem lost in the wall of sound. Maybe unintentionally, it mimics the voices of the characters in the album drowned out by failure, repression and their own ambivalence.

With its itchy feet and wounded heart, the overwhelming arch of Tripper seems to be one of self-discovery. And though he’s been in the business a while, Eric Johnson still comes off as a wide-eyed kid looking to make something that matters to him, critics and non-listeners be damned.

Fruit Bats – Tripper Tracklist:

1. “Tony the Tripper”
2. “So Long”
3. “Tangie and Ray”
4. “Shivering Fawn”
5. “You’re Too Weird”
6. “Heart Like and Orange”
7. “Dolly”
8. “The Banishment Song”
9. “The Fen”
10. “Wild Honey”
11. “Picture of a Bird”

It must be tough on a band to watch a former member attain much more elevated praise than you will ever hope to receive. A recent example of this might be From First To Last, a miserable band who lost their frontman Sonny Moore to dubstep. Lo and behold, Moore turned into Skrillex, arguably dubstep’s breakout star of 2011. However, it’s doubtful that FFTL accurately feel this dynamic since after all, they sucked (and Skrillex sucks), and their drug problems and band turmoil were well documented before the split. The fact that Skrillex is famous probably means nothing to the druggy burnouts of FFTL.

But for The War on Drugs, Kurt Vile’s success has got to smart just a little. The experimental folk-rock band created by now lead vocalist Adam Granduciel originally featured Vile until he left to pursue a solo career. Now, years later, Vile has become something of a folky guitar hero whose festival star is just beginning to rise. The War on Drugs, on the other hand, has lingered in a B-band stasis since their inception, with nary a headlining tour to support them. One might wonder why such a revolving door of talented musicians wouldn’t grow more popular with time. But Slave Ambient, the trio’s second LP, gives them away; while The War on Drugs may possess an eminent roots-rock sensibility, they sorely lack an ability to create dynamic songs, instead crafting overlong grooves that wear a little thin on repeated listens.

The strange part of Slave Ambient is how much it resembles, in format, tone and theme, Vile’s excellent 2011 LP Smoke Ring For My Halo. The same thin-string riffing done on Vile’s “In My Time” is replicated on TWoD’s “It’s Your Destiny,” and many of the pedal shifts and chord structures make appearances on both albums. Strangest may be Vile and Granduciel’s almost identical vocal timbres; both casually resemble retro-Bob Dylan or Nebraska-era Springsteen: shaky and twang-laden, but with a welcome dash of modern assuredness. It’s easy to see how Granduciel and Vile would have been in a band together, considering the vocal similarities as well as the two’s remarkable lyrical similarity (“Your Love is Calling My Name” is just about a twin to “Jesus Fever”), but their differences are right on the surface, as well. What makes Smoke Ring For My Halo so brilliant is the intimate knowledge of dynamics and song structure; Slave Ambient exhibits little of this.

With the exception of “Baby Missiles,” a fantastic Springsteen-listening-to-Achtung Baby raver, TWoD is almost exclusively in the folk-pop mold, and doesn’t stray from piled-upon guitar riffs, splashy synth and minimalist drum boom-bap very often.

The consistency is comforting, but Slave Ambient is more comfortably consumed one song at a time, since the repeated song structure wears very thin and can mar the experience of listening to good songs like “Black Water Falls” too late. Within songs the problem is the same; My Bloody Valentine-esque “ramblin’” song “Come to the City” would be a standout if it went anywhere. Instead, we get the same riff, the same verse structure, and the same chords for four-and-a-half minutes, which is tiring in itself. TWoD is a band capable of making very satisfying folk-pop; opener “Best Night” is the best example, even if this is just more proof that Ambient’s early songs play better because of the newness of the trope TWoD beats into the ground. And in that context, Slave Ambient satisfyingly studies an interesting paradigm, even if it’s one that won’t get them any more recognition. The real shame, then, is TWoD’s inability to stray from that ideal.

The War On Drugs – Slave Ambient

1. “Best Night”
2. “Brothers”
3. “I Was There”
4. “Your Love Is Calling My Name”
5. “The Animator”
6. “Come To The City”
7. “Come For It”
8. “It’s Your Destiny”
9. “City Reprise #12”
10. “Baby Missiles”
11. “Original Slave”
12. “Black Water Falls”

Marie Antoinette’s entire life can be summed up by one single phrase: “Let them eat cake.” This quote is considered to be the match that ignited the French Revolution. Antoinette had completely lost sight of how to connect with the people she was supposed to be serving and let her opulence get the best of her. Historians have since discovered that Antoinette never actually said this, but her arrogance and ignorance proved a point: that she had let her riches get the best of her.

In a similar way, Jay-Z and Kanye West are offering up Watch The Throne. An album that similarly displays the duos affluence, as well as their reign over the rap game, it is hip-hop’s ultimate “let them eat cake” gesture. Unfortunately, what Watch The Throne proves to be is a subpar offering that never rises above mediocre.

Both Jay-Z and West have built themselves from humble beginnings to create some genre defying albums, so to deny them the right to celebrate would be unfair. Watch The Throne should be the album that sees them bask in their success while pushing the genre forward. In reality, it only highlights how weak both artists can be.

Opening with “No Church in the Wild,” the record starts with a bang. A strong hook courtesy of Odd Future’s Frank Ocean serves the track well before introducing Jay-Z’s hefty verse. Unfortunately, West’s signature use of auto-tune diminishes Ocean’s hook midway through and never fully recovers.

The album boasts a handful of great tracks—“New Day,” “Who Gon Stop Me,” “Made In America”—but there’s little cohesion across the album. It is not because the group is being adventurous and missing the mark, but because Jay-Z and West don’t connect and are content with this being a mixtape. Both Jay-Z and West turn in some top notch verses, but overall Watch The Throne is disjointed and mildly schizophrenic.

As previously mentioned, most of Watch The Throne sees the duo boast about their good fortune, but it does nothing more than highlight a disconnect with the audience. It’s respectable that neither Jay-Z nor West pretend as if they are still from that streets—an act that would be utterly disingenuous—but nonstop talk of their lavish lifestyles wears thin almost immediately.

Much like Antoinette, Jay-Z and West are at the top of their field at least from a monetary standpoint. Due to their stature, rap’s leading men seem oblivious to those chopping at the bit to take their spot. All across the country—and surely over the world—young rappers, crews and collectives are making music that is infinitely more interesting and progressive than Watch The Throne. Taking away the album’s hype, all that is left is a spotty mixtape from two artists that could do so much better. Perhaps Jay-Z and West are the ones that should be watching their throne, because it’s not built upon a solid foundation. If they aren’t careful, they’ll end up only remembering what it was like to be on top—just like some old French lady with an affinity for pastries.

Jay-Z and Kanye West – Watch The Throne Tracklist:

1. “No Church in The Wild (Feat. Frank Ocean)”
2. “Lift Off (Feat. Beyoncé)”
3. “Niggas in Paris”
4. “Otis (Feat. Otis Redding)”
5. “Gotta Have It”
6. “New Day”
7. “That’s My Bitch”
8. “Welcome to The Jungle”
9. “Who Gon Stop Me”
10. “Murder to Excellence”
11. “Made In America”
12. “Why I Love You”