Pop 'stache

YACHT’s new album, Shangri-La, isn’t a step forward in their sound. It isn’t a step forward in their songwriting, either. In fact, YACHT’s new album is almost a cookie cutter of 2009’s See Mystery Lights in such direct song-to-song comparisons that it might insult, and probably disappoint, many YACHT fans.

I can’t help but think, “What else could you expect from the stereotypical hipster band that sometimes spells their name with a triangle replacing the ‘A,’ and got in trouble over their frontman Jona revealing that he regularly uses pirated audio recording and editing software over the Internet?” Shangri-La isn’t a bad album, it just seems that YACHT didn’t try to expand their sound. It almost seems the album was written, recorded and packaged with the thought, “if we do exactly what we did the last album, everyone will be happy and nobody will notice.”

I don’t hate YACHT, though. I got into YACHT out of the ordinary: They headlined a street festival in Chicago last year. I had never heard them and became a fan halfway through the first song. All of the songs they played that night were from See Mystery Lights.

It isn’t technically fair to say YACHT made a bad album, but there just isn’t that much that is different from See Mystery Lights. Although the songs are not 100% identical, anyone besides a heavily involved YACHT fan wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the songs.

“One Step” sounds like this new album’s version of “Psychic City” with not just the instrumentals and studio production, but even with the songwriting, too.

“Holy Roller” sounds like frontman Jona’s other project, The Blow, and their single, “Hey Boy.” The bass line and snapping fingers of percussion could almost be interchanged. You could sing the lyrics of “Hey Boy” over the instrumentals of “Holy Roller” and the song would be the same.

“Love in the Dark,” sticks out as this album’s winner, even though it isn’t as catchy and addicting as the songs on See Mystery Lights were on first listen. Instead the album grows on you, unlike See Mystery Lights, which flash faded a little with each listen. Although the songs don’t seem as catchy, they have more replay ability than See Mystery Lights, even if they do at first glance sound almost identical at parts, and to be honest, maybe that is exactly what some YACHT fans were looking for.

The album isn’t all filler, though. “I Walked Alone” has some guitar shredding that is a sweet addition to the small instrumental breaks that are characteristic of YACHT’s musical style. The only problem that is, I want more from them like this on the album. Listeners crave more explosions of creativity that weren’t on previous YACHT’s albums and a 30 second guitar “solo” doesn’t make up for a whole album of stuff we’ve heard before. What appears to be a fear to expand isn’t a new thing to musicians, fans or even record label executives.

There’s just one thing I can’t overlook about this ‘”same songs/different album syndrome” that YACHT is apparently inflicted with. I can understand that many punk/rock/indie bands have no money, equipment or notoriety. But when you are a one-man band, like YACHT was for a while, and you add your new girlfriend as the singer, coupled with the fact that you got in trouble for bit.torrenting Pro-Tools on the internet, it makes no sense that you spend a few years writing an album with songs that are almost beat-for-beat identical to side-projects and previous albums.

YACHT – Shangri-La Tracklist:

1. “Utopia”
2. “Dystopia (The Earth Is On Fire)”
3. “I Walked Alone”
4. “Love in the Dark”
5. “One Step”
6. “Holy Roller”
7. “Beam Me Up”
8. “Paradise Engineering”
9. “Tripped and Fell In Love”
10. “Shangri-La”

Handsome Furs has always been a hit-or-miss band. Both of their earlier albums contained a few hidden gems, but suffered from a substantially large amount of filler songs. On their third album, Sound Kapital, Handsome Furs radically change their dynamic by tossing aside their guitars and fully embracing ’80s dance music synthesizers, and while the new sound is exciting and well executed, it doesn’t really fix their much larger problem: there is still just way too much filler.

The best thing about Sound Kapital is the way that the Furs managed to fuse ’80s dance music with their earlier styles. Fans of the band need not worry, as the album overall remains very rough, just like their earlier work. Dan Boeckner (who is better recognized as one of Wolf Parade’s vocalists), provides sporadic yelping that, coupled with a healthy dose of background fuzz, keeps the synths from feeling too cheesy or dated. The band’s new emphasis on synthesizers is a noticeable change, but it succeeds because it feels like a fairly natural evolution. Their previous album, Face Control, had a lot of electronic sounds, and it’s easy to see how they built up to the style that they implement here.

Normally, an album powered entirely by machine would not work for this kind of band, but because of their “rough edges,” the album’s new style becomes something fun, unique, and perhaps more importantly, something that is recognizably from the Handsome Furs.

This evolution is easily the most exciting thing happening on Sound Kapital, and it will be very interesting to see how they develop from this point in the future.

Unfortunately, song quality is still pretty iffy. During the more upbeat songs, like the catchy “Bury Me Standing” or the multilayered political anthem “Serve the People,” Sound Kapital is at its best, but many of the others are easily forgettable. A decent number of Sound Kapital’s tracks don’t really go anywhere, don’t really try anything new and don’t leave any sort of lasting impression when finished. And while it may have seemed like a good source of emotional resonance and power, the band probably shouldn’t have made every single track on the album an anthem; nearly every song ends with Boeckner repeatedly shouting an important line, and the ones that don’t are guaranteed to have this sort of “rally” at some point. It’s a shame that every song on the album is not as good as the fantastic “Serve the People,” which starts quietly but builds to a fevered emotional climax that is easily the high point of the record—proof that the band can write a powerful anthem if they put their minds to it.

Unfortunately, they aren’t and Handsome Furs still sound like a side-project: there are a few songs on Sound Kapital that the band clearly put effort and time into perfecting, but there are even more that are thrown in, unpolished and unexciting. If the band really buckles down and puts time and love into every song, they could become a force to be reckoned with. For now, consider grabbing “Bury Me Standing” and give “Serve the People” a listen, but you can most likely pass on the album proper and not miss too much.

Handsome Furs – Sound Kapital Tracklist:

1. “When I Get Back”
2. “Damage”
3. “Bury Me Standing”
4. “Memories of the Future”
5. “Save the People”
6. “What About Us”
7. “Repatriated”
8. “Cheap Music”
9. “No Feelings”

Little Hell as an album is like a full-length love letter in song. Each track lays out metaphors for a relationship that displays a celebration of affection, wonderment and joy.

The songs connect each other with the voice, guitar and drum that remain consistent in every song. The pattern is relatively strict in the way that it follows a template of traditional songmaking without implementing a lot of variety in technical attributes. What’s really profound is the prominence of singer and composer Dallas Green’s sultry voice right from the start of the album.
His voice enters the audio stream before any instruments chime onto the intimate “We Found Each Other In The Dark.” This makes total sense, though, because his voice is so unique and gorgeous. It’s weightless and yet carries so much depth. It’s like James Morrison’s pipes, laying off the scruff and keeping the blues.

Green’s melodies highlight the tenderness in his voice, and the constant strumming acoustic guitar magnifies these. The vocal effects on the record next to the guitar also create a hollow sort of echo that often generates an intended empty feeling. This is prominent in “The Grand Optimist,” “Little Hell” and especially “O’ Sister.”

With the ongoing simple scheme comes the argument that the album is boring. One song from the next might not be decipherable, but that doesn’t write the record off as a failure. It’s also made all right by the fact that there are a handful of moments on the record with lighter beats and a faster pace. This is present in “Natural Disaster” and the Canadian chart topper, “Little Bird.”

Though these particular songs aren’t as profound, they add diversity meanwhile silencing fans who label City and Colour as a one-trick pony.

There’s beauty in the grounding simplicity of the album in its entirety. It not only causes the listener to listen for more subtle variety, but it allows for people to notice strengths in vocal ability or songwriting talent.

Such highlights are most obvious in the penultimate track “Silver And Gold.” It travels through a dream of a peaceful apocalypse. The greatest part is where it tells of how “Colors were drained straight from the sky/The mountains were merely removed from the earth/Silver and gold had lost all its worth/And everything I loved and feared had all at once disappeared.” These words bring together fantastic imagery with emotion and the right musical engineering to create the desired effect.

When the record closes with “Hope For Now,” ending the compilation on a calm and somber note. It’s inclusive as it draws together many familiar feelings from the previous tracks and connecting the piece ultimately. It’s unfortunate that the title is so dismal, because it seems that even the colorful album art works against its meaning. Somehow the lefts and rights on Little Hell shadow the wrongs beneath the rights either way.

City and Colour – Little Hell Tracklist:

1. “We Found Each Other In the Dark”
2. “Natural Disasters”
3. “Grand Optimist”
4. “Little Hell”
5. “Fragile Bird”
6. “Northern Wind”
7. “O’ Sister”
8. “Weightless”
9. “Sorrowing Man”
10. “Silver and Gold”
11. “Hope For Now”

Ty Segall’s musical influences, to someone who’d never heard his music, it would probably sound something like this: A huge, blistering, cancerous tumor filled with garage rock. It’s been collecting riffs and guitar tones from all over the place, from psychedelia to grunge, sounds from the ’60s to Wavves (and by Wavves, I mean Jay Reatard), and the longer Ty keeps it up, the more the cancer spreads to his whole body.

Goodbye Bread is your typical 10-song LP from a guy in California that has been playing drums and guitar for years. There are a few things that separate it from your typical run-of-the-mill lo-fi album right off the bat, though. Goodbye Bread was put out by Drag City, which means Steve Albini decided this album was worth some of the last reel-to-reel analog recording tape left on the planet. This recording process adds to the album’s sound, and Ty actually plays every instrument. Combined with the album’s slower, slimy and at-times shimmering production, Goodbye Bread is something worth listening to.

The album wasn’t recorded in someone’s mom’s basement on a friend’s copy of Garage Band—not to say that good music can’t come from DIY situations and constraints, but Goodbye Bread had some thought put into it and was polished to the garage rock tome that it is.

Segall’s influences on this record vary almost song to song. “California Commercial” and “Where Your Head Goes” sound like Dead Meadow. Goodbye Bread isn’t just one droney song after another; in fact, it is almost quite the opposite. But the most interesting parts of Goodbye Bread are the tempo and pace shifts throughout the album, as well as certain songs.

“The Floor” is a great example: it has a repeating guitar riff, which might be the only guitar lick on the album that doesn’t have distortion. It tricks the listener into thinking it will be a faster track, but it ends after a few bars and Ty slows the verses down. Then about two-thirds through the song, the tempo gradually increases and gets faster until the screeching guitar solo-ish riffs start to blast through the speakers. This isn’t your dad’s typical verse-chorus-verse.

The fuzzy, washed out and distorted bands you forgot you loved are Ty’s main influences on Goodbye Bread. “My Head Explodes” sounds like a real Nirvana song with the guitars and Ty’s half-moaned, half-whined, half-screamed vocals as he belts out, “My head explodes/My head explodes/Like the water/Like the…” and trails off the last line in a true Cobain fashion.

“I Can’t Feel It” is a slow, shimmering track that sounds like T-Rex with multiple vocal lines and harmonies. “You Make The Sun Fry” sounds like something John Lennon could have done if he had mixed “Helter Skelter” with “I Am the Walrus,” not only with the instrumentals, but with the rhyming lines that seem like nonsense, but just feel so right to sing along to. The loose yet infectiously sticky vocal melodies in “Comfortable Home” sound like The Cramps.

Close your eyes and put on the first track of the album. Tell me who it sounds like. If your answer isn’t something like the Olivia Tremor Control a-la “Green Typewriters” put in a blender with Guided by Voices, then you’re reading too much Pitchfork.

Ty Segall Goodbye Bread Tracklist:

1. “Goodbye Bread”
2. “California Commercial”
3. “Comfortable Home (A True Story)”
4. “You Make the Sun Fry”
5. “I Can’t Feel It”
6. “My Head Explodes”
7. “The Floor”
8. “Where Your Head Goes”
9. “I Am With You”
10. “Fine”

As part of the legendary Boot Camp Clik, rappers Smif-n-Wessun—known individually as Tek and Steele—helped define the New York hip-hop sound emanating from the streets of Brooklyn in the early ’90s. Often unfairly deemed a Wu-Tang Clan, BCC remain something of unsung heroes in the hip-hop world. The group’s eponymous album Enta Da Stage predates such classics like Illmatic and Ready to Die yet fits nicely beside them as helping shape what came to be the definitive New York sound.

So it only makes sense that Tek and Steele would collaborate with the legendary Pete Rock, one of the mainstays of East Coast hip-hop production. The result of which is Monumental, a long-in-the-works album that features some of Rock’s most exciting tracks in years.

Though he does jump on the mic for a pair of songs, Rock is mainly relegated to the role of beatmaker, supplying Tek and Steele with tracks that play well to their strengths as emcees. Smif-n-Wessun have always shared Rock’s affinity for jazzy sampling and funky drum lines, but on Monumental, they shy away from the grimy gangster beats they usually prefer, letting Rock’s flair take hold. As a result, the album sounds much more free form, like an extended jam session between a group of like-minded artists.

The title track, which opens the album, might be the best song of the bunch. With its sampled horns sounding deliciously old school and its Nate Dogg-ish hook suggesting the album will appeal to hip-hop traditionalists, the duo start off on the right foot.

Rock sounds decidedly invigorated on Monumental. He merges his vintage sound with a myriad of other influences, including the violen-sampling “That’s Hard” and the bluesy “Night Time.” Rock has always been a versatile producer, and despite the longevity of his career, he’s had very little missteps.

While Monumental might not rank among his most seminal efforts, these tracks are indicative of each of his strengths. The album is anything but a rush job. There’s an effortlessness at play that belies Rock’s intricate construction—he’s been making it look easy for decades now.

The album’s faults, however, quickly become apparent. Monumental’s overreliance on guest appearances becomes a crutch. It’s fine when it works, like the Raekwon abetted “Prevail” and “Feel Me,” which features a notable Bun B cameo. But in other instances, the guests do little more than take up space.

Even when their Boot Camp Clik cohorts appear—rappers Buckshot, Sean Price and Rock of Heltah Skeltah show up on “Night Time” “That’s Hard,” and “Feel Me,” respectively—the end result just feels superfluous.

Smif-n-Wessun make a formidable enough duo on their own. On Monumental, they’ve got their capricious call-and-return style down to a science, riding Rock’s beats with general ease and the confidence of seasoned vets. There’s enough skill between them to sustain an entire album.

Whenever they allow such subpar emcees as Freeway and Memphis Bleek to take center stage, the album falters and quickly becomes boring. The ingeniousness of Rock’s beats are often nullified when less-than-stellar performer proves to be just that.

Pete Rock and Smiff-N-Wessun – Monumental Tracklist:

1. “Intro”
2. “Monumental (feat. Tyler Woods and Pete Rock)”
3. “Prevail (feat. Raekwon)”
4. “That’s Hard (feat. Sean Price and Styles P)”
5. “Top of the World (feat. Memphis Bleek)”
6. “Feel Me (feat. Rock of Heltah Skeltah and Bun B)”
7. “Roses (feat. Freeway)”
8. “Fire”
9. “This One (feat. Top Dog and Jahdan Blakkmoore of Noble Society)”
10. “Do It (feat. Hurrican G)”

It’s times like these that make you wish we were in the early ’90s, huh? The economy was better, we weren’t fighting two (three, four) wars, and Built To Spill and Superchunk were touring the country as doe-eyed, sharp-teethed youngsters hell bent on changing the scene. Weezer, Pavement—Chris Farley movies?! Damn, what the hell are we doing living in this messed up millennium?

This, in a sense, is the type of feeling BOAT wants to conjure on their fourth proper release, Dress Like Your Idols. They boast no qualms about being endlessly referential (their album cover is a retooling of some classic Pavement, Pearl Jam and Elliott Smith album covers), nor do they need to make grand gestures with their references. BOAT may not be smart, but at least they’re fun about their stupidity. They most closely resemble Nathan Williams of Wavves without the bratty coke-fiend streak, and Dress Like Your Idols is a rollicking half-hour of summer jam pop-rock, straight out of the (first) Bush Era.

While Wavves’ humor is often of the acerbic, self-deprecating Peter Pan-complex ilk, BOAT frequents the old Superchunk and Pavement stomping ground of suburbia. “This is a changing of the guard/I’m cleaning dog shit off my yard,” or so goes the semi-anthem opener, achieving both arm-reaching ambition and cul-de-sac ennui. The album pours forth in the same fashion, crafting itself as a retro-slacker break-up album, always talking about “I’m gonnas” and never really getting around to “I’m doings.” Protagonists are despondent and passive (“Landlocked,” “Kinda Scared of Love Affairs”), and most of all have a fairly cynical take on wanting things that aren’t romance (“Dress Like Your Idols”).

In BOAT’s world, as in early ’90s indie-rock, nobody cares and nobody does anything, which fine because you’re only listening to a record.

This is a dangerous precedent to set, one that eventually hamstrings BOAT as a lesser version of Superchunk, touring in support of more transcendent artists that pass them by along the Northwest indie rock pipeline. They could be cousins of The Thermals, but the breadth of talent BOAT can sometimes express proves they have more upside than their Portland pals. But what The Thermals do with their limited guitar chunk far surpasses the sum of its parts. BOAT, unfortunately, sounds like exactly what they are: talented slacker indie-poppers, capable of nothing more than subsuming Modest Mouse, Pavement, Weezer and slack-jawed romanticism into a perfectly fulfilling whole.

But really, why would you listen to BOAT just to talk about their missed potential as a band? It’s way too sad, and unbefitting of a band that can craft such lively hooks. “Bite My Lips” grabs a guitar line from Free Energy, a similar retro-sound band incapable of surpassing their limitations; “Classically Trained” yanks playful tongue-in-cheek ’50s references from Weezer; “Landlocked” is quite easily the greatest song Rooney never wrote, which is a compliment if you think about it. BOAT is a band that doesn’t belong on the pages of a music blog—they’re too slack-jawed and bored. BOAT belongs in your car, on your walk to work, or on that last half mile on your fixie bike. Dress Like Your Idols, a record with no ambition, succeeds simply because it exists, and it’s a pretty good time. Shit, it’s the ’90s right? What the hell are blogs anyway?

BOAT – Dress Like Your Idols

1. “Changing of the Guard”
2. “Bite My Lips”
3. “King Kong”
4. “L-O-V-E”
5. “Forever in Armitron”
6. “Classically Trained”
7. “Water it Down”
8. “Kinda Scared of Love Affairs”
9. “Landlocked (featuring J. Roderick)”
10. “Do the Double Take”
11. “Frank Black Says”
12. “Noises in the Night”
13. “Dress Like Your Idols”

In the post-rock world, Efrim Manuel Menuck should be considered royalty. As a founding member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, Menuck has staked his claim as being a forward-thinker within the realm of powerful ambient noise.

Recently, much has changed for Menuck. He’s fathered a child with longtime Silver Mt. Zion collaborator Jessica Moss, has reunited with GY!BE, and perhaps most importantly, released his solo debut. An amalgamation of songs that shows Menuck’s diverse style, Plays “High Gospel” shows him entering some new territory in addition to classic staples.

“Our Lady of Parc Extension and Her Munificent Sorrows” opens the record and Menuck immediately displays that anything could happen. Begging with grating feedback and ambient noise before singing atop the chaos, Menuck builds an aura of unexpectedness. The additional vocals from Katie Moore help Menuck find a way to turn this off-putting introduction into something palatable and borderline hooky. When drums enter the fold, it moves the song in a more traditional rock direction, but Menuck never sticks with convention for long.

Menuck’s constant exploration of sounds and styles is as much an asset as it is a hindrance. While Menuck has proven to be able to use field recordings in interesting manners, his debut struggles to figure out which way he actually wants the album to go. “A 12-pt. Program for Keep On Keepin’ On” pulsates, as manipulated vocals blare in contrast to the song’s subtle beginnings. It’s an engaging exploration, but after its nine-minutes ends, the piece ultimately suffers from poor direction.

Field recordings fall apart late in the album as well. “Chickadees’ Roar Pt. 2” is exactly what it sounds like: a recording of chickadees with added instrumentation. Granted, the songbirds don’t make an appearance until late in the track, but it is after the movement drops off, making no case as to why one should stick around until that point.

While much of Plays “High Gospel” is powerful because of its sparseness, Menuck takes some interesting creative leaps.

“Heavy Calls & Hospital Blues” is a stripped down piano ballad that comes out of nowhere and works perfectly. Menuck’s voice isn’t polished, and his vocal work has more in common with punk rock vocalists than classical singers. It could be a difficult listen if sour notes aren’t your thing, but the passion in Menuck’s delivery is undeniable. It is a surprise found midway through the album, and it’s placement helps make it one of the album’s strongest offerings.

Plays “High Gospel” does a great job of encapsulating and summarizing Menuck’s skills as well as his diverse taste. Unfortunately, the fact that the album goes from ambient field recording to borderline indie-pop allows for no cohesion. Instead, Plays “High Gospel” feels more like a collection of songs—albeit good ones—thrown together, then released. It’s a flawed work, but it’s also an intensely personal look into Menuck’s life that is well worth taking.

Efrim Manuel Menuck – Plays “High Gospel” Tracklist:

1. “Our Lady of Parc Extension and Her Munificent Sorrows”
2. “A 12-pt. Program for Keep on Keepin’ On”
3. “August Four, Year-of-Our-Lord Blues”
4. “Heavy Calls & Hospitals Blues”
5. “Heaven’s Engine Is a Dusty Ol’ Bellows”
6. “Kaddish for Chesnutt”
7. “Chickadees’ Roar Pt. 2”
8. “I Am No Longer a Motherless Child”

Have you ever been to an emo show? Do you remember singing along to that chorus that you love so much? Was singing along to that chorus the best part of that show?

The answer to that last question is important because it largely informs what you will think about Taking Back Sunday self-titled fifth album. While the majority of people in the know about TBS will prattle on and on about guitarist John Nolan and bassist Shaun Cooper’s return to the fold after leaving in a huff following the release of Tell All Your Friends, this wave of ‘TBS is back” press only serves to dissuade a critical listener to the real truth. Taking Back Sunday’s new album is not only the worst of their career, it is quite possibly one of the worst albums ever made by a scene-defining emo band.

Taking Back Sunday was always divisive, given that its lyrical quality was never too poetic. Tell All Your Friends was a mixture of violent, gun-related imagery and broken-heart-on-sleeve-isms, but at least in the early days vocalist Adam Lazarra and Nolan were writing as much as they could, simply because they couldn’t hold their emotions back. Taking Back Sunday, then, is the counterpoint to that unhinged lyrical aggression—the lyrics here frequently come off cloying, insincere, cringeworthy or downright lame. When Lazarra wails “I’m sorry/Come back!” on “Since You’re Gone,” it’s easy to read his break-up with Eisley leading lady Chauntelle DuPree playing a part, but the whole affair is so mucked with disgusting, over-30s retro-angst that the sentiment gets lost in a sea of laughter. Elsewhere Lazarra trends too dangerously misogynistic, using his rock star cred to legitimize cheating on a woman in “Faith (When I Let You Down).”

Evidenced by TBS’ increasingly glossy output post-Nolan leaving, it was assumed that Nolan’s return would jumpstart the energy and vitriol present on their original records, breaking them out of their spiral down into the doldrums of Angels & Airwaves, 30 Seconds to Mars and Foo Fighters land. Apparently, not so. Nolan re-up with the band now appears to be purely a band PR move—there is no qualitative difference between Nolan and Matt Fazzi, who was so important to TBS’ last record, New Again, that you forgot he was even part of the band. Nolan is reduced to screaming and harmonizing, which on paper doesn’t sound far removed from his old duties in TBS.

Given even a cursory run through both Tell All Your Friends and this album, the difference is immediately apparent—John Nolan has no major creative part in Taking Back Sunday anymore, and he is yet another sidekick to the Adam Lazarra meteor of mediocrity.

The album’s crushing lyrical monotony (every chorus is repeated at least five times; trust me, I checked) would be more easily justifiable were Taking Back Sunday still roaring with its former post-hardcore aggression. In its place, however, we get a slate of nearly identical mid-tempo radio rock songs, many of which don’t sound removed enough from Daughtry’s output (the chorus of “Doesn’t Feel A Thing Like Falling”). Even better excuses for songs, like the admittedly rollicking “El Paso” or the passable “Best Places to be a Mom” highlight how awful Taking Back Sunday has truly become—cheap love songs (“You Got Me”), boring femme fatale stories (“Money (Let It Go)”) and even a self-important pop talk (“This is All Now”) are all given green lights for a proper LP, yet the propulsive rager “Ballad Of Sal Villanueva” gets relegated to rarities comps and torrent downloads. AP.net kids may not realize it now, but we live in a world where Taking Back Sunday has become all that emo should not be, eclipsing Pete Wentz’s descent into tabloid nonsense. Taking Back Sunday is no longer the band that missed its opportunity to be great. They’re the band who wasted its opportunity.

Of the many words that can be associated with Neil Young, longevity is perhaps the most applicable. In a career spanning decades, Young has experimented with a myriad of sounds, but always seemed most at home when sticking to his folk roots.

As a live performer, Young was known for shows that were both imaginative and, in other ways, improvisational. The singer-songwriter has been known to dig deep into his catalog during concerts, even playing songs reserved specifically for the live setting.

On any given night, Young is prone to play just about anything. The only drawback of this is that a only a select few will experience each given concert. To remedy this, Young has released a live archive series for the past half-decade, meant to commemorate his prolific career in addition to supplying fans with a bevy of material.

The latest of which is A Treasure. The 12 songs collected for the record were gathered from shows that took place in between 1984 and 1985, a peculiar time in Young’s career. The tours weren’t in support of a new album—although a number of tunes that show up here wound up on his Old Ways—and he had zilch in the way label support. Having just released a pair of middle fingers to David Geffen—coming in the form of the infamous albums Trans and Everybody’s Rockin’—Young was essentially free to do as he pleased.

Enlisting the help of The International Harvesters, which included a number of legendary country music performers like Spooner Oldham and Rufus Thibodeaux, the songs have a feel of down-home romp. The opener “Amber Jean,” one of five unreleased songs on the album, is a rollicking tune, fitted with a playful violin riff and twangy lap steel guitar.

The album’s other unreleased tracks, including “Grey Riders,” “Let Your Fingers do the Walking” and “It Might Have Been,” are all definitive Young tunes, indicative of the best work he’s done at any point in his career.

Additionally, the better-known tracks don’t pale in comparison. Songs like “Motor City and “Southern Pacific” sound fantastic, fitted with guitars full and imposing. In fact, they prove to be vast improvements over their studio counterparts by avoiding the humdrum that plagued 1981’s Re-ac-tor.

These better known tracks fit in perfectly with the unreleased material, suggesting a cohesiveness many claimed Young lacked during the ‘80s. If anything, A Treasure proves that he had a firm grasp on his aesthetic, despite a string of less-than-stellar albums.

Though these shows would come just before Old Ways, Young manages to avoid the sometimes lethargic feel of that album. Here, he sounds free and loose, as if listeners are at his simple jam session. It’s quite clear in these songs that Young feels most at home when on stage, performing the songs he chooses with the people he admires.

He’s always been something of a renegade. A Treasure reinforces this idea wholeheartedly.

Neil Young – A Treasure Tracklist:

1. “Amber Jean”
2. “Are You Read for the Country”
3. “It Might Have Been” (Ronnie Green & Harriet Kane)
4. “Bound for Glory”
5. “Let Your Fingers Do the Walking”
6. “Flying on the Ground Is Wrong”
7. “Motor City”
8. “Soul of a Woman”
9. “Get Back to the Country”
10. “Southern Pacific”
11. “Nothing Is Perfect”
12. “Grey Riders”

Casey Crescenzo’s modern progressive rock project The Dear Hunter (not to be confused with Deerhunter) has been one of few bands in a largely stagnant modern prog scene to do something unique and appealing to a broader audience. Putting a post-hardcore/indie spin on the rock opera, the project has birthed three acts of a to-be-six act storyline which have all been excellent in their own respect. These releases have revealed complex arrangements within and without the songs. Recurring lyrical and musical themes bounce in and out tastefully. Still, something like this has the potential to get bloated if the writer doesn’t watch out.

And with that, Crescenzo has taken a much-needed break from his story and has instead put together a more bombastic set of EPs called The Color Spectrum. There are nine EPs altogether: ROYGBIV, with black and white bookending the set. Crescenzo stated on a video he posted on the band’s site that today’s music industry doesn’t believe people have attention spans. He disagrees, and this boxed set is a result—as if creating a six-part rock opera didn’t test a person’s attention span. Disregarding that the set is divided into nine EPs, catering to some attention deficits, listening to the set would definitely test a person’s attention span, clocking in at around 100 minutes in length.

Where other indie-prog act Thrice tried a similar thing in 2007 and ’08 with The Alchemy Index to slightly greater results, The Color Spectrum fulfils the concept nicely.

Thrice’s set was only four EPs, allowing them to really emphasize the different aspects of their sound. With nine EPs, The Dear Hunter blurs some of that distinction: While one can note the difference in sound, it’s not as easy to describe as, say, the heavy one or the electronic one. However, to their credit, the sounds and moods often associated with each color are considered and executed quite well. From the moody, rockier Black set to the bright, summery Yellow to the more balladesque, resolved White one, the discs flow smoothly like a real color spectrum.

For something more easy to digest, the band (or perhaps the label) has also provided an 11-track, 42-minute compilation of tracks for a commercial CD release. It is advisable to stick with this disc. Representative tracks (and perhaps the strongest) have been selected from each color and piecing them together reveals an album-like flow, also making it easier to see the shift in colors by putting them right next to each other.

Crescenzo has done a good job keeping the sound distinctly The Dear Hunter, but different enough from the hugeness of the storyline.

He can write using any arrangement he wants and doesn’t have to be concerned with how it fits in to the grander scheme of a story. Songs can be written completely separate of the others. We see him dabbling in electronics in greater quantities than we’ve seen since his leaving The Receiving End of Sirens on “What Time Taught Us” (Indigo), bouncy pop on “She’s Always Singing” (Yellow) and sparse, folky tunes like “Things That Hide Away” (Green). “Home” from the White EP is a powerful ballad which could have fit somewhere in the story with dazzling results, but even as a standalone track the results are magnificent. The melodies and arrangements are all considerably strong, but the lack of story seems to leave him heading toward clichés in the lyrics: “Why are we here, why do we die? Perhaps we’re never meant to know why.” The wordplay and complex weaving of melody and theme are lost in this medium.

Ford & Lopatin used to be known as Games. They’ve changed their name and released an electronic album that will have you double take your opinions on the genre itself. Channel Pressure opens with a glimmering, shiny, “in the clouds” instrumental-pad that tricks you into thinking the album will be ambient, but then once you start to close your eyes the ambience is cut short and you’re attacked with glitch effects left and right.

After this intro, Ford & Lopatin kick off their first song with heavily processed keyboards and a simple beat that has you wondering, “Is this trying to be Toro y Moi?” But they quickly show you something else as they spice up the title track with cheesy samples of brass instruments that you might hear in an elevator. At this point, Ford & Lopatin sound like your typical electronic band trying to be retro, but for some reason you keep listening. You couldn’t pull yourself away if you tried. It’s not like it’s a guilty pleasure album of retro music, it tastes like an authentic ’80s album.

However, the next song, “Emergency Room,” will make you realize this album goes a bit further than just being electro, retro, or as I have started calling this album when I tell people about it “pseudo-retro.” “Emergency Room” (like other tracks on the album) is poppy enough to be a radio single, but they mark them with scarlet letters of glitched-out instrumentals and sound effects to throw it all off. The vocal layers might remind you of Junior Senior and will have you questioning what kind of band Ford & Lopatin is—this album is more than just a few bass lines, synth samples and drum beats looped over with different effects turned on at different times.

The reason you’ll want to listen to Ford & Lopatin is because they have a sense of play and humor with their music, which is extremely refreshing for a genre, like electronic music, that’s at the end of its frontier. Where else is there to go with electronic sounds? At this point, one could argue it’s just a matter of combining all the different possible rhythms with all the different possible melodies before all human comprehension of music is no longer explorable.

Even if this is so, these two guys make the most of their machines and their sense of play that brings the album to life. Take the song “Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)” where there are fuzzy synths and a guitar solo that make you feel like you’re listening to the “Top Gun” soundtrack if you haven’t already been feeling the strong ’80s influence, but while this happens the guys actually are singing some of the catchiest hooks with some of the most brow-raising lyrics you’ve heard in a while. The line infectious hook of that song, “too much lo-fi,” will be remembered as one of the best hooks of 2011.

The best allure of Channel Pressure is that the song-to-song transitions are so smooth that you’ll think the interludes that separate the album into four distinct sections are part of the songs themselves, which establishes the album as a whole composition, not just 14 of the best tracks they cut after all the recording sessions put next to each other.

“Joey Rogers” is a singalong before the end of its first listen, which is whose journey the album is about. The album was written around a loose concept of this kid Joey Rogers fighting off robots in the future and his only weapon is MIDI. Though the concept was funny, it did not make or break the album. Listeners who don’t know about this “concept” will still enjoy the album. If anything, the concept is just another funny part of the whole band; you don’t need it to get into the album or understand the context.

The reason you’ll hear more about Ford & Lopatin this year is that, while they are relying heavily on old instruments and sounds, they are also using the most futuristic processing and editing techniques to ensure that every single glitch beat and “chopped up and inside out” effect is placed  with exquisite taste. Think of it like a gourmet pizza you’d have to pay $500 for, and each slice is just one song and the ingredients are sprinkled lightly and evenly, but not too evenly throughout the whole pizza. It is still greasy and cheesy, but not too greasy and cheesy—it’s just the right amount.

Ford & Lopatin – Channel Pressure Tracklist:

1. “Softscum”
2. “Channel Pressure”
3. “Emergency Room”
4. “Rock Star Paranoia”
5. “Too Much MIDI (Please Forgive Me)”
6. “New Planet”
7. “The Voices”
8. “Joey Rogers”
9. “Dead Jammer”
10. “Break Inside”
11. “I Surrender”
12. “Green Fields”
13. “World Of Regret”
14. “G’s Dream”

Most of Mexico is consumed by murder and mayhem. As more police quit to save their hides, drug lords are taking over the streets. And as more immigrants passing through Mexico to the U.S. are slaughtered, soldiers are losing ground to organized crime outfits. Through all the death and destruction, there holds steady a bright and shining light swinging from an open garage door in Guadalajara. The soundtrack for Mexico’s chaos reverberates between every note and chord of Le Butcherettes’ music. They are a four-piece punk ensemble fronted by a hot keyboardist-slash-vocal siren by the name of Teri Gender Bender.

Acts such as The Dead Weather and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were using them as opening acts as they passed through Mexico on recent tours. In a time of utter disarray south of the border, Le Butcherettes grabbed its gear and headed to L.A. in ’09 to get their music out to the teeming masses in the good ol’ U.S. of A. This kick-ass quartet played the recent SXSW festival as well, receiving accolades for a job well done. Pats on the back and “atta boys” pale in comparison if one has never partaken in Le Butcherettes’ live music and stage presence.

The band released Kiss & Kill in 2008 with all the EP trimmings of a garage album. With basic guitar, keyboard, drum and gnarly lyrics it was the catalyst for upward momentum. The EP contained a multitude of fast and loose sub-two-minute songs like “Six More” and “I’m Queen.” With this on the books and Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López in their corner, Le Butcherettes recorded and brought out their first full-length album titled Sin Sin Sin.

Their latest accomplishment is a progressive step in the right direction. Picking up Gabe Serbian of the Locust as a drummer and setting its sights on America, Le Butcherettes has a rugged collection of fist-pounding garage tunes. There is an air of excitement in the album compared to the dredging sound from their EP.

Record opener “Tonight” touts a massive keyboard part strangely reminiscent of Devo’s “Jerkin’ Back ‘n’ Forth.” As bound and beautiful as its latest efforts are on Sin Sin Sin, Le Butcherettes kept its garage flair by Bush and McCain-bashing on “Bang!” This the group does also by keeping it simple and delicious on “Riko’s Smooth Talking Mothers,” a low-fi instrumental walk through modern obscurity.

The band varies the sound with slightly longer and more psychedelic tunes like “The Actress That Ate Rousseau” and their first single “Henry Don’t Got Love.” Both songs exploit Gender Bender’s mastery of the keyboard and vocal range. As garage bands come, Le Butcherettes manages something that most cannot in this genre— variety. “Tainted in Sin” is a simple bass-driven ditty that is wrapped in soaring vocals and heavy (coincidentally subtle) guitar riffs meshed together with a tambourine clanging in the background.

These guys aren’t slouches on the stage either. Gender Bender and crew use “Dress Off” as a transition piece in their live set. “Dress Off” is an uncomplicated drum and vocal number that showcases Gender Bender while on stage wearing a trench coat in the beginning and dropping that façade for a maid’s uniform complete with a bloody apron.

As the world of garage music begins to acquire more popularity on the festival circuit, bands will be more apt to progress. Habitual line-steppers like the Black Lips, Nobunny or now, Le Butcherettes, will evolve into more obscure acts to take it to the next level. The weak-hearted will be lying by the wayside grasping at straws trying to hitch a ride. Bands like Le Butcherettes will be driving full-bore up the middle of it all with sheep’s skulls and bloody aprons abound. Viva La Garage Music!

Le Butcherettes – Sin Sin Sin Tracklist:

1. “Tonight”
2. “New York”
3. “Henry Don’t Got Love”
4. “The Leibniz Language”
5. “Bang!”
6. “All You See In Me Is Death”
7. “I’m Getting Sick of You”
8. “Riko’s Smooth Talking Mothers”
9. “The Actress That Ate Rousseau”
10. “Tainted In Sin”
11. “Dress Off”
12. “Empty Dimes”
13. “Mr. Tolstoi”