>>Nostalgia For Infinity

It strikes me as a little weird that so many offshoots of punk and hardcore music – the diverse subgenres that sprouted in the creative and open environment of 80s and 90s independent music – come back to root in pop-punk. Equally it’s not weird at all; it takes a hard-edged person to dislike the warm melodic hooks and upbeat pace that are the typical characteristics of pop-punk.

Monument are torch-bearers for twinkly 90s US emo; inspired most obviously by bands like Sunny Day Real Estate and the whimsical Cap’n Jazz, today their contemporaries include Everything Everywhere  – in fact, I think the two bands just finished a US tour together.

The song ‘Roots Run Deep’ demonstrates these various characteristics; throaty half-hoarse vocals sung over a catchy, toe-tapping rhythm; sustained vocal harmonies in the chorus; twin guitars with distinct and complimentary tones; even a moment where horns are thrown in and the song disintegrates into a squall of noisy fun. The buzzier rhythm guitar has something of a classic sound to it; I’d guess at minimal production, intended to allow the character of the instrument and amplifier to emerge more clearly. The lead pops out through its delicious, twinkling, sweet sound, but never dominates proceedings – on the whole, Monument are significantly less prone to noodling than emo-esque contemporaries Grown Ups, although there’s still plenty of fretboard work on display – as in ‘Glass House’, which follows. This tune is tamer and more restrained,  but its melodies still spill out fast and sweet around vocal-led moments and some fine gang chants.

» Read the rest of this entry «

Okay, okay, so the title is a little more melodramatic than it needed to be. I really couldn’t resist the temptation to reference one of the first music reviews I wrote here on Nostalgia For Infinity. It felt entirely appropriate.

As the astute will have probably gathered from the above, I’m wrapping up my music reviewing. It’s been an absolute blast over the last couple of years, not only in flexing my writing muscles and thinking about ways to articulate my feelings on a ton of different records, but also in listening to some fine music, hearing some fantastic new bands (a number of whom have become firm favourites) and chatting with some great people from various bands, labels and PR companies.

At the time of writing I’ve got about 130 record reviews (albums, EPs, singles and splits) up on NFI, with a bunch more queued and about 50 more records that have been sent to me that I’ve yet to write about. And if your record is among these then don’t worry, I’ll be honouring everything I’ve been sent up until today unless I really can’t think of anything to say about it, which going by past precedent is unlikely as I am an opinionated and rambling son of a bitch. If you’re a fan of reading my record reviews, they’ll still be going up regularly (two or three a week as usual) pretty much until the end of 2011.

I won’t be accepting anything more for review, however. The submissions page has been updated to reflect this.

I have a number of reasons for hanging up my guitar-shaped novelty pen. The first, and most important, is that I want to focus my time and energy on other projects. I want to spend more time getting better at guitar and writing songs for my own band, Wrecktheplacefantasic. I also want to turn my efforts at writing elsewhere; not only a renewed focus on the younger project that is Arcadian Rhythms but also getting back into writing some fiction. Not only that, it would be nice to have more of a social life again. I’ve been hanging on in there – I do regularly enjoy a pint or four and a sprawling conversation with friends – but you’d be surprised how much of your free time music reviewing takes up. I can’t remember the last time I spent a day off from the day job that didn’t involve a few hours of writing-related activities of some kind.

A slightly more shameful reason is that I’ve increasingly found myself with a sensation that I’m beginning to repeat myself, which I suspect is the inevitable result of writing in-depth about a lot of music that faithfully follows in the footsteps of what inspired it. Now, it should be patently obvious from my prior body of writing that I am quite far from having a problem with this. I am not an innovation-or-bust critic and have always tried to engage with music on its own terms or to at least explain why I couldn’t. However, whilst I am quite comfortable with holding this opinion I’m less comfortable with repeatedly restating when I’m supposedly writing about a particular collection of music. It becomes a little dull to essentially repeat yourself, even if you do have an excellent soundtrack at the time.

Anyway, those are my reasons, and I figure I owe it to my readers and my, ahem, suppliers to explain them rather than just stop replying to emails and allow the post schedule to decline as so many blogs and review sites do.

For the record NFI itself will continue going strong (I will inevitably write about whatever I’m up to and continue to post original material here too), and I may even decide to write about records or shows that I have something in particular to say about, but they’ll be sourced by yours truly and written on my whims.

That’s it… goodbye. For now.

Del.icio.us links for August 21st through August 28th:

» Read the rest of this entry «

Late last year I reviewed Tears in my Beer, an album from the lo-fi band Museum Mouth. Band member Karl Kuehn is a busy man; Museum Mouth remain a going concern but he is also collaborating with keyboardist Becca High as SWTHRT. Compact Disc is the result.

Stylistically the two projects are highly distinct, although Kuehn’s unusual and monotone-esque vocals are an instant point of recognition. But where Museum Mouth went for lo-fi indie rock tunes with a punk rock-inspired song structure, SWTHRT opt for a take on new wave as parsed through the sedate pace of mellower shoegaze. It’s still lo-fi, though, overtly and brazenly DIY.

On the whole the eleven songs present on Compact Disc are mid-pace compositions built around simple melodies. The drumbeats and basslines tend to be simple and even repetitive between tracks; the keys and the vocals are where each song endeavours to stand apart. » Read the rest of this entry «

Apparently The Plurals have been pushing their brand of noise-pop — dubbed “post-fun” by the band — since about 2004. From the info online I’ve got no idea how many records they’ve released. A whole bunch of EPs according to last.fm. I’m not sure whether The Plurals Today, The Plurals Tomorrow: A Futurospective is a first, second or third album, or even whether it’s all new material rather than a collection of existing stuff.

This is a convoluted way of saying that if you’re an existing fan of The Plurals this review isn’t for you. It’s for people like me, to whom A Futurospective is a first introduction to the band. Hi, people like me! You may be interested to know that “post-fun” music essentially comprises scrappy, affectedly messy garage-punk with some lush poppy melodies, scruffy harmonies, snarled and drawled vocals and delightfully imprecise lead guitar work. This is not music for those obsessed with tightness; it’s fast and loose and fun. The band’s a trio, as pictured above, and all three members contribute vocal duties alongside the expected drum / bass / guitar setup.

» Read the rest of this entry «

Del.icio.us links for August 8th through August 21st:

» Read the rest of this entry «

Here we have an unpretentiously packaged record; just a plastic sleeve with a piece of wax inside. (Although, yes, there are the obligatory different colours for the weenil nerds. I think I got the clear one. Does it matter?) Eschewing artwork and liner notes and letting the music speak for itself. Admirable. So what does the music say?

Before I get into that, a brief introduction for those not in the know: Rolo Tomassi and Antares are two of the UK’s premier young progressive tech-metal bands. Rolo Tomassi are pretty well known these days; if you’re not already aware of them then you must have a pretty sweet rock to hide under. Antares are less well-known but are making a name for themselves among those in the know; this is their second release on Holy Roar. I reviewed the first here and was quite taken with it.

» Read the rest of this entry «

Is it a cliché to compare a band playing texturally dense indie rock with rich power-pop melodies to Broken Social Scene, or is that just a side effect of the sound being so dominated by a band of significant stature? Well, the comparison certainly stands, as do comparisons to more straightforward and hooky shoegaze-lite indie rockers like Silversun Pickups. Regardless of whether or not the comparisons smack of cliché, they’re intended as positive remarks. With clean, bright vocals, a light touch of gain on the guitars, a hooky rhythm that gives way to waves of ambient sound and keys, and some great melodies in the vocal lines, Shuteye Unison cherry-pick some of the brightest strengths of the aforementioned bands.

If opening track ‘Be Kimball’ is a little overlong – those shimmering waves of sound dominate the latter two thirds of song, which weighs in at over seven minutes in all – the steady marching rhythm and restrained bass and guitar lines of ‘Our Future Selves’ draw on similar strengths to produce a more compact and distinct song. The backing vocals in the song’s second half harmonise subtly with the lead vox, with the latter dropping out for an extended bridge to allow room for a distant-sounding yet memorable gang chant.

» Read the rest of this entry «

I was sent a t-shirt along with my review copy of Lunopolis upon which were printed the words “There are people on the moon. They are from the future. And they run our government.” This is a remarkably concise précis of the plot of this oddball film, and further a useful indicator of its serious style.

It’s a strange fish, it really is. It mixes the shakycam style of JJ Abrams’ Cloverfield (and umpteen other naturalistic films of that style post-Blair Witch Project), the talking heads expert opinion/interview approach of District 9 married to the educational style of a made-for-TV documentary, and the subject matter of fare like The X-Files and the interest in fake-moon-landing and MJ12-style conspiracy theories that exploded into popularity contemporaneously with that show. Stylistically its influences are more recent than its thoroughly 90s thematic material, but style always did go out of fashion quicker than substance. Overall it’s an an odd mish-mash of techniques and these components do work quite well.

The film stumbles a little in how it integrates these disparate styles, tending to clump them together. The film opens with an exciting fifteen minute exploration by independent filmmakers and conspiracy chasers Matt and Sonny (director Matthew Avant and producer Hal Mayor playing almost-themselves) of what appears to be a hidden underground base. It’s a thrilling sequence that sets the mood well. Subsequently the talking heads begin to pop up, alongside scenes where Matt and Sonny dabble with an odd device retrieved from the base and experience run-ins with a mysterious and intimidating group of G-men. The pace is maintained well enough here, too, with the growing sense of mystery proving compelling.

» Read the rest of this entry «

There’s something enduringly whimsical about Mountain Smashers, the first album from New Jersey quartet By Surprise. Possibly it’s the recurrent references to Douglas Adam, something which as an Englishman I’m most likely genetically predisposed to find endearing. Or perhaps it’s the laid-back literary air of the album; as well as Doug Adams there are overt references to Thoreau and Kerouac. Then again, it might just be the record’s laid-back sense of playfulness; relaxed rather than too cool for school. It’s more too school for cool, to be honest.

Opening with the driving yet twinkling guitars of ‘Books by Thoreau’ – hey, I did say the references were overt – the sound holds back from aggression despite its gargantuan size and stomp: everything is warm, rich and gentle. ‘Realometer’ introduces more playfulness as dual noodling guitars trade off each other, as do the different styles of delivery of the band’s two chief vocalists. “Time is a river I go fishing in,” sings one; hey, I did say the record was laid-back.

» Read the rest of this entry «