>>Nostalgia For Infinity

Some of you may already be familiar with both the band Dads and also the record Brush Your Teeth ;). If, like me, you’re a devotee of various music blogs that push obscure stuff I’d never have heard of outside without the aid of TOS-abusing blogspot and tumblr writers, you may be familiar with twinkly shit. It’s a blog that shares emo music with a fondness for twinkly, picked guitars, hence ‘twinkly shit’.

Dads is two guys collaborating across the US, over the internet, sending compositions back and forth and building them up through a gradual accruing of ideas and contributions (edit: Scott from Dads has gotten in touch to point out that they actually live close together in New Jersey, so I guess I should stop smoking all that delicious crack when doing “research” for my reviews). It’s a neat idea and, no doubt, a fun project. So how does this twinkly shit sound in practice?

What you’ve got here is chiefly mid-pace two-piece emo/indie rock composed of drums, one guitar, one bass and vocals. Opener ‘Dan’s Christopher Walken Impression’ is mostly sung over occasionally elaborate noodling, but periodically the song kicks up with a more throaty, hoarse, uncontrolled sound. Lyrically it’s sweet and unambiguous in tone if not imagery: “When you told me that you loved me, I floated from the stomach out.” More down-to-earth is ‘I Don’t Wanna Fuck With Another Dude’s Snacks’, which lends a sort of stoner air to the whole project purely by dint of its name. The song itself builds in volume about a minute in, and packs a lot of quick, sweet fun into its limited length.

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This is the second of two Into It. Over It split releases I’ve reviewed this week; you can find the first review here. At the start of that review I riffed a little on the slightly daft names the two bands had. Well, Pswingset are upholding that tradition in their own way: the “P” in their name is apparently silent.

As with that last release Into It. Over It’s contributions are songs themed around a specific town or city, and they convey simple stories of the singer’s experiences within and memories of these places. ‘Cambridge, MA’ tells of a girl but is not, it appears, a simple and direct love song. Instead, it tells the tale of telling this girl about the woman the narrator loves back home; her habits, hobbies, eccentricities, etcetera. The everyday texture out of which love and shared lives are built. Musically, the song’s a simple one, acoustic finger-picking and soft, slow vocals over rolling drums that loop throughout.

‘Orlando, FL’ is a pacier number, a little more like the band’s presence on the other split, and this one seems to be about shouldering burdens of knowledge, accepting or ignoring what’s going on around the singer, although in what context this is meant to be said I’m not sure – late-night after parties? Infidelity? Secrets between friends? The song itself is pretty catchy and has grown on me over repeated listens.

Sadly I can’t say the same of Pswingset. They offer up two songs here. ‘Everything That Was Tired’ fitting in after ‘Orlando, FL’ nicely and boasting production that is either cheap or an affectation to imitate the recording style of the 90s emo the band adulate. Whatever the reason behind it is, I do like the production, and the song isn’t a bad one – it’s pleasant enough. Unfortunately after half a dozen plays it’s still not resonated with me on any level.

The same is true of acoustic number ‘Thanks For the Record’, a faintly lovelorn tune built of vocals and two acoustic guitars that is competently written, attractively played, stylistically consistent, but about which I have nothing to say because I didn’t find it at all engaging.

It’s a shame that I didn’t get on with Pswingset as it seemed as though all the ingredients for that classic emo/indie sound are in place, but there was no spark. I’ll try them again in the future. Happily, Into It. Over It offer another decent pair of songs, so you may want to pick this up just for those. If you’re a vinyl collector I’d say go for the first, but if you’re acquiring these from Bandcamp then you may as well grab both!

Into It. Over It | Official Site | MySpace | Facebook | Last.fm

Pswingset | MySpace | Tumblr | Last.fm

Count Your Lucky Stars Records

Del.icio.us links for February 27th through March 6th:

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Chicago-based three-piece Mountains for Clouds are a good band to listen to after a hard day at work and an evening spent writing, and you can trust that I’m speaking from experience there. This, as far as I know, is the first EP from the outfit although they did previously play together under the less evocative name CoachHouse. Released late last year, it’s a soothing collection of six pieces of gently atmospheric indie/emo rock with expansive song structures ala. Explosions in the Sky but lacking the pomp, splendour and bombast of such emblematic post-rock. Noodly Deep Elm outfits like, hmm, Settlefish are another reference point, in terms of the relaxed tone and clean guitar, as are widely-beloved melodic punk rockers Small Brown Bike for pace and songwriting.

The EP’s first song, ‘Operation Latte Thunder’, features looping riffs with the rhythm guitar and bass neatly in sync whilst the lead guitar noodles over the top. It’s instrumental – all but one song here is – and its percussion is laid-back. Occasional handclaps and distant sirens drift in and out of the song, with a net effect that can’t help but be mellow and relaxing.

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Just a quick review for you today, of Midwest indie/emo rockers Football, Etc. The Away Game 7″ came out last September and has recently made its way to me. For context, think back to latter-day emo – after the initial wave of frenetic, chaotic outfits, around the time in the mid-90s when the mellower end of emo and the more delicate strands of US indie-rock began to hybridise. That’s the territory that Football, Etc. are working in, the trail blazed by Mineral, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Modest Mouse in their more straightforward moments.

Side A gives us the titular ‘Away Game’, three and a half minutes of slow, steady and despondent vocals, ever so slightly at odds with the mid-pace power chords, palm mutes and picking, if only because of the spritely and warm mid-heavy sound of the guitar. Towards the song’s close the rhythm builds ever-so-slightly, as do the power of the vocals, but that careful pace isn’t upset.

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My last review before Christmas, and happily it’s of one of my favourite records of 2010. I’ll have the usual year’s best round-up at some point, but for now why not treat yourself to a copy of Castevet’s The Echo & the Light as a stocking filler?

So, Castevet burst into the consciousness of the punk rock scene in early 2009 with the free release of I Know What A Lion Is, a three-track demo that established them as a young band with some fresh ideas and the songwriting nous to back it up. This was quickly followed the same year by the Summer Fences EP, a clear refinement of the band’s sound and ability. A little over the year on from that first EP, and here they are with their debut album.

A rough short-hand to their sound is the fusion of several strands of post-hardcore; the intimate noodling of late emo and 90s indie rock with the anthemic passion and urgency of melodic songsmiths Hot Water Music. Back in November I reviewed More Songs by Grown Ups, who share a hometown with Castevet and the two bands have obviously developed together, also sharing some similar sensibilities and ideas. Castevet have a more aggressive, raw-edged, throaty approach, and deploy more chords in many songs, but there are still plenty of fantastic moments of twin noodling guitars playing off and with one another.

The song ‘Midwest Values’ (track 6, but don’t skip to it – this entire record should be listened to as presented) is a particular highlight for me, with a pair of tight chord progressions in the chorus that are effortlessly anthemic. ’Narrow Hallways’ is another belter, but I suspect that everyone will have their own favourites when it comes to The Echo & the Light. It’s an impressively rich album and rarely content to repeat itself, instead exploring the technical possibilities within the beautiful and accessible melodies upon which their songs are based, and never disappearing up the fundament of its own musical proficiency.

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This isn’t the first time I’ve reviewed Grown Ups, and it’s good to be able to say that with More Songs they’re even better than with the Songs EP. In fact, the four songs from the EP – ‘Surprise Party’, ‘Open Sesame’, ‘Orange Cat’ and ‘Three Day Weekend’ – are also present here, having been re-recorded and mixed with a lot more depth and warmth. These four songs don’t feel old in comparison to the six newer songs on offer here, and in fact it wasn’t until after several listens that I realised they were present. I’m not all that observant, apparently, but even I get suspicious when singing along to a record after just one or two plays!

For those not in the know, Grown Ups play clean melodic punk rock with an emphasis on noodling lead rhythms over power chords and palm muting, and this bright, clean sound, infused with warmth and energy, makes for a unique package. That said this sound hasn’t come out of nowhere: hometown friends Castevet are exploring similar territory with a rougher, rawer edge, Big Scary Monster labelmates like Talons and Meet Me In St. Louis also bear some resemblance (although, in fairness, there are as many points of difference as there are of similarity), and recently-reviewed Michigan outfit Everyone Everywhere occupy similar sonic geography… at least in my head. (Did I really just write “sonic geography”? I’m sorry.)

Anyway, I’m not trying to make this into a scene… rather I’m trying to make the observation that there is currently a bit of a thing with mellow punk rock and abrasive indie rock pushing into territories with more complex songwriting, playful guitar noodling, and other characteristics that some three-chord purists might resent (if you want to revert to cliches almost as old as I am, anyway). Or maybe it was always there but has only begun to rear its head in the last couple of years. The influence of 90s midwest emo never really waned, after all, not in its home country.

Anyway, putting aside my pathetic attempts to be some sort of critic rather than just a dude writing about songs that he likes, this is a really cool album that I like listening to in the morning whilst walking to work because it never fails to put a smile on my face. It ticks all the boxes – energy and passion, depth and complexity, fun and seriousness, and distinct. Probably the only criticism I have is that because all of the songs are of this formula it’s tricky to pick them apart (even though my favourites are currently ‘Six More Weeks of Winter’ and ‘Surprise Party’) but when they’re all this good that’s a stupid thing to care about. Listen to Grown Ups, you beautiful fools.

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I don’t mean to blow my load too early in this here review, but Old Pride may be some of the finest screamo I’ve heard in a while.

As the pastoral, old-timey cover suggests, Pianos Become The Teeth are from the dynamic and distraught school of emo rather than the full-on balls-out self-destructive side of things. Case in point: opening song ‘Filial’ starts with simple clean strums and quickly builds into a huge, epic, tumultuous screamo-slash-alt rock tune with emotion seeping out of its pores. Some of the chord progressions deployed sound more like something moody post-rockers like This Will Destroy You would deploy than a more traditional screamo sound (ala. Saetia, Still Life, whatever reference points you want to use). At over five minutes long the song is quite a journey in itself; it’s very cool indeed and sets the bar high from the outset.

Other highlights for me are ‘Pensive’, a slow-builder which takes time to build to a ferocious crescendo, and the guitar work which opens up ‘Sleepshaker’; deceptively simple, it’s an intro to die for. And then there is ‘Young Fire’, a slightly country-esque post-rock number which wraps up the album.

But above them all is ‘Cripples Can’t Shiver’, which features a heartbreaking spoken story about the decline of the orator’s father, who suffers from multiple sclerosis: “it’s been hard to see him, as a man who loved baseball and golf, to go from standing upright, to walking with a cane, to going to the walker, to the scooter, to the wheelchair, to bedridden.” The song overall is fairly low-key and slower-paced compared to the rest of the record, and is probably one of the moments where Pianos Become the Teeth stray furthest into post-rock territory. Beneath it all, though, there’s the ever-present threat of emotional and musical intensity, that ferocious bombast that the best screamo can deliver. It might be seen as cheap or cruel to use a personal story of suffering and hardship – as a shortcut to powerful emotion – but there’s no cynicism here, just honest, earnest passion and pain. Like all the best screamo and emo music, Old Pride convinces most of all as an act of catharsis. And this is not only true of ‘Cripples Can’t Shiver’; there is not a weak song on this album, not a moment which rings hollow or false or insincere.

I’ve found it really hard to review this album because whenever I listen to it I find it such an intensely emotional and involving experience* that I entirely forget to take notes. I’m sure that fact says more about this album that I could ever have managed: “album too good, too affecting to be reviewed”. Yeah, if you don’t listen to this record I will come to your house and beat / scream / cry on you.

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* Yeah yeah, emooooooooo. Get a new joke, fucker.

Louisville, Kentucky is a town I know by musical reputation and little else. It’s produced and been home to an impressive roster of bands over the years from Slint to the hardcore/metal acts I’m more familiar with like Black Cross, Breather Resist, Abscise and Sardaukar (okay, I mainly know the latter because of the Dune reference). Whatever it is they put in the water over there clearly works… and so to Frontier(s), a band fronted by ex-Elliott / Falling Forward frontman Chris Higdon and backed by members of Automatic, Mouthpiece and Stay Gold.

I’ve never listened to a great deal of Elliott though they’ve appeared on a few compilations and mixtapes I’ve been sent over the years, and going back to listen to those tracks indicates that Frontier(s) are not pushing far outside Higdon’s comfort zone. This is not inherently a bad thing, though it’s a shame that after 8 years of Elliott there’s no drive to bust open new ground. But hey, I’m a fan of Snuff and their only attempt to do something different produced a terrible trip-hop song so it’s no bad thing to stick with what you’re good at.

So, the two tracks on this here 7″ single are big alt-rock songs with a distinctly Midwestern kinda edge – I can’t pin that down, I guess it’s just got that kind of reminescent sound. The band is occasionally described as post-hardcore and I guess that’s true insofar as “hardcore > emo > this release” provides a rough map of the members’ career paths, but in terms of the music you’ll hear some snatches of riffs and licks that betray roots in the mellower side of emo but nothing more distinct.

So far I’ve spent an awful lot of words on what Frontier(s) are not and that is pretty unfair; no band should be defined by what they are not (unless what they are not is “any good”). So what are Frontier(s)? Well, they’re a band of guys doing what they know how to do well. There’s some quality musicianship and songcrafting on display here, and whilst the first spin of this 7″ didn’t catch me I’ve found myself coming back to it a few times. Both tracks are characterised by pounding drums and strong, melodic bass with interwoven guitar lines and dramatically earnest vocals. ‘The Plains’ is a more upbeat-sounding track than the morose but rocking ‘Radiomine’; that said, I’m pretty sure neither is intended to be a party tune.

It’s a bit of a cheap conclusion to write this, but I would recommend Frontier(s) to fans of Elliott as these two tracks from Frontier(s) are not hugely dissimilar from that band’s output, albeit with a more mainstream alt-rock sound and (dare I say it) more confident and accomplished if less iconic songwriting. It’s also worth a listen by anyone who digs quality rock music although you probably won’t find yourself blown away.

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