- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
It is no surprise that Halon is receiving props and comparisons to Trans Am. Their sound is very much a combination of electronic beeps/synthesizer glory and rock aggression. Slowing it down here and there, Halon let the groove settle in, and even throw in the odd field vocal for good measure or sing a bit. Their sense of humor is also firmly in check, like on the aptly titled "Conan Main Title".
Their debut release, 'Assault on Tower 61' is the makings of a great band at its genesis. Matthew Taplinger and Rob Levally in particular, two-thirds of the band, show themselves to be extremely talented individuals, playing whatever is needed (guitar/synth/laptop or drums/sequencer) from one track to the next to get the sound just right. I'm not discounting bass player Jed Robertson, though, as it's his low end that holds most tracks together. Tracks vary in sound, though not wildly, as the album progresses, from the eerie keyboard pulse and steady rhythm of "Power Plant", to the angry Black Sabbath wail of "Ver Magnuson", to the mild interlude or frenetic dissolution of shorter tracks like "Big Sky" and "Word to the Wise". Not surprisingly, the recording quality also varies, which seems to be a conscious and planned thing with Halon, where with others it just depends on where they recorded. Even if it is accidental for Halon, it adds an interesting dimension to their already diverse sound. 'Assault' is everything you want in a debut release: a fresh sound, good songs, and a feeling like there's so much more room to grow. It won't be long until Halon won't be compared to other bands, but other bands will have to be compared to them
 
samples:
 
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Who needs Japanese editions when bonus tracks end up surfacing on singles anyhow, right? In an interview this year, Alan Sparhawk described one of their more cheery, poppier sounding tunes, "Canada," as being all about death, materialism and Heaven. "You can't take that stuff to Canada" is the repeated line in the song, and Canada is up north for most people in the USA,...
Maybe it makes more sense to him, but it's still an enjoyable tune with a catchy hook and very loud guitars. An alternative version of Low's album closer, "Shots and Ladders" rounds out the single. This version starts off intimately, with the vocals very close and personal and the music completely void of the lengthy reverberations which characterize the album version. However, Low's further adventures of trying to be noise artists just makes me shiver. The spooky keyboard sample is so grotesquely out of place that my face squints as I try to bear the whole tune. Numerous multi-tracked acoustic guitars grace their version of Pink Floyd's "Fearless," which, surprisingly for Low stays quite true to the original, adding only the female vocals of Mim and leaving out the Rogers and Hammerstein chant at the end. This is probably the best reason to buy this single and it isn't even on the 7" version!
samples:
 
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
The hilarious packaging for this release would have us believe they're a clean-cut, fun-loving rock'n'roll band getting into scrapes and solving mysteries Scooby Doo-style. They're actually experimental improvisers who've made a successful crack at differentiating their record from the hundreds of others which opt for a dour, minimalist presentation.
Consisting of Icelandic superstar Heimir Bjorgulfsson, of Stillupsteypa ("He's usually got the best girlfriends"), sound artist Guy Amitai ("a great addition to the club because he's a master of disguises and costumes"), MIMEO member Gert-Jan Prins ("goes to a special science camp every summer"), and guitar improviser Dan Armstrong ("I suppose that I am the one that usually gets us into trouble"), The Vacuum Boys are surely the team to clear Amsterdam's Staalplaat shop of the hauntings caused by the Carl Michael Von Hausswolff spirit communication LPs in the racks. The Vacuum Boys sound isn't exactly rock'n'roll, but it might just be on the edge of post-rock. They're perhaps a more improv, and less serious, version of Austria's superb Radian, arranging glitch, earth-hum and white noise sounds, as well as guitar, keyboards and drums, into tracks that are abstract, but warm and friendly too. The sense of humour in the booklet is reflected so well in the music that it'd be mean to call the Vacuum Boys concept gimmicky. It's definitely a lot of fun, at least for fans of hair-raising musical experiments; maybe the girls in Amsterdam cafes will be slightly harder to impress.
 
samples:
 
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Peaches has a little secret. She doesn't want you to know that deep, down inside, she's not a filthy slut, but a respectable Canadian-born music teacher living in Berlin. However, in the three years and three incarnations of this release, she has gone from what seemed, at first, to be a campy underground joke to an internationally-renowned dirty post-disco diva.
The third version of this release is a North American edition by XL Recordings. It includes the entire first EP, which was later expanded to the full-length Kitty-Yo release, plus a second bonus disc of six tracks and two versions of the "Set it Off" music video. The success of Peaches hasn't come without a noticable amount of backlash, from both the nerdy serious electronic music fans and a group of uptight women who feel she might be "objectifying" her body. Consider this, however: not only did she create her own persona and control her own image, but she created all the music on her debut (with the exception a couple additional drum programs here and there). Furthermore, her music is undeniably catchy, and more fun than any German laptop "artist". From the boob-bouncing, only radio-friendly song "Lovertits," to the raunchy guitar licks of "Rock Show," there is never a point where the original album gets old, even now, two years later. The bonus disc includes her cover of Berlin's "Sex," and Jeans Team's "Keine Melodien," along with Kid 606's mash-up remix of "Fuck the Pain Away." While the jaded side of me wants to advise you to wait until next year's fourth release of this disc, a 4xCD retrospective, but the honest side says that if you don't own this yet, the time is now to get the cheapest and most complete version.
samples:
- Set it Off (Tobi Neumann remix)
- Diddle My Skiddle
- AA XXX
 
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
The Catheters craft hard, agressive, and at times completely merciless rock in the strongest traditions of the genre. Their sound is menacing and fast-paced, while vocalist, Brian Standeford sounds like he either wants his vocal cords to bleed, or your head to explode starting with your ears first.
Something seems to be a bit lost here. These songs sound incredibly rushed in creation, recording, and execution. There's no polish, which some might say is an admirable quality, though I'm not so sure. Like recent albums by other larger acts, it sounds like the band set up their instruments, microphones, amps, and boards at the same setting and recorded a whole album without changing any settings over the course of a few days. There's no variety. There's no change in the aesthetic, but, in a lot of cases on this release, there's really not much change of tempo or presentation. Everything sounds remarkably the same from one song to the next. It's the few changes that make the record worth it if only for a little while. "Clock on the Wall", the album's longest track, is also its most interesting listen, with a fine melody and mild turns, all with the driving force of a band with nothing to prove. "The Door Shuts Quickly" is also a slower tempo song, and not as much of a departure, but still not the same montonous pounding of the other tracks. In fact, the only thing that seems to be missing is a variation in arrangement. The songs aren't bad, the band clearly has talent and the subject matter/lyrics/vocals are just as crushing as the music that backs it.
 
samples:
 
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
I haven't listened to His Name Is Alive for about six or seven years, so I wasn't sure I had the right disc in my stereo when I pressed play and expected to hear the new album, 'Last Night.' The recent blitz of 4AD releases which all look thoroughly similar (computer-blurred images on a dark background digipak) didn't help my confusion, either. Instead of the dreamy His Name Is Alive indie pop I expected, what I got was a soulful, jazzy hybrid of funk and R&B with female vocals I did not recognize.
Apparently, His Name Is Alive is on a path to reinvent itself from record to record, the mark of a band which either gets bored with its sound or cannot execute the music with enough conviction to sustain it. The core of the band is now Lovetta Pippen (unrecognized soulful female vocals) and leader Warn Defever, a core lineup much like last year's 'Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth' (a problematic prophesy when considered with this release). I tried to listen generously, but by the third song I was confused and cringing. A song like "Crawlin'" makes me cringe specifically because the lyrics seem so intent on conveying the jazz and R&B and funk sound which the band is trying to appropriate but without following through in the actual music. As a result, the lyrics appear overstretched and threadbare, exposing their own inadequacies by trying to cover the music's shortcomings. The repetition of the line "You got a lot of crawlin' to do" in conjunction with the soupy bass and wanky guitar makes my stomach ache. Songs like "I Can See Myself in Her" and "" even make brave excursions into what sounds like urban pop. All this is too large a jump for me, from my more familiar His Name Is Alive reference point of 'Mouth by Mouth.' The last straw was when I realized that the songs I could tolerate were covers: The Equals's "Teardrops" and Ida's "Maybe." On the one hand, "I Been Good Up Till Now" is a stark contrast point on the album, notable only for its retreat from the funk and the jazz and its return to repetitive bedroom ambience. On the other hand, "Someday My Prince Will Come" is an interminable eleven-minute indulgence into faux-funk, replete with horns. The majority of 'Last Night' follows this latter formula, albeit with slightly more restraint and coolness, and I am just not sure that His Name Is Alive should apply for any patents for this reinvention.
 
samples:
 
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](/../../../../brain/images/singsingjoy.jpg)
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](/../../../../brain/images/moonsantofraud.jpg)
Read More
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](/../../../../brain/images/dukesprung.jpg)
Read More
After releasing three singles on SharkAttack! and providing very little information about themselves, Charlene release their eponymous debut full-length. While the singles were simple, sparse, and often brief, these recordings feature a denser sound, with more instruments and a clear evolution in production.
 
- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
![](/brain/images/streetsoriginal.jpg)
samples:
Read More