Archive for the ‘ Music ’ Category

Best Albums of 2013

In 2013, I reviewed 57 albums, 34 of which were released this year. Here are my picks for albums of the year, with the usual caveats: I know my experience was far from complete, but I think I do a good job of picking out the things I’ll be interested in. If the list seems weird, it probably has more to do with my taste than with the number of albums I bought. I pick my top 5, with confidence that even if I heard all the popular releases this year, these ones would still likely fit in my top 10. And if I discover the ones I missed later, I’ll include them in my list of the best “old discoveries” of the year.

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2013
12/31
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Billie Joe Armstrong & Norah Jones – Foreverly (Music Review)

Foreverly cover

Billie Joe Armstrong & Norah Jones – Foreverly

I’ve seen some other reviews of Foreverly, and it seems that they all follow the same pattern. First of all, they point out the unlikeliness of the concept. Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong is joined by Norah Jones to make a faithful track-by-track adaptation of an obscure Everly Brothers album. Then the review says that surprisingly, they do a good job of it: The unlikely duo harmonizes nicely, and the songs are good.

I think that this is maybe letting the performers off easily. These are wildly successful music stars, and “they don’t sound bad” is pretty faint praise. The Everly Brothers’ Songs Our Daddy Taught Us was itself a collection of traditional country songs, and not necessarily an inspired list of choices. They beat you over the head with the emotional manipulation that was a country cliché a few generations back: There’s the song about a little boy’s dying wishes, the song about the little boy traveling to visit his dying mother, the song about the dying mother hoping to find her son before she goes, and so on. If The Everly Brothers had recorded this album thirty years later, it would’ve been all “my woman left me and my dog died” songs, and today it would be truckin’ and country checklists. We’re looking back at this album a half century later, so it’s a little more palatable than the modern clichés, but it’s still too much.

They’re good songs. Not one is wrong for a mix like this, but including them all is a little much. I would have much rather seen Armstrong and Jones put together their own collection of country standards, including just a few of these. Their performance is heartfelt and pleasant, and it does do justice to the sensibilities of past generations. It also strikes a nice balance between the washed-out production of 1958 and the loud production of 2013. I’d be happy to see what else they could do in this vein, but the only justification for this particular choice of songs is reverence for an album that wasn’t even notable at the time.

I know I’m probably being a little harsh on Foreverly, maybe in response to the uncritical praise. It’s an improvement on Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, it successfully brings two music stars into a new genre, and it will introduce a new audience to some deserving songs. But compared to the many versions of these songs already available, there is nothing outstanding here, and it doesn’t make a good case for why this genre still deserves attention. It’s pleasant, I listened to it several times, and I like the way this team works together. I hope they make something more inspired in the future.

Grade: C+

 
2013
12/27
CATEGORY
Country
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Obits – Beds & Bugs

Beds & Bugs cover

Obits – Beds & Bugs

The tricky thing about reviewing Obits’ Beds & Bugs is that it’s difficult to avoid repeating my review of Moody, Standard and Poor. They have a solid, blues-based garage rock sound that blew me away the first time I heard it, but every album since then has felt like a faint echo of their debut, I Blame You. I want to like it: The Obits are the current band of Hot Snakes’ Rick Froberg, and after three consistent albums it seems like they’re in this for the long haul, but it also seems like it’s maybe a little too consistent.

The music is melodic, but with a mild distortion that makes the vocals difficult to focus on. This is a good balance between accessibility and comforting obscurity. More importantly, it puts the focus on the music rather than the lyrics. The band sings about things like making sure your pets will be cared for in your will (“Pet Trust”) or a detailed explanation of a birth gone wrong (“Malpractice”). These topics are presented in such a straightforward way that it’s difficult to tell whether they are intended to be an absurdist comment on modern culture, a Dadaist parody of songwriting, or true-life topics that actually resonate with the songwriter. This isn’t a major problem since the music is the important thing here. But while it was easy to enjoy mildly amusing topics like “Two-Headed Coin” in their first album, this is less hook-filled and doesn’t offer too much that’s new.

It’s difficult to pinpoint a reason that these songs don’t grab me. Some of it is probably familiarity from the last albums. The only real difference I hear between their best songs and the other ones is that I Blame You really seemed driven by the drums. Drummer Alex Fleisig has left the band since this album was released, so I’m not sure if there’s a story there. Either way, the drumming here is good but feels like it’s mainly following the guitar. The music retains its distinctiveness, and it’s always a little interesting, but it’s never vital.

The Obits are a good band, and this album doesn’t change that. Beds & Bugs does suffer from the standard they set in the past, though, and with none of the songs being worth hearing for the lyrics, it’s too easy to make these unflattering comparisons.

Grade: C+

 
2013
12/21
CATEGORY
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JD Wilkes & The Dirt Daubers – Wild Moon (Music Review)

Wild Moon cover

JD Wilkes & The Dirt Daubers – Wild Moon

The Dirt Daubers released Wild Moon under the name JD Wilkes & The Dirt Daubers, but this album may have deserved a more drastic name change. People only familiar with Wilkes from his other Dirt Daubers albums are in for a surprise: The raw roots country and stripped-down sound have been replaced by raw roots blues and a full rock sound. The change does feel more understandable if you’re familiar with Wilkes’ old band, The Legendary Shack-Shakers, as this basically provides a lot of what the Dirt Daubers’ previous albums had dropped from the Shack-Shakers. At the point, it appears that Wilkes doesn’t intend to stray that far from his old band. The defining aspects of the Dirt Daubers now appear to be that Wilkes has discarded his jester image for a slightly more serious one, and of course that half of the songs are fronted by Jessica Wilkes.

Jessica’s confident, brassy voice makes a good fit for these proto-jazz (white person blues?) songs. She still doesn’t have quite the range to carry an album on her own, but it’s hardly noticeable for her half. However, this means she is best suited for songs that showcase the Wilkes family’s quirky personality. Her “Apples and Oranges” is the album’s highlight, a swinging, rebellious song structured around an old nursery rhyme and playful lyrics. Otherwise, the songs she leads sound like blues standards about love and loss. They’re perfectly fine, but something that you could generally find in other bands’ catalogs.

JD is similarly restrained. I understand his seriousness about southern culture and his desire not to turn it into a joke, and that inclination is what always made his crazier songs so solid. Here we get Southern standards of the “creek-is-risin’-and-my-dead-baby’s-in-Heaven” variety (themes that appear multiple times), but his wit and fervor only make minor appearances. JD’s standout moments are the ones that recall the Shack Shakers: The out-of-nowhere proclamation that “it’s all a SNAFU, let’s go AWOL, you get FUGAZI and I’ll get FUBAR” in “Let It Fly”, or the electric acid-country of “Hidey-Hole”.

I feel bad saying that The Dirt Daubers sound best when they echo The Shack-Shakers, because in last year’s review I was very excited about the new life they breathed into traditional styles. But at least this time, the new band is definitely in the old one’s shadow. That’s not to say this isn’t good, and I like the energetic performances that bring a lot more fun than some of their genre contemporaries. I do hope that more of the personality from Wake Up Sinners shows up next time, though.

Grade: B-

2013
12/19
CATEGORY
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Rock
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The Defibulators – Debt’ll Get’em (Music Review)

Debt'll Get'em cover

The Defibulators – Debt’ll Get’em

Well, this is a disappointment. YouTube is filled with videos of New York City country band The Defibulators, and a lot of them are great. But I bought Debt’ll Get’em, their sophomore album, and wasn’t very impressed. Probably the easiest way to right this review is to list the reasons why the album doesn’t work as well as browsing YouTube.

1. That “New York City country” thing

I’m no purist (and I’m a northern city person myself), so I can accept a bunch of New Yorkers singing country. But to do it, they need to figure out how to define themselves. A lot of the traditional language of country bands won’t work for them. Sometimes The Defibulators have this figured out: “Everybody’s Got a Banjo” admits to the trendiness of roots music and defends it as fun for everyone. (“If you mean it when you sling it, then you ain’t no fool.”) I find “Working Class” to be more troublesome, though. It’s a story of a privileged middle-class kid who was too lazy to get a good job. It’s witty, and I’m sure a lot of their audience loves it, but to me it feels inappropriate next to the great working class anthems it feels modeled after.

“Hee-Haw in Heaven” is a complete misfire. It’s supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but it sounds like someone unfamiliar with country music trying to impress fans. There are also enough songs already about meeting country greats in heaven that this doesn’t sound clever or original. At times like this, it’s hard to forget any concerns about the band’s seriousness.

2. The energetic songs are lacking

Check out this live performance of “Go-Go Truck”. It’s a fun, wild song that gives Th’ Legendary Shack-Shakers a run for their money. Then listen to “Holy Roller” on Debt’ll Get’em. It’s styled like a religious revival and should be capable of matching “Go-Go Truck”. But the music is restrained and the back-up singers are minimized instead of let loose. It’s the sound of a studio band mimicking the hell-raising energy of another culture.

3. The quieter songs are easy to ignore

The band isn’t just about wild songs. They have plenty of sedate country crooners, and they aren’t necessarily bad. I certainly enjoyed the ones on YouTube. Here, I guess that I just don’t take them seriously coming from the singers of “Hee-Haw in Heaven”.

4. Not enough Erin Bru

The band has two vocalists: “Bug” Jennings and Erin Bru. Jennings is the wild frontman and is the soul of the band, but Bru’s smooth voice is a real gem. I’m not sure if she has the versatility to handle a band on her own, but her individual songs tend to be standouts. On YouTube, she seems to get almost have the time. On this album, she mainly sings duets and backup. She takes lead on the excellent “Pay for That Money”, the album’s one exception to the “boring slow song” rule. But that’s all.

Debt’ll Get’em has enough good moments to affirm that The Defibulators have skill. But they need to figure out what to do with it. This is a half-hearted effort.

Grade: C

 

2013
12/15
CATEGORY
Country
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Oblivians – Desperation (Music Review)

Desperation cover

Oblivians – Desperation

Nostalgia being what it is, I’m not surprised that so many ’90s bands have reformed in the past couple years. What does surprise me is how good some of these reunions have been. It helps that most of these bands weren’t superstars hoping to make a fortune with teir comeback. They were critical darlings like The Pixies who only became widely appreciated in recent years, or cult favorites like The Oblivians. The Oblivians’ new album, Desperation, shows just how some age and perspective can strengthen a band. They’re the same dirty garage punks as ever, and they haven’t lost that immature edge, but their topics are deeper and more varied. Unexpected covers (like Paul Butterfield’s “Lovin’ Cup” and Stephanie McDee’s “Call the Police“) mix with songs about girls, music, and pinball.

The band bills themselves as “Greg Oblivian”, “Eric Oblivian”, and “Jack Oblivian”, and each member is credited with”guitar, drums, and vocals”. The names are an affectation, but the credits aren’t. All three members do switch between instruments and singing throughout the album. The lo-fi production helps obscure some of the differences between their performances, creating the continuity that makes it sound like all songs come from the same band. There are still obvious differences, but in the end it works to make Desperation a varied but coherent album. You get the thrashing “Run for Cover” and soul-influenced “Em” in one album, and it feels like they belong together.

Unfortunately, some of the most noticeable differences are in skill. Some songs have decently complex guitar or drums (by garage punk standards, at least), while others are simple and plodding. Songs like “Pinball King” have powerful vocals that really sell their combination of wild youth and knowing music veteran, while a couple like “Woke Up In A Police Car” feel more like the singer is sleepwalking through the performance.

Don’t let that discourage you, though. The best tracks are great. “Call the Police” (a cover of a zydeco party standby) and “Pinball King” (an unapologetic song about spending your life doing what you love) are my favorite simple dumb rock songs of the year. (Not that good “simple dumb rock songs” are ever as simple or dumb as they act.) Though they’re 90s punks, there’s a lot of Ramones or Dead Boys in their style, with strange choices of phrasing like “Little War Child” or “Fire Detector” that give the impression that they’re defining their own path rather than following a scene’s expectations. And “I’ll Be Gone” is a great opener for a comeback album, about their love of music and disdain for selling out or chasing trends.

I hope Desperation is the start of a great second career. It taps into the primal power of rock and roll, crossing generations and mixing wit with straightforward honesty. Even its less good songs feel appropriate. After all, rock as good as this should be messy and imperfect, right?

Grade: B+

 
2013
12/11
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Phosphorescent – Muchacho (Music Review)

Muchacho cover

Phosphorescent – Muchacho

Phosphorescent’s Muchacho album art is dominated by singer-songwriter Matthew Houck looking carefree and surrounded by topless hippie women. That, combined with song titles like “Sun, Arise! (An Invocation, An Introduction)” might lead you to assume that this is all New Age messages of positivity. Actually, the recurring theme of the songs is that love is a painful trap, and Houck is happiest when not tied down. That also explains the women, I guess. But you could be forgiven if you listened to Muchacho dozens of times and still didn’t notice what it was about, because the songs are so quiet and shapeless that they’re almost impossible to pay attention to.

Yes, this is the album with the excellent “Song for Zula”: Its haunting, looping music perfectly complements the emotionally-damaged singer who curses love by contradicting “Ring of Fire”. If Muchacho had more songs like this, I’d have loved it. But most of the rest feel incomplete, like demos or codas. In fact, it wouldn’t be too far off to think of the entire album as a suite meant to echo “Zula”. That would be ok if this were an EP.

Nothing is bad. It’s just incomplete, with songs built on a repeating lyric that goes nowhere or gentle, lulling sounds that never feel like a finished work. It’s filled with interesting fragments, though. That hippie style merges well with some modern electronic flair, and it comes across as a production geek’s loving tribute to hippie songcraft.

Phosphorescent is a promising band that doesn’t seem to have mastered the art of the song. If you want background music, Muchacho will do excellently. If you don’t, this probably won’t work. I spent months wanting to give this a chance, and it kept turning into background music no matter how hard I tried.

Grade: C

 
2013
12/05
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Hank3’s 2013 Releases (Music Review)

Two years ago, Hank3 released four albums from very different genres. Some were much better than others. Now he’s back with two albums (one a double) that total almost two and a half hours of playtime. It’s not surprising that one of them is country (Brothers of the 4×4) and the other punk (A Fiendish Threat), but it is interesting to see that neither is very similar to what he was doing in 2011. Love him or hate him, it’s obvious that he’s always pushing himself and unwilling to play it safe.

A Fiendish Threat cover

Hank3 – A Fiendish Threat

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: The punk album is disappointing. It’s not bad, but it rarely feels like his heart is in it, either. It became obvious with his last crop of releases that Hank3 has only a passing interest in lyrics and mostly focuses on constructing soundscapes. But punk has to be a lot more about the lyrics and less about the “construction”, so it mainly sounds like an imitation of a genre he’s interested in. Some songs use sped-up country instruments and rhythms, which add a unique twist, but otherwise this doesn’t stand out. Hank3 needs to find a producer and editor he can trust, rather than running everything himself, because someone else would have made this leaner and shorter. More importantly, Hank3 needs to figure out what he wants to say when he does this. It’s a good sound, but it’s not compelling punk.

Brothers of the 4x4 cover

Hank3 – Brothers of the 4×4

Brothers of the 4×4, on the other hand, is one of his best albums. He obviously isn’t beholden to the over-the-top rebellion he pioneered in the last decade, but he isn’t necessarily interested in returning to his early traditional music, either. That rebel is still part of him, but he doesn’t feel the need to press the issue. Songs here are more likely to be about complex relationships or his love of nature as partying and fighting. In fact, “Farthest Away” is a surprisingly introspective song about a relationship growing cold, and in “The Outdoor Plan” he sounds more excited about finding bear tracks than he used to be about drugs. He even talks about wanting to find a woman to settle down with. There’s no doubt that this is an honest slice of life from someone who refuses to be pigeonholed by anything in his past.

The songs are long, though. Almost half of them cross the six-minute mark, and album-opener “Nearly Gone” is eight and a half. The first time I listened to it, I was saying “this sounds good, but it’s a bit long” by four minutes. Long, repetitive refrains and instrumental breaks are used in almost every song.

They sound good, though, and I enjoy it now that I’m over the initial shock. Hank3 has written good songs, and he takes the time to play with each one’s sound. I wouldn’t quite call this his “jam band album”, but if I wanted to convince someone from that scene to try country music, this wouldn’t be a bad album to start with. Each song does have a distinct sound, from the electric riffs in “Hurtin For Certin” to the clawhammer banjo in “Possum In A Tree”.

The lyrics are still sometimes weak. I can ignore the repeated “Losing like a loser who’s got nothing to lose” in the otherwise-good “Deep Scars”, but “Held Up” is nothing but bad repetitive rhymes about visiting each southern state. (“Ain’t nothin’ like the feel of Virginia’s vagine.” Seriously?) Hank3 isn’t stuck in the trap of repeating themes from old albums, though, as he seemed to be in 2011, and so they are almost always new and interesting enough to carry the songs.

The 89-minute running time gives me plenty of chances to enjoy it and then to get bored. As with A Fiendish Threat, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone else to force Hank3 to pare this down sometimes. However, most of it is very good, and I think that almost every song on here will be someone’s favorite. Personally, I keep coming back to the catchy “Hurtin for Certin”, the freewheeling groove of “Dread Full Drive” and “Toothpickin”, and the depressed, human groove of “Deep Scars” and “Farthest Away”. “Looky Yonder Commin” is also a great song full of personality and confidence, which surprised me because the odes to his coon-hunting dog were the weakest part of his last country albums.

A lot of baggage and expectations always come along with Hank3’s new albums, but if you set all that aside and just look at the music, Brothers of the 4×4 may be his strongest country effort ever. He’s confident and experienced, and that rebel energy that could have driven him to an early grave has instead been harnessed to keep him experimenting with new sounds. This one has a couple songs that just need to go, and several more that should have been cut back, but there’s still more than one full album of great stuff here.

A Fiendish Threat: C

Brothers of the 4×4: B+

 
2013
11/27
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Country
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Neko Case – The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You (Music Review)

The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You cover

Neko Case – The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You

Neko Case has covered a wide variety of styles in her career, from sedate to swinging and from honest to impenetrable. Since finding success, though, she has stayed fairly settled: Simple symphonic music sets off her clear voice, letting her seem simultaneously exposed and in control. Her lyrics are compelling, but usually impossible to interpret clearly, and even the songs that sound personal are not. This paradoxical mix has won her acclaim, but honestly it’s been a few albums since I really enjoyed her songs. They seem to promise a lot, but aren’t very satisfying.

That changes with her new release, which has the attention-grabbing title The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You. It is similar to those last few, with very little sign of the Case who used to sing with Maow, The New Pornographers, or on solo country albums. But this finally has a strong personal feeling to it. Maybe it’s as much an act as the old albums, but for once I feel like I’m listening to a person, not to a brand carefully test-marketed to hipsters.

That makes a huge difference, because Case’s power and confidence is incredible when I can accept it. These songs are beautiful, and while there are still some inscrutable lyrics, there are also entire songs that are straightforward. If the only frequent theme in the last few albums was cheering on nature and animals against mankind, this one has her taking a place among humanity. The repeated theme here is of woman standing up for themselves and reaching their potential. There is also “Nearly Midnight, Honolulu”, a message to an abused child which contains too many details not to feel true. That song has no musical accompaniment and feels emotionally naked. In less confident hands, it would seem like a cynical attention-grab, but here it’s an honest attempt to struggle with a difficult topic.

Not that everything on The Worse Things Get is straightforward. There are plenty of lines like “I’m a Friday night girl bracing for Sunday to come”, and those messages of female empowerment come from unexpected angles (“hey little girl, would you like to be the King’s pet or the King?”) This is an album that feels both complex and simple at the same time. Of course, that sort of dichotomy has always been a part of Case’s appeal, but this time it’s finally working for me. If you’ve spent the past several years wishing you appreciated Case’s songs, this may be the album you’re waiting for.

Grade: B+

 
2013
11/21
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Lindi Ortega – Tin Star

Tin Star cover

Lindi Ortega – Tin Star

I can’t believe I only discovered the incredible Lindi Ortega at the start of this year. I’ve learned my lesson, though, and I picked up her new album as soon as I heard about it. Tin Star is different than Cigarettes & Truckstops in a lot of ways. Where that last album incorporated a goth-tinged blues and lounge sound, this one is pure country. Also, Cigarettes usually sounded like a performance, while Tin Star seems like a view directly into Ortega’s soul. Possibly because of that, it feels like the younger work of a person who would grow up to sing Cigarettes. Don’t think that means this is worse, though. Tin Star is the rare gem that reminds us why country is considered timeless. The entire genre is justified by the way it produces things like this.

Ortega’s voice is clear and soulful, with just a touch of smokiness that she can call on when needed. Her band sounds like, and may be, a collection of Nashville’s better sessions players who are thrilled to be finally working on the kind of music that drew them into the business. The tracks include a few songs about love and loss, but the dominant theme is Ortega’s career and love of music. The title track is a sad (and hopefully mistaken) acceptance that she’ll never become successful, while “All These Cats” is the ass-kicking answer to that: Ortega adopts a rockabilly style and tells the haters that they’ll never stop her. “Gypsy Child” and “Songs About” are also about the way she could never take music out of her life, and she sounds very happy despite the sadness in the title track.

I unironically and unthinkingly love this album. Ortega’s beautiful voice and personal-but-polished style makes it seem wrong to examine this critically. Part of me does know that absent her style, most of the songs would be generic country standbys. But how could I subtract the artist’s unique style from my calculations? Besides, she does have a dark sensibility that makes her unique in Nashville. That only shows up once here, on “Lived and Died Alone”, but that song is a stunner. It’s a disarmingly beautiful tale of necrophilia as metaphor for a lonely, overly-empathetic life. It’s not off-putting or gimmicky at all, and it gives Tin Star the twist that protects it from any claim of being filled with “standard country songs”,

I also can’t bring myself to proclaim this a classic, because I hope to hear about more than just her love of music, and also songs like “Lived And Died Alone” show us how much more Ortega is capable of. Every track on Tin Star deserved to make the cut, but I still expect to see a day when she’s gone even beyond those. I may wish that I’d discovered Ortega years ago in her fully independent days, but I can at least be glad that I found her while she was still on the rise.

Grade: A-

 
2013
11/09
CATEGORY
Country
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