Monthly Archives for May 2014

Twin Berlin – “Sleazebrain”

(Photo Credit: http://www.rslblog.com)

Grade: B+

Key Tracks: “Rtbrfloat” “No Fun / Not 21”

Twin Berlin’s raw debut full-length comes catapulted out of a garage in the mid-’90’s. The Travis Barker-approved Connecticut trio channels underground indie-alt bands from the 90’s and blends them with a friendlier and more straightforward sound of today. The volume and the energy are high, as is the rhythm. The songs presented on “Sleazebrain” are probably going to get stuck in your head, guitar crunches and all.

The band, a trio consisting of Matt Lopez on vocals and guitar, Sean O’Neil on bass and James Janocha on drums, channel some storied predecessors. Their welcoming fuzz and guitar blasts do not sound out of place with the likes of Mudhoney and the Meat Puppets. The band is able to produce a batch of alt songs with strong, energetic punk influences and indie rhythms, all wrapped into a loud and warped sound that’s both raw and refined.

But although the band is able to recapture an image of the past, they add their own current flair, too. Where “Sleazebrain” differs from the likes of Dinosaur Jr., or some straighter 90’s revivalist bands of today, is catchier songwriting. Fuzzy guitar songs were radio-friendly in the 90’s, but Twin Berlin use more straightforward songwriting to make songs that aren’t aiming to reinvent the wheel, yet aren’t easy to forget. The band’s lyrics are more open and easy to relate to, and their adherence to conventional rock song structures allows for an album that seems to mix two different eras.

“Sleazebrain” isn’t a revolutionary album, and it isn’t trying to be. Instead, it establishes Twin Berlin as an honest and loud band, mixing punk, indie and garage fuzz with a ton of energy and ambition. The album is a punk album, masquerading behind some overly catchy rhythms. The guitar is roaring and rhythmic, the bass and drums adding ample energy. “Sleazebrain” sounds like it fell from the 90’s, but it has enough of a current flavor to survive today. The band’s best quality is their underground energy, and that’s readily apparent all throughout “Sleazebrain.”

-By Andrew McNally

Pixies – “Indie Cindy”

 

(Photo Credit: http://www.juno.co.uk)

Grade: D

Key Tracks: “Bagboy” “Magdalena 318”

Surviving Nirvana members Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear recently played at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction with some rotating singers – Joan Jett, St. Vincent, Kim Gordon and, unpredictably, Lorde (and J. Mascis in an afterparty). It was only the third time they had performed together after Kurt Cobain’s death, the first two times being with Sir Paul McCartney. In that time, they only recorded one new song (with Sir Paul). The men have been very careful not to alter the band’s legacy in any way, and the only performances have honored both their own music and Cobain’s life.

Pixies, sadly, have gone the way of almost every other early 90′s band – Alice in Chains, Sublime, Smashing Pumpkins, Bush, Hole, Blind Melon – in reforming with a different lineup in a move that seems just shamelessly capitalistic. (Exceptions, of course – Soundgarden kept the same lineup, Pearl Jam and Radiohead are still going strong). Their first album in 23 years, “Indie Cindy” captures almost none of their perverse magic of the past. While it isn’t a horrendous album, it’s wildly, wildly inconsistent and is usually content being just a footnote to the band’s career rather than trying to expand on it.

There’s a lot to pick apart on the album. The most obvious, and most painful thing to note is that none of these 12 songs are necessarily new. Pixies released three EP’s, four songs each, from the end of last year to just last month. “Indie Cindy” is simply those 12 songs put together and reordered. At the tail end of an era where bands are reforming in the name of capitalism, this seems like the biggest moneygrab of them all.

For the most part, the music itself isn’t bad. It just isn’t Pixies. Pixies made a name for themselves (and influenced a whole decade of music that followed them) by creating wholly unpredictable music that was both melodic and noisy, with lyrics often about violence and mutilation. Yet there was a radio-friendly quality to the music that bridged the gap between radio alternative and underground bands. Here, most of the songs are closer to straight radio rock, ranging anywhere from decent to totally forgettable.

The album’s best songs are the ones were there are many things going on. “Bagboy” is a prime example – it’s partially spoken word, with heavy guitar rhythms and a few different percussion things going on. And “Magdalena 318,” which has a more industrial and grungier feel to it, easily the album’s best song. Too many of the songs are too straightforward, lacking energy and any real creativity. “Greens and Blues,” “Silver Snails” and “Snakes,” as just three examples, are three melodic and rounded alternative songs, but ones that are instantly forgettable. The good tracks on this album are diamonds in the rough, and there’s a lot of sifting to go through.

Besides the music, Black Francis’ vocals are inconsistent, too. There’s none of the screaming and unpredictability, but he hits some classic Pixies vocals – at points. On “Magdalena 318″ and “Blue Eyed Hexe,” his voice sounds just like it used to. Yet elsewhere his vocals are pretty average, contributing to the very average quality of the music. And on “Andro Queen,” his vocals are downright bad, with the song sounding like some cut track from a trippy 60′s band.

From the time that the Pixies first reunited to the time they actually put out “Indie Cindy,” two things happened – they lost Kim Deal, the equally creative force behind their earlier music (and have yet to find a permanent replacement), and they surpassed the amount of time in which they were a band in their first run. That should be indicative of the album – the time it took to put out one album in 2014 is longer than the time it took them to put out four studio albums and an EP in the early 90′s. “Indie Cindy” is passable as an alternative album, but it never has any idea what it wants to be. Occasionally, the band tries to grasp at their amazing legacy. But usually, they’re comfortable with sorely unremarkable alternative/”butt-rock” songs, and there’s simply no reason for this album to exist. It takes their legacy down a notch; adds an asterisk onto the ends of some legendary albums. “Indie Cindy,” to put it honestly, will please the local alternative radio DJ’s, but not the station’s listeners.

If you like this, try: I don’t exactly know what to recommend here, but if you’re into this album then you’re probably really into 90’s music rebirthed so I’d recommend Soundgarden’s surprisingly passable 2012 album “King Animal” or Smashing Pumpkins’ great 2007 album “Zeitgeist.”

-By Andrew McNally

Andrew Jackson Jihad – “Christmas Island”

(Photo Credit: http://www.andrewjacksonjihad.com)

Grad: B+

Key Tracks: “Temple Grandin” “Children of God”

When you think Andrew Jackson Jihad, “cryptic” isn’t quite the word that comes to mind. Their lyrics are puzzling, but far too direct to be “cryptic.” This is the band that once posed, “When a pregnant woman gets decapitated, does the baby survive?” But on their new full-length, “Christmas Island,” the band is a little more thought-provoking. They expand on folk-punk, embracing a bigger sound and lyrics that are even more unconventional. “Christmas Island” isn’t AJJ’s best album, but it takes the better parts of their two best albums and finally combines them into one.

Andrew Jackson Jihad’s best albums are probably their ’07 debut, “People Who Can Eat People Are the Luckiest People in the World,” and 2011’s “Knife Man.” The two albums really aren’t that similar, but “Christmas Island” aims to bridge the gap. It largely succeeds, as they expand their acoustic sound without getting too self-indulgent in electric rhythms. A vast majority of “Christmas Island” is acoustic, aimed less at energy than it is at poetry. Although the band is still aimed at devastating, almost demented poetry, they turn their focus back towards stripped down elements.

“Christmas Island” benefits from having flow, something that has hindered AJJ’s past albums. While their past albums have been wholly stellar, they often lacked any sort of narrative flow, often opting instead for shocking and abrasive lyrics. “Christmas Island” lets some some songs take a backseat for others, knowing which pack the biggest emotional punches. Opener “Temple Grandin” is a fight against autism, channeling the autism research hero. “Best Friend” is steeply poetic and existential, while “Angel of Death” is just as randomly self-deprecating as their earlier music.

Folk-punk is a genre that doesn’t ask much from a musical standpoint, but Andrew Jackson Jihad focus a little more on an expanded sound on this album. There are more instruments, often including piano and strings into the songs. And the songs are a little more rounded, instead of just the guitar attacks of the past. And there’s more slower songs, helping the album feel a little more complete. “Christmas Island” shows hints at maturity. There’s more diversity in the music, and more depth in the lyrics. They’ve always been a weird and unsettling band, but the lyrics on “Christmas Island” are so staunchly self-indulgent that Noisey had the band explain them. The album is peppered with lines like “eyes as red as a dog’s asshole when you see it shitting” (“Children of God”) and “I am the Kool-Aid on the mouth of a kid whose name is most likely Cody” (“Angel of Death”), which also mentions the Slap-Chop and their own Salad Glove. This is definitely AJJ’s most puzzling album yet, even if it ‘feels’ a little more mature.

So “Christmas Island” is both a step forward and a step back. They’ve re-embraced acoustic music – the only electric song is “Kokopelli Face Tattoo,” right in the album’s middle – while broadening it into a fuller sound. And they’ve deepened their lyrics, so they aren’t as aggressively violent and perverse, while still keeping them demented and inquisitive. “Christmas Island” suffers from a few too many cooled down songs (they are a punk band, after all), but it’s the right step forward for a band whose formula was growing a little tired. I’ve written about seeing AJJ before, and although “Christmas Island” doesn’t quite stand up to their best works, it’s easy to give it the benefit of the doubt. It’s one that will leave you just as puzzled and frightened as anything they’ve done before.

If you like this, try: the only band I can ever recommend in the same breath as AJJ, check out Defiance, Ohio’s 2006 album “The Great Depression.” The band’s best album perfectly balances screaming and singing over hyper-folk-punk, acoustic music.

-By Andrew McNally