David Lynch – “The Big Dream”

(Photo Credit: Pitchfork)

Grade: C

Key Tracks: “Wishin’ Well,” “I’m Waiting Here (feat. Lykke Li)”

Do you remember the movie Kazaam, with Shaquille O’Neal? It was a fun movie, totally depth-less and objectively terrible, but enjoyable nonetheless. This is usually the best to hope for when a celebrity of one medium attempts to transition into another. David Lynch’s “The Big Dream,” his second album after 2011′s “Crazy Clown Time,” is similar to this. It isn’t great, by any means. It drags on through some rough patches. But Lynch is trying, and he obviously cares about what he is recording, even if only he ends up enjoying it. “The Big Dream” is yet another artist trying out a different medium than the one they are used to, with even more mixed results.

But “Kazaam” is about as far away from David Lynch as you can get, so let’s compare it to the first episode of Lynch’s near-perfect show “Twin Peaks.” As far as pilots go, “Twin Peaks”‘s is a pretty good one. The episode starts on a dreary note, with the discovery of Laura Palmer’s body. From there, it continues throughout the small town, introducing the key characters, one by one. “The Big Dream” operates in a similar way, introducing many ideas without actually acting on them. The opening song, “The Big Dream,” is perhaps the album’s weirdest, equating finding a dead body to what comes after. Lynch’s tracks often go nowhere from where they start, as if he intentionally did not finish a single one of them. Like a character, whose future is not yet known. For every Shelley Johnson, there’s a “Last Call.” For every Big Ed, there’s a “We Rolled Together.”

Unlike the pilot of Twin Peaks, however, these songs don’t sound like precursors to something great. They just sound like ideas, and they aren’t anything more than that. Every song is a song, and that’s that. It maintains a consistency, one that borders between surrealism and conventional music. Unfortunately, it is not enough of either, which leads to a collection of tracks that are enjoyable, but feel wholly unnecessary. As for the music itself, Lynch is not a strong singer, so he hides his voice behind ambient and dreamy microphone settings, which often complement the dreamy electronic-influenced music. He has surrounded himself with some talented names, and there is genuine inspiration in the work they’ve done. It is just an inspiration that has not been properly drawn-out. The album’s only great song is a bonus track (but lead single) called “I’m Waiting Here,” and features the only guest spot, with Lykke Li on vocals. It is not a bad album, but it is slight and annoyingly uncreative. I’m not sure who the target audience is for “The Big Dream,” but it is only a footnote on Lynch’s career. Definitely not worthy of massive quantities of cherry pie.

-By Andrew McNally

Marla Mase – “Speak”

(Photo Credit: Bandcamp.com)

Grade: B

Key Tracks: “Piece of Peace,” “Lionness”

Musician and activist Marla Mase’s new album “Speak” is lengthy – sixteen tracks that stretch into a long running time – but the album’s message is consistent. Mase has been making a name for herself as an activist-performer, writing songs about equality, peace and feminism and equating them with raw and multimedia performances. “Speak” delves and winds through many genres. Opener “Piece of Peace” is a building rock song, reminiscent of “Gloria,” the song that started off Patti Smith’s legendary “Horses” album, only with a much different and more peaceful message. Next is “Open Up My Heart,” a spoken word track, and “Dance the Tango” embraces reggae later on. There is no consistent genre of music, just consistent messages of peace and love. “Lioness” is easily the album’s most experimental song lyrically, a song about feminism that has Mase growling like a lioness (in tune with the song, too, which is pretty tough). Mase is joined by eight musicians on the album, that help to create the ambient twisting through genres. The instruments themselves are all traditional of rock and pop music – guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, etc. – but Mase’s inspiration lends to the blending that the musicians create.

Mase’s singing voice, on the whole, isn’t overly strong. Some songs are talk-sung, and as a singer she never attempts to make her voice the focal point in a song. Normally this wouldn’t be good for a solo singer, but Mase’s voice isn’t the point here. The lyrics to her songs have much more depth than most other pop/rock singers. Thankfully, the strongly poetic lyrics and consistent genre-switches easily save the album from sounding awkward because of this. Again, think Patti Smith. Smith’s lyrics are often stronger than her voice, and her music is more often successful than not. Mase channels a lot of activist singers (John Lennon, Midnight Oil, etc) but none more than an early Patti Smith. Mase’s message is clear, and while “Speak” might feel a little long and sound a little too apparent that Mase is a young artist, learning the ropes, it works as a consistent message and an engaging listen.

Mase is performing the mutimedia presentation of this album on August 17th (my birthday!) at the East River Park in NYC. Admission is free. The album “Speak” can be streamed here or here.

If you like this, try: Patti Smith’s album “Banga” from 2012. A great album that went relatively unnoticed.

-By Andrew McNally

Ciara – “Ciara”

Photo Credit: the Huffington Post

Grade: B-

Key Tracks: “I’m Out,” “Super Turnt Up”

You have to admire Ciara’s perseverance. Lead-off single “Body Party” is her first song to make a dent in the Billboard chart since roughly 2010, usually the kiss of death for solo R&B / rap artists. Her last few albums have not been successes either critically or commercially, even if they were not exactly failures in both categories, either. I don’t want to bring up her critical and commercial struggles, because every review of “Ciara” begins with that fact. But it is an important lead-in to this album. The album is simply titled “Ciara.” Bands and artists that choose to self-title a non-debut are often making a statement, that the album encapsulates all of the artists’ progress until now. Some work, (“Fleetwood Mac,” “Social Distortion”) while some are misguided declarations into new territories (“Metallica,” “blink-182”). “Ciara” is the former. It is a completely safe and standard album, but one where Ciara can put her foot down and announce that, despite a consistently slipping presence, she is still here, and will not let past failures stop her.

That being said, it is a very safe album. Opener “I’m Out” is a very dance-friendly track, constrained to medium-volume beats and even features an only-slightly-uncensored guest spot from the often pervasive Nicki Minaj. The album continues down this path: basic R&B songs, basic club tunes, basic songwriting. “Body Party” is the only song that really features Ciara’s strong voice, the album’s biggest downfall. Also, it’s relatively quiet demeanor shows up too early on the album, as the third track, and it is a little off-setting against the early club songs that are still winding up the album.

“Ciara” is not a long album, only ten tracks ranging mostly between three and four minutes. This is probably good, because of how underhand the album feels. If it were to go on much longer, it would feel too tepid instead of feeling like a collection of what she has done so far. It is not great, and commercially and critically might go down as another hit-and-miss effort. It’s mixing of different ideas does seem to have a purpose, however, one that might not go noticed to the listeners but one that does tie up her career to this point. It is a basic work, one that is enjoyable and almost immediately forgettable. Depth-less and easy, without overstaying it’s welcome.

Also, side note: I’m always down for a song called “Super Turnt Up”

-By Andrew McNally

One Hundred Year Ocean – “Where Were You While We Were Getting High?”

Photo Credit: Bandcamp

Grade: B+

A four-track EP from the six-piece collective One Hundred Year Ocean moderately resembles the growing band that includes some of the same members, The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die. The four tracks on this EP are more consistent in tone, but bare resemblance to the great emo band.

It is tough to really establish an idea across only four tracks, so nothing is overly fleshed out. But there is a distinct sense that the band is toying with song structures. The build-ups that are frequent among similar-sounding bands are present, just not at the usual points in the songs. There is a feeling that the music, just like the music of The World Is…, is not based on songs but one large idea, and the songs are just fragments of it.

The volume is steady on the album, as the verses seem to fit in with typical structures. So the band seems to operate as a bridge between standard music and the experimental and drawn-out sound of The World Is…, combining elements of both. There is a slight humorous edge to the band, too, evident in the title of the EP and on the song title “Soco Amaretto Bud Light Lime” (a take on Brand New’s “Soco Amaretto Lime”) and in the darkly catchy lyrics of opener “Hospital Town.” It is difficult to expand an EP into something great, but One Hundred Year Ocean is doing a pretty unique thing. It is distinctly emo-based, with elements of punk and a little room for experimentation.

If you like this, try: “Whenever, If Ever” by the aforementioned The World Is… (just released last month, scroll down only a little ways for a review)

Jay-Z – “Magna Carta Holy Grail”

Photo Credit: hypetrak.com

Grade: C-

Key Tracks: “Jay Z Blue,” “Oceans”

“Watch the Throne,” the rap experiment from Jay-Z and Kanye West in 2011 must have left a mark on both performers. Both Jay and Kanye released albums this summer that showed growth and change as performers. But where Kanye’s “Yeezus” was a tormented work of introspective loyalty and political consciousness, “Magna Carta Holy Grail” is just an album of basic beats and repetitive lyrics about Jay-Z’s wealth. Jay-Z is said to be worth about $500 million alone, plus the wealth of his equally-famous wife, Beyonce. His ‘change’ is a further disconnect from his own fans, where his constant rapping about European vacation destinations sounds more like bragging to an audience than typical lyrical boasts. Rap & hip-hop is typically a young man’s game, and with Jay’s 43 years bringing him twelve platinum albums and partial ownerships in a nightclub chain and a professional basketball team, he is officially too far into the entrepreneurial world to sound fresh and real in the hip-hop world.

The album is not all bad. “Part II (On the Run)” features typically amazing work from Beyonce, and “BBC” is a fun song because of it’s guest spots: Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Nas, Pharrell, and Swizz Beatz. “Jay Z Blue” is a brutally honest song about his daughter, and how he fears comparisons to his own father who was never around but for very different reasons. And “Oceans” features a well-placed guest spot from Frank Ocean, on a song about the film “Ocean’s 11″ being a metaphor for Jay’s accumulation of wealth.

Some tracks are just bad. The opener “Holy Grail” which also features Timberlake, is a bombastic call for receiving a legendary status, as Jay and JT channel Kurt Cobain and harmonize on an amended version of the chorus to “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Not only does it sound bad, and not only does Jay already have the legendary status that he is attempting to claim to himself, but it is that kind of fame that led Cobain to suicide in the first place. The song is a dramatic misreading of Nirvana. “Somewhere in America” is the album’s worst track. Hova raps about how he’s good at math because he can count his money and than randomly mentions Miley Cyrus twerking. The song sounds like Jay freestyling a joke song in the studio and adding serious beats to it to make it a real track.

Other than the feeble Nirvana reference, there are some delightfully surprising references and soundclips on the album. Sinatra and Johnny Cash get reworkings that work much better than Cobain’s. M.I.A. and R.E.M. also get references. The most surprising, and haunting, is a soundclip from “Mommie Dearest” that leads in to “Jay Z Blue.” Where the album has some interesting references and clips, it is lacking in guest spots. A majority of the songs are just Jay-Z, and with the repetitive lyrics, it starts to get pretty old pretty quickly. Overall, “Magna Carta Holy Grail” is a very safe album that takes no chances whatsoever and sounds disconnected and pointless because of it. Hova is just too far out of reality to relate to any listener besides those that already appear on the money-drenched album.

One final note: the album was famously released to Samsung Galaxy users a week ahead of time. This irked me in two ways. As a Galaxy user who downloaded the album, I had to sign away the rights to all of my personal privacy in order to get the album. I’m personally expecting a bodyguard to show up at my door soon after I publish this and question why I didn’t like the album. With the NSA leaks and Hova’s past songs against privacy concerns, this didn’t even make sense. Also, I didn’t even get the album until Saturday, something like four days after I was supposed to, which almost negated the point entirely. Even then, the app died twice throughout playing the album. The album is already platinum and Jay already has millions because of it, but at what cost to his fans?

In conclusion, here’s a screenshot from the commercial that advertised the album that accurately sums up the problems:

Jay-Z is, at the end of the day, an adult father. And at the end of the day, this was an album that was advertised on television.

-By Andrew McNally

A Great Big Pile of Leaves – “You’re Always on my Mind”

(Photo Credit: Top Shelf Records)

Grade: B

Key Tracks: “Pet Mouse,” “Fun in the Sun”

A Great Big Pile of Leaves hit a high on their 2010 debut, “Have You Seen My Prefontal Cortex?” The band established themselves as a fun, alt-pop band that hold up remarkably well against their sadder labelmates like Snowing and Pianos Become the Teeth. Their music is fun, bouncy and often completely innocent while maintaining a steady volume and guitar attacks. Their debut is a pleasantly diverse album, sonically pleasing, full of fun and introspective tracks. Their second album, “You’re Always on my Mind,” out today, does not quite live up to the expectations set up by “Cortex.” The album is more reminiscent of their earlier EP’s, which are still bouncy guitar songs, but feel a little less inspired than their debut album.

The album’s summer release date is no accident. This is definitely a summer album. That might give the expectation of a Yellowcard or Cartel type pop-punk thing, but they are much more associated with alternative than most summer bands. The album’s food-based bookends are called “Snack Attack” and “Pizzanomics,” offering the exact sound you’d expect from the humorous titles. “Back to School” is the most summer-y song on the album, a literal ode to summer before having to go back to school. There is a gleeful tone to the album, a carefree sound that are reminders of good times, even if they’re in the past. The band does not seem to be looking for any sort of validation, or to be taken seriously. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t – they’re talented musicians and have nailed down the art of fun songwriting. But their lack of seriousness adds to the fun on the album.

The album might not be as good as its predecessor, but it is still a good album. It is easy music to put on during a drive or a nice summer bike ride. It does not demand your patience, even your attention. It does its job as innocent alt-pop, providing an alternative to the usual pop on the radio and to the usual gloom of alternative music. It takes the best of both worlds. It might not be perfect, but it is fun.

If you like this, try: “Dig Up Your Dead” by Mansions (2011). Not as fun and not as good, but the band does sound kind of similar.

-By Andrew McNally

Midterm Reports:

I was going to list a “Top 15” of the year so far, but when I listed them I out I realized there were 27 albums I wanted to mention and three acclaimed ones that I felt should objectively make the list, so I went ahead and listed out thirty. This is a rough list, based more objectively than subjectively. I valued creativity, flow and general entertainment, with a slight emphasis on creativity. I might make a Top 10 subjective list, just for fun. There are a few acclaimed albums from the year, like releases from Boards of Canada and Eleanor Friedburger, that I have yet to hear. If you can’t tell, I tend to stray towards alternative.

Top 30 full-length albums* of the year so far, a totally unofficial list:

* – Had the “D.A.I.S.Y. Rage” EP from Kitty counted as a full album, it’d be hovering around #15

30. Baths – “Obsidian”

29. Dirty Beaches – “Drifters / Love is the Devil”

28. James Blake – “Overgrown”

27. Kurt Vile – Wakin’ on a Pretty Daze”

26. The Strokes – “Comedown Machine”

25. Disclosure – “Settle”

24. Chelsea Light Moving – “Chelsea Light Moving”

23. FIDLAR – “FIDLAR”

22. Pissed Jeans – “Honeys”

21. John Fogerty – “Wrote a Song For Everyone”

20. My Bloody Valentine – “m b v”

19. A$ap Rocky – “LONG.LIVE.A$AP”

18. Frightened Rabbit – “Pedestrian Verse”

17. Queens of the Stone Age – “…Like Clockwork”

16. Waxahatchee – “Cerulean Salt”

15. Foals – “Holy Fire”

14. Justin Timberlake – “The 20/20 Experience”

13. Laura Marling – “I Was an Eagle”

12. Phosphorescent – “Muchacho”

11. Daughter – “If You Leave”

10. Phoenix – “Bankrupt!”

9. Deafheaven – “Sunbather”

8. Kanye West – ‘Yeezus”

7. Savages – “Silence Yourself”

6. The Flaming Lips – “The Terror”

5. Daft Punk – “Random Access Memories”

4. Foxygen – “We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic”

3. David Bowie – “The Next Day”

2. The National – “Trouble Will Find Me”

1. Vampire Weekend – “Modern Vampires of the City”

 

Top 10 Debuts of 2013 (so far, an equally unofficial list):

10. Pyyramids – “Brightest Darkest Day”

9. I Kill Giants – “I Kill Giants”

8. Mwahaha – “Mwahaha”

7. The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die – “Whenever, If Ever”

6. Disclosure – “Settle”  (#25 above)

5. Chelsea Light Moving – “Chelsea Light Moving”  (#24)

4. FIDLAR – “FIDLAR”  (#23)

3. A$ap Rocky – “LONG.LIVE.A$AP”  (#19)

2. Daughter – “If You Leave”  (#11)

1. Savages – “Silence Yourself”  (#7)

 

Finally, five disappointing albums of 2013:

5. Laura Stevenson – “Wheel”  Her previous album is among my top 10 of all-time, but she feels distant and disconnected here.

4. Dave Grohl & Friends – “Sound City – Reel to Reel”  Dave Grohl assembles huge name friends to record boring radio rock. Only three stand out tracks.

3. Eric Clapton – “Old Sock”  Clapton finally embraces his reggae influences, and could not be more boring about it.

2. The Front Bottoms – “Talon of the Hawk”  Painfully cheesy lyrics and rushed rhythms tainted one of my favorite bands.

1. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Mosquito”  No real explanation here. It’s just really, unexpectedly bad.

Roomrunner – “Ideal Cities”

(Photo Credit: Stereogum)

Grade: A-

Key Tracks: “Bait Car,” “Wojtek”

The dream of the 90’s is alive in Baltimore. Roomrunner gleefully throw ode to some of the early 90’s grunge and noise rock bands. Nirvana is idolized through fast rhythms that let a punk influence bleed heavily through. Pavement is redrawn through heavy distortion that adds to the melodies and through the rough transitions between songs. Roomrunner never tries to be conventional. The opening track, “Bait Car” is an assault on time signatures that are sometimes impossible to decipher. “Wotjek” sounds like more of a poppy side to the band, until the chorus, featuring rhythms of pure feedback that are different on each passby. The finale, “Snac Error,” ends with a waving drone of guitar that takes up a good chunk of the track.

“Ideal Cities” is over in about a half hour, and it is one of the rare times where the short length of a punk album does not feel entirely fulfilling. The album wasn’t one idea stretched into a certain number of tracks, but a bunch of little experimentations that left me wanting more. This is hardly a criticism, as the band made an interesting record that sounds fresh but resembles the pre-grunge bands of yesteryear. It is melodic and noisy, all while maintaining a sense of fun. Pavement and the Pixies would be proud.

If you like this, try: “Living Dummy” by Pangea (2o12). More of a conventional (surf-)punk record, but there is a similarity between bands, I cannot emphasize enough my love for “Living Dummy”

-By Andrew McNally

Middle Class Rut – “Pick Up Your Head”

(Photo Credit: http://www.playmusic.tw)

Grade: B

Key Tracks: “Cut the Line,” “Aunt Betty”

Middle Class Rut were one of the more successful bands to ride the coattails of Band of Skulls in 2009-10. The band, sometimes referred to as MC Rut, heralded a surprisingly successful debut album in 2010, shortly after Band of Skulls began to seep into alternative radio. There has been a recent revival in simple, heavy alt-rock, like a Ramones updated for the indie world. Middle Class Rut are some of the champions of this revival, being just a two-piece that plays heavy guitar rock that may have been recorded in a basement somewhere. This could all be traced back to the White Stripes, but these more recent bands specialize in an incredibly straight-forward approach to music, delivering the listener quick and heavy blasts, often over soon after they start.

Albums by bands like Middle Class Rut sound boring on paper, as the straight-forward sound of their music sounds wholly unoriginal. But Middle Class Rut are playing off the ever-increasing experimental nature of indie music, in the same way early punk bands were combating David Bowie and The Beatles’ “White Album.”  What the listener gets is a heavy alternative album of two guys messing around in the studio. There might not be a focus, but there might not have to be. The result is a dose of refreshingly heavy and fast album of personal lyrics.

The whole unoriginal nature of Middle Class Rut’s music does get old, surely. Some tracks on this album are less entertaining than others. The opener, “Born Too Late,” is even heavier and faster than the normal for the band. “Cut the Line” and lead-off single “Aunt Betty” are the album’s more thought-out songs, with some experimentation and just good songwriting. Other tracks get meddled in their own repetitive nature. The album is better than their debut, which was somewhat lighter and less interesting because of it. “Pick Up Your Head” is no great album, but it never achieves to be. What it does succeed at is being a fun and intense listen, surprisingly effective for a two-piece that always kind of sound the same.

If you like this, try: “Supermegafantastic” by IAMDYNAMITE (2012). They’re the best of these simplistic rock revival bands, in my opinion. Also a male two-piece, coincidentally.

-By Andrew McNally

Larry And His Flask – “By the Lamplight”

(Photo Credit: Brooklyn Vegan)

Grade: B

Key Tracks: “Pandemonium,” “The Battle For Clear Sight”

“By the Lamplight,” the second official release for the band Larry and His Flask, begins a capella. It only stays that way for a few beats, but it is enough for the band to set the stages. Larry And His Flask are, at the end of the day, a punk band. Yet the banjos and intense acoustic guitar are equally reminiscent of both folk and folk-punk bands, far away from the slight Irish tone to their music. They are a diverse band, taking their inspirations more from cultures than genres, like a Gogol Bordello without an eccentric lead singer.  Their second official release follows this trend, although it is a little more standard than their previous full-length. Still, the a capella opening acts as a bizarre intro for an unfamiliar listener and a gleefully expected one for fans.

When Larry and His Flask are at their best, which is often, they invoke one-thirds Mumford & Sons speed-folk and two-thirds Nekromantix rockabilly punk. The opening half of the album sees them accomplishing this frequently. Early track “The Battle For Clear Sight” has a nice addition of a female singer, Jenny Owen Youngs. The second half of the album gets a little bogged down in songs that sound a little too unoriginal, because of an already high standard that has been previously set. Still, the album’s fastest and slowest tracks, “Home of the Slave” and “All That We’ve Seen,” help to break it up some. And the band always sounds like they are having fun in the studio, which transposes to the listener. They are a fun band, one that genuinely enjoys what they are recording.

“By the Lamplight” is a little less experimental than their previous effort, but it still ranks the band among the most experimental bands in punk music. Their sound is equal parts Celtic punk, rockabilly and folk, and their diversity makes for a truly interesting band. I learned about this band after seeing them in Brooklyn open for the Menzingers (a perfect band), at a show that Gogol Bordello was coincidentally supposed to play at (it got cancelled part way through because of weather). If Larry and His Flask come your way, I recommend them live. Their diversity translates to a fun live show.

If you like this, try: Frank Turner’s “England Keep My Bones,” another diverse Irish-folk-punk musician whose best album is the second most recent.

By Andrew McNally