Album Review - The Music

The Music – Strength In Numbers
[EMI; 16/06/2008]

From seeing the video for this album's lead single (the title track), you could see what The Music were trying to do. 'Going big' could be said for most of Strength In Numbers that ends the debate in regards to deciphering whether The Music are contenders or indeed, pretenders.

The band's debut album held so much promise. From the opening freak-out that was 'The Dance' many felt an invigorated swagger from four kids from Leeds and their ability to pen a good tune.

2005's Welcome to the North held signs of solidarity, but failed to render the edge that its predecessor so willfully displayed, which leads us to now; the big down fall that is Strength in Numbers.

Numbers like 'Spike' and 'Drugs' are nothing more than in-your-face lyrical statements that cater for the wider audience, failing to hold any mystery or soul, instead substituted for glossy sounds and face value thoughts. Frontman, Robert Harvey was never the best lyricist going about in the early days, but his swagger and ability to swathe through the bold instrumentation his band delivered held enough mystery to keep one intrigued. That all seems to be at a loss now.

You never say never with art, but in many ways what the Music have created with Strength In Numbers can't be defined as artistic. It feels more like a 'product' that's been compromised by certain types; even the album's title brims with irony. The Music aren't the first to fall into this trap. Many other bands who formed around the same time have also been misguided down the familiar path and have equally suffered a similar fate.

By Simon K

Album Review - Kayo Dot

Kayo Dot – Blue Lambency Downward
[06/05/2008; Hydra Head Records]

Kayo Dot are an interesting breed. Frontman, Toby Driver, spent the '90s in outfit, maudlin of the Well, who were essentially a metal band. After their disbandment, Driver went on to form Kay Dot, a project that saunters in the territory of the left field and in his former band's case, a parallel universe. Blue Lambency Downward is Kayo Dot's third album and their first for Hyrdra Head. Although the songs are in a slightly shorter form, things still remain ensconced in the avant-garde template Driver has drilled to the floor in previous releases.

The title track begins with Driver almost narrating, squeezing out the vocals before the primary elements of this album take shape. Driver's vocals still remain, but are buried deep within the mix of instrumental elements that breed from a classical nature. The dark undertones still flourish through the record, perceiving Driver's close relationship with metal, but these are sparsely filtered through the jazzy fuck wittery that takes place over the 36 minutes of this release. 'Symmetrical Arizona' stars off like a creepy jazz number, with brass meandering around the edges like something out of a Jim Jarmusch film. The guitars add to weight of this 10 minute aloofness of sound that closes the album in apt fashion.

For those who suffer from ups and down, violent mood swings and an addiction to some form of chemical substance, Blue Lambency Downward has your name written all over it. It's a little too mental and abstract to indulge in multiple listens, however it would be an essential for one of those 'off days' we all tend to have. Definitely an adequate addition to the record collection.

By Simon K

Lullaby's Song Scrobble

Song Selection #2

Once again, Mr. Beardmore has come up large in the stakes of being innovative. To be honest, I'm more about the “album” or “record” as such, but here's some tracks that taken my fancy of the records I've been addicted to recently:

Guided By Voices – Tractor Rape Chain [Bee Thousand; Scat, 1994]

I've always preferred Guided By Voices in their slightly longer form (maybe that's missing their point?), but I've become more accustom to their lo-fi shorter vein of tunes and Bee Thousand leads from the front. There's so many great tracks off this album but the above stands out at this point of time. Frontman, Robert Pollard, at his lyrical best singing “parallel lines on a slow decline - tractor rape chain.”

My Morning Jacket – Gideon [Z; ATO, 2005]

Definitely my favourite MMJ song along with being the focal point in the shift of the band's musical direction with Z. Seeing the band live a couple of weeks ago, not to mention the blistering rendition of this song, really hit home in the realisation that not only is it an amazing song within the band's catalogue, but for me it's definitely one of the finest songs penned in this era. The riffola is a perfect example of action speaking louder than words!

The National – Abel [Alligator; Beggars Banquet 2005]

Simple but effective. 'Abel' is at the height of what The National really are all about. A love song in some form, but it's abrasive delivery and simple guitar lines give it an easiness to engage with. Frontman, Matt Berninger oozes with a simplistic touch, delivering word after word with such finesse.

The Stooges – Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell [Raw Power; Columbia, 1973]

Listening to this song almost blows a gaping hold through your ear drums. The production of this track alone is so different to any of the other off Raw Power. Literally, an ear-splitting five minute jaunt of James Williamson's guitar binge and Iggy's venomous vocal. They say punk rock started in England? Yeah, right...



My Bloody Valentine – To Here Knows When [Loveless; Creation 1991]

This has always been at the top of my favourites list from one of my favourite all time bands. Seeing this particular song performed live literally made me a bit dewy eyed. The soundscapes glide with elegance, while Bilinda Butcher's vocal harmonies stew deep in the mix but still hold that evocative aura. Everything about the song defines beauty.

Constantines – Soon Enough [Tournament of Hearts; Sub Pop, 2005]

Probably the band's most out-on-a-limb track. In a nutshell, it probably doesn't define what the Constantines are about, however its alt-country tinge is rendered brilliantly and definitely acts as another string to the band's bow. It's a simple song, based around the pure honest lyrical topic from frontman, Bryan Webb, which presents a transcending effect.

Seefeel – Plainsong [Quieque; Too Pure/Astral Works, 1993]

The ambient loops of luscious sound; the haunting drums; the alluring melody. There's not much you can't like with this song. Seefeel's landmark album fails to have any downsides to it, but at the moment, this is the track that stands out. It's guaranteed that things will change next week.

By Simon K

Interview - Constantines

Constantines are the most underrated band in the world. Is there a debate to this? Indeed so, but not in my eyes. Hailing from the Canadian town of Guelph (otherwise known as "The Royal City"), quintet (Bryan Webb; vocals/guitar, Steven Lambke; guitar/vocals; Doug MacGregor; drums, Dallas Wehrle; bass, Will Kidman; keyboards) have been apart of this jerky art-form since 1999, unleashing a democratic rock sensibility, which has resulted in four brilliant albums.

Their self-titled debut was the foundation of edgy no-holds-barred rock music, which saw many pin the band's influences to the likes of The Clash, Fugazi and Bruce Springsteen. 2003's Shine A Light was even more harder-nosed than its predecessor, despite album highlight 'Young Lions' portraying elegant melodies and clever writing techniques from Webb.

2005's Tournament of Hearts witnessed the band shift once again, creating more melodic and ear catching sounds, with Webb once again shining as the key figure, while the guitar harmonics seethed underneath with ferocity. 'Draw Us Lines' still extrudes that seamless abrasive sound that the band made inroads with from the beginning, but the roots were well and truly augmented with this affair (alt-country number 'Soon Enough' the reference point), which leads up to now; the band's pinnacle opus, Kensington Heights.

A splendid mixture of the swirling song-craft from Webb and his right-hand man Lambke (the latter during the brilliant 'Shower of Stones'), while the cinder blocks otherwise known as instrumentation well and truly gouge out of your stereo speakers with conviction. The slower moments are beautiful, too; 'Our Age' defines this to a tee. There's moments where the mixture of spacious beauty and neck-break rhythms coalesce, with the swooping din of 'Trans Canada' quite possibly measuring up to the best work the band has done to date.

Constantines are one hell of a force in the live arena, too. Cracking break downs make you sweat, while the energy this band renders while unleashing their brooding form of art makes your heart skip a beat. This is no biography; just words that an honest-to-goodness rock 'n' roll band truly deserve. Recently, I had the opportunity to ask Webb some questions about the existence of the Constantines. This is what was said:

Lullaby Magazine: Hey Bryan, how's things today?

Bryan Webb: Pretty good, thanks.

LM: You're just about to go on tour throughout America, do you enjoy touring and playing your songs live?

BW: I prefer playing live to recording. We're better live than recorded. We're out on my favorite route now, West in Canada, down the West Coast of the US, and up through the midwest. We're traveling with Ladyhawk, who are one of the best bands on Earth. It helps us to travel with friends like this. It'll be a recreational tour.

LM: I had the pleasure of seeing you guys at the All Tomorrow's Parties weekend curated by Explosions In The Sky. Did you guys have fun?'

BW: It was a very strange trip. We had a decent time playing, though, and enjoyed the landscape out there in Minehead. That resort could be the setting for a zombie movie. It was incredible to see Silver Jews and Animal Collective in such a strange place. Those were the highlights for me.

LM: It's like the ultimate summer camp. I lost count of how many times I saw various artists just walking around checking out bands. It's a festival that just has no egos. Very working class. Would you agree?

BW: I don't know if I could think of any rock festival as working class, though I really appreciate the structure of the ATP festivals. The town of Minehead is very pretty. It was nice to walk out on the beach at low tide. I saw a beached tugboat with the word 'Defiant' painted on its side.

LM: Speaking of working class, I've read many of your reviews and you've been described as a “working class band”. That's quite a compliment particularly with some of the music getting around these days. Do you see it this way?

BW: Not really. We have some songs about work, which came from an obsession with Studs Terkel's book Working. And we get compared to Springsteen and The Clash a fair bit, who are described as working class. But I think those people had more of an active political connection to the working class than we do. We're not political as a band. Our individual ideas vary a little too much to pursue a political band identity.

LM: Back to your performance at ATP. I have to ask, you were cutting clumps of your hair in the early stages of that performance. Do you do that during all your shows?

BW: I just needed a haircut, and in my jet-lagged state it seemed like a funny idea to give myself a haircut on stage. Seemed like a strange opening ceremony for the festival, though I'm sure it didn't translate very well. It would have been more satisfying to watch if I had done a worse job. There wasn't really a punchline to it.

LM: Onto your new album “Kensington Heights”. In my opinion it's the best you've done thus far. How have you been pleased with the reception it's received so far?

BW: Yeah, it's been pretty well received as far as I can tell. I like that the record sounds like a group of people who have been playing music together for a long time. We couldn't have made this album eight years ago. That's the most successful thing about it, I think. It has a good amount of personality.

LM: The album was dedicated to the late Gar Gillies. You used his amplifiers on the album, right?

BW: Not exclusively, but the Garnet amps we used were pretty key to the sound of the record. Gar Gillies passed away while we were making the record, and looking at his life, he was a pretty inspiring man. He had complete control over the products of his labour right up until he died. He was entirely dedicated to his craft. These things are important to me.

LM: There's a good mixture of slower and quicker tempo songs on this effort. Do you think this is the result of the band's maturity that has formed since the early days?

BW: Yeah, one thing that has come from playing together for a while is the willingness to leave open space in some of the songs. Everyone is willing to lay back a bit, and listen to the natural dynamics that come out of a song in the writing process.

LM: There's also various references to hospitals, like on 'Million Star Hotel', 'Brother Run Them Down' and 'Life or Death'. Are these references to experiences you endured prior to the making of the album?

BW: Most of the songs were written as tributes to friends and family. People who are surviving or navigating life in an interesting way. There were a few more hospitals in my life over the last few years than I would have liked. Nobody likes hospitals. But they're very resonant buildings in a person's daily impressions of their city.

LM: On “Tournament of Hearts” many people were surprised of the direction you'd taken, mainly with 'Soon Enough' and its alternative country sensibility. Would you ever consider doing an album that pushed towards an alt-country vibe seeming as though you do it very well?

BW: We just take it one song at a time. Tournament Of Hearts ended up being an album of simpler song structures, maybe because we were touring so much at the time, simpler was more practical. I don't see us consciously making an alt-country album, though.

LM: One thing that's changed since “Tournament of Hearts” is that you're now on Arts & Crafts, how exactly did that come about?

BW: We were essentially free agents after that record, with no management, and no record contract. Though we enjoyed being on Sub Pop, we wanted to bring the business back to Canada. It took us over a year to figure this out, 'cause Sub Pop was very good to us, and we had a lot of good friends there. Arts & Crafts expressed an interest, and they just had good answers to all of our questions. Plus they've obviously been very successful over the last six years, and their offices are about five minutes from our rehearsal space. And it's worked out very well so far.

LM: Constantines have made four albums now and I must say, they're four albums that have great qualities in their own way. These days not many bands can boast of making four solid albums. What have you guys learnt from being in a band for all this time?

BW: Music, at its best, is an expression of pure joy, and the interconnectedness of all people.

LM: Canada is a country that's spawned so many great bands during this era. Many of them are on Arts & Crafts. Surrounded by all this, has it inspired you guys in any way?

BW: Canada is full of great, unique creative communities, partly because there's so much space between populated areas. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are great music centers, but so is Guelph, Ontario and Sackville, New Brunswick, and Dawson City, in the Yukon. We're lucky to be able to connect with people in all of these places, and learn from them.

LM: Anything else you'd like to add before we finish?

BW: Ladyhawk rules.

For more information about the Constantines visit the following.

www.constantines.ca
www.myspace.com/constantines

The new album Kensington Heights is out now on Arts & Crafts.

Interview by Simon K

EP Review - Crystal Antlers

Crystal Antlers – Crystal Antlers EP
[04/06/2008; Self Released]

Just like “Deer” last year and the year before that “Wolf” the new craze is to put “Crystal” in your band's name! Hailing from Long Beach, California, Crystal Antlers are sonic mess that like to fiddle around with effects pedals and various other tools that converge to form ear-splitting noise through an amplifier.

Their self-titled EP doesn't let up from start to finish, with walls of fuzz and untrained screams taking up most of the disc's space. 'Until the Sun Dies (Part 2) starts of with mental fuck wittery then takes a back seat with chilling keyboards and undulating bass lines kept at arms length only for the waves to come crashing once again that ends the track in stomping fashion. 'Vexation' and 'A Thousand Eyes' crash like successive concrete blocks, with psychedelic rawness. Closing track 'Parting Song For the Store Sky' is the EP's highlight, with towering crescendos and vocal wails any hippy from San Francisco would be proud of holding a pair of ears to.

It's good to see a band play with raw energy and Crystal Antlers obtain this and put it into practice well enough to warrant multiple listens. However, it's nothing we haven't already heard before, which begs the question; does the world really need another Comets On Fire? Well, there's near enough two of everything else, so why the fuck not?

By Simon K

Album Review - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy – Lie Down in the Light
[Drag City; 20/05/2008]

Going under the above-mentioned moniker, Will Oldham has always been one of the most under-appreciated independent artists. For a start, I See a Darkness will go down as one of the finest singer-songwriter albums in '90s. Oldham has always been an artist who's provided quality to those who care to listen and its truly evident with the material he's released since the 1999 pinnacle.

Lie Down in the Light is Oldham in a different vein. With more of a folk trance, this album focus more on the singer-songwriter and not much else. Just toppling the 45 minute mark, the 12 tracks Oldham delivers undulate with folk swagger ('You Remind Me Of Something (the Glory Goes)' and 'For Every Field There's A Mole'). While Oldham's lyrical ambiguity still shines the songs he plays do sound very samey and hard to break down at times. With the exception of the two above-mentioned tracks, there's little else that make the ears prick with any eagerness.

An album more suited in the company of a beer and a leather couch as apposed to a candlelight dinner, Lie Down in the Light is one of the more opaque albums from Oldham's catalogue of work (in last 10 years, anyway). Its nostalgic shift in sound could fall under the “change is as good as holiday” banner, but on the other side of the coin the grass isn't always greener either.

By Simon K

Album Review - Sigur Rós

Sigur Rós – Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
[EMI/XL Recordings; 24/06/2008]

The term unique and the band Sigur Rós fit like a glove. Maybe – just maybe - singing in your own language (Hopelandic) has a bit to do with it. When you wade through all the bullshit, though, Iceland's finest band are just that; a band. In fact, a “rock” band wouldn't even look out of place when weighing up a definition.

Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust is Sigur Rós fifth album, which once again meanders through new stomping grounds. This time there's a swerve from their previous left-field sensibility to more of a left-of-centre chime. It's hardly surprising considering the number of people who listen to Sigur Rós' music has increased, particularly since the landmark ( ).

'Gobbledigook' is the perfect opener. With an organic strum of acoustic and the pitta-patter of the snare drum, an easy-listening quality looms, despite its raw edge. 'Inn Í Mér Syngur Vitleysingur' is laced with more familiar elements that we've come to appreciate from Sigur Rós, but this time glazed with more of an accessible taste. The epic 'Festival' builds up with octave shifts from Jónsi Birgisson's ranging falsetto right up until the melodic bind of bass and brass culminates the song in emphatic fashion. 'Ára Bátur' searches for its quarry, with its slowing pace capturing a form of beatification without the trademark melody; definitely a growing quality.

Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust is Sigur Rós at their accessibly charged best. Although starting off as strong as any other recording from their fine back catalogue of work, Með' does fade into the shadows late on, giving you the impression that the hard work of transforming their sound may have taken its toll during the course of making this album. Ironically, rather than throwing a couple of the later tracks into the fray earlier on during the record, it seems a segregation from strong to weak has inadvertently taken place. In saying this, 'Gobbledigook' didn't grab a lot of people – including myself- on first listen, so maybe with a bit more time opinions could sway the other way. The door remains slightly ajar.

By Simon K