Wednesday, July 13, 2005
The Extra-Long (and Long Overdue) Special Indie Rock Post
And they say hip hop imaging isn't original! (Click covers to buy via Amazon)
I've been known to occasionally veer off the hip hop path on this site and today is one of those days yet again as I (finally) round up and comment on a few of the indie and alternative albums I've been listening to over the past few months:
Bloc Party
Silent Alarm has been out for a minute now and already universally hyped and acclaimed (well except for Buddyhead, that is). Normally I'm wary when this happens but have to concede that, in this case, it's more than justified which is why it's the fetaured album on my Hot Ish chart in the sidebar at the left. Two songs in I could already tell this wasn't the same old and was praying they could keep it up for the rest of the album. Thankfully, with the exception of a slight dip in quality with "Price of Gas" (leave the schoolyard chants to M.I.A., Gwen Stefani and Fannypack), they do.
Silent Alarm transcends the current trendiness of the throwback, post-punk, new wave that's been in vogue over the past couple years. They've taken the sound that legendary Factory record producer Martin
Maxïmo Park
So I'd been rocking Apply Some Pressure EP for a minute when it first arrived on import months back because I really liked the title track. The full album A Certain Trigger was just released although, inexplicably, it doesn't have an official US label release despite being a solid mix of the same new wave, pop-punk and UK indie influences that have propelled other groups to success here recently.
Maxïmo Park comes on a like a blend of The Buzzcocks, The Undertones and The Smiths with a splash of Radiohead for good measure. The tracks "Apply Some Pressure" and "The Coast is always Changing" get recycled from the EP but there's enough good new ish on A Certain Trigger to make it worth a listen too. Lead singer Paul Smith's heavy Northern accented singing might not be quite as memorable as influential (and similarly provincial-sounding) forebears Morrissey, Feargal Sharky and Pete Shelley, but on tracks like the very Buzzcocks-esque album closer "Kiss You Better" and Smiths-sounding "Postcard of a Painting," he gets pretty close so you should still fccks with these cats once you get bored of banging Futureheads and Silent Alarm 'cos it's gonna be a minute before the next Franz Ferdinand album is out.
Click and listen:
Maxïmo Park Live in Japan - "Graffiti"mp3 | video streams and "Signal And Sign"
Hot Hot Heat
2005 should really be Hot Hot Heat's year, right? After all, when they dropped the incredible album Make Up the Breakdown in 2003 featuring the (semi-)hit "Bandages," they pretty much were responsible for kicking off this whole new wave revival that groups like Bloc Party, The Killers and Franz Ferdinand have blown up off.
For some reason though, despite mining the same formula of bouncy, danceable, quirky new wave pop as on that album, Elevator doesn't quite click for me the same way. The leak tracks (singles?) "Goodnight Goodnight" and "Island of the Honest Man" were an enticing come-on that got me open for the full album but, despite a couple of other real nice tracks like "Pickin' It Up" and "Middle of Nowhere," I can't front: I'm not bangin' it the same way I did Make Up... when I named that my favorite rock album in 2003.
The Blue Van
This group should get points just off their name alone (apparently a reference to the mode of transportation used to carry mental patients to hospital in their home country of Denmark) but thankfully their music actually merits attention too. The Art of Rolling is a throwback to an era when rock musicians still looked to jazz and blues musicans like the MJQ and John Lee Hooker for their creative inspiration. The Blue Van recereates the bluesy-garage rock popoularized by groups like The Who, The Creation, The Yardbirds and The Doors in the mid-60's period before The Small Faces went psychedelic on their seminal cult album Ogden's Nut Gone Flake and Led Zep went on to rewrite rock history out of ashes of the Yardbird's collapse.
That being said, while the production, sound and feel of The Art of Rolling is authentically (and impressively) vintage, the group falls just short of great album status due to a lack of the kind of catchy hooks and anthems they need to compete with vaguely stylistically similar counterparts (and commercial breakout rock act of last year), Jet. The Jet-alike ballad "Baby I've Got Time" is the most accessible track on the album (to my ears) and is probably their best shot to break out of the cultist's ranks and achieve mainstream commercial success. Also, FYI beat diggin' heads: there's a nice drum break ripe for sampling opening the second track, "Product of DK."
Click and listen:
- “Revelation of Love” e-card
- “Have Love Will Travel” e-card
- “Revelation of Love” (video: windows Hi | Lo quicktime Lo | Hi | Audio download)
- “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” (windows: Hi | Lo)
- “Have Love Will Travel” (windows: Hi | Lo)
- “New Slough” (snippet)
- “Word from the Bird” (snippet)
Beck
This post is dragging on so I'm not gonna say too much about Beck's current album, Guerro that's been out for a hot minute now. If you've read this far though and haven't fccked with Beck since he dropped that bizarre "R&B" album Midnight Vultures, let me just say that you need to get at his new joint, stat. Dude is back to mining his cool-but-quirky, alternative white boy take on hip hop that he blew up off with Mellow Gold and Odelay. That's kind of old hat in 2005 when just about every rock and pop act uses loops and samples and I know frothing over Beck is probably only done by 30-somethings who still think they're hip, but nobody does it quite like this cat. Seriously, I wasn't checking for this either but the album really blew me away.
Click and listen:
- "Ghettochip Malfunction (Hell Yes 8 bit remix)" - win | real (not even close to being one of the best tracks on the album but the only thing I could get a stream on)
- Beck media player
Also digging:
- Queens Of The Stone Age "Little Sister" (via Riff Rock)
- Louis XIV - the lead singer looks a little too chubby and grizzled to pull off the Brandon Flowers make-up look he's trying to rock (n/h) but thanks, Janine for the heads up about their excellent "God Killed the Queen" single. (related: their new website)
- Download mp3's of audio from the legendary John Peel's BBC Radio 1 radio shows.
And check out:
- Game Rebellion - Independent Brooklyn-based "rebel punk rap music."
