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(Bella Union)

Belfast five-piece Cashier No. 9 couldn’t be further away, musically, from Two Door Cinema Club, the current darlings of the Northern city’s music scene. Referencing everything from The Byrds to Primal Scream, their widescreen sound and tightly-crafted songs don’t aim to “nail it” in three-minute pop songs, but instead, wrap themselves up in a groove that can bring them to the five-minute mark. For this quality alone, they immediately bring to mind Creation-era Primal Scream; a devotion to classic song structure but with the dimensions and grooves that have made significant electro records timeless.

Lead single ‘Goldstar’, with its nod to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, is an immediate, confident and ambitious opener, which even manages to pull off a harmonica solo (from Hollies’ sessioneer Tommy Morgan, no less) that could have gone badly wrong. Although the banal title of ‘Lost at Sea’ is off-putting at first, it shares the same thunderous drums and restless rhythms of ‘Goldstar’ and is an obvious single in waiting.

The bridge between their obvious ’60s, West coast leanings and ’80s & ’90s British indie rock becomes more evident with ‘A Promise Wearing Thin’, which recalls the melodic grandeur of Echo and the Bunnymen classic ‘Ocean Rain’. Meanwhile, the groove-laden, baggy-indebted ‘The Lighthouse Will Lead You Out’ bringing to mind mid-’90s era, Charlatans. Over the ten tracks, it’s the fusion of these influences that manage to keep the music fresh and exciting. The closing track, ‘6%’, a downbeat synth- drenched song, is an intriguing way to end the journey, and could very well signal the direction they take on album number two.

At the heart of Cashier No. 9’s impressive debut is David Holmes’ lush production, which skillfully adds textures and layers without resorting to the nostalgic, retro stylings that often date a record. Throughout, the multi-dimensional arrangements often recall Mercury Rev’s Deserter’s Songs and All is Dream. However, like the albums as mentioned earlier, it’s also grounded in the tight songwriting structures and styles that defined the Laurel Canyon songwriters of the ’60s / ’70s, like Neil Young, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jackson Browne and Gene Clark. And while they lack memorable, inspiring lyrics that make use of the broad song forms they write in, these anthemic, big sounding songs could make Cashier No. 9 a surprise hit at festivals the world over.

Originally published on State.ie

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Popical Island #2

(Popical Island)

Part of the charm of the second compilation from Dublin-based collective Popical Island is that they represent a throwback to a time when people queued up for records on the day of release, mixtapes were a welcome gift from fellow musos and Seattle, Washington, was the unlikely capital of rock music. In the wake of the synth- pop revival that has revitalized everything that was good – and bad – about the ’80s, Popical Island # 2 throws a knowing glance towards the ’90s; a time when a new alternative rock album that would define the decade seemed to come along at least once a year.

Diversity and range, within the pop form, is key to Popical Island’s latest release. While all the artists seem to share common ground, their leanings become more evident after repeated listens. Michael Knight’s quirky piano song, ‘Hang On, I Need To Count the Stops’ is clearly from the Ben Folds songbook, the chiming 12 strings that adorn Goodly Thousands’ ‘Kiss Me Upside Down’ recall I.R.S. era R.E.M., while ‘Candle’ by Squarehead should keep fans of The Shins happy. Three-minute pop nuggets aside, there are also left turns, such as Tieranniesaur’s ‘Here Be Monsters’, which is possibly the only track that isn’t defined by fuzzy guitars but by a tight, stomping drums and bass with sparse keys and vocals. In contrast again, Grand Pocket Orchestra and Johnny Fun & The Hesitations’ contributions owe their sound and feel to the many records that defined the Montreal music scene of recent years.

While many of the contributions here aren’t breaking any new ground, have little to say and, at times, are a too indebted their influences, there’s plenty here to enjoy and the mere nostalgia trip, alone, is worth the price of admission.

Originally published by State.ie

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Arctic Monkeys – Suck It and See It

(Domino)

Having recovered from the lukewarm critical reception and the public indifference that greeted 2009’s Humbug, Arctic Monkeys have returned with an album that is, more than anything, an attempt to put them back in the public’s consciousness: an album full of big choruses, major keys and conventional pop formulae. Where Humbug was full of ideas but thin on tunes, this latest effort is quite the opposite. The fusion of its predecessor’s abstract lyrics and stoner-rock with the retro stylings of Alex Turner’s The Last Shadow Puppets forms the makeup of Suck It And See.

Disappointing at times, here, is that a band that had such a strong identity – a group that had been parodied and imitated when they first arrived with 2006’s instant classic Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not – are revealing their influences far too easily. At times, the group is imitating other artists with what are, essentially, pastiches. The melody of opener ‘She’s Thunderstorms’ bears more of a resemblance to Richard Hawley, while the predictable and well-trodden G-D-C progression of ‘Black Treacle’ recalls the Byrds-esque pop of Teenage Fanclub. Add to this track three, ‘Brick By Brick’, an unremarkable throwaway homage to The Vines, and you sense that this is already a false start. The chorus of ‘The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala’ offers a shot in the arm and will, no doubt, be a staple of future live sets.

There is, however, flatness in the middle of the record. At times, you can’t help but feel that they’ve lost the bite, spike and edge that not only defined the best moments of Favourite Worst Nightmare but which made them so attractive in the first place. ‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve moved Your Chair’, ‘Library Pictures’ and ‘All My Own Stunts’ are a trio of flat, distortion-led tracks that find the band reverting to their already exhausted Queens of the Stone Age influence. Turner’s litany of intended witticisms on ‘Don’t Sit Down…’ (“Run with scissors through a chip pan fire fight”) never really connect. They aren’t funny and fall wide of the mark, much like the “Give me an eeny meeny miny moe/or an ipp dipp dogshit rock n’roll” lines of ‘Library Pictures’. On ‘Love is A Laser Quest’, Turner’s voice isn’t strong enough to carry a song with such a slow tempo.

It’s a given that Turner could no longer go on singing about fights at taxi ranks or Saturday nights out in modern Britain, but somewhere during his transition in his writing style, he seems to have lost the unique talents he once had for rhyme, sharp concrete images, wit and outward-looking lyrics. While the opening words of ‘Piledriver Waltz’ seem impressive (“I etched the face of a stopwatch on the back of a raindrop”), the pseudo-poetic, pseudo-psychedelic wordplay too readily recalls John Lennon’s opening lyrics to ‘Across the Universe’ and the song itself feels like a collage of classic ballads.

The highlights on Suck It and See are those songs lead by guitarist Jamie Cook, who seems more inspired than Turner when he’s playing the higher strings. Fired up, no doubt, by the great, Northern English guitar players, he shines with the Johnny Marr-type chime that ends and defines the Pixies-influenced ‘Reckless Serenade’, which is among the most memorable songs here. Also particularly memorable and infectious are the guitar parts that drive album closer ‘That’s Where You’re Wrong’. It would be easy to dismiss the song as sounding like Echo & The Bunnymen covering LCD Soundsystem’s ‘All My Friends’ – which it does – but it works so incredibly well and ends the album on such an intriguing note that it’s hard not to admire what they can do with just two chords.

In all, there are some very well-crafted pop songs here that may win back those fans who no longer felt involved after their era-defining debut album. It’s certainly their best since Favourite Worst Nightmare, and a step in the right direction but quality control lets them down too often. Where they go next is anyone’s guess, but if Turner, lyrically, gains the inspiration and focus that Cook has here and if the band, collectively, regain their edge, there’s no doubt that album number five could be their best yet.

Originally published by State.ie

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During the encore of Suede’s opening night at The Olympia, Coming Up’s ‘Trash’ and ‘Beautiful Ones’ elicited a reaction from the crowd that is normally only reserved for the iconic singles taken from their mercurial debut. IfSuede was the sound of the band getting the ball rolling on Britpop and Dog Man Star was their attempt to disassociate themselves from that particular mid-’90s movement, then 1996’sComing Up was the sound of Suede wanting a piece of the action.

Often dismissed as Suede’s ‘pop’ album, it found Suede focusing on their knack for writing glam-influenced pop songs with outward-looking lyrics that commented on high and low society. A 10-track, 40-minute album of pop songs, its fusion of Hunky Dory– era Bowie and The Slider-era T. Rex spawned five top 10 singles and remains their biggest seller. With that in mind, it’s clear that Coming Up is, for the band, more fun to play. It lacks the long, maudlin tracks such as ‘She’s Not Dead’ and ‘Daddy’s Speeding’, from their first and second albums respectively, that slow down the flow and momentum of a gig. The crowd, too, feel more involved in the proceedings; there is more fist-in-the-air jubilation than the chin-stroking introspection of both the Suede and Dog Man Star gigs.

Apparently, keyboard player Neil Codling and guitarist Richard Oakes, both of whom made their recording debuts with Suede on Coming Up, seem more involved in the proceedings and more connected to their material than that of the first two records. They have a personal connection to these songs that isn’t there when they are playing songs from the earlier albums. The slower songs – ‘By the Sea’, ‘Picnic by the Motorway’, ‘The Chemistry Between Us’ – somehow manage not to kill the momentum generated by the opening half. In fact, ‘Saturday Night’, the slow tempo closer, finds Anderson venturing into the crowd for one last hurrah.

A superb encore ensures that this is the most energised, adrenaline-fuelled night of the three. Consisting of the slow, cold, Bowie/Eno- influenced ‘Europe Is Our Playground’ (B-side to ‘Trash’), the band quickly snap out of the moody atmospherics of that song and rip swiftly into a string of up-tempo glam-rockers. ‘New Generation’, ‘Can’t Get Enough’ (taken from 1999’sHead Music), ‘So Young’, ‘Metal Mickey’ and ‘So Young’ all hit the right notes. By the end Anderson has reminded the audience of his brilliance as a frontman; his hips are shaking and swaying, his voice singing in a clear, confident falsetto and with urgency like never before. For band and audience alike, it feels like the end of a long journey. As the crowd pour out onto Dame Street, the main talking point is of fevered rumours of a new album and tour, next year. If true, Suede have raised the bar up a notch that they will be hard-pressed to surpass.

Originally published by State.ie

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J Mascis – Several Shades of Why

(Sub Pop)

On the far side of J Mascis’ fuzzy guitar sounds, which defined not only Dinosaur Jr.’s music but, in turn, marked him out as an alt. Rock legend lies a softer, breezier side. On Several Shades of Why, his debut solo album proper, he engages with his folk-rock influences like never before, which range from After the Gold Rush-era Neil Young and Crosby, Stills and Nash, to Nick Drake. No doubt aware of the deluge of folk / Americana albums in recent years, he has crafted this album with instruments and arrangements that are alien to Dinosaur Jr.’s records and might be more suitable on a Mercury Rev album (Saw, anyone?). Mascis has apparently taken a leaf out of country music-inspired those American alt. rock songwriters.

Opener ‘Listen to Me’, with its simple progression and whispering vocals, feels like an Evan Dando track, while ‘Is it Done’ could easily have been written and recorded by Lucinda Williams. The intricate finger picking and harrowing strings of the albums title track find Mascis at most earnest, and he echoes the feel of the song in ‘Very Nervous and Love’. Album highlight, ‘Not Enough’, a campfire folk-pop song complete with backing vocals from current tour mate Kurt Vile, is the sound of the summer.

The record takes a strange twist towards the end and the penultimate and closing tracks, ‘Can I’ and ‘What Happened’, respectively, find Mascis keeping the line of the record while layering the songs with distorted guitars and taking the album to a dark place. And while the album’s roots influences and pop sensibility may not be for Dinosaur Jr. purists, those with a library-full of the best folk / Americana records of the last ten years have another addition that ever-expanding genre.

Originally published on State.ie

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R.E.M. – Collapse Into Now

(Warner)

“If a storm doesn’t kill me, the government will”, sang Michael Stipe on ‘Houston’, from 2008’s excellent return to form, Accelerate. A weary and worn out liberal after two terms of the Bush administration, Stipe hadn’t been as angry, disillusioned and politically engaged on Accelerate since 1987’s Document and 1988’s Green, both of which tore into the Reagan administration.

Fitting, then, that Stipe should now sing “A storm didn’t kill me, the government changed” on ‘Oh My Heart’, taken from R.E.M.’s second consecutive record with Jacknife Lee. Stipe, here, defines himself and R.E.M. as rock’s survivors, but also its chroniclers of social and political change in America. They are, clearly, more at peace with America and, more importantly, with themselves than ever before. Whereas Accelerate saw them return to the spiky, three-minute punk-influenced pop songs that so defined Murmur and Reckoning, Collapse Into Now finds the band tapping into their tradition yet somehow making it feel fresh, vital and new.

The hallmarks are all here; the bridge and chorus from ‘Discoverer’ could easily be ideas that didn’t make the cut on Document, yet Buck’s Eastern-influenced guitar phrase, which bookends the record, is memorable and unlike anything he’s played before. ‘All the Best’ feels like a distant relative of ‘The Wake Up Bomb’ from New Adventures in Hi- Fi while ‘Überlin’ is a serious re-write of ‘Daysleeper’ from 1998’s Up. ‘Everyday is Yours to Win’ finds Stipe in Urban / 21st Century / Existential mode, as per recent records, all of which folds as strong a first side of a record as the band have produced in their 31 years of recording.

The second side opens with ‘Mine Smell Like Honey’, the most joyous, pop-sounding R.E.M. song imaginable. It’s given a very balanced and nuanced mix by Jacknife Lee, making it sound familiar yet wholly new and exciting. The chorus readily recalls ‘Bad Day’ and ‘It’s the End…’ and is more R.E.M. than R.E.M. itself. By contrast, ‘Walk it Back’ is a slow-tempo, piano-led tune, leading the listener to imagine what 2004’s career nadir, Around the Sun, might have sounded like had the band had the heart and energy to finish and mix it with care.

It’s then back to the stomping mode with ‘Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter’ with backing vocals courtesy of Patti Smith and Peter Buck. It’s the combination of Stipe’s playful lyrics, urgent delivery and Buck’s riff-heavy yet jangly guitar that makes this, and the R.E.M. sound, what it is. Meanwhile ‘Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I’ finds Stipe engaging with Pop Culture as vividly as he did on 1994’s Monster, but with the slow burning, roots feel that so definedAutomatic for the People. ‘Blue’, meanwhile, sees the band ending the record in a natural form. In an ocean of reverb, distortion and acoustic guitar, Stipe’s rhapsodic delivery, coupled with his post-modern, epistolic lyrics, eases through a distorted mic and, backed by his heroine, Patti Smith, finds him signing off with ‘20th Century, collapse into now’.

What makes Collapse Into Now such a triumph is its authors’ engagement with their sound, their mythology and their knack for being able to make it feel like a record by an up and coming band. The form of the album is one of a band that have realised that there are many dimensions to their sound and songs. Thankfully, for the first time in a long time, R.E.M. are happy to be themselves.

Originally published on State.ie

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(Cooking Vinyl)

When a journalist asked Rufus Wainwright what sound he was aspiring toward on 2007’s Release the Stars, he replied, “I’m going for the sound of cash registers.” Tired of winning the respect of fellow practitioners, bored of his reputation as a ‘songwriter’s songwriter’ and frustrated at his lack of crossover appeal, he craved a hit song and radio play. The same story goes with Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith. Feted by everyone from Bob Dylan to Elvis Costello, Feist to Nick Hornby and even Chris Martin to Michael Bublé, Sexsmith, like Wainwright, has been at the mercy of his craft. So entrenched in the styles and techniques of past masters, Sexsmith’s records belong neither to the mainstream nor the alternative scene that has flourished in his native Canada in recent years. He is not name-checked by the same people who listen to Bill Callahan or Ryan Adams, nor has he been warmly received by fans of Elton John or indeed Michael Bublé, with whom Sexsmith recorded a cover of ‘Whatever it Takes’ from Sexsmith’s 2004 album Retriever.

On Long Player Late Bloomer, his 11th studio album, Sexsmith is going for broke. Enlisting fellow Canadian Bob Rock (Metallica, Bon Jovi), the end product is an accessible, radio-friendly, Technicolor pop record full of songs that would have troubled the charts in the 1970’s. Opener ‘Get in Line’ is full of snappy, confessional verses about being the bridesmaid and never the bride: ‘Heavey clouds all around/ And the Sun refuses to shine…better get in line’. Its country leanings are homely, the hooks infectious. ‘Believe it When I See It,’ like single ‘Love Shines,’ is eerily reminiscent of Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles work. His progressive and fluid melodies, coupled with Bob Rock’s generous mix, full of slide guitar, strings and piano, scream “radio play, please!!!” very, very loudly.

Sexsmith’s preoccupations with small town life – a consistent theme throughout his previous ten records – are not drowned out by Rock’s lush arrangements. ‘Michael and His Dad,’ one of the best songs Sexsmith has ever written, is a simple story about a widower and his son. Set against a jaunty pop tune, the sudden and unexpected turn of intensity in the middle eight is beautifully timed. Sexsmith sings ‘Mother’s gone to the land of safe keeping/ Michael walking from the grave/ says “Dad, she’s only sleeping”’ with an urgency and syllabic precision rarely heard in contemporary pop music.

At times, however, the record is too concerned with its accessibility. Sexsmith eschews the character of previous releases and, throughout, one hopes for an even balance between Sexsmith’s gift for crafting the ideal pop song and the more intimate, intense songs of previous releases, where he is accompanied solely by a guitar or piano. There are though enough rich and well-crafted pop songs here that will, in an ideal world, win Sexsmith, a host of new admirers.

Originally published on State.ie

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Without any effort, Crawdaddy, for one night only, is transformed into a dive bar in Nashville. Former Wallflowers frontman, Jakob Dylan, shuffles onstage with band members that wouldn’t look out of place on father Bob’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour of ’75. The audience comprises of three strands: a) Bob Dylan fanatics, a.k.a Dylanologists, who are there for obvious reasons, b) those that were among the many millions who bought a copy of The Wallflowers’ Bringing Down the Horse, and finally, c) Alt. Country devotees, charmed by his current foray into country music. His 2008 debut solo album, Seeing Things produced by Rick Rubin, hinted at a talent that was maturing and convincingly tapping into the sound and tradition of American roots music, which came to fruition with this year’s T-Bone Burnett produced Women and Country. On both albums, Dylan achieved a tempo and a sound that works as one piece and this, ultimately, is what goes against him in a live setting.

He immediately launches into ‘Nothin’ But the Whole Wide World’ followed by ‘Everybody’s Hurting’, both of which are contemplative mid-tempo country songs, the latter using his backup singers to full effect. Unfortunately, Dylan and his band never really stray far from this form, and the result is a set that is one-dimensional, lacking in surprise and anything but dynamic. Even performances of Wallflowers songs, ‘God Says Nothing Back’, ‘Three Malenas’ and ‘6th Avenue Heartache’, aren’t enough to add momentum. What forces him into an even darker hole is that he either isn’t playing his guitar, or his guitar is so low in the mix that no-one can hear it.

Add to this his refusal to take any risks and deviate from a formulated set list, and one finds a performer and a band that gets too comfortable. One immediately thinks of what Dylan could have done to turn the format of the evening upside down and inject a sense of the unpredictable. He could have, for example, thrown in an interesting cover version or banished his band from the stage and performed a short set of songs, solo, without amplification, to this small, devoted and intimate audience. Dylan has no doubt learned how to craft a set of songs for an album but he has yet to find a way to perform his songs in a way that truly engages.

Originally published by State.ie

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I Am Kloot – Sky at Night

(Shepherd Moon / EMI)

Manchester three-piece I Am Kloot have spent almost ten years swinging wildly between sounds. Debut album Natural History brought Jonny Bramwell’s distinctively Northern English songs beyond the masses of his hometown and continued the social commentary and wit of his solo album You, Me and the Alarm Clock, released under the pseudonym of Johnny Dangerously. Although Natural History spawned songs that are now staples of the band’s live shows, the album was too quiet, too basic in scope and lacked any element of surprise. The follow- up, I Am Kloot, found the band over– asserting their appetite for crashing rock songs, while Gods and Monsters were the sound of musicians bleeding the life out of their songs in the studio. On I Am Kloot Play Moolah Rouge, the band hit a groove. Recorded live in their Stockport studio, it was a band capturing the feel of their songs and creating an overarching mood throughout the record.

Throughout Sky at Night – produced by Guy Garvey and Craig Potter of Elbow – Bramwell makes a strong case for his being one of Britain’s greatest living songwriters. Clearly, his closest contemporaries are Shack’s Michael Head and Sheffield troubadour Richard Hawley, both of whom are recalled on opener ‘Northern Skies’ and ‘To the Brink’, respectively. ‘Northern Skies’ is a rambling, travelling folk song, strongly reminiscent of Here’s Tom with the Weather / Corner of Miles and Gil– era Shack. Its finger- picked folk, restless drums and lush strings move the album along in the direction of a fine folk- rock record.

However, ‘To the Brink’ weighs down the euphoric rush of ‘Northern Skies’. A combination of the late- night, down-and-out, character of Hawley’s Coles Corner and Serge Gainsbourg– esque orchestration, which creates a mystique that defines the record’s overall mood: one of soul searching darkness, which is achieved naturally through Bramwell’s vulnerable voice and his use of minor keys. ‘Fingerprints’ continues from where ‘Northern Skies’ took off, only every verse punctuated by a frenetic ensemble that betrays the simplicity of this trio. The song’s coda of maudlin strings immediately leads one to The Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’, itself a masterpiece of Northern– English realism.

Lyrically, Bramwell is at his most ribald and witty in ‘Proof’, where self- reflection breathes new life into cliches: “Say, d’you wanna spin another line/ like we had a good time/ not that I need proof”. ‘I Still Do’ and ‘Same Shoes’ find him digging deep and lamenting passed opportunities.

What makes Sky at Night such a success is its constant reach for every song’s real personality. On ‘The Moon is a Blind Eye’, thundering drums and sparse piano lines play behind Bramwell’s voice. Small touches in the mix all combine to create a great song that builds slowly with ease. Only ‘Lately’, with its chorus that’s too- close- for- comfort to Joe Cocker’s version of ‘Get by with a Little Help from My Friends’, intrudes on the album’s continuity. Minor gripes aside, Sky at Night is the sound of a band that have never been more comfortable in their skin.

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Bright Eyes / Neva Dinova – One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels

It’s unusual for Conor Oberst to move backward. Over the past ten years, the Omaha, Nebraska native– once described by Rolling Stone as “Rock’s boy genius”– has, in total, released eleven records under various guises including Monsters of Folk and two albums with The Mystic Valley Band. His revisiting of 2004′s One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels – the first four tracks of which are exclusive to the 2010 reissue– is a welcome journey back home to Bright Eyes, his original and best know moniker.

As the title suggests, the sessions began when Oberst and Neva Dinova frontman Jake Bellows brought out the guitars over, well, one jug of wine. The Dylan comparisons, which heightened after Bright Eyes’ magnum opus, the 2005 Iraq Invasion- influenced I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, are largely redundant here. Oberst deconstructs folk songs using the DIY sonic textures that so defined Lifted and Letting Off The Happiness; eighties pop is favored instead of sixties folk, chiefly that of The Cure; whether it’s the guitars on ‘Rollerskating’, which echo ‘In Between Days’, or Oberst’s Robert Smith-style wailing throughout. The contrast between Oberst’s fraught voice works starkly against the smooth, laid back vocal of Bellows, whose earthy tones are reminiscent of My Morning Jacket’s Jim James.

Of the four new songs that grace this reissue, ‘I Know You’ is the most memorable. Oberst’s urgent, weighty inflections recall Leonard Cohen and the overall production of the song- right from his guitar playing to the reverb-heavy snare drum that haunts throughout- has the feel of a long-lost folk album. The abstractions in the lyrics make leaps and gaps that close tighter with each subsequent hearing.

As the record progresses, the mood and feel of the songs prove too sedate, too predictable and what follows isn’t as engaging as the opening four tracks. The novelty of the stylistic comparisons between Bright Eyes and Neva Dinova eventually wears off and the record never fully takes you to unexpected places. What is most visible; however, is Oberst’s growth from a crumbling 20- something-year-old alternative folk singer– songwriter, screaming into a four- track in the bedroom of his parent’s home to a mature, well– paced and fully formed songwriter; undoubtedly the most skilled of his generation.

A record purely for Bright Eyes completists, the uninitiated should first venture to Fevers and Mirrors, and I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning to gauge the development of this truly outstanding talent.

Originally published by State.ie