Feast on feedback, distortion and a catchy beat to boot from the hands of No Age. For all those who wondered what it would be like if Neu! went pop, No Age lets the artsy rock fans let loose, but won’t scare away others so quickly either. The Los Angeles-based duo of guitarist Randy Randall and singer/drummer Dean Spunt are releasing their first proper album this May, following 2007’s Weirdo Rippers EP.
The first single off the record is “Eraser,” a gloriously fuzzy wall of sound. But then the tambourine kicks in, transforming the song into a toe-tapping blitz. On top of that, guitarist Randall adds an acoustic layer, giving the normally heavy distortion a spring in its step. Clocking in at a meager 2:40 – though it could have easily trailed on for five or six minutes – “Eraser” keeps rapt attention throughout, setting No Age apart from more indulgent noise bands.
They concentrate their energy into a tiny package, bursting on every beat. This may come naturally to No Age, which was forged from hardcore punk bands of L.A. But for listeners, it is a welcome breath of life into noise rock.
Neon Neon – “Belfast” Download (Right click and select “Save Link As”)
Neon Neon — made up of from Welsh psychedelic rocker Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals and American DJ Boom Bip — time travels between ’80s electro and modern electropop on their debut album, Stainless Style.
Neon Neon finds a strange common ground between psychedelic rockers and electronica freaks, and fills it with a fitting dance party. The duo finds a medium between the tripped-out pop rockers and sample-tweaking electronica freaks, and then shoves them all in for a smooth ride in a DeLorean.
Though Stainless Style harnesses its power from a bygone era, it’s not a retro record. Neon Neon just embraces the period’s simple layering of techno and then adds its respective bags of tricks to the mix — Rhys’ bizarre pop sensibility and warm voice and Boom Bip’s keen sample craftwork.
In the standout track “I Lust U,” fellow Welsh singer Cate Le Bon joins the boys for a romp in yesterday’s tomorrow. They boil down the synth to the bare essential — a catchy hook. The beat is so simple it’s stupid, yet begs to be repeated on an infinite loop. The old-school/new-school combo sounds a bit like Snoop Dogg’s “Sensual Seduction,” and is every bit as enjoyable in its slick-yet-gaudy style.
At first, it’s strange to hear a band incorporate a now-antiquated interpretation of the future. Stainless Style is reportedly a concept album about the life of John DeLorean, famous creator of that boxy car-turned-time-machine immortalized in “Back to the Future.” More apparent in the music, though, is the outdated futurism of the DeLorean. Though obviously old, it still evokes that futuristic vibe — very apt for the neo-electro fun of Neon Neon.
Imagine you’re five years old. Your American mother and Jordanian father split up and you father kidnaps you and whisks you back to his home country. Most people would never recover from this trauma, but this five-year-old, Ferras, made the best of it. He started tinkering around on a toy piano and wrote his first song for the mother he’d left behind. The rest is history.
Maybe it’s too early to say that. After all, Ferras is far from being history; he’s just getting started. After being kicked off “American Idol,” he moved on to do his own thing. His first album, Aliens and Rainbows, drops on Tuesday, but he has already been featured on MTV and “The Today Show.”
Once you listen to some of his songs, it’s not hard to see why Ferras is garnering such attention from the media. His songs are easy to listen to, reminiscent of other singer-songwriters on a piano (at times he even kind of sounds like a young Elton John for the new millennium) while still being distinctive.
“Liberation Day” practically begs you to sing along and play “air piano” along with the staccato notes. The chorus of “It’s a beautiful day to wake up with nothing to say/It’s liberation/What a wonderful thing to throw your illusions away/It’s liberation day,” while the music crescendos in the background, makes the song perfect for the first few days of summer when you’re finally free from school and driving around with your windows down.
For a smoother, more subdued sound, try “Hollywood’s Not America,” about a young girl who tried to make it as a celebrity, but lost herself in the process. The song lets Ferras show off the range of his voice.
To judge whether or not Ferras is just another “Idol” reject or the real deal for yourself, head to Smith’s Olde Bar Wednesday night to see him opening up for A Fine Frenzy.
If gothic fairy tales were set in the scandalous world of New York City socialites, The Pierces would sing their soundtrack.
Like their folkpop lyrics, the duo’s semi-true biography is a fairy tale in and of itself. Alabama-bred sisters Catherine and Allison Pierce may not have been abducted by dancing gypsies like they say on their MySpace page, but they did train with Russian ballerina instructors.
The Pierces sound more like a cabaret show than the country group many people think they are. After two major-label flops and too much executive interference, the sisters ditched their contract and recorded Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge the way they wanted to. Thank God they did.
With airy-voiced harmonies, sensuous lyrics and instruments ranging from glockenspiels to ukuleles, The Pierces’ songs are refreshingly diverse. As the album’s name suggests, the girls sing mostly about love and everything that comes with it, from sexual fantasies in “Lights On” to detesting cutesy lines in “Go to Heaven.” But each song is a unique trip into the dark yet whimsical lives of the band members.
“Secret” sounds like something you would hear while riding a merry-go-round in a Tim Burton film, with The Pierces’ cooing lyrics over the beat of an eerie carnival waltz.
In short, the Pierces are like a top-shelf martini for your ears — sweet, sharp and intoxicating. One shot of their seductive lyricism will have you begging for a 14th tale of love and revenge.
The Virgins – “Rich Girls” Download (Right click and select “Save Link As”)
The only “music video” on The Virgins’ MySpace page is a 30-second-long handheld camera clip of one of their live shows. On stage with the band, a kid wearing bright blue boxers and aviator sunglasses waves crutches in the air. The lead singer looks dazed and confused while belting out the chorus, and random objects like inflatable baseball bats float through the dancing crowd.
This video pretty much sums up The Virgins. The New York City quartet rocked South By Southwest last week and their entire EP The Virgins ‘07 was featured in an episode of “Gossip Girl,” but they haven’t seemed to notice, keeping true to their quirky selves.
The band’s single, “Rich Girls,” sounds like something a 1970s version of The Strokes might have cooked up. With an irresistibly repetitive bassline and vocals that are spoken more often than sung, the song is straight up indie-funk.
But the sexed-up lyrics and half-whispered, half-squealing vocals of “One Week of Danger” make it my favorite. Lines like “Let’s get together / And get it on / Let’s get these clothes off / Before I’m gone” make the band’s name seem a little ironic.
Hopefully, The Virgins will keep up the funky blend of indie rock they’ve perfected when they drop their first full-length later this year. With such a tough New York attitude, I’m thinking they will.
The Heart Strings- “He Wanted to Fly and He Flew” Download (Right click and select “Save Link As”)
Judging a book by its cover (or, in this case, a band by its name), I expected the Heart Strings to be an overly emo and whiny group bent on, well, tugging at listener’s heart strings. And although the band sometimes does just that, this London-based quartet is versatile, citing everyone from Guns ‘n’ Roses to Ben Folds Five as influences and creating music that is both smooth and catchy with upbeat blends of brass and piano.
“He Wanted to Fly and He Flew” is perhaps one of the band’s more inspirational songs. The story that the lyrics tell is simple: a guy overcame adversity. But the instrumentation gives the song more complexity, as it begins with the tinkle of a xylophone and becomes more and more layered until the song’s climax. By the end of the song, the Heart Strings are showing off their stripped-down side again with a few simple piano chords.
The Heart Strings certainly have a quirky side. “Mariana” is about a man falling for a woman who works at a “greasy spoon.” Again, the band lets the music wax and wane; the chorus of brass and swelling voices of background singers would make you think this is a song about the most epic love story known to man. In reality, the song’s narrator describes his relationship with Mariana by singing, “She served me my pies with wanton brown eyes.”
With both their lyrics and music, the Heart Strings are as beautiful, fun and diverse as the city they call home.
The Bastard Suns – “My Pint” Download (Right click and select “Save Link As”)
There’s nothing too radical about punk music, reggae influence is pretty mainstream nowadays, and most people are at least vaguely familiar with the concept of Irish drinking music.
Combining these three genres, however – well, now you’re getting innovative.
This is exactly what Atlanta band the Bastard Suns aims to do. With their clashing guitar chords and harsh, devil-may-care lyrics, the group is undeniably punk. But every now and then, some new instrumentation will take over and suddenly, you’re listening to a punk group perform in Jamaica, or perhaps in a Dublin pub.
The head-bobbing “My Pint” is a perfect example. Although the lyrics (“It’s all right as long as I’ve got a pint!”) fit perfectly with Irish – or perhaps just college – drinking culture, the drum beats make certain parts of the song sound like Bob Marley and the Sex Pistols had a few too many and started jamming.
The Bastard Suns like to keep things fun. This becomes most evident on “Drop the Hammer.” Although the song has a darker sound to it and contains the lines, “This world is too full of pain and there are too many to blame/They kill for fame/Or they kill and they claim that they did it in God’s name,” it’s still an ode to partying and finding a fun way to escape the harshness of reality.
Don’t pick up the Bastard Suns’ latest album – Dropping Expectations, a collaboration with punky pals No Fuego – if you want something thought-provoking. But on the eve of spring break, who would want that anyway?
To read more about Bastard Suns, check out our extended profile of the band online at www.emorywheel.com.
Paper Route – “American Clouds”Download (Right click and select “Save Link As”)
“There’s heartbreak all over the E., Everday that goes by I just realize that more and more people’s relationships aren’t such a fairy tale and that that discontent and that heartache is universal.”
The above words are a quote from “8 Minutes” a self produced video that this Nashville quartet put together, featuring a medley of their songs, gorgeous visuals, and their narrated thoughts on music and art. The line so perfectly captures my own feelings about the band and their music that any attempt to put it in my own words would deaden the sentiment, ring somewhat hollow. So instead, I’ve let them say it themselves.
In fact, in a lot of ways Paper Route is a band that can tell its own story just as poignantly and movingly as any journalist. Band-founder Chad Howat’s musings on insomnia and its part in the formation of the band are as clever or as funny as anything I’ve ever written, or could hope to write for that matter. And their typical unsigned indie success story (group starts small, plays frequently locally, already gaining buzz before first full length, etc.) is one that almost writes itself these days. But to focus on that purely mechanical, and rather clichéd story ignores what we should really be talking about– their music.
And gorgeous music it is. The heartbreak that fills their self-titled EP is achingly beautiful, a lush mix of piano, synthesizer, soaring oohs and ahs, bright guitars, full strings, and catchy drum loops. There’s a touch of electronica, here, but only just a touch. The songs as a whole are far too cohesive to be a part of that genre, not a schizophrenic collection bloops, beeps, bass, and drum machine, but very organic, carefully crafted pieces.
In fact the track available here, American Clouds, material off their upcoming full length, features more electronica influences than most of their work to date, pushing them towards the field of synthesizer heavy dance-pop occupied by folks like hellogoodbye, or The Postal Service. Here fuzzy synthesizers, distorted vocals, and a looped melody open the song, but as it progresses we begin to heart those drop out, replaced by a guitar, a harmonic, far more organic sounds.
What we don’t hear sadly, is the members of Paper Route showing off their vocals. If their EP is anything to judge by then almost every member of the band has a voice that could make them lead vocalist for any other group. And if that wasn’t enough, they also brought on Nashville artist Kate York to supply her gorgeous soprano to the opening track, “Second Chances.”
The result is beautiful singing that draws attention to Paper Route’s extraordinary lyrics. Lines like “Second Chance’s” chilling “Apparently love runs on one-way courses / away from contentment” wrench at the heart when airily delivered by York during a poignant duet. And the hollow nihilism of “Let You Down’s” “I’m not afraid to give up and give in / we’re going to die anyway / what’s the point in the end,” paints the picture of a man caught in utter brokenness when they’re belted out in a desperate near scream by the vocalist.
In short, Paper Route is a breath of fresh air in an indie world where increasing, to steal the words of fellow Wheel writer and friend David Marek, “randomness/florescent ugliness is valued above songwriting.” These guys put their songs together with unnatural care, crafting something that is worth listening to over and over, year after year.
Note: Paper Route will be playing March 8th at the Masquerade. In case you haven’t noticed, I really like these guys, so I’d highly recommend checking out the show.
Editors at The Emory Wheel, Emory University's student newspaper, sound off on their favorite albums and artists of the moment. You can find more info here.
