Monthly Archive for November, 2009

The Fiery Furnaces: Take Me Round Again

Joe O., November 30, 2009 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , .

In theory, The Fiery Furnaces’ Take Me Round Again ought to have a “FOR DIE-HARD FANS ONLY” warning label on its cover.  For one thing, pretty much every other Fiery Furnaces album is for die-hard fans only anyway, as the band’s esoteric brand of whimsical chaos generally makes for some challenging entertainment.  Furthermore, Take Me Round Again is a download-only release featuring radical re-arrangements of songs that first appeared on I’m Going Away, a record the band dropped just four months earlier.  Yet despite the apparent preemptive strikes against its potential accessibility, Take Me Round Again actually achieves a noteworthy feat: it distills the essence of an experimental and often polarizing rock act into something palatable enough for wider consumption.  Whether you love The Fiery Furnaces, or hate them, or have never even heard of them, their newest album should pleasantly surprise you.

If you are familiar with the band, you’ll notice right away that Take Me Round Again finds siblings Matthew and Eleanor Friedbeger in a much mellower mood than usual.  Matthew takes the lead on the opening track with his remake of the break-up song “I’m Going Away,” the first of several weary, semi-ironic ballads here that lie between Tin Pan Alley and some early-70s Bowery gutter.  (Seems he’s been spinning Lou Reed’s Transformer pretty heavily in recent months.)  Underneath it all you can still hear the kind of unorthodox keyboard melodies that typically dominate the Friedbergers’ music, but now those riffs whisper instead of clamor.

On the second track, Eleanor does her own version of “I’m Going Away,” and like most of her contributions on this record, it becomes an upbeat folk ditty.  Over a hushed yet peppy guitar, she sings the same lyrics her brother just sang (”Get away from my window/ quit knocking on my door/ I got another man now/ I can’t use you no more”), but she infuses them with joy and warmth.  She’s a little sad and a little angry, sure, though for the most part she’s just happy to be liberated from her good-for-nothing man.

By the end of this song, the band has aptly set the tone of Take Me Round Again: not only by the juxtaposition of Matthew’s gloom against Eleanor’s glee, but by the quality of the tunes themselves, which have been crafted with the elegant simplicity of popular American standards.  My personal favorite would be Eleanor’s coffeehouse-chanteuse-channels-The-Ramones version of “Cut The Cake,” but really, there isn’t a single number on this album that I wouldn’t want to hear at least ten more times.

Although The Fiery Furnaces embrace traditional songwriting more tightly this time around, traces of their oddball idiosyncrasies still turn up periodically.  For example, there’s the duet of impeccably out-of-tune guitar solos in Eleanor’s “Cut The Cake,” and Matthew’s 54-second instrumental “Drive To Dallas,” which sounds like a Sega Genesis theme song on fast forward.  Such touches should keep the long-time fans intrigued, and yet they’re fleeting enough that they probably won’t tempt casual listeners to reach for the skip button.

Speaking as one of those long-time fans (fell in love over five years ago, less than halfway through my first listen of their Blueberry Boat album), I’m especially grateful for Take Me Round Again.  I don’t get to listen to The Fiery Furnaces often, particularly around other people, most of whom don’t care for music bombarded by schizophrenic synthesizers and vocals that sound like shy, precocious, possibly autistic teenagers sing-speaking post-modern fiction.  Frankly, I’m not always in the mood for it myself.  But I can listen to the gentler sounds of Take Me Round Again in virtually any situation- going about my morning routine, getting through a stressful day at work, sipping red wine after midnight- and it always hits the spot.

Short Cuts: Julian Casablancas’ Phrazes for the Young

Matt T., November 25, 2009 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

It’s been nearly four years since the last Strokes record, and Julian has traded scuzzy garage rock for a poppier synth sound. The first few listens through the album, I loved it. It was great to hear one of the best voices in music again. But the more I listened, the more it’s flaws stood out.

Phrazes for the Young is short time wise, but with only 8 songs, each individual song is long and several feel so long they drag down the album. Having said that,  the album starts out with a bang. “Out of the Blue” is a fantastic song, it’s upbeat and peppy even as Julian ’sings a song of faded glory.’ “Out of the Blue” also has the best line on the album “Yes, I know I’m going to hell, in a leather jacket/ at least I’ll be in another world, while you’re pissing on my casket.’ The next two songs keep the theme established in the first song, they are upbeat and full of bright synths while reflecting on his past.

The album starts to lose steam with “4 Chords of the Apocalypse,” which is slower and dark, and grinds to a complete halt with “Ludlow Street,” a dirge-like ode to the good old days on Ludlow Street in New York. Pardon me while I yawn for a minute. I’m sure Julian thought this was a tribute but to the listener it sounds like whining and lame nostalgia. Complaining about yuppies seems inauthentic coming from Julian’s background. The last three tracks rebound to make it a solid disc, especially River of Brakelights.

Despite it’s shortcomings, I like the album, the first three songs are as good as anything he did with The Strokes and bodes well for the future. However, if he does do another solo album, I hope that he reigns in some of the synths and funeral procession songs.

Inaugural Podcast – Interview With Zach Barocas

Paul, November 24, 2009 in Interviews and Podcasts. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Hola amigos, here be the first of  a long series of 10Listens podcasts for your listening pleasure. We sat down with former Jawbox drummer Zach Barocas to chat about the remastered release of the band’s classic LP For Your Own Special Sweetheart.

Enjoy.

Download:  Zach Barocas Interview

Previously:  Jawbox: For Your Own Special Sweetheart (Remastered and Reissued 2009)

Jawbox: For Your Own Special Sweetheart (Remastered and Reissued 2009)

Jeff Laughlin, November 24, 2009 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Admittedly, I cheated on this review.  I only listened to the remastered version of For Your Own Special Sweetheart nine times before I wrote this.  But, to be fair, I’ve decided to count the decade of listens I have given the first version credit for the tenth listen.  Most of the writers here at 10 Listens could tell you a story about how Jawbox changed the way they listened to music or gave them a new penchant for rock-and-roll. A couple of them (Joe M. and Tedd, respectively) can tell you about how they played music differently after hearing FYOSS.  I can tell you that I came in late to the Jawbox party, but still made a lot of friends through the love of this album (Joe M. and Tedd, respectively). I can tell you that this was one of the albums that inspired all of us to want to write about music. Paul can regale you with his love of indie rock beginning with a copy of this album.

While all of this is true, it does not genuinely reflect the nature of this site.  The past shouldn’t matter, and the end and the means are all there is, right?  So, then, I should move diligently through the process of the remaster: the bass is turned way up, the guitars resonate more, the drums kick the ass they are supposed to and the vocals are a little cleaner.  Bob Weston did a fantastic job; top notch.  They also included their single, three extra tracks that are fantastic in their own right.  All in all, a necessary process for an amazing record.

But there is more.  There has to be.  There absolutely has to be.  There is no way to conquer a “review” of this record without discussing the past and getting personal.  And here it is: there is nothing about this record that should seem intensely personal.  The lyrics are a mish-mash of coded responses and defense mechanisms– an intrinsic pattern not exactly meant for appeal.  The drums are complicated, though impeccably timed.  The guitars are constantly moving against themselves, seemingly, and making clashes of exterior noise the norm rather than oddities.  Everything about this record is strange to digest.  Everything about it sounds like a plot against popular music.  It is cold and uninviting to the ear from the blast of feedback behind Burroughs’ William Carlos Williams’ ragged voice in “FF=66″ (codes!) to even the easily-digestible repetition in “Whitney Walks.”

And yet, invariably, this is one of the greatest, warmest, most coordinated and meticulously brilliant albums I’ve ever heard.  Yeah, that’s a complete contradiction.  But so was the sound, so was the band and so was the way the album came to be.  For Your Own Special Sweetheart is the girl in the teen romance that is dressed to not impress– the girl in dorky overalls and stupid glasses that could never catch anyone’s eye.  But the more you look at her, the more she speaks– the more she becomes Rachel Leigh Cook. The more you listen to the band’s earnest and amazing sense of timing, J’s amazing vocals, Zach impeccable snare hits, Kim’s ferocious (and now audible) bass and Bill’s sweet backing vocals and rock-outs, the more the album impresses you.  You, the listener were not supposed to love this record, and yet you simply had to.  Jawbox demanded attention and deservedly gained enough of it to make an album worth decades of critical acclaim.  They earned their reputation as influences on a generation of guitar rock.

Now, their vision is tuned up a notch. This is not merely a reissue, it is a reclamation.  Jawbox is reclaiming the ground they’ve given to the masses they imfluenced.  All of this, and they are doing it without trying to reinvent themselves or touring on tired legs– they are merely providing the rock world with a chance to hear their opus with fresh ears.  They are providing a backbeat to a not-so-distant past.  And that is why you can’t talk about this record without people telling you stories about where they first heard it, the riffs they ripped off, the effect this album had on them or, now, the joy they’ll feel when they hear a revamped version of their favorite songs.

You can’t love an album so completely, be more defined by its brilliance and talk about it like it is just another band trying to cash in on a trend of resurfacing 90s indie acts.  You can, however, listen to it over and over again, make your friends listen again and hope that a decade or more later, they get it this time.  The faults of this band and this album.  The faults, the cracks and the sense of not belonging are the exact reason this album destroys.  Enhancing the faults and cranking them up loud is the next step.  Finally, For Your Own Special Sweetheart can drone you out while you talk about how awesome it is.

Note: be sure to check out our interview with Jawbox drummer Zach Barocas in our inaugural 10Listens podcast.  Yeah, we did that.

Short Cuts: Converge’s Axe To Fall

Jeff Laughlin, November 23, 2009 in Music Reviews. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

I’ve wanted to write a book called “What We Talk About When We Talk About Metal.” I don’t want to write it to be smarmy or make a bunch of points about how metal is overlooked or beautiful in its own right.  I don’t want to poke fun at metal folks or make grand points about the habitually overused riffs and shitty lyrics.  You see, I like metal– albeit a certain brand of metal.  I have a go-to list of angry albums, ones that nurture me through the shittiest of days.  No, my book would just be conversations people have while listening to metal.  Put on an album like Converge’s Axe To Fall in a group setting sometime.  You will notice changes instantaneously and not just people’s eyes rolling or someone asking what the hell you are playing.

Axe To Fall is a disaster of riffs (compliment) and a study in how to sustain destruction for a long period of time.  For nine songs, the listener hardly gets a break from insane drumwork, persistent screaming and an overall sense of enlightened-yet-disheartened, emotive lyrics.  What I talk about when I talk about this album: shit is brutal for awhile; a long while.  Then, the album shifts to downtempo indie riffs for the last couple of songs– almost as if the band has decided to let the listener settle for a shelter after a tornado ripped the roof off of their house.

The album is piercing, destructive and whirlwind, yet there’s a sense that there’s too much going on at times.  A cavalcade of guest stars litters the songs– spare riffs from some of their favorite musicians, though they are not the selling point of the album, thankfully.  These extra solos and level of grating noise don’t hinder, but rarely help the band.  They earmark certain tracks and falsify others– at times the album’s production overshadows its sole purpose.  The purpose of metal is not to educate or reason: it is to destroy.  Pure, simple destruction.  And this album does that most of the time.  And I’m cool with it.  What I talk about when I talk about Converge: kicking ass. Axe To Fall certainly kicks ass, so there’s not much to talk about, actually.  Just listening is enough.

Them Crooked Vultures: Them Crooked Vultures

Joe O., November 19, 2009 in Music Reviews. 2 Comments Tags: .

Hard rock fanboys like myself could hardly avoid having lofty expectations for Them Crooked Vultures, the long-awaited collaboration between Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones.  As we headbangers take our first spins through this album, we might spend less time appreciating how much ass it kicks and more time coming to terms with the fact that it could never possibly live up to the earth-shattering standards we probably assumed it would surpass.  But after a couple of listens or so, once any unrealistic high hopes wear out their welcomes, Them Crooked Vultures proves itself a record to be reckoned with.

Beginning with “No One Loves Me & Neither Do I,” all of the band’s super-grouped parts come swaggering out of the gate.  Jones and Grohl show off an immediate chemistry, with strutting, stuttering, Bonzo-worthy grooves, while Homme conjures up his usual hot-rod riffage and tongue-in-cheek, honey-voiced sleazebag routine (”If sex is a weapon, then smash-boom-pow/ how ya like me now?”)  The foreplay lasts about two and a half minutes, then the band pauses to catch its breath after the bridge…and detonates a Godzilla-sized hole in the stereo for the second bridge.  It’s a simple, repetitive stomper fit for a pro wrestler’s entrance theme, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t unleash my inner Beavis, thrashing his devil-horn fingers to the sky and screeching yes-yes-yes!

Next, “Mind Eraser, No Chaser” steps on the gas with an ode to drug-induced oblivion (”Gimme the reason why the mind’s a terrible thing to waste/ ‘Understanding is cruel,’ the monkey said as it launched to space.”)  Grohl gets to sing the catchiest half of the chorus, and his youthful enthusiasm provides an appealing contrast against Homme’s cucumber cool.  Too bad it’s the only (sigh) track on the album where the Foo Fighter sings in the foreground.

The hot streak of radio-ready tunes continues with “New Fang” and “Dead End Friends,” until the bloated midsection of the record arrives.  “Scumbag Blues” is worthwhile at least for the kick of hearing Jones get funky on the clavinet just like he did on Physical Graffiti, although the tracks that surround it aren’t always as fun.  “Elephants,” “Bandoliers,” and “Reptiles” feature some decent licks, the occasional humorous lyric (”Slick back my hair/ you know the devil’s in there”), and some interesting dynamics courtesy of the legendary rhythm section, but they’re not quite enough to rescue the songs from filler territory.

By the time we hear “Interlude With Ludes”- which sounds exactly how its title advertises- it feels like it’s a little too late.  It’s not a great song per se, but its effect as a trippy oasis amid the heavy metal maelstrom might have been more potent if it were closer to the middle of the record.  However, situated two-thirds of the way through, after a string of mostly mid-tempo numbers, it becomes as diluted as a shot of absinthe in three pints of water.

“Warsaw Or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up” isn’t a particularly well-written song either, although the four-minute jam in the second half offers some more refreshing textures when its Texas blues boogie seamlessly descends into a woozy rabbit hole.  The following tracks also mix up the styles while bringing back the hooks- “Caligulove” with its throbbing neo-pagan orgy, and “Gunman” with its sci-fi Bowie disco.  Then on the overlong “Spinning In Daffodils,” Them Crooked Vultures plods toward its close.  Finally, it fades out with the last of three haunted carnival-type codas that appear scattered throughout the album.

I find it hard to tell exactly what purpose these seemingly incongruous codas serve, aside from occasionally lightening the record’s mood without sacrificing its twisted edge.  The fanboy in me hopes they might also be some kind of attempt to establish Them Crooked Vultures as an actual band with a unique identity, instead of merely a one-time lark.  Because if these dudes keep at it, learn to trim the fat, maybe let the drummer sing on a few more songs, who knows- they just might make an umitigated classic album one of these days.

Cold Cave: Love Comes Close

Kris, November 18, 2009 in Music Reviews. 3 Comments Tags: , .

Doing my pre10 research on Cold Cave got me damned excited for the record. Lead dude Wesley Eisold was also lead dude in American Nightmare, a band that I enjoyed very much earlier in this decade. Cold Cave’s initial CS/EPs (which I hadn’t heard) were released through the venerable Hospital Productions and last year Eisold played under the Ye Olde Maids moniker with Major Stars, probably my favorite hometown band.

So bring on Love Comes Close the LP released this month on Matador, I thought. Give it to me ten times. Unfortunately, what I ended up with was a record that had worn out it’s welcome a few spins before the 10th. Well, except for one track that is undoubtedly one of my favorites of the year. Weird.

Opener, “Cebe and Me” opens with a promising stutter step of electronic feedback coupled with an insistent bassline of similar digital lineage. But, the spoken word vocals of Caralee McElroy (formerly of Xiu Xiu, dammit why don’t I love this record??) are produced with so much affectation she sounds like nothing so much as an airport recording telling you not to park in the loading zone. Like most of the record it’s a song that lost both it’s emotional and visceral connections with me by not being interesting enough to be as repetitive as it is.

Hitting listen 7 on the title track or “The Trees Grew Emotions And Died” or “Youth And Lust” the less than dynamic synth lines repeated for entire lengths of songs, and we’re talking 4 minute songs here, were almost completely disengaging. Perhaps the biggest disappointment with Eisold involved is that the lyrics don’t help. This is a crucial strike on a record where so little else is going on. The man who once cut to the quick with sharp bruising lines like “City lights and colder nights/I’m innocent besides the fights” is now giving us “A synthetic world without end sheds a tear of plastic deception.” Eep.

Having said all this, I’d also like to say that all is nearly forgiven for the perfect slice of weirdo vocal delay pop on track 3, “Life Magazine”. The sprightly (and multipart!) synth lead grooves over some seltzer fizz feedback while McElroy’s echoing vocals do their own rhythm work. And I think she says “Wiseau.” The song ends with her repeating the phrase “not going back,” and everything about “Life Magazine” makes you believe it’s off to somewhere great. If only it could bring the rest of this inexplicably unaffecting record with it.

Pelican: What We All Come To Need

Jon Mayes, November 17, 2009 in Music Reviews. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

More often than not, instrumental music like Pelican’s is an exercise in patience. Stringing together one riff after another, repeating 15 more measures and moving on to the next has a pretty narrow window of success. You have to either have a really powerful, emotional, interesting riff or something that – adding up to the rest – makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. What We All Come To Need is a solid but confusing effort from the Chicago quartet. Honestly I’ve never been a fan of doom/sludge metal, stoner or even post-rock. But Pelican has elements of all four without fitting properly so I didn’t know how to approach the album. With the exception of a few moments, its message is kind of underwhelming.

The first track, ‘Glimmer’ offers a perfect example of what can go right when Pelican fires on all cylinders. It begins with the standard short buildup and jumps to just bludgeon you with probably the most beautiful and powerful melody on the album, keeping up the pace for the 7+ minutes. ‘The Creeper’ plods along at the start though, which can be forgiven as Larry Herweg’s drumming stands out and really projects itself as the best part of the album. It’s extremely solid and perfectly mixed. The man hits hard and it works by ratcheting up the overall energy of the band.

There are a few disappointing moments though, as the riff that anchors ‘Ephemeral’ feels out of place in its position in the song and doesn’t really have a preface or any sense of resolve.  There’s this little heavy breakdown that shows up in the middle that is just too short and I would have liked more energy out of them. There’s a nice uplifting break with “Strung Up From The Sky” but it was around this point that I realized that–much like my neighbors that share a common wall with my bedroom– there isn’t much relativity with their laborious pounding. You need the light to give the heavy its meaning.

Without the extra layer of lyrical melodies to rely on, it feels like something is missing, but you have to have respect for them to not use that as a crutch. “Final Breath” bucks the trend with some sparse vocals from Shiner and The Life and Times’ Allen Epley. Similar to The Fucking Champs drummer Tim Soete on IV’s Extra Man it seems like a limp response to the critics of instrumental riff-oriented rock. While they can write a song with vocals, in both examples it’s really only an exercise in melody rather than “completeness”.

I’m not going to use any abstract words like ’sublime’ or ‘incendiary’ to describe What We All Come To Need because I feel like I should give the same perspective to this review as they did to the album. It’s pretty unremarkable with some great moments mixed in. There are elements of intertwining texture and melody which are pushed back in some of the double tracking, rewarding the listener to approach from a different angle on subsequent listens, but it feels like a vanity license plate. It is a challenge to figure out at first and hardly ever clever. It’s tough to review an album that isn’t really for you. Any piece of art for that matter. What We All Come To Need feels very bland and inoffensive. It’s good mindless background driving noise, but not much else.

Short Cuts: MV & EE’s Barn Nova

Joe O., November 16, 2009 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Barn Nova, the latest record by the hyper-prolific musical collective known as MV & EE, resembles a majestic, gigantic, moderately psychedelic Appalachian tree. It’s rooted deep in the soil and its branches reach high enough to sway in the stratosphere. It’s a perfect place to spend an afternoon daydreaming in the shade, or an evening of stoned stargazing. Unfortunately, its biggest limitation is that it never really goes anywhere.

The album begins pleasantly and promisingly with a little sunny-morning ditty called “Feelin’ Fine.” Like all the songs here, it’s less of a composition than a sparse framework for various acoustic, electric and steel gee-tar licks to ramble, mingle and evaporate like wisps of incense smoke. The drums are pretty much there just to keep time and provide a minimal pulse, and Matt Valentine’s phantasmal, reverb-saturated vocals simply fill in the spaces where vocals are supposed to go. The second track, “Get Right Church,” picks up a funkier, trippier vibe while Erika Elder takes the mic and half-whispers a simple blues melody in her aloof sweetheart voice.

After listening to these tracks for the first time, I got my hopes up that Barn Nova would prove to be a special record, a beautiful marriage between the jaunty, half-cracked noodling of Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born and the sensual, shimmering haze of Mazzy Star’s So Tonight That I Might See. But then the album seems to lie down in the grass for a short weed nap, and it doesn’t quite recover. The wistful, ethereal “Snapperhead” evokes little more than a scrapped outtake from The Flaming Lips’ sessions for The Soft Bulletin. “Summer Magic” features flashes of inspired guitar heroics, including some by special guest star J Mascis, but those moments occur far between wide stretches of oppressively melancholy atmosphere. Around the 10-and-a-half minute mark of another fitfully engaging dirge called “Bedroom Eyes,” the drums start to rev up, as if the band’s finally ready to set the controls for the heart of the sun and blast off. To my dismay, those triple-time drum fills amount to nothing more than a tease, and the song fizzles to a close less than thirty seconds later.

In a folky Neil Young-like ballad called “Fully Tanked,” Valentine asks, “How can I miss you if you never leave?” and whenever I hear it, I can’t help but be reminded of how I feel about Barn Nova; though I have a soft spot for MV & EE’s laid-back intoxication, I tend to easily lose patience when they drift through the valleys because they so rarely explore the peaks.

The Almighty Defenders: The Almighty Defenders

Joe O., November 4, 2009 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: .

The Almighty Defenders illustrates what can go terribly wrong and wonderfully right when you make a record in a fevered rush.  The songs that don’t work suffer from excessive self-indulgence and half-baked ideas that feel more like inside jokes than enjoyable music.  But when the record works, it buzzes with the bottled-lightning vibe of an unforgettable concert album– only instead of being recorded on a hi-tech sound board in a sold-out arena, it sounds like it was taped in some underground night club where shrunken heads hang on the walls and strangers offer you drugs you’ve never heard of.

This collaboration between members of Black Lips and The King Khan & BBQ Show kicks off to a rollicking start on “All My Loving.”  Driven by ramshackle garage punk, gloriously drunken soul singing, simple but strong hooks and contagious passion, the song sets the tone for the best of what’s to come.  Even though “The Ghost With The Most” slows the pace to a zombie sway on track 2, neither the fun nor the urge to dance ever diminishes.  “Bow Down and Die” keeps the party going, capturing the spirit of a bunch of college dudes singing along at last call as the jukebox plays Motown hits.

The album reaches its peak on a gem called “Cone Of Light” that could pass for a long-lost jam session between The Stooges and Sam Cooke.  As with the rest of the songs here, the lyrics are often obscured by distortion, distance and reverb, which might frustrate some listeners.  The lack of clarity hardly matters to me, though.  Singer Mark Sultan could be recounting a memory of a boyhood trip to the ice cream shop, and even if that were the case I wouldn’t love this song any less.  Whatever the story is, Sultan tells it like it was one of the happiest moments of his life, and his joy comes through loud and clear above the fuzzy, muddy racket.

So it’s extra disappointing that right after “Cone Of Light,” the record screeches to a halt.  I’m not sure if the fifth track, “Jihad Blues,” is supposed to be edgy or darkly funny (”Give me a box-cutter and a one-way ticket,”) but I do know that its questionable taste could be redeemed by a good tune.  Alas, there’s barely a melody here, and the song writhes and wails like a wounded walrus.

To make matters worse, it’s followed by two consecutive interludes of generic garage-rock riffing possessed by cartoon voices that bark, howl, cackle and grunt when they’re not imitating The Three Stooges or Jim Carrey.  I tried to lighten up and let these tracks grow on me each time I listened to the album.  Really, I did.  But ultimately, I remain convinced that I could have tolerated this kind of nonsense as harmless, goofy fun if only it were condensed into a thirty-second palate-cleanser.  Spread over two tracks and three whole minutes, though, this part of the album approaches tedium.  At least the band members sound like they’re having a blast.

The Almighty Defenders temporarily regains its spark as the band repeats its winning lo-fi soul-punk formula.  There’s a feisty cover of The Mighty Hannibal’s “I’m Coming Home,” followed by the moseying “Over The Horizon” and the finger-snapping “She Came Before Me.”  Then the album dies a slow, painful death on the closing track, “The Great Defender,” which delivers a five-minute sermon over a 1950s horror-movie synth.  Here, the frequently incoherent lyrics actually pose a problem.  Sure, we can tell that the vocals belong to a caricature of a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher, but unlike Mark Sultan’s Sam Cooke homage on “Cone Of Light,” the voice doesn’t make for an entertaining listen by itself.  Maybe if we could tell whether the sermon had a more original or complex message beyond “REPENT SINNERS!” then it might have served some interesting purpose.  As it is, it’s just boring, abrasive noise.

Of course, “The Great Defender” might have a key function in the band’s apparent concept of themselves as a post-modern gospel outfit.  While I appreciate their ambition and willingness to experiment, I find this pretension unfortunate and unnecessary; The Almighty Defenders already do well by playing songs that could have been top-40 hits in the late ’60s.  After all, when you’re cranking out an album during an eight-day bender, you’re probably better off listening to your gut more than your head.