Author Archive for Jeff Laughlin

Page 2 of 5

Medications: Completely Removed

Jeff Laughlin, April 27, 2010 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I’m beginning to think Medications can do no wrong.  Whether it’s long classic rock riffs and solos, late 90s indie or mathy pop, they have a strong, coordinated sense of melody.  In the five years since the last Medications record, something changed.  The songs are less complicated, but more dynamic.  The flow of the album is more together and solid.  Medications, as a band, took a break from trying to outplay themselves and decided to put out a pretty straightforward rock record.  It’s not so surprising that three overly competent musicians could make this work.  It is, however, surprising that it works so well.

The difference lies in the song structures.  Instead of tight, rigid lines between bridges and choruses, they meander a bit more.  The solos last longer, the vocals interplay more, the light, airy feel missing from from the noisier but brilliant former releases is replaced by, well, fun.  This album really doesn’t feel like work.

Instead, Completely Removed feels like the points have been proven, now it’s just time to kick ass.  It takes a lot to make me stop thinking so critically about an album and admire the personality of it after a pair of listens.  But this entire process (aside from a broken ipod and no time to write reviews) has been so pleasurable that I almost don’t want to spoil it.  I don’t want to criticize this record, so I am reticent to tell people about it.  If I do, I just send a song and say, I like this.

How could I not, though, mention the light horns behind “Postcards,” the brilliant lyrics of “Home Is Where We Are,” the alt-country backbeat of “Country Air” or the slow, simmering brilliance of “Brasil ‘07?”  I can’t go without mentioning that every song is a stand-alone gem while the album still flows like water downhill.  This album is a tributary that gets bigger and better as it rollicks loudly down the mountain.  It’s a beautiful testament to how rock music should be made, yet it is not self-aware enough to admit it.  Too much metaphor?  See, I’m rambling.  As “Tame on the Prowl” suggests, this album is, “Breath filling lungs.”

Completely Removed is near-perfect motion in eleven equal parts.  Not too many albums can claim that.  Still, the musicians would admit the album isn’t saving anything, claiming dinosaur status or making any changes to the music scenes in D.C. or anywhere else.  I don’t want it to.  I just want to have a beer and let the album go.  I want to stop talking about it, to tell you the truth.  Damn all these metaphors.  I should have just kept this review simple.  I should have said what I knew from the second I put it on.

I like this.

First Listen: Medications’ Completely Removed

Jeff Laughlin, April 19, 2010 in Initial Response and Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , .

What an apt album title.  Medications’ third release came earmarked with a five-year wait and a completely different sound.  Like a complicated version of an early 2000s pop band, Completely Removed ambles less angularly than they have in the past, but with the same anachronistic fervor the musicians brought to their former albums and bands.

I’m confused– bewildered really– as to what they are trying to accomplish, but excited nonetheless to continue hearing this.  NOTE: In fact, I am so excited that I have since listened 6 more times on the weekend and will be churning out a review in the next two days. Subtly complex, I get the feeling that this album will open up nicely and grow on me, uh, completely.

Red Sparowes: The Fear Is Excrutiating But Therein Lies the Answer

Jeff Laughlin, April 15, 2010 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , .

There are all these makeshift ideas floating around in my brain-ether.  All of them have command-response techniques. They await triggers.  Sometimes they await a noise, sometimes a motion, sometimes knowledge. I’d like to think that my more advantageous thoughts roam around the sides of my head– avoiding boring triggers and awaiting the right ones to float through.  I’d like to think that best of me comes from the best situations, that is, and that my neurons are captivated and capitulated by energetic means.

Red Sparowes, for instance, seemingly bring out the best in me.  The Fear Is Excrutiating But Therein Lies the Answer is a destructive wall of an album.  One that breaks and bends with the gales of the mind.  Each note is a guess as to where my most productive neurons are hiding.  This album coaxes and culls me into wellness.  Bright, vibrant, striking chords and notes shimmer to cause ripples and reactions.

“A Swarm” measures my height and weakens my ankles.   Steel guitar overlaps the songs at its languid beginning and bountiful drums drive the song to its decisively triumphant apex.  As all returns, it is clear that I have heard the promise and specter that haunts all of us.  I have the heard the counting off of my death rattle and the very essence of my marrow.  This is what Red Sparowes do; what they are alive to do.  They make music to inspire the very salt of thought.

“Giving Birth To Imaginary Saviors” demands my attention.  The song interrupts the seething nest of negativity that inhabits the cities and engages the easier positives like a step forward after traffic ceases or driving through a yellow light.  As the song ascends, all is forgiven.  Imperatives are forgotten.  The sweet dulcet of imaginary wars beckon the nectar.

It’s all here, everywhere. Sounds: gravel under moving tires, a child laughing on a bus, cracking knuckles, the clack of hail on a windshield.  Motions: stretching upon waking, rubbing a dog’s belly, fingering off the dust of the TV screen.  Knowledge: the good neurons are winning, it doesn’t matter that you got sick fam or that he/she ain’t coming back no more or that it’s so much in this world that you just can’t bear witness to the mechanics of work.  No, you rest and let “In Illusions of Order” ebb you closer to the instrumental sanity you describe to anyone who will listen.

Listen, for one second, just listen.  Talking has to cease for just 40 minutes or so and we just listen.  Along the sides of our heads, the passionate neurons await their triggers.  Rise, Red Sparowes, until all of us are allowed to sit peacefully “As Each End Looms and Subsides.”  Once that happens, we can all die happy and alone.  It was the only way we knew when we were born.  Drop and destroy, defy and desecrate, but all I ever wanted was to stand still amongst the definite.  This album is definitely that; definite.  Definitively, even.  Let it deafen us to the drudgery of defeatism.  Listen and it will trigger.

Short Cuts: Statik Selektah’s 100 Proof, The Hangover

Jeff Laughlin, April 15, 2010 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Wait, wait.  A Hip-hop album without Wu involved? On 10Listens? I know what you are thinking… it’s impossible.  Just because it has never happened, doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

That said, it’s hard to listen to a rap album ten times in a short amount of time.  It is for me, at least.  Hip-hop gets into me and forces my hand to tremble at the thought of doing anything more than analyzing the words.  Albums of people talking to you, rhythmically, are hard to write or talk over.  They pause my motion and demand my full attention.

This can be good, but it can also destroy an album’s credibility quickly.  I can get very tired of cliches: you own guns, you fuck women, you have money, you sell drugs, you have killed people.  Established.  Got it.  How clever can you be in delivering those ideas to me, and can you be talented while driving the point home?  And this is to say nothing of the beats.

All that said, Statik Selektah delivers on his beats.  Whether the rapper is as gruff and explicit as Freeway (his pornographic verses actually caused me to shutter at points) or as smooth as Talib Kweli’s (one of his best verses in years is on here), Statik kills it with consistency.  Nothing makeshift exists on this album– everything is well thought out and crafted with the artist in mind and the listener in tow.

The artists kill it too for the most part.  I can’t complain often, despite the brashness and repetition of coke-rap and kills shots.  To be perfectly honest, I like that shit when it is done well.  This album has clever rhymes, good flows, and ill beats.  What the hell else am I looking for?  Cop it.  Maybe by the time you do, I will have found another rap album to obsess over.  And, hell, maybe even review.

ArpLine: Travel Book

Jeff Laughlin, April 8, 2010 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

From the outset of Travel Book, Arpline wants you to know that they love sound.  The pulsating bass and shifting keyboards immediately grasp you and let you know, “we own this sound. There will be no mistakes.”  I was quite inclined to agree.  Relying heavily on repetition, both with rhythm and synth, Arpline have created a dense album passing as frivolous footwork.  What would normally pass as fancy is simple, and that is a tough feat to accomplish.

As I mentioned in my first listen, it could be easy to dismiss Travel Book as danceable indie rock or even create some lame new term like prog-dance or some such nonsense.  Reviewers long ago exhausted the idea of new terms and labels (excluding chillwave– the greatest music moniker in decades), so I am going to go with an oft underused adjective: good.  This is a good album, driven by competency, an appreciation of purposeful noise and lyrical simplicity.  Listening to this album without thought is nearly impossible.  It weaves and darts impressively from song to song, creating a delicate balance between digestible pop and dark, vibrant rock.

Case in point, the albums two strongest songs: “Parts Unknown” and “Cap.”  “Parts Unknown” jumps and thrashes with intense repetition and a grooved bassline that belie the lyrical prowess. “Waking up with no one/ you can never have enough” is in and of itself a baiting line, but over a barrage of different rhythmic substructures, the line is ever more standoffish– more staid than it would be given a straightforward guitar-drums-bass approach.  The synth beat pulsates and drives and the staccato vocals pound home the point.  Its the amalgamation of style and substance; execution and planned opulence of sound.

“Cap” is, by the standards of the album, a slow jam.  It starts with rattling noise that transmogrifies into a backbeat, matching slow-moving drums and bass.  The vocals shapeshift to a softer, more melodic touch from the normal fixed-tone that overpowers the songs (not such a bad thing once you listen a few times, trust me).  A dark pair of guitar melodies pipe in halfway through, proving the textural nature is no accident.  The band bridges between sated and tipsy to coiled and destructive in seconds, but neither is too voluminous or dark.

As the albums weans toward the end, with “Game” and “Rope,” the band does tend to wear down.  “Game” is an especially tedious number, weaker in constitution than its three predecessors. If it stood alone, it would garner more attention.  “Rope” is a longer track that takes awhile to warm up before intensity attacks the listener– there’s a full two minutes before the vocals kick in.  “Rope” is an outro with a memorable grasp, in other words.  It’s actually a good way to describe the band itself.

They are a band with a memorable grasp of  sound, what they expect from themselves and what they intend to make.  It’s not often a record of this aptitude makes such an impression.  Normally, the dismissal process rears its ugly head just in time for the band to try and refine some new sound or correct themselves with some makeshift malleability tot he people.  Travel Book is edgy without having to be.  It’s methodical. It’s terse. It’s not perfect, but it’s good.  If good is making a comeback, then Arpline may lead the charge.  If it’s retro or dance or some sort of “wave” then they may as well quit now.  They are already better than their upcoming label.

Want the album? You should. SHIT’S FREE.  Go on. Take it. Nobody’s looking.

Tallest Man on Earth: The Wild Hunt

Jeff Laughlin, April 6, 2010 in Music Reviews. 1 Comment Tags: , .

Grandiose and sweeping lyrics aside, Kristian Matsson seems like a simple man.  His ideas are like most singer-songwriters.  They are simple themes on nature, love, life and the liberty of mind we all seek to express– whether it’s twittering about some article we wrote or the simple questions we get from roommates upon returning home from work.  The difference in The Tallest Man on Earth– Matsson’s alter-ego– is that his answers are veiled, referential and more gorgeous than anything most people can muster.

The emotive and pressing nature of writing has always come second nature for me. Understanding other artist’s works took a great deal of time to comprehend. I knew, for instance, that I liked music and certain lyrical styles, but only recently did  try to figure out why.  Thing is, I’m still not sure why The Wild Hunt appeals to my direct core.   Or any album for that matter. I just know they do.

TMOE is at his best when he is wildly meandering; guitar notes and metaphors refracting and bouncing off of one another. “Burden of Tomorrow” shows off his gravelly vocal range the best, “King of Spain” showcases his imaginative and linguistic abilities and “You’re Going Back” best earmarks his ability to mix emotional discomposure with a detached knowledge.  Like a preacher, he can force you to listen with his boisterousness, but he can’t make you believe.

And you can hear, especially in “You’re Going Back,” his presence of mind to distance himself from the pain of that knowledge.  Often, in fact, it seems The Wild Hunt is testifying to an unheralded audience.  Mattison is playing these songs to no one in particular with the kind of passion a songwiter usually reserves for an intended target.  “I could roll you to hell/ I could swim from your heaven/ I could drive you so safe/ I could walk you to here,” contradicts later with him, in a loud, declarative voice: “You said driver please/ don’t go that fucking way./ You said just let it go away…” before repeating his first aforementioned verse.

Is he the driver? Is he the speaker? To whom is he speaking? Does it matter? In “King of Spain” he runs through a list of fake accomplishments, a cavalcade of his possibilities and dispassionately heroic (and somewhat misogynistic) possibilities: “If you could redirect my name/ I want to be the King of Spain.” He works through everything from his clothes to his way with the Bulls of Pamplona.  He talks of senoritas throwing themselves at him and ability to flamenco dance. He boasts of unimaginable talents.  All of this to avoid love.  Normally, these are the tactics of a man smitten, needing, wanting, lusting. Matsson is embracing an archaic and all-too-often ignored avoidance of love. He is rejecting the normal audince and creating his own.

We may never know to exactly whom TMOE is speaking, but we will forever know that he means what the hell he says.  In the second song on the album, “Burden of Tomorrow” he sets his path out for us: “Oh,  I was sent to find the lonesome place/ where I was lost but left a trace/ by carving riddles on the lonesome mind.” His path is not set with the normal ideas in mind, anyway. He is here for us to marvel and revere rather than understand, perhaps.

All of this close reading may seem pointless, but that’s what I do.   My struggle to understand often leaves jumbled messes meant for non-specific ears. Matsson actually organizes them and provides them for us to reconcile. He amasses a series of vague metaphorical ideas and leaves to us what stories are true or false, which ones we admire for their dexterity and which ones mystify us.

Me? I love every one of these songs. And for different reasons than I thought I would. I’m not any closer to understanding what I love about music or why. The Wild Hunt may not lead me there.  It will, however, continue to impress me no matter what I learn. “I walk upon the river like it’s easier than land./ Evil’s in my pocket and your strength is in my hand.” I’m not entirely sure about all that, but I know I love it.  Some albums you love without full knowledge.  This is one of them.

Marsh Hens: Filth Rattle EP

Jeff Laughlin, April 1, 2010 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Admit it, you like your music dirty.  You like the singer to warble, the guitars too loud and the drums filled with excess. You want the bass muddled and you want a record to sound like it was done live in one take.  You want your music to explode and recoil for short, periodic bursts.  You want to annoy house guests yet provoke argument.  Yeah, you want them to leave, but you want them to stay.  This is why bands play music: to piss us off and to cull us.  This is the reason we love it: we want to be pissed off and we want to be culled.

Filth Rattle, the band’s second self-released EP, is meant as an entity rather than an introduction.  The band is quite aware that you’ve heard this all before.  They are quite aware of the “nothing new under that lucky ole sun” routine so commonly preached from the back of old rockers’ mouths.  They are aware of what sells from the commercial hills of hip-hop to the backwater burghs producing chamber-pop indie songs.  They are aware of it all, and the Marsh Hens have a common goal.  Oh, it’s not distance.  Their goal is actually to be a little closer to you than you might think.

Opener “Rough House” is a bass-heavy number with an off-kilter beat that could be mistaken for sloppiness if not for precise instrumental work.  The vocals stumble frightened and unsure, though with purpose, like a fight not meant to happen.  “Different Drum,” a Linda Ronstadt cover, opens the original to a wealth of originality not unlike Screeching Weasel covering “Runaway” in the early 90s.  Though the comparison ends there, the energy brought to an already beloved song from decades ago shows what the band is/will be capable of on the EP.

The frantic energy of “Officer Moriarty” is a reconciliation of sorts.  Though unapologetic for “Different Drum’s” softer side, they are certainly making amends for straying from what is becoming a theme.  The vocals are manic and pulsating.  Ear-splitting, even, while the instruments move maniacally behind them.  The listener is reminded of the fragile nature of a song: this is delicately kick-ass, if you will.  And the energy continues as you flip the record; “God Laughs” is a slow jam in name only.  The song manages to balance shouting and panting with almost impatiently changing drums.  I feel for the guitarist and bassist while they keep up.

“Waterbug Beach” provides the final, penetrating glimpse of The Marsh Hens, musically at least, and the guitar/ rhythm interplay are at their finest here.  Each instrument is locked in and methodical.  Everyone is pacing perfectly and separating themselves at the same time.  The ebb-and-flow/give-and-take/etc., is the point of the songs.  Meant to push you away with their veracity but hook you with their precision, Filth Rattle motions to you, beckoning for your attention, but the band might just be happy without it too.  As the lead singer tells a story in his persona “Natey” to close the EP, it’s honestly not so bizarre as it is necessary to see them at their most vulnerable.  Acting out is normal even from those ignoring your need for calmness or easily digestible music. Admit it, you love that.

First Listen: Red Sparowes’ The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies The Answer

Jeff Laughlin, March 31, 2010 in Initial Response and Music Reviews. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

People, this is it.  We’ve all been looking for this record.  And it is ours.  The price of admission is to admit our love. And they even do that for us.  Big, swelling, destructive, instrumental, brilliant, lovely, yes.  Yes, yes, yes.

This record comes out on April 6th and the review will come soon. So, so soon.  Expect me not to lose my gushing fandom before then.

Short Cuts: Dr. Dog’s Shame, Shame

Jeff Laughlin, March 30, 2010 in Music Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The end result of frivolity is always negative in the movies and fables.  It’s unfortunate, really.  It’s almost as if an early lifetime of fun is a predestined journey: years of good times with a tragic fall from grace.  I’m planning my fall from grace for 2017, if you must know.  I’m actually pretty excited. Much more excited than I was before I heard this record.

See, I had assumed that Dr. Dog had begun their fall from grace long ago.  I also assumed I was going to dislike this album.  Thus, I again learn that assumptions are for suckers.  Shame, Shame is a fun ride through a series of influential sounds of the 60s and 70s with hints of originality sprinkled into it.  Marginal and terrifically recorded are often not complimentary to each other, but Dr. Dog is no ordinary band, apparently.

An ordinary band would have exhausted this sound long ago and fallen in love with the image side of rock records.  Isn’t that what undid so many good bands? The idea that they were bigger than music; bigger than their previous ideals?  It’s either that or exhaust their ideas in one, maybe one-and-a-half records.  Dr. Dog has proven they are not out of ideas and willing to continue writing solid songs that are neither over-the-top/aggrandized or overtly keen on anything but their own multi-faceted abilities.  Often, the explosion of instruments is enough to overpower awkwardly simple lyrics and well-tread song material.

In fact, they prove an old theory: it doesn’t matter how simple something is when made, so long as it is made passionately.  For awhile, I thought Dr. Dog had lost that quality.  Now, I realize I actually might have.  I never would have given this a shot if not for writing for this site, and now I have more good music to hang out with while hungover for it.  I can’t ask for much more than that. I get the feeling after hearing Shame, Shame Dr. Dog would have it no other way.

First Listen: Raekwon, Method Man and Ghostface Killah’s Wu-Massacre

Jeff Laughlin, March 30, 2010 in Initial Response and Music Reviews. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

This album sounds like more of a celebration than a true Wu-Tang release.  By shedding weight (i.e. the other members of Wu that aren’t prolific rappers anymore) and basking in their recent successes (tracks from OBFCL2 and the insanely brilliant “Yolanda’s House” from Ghost’s The Big Doe Rehab), the three have made a lo-fi return to their old-school styles.  this sounds more like a throwback than a step forward, but that’s not necessarily a criticism. In fact, the franchise has needed a full reprisal for some time.  It’s clear, too, that that cannot come from RZA’s beats alone.

All three drop nasty verses, silly lines and overall non-mechanical flows.  They enjoy working together more than drifting apart, to be certain (yes, I know they recorded shit separately).  This aura shines through the most: the energy and swagger is different than a normal recording session.  Meth, Ghost and Rae have a fun and stirring chemistry that was missing on 8 Diagrams or solo albums.  It’s all of them for all of us, and I’m excited to hear it more.  Expect a full review within a week to ten days.  The album drops today.