(With all the excitement of Steve Martin in The Jerk upon discovering his new phonebooks…) The new Lemonheads is here! The new Lemonheads is here! My goose has been all up in a gander anticipating the new album. Evan Dando recorded it with reigning punk rock producer Bill Stevenson of The Descendents working the boards (and drums). J. Mascis’ guitar geniusly underscores this track. I know Lemonheads fans were hoping for a return to form. Sounds like they got it…
Red Bennies
It appears the Red Bennies couldn’t care less. Their website lists shows from back in April. The only trace of live shows on their myspace page are from comments of other bands, posting flyers for recent shows. What gives? Where y’all at? Would somebody from Salt Lake check in and give us an update? Pretty please. I was slimming down my music collection and came across a couple albums I picked up back from my time in their town. They’ve veered away from their thick, noisy, gain-up-hot, Helmet from hell sound (“Provo Cries” and “Tyler”) and honed in on their lo-fi rock ‘n’ roll soul (“I’m Coming Home” & Shake It Off”). Soul-Fi if you will. To put them in a 3hive context for you, they’d align nicely with Cold War Kid’s improvisational reach for rock’s primacy, and Midlake’s recent take on nostalgia but leaning past the 70s to rough up Smokey Robinson a tad. And no, the Red Bennies were NOT thinned from my collection.
Hands Down Eugene
Hailing from Nashville, uh Indiana, Hands Down Eugene is yet another of the fine acts featured on Delicious Berries, MusicalFamilyTree.com‘s cool compilation of Hoosier bands. MFT had the entire Hands Down Eugene EP Full Blast available for free download, so here it is. With a rotating cast of musicians and a little weirdness thrown into the pop-rock mix, there’s probably something here for everyone.
The Autumn Project
No, summer ain’t over, but the kids are back in school, which means it’s essentially autumn. Des Moines, Iowa’s The Autumn Project and their post-rock sounds, then, provide us with our first assignment of the school year. Their 2003 LP Fable is a case study in the genre, full of monsterous guitar soundscapes and crashing cymbals. Their latest A Burning Light is darker and more focused, as demonstrated by doing a little compare and contrast between “Of Memorium” from Fable and the newer “Between the Smoke & Mirrors.” Five paragraphs, double-spaced. Due tomorrow.
Bel Auburn
Bel Auburn is a quintet from Ashland, an idyllic Ohio town some distance southwest of Cleveland. I say idyllic despite never having been there because the sweeping soundscapes that Bel Auburn have created are anything but ugly and uninspiring. In fact, these tracks, all from the band’s second self-released LP, Lullabies in A & C, are about as anthemic, emotive, and polished as you’ll find from a group of friends living off the cultural grid. It’s reminiscent of Coldplay or early Jimmy Eat World, the latter of which Bel Auburn claim as an influence. The lyrics can drift into codes known only by their author, but once a warm blast of guitar kicks in and Matt the lead singer lets go with a cathartic chorus, you’ll know exactly what Bel Auburn mean even if you have no clue what they’re talking about.
(Selected tracks are linked below; visit the Bel Auburn Website to download the rest of the album.)
North Valley Subconscious Orchestra
Medicine played in Memphis right before I got home from college one summer, but my brother Josh and our friend Andy saw them and even visited with them at the Admiral Benbow Inn (just recently demolished). They learned that Medicine’s wicked guitar feedback was achieved by running Brad Laner’s guitar through a four track and turning all the knobs up. We spent that whole summer trying to get a four track to mimic a distortion pedal with no success. Brad Laner, we determined, was a genius. Which is probably why I recently Tivo-ed the movie “The Crow,” just so I could see that scene of Medicine playing “Time Baby,” trying to get a glimpse of his guitar setup. Now Laner and fellow guitarist Christopher Willits, as North Valley Subconscious Orchestra, are releasing another feast of guitars on Ghostly’s digital download-only album The Right Kind of Nothing. More melodic feedback, anyone?
Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s
MusicalFamilyTree.com, a website dedicated to spreading the word about and sharing the music of Indiana bands, recently released the Delicious Berries compilation, and it is awesome. Fresh voices, ambitious sounds — I wish someone here in Michigan would tap into our local talent the way the MFT folks have. For my weekly posts in August, I’ll be featuring bands from the compilation, because it really is that good. The first, Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s, starts the disc, and with its deal on Artemis is likely one of the most commercially successful of the bands on Delicious Berries. The tracks below, full of quiet harmonies and pop hooks, are taken from their 2005 album The Dust of Retreat.
Spencer Dickinson
Ain’t nobody ever needs to doubt Jon Spencer and the Dickinson brothers’ blues. What they’re doing may be a tad less “blue†than the genre’s down-and-out Mississippi Delta roots, but Spencer, the brothers in the band and father Jim producing have been keeping the blues fresh (and let’s not forget Fat Possum Records) all of those years that your dad has fallen for those suburban guitar prophets with top-flight training and no sorrow. Granted, “That’s a Drag†is about as sorrowful as Spencer Dickinson’s blues get, but give me the sound of a night of hard livin’ over an AOR darling any day.
Peppertree
Summertime rules. And it’s got the best of the 3hive crew as we can’t seem to remember who’s posting when, who’s filling in for who when the latter who’s vacationing. But not even summer can stop us even while it’s trying to melt us all. New music everyday, or damn near close. Today’s selection is Peppertree: soaring, dramatic rock from Québec. A nice interplay between opposites (acoustic/electric, English/French, soft/loud) gives off an air of dramatic tension, without giving into overt thespianism. If you’ve been searching for Radiohead’s French Canadian cousin, you’ve found them.
Relay
Let’s get this straight from the start: the band named Relay contained herein is the one from Philly, not Delaware, Jersey, England, or (for cryin’ out loud) Utah. This Relay is a purveyor of shoegaze updated for the new millenium. Well, perhaps not that updated, but Relay are putting out some fine shoegaze in our current millenium, reminiscent of those shoegazer stalwarts from the early 90’s, Drop Nineteens (who were from Delaware, even though this is NOT the Relay from Delaware). Relay’s Type/Void EP is out on Bubblecore on August 8th.