Enjoy this acoustic performance of new and old songs by Blind Adam & The Federal League
It doesn’t get much more Chicago than Blind Adam & The Federal League. Sure, maybe honky tonk-inspired rock n roll isn’t the city’s most notable musical export, but once you’ve spent enough time here, it’s easy to see how these whiskey-soaked tales of trials, tribulations, friendship, love, and loneliness are baked into the fabric of our lives. These songs come from a place of earnestness that speaks to every facet of the experience of living in the Windy City, all the highs and lows and, more importantly, the mundane moments spent reflecting on the life that Chicago allows you to build for yourself. It may never be able to live up to the promises it makes, but at least it promises something.
In advance of heading out on the road to support their new Mansions on the Boulevard 7-inch, the band stopped at Chicago’s Mystery Street Recording Company to play an acoustic set, featuring a collection of songs from their underrated self-titled album released last year, as well as a couple of newer songs (including “Mansions on the Boulevard,” possibly my favorite Blind Adam song to date).
The performance is stripped down, but maintains the energy that makes the band’s live shows such a memorable experience. Bonded by a mutual love for music and one another, The Federal League breathe life and complexity into Blind Adam’s alt-country anthems with dancing bass lines, unforgettable lead guitar parts, and engaging harmonies.
The video above contains the full five song performance, and when you’re done watching, do yourself a favor and check out their album.
The best band in the world just released a new song
Oh I’m so excited to say that my favorite band not only released a new song today, but announced a new album and tour. Presenting The National’s “You Had Your Soul with You,” the lead single from I Am Easy to Find. Following in the footsteps of Sleep Well Beast, this song features scattered drum patterns and angular guitars over a soft bed of keyboards and strings. It also features guest vocals from Gail Ann Dorsey, best known as a regular collaborator with David Bowie in the third act of his career.
While catchy and overall more upbeat and positive than the majority of Sleep Well Beast, “You Had Your Soul with You” proves to be a challenging single, not immediately easy to pin down, instead sort of happening all around you while you try to pull meaning from the sounds. I look forward to seeing the next stage of the band’s evolution. They seem to be bucking expectations and going in interesting directions that still feel natural.
The album will also feature “Rylan,” an older song that has been played live for years, and “Light Years,” which they started performing regularly after the release of Sleep Well Beast.
Trip out with Typesetter in their new “Technicolor” video
After a few spins of Typesetter’s album Nothing Blues, which was released last October via 6131 Records, it becomes readily apparent that this is a band dedicated to music as craft, with each member playing their part in search of the best possible version of every song.
Over the course of the band’s evolution, their sound has become something that is nearly impossible to describe with language (corny as it may be, it’s just something that has to be experienced to be understood), but on Nothing Blues, excellent songwriting and production come together with creative and proficient musicianship to crystallize Typesetter’s dense indie-punk hybrid style. Above all, the band seems to have an intrinsic or instinctual understanding that every song has to have that one moment. Something unique that defines what the song (and the larger idea the song is trying to communicate) is all about. Something that sticks in the mind of the listener long after the album is over. If nothing else, Nothing Blues is a masterclass in how to find the heart of a song and expand it into something bigger than the sum of the individual parts.
That being said, all of that is kind of thrown out the window with “Technicolor,” the literal centerpiece of the album. It’s a three minute and thirty second song that sounds much longer, sprawling through a web of chunky guitars, melancholy horns, and pounding drums. It’s kind of Typesetter’s thing to disorient the listener with a stunningly deep well of complexity that only unravels after multiple listens (a testament to the mixing on the record), and that trait is in full bloom on “Technicolor.”
The above video embraces many of these same qualities, leaning into the songs title and central theme of feeling trapped in RGB screen fatigue while you’re desperately trying to save your soul from being damaged by the era endless entertainment.
We’re getting funky with the new single from The Faint (!!!)
The one constant in our relationship over all these years is our mutual love for Saddle Creek Records. The Faint are probably the biggest outlier on the label’s roster, and they’re famous in our home for being basically the only dance/electronic band that Amanda listens to, so imagine our excitement when we found out they’ll be releasing their new album, Egowerk, on March 15.
Accompanying the album announcement is a new song called “Alien Angel.” Driven by a combination of smooth bass synths, a hypnotic looping keyboard melody, and a persistent electronic beat, the song hits all the right notes for fans of the band, with all the mood and atmosphere of the best ‘80s dark wave.
15 years after the release of the project’s last album, Pedro the Lion’s return begins with “Sunrise,” a synth-driven introduction that establishes the tone of melancholy optimism that defines their new album, Phoenix.
Dave Bazan (the group’s creative guide, though you’ve probably heard all this before) seems to be living in two timelines at once, constantly besieged by nostalgia and memories that he’s still processing (note the album’s collage-style cover art, the way that individual memories can be patched together to create something that feels or appears complete), while always being aware that he is also trying to make “the right” choices that will define his future. In that sense, it’s no surprise that these songs represent the return of Pedro the Lion, the project Bazan basically owes his career to, though it has probably caused as much emotional strife as it has been an outlet for those anxieties. For years, Bazan says he’s struggled with trying to find the best way to present his music, not only the public-facing moniker he uses, but also how much he should Control the sound and style of the final product, how much of himself should be present in what the audience hears. Based on what he’s released here with Phoenix, it seems that he’s stopped worrying about those things (to a degree).
Following “Sunrise” is “Yellow Bike,” a song where the primary narrative is rooted firmly in the past (the opening lyrics are “On a desert Christmas morning, 1981”), but where the titular construct is a tool used to carry oneself onward, into the next moment and onto the next place. The point here seems to be that Bazan has been on that yellow bike ever since that day (it even gets referenced again later in the song “Circle K”), looking for the places and people that can help him discover and understand where his story is going. He’s seeking something that can help him make sense of the experience of living. As he gets older, he also becomes more willing to hand over his “kingdom for someone to ride with,” an admission that this kind of meaning is found and understood best in terms of relationships and human interaction. He notes that you can learn from the “loners,” but you’ll always be missing something crucial if you hold too tightly to yourself. This feeling of isolation that results in “sitting alone here in my grown up mess,” or maybe feeling like your life is a mess to begin with is what causes us to push people away. Either way, without someone else around to listen and to grasp your life’s story, it can feel like you don’t actually exist at all. That’s why we need something like a bright, flashy yellow bike to ride around; we have a need to capture people’s attention, to make them want to hear all about us.
Phoenix as a whole is filled with these kinds of ideas, with images like model homes or fancy rental cars meant to represent these tangible items that we imbue with both the weight of history and the promises the represent for our future - the places we’ll go and the people we’ll become. Class aspiration seems to be a preoccupation of Bazan’s, how much time we all spend trying to find the “right” way to live, especially when we’re constantly being told what constitutes “progress” in life. He struggles with trying to balance what he’s told he should want and what he feels like he actually needs. It’s a fear of being lured into comfort and security at the expense of yourself, while also recognizing that those desires are at the core of what makes you human. “We got our model home, but what the Lord gives, he can take away,” he sings on the album’s final track “Leaving the Valley,” a song anchored by the phrase that plagues everyone’s experience, “How will you know when you’re finally home?”
These tracks are bathed in fuzzed out warm guitars that create a sense of hazy disorientation, mimicking the mental effects of memory, of being able to access all of these different versions of yourself and your life, and how much that can affect your ability to really grasp and interact with the present. This isn’t a grunge album, though; most of these songs are anchored with inviting grooves from the rhythm section (best examples: “Model Home,” “Quietest Friend,” Leaving the Valley,” and “Black Canyon”), making it easy to get lost in the music and let the guitars and melody wash over you.
But to pave the way to a better future, to a more fully realized version of yourself that is not anchored by the traumas or mistakes of your past (i.e., not “lost” in thought or hung up on old feelings or a desire to return somewhere that no longer exists), you must continue to learn and work at pulling yourself out of these traps of self-reference and self-pity. On “Clean Up” (as well as other places on the album, but most clearly here) this is represented by the stark difference in tone between the verses and choruses. The verses are a litany of bleak observations and a documentation of the narrator’s self-loathing at the messy state of his life. “I tried eternity and a couple of other drugs” and “I still get overwhelmed and think about giving up,” he sings. By contrast, the poppy choruses promise that salvation from this type of lifestyle is as easy to achieve as the melody is to sing, you just have to make a focused effort to (you guessed it) “clean up your stuff.” Of course, struggles with addiction or mental health aren’t that easy to overcome, but this narrator seems persistent that at some level, being able to flip that switch and adjust your perspective to believe it can be that easy is the crucial step in improving your situation.
And but what is it about modern western life that causes this kind of disorientation? This disconnection and isolation and desire to return to something simpler, something that you can only understand and appreciate now that you have the benefit of time away on your side (see: “Piano Bench” and “Circle K”). “Powerful Taboo” tackles — with no shortage of religious imagery — the idea that the root cause for most people are the social expectations that weigh on us. These are ideas that our inner selves reject, but which we adhere to anyway, until our hearts “turn blue.” And when you’re holding these things in, it begins to feel like you’re always waiting for your life to start, for your true and unbridled self to make an appearance. In “Model Homes,” Bazan ends with the refrain, “When will the wait be over?”
If these lyrics are any indication, religion obviously played a big role in Bazan’s childhood as something that grounded his family and provided some measure of comfort and connection, while also seemingly splitting his personality, dividing the inner self from the Dave Bazan who lives and interacts in the outside world. “Little clues half-hidden, but you can always smell which fruit you really wanna bite into,” he sings on “Powerful Taboo,” before, “You could light your way with what you’re desperately trying to hide.”
Still, whatever is under the surface is going to find a way out. This line of thought climaxes on “My Phoenix,” where the chorus’s rising chord progression eventually opens up on the final lyric, “My Phoenix will rise,” before spilling into the song’s tense main guitar riff. It’s a spiral of keeping everything in close, where chaos reigns, before eventually loosening your grip and relinquishing control to something higher inside and outside yourself. “Whether high and lifted up or the dust becoming dust, somehow I’m still in love.” The Phoenix being referenced is, perhaps, that light inside of us all. That true, pure self that becomes corrupted somewhere between our hearts and our heads. This understanding and admission of the complexities of inner life are something that can only be achieved with time and work, when you are committed to building a better future by diving into the experiences and ideas that shaped the person you are today. Self-actualization. It may be entirely improbable or unlikely, but if Phoenix tells us anything, it’s that Bazan would rather keep pushing than give up and wallow in what’s left.
When we spend too much time longing for something gone, for an idea of home that doesn’t exist anymore, we lose that opportunity to build something better for our future selves. Maybe the idea is that we’re never meant to have just one “home” in our lives. Maybe we are supposed to have many homes, and by extension, many lives. Maybe that’s what we learn when we’re “finally done running.”
North Carolina’s most celebrated pop-punk band, the intelligent and introspective Dollar Signs, recently released a new EP called I Need Some Space.
Accompanied by artwork featuring a beautiful rendering of a classic still from Alan Moore’s Watchmen graphic novel (aka, one of my favorite books), this four-song collection offers reimagined versions of older Dollar Signs songs, harkening back when the project was a more straightforward folk punk act primarily helmed by singer/guitarist Erik Button. Now that the group has been fleshed out by a roster of excellent musicians (a fact that is secondary only to the quintet’s undeniable chemistry together), they’ve decided to “give them new life.”
Like everything Dollar Signs has done in the last few years (including last year’s incredible full length, This Will Haunt Me), the new versions of these songs maintain the spirit and energy of punk rock, but with added nuances or layers in the arrangements that give each song it’s own unique spin, such as the rockin’, Roseanne-theme song quality guest harmonica on “2011.”
The collection also emphasizes the ways in which Dollar Signs have and haven’t changed. In addition to more experienced musicianship and a more robust lineup, the lyrical content underscores how Button has always perfectly towed the line between sardonic and sentimental, goofy and earnest. While his problems have grown increasingly existential since these songs were released, the way that he explores them remains as humorous and relatable as ever.
Check out the EP on the band’s Bandcamp page here.
Strand of Oaks release “Weird Ways” music video alongside new album announcement
Strand of Oaks returned to the indie rock media cycle today to announce a new album, Eraserland, which is due out on March 22 via Dead Oceans. This news is accompanied by the video for the album’s first single, the self-reflective “Weird Ways.”
The album features support from members of My Morning Jacket, who Strand of Oaks figurehead Timothy Showalter credits for helping to inspire and complete the recording. Upon just a couple of listens, one gets the sense from this single that Showalter is (or was) a very tired person. Sounding more and more like Jason Isbell (like literally his voice, not necessarily in content), he begins the song searching for increasingly bleak metaphors to describe his growing discontent with his musical pursuits. “I don’t feel it anymore.” “This scene isn’t my scene anymore.”
The song starts restrained and then, as Strand of Oaks does best, it swells and crescendos (with appropriately psychedelic imagery in the video), Showalter repeating, “It’s a weird way to say goodbye,” as the MMJ guys jam behind and around him, alive and vibrant in the moment, no matter what comes next.
Leave it to Rise Records to once again forge a deal with a classic punk/emo band looking to get back into the game. The label has already helped to revive the careers of two of our personal favorite bands, Hot Water Music and At the Drive-In (plus supporting other artists we love, like The Bouncing Souls and Dave Hause), and now Rise is scheduled to release a brand new record by scene pioneers The Movielife.
The band hasn’t released any music since 2003, when they put out Forty Hour Train Back to Penn, considered by most fans to be their most compelling and fully realized work. Like new label mates ATDI, they followed their most commercially successful album by breaking up shortly after its release, with the two primary creative forces in the band (singer Vinnie Carauna and guitarist Brandon Reilly) going on to start new projects.
Vinnie’s new (and still active) band is I Am the Avalanche. I loved their self-titled first album a lot when it came out back in 2005. When we met, Amanda and I bonded over our shared enjoyment of the also self-titled debut album from Reilly’s post-Movielife project, Nightmare of You, though she was always more into that band. Yin and yang. These are the things that make relationships work.
Here’s the video for The Movielife’s biggest single to date, “Jamestown,” off of Forty Hour Train Back to Penn:
The Definitive Essay About My Thoughts on a Few Albums from 2016
“I’m trying to tap into something that you reluctantly know” – Say Anything, “Attaboy”
We’re all guilty of letting the mass consensus influence our taste, no matter how open-minded/independent/counter-culture we attempt to be. When “music” is your “thing” (which is kind of a hard concept to succinctly explain, so I’m hoping you just get it), that can serve as a sometimes welcome, sometimes frustrating reminder that the very fabric of your identity isn’t always necessarily in your control.
I didn’t listen to a lot of albums this year (certainly not like I had been every year from about 2004-2014), and more to the point, I didn’t do a lot of digging. As far as “new” music goes, this was a pretty shallow, comfortable year. [Cheap plug incoming] That being said, for me, 2016 was dominated by music; I put out my first solo EP in the winter/spring and then started my current band in May, which will be recording its first album in the last week of December. Because of this, what I wanted (or needed) from music as a product was dramatically different than in years past. Not sure how to describe this without it coming across as tacky, so instead I’m going to write about the albums that did get me in their clutches and elucidate this idea through that lens.
(I’m not really on-board with this meme thought of “Man, 2016, what a terrible year,” because it seems improper and irresponsible to chalk up a series of unfortunate or malevolently evil acts of humanity up to the innocent idea of calendar time, but anyway…) Perhaps fittingly, I started 2016 out by thinking a lot about death. Some of that was finishing Mad Men (for the first time), but most of it was thanks to David Bowie. I spent the majority of the morning of January 10 writing about my relationship to Bowie’s music over the years, and then the afternoon lying in the dark in my living room and listening to Blackstar, in what will probably be the most powerful experience listening to music that I’ll have for a long time. I keep seeing this album show up on end of the year lists, and while I enjoy seeing his work recognized by the tastemakers, I can’t help but feel like nothing is triter than trying to justify placing a legitimate genius’ artistic attempt to face his own mortality and impending doom as the Fourth Best Album of the Year or whatever. Obviously, Bowie couldn’t predict that he would die two days after his birthday and the release of the album, but the foresight, courage, and brilliance it would require to achieve what he did with Blackstar gives me chills to think about nearly 12 months later. The anxiety and acceptance of knowing you’re going to die, channeled into creation. He’s sharing something with us that we would otherwise have to be in the direst of straits to experience. It’s sort of way beyond whether it’s “good” or not; it’s just is it effective? If you listen to the album at the right time, with genuine focus and clarity and an open heart, the beginning of the titular first track feels like ascending (or descending?) into a new mode of being. Purgatory on record, and not even really in an abstract sense. It’s an album all about death that makes me feel more alive than anything else I’ve ever heard.
I love Kanye West, but I hate talking about him because his brand is watered down with a bunch of hot garbage. The drama surrounding the release of The Life of Pablo seems to me to intentionally be part of the experience of the album, which is itself an artistic statement about the schizophrenic frenzy involved in the creative process. It certainly isn’t always as palatable as the music he was making when making hits was his thing, but Pablo is an unrestrained example of his brilliance. “Ultralight Beam” is the easy track to point to, since its catchy and overtly powerful because that’s what it’s about, but I think the spark of Pablo is “Wolves.” That song is primal; the essence of something HUGE distilled into 5 minutes of music to great effect. The troll in me also appreciates the fact that Yeezy basically made a critic-proof album. Got a complaint about something? He’ll just change the song and re-release it. Bummed out because it’s not as “good” as his old stuff? Who cares? He’s already way ahead of you.
Speaking of way ahead of you, I’m slowly starting to be convinced the narrative of Weezer’s “decline” has much more do to with Rivers and Co. simply getting bored with the limitations of pop music (like how Maladroit is a chore to listen to) and trying hard to reinvent a stale genre while still adhering to its conventions. In my new and improved narrative, this endeavor peaked with the ambitious, but ultimately too scattered and weird Red Album (sort of like Weezer’s less-interesting Life of Pablo). But then the band “came back” with Everything Will Be Alright in the End in 2014, and the collective unconscious of millennial music journalists who didn’t really grow up with the band when it mattered felt like they were now allowed be excited about the upcoming White Album and treat its release as serious. What everyone seems to have missed is that The White Album, though conventional in almost every sense of the word, is truly subversive pop music; a smarter, more realized version of what I think they were trying to do with a song like “Can’t Stop Partying.” On the surface, it’s 10 songs about cool California living and hot girls and falling in love, with catchy and upbeat music to back it up, but a dig into the lyrics starts to reveal the shallowness below the surface of these dopamine-fueled feelings and the pop music that people write to attempt to capture them. It’s like The National without the overt dreariness. Funny that Weezer’s most acclaimed album since Pinkerton is essentially the band giving people the happy-go-lucky pop songs they’ve been requesting for over a decade, while continuously reminding us of how silly and hollow it is.
If “Album of the Year” actually meant anything, then one of the strongest contenders on my list was released almost 7 years ago. I’ll be real, this article for Noisey by Jonah Bayer made me feel embarrassed and stupid. I love Motion City Soundtrack’s first two albums, and then leapt off the bandwagon when Even If It Kills Me was released; I didn’t like it much at the time, but I think it had just as much to do with being a sophomore in college and trying to get into more SERIOUS music and distancing myself from the neon nonsense of Fueled By Ramen bands at that time, which is exactly the aesthetic that MCS seemed to be adopting for that era of the band’s existence. So, I went back and listened to all of their albums, and I still don’t really like Even If It Kills Me all that much; my instincts were validated. But from March through the end of summer, I didn’t listen to anything more than I listened to their fourth album, My Dinosaur Life, a record that I wrote off in 2010 because I didn’t like the artwork. Not (only) to once again plug my own work, but that album essentially influenced the first batch of songs I wrote for my own new band this year. Bayer’s line about “people think that confronting your demons sounds more authentic with a shaky voice and acoustic guitar” really hit home and made me realize that sometimes you’re just an anxious pop-punk boy and that is how you have to express yourself, and although that may sound limiting, it actually opened up a whole new realm of creativity and honesty for my songwriting. My Dinosaur Life is the most straightforward type of great album, where the songwriting is strong across all twelve tracks, but more importantly, each song is able to differentiate itself in all of these different little ways that maintain a cohesive experience that doesn’t get repetitive or dull. Plus, the melodies in “A Life Less Ordinary (Need a Little Help)” are impeccable.
My unexpected love and subsequent realization of how even the pop-punk zeitgeist succumbs to rather vapid ideas of coolness and popularity as measures of quality made me start to think that it might be time to go back and check in on some other bands that I loved and then ignored when they no longer seemed to improve my social status. I went through this back in 2013, when I discovered that I actually really enjoyed In Reverie, the widely panned Saves the Day album that I guess is like their Maladroit or Make Believe, in that it’s supposed to represent their eventual “decline” as a band. So, I go back and listen to some later Saves the Day stuff, and that pretty naturally leads to a reinvigorated interest in Say Anything, who in March just so happen to release an album that is largely about how frustrating it is to be in an emo band that is past its prime. I Don’t Think It Is sees Max Bemis moving from safely within his Comfort Zone and then wildly past its outskirts with relative ease, sometimes all in the same song, but it’s an album that I haven’t quite been able to put my finger on with much success. I’m intrigued by it, and I still return to it regularly. I keep coming back to something about how much of the album is distorted, aggressively mucky and unrelenting (as opposed to the peppy arrangements of his mid-career stuff that was meant to contrast the bleak cynicism of his lyrics), making the moments of genuine melody (thus genuine emotion?) more powerful. Like THIS is where you should stop and really listen. I think the big ideas of the whole album – musically and lyrically – are distilled in the song “Attaboy,” referenced at the beginning of this amazing blog post you’re currently reading.
It would be inaccurate to say I never listened to Blink-182 in high school (everyone my age has listened to Blink-182, and I don’t care how over-exaggerated that sounds), but they were never a seminal or important band for me outside of their obvious influence on bands I did love. I never even listened to a full Blink-182 album until after I graduated from college. But I have a deep appreciation for Matt Skiba/Alkaline Trio (i.e., I’m a big fanboy), and this album happened to come out the same week that I was going on a 10+ hour (both ways) road trip, so it was kind of a perfect storm. I mean, California is not the most quality record referenced in this post, and it had the shortest shelf life with me, but it was still valuable in some ways, especially, again, as I was in the midst of writing a record myself. I also enjoyed that seemingly everybody with any even roundabout interest in punk music tried this album out at least once, so it was nice to have some shared cultural reference point and feel part of something big. This band seems to be slapped with the “dumb fun” label a little too easily, but I think what California does as well as or better than any other Blink-182 album (and remember I have no emotional connection to those earlier records) is craft melodically diverse and interesting songs without trying so god damn hard (which was basically the exact opposite of whatever was going on in that Neighborhoods album). Calling it “dumb fun” reeks of insecurity. These guys aren’t trying to be poets or push boundaries; they’re trying to write good songs that mean something to them, and probably make some money while they’re at it. Not sure why it needs to be examined beyond that. Pleasure can be its own reward.
Unlike the last few artists that I mentioned, Taking Back Sunday is a band that I followed closely since the release of their first album. Sometimes tepidly, but they would always eventually do just enough to maintain my interest. Louder Now is still a great (and now kind of underrated) album, and then the reunion of the original lineup. The most recent version of this was hearing the titular first single from their newest album, Tidal Wave, in the later part of spring. That song is the definition of a banger. Then the band released a few more songs, and though none of them captured the same raucous spirit of “Tidal Wave,” they were all still good. Really good. It took 2-3 rotations, but once the full album clicked for me, I was in actual awe at just how much I loved it. It is probably my favorite album of 2016. I said it was perfect to Amanda about a week ago, and she seemed to think that was too strong of a sentiment, but I still think Tidal Wave circles perfection in the sense that as a complete statement, it achieves everything it wants to achieve. The obvious way to touch on this album is that it’s about the importance of recognizing and holding onto the key relationships in your life as you get older, and how, for me, that has a special resonance when you’re edging on 30 and married, but everything is still new and you’re not quite sure where it’s going. Lyrically, it doesn’t seem terribly deep at first (a complaint I’ve had about their last few albums that I’m starting to think is maybe erroneous in hindsight), but then you remember that lofty poetry isn’t always the best choice. When it comes down to it, music is simply an attempt at an approximation of an abstract idea, turning it into something you can map out or write down, but ultimately it comes down to the feel. In a song called “You Can’t Look Back,” the slow building bridge has Adam Lazzara turning on his lower register to sing, “Don’t know how you did it other than you did,” which says an awful lot, even if it doesn’t seem that way immediately. Why can’t you look back? Because maybe sometimes it’s not important to dwell on how you ended up where you are; maybe that’s how unhelpful anxiety is created. Maybe instead, you just acknowledge your situation with clarity and find a way to move forward “day by day.” Anyway, at the risk of this section getting out of hand, I love this album because it’s both tight and dynamic. All of the rust of the time gap between Tell All Your Friends and that lineup’s reunion has been shaken off, and Tidal Wave is the sound of 5 guys wholly on the same page, having fun and being creative and writing great songs. It’s as much as you can ever ask for in an album, so if that’s not “perfect,” I don’t know what is. It’s what music is all about to me.
Fall was dominated by two versions of Conor Oberst. Ole Conor is undoubtedly one of those Top 10 Artists of All Time guys for me, so when his most recent solo album, Ruminations, was announced, I took it as an excuse to go back and spend some time with some of his older work. This was around September, so I was exorcising the stress I felt from the collective anxiety surrounding the US presidential election by engaging in conspiracy theories and dabbling in nihilism and Black Mirror-style thought experiments about the nature of reality and the fallibility of humans in the face of the exploitive Divide and Conquer tactics of media companies and politicians. It was bleak, but it really tuned me into what I think is the most underappreciated album in Oberst’s oeuvre: Bright Eyes’ The People’s Key, which felt like real catharsis, and so I listened to it close to once a day for a good month or so, until Ruminations was released. This newest album is a true work of art, each track a single take with Oberst singing and playing either acoustic guitar or piano, usually a little harmonica, too. What’s fun is that even with these self-imposed artistic limitations, he continues to craft songs that are varied and distinct and unique, while maintaining the familiarity that fans of someone with two decades of recorded music come to expect. “A Little Uncanny,” “Counting Sheep,” and “Gossamer Thin,” for example, would never be confused for anything but Conor Oberst songs, but the melodies are so fine-tuned and captivating that they still stand out among his output.
He doesn’t need my help here, but Jeff Rosenstock put out a fantastic album in 2016. WORRY. is equal parts urgency and meticulous craft. Everything he says and does on this record feels crucial, both as a later-career push toward more mainstream exposure and acceptance, as well as in the subject manner, which tackles some of the capital-I Issues of modern American society in a way that is personal and inviting and, ultimately, identifiable. What makes this record such a pleasure is the ability to hear a song like “Festival Song,” “Staring Out the Window at Your Old Apartment,” or “To Be a Ghost…” and understand/acknowledge the very real and very complex issues that underpin the narrators’ frustrations, without the condescension or unpleasant preachiness that is often associated with political punk. Because this really isn’t a political album, but an album about how each of our small and seemingly insignificant personal decisions do affect the reality that we all share (which we attempt to manage through politics). Not to ignore the fact that Rosenstock is also probably a genius who proves here that punk can thrive in intellectualism and exploration and creativity; it’s not all just bashing power chords together. That medley at the end is fucking awesome.
As 2016 winds down, I’ve finally started spending some quality time with an album that I was excited for and then just never got around to, which seems to be the case with most people, because it has been conspicuously (to me) absent from a lot of year-end lists. Perhaps it’s some kind of proof that the once vaunted “Emo Revival” is unofficially over, but American Football’s second full-length album is a joy, with or without hype. Not to harp on one thing, but I think it may have trouble connecting with a younger audience because this album is an encapsulation of the dreariness of adult living, and that’s not necessarily always fun for everyone. Home is often a more pleasant concept in theory than it is in reality. The place that we build up in our minds and constantly yearn for can quietly transform into a prison when it is obscured by the malaise of working, maintaining relationships, raising kids, getting older. The outside world’s chaos creeps into your private life, and that creates an anxiety, knowing that even your most intimate spaces aren’t immune to the bleak or unpleasant. And what do you do once those spaces have become infected? Seems that you ignore it or lean into it; most likely, you’ll do some oscillating between both options depending on what helps you get through each particular day. American Football is a chance to understand and embrace those feelings of isolation without having to articulate them yourself. In a sort of roundabout way, it’s a cozy winter album for when you’re cooped up and your home starts to feel like it’s closing in on you, because it’s a reminder that you’re not alien in having these feelings, and that none of it is actually real anyway. Kind of like the Emo Revival.
Where Are We Now? My Experience as a David Bowie Fan
I don’t necessarily want to add to the cacophony of digital screaming about David Bowie that has been going on since before I even woke up this morning. Trust me, I know the world (myself included) has no interest in another Bowie thinkpiece and even less interest than that in hearing about my personal relationship with his work. But then I realize that it would be easy for me to argue that David Bowie may genuinely be the most influential artist in my entire life for a variety of reasons, and I guess I’ve just been trying harder lately to be more engaged with my life – focusing less on the inconsequential stressors that make up most days – and now I would feel somewhat off if I didn’t sit down and reflect on how I got here and how David Bowie helped pave some of the way for me. So I apologize in advance if this is unfocused and/or rambling, because as of this sentence I’m not really sure where I’m going with it.
Probably the main reason that Bowie is a major figure in my own growth is because I started listening to him at around the same time that I started learning how to play music and pursuing it as a hobby – the moment I went from just a fan expressing myself through the bands I like to trying to become someone who creates something and attempts to add to that conversation. The pursuit of my artistic soul or something. My first instrument was the keyboard, and that was because I had a real strong connection to the album Everything in Transit by Jack’s Mannequin (which, interestingly, is actually probably more relevant to my life and experiences now than it was my junior year of high school – but then it’s like a High Fidelity “music or the misery” thing where did I lean into my current lifestyle because of the influence of a record like that?).
It goes without saying that I was familiar with Bowie for as long as I can remember because he is one of the most famous people of the 20th Century, but he definitely suffers from a very similar public perception of another musician/artist that has profoundly affected me: Tom Waits. Both are mired in the mysticism that surrounds their personas to the point where the work they produce is essentially secondary when it comes to their mainstream media attention and pop cultural significance. They are personalities above all else. I’m sure I will get back to this later, but for now it seems like an important, if obvious, point to make.
For a long time I was ashamed to admit that my actual interest in Bowie started because of a Jack’s Mannequin concert that I attended right here in my current home base of Chicago, Illinois. They did a number of covers that evening at the House of Blues, and one of them was “Changes.” It was a very fun song, and I realized that, duh, David Bowie probably wrote some really good songs. He wasn’t JUST the guy from that kids movie; he had to get famous somehow. This was a period where I – I guess somewhat like Andrew McMahon trying to shed the skin of his pop-punk glory days – was going through a musical awakening and beginning to seriously explore the roots of the artists that I had worked so hard to build my identity on. I can’t remember now if I planned to buy a David Bowie CD the next time I went to the store, or if it was spontaneous, but somehow I ended up leaving a Best Buy with a copy of the single disc Best of Bowie compilation.
I was delivering pizza at this time, which was a favorite job of mine because I listened to music in my car for most of my shifts. This piece is starting to get boring, so I’ll speed it up by saying the basic idea here is I listened to that greatest hits album a lot, and it taught me a lot about music in ways that are hard to describe. Bowie famously is both a master of genre and able to work completely outside of its confines (I am going to refuse to refer to him as a certain kind of appearance-altering lizard simply out of my own annoyance with seeing the term related to him over and over again). I guess what I ultimately learned is that decidedly distinct musical genres don’t actually exist; that the patterns we recognize to label and define these songs and sounds are nothing more than situation or circumstance. Any song can be anything you want it to be, but eventually you have to make a choice. It’s about what you want to say and how you want to say it. The instruments you choose, the tempo, the production techniques, the vocal performance, it’s all window dressing that you use to make your statement as clear as possible to the world outside of yourself. But it’s initially all conjured up inside, every song in every conceivable genre, and at that stage those distinctions don’t and can’t exist. In the imagination, anything is possible. The songwriter and the musicians are the editors that clean it up on the way out.
So I used to have a bad habit of becoming very obsessive about being totally immersed in the catalog of a band or artist that I get into. Nowadays with the Internet and unlimited access to all music ever, it’s simply not worth the stress it would cause me to try to do that, but back when I would only discover one new band that I sincerely loved every few months, it was actually kind of fun. Well, plus these bands were like Coheed and Cambria or Brand New, so all I really had to do was buy the one other album they’d released by the time I learned about them and maybe download some acoustic versions of the songs on Limewire. David Bowie was the first person that was going to require research and a bit more thought and dedication (and money) to experience, but I wanted so badly to know his story and figure out how he got from “Space Oddity” to “Blue Jean.” What’s the narrative thread here? How do you make sense of it? Basically, I had to make a conscious decision to dedicate myself to listening to David Bowie for the foreseeable future, since even at that time he already had over 20 albums out there.
The period of time that I most closely associate with Bowie is pretty much all of my entire senior year of high school into the early months of my freshman year of college. The place I associate with this time is Von’s, a bookstore/record store/hippie jewelry store/comic shop located on the campus of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. I grew up in a very small town in Indiana about an hour from there, where the only place to even buy CDs was the local Walmart, and obviously they weren’t maintaining a collection of David Bowie’s studio albums. I was introduced to Von’s during my freshman year of high school and would take trips there as often as I could. You know, the fact that I had relatively easy access to a place like that outside of the confines of a somewhat one note hometown was a big deal, and for a long time I had a lot of reverence for the store.
Again, I don’t remember the exact details – if I went there specifically looking for Bowie CDs or if it was just a magical sequence of coincidences – but the next time I went to Von’s following my recent immersion in Bowie’s music, I noticed something that in hindsight seems almost too lucky to even sound believable. In the display case located beneath the register of the record shop portion of the store – where they would house special vinyl or CD box sets that were usually at least $50 – were 16 David Bowie albums, arranged as the centerpiece of the entire display. But they weren’t just any David Bowie albums: These were specialized Japanese imports that weren’t in standard jewel CD cases. Instead, they were packaged in cardboard slips and intended to mimic the artwork, look, and feel of the albums’ original vinyl record releases. Just smaller. I cannot express enough how excited I was to find these. I asked about what exactly these were (this is when the clerk informed me about the Japanese reissues and artwork, etc.) and how much. $20 a piece. Oh boy. I bought two, obviously starting in chronological order, and headed home with copies of Space Oddity and The Man Who Sold the World. Not exclusively, but these were predominantly the albums I listened to each night at work as I drove around slingin’ pizzas. My favorite songs were like “Memory of a Free Festival” (which is a great lesson in both using production techniques to capture a unique mood and breaking away from traditional rigid pop songwriting structures), “All the Madmen,” and “The Supermen.” I was back at Von’s a few weeks later, and next in line were Hunky Dory and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars. If you’re even just familiar with the idea of Bowie’s catalog, you know that these are sort of the pinnacle and the measuring stick by which everything else he’s done since are judged. Ziggy especially. Not really sure what I can even say about these that hasn’t been said 1,000,000 times before, and this doesn’t seem like the right place for it, but you know just consider how cool it would be if you somewhat unknowingly purchased two of your favorite albums ever at the exact same time. Musically speaking, I have never felt more invested or tuned in.
Blah, blah, blah. I was regularly driving down to West Lafayette and buying up two Bowie CDs (for $40 at a time, plus tax) at least once a month. I figured these specific discs were very rare and if I wanted to Collect Them All I would have to move fast. Eventually, it reached a point where the older guy that worked at the store (clearly the resident dedicated musicologist who sat there for years and years as a rotating cast of hip college students came in to help him man the cash register) would recognize me as the “David Bowie Guy,” there to buy my Japanese David Bowie imports. What a weird fucking kid I must’ve been to him. Or maybe he saw something of himself, a younger, more idealistic (and economically free) version of himself. Anyway, that was how it all started. I would lose my collection of rare imported Bowie CDs to the Universe and Time and everything’s inevitable destruction and return to chaos. My family’s house burned down 5 years ago when I was a senior in college, and we lost everything in that incident except for the clothes we were wearing when we left (no one was home at the time) and some family photos that were stored in the basement and damaged by all the water.
By my senior year, Bowie was no longer the undisputed center of my musical journey. He was, however, the key figure that would define my listening habits through graduation and beyond. It was because of him that I began to explore the deep discographies of other older artists, and I was especially fixated on the Solo Act and started diving into these larger than life singer-songwriter figures, with Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen being the two most impactful personalities of this era. I think what I enjoyed the most about all of these guys was that by writing and performing as “themselves,” they were totally free to explore any avenues that interested them artistically. They earned the right to be in control (to the best of their abilities). This would naturally lead me to explore the music of the aforementioned Tom Waits, who I was eventually drawn to because of similarities to Bowie with regards to musical diversity and reinvention and – more so than Dylan who is also known for his ability to move with great fluidity between genres and personas – great sense of humor and wonderfully offbeat way of looking at the world that is inviting, not alienating. But again, this is all because of this new way of looking at music that Bowie inspired in me, and I have continued to regularly listen to his (Bowie’s) music with just as much enjoyment as I felt when I first realized how great his songs were 10 years ago.
But what has it all been for? I mean, why did I spend literally hundreds of dollars on a bunch of cardboard and plastic commercial items that would eventually just become a small part of the ash and dust and rubble that had to be scrapped up from my parents’ property and dumped in some landfill somewhere? I suppose it was that I was changing a lot when I heard “Changes,” and that song has the power to be a true personal anthem and statement if you find it at the right time in your life. When you find that, you start to believe that the person that wrote it must have some understanding and something to say. So I just wanted to hear all of it, because buried in there somewhere might be The Secret. Now that I’m older I realize that what I’m listening to is actually his own coming to terms with the things that he has just learned or figured out at that period in his life. You can’t write “Changes” when you’re 17-18; you have to write it when you’re 23 and have had time to reflect.
Still, as I’m sure we’ll all read over and over again in various blog posts and articles like this over the next week, Bowie was always ahead of the paradigm a bit, or at least confident enough to plainly express the world the way he saw it. About halfway through my real obsessive period, I remember feeling kind of dismayed because it felt like all anyone wanted to talk about when he came up (and by anyone I mean more like music journalists or VH1 talking heads, etc.) was Bowie’s outlandish fashion statements and eccentric persona(s). That wasn’t really what drew me to him in the first place, and at the time I didn’t really understand the historical significance of having a pop culture figure like that. Today I get that the clothes and the art and the pageantry were all part of the art, a natural extension of the music that I loved. He devoted his whole life to his art and performance, but unlike a LOT of people in similar situations, he never let that dictate the choices he made. If he changed, the art and its presentation changed with him (save for a brief period in the late-80s that was pretty much both a commercial and critical mess, even if the albums are still alright).
That is David Bowie’s legacy, and for good reason. The music is incredible, the art is out there, and the cultural significance isn’t even quantifiable yet, but at the heart of it all is a commitment to craft and a dedication to The Truth as he saw it. There is no right or wrong way to understand our existence or figure out your life and your purpose, so you can either take in the things that you observe and acknowledge the things that you feel and make something out of them, or you can let them continue to swirl around inside of you, formless and misunderstood until they eventually disappear into the ether. It’s hard to work up the courage to turn them into something else that will exist outside of you, because that requires making choices – solid decisions about how you’re going to present these parts of yourself to the world – and that doesn’t always go over the way you hope. It can lead to feeling alienated (probably the most common theme across Bowie’s entire oeuvre), and there is nothing scarier than coming to terms with the fact that you feel isolated while being simultaneously aware that you’re an alien lifeform floating around in an endless sea of space and time with nothing to hold on to and no clue where it’s all headed. But at the other end of that spectrum is hope that by sharing these parts of yourself, you can create a web and set in motion a turn of events that ultimately conclude with one man – a total stranger – sitting in his bedroom and writing about the way that you helped him learn something about himself and how to stay alive in the face of it all.
Albert React return from 7-year hiatus with a new album
If I may quickly take a trip down memory lane... There was a brief period in time when I was in high school where one of the records that my friends and I spun (literally, because it was a CD) on an almost daily basis was Albert React's Confluence and Scrapes.
Naturally, I was excited when my nostalgia receptors were activated and I heard that the band just released a new self-titled album full of rare songs (mostly unreleased demos from the writing sessions for their second album, Sonos Aeterno), as well as one brand new song, "Cabin Session," that they recently reunited to record. The band broke up shortly after the release of Sonos Aeterno.
Click read more to hear "Cabin Session," and click here to purchase the album.
"Cabin Session" combines pretty much all of the elements that made Albert React such an exciting band to listen to in their heyday, namely a constantly driving rhythm, impassioned vocals that switch seamlessly between screaming and clean(ish) singing, and dynamic changes between different sections of the song. However, this track also indicates a band that have unquestionably grown as musicians and songwriters, even if they haven't really played together for over half a decade. The atmospherics created in the way that the lead guitar plays off the wall of sound created by the rhythm guitar and bass in the early part, as well as the more electronica-tinged middle part of the song, set up for the steadily swelling emotion of the third act, and ultimately proves that they still got it. Check out the song below.
Balance and Composure’s The Things We Think We’re Missing is 1 year old as of today. To celebrate this we are selling the album for only $5 via our Bandcamp for a limited time. So if you do not have the album yet, do us a favor and show your support for the dudes.
We could not prouder of the guys, this album and everything they have accomplished for themselves. We would not be where we are without them as part of our family.
And if you already have the album, play it as loud as humanly possible.
Toronto punks PUP make a name for themselves on their self-titled debut
I always think it’s an interesting decision when a band chooses to self-title an album. It’s kind of a bold move that feels like the group is trying to declare some sort of definitive statement about the band’s sound or aesthetic or “mission.” This probably (almost definitely) was not what the Canadian punk rock group PUP was thinking about when they named their SideOneDummy debut, which is set to be released in just a few weeks, but if there was ever a case where a self-titling an album was a really good idea, this has to be it, right?
To just try to describe PUP’s sound doesn’t do it justice. The easy way is to say something about how they blend the intensity and bombast of punk rock with the guitar-driven sense of melody found in the best power-pop bands. And that’s accurate, of course, but it also describes a lot of other bands that don’t really sound anything like PUP, and more importantly, it doesn’t really capture the spirit of PUP's music.
At no point on PUP is the essence of the band’s sound captured more clearly and effectively than on the opening track, “Guilt Trip,” which begins with some menacing guitar feedback that launches into a scary hardcore riff. Quickly, though, the song’s primary lead guitar line shows up to add a bit of sugary pop-influence to the song’s heavy foundation. This dynamic lasts through the duration of the track. Adding to that is the contrast between Stefan Babcock’s half-sung/half-strained vocals and his generally catchy (but not too catchy) melodies that are augmented by the rest of the band’s gang vocals. In fact, in “Guilt Trip,” this is employed to maximum effect, as the best part of the song comes right at the end (around the 2:58 mark), when Babcock kind of loses his mind and starts screaming over raucous power chords, while the rest of his bandmates throw in some soaring harmonies behind him that juxtapose the intensity of the song’s climax.
After all, the main reason that PUP doesn’t devolve into sounding like a typical “pop-punk” band is that despite the presence of group harmonies and catchy hooks, the band is able to put together a raucous wall of distorted sound behind each song. My favorite moments on the album are almost always when it feels like a song is on the verge of falling apart and you can connect to the energy of each member of the band, and then all of a sudden, it just breaks under the pressure of that intensity. This usually happens in the bridge or at the end of a song, after the band has powered through the core of the song and can’t really contain it anymore. It’s also usually accompanied by some kind of lead guitar solo or other, less upfront (but still compelling) guitar work.
One of the best examples of this on the album is in the song “Yukon,” which, as the longest and slowest song on PUP, is the album’s weirdest track in a lot of ways. At the beginning, it sounds like it could fit on Brand New’s Daisy, but eventually (3:14 into the track), the core of the song starts to spill over, resulting in an almost minute-long solo that sets up the song’s big climax, which ends with a cacophony of guitar noise over thunderous drums.
But immediately following “Yukon” is the album’s sixth track, “Dark Days.” The difference between these two songs pretty much covers the broad range of styles that PUP incorporates into their songs. While “Yukon” is slow and plodding and grim, “Dark Days” is (contrary to what the title would have you believe) upbeat and energetic, with a bouncing bass line and fast-paced lead guitar. And while “Yukon” may explore the band’s slower, more arrangement-focused side, “Dark Days” is the perfect encapsulation of PUP’s ability to write accessible pop tunes that are only loosely related to punk (in the way that bands like Wavves or Jay Reatard are able to display clear punk influences, while still appealing to a broader indie rock crowd). Other notable examples of this on PUP include “Mabu,” “Never Try,” and “Lionheart.”
That being said, PUP are certainly not afraid to turn up their instruments (and then play the shit out of them) in the name of punk, as long as the situation calls for it. Fast-paced, high-octane songs like “Reservoir” and “Back Against the Wall” remind the listener that PUP are more than just a pop band with distorted guitars, despite the super catchy lead in “Back Against the Wall.” The way the band rips through these songs is indicative of yet another layer of the band that pulls from the energy of punk and hardcore, without necessarily falling into the trap of just sounding like a lot of other bands that are already pretty similar. For instance, in an age where grunge has unexpectedly made a sort of quasi-comeback amongst the punk underground, it would be both convenient and easy for PUP to just slip into sounding like Citizen or Title Fight and riding that wave, but the band seems intent on broadening their sound to incorporate even more influences, not less. Take, for instance, the harmony-heavy, classic 1950s pop stylings of “Mabu.”
I guess at this point, I’ve sort of exhausted trying to just describe what PUP sounds like, but the important thing to take away from this is that although they have many characteristics in common with many bands (both currently active and long gone), there’s still something about PUP that gives them a distinct edge – that despite this being their first full-length album, they’ve somehow cultivated a sound that can easily be traced back to them without getting it confused with anyone else (or, most other artists most of the time, at least). A lot of that has to do with their intricate arrangements that give each member room to breathe, so that everyone is able to have a clear creative voice in the direction of every song.
One great example of this is the album’s eighth track, “Cul-de-Sac,” which opens with soaring gang vocals that maintain through the expertly crafted opening verse, weaving in and out of Babcock’s primary melody with a combination of aggression and harmony. It’s a big, “epic” sort of introduction into this song of unrequited love. From there, the song builds and moves very organically. Even better is PUP’s closing track, “Factories,” which features the album’s best guitar work, but that’s not to put down the rest of the performances on this song. The bass successfully holds down the fort, but still makes it a point to dance around the vocals, particularly in the verses, and the drumming is perfectly composed to keep propelling the song forward at a relentless pace. Structurally, the song is one of those that seems more complicated than it is (especially if you’re not listening super closely), thanks to a combination of clever songwriting, solid arrangement, and intense playing; however, the latter effectively takes over when the song totally changes course in the last minute, ending PUP on a spastic note that sounds something like Tom Waits on speed.
What PUP have accomplished with their self-titled debut is something that sometimes takes even the best artists years (and many records) to pull off. That is, they’ve essentially been able to define their sound as whatever the hell they feel like doing. Punk without being too abrasive and pop without being too sugary, but still appealing to fans of each genre, PUP have managed to set the bar at just the right spot. They’ve opened the door to allow themselves to continue to refine and perfect their craft, without ever having to really be concerned with how people may accept any fluctuations in their music.
More importantly, though, is that it’s clear that PUP are a band that are genuinely just interested in making music and having fun, and that comes through loud and clear on the record. Distorted walls of guitar noise and carefully penned melodies aside, that kind of passion and honesty is what really makes PUP an album that should be accessible for almost anyone (unless they’re boring).
I’ve had an unusual amount of metal (black metal, specifically) in my life lately. Our roommate Matthew, Michael’s younger brother, is writing a college essay on the topic and just interviewed Michel and I as two examples of people that listen to similarly aggressive genres, but would not actively say that we listen to metal. We recently watched Until the Light Takes Us, and I regularly seem to reference bands like Fallujah and Meshuggah without feeling entirely out of touch. And now, I feel like I’m going to just have to entirely give in to my inner demons after being pretty damn impressed by the debut performance of the Chicago thrash metal band Bloodletter at the Elbo Room on March 29, 2014.
Bloodletter identifies as a thrash act, and they earn that title by blasting through track after track of a part-punk, part-metal, part-frantic sonic attack of partially tongue-in-cheek (…or one would like to think…) songs about hell and death and Satan and slaughter, and I totally bought in. (On a side note, I also literally bought in to a pentagram-decorated cookie – the most genius “merch” item I have seen in quite awhile, but I digress.) With a supremely energetic following and two appropriately rousing covers (The Misfits' “Death Comes Ripping” and Metallica's “Seek and Destroy”), there was little-to-no indication that this was the band’s first live show. Normally, I’d want to highlight a stand out musician, or at least a stand out instrumental performance, except that Bloodletter presents itself as such a band. No one member (vocalist/guitarist Pete Carparelli, guitarist Jason Milbank, bassist Tanner Hudson and drummer Zach Sutton) really stood out above another, because they were all so polished and precise that it was Bloodletter as a whole that made people take notice.
Metal gets a bad wrap in the mainstream. People overlook the musicianship and get too focused on some bogus notion of devil worshipping, but I’ll let you in on a little secret, it’s all in good fun. I mean, hell, you haven’t lived until you’ve chanted “die” with a room full of both new and old friends on a Saturday night. You can check out the band's A Different Kind of Hell EP, aand more, on their Bandcamp. But above all else, I’d recommend seeing them live. They're worth the price of admission for any kind of music fan - that is, whether you want to watch technically precise musicianship or just bang your head, Bloodletter is the band for you.
Bloodletter’s next show is June 2, at Reggie’s Rock Club in Chicago.
ALBUM PREMIERE: Gunner's Daughter - The Flowers & The Earth
If you live in or near Chicago and you're even more than just a little bit interested in punk music, chances are you're already at least familiar with the name Gunner's Daughter.
Over the years, the band's lineup has consisted of a "who's who" of local musicians, including members of The Sky We Scrape, The Revision Plan, and Typesetter. One has to assume that this has helped the band shape its very Midwestern style and sound.
Of course, that's not to say that Gunner's Daughter is in any danger of remaining a nice local secret for too long. With music that combines elements of some of the greatest punk/post-hardcore bands of all time, from Hot Water Music (see: "Snake Oil Salesman") to The Ghost ("Prison Wolf"), these guys fit incredibly well in the modern scene where bands like The Menzingers and Off With Their Heads are considered the Epitaph-friendly ambassadors of the underground.
The Flowers & The Earth is a dense, emotional journey that starts with the gradual crescendo of "Just Say Nice Things" and ends with the beautiful "In Memoriam." However, between those songs is an introspective and powerful story about the crucial and formative years where a person is forced to deal with finally having the freedom that comes with adulthood and having to reconcile that with maybe feeling a bit ill-prepared for that freedom at the same time, while playing "a constant game of catch up." In other words, its an album about life and death and all of the things you learn along the way.
Plus, there are a bunch of great punk songs here, and that alone should be enough of a reason to check out the album.
The Flowers & The Earth will be released in CD and digital formats on April 8 from Dang! Records, and the vinyl preorder will be available next week, as well.
