William Fitzsimmons - Goodnight

If you were to only listen to the first three-and-a-half minutes of William Fitzsimmons’ second album, you might be under the impression that he is nothing more than another neo-folk, singer-songwriter type along the lines of Iron & Wine. Sure, there are hints of electronic beats (or “drum stuff”, as Mr. Fitzsimmons calls them), but those dwell below the surface…sporadic at best.
Right around the 3:30 mark, however, things take a bit of a turn. The beat becomes a bit more pronounced…but the song ends shortly afterwards. You’re left wondering what’s next.
“Hold On With My Open Hands” is what’s next, and it just so happens to be one of the best songs on the album. It starts with a simple guitar and William’s hushed voice. Then comes the banjo. Then the melodica. Then the faint sounds of an electric guitar in the background (if you’re not listening, you won’t be able to hear it). By the end of the song, we’re treated to a smorgasbord of instrumentation, all making for something so beautiful you really have to hear it to “get it”.
“Please Don’t Go” is another highlight, chock full of “drum stuff” that really help to drive the song. The instrumentation over top of it is great as well, but, were it not for the imaginative “drum stuff” on this song, it would just be “another song”. With the “drum stuff”, well…quite frankly, it “thumps”.
My favorite lyric on the entire album is found on “Body For My Bed”, where he sings, “My mother warned me of people that would take advantage of my money and my grace/But she forgot to tell me I’m the same.”
There are some great songs on here, some along the lines of Sufjan Stevens or Margot & The Nuclear So & So’s (simple folk songs at heart, but fleshed out with lots of instrumentation), while others make their way into Paper Route territory (pop songs fleshed out with lots of “drum stuff”, and other wonderful noises). It doesn’t matter which style he chooses…it all sounds great. And, in addition to sounding great, it all fits together as a cohesive album. Seeing as how it’s a concept album, being able to fit together as a cohesive album is a pretty big deal.
Look past the songs and you’ll find a story. It’s a gorgeously heartbreaking story of a family broken apart, as seen from the perspective of all the parties involved. I don’t want to say too much about this, as listening to the lyrics for yourself is far more rewarding than hearing someone talk about them. Although the titles of the songs are much like a movie score, in that if you read the titles in order, you can kind of figure out what happens. However, if you’re just listening (or reading) to “figure out what happens”, then you’ll miss the beauty of the story itself. My advice: pick up this album and support a great (if relatively unknown) storyteller.

Rating: 8.9

Essential Tracks: “Everything Has Changed”, “Body For My Bed”, “Afterall”

Favorite Tracks: “Hold On With My Open Hands”, “Please Don’t Go”, “Find My Way Home”

Visit his website here

The Lost Art of the Protest Song

There is nothing quite like a good protest song. Something that says, "I'm taking a stand," without having to actually force anything down your throat. You never actually had to say, "I think war is terrible," but it was there for someone to interpret through lyrics. Bob Dylan was the master at this. Songs like "Subterranean Homesick Blues" or "Blowin' in the Wind" are perfect examples of this. He had something to say, and he said it...but he said it with a sense of poetry.
It seems as though that art has been lost somewhere along the way. Artists still feel the need to voice their opinions on war and government (now more than ever, it seems like), but they're not quite sure how to do it.
So, instead of getting beautifully written songs, we get garbage like Bright Eyes' "When the President Talks to God", Over the Rhine's "If A Song Could Be President", or Neil Young's entire Living With War album. They know that they have something to say - namely, that they think the President is doing a terrible job - but there's nothing beautiful or poetic about it. They have basically written a "song", but have given no thought whatsoever to the accompaning music, or even the way the words flow together. Songs like these seem to be written more to get a reaction out of the crowd...not so much to actually write a good song.
You can stand on stage these days and say something like, "Yeah, the President is really stupid/I don't like the way he runs this country/I don't even like his hair/And he talks like a moron", and, as long as you're holding a guitar, people will clap and scream their approval from all corners of the room. There doesn't have to be any poetry in the lyrics, there doesn't have to be any cohesiveness in the music...just say exactly how much you hate the government and you have fans. I chalk this up to everyone at the moment feeling like they have strong political views. I also chalk it up to lazy songwriting. If you can get a reaction from people by writing the most basic of words, why should you even try to make it sound good? It's just lazy.
There are still some people who know how it's done. The last great protest song that I remember hearing was Tom Wait's "The Day After Tomorrow", off his 2004 album, Real Gone. It's a song like that that really makes you feel something. If you haven't heard it yet, do yourself a favor and listen to it as soon as possible.
Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps I've missed a massive amount of great protest songs. For all of our sakes, I hope that I have.

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

You never really know what you’re going to get when you hear a new Wilco album for the first time. Their first couple of albums could fit nicely under the umbrella of alt-country, but they’ve since made a career out of trying to get as far away from that category as possible.
I guess you could call them a rock band, but they’re still not what you think of when you think of a stereotypical rock band. Experimental rock band doesn’t work, either, because that brings to mind bands like Sonic Youth, and that’s not who they are.
When most people talk about Wilco, they start off by talking about their creative musicianship…then launch straight into what a genius songwriter Jeff Tweedy is. Let me say right now that I have never been firmly entrenched in the “Tweedy as a genius” camp. Don’t get me wrong…I normally like his lyrics, and he’s always done interesting stuff with his music. I just can’t call anyone a genius who thinks that “She fell in love with a drummer/She fell in love with a drummer” over and over again is an acceptable lyric. That’d be like calling the guy from The Georgia Satellite’s a genius for writing “I got a little change in my pocket/Going jingle lingle ling.” Let’s just move on. (I’ll grant you that even someone like Dylan was known to make a lyrical mistake from time to time, most notably in the song “Wiggle Wiggle” off Under the Red Sky, but at least he knows it was a mistake, and doesn’t play it at concerts anymore.)
All the fanboys (and girls) have built Wilco (and Tweedy) up so much that it’s impossible for them to live up to the genius-level hype that they get.
But forget for a second about all the hype. Forget that people think this band is the second coming of The Beatles. Forget about all of it, and listen to this album with no preconceived notions of what it should sound like. Try to pretend you’re listening to an album by a brand new band.
And what do you get?
You get a great album. Plain and simple. Oh, it may take you a couple of listens to get to that point (it took me about 4 listens to really get into it), but, if you’re really listening, you’ll end up at that point eventually.
I’m not really sure how to describe it, but there is definitely a very strong 70s vibe going on in this album. There are some fantastic Hammond organ lines (most notably the strong groove of “Shake it Off”, which ventures into Al Green territory before making a sharp turn into faux-Pink Floyd land), as well as some erratic guitar solos that seem to fit right in with the mood of the song/album. They toyed with this a bit on their previous album (especially in the opener for that album, “At Least That’s What You Said”), but they take it to new heights with the songs on this album.
There are a couple of songs on here that venture into the adult contemporary realm of faux-folk music that would be terrible if they weren’t so good (just listen and you’ll hear it). Songs like “Either Way” and “Please Be Patient With Me” are perfect examples of those songs…songs that, if anyone else did them would probably sound like terrible America rip-offs, but Wilco somehow pull a great song out of it (instead of something you may hear while shopping at Sears).
I could go on and talk about every song on here, but I’ll stop and leave you with a little bit of surprise for yourselves. I will say that this is their most solid album since Summer Teeth, and is one of the best albums they’ve ever released.

Rating: 9.0

Essential Tracks: “Either Way”, “What Light”

Favorite Tracks: “Shake it Off”, “Hate it Here”

Visit the band's website here, or preorder your copy at The Rooftop

Elvis Perkins - Ash Wednesday

(I would like to start out by apologizing for the lack of reviews lately. For those of you who don't know, I recently opened an online record store. There's some really cool stuff up there. If you have a chance, head on over and check it out. I'm very proud of it. It's called The Rooftop. Let me know what you think of it.)

And now, on with the review...

I had read something about this guy in Paste at one point or another, and, from their short description, I thought he sounded like something that I would like. I downloaded this album from Emusic, and was in love with it by the first minute.
The first song, “While You Were Sleeping”, is probably the best song on the album. It starts off as a happy little folk song, with a guitar and a voice and not much else. Over the course of the 6+ minutes, it grows into something amazing and beautiful. Instruments are added slowly, so that, by the end, you’re in an ocean of sound, with drums, strings, bass, horns, and other such gorgeousness to keep you company.
“May Day!” stands out as a down track. Maybe it’s because it sounds nothing like the rest of the album…almost like he was striving for a radio track with it, or something of that nature. It’s not a terrible song…in fact, it’s actually a pretty cool song…but it just doesn’t mesh with the rest of the album, and it throws me off every single time.
“The Night and the Liquor” also seems a bit long in spots, with his faux-yodeling and everything, but, other than those moments, it’s a pretty good song.
Those are really the only couple of tracks I don’t care for a ton. And it’s not even that I dislike those songs…I just love the rest of the album so much that anything less than stellar stands out as a disappointment.
“All the Night Without Love” is a great song…a song that would not be out of place being played at a French café.
“Ash Wednesday” (a reference to the day after 9/11) and “Good Friday” are beautiful to the point of heartbreaking. When listening to either of these songs I find it very difficult not to drop whatever I’m doing at the moment and just listening. There’s a pain in his voice during these songs that really isn’t present in any of the other songs.
Speaking of which…
The musicianship and songwriting on this album is really great. However, his voice is the best part of this album. He is somehow able to mix the uniqueness of Thom Yorke with the world-weary groan-and-gravel of mid-60s Bob Dylan.
Granted, there’s nothing really too groundbreaking on this album. It’s not like listening to Revolver for the first time or anything like that. But, all the same, it’s a great album with a number of amazing moments. It’s also (along with The Good, The Bad & The Queen and Neon Bible) one of the best releases so far this year.


Rating: 9.3

Essential Tracks: “Emile’s Vietnam in the Sky”, “Sleep Sandwich”

Favorite Tracks: “While You Were Sleeping”, “Ash Wednesday”, “Good Friday”

Check out his website here

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

With their previous album, Good News For People Who Love Bad News, Modest Mouse got their name out there more than they ever had before. Nevermind that they’ve been around for forever and a day…no one really cared about that. Hearing the yelping, fist-pumping, stomp-rock of “Float On” was enough for most people to declare their undying love for all things Mouse.
And why not? That song (along with “Ocean Breathes Salty”, “The View”, “Black Cadillacs”, and perhaps a couple others) was a perfect summer song…something that worked on mainstream radio (and late-night talk-show stages), yet was just different enough so that you could say things like, “Yeah, I listen to the radio from time to time…but I don’t like Kelly Clarkson or anything like that.”
But the album itself was not necessarily what you would call “radio friendly”. Along with those poppier songs, you got a steady dose of angry Pixies rock (“Bury Me With It”), plodding, horn-driven Waitsian funeral music (“The Devil’s Workday”), herky-jerky banjo-dirge (“Satin in a Coffin”), and other instances of strange music. If it weren’t for a massive single, there’s no way that album would’ve caught on like it did.
Of course, we were all waiting for their next album. What direction would they go in? Would they make an entire album of fist-pumping, “arena-ready” songs? Would they steer more towards their darker, odder side?
The answer came months before the album was even recorded, when the report came in that Johnny Marr (a member of British rock royalty) would be joining the band. Nevermind that Modest Mouse had always kind of been a “redneck-and-proud-of-it-but-not-in-a-Toby-Keith-kinda-way” band, and that throwing the guitarist for The Smiths in the mix might throw that off. More than anything it signaled a move towards a more straight-ahead rock sound…and that’s exactly what we got.
There’s still a moment or two of oddness on it…they didn’t completely get away from that side. “Parting of the Sensory” is Modest Mouse at their darkness, complete with hand claps, raspy voices in the background (think Nilsson’s “I’d Rather Be Dead”, but with crazy people instead of old people), and a military-esque, foot-rockin’ (but not in the happy way) breakdown to end it.
The rest of the album, however, is much what I expected…a straight-ahead rock album. Some songs, “Missed the Boat” in particular, could really be more accurately described as a pop song…just listen to the harmony and instrumentation in the chorus for proof.
There does seem to be more songs fitting the mold of the “Float On” in this bunch…high-energy rock songs with a catchy hook. “Dashboard” is in that group (released as the first single), as is “We’ve Got Everything” (this one actually feels more like “The View”, but that’s neither here nor there). “Steam Engenius”, with its funky guitar line, and “whoo-hoo whoo-hoo” in the chorus, is destined to be blasted out of many a car window this summer.
I really enjoyed “Spitting Venom”, but, at 8+ minutes, it seems to be a bit too long for its own good. The electric guitar line also seems to be a bit too close to “Trailer Trash”, but perhaps that’s just me.
All in all, I can say that I wasn’t necessarily surprised by the outcome of this album. There’s still a form of strangeness to some of the songs, so you can’t really say that they’ve gone all “radio rock”…I don’t think they’ll ever be able to be classified as that. This is, however, their most accessible album to date, and should win them more fans than their last album did. It’s an enjoyable album…nothing I would call spectacular, but it’s pretty solid. There’s not a single song on here that I skip, so that’s good.

Rating: 7.9

Essential Tracks: “Florida”, “We’ve Got Everything”, “Invisible”

Favorite Tracks: “Parting of the Sensory”, “People as Places as People”

Check out their website here

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

“Sophomore slump.”
It’s a phrase that seems to be used too much in music.
Make an album too much like your first one, and everyone hates it because you’re “afraid to try something different”.
Make an album too different and you’re “bucking against the popularity of your first album…only doing something different for the sake of being different”.
You really can’t win.
Except that you can.
The Arcade Fire prove this on their fantastic new album, Neon Bible.
Their first widely circulated release, Funeral, was an amazing orchestrated pop masterpiece, featuring instrumentation that is not necessarily synonymous with pop music. But they pulled it off in grand fashion.
How do you follow something that was so different yet so popular?
Stick with the same basic formula, but tweak it a little bit. That seems to be the thought process in recording this album. If you liked Funeral, chances are you’ll like this one. There aren’t a ton of surprises here…just a great collection of songs.
I will say this: this is a much better album than Funeral, and that’s saying something. The songs that are amazing on this album are better than the amazing songs on their last one.
“Intervention” is the easiest one to talk about first, seeing as how they’ve released it as their first single. It starts off with a huge pipe organ, accompanied by the strumming of a beat-up old guitar that seems to have made the recording by accident (but in a good way). The song takes a minute or so to take off, but from the beginning of the song you know that something is going to happen…the suspense can almost kill you. It gets kicked up a notch or two along the way, but, by the end they’re in full-fledged huge orchestral rock mode.
“Ocean of Noise” is another song that immediately jumps out. It’s a slow, almost sinister song that sounds as if it was recorded in a basement somewhere. A dark piano appears from time to time…just enough to let you know that it’s really there. A storm makes some noise in the background. As the song continues, more sounds and instruments are added. In about the third minute, it erupts into a psychedelic wall of sound (or, “Ocean of Noise”, if you will), complete with Spanish horns wailing away in the background. Just an amazing ending to a great song. I would have to say that it’s the best two minutes on the album.
“Black Wave/Bad Vibrations” starts as a seemingly happy-go-luck, chick fronted pop song. Well, that’s the “Black Wave” half. Halfway through, “Bad Vibrations” comes in, and it seems to be about the darkest thing on the album (but that may be because it’s paired with the sunniest sounding recording in the bunch).
The closer, “My Body is a Cage” follows about the same formula as “Ocean of Noise”…a dark, slow moving song that explodes into a darker, psychedelic wall of infinite noise (it can fill the entire room if you let it). It’s an almost surreal experience to listen to it…like you’ve been transported to another world.
No matter how many times I listen to this album, the term “dark” seems to come up a lot. I don’t know what it is, but there’s definitely an overarching feeling of dread and doom while listening to this album. But, at the same time, I can listen to this album on a nice warm day with the windows rolled down and still enjoy it. It’s odd, but, when you listen to it, it makes perfect sense. It has something to do with the production of it. It’s a muddy sound. I can’t describe it any further than to say that. Whatever they did, it works perfectly for the feel of this album.
Please, listen to this album. I don’t ask much of you all. Even if you didn’t get into Funeral that much, or never really saw what the fuss was about. Listen to this album at least 4 times. It’s darn near impossible to stop listening to once you start.

Rating: 9.4

Essential Tracks: “Black Mirror”, “(Antichrist Television Blues)”, “My Body is a Cage”

Favorite Tracks: “Intervention”, “Ocean of Noise”

Check out their website here

Richard Swift - Dressed Up For The Letdown

I am 90% sure that time travel never has been (and never will be) true. The 10% that believes it will happen some day is split as such:
1. That someday, someone will actually build a working flux capacitor.
2. How else can you explain the music of Richard Swift?
It’s not just his influences. Everyone has influences…some people just make them a bit more obvious than others. Just by listening to this album you can pick out a number of influences, mainly The Beatles, Burt Bacharach, and a little bit of Tin Pan Alley/vaudeville thrown in for good measure.
Yet Swift’s music seems a little different, as if he didn’t record these today. Listening to this album makes me think that he actually was an artist from the ‘20s that was completely ahead of his time. His music has that timeless feeling to it.
Perhaps that’s what draws me to him, the fact that he’s so difficult to pin down. This album could’ve been recorded anytime in the 1900s and it wouldn’t have really felt that out of place.
This album actually a feels a bit like a combination of his previous two. The Novelist was a short (less than 20 minutes) album comprised of songs that sounded like they came straight out of the ‘20s. It was a stripped down album that seemed to have been recorded alone in his apartment (more than likely by the light of a sole, oil burning lamp in the corner) late at night, while the rest of the neighborhood slept, his window overlooking a deserted cobblestone street.
His second album, Walking Without Effort had a bit more to it. More instrumentation, more orchestration, more modern sounding (even that “modern” tag only took it as far as 1987). The sound of the ‘20s was all but gone.
On this, his third album, he seems to have found a great mixture of past and present. The album kicks off with “Dressed Up For The Letdown”, a song that starts in a fashion eerily similar to Tom Waits’ Bone Machine…a severely slowed down skiffle beat, with a chorus of ghosts in the background. It’s a simple, bare-bones song, propelled only by a guitar and that beat. Somewhere around the two-and-a-half minute mark a trumpet comes in. Not much else in the song changes at that point, but you can almost feel a change in the mood, like something better is coming along.
And it does, with the very next track, “The Songs of National Freedom”, which starts out with a bright, upbeat piano line (reminiscent of “Martha My Dear”) and the opening lines of “We’ve seen the rain we’ve seen the sunshine/Darlin’ you and I could never be wrong”. It’s a hopeful, summery song, and really sounds almost directly taken from the Lennon/McCartney songbook.
“Kisses for the Misses” is pop music at its finest. A big, vaudeville piano opens the song, which is promptly backed with a simple drum beat and hand claps.
“P.S. It All Falls Down” is probably my favorite track on the album. It’s an upbeat, piano-driven pop song, culminating in one of the catchiest choruses in recent memory.
There are precious few missteps on the album, and even those aren’t of the “I need to skip that track NOW” variety. The most obvious (to me, anyway) is the song “Most Of What I Know”. The song itself is actually pretty good, up until the repeating line “Your love will keep my heart alive”. Now, this line, in and of itself, isn’t really all that bad. In fact, it’s backed with a pretty cool drum breakdown. It’s the fact that every time this line comes up in the song he repeats it roughly 500 times. It just gets a bit old after a while.
The same rule applies to “The Million Dollar Baby”, only it’s not quite as over the top. He just keeps repeating, “I wish I was dead most of the time/But I don’t really mean it.” Again, it’s not as over the top as the previously mentioned song, but, by the end of it, you just kind of want to tell him to stop.
Aside from those couple of moments, though, this really is quite a good album. It proves, once again, that Richard Swift is helping to keep the art of the pop song alive and well in an age where that talent seems to have fallen by the wayside.

Rating: 8.3

Essential Tracks: “Kisses for the Misses”, “Artist & Repertoire”

Favorite Tracks: “The Songs of National Freedom”, “P.S. It All Falls Down”

Check out Mr. Swift's website here