(Pod/Inertia)

I was really hoping he’d call it Wavvvves

Wavves, aka Californian Nathan Williams, garnered a strong response to his second full length, Wavvves. It was an album of punk rock tunes consumed by distortion, apathy and the occasional synth blast. King Of The Beach largely discards the stereo-rupturing lo-fi buzz of that album in favour of a cleaner, sunnier pop sound, much like Jay Reatard did after Blood Visions (irony: Jay Reatard’s band now play with Wavves). Williams’ songwriting has emerged from beneath the layers of guitar grime to prove his ability to execute a great pop hook. There’s a predominant surf rock flavour to whole record, but there’s a refreshing variety too: partly because the aforementioned bandmates Billy Hayes and Stephen Pope contribute to songwriting, and partly because Williams is no longer limited by the humble equipment of the bedroom artist. Pope’s Linus Spacehead sounds entirely like a Pixies track, from the chord progression to the Kim Deal ooh ooh’s from Williams. When Will You Come? is mellow surf rock at its most gorgeously hazy. Baseball Cards and Mickey Mouse have the noisy sheen of earlier material, but not at the expense of letting the melodies shine through. Idiot is Williams at his obnoxious pop punk best, while Green Eyes leaves Williams sounding unusually exposed and melancholic until the raucous epiphany of the chorus. The move to a brighter pop sound will turn off some current fans and bring in plenty of new ones, but noisy or not, Williams is still making great music.

****

MICHAEL PINCOTT

Be first to comment on this article

(EWorks/Vagrant/Shock)

Mr E is no longer missing that girl

Within the context of the concept trilogy of albums the Eels have released in the past 18 months, Tomorrow Morning is a fitting foil to the grungy rock of 2009’s Hombre Lobo and January’s sombre End Times. It represents a bright, optimistic sunrise following a harrowing night. As a songwriter whose personal life spills inexorably into his work, frontman Mark Everett – aka ‘E’ - has faced his share of hardship. For now though, life’s good. Lyrically, Tomorrow Morning is the most positive and confident Eels album ever – summarised best in I’m A Hummingbird with the line “It was all worth it to be here now.” The gospel keys and backing vocals of Looking Up are infectiously uplifting and for the first time since Fresh Feeling, E has crafted a truly joyous love song in the form of Spectacular Girl. While unmistakably Everett’s work, Tomorrow Morning contains the largest electronic component of any Eels record. Electric piano features heavily, as do drum machines and tape loops. The mammoth This Is Where It Gets Good spends close to two-thirds of its six-minute runtime mashing pastiches of programmed percussion and a digitised string section. More conventional … just … Baby Loves Me sounds like E finally untangled the digital chaos of 2001’s What Is This Note? and turned it into an off-kilter pop song. Unlike the last eight Eels releases, there are no contrasting down notes here; but as a follow-on to Hombre Lobo and End Times, they aren’t missed. In fact, after a tumultuous 14 years, one feel’s E’s high spirits are somewhat overdue.

****

NILS HAY

Be first to comment on this article

(Dew Process/Universal)

Indie pop will eat itself

If you’re in an indie-pop band – and Lord knows we have enough of those here in Brisbane – prepare to be crushed. New York quintet Freelance Whales cover just about every trope of the genre, and do it better. They have quirky, hand-built instrumentation – a “Frankenstein organ” from bamboo and parts harvested from broken organs – vocal harmonies that I can’t help but describe as “soaring,” and liner notes with a cute little graphic novella about love from beyond the grave. They even have a drummer with a fucking watering can as part of his set-up. There’s nothing that you could do to be better at this game than these guys are. And this immaculate grasp of the genre’s tropes is what has both endeared and frustrated overseas listeners about Weathervanes, Freelance Whales’ début: it’s so perfectly a product of the zeitgeist that it can feel cheap, even calculated, as though someone at Sony Music HQ had designed a band to feature in the soundtrack of every film starring Ellen Page or Michael Cera. To stick to that judgement would be a little unfair, though: lead songwriter Judah Dadone has the chops to craft beautiful pop tunes such as album highlights Kilojoules and Ghosting, so there’s a little more going on here than meets the eye. Unfortunately for Freelance Whales, that “a little more” doesn’t save Weathervanes from sounding like an album that epitomises a whole genre at just the moment when that genre reaches saturation point and starts sounding gauche.

***
CHAD PARKHILL

Be first to comment on this article

(Vanguard/Shock)

Third and best so far from this generation’s Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood

Let’s face it, Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan are a vocal match made in heaven. Arguably two of the most distinctive singers of our times, the ex-Screaming Trees singer/QOTSA collaborator and former Belle & Sebastian member have teamed up on previous occasions, yielding two excellent albums – 2006’s Ballad Of The Broken Seasand 2008’s Sunday At Devil Dirt – in the process. There were plenty of great moments on that pair of LPs, however the duo’s third joint effort Hawk manages to better them. The album’s first four numbers – We Die And See Beauty Reign, You Won’t Let Me Down Again, Snake Song and the torchy, spy movie strings-assisted Come Undone – are exquisite; Lanegan’s bourbon-and-smokes drawl, offset by Campbell’s angelic, breathy whisper, is a thing of sheer marvel. Again, the spartan production and stripped-down instrumentation prove to be a winning formula, allowing the duo’s voices to shine. Breaking up the mostly-downbeat template are slashing country-rocker Get Behind Me and Celtic-tinged Eyes Of Green, while the instrumental title track is a prime-grade barroom stomper. Campbell’s solo turn on the dirgey, minor-key Sunrise is supremely haunting (think Sarah Cracknell on Saint Etienne’s reading of Western Wind). She goes into Hope Sandoval mode on the dreamy To Hell And Back Again before the world-weary Lanegan takes the lead again on the folky Cool Water and gospel-flavoured closer Lately. Ladies and gentlemen, Southern gothic is alive and well.

****

DENIS SEMCHENKO

Be first to comment on this article

(Rough Trade/Remote Control)

Smooth, talented, unfortunately forgettable

It’s often easier to write about an album’s context than it is to write about how the thing sounds, because tackling the latter requires either the use of sloppy similes, broad generalisations, or boring music theory technicalities. So we critics avoid the issue of what the thing sounds like – it’s not like you guys don’t know how to use MySpace – in favour of what the thing could mean in its context. But what if you’re presented with an album that comes virtually sans context, and one whose sonic textures are so well-worn that only the most shopworn of phrases will have any purchase on it? Ladies and gentlemen, I present Dylan LeBlanc’s début, Paupers Field. There’s very little worth knowing about LeBlanc himself, except that he is preposterously young (he was born in 1990) and that his father was a session player in the legendary Muscle Shoals studio. And what does it sound like? LeBlanc’s work begs for comparison with The Band, the acoustic Neil Young, or Crosby, Stills and Nash; broadly speaking, he works within the nostalgic terrain of seventies Americana recently mined by Midlake. And yes, he’s obviously phenomenally talented; no less than Emmylou Harris drops in to duet with him on If The Creek Don’t Rise. Regardless, it would be nice if he went out and got himself some backstory and some emotional experience before he pens his next album – not only for the sake of his listeners, but also for the poor critics who have to review it.

***½

CHAD PARKHILL

Be first to comment on this article

(Luaka Bop/The Planet Company)

Or, the perils of signing to a label

One of the great benefits about being a complete musical unknown is that you have the freedom to do pretty much whatever you can, even if that’s not exactly the same thing as doing whatever you want. If you’re Javelin, that means you can put out CDRs and mixtapes that sample a whole bunch of unnamed sources, and distribute your EPs in record sleeves purchased from thrift stores with your band’s logo stencilled over the top. Success has its price, however: if you’re Javelin, you’re picked up David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label and suddenly you have to either clear those samples or write new parts that replicate their functions, and the mastering engineer wants to buff the scuzz of your sound. It’s to the New York duo’s credit that Javelin have made that transition as seamlessly as possible, although the odds have been stacked against them: those who fell in love with their genre-hopping mixtapes, CDRs and EPs will find plenty to love in No Más, which maintains that intriguing blend of FM rock-isms, early hip hop beats, lounge music, and Latin cheese that made their name. The issue is that some of the songs overstay their welcome: early ideas sketched out to full-length tracks aren’t so much developed as extended, so although No Más boasts a healthy 15 tracks I can’t help but wish they’d been bold enough to deliver 21 shorter, more concentrated pieces instead. But if it’s a good time you’re after, call Javelin: they may not be as lithe as they once were, but they’re still doing it right.

***½

CHAD PARKHILL

Be first to comment on this article