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I have to take issue with LA-based group Princeton’s MySpace-characterisation of their music as minimalist pop. On their sophomore release, Remembrance Of Things To Come, the four-piece have crafted an album that is anything but minimal. Recording with the Los Angeles New Music Ensemble has seen the group adopt an expansive approach, resulting in a full-bodied and layered effort. While we’re dispensing misconceptions, it’s worth noting that reviewers up to and including the New York Times have dinged Princeton in the past for emulating Vampire Weekend. Whether it was due to the University-recalling band name or a previous predilection for Caribbean-infused pop, on this record they’ve completely shaken off these accusations by producing 10 tracks of voluminous chamber grooves. While the auditory busyness can sometimes feel like they’re draping simple numbers in ornate fripperies, there are plenty of solid pop gems like To The Alps to keep your attention.
Despite the morbid title, Kieran Waters’ first solo album, Here Lies, is pretty lively. There is the occasional sweet, mournful number (Rosalee, Month Of Sundays), but, for the most part, this is a roots record that starts at a light-hearted gallop and keeps up the pace. Lyrically, it oscillates between being a little too corny and refreshingly original. There’s the track featuring a predictable Devil protagonist, but then, there’s a mariachi-style love song, Hola, and the first verse of the eccentric No Mosquitoes In Bombay is filtered to sound like it’s coming through an old-time radio. Waters’ voice, occasionally falling short, is more than compensated for by the man’s great ability to scatter well-placed, absorbingly catchy hooks throughout. Ultimately any inconsistencies only reinforce the music’s thoroughly human sincerity.
Plastic Wood aren’t exploring the meteorological conditions of Australia, rather the more complex patterns of social atmospheres. After nearly a year in the studio, Australian Weather is a slick 13-track collection of folk-rock that taps into the zeitgeist of a generation of underwhelmed 20-somethings. Through their honest lyricism and relaxed rock, Plastic Wood point out that life lethargy, social politics and casual alcoholism make the Australian social landscape as weird and wonderful as cyclones and droughts on the land. Strong standalone tracks like Still Guessing, Cocaine and the rollicking instrumentation on Your Daughter prove their mettle, but the real strength of the album is apparent when listening to it as a whole. It’s then that you fully appreciate the rich touches of classic pop, rock and ‘70s folk songwriting in the developing Brisbanites’ work.
Slowness are a San Francisco band who formed in 2008, but it’s taken them a few years of on and off recording to release their debut EP. Okay, so it’s not exactly Loveless, but the My Bloody Valentine comparisons don’t stop at a tendency for perfectionism. Hopeless… also has a heavy dose of washed out shoegaze and intriguing darkness that asks new questions with every listen. There’s also a hint of more modern artful indie types, especially Deerhunter, in the meandering melancholy and ringing lead guitar of EP highlight Black and White. Their heavier moments are just as compelling, Slowboat building from a sparsely droning intro to a full-on static assault, a pretty lead line keeping it from devolving into noise. In a time off immediate, catchy-or-die garage rock, it’s great to see a band doing slowly winding five-minute-plus songs that are worthwhile and absorbing, taking their time to reveal hidden secrets.
If you’ve just picked up that novel you’ve been meaning to get around to finishing, boiled a pot of tea and sunk into the warm and all-consuming embrace of the couch, the next thing you’ll want to do is put Devils And Devotion on the stereo. A Casual End Mile’s debut album offers up a selection of sparse, yearning Sunday morning songs with soft vocals that float and fade between a tapestry of quietly picked guitars and percussion work so minimalist it’s very nearly non-existent. This album isn’t genius by any stretch of the imagination, but it is beautifully raw, stark and honest. Listening is an experience something like picking up your lover’s diary and reading it accidentally-on-purpose. Devils And Devotion might not break any new ground, but it just might break a few hearts.
Rich Davies debut album The Devil’s Union is a mix of reverb-drenched swamp rock and mournful murder ballads. Bleak tales of demons and pain are wrapped around the haunting piano and luscious string arrangements. These amplify Davies’ stark compositions and Nick Cave-styled vocal delivery on the first few tracks. Hear This Violence combines sophisticated layers of eerie piano and moody swagger and is complemented perfectly by variants of slide guitar. The amusingly titled God Hates The Westboro Baptist Church (which is somewhat reminiscent in spirit if not also style of The Devil Went Down To Georgia), I Died In The Morning Sun and A Blood Red Waltz are some of the album’s other notable standouts, adding up to a collection of hauntingly beautiful swamp rock.
(Hit City U.S.A/Easter Everywhere)
(Independent)
(Independent)
(Independent)
