NO AGE - NOUNS

There is something to say for brevity – the art of the haiku, the solid jab, the power nap. A swift cool breeze on a hot day. A whippit. A quickie under the bleachers. The hypodermic needle. It’s not just about instant gratification, but about substance delivered in the quickest, most effective manner possible. Efficiency in doses. At a time when attention spans have reached record lows, cultural trends uncharacteristically suggest that there is a demand for the epic, for the anti-quotidian, for the expansive dalliances of tried artists. Look at good films and albums from the past few years and you will discover steadily increasing song lengths (upwards of 10 minutes) and total run times (well beyond the two hour mark).

That’s not to say that there isn’t value in the modern opus, but that there is a special place for art that gets to the point and sends you reeling. No Age’s first ‘true’ full length album, Nouns, gets the job done (with 12 songs in under 30 minutes) and is ultimately the most repeatable album I’ve heard in a long time. No Age’s strong suit is structure and on Nouns, they lay it bare. There is no sonic fat to chew on, no unnecessary verses to balloon the track lengths. It is simple two chord rock n’ roll. But it’s not so simple. There are many aural layers to dig through and this is what makes it a record I go to over and over again, often consecutively.

There is honesty and conviction in every song, and most of all, passion for days. Dean sings like a true patriot, one who is positive, but dissatisfied. Someone who not only expects, but intstigates change. It’s a refreshing rock album that resists the urge to go beyond the songs’ best punches. If there’s anything to learn from Nouns, it’s knowing when to hold the punches that determines the fight. And with that said, I think I’ll start writing shorter posts…

EVANGELISTA - HELLO, VOYAGER

A couple of Sundays ago, Ann Powers wrote a terrifically pointed analysis of masculinity in contemporary rock for the L.A. Times in a Calendar page headlining: “Nick Cave and the Alpha Male Rockers”. She sites bands like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Mark Lanegan/ The Gutter Twins, and DeVotchka as archetypes of a style of Gothic drenched Rock music that openly celebrates masculinity in spite of the genre’s historically emasculated roots. While a well conceived recognition of long standing counter-culture trends, the article fails to recognize the very vibrant subculture of Gothic driven female rockers like Carla Bozulich, Marissa Nadler, and Elisa Ambrogio (Magik Markers) who thrive on the reappropriation of masculine forms and yet remain wholly unnoticed by the mainstream press.

More often than not these female led rock bands are minimalized by genre tags too specific for their metamorphose, yet consistently heavy music. ‘Noise’, ‘Experimental’, ‘Freak Folk’, and ‘Singer-Songwriter’ are all too commonly pinned to albums by these bands who tread the same sonic and thematic ground as Nick Cave and his L.A. Times brethren. At the forefront of this female underground and an easy non-baritone surrogate for Nick Cave is Carla Bozulich whose latest album with her new band Evangelista does testosterone heavy doom rock better than most boys.

Apocalyptic religious symbolism is soaked in reverberant feedback squalls provided by members of A Silver Mt. Zion and Godspeed You Black Emporer! as Bozulich alternately plays Pentecostal preacher and lascivious carnival barker on “Hello, Voyager.” Primal percussion and subterranean white noise are the poisons of choice, but through the muck and mire, there is the ever-present tribal pump of base rock n’ roll. And when Evangelista rock, they really rock. It’s all punk and Goth and noise – enough to make Nick Cave stagger and swoon. The quiet moments have just as much gravitas: bellowing and iron-laden as they build to the kicking of pricks and gnashing of teeth of the louder tracks. Envangelista could just as easily be called The Bad Seeds or Grinder(wo)man or The Birthday Party.

Heavy Romanticism is the bread and butter of masculine Goth rockers and Evangelista have no trouble testifying to the haunted fate of humanity. In shrieks and wails Bozulich crowns herself ‘the empress, the queen, the king’ and proclaims ‘I like loud things’ and it is impossible to deny her. This isn’t new territory for Carla either. She did it with Ethyl Meatplow in the early Ninety’s and the Geraldine Fibbers soon after they split ways. Like Cave with “Dig, Lazarus, Dig” and his work with Grinderman, Bozulich is hitting her stride now with Evangelista and hopefully more people will begin to mention her work, as well as that of the ranks of female goth rockers grinding it out in the trenches, alongside the men.

BLITZEN TRAPPER/ FLEET FOXES/ GRAND ARCHIVES @ Troubadour - LA

Creative billing is an art form. Putting two like-minded bands together for a tour is one thing, placing three distinct, equally talented bands is another. It’s a somewhat more common phenomenon in revival house cinemas where creative pairing of films is most often the domain of a single curator whose job it is to create an appealing and original lineup. However, in film I imagine this to be a much less daunting task than in music where it is much easier to alienate an audience. For one thing, the revival house curator has the flexibility of matching films not only by genre, but by star, director, historical period, subject matter, remake, plot structure, and even title similarities. I can’t imagine a bill with The Eagles and The Metallic Falcons on the basis that their band names both include birds of prey. In the music world, touring partners are often decided by booking agents, record labels, and sometimes the bands themselves and are often based on more practical matters such as location of residence, label of origin, or personality (they have to see each other everyday after all). Both in music and film, however, pairings often strive to introduce fans of a single act or work to a complimentary band or film. Often times I find myself plodding along with openers, counting down the songs to the main course, or coming early for the unknowns and leaving before the rush. So, taking these factors into consideration, I find that when music billings work well, they are a spectacular phenomenon. In these regards the matching of Blitzen Trapper with Fleet Foxes and Grand Archives was an inspired tri-fecta.

First up were Fleet Foxes who were a terrific surprise for me. Their bread and butter is vocal harmony soaked in nostalgic reverence and they wear their influences on their sleeves, yet manage to create something original. If you can imagine vocal dramatists like Jim James or Band of Horses as backed by the lush arrangements of Grizzly Bear and the driving rhythms of Arcade Fire, yet in the songwriting traditions of contemporaries Phosphorescent or Bon Iver, you would have something approaching what Fleet Foxes sound like. So, yeah, I think that Fleet Foxes draw a bit heavily from touchstones of contemporary indie rock, but I think with some touring time behind them, they could develop into a band very much on par with their accomplished musical brethren.

Grand Archives put on the pop show of the three groups without dismissing the country and classic rock tendencies that all three bands displayed a knack for. They had the biggest support group at the Troubadour and they sounded confident if not a little on the safe side of things.

Blitzen Trapper was the perfect headliner for this motley crew. Bringing an equal measure of noise and pop and country and classic rock, this oddly shambolic troupe combined sonic elements from their predecessors into a whirlwind of hyperactive country rockers and whisky soaked laments. Blitzen Trapper captured the ADD, pop-culture and meth-addled tension of modern rural life like no other band I’ve seen. The lead singer was captivatingly poised without being rigid and I was certain the drummer was going to bust through the heads on all of his toms. Each of the three like-minded but distinct bands that graced the Troubadour stage Friday night benefited from the contributions of their touring partners in what is perhaps the ultimate achievement of creative billing.

HOT CHIP - Made In The Dark

Patterns and cycles are arguably the most essential structural elements in nature. However, many people would argue that these patterns and cycles only exist as constructs of the human need to contain, contextualize, and narrativize everything around them. Hot Chip perfected mechanical repetition on their 2006 album The Warning, making a good case for the inorganic occurrence of repetition via their assembly-line approach to music, yet at the same time it felt completely natural. The reason I imagine people responded to it so well must stem from the fact that we indeed biologically crave the patterns, recognition, and predictability that Hot Chip serves us so well. So, if you're Hot Chip and you’ve mastered the musical ‘hook’, where do you go from there? You do it all over again.

That’s what Hot Chip have done on their latest album Made In The Dark. The result is catchy and energetic, memorable, and repeatable, yet it feels a bit lazy production-wise: the downside of repetition being lethargy. That’s not to say the songs are boring. In fact there are several jaw-dropping tracks on Made In The Dark, but it feels like the album exists for the purpose of remix, something Hot Chip more than any other indie/electronic act out there knows a lot about. It’s as if they’ve made an album tempting and completely accommodating of remixers.

Also missing is the self-conscious nerd humor of their last two albums in favor of a tongue in cheek self-seriousness that works at times, but is less immediately engaging at others. Hot Chip have been working hard to shake the electronic-Devo stigma they were branded with early in their career and Made In The Dark makes the divorce apparent – they are their own band with a very distinct sound. However, being a cultural taste maker in your own right comes with its own stigma: raised expectations and it is clear from their contribution to the DJ-Kicks series and on Made In The Dark that the band feels the pressure to dig into deeper and more obscure material in order to stay ahead of the curve. It works most of the time, but there is a reason a lot of this stuff is so obscure in the first place. Made In The Dark is another great album of fun, danceable tracks (particularly the slow-dances) that will keep Hot Chip at the front of the pack for a time to come.

EVANGELICALS - The Evening Descends

Everything and the kitchen sink. That is what Evangelicals throw at their latest maximalist power drama of an album, The Evening Descends. Whereas their last album, So Gone, doted in whimsical sonic experimentation, on The Evening Descends, the experimentation has become practice and the whimsy - confident arrangement. Evangelicals are at their best when the rhythm and melody are front and center in the song, unfortunately this isn’t always the case and many of the songs are bogged down in aural ephemera and camp drama.

I am always a fan of noise, double-tracking, tape-looping, injections of field recordings and found sounds, toy instruments, maximalist arrangements, distortion, echo, and reverb, but on The Evening Descends I feel as though the sugar rush busy-ness of many songs could have benefited from a bit of restraint, something that Evangelicals don’t include in their collective musical vocabulary. While busy-ness can be engaging on many levels, it can be overwhelming. Whereas a Jackson Pollock painting is busy, it is contained by the fact that it is the exploration of two spaces: positive and negative. Listening to The Evening Descends is the aural equivalent of witnessing the construction of a painting by Pollock, Johns, Warhol, and Litchenstein on a single canvas and attempting interpretation.

That’s not to say that there aren’t great songs here. I just tend to prefer to listen to the songs on The Evening Descends individually rather than as an album or in one sitting. However, if you wish to be saturated with sound, then Evangelicals have created a saccharine sonic shower from the theatre of the absurd for you to sate your Sisyphean indulgences.

BLACK MOUNTAIN - IN THE FUTURE

I downloaded the new Black Mountain album yesterday because I couldn’t wait to be shaken by the latest heaviness. The same heaviness that shook me on Sunset Blvd. three years ago. I was not disappointed by the heaviness. In fact, while listening to it, I was surprised to have that strange uncontrollable desire to rock out – something I hadn’t felt since listening to the Grinderman album that came out last year or playing Guitar Hero for the first time this winter.

Though Black Sabbath and Led Zepplin are the obvious touchstones, don’t let the Rock turn you away from giving In the Future a chance, as there are subtler dynamics at play on this album that most people would be quick to skip over due to the length of the tracks (which are for the most part nothing short of massive). That is not to say that In the Future isn’t an epic album, because it certainly is, but that it has great songs with really strong quiet moments. Unlike an Ozzie or Thin Lizzy album, where the ballads are teasers for the bombast of the “Crazy Train”s, the distortion-less songs on In the Future are fully realized, with their own emotional truths at the center, most likely due to the front and center presence of Amber Webber who provides cock-rock blocking counterweight to Stephen McBean’s block-rocking shockery.

I think many people will look at reviews of In the Future and be turned away by the allusions to the resurgence of “hipster metal” and 70’s and 80’s “hard rock” of late, but unlike say Cheeseburger or Wolfmother or The Darkness where there is more tongue in cheek than wherever it normally goes, Black Mountain don’t approach the heavy-rock genres they mine with irony. Rather, they build from the same foundations that heavy metal was forged from: oversaturated blues and tribal incantations, to create their own sound that is on par with those guitar rock behemoths rather than kneeling at their altars.

Times New Viking - Rip It Off

Predicted by many to be a lackluster month in music, January is upon us. Often overlooked for its bad history of being a time-out period in the music industry, January is often the doldrums for listeners. Bad news for people obsessed with music and who have short attention spans like myself. However, there are a few promising new albums to come later this month to keep our ears in tune by way of bands The Evangelicals, Black Mountain, Drive By Truckers, and Blood On The Wall and having just listened to the forthcoming album by Times New Viking, I and can say with great certainty that it is the first good album of the year. And just like that January doesn't look so bad after all.

Rip It Off is hardcore lo-fidelity. Times New Viking wear the cracks, vinyl pops, tape hiss, and gain clipping that inundates this album like hard-earned battle scars. And they aren't new to the game either. They've been doing lo-fi for several albums now, yet it is on Rip It Off that they've really crafted that other thing that makes listening to albums fun: the music. Beneath the sonic smog that threatens to push the songs into obscurity are simple, fun melodies that suck you in. In past albums, the noise felt like a curiosity that was obscuring the perfectly glossy pop of the songs as much as it was concealing the mistakes, but here the faults feel natural and the static feels component. The songs are short and upbeat, but that doesn't mean they have a chance of making it onto the radio -- rather, compounded with the quality of broadcast, these songs would all but disappear.

That 3rd list (Bigger Bands) I Liked in 2007

To finish up my lists, here are my favorite albums of 2007 from bigger bands. For a more comprehensive list, see 2 posts prior.

In less visually interesting presentation:

17. Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position
16. The White Stripes - Icky Thump
15. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
14. Ghostface Killah - Big Doe Rehab
13. Feist - The Reminder
12. Lil Wayne - Da Drought 3
11. Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
10. Liars - Liars
9. The Black Lips - Good, Bad, Not Evil
8. Okkervil River - The Stage Names
7. Radiohead - In Rainbows
6. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
5. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
4. The National - Boxer
3. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
2. M.I.A. - Kala
1. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

15.

Written by: Brian DePalma

The most frustrating, frustrated, angry, punishing film of the year. Also the most visceral visual experience. Redacted is the one movie that I equally hated and loved and yet could never recommend to anyone,

14.

Written By: RBDJ, Ruffalo, Fincher

A great mystery.

13.

Written by: Dylan, Gainsbourg, Jim James, Stephen Malkmus

Though it didn't live up to my expectations and a seemingly inessential addition to the dearth of Dylan material out there, it is lifted by a bizarrely faithful Cate Blanchett performance, a great soundtrack, the honesty of Charlotte Gainsbourg, and cameos by Kim Gordon and Jim James.

12.

Written by: Herzog, Bale

Another great Herzogian comedy.

11.

Written by: Carice van Houten, Paul Verhoeven

The most interesting and beautiful(?) take on WWII. Technically flawless. Emotionally powerful.

10.

Written by: Nancy Oliver, Ryan Gossling

Absolutely the most charming film of the year. This movie deserves a lot more credit. If it were shorter it possibly would have been my favorite of the year.

9.

Written by: Diablo Cody, Ellen Page, Michael Cera

Almost as funny as Rescue Dawn, but way more realistic. After getting past the indulgent cuteness of the first 20 minutes of the movie, it is a most rewarding ride.

8.

Written by: Andrei Romanov, Andrei Kravchuk, Kolya Spiridonov

So poignant. A melancholy and hopeful fairy tale. Brilliantly acted. Beautifully shot. Great storytelling at its simplest.

7.

Written by: Mark Friedberg, Robert Yeoman, Wes Anderson

Wes does family like nobody else these days. And he takes you on a trip... like great films should.

6.

Written by: Sarah Polley, Julie Christie

Something to aspire to as a first time filmmaker is the top. An extremely difficult topic handled with the grace of a veteran.

5.

Written by: Jean Dominique Bauby, Julian Schnabel

The most engaging film of the year, this one hit home on every level for me. A linguist's wet dream.

4.

Written by: Daniel Day Lewis, Johnny Greenwood

This is my kind of movie. Paul Thomas even uses the kinds of fonts that I like. There Will Be Blood does not relent and it does not disappoint. The prologue and epilogue alone are worth the price of admission.

3.

Written by: Cormac Mccarthy, Coens, Bardem's Hair

This could easily be my favorite movie of the year. But I think most people have given it its due by now. A faithful adaptation beyond pulp.

2.

Written by: Noah Baumbach, Jennifer Jason Lee, Harris Savides

Watching this movie was like what I imagine having an exorcism is like. Formally exceptional. Ultimately redeeming.

1.

Written by: Charles Burnett

Human.