It was Sunday night at Canes and indie rock heroes Wolf Parade were about to perform, yet the crowd didn’t seem excited at all. The stripped down guitar and tribal trashcan percussion of opening duo Listening Party had been received with polite but moderate enthusiasm by an audience where those wearing backwards hats and polo shirts vastly outnumbered the people with the tight jeans and flat-ironed hair. As the crowd quietly milled about the venue between sets, it seemed as though Wolf Parade could expect a similarly tepid reaction. But when the Montreal quintet finally took the stage and the first notes rang out from the amps, they were met with a fanatical and frenzied reception that was anything but lukewarm.
Beginning their set with “You Are A Runner And I Am My Father’s Son†and “Soldier’s Grinâ€, the opening tracks off 2005’s Apologies To The Queen Mary and 2008’s At Mount Zoomer, respectively, Wolf Parade were a well-oiled machine, nimbly maneuvering their songs’ wild mood swings and ever-changing time signatures without missing a beat.
Saturday’s “Hipsters Revisited†at Bar Pink Elephant was a ‘60s themed event that promised music of the garage, psychedelic, and freakbeat varieties, all while making assurances that there would be “no weird shit or flutesâ€. They made good on these promises with some trippy mood-lighting and an assortment of DJs spinning appropriately obscure tracks from the period, but the real draw was a live performance by local retro-rock band The Loons.
Long blond hair hanging in his face, Loons lead singer Mike Stax commanded the stage with all the raw power of an anachronistic Iggy Pop as the band blazed through a set that recalled garage acts Love, The Sonics, and The Thirteenth Floor Elevators. After grabbing everyone’s attention with “Red Dissolving Raysâ€, Stax joked that, in honor of Gay Pride week, he was dedicating the song “My Time†to Texas, “the gayest state of allâ€.
The trumpets heralding the release of Black Kids’ debut began blowing a year ago, when the Jacksonville band made their demo EP, Wizard Of Ahhhs, available for free download.
The EP was a rollicking good time – the perfect soundtrack to every out-of-hand house party or ill-advised hookup you’re looking forward to regretting – and they instantly became one of indie rock’s greatest Internet success stories, but it remained to be seen whether Black Kids could maintain their danceable intensity for more than four songs at a time. How well the band’s scrappy energy would be conveyed in a professional recording was also unknown, so it is under no shortage of pressure that Partie Traumatic arrives, the rare case of a debut album trying to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump.
When the extended vacation taken by his regular band left him feeling restless, Strokes rhythm guitarist Albert Hammond decided to go solo. His debut, last year’s Yours To Keep, was a refreshing and superb collection of breezy, idyllic pop, free of all the self-consciousness that had plagued the Strokes’ last two albums.
Hammond has never seemed bothered that the spotlight usually fixes on bandmate Julian Casablancas, and his decision to become a solo artist has never felt like an attention grab. The songs on Yours To Keep were casual and unpretentious, as if written by accident — the Strokes re-imagined as West Coast beach bums instead of East Coast bohemians. Little more than a year has passed since that record was released, but Hammond is already back with ¿Cómo Te Llama?, an album that attempts to increase the depth of emotion without losing the laid-back vibe. Continue reading →
One of the things one does not expect to hear when putting on a Dead Heart Bloom album is Built To Spill. Yet this is exactly what happens in the opening moments of Fall In, the new EP that finds the band throwing everything they can at the wall and seeing what sticks.
This shotgun-approach to style is almost always a recipe for disaster (I’m looking at you, My Morning Jacket), and it’s all the more egregious when the band in question has already settled into a winning formula. Dead Heart Bloom’s previous release, Chelsea Diaries [All of their albums are available for free on their site —Ed], was an intimate, string-heavy collection of acoustic songs that showcased Boris Skalsky’s beautiful vocals, all while tugging gently at the heartstrings.
