Yuck - Yuck

Yuck - Georgia

Runs for: 3:36

Absolutely solid track. 

Pretty upbeat with some solid poppy instrumentals to back it up.

I got my mits on this album the other week and it blew me away. Taken a while for me to post this what with all the homework I've been struggling to do (inspiration's a bitch to pull out of your arse when you're under pressure) but I'm just about over the hump. Anyway, to the album.

Something I’m really liking about this album is that it mimics a lot of old garage rock that was prominent in the nineties but somehow died out/evolved into indie as we have it today. The vocals are distorted and drawn out and have clever chorus work involved - and the guitar work has got this nice sorta high end summery sound to it. That said, it’s all very well constructed. It’s not so much about jamming out on some simple power chords, but rather making it a little better, implementing some slightly complicated rhythm sections, or unexpected power chords. Like, it stuff you can chill out and listen to on your deck or something. Really smooth, cool stuff. It’s kinda like dinosaur jr mixed with sonic youth or ash.

Cannot stress how much this album takes me back to the 90s, days where you’d  be watching music videos on Rage in the morning and you’d see a bunch of silly bastards in denim jackets crappin on about getting back with old girlfriends. This totally takes me back to those times, aesthetic wise. You’d hear a lot of stuff that was similar back then and it was a pretty prominent scene for a good part of the early nineties. What I like about this album though, is that it doesn’t feel like a musical throwback or rehash, but it comes off as something that can stand in its own rights. For parts of a song, you’ll be listening thinking that it reminds you of the 90s rock era like I’ve been saying, but then you’ll hear something unexpected that’ll draw you back to now. it might be in the use of chimes, unusual chord work or just overly strange mixing, stuff that’s become a normal amongst indie rock acts of this century. I’m starting to wonder if half my love for this album isn’t coming from the fact it’s creating all these questions about music theory for me!

That said it's not purely 90's grunge. They have a few really good grunge tracks but there's also a lot of nice calm tracks as well. Suicide Policeman is a good example of it, really laid back, cool and somewhat poppy track powered by acoustics. Other tracks like Get Away, The Wall and Operation are all solid grunge tracks, whereas Rubber gives the album a solid progressive drawn out shoegaze track which is something that the album really needs. Finally, Georgia, the single they picked for the album, was actually a solid choice and one of, if not my favourite track on the album. This is weird for me because usually I never agree with the choice for singles that most bands put out. Georgia though, happy, bit poppy, brilliant guitar work, brilliant song. Sink your teeth into it.

Reccomended for: Fans of Dinosaur Jr, Ash, Sonic Youth, anyone who lived the 90s, and that one guy out there who asked the question: 'what if grunge never died'?

Yuck - Get Away

Runs for: 4:17

Opener for the album. 

Got that grunge sound and lyrical theme that really reminds me of the 90s.

Yuck - Rubber

Runs for: 7:15

Final track of the album. 

Got that grunge sound and lyrical theme that really reminds me of the 90s.

Have A Nice Life - Deathconsciousness

Have A Nice Life - Hunter

Runs for: 9:45

There's like two, three songs in one here. 

Starts slow, picks up and becomes amazing. Fucking formidable tune.

So after going through the Giles Corey self titled album, I thought to myself that I’d have a bit of a rummage around and find out about this ‘Dan Barrett’ character. Wikipedia tells me he’s a jazz musician from the 50s but that sounds like bullshit, so I delved a little further and found out that I was looking at the wrong guy, or he had a drastic change of heart and went over to alternative music. So anyway, he was in a band called ‘Have A Nice Life’ with a guy called Tim Macuga. They put out Deathconsciousness in 2008 and what few reviews it got were rated very high. Somehow I’ve never even heard of it... Lets give it a listen.

Some of the tracks are pretty ominous and have this doom-y feel to them. There’s piano, heavily distorted drums, wailing drone guitars, all sorts of weird effects. All of it is really slow and drawn out – the album goes for about 85 minutes which makes this the longest non-metal album I have. It’s definitely music for the patient, but very inspiring for people who don’t mind listening to longer, more drawn out and experimental tracks. There’s elements of drone, shoe gaze, ambient sections, all sorts of weird stuff. It goes from atmospheric at times into rock tunes, all the while using not the most complex drum or guitar work, but more cleverly constructing it compared to the rest of the music.

There’s also some parts where you’ll be expecting a song to climax and instead of going all out by stepping in loud drums, or a thrash of guitar, they’ll step up the music in some subtle, much more sinister way and let it climb from there. I like music that keeps you off guard. To me that’s a sign of something very well constructed. Hunter does this really well, and still has a part where it all picks up into this drum led section with truly haunting guitars.

Bloodhail is also a great track. Not a huge amount has to happen in it but it opens with a really simple yet strong bass/drum combination, while the guitar and the vocals go off and do their own thing. The vocals are mixed with reverb and make it all sound like they’re coming to you through a dream.

Holy Fucking Shit: 40,000 is also brilliant. Starts off like one of Brand New’s slower tracks, then near the end it jumps into this crazy ass metal-esque finish. Deep, Deep is a wicked mix of shoegaze and post punk sound… I have to stop here or I’ll go on forever. There’s so much good on this album it’s blowing my fucking mind.

However, after listening to some more of his stuff it’s becoming  apparent that while everything Dan Barrett does is good, he’s got this bad habit of slapping on a lot of reverb over his vocals and making them too hard to hear. Normally I’m ok with barely understandable vocals thanks to my wasted years listening to shitty hardcore but It’s super frustrating to be that much closer to comprehending what’s going on and have too much goddamn reverb in the way! This is my one and only criticism.

This album is moving. It jumps from dark to spacey, ambient to powerful rock. One review put up (that recieved endorsement from Dan Barrett) said that these guys are the embodiment of ‘Post-‘ music. This is true. This might be the most powerful, innovative and inspiring release I’ve heard in years. If anyone comes up to me and says they’ve listened to and enjoyed this album, I will fuck them right on the spot. That’s right. I’m giving a goddamn guarantee here, that I’ll rip off both our clothes and give you the humping of a lifetime.  By the time I’m done with you, sex won’t even be a word in your vocabulary as we’ll have replaced it with something indescribable. Something more. This is all consensual, of course.

Reccomended for: People who like Brand New but weren’t that big on their last album, probably emo… not kids but adults ( I mean you need a fringe for that shit, this does not scream fringe), patient people, proper musos, people who want my glorious dong all up in their business.

Have A Nice Life - Deep, Deep

Runs for: 5;25

Very Post punk. Think cure/joy division esque. 

Got a cool rolling drum on this track's backbone.

Have A Nice Life - Bloodhail

Runs for: 5;25 

Nice and bass-ey. 

The vocals pick up and tear the song to pieces - in a good way.

Grinderman – Grinderman 2

Grinderman - Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man

Runs for: 5:42

Opener of the album. Pretty wicked track, but it'll take a few listens to get used to.

Before we get into this, I’ll say that my relationship with Nick Cave and his work has been pretty casual. A lot of people follow him and get hyped up about his stuff, but for me his stuff has always seemed more… I dunno, dad rock I guess?  Ship song was pretty cool and I’ll admit when I hear it I’ll start singing it for about two weeks before I comfortably forget the whole experience, subconsciously ready for the next time it slinks back into my ears – much like the rest of his work.

Now the album mixes musical elements of noise rock with a grungy edge to it, using Nick Cave putting down slow, bluesy vocals to wrap it all together. I mean, while it all sort of works, I’m finding it difficult to find any true standout tracks. Evil is awesome, as is Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man, and I can see tracks Worm Tamer and Heathen Child being both single quality, but there’s something about the album that just really makes me see Nick Cave pushing the thing forward which seems like it’s giving the instrumental side of things a licence to hold back.

But yes - Evil is a fucking tune and a half. There’s a sweet lyrical desperation to it and it breaks out of that desperation into some odd noisy mid riff but the whole thing sounds like some bizarre rock opera – for a lack of better description. A lot of the other tracks have very powerful wordplay, the lyrics are very odd and have a commanding presence and Cave’s delivery is up to par with plenty of carefully placed inflections and staggering in his delivery.

While Cave seems to shine here, unfortunately some of the instrumentals - while cool - just aren’t prominent enough. Bellringer Blues uses some weird effect that could be described as a mandolin recorded then played in reverse. There’s a few tracks where the riffs are bluesy but in those parts the drums and bass are staying a bit too monotonous riff wise. This strikes as a bit weird as they’re trying to get pretty experimental with some of their sounds yet they keep the rest of the song rather simple.

Instrumentally, it’s not catchy. it’s long and drawn out and unfortunately, even in the more subtle sounds, there really doesn’t seem to be anything ground breaking enough to keep the listener wanting to go back. This ends up being a problem because it makes it seem like Nick Cave is the driving force here due to his lyrical strength, and even if that is the case, there are plenty of people who have formed bands around themselves and managed to produce top albums. Josh Homme and his constant cut and swap line-up with Queens of the Stone Age and Dylan Baldi of Cloud Nothings work on Attack on Memory are two good examples of this. Weirdly enough, the album seemed to do well both by metacritic standards and against other albums from 2010. Not saying that it's terrible but there are definite flaws here that people seem to be overlooking because of how good Cave is.

Reccomended for: Nick Cave fans obviously, those who want bluesy, sinister-but-cool noise rock.

Grinderman - Evil

Runs for: 2:55

I'm really digging the comparitive lyrics. 'Who needs TV, you are my TV'.  

Lyrically there' a lot of very strong stuff going on here and the music is cleverly sinister to boot.

John Talabot – Fin (and a bit on house music)

I’ll admit, House music isn’t really my game. When I was younger and idealistic, I was driving in the car and I was having a chat with a mate of mine about why we were against electronic forms of music. This, if I recall correctly, came from the idea that we as musicians, believed that there was inherently more skill in knowing how to play an instrument rather than press a few buttons. Of course as I got older, I’ve come to think we might have been making a stronger argument against modern pop rather than electronica and the like.

House seems to be more important to me lately as I’ve been going to house gigs as readily as they pop up. It’s fun stuff for me. I don’t necessarily know every house act that I’ve gone to but you still get to move around and have a decent time and it’s a far better time than sitting at home. And I don’t believe it takes more or less skill than traditionally constructed music, there’s just a different formula involved. I believe creating something aesthetically pleasing can be just as hard as knowing your way around an instrument – I have over 100 guitar riffs on my phone and maybe ten of those are good, and of all the songs I’ve made while dicking around on fruity loops, none are good and I should just incinerate my hard drive to prevent anyone from hearing them.

Anyway, lets start this review.

John Talabot - Destiny feat. Pional

Runs for: 4:53

Wicked tune! Synth sounds like a freaky drip or something. 

Good to chill out to.
 

One of my criticisms is that the album as a whole is pretty inconsistent. Some of the tracks let the listener down as they drag on for a while without any amazing progressions to pick the listener up, although other tracks can completely nail it. His synth work though is pretty wicked and original – you don’t see him making the same mistake that some make and using the same samples continually (looking at you Deadmau5, stop using that fwoosh effect you tool). This guy really knows when to chuck in an extra drum or warp a note and even in some of the worse songs on the album can be picked up by this.

There’s a lot of subtle and interesting layering going on and you can really pick up something new every time you listen to it. It’s got a subtle complexity to it that’s going to warrant a lot of listens to properly understand some of the tracks – but it’s aesthetically pleasing to a point where you can still enjoy it from the first play through.

Some of it really sets a mood as well. My favourite two tracks from the album, Destiny and So Will Be Now both set a real mood in their own ways. Destiny has some excellent synth work going on with some vocal layering that comes across like some sort of wicked electro chorus, whereas So Will Be Now builds itself up around clever sampling of the vocals, throwing more and more noises into the mix subtly as the track progresses. It’s really cool stuff. Last Land is pretty clever too in its use of a orchestral sample and feeding of some of the voice through what sounds like an old microphone/record player.

As I said, while there’s a lot of cool stuff going on, some of the tracks don’t really get you there. There’s two really good songs on here, a lot of decent ones, but none that are objectively bad, just kind of let downs compared to the rest of the album. I’m hoping more of my friends get into this album because it’s got vague similarities to some of the stuff I’ve been hearing at the house gigs in Canberra, that and at parties.

Reccomended for: People who make their hands into little flippers when they dance.

John Talabot - So Will Be Now... feat. Pional

Runs for: 6:55

Another really good track. 

Uses voice layering and creates this awesome atmospheric finish.

Giles Corey - Giles Corey

Giles Corey - Blackest Bile

Runs for: 7:01

Slow, folkey, calm but also unnerving. Above all, Good.

I guess the only way to describe this album is ‘Dark Folk’. It’s pretty much the most artistic release I’ve ever heard, in that the music itself is different and it doesn’t really feel like it wants to prove itself musically but rather push forward a lot of thematic stuff. Dark thematic stuff.

Holy shit this is some bleak stuff. This must be the most unsettling album that I’ve ever got my hands on. Firstly, the artist, who's real name is Dan Barrett, goes by the moniker of Giles Corey, a man killed in the salem witch trials back in the 1600s – crushed to death by stones after he refused to plead guilty or not guilty to the accusation that he was a warlock. This accusation arose because a girl was haunted by a spectre of Corey in her sleep, demanding her to write her name in the devil’s book. Fucked up stuff. For lack of a better comparison, I’d say this is reminds me a lot of Brand New’s direction for some of the tracks on ‘the devil and god are raging inside of me’ only focusing on the darkest stuff on that album and evolving it tenfold.

The album’s musical delivery opts for a folk like approach, the artist using a guitar and most of the other instruments used fitting both the folk and experimental genre well. There’s a lot of smashed chords, but also incorporation of thundering drums that kick some songs into complete motion – blackest bile being the first example of this. There’s also incorporation of piano, spectral bride being a bittersweet song, possibly the most upbeat track musically yet lyrically it portrays a sort of torturous relationship – lyrics saying ‘my love’s out to get me/you know it’s going to succeed/and I hope I survive this fucking week/alone’. Some of the songs are layered with horns or odd synth effects to create a sort of epic sound to the tracks as if they were played in a giant empty theatre or something, along with use of a delay effect on a lot of the vocals, this sometimes creating a choir like effect. For some odd reason the folk work here isn’t unlike what Tom Waits typically tries to do, in that in his music he’s prone to illustrate characters and tell their story In the music.

My one criticism of the album when I first listened to it was that he uses the vocal delay a lot and It makes it hard to understand what’s going on without the lyric sheet. However, this actually turns out to be a fucking genius idea. You take the instrumentals for what they are... It’s ominous. Dark. Unsettling. The soundtrack to nightmares. Then you look up the lyrics and it gets far more horrifying when you can confirm that most of what he’s singing about involves self loathing in its many forms, death, nihilistic attitudes, thematic haunting - the works. It’s absolutely fantastic. Best example of this is No One is Ever Going to Want Me. It’s super atmospheric, and is powerfully evocative in the way it’ll leave you in a quiet melodic bit, and then takes you off guard by thundering into full blown smashing drums, belted out and catchy chords, horns sweeping in the background with the lyrics “I want to feel the way I feel when I’m asleep” being yelled out over the top of it all.

That all said, this isn’t ‘good mood’ music. At all. This is not an album you should play at parties, to friends or to make love to. If I ever end up in a shit mood, I’m going to avoid this album like the plague. I might even go far as to say this is my ‘Requiem for a Dream’ of albums. I also don’t recommend more than one full listen per day (nor could I do it). It’s just TOO dark.

Reccomended for: People who liked the darker side ‘The Devil and God are Raging Inside of Me’, Folk enthusiasts who don’t mind it getting experimental, those who want to dabble in avant garde music (I guess). Also super emos/people who frequent graveyards.

Giles Corey - No One is Ever Going to Want Me

Runs for: 8:15

Personal favourite track off the album. Just... wow. Holy crap.

Giles Corey - Spectral Bride

Runs for 7:10

Not sure where this sits in terms of favourite songs on the album, 

but it's definitely a pace changer and lyrically cuts to the bone with it's cynicism.

The Ex - Catch my Shoe

The Ex - 24 Problems

 Runs for: 7:04

Last track on the album. It's catchy as hell! 

I can't find a video on youtube for it so I hope soundcloud will do - click the song title.

This band is weird. It’s a good weird though. Ever tried to scratch the inside of your ear with a piece of dry spaghetti? Assuming you didn’t poke your eardrum, it’s a good weird. So is this album. At any rate though, we’re talking about a noise rock band from the Netherlands who's been around since 1979 that incorporates elements of ska, jazz and grunge (oh god if that doesn’t scream hipster taste…). The vocals are pretty smoothly delivered as opposed to other bands in the noise genre who opt for shouting most of the time which makes this a pretty easy, kinda funky listen. Keep in mind I’m not big on ska or grunge, and that one day I tried listening to jazz I almost set my external hard drive on fire out of rage.

Double Order is a pretty cool song. It’s one of those songs with a good rolling riff. I listen to it when walking through the mall and feel like I’m in a movie or something. It’s pretty catchy stuff, you want to start tapping your feet and bobbing your head while you ride up the escalator but at the same time you don’t want to be ‘that guy’. 24 Problems might be my favourite track and highlights the band’s strengths on the album.

A lot of the tracks on the album have a nice sort of snappy sound to it. It’s not in your face, but it’s really well constructed. The drums are really unusual and belt out some nice paced rhythms,  the bass lines have got a certain funk to it that’s more complex and interesting – it doesn’t follow the guitar but rather it dances around the jazz horns. The guitar work is pretty clever in that they don’t belt it out all the time, instead opting to use it sparingly not unlike some bands which incorporate synth. It’s all a really unique mix and should challenge the listener’s perspective as to how music is created. Finally, it’s pretty cynical lyrically but the vocal delivery is very clean and easy on the ears and sort of counters the upbeat music The good thing about all this, is while it’s pretty different, it’s not too weird to make it a hard listen, kind of in the same way Fugazi could be a bit odd at times yet still make some awesome tracks. Matter of fact, if I had to name a similar band to these guys, I’d pick Fugazi first with Unwound second, based on the use of the horns.

Not all of it is great though. I believe Eoleyo is probably the one track I’d forcefully skip just based on the fact that a song based on, I think it's turkish folk? It does nothing for me.  I see what they’re trying to do by imitating that style, but I just don’t find it appealing. It’s a problem when I stumble on albums like this, everything is kind of odd but interesting but then there’s that one track that just blows it for me meaning I can’t listen to the damn thing from start to finish. The rare occasions where this doesn’t happen result in those albums becoming my instant favourites.

That’s all I really have to say I suppose. Like I’ve been saying the whole time, weird but good. Give it a shot!

Reccomended for: Fans of Fugazi, Unwound, maybe fans of Phoenix or The Strokes if they started smoking a lot of crap and getting into noise rock. I don't fucking know.

The Ex - Double Order

Runs for: 5:52

This is also pretty catchy. 

The repetition in lyric work is pretty interesting here I feel.

The Ex - Life Whining

Runs for: 3:24

Listen to that goddamn guitar! Lap it up! 

LET IT RUN DOWN YOUR CHIN!  

Maybe wipe that shit up afterwards you gotta keep up appearances.

Tempest - Passages

Tempest - Year of Ash

Runs for 3:20

Opening track and a strong one at that. 

Starts nice and slow then practically throws you into the album face first.

My first metal review. Lets see if I can get through this without using fantastically original words like br00tal and other fantastic clichés. Doubting it. I’m also doubting most people who read this that don’t listen to metal are going to struggle to believe I’m not describing different types of soup with my genre terminology.

The wicked irony about this band is that they actually sound like a tempest. Seriously, it sounds weird but I could imagine myself standing in a storm so strong that it does crazy shit like ripping my skin off bare whilst listening to this stuff (yeah I’m weird deal with it). It’s insanely chaotic, fast and rhythmic with vocals behind it like a shrieking banshee. The great thing about it is that behind all this the drums are a mix between Grindcore and more mosh oriented Hardcore. The drummer is REALLY fucking good. The album has been listed as a mix between Crust Punk and Doom Metal (or black metal according to my Winamp player), I think sludge too - so what you’ll be hearing is a good mix of both downbeat, weirdly mixed instrumentals with the same sort of metal opera type riffs that you usually hear with Doom. Then of course the gritty vocals of Sludge Metal/Crust punk – but it’s definitely more crust/doom than sludge I feel. Not that anyone but me is going to understand that. I’m (almost) the only person I know who listens to this shit.

It’s a wicked blend and it’s pretty unique compared to a lot of crust that I listen to which is why I’ve decided to review this. My two complaints with the album are that firstly, it’s too small. It runs for about 29 minutes and leaves the listener wanting. You get to the end track and you ask yourself, ‘Was that it?! Goddamn! I WANT MORE!’ (plus side though it didn’t do what Future of the Left did by making the album too big hah.). On the earlier listens a lot of the tracks sound similar and this makes it seem even smaller (if that makes sense). This can be fixed by listening to the album a shit load, firstly, but back to back with their recently released Solace 7" lengthens it out and sates that need for more of this insane music. The shrieks will be a little hard to deal with firstly, but you’ll get there eventually, and admittedly the vocal style is not dissimilar and better than those used on Time To Burn’s album ‘Is.Land’ which is another good, more sludgy album.

Now back to what I was saying about the blend – it’s mixing two contrasting styles and doing a good job of it. Along with this, a lot of the guitar work seems to blend both doom technique with post hardcore riffwork. I love it!

I don’t listen to a stack of doom, admittedly. I’ve heard a lot of doom influenced music though, and this really seems to push it further than other bands, such as Cursed’s ‘Blackout at Sunrise’ EP and  ‘III: Architects of troubled sleep” – it kind of skirts on early Isis’ stuff/Old Man Gloom’s later stuff lightly but this is way more in your face thanks to the crust influence. I’d actually compare them to what would happen if KEN mode and early Isis got together and raised someone’s pissed off ginger stepkid… well maybe not since this stuff is very likeable.

Now the final thing I like about these guys is that they’ve got their album for free and the Solace 7" (2 songs, both really good.) for free or 5 bucks (which I'm purchasing), which is an absolute fucking steal. I gotta admit I don’t buy a stack of music but in the off chance they manage to put together a longer album, or get down to Australia, I’ll buy it. The link is below and you can get a proper album stream too.




http://consume.forgediniron.ca/album/passages
http://consume.forgediniron.ca/album/solace

Ok sike, that wasn’t really the final thing.

Listen to this stuff when hungover. Trust me. The noise will beat out your headache and afterwards you’ll feel like a GOD. Sure, logic might dictate that when your head is sore, you should keep quiet, lie down, hydrated… FUCK THAT SHIT POUND IT OUT WITH DRUMS!

Reccomended for: Fans of Cursed, maybe His Hero is Gone to a lesser extent, fans of Old Man Gloom/early Isis, dudes who are up for some audible punishment, banshees, all around mad dogs.

Tempest - Solace I

Runs for 4:47

First track off the Solace EP. Solace II is a better song I feel, 

but this is still damn powerful and these guys don't have a stack of songs on Youtube.

Titus Andronicus - Local Business

Titus Andronicus - Still Life With Hot Deuce On Silver Platter

Plays for 5:30

Oh look they gave us the lyrics! 

Wicked song. Opens pretty well I reckon.

Titus Andronicus quickly became one of my favourite bands this year when I got my mits on their second album, The Monitor – an amazing album that thematically covers both coming of age type issues along with old timey wholesome American values. You can listen to the album start to finish - I love the SHIT out of albums that I can do that with. They quite recently put out their third full length, Local Business, but will it hold up to the strengths of The Monitor?

As a band, they’ve been lumped into the ‘Folk-Punk/Indie’ genre. It works. It’s been said the band takes influence from all sorts of good music varying from Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, Neutral Milk Hotel and Pulp (who I personally believe to be the best pop act ever) and it’s paid off. They’re named after the Shakespeare play too, kind of an indicator that they take a shit load of good influences. Luckily they push out fantastic stuff with said influences..

Their music seems to focus mainly on the vocals as the guitars have been mixed a bit lower and the distortion seems to have the treble turned down just to make everything else a little stronger, but the tunes on this album are a little ‘summery’ if that makes sense. The drums are crisp and snappy, the vocals are a bit whiny and grainy (in a good way, sometimes a little ‘Jebadiah’-esque but better), and hold downbeat themes – the album literally opens with “Ok, I think by now we’ve established - everything is inherently worthless”. Another line I love is “Try to swallow while you’re still too young – that your dick’s too small to fuck the world”. How is that not awesome?

This album will take you about four listens to get. A lot of the variation between tracks that was so evident on the last album is lost – this being one of the weaknesses of Local Business. Many of the tracks sound very similar and you really have to pay attention to the songs to find what the hell is going on. They them seem to open the same way which can get old after the first couple of tracks. The only time it really starts to feel obviously diverse is by the final track, ‘Tried to Quit Smoking’ which rolls slow and sounds pretty country influenced. Everything else has a pretty good rolling punk/indie vibe, but like I said it can get a bit samey if you listen to it from start to finish. On that note though it’s still very tolerable, unlike beach house’s release this year which starts off really good and has some solid tracks on it but is fucking ruined by track number 3 because it all SOUNDS THE SAME. You seriously can’t sit down and listen to the whole thing! (might be a blog post in this…)

Back to influence, the album seems to incorporate a few elements of old rock. I haven’t heard a lot of Bruce Springsteen’s stuff but there’s a few tracks in there that seem to replicate his style. There’s also a bit of subtle piano work involved that kinda makes me think of old timey western saloons… but there’s an honest familiarity to the album that is evading me like crazy because I can’t quite put my finger on it. Regardless of this, the album has been noted as maybe their most accessible one to date by a couple of other reviews I’ve read, so maybe this is a good starting point for someone who doesn’t want something as abrasive as The Monitor was at times.

Thematically this is a cool album. Maybe not as ambitious as The Monitor, but it covers all the fun stuff like eating disorders, nihilism, hot deuces, the apathy behind second hand smoke, romance and all sorts of other fun stuff. Some of the tracks seem a bit dorky and redundant, (I’m looking at you, Electric Man) but it’s all still pretty fun and easy to listen to.

Recommended for: Difficult to say! They take influence from Neutral Milk Hotel so that’d be a good starting point. Beside that though, give it four listens. I think anyone who’s even the slightest bit cynical can get down with this. Or anyone looking for that post-punk sound wherein the music is happy but the lyrics are a bit downbeat (think The Cure, only if the Americans did it in 2010 and didn’t ruin it like they did with the IT crowd).

P.s.
I’d also like to say that their last album, ‘The Monitor’’ is VERY much worth listening to and has made it into a couple of top 10 charts for 2010 for good reasons. I really recommend sussing it out, or hell if you’re over at my place I’ll lend it to you. Like I said, I can listen to that thing start to finish and it’s a really rare thing for me to find an album I can do that with. It deserves every ounce of praise I’m giving it. Expect a review at some stage.

Titus Andronicus - Ecce Homo (Live video) (I know it says Hot Deuce again the uploader has a syndrome)

Runs for: (like ten minutes or something)

Ok so the band has decided that they don't want to put any of the actual tracks from the album up on youtube or soundcloud to help me make a post that does them justice which is a pain in the ass. 

So live recording is gonna have to do.