The Return of the Bright Men of Learning Plus Record Reviews.

Bright Men of Learning

I'd been looking forward to a Bright Men of Learning show for a while now. They play this rootsy indie rock thing that goes pretty well with a few beers at a bar. Unfortunately for me, I had a staff meeting for the Free Press that ended at 8PM at Rudyard's so I got going a bit early on the booze. Add to the mix that I really hadn't had a proper dinner (I went swimming earlier which, for me, is one big appetite suppressant). So early drinking with an empty stomach and well you can guess how that went. But despite skillfully bumping Dan the Brother's beer twice(!!) and finding myself leaning on people for support, I still was able to thoroughly enjoy BMOL's set. The Ben/Chris stereo guitar duo shit was sweet with Ben laying down some downright pretty licks. In fact, the opening song is one I love where Ben plays this lovely melodic guitar line that always annoys me simply because they still haven't gotten to recording it yet. Marshall's vocals were on and the rest of the band was probably the best I'd ever heard them - kudos to the always great sound from Joe at Rudyard's. Funny how many people were there whom I'd never think would be into BMOL; maybe it's because they were opening for Magnolia Electric Company. Regardless, I was loving every note and because I was wasted, drunken reasoning dictated that everyone else was digging it just as much as I. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

OK Now Some Reviews:


Caribou - Andorra - Merge Records



Don't let the abrupt and clunky way Melody Day bursts-in when the needle drops throw you off, Caribou's new album is one of the most engaging psychedelic records to have hit wax in a while. Once you get past that mood wrecking bumble of a start the rest of the record drops some sweet textured sounds that would make any pothead swoon. The key to why this album is so brilliant is the way sound swirl and bounce against each other; the songs have a gorgeous mix of subtle beats, guitars, basses, and synthesizers that just creep up under you like that mushroom tea that you made back in the college dorm. Don't get me wrong the songs themselves are great but what puts it over the top, what makes it an experience and an album you will be able to go back to years from now, is Daniel Snaith has a great sense of arranging his songs to sound like they are in some abstract world all their own. You could call the lovingly textured production "modernized 60's psychedelia for the 21st century" be it the weird breakdown on Eli where about halfway through the song where it builds into something like the work of George Martin's bastard child or the simple almost Kraurock beat of Sundialing touched by subtle reverbed flutes and synths. This is an LP that bears repeated listening and should make anyone releasing albums feel unimaginative. And to think it was all done on a home computer.

BONUS: Here is a short documentary from the BBC:

The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour - Epitaph


[Fucking Canadians!!! This is the second review of an album I love and it's another bleeding Canadian Band!] This album has been on endless rotation since I first heard it. From when the band kicks in on the first track to the closing note it's a perfect example of indie-pop at it's best. If you are a sucker for bands like Beulah this will be right up your alley. John K. Sampson's vocals have an innocence and vulnerability that are a perfect juxtaposition to the exacting and weary narrative of his lyrics. The band has a simple plaintive beauty in songs like Virtue the Cat Explains Her Departure and Utilities that make for a dizzy swoon of emotion. Never did a cat recalling his owner arriving "with kibble and a box full of beer" sound so sweet or someone wishing they "were a toothbrush or a solder gun" sound so desperately human. It's not all mopey though, there are some upbeat numbers too. The guitars and drums on Relative Surplus Value recall The Smiths at their most driving and energetic [Fuck you! The Smiths were a great band!] and the guitars in the opening track Civil Twilight have the thrill of driving with the windows down on a perfect summer day. This is simply one of those albums like The Reigning Sound's Time Bomb High School or say Beulah's The Coast is never Clear where you will find me listening to it a year from now with just as much enjoyment as when I first heard it.



Shellac- Excellent Italian Greyhound - Touch and Go/Quarterstick

Oh shit, who thought that Shellac could become a formulaic machine. I've followed Steve Albini's stuff since Big Black and enjoyed it as much as anyone but this album is horribly dull and predictable. Albini's lyrical tropes even reach a state of tedium with the Genuine Lullubelle where you almost want to approach Albini and with a big yawn tell him "Yeah, that's real edgy bro." The music isn't poorly performed or recorded poorly. Arguably it's not even a "bad" record. Songs like Boycott and Spoke get the job done but, as a whole, the album seems nothing more than a series of stops, starts, and volume juxtapositions that leave me unaffected. Perhaps if I hadn't heard the superior 10,000 Hurts or Action Park LPs I'd be blown away but the fact is I have and they are much better records. Maybe I just need to sit on it a while longer but, at the moment, it feels like I've been here before. Oh wait there is a really nice track - Kittypants - where Albini plays a guitar line in that sounds straight out of the Silkworm song book. It's oddly undeveloped and short but the one point in the album where something happened that didn't occur elsewhere and I feel was sorely needed in this album - the unexpected. On the other hand it may be that it's unreasonable to expect something new out of Albini after this many years. Still, at least there is some pretty packaging.


Something Fierce/The Hangouts Split 7" - Manic Attack Records

From the first chords of Teenage Ruins it's clear that Something Fierce have reached a new level in their songwriting and performance in the studio. It's just straight up driving poppy punk rock and roll that makes you bounce around, thrash, spill your beer and remember how brilliant punk can be when it's got a fucking pumping heart. Throw away the tired formulaic crap you've been buying because this is the shit! This is why god made bars, guitars, and rock and roll. What, you think god wants to hear your hacky second rate Chuck Berry riffs? Fuck no! The big G, can skank like a motherfucker and Something Fierce is the soundtrack.

P.S. - I'm told there is a second side.

Bring Back the Guns - Dry Futures - Feow Records

Bring Back the Guns doesn't fuck around, No More Good Songs jumps into the ring, beats you with an unrelenting mechanical pounding of guitars and snare and within a minute and a half concludes with a blur of ass whoopin' not seen in these parts since Jack Johnson. The rest of the album makes a point of pulling no punches either. This is an album from a band with a maddening swirl of ideas. Like the manic beauty of an obsessed conspiracy theorist, the songs feel like they have been poured over and turned inside out until their purest essence has been squeezed out onto tape. The performance and arrangements in songs like Let's Not or Radio Song 04 swagger with a drunken confidence of a master architect bringing you blueprints with "Fuck you, Top This!" written atop in black magic marker. Hell, I could even see someone arguing that Bring Back the Guns and this album are too smart and too brainy. How do you respond to that? I think in the same way Pete Townsend responded when a critic at The Daily Mirror called Tommy pretentious. He just laughed and said "He's bloody well right it is!"

Nonloc - Between Hemispheres - Strange Attractors

Admittedly I'm someone who loves wanky stuff like Popul Vuh and Alan Licht so I'm pretty much a sucker for this kind of stuff when it's done right and this is a prime example of it being done right. The opening track Corpus Callosum is a gorgeous multi-track of guitars - picked, e-bowed, and looped that envelop you in their grip. Candide has a brilliant and inspired bass line that is surrounded by dancing guitars and some excellent Krautrock vocals. The rest of the album is just as good. If names like Harry Partch, Kraftwerk, or Florian Frike mean anything to you, then Mark Dwinell's multi-track musings will likely be your bag of tea. If not, then let me just try and tell you that Dwinell is having one of the most interesting internal conversations - on in which his constructions (one of brick by brick layering of guitars) slowly reveal a picture that is as beautiful as it is ethereal.


Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends - French Kiss

Oh expectations are a bitch. I'm sure you had as high expectations of this Les Savy Fav album as I did. The good news is the album is really good. The downside is it's not their best work. Nevertheless, when the songs are great - they are great. The opening track, Pots and Pans is a gorgeous intoxicating mix of thumping drums and shimmering guitars over a tale of a tenacious band that seems to end much too soon. There are funky dancy songs like the The Year Before The Year 2000 and Patty Lee (which are fun), there are straight ahead rockers like The Equestrian, trippy songs like Brace Yourself, clever and catchy poppy songs that would have fit perfectly in your 80's record bin like What Would Wolves Do?, and Rage in the Plague is a classic of manic energy. Yet, despite moments like those, the album just never gels as a whole and plays more like a collection of singles. Nevertheless, it's still quite good - not where I'd start if you've never heard LSF - but a decent effort from a band that isn't out to impress anyone.

Paris Falls - Vol 1 - Self Released


This is pretty primordial stuff from a band with a with a lot of potential. Right off the cuff, the band strikes gold with Lucky - a track whose guitar line leads into a gorgeous vocal melody that would make John Lennon's ghost smile. And make no mistake of it, this band has a clear Beatles fetish which is both it's biggest strength and weakness as, at times, the influence hang a little too heavily over the songs. The album has a great cohesive flow about it that demands it be taken as a whole and not song by song. Yet, something keeps the album from being great and it's hard to pin down why given that whenever a song pops up I think, "Hey, that's a really good song." Maybe it's because lovely and outstanding song like New Rome sneak between the merely good songs it makes you realize that these guys are only just at the very early stages of finding out just what they can do. We await the follow up with baited breath.

Deer Tick - War Elephant - Feow Records

Finally, we get to hear John McCauley in high fidelity and it's about goddamn time! His talent has always poured from his low-fi releases but you always wanted to give him the room to move and run loose and like a animal released from the zoo back into the wild, McEntire embraces his new home and it embraces him back. Take the new version of Diamond Rings; his voice is sweet and emotive with all the frailty, insecurity, and hope of it's narrator. It's a perfect example of McCauley's strengths as a songwriter and a performer. It reminds me of listening to some of the early Paul Westerberg or some of the more heartfelt Big Star. In Dirty Dishes McCauley's voice is horribly pained and romantic whereas in Spend the Night his voice is drunk with hope. It's a very emotive rustic voice that carries so much behind it and the backing instrumentation and harmonies are happy to follow his lead. All in all, a gorgeous release of fragile beauty from a remarkable talent.

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse - Jagjaguwar

Devastation is a goddamn great song. Right from the get-go...the opening swirls, the initial drum roll, and that heavy-duty riff! The ebb and flow of the verse and chorus is organic enough to pull you into its riptide and drag you down to the depths. PERFECT!

Here is the problem - the rest of the album kind of blows. It's a mish-mash of half-baked neo-psychedelia. Nothing else quite works or gels which is a huge disappointment given that there are good ideas floating within the mess. Maybe next time they can pull off a good album. Well see. But that one song - schweet!

Blades - Who's The Cream Puff Now? - Flight Dog Records

Motherfucking Blades! I'm doing a feature on them next month for a reason in the Free Press - they are as clever and ambitious in their music as they are with their musicianship. This EP, though, isn't the final Blades statement - it's more of a demo. This is very rough around the edges and doesn't come close to capturing the energy of one of their live shows but it's a good, if rough, introduction. The upcoming Grey Ghost CDR is already miles ahead in terms of the band's performance and god knows what they can accomplish once they really conquer the studio and release an album but, for now, this will be a good holdover and we are quite grateful.

Oneida - Seeds of Contemplation - Jagjaguar (Free on Emusic)

Shit, Oneida dropped a free "best of" comp on E-music to celebrate 10 years of releases. I'm not going to review it. You already know their proggy kraut-rocked shit - this is a best of after all. I'm just here sayin' it's free if you subscribe to e-music so just download it you dumbass!

Rating System

David Thomas (Pere Ubu): So good my head is going to explode!



Dave Thomas (Wendy's): Pretty tasty.



Dave Thomas (SCTV): Oh My fucking God! What happened to these guys!
*Reserved for bands that at one time were great.



Celine Dion: Hey, more power to the artist and the fans but leave us out of it.



Nickelback Dude: So bad that I'm only reserving it for the worst of the worst; I mean, come on, we're talking sucking worse than Celine Dion.