Ziazine Magazine April 2010 : Page 20

music reviews new tunes in stores this month new tunes in stores this month She & Him PRONOUN PROS I t’s hard not to reflexively hate the She & Him project just a little bit—indie darling Zooey Deschanel could not only steal your boyfriend in a heartbeat; she can sing, too. Yeesh. Volume II is the second collaboration be- tween the actress and singer-songwriter/ producer M. Ward, and it’s definitely a step forward for the pair. Deschanel isn’t neces- sarily a great technical singer, but there’s something charmingly flawed and endearing about the earnestness of her efforts. You can tell she loves to sing. at said, none of this would work without Ward, a master at synthesizing vintage musical stylings into something rich and interesting. e album features  original songs and two cov- ers—NRBQ’s “Ridin’ in My Car” and Skeeter Davis’ “Gonna Get Along Without You Now.” As an actress, Deschanel has that certain je ne sais quoi—a bit awkward, but oddly transfixing. Her music has the same allure. [ 20 + ZIAZINE! + APRIL 2010 ] Second time’s a predictable charm for Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward’s super-duo 8 She & Him Volume Two MERGE Ward has perfectly matched that sly, sunny charisma with a ’s and ’s pop palette. ese songs sound like a summer afternoon. e first single, “In the Sun,” channels that nonchalance with a catchy little piano part, and guest vocals from Tilly and the Wall. e slow stuff provides a better showcase for Deschanel’s deceptively emotive style. Dreamy ballads like “Brand New Shoes” and “Me and You” have a lovely lyrical simplic- ity, and Ward’s soulful guitar work provides the proper grounding. For all the buzz about the lush beauty of She & Him’s arrangements, the spare moments provide the album highlights. is stuff will still be too precious for some, but on their second go-around, Ward and Deschanel seem to have an even better handle on their formula. e songs feel tighter and catchier—plus, this is music that just sounds nice. Which isn’t always such a bad thing. —Lee Stabert

Pronoun Pros

It’s hard not to reflexively hate the She & Him project just a little bit—indie darling Zooey Deschanel could not only steal your boyfriend in a heartbeat; she can sing, too. Yeesh.

Volume II is the second collaboration between the actress and singer-songwriter/ producer M. Ward, and it’s definitely a step forward for the pair. Deschanel isn’t necessarily a great technical singer, but there’s something charmingly flawed and endearing about the earnestness of her efforts. You can tell she loves to sing. at said, none of this would work without Ward, a master at synthesizing vintage musical stylings into something rich and interesting.

E album features original songs and two covers— NRBQ’s “Ridin’ in My Car” and Skeeter Davis’ “Gonna Get Along Without You Now.” As an actress, Deschanel has that certain je ne sais quoi—a bit awkward, but oddly transfixing. Her music has the same allure.

PRONOUN PROS Second time’s a predictable charm for Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward’s super-duo 8 She & Him Volume Two MERGE Ward has perfectly matched that sly, sunny charisma with a ’s and ’s pop palette.

Ese songs sound like a summer afternoon.

E first single, “In the Sun,” channels that nonchalance with a catchy little piano part, and guest vocals from Tilly and the Wall.

E slow stuff provides a better showcase for Deschanel’s deceptively emotive style.

Dreamy ballads like “Brand New Shoes” and “Me and You” have a lovely lyrical simplicity, and Ward’s soulful guitar work provides the proper grounding. For all the buzz about the lush beauty of She & Him’s arrangements, the spare moments provide the album highlights.

Is stuff will still be too precious for some, but on their second go-around, Ward and Deschanel seem to have an even better handle on their formula. e songs feel tighter and catchier—plus, this is music that just sounds nice. Which isn’t always such a bad thing.

—Lee Stabert The Apples in Stereo 7 Travellers in Space and Time YEP R O C e future of retro is here today When Apples in Stereo mastermind Robert Schneider says of his band’s latest album that he “wanted to make a futuristic pop record,” he mostly means that he’s taking cues from bands in the ’s and ’s that were making those sorts of records. at’s the era in which the Apples have always been rooted, plucking the best parts from the Beatles, Beach Boys and Zombies into their sunny pop-rock. No, when Schneider envisions the future, he imagines ELO are the biggest band in the world, and Travellers in Space and Time is the Apples’ ELO record.

After a long hiatus, the Elephant collective’s flagship band released New Magnetic Wonder in and trimmed much of their psychedelic sprawl for a fairly straightforward, guitar-centric record. On Travellers, keyboards play the most prominent role, with “Dignified Dignitary” standing out as the album’s lone rocker. e majority of the tracks are dedicated to groove-oriented early R&B and proto-disco, with a sizable chunk of Steely Dan sneaking into the mix; and, like any good sci-fi plot, there are love stories (“No One in the World,” “Nobody but You”). But it’s doubtful that the antagonist in “Told You Once” has much to worry about, as it’s hard to imagine Schneider swooping in and stealing anyone’s girlfriend. e future still seems a hairy place for the nice guy. —Matt Sullivan David Byrne/Fatboy Slim 5 Here Lies Love NONESUCH ey’d like that in a pump and a loafer Where to begin? A double-CD pop opera about former first lady of Panama, Imelda Marcos, by a very strange team-up that only gets more unusual when you see the other names attached to it: the album’s finale is a duet between Cyndi Lauper and Tori Amos, for starters. Like so much else David Byrne has done over the past couple decades, Here Lies Love is a skillful album that doesn’t leave much of a mark. e music, which Fatboy Slim largely co-authored, is swift, but a little anemic. (Slim’s party-hearty tendencies are largely subdued, though they make appearances here and there, such as on the disco groove of “Ladies in Blue,” sung by eresa Andersson.) But this is clearly a theater piece, and listening to it makes you wonder what you might be missing onstage.

Byrne’s Marcos is not unlike Todd Haynes’ Bob Dylan of I’m Not ere, each era or facet a different person altogether—or here, singer. But it’s hard for Byrne to make social, biographical, historical and political details sing. e Charmaine Clamor-sung “Walk Like a Woman” (“I’m gonna learn how to dress, how to dance / I’m gonna learn how to make an impression... for the love of this man”) feels odd coming as it does on an album credited to two men. A number of singers put their lyrics over anyway: Kate Pierson (of the B- ’s) could sing her Twitter feed and it would sound like a party. Even if this doesn’t succeed as a complete work, it is a rather nice showcase for a lot of great female singers. —Michaelangelo Matos Cypress Hill 7 Rise Up EMI/PRIORITY Nothing nü under the sun Wrap your glassy-eyed little noggin around this: If you had conceived a child during the Saturday Night Live episode when stoner-rap pioneers Cypress Hill got banned for smoking a joint on national television, that child would almost be old enough to vote. ink about that for a second—is your mind officially blown yet? If not, the fact that the Hill’s new album, Rise Up, is actually a damn solid piece of heritage-hop should probably blow that mother out, especially considering the disappointing rap-rock descent of the group’s turnof- the-century output.

Sure, there’s a cringe-worthy guest appearance from Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, and nobody really needs to hear Everlast interpolate Doors’ lyrics, but the collaborations with Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello— the title track and “Shut ’Em Down”—are way better than they have a right to be. Rise Up excels when the core group of B-Real, Sen Dog and DJ Muggs stick to what they do best: getting super-stupid high and spitting stoned-silly rhymes over funky beats. It’s a formula that has made them fixtures in dorms across America, and it’s a formula that still works.—Sean L. Maloney Free8 Free Forever EAGLE V I S I O N Liberation transmission No hagiography of classic British hard rock is complete without genuflecting at the fleeting altar of Free. ough they were together for less than six years, vocalist Paul Rodgers, drummer Simon Kirke, bassist Andy Fraser and guitarist Paul Kossoff were masters of the hard blues/tight pants idiom that the likes of Clapton, Zeppelin and Bad Company (of which Rodgers and Kirke were later members) took to the stratosphere.

Yeah, “All Right Now” is the still-ubiquitous mega-hit that everyone can hum in their sleep, but Free’s catalog of soulful ladykiller jams goes much, much deeper. All the footage on this double-disc set is from that very year, when the entire band was under (Fraser and Kossoff were still teenagers) and already the musical equals of many a more prominent forbear.

Of the three sets of footage on disc one, the runaway highlight is a brilliant five-song performance from British television, shot multi-camera style with gorgeous angles, zooms and all the appropriate lens flare of the era. Disc two is mostly surround-sound audio, containing the band’s full set from the massive Isle of Wight Festival, though video is included for three songs in vintage concert split-screen style. Kossoff would be dead at age from drug-related heart failure less than six years after this was shot, but his rightful legacy—and Free’s—rides on here. Maybe even forever. —J. Bennett Lali Puna 8 Our Inventions MORR MUSIC Mother necessity For better or worse, Adam Young’s solo project Owl City defines the state of lo-fi bedroom pop in .

Owl City’s detractors tend to dismiss last year’s breakthrough, Ocean Eyes, as an inferior rewrite of the Postal Service’s full-length, Give Up; the group’s booster club traces clean ancestral lines back to the radio-ready hooks of New Order. Young has done well to communicate warmth with Owl City, but the best pop music should aspire to more than surface tensions.

Ere’s a sly nod or two to the Postal Service (the glitchy opening of “Remember”) on Lali Puna’s fourth full-length, Our Inventions, but the German quartet’s palette of influences (Stereolab, Boards of Canada, Unrest’s Imperial f.f.r.r.) are much deeper and more refined. Valerie Trebeljahr’s make-up-or-break-up lyrics still stand in opposition to the fanciful, loop-happy arrangements, but the focus of Our Inventions is more interpersonal than past releases. It’s also somewhat of a return to form to ’s Scary World eory, with synths as the dominant musical element (as on the shimmering instrumental “Future Tense”). Of course, the emotional heft of something like “Move On” is undeniable: With or without guitars, Lali Puna write some of the most heartbreaking songs around. —Nick Green MGMT6 Congratulations COLUMBIA Difficult second album-itis When the Grammy-nominated Brooklyn duo MGMT emerged in with Oracular Spectacular, they were closer to the Bee Gees than anything heard since Travolta hung up his bell bottoms, but they also had one foot in the Flaming Lips’ psychedelic wonderland.

Using dance-appropriate synths, basslines and dreamy grooves, Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden infused songs with a radiance that surged to and fro.

E hit singles “Electric Feel,” “Kids” and “Time to Pretend” toyed with time and headspace, and created a kaleidoscope of musical revelry.

MGMT’s sophomore album, Congratulations, is a more high-strung affair. Songs offer Laurel Canyon-type melodrama alongside Casio-curated psych- and electro-pop, but the mood is shifty and neurotic. With a few exceptions, the music is pinched and cynical, with MGMT’s sonic ebullience in short supply. “It’s Working” rides a warm wave with dark undertones. “Love is only in your mind, and not your heart,” they sing from the bottom of Alice’s rabbit hole.

E -minute multiplepersonality pastiche “Siberian Breaks” declares, “It’s not the life lesson I’d’ve guessed / If you’re conscious, you must be depressed.” MGMT have woken up from their dream and gotten spanked with reality.

Ey’re not exactly pleased, but at least they secured a position in the spotlight. Congratulations? Maybe, maybe not.

—Jeanne Fury The New Pornographers 7 Together MATADOR United by fate

e New Pornographers spent two albums being almost too immediate, and then two more burying their hooks a little. Together splits the difference somewhat: it’s more immediate than either Twin Cinema or Challengers, but it’s also got those albums’ calmer surface. Lead songwriter A.C. Newman’s songs are full of takeaways: “ e Crash Years,” sung by Neko Case, with its huffing-and-puffing up-and-down riff, piping organ and easy melody, can switch gears at the end, finishing with what sounds like a bridge with a cryptic lyric: “Tonight will be an open-mike.” e splashy, glammy “Silver Jenny Dollar,” one of Destroyer singersongwriter Dan Bejar’s contributions, is even brighter, thanks in part to Kurt Dahle’s splashing drum fills, and Even more to a tune that’s both compact and endlessly unwinding.

Some of the melancholy that suffused Twin Cinema and Challengers is here, too, most notably in the delicately rendered “Valkyrie and the Roller Disco,” with Newman, Case and Kathryn Calder singing with and over one another while wispy guitar and organ peel off small, subtle lines. Together even has a splashy finale, “We End Up Together,” nearly six minutes long, with strings and classic-rock start-stops. It fits perfectly.

—Michaelangelo Matos Brian Posehn 8 Fart and Weiner Jokes RELAPSE And even some poop gags, too Brian Posehn’s a realist. e gangly, bearded, fortysomething comic— who has ascertained justifiable cult standing from Mr. Show and e Sarah Silverman Program—knows that he’s never going to do a sex scene in a movie, but he’s certainly qualified to be in one… as the “creepy janitor or the inbred redneck hotel owner who just climbed in through the window” watching hot teens fornicate and muttering, “Git that shit, boy! Hoo doggie!” Such is the basis of the (many) laughs on Posehn’s second comedy album for underground metal kingpins Relapse—he’s a king-sized, shut-in nerd whose four hobbies are smoking weed, playing Xbox, masturbating and crying. If you can identify with any of the aforementioned— and knowing our audience, we bet there’s plenty of four-for-fours out there—you’ll find Fart and Weiner Jokes an endearingly offensive, -minute diversion.

Well-known as an extreme music lifer, Posehn throws in another original metal tune at the very end, à la Live In: Nerd Rage’s “Metal by Numbers.” “More Metal an You” isn’t nearly as funny, nor is a palm-muted version of Kenny Rogers’ “e Gambler” that follows, but no biggie. ey can’t all be Denis Leary’s “Asshole,” can they? —Andrew Bonazelli Tim Chad & Sherry 9 Baby We Can Work It Out CLEFT MUSIC Shaken and baked Nashville boogie proprietors Tim Chad and Sherry’s name might not be falling off the tongues of our nation’s hipster massive quite yet, but you can expect all of your too-cool-for-school buddies to be bumpin ’em on the stereo by the summer. e brainchild of Silver Jews drummer Brian Kotzur, TC&S’s dadaist dance rock— think Joe Walsh and Lee Perry making a disco record— has been drafted by indie-rock patriarchs Pavement to get the dance floor moving at this year’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, and if Baby We Can Work It Out is any indication, not a single ass will be left un-shook.

From the deep house vibe of “Love on the Dancefloor” to the sexy, smooth R&B of “Don’t Disturb is Groove,” TC&S exhibit an obvious love of their source material that’s neither painfully ironic or so gimmicky that it becomes parodic—a difficult balancing act that few bands can achieve these days. Like a mix tape of obscurities from the kid that’s too cool to hang out with coolest kids you know, Baby We Can Work It Out is a mind-expanding, rump-shaking voyage that will surely be a staple of this summer’s cookouts and impromptu hipster dance parties everywhere. —Sean L. Maloney

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