Record Review: Be Your Own Pet - Get Awkward (C-)

Get Awkward

XL/Ecstatic Peace
3/18/2008

As expected, Get Awkward roars out of the gate with the same intensity as their self-titled debut… unfortunately, that's where the comparisons seem to end. Gone is the raw, uncouth grittiness of just two years ago, replaced by over-produced, unoriginal teen-scowl rock. While Jemima Abegg still shrieks like a woman on fire, the subject matter becomes stale after a few tracks. The incessant whining and often cringe-worthy rants about losing a boyfriend, disliking a rival girl or all-night parties could be cute or even an interesting twist on an old idea, if Abegg wasn't so damn convincing. Instead of a slightly ironic twist on teen angst, the album comes off as legitimate teen angst, with lyrics pulled directly from a high-school girl's poetry notebook.

Not everything about the album is wrong, while it may rely a little too heavily on influences (if you're aching to get thrown in jail, take a shot every time that you hear Black Flag or Black Sabbath), Get Awkward manages to feel relatively original. Be Your Own Pet have written the soundtrack to a terrific mid-80's B-movie, unfortunately it's 2008. The songs are catchy, relatively enjoyable and most likely better when performed live, and therein lies the problem with the album. Seeing the band live is an amazing experience, hearing them through headphones leaves listeners largely unfulfilled. While it may not be as good as their debut, Get Awkward has its strong points and shouldn't be completely dismissed. Perhaps the band, and Abeeg in particular, should be viewed as Hannah Montana's evil twin.

Tour News: Set Possibilities for Springsteen

With Bruce Springsteen playing in Indy tomorrow night and Cincy Saturday night, it's time to look at possible set lists. The set for Milwaukee on Monday night is below, with the subs for Sunday night in St. Paul in brackets.

Main Set: No Surrender [Night], Radio Nowhere, Lonesome Day, Streets Of Fire [Darkness on the Edge of Town], Gypsy Biker, Magic, Reason To Believe, It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City (Milwaukee Only), Prove It All Night, She’s The One, Livin’ In The Future, The Promised Land, Cadillac Ranch [Waitin' On a Sunny Day], My Hometown [Backstreets], Devil’s Arcade, The Rising, Last To Die, Long Walk Home, Badlands

Encore Set: Loose Ends [Girls in Their Summer Clothes], Meeting Across The River (Milwaukee only), Jungleland, Born To Run, Ramrod [Dancing in the Dark], American Land

As you can see, for some reason the Boss threw in a couple bonus numbers for the Milwaukee crowd, and switched out six other songs. To anyone going to one of the upcoming shows, a show review would be very welcome.

Ad: Bruce Springsteen Poster - Magic

Record Review: The Presidents of the USA - These Are the Good Times People (B)

These Are The Good Times People

Fugitive Recordings / EMI
03/11/2008

These Are the Good Times People is chock full of the whimsy you might have come to expect from The Presidents of the United States of America. There’s hardly a substandard track amongst the fourteen on the album. That presents a problem for POTUSA though, as all the songs are equally whimsical. There are no real standouts like “Lump” or “Peaches” to push this one to the sales of their debut effort. The closest thing to a single is “Mixed Up S.O.B.,” which seems shifted out of its natural place to the front of the album, perhaps with single in mind. Even that might be difficult with some radio stations preferring not to play songs with that particular word, at least not as part of the titular chorus. It’s not that this album is bad. It’s just that with its somewhat formulaic whimsy rock it falls squarely between Cake and They Might Be Giants. Not that those guys don’t have fans, just that the popularity experienced by this band after their self-titled album came out has probably eclipsed anything they will ever do again. Occasionally they do get their head above water long enough to do something a little more interesting. The swing number “Flame is Love” manages to mix it up musically, and “Mixed Up S.O.B.” not only rocks but also connects with a lot of spiritually wounded men. All in all, this is a recommended record because it’s fun and a clear alternative to anything like emo. Just don’t expect to be wowed or have a life changing epiphany from it.. Sorry guys, you still can’t be naked and famous just yet.

Record Review: R.E.M. - Accelerate (A+)

Accelerate

Warner Brothers
4/1/2008

There's an excitement building through the first track of the album, one that seems to impossibly reach a climax mid-way through the second… by the time the opening notes of I'm Gonna DJ kick in, you may feel that your head is going to explode. Folks, R.E.M. isn't just back, they may have done something not seen since Bruce Springsteen released The Rising, they have made a career defining album nearly 30 years in.

The explosive nature of the album's opening tracks settles in a bit for the head-bobbing, almost Sonic Youth-esque "Mr. Richards," which blends beautifully into "Sing for the Submarine," a track that could have been a stand-out on the nearly flawless Automatic for the People. But, it's not just a track here and there; Accelerate is almost like a time capsule, a reminder of exactly what made R.E.M. great. Whether it's "Hollow Man" echoing Document or "Living Well is the Best Revenge" sweeping you back in time to Monster, this album is everything that an R.E.M. album should be: pitch-perfect college rock from a band that surely has to have finished that master's thesis by now.

An album without one single throwaway track isn't just a rarity these days, it's almost unheard of. Some of the greatest albums of the last decade, while no less impressive, have their share of mediocre tracks. Somehow, amazingly, Accelerate has absolutely none of them. The album is a consistent, cohesive piece of work without one single moment of disappointment. While band after band has attempted to follow in the footsteps of Athens' finest, aping sounds and guitar licks as if they were common property, we're finally given a reminder of exactly why it never really worked. There is only one R.E.M., and even though they seem to have been on hiatus since 1996 (face it, the last three albums didn't exactly set the world on fire), they are inexplicably back and better than they've been in decades.

To put it bluntly, Accelerate is a masterpiece… the jury may have reached a verdict for album of the year even before the snow has melted.

[editor's note - track order may vary]

Record Review: Flogging Molly - Float (B+)

Float

Side One Dummy
3/4/2008

“I’m a ripe old age, just doin’ the best I can,” sings Dave King in the title track of Flogging Molly’s new album. Closer to fifty than forty, King still knows how to write, play, and sing rock songs. Flogging Molly’s sound is crisp as ever, the lyrics are still poignant, and the Irishness just as Irish as ever. Filled with traditional rhythms and instruments, swirled together with electric guitar and hard rock drum lines, each song is invigorating in the way that only punk songs can be. The sound does appear to be a bit cleaner than in previous albums, the four years of working together since the last album definitely shows. They key transitions and rhythm transitions come off perfectly.

Highlights of Float include “Paddy’s Lament,” an unexpected rocker seemingly celebrating the end of hostilities in Northern Ireland, and “Lightning Storm,” a poetic sentiment about our own freedoms at home that comes with a warning. “On the Back of a Broken Dream” is the highlight of the album. It does the best job of expressing the overall theme of the record, that is to leave dead things in the past and move on to better things. Let bygones be bygones.

The last song, “The Story So Far,” is a bit weak. Much slower and than the rest of the album, it just doesn’t seem to be a fitting way to end it. Other than that, the only problem with the album is its very consistency. Each song, with the exception of the last one, is patently Flogging Molly. Flogging Molly seems to be concentrating on getting better at doing what they do rather than try to do something completely new.

Record Review: The Smashing Pumpkins - American Gothic (ep) (B+)

American Gothic

Wea International
3/4/2008

The partially reunited Pumpkins’ second project, American Gothic, delivers classic Pumpkin sound but in a slightly different package. Breaking up in 2000, and with two members still estranged, it appeared for a while that the particular sound of Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain would be lost. Fortunately they “reunited” the band in 2006 and produced Zeitgeist in July of 2007. The fact that they’ve released this EP now (digitally in January) shows that the song-writing process for Corgan is getting easier again. The new EP doesn’t contain the hardness of Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist employs the classic overdubbed guitars from earlier projects, but American Gothic isn’t nearly so dense. The music has a lighter sweeter character. Of course that might just be because Corgan and Chamberlain couldn’t spend so much time in the studio because they’re still on tour. The songs stick to a comparably basic set of instrumentation, with only a few vocal effects. Lyrically, the songs, in the order on the international EP, seem to present the story of a man falling in love with a woman, eventually being disappointed, feeling as if he can’t live without her, and eventually deciding that he’ll get along after all. It’s difficult to say why the order was changed for the digital release on iTunes, but in that order the overall meaning is obscured. Fans should download this from iTunes, and then rearrange it into the proper order (The Rose March, Again Again Again, Pox, Sunkissed) before listening.

Record Review: Protest the Hero - Fortress (B)

Fortress

Vagrant Records
2/11/2008

I never listen to metal. The closest I get is a little bit of Metallica’s black album, but it was a gift for my eighteenth birthday, so I’m obligated. That being said I may not be the best reviewer for Canadian band Protest the Hero’s album Fortress. I do have the advantage of fresh ears however, plus I’m guessing I can literally hear better than most metal fans.

The first thing that strikes me is the extensive part that the drummer plays in the music. Moe Carlson seems to be giving the floor tom a real workout. It isn’t all just bass and crash cymbal. Protest the Hero makes extensive use of electronic instrumentation, as well as extremely impressive lead and rhythm guitar work. The bass guitar is adequate. The vocals are extremely impressive. Though there’s a fair amount of screaming, there are also a good number of clean vocal phrases and Rody Walker’s voice is quite crisp. Like most good metal, the album is a technical masterpiece, however emotionally and lyrically it probably works best for angst-ridden teenagers. The lead guitar goes on soaring, if short-lived, solos that remind one more of glam rock than metal, but it all seems to fold nicely into the wall of sound that the album braces the listener with. The rhythm of it all is electronically smooth and crafted to be entertaining.

The individual tracks do tend to be variations on a theme, a fault I find with most metal that I’ve heard, but the transitions make sense, and there are differences between songs. The early part of the album is actually a little better than the end. “Palms Read” stands out as the best song. Lyrically, the entire album seems to present a belief in the impossibility of true knowledge, but as the album winds down the lyrics begin to get a bit more preachy and the overall design of each song seems to suffer from a greater reliance on the vocals, while the vocals are becoming less refined. If the last three tracks had been chopped this would have been at least an A- effort. Of course if you don’t have at least an open mind for metal, don’t even attempt this one.