The Violent Blue - Electric President

The Violent Blue

Electric President
Fake Four Records.

SCQ Rating: 87%

One great album reflects a great album; two great albums suggest a great band. At least that’s the way I’ve always seen it, and anticipating Electric President’s follow-up to Sleep Well – a record that landed #1 on SCQ’s Top Albums of 2008, and recently #27 on SCQ’s Top Fifty Albums of the 00s – had me dancing between the fine details that separate one-off brilliance from long-term artistic integrity. That Electric President prove themselves capable of building a legacy, underappreciated as it currently is, with The Violent Blue isn’t a huge surprise to me – after all, Ben Cooper’s giveaway project Patients had me completely smitten last year – but how this new album reveals facets of the Jacksonville duo’s unheard strengths is truly a surprise.

Originally planned as a B-side release from the Sleep Well sessions, The Violent Blue earned its own coattails as Cooper’s love-letter to the ocean, where he spent much of this past summer swimming and writing. Ever the masters in sequencing, Cooper and Alex Kane treat The Violent Blue as if a massive body of water, arranging tracks that surge then swell, in waves that either crest or topple. In that respect, ‘The Ocean Floor’ merely laps the coast; ushered in on lethargic acoustic chords and sweet ambience, it tenders a calm that largely pervades the record’s first half. Not to say that these tracks are anything less than arresting. ‘Feathers’ is arguably the band’s most accessible love song and ‘Safe and Sound’, while sticking with the acoustic and piano, provides The Violent Blue’s first significant wave with a bright campfire-esque song Sleep Well couldn’t have imagined. For those listeners hoping this audible calm foreshadows a storm, Electric President don’t disappoint, incorporating blasts of electric guitars among their graceful doses of haze. If the title track’s climactic release finds Cooper and Kane touching upon shoegaze, their distortion-loving eruption at the start of ‘Eat Shit and Die’ begs the question of how these guys disciplined themselves to synths so strictly on the last album. While heavier in nature, The Violent Blue’s second half plays out a series of lovely, unsettled ripples that feel like a needed, natural progression.

As Electric President balance their ferocity, they also weigh the scope and punch of their songwriting with each conservative stunner like ‘Feathers’ or the title track being measured by a more adventurous composition. ‘Nightmare No. 5 Or 6’ is constructed like a classical piece, so flooded with well-executed tempo-shifts and tasteful instruments, it’s profane to admit how catchy the whole thing is. Less cerebral but no less enthralling is finale ‘All the Distant Ships’, a nine-minute sludge-fest that occasionally peels back into moments of clarity that, nuanced with beautiful lyrics and soft beds of twinkling piano, almost made me cry this morning.

Beyond the common nautical themes shared by these songs, The Violent Blue deserves its non-B-sides status because these songs couldn’t pass for anything but Electric President’s A-game. And while I’ve enjoyed trying to pinpoint the songs birthed by Sleep Well (I have my suspicions), the awe comes from hearing a band who shook me senseless two years ago returning with equally powerful songwriting and a bolder, organic sound. What this album might accomplish for the band, in terms of exposure, is anyone’s guess but one thing’s for sure: The Violent Blue is another must-listen marker in this discography, and proof that their footing as songwriters has never been more assured.

Thompson Falls - Overspill Poets

Thompson Falls

Overspill Poets
Revenge Western Records.

SCQ Rating: 68%

Nearly twenty years I spent dreaming of bigger cities before I skipped my hometown for university, all the while equating those small-town stretches of society as a wasteland of thumb-twiddling. Since then, the often spontaneous decision to pack my bags has carried me to larger cities and eventually Canada’s biggest, where I soaked up its compromised culture in subways and street-meat. At some point during this time, I began looking back at those smaller cities in a new light, recognizing how unburdened they were and how free I felt. Titled after an Idaho town of the same name, Thompson Falls evokes that familiar nook of one-way streets and quiet sidewalks I longed for, where each building and passing individual represents a portion of the whole, well-known and essential in their role.

As it happens, Thompson Falls is also an ideal soundtrack for trekking through the forgotten backwoods of wherever, combining a well-honed study of jangle rock with some alternative country leanings. Kicking off strong with the rustic pleasantries of the title track, Overspill Poets (George Kitching and Tim Taylor) dig into the record’s best tracks early with the full-band folk-rock of ‘The Sound of Sirens’ and Taylor’s memorable vocals which hang over ‘Boxing Gloves’ like a traditional celtic pub-song. Particular attention must be paid to ‘Summer’ however, as by harnessing some unsettled guitar and a drum-machine, Overspill Poets create a moody, modern alt-rock tune that, at the risk of not quite fitting in, out-muscles everything else on Thompson Falls. And while the album’s latter half has its share of standout tracks (the jagged licks of ‘Northern Star’ spring to mind), Overspill Poets linger too often in affable, MOR arrangements that slide into the background for listeners. Such tracks like ‘Leave It Behind’ and ‘Tomorrow When You Leave’ lack enough presence to truly register and end up making an album of twelve songs feel overlong.

Despite the goofiness underlying a description like “Bob Mould crashing into REM on Johnny Cash’s iPod”, the author of that quote succeeds in name-dropping the eclectic roster Overspill Poets translate from. And in spite of some flaws, Thompson Falls boasts a jangly alt-country sound I’ve admittedly never heard, one that is fully formed and a hopeful launching point for this English duo. If I may: like Morrissey forgetting his ego with a bar-band in Middle America. No good?

Bad Vibrations EP - Bad Vibrations

Bad Vibrations EP

Bad Vibrations
Brotherhood Cassettes.

SCQ Rating: 71%

I’m not so into punk. The whole objective at its root, be it rebellion or straight-out anarchy, has always seemed a more recreational than practical pursuit, possibly because most punk bands I’ve followed end up chasing their purist tails or, you know, become Blink 182. Like any genre that equates authenticity with not straying from the proven path, punk’s in-club, “punker-than-thou” rule seems quite at odds with its fight against conformity.

What I am into is Bad Vibrations. Here’s a punk-oriented band dissatisfied by the notion of treading the same lukewarm waters and unafraid to consciously show vulnerability in their relentless riffs. Here’s a trio of friends who’ve only been practicing together since last summer, who’ve taught their drummer how to play from scratch. Of course, given that this three-piece is fronted by KC Spidle, main dude of Husband & Knife and ex-drummer of Dog Day, it’s expected that this self-titled EP should dive deeper than surface-level defiance. ‘Think About Life’, in its imperative title alone, shifts our expectations with Spidle’s introverted lyrics underscoring high strings strummed like a soft siren. Is it a careful warning of things to come or narratives to unfold? Hard to say, as ‘Think About Life’ is heartily abandoned with the DIY gusto that motivates much of this EP. ‘New Danger’ supplies Bad Vibrations’ true intentions with serrated guitars and steady-as-a-freight percussion while ‘We’re Dead’ is anchored to a guitar-assault so massive, it feels epic despite its slight running-time. Even though this debut is nine tracks measuring twenty minutes, its final third is aggravated by two interruptions – a muffled, probably high-as-hell phone message, and an equally stifled conversation which clocks more time on ‘Foreigner’ than the song itself – which offer no replay value.

However rushed or hammered out these tracks might feel, the band’s impetuousness proves difficult to resist. And when these exercises in compressed energy are matched by catchy choruses, as on ‘Care About Yourself’ and ‘Good/Bad’, Bad Vibrations (rounded out by Evan Cardwell and Meg Yoshida) are a force to be reckoned with – within punk’s inner-circle and beyond it.

There Is Love In You - Four Tet

There Is Love In You

Four Tet
Domino Records.

SCQ Rating: 82%

If direction hasn’t been at the heart of every thesis revolving Four Tet’s discography all these years, it has certainly been a noteworthy concentration. From the declarations, both with Pause and Rounds, that he’s a genre-pioneer to assertions from improv-fanatics that Tongues and NYC break ground for an electro-jazz revolution, Kieran Hebden has earned heavy cred for supplementing his successful Four Tet brand with a workingman’s verve for side-projects and remixes. Nonetheless, Hebden’s multiple Steve Reid-affiliated jams, a Fridge album and (let’s not forget) Ringer EP, Four Tet’s lackluster 2008 effort, have stunted a vertical arrow, once ascending to dizzying heights, into a myriad of small arrows plateauing outward. These flow-chart inspired questions of direction have only increased in anticipation of There Is Love In You, the first Four Tet full-length in five years, as Hebden dives wholeheartedly into modern dance music.

Purportedly fleshed out and refined over his lengthy DJ residency at Plastic People, There Is Love In You finds Four Tet fully committed to the glassy-eyed minimal techno suggested on Ringer EP. It could’ve been a disaster. The very notion of Kieran Hebden, one of electronic music’s best beat-programmers, turning to uber-popular 4/4 beats just gave me chills. Yet what failed on Ringer EP – two-dimensional melodies, flat drones - is revisited and scrapped in favour of a streamlined Everything Ecstatic sequel; woven with a thousand familiar, winking harmonies but blitzed out on the autobahn with far more BPM. Opening with a reminder of last year’s memorable split with Burial, ‘Angel Echoes’ finds Hebden still swimming in vocal samples, spliced into new patterns like bottle shards softened by club-induced beats. Despite its healthy four-minute length, this addictive track feels like little more than an intro; possibly because it’s as stationary and well-fed as ‘Smile Around the Face’, or maybe because it’s followed by the nine-minute rave-up ‘Love Cry’. Indeed, the minimal techno influence is inescapable, gripping the staccato punctuations of ‘Sing’ and utilizing predictable, three-note progressions on the aptly-named ‘Plastic People’.

Where, on one hand, his beats threaten to cast Four Tet into the Kompakt crowd with Gui Boratto and The Field, There Is Love In You acts as a blueprint for Hebden’s melodic instincts, allowing him to layer curious found-sounds and organic instruments over measured time-signatures. In this vein, ‘Sing’ features some trance vocals stretched into childish-meets-exorcist strands while the seemingly infinite arpeggios of ‘Circling’ end up meshing for a surprisingly structured finale. These careful inclusions muddle what could’ve been Four Tet’s most transparent album, offering complexity from slight turns, grit from sleek frames.

Still, there’s something to be said for ‘Reversing’, a dance track rewound which gracefully speaks volumes about Four Tet’s career-path indecision. Winding backward so quickly, the sounds of bass and crashing cymbals can barely be deciphered from the percolating melodies still resonating in real time. Where next? In terms of the Four Tet saga, There Is Love In You may be remembered most as the album Hebden hung up his innovator’s cap to bask in the pale light of modern trends. Or perhaps this will be considered the first Four Tet release that manages to be more beautiful than provocative. With ‘This Unfurls’, which takes a refreshing backpeddle to the days of live drums and BoC psychedelia, and ‘She Just Likes to Fight’, a polished revisiting of ‘Slow Jam’, There Is Love In You often feels like a smoke-and-mirrors standstill, or a slight regression. No matter how you spin it, the debate of Four Tet’s direction doesn’t weigh so much when he sounds so on top of his game.

Heligoland - Massive Attack

Heligoland

Massive Attack
Virgin Records.

SCQ Rating: 84%

After what convoluted combination of trends, worldwide success and ill-timing do musicians no longer receive objective treatment, do artistic merits no longer take centre-stage? I mean, there must be a formula at work behind Massive Attack’s falling-out with critics and the hipster public – 100th Window notwithstanding – to justify Heligoland’s skeptical reception. Was it the selling-out that landed ‘Angel’ in every turn-of-century movie and ‘Teardrop’ in every primetime TV series, back before selling-out was customary? Or did people just give up on LP5 after so many letdowns – those subpar stop-gap releases like Danny the Dog OST and Collected, the unfulfilled promises for Weather Underground that began in, what, 2005? No one-off or shelved project can rival the greatest proof that a critical trigger against Massive Attack exists: that beneath all the indifferent reactions, Heligoland is an enviable accomplishment.

Of these critics, the most bewildering are easily those who insist that Heligoland sounds nothing like Massive Attack. Even without Horace Andy melting each lyric with his soulful quiver, nobody could sell ‘I Love You Girl’’s menacing bass and dark electronics without citing Mezzanine first. Same goes for the highlight ‘Paradise Circus’, which finds that same overcast ‘Teardrop’ magic by stepping into bass-heavy, bedroom-ready rhythms. All this said while keeping in mind, of course, that Massive Attack have crafted a patient career around the idea of not sounding like themselves, so it’s funny to me that those offended by Heligoland are commonly the same people craving for Blue Lines II. Yes, this long-awaited LP is by far their moodiest but, unlike 100th Window’s synthetic layers, Heligoland unloads a multitude of organic, flesh-and-blood surprises. From a blissfully harmonious bridge of dreamy vocals that colour the middle-eight of ‘Prayer For Rain’ (featuring TV On the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe) to the emotive, minor-key dirge of ‘Saturday Come Slow’ (with Damon Albarn), Massive Attack maintain their role as curators to some of today’s best vocalists while pushing their own brooding trademarks to new environments. Even the two Del Naja vocal-turns show tangible intensity missing on previous efforts, culminating on throw-down ‘Atlas Air’ where heavy beats and be-boping synth progressions create a sinister electronic masterwork. Consider it an antithesis to ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ (yeah, deal with it!); devious, soulful and a little terrifying, Heligoland is progressive… what I thought everyone wanted from this Bristol group in the first place.

100th Window gets blamed for being everything from a cold-hearted minimal techno record to a Del Naja solo album (yeah, except with Horace Andy, and Sinead O Connor, and Neil Davidge, and… aw forget it), but what should’ve created a marketing point – Massive Attack’s first album in seven years! – instead weakens the Bristol-based outfit’s regal standing. Unlike the major-label dominated 90s, electronica isn’t starved anymore. Hell, you’ll find more disco beats, synth squiggles and analogue experimentation crawling around popular indie-rock than you could during Prodigy’s heyday, and it doesn’t help that every sleek and sultry electro act has been pillaging the M.A. handbook for the past decade. Seven years is an eternity for a scene this thriving, yet Heligoland (yes, like Portishead’s 2008 return Third) proves the collective’s worth and, occasionally, their domination of a culture they helped establish. A thrilling yet underappreciated return.

To All Young Lovers... WITH LOVE

On the cusp of Valentine's Day, Zangief (the impenetrable Shane Murphy) and I thought it appropriate to assemble a collection of love songs - a few classics, a lot of personal faves - which deserve as much celebrating as, I don't know, Sade...? As we've yet to choose our DJ identities and show title, this mix is but a prologue to our actual podcasts (which will arrive in due time and, yes, feature some much-maligned banter). Featuring great tunes "expertly sequenced from the past half-century" (USA Today) and "an explosive ending you won't soon forget" (Entertainment Weekly), With Love is a soundtrack lusting for your listening pleasure this Valentine's Day.


Just think of us as the all-loving owl and you as the black sheep being herded upon the Love Bus... Click here to download and Happy Valentine's Day!!