jarring good melodies
I had no idea a bunch of synthesizers, drum machines (an occasional real kit), a good female lead, and one giant guitar could be so fun. Brooklyn duo, Sleigh Bells, pounding, screeching, infectiously delicious noise pop explodes on their debut album, Treats. Songs like “Riot Rhythm” and “Kids” sound like anthemic Le Tigre singalongs played through Sonic Youth’s guitar rig in the back of a school bus … that’s slamming broadside into the side of a mountain. Piles of sound, which independently and without the shape of melody could easily be nerve racking, come together in a hard-edged and fierce pop attack.
Alexis Krauss’s sweet yet pummeling vocals sing velvet-y calls to action along with grinding distorted guitar and sub-woofer testing bass drops on “Infinity Guitars.” “Run the Heart” offers the same signature vocals with slammin’ bass worthy of the hardest booty club swirled up in a haze of guitar effects and more synth that seems closer to house music than indie rock. A pervasive feeling of bittersweet sentiment carries the Leiber-and-Stoller-songwriting-meets-the-Flaming-Lips-production of “Rill Rill.” The first single, “Crown on the Ground,” basically encapsulates the feel of the album. It defines noise pop ‚ a series of distorted sounds, muffled melodies, and other various, squealing, moving parts that, in the wrong hands, could cause serious damage.
Treats ties the low-fi, the squelching and buzzing, and yes, one big, fat, loud guitar together rather nicely. The entire album walks a very fine and precarious line between innovation and noisy repetition, but saunters away victorious. I’m just not sure how Sleigh Bells could follow this up …
Written for REAX Online 5.16.2010
I recently took a jab at 
Canadian music collective, Broken Social Scene have their 5th full-length release, Forgiveness Rock Record due out May 4th (leaked much earlier) and have honed and elevated their sound under the production direction of John McEntire. They have a revolving cast of talent to help flush out their giant sound. At any moment BSS can have as few as 6 members or as many as 790 (somewhere around there). Although the music is meant to be lush and grand, at times the “too many cooks” approach seemed to distract from the great song at the core of the composition. McEntire’s work on Forgiveness Rock Record seems to have blended the multi-tier talent pool into a more cohesive musical experience.
their genre. Beat the Devil’s Tattoo stays comfortably inside the fuzzy, retro garage that BRMC has painstakingly built and the album champions the same gritty, slinky, almost dark, sound they’ve always had. So what’s wrong with that? Nothing, I guess, if you’re good at it.
I expected Rogue Wave’s next album would be the one that broke them into the “big time.” With songs like the sweet “Eyes” on the Just Friends Soundtrack to “Lake Michigan” and the sublime “Chicago X 12″ on 2007′s Asleep at Heaven’s Gate it was obvious they were poised for success – just not the way it comes across on the new Permalight. Their sound is more polished and leans toward sensitive emo-pop. In fact, it is scary how much they sound like Death Cab for Cutie – I mean JUST like them. This isn’t necessarily bad because it isn’t a slavish knock-off, but I expected an evolution closer to the sound they already established.
The Southern- tinged psychedelic, shoegazer band from Quebec – The Besnard Lakes – are back with their third album, The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night. The husband and wife team of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas develop their expansive Beach Boys in Space sound with an enchanting mix of pre-97 Radiohead, My Morning Jacket, Band of Horses, and early Broken Social Scene or even My Bloody Valentine. The pair’s dueling voices are equally beautiful and haunting while adding a certain melancholy to the layers of ambient guitar and synthesizer. The second song is the epic “Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent pt. 1: the Innocent.” It grows and swells from a murky synth and piano intro into Lasek’s spectral Brian Wilson; with each verse the song builds into the soaring vocal harmony of the chorus. “Like the Ocean” clocks in at around 7 and a half minutes and may be a severely grandiose gesture for an album that refines, but fails to eclipse, the sound and feeling achieved in their previous The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse.
Not since the Judgment Night soundtrack has rock and rap got along so famously. Ha ha, no really, the Blakroc album is solid. This project is the brainchild of bluesy garage rockers, The Black Keys and producer Damon Dash. Together they enlist some hip hop heavyweights to bring a snazzy array of rap tunes with a unique delivery: Raekwon, RZA, Pharoahe Monch, Ludacris, Q-Tip, Mos Def, and even Ol’ Dirty Bastard rises from the dead for a posthumous recording.
The ubiquitous Danger Mouse has moved on from producer extraordinaire to auteur musician / songwriter by carving himself a cozy niche in a series of baffling yet brilliant collaborations (Cee-Lo, MF Doom, Sparklehorse to name a few). His latest pairing is just as unexpected and equally as glorious. James Mercer took time from being the new Crowded House long enough to join forces with Danger Mouse to create Broken Bells. After announcing their plans in September of 2009, their first official email blast on December 14th 2009 listed a cryptic string of numbers, binary for “The High Road is Hard to Find.” This linked to the Broken Bells site for downloads of their first song, “The High Road is Hard to Find.” Simultaneously, ads ran on various music blogs displaying the URL, 
The word “super group” gets thrown around a lot – so I won’t use it. Them Crooked Vultures is a near perfect union of 3 monster talents: Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters), and John Paul Jones (from this little band called Led Zeppelin). Josh’s buzz saw guitar attack and smooth, cocky vocals marry up with Jones’ crushing bass lines and Dave’s pounding drums perfectly. It actually sounds much like a QOTSA album with a little more wiggle room for playing outside the stoner riff-rock that they mastered. Dave Grohl is at his best behind the drum kit and even better when drumming with Queens or the Vultures. Foo Fighters are OK, but bland and mediocre when compared to QOTSA and Nirvana’s best stuff. The Foos are just mainstream, meathead arena rock. QOTSA’s albums are all great, but the most powerful delivery was Songs for the Deaf with Dave playing drums.