The Dangerous Summer
The Dangerous Summer, one of my favorite bands. Live from the PureVolume House. Acoustic covers of 4 of their songs, nice little mix if you’re into their stuff. Where I Want To Be, Weathered, Symmetry, and Never Feel Alone being the 4 tracks. Check it if you like good Acoustics or The Dangerous Summer-
Read MorePeter Broderick
For the first time in four months, I am home. How I longed for my own bed, my own privacy, and home-cooked food. Ah, yes, the wants of a student. I am finally home, but something feels strange. Home has become vacation. School has become home. Where do I belong? Someone who might understand this dilemma more than others is Peter Broderick. After growing up in Portland, Oregon, the city of musical stars like Elliott Smith and M. Ward, he left everything behind and moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, to play in Efterklang’s live show as a violinist. While touring with the band, he also opened all of their shows as a solo act. Before Home, his previous works were largely orchestral, centered around his piano work and flourished with strings and vocals. His live solo act deviated much from these albums. Instead, he returned to the style of the aforementioned Elliott Smith and M. Ward, a sort of tribute to his home. With simply guitar and vocals, Broderick shocked all of his fans with his ability to play violin with Efterklang, record gorgeous piano and string compositions, and play great, simple folk music live.
After finishing his tour with Efterklang, Broderick went into the studio to record Home. He recorded in Copenhagen, but the album fits perfectly into the Portland music scene: a little Smith, a little Ward, and a little Decemberists. While clearly derived from his live performances, Home could only happen in a studio, as Broderick layers drums, bells, guitars, and voices to the point where he becomes the definition of a one-man-band. At times, it seems like he just took his piano and strings compositions and moved them to guitar and voice. In fact, said Broderick of the album, “There were so many times when I thought, ‘Oh, this song would sound so great with a nice little string section here,’ but instead I forced myself to fill that space with something else, often times layered vocals, and/or guitars and percussion.”
The results may sound repetitive from that description, as the recording of Home was much more of an experiment for Broderick than anything. He deliberately avoided all piano and strings simply to prove to himself that he could write a full album without any of it. What resulted, however, was his most engaging and enjoyable album to date. Most songs begin with acoustic guitar patterns, growing organically with more and more layers adding in until it reaches a climax, often highlighting either polyphonic interplay (“And It’s Alright”) or beautiful homophonic harmonies (“Below It”). This style defines the longer songs on the album, but shorter vignettes offer the variety the album needs to stay alive. Opening song “Games” focuses much more on vocal harmony, with the acoustic guitar only adding in later to assist with the chordal structure. “Games Again” uses reverberated electric guitar and ambient tones to recall the melodies established in the opener, introducing new colors even at the end of the album. “There and Here” sounds as if a transcription from piano and strings to guitar and vocal ensemble – a sparse, wordless piece bridging the gap between two of the longer songs. Despite being shorter pieces, all of these vignettes stand out among the more standard songs on the album.
Given this is primarily a folk album, Broderick’s lyrics are more in the open than ever before. Here, his biggest faults come to light. The phrasing of his lyrics in “Below It” until the climax of “And with his fingers he will push…” sound awkward and forced, as if he took pre-written poetry and forced it into the song. Still, the beauty of the musical composition of the song overshadows the awkward lyrics. Often times, his lyrics feel arbitrary because of how well the composition overplays the lyricism. Hidden in one of the more forgettable musical songs, “Not at Home”, Broderick pens the lyrical center of the album. Here, he conjures the conflict inside of him between his home in Copenhagen and his home in Portland with the simple chorus “And when I’m home, I’m not at home.” Never are his lyrics complex, and for this reason, sometimes he pens the simplest, most meaningful lines that could pass over a listener without thorough analysis.
His third album in two years (on top of releasing two 7”s), Broderick shows his ability to compose well and often. As he grows as a person and experiences new things, he learns new colors to compose with and new experiences to write about. By the way, he’s only 21.
Artist: Peter Broderick
Album: Home
Genre: Acoustic / Folk / Classical
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/peterbroderick
- Track List -
01 Games [2:15]
02 And It’s Alright [5:20]
03 With The Notes In My Ears [2:40]
04 Esbern Snares Gade 11, 2tv [2:36]
05 Below It [4:02]
06 Sickness, Bury [6:06]
07 Not At Home [3:58]
08 There And Here [2:11]
09 Maps [6:16]
10 Games Again [4:44]
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Dashboard Confessional
Dashboard Confessional is something of a niche act. Most famous for lovelorn ballad “Screaming Infidelities”, Chris Carrabba’s voice has propelled many an emo fan through a tough break-up, but probably not through a lot of workouts. Dashboard’s initial release, The Swiss Army Romance, is best kept on reserve in case of emotional crisis. Nevertheless, nobody does broken-hearted like Carrabba. So even though I’m not broken up with just now, I wanted to like Carrabba’s latest release, Alter The Ending. I really did. And then I pushed play.
“Get It Right”, the first track, starts out with a promisingly interesting guitar line, but descends quickly into sad and non-complex lyrics. This is exactly the kind of song that non-emo fans tease emo fans about, and the sad thing is, with this track, there’s really nothing the poor emo kid can say in his defense. The second track, “Until Morning”, is more of the same-shallow in the special way that attracts depressed sixteen year olds, who think they’re found the new Beatles. That particular track suffers from an overuse of technology as well, with the concentrated sad rolling off of heavy synth beats and processed percussion, ending on a terrible echo effect. Carrabba’s initial appeal was the gritty realism of some of his earlier tracks, a realism that made it sound as if the album was made with him bawling into a tape recorder in his bedroom that gave his music a special kind of intimacy. That effect is sadly gone here, torpedoed out of the water by overproduction.
“Belle of the Boulevard” is a step back towards the right direction, until it hits the chorus; it starts out quieter, showcasing Carrabba’s vocals, which under everything are really quite lovely. Unfortunately, we hit the chorus again soon enough, which puts us back into sad sugar-pop mode. “Blame it on the Changes” starts out similarly subtly, and has the bonus benefit of relying a bit more on musicality than on production values. This was the first track (out of seven, I might add) that I actually wanted to hear out.
The next offering, “Even Now”, features Carrabba at his best: over a solo guitar, with minimal percussion, and melancholy as anything. Here, at last, is the downbeat poet we came to love once upon a time, for just a moment before track nine takes us straight back to pop-music hell.
It feels bad to be harsh on this music, since it seems like Carrabba and company tried so hard on it. But then again, that seems to be the album’s biggest weakness; the songs feel belabored and overwrought. Carrabba shot to fame singing nakedly over an acoustic guitar, and while I appreciate a musician’s efforts to develop and grow, this particular evolution has not been positive growth. It’d be an improvement to see him shake off the trappings of studio-heavy processing and return to his musical origins. Why fix what wasn’t broken?
Artist: Dashboard Confessional
Album: Alter The Ending
Genre: Acoustic / Rock / Idie
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/dashboardconfessional
-Tracklist-
01) Get Me Right
02) Until Morning
03) Everybody Learns From Disaster
04) Belle of the Boulevard
05) I Know About You
06) Alter the Ending
07) Blame it on the Changes
08) Even Now
09) The Motions
10) No News is Bad News
11) Water and Bridges
12) Hell on the Throat
Read MoreTry Album [Mediafire] | Dashboard Confessional – Alter The Ending (DELUXE)
Matt Nathanson
Matt Nathanson is something of a paradox. He’s a serial jokester who writes intensely touching songs. He’s a radio-ready pop star who seems content having spent ten years under the radar. And while some might suggest that he “sold out” when releasing the robustly produced 2003 album Beneath These Fireworks (which didn’t really sell, per se); true to this dual nature, his sound benefited from the move.
On his second major-label release, Some Mad Hope, Nathanson once again puts a fresh spin on the role of the archetypal pop rocker. As he once quipped in concert, his songs are about a bad relationship here, a bad relationship there, sex every so often, and a bad relationship thrown in for good measure. He packs the album with that same emotional weight. In the opener and first single, “Car Crash,” he readies himself to put everything on the line but welcomes the hit he’ll take for it. “Wedding Dress,” a song made beautiful by the simplicity of the acoustic guitar that backs the verses, confronts the enduring love of a marriage with perpetual jealousy and discomfort towards commitment.
Though he is rightfully extolled for his solo concerts, Nathanson shines when backed by a full band. The second most radio-ready song on the album is “To the Beat of Our Noisy Hearts,” a driving, singable song that begs to be a summer anthem. “Detroit Waves” is electric, calling you to bring the radio up to 11, roll the windows down, and very likely disobey the speed limit. Likewise, “Gone,” presented as an unedited live in-studio recording, will not disappoint. In more intimate moments – “Come on Get Higher” and the album’s closing tracks, “Sooner Surrender” and “All We Are” – Nathanson’s often breathy tenor deftly leaps from full voice to falsetto, painting nicely over more muted instruments.
For anyone who has followed Nathanson for any period of time extending before the day when “Car Crash” hits radios early next week and the release of this album on August 14, asking whether Some Mad Hope is his best album is like asking to choose a favorite child. I found myself listening to Beneath These Fireworks after a few weeks of listening to Some Mad Hope nonstop, and I feel like the former is a stronger album beginning to end, even though the latter has better individual songs.
Nonetheless, Nathanson has offered an album so solid, so addicting, so enduring on repeat listens that will quickly become the soundtrack of your late summer. Whether you’re cleaning around the house or lying on the beach, ending a relationship or pining over new love, Some Mad Hope will stay with you.
Review By Jeff Martin of Blogcritics.org
Artist: Matt Nathanson
Album: Some Mad Hope[2007]
Genre: Acoustic / Pop / Rock
MySpace: www.myspace.com/mattnathanson
-Track List-
1. Car Crash – 3:28
2. Come On Get Higher – 3:34
3. Heartbreak World – 3:34
4. Gone – 3:31
5. Wedding Dress – 4:00
6. Bulletproof Weeks – 4:06
7. To the Beat of Our Noisy Hearts – 3:04
8. Still – 3:51
9. Detroit Waves – 3:18
10. Falling Apart – 3:28
11. Sooner Surrender – 4:31
12. All We Are – 3:39
Wilco
Myth, it has been said, is the buried part of every story. On April 23rd, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot finally emerges into the light of day, having spent the last year interred in its own cluttered mythology: a hermetic studio gestation, with the inscrutable guidance of Chicago ex-pat/kindly wizard, Jim O’Rourke; internecine squabbles; conflict and resolution with American media behemoth AOL Time Warner; the release portentously slated for September 11th, but mysteriously delayed; the indecipherable short-wave radio prophecies; and, eventually, the hero’s welcome, with the first stirrings of spring. It’s all there: the miracle birth; the unlikely hero; the, um, benevolent mentor; the primordial menace; good over evil. Joseph Campbell would be pissing himself if he weren’t dead.
The miraculous birth narrative of Wilco’s fourth album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, is already old hat: banished from straightedge AOL Time Warner imprint Reprise on the cosmically short-sighted judgment of label executives who deemed the album a “career-ender,” Wilco streamed Yankee Hotel from its left-wing website to millions before signing with weirdo progressive AOL Time Warner imprint Nonesuch. Long is the way and hard that leads up from AOL Time Warner into the light, I guess.
But the unique circumstances of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot‘s long deliverance make for more than just pointless disc jockey chatter before spinning “Heavy Metal Drummer.” The long delay and streaming audio conspired to ensure that everyone in the world has already heard Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in part, if not in its entirety. Vast digital pre-circulation, corporate controversy, and buzz like a beard of bees have rendered all reviews afterthoughts at best.
But myth is always an afterthought, and these days, the motif I like chewing on best is, without question, that of the Unlikely Hero. Who would have predicted an album of this magnitude from Wilco? As much I love the band, the fact remains that they were together for five years before they produced anything that could stand with Uncle Tupelo’s March 16-20, 1992 or Anodyne. AM is rather forgettable, while the expansive Being There, though frequently inspired, travels on paths blazed by Tom Petty on Damn the Torpedoes, if not The Flying Burrito Brothers.
1999′s dolorous Summerteeth was exponentially more sophisticated than anything that came before it, though its heroin innuendoes, shades of domestic abuse and nocturnal homicidal impulses sat somewhat ill at ease alongside the album’s lush and infectious pop arrangements. Of course, Summerteeth was a strange and majestic, albeit dark, deviation from the alt-country genre Jeff Tweedy co-invented. But since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, it has retroactively become more of a harbinger of things to come. Upon being pressed by the Chicago Sun-Times about abandoning alt-country, Tweedy dismissively bequeathed the old Wilco sound to Ryan Adams. And you can never go home again.
So does Yankee Hotel Foxtrot justify the controversy, delay and buzz? Everyone, I think, already knows that the answer is yes; all I can offer is “me too” and reiterate. And after half a year living with a bootleg copy, the music remains revelatory. Complex and dangerously catchy, lyrically sophisticated and provocative, noisy and somehow serene, Wilco’s aging new album is simply a masterpiece; it is equally magnificent in headphones, cars and parties. And as anyone who’s seen the mixed-bag crowd at Wilco shows knows, it will find a home in the collections of hippies, frat boys, acid-eating prep schoolers, and the record store apparatchiks of the indiocracy. No one is too good for this album; it is better than all of us.
But for all the talk of terminally hip influences– Jim O’Rourke, krautrock, and The Conet Project– Yankee Hotel Foxtrot still conjures a classic rock radio station on Fourth of July weekend. And this extends beyond the alternating Byrds/Stones/Beatles comparisons that pepper every Wilco review ever written; Yankee Hotel Foxtrot evokes Steely Dan, the Eagles, Wings, Derek & The Dominos and Traffic. The slightly disconnected, piano-led “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” is delicately laced with noise, whistles and percussive clutter, like some great grandson of “A Day in the Life.” The muted, “Kamera” strums along darkly with acoustic and electric guitars; the twittering electronics in the background don’t quite mitigate the tune’s comparability to the clever and precise (though now largely neglected) jazz-inflected blues-rock of Dire Straits’ stunning debut.
The cone-filtered and anthemic country psychedelia of “War on War” could have been jammed straight out of a hot “Bertha” at a 1973 Grateful Dead show. The violin and coked-up country lounge of “Jesus, etc.” recalls some mythical seventies in true love and cigarettes. The sharp, stuttering guitar solo that rips open “I’m the Man Who Loves You” could have come directly out of Neil Young’s hollow body electric circa Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. For all its aural depth and layering, Yankee Hotel tends to come off as earnest as yesteryear’s FM radio. Wilco gets the benefit of O’Rourke’s gift for cutting straight to the guts of every style, without the burden of his trademark contempt for the subject matter at hand.
And Tweedy seems to be coming into his own as a lyricist. I still wince when I hear him sing, “I know you don’t talk much but you’re such a good talker,” on Being There. The brooding introspection of Summerteeth made for a handful of elegant lyrics, most notably the skeletal beauty of “She’s a Jar,” where “she begs me not to miss her” returns as the stinging “she begs me not to hit her,” transforming a wistful love song into something gently bruising. But on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Tweedy becomes what I think he always was: an optimist and a romantic.
His declaration of wanting to salute “the ashes of American flags,” is less cynicism than, perhaps, the devoted liberal’s nostalgia for an honest patriotism (check out the array of properly lefty links at wilcoworld.com if you don’t believe me). “All my lies are always wishes,” he sings, “I know I would die if I could come back new.” In “Jesus, etc.,” there’s a cascading simplicity when he sings, “Tall buildings shake, voices escape, singing sad, sad songs to two chords/ Strung down your cheeks, bitter melodies turning your orbit around.” Sad, celestial and lovely. The final declaration on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is one of abiding dedication: “I’ve got reservations ’bout so many things but not about you.” There isn’t a truer word to be had.
On Summerteeth, Tweedy yowled about “speakers speaking in code” and I thought of that refrain from “I Can’t Stand It” when I first heard the words “yankee-hotel-foxtrot” uttered by the disembodied English woman on the sublimely creepy box-set of shortwave radio transmissions, The Conet Project, which is sampled sporadically throughout this record. And in a deeper, more deliberate world, perhaps we could trace that thread to unravel the secret wonder of Wilco’s new album. But I don’t think there’s any secret; and I don’t think there’s any code. Beneath the great story of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, there are all the tropes and symbols and coincidences of a little mythology; but under that is a fantastic rock record. And why tell you? You all already knew this.
Review By Brent S. Sirota
Artist: Wilco
Album: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot [2002]
Genre: Experimental / Rock / Acoustic
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/wilco
-Track List-
1. “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” (Tweedy) – 6:57
2. “Kamera” – 3:29
3. “Radio Cure” – 5:08
4. “War on War” – 3:47
5. “Jesus, Etc.” – 3:50
6. “Ashes of American Flags” – 4:43
7. “Heavy Metal Drummer” (Tweedy) – 3:08
8. “I’m the Man Who Loves You” – 3:55
9. “Pot Kettle Black” – 4:00
10. “Poor Places” – 5:15
11. “Reservations” (Tweedy) – 7:22
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Secondhand Serenade
With raw emotion leaking through every chord, it’s safe to say that John Vesely (better known as Secondhand Serenade) wears his heart on his sleeve. While not downplaying Secondhand Serenade’s immense listenability, the follow-up to 2007′s Awake is just plain emo. By now, you should know how much of a sentimentalist this guy is, coining his moniker as a reference to the fact that his songs are serenades to his wife, with us being the lucky secondhand listeners.
This MySpace phenomenon’s latest release A Twist In My Story is radio-ready and already has a highly successful single (“Fall For You”) preceding it. With heartbreak flavoring his vocals, he croons with amazing conviction, but by the end of the album, the staid homogeneity begins to grate.
Easing gently into a drum-and-guitar accompaniment, “Like A Knife” is a sap-drenched, painful account of a love gone wrong. Carrier single “Fall For You” features building blocks of repetitive melodic peak and descend. “Maybe” is mellow and supported by solid instrumentals, while “Stranger” starts off quiet and fluidly crescendos into an impassioned chorus.
Soothing, emotive guitar plucks of “Your Call” rolls into a deeper and richer harmony with the aid of the choir. Rocking out a little is “Suppose,” a welcome and energetic deviation, with harder guitar riffs and clever little drum throbs. Vesely would do well to explore this area in his next offering. The title track starts off calm, before elevating into a lush swirl of strings midway, becoming almost big and sweeping.
“Why” has all of Vesely’s achingly tender vocal resonances, and “Stay Close, Don’t Go” oozes with palpable desperation. Penetrating, acoustic guitars make “Pretend” a simple, down-to-earth number that doesn’t engage in its predecessors’ rousing choruses. Closing the album at an extended 5 minutes, “Goodbye” seals the sound of Secondhand Serenade, that should leave fans satisfied indeed.
To sum up, A Twist In My Story is a mood-album. Meaning, you have to be in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. It was an album Vesely crafted in an emotional moment, and you’ll need to be at that same moment in order to relate. Failing which, you’ll probably find all that maudlin emotion pretty hard to stomach, not to mention wearisome. As it is, Vesely’s sophomore album recycles the formula of piano/guitar-backed melodrama. Where is his distinguishing factor? Where is the “twist,” so to speak? You’ll be hard-pressed to find it here.
Review by MTV
Artist: Secondhand Serenade
Album: A Twist In My Story
Genre: Pop / Indie / Acoustic
MySpace: http://myspace.com/secondhandserenade
-Track List-
Like A Knife
Fall For You
Maybe
Stranger
Your Call
Suppose
A Twist In My Story
Why
Stay Close, Don’t Go
Pretend
Goodbye
Read MoreTry Album [Mediafire] | Secondhand Serenade – A Twist In My Story