Author: Jeff Giles (Page 41 of 41)

In which the formerly electronic trio mentored by the Stone Roses’ Ian Brown and UNKLE’s James Lavelle moves ever-deeper into traditional pop/rock territory. South’s fourth album might catch longtime fans slightly off-guard, what with the presence of actual guitars; for everyone else, however, You Are Here will pass in one ear, out the other, and find nary a resting place in between. It’s easy to see why these guys have become favorites of TV music supervisors for shows such as “Six Feet Under” and “The O.C.” – their songs make for perfect, non-intrusive background music. Aside from the album’s nifty third track, “Better Things,” You Are Here’s 13 songs make a thoroughly unconvincing case for the band. There are no obvious soft spots, but that’s only because the album never really works up enough of a sweat to draw you in – it’s just track after track of bland, middling indie pop. Maybe they should put the guitars back in storage.  (LABEL: bluhammock/Young American 2008)

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When an album starts off with a line like “J.K. Rowling’s been following me around,” a person might be tempted to expect the rest of it to be heavy with “Weird Al” Yankovic-style silliness – maybe even a parody song or two. But Freddie Stevenson isn’t your average literary kingpin-referencing troubadour; in fact, the artist described in his press kit as a “Scottish Afro’d punk poet” seems to be pretty far from your average anything. He is also, as he makes clear early on, not a novelty artist. For his second full-length release, Stevenson follows in the footsteps of U.K.-bred songwriters such as Paul Brady and Mark Knopfler, venturing to Nashville to bring his songs to life with the help of a band that includes Emmylou Harris sidemen Brady Blade, Chris Donohue, and Phil Madeira. The result is a wonderfully warm collection that swings between the rocking, Rowling-tweaking opener (“Easy Now”) to poignantly heartfelt ballads like “Alibi Song” and “If An Alien Astronomer Could See Us Now.” When Stevenson is on, as he is on those tracks, he’s mesmerizing. Not everything here reaches those heights – songs such as “Brand New Heart” and “Ordinary Girl” lack the wit and spark he shows elsewhere – but overall, Stevenson’s Companions are an addictively agreeable bunch. (LABEL: Juicy Musical Creations 2008)

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The cover art makes it look like a children’s book, but Hans York’s Young Amelia is actually a deftly assembled collection of beautifully unassuming folk songs. Fans of gentle vocals and open tunings, a la David Wilcox and Michael Franks, have a new friend in York – or maybe he isn’t “new” at all, having shared stages with everyone from Robert Palmer to Germany’s Ars Quittilinga Chamber Orchestra; either way, anyone with a weakness for songcraft would do well to acquaint themselves with the talented multi-instrumentalist. For Young Amelia, York and his crew flexed some old-school muscle, recording the album’s 12 tracks in a six-day stretch, often without the aid of overdubs – not that you could tell from listening to it. The songs are simple – there isn’t a single right angle or rough edge in here – but there’s comfort in their simplicity; listening to the album is like stretching out in front of a sunny window on a spring afternoon. The album probably isn’t sexy enough to grab most people’s attention, but those who find it will be very glad they did. (LABEL: Hazzazar 2008

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The “press” section of Erich Von Kneip’s website includes links to three articles, and two of them are in German. This is pretty depressing for an album that was released a year ago, but it’s also sort of fitting; they may have been recently recorded, but the nine originals and one cover that make up A Collection of Abject Musings have the sound and feel of long-forgotten objects from a distant and perhaps imagined past. Like Tom Waits without the frog in his throat (and with Django Reinhardt standing behind him), Von Kneip leads the listener on a fairly convincing stroll down the alley behind a 1920s saloon. His sound isn’t terribly dissimilar from Andrew Bird’s, but unlike Bird, Von Kneip never seems to be mugging. Whether this is because he isn’t as concerned with making sure you hear everything he can do – or because he just can’t do that much – isn’t important; all that matters, really, is that he’s the type of guy who knows you can’t go wrong with a one-eye-open, album-closing cover of Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies.” He could do with more consistent original material, but hey, this is just his debut – there’s plenty of time for that. (LABEL: Bitemark 2008

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Scary’s debut earned raves from Pitchfork, Paste, Popmatters and, um, Perez Hilton, giving him the extra burst of chutzpah that must have been necessary to assemble the follow-up, a nutty dozen-song cycle inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s thousand-page doorstop “Against the Day.” The overall effect – at least if you don’t pay any attention to the lyrics – is akin to what Todd Rundgren getting high with Queen and the Electric Light Orchestra in the early ‘80s might have sounded like. If you do pay attention to the lyrics, on the other hand, you’re liable to waver between amused and irritated – and if you lived through the peak of prog rock’s popularity, you may end up suffering (and we do mean suffering) flashbacks. Try to boil Pynchon down to album length, and you’re bound to end up with an unwieldy mess – but whether Scary’s buckshot approach is the result of genius or attention deficit disorder is entirely an open question. The arrangements are tight and the hooks are plentiful, but you get the feeling you wouldn’t want to share an elevator with the guy. (LABEL: Black and Greene 2008

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