Where guitarist Rich Koehler decides to dress up his niece, nephew, and a neighbor kid and form Mini Nico Vega. Man, I can’t wait until my kids are old enough to do this kind of stuff to them.
Category: Alternative (Page 18 of 155)
RIYL: LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture, Hot Chip
The indie rock/electronic collective !!! doesn’t make things easy on themselves, or music reviewers. A Google search of the band name, for instance, reveals no matches at all, much less lyrics or a band Web site. (Including the name of the new album, however, nets you lyrics of Tom Waits, Marianne Faithfull and Glenn Frey songs.) Of course with a little more extensive searching you can find pretty much anything about the band you might want to know like, say, how to pronounce the name – any repeating hard consonant sound, apparently, usually represented by ‘chk chk chk’.
I’m guessing this is a sly comment on the repetitive nature of much electronic music, but it was probably unnecessary. These guys rise above the noise without much problem with an effective mix of rock guitar, pounding beats and swirling electronica. There are plenty of other acts doing this, of course, but not many have been around since 1996 and garnered the critical praise heaped on !!!. They have not reached the commercial heights of other similar bands, and that probably won’t change with their fourth album Strange Weather, Isn’t It? Not because it’s not an excellent album (it is) but if it hasn’t happened yet, it’s not likely to. Strange Weather is actually the perfect party soundtrack for your late summer, with propulsive tracks like the album opener “AM/FM,” “Jump Back” and “Hammer.” The entire album flows well and goes by surprisingly fast, even when things get a bit disco-y on “Even Judas Gave Jesus a Kiss.”
Lyrically the album seems to land somewhere between the politically-minded “Louden Up Now” and the more booty-shaking “Myth Takes.” In truth the words mainly pass right through, not making as much of an impression as the music’s tempo and mood. You just keep nodding your head and shaking your butt and, before you know it, it’s over. Actually the easiest thing about the band is listening to them. (Warp Records 2010)
RIYL: Aimee Mann, Heather Nova, Fiona Apple
As if there needed to be proof out there that trying times can lead to the most inspired music, singer/songwriter Ruth Gerson hammers that point home again on her latest, This Can’t Be My Life. The album was recorded and ready for release in 2007, but a divorce and sudden single-momhood put the project on the shelf for a few years. Lucky for us, Gerson finally did release it, and the painful time period she endured shines through loud and clear on This Can’t Be My Life, her first full-length effort since 1998. Gerson writes music with heart, and delivers it with equal parts bluesy brood and rocking growl. It’s also melodic enough to be accessible to the masses, but still unique and cool enough to be considered alternative. Right from the title track, a piano anthem that sets the tone for the rest of the set, Gerson tells her story with simple yet powerful lyrics: “I made two lefts / I shoulda gone right / If I made one more left, it would have been right / It can’t be, can’t be my life.” This and the singsong “Bulletproof” have a falsetto melodic bent a la Aimee Mann, while “Fresh Air” and “Someday Soon” have a dark yet powerful pull akin to Fiona Apple. Add the jazzy, rainy day feel of “Hazel” and the guitar-picking “Take It Slow,” which will remind you of a female Nick Drake, and you’ve got a very complete, damn good album here. Whether Ruth Gerson breaks out big or remains on a smaller radar plane doesn’t matter. What matters is that she’s shared her stories with us, and is doing what she does best – making great music. (Wrong Records 2009)
RIYL: Patty Griffin, Brandi Carlile, Kings of Leon
![51kNc0uvmaL._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]](https://www.esdmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/51kNc0uvmaL._SCLZZZZZZZ_1.jpg "51kNc0uvmaL._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]")
The sign of a great song is that you can’t just listen to it once. The melody gets stuck inside your head and you keep going back for repeated listens — five, 10, sometimes 20 times in a row. The sign of a great album is that it’s full of great songs you can’t stop listening to it no matter how much you tell yourself you should pause and catch your breath. Of course, great albums with great songs take a long time to get through, because you’re continually repeating the first song until you’re finally ready to move on to track two. The process begins all over again until a whole week has passed before you’ve finally gotten through an album that should have only taken an hour. Such is the case with Catching a Tiger, the full-length debut from freckle-faced Midwesterner Lissie, aka Elisabeth Maurus. Words can’t express how wonderful and exciting this album is.
Lissie has a voice that is soulful, aching, and raw; it can do just about anything she commands it to. The opening track is a huge, Tarantino-sized soul song with Italian western overtones called “Record Collector”; here, Lissie brings Duffy to mind, as well as on the splendid ’60s girl group pop-style song “Stranger.” However, as you listen to the album, it becomes obvious very quickly that Lissie is capable of any genre, be it adult alternative (as on the intricately worded, immediately catchy “When I’m Alone”) or blues rock (the heartbreaking “In Sleep,” which features a killer two-minute guitar solo that warps the song up to its bitter end). “Bully” is a slice of ’60s-ish big old pop bombast; “Little Lovin’” a folksy ballad with a strong backbeat that crescendos to a triumphant finish; and “Cuckoo” is just about one of the most perfect reflections of adolescence I’ve heard in ages. When I listen to that particular track I can’t help but think of my young daughter and the formative years ahead of her. I only hope that she can find a song that resonates with her as I’m sure “Cuckoo” will connect with a crop of young girls just becoming young women. By the time the album wraps up with quiet hymn “Oh Mississippi” (co-written with Ed Harcourt), you won’t be thinking of Duffy anymore, but of Patty Griffin, one our generation’s most remarkable and inspiring singers.
Produced by Jacquire King (Kings of Leon, Norah Jones, Modest Mouse) and Bill Reynolds of Band of Horses, the songs on Catching a Tiger are arranged like a perfect concert set list. Three powerful uptempo numbers to pull you in, then a slow ballad, followed by a moderately fast song that leads into a couple more high-energy songs before another ballad. You get the picture. Catching a Tiger flows like the classic albums we have etched in our minds, the ones we return to time and time again as the years go by. Perhaps this is the one record your children will claim as their own and recall some 10 to 15 years from now? While each and every song is produced to superlative effect, with beautifully layered harmonies over subtle guitar parts and driving rhythm sections, tying everything together is Lissie’s amazing voice and her heartfelt, truthful lyrics. While there are a slew of female singer-songwriters releasing new albums this year, most of them seem to get stuck in one mode, primarily the type of atmospheric ballads you hear playing in the background on “Grey’s Anatomy.” Lissie, like the aforementioned Griffin and the exceptional Brandi Carlile, challenges herself on each song, using her gifted vocals for greatness. She knows when the song requires her to hold back, and when it requires her to belt it out. And when she does belt it out, my God, it can be chilling. If I don’t hear another record this year, I’ll be fine because Catching a Tiger has so much power, beauty and heart that it’s going to take me a while to fall in love with something else. It is most definitely one of the best albums of this year — and possibly years to come. (2010, Fat Possum)
Purchase the album through Amazon (seriously, this is a must buy)
RIYL: Watching people bare their souls for all the world to see, risking abject humiliation in the process
I have not done many interviews in my time as senior editor for Bullz-Eye.com – certainly not in comparison to my good friend and colleague Will Harris, who does roughly six million interviews a year – and yet, there aren’t that many people left that I am dying to talk to. I interviewed boyhood idol John Taylor in 2005 (big story behind that one, which you can find here), and have picked off members of Blur, the Kaiser Chiefs, Hard-Fi and Depeche Mode along the way. The only three big ones left on my list were Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, and Bryan Ferry.
I scratched one of them off the list yesterday. Glenn Tilbrook was doing press to promote Squeeze’s new album Spot the Difference – which the band readily admits was made for licensing purposes so they can rake in a little extra cash from soundtrack supervisors and advertisers – which meant I had the opportunity to tell him something I’ve wanted to tell him for a long time: that Squeeze’s 1991 album Play saved my life.
Here’s the back story: I was involved in a tempestuous relationship with a girl who was under tremendous pressure from her parents to stop seeing me. And, wanting to please her parents and therefore make life easier, she started to listen to them, even after I had moved cross-country to be with her. Finally, I gave up, and made plans to move to Boston with my brother. I was working at a record store before I left, and they had a promo copy of Play. Since the people who frequented the suburban mall that housed the record store had no interest in Squeeze, the manager let me take it home. Home at the time was a flea-infested apartment I shared with some older guy. It was not where the heart is, which is why this album proved to be a massive source of comfort.
There seemed to be a song on the album for each emotion I was feeling at any given moment, with a lyric to match. “Each day’s a hope, each day’s a prayer, that I’ll rebuild and I’ll repair,” from “There Is a Voice,” or the opening lines to “Crying in My Sleep,” which I would sing to myself while busing tables, one of my three jobs after landing in Boston: “Breaking up is breaking my heart and showing me the door / But if I get it open, I’ll discover that there’s much more to life than this.” Even for the songs that weren’t an exact match to my situation, there was a vibe to it that resonated with me. I needed to feel better about myself. Play helped me do that.
Flash-forward 19 years, and I’m having a Skype chat with Tilbrook, who’s vacationing in the south of England after finishing what he calls the best tour of the States he’s ever done. And I lay it all on the line.
BE: On a personal note, you should know that Play basically saved my life.
GT: (Stunned) Wow.
BE: I was going through a hellacious breakup, and that album was extremely comforting to me. I know it didn’t sell a lot of records, but I’m so glad you guys made it.
GT: You know, a man who’s subsequently become my best friend said exactly the same thing to me! He was going through a divorce at that same time, and said, “Play, it just got me through.” Wow, that is really weird. What a weird coincidence. ‘Cause not that many people heard the record anyway, and that’s one of our best records, I think.
Here’s the thing I wanted to mention, but obviously don’t have the data to back up: I find it highly unlikely that Glenn’s friend and I are the only ones who were saved by this album. Is there anyone else out there who found solace, and ultimately rebirth, in these songs? It can’t be only me and this other guy…can it?
Back me up here, people. Does anyone else have the emotional connection to Play that I have? Let’s hear your stories in the comment section.
Lastly, thank you Glenn (and Chris) for writing such moving songs, and for being a great interview. Can’t wait to hear the new material you’re working on. Oh, and as a post-script, I ended up getting back together with the girl in question and dating her for another few years, and in following her to Chicago, I met the woman who would become my wife. It took a little longer than I hoped, but I got that door open after all.
Squeeze MySpace page
Click to buy Play from Amazon
Click to buy Spot the Difference from Amazon
FOLLOW US!
CATEGORIES
© 2026 Eat Sleep Drink Music
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑