Category: Pop (Page 83 of 216)

Pilot Speed: Wooden Bones

April 24, 2009 /

Imagine Semisonic’s Dan Wilson fronting U2 at its most earnest, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Wooden Bones, the Wind-Up debut from Canada’s Pilot Speed, sounds like. Stacked with widescreen atmospherics and pleasantly bombastic arrangements – not to mention lines like “It’s time to rise up from your knees” and “Today I feel sure it’s them or me” – it’s the musical equivalent of a movie montage that ends with the main character standing on top of a mountain at sunset, arms outstretched toward the heavens. The overall effect is not at all unpleasant, nor as painfully self-important as you might expect from a band formerly named Pilate; in fact, if it weren’t for a couple of songs that drain the record’s momentum, Bones would be a must-hear album for anyone who misses the days when everyone from Simple Minds to the BoDeans was using the Joshua Tree formula. Still, even if it doesn’t quite succeed as a whole, this album offers a decent assortment of tracks worth plucking off Amazon’s mp3 store, particularly “Today I Feel Sure,” which makes good use of its martial drumbeat and siren-like guitars, and “Ain’t No Life,” which melds hooks with bombast as successfully as anything in the post-grunge era. “Our focus is feeling,” croons lead singer Todd Clark in “Where Does it Begin?” – and although his band could use more consistent material, it’s that focus that may just pull them through. (Wind-Up 2009)

Pilot Speed MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop, Rock

Pat McGee: These Days (The Virginia Sessions)

April 24, 2009 /

Pat McGee has dropped the “Band” from his name and is going it alone, so to speak, in his solo debut and first effort for Rock Ridge Music, These Days (The Virginia Sessions). There is something breezy and easy to enjoy about McGee’s songs – they are delivered in a way reminiscent of ‘70s pop (think Jackson Browne) or akin to in more modern terms, Train or the Fray. McGee has a good, if not spectacular, voice; but as it’s always been, his songs are the driving force of his career, and he’s brought us another batch of good ones here. One of the only negative things you can say about Pat McGee is that much of the material, in melody, tone and arrangement, sounds very similar. But occasionally he steps things up, as he does on These Days with the stunning “Come Back Home,” a track originally written when McGee’s longtime drummer, John C. Williams, left the band, with the sentiment being how a military couple deals with separation during times of war. Sadly and somewhat symbolically, Williams’ younger brother lost his life in Iraq after McGee wrote the song last year. The Tonic-esque “The Hand That Holds You” is also a standout track. (Rock Ridge Music)

Pat McGee MySpace Page

Alternative, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop, Rock

This World Fair: This World Fair

April 24, 2009 /

It appears the next incarnation of Aware Records is here, in the form of Los Angeles-based Ping Pong Music. Ping Pong manages Epic Records’ Augustana, and they are bringing us the next wave of very talented baby bands such as This World Fair, the London, and Windsor Drive. The formula of Ping Pong’s bands is similar to Aware, which launched the careers of artists like Train, Vertical Horizon and John Mayer. And that formula is almost a no-brainer – finding talented acts with hooky, melodic songs – but it’s in stark contrast to today’s hipster-driven music industry that mostly relies on gimmicks and fabricated street cred meters. Still, there is always a demand for great bands like This World Fair, and their debut album is an absolute sonic gift to those who dig the likes of Augustana, Better Than Ezra or Keane. Chris Kalgren fronts the band with a smooth tenor that effectively delivers a balance of driving rockers such as “Can’t Stop Falling” and “Drama,” or dreamy tracks like “This is All.” But among ten tracks that are quite frankly straight A’s, This World Fair scores an A+ with the pulsing, stunning piano-driven “Seven Letters.” Despite where the music industry is headed, there is no good reason why This World Fair shouldn’t be as successful as the rest of the world will allow them to be. (Ping Pong Music)

This World Fair MySpace Page

Alternative, CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Indie Labels, Pop, Rock

The Veils Release Third LP, Sun Gangs

April 21, 2009 /

The Veils, Sun Gangs

From the UK comes the brooding rock outfit The Veils, with their third LP Sun Gangs. This foursome, complete with female bassist Sophia Burn, makes up one of the most unique and emotionally intoned musical groups since U2 or Radiohead. Their depth on Sun Gangs suggests a certain growth since the last record, and their talent for embellishments and arrangements makes this band one to listen to in 2009.

There’s a certain welcoming property about The Veils. They suck you into their emotionally complex world within seconds of the opener, “Sit Down By The Fire,” which BBC called, “a very modern mixture of prayers, love letters and personal record keeping.”

Another standout on the record is “Larkspur” which Dusted Magazine said, “follows a driving picked riff through swells of noise, returning to calm several times before building to a final eruption.” The orchestration on Sun Gangs is one of the main reasons the record is so intriguing. The twists and turns of melody and harmony, tiny instrumental splashes of color, and emotions that ebb and flow through song after song take this record from mundane and repetitive to interesting and easy to listen to.
As Supreme Management wrote,

“By turns warm and ethereal, thundering and cacophonous, The Veils set Sun Gangs apart from efforts by like-minded peers such as the Arcade Fire by imbuing their lush, at times grandiose arrangements with a sense of youthful honesty and personal reflection that seems to so often get lost under the sea of ideas within similarly ambitious efforts.”

The only down side to Sun Gangs is that it’s incredibly mellow. Don’t expect a head-banger here, but then again, that’s not what The Veils are known for. This band is pure emotion and it shows through each and every one of the tracks on Sun Gangs.

If you like U2, AutoVaughn, Kings Of Leon, or Arcade Fire, make sure to check out the latest release from UK rockers, The Veils.

Adult Contemporary, Alternative, CD Reviews, Pop, Rock

Strive: Fire

April 17, 2009 /

Listening to Strive’s Fire can be a little disorienting – immersing yourself in the band’s piano-heavy pop creates an effect similar to what it might feel like to hit your head and wake up in 1988, on Johnny Hates Jazz’s tour bus, where the singer from When in Rome is doing the nasty with Elton John. Nothing on the album is as disturbing as that mental image, of course, but the songs strongly evoke memories of the late ‘80s heyday of melodramatic, thickly polished pop – and singer Derrick Thompson really does sound like the singer from When in Rome. This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, and really, if Fire had been released in ’88, Strive would be selling out arenas with Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant – but in 2009, there isn’t a non-CCM station on the planet that’s going to slip any of these tracks into heavy rotation, particularly when they’re as unintentionally funny as “On Our Way,” which is supposed to be some sort of tribute to the downtrodden people of Africa but ends up just ripping off the melody from Ben Folds’ “Brick.” Fire may trigger a mixture of nostalgia and ironic pleasure in listeners old enough to remember the ‘80s, but music this simplemindedly earnest is liable to be little more than an amusing curiosity for everyone else – and when you’re aiming for sweeping grandiosity with every track, as Strive so clearly is, that’s a pretty big problem. (GoDigital 2008)

Strive MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Pop

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