Print Edition: May 20, 2015
Laura Marling
Short Movie
Based on her experience moving from London to Los Angeles, Laura Marling’s latest album, Short Movie, sounds like it should be the soundtrack to an indie film set in the California desert.
A crisp steel-string acoustic guitar is the loudest voice on the album, but Marling layers the tracks with a distortion pedal, orchestral strings, and her own vocals. Drums are present, but rather than building suspense or adding punctuation to the music, they simply keep the tempo. The album is consequently anti-climactic — like a heat wave, Short Movie is flat, hazy, and lethargic.
Marling’s music has an old Western vibe, with Johnny Cash-style speak-singing and the occasional tambourine, affecting the sound of a country back-porch jam session. Marling’s lyrics use simple language that blends into the background, sounding more like a train of thought rather than a story. The album is contemplative and relaxed — the perfect prescription for long road trips or low-key study sessions.
Kelly Clarkson
Piece by Piece
“Before Your Love,” Kelly Clarkson’s post-American Idol single, was lyrically simple, but Clarkson’s vocal power and emotional drive in that early hit was unforgettable, promising greatness. Thirteen years later, Piece by Piece marks a rut.
“Heartbeat Song” is your requisite radio-bait: already ubiquitous and catchy. But it’s not until several filler tracks later that Clarkson conveys some strong emotion in “Tightrope,” with a slight waver and good use of vocal layering. Clarkson with piano and strings is compelling; when she goes too pop-heavy, it leeches her intensity and highlights the triteness of some lyrics.
“War Paint” was lyrically interesting — though the image isn’t new, I didn’t feel like I’d heard the same lines verbatim elsewhere, as I did with other tracks. “Nostalgic” is a keeper too, with the virtue of variety as it’s sandwiched between “Dance with Me” and “Good Goes the Bye.” The former is a lacklustre invitation compared to a long list of similar but better dance floor songs, and the latter has a limp, defeated feel, compounded by the ridiculously repetitive “X goes Y” structure: break goes heart, wrong goes right, down go tears, and so on, and so on.
The Mountain Goats
Beat the Champ
How cute! I haven’t heard anything else by the Mountain Goats, and I think that’s the difference between me and everyone who really didn’t care for Beat the Champ. My lack of reference points in mind, Beat the Champ is a lovely little dedication to professional wrestling.
Each song is an ode to a concept from the “sports entertainment.” Songs like “Foreign Object” don’t use the idea of bringing a fork or something into the ring as metaphor for something else; it’s literally about bringing a fork or something into the ring. Frontman John Darnielle’s literalness combined with his sentimental view of pro wrestling makes the album understandably hard to appreciate, but coming to it with a similar perspective makes for a pretty fun experience.
However, there are problems with the album besides its limited audience. For one, some of the compositions are definitely better than others. The overall sound is as if those hard-rock entrance themes for WWE stars were made into cute indie-pop. Unfortunately, those entrance themes are rather vanilla to begin with, and “cutesifying” the vanilla tends to magnify the blandness. About halfway through the album, all the musical tricks seem to have been pulled from the hat and nothing really surprising happens.
But overall, there’s nothing to hate about the album. You will either love it or not notice it’s on.
Geographer
Ghost Modern
With the departure of cellist Nathan Blaz and drummer Brian Ostreicher, Geographer is now a solo project under the direction of vocalist and guitarist Mike Deci. Based in San Francisco, Geographer has become known in indie music circles for soaring vocal melodies that pleasantly mingle with straightforward pop beats and multiple orchestral musical elements. On the act’s new album, Ghost Modern, the listener is welcomed by Deci’s crisp vocal stylings, the driving force of Geographer. Deci’s voice, in particular his falsetto, is one of the most immediately identifiable in the indie music scene, so it is no surprise that the songs which resonate most are the ones which feature the best vocal parts.
In the case of Ghost Modern, these tracks are the crooning “I’m Ready,” the orchestral-folk pop “The Guest,” and jangle-pop track “Keep.” The problems with this album lie not necessarily in the tracks themselves, but the diversity between them; it is hard to get a feel for what Geographer uniquely is. There is an abundance of familiar genre markers within the album’s 12 tracks, which could frustrate and isolate some listeners. Regardless, if you are a fan of artists like Arcade Fire, fun., Two Door Cinema Club, or the 1975, I would definitely suggest you check out this, or Geographer’s two previous albums.
