Date Posted: August 29, 2011
Print Edition: August 25, 2011
Boston Spaceships
Let It Beard
Prolific as Robert Pollard is, Let It Beard being his fifth studio album this year, this is definitely the most ambitious. This rollercoaster of a double LP clocks in at around one hour and fifteen minutes, leaving extra room for the members of Boston Spaceships to stuff as many songs as possible onto their concept album about the sorry state of rock and roll. This additional space makes for sluggish and disinteresting moments throughout the album. This most noticeably occurs fifteen minutes into the record on the track entitled, “Let More Light Into The House,” an uninspired, droning song that relies on a banjo and snare drum to keep any coherency. Although Let It Beard has a difficult time finding its footing, it does include numerous melodic gems sure to please arena rock fans as well as pop fans alike.
Wintercoast
Trees, Homes & Better Places
Rarely is a band so all consumed with a single season as Wintercoast, a Vancouver group whose name implies the deep and sombre track listing that parallels the very season. With the release of their newly constructed, four-track debut EP, Trees, Homes & Better Places, you lyrically get the sense of longing for a time that will bring back a life that may no longer exist. This is evident with the melding of central themes such as love, time, desperation and desolation that ring throughout. However, their sound is a bit of a contradiction as each track is light and easy to listen to when sung softly with a sense of optimism by both male and female lead vocalists, Andrei Dumitrescu and Sylvie Bridgman. It’s not too hard to notice their semblance to Local Natives, or a little bit of Death Cab for Cutie here and there. Having released their EP in the midst of the summer, I can’t help loving both the album and the juxtaposition of the aptly named band.
Peatbog Faeries
Dust
The Peatbog Faeries, a Scottish folk band, released Dust and received a very positive response. Essentially a Celtic fusion band, PBF experiments with instrumentals and synthesizers. They move between calm pieces, with tracks such as the “Ascent of Conival,” and lively, crackling tracks like “Abhainn a’ Nathair” (Gaelic for “river of snakes”). Songs are an interesting mixture of the traditional and the technological – a brilliant blend of bagpipes and bass. The best track by far is “The Naughty Step,” with solid rhythmic drums in the background and a marvelous fast-paced fiddle instrumentation dominating the track. With their constant experimentation and innovative creativity by using the traditional pipe, whistle, and fiddle mixed with a fusion of electronic beats, the Peatbog Faeries moves through genres, easily holding the listeners attention. Definitely worth a listen no matter which genre you prefer.
Hooray for Earth
True Loves
Deliberately paced, but stubbornly energetic, True Loves is a sweeping, noise-pop celebration of life and a promising debut record from New Yorkers Hooray for Earth. The group first emerged in 2005 as an extension of the synth-heavy bedroom recordings of Noel Heroux, the youthful-sounding lead singer with a knack for strong hooks. While the first third immediately pulls listeners into Heroux’s world, the album sags a little in the middle under the weight of the its relentless wall-of-noise approach and a sequence of somewhat slight song writing before rallying back with the nervy, razor’s edge dance track “No Love.” At its heart, Hooray for Earth’s latest offering expresses a disquieting juxtaposition – best exemplified in the Pet Sounds-esque “Last Minute” – of wide-eyed naiveté with an underlying melancholy barely contained by the record’s loud, complex and harsh musical landscape. Beautiful, sad and affirming, True Loves reveals Heroux as a hopeless romantic who just wasn’t made for these times.
