Print Edition: January 23, 2013
Free Energy
Love Sign
Perennial Titus Andronicus tour mates Free Energy have gone bigger, but not necessarily better on their sophomore LP Love Sign. The follow-up to 2010’s windows-down love letter to rock and roll is bigger, dumber, and certainly triumphant. But it’s also a little underwhelming and in places lacks the more subtle charms of their debut, Stuck on Nothing. It’s difficult to doubt the earnestness with which Love Sign is delivered, reminiscent at times to Atlantic treasure Joel Plaskett, but the songs lack a certain roughness which helped win me over the first time around. Lead single “Dance All Night” pulls back the volume, but doesn’t quite make up for it with convincing hooks. There’s a swagger here too, but one that seems more polished than strictly necessary. All it takes is to compare the hammering bombast of “Girls Wanna Dance” with the swinging breakdown of Stuck on Nothing’s “Coming Out.” Melodies still abound, with sing along “Ohs” and “Las” throughout, but there’s an arenaready quality that doesn’t translate as well as it should given the wide-open guitars of Love Sign. Most everything’s just a little less particular and less personal. I can’t deny the effectiveness of the horns on “Time Rolls On,” but too much of the album just blends together as one big, loud mess.
Parquet Courts
Light Up Gold
The Brooklyn-by-Texas post-punk quartet Parquet Courts have produced a debut Light Up Gold that establishes their abilities as songwriters and musicians amongst the two chords and two chords only fundamentalists of the late ‘70s. Echoing acts like Wire and The Feelies, Parquet Courts possess more in the way of inspiration than they do in musical chops, but their untainted, jangly guitars, steady rock drums and clever and detached lyrics offers plenty of treats for those who are eager to approach the album with open ears. What truly impresses about Light Up Gold is the way the songs, ranging from the choppy post-punk “Stoned and Starved” to the hypnotic drone-rock like “Careers in Combat” to tightly written and catchy pop song “Borrowed Time,” is that the songs all shoot for the same mood and message. Parquet Court’s two-and-a-half minute idiosyncratic, cynical, very lively and minimal post-punk tunes really maintain a stable and balanced sentiment, for its musical roots construct modern variety of musical fruits. Light Up Gold is an album that effortlessly molds into whatever occasion; it’s an album for all seasons.
Burial
Truant/Rough Sleeper
In proximity (less than 12 months apart) Truant/Rough Sleeper is hardly separate from last year’s Kindred, and when arpeggios build and collapse and repeat on “Truant” like they did on “Loner” and “Ashtray Wasp” they sound like they come from a series, but in form and progression Burial’s latest is a marked departure. Retained is the sound; bass always in attendance, samples drowned and stretched nearly apart into multiples, and corrosive record static, the past inflicting the present. But both tracks here (together running almost half an hour) are marked by division, an assortment. Silence engulfs just as sound begins to build, leading to a reset, or a continuation of an earlier dropped track, as if there are patches of unplayability, or the tossing and turning of most of Burial’s recent work has reached its natural culmination. There’s nothing here that exceeds “Ashtray Wasp,” which by comparison is standard—three songs stitched together in broken crossfades—and neither piece ends well: abrasive, unpleasant, and suggesting there must be something more to follow, only for there not to be – unless the better ending, like the re-toned, elongated organ and chimes of “Rough Sleeper,” already came before.
Katie Armiger
Fall Into Me
Like many of her predecessors, Katie Armiger asserts her newfound independence with her latest album Fall Into Me. The 21-year-old attributes the album’s inspiration to her recent break-up – which is clearly reflected in every track on the album. The album is heavily focused on the extremely cliché themes of young love and heartbreak, but who I am kidding? I love this stuff. The acoustic guitar paired with her soft country twang and breakup lyrics could really serve as the perfect breakup remedy, or more simply, some easy listening for the soft hearted. I wouldn’t say the album is suitable for a Saturday night while hanging with friends, but for some Sunday driving, it’s perfect. “Cardboard Boxes,” one of my personal favourites, discusses the ups and downs of moving on: it showcases the artist’s range and has a mid-tempo, catchy beat. The leading single, “Better in a Black Dress,” discusses the pressures of marriage and Armiger’s desire for prolonged freedom. While many men may not be drawn to this album, Fall Into Me definitely speaks to the ladies.
