Print Edition: May 22, 2013
Primal Scream
More Light
Much like fellow UK band Spiritualized, Primal Scream has never found success taking root in the American music market, all the while selling out arenas in their homeland. So what gives? Their eclectic back catalogue of bombastic rock and dance music has left them in limbo on one of the world’s biggest musical stages, but their new record More Light looks to change all that. Here Primal Scream tries their hand at Britpop, a genre that has a long history of helping bands to break through the American music market. The album’s opening track “2013,” a non-too-subtle nod to the Stooges’ “1969,” kickstarts More Light and really seems to set the tone for the rest of the record. Things are going to be glammy and full of attitude. However, the very next song “River of Pain” reverses all that. Muted and relaxed, “River” is a Beta Band-esque folk track that descends into orchestral eruption for its finale. The album’s lead single “It’s Alright, It’s Okay” recaptures the magic of their feel-good, gospel-inspired record from the early ‘90s Screamadelica by layering acoustic guitars and bongo with piano throughout the track while it continues to build. More Light demonstrates a reinvigorated Primal Scream, one that looks just as strong this decade as they have in the past three.
Tommy Alto
Oceans // Carolina
“Mister mister don’t call me a hipster I’m just a boy with a girl and I miss her…” Tommy Alto speak-sings on “Sticks and Stones,” the second track on the Vancouver post-punk rocker’s new EP Oceans // Carolina. It’s a taste of the kind of fast-talking, bracingly direct, albeit somewhat weather-worn lyrics Alto seems to be fond of. There is a slight rock steady undercurrent to Alto’s jagged rhythms and stolen bursts of lyric. The EP is meticulously crafted, compressing much aural detail into each of the album’s six tracks. Take the opening, dense, Beach Boys harmonies and Los Campesinos’ brand of jittery guitar work on “Autumn Leaves,” a veritable chameleon of a song. But the downside of this tendency is that the album feels needlessly cluttered. Tracks are packed densely with instrumentation and scattered musical motifs that only appear once before being lost back to the relentless pursuit of the song. Tommy Alto’s trademark is perfectionism; here, he embodies both its positive and negative aspects.
The National
Trouble Will Find Me
Some of the anti-hooks (“I stay down with my demons”) are unimaginatively over-repetitive, and some of the metaphors string together like several overdeveloped ways of saying the same thing, but in Trouble Will Find Me’s mostly arid most accurate moments, all the words collapse into exact evocations of The National’s now fully developed unspacious sounds of ongoing depression: the half-disgusted, mostly tired sighs that barely form the chorus of “Slipped.” Aside from the would-be imagery, Matt Berninger’s low-register half-dead vocals leave enough room that each song’s true inclinations tease out over the long passage of time – the unsettled positive spin of “Don’t Swallow the Cap” (“Everything I love is on the table”) slips between unprepared, precarious emotion before shifting into a tone that (“A bright white beautiful heaven hanging over me”) scans more like joy as disguise. Not as immediately likable as High Violet, Trouble Will Find Me might be even more undistinguished than 2007’s Boxer, with the main change strings to lift where drums mainly used to be. The National’s predictable stagnation is both reason for interest in their shtick to wane—this is essentially more of the same—and its effectiveness – merciless consistency lends a kind of truth to their extended wallowing, even when near-parodic.
The Airborne Toxic Event
Such Hot Blood
In Such Hot Blood The Airborne Toxic Event have continued to capture everything they’ve become known for: poetic vocals, beautiful ballads and a warm backing orchestra attuned with electric guitars. The distinction in this new release is that it feels like the pacing of tracks has been opened somewhat to allow for the extended choruses of lead singer Mikel Jollett. While the band has always been known to uniquely blend an orchestral sound with a full indie rock set, there are also more tracks that have a greater infusion of rock, as heard on “What’s In A Name?” The occasional pop punching, folk-like sound off their previous album can be found on one track, the fast paced ode “True Love.” And two tracks that will remain personally are the beautiful “This Is London,” a slower and beautifully powered piece of melancholy and “The Fifth Day,” a rendition of pain and growth, and a masterpiece in its own right with absolutely haunting harmonies. Finally, the album concludes with “Elizabeth,” a very simple concept of crossroads with a girl asking to have a song written by her boyfriend. There’s some resemblance of Dire Straits here. In the end, the album easily stands up to the band’s previous releases while also being a nice progression.
