The Morning Benders - Big Echo

Rough Trade Records
2010

I've been hungry for new music recently. Probably about the time I wore out The Suburbs and had naught but old music to go through. My downloading habits are weird. I sporadically torrent tons of music every 2 months or so, then it takes a while to process all of it. So I've been sifting through massive piles, so to speak, of new shit I've never heard before. This band was in that pile. Last.fm told me to listen to them, so I gave them a shot.

I can't really decide if this band is worth loving or not. I mean, they certainly are like-able, but is there a fucking love connection here? Probably not. These guys are pretty fucking good at crafting "indie pop" music, which isn't all that bad if you ask me. It's just that there's a ton of other bands that are doing the same damn thing. I want to say these guys kind of sound like Beulah, then you look them up and find out that they're from the bay area or some shit like that and it makes complete fucking sense.

So I downloaded two records by these guys and I chose to review this one because it came out this year. I think it's okay. I recall hearing the first song "Excuses" on KJHK a long time ago and was wondering "Who the fuck are these guys? I want to listen to them some more!" The second song, "Promises" has this great little bass driven hook in the beginning that repeats throughout the song. "Wet Cement" sounds too much like "Wasted Hours" off of The Suburbs by that one band from Montreal. It picks up a bit with "Cold War" but for the most part this album is kind of forget-able. The other one I downloaded I thought it was easier to get into it, and maybe it's just coz the songs might be a little more poppy or up beat, I'm not really sure.

I'm not sure if I'll be listening to this band in like 3 months. I'll let you know

3 out of 5 steering wheels.

Murder By Death - Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them

Eyeball Records
2003

Holy shit has it really been 7 years since this album came out? Damn.

Anyways, It's almost October. I think I'll spend most of October talking about records I like to listen to in the fall or around Halloween.

This record is perfect for this time of year. I mean, first off it's about the Devil taking over this town by the Mexican border or some shit. There's all sorts of western imagery in there, coupled with a song about zombies and all of this awesome gory stuff that makes this record awesome. It's the perfect record to put on after watching an episode of Deadwood before you go out to the bar and it's great to drink whiskey to. It's great to drive around to. I was listening to it last night at work and I was like "Yup. It's that time of year again"

This was the last really good record this band put out. It combines Adam Turla's great storytelling ability with the fuller sound this band had before the guy who played keyboards went back to art school. It sucks that I have to say that, because people I've talked to like that other record In Bocca al Lupo. I don't know, the songs off that record sound like something's missing, and the live performance sure as hell sounds like some shit's missing too.

I've seen this band perform live several times. Each time I was really disappointed by the fact that all I could hear was the guitar and the bass. No piano, nothing from the hot cellist. Hell it was hard to hear the drums sometimes! I will say that the best show was probably fall of 2004 at the Granada. They opened with "The Devil in Mexico" and then basically played through all of this record while there were these clips from horror films playing above them. It was too awesome.

Anyways, I'm listening to "Masters in Reverse Psychology" right now, and I'd love to talk about this record more and how many memories are tied to it and how much I like it, but I have to go back to work soon. I really want to listen to it and drink whiskey sometime this weekend. Maybe Friday? Who knows, I'll keep you posted.

4 out of 5 steering wheels.

Superchunk - Majesty Shredding

Merge
2010

What's up with everyone coming out with new shit this year? I'm not complaining at all, in fact I really really like it. Superchunk goes way the fuck back. I mean, this band practically invented indie rock back in the early 90's when they said "fuck it, we're going to make our own record label" and then Merge Records happened and lots of good songs were recorded released and distributed. It's been a long ass nine years since we all heard Here's to Shutting Up and saw this band opening for the Get Up Kids. I didn't really think it was weird at the time (I was only 16- jesus christ I'm old) but now I think I realize how fucked up that scenario was.

Anyways, I don't think we have had a proper good indie rock/pop record in at least nine years. I'm glad these (slack) motherfuckers came back to show all of us how we're supposed to do it right. This album rocks my socks off. It punches you hard in the beginning with "Digging for Something" and really doesn't let off with the pop hooks. The second song, "My Gap Feels Weird" feels like a weird song. It's like Superchunk felt like they had to make a math rock song, and it doesn't really feel right on this record. "Rosemarie" is a classic Superchunk jam and listening to it instantly takes me back to the 1990s (the awesome parts anyways). "Crossed Wires" is a really energetic rock song. Hell, most of this album feels really energetic, which is weird because most everyone in this band is at least 40 years old or older and haven't recorded anything together in nine years.

So I guess the hard part is comparing this album to the other ones. How does this shit stack up in comparison to Here's to Shutting Up or Here's Where the Strings Come In or any of that other stuff they released back in the 1990s when awesome music was coming out. It's really difficult to compare it all right now. I mean, this record sounds significantly similar to make me love it instantly, but I feel like it's missing some of the spontaneity that made Here's Where The Strings Come In so great. I think everyone is going to eat this shit up because, well, it's been nine years since the last album came out. I'm not saying it's bad, but similar to some other records I've reviewed on here (I'm looking at you, Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens and Broken Social Scene) it's been so fucking long since the last album let us down that we are ready for something new. While the last album these guys put out wasn't disappointing, it's been a long time and I forget things after a few years. That's how I was able to forgive Sufjan Stevens for his really disappointing live performance and love that new EP he just dropped like a bomb on all of us.

So yeah, shit's pretty good. I think 2010 is a comeback year. I'll talk to my friend Ian and see what he says, but I think I'm right on this one.

4 out of 5 steering wheels.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Let it Sway

Polyvinyl
2010

I saw these guys back in January. They put on a really fun live show. Or maybe it was just because I was drunk and the songs they play are really fun. Who knows. They played some new songs at the show, and I thought they were kind of ho-hum. I honestly didn't have high hopes for this record to be any good, but I was really pleasantly surprised.

The opening song "Back in the Saddle" starts out misleading. It sounds so quiet and boring, but the song picks up. I think they should have excluded it from this album, because it's kind of a weak song. "Sink/Let it Sway" is a great second song, and is classic SSLYBY. It's a fun pop melody which is what this band is expert at crafting. The record continues through some more pop songs, "Banned By the Man" is another classic SSLYBY jam, "In Pairs" is a little more adventurous, "Everylyn" has a really catchy melody, "Stuart Gets Lost dans Le Metro" is a great acoustic jam; So while the songs are really good, this record really fails to go anywhere. It's like Pershing part two. Don't get me wrong I really liked Pershing and I'm glad that this record doesn't let you down, but this band really isn't switching anything up.

I really liked Broom- I still think that's SSLYBY's best record yet. I'm thinking I really dug how unpolished the sound was on the record. I don't know why I've developed such an aversion to a high level of polish maybe there's a bit of punk inside me? I guess I really like how raw band's first records always sound. There's something exciting about how it's just cobbled together and it's developing into something else. Sometimes that unpolished, cobbled together recording style works really well for bands (it did for Guided By Voices) and when they spend too much time and energy it comes out sounding all wrong (like Do The Collapse). I think SSLYBY might be one of those bands. Oh yeah, I think this record rocks in the car or bus too, what ever you are driving.

3.5 out of 5 steering wheels. It's good, but not mindblowing.

Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People

Asthmatic Kitty
2010

I was driving around in bus 748 yesterday over on Crestline road and had the radio locked on KJHK. It was around 2 PM, and this song came on. I was like "wow this sounds a lot like fucking Sufjan Stevens- is this some old shit he wrote or a side project?" I really liked the song and thought it sounded too much like the songs we all came to love on Come on Feel the Illinoise and Michigan to be a side project or some shit like that.

So I get home from the bar last night/this morning (thanks for the ride, Amy Stack), and my friend Ian is telling me about this new Sufjan Stevens song he heard on KJHK. I was like "OMG I HEARD IT TOO IT WAS SO AWESOME!" and then my friend Joy got home and said pretty much the same thing. I instantly found this record, downloaded it and listened to it all the way through.

I was too wasted last night to really for an opinion about it, but today I'm more sober (for the time being). The title track is REALLY REALLY LONG. Like 11 minutes long. Sufjan Stevens is such a good songwriter that you still want to keep listening to it. The song really rises and falls and changes in a way that keeps you listening. Oh yeah, there's two versions of the song as well. You all remember that "collection of B sides and alternate versions" we had to settle for in like 2005? I don't know, I'm tired of hearing alternate versions of the same shit, but I guess that it works here because the two songs sound different enough. "Enchanting Ghost" is classic fucking Sufjan Stevens and a motherfucking guitar. I think it's like "Predatory Wasp of the Pallisades Part II" or a continuation of that song about John Wayne Gacy.

Sufjan Stevens was fucking burnt out after making Illinois and that's probably why we are just now getting new shit, almost 6 years later. I mean, I would be really burnt out too if I wrote over 300 songs for an album and still had enough good stuff I threw out to make another album. Nobody can really do that, except for that one guy from the Mountain Goats. So I don't know, hearing this EP got me excited about Sufjan Stevens again. It's kind of like seeing an old friend you haven't seen in a long ass time, even though you stopped hanging out because they pissed you off. After seeing Sufjan Stevens live, I was so disappointed with his show I didn't want to listen to him. Thanksgiving came and went and I really didn't want to listen to anything off of Michigan or even Seven Swans like I normally do because I was so let down. Sure they were fucking tired, but I had high hopes for a religious live experience and when it didn't happen I was pissed. I guess I've had enough time to forgive Sufjan Stevens and we've all had some time to forget about the hype from the state albums. This album is a pleasant surprise released just in time.

The best part is yet to come- I guess there's a full length LP coming out in a few months? AWESOME!

5/5 Steering Wheels.

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Merge Records
2010

So I haven't updated in a while and I apologize. It's been a somewhat busy summer filled with terrible music of RAGBRAI, work, more work, a relationship that probably ended too abruptly and some other shit that went down. Lots of whiskey was drank in the beginning and at the end. What that has to do with this Arcade Fire album I'm not sure.

I got this shit right at the beginning of August. Like right after I got back from Iowa and had someone who shall remain nameless decide that "things weren't working out" and "it's not you it's me I don't really know what I want." Like when Neon Bible came out. I was really worried this album was going to suck a bag of dicks since Funeral was so awesome and there's no way anyone could ever top that album. Somehow this band continues to make solid albums. Granted, they aren't repeats of Funeral, they're all different, which is something I've really come to like.

The opening/title track really sets the tone for this album. It sounds like this off kilter version of the theme for some hokey 1970's suburban sitcom. Some of my friends commented that this album is really very theatrical, and for the most part they are right. I feel like this shit would go well with a movie, or maybe they should make a movie based on the album? I'd love to see images of "Living in the sprawl, dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains." Maybe they could make a movie based on James Howard Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere- I think this album would go great with that. I really dug songs like "We Used to Wait" and "City With no Children in it" the first time I was listening through it. That was before I got to "Sprawl II- Mountains Beyond Mountains." That song blew me away.

I really enjoyed this album to the point where I literally listened to it every day for like 4 weeks straight. I still listen to it, just not every day. It's been a long time since I have done that with any band or music, but god damn I miss it. Shit Neon Bible came out in like 2006, so this shit was way long overdue. I think what makes this album such a great experience for me was that it talked about growing up in the suburbs, and how much that environment really divides people and makes us build up walls around ourselves. It's a perfect social commentary that so many people my age can relate to, and it's what makes this album almost as good as Funeral, but not quite. Let's hope that this band keeps doing what they do and makes another album that somehow manages to capture something that everyone can relate to.

5/5 Steering wheels. Shit's mindblowing.