ENSEMBLE- Ensemble

This particular Ensemble, rather ironically, is just one man. French-born Canada-resident, Olivier Alary, started working under the title way back in 1998 with a view to mashing together melodic noise and disjointed pop. He wanted to run delicate musical movements into walls of sound. Eight years later, he might have just perfected his art.

To call this pop music could be stretching it. There's no sugary-sweetness or genre clichés. Sometimes there aren't even hooks, melodies or choruses. Still, this is infinitely listenable stuff. There are waves of rising, mutating radio hiss, there's chirping electronica, almost-folk arrangements and sharp string movements. It all adds to the rising clank of an odd orchestra that should sound cluttered and messy but knits together like some forgotten minimal Múm or Sigur Ros B-side.

There are plenty of guest vocalists here to make up the numbers too. Mileece makes Avary's skipping beats sound awfully close to the summery slop of Zero 7 but the ghostly intonations of Chan Marshall (of Cat Power fame) are fantastic and when Lou Barlow whispers and croons over 'One Kind, Two Minds' it's as good as any of the more alternative material Sufjan Stevens has put his name to.Elsewhere, track-long expanses of wind whistling and wave crashing add satisfyingly safe elements to this ethereal noise that might otherwise threaten to never let you back to Earth again.

Also appears at Rock Midgets.

Watch where you point your finger...

...I Am Hollywood.

LISTEN TO HE IS LEGEND

Mad as a bag of spoons Americans on the verge of releasing 'Suck Out The Poison', their second long-player. They could be the band that put all this whatever-core to bed.
When they play live they steal shows with the cunning use of having fun- remember when shows used to be like that?
When they play in the studio they come out with all-at-once cute and crazy schizophrenic jams like 'The Seduction' or 'Dixie Wolf'. Hope and pray they tour the UK soon.

STATE RADIO- Us Against The Crown

Politics. With a capital P. The stuff is all the rage these days. What with Green Day and Fat Mike riding the ‘fuck Bush’ bandwagon all the way to the bank it’s clear that dipping a toe or two into the way the world works is now worth more than a clear conscience. There’s money to made in them there polls.

‘Us Against The Crown’ is most definitely a political record. There are songs about the ongoing war in Iraq, the importance of voting and the rights of the poor, elderly and disabled. For State Radio though, this isn’t about shifting units, it’s about trying to create awareness and make some changes. This isn’t marketable pop or headline-stealing spleen-venting punk either. The main sound of ‘Us Against The Crown’ is laid-back rock and reggae. Like Matisyahu recently, this band condenses their woes into soft-groove radio-fodder. It’s the sort of smooth-on-the-outside, hard-on-the-inside mix that will have people flicking through the lyrics booklet to double check they just heard such vehement comment amongst such laid-back music.

The sunny sound means this can’t possibly be all doom and gloom. And in fact, if you search a little deeper, there are a few looks towards the promise and potential of the future (presumably a future where everybody listens to State Radio) and even a song about love. It’s in these moments though that the band display their worst qualities, sounding as dull as Audioslave, like Rancid at their least effective or worse, like happy-happy-joy-joy chart-monkey Jack Johnson. These are defiantly vintage licks though. Which, while very warm and pleasant sounding and valiantly in line with the music’s age-old inspiration, don’t exactly inspire feelings of revolution. More like feelings of falling asleep in a hammock somewhere in the nice part of Jamaica.

There is room for State Radio to really blow up. Hell, if Rage Against The Machine were around today they’d be the biggest band in the world. But it’s Rage’s vitriolic, impacting and immediate messages and not this band’s quiet mumbles that are really needed. There’s nothing terribly wrong with State Radio’s sound but rebellion has never sounded so redundantly nice.

Also appears at Rock Midgets

ROSES ARE RED- What Became Of Me

Time was not on the side of Roses Are Red. Emerging in 2004 the New York five-piece had the much-lauded Trustkill Records stamp but garnered little acknowledgment. This was just another screamo band, never to be heard from again. At least that’s what most people thought. RAR frontman, Vince Minervino, had other ideas though. Back with a new line up the singer has helmed his band towards a new sound. Think Jimmy Eat World instead of Atreyu, Foo Fighters rather than From Autumn To Ashes. They still struggle to cement an identity of their own but with Minervino’s much improved voice and a penchant for emotional depth where hardcore hissyfits used to be, success is much closer for Roses Are Red. There’s no glaring errors here, no duff tracks, just a collection of solid rock songs. And, unbelievably, it’s easier to listen to than the latest Crash Romeo, Matchbook Romance or Eighteen Visions albums.

RAZORLIGHT- Razorlight

Jesus Christ, Johnny Borrell is a gobshite. But wait, take a breath, don't base your opinion of Razorlight's music on the delusional, self-obsessed ramblings of their lanky, smug frontman. Oh, alright go on then.

There are ten tracks here sure to appeal to the obedient indie masses but for everybody else the appeal of Razorlight will remain a mystery. 'In The Morning' has a chorus hook that's as welcome as 'flu but unfortunately just as catchy, next single 'America' does a mediocre musical impression of U2 at their most musically mediocre and there might even be a flash of a decent melody in 'Los Angeles Waltz' but that's really stretching. Everywhere else it's half-arsed guitar strum, spineless drive-time drang and sixth-form-poetry style rhyming couplets ahoy. This is dreary middle-of-the-road pub-rock that panders to every evil vice the radio demands. Horrible.

SUCIOPERRO- Random Acts Of Intimacy

Chemistry. One of those classes at school where the teachers always smelled funny but something essential to the making of a great band. Scottish quartet Sucioperro have chemistry. By the bucket load. After listening to 'Random Acts Of Intimacy' it wouldn't be a surprise to learn that they had regular group hugs or something like that. From first note to last here Sucioperro sound terribly together.

But don't get too comfortable. Impatience and audacity and talent butt serious heads throughout Random Acts.... It's not down to immaturity, but the knowledge that a little twist and a few turns make for a thrilling ride. All of which means while 'Wolf Carnival' and 'Dialog On The 2' twitch and fidget like Biffy Clyro or Minus The Bear, 'I Don't Hate...' and 'Tem V Com' are rock and roll belters. Then 'Grace And Out Of Me' does both, meandering down a gentle mathy road before exploding like prime Rage Against The Machine. It's the sort of songwriting skill that regularly leaves you wondering what the hell just happened, how the hell the band got away with and why the hell you so badly want to hear it again.

It might be too heavy for Franz fans, too fey for the hardcore fraternity, even too polite to turn top industry heads but that's their loss. Experimentation, drama, power, dexterity and that chemistry stuff abounds. On this evidence Sucioperro need just a touch more fire and maybe one more album to go over the edge into Muse-like realms of quality. That or medical help.

Also appears at RockMidgets.

KOUFAX- Hard Times Are In Fashion

Hard times may be in fashion but quirky spiky indie isn’t doing too bad for itself either. On this, their fourth release, Koufax harness the sort of new-wave pop prowess that has driven Hot Hot Heat and The Killers to the big time. They have the American accents, the skinny-legged style and even some talent; they can do smirking balladry and dancefloor rock with equal aplomb. There’s a piano in there too, but this is no Keane type thing, the tinkling actually adds a different accent to the usual lip-pouting hip-shaking mixture.

The ivories aren’t the only thing marking Koufax out from the pack either. The way ‘Five Years Of Madness’ puts the pedal to the metal will turn heads, the haunting, queasy drama of ‘Stephen James’ will turn them back again and is that a country twang hidden under lead single ‘Isabelle’. That there’s some meaty social and political comment bubbling away (and occasionally boiling over on ‘Blind Faith’) under such charming dark pop only makes it better. However while there’s familiar comfort in the Bloc Party bop of ‘Her Laughter’ or the Strokes style slacker banter of ‘Get Us Sober’ the songs here rarely take on a life of their own. And so it goes that after all that good stuff, there’s nothing to seal the deal.

Koufax probably throw some killer parties and god knows ‘Hard Times…’ would make decent background music to the next shindig at yours, but, with a noticeable lack of hit single material, the band need still more time to crack superstardom. It will come though, it will.


Also appears at Rock Midgets.

REGINA SPEKTOR- Begin To Hope

Regina Spektor used to actively repel any comparisons to chart-humping drama queens just by being Regina Spektor- her beautiful and clever yet naïve-sounding voice always running in different directions to the minimalistic music she made but fitting perfect all the same. Those days are gone. ‘Begin To Hope’ finds the Russian born New-Yorker caving in to whatever sort of pressure got to Alanis Morrisette years ago. ‘Better’ sounds like a Bon Jovi cast-off, there are Euro beats crashing into each other everywhere else and by ‘Edit’ it’s all starting to sound horribly similar. ‘Samson’ is the exception, sounding like a mainstream radio hit, a smoky backroom sing-a-long and a lonely confession all at the same time. And only ‘Fidelity’ retains the valuable majesty of before. You can mourn the quirks and out-of-this-world oddness that Spektor previously did so well but the biggest shame is the loss of her fantastic rainbow-coloured personality. Another one bites the dust.

BUILT TO SPILL- You In Reverse

Built To Spill singer/guitarist/all-round main man Doug Martsch has kept the world waiting five years for another BTS record. There were fears that his band’s Neil Young and Sonic Youth inspired sound might have become too slow and too snug to still matter but apparently 15 years in the game means you know a little something about the rules.

Martsch doesn’t hold back on any count. This isn’t a rowdy record but it does move in fantastically mysterious ways. There are great expanses of looping, overlapping instrumentation that go for minutes without vocals. When the words do arrive they are tender and memorable. There is a myriad of guitar sounds and quick, challenging sets of mood swings. It all adds up to some great tunes. It might clock in at eight minutes but ‘Goin’ Against Your Mind’ sounds like the neatest of jam rock. Up against the more muscular and distorted indie riffery sits the melancholy wonder of ‘Gone’, ‘Just A Habit’ and ‘The Wait’. At times the record feels half-hearted, drifting too far into dreary dream-pop territory but the gorgeous moments of ‘Conventional Wisdom’ and ‘Liar’ reel the whole thing back in.

If you fancy finding out where Death Cab, The Shins and Arcade Fire stole all their secrets from, you could do worse than start investigating here.

RUSSIAN CIRCLES- Enter

Officially nothing to do with Russia or its circles, the three Chicago natives behind ‘Enter’ deal in instrumental rock that fidgets and fits in the best of ways. That the six tracks here take more than fourty minutes to unwind points to the post-post-rock (where will it) end of things but there’s haste, speed and an amplified fire here that means the ‘Circles are much more than another Mogwai photocopy. These tunes go from the complex shimmy of early Tool to the gentle loveliness of Joan Of Arc to the sheer doom attack of Motorhead. Couple that with the straight up Will Haven-esque ‘Death Rides A Horse’ and you have the perfect example of instrumental music for people that don’t really like instrumental music. And a gem of a record for people that do.

Also appears at New-Noise

SILENT CIVILIAN- Rebirth Of The Temple

Johnny Santos spent six years fronting Spineshank. Though that band would never escape their ‘baby Fear Factory’ tag they did write some killer tunes. Santos jumped from the sinking nu-metal ship a couple of years ago but is now back in action with Silent Civilian and this new group are a heavier prospect all round. At the centre ‘Rebirth of the Temple’ is the sort of heavy metal that’s made Machine Head’s name. Unfortunately though, instead of concentrating on power, energy and writing defiant anthems, the ‘Civilian favour more of the fashionable metalcore flavours that have been heard already. By everyone. Everywhere.

It’s not terrible stuff. ‘Funeral’ kicks things off as neatly as anything from the last Trivium, God forbid or Caliban albums but therein lies the problem. There is nothing here that hasn’t already been done better somewhere else. The kick drums go into overdrive for the bludgeoning intro to ‘Divided’, there’s great Metallica-esque twiddly bits on ‘The Song Remains Un-Named’ and Santos’ knack for a vocal melody creeps through during ‘Bitter Pill’ and ‘Blood Red Sky’. But, there’s always that awkward feeling that the band have been reading over metalcore’s shoulder and stealing what they think are the right answers. And, at 13 tracks, some pushing seven and eight minutes long, it doesn’t half go on a bit. Hell, even Spineshank were smarter than this.

So, while there’s nothing really wrong with what Silent Civilian have done here, ‘Rebirth…’ is destined to sink without trace.

THURSDAY. Zodiac, Oxford. 26.05.06

It’s been nearly two years since Thursday were last in the UK and even longer since any new material. So after a lengthy wait the New Jersey sextet (now featuring keyboardist Andrew Everding full-time) return for a flying seven-stop run with cracking new album ‘A City By The Light Divided’ in tow.

With all that time off, new songs to learn and this being the first night of the tour, the band could be forgiven for sounding a little rusty but apparently Thursday have a point to prove. The gunshot drumming, buzzsaw guitars, layered vocals and Everding’s added dimensions mean the set sounds huge. Geoff Rickly looks healthier than he has in years and throws himself into tunes like crowd favourite ‘For The Workforce, Drowning’ and new single ‘Counting 5-4-3-2-1’ with equal reckless abandon. Quality levels don’t drop an inch throughout but it’s not until they play flawless renditions of ‘Cross Out The Eyes’ and ‘Jet Black New Year’ you realise how essential this band remain and just how much their passion and honesty is missed. And nobody here would swap this show for front row tickets to the next Aiden gig, not for anything in the world.

CITY AND COLOUR+ Jacob's Stories. Camden Barfly, London. 25.05.06

Dallas Green never even saw this coming. His self-confessed ‘soft songs’ were only supposed to be for him to play, to help him work through some issues or jam the kinks out of tunes for his day job in Alexisonfire. They weren’t supposed to be flown around the world and performed in front of awe-filled and attentive audiences. But that’s how it is.

Despite the early doors (enforced so that 65 Days Of Static, playing upstairs tonight, don’t thud the show to death from above) the Barfly is full. Which means plenty of people get to hear Stuart Lee’s Radiohead-ian brilliance. Alone on stage but armed with keyboard, drum machine and the Jacob’s Stories moniker, it’s the mantra piano of ‘A Night With Steve’, hypnotic chirping of ‘Unfinished Idea’ and lilting but commanding nature of Lee’s voice that deserve to make the man a millionaire.

None of this is about the big bucks though. When the headliner has to squeeze through the crowd to get to the stage and tune his own guitar, a Chris Carrabba-type confessional is clearly not on the cards. Green doesn’t even cut a very demanding figure once he’s up there; in fact he looks a little dazed, like he still can’t believe that people want to see him this way. It’s his songs that compel all the attention. In between digs at the British transport system and the LostProphet’s ‘interesting’ haircuts tunes like ‘Hello, I’m In Delaware’ and ‘Comin’ Home’ are transformed. Fragile ballads on CD are stretched out into powerful moving tales, infused with genuine heart and real tragedy. During ‘Save Your Scissors’ Green asks the crowd to sing but few people do, eager to get the man himself back to the microphone. That he can do this; talk to the crowd with good humour, modesty and respect, and never miss a beat during heartfelt performances of ‘Sometimes’ and ‘Missing’, is enchanting.

The city was London and the colours were vivid and sharp. Even if Green never meant it to be this way, tonight was simply breathtaking.

DEAD TO FALL- The Phoenix Throne

Much like Giant Haystacks, Chicago metallers Dead To Fall are very heavy, probably quite imposing in the flesh and capable of delivering all sorts of killer moves. Unfortunately just like professional wrestling there doesn’t seem to be any real feeling behind the violence of 'The Phoenix Throne'. ‘Chum Fiesta’ could be used to induce heart attacks and ‘Heroes’ is classic sweaty thrash but beyond the tough exterior this is a band only play fighting.

PROTEST THE HERO- Kezia

Kids these days. Forming in Canada at the tender age of 14, Protest The Hero have spent the last two years working on this, their debut album proper. Now 19 and with tours alongside Every Time I Die, The Bled and The Fall Of Troy under their belts and an upcoming UK tour and appearance at Download to look forward to they’re planning to make as much of a splash here as they have in their home country.

It’s easy to see why they’ve made an impact. This is a thrill-splattered combo of Coheed’s dizzying heights, As I Lay Dying’s numbing rumble, the murderous garage groove of new Every Time I Die and the breathtaking gallop of old Iron Maiden. The vocal inflections match all the musical madness too. Rody Walker’s high tone initially sticks out but soon seems like the only thing that would work, there are gang vocals, spoken and screamed back-ups and even a beautiful female croon.

Diversity like this is certainly striking, the musicianship is mind-boggling for some so young, but it’s often confusing. On first listen there is little here to really grab onto. ‘Nautical’ and ‘Blindfolds Aside’ are stuffed with memorable melodic hooks and ‘Turn Soonest…’ slows spectacularly from speedy metal thrashing to eerie spoken word passages to bruising metalcore to soft pop-like melodies and back again but elsewhere it gets too much. ‘Bury The Hatchet’ is crushingly heavy and ‘She Who Mars The Skin Of The Gods’ is impressive for sure but they ride too many genres, only settling down to create something memorable for moments at a time. The highlights here aren’t tracks but fleeting minutes and seconds.

It’s nowhere near a total failure though. You may need a degree in mathematics to keep proper time with it but ‘Kezia’ is a mighty fine first full-length and a solid sign of greatness to come. Protest The Hero remain paupers to the princes of Between The Buried And Me and The Red Chord but with time and this, a more dynamic and softer option, on their side, they could get very big indeed.

Also appears at Rock Midgets

WHIRLWIND HEAT- Reagan EP

Finished with the hype, over the half-minute punk noise and done confusing the hell out of White Stripes fans, Whirlwind Heat have managed to knuckle down and produce the ‘Reagan’ EP.

There is magic abound; Beck-like vocals simmer nicely, anybody using a kazoo nowadays deserves top marks, ‘I Fucked Up Reagan’ would sound great round a campfire and the drum punch drive of ‘Memory’ raises excitement levels a notch or two but there are bands in garages down your street that have produced more memorable work than the title track and ‘Macho Man’ here. Let’s hope this is less a taster for upcoming album, ‘Types Of Wood’, and more designed to lull the world into a false sense of safe indie security before Whirlwind Heat become the new Strokes.

LYE BY MISTAKE- The Fabulous EP

The first release on Lambgoat Records (sprung from the scene-leading website) will be Lye By Mistake’s second widely-available CD. Their first, ‘The Fabulous’ EP, clears up exactly why the fledging label decided this band should be their flagship. Intense, frantic and almost hysterical with content, the songs here bend, twist and melt from harrowing death rattles to eerie jazz segments to rippling thrash riffs. If the band on the Titanic were given crazy pills and electric guitars and broken amps they would have sounded like this. Incendiary.

PITCHSHIFTER+ Skindred. Astoria, London. 24.03.06

Ok, so Pitchshifter went on ‘indefinite hiatus’ rather than going the whole hog and actually splitting up but there’s surely only so many times they can do this reunion show thing and not have it become a joke.

Forgetting that particular hurdle for a minute and looking from the outside in the show looks like most other Pitchshifter shows; a varied crowd here to see a well-stocked line-up of all-British bands, support bands that the headliners have talked up themselves, and a line-up totally and absolutely refreshingly removed from anything emo or hardcore or metalcore or whatever you core it.

Despite, or perhaps because of, their schizophrenic sound (reggae-punk-metal-jungle-hip-hop anybody?) Skindred have spent years in the toilet-touring-circuit wilderness but are finally getting the attention they deserve. After slightly subdued receptions for Murder One and This Is Menace the crowd’s reception for the Welsh wanderers could have you thinking this is their headline show. Benji Webbe is a natural frontman but the band behind him also play with a massive self-confidence rattling through re-mixed and re-jigged versions of bouncing tracks like ‘Nobody’ and new single ‘Pressure’ with impressive flair. But that’s what breaking America does to a band.

After that Pitchshifter need to take off like a rocket but to start with the band are sluggish, nervous perhaps, but definitely mired in the awful Astoria sound. It takes almost three songs until a glorious rendition of ‘Eight Days’ clears the cobwebs, hell, it damn near lifts the roof off and from there on it’s business as usual.

The reason the band have hung around so long, the reason demand for them has never really dipped, is made fantastically clear in the songs they play. Running through their truly innovative and hugely varied back catalogue they supply favourites like ‘Microwaved’, ‘We Know’, ‘Hidden Agenda’ and ‘Genius’ alongside a crushing ‘Triad’ and the industrial smash and grab of ‘Virus’. Breakbeats skitter, guitars squeal and grind, bass rumbles, the drums sound fantastic and the show flies by with people singing and dancing (not beating the crap out of each other in the pit) all round the venue. A closing ‘W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G’ sums up the band; fast, loud and eight years after it was recorded, still sounding bloody vital.
There’s the usual showmanship from frontman J.S and whirlwind of headbanging from the rest of the band but where this could’ve been a joke Pitchshifter play tonight free from hyperbole. They don’t turn every song into a ceremony and there are no gimmicks, just another great gig. Hurdle leaped. Now don’t leave it so long next time.

Also appears at New Noise

EMBRACE TODAY- We Are The Enemy

There are so many good points here. Embrace Today’s second album holds 12 short, sharp songs that never outstay their welcome, there’s the ferocious drum-pounding of ‘Sing Me a Lullaby’, the ethereal female backing vocals on ‘Diamonds are Forever’ and the slower intensity of the title track. But, and it’s a big one, this is still generic straight-ahead hardcore. While it’s thankfully not be in any way ‘emo’ it does rant and rage about topics covered a million times over in songs that, if you own anything by Sworn Enemy, Champion, or Bane, will sound awfully familiar. Deathwish may well be a label that doesn’t need great strength in depth to succeed but when it comes to ET and ‘We Are The Enemy’ there just aren’t enough flourishes.

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE+ John Vanderslice. Oxford Brookes SU, Oxford. 11.03.06

Oxford is about as far as you can get from the OC tonight; there are definitely no palm trees around, everyone's too wrapped up under scarves and gloves to work on their tan and it's bloody freezing. Seth Cohen would probably die instantly. But inside the Brookes University union Death Cab For Cutie only have two kinds of songs, love songs and summer songs- it's with that last kind that they bring California to the UK- great, catchy-as-all-hell, irresistible melodic slices of it. Tracks like 'Marching Bands' and 'Settling' simmer with the kind of heat you only get from sunstroke or a packed out gig.

But they're not the only ones that mess with the musical temperature gauge. On record John Vanderslice is another broken balladeer, moping lonely about suicide and fruitless dreams, but with the aid of a full backing band tonight his songs are transformed. They maintain their indie feeling but become the subtlest of guitar-pop, all breathy harmonies and handclaps, and every clever vocal or keyboard hook acts as the perfect warm-up for Death Cab.

The headliners have been on tour for six weeks now so they could be forgiven for forgetting what home looks like, let alone be able to sing about it, but for many of the collected emo faithful Death Cab are quiet, unassuming heroes and the greeting they get could inspire the dead. The band are on top form too, tight and hard, heavier than on record with frontman Ben Gibbard's voice cutting through the songs rather than floating over them. New single 'Crooked Teeth' gets a huge reaction, suggesting the bands' star is still on the rise, 'New Year' and 'Different Names' are emotional highlights and the seamless swapping of instruments and jokes with the crowd prove there is a sense of humour in there too.

Sometimes the band don't quite click, they've never looked or sounded like they should be playing in rooms this size. They never quite 'rock' either and stick to formula a little too often, including Gibbard's samey tone, which means songs mix into each other, but still there are thrilling highs and chilling lows. When Gibbard returns for an acoustic encore the room is totally silent except for those singing along, and it's moments like that, when the connection between band and audience is strongest, that Death Cab For Cutie make perfect sense.