THE
MORNING BENDERS – Talking Through Tin
Cans (+1 Records, www.themorningbenders.com)
Sparkly, bouncy pop music with a slight
British Invasion edge to it. The songs are
very simple, straight forward pop numbers,
and they’re fairly stripped down. This
provides for an honest, sincere sound. This
doesn’t mean that they’re raw
– the production is first rate. But
it isn’t overdone, so it doesn’t
come off as too slick and fake. “Damnit
Anna” opens the disk with an acoustic
guitar and dual-tracked vocals, sounding a
little bit like old Simon and Garfunkle. The
third track, “Loose Change,” is
a real stand-out, with its super simple melodic
line and very sparse arrangement. “Wasted
Time” and “Chasing a Ghost”
are probably the heaviest tracks on the disk,
sort of being two parts of one song, as one
runs into the other. But “Chasing a
Ghost” has the most intensity of all.
In some ways the way it ends very quietly
after all that intensity, especially the vocal
stylings, remind me a bit of Chicago’s
late Fire Show, one of my favorites. I’ve
listened to this disc multiple times in writing
this review, and I’m not getting bored
with it at all – I appreciate it and
like it more with each listen. This one gets
a recommendation!
THE
CHAPIN SISTERS – Lake Bottom
(www.plainrecordings.com)
This sort of reminds me of the Roches. They
were also a trio, a sister act, were heavily
folk-influenced, and featured rich harmonies.
But, where the Roches were quirky and humorous,
the Chapin Sisters are more serious and straight
forward. They also have a much sparser sound,
with a much thinner instrumental arrangement.
It’s not what you would normally expect
to see reviewed in Jersey Beat. It can’t,
by any stretch o the imagination, be called
punk rock or even rock. But it certainly is
very enjoyable. I’m a sucker for multi-voice
harmonization. I think my absolute favorite
track on the album has to be “Girlfriend.”
It has sort of a 50s or 60s doo-wop sort of
undercurrent in both the sound and the lyrical
content. It’s a song about a woman who
thinks the guy she is addressing is the one
for her, and she doesn’t like his girlfriend
and wants her to go. In a way, with the strong
bass line, the close harmonies, and the reverb
on the guitar, it reminds me a little of the
Angelo Badalamenti scoring in David Lynch’s
Twin Peaks TV series, or in the film Blue
Velvet. These ladies are very talented.
DIVE INDEX – Mid / Air (Neutral Music,
www.neutralmusic.com)
This is sort of an arty-rocky-smooth jazzy-r&b
sort of thing. It has elements of minimalism,
a la Phillip Glass, with simple lines, repeating
over and over. It has drum & bass sort
of percussive elements contrasted with super
smooth vocals. There’s lots of interesting
layering and contrasting styles going on here.
But, ultimately, the “smooth stylings”
overwhelm the more interesting parts, giving
the whole thing too much of an easy listening
adult contemporary sound. It ends up sounding
way more commercial than I think was the original
intent. And thus, it fails in its quest.
THE HANDCUFFS – Model for a Revolution
(OOFL Records, www.thehandcuffs.com)
Fairly standard stuff that sounds sort of
indie but also sounds pretty commercial. It’s
really slickly produced. It’s pretty
much guitar/bass/drums/vocals pop music. I’ve
listened through this a couple of times, hoping
that it would grab me somehow, but it just
doesn’t. It really does sound pretty
ordinary and very commercial. I think a lot
of it has to do with the production; it’s
just way too slick. If they had gotten rid
of all the cute studio tricks and left it
a little more raw, it would probably sound
a lot better, a lot more interesting. Sorry,
I wanted to like this, but I just can’t.
The musicians are very talented, and Chloe
Orwell’s vocals are really powerful.
But the songs just don’t cut it.
SKY CRIES MARY – Small Town (www.skycriesmary.com)
Well, I gave this a try. It’s swirly,
overblown stuff. It’s very commercial
sounding, and it was putting me to sleep. I
wanted to like it, but it just sounded way too
much like too many things I’ve heard on
commercial radio and just didn’t get into.
I like swirly stuff. The promo materials they
sent with this compared the band to the likes
of Spiritualized and My Bloody Valentine, both
bands which I truly have enjoyed. This doesn’t
sound anything like either of these worthy bands.
THE
TROLLEYVOX
Your Secret Safe / Luzerne
(www.transitofvenusmusic.com)
The two titles there doesn’t indicate
a single, they indicate a two-album release.
No, not a double album, this is two albums
packaged together in one release. Your Secret
Safe is an electric album, while Luzerne is
fully acoustic. Your Secret Safe features
the full band with a full complement of pleasant
indie-pop tunes. It’s not super bouncy
or hyper, it’s very relaxed, laid-back,
and lush. The bounciest it gets is, for example,
on the track “Rabbit in the Sun”,
which seems to glide more than hop, but that’s
not bad. It’s one of my favorite tracks
on the disc, reminding me a little bit of
the late, lamented Tsunami. Beth Filla’s
vocals are just georgeous. The second album,
Luzerne, continues with more beautiful indie
music, sounding much the same as on disc 1,
but now all acoustic. Most of the tracks are
very simple, with guitars and vocals. Some
tracks also feature violin, some percussion,
some with piano. All are beautiful, and, of
course, feature those wonderful vocals from
Filla. “Intermission,” halfway
through the disc, is one of the stand-outs.
This is nice stuff, and priced the same as
a single disc, is a real bargain.
THE BLACK SWANS - Change! ( www.la-soc.com)
Imagine being on a raft, floating down a slow
moving river on a hot, humid, hazy day. You
have lots of time to think, brood, imagine.
Now set your musings to quiet, delicate music,
with acoustic guitar, violin, and electric guitar
with plenty of reverb. The somewhat folksy,
somewhat country feeling is what you get aplenty
from this latest effort from the Black Swans.
I must say, the Appalachian violin stylings
of Noel Sayre is one of the best things about
this album. The violin playing is not flashy,
but adds the perfect plaintive atmosphere. I
can’t quite say the same for Jerry DeCicca’s
vocals, which are sort of like a flat Bob Dylan,
without the nasal twang. His songs are nice
enough, but I’m sorry, he’s the
wrong person to be singing them. He can’t
carry a tune and his voice sounds too heavy
for the delicate melodies. I mean, the instrumentals
are really beautiful, but those vocals sometimes
get kind of distracting.
CHEYENNE – The Whale (www.cheyennesongs.net)
Well, after a pretty cool, bouncy, interesting
opening title track, the rest seems to be
reasonable decent, but ultimately forgettable
background music. It’s all fairly mid-tempo
stuff, laid back and relaxed, which can be
nice. But ultimately, an entire album of the
same stuff over and over tends to fade from
one’s attention. Many of the songs have
a country tinge, too, which doesn’t
necessarily help. I do really like the title
track, though, which is completely different
from anything else on the album. But it’s
not enough.
HIT AND MRS. – Buried in the Backyard
of My Heart (www.thehitandmrs.com)
What is it these days with indie bands putting
country twang into their otherwise decent indie
rock? Hit and Mrs. alternately sound sort of
like Social Distortion and Bob Dylan (it must
be the harmonica on some of the tracks). But
this band tries to at least vary things a bit
here and there. “Burning Circles”
is a pretty cool post-punk track that stands
out as very different from anything else on
the disc. Some of the tracks are just raw rock
and roll, like “Graveyard Digger,”
even down to the orgran, just like the old garage
bands of the 60s. Sometimes the tracks sound
a little too raw, like the band members really
were just jamming, and hadn’t really rehearsed
the songs too much, or the songs were never
quite finished. I might also add that the lyrics
tend to be very minimalist. Not that there’s
little in the way of vocals, but the lyrics
that are present tend to be repeated over and
over and over. So, overall, while the sound
is somewhat promising, Hit and Mrs. need to
spend a little more time polishing their material.
SCARY KIDS SCARING KIDS (Immortal Records)
This is pretty bland “Alternative”
rock such as you would hear on your local “alternative”
radio station. It’s very slickly produced
and has no redeeming values. It thinks it’s
emo, and even includes a little bit of screaming.
But it’s nothing more than hair-band music
for the 21st century.
