The Best Of 2010 Pt. 4.

This will actually be the last installment of this series of posts. See the Hiatus Over Post for Details.

14: The Black Keys

Album: Brothers

Genre: Hard Blues

Label: Nonesuch

The first problem I’ve encountered trying to write about Brothers is simply the popularity of The Black Keys. Damn. Since the Hard Blues duo’s formation in 2001 the band has been gathering a steady head of steam, which seems to have come to a head last year with the release of Brothers, their sixth album. But first, I’m going to get something out of the way before we get to far into this: The Black Keys and The White Stripes are frequently compared and nothing like each other. They are frequently compared because they are both color-coded Hard Blues bands that are two-pieces. That being said, The White Stripes is Jack White with a backing band of one. The Black Keys are duo, which means, in this case, that they are two musicians playing WITH each other, not one musician playing OVER the other. Glad we got that out of the way. Now that The White Stripes have split, maybe I’ll hear less of this argument. On to Brothers.

The Black Keys do this thing where every few years they release a really good album and then tour. Sound familiar? That’s because that’s the formula lots of good bands follow. However, with the Black Keys, the difference is that those really good albums that get released every few years is EVERY album they’ve released since Thickfreakness. That was their second album. In 2003. Yes indeed. Brothers manages to prove for the sixth time that Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney can, and do, produce fantastic Hard Blues based Rock and Roll. But this time around things are a bit different.

The sound on Brothers is a bit… dare I say… groovier than on previous records. The Black Keys have always been good riff miners, but on this record the urge to groove takes over and we’ve got tracks like “Everlasting Light” which flows with a foot tappin’, head bobbin’, hand clappin’ motion and pretty soon, you too, will be groovin’ in your station wagon. “Everlasting Light” gets Brothers off to a good start, but the second track is my favorite. You’ll never hear a Blues musician sing about how the marriage is good and Dan Auerbach’s tales of womanly woe are particularly articulate on “Next Girl” a story of a beautiful girl who Auerbach can’t love because she can’t love herself, which features the catchy chorus of “My next girl/will be nothing like my ex-girl/I made mistakes back then/I’ll never do it again.”

I do find it ironic though that this song and the albums leading single, “Tighten Up” are placed right next to each other when in “Next Girl” Auerbach is signing “I wanted love/but not for myself/but for the girl/so she could love herself” is immediately followed by “Tighten Up’s” now famous opening lines of “I wanted love/I needed love/most of all/most of all.” “Tighten Up” is a good song but it doesn’t really sound like proper Black Keys to me. Then again, my feelings in that department are a little muddled because Brothers an example of The Black Keys doing a pop album (Pop the Structure not Pop the Genre.) The production is neatly nestled in a place between the cleaner sounds of Attack & Release and the rawer, harder feeling of Rubber Factory. But it’s that rawness that I miss. Rubber Factory was so fantastic because it was recorded in an actual rubber factory and it was mean. It could kick your ass. Brothers, while being a bit fuzzier than Attack & Release, sounds like The Black Keys being nice and I don’t know how I feel about that.

It does give way to some really lovely moments though, like the heartfelt “Unknown Brother,” in which Auerbach mourns the loss of a brother he never knew over some of the most sincere sounding guitars in recent memory. It’s a bit of a tearjerker. Look. I gotta rap this up. I really like this album. That should be clear enough: it’s on this list. If you like the Black Keys, you’ll like this. And be ready for the next few years when they release their next album and tour. Cause it will be good. Cheers.

Top Tracks: “Everlasting Light,” “Next Girl,” & “Unknown Brother”

13: Liars

Album: Sisterworld

Genre: Experimental Rock

Label: Mute

Sinister. That is the first word that comes to mind in describing Sisterworld, Liars impeccable fifth album. There’s a prolonged sense of dread enshrouding this record, if not the band itself. This is something that Liars have cultivated overtime, since their days as an angular Dance Punk unit in the vein of Gang Of Four without the politics. But that was their first LP and that was when things were normal. Since then, Liars have cavorted with witches on their sophomore record, explored spacious thought and sound with their critically lauded Drum’s Not Dead and recorded a self-titled pop album. Every time you think you can pin their sound down, they change, almost like they’re eluding you. The thing that remains consistent though is the ominous atmosphere. Almost everything Liars have recorded has an overtone of creepiness. Not B-movie creeps either, but surreal, Lynchian horror, the kind that is at one time thoroughly unsettling and strangely mesmerizing. Sisterworld is the culmination of that atmosphere, giving us a record of shadowy corridors and fantastic illusions.

At first, you feel like you’re in a dream. Like you’re floating away. The album opens with beautifully rising vocal harmonies that lead into front man Angus Andrew’s almost slurred laments “I found her/with my scissor/ this heart fell/ to the ground.” He continues as the cello and bass come in: “I’m supposed to save you now/but my hands are flipping out.” The music and voices swells as he declares, “I’m a coward/in a self-built army/I leave this blood to dry.” Without warning, there’s a sound like a snap and the full band blasts in with a burst Noise Rock cacophony that whips up like a snare trap. The supposed dream turns into a nightmare within the blink of an eye. And from here on out you’re lost in the sea of creeping darkness weaving it’s way through the forest.

Liars is a trio these days, but they play the Radiohead card of being the kind of band where the individual members do not necessarily fill specific rolls but rather contribute as needed. And Sisterworld is an excellent album for it. An effective mixture of the Ambient Rock of Drum’s Not Dead and the heavier Noise experiments of They Were Wrong, So We Drowned, with hints of the big riffs pioneered on Self-Titled, Sisterworld is perhaps Liars most eclectic outing to date and without a doubt my favorite. Because it’s creepy. But we know that at this point. No other Liars album quite captures the skincrawling eeriness of tracks like “No Barrier Fun” with it’s seasick cello and haunting heartbeat, or the slithering “Drip” which is an example of how Liars can be frightening by fooling you into believing that they aren’t there at all, while, in your bloodstream, they’re growing.

But some of the songs boast outright terror. The two best examples being the opening cut “Scissor” which I described in detail in the second paragraph and the psychotic fugue of “Scarecrows On A Killer Slant” the reverbed and delayed guitars of which make you feel dizzy while Angus Andrew illustrates a horror scene in which bums and cretins are stood against a wall and murdered. It’s kind of overwhelming, like being trapped in a fever dream, but that’s what they want. I realize that this all sounds very unpleasant, but you must bear with me. This album is actually quite gorgeous. And, as I mentioned before, it’s like a David Lynch film in that it is at one time unsettling and mesmerizing. Liars are capable of creating great beauty out of the twisted.

After the big sounds and hyper production of Liars self-titled album, Sisterworld comes off as a bit smaller at times, but the production doesn’t sound quite as over the top as before. Still sounds clean though and that’s a benefit to tracks like “No Barrier Fun.” And despite no huge sounds found on songs like “Plaster Casts Of Everything” from Self-Titled, Liars do achieve sweeping grandiosity on the most epic song on Sisterworld, the penultimate track “Goodnight Everything” which sounds like the band is playing the anthem of watching the sun set on the earth for the last time, even throwing a horn section into the mix along with the crashing drums and world ending guitars.

So in closing, if you’re a fan of Experimental Rock, dreadful ambience and spikes of Noise Rock existentialism, then I assure you that you will enjoy Liars’ Sisterworld. Just don’t get lost there; you might not be able to come back.

Top Tracks: “Scissor,” “No Barrier Fun” & “Goodnight Everything”

Spotlight On: Justin Broadrick/Jesu

Justin Broadrick/Jesu

A ways back now, I went through a phase where all I listened to was Industrial music. It started with my introduction to Nine Inch Nails and sort of downward spiraled from there, I couldn’t get enough. But eventually I grew board of just listening to one genre and wanted to branch out, as will happen with burgeoning Music Curators. But I still have an appreciation for good Industrial sounds, so years later when I was scouring around looking for albums to fix the Metal bender I was on, I came across the band Godflesh and, upon hearing them described as an Industrial Metal band, wondered how I missed them the first time around.

So I sat down to listen to Streetcleaner, Godflesh’s “classic” debut LP. And hated it. It’s not often that I stop listening to an album less than halfway through because I can’t stand it. I will usually hold out to the end even if I don’t like something because I hate just giving up. But something, actually, almost everything, about Streetcleaner repulsed me. The turgidly slow pace, the barked vocals, the rock blender tone of the guitars. Everything. I probably did one of my emphatic “I will never trust whoever this musician is ever again” ranting things and used the album as a Frisbee from then on.

But who was it I was not trusting anymore? I didn’t have a name attached to Streetcleaner besides Godflesh and that later proved to be a good thing as, if I had associated a name to the band, it would have prolonged or even prevented my later discovery of Jesu. Jesu (pronounced “Yeh-Soo”) is the main project of one Justin Broadrick, an excessively prolific English musician who, as I have come to discover, is intrinsically linked to the evolution of Industrial, Metal and even Grindcore.

Broadrick has been creating music since the early 80’s with his one man Dark Ambient project Final (which continues today,) but since then has founded or been a part of a myriad of other bands. His main project of current is Jesu, a sometimes one-man band, sometimes trio, who create some of the finest Metalgaze known to man. Now you’re probably wondering: “what is Metalgaze?” Easy. It’s Heavy Metal mixed with Shoegaze, which is a heavily textured and overwhelmingly loud kind of Rock (I’ll explain more at a later date.)

Now, even under the banner of Metalgaze, it is difficult to truly confine Jesu’s sound as it incorporates elements of Downtempo Electronics, Drone Metal and Industrial. But the interesting thing about it is that, despite being classified a Metal band, which brings certain connotations of doom and gloom in this day and age, I find Jesu to be a very uplifting project. This is ironic

considering the sort of depressed nature of Broadrick’s lyrics (and song titles, read: “I Can Only Disappoint You.”) But seriously, I feel amazingly contented when I hear Broadrick’s signature rumbling roar of a guitar sound. It’s very distinct, he only uses certain sounds, so once you hear his pallet you will always know it’s him on guitar. The music he crafts with Jesu is very expansive, spacious even. It rumbles but does not often grind and being the master of textures that he is, Broadrick washes much of his work in Jesu with downright pleasurable synthesizer sounds. The slow tempo and lengthiness of the compositions he creates gives you time for the music to sink in and really make you feel like you’re drifting into another state of consciousness, a place where things move leisurely through a cascade of thundering echoes.

Despite only being active since 2003, Jesu has built up quite an extensive discography, with several full-length works and a veritable sea of EP’s. This kind of prolificness reflects the overall workaholic behavior of Broadrick. I was exploring his other work when I discovered, to my shock, that Justin Broadrick had been the brain behind Godflesh. The same man who created such gorgeous work as Jesu’s Conqueror and Lifeline EP had created Streetcleaner? At first I was a little freaked out, but I’m not going to fault a musician’s entire body of work because of one bad album. And as Jesu has shown, and continues to show, it is possible for a musician to mature and grow beyond their own restraints. In that regard Jesu’s consistency of quality releases is a powerful victory for Broadrick, who thankfully has almost entirely abandoned his one-note bark In favor of an actual singing voice that could lull to into peaceful sleep if it wanted.

In closing, I’d like to recommend that to start you’re exploration of Jesu, you begin with either their second LP, Conqueror, which features the full trio of Broadrick, bass player Diarmuid Dalton and drummer Ted Parsons, or his Lifeline EP, which features Broadrick himself, accompanied only by his guitar and drum machines. However, if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you should check out my favorite Jesu release out there: the Infinity LP, which consists of one 50 minute long track that is, in my opinion, Broadrick’s most compelling work. If you’re made unsure by the genre tag of “Metal,” just think of it as really heavy Ambient Rock. And get ready to bliss out. Cheers.

Recommended Listening:

Conqueror (2007, Hydra Head/Daymare)

Lifeline (2007, Hydra Head/Daymare)

Infinity (2009, Avalanche/Daymare)

Opiate Sun (2009, Caldo Verde)

Tracklisting:

01: “Losing Streak”

02: “Brighteyes”

03: “Lifeline”

04: “You Wear Their Masks”

05: “The Playgrounds Are Empty”

Sound Guardian Redux: Hiatus Over

Wow. You go a whole month without writing anything and you start going a little crazy.

Or is that just me?

Doesn’t matter. Chaos has erupted in the world and you know what? Music soldiers forward. So what if we’re going to all die in a blazing fireball of green radioactive particles, the next three months promise to provide you with eight new albums all of which could be considered good soundtracks to the coming Armageddon. I’m am joking you know. But seriously. I’ve been so swamped I haven’t been able to sit down long enough to catch my breath let alone write. But I am not going to let this blog sink into (even more) obscurity yet. I mean, after all, music curation is even more important now than ever and as sugary sweet Pop creatures with about as much substance as candy canes quickly devour the world, Sound Guardian Redux will remain a bastion for music with soul, if not necessarily Soul music.

A few things need to be dealt with first.

1. So for a while I was going back through my favorite albums from 2010, because I didn’t get a chance to write about them last year. Now though, I’m getting a little bored with the project, mainly because I feel I could address these albums and artists in a different, or even more effective fashion. So I’m discontinuing that series of articles. I’ll probably find a way to bring attention to the remaining albums and artists in a different way and I’ll post the last one of the series I wrote before I got bored with it, but that will be it. In the mean time, here’s the complete list of favorite albums from 2010.

20. Heligoland by Massive Attack

19. A Small Turn Of Human Kindness by Harvey Milk

18. Fences by Fences

17. The One Man Band Broke Up by Ceschi Ramos

16. How To Destroy Angels by How To Destroy Angels

15. Toward A Damaged Horizon by Sleepy Eyes Of Death

14. Brothers by The Black Keys

13. Sisterworld by Liars

12. Fallen House, Sunken City by B. Dolan

11. Tapestry Of Webs by Past Lives

10. They Can’t Hurt You If You Don’t Believe In Them by Post Harbor

9. Diamond Eyes by Deftones

8. Transit Transit by Autolux

7. Option Paralysis by The Dillinger Escape Plan

6. Heavy Breathing by Black Breath

5. This Is Happening by LCD Soundsystem

4. The Lonely Forest EP by The Lonely Forest

3. Grinderman 2 by Grinderman

2. Vessel by Dark Time Sunshine

1. My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky by Swans

2. My posting hasn’t been happening because I haven’t been writing at all. Part of my original intention for the blog was to write shorter pieces more frequently. That hasn’t been happening. For a while it was working fine, but I’m thinking I’m going to try shortening the pieces a bit more if I can, in order to start posting again with a little more frequency. We’ll see how it goes.

3. I’m not sure what format my writing is going to take, but I’m getting annoyed with trying to bracket things certain ways because it sometimes makes it difficult to decide which kind of writing to apply to which piece of music. Or it is for me anyways (option paralysis…) Like I said, things are probably going to be different from now on and we’ll see how it goes.

4. If you’ve made it this far then, you get to read about more things I’m looking forward to in the coming year. Enjoy!

-TV on the Radio-

Confining TV on the Radio to one genre is an impossible task. Are they Neo-Soul? Indie Funk? Electronic Rock? Neo-Indie-Soulful-Funktronica- Rock? Who knows, they do it all so well it doesn’t even matter what kind of music they’re performing, if they’re doing it, it’s going to be solid. After taking a year off to work on various solo projects (such as Kype Malone’s fantastic Rain Machine and Dave Sitek’s sadly forgettable Maximum Balloon,) TV on the Radio have reconvened to record and release their new album, Nine Types Of Light, which will hit the streets on April 12^th this year and quite frankly, I couldn’t ask for a better birthday gift. SHAZAM!

Considering TVOTR’s (OFFICIAL ACRONYM!) track record of albums that seemingly cater to everyone in the Indie circuit’s sonic needs, while maintaining their sterling sense of integrity and artistic vision, in one go, this new album has a lot to live up to. But considering the decompressing chill atmosphere of the album’s first single, “Will Do,” we probably don’t have much to fear about being let down.

-Bill Callahan-

There’s something intrinsically mysterious about Bill Callahan. He gives off a similar outsider feeling that you get from fellow Drag City Folkster Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and their mutual reclusive forefather Jandek. Callahan’s almost detached baritone doesn’t constantly fill up space like some of his contemporaries, but rather seems to mirror the minimalist nature of his music. He is a man of few words, and yet, Callahan is an impeccable storyteller. Couple that with his ability to channel the wonder of being lost in the wilderness into a simple Folk song, and you’ve got the recipe that has driven his last few records.

On April 5^th, Callahan will unleash Apocalypse onto the unsuspecting world, his third album under his own name since dropping the Smog moniker. New music from Callahan usually means good times, and even though Apocalypse only boasts seven new songs, leading single “Baby’s Breath” is an indicator of a solid album.

-Krallice-

On April 26^th the sky will black out. The planets will fall out of orbit and crash into each other. Cities will tremble and 100,000,000 ghosts will rise up from the ground and torment the living. There will be pandemonium and chaos and those in the know will pay homage by heading to their local record store and picking up their copy of Krallice’s third album Diotima. Because if the world is going to spiral into temporal limbo and red lightning is going to crack down from the sky, then we’re going to need to Blackest of Black Metal to listen to while we fend for ourselves in the wreckage of the 3^rd dimension.

Krallice is tied for my favorite U.S.B.M. (That’s United States Black Metal) band, due in large part to it being one of the projects of hyper tech guitarist Mick Barr. They’ve got a sense of progressiveness to their music that most Black Metal bands simply fail to achieve or out right reject and this is what makes them interesting to listen to. Krallice is not for the feint of heart though and if you’re not already a Metal fan or one of those creepy people who live in their basement and only listen to Black Metal, you should probably skip this next track. If you’re feeling adventuresome though, check “The Clearing.” It’s 12:05 long.

-Explosions In The Sky-

Austin, Texas’s Instrumental Rock quartet Explosions In The Sky have finally returned to gift us a new album, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care which hits the street on April 26^th. But from the sounds of their newest song “Trembling Hands,” things might be a little different this go around. The song has a much more straightforward structure than their usual long-form work, and it even feels kind of like there could be a singing part to it that went missing at some point.

The song actually does use vocals; the first time the band has used them since Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever. But unlike the spoken word piece used on that album, the vocals here are simple rhythmic loop that serves to add the propellant feel of them song. “Trembling Hands” is only 3:30 long, making it one of the shorter pieces in the Explosions cannon, but the song might be a serious exception to the rest of the album, being the lead single. Regardless, if you’re into uplifting Instrumental Rock, this album will probably be for you.

-Boris-

AWWWWWW YEAH. Japanese Doom Metal Experimentalists Boris have returned and on May 25^th they aren’t releasing one, but two albums to amplifier worship your socks off. The 16^th and 17^th album by the group respectively, Boris has never failed to deliver the goods when it comes to the loud and the heavy and I have no doubt that May 25^th will be the most Metal day of the year because of it. But the two albums are markedly different from each other. One is called Heavy Rocks, which is also the title of Boris’ 2002 album and, well, here’s the quote that explains why they’ve got the same title: “it’s fitting that the group’s new album sharing the same title and very similar artwork to that disc, this year’s Heavy Rocks seeks to redefine “heavy” music in a culmination of the band’s tireless efforts over the past two decades.”

While I don’t think the band has a need to “redefine heavy” at this point (they already did so with 2005’s album Pink,) if they think they can find new ways to blow my eardrums, I say go for it. But wait! What about the other album? Attention Please is going to be something worth paying attention to indeed as it is the first Boris album to feature incongruously tiny guitarist Wata on lead vocals for the entire album. Boris has shifted sounds a lot over the years but I’ve never heard them play anything like “Hope” the promo track from Attention Please. Because it sounds almost like a Pop Rock song. Now, Boris has proven that they can pretty much do anything that they set their minds to, but the contrast between “Hope” and “Riot Sugar” the thunderous promo track from Heavy Rocks, is startling.

I have no doubt that both records will be good, but I have no idea what form Attention Please will take. And that is kind of exciting.

-Battles-

For those of you who though Battles would sound less like evil mechanical elves coming to dismantle your brain after Tyondai Braxton (son of Avant-Garde 60’s Polar Bear, Anthony Braxton) left the band to focus on his solo music, “Ice Cream” the first promo off Gloss Drop, their sophomore album and first without Braxton, should prove you wrong. The Electronic Math Rock dementia induced by 2007’s Mirrored sounds like it’s going to be followed up splendidly when Gloss Drop hits the street on June 7^th. And in order to replace the bizarre vocal antics of Braxton, the band has enlisted the help of a few guest vocalists on this new album, including Electronic Godfather Gary Numan (that track is obligated to be awesome) and Boredoms mastermind Yamataka Eye (that track is obligated to be insane.) But until June 7^th we’ve only got “Ice Cream” which features Matias Aguayo on vocals, chopped and popped in supremely Battles fashion. Get ready.

-Shabazz Palaces-

Seattle’s most reclusive and enigmatic Hip-Hop act Shabazz Palaces signed to Sup Pop last year and on May 31^st the local label will release their debut full-length album, Black Up. While there are defiantly warmer and more inviting Hip-Hop acts around the emerald city, few have ever risen to a place of such high regard as Shabazz have in their relatively short existence. And seemingly without much effort too. They’ve only played a handful of shows around town and have yet to really tour, but despite that, they landed a record deal with Sub Pop, no mean feat.

But Ishmael Butler (the genius behind the veil) has been in this game a long time, and his previous group Digable Planets even won a Grammy back in a time when that kind of meant something. But unlike the jazzified cool of Digable Planets, Shabazz Palaces traffic in a heavy brand of introspective, afro-centric Shoegazy Hip-Hop that serves as a platform for Butler’s chill-as-you-please abstractions. Black Up’s leading single, the impressively titled “An Echo From The Hosts That Profess Infinitum” shows the continued development of the Shabazz sound and that Butler doesn’t give a shit for conventions, he’s happy doing whatever he pleases. When Black Up hits the record stores, get thee there and cop it. And remember. The beat will always save us.

Right. That’s the forecast. Interesting weather ahead. Until next time. Cheers.

Tracklist:

01: "Will Do" by TV on the Radio

02: "Baby's Breath" by Bill Callahan

03: "The Clearing" by Krallice

04: "Trembling Hands" by Explosions In The Sky

05: "Riot Sugar" by Boris

06: "Hope" by Boris

07: "Ice Cream" by Battles

08: "An Echo From The Hosts That Profess Infinitum" by Shabazz Palaces