The opening single, Changing, I love:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=59bLUwYONEI

I really dig the scene & the dancing in the video – the first version I saw of the video was this one, and the whole time I was like “Come on, director, pan back to the dancing dudes!”  So, when I found the official one (just now) I was/am/are/will be pleased.

Also, bits of the herky-jerky pace always remind me of Ted Leo’s Bottled in Cork (skip to 1:45ish to start the music)… /tangent …back to ATE.  Anyway, one thing that kind of bums me out about the album is that it seems to have more mellow material than the previous, but I’m not sure how valid of a complaint that is when the mellow stuff is solid.

Here’s a track, Half of Something Else, that’s pretty similar in feel to their earlier stuff:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=baUx1yjbGR0

It’s crazy for me to actually be watching videos again.  I usually I just hit play and listen to it and tab out and continue working on whatever, but these “bombastic” videos are fucking great.  Seriously, search them up on youtube – you can hear the entire album (albeit, not the same versions, but it will give you a good idea how awesome it is) – and watch them all.  They are semi-acoustic versions, sometimes with others – like the string quartet above – and they shot one for every song on the album, and included high quality versions with the extended version of the album.   So, the sound in these videos is not exactly like the album, it’s a completely different cut.  Totally awesome, and a great example of a band going the extra mile.

Check out the singer’s face when he turns to listen to the quartet… I don’t know why he’s smiling, but my guess would be because he realizes how fucking awesome it is to be shooting a video on a carousel with a string quartet.

Here’s the bombastic/acoustic version of one of my favorites, The Graveyard Near the House:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBMnE3sWaFA

Check out the lyrics (googled, seem fairly accurate):

But from there… from there it’s up a big, long hill.  I listened to the album the first time in a state of confusion, trying to figure out if I was being blown away or let down.  Weird place to teeter, huh?

I really love the lead guitar lines on this album.  It could be the mixing, maybe they were always this killer and just mixed down on the previous albums?  Almost every song has a riff that kills.

Track 3 has a title like “Bring it On” and still manages to kick ass without the title line sounding awkward.  All the while reminding me thematically of Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love wearing some ass-kicking boots.  How cool is that?  (Yes, there are probably always going to be Springsteen comparisons in my Anthem commentary.)

Here’s a live version (I like the album version better, but those are harder to find these days):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CQxnFDjNFA

Track 4 (“The Diamond Church Street Choir”) veers into I dunno, something else.  The old school r&b (?) “bleeding out” (no idea what the name is, but I’ve always called what he’s doing here something like that as it sounds like pushing your voice just beyond what it should into something raw and beautiful and painful but not yet tired or dying do and I fucking love it) he does in this track kicked me in the gut when I heard it.  Not because it’s super amazing so much as that I just did not expect it.  It’s a sign of a lot of other little risks they take on this album.  I found NOTHING stale here – although there are a few times where I don’t think the risks paid off as well.

One of these was the semi-spoken intro to track 7 (“The Boxer”), which I do not love, but damn the rest of the song destroys so who cares?  Chop it out of the mp3 if it annoys you that much (Yes, I have done this in the past to songs with obnoxious spoken word intros or outtros that throw off my enjoyment of the pacing of an album).

Track 6 (“Orphans”) reminds me a little of “No Surrender” thematically, and that’s about as far from a bad thing as you can get.

Track 10 (“We did it when we were young”) is the one I find weakest.  It’s mining the same vein as The Killer’s Sam’s Town, so of course it’s digging in a pretty rich vein (but also may be a little overblown and retro for some modern ears)… but I’m not convinced that it’s as good as the rest of the album.  In a sense it’s the “requisite ballad”, but I’m also not convinced that was necessary.  It’s not a bad song in the least, but I think it would fit better as the 10th track in an 11 track album than as the 10th in a 10.  Make any sense?  Hard to articulate.  The lyrics are good.  I think they could have been great with a stronger chorus.

General thoughts:

• Either they’ve mostly abandoned the musical references that so colorfully checkered their first two discs, or they’ve  taken it to a whole new level that I’m not picking up on.  I miss it a little, but the album is so good that I can’t justify being annoyed about it.
• I’m not sure there is a single song as good as the title track from The ’59 Sound (because that song kicks me in the gut – pretty much every time I hear it it’s a workout), but this album itself is just (man I want to use “fucking” as an adjective so many times in this post that I’m trying not to use it at all) so much stronger that it doesn’t matter.  8 songs @ 4.5 beats 1 song @ 5 & the others in the 3-4 range, you know?
• I’m not sure if I think the album is better than Sink or Swim (their 1st) or not.  It certainly showcases some improvements in musicianship and writing, but it’s hard to beat that strong of a debut album.

So far I’m gonna call it at least

FOUR AND A HALF STARS

and one of the better albums of the last few years.

Good year for music (Hello High Violet!).  Although I’m still bitter about the new Son Volt being such a let down.

There are some definite nods to past albums here – “Weekenders” is a direct sequel to “Chips Ahoy!” from Boys & Girls in America – yes, it explains the mystery, but I’m not sure how clairvoyance would be helpful at a horse race… binoculars broke?

“Our Whole Lives” is reminiscent of (and perhaps a counterpoint to)  “Southtown Girls” (also from Boys & Girls), but lacks the melancholy finality.  Its chorus of “We’re good guys, but we can’t be good every night/We’re good guys but we can’t be good our whole lives” invokes the down-to-earthiness of “Southtown girls won’t blow you away/but you know that they’ll stay”, but lacks the sense of finality.  Finn’s voice is enough to make the lines convincing… they’re a little cliche and potentially tough to pull off without sounding like a douche, but I think he does it.

Is the word “smidge” in frequent use in the midwest?  Just curious because.. I haven’t heard anyone under 80 say it in years and now it’s a song title and portion of a chorus.

“Rock Problems” is a tongue in cheek look at celebrity… slightly reminding me of “Barfruit Blues” from their first disc in tone and maybe carrying that theme of band life onward (including perhaps “Sequestered in Memphis” from Stay Positive).

Every time I listen to “Hurricane J” I get the sense that it’s linked to an older song as well, but it may just be the pretty good waitress lyric, which reminds me of a song from another Twin Cities band (“To My Own Devices“, by Soul Asylum, if you’re curious)… and knowing Finn, it’s probably intentional.  Looking for links and references is at least 1/4 the fun of listening to a new Hold Steady disc… I keep telling myself that one of these days I’m going to go through all their stuff and trace out the reoccurring characters but yeah, probably won’t.

Oh, holy fuck, there’s a Hold Steady wiki!   Here’s the entry for Holly – one of Finn’s frequent characters.  OK yeah, that’s gonna be handy.  And also maybe suck the mystery right out of things; we’ll see.

In closing: it’s a good, fun album, but it is weaker than Separation Sunday & Boys & Girls… and probably weaker than Stay Positive as well, which at least gave us 13 tracks and a bit more energy and Almost Killed Me which, while still rough, reveled in that roughness.  So yeah, the “weakest album yet”, but still a good buy if you love or even just like the band.

THREE AND A HALF STARS

56%

Here’s one of the tracks I like, “Eating me Alive”:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNRA2dGojJE

Broken Bells: Broken Bells – Danger Mouse (of Gnarls Barkley, and other, fame) and the singer from The Shins.  Not much to say about this one.  It happened, it’s listenable, but nothing on there makes me want to hit << and play the song again.

58%

Corinne Bailey Rae : The Sea – My heart goes out to her for losing her husband.  I’m not sure if I could continue a public/performance lifestyle after a hit like that, but evidently she can.  Stuff here is, thematically, not nearly as breezy as the previous album.  There’s still a lightness of sound to a lot of it, but I feel an undercurrent of rawness and despair.  If you enjoyed her previous album, you’ll probably enjoy this one.

65%

I heard this track playing in a restaurant in Astoria last weekend, so it may be the current single.  It’s a little more upbeat, tempo-wise, than the rest of the album:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL4La7a_U2s

Editors : In this Light and on this Evening – It’s from last year, I know, but I just recently heard it.  Annndddd I have no idea what happened.  I dug their previous two albums, bought hard copies even.  I will not do that for this one.  Now, it’s not as downright horrible as Bloc Party’s 3rd album (since we’re talking about 3rd albums by British indie bands), but it was a big shift from their previous sound(s).  It’s got more of the really sparse Joy Division kind of depressive electronica to it and less punch and soul.  IMHO.  YMMV.  BYOB.

45%

Magnetic Fields : Realism – I think it’s an improvement from Distortion.  I didn’t like Distortion much at all, but this one I can see listening to this one more than once.  Still, it’s not good enough that I want to run out and buy it.

56%

Vampire Weekend  : Contra - I like it.  I find it similar to the first in quality level.  What it lacks in stand out hits like “Oxford Comma” it makes up for in a reliable album listen.   Still, it’s nothing spectacular.  It’s not going to demand that I drop what I’m doing and focus on it and only it, not even once.  So it probably won’t make it home.

74%

1. Arrow – pop gem potential, fucked up by artsy clanky experimentalism.  Hear that mechanical clanky distortion at the beginning?   That’s a sign of the worst of what’s to come on this album, kind of luck a little baby “fuck you” to people who oh, I don’t know, liked T&S for their SOUND – the  harmonizing pop-folk-rocky stuff.
2. Don’t Rush - wtf is up with the herky jerkyness?  if youre trying to sound like a robot don’t shoot for one running on betamax, go for something that’s been oiled recently. again, i hear a gem in there, but its buried is some clanky crap.  After listening to the rest of the album, this song is stronger than I first thought.  By that I mean that the rest is weak enough to make this look good.
3. Hell – better than track 2
4. On Directing – no way to make ‘talking like a teen’ not sound stupid, sorry.  This is the “Like O, Like H” shit-stupid sounding bit for this album.
5. Red Belt – didnt even notice it on 1st pass. annoying beeps. they are doing everything they can to decorate their voices with dung. this song is a throwaway.
6. The Cure - whats up with singing like a guy? decent, nothing special
7. Northshore - what song are they ripping here?  cant remember. again with the boy sing/huffing.  other than that, ok for t+s trying to do something fast… except for the part they are ripping “don’t x, don’t y, blah blah”
8. Night Watch – this is a song?  this song? sucks.
9. Alligator -  almost as bad as track 8, but not.  Wait, it’s over?  I get it, these are “short pop songs”.  But where is the “pop”?  Hell, even the “song” is questionable in some of these.
10. Paperback Head – this would be a good song for some high school kids making music in their garage. they need a music editor to tell them to write another draft before publishing.  then another.  then just file it away if this is as good as it gets.
11. The Ocean – ok this is a little more familiar now.  like one of the weak songs from the previous album. sadly, it looks good on this album because the rest is so bleh.
12. Sentimental Tune – like a weak song on the early albums, which makes it stronger than track 11.
13. Someday – same as 12

All in all, the album as a whole makes decent background noise, but it’s not the kind of thing I want to listen to in my car.   Or, really ever again now that I think about it.   If the last album was a warning shot, this one is a torpedo of lameness to the groin, T&S, your buy on sight privileges are revoked.   Potentially your “buy ever again” option too.

TWO OUT OF FIVE STARS

Not worth money.

It’s a shame they didn’t take my previous advice, and stop trying to be so damn serious.  Or artsy.  Or experimental/cutting edge, whatever.  They’ve mostly traded in what I think was a great pop/rock/folk sound for some … bullshit really.  I’m sure they like it, and I don’t mean anything personal by my comments.  By all means, make and create what you love.  Just don’t expect people to buy it.

Ok, this is not entirely true – I did like A.M., which was produced in between Jays (post-Farrar/Uncle Tupelo, pre-Bennett).  Speaking of, I think A.M. bears a decent amount in common with the current release (Wilco (the album)) – both seem to be, at their core, really straightforward albums.  A.M. may have benefited from the camaraderie between himself and his other longtime Tupelo collaborator though – maybe they could keep him in check at that point?

A.M. was catering to a perceived audience for “alt country” – which I’m still surprised never manifested – and this one is Tweedy just trying to oh, I don’t know, “go back to basics” or something.  Sorry, I’m floundering here.  The perceptions are in my head by hard to exsanguinate enough to get into words.

So, onto Being There, the first collaboration with Bennett.  Reading the wiki page, and various other interviews over the years, it does seem that Being There, Summerteeth, the Mermaid Avenue stuff, and parts of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot were indeed serious collaborations between the two.  Not coincidentally, I suspect, these are the Wilco albums I still continue to listen to to this day.

There’s just something about them…I hesitate to call it “soul”, but there is that.  The other (post-YHF) albums just feel incredibly “dry” to me, like there’s no real life or emotion in them, or if there is, it’s been medicated into somnambulance, so muted that the motions are there but…but what?

Maybe “real” emotion is a better term?  Even that fails I’m sure, but maybe it’s as good as way to describe the “vibe” I get from these albums.  Things were more alive, vibrant – even the mellow songs, which were just as mellow as any of the modern mellow songs (OK – except the 15 minute noise track).  Maybe it’s all the medication Tweedy took, or maybe he’s a brilliant tunecrafter, but needs someone else to unearth the life buried in his songs, or to keep him in check…something.

I bought A Ghost is Born, listened to it maybe 10 times, then filed it away.  It’s not even on my shelf anymore.  Nor is it on either of my laptops, only the desktop music server.  Every so often I haul it out, just to see if it will grow on me, and it continues to fail.  Sky Blue Sky is a pretty similar story, but I like it more than Ghost, and I think the quality there is higher than that of Wilco the Album; still fails to impress though.  PS. Shake it Off is an incredibly annoying song (listening to Sky Blue Sky right now).

Wilco the Album also broke one of my “musician no-nos” by not only naming a song after the band, (on an album already named after the band, except with the pretentious “the Album” added into the subtext somewhere) but also by putting the aforementioned silly song as the OPENER.  And what an underwhelming opener it is.  Sure, I know that “Wilco” has a meaning on its own, but it sounds stupid as a chorus refrain, sorry Jeff & dudes.  Life hurts.

There are bands that can probably get away with naming a song after themselves (I suspect Tiger Army, Pulp or My Morning Jacket could pull it off quite well, to name a few) – but if you’re going to do it, you’re setting yourself up for a big fat fail sandwich.  So be ready to eat it with a nice tear vinaigrette.  Then again, I’m sure Jeff is proud of himself, and that’s just fine – it’s his music, not mine.

vs. 

Here’s a couple, completely subjective, ways in which I know this.

1. I’ve only made it through 21st Century in its entirety like once.  The rest in pieces.  And, tellingly, I never have any particular urge to finish it once I start.  Idiot on the other hand – once I start that, I want to play it start to finish.
2. 21st Century has some “good songs”.  Idiot is a good piece in itself AND it has good songs (pretty much all of them – give or take When September Ends – although I understand what it does for the piece, as a song I don’t like it much).
3. It doesn’t sound like anything new.  It sounds like the same thing.  No, not just that it sounds like them, but it sounds like the same thing – no real moving forward, just refining in place.

Not to say it’s not a good album, because I think it is.  But it’s not one of their best. So far, who knows maybe it will grow on me.  Idiot didn’t have to grow though, it tackled me.

Maybe the whole “knowing it’s coming” is why it failed to do me in this time.  Maybe they want to be a rock opera band – that’s actually pretty cool.  I’m ok with that – we could use a decent one.

The new Killers album is actually pretty good.  I like it.  They do pretension with just enough sincerity and youthful exuberance that I buy it. Most of the time.

The new Springsteen was NOT a 5 star album.  Same with the new U2.  I dunno what the fuck RS has been smoking (maybe the section?) for the last few years, but they are way too generous with some of their reviews.  Springsteen’s was good – although seriously marred by the dopey intro song (no that’s not an official video!).  It would have worked much better on one of his folkey projects, I really don’t like it in this album’s context.  In general, I don’t like songs where the chorus is someone telling you their name.  It rarely works. I’d say it was 3.5-4 stars.  His work is almost always quality, but it’s not always solid gold!  Grow a pair RS!  I need to listen to the U2 one a bit more, but it does nothing for me (yet) so it’s hard to get up the muster.

Airborne Toxic Event album is good. I think I mentioned this already.

New Morrissey seems pretty good so far.

I like the new Bon Voyage too.  Not so much on the new Starflyer sadly.  It just doesn’t grab me.  Jason’s weakest effort to date imho.  Still not bad, but just..just not anything really.

I like the new Q-Tip.

Not so much the Dandy Warhols.  Nothing sticks out, not worth getting.  Have they have finally choked on their own cock of pure metaphorical pretension? You decide!

I do like the Vampire Weekend album.  I really didn’t want to. I still don’t.  But hey, I like Graceland, and it’s Graceland light in indie shoes.  No diamonds.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Fine Young Cannibals lately.  I love the dude’s voice.  Here’s a track from them you may not be familiar with.  I wish they had put out a few more albums.

Also Stevie Wonder. I have a soft spot for this song.  And I’m ok with it.

Jawbreaker.  Man am I late on this boat.  I was wondering why his voice sounded so much like the Jets to Brazil guy….DUH.  I knew that Ataris song (wow, that’s a big dude) was too good for them!  Love his voice.

Thanks to Wayne for reminding me to listen to Okkerville River.  Good shit.  I still have to check out most of the other stuff on his list.  Another very distinctive voice.  It must be distinctive voice night!  I heard/read someone somewhere recently remarking that rock music was more about having a distinctive voice than it was about being able to sing well.  I strongly concur.  Chops don’t hurt though.

OH, and I just found out about Skunk Anansie.  I don’t even remember how. But hit them up on youtube.  Good shit.  I love finding good dead bands so I don’t have to go through the trouble of keeping up with their new stuff.  I know, I’m old and cranky and boring.  It seems like they got mellower with the later album (s).  Now I just have to track down actual copies or digitals of the albums.  Next time I hit the used bins – top of my list!

Here’s a sample to close things out:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL_5LF9Ph9U

Like the National meets Arctic Monkeys with the bitter wit of Pulp. Kinda.  Anyway, here’s some stuff to check:

The video of the first song I heard “Sometime Around Midnight”:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2YnDlEMXiU

I only remembered the announcer saying something about “toxic event”, luckily that phrase is relatively rare in music (so far!) and I was able to find it from there.  I dig the song structure (in addition to the sound of course).  The electric violin is amusing too.

An acoustic version of “Gasoline”:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=59uWY1Yyr4w

Part of a 10 part myspace series where each track is performed acoustic I guess – definitely a different sound than the album.  Probably worth checking out all 10.

I’m kind of annoyed that they’re from Los Feliz though…lot’s of douches out there IIRC.  But hey, maybe they are cool cats…who knows.

Anyway, I’ll be picking hard copy up when I get some spare fundage.  It’s at least a 7.5/10, potentially an 8.7ish.  I’ll give it a few months and see.

Anyway, on to the album.

We have an interesting situation here in the sense that I’m actually going to recommend buying something where every song isn’t awesome.

Now, none of them are bad mind you, but some do tend to “flame out” little bit (in the sense of a slowly crashing blimp, not a really gay party), but the crashes themselves are usually worth watching.

Maybe you hear them and immediately go “Hey this is just a punk rock updating of the Jersey Shore Sound, kinda like the last Killers album”, or maybe you just hear the bits and pieces of a modern Springsteen kinda thing going on (in the same spirit as the Hold Steady – but coming from a completely different angle).  Or maybe you just like good modern rock and roll – which seems to get labeled as “punk rock” a lot in the genre tags.  And maybe it is, maybe the two are so enmeshed now that it doesn’t matter…because I can definitely hear the punk influence here, but I’d still have to say it tends more strongly towards the rock.  Any which way you come at it, if you like flavors of rock, I think you’ll really like this band and this album.

So, I’ll embed what I think is the best song, and then what I think is the weakest song below so we have the whole spectrum out there.

Here’s “The ’59 Sound”, which is either a really touching personal story, or a “great and beautiful lie”.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sbi2ednaNk

And now here’s “Even Cowgirls get the Blues”, which sounds different from the rest of the album, and just doesn’t do it for me.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYwdl1UDzMo

So, somewhere in between there lies the rest of the album.

It starts off really strong with 5 good songs, then stumbles just a little bit with the almost-there-but-still-too-awkward  “Miles Davis and the Cool”, then kinda does the Ellen DeGenres running-after-trip thing (sorry, can’t find a vid link! :( ) for a 3 tracks.   Nothing horrible, just not quite connecting.  There is a random cameo from the Bosstones singer doing bgvs in one of the songs. I should note that nothing here is as jarring as the Killer’s “Uncle Johnny”.  Jesus that was a bad song in the middle of a good album.

It starts to pick back up again with”Meet me by the River’s Edge”, a modern take on “The River” run through the “No Surrender” blender.  In this case, our protagonists aren’t going to the river as an escape, but rather as the escape  – instead of a stopgap, it’s a catalyst.  It’s an interesting take, and just for that it gets points.  Another random Killer’s comment, since both bands are doing the same kind of thing (except in the Killer’s case it was only for one album) – Gaslight does a better “The River” update than the Killers.  I think you could argue (I’m not sure I would though) that the Killer’s track is a better song, but I think Gaslight does a better thematic update.  “Meet me …” sounds much less forced than “This River is Wild” in its approach to me.  Neither can touch the original.

After that are 2 nice, mellow songs that I haven’t really had a chance to get into yet. I’m usually listening on the bus, or downstairs with the giant heater running behind me, so mellow tracks are often lost on me for a while.

So, why should I buy this you say?  Don’t I normally recommend against buying an album that has songs that aren’t 90% stellar?  Yeah, for the most part I do.  But sometimes I make exceptions for things that are exceptional for one reason or another.

Part of that “exceptional” comes from the amazingness that is their first album – Sink or Swim.  That one is just freaking killer, amazing debut album and it’s just another sign of how screwed up the music industry is that it didn’t at least kinda jump off.  Maybe that’s a good thing though and they’ll get in “the hard way” and be better for it.  I kinda doubt it, but I’m hopefully.  We need more bands crafting songs of substance and kicking ass.

Also, I should add that the album itself is pretty damn close to 90%, even if certain tracks falter a little bit.  As a whole it just holds together.

This band hit the ground running, and I’m hopefully that they don’t pull a Bloc Party on album #3, whenever that comes out.

Final Judgment: 87.3%

This was a really tough decision, and may get revised in the future.   I think for some people it’s gonna be a 95% album, but those 3 songs in the middle just haven’t done it for me yet, so that is gonna bring things down.  As a note, anything I rate over 85% is a “go out and buy me!!”.  Sink or Swim is probably around a 92-93%.

If I were I making music in a band right now, I’d hope it would sound something like Gaslight.  Not exactly, but it’s definitely the kind of vibe I’d enjoy and in the area I’d be going for.

I’ll leave you with a track called “Wooderson” from the first album:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXStIH3-SHw