Here it is yall, the first post for the new year and a new volume!
First off some news. Veronica Falls has a new album, Waiting For Something To Happen, out in early February. It will be released on limited white vinyl from Slumberland Records.You can also preorder the new Thom Yorke project, Atoms For Peace, from just about any retailer now. The album is called AMOK and there will be an additional single for Judge Jury and Executioner out in March with a new B side called S.A.D. Bleached are scheduled to release their first full length album in early April called Ride Your Heart. Preorders are not yet up for that album though. Free Energy have a new album coming out next week called Love Sign. I am excited to hear what they have been working on.
That is all I have for news at the moment, so, lets move on.
This is Arches first full length album. It was released in
2011. I only found out about them at the end of this past year, 2012. I was
lucky enough to get a copy of this album on vinyl. When the record came it came
with a note and a CDR of music that Tom Herman Jr. (one of the two vocalists
for Arches) was working on as a side project called Old Smile. I haven’t
listened to it yet but intend to and will pass along information after I have
listened to it. It was very personal of him to pass along this new music. I
just hope that Arches hasn’t dissolved. I have listened to Wide Awake a hand
full of times since getting the download at the beginning of the year, 2013.
The sound of the album over all is subdued but still musically interesting. The
album has been compared to Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest as there are sonic
similarities but Wide Awake comes off as a simpler sound. I love Veckatimest
and Wide Awake does share a sonic background but I think that the simplicity of
Wide Awake puts the album in a different place than the Grizzly Bear album.
Wide Awake doesn’t have the sonic peaks and valleys that Veckatimest has
either. That doesn’t make it boring just a bit more even sounding.
The band wrote this about the album: Wide Awake is a concept
album about a character who lives alone in a city. Mundane routines drive the
character to flee the city and become a drifter. The character’s perspective of
reality becomes convoluted with memories and current travels to the point where
the character becomes unable to decipher past and present experiences.
There are a few stand out tracks for me. The opening track,
This Isn't a Good Night for Walking, is a great introduction to the album and
one of my favorites from the album so far. In the back ground it starts off
with the sound of rain. This fades out soon after the music starts up but
sounds very cool to start out an album. The hook in the song is both an
acoustic guitar and a piano playing together. There is also something special
about the double tracked vocals that are all over this album. It doesn’t seem
to get old.
The other track that I really like is called Behind ClosedBlinds. The rhythm part is played with a piano. There are additional guitar
parts in front and behind the piano that are very sweet. This sounds odd but
the song reminds me of being a teenager remembering things that I had done as a
kid. It is kind of a memory of a memory if that makes any sense.
The last track that I want to talk about is called Cobblestone.
It has the same doubled vocals to start off with. What gets my attention is the
chorus with the guitar runs. It is an instant stand out hook that grabs me
every time I hear it even on my tiny speaker on my phone.
I really hope that this group continues to make music as
they have some great potential. Maybe a better record company could help in
getting their name out there? Keep it up guys, I love what you have created!
This is The Late Virginia Summers second album. It was
released in 2010. I ordered a copy of this on vinyl. The album starts off with
whale sounds and a man speaking over the top explaining that the sounds will be
sent out as part of the Voyager space crafts recordings. It is an interesting
way to start off an album. The album is very short at about 35 minutes. It is
laden with atmospheric melancholy that never seems to go anywhere. It is not a
depressing album but not exactly a happy album either. I have read other
reviews of this album where the reviewer complains of the tracks not
progressing to an ending. I think that it is an album that needs to be listened
to as an album. There is an ebb and flow to the music that requires the
listener to hear the whole thing in order to have it make sense. It is very
pretty and reminds me of Sigur Ros a little.
There was one single that was released from this album. I
talked about it at the end of last year in Vol. 3 Episode 50.5 (The best of
post for 2012). The first single on the record is called Pebble Azalea Starfish.
It is a short acoustic track with out any vocals. It starts off quiet with an
acoustic guitar and builds in volume until it just stops all of a sudden. It is
a great opening track but hard to listen to over and over because of the sudden
stop. The track reminds me of some of the soundtracks for some of the
skateboarding videos that I have.
This is a single that was released for 2011 Record Store Day
Black Friday. I found a copy at a local record store, The Electric Fetus. I had
seen the record sitting in the racks a few times and I finally decided to pick
it up on my last trip to the store. The back of the 7” record says this about
both of the tracks:Augusten Burroughs asked me to write a song for the 2008 audio version of his book 'A Wolf at the Table'. Since the book was a memoir about Augusten's troubled childhood relationship with his father, I didn't feel I had the authority to write about this very personal experience. But I still relished the opportunity, so I resolved to dive in headfirst and to try to read the book in a single day and write the song immediately afterward. My hope was that whatever feelings it conjured up for me would linger long enough to translate into music and my own words. Luckily the plunge paid off, and the result was a song where, like Augusten's books, I pretty much put my heart right out there on my sleeve.
B. Where the Wind Blows
This song was written in 2008 and was recorded during the “White Water, White Bloom” sessions. I’d spent a good deal of time working on the song, but never could quite get it to a place where I was happy with it. Once in the studio however, producer Mike Mogis suggested we start from scratch and build the song live as a group. It was a fun experience, because while I’m more of a puzzler and like to spend time really arranging all of the little details, Mogis tends to like things loose and spontaneous, which gave us permission to just let go and let the song happen…
Both tracks have the beautiful vocals that have come to be
synonymous with the group. The strings on Song of The Magpie help to bring up
the climax at the end of the song. This brings out the emotions in the song and
makes the listener feel.
The B side track, Where The Wind Blows, has a little
different feel but is still just as beautiful as the A side. The B side uses an
organ/keyboard of some kind in addition to the drums and acoustic/electric
guitars. It is a nice song but the A side does stand over it.
This is the fourth single released from the Conventional
Weapons single set. It was released in 2013. It is a return to the hard rock
that they do so well. The first track, Kiss The Ring, has the hard rock sound
of the 70’s. It is really cool to hear these songs and be able to pick out
genres that they may have come from. The second track, Make Room!!!, has that
same 70’s rock sound as the first. It is awesome! I really like that they have
channeled these sounds for these tracks. It may be easier to spot since the
songs are not being put out as a full album. I think it gives me time to
analyze the tracks a bit more than I would have if it were released as a full
album.That is all I have for now...
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