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Love Goes Down The Drain. Canyons & Locusts
Before I had the chance to start writing, the song was already over. Well, almost. 1.45 minutes is all Canyons & Locusts needs to make its point after love went down the drain. Last week, this weekly post had nearly all softer songs in its 10 song roster. To make amends we start with the new outing of the Boston - Phoenix duo. Love Goes Down The Drain punk rocks and no little. The big and fat guitar plays as loud as it can over the drums that are pounded on relentlessly for the whole song. With all the punkrocking noise Justin Keane's voice comes as rough as the genre calls for but not without a melody that allows to singing along to in any environment. Another successful single in a short while. There is supposed to be an EP out soon, called 'The Red Angel'.
Released last week, today Otherworldly Things from New York City makes its debut on this blog. Heavy Dream Cycle contains some tough rock songs that combine the best of the last decades of pop and rock. Opening with the song 'I'm Tired Of Monsters' the band makes an impression immediately. Starting with a tight, yet inventive drum intro on the back of which the whole band starts playing and plays from. Pop and rock fans will recognise a host of influences in the song, which is totally infectious in its own right. In the next song, 'No Use', things only get better. A great bass part compliments the again, supertight drumming. The guitars are more frivolous and the harmonies better. Jim Browne (guitar, lead and backing vocals, violin), Matt Revie (guitar, keyboards, glockenspiel), Jason Binnick (bass, backing vocals, keyboards, cello) and Travis Harrison (drums, percussion) know really well what they are doing here. In 'Work Out Right' the band tips its toes deeply into the well of 1960s pop music. Clearly an era Otherworldly Things really likes to listen to. The result is a strong set of originals from the NYC band, adding to what has come before. Otherworldly Things returns to the record front with the release of a very nice EP that leaves me with one complaint only, I wouldn't have minded a double dose.
The Follies is another band that tipped its toes into the already in the above mentioned well of 60s music. In I Idled the band combines The Beatles with The Byrds (oh, wait, that is the description of The Byrds itself, isn't it?) Added is a solid jolt of poprock from the late 70s and some 80s R.E.M. styled guitar work, and out comes I Idled. On the basis of this single, I'd say that this band is anything but a folly. Gloriously up tempo and catchy, with a lead guitar that is jumping hoops all of the time, with great, fast runs showing pure competence after years of practice. What remains to be mentioned is a punky attitude with which the whole is presented. This is far from a punkrock song, yet I'd venture that the band doesn't mind listening to the music and take from it what spices I Idled. I had never heard of The Follies before. This is the kind of introduction one needs to be wanting to hear more. With 'Permanent Present Tense' around the corner, the wait will not be long.
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Only a few weeks back I wondered if I was ever going to be hearing new music by The Decemberists. Only a few days later I ran into this single. It is quite some years since I heard new music, perhaps my bad, but well pre-Covid, I'd say. The time was used to sound familiar and yet different. Colin Meloy's voice is Colin Meloy's voice. There's no changing this factor. It is in the music and melody that I discern the change. Despite the title Burial Ground has a lightness, something I do not associate with The Decemberists. There is always a sense of darkness around most of its music. This is like a 1960s The Kinks single, with Dave Davies' rawking guitar replaced by a light-sounding one. Add Beatlesleque harmony and backing vocals and a trumpet solo and the sun is shining bright over the burial ground Meloy is inviting someone to meet. What a nice return to the record front for The Decemberists.
One for the road was the name of the bar on a ship called Mississippi Lloyd. After its last voyage, that I sailed on from Rotterdam to London in 1978, to New Orleans, where else, the sign was always in the window of my parents' home. As first officer, my father had brought it home with him. Scott Clay's is a song worthy to have been played there and sung along to. His slow countryrock ballad has two sides, the slow moving pace with the wide ranging instruments that all have a distinct place in the mix, and that dark, brooding electric guitar, that sounds like an announced thunderstorm on the horizon. It sets a mood of resignedness for the deluge coming. There's nothing that can save Scott Clay now. The warm Hammond tries to soothe him, a mandoline urges him to leave, but there's always that guitar, like the lights keeping the rabbit caught. There's only one thing left to do, to take one for the road. I have to say that I simply like the two sides contained within One For The Road.
I have to admit that I had almost clicked the song away for the next one on this list. The song simply did not seem to get started and in a way it does not. In another way it does. There's a wealth of little details to discover and it simply makes the song blossom. Floating On A Moment opens itself in a very baroque way. The tempo remains slow with Beth Gibbons whisper singing over it. Instruments and voices are added to what is already being opened. Any form of beats and hop elements are missing, it's the trip that is contained in Floating On A Moment. The music that is Beth Gibbons and not her former band members'. This single is like a dream come true. The kind of song that carries the listener. I am reminded of what Lou Doillon and Charlotte Gainsbourg are producing in France. That dreamy stuff and the soft singing that these modern French sigh girls use, is here in abundance. Listening to the song again, more and more little sounds and melodies spring up, as if I do not have enough ears to catch them all. This is one intriguing song.
With Rice by Slomosa we move into rock territory. The band shares some heavy riffing with the world but all in support of a song that has a great vocal melody. Singer Ben Berdous is not necessarily a hardrock singer. I'd even venture that he could replace Morten of Aha if necessary. He stands his ground in Rice, don't worry. Slomosa is also from Norway. Bergen to be precise and in May will release its second album. Based on this single I'd say that lovers of some good old fashioned headbanging will love the fierce riff in between the verses. Call it desert rock, stoner or even grunge, whatever you like, Slomosa rocks in all the right ways.
A curious combination on a double sided single where on one side Patrik Fitzgerald plays his song Punch and on the other Motorpsycho plays it with Dead Kennedy's Jello Biafra on vocals. The Norwegian procgrockers have left the prog part at home when they entered the studio for this song. This is a rock song of quite some proportions. Motorpsycho is a trio that is always able to make itself at least twice as big than it is. Here the sound becomes huge and extremely broad. Biafra sings a little like John Lydon here and there, with a nice sneer in his voice. The combination works on Punch that much is clear. The band lets it all go and really rocks beyond the well thought out improvisations it is also capable of.
Patrick Fitzgerald's original version could not be more different. His performance is (closer to) spoken word than singing. That riff is there though. All the rest is so different. Weird sounds are all over the place and yet this is fun. The song is from the 1980s my guess is. Thank you for the introduction.
Garlands are near veterans of this blog. With its new single, it once again manages to sound urgent in 2024 while giving a strong nod as far back as The Kinks of the 1960s. In other words, Know Your Religion has that pop feel and great harmony vocals Ray and Dave Davies were capable of at the time. (With Ray's then then wife Raisa often somewhere in the background as well.) Know Your Religion starts with a good chord progression on the guitar that caught my ear immediately and then the band comes in with a punch telling me to listen should I have wavered for a second. What Garlands is good at, is keeping its songs at lengths that were fashionable on 45s of the 1960s, catching pure pop prowess on vinyl. This song doesn't have anything that is extra. Pop, power, a catchy melody and a little bordering on psychedelia ending. A nice surprise in my Friday inbox indeed.
Let us end this week with the single of a modern style sigh girl, who uses synths and modern beats, called My Desire Is Pure. I have no reason to doubt Halo Maud is full of the you she singing about. What is more interesting that everything around that desire is different, at times weird and fascinating. Whoever Halo Maud is, a singer with band, a band, just a singer or a dance producer?, I just do not know. What I like, is that nothing is what it seems here and the listener is challenged the whole time to accept the next weird sound, the change between French and English, the jolts of sounds that are not there to immediately please. Halo Maud is not afraid of taking a left turn a few times, without ending where it started. Is this my kind of music? No, not really, but I like it none the same. There's a little Portishead in here but not enough to not be Halo Maud. My Desire Is Pure dares to take a few risks and that pays off.
Wout de Natris
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