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Flotsam EP. Quiz Show
Quiz
Show's Chris Matthews and bassist Jesse Krakow played in a band called
Shudder To Think in the 1980s and have pursued a career in music through
the decades and now return in a new band with a three song maxi single called
Flotsam. Together with drummer Joe Billy they form Quiz Show. The trio
plays what I opt to call alternative 80s rock. The music that influenced
the likes of Billy Corgan when he started Smashing Pumpkins. With a
long curve of time this music comes back in 2024 in the form of
especially 'Packing 'Em In'. Who influenced who is a question that can
be asked today. Quiz Show has a little bit of a playful element in its
music and the harmony vocals. This makes all three songs come totally alive.
I have played Flotsam several times through the past weeks and can't
find fault with it. Quiz Show goes at it as if this is truly the
musicians' first step into releasing music and not decades of being
active in music. As a trio they may still have enough to prove to the
world. With Flotsam that is now behind them.
Album
'Better Every Day' did not make it to these pages and listening to A
Way To Remember I can only wonder why? My guess is Japan 2023. There's a
big gap in new music for about a month because of that (work) trip.
Michelle Paulhus and her two colleagues show again how "simple" a great
punk rock single can sound and be totally convincing. Paulhus has the
right voice for the genre. She sings somewhere between tough and nice.
The trio lays down rock in the form of loud guitars, a great driving
bass and tough, dry drums in the Therapy? style of the mid 1990s. Add a
melody that is easy to remember and again "simply" great. After the also
very positive review of a previous single, 'High', in week 40 of 2022
and the album 'Stars Like Ours' soon after, it may be time to check out
'Better Every Day' anyway.
Iris
James Garrison (they/them) returns to this blog under the name
Bloomsday. Working towards the release of their first full length album,
'Heart Of The Artichoke' (7 June). Dollar Slice is a big song, in a
very modest way. Modest because Bloomsday keeps the song relatively
small compared to what it could have been. I'm thinking Sinead's 'Troy'
here, as that is what Dollar Slice does remind me of. That is exactly
the reason why I call the song big. Bloomsday may have written
the biggest thing of their relatively young career. Big also because
Garrison shows more of their selves than on the debut mini album 'Place
To Land' (2022). This is called growth and that is what a career should
show for an artist to grow a fan base. In short, I can end my review of
Dollar Slice in the same way as I ended ' Where I End And You Begin' at
the start of this year: Dollar Slice "is better than all
the songs on the debut mini album".
King Hannah returns to the blog with an indierock kind of ballad. Just two chords are strummed over and over in the beginning. Chords that have been played in that order a million times by now and still singer Hannah Merrick found a new melody over them. A good swimmer can take on anything. The song has three parts. The soft intro lasting circa two minutes. Then an electric guitar comes in and the guest vocalist Sharon van Etten sings her part. The third part starts with a Big Muff pedal (in the video) and a second electric guitar playing a solo and lead guitar over the remainder of the song, that puffs itself up successfully more and more. The album with the same name will be released on 31 May. In the meantime I'll swim along for awhile.
Two
singles I've found on this blog by The Wandering Hearts. Letter To
Myself reminds me of having to listen the new album by The Secret Sisters that was
released this week. (Note to self, indeed.) The Wandering Hearts has
released a fantastic, beautiful single. I now read that there is an album
already for a week called 'Mother'. Based on what I'm hearing here, it
could well be musical haven on earth. The trio sings like a choir of
angels over its renditions of CSN-style music. Letter To Myself is
somewhere between pop, country, singer-songwriter and West Coast folk.
It's a little of everything together and then the trio starts singing.
The kind that makes me very quiet and a bit jealous of not having such a
fine voice. The work put into finding the harmonies in the song
obviously paid off very well. Letter To Myself is pure musical heaven.
Ohmme
is no more, welcome Finom. Do not ask me why, because Haircut would
have been welcome under the name Ohmme as far as I'm concerned. Finom is
Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart (with drummer Matt Carroll). Like the
music on 'Fantasize Your Ghost' Haircut is up beat, jumpy, adding a bit
of nerves caught in a straitjacket rhythm. The rhythm makes Haircut a
danceable song but one where the dancer has to keep track of the rhythm
for the whole of the time because of that jumpiness. In that sense this
song is rather weird, also because of the high voices with which it is
sung. Estranging solo's make the song more detached from traditional
dance songs. It only makes Haircut more attractive to listen to though.
Ohmme may be no more, Finom is here, in that same sort of musical mix
between eclectic and scientific and somewhere between seriousness and
irony. On 24 May the album 'Not God' sees the light of day. In the
meantime I may have to acquaint myself with the album 'Ohmme' from 2023
that I seem to have missed.
With
all the post-post punkwave bands around in super abundant numbers, one
would almost forget how popular the 1980s are in general. Canadian
Daniel Boeckner on his debut solo album explores the bigger bands'
sound of the time like Simple Minds et al. And very successfully at
that. The song starts small with the synth sounds of The Human League or
Heaven 17. His singing matches the way some singers at the time sang as
well. The electronic undertow brings the 80s in even more
significantly. It almost makes me forget to listen what a song is really
about: the melodies and the vocal delivery. Daniel Boeckner sounds like
a young Chuck Prophet, while Euphoria explodes moving into the
stratosphere. Drummer Matt Chamberlain takes a bigger and bigger role
for himself. The drums almost become the lead instrument with all the rolls and fills going around. Euphoria has two sides to itself, showing
different angles of 1980s music, the more wave one and the big
stadiumrocking songs. Both halves work though. Album 'Boeckner' is
around for two weeks already.
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In
the old days a duet was credited to who were singing it. Nowadays it is
called featuring. In my view this is wrong for All In Good Time. This
is a real duet and not a guest appearance. Sam Beam and Fiona Apple both
have equal parts here in the call and response style of old. Irony has
it that I'm not a fan of either artist. And now they sing together in
this country style ballad and everything seems to fall into place. I will
even go as far as to call this an alternative 'Islands In The Stream', the
famous Kenny Rodgers - Dolly Parton duet from the 1980s. Strings come
in, just like a grand piano, all underscoring the mood of soft
resignation to whatever has come before, the good, the bad and the
storms. The two lay down a perfect delivery of a song that is not even
that special melodically but made special by the interaction of the
voices of Sam Beam and Fiona Apple.
Having
come late to Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, although by now over 10
years, I have gone through a period of grief and sadness with him. This
is behind him now for some years. We know the pain never truly goes away but that
life does move on. So what to expect after 'Ghosteen'? The answer comes
with Wild God the first single from the same titled album. And it is all
that I did not expect. What to call this music? Gospel for the
non-believer? Cave is singing differently, behind him the band has a
full role, as has a (gospel?) choir. The song starts much smaller
though. I do not mind hearing a full band, after the synth intro,
guitar, bass, drums, keys. All playing in service of Cave who is telling
his story. "Jubilee Street" returns to his vocal, but only to mention a
girl who had died there in 1993. Slowly but surely the song grows and
expands, to fall back into itself. After 'Ghosteen' I had the feeling
that, no matter how impressive the album was (is), Cave had reached the
end of this musical road withWarren Ellis and needed to reinvent himself to remain as
relevant as he had become in the 10s. If Wild God is anything to go by,
I'd say mission accomplished. We will know more at the end of the summer.
Anyone
remember 'The Safety Dance', that fairly obscure song by Men Without
Hats? Some Don't Dance could be the answer to that song. Why Bother?
makes it easy for those who don't, as this is not an easy song to dance
to. With elements of post new wave and punk and some extra weirdness
thrown in there. Why Bother? lives up to its band name. Some Don't Dance
doesn't directly please. Look through it all and you may discover a lot
you might find interesting anyway. Singer Terry has that kind of voice
that postpunk bands used to have, reflected in the well let's call it
chaos that is created within the confines of the song. Guitarist Speck
has that Gang of Four dry sound, while the bass puts on an effect making
it sound really dirty. It's the drums that keep it all together.
Towards the end the band really lets it all hang down and chaos ensues.
It appears fun was had by all, including me listening. Album 'Serenading
Unwanted Ballads' is out already and is available for "name your price"
on Why Bother?'s Bandcamp page.
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