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Who’ll Stand With Us? Dropkick Murphys
What is it that I want to hear from Dropkick Murphies (Quincy, Massachusetts ,1996)? Some serious Irish folk based punkrock, major party enthusiasm and anthems to sing along to, perhaps even supporting a just cause. Who'll Stand With Us?, a single from the album 'For The People', qualifies on all fronts. The band may be going into its fourth decade soon, it has lost nothing from the enthusiasm I encountered on a punkrock compilation album around 2001 and the album the song belonged to, 'Sing Loud Sing Proud'. It's a while since I stopped following the band. This single shows that I am ready for some more Dropkick Murphies alright. Reading up on the band on wiki, I found out how big this band is in the U.S.. But then, if I remember correctly, I saw the band advertised on Amsterdam's Ziggo Dome and that is quite different from Paradiso or Melkweg where I saw the band in the 00s. To my surprise, yes, but well-deserved no doubt.
The name Chantal Acda can be found on this blog since 2016 and in several musical configurations. With Make It Work she returns as a solo artist, yet things are different. She prepared and recorded her upcoming album 'The Whale' (29 September) with her touring band and yes, that makes the song on the one hand typically Chantal Acda but on the other far more solid. At least where this single is concerned. In her own way Chantal Acda is rocking and loud. The intro is already overwhelming and then it all drops away for a soft electric guitar and the familiar voice. The song is fleshed out ever so slowly, creating a tension that anyone understanding how songs are build up knows it has to be released. Slowly but surely that tension is built and built towards a magnificent ending in which the band is allowed to go full out. Make It Work is a magnificent single.
Two years ago I wrote a review on Already Dead's second album 'Something Like A War'. My infatuation with the band started with that immense wall of a single 'The Spirit of Massachusetts Avenue'. One of the best punkrock singles of the past years out there in the wild. You are reading up on the second Boston punk band this week and rightly so. It's time for the former band to provide Already Dead a support slot, if it hasn't already. Were I a lazy person and sometimes I am, I could copy/paste my previous review but will not. It would sell the band short. The energy oozing out of its latest EP I Think It's Time To Leave ... deserves attention. Five songs, five bursts of energy without relenting for a single second. Already Dead pushed in the peddle to the metal and stuck a stone there to be certain. And yet, listen to 'Nothing Wrong' and hear what the bass is adding to the song. Superior melody, once again. Five songs, ten minutes, after which all concerned have to take a deep breath to quote Dan Cummings from the song. This is the real thing alright. If Dropkick Murphies don't get them to Europe who else will?
Only two weeks to go and the new Wolf Alice, after four years of waiting, will be released. It's latest single announcing 'The Clearing' is a surprise as Ellen Rowsell is not the lead singer on the single. It's drummer Joey Amey who takes most of the lead and also wrote the song. The song is a dreamy one, which we have come to know from Wolf Alice, but at the same time it is a very much solid song. It's a big song. It has a very solid basis over which the two sing their lyrics. Not that it is a wall of sound in the Phil Spector way, it's more in the dense way the instruments are mixed, pumping up their respective presence. Just like Wet Leg's first single 'CPR' of its new album, I did not like Wolf Alice's first one. Also here my ears must have been screwed on wrong when listening. It is all going to turn out alright. Especially with Wild Horses as this is a great driving song that just propels itself and its listeners ever forward. Wolf Alice is back and how.
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For a few albums now Wednesday can be found on this blog and having listened to the first singles my impressions is that chances are etc., as they say. Wound Up Here (By Holding On) is dirty, alternative rocker in which the band goes in search of the acceptable corners and edges of the genre and then bend them to its liking. Wednesday is not afraid to tip them over as well, as anyone having listened to the previous album 'Rat Saw God' can attest to. The song sounds dirty in the intro but when the first verse starts, things can still go both ways. Wednesday keeps things under control. If anything this song shows that the music made by alternative rock bands from New Zealand are not totally isolated. Wednesday (U.S.A.) and The Beths (N.Z.) to name one, are nicely aligned I'd say. When Kathy Harzmann has finished her lyrics, she and fellow guitarist MJ Lenderman just let it rip, leading to a great, orgiastic explosion of sound. The kind a song like Wound Up Here (By Holding On) deserves.
In week 27 of this year there was quite a round up of bands in the singles section. Many a favourite of this blog could be found there and this week it's quite similar. The Beths are in both posts and with a very different song than I have come to expect from the New Zealanders. You hear Elizabeth Stokes sing to her mother who is asked to pray for her. She's accompanied by a fingerpicked electric guitar. An electric organ joins in giving the song s churchlike quality. Underneath a bass plays a very simple pattern. It is enough. Stokes gives the song exactly the right emotion, more observation of a situation than deep emotional involvement. It's a story about a relationship that does not seem right, but is what it is. The prayer is welcome though. Totally different, yet beautiful. Album 'Straight Line Was A Lie' is out on 29 August. It's going to be a busy day.
What a haunting song Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em is. It is also a great song. Garret Vandermolen is exploring the inside of his head here, dealing with depression and the isolation coming from it. It is a confrontational song and not just because of the subject. Musically it isn't your everyday song as well. Built around several guitar parts, including an effect tool here and there, that all add to the suspense. Percussion joins and then a bass guitar, before the drums kick in. It is all played by Vandermolen, who at some point decides to let it all go, all instruments and vocals. "No one know how I feel right now". That is totally true and that hasn't changed because of this song. What his unfortunate experiences did give the world is a great rock song. Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em is a must hear song.
Rawk and then roll some more. Fullerton, California's The Cornfed Project continues where bands like Aerosmith and more locally for them Dirty Sweet have given up the ghost. The band debuts on the blog with a song that rocks in the best U.S. tradition. A really rough edge to the music and Matt "Cornfed" Wheeler matches what happens in the music with his voice. Listen a little deeper and you will find influences from The Who and The Rolling Stones as well. It's all irrelevant, as The Cornfed Project builds its own party and no little. Drums and bass are such a solid basis. I'm sure their parts already create a great song. Add the layers of guitars, including the lead lines and a guitar solo that is simply on fire. Wheeler and backing vocalists only have to give it their best to arrive at a perfect rock song. You may have heard it all before, but not dancing to this tune is out of the question. In fact it's mandatory.
Shame's latest is a single of classic length, 2.38 minutes, yet seems so much longer. It is also a song in which the band lets singer Charlie Steen take the lead for 100%. The band does everything to make him shine. The sound is so rich, as there is a lot going on underneath Steen's voice. In a way that seems to contradict my observation but listen to Spartak and you'll find out it is correct. The music does not draw away attention to Charlie Steen's almost deadpan delivery, because no matter how, yes, even frivolous, the accompaniment is, he remains in the absolute middle of Shame's latest single. It's a good question how the band plans to play this song live, as there's layers of guitars and keyboards. But Shame "will know better than me", I'm sure. Spartak is an exciting and interesting song at the same time, which is a bit surprising, as more often than not the songs by Shame I really like are in the former department of its genre.
I can't help but mentioning Dutch band Moon Moon Moon because New Zealand's Pickle Darling is so close in music that to all appearances it looks like Lucas Mayo and Mark Lohmann have an antipodean, mid-Earth connection from their respective bedrooms where their music is created on a laptop of pc. Let me add the U.S. duo Carol Cleveland Sings here as well. On Human Bean Instruction Manual Pickle Darling moves beyond what is the contribution of a human "bean" in music. The simple keyboard that drives the song is pimped up and distorted, almost beyond recognition, while the voices are so machine manipulated, there's not that much human left. Human Bean Instruction Manual starts out as a regular song, with minor effects, okay, let's say Sparklehorse on its first album. Slowly things change into the second part of the song, but believe it or not from all the electronics pure magic and beauty escape. In all these effects the sun, albeit a very artificial one, is shining and warming my bones. Pickle Darling has done it again. Album 'Battlebots' is out on 5 September. Interesting title by the way, as it may portray humanity's future. A.I. receiving a manual to deal with us?!
Wout de Natris - van der Borght
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