PopMatters reviews "Clinging to a scheme"
PopMatters praises the new album from The Radio Dept.: https://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/122806-the-radio-dept.-clinging-to-a-scheme/
Tag: Reviews
The Radio Dept.
Clinging to a scheme
Labrador
To be completely honest, The Radio Dept. have never previously overwhelmed me, not in the way many friends and critics have been. This isn't to say I think they've been hyped into popularity, but their albums have often engaged me for a few weeks and then been shelved, only pulled out occasionally to listen to the two or three songs that really sunk in. "Clinging to a scheme", however, is a different beast -- for me, it is the album their previous efforts more than betrayed they were capable of: an amalgamation of the lively and charming tone of "Lesser matters" and the ambience of "Pet grief", yet surpassing them both. While this newest work finds the band in more explorative territory, it is a focused effort that maintains The Radio Dept.'s signature atmospherics despite the more adventurous tone of the record: "Domestic scene" is a near-perfect introduction to the album with its layers of languid guitars and synthesizers overlying a constant, driving beat, a tact subtly reminiscent of Doves; despite the spoken word opening (an irksome quirk that is used again a few minutes into "Never follow suit"), "Heaven's on fire" is one of the album's highlights, a strange union of The Radio Dept.'s talents with "Writer's block"-era Peter Bjorn and John's pop sensibility; and "Never follow suit" takes a few pages from The Tough Alliance's playbook, translating those mischievous tendencies and working them seamlessly into the track. While The Radio Dept. may have branched out and sped things up a little on this newest album, there is nothing that compromises the band's unique take on pop music; if anything, "Clinging to a scheme" acts as a tableau of where The Radio Dept. has been, all while elevating the band to this new peak. "The video dept." is wonderfully nostalgic of the finest lo-fi moments of "Lesser matters" and the already praised "Domestic scene" could almost have been on "Pet grief", were it a more somber affair. One of the finest qualities of the album is the fact that it isn't as solemn as much of The Radio Dept.'s catalogue, and yet remains just as personal and poignant. Suffice it to say, "Clinging to a scheme" isn't getting shelved anytime soon.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
PopMatters reviews "The wild hunt"
PopMatters reviews the new album from The Tallest Man on Earth: https://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/123764-the-tallest-man-on-earth-the-wild-hunt/
Aerial
Put it this way in headlines
Nomethod
There are few opening tracks that spark so perfectly to life, coloring not only the album to follow, but drawing the listener into this creative work, as the aptly titled "First of all...". While the following track does dampen the energy momentarily, from that point on "Put it this way in headlines" unravels as an impressive addition to Aerial's catalogue. The heavier, Mogwai/Mono-inspired post-rock of "The sentinel" has been replaced by a much cleaner, almost pop-like approach -- imagine a strange amalgamation of The End Will Be Kicks and Yamon Yamon. The only serious failing of "Headlines" is that the band, after embracing a change to their sound, sometimes takes too long to hit all the right notes, and then doesn't hit those notes quite hard enough. "Zebra" should have been anthemic, but only briefly reaches that point in the closing minute of the song; it's still a damn fine track, I am just not sure why the building energy suddenly stops. A few more songs like "Vacant dreamers", a track that blurs the line between post-rock and angular garage rock, might have helped as well, though said track suffers in a similar way to "Zebra": these songs seem to be building somewhere, but they never get there; this was never a problem on "The sentinel". That said, with "Guitar ode to a sunny afternoon" and all the other gorgeous moments on the album, there is more than enough to "Headlines" to make Aerial's present and future look quite bright.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
PopMatters reviews Kongh
PopMatters reviews the US release of Kongh's "Shadows of the shapeless": https://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/123429-kongh-shadows-of-the-shapeless/
Pitchfork says The Tallest Man on Earth is best new music
Pitchfork gives high marks to The Tallest Man on Earth's new album "The wild hunt", bestowing upon it their much-desired "best new music" tag: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14110-the-wild-hunt/
Jónsi
Go
XL
When the album was announced in December, I wondered whether Jónsi's unfettering for his solo debut "Go" could signal a return to the emotive restraint of Sigur Rós' earlier work. At the time it seemed promising: "Go" began as an acoustic album, with kits by demure Múm stickman Samuli and early production by composer Nico Muhly. All of the pre-release teases seemed to indicate that a self-aware Jónsi was distancing himself from the annoyingly percussive bent of Sigur Rós' last half-decade.
And "Go" begins accordingly, with Jónsi's signature coo, studio-chopped into a startling twinkle. Elated, I imagined this reduction of Jónsi's emblematic voice indicative of the stripped, back-to-basics reinvention that this album deserved. I was wrong. It only took seven seconds to bury all hope under four-to-the-floor theatrics, the drum-heavy frenzy that trampled "Agaetis"' depth and subtlety, giving way to latter-day Sigur Rós' canned euphoria.
Even the album's bright spots are marred by Samuli's perplexing choice to lean heavily on Sigur Rós' drum aesthetics. The breathy breakdown on "Animal arithmetic" arrives, beautiful and intimate, but it's almost immediately carried off by a frenetic mess of percussive garbage. And though lead single "Boy lilikoi" has some catchy moments, its melodramatic sense of urgency is stultifying. The drumless tracks, then, are welcome, but they come off more as Sigur Rós retreads than any real change in direction -- fittingly, the album closer "Heniglas" is drone-for-drone the same elegiac statement as SR closers "Heysátan" and "Avalon". On the whole, "Go" is little more than a would-be Sigur Rós long player -- it takes few chances, and those it does take are drowned out by increasingly histrionic arrangements. Am I the only one who remembers the days when Jónsi effortlessly accomplished "epic" without being overly busy or stiflingly melodramatic?
Don't get me wrong. I'm still a Sigur Rós-lifer who will listen to this album on repeat, until the busywork of it starts to seem intricately wrought, my heart full-stop when Jónsi croons "o hjartað" on "Heniglas". But when longtime producer John Best says he hasn't "felt this excited about a project since the time [he] first heard 'Agaetis byrjun', right back in 1999", he's just getting everyone's hopes up. Yeah right, John.
- Nathan Keegan
Can you hate Black Breath?
Mostly OT, but relevant to my interests (this is my site, after all): I Just Can't Hate Enough gives a proper assessment of the new Black Breath album "Heavy breathing": https://canthateenough.blogspot.com/2010/04/lift-up-her-robessnake-covered.html (in Swedish)
The band is local to me (from Seattle), but they wish they were Swedish and I suspect that most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference if I slipped a track in somewhere. Anyhow, the band was originally intended to do a split with Sonic Ritual on the strength of their 100% killer debut EP "Razor to oblivion", but then they got signed to , decided to pursue a full-length and Sanctuary in Blasphemy took their place. Now as for said full-length, now that it's out, I must agree that it's a bit disappointing, though they do remain a strong live act IMO. Also: bonus points to 138 for the Ink & Dagger reference, something you probably won't understand unless you too are a 30-something punk.
Pitchfork reviews Prins Thomas
Pitchfork reviews Prins Thomas' new self-titled record: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14124-prins-thomas/
The Silent Ballet reviews Ef
The Silent Ballet reviews the new Ef record "Morning good mourning": https://thesilentballet.com/dnn/Home/tabid/36/ctl/Details/mid/384/ItemID/3248/Default.aspx
Dusted review "Tomorrow, in a year"
Dusted reviews The Knife's electro-opera "Tomorrow, in a year": https://dustedmagazine.com/reviews/5613
The Generals
Stand up straight
Metalcentral Records
The best way to put a tag on this Swedish quartet is to take Entombed's "To ride, shoot straight and speak the truth" and Dismember's "Massive killing capacity" and fuse the two to create an album that displays the mid-90s death 'n' roll sentiment as expressed by the country's extreme forerunners back then. Both bands have long since left their bop-mosh tendencies to explore different paths (although it was really Entombed's ball, with Dismember lightly toying with the idea amid a more straightforward death metal foundation), essentially leaving a gap in the market for those who fell in love with the style and who strive to make it their own. The Generals manage to pull it off with great conviction, despite not quite achieving the hair-raising impact made by their death metal ancestors. There's one main ingredient here -- the old-school Tomas Skogsberg guitar sound – that elevates this to a status it wouldn't otherwise deserve. It offers what is essentially slightly-above-par songwriting a boost into the realms of acceptance and makes the songs a good deal more enjoyable than if they had some sort of generic death metal tone. That said, the production on here is ever-so-slightly on the wrong side of tinny and it gets a tad annoying after a while. Songwise, it's average with a few shining moments here and there, most notably on their purer death metal moments such as "The offer still stands" and "Consulting with the sinner". Track of the disc must go to "Portal to paradise" though, with its clever use of '80s Sunset Strip hard rock passages that fit so well with the heavier elements that it's a shame The Generals didn't have the foresight to make more use of the amalgam. Overall, "Stand up straight" is a good debut album that shows a wealth of potential, providing the band take the right steps on their next effort.
- John Norby
Pitchfork reviews Jónsi
Pitchfork gives high marks to the new Jónsi album "Go": https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14098-go/
The Line of Best Fit reviews Apparatjik
The Line of Best Fit reviews multinational supergroup Apparatjik: https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/04/apparatjik-we-are-here/
Kråkesølv
Trådnøsting
self-released
There's a certain jazzclub ambience about "Trådnøsting" that belies the fact that it's essentially an indiepop album and it's hard to pinpoint the reason for this, other than Kråkesølv's ability to outlay a sound that's so upbeat and complex, yet so relaxing and easy on the mind that it creates a sense of being at one with the music. It gets into the head and fuses with the brain, eliciting a variety of emotions so strong that it's not even essential to be able to understand Norwegian to know where they're at with a particular song. That's not an easy thing to pull off and, whether intentional or not, the Bodø quartet have done so in such a natural way that it displays the true quality of their songcrafting skills. Style-wise, Kråkesølv are so much like Germany's little-known indiepop act, Monostars, that the only thing separating them in places is the distinct difference in accents. Where Monostars exude a certain abrasiveness in the natural intonation of the Munich dialect, Kråkesølv offer a more lilting, almost flowery, adaptation that complements the melodies in the music and sounds off like an additional instrument. That's simply down to the natural Norwegian accent with its airy peaks and troughs and, for Kråkesølv, it works exceptionally well throughout, with particular note being made of "Privat regn" for its catchy pop anthem stylings and "Vågøyvannet rundt" for its dreamy, fairytale qualities. The title track really displays what Kråkesølv are all about in terms of their musical outlook, as does "Waldemar". What is this outlook, you ask? Well, from spinning this disc a few times, it seems it's all about creating beautiful music that really grasps the heart. Hopefully, the obvious international limitations that come with singing in Norwegian (read 'not in English') won't damage the band's exposure too much.
- John Norby