DC Easter Eggs: The Return of Greatness

Thought I'd take the opportunity of a sunny Sunday to offer a trio of Easter eggs dipped in black, a noir triptych that forms the soundtrack to a night on the prowl, all leather jackets, cigarette embers, and devilish intent. First up is the latest offering from the Swedish duo The Raveonettes, the husband and wife duo with strange names that continue to provide doo-wop style gems laced with menace. Their sixth album, Raven in the Grave, follows the blueprint of their previous ones -- angelic vocals, walls of wildly distorted guitars, and simple, primal drums -- while adding a new wrinkle of synthesizers. This gives the proceedings a shimmery, new wave feel that wouldn't sound out of place in the 1980s, all reverb, hazy silhouettes, and cocaine-induced blur.

The band has always managed to sound like a throwback to earlier eras -- be it early 60s doo-wop for the vocals, mid-40s biker gangs for the noir imagery and atmosphere, or late 60s proto-punk for the distorted guitars -- often times on the same disc. But they've always managed to incorporate the best elements of those eras and add something new, rather than sounding like hackneyed knockoffs. They've grown well past the limitations of their first two albums where they recorded every song in the same key (first B, then B minor, respectively), which led some to criticize them as gimmicky and similar-sounding. Now they seem guided by more creative (versus commercial) motivations and the music has never sounded better.

"Evil Seeds" and "Apparitions" strike hard, all swirling guitars, black atmosphere, and loud-quiet-loud dynamics, while "Summer Moon," "Forget that You're Young," and "My Time's Up" provide the counterbalance, with sweet, hushed harmonies and bits of surfer-style guitar riffs bursting out of the calm. The album sounds a bit like your inner demons waging war with themselves -- at turns dark and menacing, others sweet and innocent, with neither holding sway for too long. Which side ultimately wins out depends on the mood and the track, but overall nothing tops "War in Heaven," a near five minute gem that builds momentum layer upon layer until its feedback-tinged close. Check it out here:





Next up is the 2006 debut from Austin's The Black Angels, Passover, which is appropriate today for the obvious associations of its title, but also the amount of time they avoided detection. The fact that it took me nearly four years to hear about these guys is something of a crime, as they're right up my alley -- all backlit black atmosphere, bluesy swagger, and solid, gritty rock. (The fact that they steal their name from one of the Velvet Underground's debut songs doesn't hurt either, and should give you an idea of both their aspirations and aesthetic.)

Like the band of their moniker's inspiration, the Angels have perfected the simple formula of droning, buzzing guitars, throbbing, thudding percussion, and psychedelic, stylized lyrics and vocals. From the ominous opener of "Young Men Dead" to the chugging locomotive of the closing "Call to Arms" there's not a lemon among the album's ten songs. The band at turns sounds like a Velvet's cover band and a sibling of The Doors with its dark imagery and cryptic (and at times corny) poetry. Alex Maas' baritone swirls around guitarist Christian Bland's and bassist Nathan Ryan's hornet's drone riffs, all three driven along by drummer Stephanie Bailey's pulverizing rhythms. (Organist Jennifer Raines provides subtler support to the witch's brew.)

"Better of Alone," "Bloodhounds on my Trail," and "The First Vietnamese War" are propulsive gems, while "The Sniper at the Gates of Heaven" and "Manipulation" are throbbing, simmering infernos. Nothing tops "Black Grease," though, which captures all these elements in a tight four-and-a-half minute stampede. For an album that is meant to be played in the dark of night, speeding down the highway on the way to the kill, this is the apex -- halfway through the album, halfway through your consideration of what's to come. There's no turning back after this point -- liquid fire guitars, a sledgehammer backbeat, and a chorus of "killkillkillkill" burn away all resistance, leaving you a slave to the remainder. Consider yourself lucky, here:




Finally, we'll close with The Kills fourth offering, Blood Pressures. If the Raveons represented your conscience warring with itself in this noir analogy and the Angels represented those darker impulses winning out en route to the crime, the Kills are the culmination of that coming to pass. This album is all gritty swagger and malicious intent -- from the scalding opener "Future Starts Slow" through similar scorchers "Satellite," "Heart is a Beating Drum," and "Nail in my Coffin" (as good an opening salvo as you'll find this year), the disc doesn't slow down until the sweet "Wild Charms" nearly twenty minutes in. (Which is only a momentary respite at 1:15 long.)

Guitarist Jamie Hince remains one of the best examples of why you should pick up a guitar, a point never more evident than on this album. Not because he's a technically gifted prodigy like Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix. You will find no Van Halen-style finger wreckers here that will inspire the various guitar rags to transcribe their every note. (He actually appears to fumble part of his solo in "Beating Drum.") Rather Hince makes you want to play guitar because, like similar deity Jack White, of how he makes that guitar sound. Hince's playing is all raw, explosive emotion -- his aforementioned flub in "Beating Drum" is actually one of the best parts of the album, as that solo melts your speakers with its incendiary heat.

Sexy, gritty, and raw, this album (as with each of the band's previous offerings) is not about a tender night of love with your significant other. This is intimacy of a different sort, of striding into your apartment, acquiring your target, and getting down to business with nary a word spoken. These guys remain the epitome of cool and the definition of why rock and roll will always have something over hip hop, electro, and all other forms of music -- for all the similar selling points the best of those genres have to offer (and they are plentiful), none of them will ever be able to tap into our most primal instincts like this and force you to comply. This is serious business, and the Kills remain its most skilled purveyors.

Check out "DNA" here, the killer backend to the aforementioned "Wild Charms," which forms a White Album-style soft-loud combo in the middle of the album. (And is every bit as skilled and diverse as that album's myriad offerings.) Sexy and self-assured, with Alison Mosshart's vocals practically writhing into your ears, if this doesn't get in your brain and start you salivating you officially have no libido. (You can stream it on the right side of the page at the below link...)

http://www.thekills.tv/index.php

--------------------------------------------------------------------

We'll close with a teaser, the lead single from French DJ dynamos Justice's new album. The proteges of Daft Punk and inheritors of their kingdom (you've got to hope those legends have something more in them than the lukewarm Tron soundtrack), this follow-up is something I've been fiending for for nearly four years, avidly checking the Interweb for any news of a release date or tour. Unfortunately only scanty live sets or DJ mixes were all that was available.

The fact that their debut hasn't gotten old in that span, despite repeated listens, is testament to its potency, and also a HUGE weight hanging over their return. Hopefully this single is a sign of what we'll find, as infectious as anything off that debut. (And one that wouldn't sound out of place on Daft's Discovery.) When the feedback drops in at 2:57, you're done -- ready to run through walls face first like Kool Aid. Crank up the volume and get ready for one of the summer's sure dancefloor igniters. Until next time, amici...

April's Fool: Summer in Mind, Spring by our Side

Welcome back, mah chitlins! Now that the crisis has officially been averted and we've been told it's safe to go about our lives again (no, Japan still smolders and the skirmish in Libya still rages, but the US government will remain OPEN! -- huzzah!), I thought I'd kickstart the party with a few tunes. It's been a veritable feast of good music lately, which has only served to accentuate my already stellar mood.

First up is the sophomore effort from Brooklyn-based songstress Sharon Van Etten, Epic. Weighing in with a mere seven songs, this one could have come across as a flightly, interim offering, more EP than LP as she rejiggered her sound. (Her debut Because I Was in Love was a more spare acoustic affair.) Instead what we're treated to are seven spectacular songs. From the fierily resilient opener "A Crime," where she spits the line "never let myself love like that again" at an anonymous lover, to the hushed, throbbing closer "Love More," where heartbreak has beaten her nearly into submission. Hope quietly burns like a Sterno flame amidst the wreckage -- low, blue, yet present.

There's nary a lemon to be found -- even the shambling dirge "DsharpG" works its way in, coasting out of the fog like a phantom funeral ship, all tattered sails and grimy lanterns. Throughout the album Van Etten sounds like pre-Nashville Cat Power. (Think You Are Free era, minus the slide guitar honkytonk of "Save Yourself," which wouldn't sound out of place on her modern day offerings.) She's not necessarily doing anything new, all twin-tracked vocals, folksy guitar, and lyrics of love and loss. But she's not doing anything bad either. So what if she's mining from an established well?

From the simple strum and driving kick of "Peace Signs" and "Don't Do It" to the aforementioned tracks. Her voice is fantastic -- at turns gutshot and heartbroken, others quiet confidence and fire. The album beckons you in immediately and hangs on your heart for its scanty seven-song duration. None moreso than the following track, "One Day," which is an absolute sledgehammer of a song. Encapsulating all the anxieties, uncertainties, and hopeful optimism of love, this one dances from verses of forlorn doubt to those of quiet determination, all amidst a beautiful melody and some of Van Etten's most evocative lyrics:

snow is outside but i'm by your fire
i feel all the love you'll bring
you gotta see how we can see this out
summer in mind and spring by your side
you'll see all the love we'll keep

Great images, great melody, great song -- one we've all lived through at one point or another. (Though maybe not as harmoniously.) Check it out here:




Next up is the third offering from San Francisco band The Dodos, a band built around the twosome of singer/guitarist Meric Long and drumming maelstrom Logan Kroeber, the latter the apparent human equivalent of Animal from the Muppet Show. After the more sedate affair of their sophomore effort, Time to Die, I was worried the fire that made their debut Visiter (one of my all-time favorite road trip soundtracks) explode was gone. Thankfully, this album is a return to form (and a close second to that debut), an unmitigated rocketship to exhilaration.

From the moment "Black Night" opens, charging from the gate like a bull down Estafeta, you're committed until the album closer "All Night" -- stop moving or fight the joyous flow and you run the risk of being trampled underfoot, just as those Ferminos do in Pamplona. Like that dance with lunacy, though, the result is pure adrenaline. I defy anyone to listen to this album and not be taken in -- Kroeber is a drumming encyclopedia, giving a clinic on the number of rhythms and beats possible with a basic five-piece kit and the result is magic. If you don't start twitching with the beat or find yourself fighting the urge to flail around the room like a hippie in a drum circle, you might be dead.

"Black Night," "Going Under," "Good," "Don't Stop," and "Hunting Season" are all irresistible, and while they stand well enough on their own, what makes the album truly great (as with their debut) is how well the flow into each other. To truly appreciate the album you've got to listen to it in its entirety, riding the ebbs and flow into the stratosphere. (Hence the brilliance of the road trip usage.) Scarlet siren Neko Case helps out on roughly half the tracks, and while her voice has the capacity to be heard outside Saturn, she blends so effectively with her harmonies that you barely notice she's there.

Case (no pun intended) in point, check out "Don't Try and Hide It," just one of the many great tracks on display here. This one's got everything, though -- Long's great voice and percussive strumming, Kroeber going batshit on the cans, and Case mellowing out the mania with her backup of the shout-it-out song title chorus. A perfect motto for the album writ large, give it a listen and let it do to you what it will...




And now, for something completely different... While the previous two spoke to the heart, giving off a sense of hope and exuberance, this one is more cerebral and cool. Not that this is surprising considering the artist -- I'm speaking of the latest offering from British giants Radiohead and their ninth disc, The King of Limbs. Released with relatively little pomp and circumstance directly via their website, their latest batch of eight songs are in line with recent albums like In Rainbows (I and II), all nervous energy and twitchy electro beats. However also in line with those albums is the sexiness pervading their music that never was there before.

While albums like Kid A, Amnesiac, and even the masterful OK Computer experimented with electronic elements, the result was often cold, desolate, and somewhat depressing. (Though this being Radiohead, being upset over that would be akin to lamenting the sun going behind the clouds to find a pile of gold previously obscured by the glare.) Compounding the fact was Yorke's ethereal moan and cryptic, apocalyptic lyrics. The Rainbows twins, however, added a slinkiness to the songs that warmed the electro cool and augmented their power. Songs like "Nude," "Reckoner," and "Up on the Ladder" were perfect examples, combining a sensuality with the sturdy elements of old. Yorke even jettisoned some of the mystery in his lyrics to be literal, singing to a woman about lovelorn neediness and lust.

So while there are still songs here that wouldn't sound out of place on Eraser -- the opener "Bloom" and "Feral" positively pulsate with nervous energy, while "Morning Mr Magpie" might just be the epitome of what the style can achieve, crackling with anxious urgency -- the album's back half (and some of its best tracks) are redolent with the aforementioned slink. "Separator," "Give up the Ghost," and "Lotus Flower" are excellent, filled with Yorke's soaring voice and the band gliding along in lockstep.

Nothing tops the muted gem "Codex" for me, though. Stylistically (and numerically) there's not much there -- it's just Yorke at his piano, alone with his wounded wail again, pouring his heart out to the heavens. Something about the song just grabs you, though -- the echoing voice, the naked honesty, the pretty melody. The song comes out of your speakers in a whisper, suffused with blue light and mystery. Is it about suicide, or a midnight dip; gutshot depression or uplifted freedom -- who knows? It just works. The fact that a band that's been at it this long can continue to add, adjust, and perfect new elements while stripping away so much of what once made them popular is laudable -- that the music is still this good is nothing short of remarkable. Enjoy: