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MP3: Elvis Perkins in Dearland – Doomsday

After many attempts to categorize the folk genre, I have found it impossible to pigeonhole such a broad spectrum of music. Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan may have paved the way for the male vocalist, but the breed of folk sound has evolved with popular taste.

In his first release since Ash Wednesday’s debut in 2007, Elvis Perkins released his sophomore album on March 10 2009, titled after his live band: Elvis Perkins in Dearland.  Although the record drops traces of indie folk rock influences, the singer-songwriter leaves plenty of room for the spoken word. His lyrics flow more in the form of poetry than verse-refrain, marinating in tender prose of allusion and symbolism:

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MP3: Dan Deacon – Snookered

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MP3: Dan Deacon – Slow with Horns / Run for your life

I’ve always appreciated Dan Deacon’s music in the same way I have symphonic music. Both have their places in my personal musical collection, and I can understand what’s good about them, but they’re not usually what I’d put in a mix and force my friends to listen to. Deacon was fun to enjoy live now and then, but there wasn’t anything particularly resounding about his recorded material that made me want to listen again at home.

His latest release, Bromst, has significantly changed my relationship with his music.

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MP3: The Thermals – Misfit (Wipers cover) from Datrotter Session

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MP3: The Thermals – Back to the Sea from 2006′s The Body, The Blood, The Machine

The Thermals (Wiki) are probably one of my favorite projects to come out of the Portland scene in the past decade, and definitively made a case for pop-punk that matters.

In just their first 2 years, they released as many self-recorded albums (More Parts Per Million & Fuckin’ A), sprint-length and packed with the lowest-fidelity punk you could dream of.  Guitars shredding through your speakers like razors, rusty shards of metal being shaken up in a tin can.  The result was exhilirating, almost exhausting in purity.  A complete embrace of the founding elements of punk music: simple, short songs, high volume and distortion, and a DIY ethos.

Then along comes 2006′s absolutely remarkable The Body, The Blood, The Machine, a relatively lush and glorious pop-punk album, their lo-fi sound seemed to be a bygone era, and the Thermals brought us a whole different kind of apocalypse than we expected.  Continuing the trend of sylistic pairs of albums with their latest, Now We Can See (a sequel to the events and ideas from TBTBTM), Hutch Harris and Kathy Foster have packed another record to the gills with tight and slick gems.

So what do the Thermals bring to the table that sets them apart from their obvious forebears, groups like the Ramones, that similarly played simple, ultra-hooky pop-infused punk?

Lyrics.

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MP3: Soft Cement – Green Zone

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MP3: Soft Cement – Wet Concrete

Don’t miss Soft Cement’s show TONIGHT, Wed Mar 11 at Charm City Art Space.  Kids in Soft Cement are injured.  No show for them!

You hear it in the shimmering din of the opening notes, and through the rest of this Baltimore duo’s debut 4 track EP, Think About It.  

Soft Cement firmly declares its manifesto of insistent and precisely sculpted noise punk, soundtracking pensive and politically charged vocals.   Read the rest…

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MP3: Arbouretum – False Spring

Don’t miss Arbouretum’s CD release party at the Talking Head this Tues Mar 3!

I don’t think I cast any illusions about the fact that I consider myself a writer, particularly of fiction (though if you weighed my recent output, you’d be hard-pressed to divine that). It comes as no surprise then, that I am particularly fond of music, and albums, that seem to spawn from a writer’s mind. While musical cohesion obviously takes precedence above any other aspect of an album’s content, lyrical richness that approaches that of prose, elevates any musician to another plane of artistry.

Dave Heumann, the creative impulse behind Arbouretum, exemplifies this combination of traits. In my writings on Arbouretum, I’ve cast Heumann as a gifted storyteller and I’m comfortable in venturing to say he is a writer at heart (I think there’s some support for this standpoint in our interview with him last year). But I’d say that Heumann has finally resolved his musical vision, coalescing it with his lyrical ability into a document that may represent a new apex for the project.

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If you don’t have a bloody valentine, you can still enjoy The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

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MP3: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Come Saturday

Do you ever worry that somewhere along the line you got the wrong impression about yourself and it wound up shaping the person you are today?  Like suppose in 5th grade your teacher complimented a story you wrote and you took it to heart, and now today you find yourself writing when in reality you’d have been much better off as, say, an astronaut. 

I feel like The Pains of Being Pure At Heart may suffer from a similar delusion.  How could they help it, really, with all the positive press referencing My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride, and just about every indie-tastic band just before the turn of the 1990s?  And with months of buildup around the internet and the local media outlets about the release of their self-titled Slumberland debut, could the album itself possibly live up to its expectations?

A week after its release, critical opinion mostly holds that it did.   Read the rest…

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MP3: Benjy Ferree – Fear

Benjy Ferree’s (Wiki) first album hinted at a promising future.  He is one of a sizeable stable of musicians undertaking the fusion of a deep love of Americana with an unabiding passion for rock.  Too often this leads to uninteresting and unsatisfying ends: pale imitations of rural folk, gimmicky and trite psych-folk meanderings…the list of mediocre iterations is endless.  But the top tier of these artists are possessed of uncanny arranging ability, an ear for dynamic interplay between vocal and instrumental voices, and a unique alchemy that lends the music an unclassifiable quality that breaks the shackles of its influences.  

To my ears, Benjy Ferree is one of these top tier talents.

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MP3: Weekends – Cookie Salad and Buddy System

Weekends are making something I’ve been yearning for that seems in short supply. Their music is a sonicated form of optimism, refined and measured into well-sized portions ripe for enjoyment and resulting in one of the most buoyant and unapologetically rock releases I’ve put in my player since Ponytail’s Ice Cream Spiritual. Read the rest…

Enjoy these exclusive world premieres from Baltimore Highlands while you read this review!

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MP3: Height With Friends – Baltimore Highlands

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MP3: Height With Friends – Code of Love

I would hardly consider myself expert or even well-versed in hip-hop or rap, but I know that the vast majority of what goes on in those circles today is distasteful to me.  I am weary of the over-the-top chest-puffing machismo and misogyny, xenophobia, and militarism that plagues much of modern rap/bling-hop.

Thankfully Height is different. Read the rest…

Enjoy this exclusive track leak from Caverns!

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MP3: Caverns – Dance you son of a bitch

It’s been a while since I’ve listened to something this fun.

My first impression of Caverns was a very positive one, and they’ve never dropped the ball live since.  Caverns boldly produce instrumental hard rock music, with the only vocals for miles being a lone adrenalized shout.  Calling into play bits of melodic hardcore and metal, yet retaining a technical outlook that strays in and out of math and prog, this is Dilinger Escape Plan dabbling with the catchier elements of pop and less abrasive, equally aggressive metal sans obnoxious cookie-monster vocals.

On this EP, they manage to hone their style into an engaging release they can be proud of. Read the rest…