Radiohead - The King of Limbs (Live From the Basement)

Check out Radiohead performing songs in support of their latest album The King of Limbs below.  It's another entry from the From the Basement team.  Let me know what you think.

Arctic Monkeys - 'Suck It And See'

 

Domino; 2011

Our Take - 8.5

In 2005 Arctic Monkey front man Alex Turner topped influential British magazine NME's inaugural "Cool List". What was so astonishing about this is that the band, with Turner at the helm, were already being coined as saviors of British guitar rock after releasing just one EP.  The expectations put on the band were massive, and a band less skilled could have easily been crushed by them.  But the Arctic Monkeys are good-- musically, and otherwise. Their debut, 2006's Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, became the fastest selling debut in UK history going 4x platinum-- it is a raucous, careless, middle-finger of an album weaved with an uncompromising amount of confidence. That confidence, as well as their musicianship has allowed the Arctic Monkeys to push the media and critics behind them, and by this point, and for good reason, the critics are leaving their creation story behind and talking about what is most important to the band, their music.

If there was ever any ever doubt about the Arctic Monkeys as a band with staying power,  Suck It and See, the bands fourth, will squash it.  The album, while not as immediately engaging as some of their other work, is the most satisfying of the lot.  No question about it, you'll miss something on the first listen.  Whether it is one of Turner's fanciful, witty, and always quotable lyrical turns, or one of drummer Matt Helder's deceptively complex fills or flourishes, no doubt there will be something new revealed with each spin. 

Some were expecting a return to form after the artistic wanderings of the ultra-heavy and sludgy sound featured in their third record Humbug, but it is less of a reboot than it is an evolution.  The band has continued to grow with each record and Suck It And See is the logical next step of a band that has aged incredibly well.  It sounds retro in a sense, coherent like a throwback to a time when the album as a whole was more important than the individual tracks.  However, even on a track to track basis the record is solid throughout.  It contains slow burners like "Black Treacle", "Love Is A Laserquest", and "Reckless Serenade", that are as good songwriting wise as anything the band has put to disc.  But it also has tracks more reflective of the high energy level of their first two albums with tracks like the tightly-wound "Library Pictures", the straightforward structured rock sound of "Brick By Brick", and the sneering "Don't Sit Down 'Cuz I've Moved Your Chair". 

But perhaps the most impressive aspect of the album are Turner's lyrics.  He is comical on "Don't Sit Down..." as he describes terrible events that are all seemingly worse than sitting down where a chair used to be and lovelorn on "Piledriver Waltz", when he achingly describes miserable food and a worse waitress.  He is poetic, and deceptively dark on "She's Thunderstorms" and wise beyond his years on closing track and personal favorite "That's Where You're Wrong", when he asserts,"Don't take it so personally, honey/ You're not the only one that time has got it in for."  Most impressive of all, title track "Suck It And See", contains some of the bands most memorable lyrics to date, "that’s not a skirt, girl, it’s a sawn-off shotgun/ and I can only hope you’ve got it aimed at me”.  While Turner has always impressed with his lyrical wit and imaginative description, his lyrics on this album are allowed to breathe a little bit and to exist in a space of their own for a more dramatic and lasting effect.

Suck It And See is getting a lot of press because of it's minimalistic cover sleeve and it's controversial album title, but the only thing that should be advertised concerning the disc is how solid it is through and through.  The record is subtle and rewarding, the work of artists well-honed in their craft.  The band grew up fast, and it nice to see their music do the same thing.

Acoustic rendering of title track, 'Suck It and See'.

It's June, Here Are Some Lists

With June we get sunshine, smiles, a beach if we're lucky (a shitty summer job if we're not)... but the best part of the month may have nothing to do with the season at all.  What then is the best part you may ask?  Half way mark best of lists!!!

Below are just a few (of the countless) lists from a few publications we tune in to pretty often.  Let's get some feedback on who at this point you think is underrated, overrated, or not rated at all, and look for our list in the following days (weeks, months, kidding!).

SPIN'S 25 Best Albums of 2011... So Far 

SPIN'S 24 Summer Albums That Matter Most 

Stereogum's Top 20 Albums of 2011 So Far

Top 12 Albums Overlooked By Stereogum's Best of '11 So Far

Gorilla vs. Bear's favorites of 2011.5

And The Indie Song of Summer 2011 is... 

CoS Presents... The Hottest Albums of Summer 2011 

Let us know what you think in the comment section. Hope you are enjoying the month just as much as we are.

Death Cab for Cutie - 'Codes and Keys'

Atlantic; 2011
Our Take - 7.1 

It feels strange to say that Death Cab is an underrated band, but I truly believe they are, at least in a "critical" sense. On one hand, their talents have certainly been acknowledged-- they are one of the few "indie" acts that have signed and been successful on a major label, not to mention their very existence has spawned an entire sub-genre of music (i.e. Freelance Whales and Owl City, to name just a few), but on the other hand, their albums have never reviewed particularly well on websites or in magazines.

I feel like this is a serious problem, but I doubt the band has ever considered it as such. They will be known as one of the pioneering indie acts of our lifetime and are one of the few bands that I can say with confidence will have music passed down generation to generation So why would they care? They probably don't, but I do, and I'm left wondering why their records don't seem to cut it with critics.

Before this turns into an essay on the nature of music criticism and how Death Cab seems to always get slighted (I'll come back to that), I'd like to refocus-- Death Cab has released a new record, Codes and Keys, and it is sort of different than anything they've done to this point.  This is sometimes a good move for a band-- make a new record, add more to the palette, expand creatively, and see how many new tricks can be thrown in while maintaining the same auteur signature.  Codes and Keys follows this pattern exactly, but to mixed results.

My biggest problem is that before the release of this record the band talked and talked about how experimental the record was for them, how they've never done anything like it, and how they were going to, for the most part, set down their guitars in favor of other instrumentation (vintage keyboards!).  They even touted their major inspiration for the album, Brian Eno's epic, Another Green World.  What a surprise it was turning this record for the first time-- from everything they said I was expecting something much different and with all the hype they put around experimentation, the album needed to be different.  Sound wise it isn't that different or that experimental, and certainly, after listening to Codes and Keys, my thoughts don't drift towards Brian Eno.  I can't say I was disappointed with what I was hearing, but rather I was disappointed with what I wasn't hearing.  Codes and Keys isn't a huge jump for the band, rather it just sounds like the next logical step in the bands maturation.

Fans of previous albums might revel in the familiarity of the tracks.  "Underneath the Sycamore" has a remarkably similar structure to Plans opening number, "Marching Bands of Manhattan", "Some Boys" (which probably could have been left off the record) and "Portable Television" share the same kind of boyish earnestness that Death Cab has captured before in tracks like "Talking Bird" and "You Can Do Better Than Me", and "You Are a Tourist" is almost as catchy as "Soul Meets Body".  While familiarity can be comforting, it can also make an album feel overly recycled as Codes and Keys often does.

It has it's moments though, "Doors Unlocked and Open" is as good as anything they've recorded and shows glimpses of a record that could have been.  Unobstructed Views" is probably the most "experimental" track and shows a side of the band that hasn't really been tapped before and "Monday Morning" could be song of the summer.  Best of all, "Stay Young, Go Dancing" captures Death Cab at their most intimate on the record, and echoes a sentiment that only a band of their caliber and experience could make.

So Codes and Keys isn't quite as good as most of the band's previous albums, but it is coherent, has a nice theme (a positive one, thanks Zooey!), flows remarkably well,  and is really pretty good on a track to track basis.  The real difference is Codes and Keys just isn't as close or as intimate as almost all of their other discs are.  Death Cab has always put a huge emphasis on lyrics and intimacy and their latest, simply put, doesn't reach the high bar set by their past records.  The record as a whole seems distant, even a little bit cold.  Gibbard seems to overlook poetics this time around substituting them for simple rhymes ("Some boys are filling the hole/ They're making a killing at the top of the billings") and overarching generalizations as in title track "Codes and Keys", ("We are one/ We are alive").  His voice is often also hidden in reverb or echo and for a lyricist that has always seemed within reach it puts him oddly out of touch.
Wait, aren't you being just like the critics that continually slight Death Cab's records??????? Well, yes and no.  Death Cab, because of how close they are to the hearts of many of their fans are a hard band to critique.  Do I think it is as good as Transatlanticism? No way.  But someone might.  Bottom line, this is a solid record from a band that will continue to make solid records.  I just wish they'd keep their influences to themselves.

Fleet Foxes - 'Helplessness Blues'

Sub Pop; 2011

Our Take - 9.1


Robin Pecknold and his infamous gang of harmonizing gentlemen have returned to follow up their largely successful self-titled debut album released in 2008. A lot of noteworthy things have happened in the three years separating these two records. For one the band, especially Robin, has certainly felt the spotlighted pressure fueled by an enormous cult-like following that accompanied the release of their first album. Robin has also undergone one of the most intense creative/self-critical periods in his songwriting career thus far. He has gone from scrapping songs half-way through to monotonously restructuring complete albums. Helplessness Blues has been a long time coming and has undergone an extremely rigorous reformation. Mr. Pecknold has also been going through a tumultuous break-up/make-up relationship for several years, which no doubt weighs heavy on any given susceptible songwriting mind and heavily influences lyrics as well as musical style. 

Perhaps most noticeably the changes can be seen in the poetics of the record. The lyrics seem largely more intuitive and pensive with an almost overwhelming stress on aging and validation at times nearly unthinkable in such a youthful singer/songwriter as the twenty-something Robin Pecknold ("So guess I got old / I was like trash on the sidewalk," "In that dream I'm as old as the mountains" etc.). "Montezuma" begins with Pecknold searching for meaning in the simple fact that he is now older than his parents were when they had their first child. Likewise, the title track reflects upon what Pecknold dreams of doing with his life as he looks for a spirituality or philosophy to determine his place in the universe. He is faced with the difficulty of choosing between creating a persona wholly original and unique or accepting a more simple life and retreating to work on an orchard with a loved one. Properly placed, "The Cascades," being the only instrumental track on the record, gives the listener a much needed moment to decipher the weight of Pecknold's last declaration, "Someday I'll be like the man on the screen," and decide whether his motives remain purely his own or have been too influenced by movies and media.

The Fleet Foxes have also harnessed a strong ability to create and fuse multiple mini-tracks within one another often transitioning superbly from one musical idea to the next. The effect is that of unpredictability throughout and keeps us on our toes not knowing which direction the music is headed. Even "Helplessness Blues" being a single track in itself (w/o slash indications that is) has a noticeable transition where the song can be neatly divided in half. Their longest effort on the album, "The Shrine / An Argument," begins with a soft sung narrative and quickly explodes into Pecknold really pushing the limits of his voice and nearly shouting lyrics through our speakers, and the song's still not even half over. It closes with some of the strangest musical sounds to come out of a saxophone, let alone the Fleet Foxes, making us wonder once again how we got here, but also simultaneously realizing the reasons as to why the track might be titled "An Argument."

Some tracks on Helplessness Blues also seem to have more of a kick to them. The rhythmically driven "Battery Kinzie" or album closer "Grown Ocean" emphasize a bigger sound than their previous album did and appear to be more percussively oriented, a direction that should be respected and cherished within such a group of harmonizing folksy fellows. That being said, Robin can still appropriately take things back a step and demarcate a track solely for his voice and an unaccompanied guitar reminiscent of "Meadowlarks" to show off his versatility as an all-around songwriter ("Blue Spotted Tail"). The harmonies are less abundant on this record than on their self-titled debut, but still in considerable high demand. They appear to come in at just the right moments, when Pecknold needs that added volume to emphasize or decorate lasting choruses and lingering melodies to make a lasting impression upon any listener, both passive and active.

Panda Bear - 'Tomboy'

Paw Tracks; 2011

Our Take - 8.1

It's hard to listen to Tomboy, the latest from Noah Lennox’s Panda Bear project 

without comparing it to its largely successful predecessor. Panda Bear's most recent 

effort deviates quite bravely from the sound of his last, 2007’s career defining 

Person Pitch. On Tomboy we get no twelve-minute epic tracks that ambitiously 

explore the possibilities and limits of a more tendered minimalistic and repetitious 

approach (“Bros”, “Good Girl/Carrots”), and we get no bold sound juxtapositions 

where two unlikely songs bleed into one another almost spontaneously. Instead, 

we get eleven difficult and experimental tracks trapped into semi-conventional song 

structures and recycled as warm and inviting pop songs.

Panda Bear has compiled a superb collection of solid go-to songs. However, the 

songs have been scaled back and introverted to some degree with an increased 

focus on maintaining some semblance of a more familiar song structure. Each track 

operates within the closed system of itself and Panda Bear gives equal attention 

and effort into demarcating a unique ambiance to every individual track. That being 

said Lennox has still managed to accomplish a lot of imaginative things here while 

reverting to a more conventional method of song writing. The lyrics, when one can 

actually discern them or bothers to look them up, also seem more introverted and 

tend to maintain a more focused emphasis on the personal (e.g. "You can count on 

me," "Now I see you again"). Often times Noah Lennox orchestrates the focal point 

of his songs around speaking directly to the listener or some singled out personage 

lurking somewhere within the artist's own imagination.  This more intimately geared approach creates a space for him to pronounce and reinvent universal truths where artist and listener can connect on the same plane-- not only with each other, but with the entire world (provided they have their ears open), and share in a unique experience of the music as in "Benfica," 

the album closer, when he sings out above the raucous roar of an apropos crowd 

that "there is nothing more true or natural than wanting to win."

Musically Tomboy does not disappoint—a concentrated listen reveals a lot of dazzling moments. Somehow Panda Bear manages to structure a whole track ("Scheherazade") around one repeated chord on the piano, making the same harmony sound new with each bold repetition. He holds our attention in the album's dead center track, "Drone," as he fuses lyrics together, slowly sliding from one word to the next almost subconsciously so that we do not know how we came to abruptly arrive at the end of the track. "Last Night At The Jetty" will 

certainly stand out appropriately as sing-along-material due to its catchy melodic 

refrain and familiar chord structure, however, the way in which he presents this 

unforgettable track should stand out as a testament to why we respect and admire 

him as an artist.

Without question, Panda Bear's music, and his main outfit Animal Collective’s 

music, have become somewhat of an iconic subgenre within all contemporary 

experimental-pop music. Given the praise for Lennox’s own Person Pitch and the 

instantaneous success of his band’s 2009 gem, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Noah 

Lennox and Animal Collective fans alike must be asking themselves the same 

question, "Where do we go from here?" Rest assured, it is safe to say that both will 

continue pushing musical boundaries to incredible results.

Since I've Been Gone...

So it has been over a month since I've posted.  Why?  End of the semester, graduation, moving, start of the summer, work, etc., etc.  While I may have slowed down, the music world around me has picked up--it is only May and for some reason, all I can think about are year end lists.  In fact, the amount of great releases this year has been incredibly overwhelming (in a writerly sense, not as a listener), and way too much for me to handle on my own. I've created a review debt, a pile of albums that all deserve adequate commentary.  But, as I mentioned, the load is just too great.

Enter John Gibbs, a fantastic writer, music enthusiast, and the latest member to join the Ebbz and Flowzzzz team.  He is going to help me get the ball rolling once again starting with a review of Panda Bear's latest, Tomboy-- it should be up in the next day or so.  Following that review, we're going to try to follow more of a regular schedule with posting. Soon we will be bringing you the latest music news, album and concert reviews, and much more.

In the meantime, check out new releases from the artists below.  You can find them at your local record store, Amazon, or Itunes.  Thanks for your patience.

2011 New Releases

Starfucker - Reptilians
TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
Republic Tigers - No Man's Land EP
Tyler, the Creator - Goblin
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong
Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for My Halo
EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints
The Antlers - Burst Apart
Wild Beasts - Smother
Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact
Cass McCombs - WIT'S END
Nicholas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise
Panda Bear - Tomboy
Toro y Moi - Underneath the Pine
Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
The Lonely Island - Turtleneck and Chain
The Cars - Move Like This