Citrus - Asobi Seksu

See, at first I thought the looks of slight embarrassment and mild titillation that I received when I told people about Asobi Seksu were just them being naive about a name which surely meant something else when translated from the original Japanese. Then I read the writing on the wall about this New York City-based band myself, and it was even more amusing than I thought - not only does Seksu actually mean what it sounds like, Asobi means "for fun". Yup, I'm talking up a band whose name means "playful sex". Let's just get that out of the way right off. On second thought, let's run with this.

Citrus is [Roll in the Hay]'s second album, after their self-titled debut in 2004, which introduced the band to its share of not entirely undeserved My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins comparisons. The shoegazing genre of music, to which the band belongs, is characterized by heavy distortion and use of effects pedals to blur two guitars on top of subtle vocals which generally tend to act as another instrument rather than express lyrics. It never really died in the mid-90s, with Smashing Pumpkins picking up the torch briefly and other bands experimenting with layered sounds for albums occasionally, but in the past 3 years, it's experienced a resurgence with Sigur Ros, M83, and...actually not too many others. The first album had some good hits, one of which, "Walk on the Moon", had its video played on MTV. The elitist in me recoiled at hearing this but then I mentally slapped myself, bearing in mind that I did in fact get introduced to Death Cab for Cutie by The OC.

Citrus (and in particular the first 6 tracks) is much more cohesive and suited to the album format than the first album, which was more of a collection of individual standout songs. One point to support this is that Yuki Chikudate, the lead vocalist, keeps most of the vocals in Japanese this time, where on the first album, she shifted from English to Japanese more frequently. On the fifth track, "Pink Cloud Tracing Paper", James Hanna steps in to do vocals before the longer and more pensive "Red Sea", sung again by Yuki. Truth be told, I do prefer the format of the first album - this one is more suited to filling a room and absorbing, which is not something I get to do often. The self-titled debut is much more palatable in individual track-sized bites.

Some NYC word association from a Gothamist interview:

---

Yankees
James: Let's buy a championship.
Keith: I always liked their uniforms.
Yuki: What a surprise. Did they win again? Get outta here.

Mets
James: Oh god not again.
Keith: I always hated their uniforms
Yuki: Fucking losers. (and I like them, too!)

---

Incidentally, [The Beast with Two Backs] is touring in Allston, MA on June 24 - sadly, that'll be the weekend after I'm coming in for ISCA.

Before I forget, CokeMachineGlow has an excellent review of Neko Case's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood that I should've linked to before.

Summary
Compare and contrast: Cocteau Twins, Rainer Maria, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps" (the only song of theirs I really like, so far)
Favorite synonym of the band's name: Clinton's Favorite Mistake
Reason to Buy: You liked "Dreams", by the Cranberries, and wonder what Dolores O'Riordan would sound like if she were Japanese (listen to the last track, "Mizu Asobi"). Nah, that's just silly. But if you would describe the Cocteau Twins as ethereal or lilting and not shrill or chirpy, then there's a good chance you'll like Citrus.
Reason not to Buy: You don't like excessive effects in your music, or meaningless vocals. To be fair, the effects aren't overused or completely characteristic of this band's style; Sigur Ros and M83 make much more thorough use of the magic pedals than Asobi Seksu does.

Living With War - Neil Young

Living with War may just be the capstone of Neil's Career, merging folksy acoustic protest songs with the bombastic electric work that earned him the nickname- the "Godfather of grunge". It is a perfect protest album crafted with the experience and exposure to protests that espoused half truths, languished in metaphor, or succeeded only through polarization. Living With War is biting, honest, hopeful, tragic, angry, and above all patriotic. Stream it.

Neil doesn't repeat the mistakes of his generations Vietnam's protests. He doesn't vilify soldiers. They are shown to be courageous people, doing a job, and wishing that they could be back with their families. The religion of the silent majority isn't mocked as outdated or hypocritical. Instead, it is declared "hijacked" to manipulate the masses.

The songs aren't written on party lines. While Neil spares no criticism of the Bush Administration, there are voices for democrats and republicans in these protest songs. Colin Powell and Barack Obama are named as potential leaders who could unify America after the next election.

Who would have guessed that America's most moving political album in years would be penned by a Canadian ex-pat. Yet somehow, Neil Young manages to embody America's great spirit and give it a voice to express outrage and hope for peace. He lashes out at consumerism, the war in Iraq, wire taps, and the mismanagement of New Orleans during Katrina.

Living with War is raw, unadulterated Neil Young. The instrumentation is simply Neil's guitar rich with analog distortion, bass, drums and the occasional trumpet. A 100 voice choir of lay people provides an emotive depth, and populist relevance. There are some warts in the recording, some missed timings, and awkward harmonies. These flaws add to the albums homespun feel. It's nothing if not a genuine expression of Neil Young's current take on US politics.

Perhaps the poignancy of the songs comes from Neil's point of view as an American who truly feels mislead. He wasn't anti-Bush from day 1. Like most Americans, Neil was deeply angered by 9/11; but ,unlike many of his hippie compatriots, Neil spoke in favor of the patriot act. He wrote songs honoring the Hero's of Flight 93 and expanding a metaphor justifying war to stop evil.

It really doesn't matter why it's effective. Living with War is simply the most moving record I've heard since Springsteen's "The Rising".

Rating: 5/5
Top Track: Let's Impeach The President
Reason to Buy: Honesty....Patriotism....Hope.... That's three... Sorry.
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: You're an ostrich with your head in the sand.

Sound the Alarm - Saves the Day

To offset the lovefest that this blog has become, I bring this mediocrity. Admittedly, it's high-end mediocrity at that.

I started off deciding against this album. I know Saves the Day well, and I'm well past the emo scene, given how it's sold out in the last 5 years. However, after a few listens to the album... I can't deny it. It might be my past affinity for the band playing tricks on my mind, but the music itself is solid for the genre and head and shoulders above contemporaries such as Fall Out Boy.

The guitar work is simple, but effective. The songwriting is whiny and overly graphic at times, but tolerable. The bass, however, is the shining star. While simple, like the guitar work, Manny Carrero gets a great growl out of his bass, especially on Shattered and Bones. The notes he's playing aren't amazing, but he knows his instrument and knows how to get just the right sound out of it. While powerful, it doesn't overpower other tracks and is used when and where it is most effective.

Chris Conley does a good job with the songwriting, as always. His lyrics are often unnecessarily gruesome in describing his whiny inner torment, but they end up at least marginally better than lyrics of other bands on the scene. The music itself is catchy emo/pop-punk. In the end, it in many ways sounds like a cross between whiny pop-emo and harder music like Green Day. So, marginally closer to punk than what you'll see playing on MTV2. Something I respect, since it shows that maybe, just maybe, their primary desire in making music isn't to sell out as quickly as possible.

Head For the Hills, the opener, sets the tone for an energetic album that doesn't pause for the first 8 tracks. With Don't Know Why, the album takes a slight turn and you see Saves the Day branching out a touch into something slower and a bit more melodic for the next 5 tracks, closing with Delusional and Hell is Here, which pick up the energy a bit before the end.

Compared to other works by Saves the Day, it doesn't compare to Through Being Cool, but beats the hell out of Stay What You Are, which I found to become annoying rather quickly. There isn't a great range in the album, but after the response to their last album, I can't blame them for sticking with what works. Overall, this is a solid album from one of the better emo bands out there. There aren't many to speak of, so finding one is nice. To see them not actively trying to whore themselves out to MTV is even better.

Rating: 2.5/5
Top Track: Shattered
Reason to Buy: You want good emo/punk minus the really poppy elements
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: You don't want to feel like an angsty high schooler all over again.

At War With the Mystics - The Flaming Lips

Hopeful Pessimism? Jaded optimism? The Flaming Lips' chaotically good follow up to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is ambiguously political. The satire and sarcasm is deep enough to be thought provoking, but light enough to be fun. This collection is not as conceptually or melodically united as Yoshimi but offers more interesting layers. The Lips mix vintage guitars on top of techno beats, and ambient sounds capes. They manage to employ every cheesy 60's and 70's effect to add credence and credability to their music. Even the talk box, which was long since destroyed by Peter Frampton is back, and relevant. At War with the Mystics will guitar geeks giggity glaven. Of course, there's too many synthesizers, and funky beats to call it a guitar album.

Like many cds prepared for the digital age, At War with the Mystics is front loaded with catchy tunes ready to be fed to a digital boom box. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power)and Free Radicals (A Hallucination Of The Christmas Skeleton Pleading With A Suicide Bomber, and The Sound Of Failure / It's Dark...Is It Always This Dark?? are tangled balls of fishing hooks waiting to grab every ear.

The transition from focused song craft into and out of spacey, flowing arrangements is particularly interesting. After the Yoshimi sound alike "My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion", the Lips explore space with languid arrangements and clever sonic juxtapositions. The album transitions back into structure with Mr. Ambulance Driver, a with a disco air, and shades of canadian breakbeat house. The remaining songs maintain the Lips' vague imagistic political criticism.

Rating:3.75/5
Top Track: Mr. Ambulance Driver
Reason to Buy:It's t9ime for an interstellar freak out
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: Politically charged recreational drug use does not amuse you.

The Life Pursuit - Belle & Sebastian

A fan recently inquired of Belle & Sebastian, "If Bono owns any of your albums which do you think it would be?" The answer from the band was "the next one. like us, he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for."

Indie pop: an oxymoron? Since their beginnings in 1996, the Glasgow-born group has written several albums of what some call "twee pop", twee meaning overly sweet or knowingly cute. The Life Pursuit is the latest incarnation. The jangly guitars hearken back to Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl"; a good deal of the album keeps the sunny disposition of "Another Sunny Day". It's hook-driven and harmony-laden, with what appear to be mildly inane lyrics about happy summer escapades. The last lines sometimes introduce a bit more ambiguity to the story you've just taken in, however ("Another Sunny Day", "Funny Little Frog"). Then again, looking for deeper meaning in most Belle & Sebastian songs, this album included, is a little like climbing an apple tree in February. Fruitless, I tells ya. Nice view, though. Remember how I was saying Fox Confessor Brings the Flood wasn't good for road trips? Throw this in instead - it's catchy, it's carefree, you might even sing to it (OK, probably not). You might want to refrain from rolling down the windows with the volume turned up at stop lights though. You're gonna get funny looks. Just sayin'.

On most pop type albums I find that there's a few songs that don't appeal to me, which I inevitably consider filler songs. With the exception of If You're Feeling Sinister, which with the exception of "The Boy Done Wrong Again", was 41 minutes of pure gold, most of Belle & Sebastian's albums (though not their EPs) have had a few filler tracks. Life Pursuit is no different; the album rapidly changes gears in "Dress Up in You" when I'd prefer to just jump into the upbeat "Sukie in the Graveyard". "But to be myself completely I've just got to let you down"...indeed, Stevie Jackson, indeed.

Fans of past work will notice that B&S has changed their style significantly since the early days; pulling an inverse Beatles, if you will. Rather than moving into more thoughtful fare as they age, they've decided to embrace a more upbeat and bouncy style. Then again, the video for "Funny Little Frog" is decidedly romantic and creepy at the same time. Download it - you'll see what I mean. Shades of Neko Case's cover of "Look for Me (I'll Be Around)".

Totally unrelated track to download: "Wishing" by Ed O.G. feat. Masta Ace. The hip-hop version of Lennon's "Imagine". Heard it on an episode of The Boondocks recently - the one where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. comes back. It samples the "we are the dreamers" quotation from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory as said by Gene Wilder. I wonder what Calvin thinks of The Boondocks? Personally I'm writing Aaron McGruder a letter to tell him how much I like the show but asking him what he thinks of approval voting, since he's voted for Nader in the past and taken flak for it from fellow liberals. Now if I could only find the guy's address... (why does no one even remotely famous in entertainment have a public email address?)

Summary
Phrasing: Disarmingly vintage.
Rating: 3.5/5 as a whole, 4/5 if you take into account the video for Funny Little Frog and I can discard 4 tracks. After this I'm probably going to stop listing a rating, as most of these are going to be 4/5 anyway. I wouldn't waste my time writing about an album I didn't enjoy, and if the album's a 5 it'll be clear enough from my review.
Defining Two Moments:
"Another day in June, we'll pick eleven for football
We're playing for our lives the referee gives us fuck all
I saw you in the corner of my eye on the sidelines
Your dark mascara bids me to historical deeds" (Another Sunny Day)

"I'll maybe tell you all about it someday" (Funny Little Frog)
Reason to Buy: Despite the absence of Isobel Campbell (well, she left the group in 2002), the group's still got a great deal of talent and as always, the hooks are quality. Sure, this doesn't have the depth of a Sufjan Stevens album, but it's very listenable and replayable.
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: Some would consider this sissy rock. And by "some," I mean "pretty much everyone that doesn't also happen to listen to The Magnetic Fields and Air".

Safety in Numbers - Umphrey's McGee

Umphrey's McGee planned to have a pleasant, furtive start to 2005 by spending the early winter months in the studio crafting a record. Fate had other ideas, and sent spirits plummeting when a close friend of the band was killed by a drunk driver while taking a cab from Umphrey's New Years show to a post-party at the keyboardist's house. Add a souring relationship and ugly break up to the emotional tumult and you have enough drama to pen a season of the OC.

It also inspired the band to pull together, finding safety in numbers, and record their best studio work to date, a record that captures the emotions that fueled recording, and begions to develop a studio personality for the band. Too many jambands get lost in the studio, trying to capture the essence of their live show, or unable to distill ten minute songs to concise and meaningful selections. That's not the case with this release. There are concise layered arrangements, an effective use of guest and supporting musicians, a few longer compositions, and an energy that is quintessentially Umphrey's.

What other band would open a record with the lines "Let this become memory / The worst is yet to come!". The joke is quickly washed away by the intense and strained piece, “Believe the Lie”. This song is one of a few on the album which were composed by assembling sections of the band's improvisations and honing them into complete songs. It is also one of the weaker cuts on the record, but most effectively sets the tone for the album. The song introduces one of the more interesting motifs of this release. The contrasting voices of Brendan Bayliss and Jake Cinninger are used to capture despair and hope, respectively. The hope may not be real, but it seems better than the ocean of pain. Alternating verses and songs help to balance the albums sound and feel.

The album begins to roll with the quieter "Rocker" which couples the loss of life to the end of a relationship. The dualism is explored throughout the album, but only after Cinninger ads some introspective levity with his Beatlesesque "Liquid". It's the same song as Ali Babba's Tahini's "Liquid in My Head", but is treated much differently with Umphrey's. It's a great song by it self, and is an excellent respite before the epic center piece "Words". It's a brooding sectional song that features a Zepplinesque build to an incredible instrumental, and vocal peak. This is the band's most epic composition since Divisions.

"Nemo", and "Women Wine and Song" belong on the radio. They have excellent hooks, and a genuine economy of composition. The latter also features Huey Lewis on backing vocals and harmonica. It's a honky-tonk Jake tune which serves as an homage to Little Feat, a respite, and contrasting opinion to the heavy undercurrents of the albums material.

Jazz Saxophonist Joshua Redman guests on "Intentions Clear", trading licks with Jake Cinninger, and blowing ripples and waves of fractional notes while Brendan Bayliss wails in his own, heavy hearted way. If Frank Zappa had written a serious musical version of Romeo and Juliet, this would be Romeo's final soliloquy.

"End of the Road" is a pleasant acoustic instrumental, which serves nicely to connect some melodic ideas from early selections and better exhibit the harmonica styings of Huey Lewis.

The final suite of songs are among the albums finest. "Passing" features incredible four part harmonies amidst pulsing prog rock. "Ocean Billy" presents a thoughtful re-interpretation of a concert staple, born of improv, into a masterpiece of studio rock showcasing drummer Kris Meyers. The re-envisioning of it's opening build is a bit controversial on fan sites, but the nay-sayers miss the boat on the possibilities of the studio. The album closes with the acoustic "The Weight Around" which provides some thematic closure, and ends with a pair of lines, which when take out of context are just as delightfully self deprecating as the cd's opening couplet.

"Safety in Numbers" is by far Umphrey's best studio album, and one of the best albums I purchased this year. This won't be the band's master piece. It shows too much unrealized promise.

Rating: 4/5
Top Track: Words
Reason to Buy: You've alway's wondered what would happen if Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin had a baby.
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: You'd like to strike because the lucky bastards who pre-ordered the limited Vinyl release scored a studio version of Divisons. Divisions!

Fox Confessor Brings the Flood - Neko Case

I guess I'd heard of Neko Case for about a year before I actually got down to looking around for some of her music. When I get bored I browse Everything2, or nowadays, Wikipedia, and read about a lot of random people, and it's generally the ones like Neko or Ute Lemper that I remember, because, let's face it, they've got funny names. I finally bought three of her CDs in winter 2004. Case has an excellent back catalog of albums, with the possible exception of her debut solo album, The Virginian, which is weaker in my opinion. It's a slightly more conventional album, recorded before Neko struck out into new territory with Furnace Room Lullaby (notice the difference in the album covers). Most reviewers tend to compare Case's voice to folk singers like Loretta Lynn or Patsy Cline. Most of her albums use reverb heavily to convey mood. She has a unique style of songwriting, and her sense of humor and improvisation makes live performances a great time: when I saw her at the Beachland Ballroom in spring 2005, she brought up a lengthy story of a feud with Bruce Springsteen, who apparently had a bit of a Napoleon complex, said she; her band started playing "Born in the USA", you probably had to be there. See this journal for someone else's amusing live concert review.

On Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, Neko Case changes gears from her last album, The Tigers Have Spoken, which was a raucous live album that combined stage energy and traditional folk music with Neko's soaring voice. It had a bit less lyrical mysticism than I'd come to expect from her music after hearing her previous two albums. That magic is back on Fox Confessor, though the stage energy seems to have been reduced to one track, the spiritual "John Saw That Number". As on Blacklisted, her last studio album, which was also recorded in Tucson, Arizona, she treats death in a casual but composed way. Her songs on this album consist of fragments of stories, which, as another reviewer has noted, seem to dictate, from different viewpoints, the harrowing moment in one's life that control is lost and external forces begin to take the lead.

The album is one that could probably only have been written by someone with Neko's background. Leaving an allegedly unsupportive and emotionally draining home at age 15 in Tacoma, Washington, she spent her teen years worrying about where her next meal was coming from - her memories of being a vulnerable young woman in the Seattle area while the Green River Killer was at large would later inspire "Deep Red Bells," a song off Blacklisted. Neko previously cited inspirations for Blacklisted, which include the filmmaker David Lynch, composer Angelo Badalamenti, and Neil Young's minimalist soundtrack to the film Dead Man. On "Margaret vs. Pauline", "A Widow's Toast", and "Dirty Knife", Fox Confessor echoes the bleak, atmospheric, radio crackling to life on a cold morning in the back woods feeling of its predecessor, while being a bit less personal. One gets the impression that Case is the narrator of the stories she tells, not the victim, as was the case on Blacklisted. On the other hand, tracks such as "Hold On, Hold On" and "That Teenage Feeling" are intended as deeply personal tales.

I'll admit it - on my first listen or two, I thought of this album as a watered down version of Blacklisted, which had made a strong impression on me. However, after listening to it a bit more, and reading interviews which clarify the meaning behind the lyrics, it's become a fair bit more engaging. Neko does what must have been a very difficult thing, which is keep her vignettes concise and to the point. The album sounds a bit less engineered than her previous albums. It makes it hard to put something like this in on a road trip because it's not the sort of album which has a chorus you can get lost in; Case takes pride in keeping some of her best hooks to a single use.

In conclusion, after reading the interview linked above ("The True Confessions of Neko Case"), I wished Neko could have had a better childhood. Then I did a mental double-take and in an Edith Keeler moment realized that her unique dark style probably stems from her rough upbringing. So now I'm left to hope that she finds someone who can make her experience "that teenage feeling"; it'd be nice to hear her write some love songs for once. Jens Lekman has come to mind after reading an eerily similar album review at Pitchfork. You owe it to yourself to download "A Higher Power" sometime. Its opening lyric: "She said 'let's put a plastic bag over our heads'/ 'and then kiss and stuff until we get dizzy and fall on the bed'". It goes to more interesting places from there.

Summary
Phrasing:Songs for and about the soon to be dead.
Rating: 3/5 on first listen, 4/5 if you let it grow on you. If you don't let the lyrics take hold, Neko's just another torch song crooner. Additionally, one has to be in a certain mood to appreciate this.
Defining Two Moments: "Two girls ride the blue line/ Two girls walk down the same street/ One left a sweater sittin' on the train and the other lost three fingers at the cannery" ("Margaret vs. Pauline")
"You raise your glass and may exclaim/ 'I'll put my hands on the truth by God'/ But it's faster, love, than you and me/ Faster than the speed of gravity" ("A Widow's Toast")
Reason to Buy: It's not something you want to buy until you've listened to it a few times first - but if you enjoy this, Neko could really use the support.
Reasons Not to Buy this Album: I can think of two.
1) You just don't like Neko's voice. More so than any of her earlier albums, Neko's out there by herself on vocals for this one, albeit not without diverse instrumental accompaniment. I really liked the harmony Kelly Hogan provided on her earlier albums, and supposedly she's in this one too, along with several other notables, but I don't hear it (except on "John Saw That Number").
2) You like happy songs for happy people. Try Mogwai, I hear they're into that sort of thing. But seriously, Neko's The Tigers Have Spoken might be more to your tastes. In concert, Neko can't help but get into it with the crowd. If you're not averse to more traditional country, The Virginian isn't half bad either; it's just not for those who got hooked on Blacklisted.