THE BELLE BRIGADE
produced by The Belle Brigade and Shawn Everett
Released March 25, 2014
The Synesthesia mantra is forever and always is a variation of "Music chooses you." With regards to The Belle Brigade, I discovered this band (or better yet, they found me) when I was casually venturing around a large bookstore and I happened to catch the strains of the music playing though the overhead store speakers that sounded vaguely like Fleetwood Mac...but not quite. Song after song played until I could just not take it anymore and I walked into the Music Department to inquire about the identity of this band. I purchased the debut album "The Belle Brigade" (released April 19, 2011) right then and there and completely fell in love their perfectly realized pop music that ventured into country influenced rock, as well as that vaguely Everly Brothers/Fleetwood Mac/"California" sound and all filtered through the glistening vocal harmonies .
The Belle Brigade consists of the sister/brother duo of Barbara Gruska (Vocals, Drums, Percussion, Guitar, Keyboards) and Ethan Gruska (Vocals, Guitars, Piano, Keyboards) and believe me, these two are a musical force to be reckoned with as well as being a blast of the freshest of musical air in an increasingly synthetic and plastic musical landscape. For their second album, The Belle Brigade have consciously tempered the more polished qualities of their debut release to create an album that is darker, more melancholic, sonically edgier and defiantly left of center yet produced and performed with an inventive exuberance that is joyous and completely infectious.
From the propulsive opening track "Ashes," the beautifully pensive "Miss You In My Life," the somewhat zydeco influenced "Not The One You Want," the almost New Wave influenced "When Everything Was What It Was," to the turbulently urgent "Likely To Use Something" (which contains a chord progression that reminded me slightly of The Police's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic") among the remainder of the album's tracks, The Belle Brigade have crafted music that is eccentric and eclectic, an approach which makes the band's musical reference points, influences and inspirations much more difficult to identify while simultaneously revealing the full personality of The Belle Brigade in an even stronger fashion than their debut.
Sticking with the Fleetwood Mac comparative metaphors, think of it this way: If The Belle Brigade's first album was like Fleetwood Mac circa the glossy hit making "Rumours"/"Mirage" era, then think of their second album as being the sort of left-of-center release Lindsey Buckingham would craft while away from the band. The Belle Brigade's "Just Because" is a unconventional, unorthodox headphone album that wears its heartfelt idiosyncrasies on its sleeve completely without losing any of their shimmering pop sheen. And with an album where every song is centered around Barbara and Ethan Gruska's seamless vocal harmonies, you will be singing along with them on the very first listen.
THE BOTH
produced by Paul Bryan
Released April 15, 2014
For as much as I love Aimee Mann--and believe me, I LOVE Aimee Mann--I have to admit that her last few albums, which have included the concept album "The Forgotten Arm" (released May 3, 2005), "@#%&*! Smilers" (released June 3, 2008) and "Charmer" (released September 18, 2012), while solid, have been somewhat stagnant. I guess that I have been feeling like her songs, regardless of how stunningly well written they are, have remained stuck in the same languid mid-tempo melancholic groove for perhaps a bit too long. While that style is indeed her specialty, I have to say that I was missing some of the fire of her earlier albums or even moreso, if the songs were going to remain within that languid, mid-tempo melancholic groove, then where was that unmistakable emotional sweep in the melodies and the lyrics that could just flatten me, like throughout her darkest and most devastating album "Lost In Space" (released August 27, 2002), for instance.
For now, it seems that creative rejuvenation is in order as we have "The Both," the self-titled debut album featuring Mann's songwriting/performing collaboration with singer/songwriter/guitarist Ted Leo. I am happy to say that the album is precisely the shot in the arm and kick in the pants that Aimee Mann has needed as she sounds invigorated and completely refreshed bouncing ideas back and forth with Leo, her bass guitar playing swirling around Leo's fiery guitar leads and like The Belle Brigade, their voices blending together with striking harmony.
With The Both, what you will hear is no frills rock and roll. No concepts or grandiose themes. Just first rate songwriting combined with the blast of hearing two musical forces combining their talents so gleefully. With an approach that sounds more like Mann's first two solo albums, the Jon Brion produced "Whatever" (released May 11, 1993) and "I'm With Stupid" (released November 1995), "The Both" is a collection of guitar driven yet literate power pop that showcases the gifts of...ahem..both Mann and Leo superbly.
The songs, which include "The Gambler," "Milwaukee," "The Prisoner," a cover version of Thin Lizzy's "Honesty Is No Excuse" plus seven more originals, are all eloquent, exuberant and tailor made for the Spring season. So, I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of The Both and open those car windows!
"INDIE CINDY"
PIXIES
Produced by Gil Norton
Released April 29, 2014
Last November, I offered the following observations and feelings regarding the return of the Pixies as a recording musical entity:
"To all of those people who feel that the new material pales in comparison to their past body of work, then fine. Just listen to those albums then if the Pixies are just not making music for you anymore. No harm, no foul. But to agonize over how it is not "the same" anymore or that they are now officially not a "real band" just because a core, original member is no longer part of the proceedings, is just pointless. First of all, OF COURSE it's not "the same"!!! It could NEVER be "the same" because these people are just not the same people they were 25 years ago and to expect them to be exactly the same as human beings, songwriters and musicians is unthinkable. Beyond that, I would ask those people to ask themselves exactly what do they wish for the Pixies to be? Do they really want them to be forever trapped inside of a bubble of nostalgia and hating each other in the process just for you? Or do you want them to keep pushing forwards if they are to exist at all?"
You already know how I feel in regards to the future of the Pixies and with "Indie Cindy,"" the band's first proper album of new material in over 20 years, I am unrepentantly and most enthusiastically going against the grain as seen throughout the internet regarding this album and proclaim it to being of the best rock releases of 2014...period.
Collecting all of the material from the sporadically released set of vinyl/digital EPs, re-contextualizing the running order of the tracks and even sightly tweaking one of the songs, "Indie Cindy" is a beast of an album that I actually feel would be regarded highly if it were made by any other band but the Pixies. Nostalgia is an even greater beast and I think this is what the band is up against regarding its future. But to them, I wish for the Pixies to keep doing what they are currently doing and to keep finding that impetus to create new material instead of travelling the world and trolling for easy money via past glories. This album, I sincerely hope, is a signal for things to come.
I have already profiled the first two EPs releases on this site (in November 2013 and January 2014, respectively) and now, the tracks that make up "EP3" (March 24, 2014) have joined the ranks. The murderous "Silver Snail," the alternative rock candyfloss of "Ring The Bell," the nearly euphoric "Jamie Bravo," and finally, that slightly tweaked roar of "Bagboy" comprise the remainder of the new Pixies material and now fully combined, "Indie Cindy" is precisely the type of rock album that I have been craving, a work that is designed to be blasted from the best and loudest speakers and one that I really believe that we should regard in celebration. This is not the work of a band that is now old, tired and irrelevant. This is the sound of renewal and wherever "Indie Cindy" leads, I will follow.
DAMON ALBARN
Produced by Richard Russell
Released April 29, 2014
"We're everyday robots on our phones," observes Damon Albarn at the very start of his debut solo album, a haunting, introspective work that I have found myself listening to on continuous loops as the experience has continuously proven itself to be intoxicating and sumptuous.
Albarn's musical "journeyman" spirit has been in evidence for over 20 years as his activities in Blur, Gorillaz, The Good, The Bad & The Queen, Rocket Juice & the Moon and all of his additional excursions into African textures and Chinese operas can greatly attest. To my ears, he has often reminded me of the wild diversity found in the music of The Clash, especially when they released their epic and wildly diverse triple album "Sandanista!" (released December 12, 1980) and furthermore when both former Clash bandmates expanded their respective musical palates to even wider effect as Mick Jones formed Big Audio Dynamite and the late Joe Strummer formulated increasingly expansive solo work alongside The Mescaleros.
With Damon Albarn's latest release, that similar musically restless spirit is paramount as he has devised of a collection of songs where the seemingly disparate elements of ukuleles, string sections, synthetic beats, acoustic guitars and steel drums can occur harmoniously. If there is any sort of a leaping off point for Albarn's "Everyday Robots" in terms of its sonic presentation and overall mood, I would say that you could find the seeds in the Gorillaz track "Hong Kong," a slowly enveloping track you can find on the compilation album "D-Sides" (released November 19, 2007).
Damon Albarn's "Everyday Robots" is a sparse, somber and atmospheric album about displacement,as the album's opening moments contain the sampled voice of comic performer Lord Buckley exclaiming, "They didn't know where they was going, but they knew where they was, wasn't it." With songs featuring "Hostiles," "You And Me," "Photographs (You Are Taking Now)," and "The History Of A Cheating Heart," Albarn explores displacement with oneself, technology, society, geography and even on the particularly excellent track "Hollow Pounds," a displacement with time itself.
Damon Albarn has utilized "Everyday Robots" to create an album that functions as his most personal statement and it is as soulful as it is solemn. It projects an earned world weariness, the kind that arrives with middle age as we are trying to reconcile our upbringing, our present and the tenuous nature of the future. "Everyday Robots" is music for this precise moment. Like Albarn sings on the album, "If you're lonely, press play." And I think that you will do just that over and over again.
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