The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses (Review)

This review was published as part of Puluche.com‘s Exemplar series – historical albums which score a perfect 100.

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Many bands have burst onto the scene with a debut album which defines their entire career, and many of those albums then go on to define the era in which they were released. The first album from the Stone Roses does both and much more besides. It is an album which perfectly encapsulates the climate of growing up in late 80’s Britain; the messianic self-belief of the chemical generation, the introspective questioning of desperate and disillusioned youth, the pure and simple euphoria of being young, pretty and cool. And yet, while The Stone Roses is undoubtedly the masterpiece of the Madchester period, it is also a timeless classic which sounds as innovative and vital now as it did in 1989. Put it next to any of the classic rock albums of the 60’s or 70’s, or any of those which arrived in its wake in the 90’s and new millennium, and The Stone Roses can confidently rub shoulders with the best while towering over the rest. It manages both to sound both modern and nostalgic, tipping its hat to its influences while also blazing a trail into the unknown. All these things combine to make it an artifact of the zeitgeist. Beyond the depth, the meaning and the legacy, it’s just a fantastic sounding record. Expertly mastered by producer John Leckie, a band of clothes-conscious, mop-haired street urchins are exposed as the consummate musicians they are, something which is often overlooked when talking about the band’s story and legend. And at the heart of it all is a song-writing partnership which began in a childhood sandpit and was forged over a mutual love of The Clash. The Brown-Squire axis has never been stronger than on this record…although who knows what the future might bring.

Commendations

To retreat from the world and allow The Stone Roses to be your reality for 49 minutes is to indulge yourself in a musical experience filled with rare beauty and genius. From the unearthly echoes, steadily building bass and jangling intro to ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ to the extended, psychedelic abandon of ‘I am the Resurrection’s ecstatic finale, it is a collection of songs which scales impossible heights with every passing spine-tingling, skin-prickling second. Just when you think you may have heard the best song ever, another arrives to steal the crown.

The opening track rattles into existence on the echoes of distant dirty train tracks and guided warily through sinister, echoing alleyways by Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield’s slowly building bass. John Squire’s guitar offers the first chinks of light, sending sparks over the brooding intro before taking the lead with a muscular, chiming riff. Ian Brown’s eerie, breathy vocals start swirling in the mix, offering cryptic hints at Luciferian deals: “I don’t need to sell my soul, he’s already in me…I wanna be adored…” It’s a stirring, sinister opener with hints of the band’s early days as a Goth outfit. ‘She Bangs the Drums’ then fully dispels any gloom. Drummer Alan ‘Reni’ Wren opens with a skittering Shaft-esque cymbal shuffle before Mani’s playful hook drags us in. Squire then crashes through with a sunburst power chord and suddenly it’s a better day. Ian Brown then delivers the killer blow: “Kiss me where the sun don’t shine…the past was yours but the future’s mine…” And with that, The Stone Roses became champions of the trampled youth. With the kids entranced, these Pied Pipers then conjure the mesmeric ‘Waterfall’. Driven by a Squire hook with peels like church bells, it’s a song of hope and renewal which rolls along on sweet vocals from both singer and drummer. But it’s the guitarist who takes it to the next level. Left to bring the song to its conclusion, Squire morphs and builds his earlier chiming refrain into a rolling 70’s rock riff which takes on a deeper voice and delivers a finale worthy of the song’s heroine and her determined quest for individual freedom.

The old adage “waste not, want not” applies to ‘Don’t Stop’ which is effectively ‘Waterfall’ played backwards with new Ian Brown lyrics sliding queasily through the weirdness in such a way that it sounds like his voice is also a reversed track. The slightly nonsensical lyrics add to the slightly seasick, off-kilter atmosphere. It’s a track which works in the same vein as those strange psychedelic fillers scattered through the tail-end of the Beatles catalogue. The band returns to normality with the beautiful yet scornful ‘Bye Bye Badman’. Conjuring up images of the ’68 student riots in Paris – “In this citrus sucking sunshine” describes the lemons used to counter the effects of tear gas, the same lemons on the album’s cover – it owes much to fellow Mancunians The Smiths in both music and lyrical content. John Squire’s jangly, guitar dances all over the track, subtly paying homage to Johnny Marr. Challenging the establishment, Ian Brown warns that he’s “throwing stones at you, man…I want you black and blue and I’m gonna make you bleed…Gonna bring you down to your knees.” After the anti-monarchy nursery rhyme of ‘Elizabeth My Dear’, we’re back into swaying, braying pop with ‘(Song for my) Sugar Spun Sister’. Brown takes a Byrdsian mop-topped, drug-dazed swagger across blue grass and under green skies while accusing the ruling class of being a bunch of glue sniffers. The majestic ‘Made of Stone’, perhaps the band’s most accomplished song, brings dramatic and mournful imagery to life through anthemic, rousing orchestration and inspired lyrics: “Your knuckles whiten on the wheel, the last thing that your hands will feel…your final flight can’t be delayed…”Punctuated by one of their most rousing choruses, at the time it was a triumph beyond their tender years: “Sometimes I fantasize…When the streets are cold and lonely and the cars they burn below me…”Taking a breath from all the drama, we’re treated to a lazy, warm blues shuffle with a cutting edge in the form of ‘Shoot You Down’. Reni’s drums brush around a restrained Squire as Mani plucks mellow strings and Brown the assassin lilts: “I’d love to do it and you know you’ve always had it coming.”

The run-in is a booming statement of potential greatness. ‘This is the One’ crashes into life before starting its ebb and flow, retreating to catch its breath under harp-like guitar refrains and whispered sugar-sweet lyrics before exploding again with such triumph and celebration that it leaves you utterly convinced that, yes – this is indeed the one. What that is just doesn’t matter. It is whatever you want it to be. That seems to be the point. It is the musical interpretation of just knowing; that feeling of perfect acceptance that nothing gets better than this. But of course, the previous 40-odd minutes will have taught you that behind every peak is another monumental musical Everest to behold – and there, from the summit of ‘This is the One’ we are left with the final colossus, the towering majesty of ‘I am the Resurrection’. Stomping in on Reni’s almost military-beat drums, Mani’s bass injects the groove before Ian Brown starts spitting attitude and sweet poetic put-downs: “Stone me, why can’t you see…you’re a no-one, nowhere, washed-up baby who’d look better dead…” John Squire shyly enters the fray in the background to begin with, letting the rhythm section take the lead and injecting little spiraling fills into the gaps until Brown’s holy refrain brings us to the break. Then all hell cuts loose. Reni starts playing drums like a Hindu god, covering the entire kit like only a multi-armed deity possibly could while Mani unleashes a carpet-bombing, rolling funk bass line over which Squire’s guitar squeals and squalls. The guitars gets dirtier, the drums get faster, the bass gets crazier – and then it breaks to silence…Only to chime back in before more thrashing reverb takes over once again. And then, the storm seems to ease, with a beautiful acoustic refrain filling the void – only we’re not finished yet, the drums, bass and pace quicken and we’re racing to the end again, finally fading out on an acoustic strum and the echoes of another Squire jam which could go on for eternity. It’s ballsy, breath-taking and beyond anything one would expect from a band’s first album. It nearly was the full-stop on their career. If it had been, it would have been one of the best exits since the Ascension.

Next Steps

After such an astonishing debut, some generation defining live shows and the release of the genre-busting ‘Fools Gold’ which left all their rivals in the dust, the Stone Roses dropped the mega-stardom ball and disappeared in a flurry of lawsuits and a miasma of lost focus and impetus. It would take five years for a follow-up to appear, by which time the Brown-Squire dynamic at the heart of the band had been undermined by drugs and ego. Second Coming was much-maligned but isn’t as bad as some make it out to be. It just wasn’t The Stone Roses II. The band limped on, losing first Reni and then Squire before a pale imitation self-destructed in 1996. Years of solo careers, rumors and denials followed until the band the world was waiting for returned in triumph in 2012 to old audiences and new, proving that the Stone Roses have an enduring magic and spirit that can be suppressed but never destroyed. Their debut album remains the best testament to that.

First published on: Puluche.com

“Mersey Paradise” and “She’s Electric” novels now on sale

My first two novels are now available to buy online. If you’re interested in pop culture/music-themed fiction, please take a look. They can be purchased via the links at the bottom of this post and will soon be available through Amazon.

Mersey Paradise

Britain 1990. While the world buzzes with the hope of real change after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the youth of the UK pin their hopes on a musical revolution to turn the tide of recession and to return the power back to the people.

For six friends from Norwich, being an active part of this revolution means everything. Too long have they danced to the sounds in tiny local clubs and watched from afar as the wave of destiny has swept across the land.

They head for the Stone Roses concert at Spike Island on the Wirral in a rented VW camper in the hope that they will all find something that is missing from their lives there. However, this journey of discovery forces the friends to face some of their darkest secrets. Instead of a hedonistic journey into the fantasy world of ecstasy-inspired togetherness, the six are forced to accept a new reality.

She’s Electric

Britain 1994. Danny Jones emerges from a stifling three-year relationship to find out the eternal battle of the sexes is raging on a new front with completely new rules. As the country dives head first into a Cool Britannia where anything goes, Danny and his friends struggle to strike a balance between embracing the new Lad Culture of girls, goals and ‘go on my son’ with the search for authentic human connection. In a maelstrom of sex, drugs and Britpop, Danny and his mates mount an increasingly desperate search for The One – the perfect woman who can save them from themselves – while staggering ever closer towards the abyss.

Via: DaVinci Institute

Via: LULU

III – Crystal Castles (Review)

If musicians are the chroniclers of the times they live in, and should the human race in one form or another survive the cataclysmic fate that some believe is unavoidable, our descendants will listen to Crystal Castles and wonder why the hell we didn’t see the error of our ways. No other band manages to embody all the confrontation, conflict, and stress of these End Times or deliver such a fiercely aggressive and unyieldingly bleak vision of this modern tribulation we call life in the 21st Century. Humans of the future will play Crystal Castles’ glitch-riven onslaught and understand immediately why we pretty much got what we deserved. Everything we could have learned about ourselves is here in gory, visceral detail – yet ignored to our shame.

The first two albums by Alice Glass and Ethan Kath will sound to them like the end of the world itself; a two-pronged feral assault of screaming, panic-edged vocals and malfunctioning techno shock and awe, leaving few in doubt that the last years of humanity were a frantic, frightening, flesh-tearing descent into chaos. This third album, (III), is still oppressive, claustrophobic and downright unlistenable in places but in the review of humanity’s catastrophe it would represent the final eerie slide into resigned horror, as if Crystal Castles had managed to record humankind’s exhausted death throes as it raged against every machine; breathless, hopeless and fighting against the dying of the light as the clock ticked closer to midnight. (III) is filled with references to blood, wounds, antiseptics, and soil which gives it a touch of torture porn which is unsettling at best and at worst makes the listening experience feel like the scraping of disease off the last morsel of food which could keep you alive. Many have praised Glass and Kath for their nihilistic approach to electronica and the reflection of the septic world we are seemingly cursed to inhabit. And as a document of our time, (III) is maybe the closest we get to the musical interpretation of our modern malaise.

Life can be shit and horrible things happen to decent people every day. Putting wake-up calls into music is nothing new and message-driven art is an essential part of the informative process; it reaches millions in ways that other documentation can’t. But does it have to pierce the soul like the cries of a parent mourning a deceased child? Does it have to unsettle and unnerve like the screeching whine of incoming munitions? When presented this way, there leaves little room for hope and even when the message is grave, music should always offer some hint at redemption. You’ll find none here.

Commendations

The album opens with ‘Plague’, a sinister siren-driven intro which has hints of the unnerving Alien scream of Ridley Scott’s science fiction masterpiece. Beside the ebbing and climbing wails, early 90s rave synths phase in and out, stabbing in the dark for supple flesh to pierce, until Alice Glass eerily begins to whisper childlike threats of bodily invasion: “I need you pure, I need you clean…Don’t try to enlighten me …” The pace quickens as the first of Kath’s incessantly annoying production effects kicks in. A word of warning: throughout the entire album you’ll be checking for loose wires – be aware now, it isn’t a malfunction, only lazy and unimaginative phasing which effectively ruins every track. Soon Glass is screaming “I am the plague” and the uncomfortable and cacophonous opening assault is complete.

‘Kerosene’ offers some hope that the entire album won’t be a sustained and relentless aural rape. It’s a pumping atmospheric dance track with something approaching a tune buried somewhere under the layers of unnecessary effects. But again, the stuttering production techniques which make it sound like the electricity meter is in desperate need of feeding ruins what could have been a peerless example of witch house.

‘Wrath of God’ begins eerily with an encouragingly trance-like melody but before long the phasing begins and Glass tries to make a vocal impression on the track only to have her Red Riding Hood voice ripped apart by Granma Kath’s big production teeth. Glass’s voice is processed within an inch of its life and at some point she becomes ultrasonic. The song finds its feet again with the introduction of an urgent drum beat which makes it engaging but its total sum is a mess. The same can also be said for ‘Affection’ which is an effective slow burner which gets brutally murdered by the production as it struggles to find its keys.

‘Pale Flesh’ summons the image of the famous monkey’s-with-typewriters-creating-the-compete-works-of-Shakespeare scenario. It sounds as though a bunch of chimps have been left with a room full of synthesizers while an epileptic subway accordion player attempts to conduct the primate melody from an adjoining apartment. It will take a brave and relentless soul to find worth among the litter.

The pace and quality of (III) hits the highest level with ‘Sad Eyes’. It’s the stand-out track mainly because Kath’s meddling is at a minimum. It’s a haunting yet driving dance tune which leaves you wonder if the sad eyes of the title belong to someone who has had to sift though the detritus on hands and knees to find this one gem.

The reprieve is brief and it’s soon time to return to the mire with ‘Insulin’ which is a broken, scabrous radio signal beamed in through a filthy toilet bowl. This is the aural equivalent of root canal work. You can’t listen to it for pleasure and you can’t dance to it, which leaves you wondering what the point of it all actually is. Perhaps it will find a place on the set-list at Guantanamo Bay. Played continuously at volume, the war on terror would have been over a lot sooner but then the US would have been even more open to increased pressure over its use of torture. Thankfully, the one thing in its favor is that it’s mercifully short.

‘Transgender’ comes next. It has a good club vibe behind it and could actually be described as music if hadn’t been smashed to bits by a producer who apparently sees cohesion as a toy destined to be crushed by a petulant child. Then there’s ‘Violent Youth’… Take the Donald Duck vocals out of the equation and fire the producer and this one would be a dance-floor filler. Unfortunately, as it is, it’s just a bit rubbish.

‘Mercenary’ is welcome only because, for the most part, it’s inoffensive and not trying to cause any cerebral bleeding.

The final track, the pleasantly titled ‘Child I Will Hurt You’ is at least melodic until it once again decides the listener is the enemy and starts jabbing psychotic sleigh bells down your ears to remind you that this album on the whole is a challenge, not pleasure or entertainment.

Next Steps

It has to be said that Crystal Castles seem utterly unrepentant in their approach or vision so one suspects that, should we see it past the end of the Mayan long-count calendar on December 21, 2012, we’ll get an equally – or perhaps bleaker – interpretation of the human condition on IV. Even surviving the apocalypse is unlikely to turn Glass and Kath into life-affirming purveyors of handbag house.

First published on: Puluche.com

Melody’s Echo Chamber – Melody’s Echo Chamber (review)

The story of how Melody Prochet went from the classically-trained multi-instrumentalist in twee French pop outfit My Bee’s Garden to a hippy-trippy psychedelic solo artist is one which has all the makings of a classic rock tale. Shackled and restrained by her classic training and unfulfilled by the lightness of her band, Prochet went in search of an aesthetic which would drag her from her comfort zone and release her from her gilded cage of comfy chanson. This quest led her to a meeting-of-minds with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker backstage at the Aussie psych-rockers’ Paris show in 2010. Drawn to the echoey-depths of Parker’s heavily-layered sonic landscapes, Prochet had found exactly what she had been looking for – the key to both her physical and musical escape.  While her decision to leave My Bees Garden would not be instantaneous, she eventually broke free, in many different ways. “I tend to write songs with pretty chords and arpeggios, and I was kind of boring myself,” she recalls in a recent interview. “So I asked Kevin to destroy everything.”

The result is Melody’s Echo Chamber, Prochet’s debut solo album, and it is – for the most part – a triumph of contradictory beauty. Soft yet brittle, light but with an unnerving darkness at the edges like a gathering storm on the horizon of a sun-kissed meadow, this is an album on which a young woman appears to be exploring the sounds in her head and hearing them perfectly replicated in the outside world for the first time. “This record was my dream sound,” Prochet has said. “I’ve tried for years to get it but finally I found the right hands to sculpt it.”

There’s no getting away from the fact that Kevin Parker’s fingerprints are all over the production of this album but to credit the Tame Impala man entirely would be doing a massive disservice to Melody Prochet. The trademark scuzzy, fuzzy guitars, the “Tomorrow Never Knows” drums and spaced-out, soaring synths leave you in no doubt who is in the control booth and for the most part, this is a good thing. The orchestration is as lush and layered as you would expect; album opener “I Follow You” is an uplifting yet edgy pop song, perfectly balancing Prochet’s sugary vocal with the heavily-delayed guitars, while “Crystallized”, another potentially airy slice of 1960s revivalism, suddenly transcends to an altogether more sublime level due to the far-out Krautrock finale that shakes the song from its summer reverie.  “Endless Shore” pushes the standard even higher with its George Harrison-influenced eastern vibe, piercing keys and effects-heavy, reverbed riffs.

But all this wonderful production would mean nothing if it was not supporting Prochet’s considerable talent for addictive hooks, dreamy harmonies and arpeggios which are delivered like showers of diamonds.

The production, however, is partly responsible for the album’s few but obvious shortfalls. Prochet has one of those classically girly French pop voices which needs to be treated with care and as such, Parker records her in much the same way as he lays his own delicate vocals down on Tame Impala records – as an instrument rather than a dominating factor. The result is that, while he manages to lift his own voice above the psychedelic turmoil of the music, Prochet tends to get snowed under in the sonic avalanches. This makes it extremely hard to understand what she’s singing about which raises questions about the lyrical content – only because one can’t clearly hear the words. The darkness and grittiness of some songs are somewhat ill-pitched and would have been more effective had the music explored the edginess in Prochet’s voice and personality rather than expecting her to meet the challenge set by the ominous orchestration.

Despite this, and the fact that the high quality of the record gradually tails off throughout its second half, Melody’s Echo Chamber is an impressive, immersive debut featuring enough beautifully constructed and thrilling music to make one forgive the few weaknesses which occur as it reaches its conclusion. For a first attempt at soaring to the outer limits of her vision, Melody Prochet has taken an intriguing maiden voyage.

Melody’s Echo Chamber opens with the wonderful “I Follow You” with its delicious hook and Prochet’s luminous vocals skipping over waves of feedback and woolly guitars. Albums which open on such a high note are often doomed to slide towards mediocrity – or worse – and while the album does gradually lose its momentum and vision in the final third, the opening track is not the tipping point.  “Crystallised” again takes Prochet’s feathery vocals and lifts it up on a crunchy base of reverb-heavy psych-rock.

Singing in English on record for the first time, Prochet retains her alluring Francophone tones which are perfect for the gorgeous, swaying Parisian pop of “You Won’t Be Missing That Part Of Me” which taps into Serge Gainsbourg’s smoky seduction but rolls sexily over rumbling motorik beats like a playful lover on pristine hotel sheets.

“Some Time Alone, Alone” opens with the signature Tame Impala choppy guitar intro and cascading bass scales favoured by Tame and Pond bassist Nick Allbrook but Prochet soon muscles in to reclaim the song as her own, soaring above it all with a wonderful melody which is one of the album’s best vocal moments.

“Endless Shore” stretches out like a walk along a shimmering beach with wispy waves of electronica blowing in and Prochet’s voice rising and diving like birds over the water. A chiming, vaguely Kraftwerk-inspired keyboard refrain plinks and plonks from time to time to give it a strange, other-worldly atmosphere.  It’s both soothing and mildly disconcerting at the same time.

She reverts to her native tongue on “Bisou Magique” (Magic Kiss) which comes across like Vanessa Paradis fronting Broken Bells. It’s the perfect music for an afternoon’s aimless wander through Left Bank avenues with its lazy synth lines and a pace which barely gets above pedestrian. It’s a shame though that the potentially interesting combination of styles is left to chug along lethargically with very little direction when so many possibilities are just around the corner.

The ghostly “Quand Vas Tu Rentrer?” is the first real slide down the quality scale. Beginning with fairground keyboards, it morphs into an agitated jazz shuffle which is knocked off its stride from time to time by discordant drums. Prochet’s vocal sounds as though it was recorded for a different song, which hints at a better alternative than the track it was pasted over.

Prochet proves on a number of tracks that she can rival her producer in the offbeat stakes. “Mount Hopeless” is gloriously gloomy and is reminiscent of the mid- to late-80’s 4AD roster, with aspects of Lush at their most pseudo-Goth while “Is That What You Said” sounds like a bunch of drunken guitars getting into a fight on a horror movie carousel. The experimental, backwards orchestration has something of the Stone Roses’ penchant for flipping their own songs over and calling it something new. While it’s a courageous move, it’s somewhat of a jarring anomaly.

“Snowcapped Andes Crash” – a song about post-plane disaster cannibalism, would you believe – trips daintily along on airwaves of plinking electronica before hitting a massive storm of turbulence halfway through and crashing to earth in a cacophonic maelstrom of twisted guitars, exploding drums and screeching loops before Prochet’s voice – like the ghosts of the victims – begins to rise to the heavens again.

Finally, “Be Proud of Your Kids” returns the record to near sanity with Beatles-esque strings, reminiscent of “Rain” or “Taxman”, twanging behind children’s voices and Prochet’s whispery and discordant sighing. It doesn’t stray too far from bizarre but has some nice musical elements in it. The overwhelming feeling that a five-year old got hold of the recording equipment and a microphone at some point, however, cannot be shaken. It’s brave and a concerted move away from the formula of the more catchy numbers but it smacks of an oddity for oddity’s sake.

The high points on Melody’s Echo Chamber are high indeed and one hopes that on her next outing she will have a full album’s worth of ideas because when she hits the mark, it makes for a joyous listening experience and the more she does this, the happier this writer will be. The album’s final third suggests that there wasn’t quite enough material or focus for a full record of quality (or maybe both singer and producer ran out of steam towards the end). One would also hope that Melody Prochet discovers how to fully exploit the interestingly macabre aspects of her music and explores her dark side a little more on the next record. This admirable debut has a good mix of poppy melodies and thematic darkness but a better understanding of the dark foreboding behind the luminosity would see Prochet scale even greater heights. All-in-all, she’s progressing nicely along the right track.

First published on: Puluche.com

Tame Impala live @ Amsterdam Paradiso 29/10/2012

It’s a telling indication of how Australian psych-rockers Tame Impala view themselves. They saunter on stage just seconds after their last roadie has departed it and moments before the house lights are lowered to announce their imminent arrival. It’s a slightly awkward moment which the sold-out crowd at Amsterdam’s Paradiso venue don’t quite know what to do with. The rising anticipation of the band’s arrival in darkness seems to deflate like a punctured tire as the quintet of shaggy-haired Antipodeans shuffle about the stage collecting their instruments under the fierce fluorescent glare. Even the lighting operator is thrown by this seemingly unconscious shunning of stage etiquette, lowering the lights for a brief second before realizing the moment has passed, and raising them again. The band, barely acknowledging the crowd or the faux pas that they’ve just made, plug in, sweep their lank tresses behind their ears and get on with the business at hand.

Tame Impala are not rock stars. They don’t see themselves as objects of adoration or individuals worthy of gushing prose and column inches of acclaim. They’re musicians and slightly wonky ones at that. The screams that eventually rise to the rafters of this former chapel provoke bashful smiles on stage and uncomfortable twitching with the bare-footed Mowgli of a front man Kevin Parker hopping and skipping with shy urgency around his mike as his band limber up. It’s only when they launch into set opener ‘Be Above It’ that the five willowy figures grow in stature and start filling the space above the nodding, predominantly teenage, heads with a throbbing aura. An urgent drum beat begins to rattle around the walls as the vibrating strings and ethereal keys begin to form the swirling psychedelic fog of noise which will ebb and flow for the best part of 90 minutes. Parker’s somewhat reedy voice initially struggles to be heard through the growing colorful storm, unnerving him slightly, but he visibly stabilizes as he chugs out the opening chords of the storming ‘Solitude is Bliss’ from debut album Innerspeaker and launches into the verse with verve.

This sets a pattern for the whole gig. The older numbers, more rocky and robust than those from current album Lonerism, are attacked with an intensity which seems beyond these unassuming and callow-looking youths when they’re not conjuring their magic. ‘Lucidity’ starts abruptly and stomps off on a gargantuan glam riff, played simultaneously by Parker and bassist Nick Allbrook, before melting into a free-for-all which is both full of abandon and control; ‘Alter Ego’ runs away on Julien Barbagallo’s skittering drums with Parker, fellow guitarist Dom Simper and Allbrook chasing the beat as Jay Watson’s synth sends SOS alarms into the smoky air; despite being a slow groove on record, the live version of ‘Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind’ also bursts out of the gate on Barbagallo’s beats before each of the Impalas drop into the groove. Parker’s uncovered toes twitch pedals and twiddle nobs as the sound grows and melds into a soaring acid-tinged hymn worthy of this place of musical worship. ‘Desire Be, Desire Go’ starts off on a screeching wave of feedback before Parker starts slashing at his distorted Rickenbacker, sending the young crowd into raptures.

The new material, more delicate, nuanced and dream-like on record than those on Innerspeaker, is even more multi-layered and expansive live, which appears to appeal to the older members of the audience, perhaps drawn to Lonerism‘s similarities to early Pink Floyd and the more paisley-tinged aspects of the Beatles. These are the songs in which Allbrook and Barbagallo excel. This is a rhythm section as telepathically in tune and at one with each other as John Paul Jones and John Bonham in their pomp. While Parker, Simper and Watson freestyle through 10-minute lysergic workouts of ‘Endors Toi’ and ‘Music to Walk Home By’, bassist and drummer are anchoring the sound while adding intricate fills and runs of their own to create a sonic smorgasbord. On the Lennon-esque ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards,’ its Allbrook who stars, driving the melody with a lazy and dreamy groove which pierces through the mistiness of the plaintive ballad.

Keyboardist Watson seems lost in his own thoughts or mildly disinterested at times, head resting on a propped up hand as he waits for his part. But his is an under-rated but important job. When the joyous stomp of ‘Elephant’ fires up and the pit becomes a seething mass in front of the stage, he waits patiently until his keys are required to bring the glitter-clad pachyderm to life.

Even though some songs seem to go on for days – ‘It Is Not Meant To Be’ gets not one but two intrusive ovations as the crowd are tricked by a number of pauses and restarts – the overwhelming feeling is that, despite the apparent lack of restraint, this is a supremely drilled band. Parker is always in control, even when he’s falling to the floor or playing on his knees or back, and everyone knows where they should be in each song and what they should be doing there. Set closer ‘Apocalypse Dreams’ is another supreme example. A simple pop song hanging loosely on a Motown drum and bass beat, the band employ all their tricks to go out with a bang, building the outro into a five-minute crescendo which leaves the Amsterdam crowd breathless. Then as quietly as they entered, they’re gone – only to return with the sublime ‘Half Full Glass of Wine’. It’s another raucous glam-inspired groove which has the waves of fans ebbing and flowing like an ecstatic ocean, breaking like surf on the safety barriers. It’s a send off which leaves these accidental rock stars beaming with embarrassed glee and stumbling over wires and each to get to the safety of their back stage sanctuary.

First published on: Puluche.com

Also see: Wizards from Oz – Tame Impala, Le Botanique, Brussels 03/11/2010

Definitely Maybe – Oasis (review)

British guitar music had taken a backseat to United States grunge in the early 90’s as it sought to regroup after the failure of shoegazing bands to capitalize on the phenomenal but brief success of the Manchester-led dance rock genre in the late 80s. Bands like Blur had taken the first steps back into the consciousness but when Oasis released Definitely Maybe, they kicked the door in, dragged the plaid shirted usurpers out by the scruff of their necks and packed them off to the airport.

This was a record with guts, anger, humour, and social commentary (albeit hidden in obtuse, druggy lyrics). Few opening tracks by a debut band can rate with the swagger and belief of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” while the first three singles – “Supersonic,” “Shakermaker” and “Live Forever” – encapsulated the band’s range, a perfect showcasing triptych. Laconic, comedic and emotional guitar-driven pop was back and when fourth single “Cigarettes and Alcohol” was released, all bets were off. Oasis were already the biggest band in the world in their heads. Now everyone else would start to believe it too.

Commendations

From the opening track to the throwaway epilogue of “Married with Children” – with perhaps the greatest comment on the music they were replacing: ‘your music’s shite, it keeps me up all night’ – Definitely Maybe is a chin-out strut down the alleyways of Britain’s rock heritage. Much was made of the band’s love of the Beatles but Definitely Maybe is much more than a Fab Four rip-off and it’s lazy to suggest so.

Liam Gallagher’s fondness for the Sex Pistols is clear on his vocal delivery on “Bring it on Down,” while, at the other end of the scale, “Digsy’s Dinner” in almost musical hall in its jauntiness.  Re-recorded on the behest of Creation label boss Alan McGee who said the first version lacked the ‘attack and immediacy’ of Oasis concerts, the band decided the only way to replicate their live sound was to record together without soundproofing between individual instruments. With Noel Gallagher overdubbing the guitars in post-production, a powerful yet cohesive and proficient onslaught was created. This can be heard best on the rumbling, ominous “Columbia” and the balls-out yet beautiful “Slide Away” – one the band’s best and most underrated tunes, described by Liam Gallagher as ‘a rocking love song.’

Oasis were the antitheses of Nirvana’s ‘I hate myself and want to die’ philosophy and this positivity in the face of hardship that the band espoused is most keenly felt on the luminous “Live Forever” and the nihilistic soundtrack to the party at the end of the world which is “Cigarettes and Alcohol.” Whatever mood you’re in, however your day is going, there is a track on Definitely Maybe which will not only match it but will speak to you, counsel you and assure you that everything will be alright. This is a debut album which convincingly and authentically covers every emotion and many of life’s common stories in about an hour of music. It was a remarkable achievement and a high point that Oasis tried and failed to reach again during the following 15 years of their career.

Next Steps

Unless the Gallagher brothers put their differences aside or run out of money (or both), it’s unlikely that we’ll ever hear these songs played live with Liam on vocals and Noel on guitar beside him or be blessed with any new material from Oasis again. Those who lost faith in the band towards the end may say this is no bad thing. But putting Definitely Maybe on and turning it up loud not only reminds me what we’ve lost but also makes me thank God that they managed to get out of a council estate in Manchester in the first place.

First published on: Puluche.com

The Queen is Dead – The Smiths (review)

Britain was a country divided at the time when The Queen Is Dead was released in 1986. The end of the Miner’s Strike of 1984-85 had left much of the north of the country battered, bruised and on the poverty line while the south was still in shock at the strong-arm tactics of Margaret Thatcher’s government. The Smiths, ensconced in Manchester writing the follow-up to 1985′s Meat is Murder, couldn’t help but feel the anger and resentment of the North and instead of making blunt musical statements like some generational mouthpieces had chosen to do, they channeled that anger into a collection of songs laced with the band’s barely concealed acidic distaste for the ruling classes.

From the opening sound bite, a snippet of the World War I song “Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty” taken from the 1962 British film The L-Shaped Room, The Queen Is Dead sets an atmosphere primed for attack after acerbic attack on the hereditary power structure and class system in Britain, albeit assaults sheathed in lilting, heart-rending ballads and pithy, witty pop gems. It’s an album barely concealing its loathing of the concept of privilege in a time of oppressive Conservative rule. Morrissey and Marr both say that the album that followed in 1987, Strangeways Here We Come, was the band’s peak but in comparison to The Queen Is Dead, it’s too over-produced and the cutting edge has been blunted in both the delivery and lyrical content. On The Queen Is Dead, The Smiths managed to retain the frantic, low-fi approach of their eponymously titled debut and the bleakness of sophomore album Meat is Murder, but delivered a rounder, more confident collection of songs.

They present some of the best pop songs from their repertoire here and while more commercial in feel, they have lost none of their early bite. The Queen Is Dead set the bar impossibly high for bands wanting to create politically agitated, socially aware, and emotionally fraught pop songs. Even The Smiths couldn’t reach those heights again. It was such a product of its time and the perfect storm of genius, circumstance and zeitgeist that it has the feeling of being created in seconds; an alchemy forged in fleeting moments of magic. Johnny Marr famously has problems playing his own riffs from this album these days. It’s as if something beyond the power of all the players involved took hold during this album’s recording, forever sealing the impossibly brilliant into 37 minutes, never to be replicated.

Commendations

The Smiths have a reputation for being doom-mongers and while many of their lyrics explore the darker side of human nature and society, their greatest strength was always the combination of the bleak with the uplifting. The best examples are on The Queen Is Dead.  “There is a Light that Never Goes Out,” for example, has the sweetest chorus about complete devotion but is delivered in the most morbid and twisted choice of words possible: “And if a double-decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die…And if a ten-ton truck kills the both of us, to die by your side, well…the pleasure and the privilege is mine.” Then there’s “Vicar in a Tutu,” a story of a deviant priest told over a jaunty rockabilly soundtrack, sounding like a show tune from a perverted Elvis film from a parallel dimension. It’s unabashed in its transvestism and carefree in its sexual ambiguity while rocking along in a macho musical style. It’s weird, funny and massively inspired.

“Cemetry Gates,” one of the best songs not only on this album but in their entire collection, is a marvel; the perfect combination of pace and swagger, of Morrissey’s intellect and delivery melded with Marr’s skittish guitar. And what comes next? The unassailable, incomparable “Bigmouth Strikes Again.” Johnny Marr wanted an explosive, searing single to announce the band’s return and insisted on this instead of “There is a Light that Never Goes Out.” He was spot on. This tears out of the gate and sprints away on the guitarist’s choppy chords while Morrissey basically speed-yodels his way through the song.

Listen closely to The Queen Is Dead and you will be treated to some of the best lyrics ever: “And in the darkened underpass I thought ‘oh god’ my chance had come at last but a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn’t ask” from “There is a Light that Never Goes Out.” There are countless highlights. There have been very few British artists who have come close to matching The Smiths for lyricism in the years since this release.

The music behind the lyrics is sublimely paradoxical as it seems so clearly rooted in the mid-80′s yet is also contemporary. This is probably because of the huge influence Johnny Marr has had on all those who grew up watching him strangle unearthly noises from his cherry red Gibson ES-335. Marr rehabilitated the guitar for the generation of British bands who emerged listening to this album. His jittery, complicated runs lay down a blueprint for the acid jangle strings favored by bands like Happy Mondays which would fuse dance and rock in the tail end years of the 80s while his choppy chord changes and chugging rhythms would be replicated throughout the Britpop period a decade after The Queen Is Dead was released. His take on rockabilly and garage can be heard today as an influence in bands like The Vaccines and Howler. All in all, this album still inspires and challenges in every way to this very day.

Next Steps

The Smiths released Strangeways Here We Come a year after The Queen Is Dead and it’s remarkable to see the change that 12 months made; Strangeways… has some luminous moments but with the band coming apart at the seams it would be their last and that tension can be felt throughout.  Seen by many – Morrissey and Marr included – as their best work, Strangeways… seems a huge step from The Queen Is Dead but it’s progress is purely in terms of production quality. It is certainly a more textured record but, in this writer’s opinion, these layers smothered them. Morrissey would go on to have a successful solo career while Marr would retain his legendary status as the enigmatic guitarist with stints in The The, Modest Mouse and The Cribs, as well as his own band Johnny Marr and the Healers. Bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce would spend a lot of time suing Morrissey and Marr in a long-running royalties dispute before resuming their careers as session players and for-hire touring musicians. The continuing acrimony of the band’s split means that their much-hoped for reunion remains as unlikely as ever. But they also said that about the Stone Roses…

First published on: Puluche.com

 

Oh No, I Love You – Tim Burgess (review)

Factory Records supremo Tony Wilson once famously said that the reason Manchester produced so many great bands was because the kids from that city had the best record collections. Despite being born in the Manchester suburb of Salford, Tim Burgess actually grew up 24 miles away in the sleepy Cheshire town of Northwich. Evidence suggests, however, that The Charlatans front man carried that Mancunian eclecticism in his DNA. His back catalog shows that he has never been afraid to dig into his own diverse collection in his work with The Charlatans, albeit with mixed results – 2001′s funk powered Wonderland was surprisingly excellent whereas the cod-reggae and dub of Simpatico five years later was as uncomfortable in parts as listening to a bunch of stroke victims attempting hip-hop. Burgess has also used his solo work and collaborations to stretch his artistic wings.

His debut solo album, 2003′s I Believe, was a product of living on the West Coast of America and indulging in his love of Gram Parsons (along with a fair amount of Colombia’s finest export). It was scatterbrained but euphoric mixture of country rock, folky pop and even hints of disco. Some of it worked, some of it didn’t but he somehow managed more hits than misses. All in all it didn’t really seem to matter. It was the sound of a musician reveling in his freedom and having a lot of fun while doing so. Nine years on from all that and there’s still more than a hint of Americana on his second solo effort, Oh No I Love You, which is unsurprising when you consider it was recorded in Nashville with longtime Lambchop producer Mark Nevers at the helm, Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner providing lyrics and members of Clem Snide, Factory Floor and My Morning Jacket aiding and abetting on the musical side. However, while Burgess seemed to be in thrall to his adoptive city of L.A. on I Believe, in some cases sounding like he was actually auditioning to become a Flying Burrito Brother, it’s a quintessentially English delivery that he brings to Oh No I Love You, onewhich somehow manages to hold its own in the face of the American influences dominating the music. If that sounds as though this could be a somewhat schizophrenic, conflicted and muddled album, you’d be one-third right.

The notoriously flighty and unpredictable singer has once again managed to confound and surprise, the result being an album varying in styles and directions, but bizarrely this is his most cohesive, warm and refreshing record in years. Whereas I Believe came across as a little too affected in parts, Oh No I Love You is a sincere album, an honest record but not an earnest one. With jaunty piano lines and celebratory New Orleans horns throughout, it’s a joyous celebration of a record in parts and heartfelt and authentic in others. A relaxed Burgess applies the finishing touch to most of the songs with vocals which sound assured and confident and yet effortless and cool at the same time. (Admittedly, he struggles on a few). He sounds like a man at ease on songs such as “The Doors of Then” and you can almost hear a satisfied smile underpinning album opener and lead-off single “White.” Despite sounding more comfortable on the lighter songs, Burgess still manages to sound slightly miscast on songs such as the string-laden “Hours” where he dubiously takes on the role of a torch singer, and “Tobacco Fields” which, for all its dark, introspective beauty, drags on at a snail’s pace and provides too many challenges that his voice fails to meet. He seems completely out of his depth for 80% of “The Economy” but this is his worst offense. Oh No I Love You is strange, full of contradictions yet beautiful. Much like the man himself.

Commendations

Opening with “White” could be seen as a masterstroke as its infectious Hammond-drenched, brassy stomp is the perfect example of what the album appears to have been conceived as – a fusion of  Americana and the influences from the singer’s upbringing, like northern soul, Motown and sixties pop. It’s playful and bouncy with an uplifting melody and rousing pulse. Burgess sounds like he’s improvising over the top of the sumptuous orchestration which is left to do the hard work of driving the tune. But rather than set the tone, “White” remains the high watermark, not because the other songs don’t match its quality but because nothing else sounds like it and so cannot be compared to it. It is top in a league of one.

It’s followed by the strumming alt-country of “The Doors of Then” which could be the soundtrack of every rose-tinted memory one has of cornfields and lovers. It also manages to stay true to the formula of combining the English sound (of the Kinks, this time) with the countrified twang of the American south. But where “White” created a mad, euphoric new hybrid of these styles, “The Doors of Then” harks back to I Believe‘s fascination with the Byrds, among others, only with a touch of Carnaby Street. “A Case for Vinyl” maybe labors the point of the title a little by adding crackling acetate effects but as a song, it’s a slow burning, atmospheric ballad that – for the most part – Burgess pulls off with aplomb. He struggles a little with the pace, straining as it drags his voice to uncomfortably high and plaintive places, but there’s no denying the heart of the song is honest and strong.

“The Graduate” starts by tricking the listener with a riff reminiscent of “1969” by The Stooges before sliding off into country territory again. It takes yet another bizarre turn in its lyrics: “We met by Shepherd’s Bush, the hat you wore was ridiculous…sitting on the bus, laughing at the both of us…” This London imagery sits awkwardly with the bending, twanging steel guitar but the melody on which the words glide is pitch perfect for this bluegrass-swinging sixties mutation. As mentioned above, “Hours” is something completely different altogether. Emotional bursts of violin, rousing John Barry-esque orchestration and a smokey vocal conjure up images of romantic montages from the love stories of 60s cinema. It does have a disturbing touch of karaoke about it, however, which fails to make it completely convincing but full marks for bravery! “Tobacco Fields,” as mentioned previously, has a dark majesty at its core but its pace is a little too pedestrian and rather than eliciting a truly deep emotional wrench, it veers towards the soporific. The album comes back to life with “Anytime Minutes” which is a great example of Kurt Wagner writing a pitch-perfect vehicle for the singer’s loose vocal style while harnessing the rustic vibes that flow through the veins of the Nashville outside the recording booth.

The wonderfully-titled “The Great Outdoors, Bitches” is a strange but fantastic creature, a bizarrely paced mixture of trombone, conga and drum machine. It shouldn’t work but somehow it does…unlike “The Economy” which tries to tackle a serious subject but with Burgess straining at a range where only dogs can possibly hear him while a cacophonous mixture of free-form jazz and indulgent guitar noodling do battle below, any attempt at credibility is sadly lost. There’s redemption in the final track, “A Gain,” which has the building melancholy and barely-constrained desperation of Final Cut-era Pink Floyd. It takes a while to get to where it needs to be a great song – much like many Floyd tracks – but get there it does. It succeeds in successfully book-ending the album in direct contrast to the euphoric opening of “White” and gives pause to reflect on the journey of high points and missteps the listener has been through to reach this finale.

Next Steps

It could be argued that I Believe was an album Burgess made for California alone, a druggy love letter to his new paramour which unintentionally found its way into the hands of others, Oh No I Love You is the sound of a man standing up and making a record for everyone. It might not be to everyone’s tastes but at least he’s trying – and for the most part, he’s succeeded in making an accessible, breezy yet satisfyingly oddball record which adds to his extending reputation as an artist who continues to turn left when you think he’ll turn right. So when it comes to predicting his next steps…it’s anyone’s guess. Acid jazz with heavy metal overtones, perhaps?

First published on: Puluche.com

Battle Born – The Killers (review)

The Killers have always been big. Even when this writer saw them in a tiny Cologne bunker just after the release of their debut album Hot Fuss in 2004, they were already well-equipped to storm the stadiums of the world. The songs were huge, the sound was massive and Brandon Flowers’ belief was gargantuan. It would be two more years of threatening the structural integrity of cellars and bars (at least in Europe) before The Killers would get the chance to play venues which could physically handle their music. And just when they reached this level, they upped the ante with Sam’s Town. Hot Fuss had been brash and ballsy, with a hint of the operatic which would start to creep in over time, but with Sam’s Town, the Killers took those songs down the gym and put them through a serious muscle-building regime. The 2006 vintage Killers was a steroid-pumped behemoth of a band, rolling through 159 shows, five continents and 28 countries in just over a year, culminating in headlining shows at Madison Square Garden and Glastonbury. The scope of the music, the image of the band, and the possibilities before them exploded exponentially. In three years, they’d become one of the biggest acts on the planet.

But as well as reaching stadium rock’s zenith, they seemed to have lost many pieces of what made them unique on the way. They’d gone from fresh, young and hammy pretenders to bourbon-soaked, impervious penthouse playboys…misplacing their sense of irony and fun on the way. With 2008′s Day & Age, along with the back catalogs of Springsteen and Bowie which the album obviously drew on, Flowers discovered an inflated sense of importance which lacked the self-awareness which had made the sequined posturing not only acceptable but pleasingly palatable in rock’s mid-decade dullness. The Killers were in danger of falling victim to their own success and ending up another bloated AOR corpse on the highway to what-could-have-been. Thankfully, Brandon pulled back from edge just in time. Putting the band on hiatus, he went away and came back with solo album Flamingo in 2010. While patchy in quality, Flamingo at least saw The Killers front man return with renewed humility. While still overly dramatic in places, most of his songs displayed a control which his band had been on the verge of losing.

Now, two years after taking stock, The Killers are back and not only are they back in control, they’ve managed to hit on a formula which allows them to theatrically soar as before but remain tethered to the earth. Battle Born is expansive and panoramic but it’s shorn of the flabbiness that had gathered on their lithe frames with Day & Age. With that album, Flowers asked pretentious questions such as “are we human or are we dancer?” If Battle Born asks one question it could be “can regression be a positive thing?” The answer is a resounding yes, if by regression one means going back to a time before an aberration was committed and starting again from a point where things were almost perfect. Battle Born is the child which should have come from the union of Hot Fuss and Sam’s Town. It’s melodic, it’s strong, it’s powerful – but more importantly, it appears to have learned from previous mistakes. The Killers could never do stripped-down, they could never do lo-fi, but Battle Born is about as compact as they could possibly hope to be. After pulling back from the abyss, The Killers have found a restrained majesty in what they always did better than anyone else. Be under no illusions, Battle Born is a triumph and a more than welcome return to form.

Commendations

“I’ve gone through life white knuckle in the moments that left me behind…refusing to heed the yield…” The opening line of the album sets the tone as Brandon Flowers makes it known on “Flesh and Bone” that he’s had time to take stock of what’s gone before and has realized that, rather than being a spaceman floating high above the rest of humanity or some indulgent preacher passing judgment, he’s one of us. A human, not dancer, culpable and mistake-ridden. It’s a rip-roaring opening track which is both self-analytical and celebratory. The Killers seem to be reveling in the fact that they’ve found themselves again while holding their hands up to previous misdemeanors. There’s no wallowing here as “Runaways” proves. The second track is textbook Killers, a tale of star-crossed lovers fleeing a sticky situation told in rousing Springsteen fashion. It’s goose-bump inducing stuff. “The Way it Was” follows and continues the theme of doomed romance. This is pure and unadulterated 80′s power ballad territory but instead of going into pastiche overdrive, the band takes the foot off the gas and let the message linger and fade. The restraint from that finale bleeds into “Here With Me” which is brought to you by our sponsors at Zippo. This one comes with lighters aloft as standard. It teeters just on the right side of cheesy, proving that they haven’t lost that quality of plucking the heartstrings with just enough power not to snap them. “I don’t want your picture on my cellphone…I want you here you with me,” Flowers sings. “I don’t want those memories in my head.”

Raising the stakes again is “A Matter of Time” which could have come straight off Sam’s Town. It’s a sinister rocker, a chugging tale of dark obsession from the grimy underbelly of Las Vegas: “There’s a panic in this house and it’s bound to surface…Just walking through the front door makes me nervous.” Pulling back once more, adding to the well-paced ebb and flow of the running order, is “Deadlines and Commitments” which, while a competent inclusion, has the feeling that’s just here making up the numbers. It’s Fleetwood Mac-lite and the only real drop in quality. Thankfully, “Miss Atomic Bomb” arrives to lift the level to exemplary again; a teenage tale of “making out with the radio on” under the neon lights of Nevada’s city of sin. It’s anthemic and epic, like Joshua Tree-era U2 – all frantic verses dropping into breathless breaks before rocketing skywards into chiming choruses. “The Rising Tide” has elements of that Hot Fuss confidence and naivety – there’s strands of “Mr. Brightside’s” DNA woven through it as it builds into a crashing finale – but this is underpinned by the new maturity and control which reins in the pretentiousness of old. This maturity and control is most evident on “Heart of a Girl” which could be The Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane” if Lou Reed had favored satin rather than leather. The Killers of old would have layered on about eight extra tracks on top of what’s presented here and it benefits greatly from that restraint in production. What comes next, “From Here on Out.” is pure E-Street pop; it’s blue collar optimism in the face of bullies and oppressors – and it’s great.

The proof of any Killers pudding is in the eating of the last morsels. There are few bands that fall victim to the epic grandeur and indulgence of a massive finale in the way The Killers do. If Battle Born the album was going to be exposed as a false dawn its cover would have been blown by the end song of the same name. And while “Battle Born” borders on the preposterous at times, it has fewer of the dragged-out theatrics which have closed previous albums. It’s a clattering rock finale with Dave Kuening’s chiming guitar runs echoing those of The Edge, while Ronnie Vannucci’s drums and Mark Stoermer’s bass try and anchor the whole thing down. It fades out and then back in on a piano coda, but instead of using this as a cue to bring in the big finish, the keys quietly retreat again as the album ends.

Next Steps

Now they have rediscovered their mojo, one hopes that The Killers will continue to learn from their previous mistakes. Battle Born will no doubt shoot them back into the stratosphere and necessitate another mammoth world tour, taking in the world’s enormodomes, but hopefully it won’t blow their minds – and egos – like it did last time. It seems unlikely that Brandon and Co. will let things get to that level of craziness again, especially after seeing what can be achieved – in terms of quality material – from embracing humility. One wonders though, what The Killers can hope to produce after this. It would be a beautiful full-stop if they decided it was as far as they could go.

First published on: Puluche.com

Lonerism – Tame Impala (review)

Tame Impala – by which one really means the band’s creative force Kevin Parker – continues to do things their/his own very idiosyncratic way. Despite the acclaim that began with a number of courageously out-there EPs and which went global with the release of debut album Innerspeaker in 2010, Parker and his troupe of Aussie psychonauts go about their business as though they are still huddled over battered moogs in a bedroom far from the eyes and ears of the rest of the world. Born out of the hugely creative underground alt-rock community in their hometown of Perth, there could have been few more remote places in which Tame Impala could come together. Not only cast to the farthest point on the coast of Western Australia but also isolated from that city’s mainstream society within a thriving sub culture, it was a miracle in itself that Parker’s music ever got heard in his own country, let alone around the world. But get heard it did and not only that, the music dreamt up in those shared houses and remote beach communes of Australia’s most western tip got under our planet’s skin. It tapped into something dormant, something which had been sleeping since the 60s dream died. Tame Impala sounded like nothing which was around at the time of Innerspeaker’s release. In fact, they sounded like nothing which had strode the earth in the previous 50 years.

One gets the impression that it’s all still a little too surreal for Parker, all this fame and adoration. It still baffles him that his music takes him around the globe, allows him to play his bedroom grooves to increasingly large audiences of rabid fans, and inspires the world’s press to clamour for his thoughts and opinions. Here is a young man who is lauded by a Who’s Who of rock royalty, whose music inspires cultish devotion from those who should have seen it all and done it all. And yet, here is a guy who took himself and his friends off to a small Paris apartment, away from the glare, to write and record an album called Lonerism. It’s remarkable that Parker and his cohorts still consider themselves to be loners in the face of such a gathering tide of acclaim, that they have remained grounded until now. It will be unfathomable if they can keep it up after this record gets out. A similar animal to Innerspeaker but of a more subtle stripe, Lonerism is going to be everywhere. It will permeate consciousness and bleed into other dimensions. Where its predecessor was a collection of weird, tripped-out flights of fancy and ballsy psych-rock workouts, Lonerism has given Tame Impala the wings to fly in their own airspace – and it’s far from this world. There is freedom above these clouds, expansive panoramas conceived in the mind and released through this transcendental music. Where Tame Impala stopped and started to great effect on Innerspeaker, here they fly seamlessly through Lonerism, over and through its epic selection of soundscapes with the abandon which only the gloriously unconscious can achieve.

Commendations

The album opens with “Be Above It” and immediately there are initial palpitations of fear. The frantic, panicked drums and speed-freak paranoia are accompanied by the panted refrain which raises worrying questions: has Kevin Parker taken his love of psychedelia to the level of immersing himself in a lysergic nightmare which has frazzled his mind? Thankfully though, these fears are unfounded. When the song regains its balance and finds its center, it quickly becomes a breathy, Motown-tinged jaunt through hazy pop. The pace quickens with “Endors Toi” which is a space rock wig-out but again, after bursting through the stratosphere with all rockets firing, the song eases back on the throttle and we’re soon floating above the earth again in a Parker-piloted shuttle heading for Planet Groove. Here the Tame Impala head honcho channels John Lennon in his Sgt. Pepper finery, all braids and epaulets, dreaming wistfully in a Lucy kinda way as the intergalactic chugging guitars and cosmic drums take you far above the planet.

“Apocalypse Dreams” as a title suggests a morbid, end of the world vibe but once more, Parker throws a curve ball and focuses more on the dreaming than the destruction and delivers another slice of cosmic, Motown-influenced dream pop. It’s a song which makes you feel like you’re floating in an isolation tank filled with extremely strong weed vapours while recollections of a lover’s whispers of reassurance stroke your mind. In all these new songs, Parker’s voice operates as a guide on the soundwaves, leading you through the stories he weaves in lullaby tones but the music behind it all is equally mesmerising. Effects blow in and out, synths echo and fade, the guitars bend impossibly all over the musical spectrum and the bass and drums get locked into unshakeable grooves, whatever the time signature – which vary from moment to moment on most tracks, leaving the listener to trip and stumble through songs like “Mind Mischief.” Up next is “Music to Walk Home By” which should come with a disclaimer: If you walk home listening to this track, you may not make it. Even sat in the security of a well-padded chair, tethered to the tangible reality of a stereo system via headphones, I was floating away. Had I been on the street, I would have wandered past my house, out of town, through the fields… Perhaps only the coast would have stopped me. I was utterly transported into a swirling, hypnotic soundscape, through ebbing and flowing colours, following Parker’s lilting refrain like the call of a psychedelic siren.

“Why Won’t They Talk to Me” has Tame Impala pawing at terra firm but not for long. Even with an upbeat bass and drum line which was made for absent-minded head nodders the world over, Tame Impala can’t help themselves. Soon you’re three feet off the ground again, following the strands of muted organ and skittering effects like a cartoon cat floating along on the waves emanating from a freshly cooked 2-D chicken.  Once you touch down again in time for the exiting reprise, it’s your moment to dance. The song hits its stride as it returns to earth, chugging into the distance and a fist –pumping finale. “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” is a beautiful, wistful Beatlesesque tune which soars along on a mid-tempo bass line which McCartney would be proud of; all subtle runs and high notes exploring the possibilities inhabiting the expressive vacuum under Parker’s high-flying vocals. “Elephant” is the stand-out track, mainly because it breaks from the untethered, ethereal dreaming of what’s gone before to stomp along like the titular pachyderm in a pair of glitter boots. It’s glorious glam rock which sounds like all great songs do – like it would be a blast to play. Every Impala is in the zone here, whereas most times they seem to float around each other in the general vicinity of the main coda, adding layers and colours of their own. “Elephant” follows a simple, throbbing blueprint and it’s a thrilling piece of music which is enhanced by the rolling, tumbling lyrics: “He took the mirrors off his Cadillac because he didn’t like it looking like he looked back…”

Next Steps

My only criticism would be that Lonerism lacks the diverse punches which punctuated its predecessor. Lonerism is beautifully crafted and a pure vision; all the songs fit seamlessly together but “Elephant” aside, it feels like a long sunny afternoon, when you’re high as a kite, lying in the long grass. Time drifts by as easily and pleasingly as the shapes forming in the clouds that float in the blue sky above. This is all well and groovy but one feels as though it could do with more of the jarring, acid-freak moments the band’s debut threw up from time to time, jolting you out of your pipe dream to ask “where the hell are we?” or  “what’s going on, man?” Lonerism seems content to just recline and say, with a mellow grin, “it’s all good, brother.” It takes you out of your body on a wonderful flight but a little more turbulence would have been welcome.

First published on: Puluche.com