RECOPILATORI MAIG 2014

BLASMAR

PRIMITIVE HEARTS. Split 7" w/ Pookie & The Poodlez

Una miqueta de punk i de pop accelerat sempre ve bé per descongestionar una mica l'oïda. Si a més sons sons primitius com els d'aquest grup d'Oakland encara molt millor. Amb quatre minutets desenvolupen tres temes directes i contundents. Què més es pot demanar a un grup de punk, actitud, això és el que fa falta, i ganes de passar-s'ho bé.

FURROW. Dear Hunter

Des de San Diego aquest duet, Thom Snell & Richard Cartwright ens ofereixen dos temes que aniran inclosos en el seu primer 12' que publicaran el proper estiu. Noise pop lo-fi podria ser una definició del seu estil. Interessants sense matar. El seu segell Bleeding Gold Records és tota una garantia de qualitat. "Dear Hunter" la millor de les dues peces, amb un començament pausat i que va agafant connotacions a grups llegendaris com els mateixos The Fall. Un grup a seguir.

Buried deep in the corner of the internet lies a gleaming gem. I say gleaming, but really it’s a roughly cut, slightly grubby gem (in a good way) and it takes the form of ‘Dear Hunter’ by our new favourite band Furrow. The two piece specialise in creating ultra lo-fi noise pop that’s guaranteed to be the perfect antidote to any lagging house party, a bit like listening to The Fall through a blender full of margarita mix.

‘Dear Hunter’ is a full-on speaker rattler pulsing with jagged, fuzzy bass and window wrecking drums, all wrapped around a gloriously ramshackle pop hook. After numerous self released cassettes, Furrow have just completed a fresh EP, and if ‘Dear Hunter’ is anything to go by, it’s going to be pretty amazing.(Killer Ponytail)

LITTLE RACER. Modern Accent

Molts són els grups que beven dels anys 80. Els novaiorquesos Modern Accent en són uns d'ells. New wave i pop pels quatre costats.

Little Racer is a Brooklyn four-piece with a difference. Over the course of their Modern Accent EP, you may be reaching for comparisons to such ‘80s acts as the Cure, New Order, Joy Division and the Pixies. You may even go back further than that. “Fire Island”, one of the six tracks on this 24-minute EP, even sounds like a modern rendering of a Beach Boys song. Comparisons have been drawn elsewhere on the web to Vampire Weekend (which I really don’t hear) and Surfer Blood (a little more on the mark, but not quite). So there’s a whole raft of sounds that has gone into the sonic blend of the Modern Accent EP, and that’s what makes it so gosh darn enjoyable. Add to that the songwriting is top-notch. Even opening song “Fake French” might even have you reaching for the past with such lyrics as “When I was young / I was an idiot / Always getting my head messed up.”

But the real power on this album is the one-two opening punch of “Fake French” and “Vanessa”, both of which might be contenders for songs of the year. “Fake French”, with its shimmery, liquid guitar line and pulsating bass line, conjures feelings of listlessness and loneliness, all wrapped up in a bubblegum sound that will have you wringing your hands at how music like this just isn’t made all that often anymore. “Vanessa” is just as good, sounding like a long lost Pixies tune somewhere circa Bossanova, which is what I think is that band’s criminally underrated album. It’s just a damn catchy, bouncy song, with a chorus of “ohh ooh ohh’s” at the end sounding remotely Police-like. And while the rest of the EP falls slightly fall and hollow in its middle section, that’s not a criticism. The songs are still stellar, but the band has shot so high with those opening two tracks that anything else would be almost impossible to match. Overall, the Modern Accent EP leaves you in the end wanting more, more, more. I’d love to hear what else these four guys from New York have up their sleeves, but, until then, there’s always the liberal overuse of that repeat button to tide us over.(PopMatters)

FIREFLIES. In Dreams

Els Fireflies són de Chicago i la seva música no és gens estrident. Música relaxant perfecte per a migdiades de primavera. Uns sons clars, twee-pop en podríem dir. Les arrels de músiques dels anys 60 hi són ben presents. Un treball agradable d'escoltar.

”Hello, my name is Lisle and Fireflies is my “band.” I use quotations because I am the only person in the band. I grew up in the tundras of New England playing classical piano. I moved away to California to go to school and that’s how this whole thing got started. After I figured out a few chords, I bought a PortaStudio and started writing and recording songs; combining my love for simple, lo-fi recordings of the 1980s and 90s with my unrefined knowledge of classical structure and arrangement. I try to craft each song into a tiny snow-globe-sized universe you can curl up in and get lost for a little while.”

No one better than the artist himself to explain his music. My first contact wih Lisle and his project was back in 2008 when I reviewed the first long play he dropped: Goodnight Stars, Goodnight Moon. One long play and 2 EPs latter, In Dreams is released and all the passion for C86 and Sarah Records remains. Lisle delivers another collection of 12 lovely pop songs that could have been easily made in the 80s and we would never know it has just been recorded. Right on the second track he blesses us the indie-pop gem “A Chance Someday”, bringing light to ours memories Another Sunny Day, Field Mice, Razorcuts and any other fucking amazing jangle-pop band of that period. It’s incredible how it sounds so fresh. Keyboards by the end combined with xylophones are simply magical, leading to another great moment of this album, the piano-driven “Hiding Away”. The heart-beating arrangement building the riff at the beginning and the slow-paced atmosphere contributes to a relaxing yet shivering experience.

Without dropping the ball, Lisle hits hard again with “Fourth of July”, now with the help of a feminine touch to create vocal harmonies that are as amazing as some of best Ride moments. Once again, the keyboard plays a crucial role by the end prolonging the momentum. Although second part is not as strong as the first one due to being slower and a lot sadder, there are still some highlights to point out such as “Cartoons” and its sad break-up verses (I know it’s over now, but I don’t know how. I said that I loved you, but you just left and said goodbye, “If I Tell You” and “September”. This is the kind of album where lyrics are essential to fully understanding the artist’s work, specially in this case where they seemed to be created for the 80′s youth.

As strange as it might sound, In Dreams is controversially sad and warm, evoking several feelings and emotions. Classic indie-pop can hardly get better than this.(The crystal lake)

BEACH SLANG.Who Would Ever Want Anything So Broken?

Després d'uns dies de reflexió personal, de demanar-te què hi fas aquí, tornam a publicar una entrada, en aquest cas des de Philadelphia. Un treball de punk rock de tota la vida i que no aporta res de nou sinó el plaer d'escoltar un treball senzill i honest. Aquests treballs que de d'aquí recomanan sempre.

"These books and bars and this honesty, they're all I've got," James Snyder concedes halfway through "Get Lost", the third of four heartbreakers from Beach Slang's debut EP Who Would Ever Want Anything So Broken? Snyder—a self-admitted "slave to fucking up"—spends most of Broken couching his confessions in a certain romance: "We're just some dumb kids getting wasted and knowing we're alive," he sings on "Kids." When the so-called "accidents, whores, and wrecks" that populate Broken aren't screeching it out with the cops, they're drinking down or snorting up anything they can get ahold of. Yet, when Snyder insists "the kids are still alright," he's onto something.

And Snyder knows a thing or two about "the kids": before Beach Slang, he spent the better part of the last 20 years co-fronting much-loved Bethlehem, Penn., punkers Weston. To a certain stripe of east-coast pop-punk fan, the Philadelphia-based Beach Slang must look something like a supergroup; Snyder's joined by Ex-Friends drummer JP Flexner and NONA bassist Ed McNulty. Between their pop-punk pedigree and their SPF-spackled moniker, you wouldn't be wrong to go into Broken expecting a little sunshine. But Beach Slang's got something stormier on offer: four self-described "sweaty prayers" set to hard-charging drums and heartbleed guitars.

"I watched your palm hug your guitar—it buzzes like a bomb," Snyder remembers most of the way through "Get Lost". There's a careening, about-to-explode urgency of the guitars on Who Would Ever Want Anything So Broken? that's every bit as crucial to these songs' emotional heft as Snyder's lyrics. Everywhere you turn, breathless rhythms crash headlong into blaring, yearning leads, a perfectly outsized complement to the widescreen, fucked-up-and-loving-it sentiments. What this sound lacks in subtlety, it more than makes up in desperation, and that tug between those darting leads and Snyder's whispered-in-your-ear vocalese is electrifying. "I gave you taste, and a spine," Snyder sings on "Filthy Luck". The music drops out just in time for Snyder to stage-whisper his kiss-off: "And I hope you drown." The guitars charge back in a second later, the perfect punctuation to his seething passion.

While it's tempting to try to position the wild-eyed desperation in Beach Slang's music somewhere between the fuckup glory of the Replacements and the finely tuned angst of Jawbreaker, there's a considerably less cred-compatible touchpoint towering above the rest: the Goo Goo Dolls. Believe it or not, the hardscrabble Buffalo rockers turned adult-contempo mainstays are all over Broken; not so much the soggy "Black Ballon"-era ballad-slinging Dolls, but the scrappy pre-"Iris" Goos of "Naked" or "Only One". The longing lead guitars, Snyder's closed-miced confessionals, those everything-is-riding-on-this-moment stakes? Textbook Rzeznik. Despite the current onslaught of 90s revivalism, few bands seemed less primed for cool-kid revivalism than the Goo Goo Dolls. But chasing coolness seems to be just about the last thing on Beach Slang's mind. They're an earnest bunch, and the things they sing about—outsized romances, youthful abandon, feeling pretty good about feeling pretty bad—deserve the kind of big, heartrending, leave-it-all-out-there drama this surging alterna-pop only amplifies. And, between you and me, "Long Way Down" still bangs.

Broken is tantalizingly brief: four songs, 10 minutes, and barely a wasted breath. Still, it's not without its flaws: you'd need to consult the dental records to tell the ripcord melodies of "Filthy Luck" and "Kids" apart, while the limp harmonies that pepper "Get Lost" don't quite generate the same kind of heat as the three songs that surround it. But even when their nuts-and-bolts songwriting concerns falter, their passion rarely does: these songs feel like they bounded out of these guys fully formed, brash and urgent and very much alive. The people in Snyder's songs aren't always so good to themselves, but Snyder's awfully good to them: he celebrates their flaws, toasts their smallest successes, holds back their hair after another rough night. It may stick pretty close to the down-and-out, but Broken's a fairly life-affirming record; these people aren't perfect, but they've got time to figure it out. For now, they're accruing scars, gathering stories, and getting by with a little help from their fucked-up friends.(pitchfork)