Music Spectrum

I had picked up MTV’s Rock-n-Roll To Go on cassette back in 1985 for lots of reasons, but it probably wasn’t Ratt’s “Round and Round.” But then through constant play on MTV and repeated listens on cassette, the track became a true guilty pleasure. I prided myself on taking a step beyond hair metal bands and their Spandex. It was early, but I was already developing a preference for indie and alternative, a preference I would fully embrace in a couple of years when friends introduced me to the likes of the Smiths and R.E.M. Meanwhile, I was listening to Ratt’s “Round and Round,” doing a little headbanging in my bedroom when I was sure no one was watching.

Mike Viola brings all of this back with his acoustic, altfolk version of Ratt’s song for Guilt by Association Volume 3. It’s subdued, smoldering, and almost bluesy. With a plinking piano and slide guitar added in, the song burns in a completely different way than the heavy metal original. Viola makes the song into an indie, alternative gem. Makes me think the song’s much deeper than I would’ve ever guessed. I think.

Beyond Viola’s track, Engine Room Recordings has once again assembled a terrific selection of tracks that you know you secretly love. Helmet makes a 90’s trash/shoegaze beautiful mess of Loudness’ “Crazy Nights.” Bon Jovi becomes a girl band/synth fest in the hands of Malibu Shark Attack! Elk City keeps up that vibe with their beat-centric, subdued “Heavy Metal Love” (Helix).

My Cousin, The Emperor sends up a twangy sing-along of Extreme’s “More Than Words,” as if the band came back, pulled up barstools, and delivered the acoustic/country version you knew was always in their metal hearts. Having always had a soft place in my heart for the Outfield, Murder Mystery’s version of “Photograph,” with its close harmonies and indie country vibe, has gotten repeated plays. Continue the twang for Common Rotation’s take on Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

Engine Room Recordings
MTV’s Rock-n-Roll To Go (1985).
Mike Viola
Helmet
Malibu Shark Attack!
Elk City
My Cousin, The Emperor
Murder Mystery
Common Rotation

Warning for those album-oriented rock types: Motopony begins with the meandering “June” which betrays some of what comes later on this album. Motopony can push ahead soulful indie rock, such as on the rumbling, rambling “Seer,” so that the meandering, Bon Iver-like opener may be a false lead. In other words, don’t let it get you off track from listening to the band’s self-titled album. “King of Diamonds” holds things back a bit, but tracks along on a drum-set-in-a-vacant-warehouse beat. It’s a melancholic brightness. The rollicking “I Am My Body” sets a barroom piano and a Beatlesque/vaudevillian/carnival vocal on top of Stonesy rock.

Things come to a halt for the sung-out-of-the-side-of-his-mouth, Baroque-like acoustic “Vetiver.” Then like the CD just flipped sides of the record, the brief “Intro” harmonic organ piece opens the curtain on side two, bleeding right into “God Damn Girl.” The song is more about doubting/questioning God—a deadpan poem over picked guitars and drum machine beats. It’s a blues-like title, but the song doesn’t shout and sing. “God Damn Girl” settles into a beat poetry space.

After “God Damn Girl,” side two remains in an acoustic, brooding, introspection akin to Turin Brakes. Like coming through the space and dreaming and philosophical turnings of the 60’s, Motopony stares off into the outer world. I’m not convinced that this will be Motopony’s strength. Songs like “Seer,” “King of Diamonds,” and “I Am My Body,” which push ahead into soulful, indie rock, may be their best foot forward.

Returning to their best foot forward, “Seer” speaks out of a psychedelic beginning like the confession of a biblical prophet.

I am a sinner, baby; I am a deceiver
I am so selfish and so proud
There is no question, mama, need to be delivered
I’ll never get in if I’m afraid of coming out.

The prophet stands aside, knowing that he’s been called to proclaim the Word of God, and yet, he realizes that he’s just as much of a sinner as everyone else. He needs to be delivered from his transgressions just as much as the next person.

I am a seer, baby; I am a believer
My name is written in the clouds
You never dreamed but life floats by you like a river
You’ll never jump in if you are still afraid to drown.

The prophet, though, remains a seer and a believer in God. He knows that God has written this chapter of his life, a chapter that exceeds his wildest dreams, a chapter that he can only fulfill if he trusts that he won’t be swallowed up in judgment in the process. He must trust that he won’t drown but be saved by God’s grace.

As the song continues, it seems to shift from what sounds like an Old Testament prophet to being John the Baptist—calling people to repent and be baptized in preparation for the Messiah.

The spirit’s flowing, mama, make your body quiver
It’s welling up from underground
The lord has spoken, lover, get into the river
You’ll never get high if you’re afraid of coming down.

The Spirit was upon John the Baptist as he proclaimed God’s judgment on sin and the cleansing of being baptized in the river. You’ll never get high, spiritually speaking, if you’re afraid to be brought down, brought low as you face the fact that you’re a sinner. The Pharisees wouldn’t admit their need for forgiveness while many others came to John and were cleansed and prepared to hear the message of Jesus.

The song’s bluesy piano and guitar lead the way out, jamming on a rolling vibe, as the song preaches the truth: “Don’t you know that the river plays for keeps.” The gift of life that we receive in baptism promises eternity with God. The river washes away the sin for good; the river keeps the believers in the faith until the end.

Motopony
tinyOGRE Entertainment

Atmospherics greet you as the Phantom Band’s The Wants opens with “A Glamour.” Atmospherics, as in organic percussion, strange electronics, rushing synthezier wind, and what seem like studio noises. Then the tribal, art punk rhythms kick in, serving up a Wire-like drive and haunt. That well describes a lot of what you’ll find here. “O” bounces heavily and moderately tempoed on fat keyboard sounds, blips, and beats. “The None of One” builds up from an acoustic guitar like a Black Mountain psychedelic trip stripped back to a mournful cry only to jump up with a pumped up pogo beat for the electronic second half. That acoustic thing returns on “Come Away in tbe Dark.” Like a hint of country blues in the art rock, it’s gentle, chiming, inviting, as if a lullabye written by one of the Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguwar/Dead Oceans groups. In fact, the next track, “Walls,” has a Bon Iver-like timbre to it albeit with more synth sounds and art rock pounding-out-a-pattern drums. Overall, then, you’ll find that the synth grooves meld nicely with the organic throughout the album—which closes out with the dream-sequence beat of “Goodnight Arrow.”

The Phantom Band
Chemikal Underground

With a little bit of jangle in their pocket, Ravishers open up bright spaces in the indie pop wilderness. Their self-titled album begins with the earnest “I’m Him,” guitar and keys blending on a bounce. That leads right into the second track, the moody pop “You Have It” with its restrained, angsty electric guitar—like a less British version of Mood Elevator. Even as on “The Chase” they sing “the chase is my favorite part,” that may sum how I feel about the backbeat-led song with its swaggering chorus and noodling instrumental bridge. The piano-led “Cruel Love” sounds like Crash Kings dialed back a bit for an anthemic effect of their own. Check out the dirty, bluesy, simple guitar line for “Pinhole,” and you start to see that the pulled back electrics are the reason why this indie pop resonates. Ravishers don’t blow you away; they draw you in with just enough fire to make you wish for more.

Ravishers
Timber Carnival Records

The joy in listening to Sonic Youth is that you could hum along even when humming along made no sense at all. You could get lost in a song’s acrobatics, match its rise and fall with your humming and whistling, but it wasn’t like you were ever going to get trapped in a pop nightmare of sameness. Just as you begin to figure out how to hum along to the chiming, warbling, screaming guitar in one section, well, then everything falls apart into a noise oblivion taking you to the next floor of the abandoned warehouse of sound.

Enter now Norway’s the Megaphonic Thrift. Sit back, begin to hum along and enjoy the melody, and then realize you lost track of that melody somewhere quite soon but you’re still humming anyway. The Megaphonic Thrift’s Decay Decoy has that obliterated melodic structure that enchants you and throws you off at every twist and turn.

“The Undertow” opens the album with a guitar noise shockingly similar to Billy Idol’s “White Wedding,” but then the song takes on mainly a classic hard rock stance with riffs and soloing guitars all over the place. Yet, all along you feel like prog rock will take over and blow the thing to smithereens. It becomes a combination of My Morning Jacket and Black Mountain.

“Talks Like a Weed King” punks things up more towards that Sonic Youth way of chanting and railing through the pogoing. “Neues” sets a foundation at its beginning that clangs and rattles but in its own way can only be described as beautiful. And perhaps that’s the key with the Megaphonic Thrift: you have to be ready to describe the off-key, wheels-falling-off-the-speeding-truck music as having great beauty.

The Megaphonic Thrift
Sonic Unyon

Article first published as Music Review: The Megaphonic Thrift – Decay Decoy on Blogcritics.

Indie eclecticism greets you on Loch Lomond’s Little Me Will Start a Storm as the opening track, “Blue Lead Fences,” recalls indie rock, art rock, bluegrass, and folk all in the same breadth. It’s the orchestrated rock of Sufjan Stevens pressed forward in an urgent punk breath. Picked strings and Ritchie Young’s fragile lead vocal make it seem plaintive, but the choral-like gang vocals on the chorus is where the passion and energy resides, kicking up the piano and drums.

“Elephant & Little Girls” with its horns and strings has a storybook feel, like we’re learning a new fairytale sung into our ears for a children’s play. Loch Lomond has a way of making music of innocence—a spring-like quality made for walking around an English garden (“Water Bells”).

The Sufjan Stevens’ quality comes through again most clearly on the tentative strains of “I Love Me.” There’s an old country (Ireland, England, or even Eastern European) feel to “Blood Bank,” a slow, defiant march against whatever ails you.

Little Me Will Start a Storm should be on your car’s soundtrack as the weather warms up, you begin to roll down the windows, and forgetting the gas prices, you decide to go for a ride in the country.

Loch Lomond
Tender Loving Empire Records.

Article first published as CD Review: Loch Lomond – Little Me Will Start a Storm on Blogcritics.

There’s a lot to discover in Best of Gloucester County, the new album from Danielson. All of the usual attractions are laid out here for your visiting—strange lyrical imaginations, odd instrument couplings, folk rock played through a punk-like ferocity, orchestrated interpolations into other worldly harmonies. There’s less shouting even while maintaining that Anti-Folk vibe making Gloucester County more accessible, I suppose, in the scheme of all things Danielson.

But I think I was most overcome by the closing track, “Hosanna in the Forest.” Everything is pulled back for clanging strings, plinking piano, and humming instruments, and then a chorus emerges from the forest primeval, singing a round of hosannas to the Lord. It’s the echoes of Palm Sunday fading into the evening after Jesus and the disciples have faded back into the crowds but there’s still that tingling excitement among some people that this Jesus could be the Messiah-Savior.

Sounds Familyre