Music Spectrum

I don’t know if I really care that there’s a storyline in Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto. That’s a strange thing to say for a guy who really cares about lyrics. But Coldplay has always seemed to me more about atmosphere than substance. I appreciate their lyrics, I am intrigued sometimes by the words, but above that, there’s the atmosphere. There’s the piano and keys. There’s the acoustic guitar entering in. There’s the broad strokes and grand melodic themes.

Mylo Xyloto is no different. Yes, there’s a storyline of two lovers, but what draws me in are the atmospherics. The album has symphonic qualities in the Britrock. Chris Martin uses his voice as another instrument in the mix, sounding even more like Bono at times than normal. Is that because Brian Eno was producing? Eno certainly adds his touch to the album, although this is no Unforgettable Fire. The album has elements that work like drum fills to break up the tracks, but it can’t quite escape the feeling that this is one drawn out musical theme throughout.

However, I do enjoy the Big Country-like bagpipes-as-guitars on “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall,” a track that keeps increasing the presence of the drums until everything falls away for a big march/dance finish. The Edge-like electric guitar that punctuates “Major Minus” kicks the thing into high gear. “Charlie Brown” works with typical anthemic air, raising your arms to the sky as the sound works on your heart—and it’s here that you realize how often worship bands are trying to recreate that same feel for different purposes.

Coldplay
Capitol Records

Ah, the gray days of winter are here, and they bring back the hankering for the Mighty Lemon Drops, especially World Without End. While not necessarily winter music, that’s when it always made most sense to me, enhanced by the black and white photo of the band on the cover underneath bare trees. The music chimes in, drives forward, but still has a gray, brooding mope. Most often compared to Echo & the Bunnymen, the Mighty Lemon Drops were often my companion driving around the suburbs at night caught up in the emotional mess of high school.

2011 saw the return of the Mighty Lemon Drops guitarist/songwriter David Newton. Yielding an EP Paint the Town with the backing partners known as Thee Mighty Angels, the music recalls the gray mope of the Mighty Lemon Drops, although there’s less angst. “It’s time to paint the town,” Newton sings over stretched out guitar, keys, and pop-influenced rhythms. “Bittersweet” begins with a bit more edge in the guitar, but there’s still a way in which you want do a pop frolic to it. Newton has perhaps grown out of some of the angst and now brings that new perspective to the music today. “Everything is Just So” reminds me of the Britpop rock in Spearmint or the Free French. Newton’s EP closes out with “My First Band,” a duck back inside the garage for instantly accessible guitar riffs and keyboard bounce, telling the story of hopes and dreams of starting a rock band.

David Newton & Thee Mighty Angels

2011 saw the re-release of sorts of Farewell Flight’s 2008 album that eventually got shelved. I was really pleased with the original album, so it was great to see Farewell Flight leaving the tarmac again with the help of Mono vs. Stereo. I think the only disappointment was that the new album no longer featured “A Lullaby for Insomaics” as the opening track.

Here’s the original review I wrote back in 2008. . .

Driving home in the rain—changing over to freezing rain—I found hope in the words of Farewell Flight’s “A Lullaby for Insomniacs” (Sound. Color. Motion.).

Tilt your glasses steep
And drain them if you’re like me,
Filled up with apathy,
Worn out, expecting defeat,
Concur if you’re at home
And you’re getting drunk alone,
In front of the TV,
Stone-faced and falling asleep
And smile ‘cause this one’s for you
And the trouble you’ve gotten into,
The darkness you’re still working through
And the dialogue that’s haunting you

Farewell Flight’s introduction song that calmly comes out of a melancholic space, akin to Del Amitri’s “Tell Her This,” leads into their album of Coldplay-inspired Britrock vistas. The words of this lullaby are hopeful in acknowledging those who are coming out of darkness, working through whatever hurts are haunting your soul. It’s a song that points to the more hopeful themes elsewhere in the album, and yet, it begins where a listener is—ready to hear someone sing their life, as Morrissey put it.

Before the short lullaby fades to a close, Luke Robert Foley sings, “I’ve made my bed/And I don’t want to sleep in it.” I take that line as meaning, “I’ve made this mess through my own actions that contribute to the darkness, but I don’t have it lie in it. I don’t have to stay here. I can emerge into a hopeful place.”

Farewell Flight then obliges with the strains of hope that lift up the rhythm of track 2, “Widower”—which even in its sadness rises like an anthem from the ashes. It’s that hope that points to the true phoenix: Jesus Christ, His Resurrection, His empathy with our state of recovery, His Spirit helping us work through life, and His forgiveness that exorcises the haunting dialogues from your daily guilt loop in your head.

Farewell Flight
Mono vs. Stereo

Should I duck when I say this? When Oasis broke up in 2009, it didn’t really cross my radar screen.

I suppose in some corners I should duck. I’ve seen people say that they believe Oasis was the best band ever, although I personally can only ever apply the title “greatest band in the world” to the Smiths. Needless to say, Oasis is very important to some people, so to say that their break up didn’t even cause me to sit up and take notice might be quite offensive.

So, then, in 2011 I found myself not once but twice returning to Oasis as Liam Gallagher’s Beady Eye debuted their Different Gear, Still Speeding and now more recently Noel Gallagher brought his Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Both albums seem cut from the same family swath—quintessential British rock with bright guitars, sprawling anthems, and soulful introspection. However, where Beady Eye keeps up an intensity equal to Oasis’ bright burning light, Noel Gallagher pulls across a gray sky behind his High Flying Birds, making silhouettes in front of that stretched out sound.

Beady Eye, which majority-wise still carries most of the Oasis weight, points to the continuation of the band with the album’s title, Different Gear, Still Speeding. Raucous and yet anthemic, Beady Eye picks up where things ended. There weren’t many surprises here. However, for those who have appreciated the work of Oasis but perhaps haven’t followed them album by album, Beady Eye gives a new entry point into these influential mates.

“Four Letter Word” is brash and bold, even as Liam Gallagher chants away above the bombastic chords and drums. A bluesy, acoustic feel leads into “Millionaire,” which shows the Beatles influence as much as any Oasis song. That leads right into “Roller,” which begins like the Beatles’ “Revolution,” and of course, the influences are on center stage for “Beatles and Stones.” Elsewhere, listen to the rockabilly piano of “Bring the Light” and the bluesy classic rock of “Standing on the Edge of the Noise.”

Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds opens with the cinematic soundscape as if from Danger Mouse and and Daniele Lupp’s Rome. Gallagher’s track, “Everybody’s On the Run,” reveals a vocal loneliness as if sung from the edge of an empty pier. “Dream On” clangs away on a barroom piano, swaggering underneath the drawn-out sky. The acoustic guitar leading the way on “If I Had a Gun” recalls “Wonderwall” although the song never ranges to the Oasis track’s heights. “AKA. . .What a Life” contains hints at something a bit more aggressive rhythmically with more driving force than the rest of the album.

Worth exploring at some length, “Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks” questions whether patriots and Christians really see and understand the injustices and struggling that happens around us on a daily basis. Those questions—coming on a laidback groove and sad trumpet—hit you hard when you realize that Gallagher might just be right.

Ed Vallance
Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a third Oasis offering, turn to Ed Vallance and his Volcano, due out in January 2012. While the album opens with “Crystalline” that has more dancebeat drum than anything Oasis offered, listen to the London-born Brooklyn singer, watch things stretch out and wait, and hear the quintessential British rock come pouring in. “Seabird” does the anthem sway. “Black and White Light” spins the disco ball for the pulsing rock. The title track picks up the soulful vibe for the stanzas as if Roxy Music, while the choruses and bridge drive on like the Railway Children dragged ahead into the 90’s. For more on that 90’s influence, go straight to “Dear Misfortune.”

Noel Gallagher
Beady Eye
Dangerbird Records
Ed Vallance

Remedy Drive has a sound that could launch them outside of the Christian music scene. Their past work has delivered anthemic, piano-driven (piano-pounded) rock, pointing to hope even while the music clearly rails against the brokenness of life.

On 2011’s Light Makes a Way EP, Remedy Drive continues this drive. Despite the fact that this band of brothers has now changed and left only one brother to carry on the vision, David Zach (vocals, piano, guitar) has assembled a new band capable of the charged-energy necessary for his lyrics. The title track and “Don’t Wait Too Long” let Zach raise his voice and fist, propelled by Dave Mohr’s guitar explosives, Timmy Jones’ pounding drum fills, and Corey Horn’s driving bass. The production keeps things raw enough to let the passion and mess appear in all of their dark brilliance.

I am concerned, though, with tracks like the ballad “Follow Me,” where Zach talks to his son about the big questions of life and the questions of childhood (“Can I stay up late?”). If the Contemporary Christian Music mill gets their hands on Remedy Drive because they write such direct songs about fatherhood and the faith, I am afraid that the vim and vigor will go right out of the music. I hope that Remedy Drive could follow the path of Switchfoot, play clubs and bars, see how their music can connect outside the Christian market. Then be sent back to the writing/recording process imagining a completely differently audience, yielding even more struggling, searching anthems as Zach climbs on his piano and jumps free and hopeful for his hearers.

Remedy Drive

Richard Ashcroft may not claim any particular creed, but he certainly borrows freely from Christian imagery on The United Nations of Sound, his Verve-drenched album from the band’s former frontman. “Are You Ready?” comes on like an end times preacher asking the most pointed of all questions, and while the song clearly has Ashcroft saying that he’s not a Christian, still he has soaked up enough theology to say: “Yes, I’m ready, ‘cause I’ve lived a life of sin, and I’ve heard that sinners have got a chance with him.” “Born Again” speaks about having a renewal on life, and while Ashcroft may borrow Jim Morrison’s line, “cancel my subscription to the resurrection,” still the song works in the Christian realm of redemption. Then there’s the dance-beat “Beatitudes” (pronounced “beat-i-tudes”) which works like a prayer for something beyond what we have, a dance cry for the “Gospel truth.”

Like Peter Distefano (Porno for Pyros) and his album, Soul Trigger (review), Ashcroft revolves in a spiritual realm, exploring Christian imagery and theology, while stamping out his own groove. For fans of the Verve, the music will draw you right in. For a believer, the imagery will draw you in, make you think twice, and wonder if Ashcroft hasn’t unintentionally wandered right up to the spiritual answers that he needs, answers that come from Jesus, answers where this bitter sweet symphony meets the Gospel.

Richard Ashcroft
Razor & Tie

ALSO haunts that mystical space between dream state and consciousness even while delivering rock music that moves straight ahead. Music Belongs in the Background actually clamors to be turned up loud, accompanying you on travels like the Church’s Starfish—ethereal, driving Britrock. Listen to the dark, psychedelic hush in the vocal of “Call It Funny” which is broken up and pushed out into the light by the drum/cymbal fills. The album’s opener, “I Love You,” sneaks up on you, waiting for the chorus to cry out against the sky. “So Long” loosens up a bit with hints of a brighter Britpop. The guitars and drums smash up the brooding on “True.” The title track shimmers like moonlight on the surface of a lake even as the drums pulse, pull, and shake.

ALSO