VITAL REVERB: OCTOBER 22, 2009 Sounding Off On The Sounds You Need
Hornet Leg
Ribbon Of Fear
K
ESM Rating: 8/10
The last time I crapped my pants, I was riding a
bicycle and felt the emergency coming on, so I stopped, knocked on my friend’s
door, but only made it halfway up the stairs. There was an embarrassing bump in
my whitey tighties, so I turned around and went home, and the only pleasure I
drew from the experience was telling people the story later in life. Then, a
few weeks ago, I pooped my pants again — a poop of delight — a Hornet
Leg poop. This Oregon trio’s full-length debut release Ribbon of Fear carved
a deep-seated affection in my heart and painted a line in my shorts.
Hornet Leg pulls from the classics, the progressives, the punk nihilists, television, and
Missy Elliot. All of those influences are evident in the weighting of their
sound, successfully mounting a mixture of artistic elements beginning with the album
opener/ title track, which is organized, crisp, and sounds like a 1960s Japanese
surf bar house band, had one ever existed. Then there’s the scrappy pop of
“Wait” and the impromptu sound and scattered use of intermittent vocal
interruptions in the lo-fi chorus of “My Baby.” And “Ruined My Life” somehow
sounds like a countrified Black Lips, proving that Hornet Leg’s range throughout these varying levels is a bonafide blast-off.
Hornet Leg frontman Chris Sutton, who began playing under the
group‘s now-established nomenclature as a solo act, has turned the band into a
brilliant outfit that sets an example for diversity. Operating within the
specific garage/ punk/ power blues genre Hornet
Leg has placed themselves in, it’s hard to not find something on Ribbon Of Fear to love. Seriously, if
nothing else gets you going, it will be the back-up “ghost” members
contributing to “I’m Leaving You,” or the inclusive nature of the album’s final
tracks, with hand-clapping and energetic call-outs to the listener. Ribbon Of
Fear takes on a much more garage-punk feeling as the tracks move forward,
crowning a live show feeling on the head of a full-length debut. Hornet Leg records
as if they were doing it all in one flawless live take, wearing themselves out
until they resurrect for an organized finale powered by jet fuel. Anyone who
gets to drink jet fuel and play in a band this good is on top of their game. By
Will Tunstall
Wild Beasts
Two Dancers
Domino
ESM Rating: 9/10
Two Dancers will effectively start a dance party, chill session, pump-up drive, lonely
night, rainy day, break-up, make-up, make out, or book club. Wild Beasts have arrived at a junction, marrying the ability to fit into every niche of
independent merit while remaining completely absent of fumble. This is hands-down
a startling album, consuming every available second with exploratory angst and
exaltation of the dreary skids of Britain’s industrial expanse.
Traveling easily from humorous to haunting, Two
Dancers flows so seamlessly there isn’t time for one’s mind to comprehend a
privy change in emotion. Everyone who’s been in earshot of me while I was
giving Two Dancers a listen has, without fail, cocked their heads and asked, “Who are you listening
to?” Hayden Thorpe’s erupting falsetto is the rocket science around which the Wild
Beasts operate, and joined by Ben Little, Tom Fleming and Chris
Talbot, the glamorous rise of this English foursome is an impending certainty.
Album opener “The Fun Powder Plot” embodies the
podium held by the group, warning that, “This is a booty call/ a Freudian slip/
a junky jurisdiction.” Working into “Hooting and Howling,” a track of
cultivated rhythmus connection, Thorpe oozes danger with the line, “We’re just
brutes/ lookin’ for shops to loot.” Two Dancers loiters like a Times
Square street pimp with the education of Stephen Hawking, belting an almighty prophesy
as you walk past. Buy this album now (or find some other way to get your hands on
it), because trying to put the elements that make this sophomore release rule
so much into words is killing me. By Will Tunstall
Sonya Cotton
Red River
Self-released
ESM Rating: 7/10
I hate to sound chauvinistic, but what I call “fem-folk”
isn’t exactly my favorite subgenre of music. Maybe it’s the stark simplicity,
maybe it’s the never-ending combination of tenderly picked acoustic guitars and
swooning voices, or maybe it’s the whininess that many people (including my
wife, who’s decidedly not a chauvinist) hear in the voices of most female
singer/songwriters. Yet something about Sonya
Cotton’s third album Red River is
fascinating. Maybe it’s the fearless exploration of death — see the album
cover, which features Sonya in
flowing white dress crying over a dead deer with a bloodied nose. Or maybe it’s
the spot-on instrumentation from Cotton’s backing band, which consists of a crack group of San Francisco folk
veterans.
Whatever it is, album opener “Wild Wind” flows down
from some mysterious mountain, with clattering percussion and weeping strings
adding weight to Sonya’s flitting
vocals. Red River’s title track takes
cues from the wandering Irish folk of Van Morrison and the beautiful British
creations of Nick Drake, while the lilting “Bear” boasts sumptuous
Appalachia-flavored violin along with tightly interwoven harmonic quilts. In
fact, that wave of voices rising and falling may be the strongest aspect of Red River, with gorgeous choruses
highlighting “Brother And I” and the sparse “Hilltop Hymn.” Woodsy atmospherics
dot “Canal,” a medieval flute conjuring otherworldly visions as it does on
“Song For Tony,” before “Knowing Mother’s” wordless melodies and stomping
tambourines offer an exhilarating paean to the folk gods. Fem-folk yes, but Sonya Cotton’s Red River is one of most riveting additions to this hit-or-miss field. By
Nick McGregor
Banner Pilot
Collapser
Fat Wreck
ESM Rating: 6/10
It may seem like gritty yet melodic punk rock has
fallen by the wayside, but that’s only because it doesn’t get the same amount
of mainstream attention as in its 1990s heyday. Fat Wreck Chords is still home
to a host of melodic punk royalty, in addition to assisting the careers of
newcomers like Minnesota quartet Banner
Pilot. And these Midwestern miscreants combine the influence of hometown
heroes Dillinger Four with past inspirations like Jawbreaker to deliver a
steady dose of determined punk on sophomore release (and major-label debut) Collapser.
There’s nothing fancy or overly polished about Collapser, which features solid
three-minute blitzes of infectious pop punk (emphasis on the punk) on standout
tracks like “Central Standard” and “Greenwood.” Lead singer/guitarist Nick
Johnson has a pleasantly gruff delivery, surely grizzled by late nights
drinking warm beer and smoking cheap cigarettes in shitty Minneapolis
basements. Even for Banner Pilot’s geographic identity, they sound like they could easily fit in with the
Floridian crust-punk gang at Gainesville’s No Idea Records, especially on the reflective
“Starting At An Ending,” the joyous sing-along “Skeleton Key,” and the frenetic
“Empty Lot.” Banner Pilot hasn’t
reinvented the wheel on Collapser,
but they do take punk rock back to its humble and fun-loving roots —
something desperately needed in this age of sell-out characters like Fall Out
Boy and Good Charlotte. –NM
Juice Aleem
Jerusalaam Come
Big Dada
ESM Rating: 7/10
I don’t know if anyone in the history of hip-hop has appeared
on the cover of his solo debut wearing a military uniform and a fez while wielding
a scimitar. So first impressions tell us that United Kingdom rhyme slinger Juice Aleem clearly stands out from the
pack. The dub-heavy, reggae-influenced beats on Jerusalaam Come also may baffle American listeners, who are more
accustomed to bombastic Dirty South bass drops and gritty cinematic funk
samples. But it’s impossible to deny that Aleem’s choppy, rapid-fire delivery shames most other rappers, whose primary
lyrical investigations stick to the inside of clubs and their outward bling.
“First
Lesson” appropriately starts the album, with Juice Aleem scolding lesser MCs over a jaunty dub bass line, while
“Straight Out Of BC” pays homage to Aleem’s Birmingham hometown and its attendant social ills. That track also provides
a look into the militant Five-Percent Afrocentrism of Jerusalaam Come, a hard-line viewpoint furthered on the melancholy,
piano-driven “The Fallen (Gen. 15.13)” and the vaguely homophobic and
unsettling “KuntaKinTeTarrDiss.” Other album standouts include the instrumentally
irresistible “Church Of Rock,” the battle-rap bout “Higher Higher,” and the
grimy Wu-Tang tribute “The Killer’s Tears.” Juice Aleem’s working title for Jerusalaam
Come was “This Is Not For Everyone,” and indeed, if sharp intelligence,
brutal lyrical put-downs, and complex explorations of contradictory worldviews
don’t do it for you, Juice Aleem might
not either. –NM
