Forget what you’ve heard about the music industry’s
coming demise:
plenty of record labels have blessed our ears with rock-solid
albums in 2009. ESM waded through the
muck to spotlight the best so far.
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Akron/Family
Set
‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free
Dead Oceans
ESM Rating: 8/10
This
Brooklyn trio travels farther afield on Set
‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free than most bands do in a lifetime, yet for all their
experimentalism and abstractions, Akron/Family
and their trademark sing-along choruses hew closely to indie rock’s
communal spirit. Afro-beat, funk, electronica, psych-rock, alt-country, and
noise-punk all make appearances — sometimes within the same song —
but no one seamlessly blends these disparate influences into a cohesive,
celebratory whole like Akron/Family.
Double Dagger
More
Thrill
Jockey
ESM Rating: 7/10
Minimalist
punk rock makes a triumphant return, from a nascent yet unlikely source —
Baltimore, where the early days of East Coast hardcore have recently given way
to an electro craze sweeping the city. Double
Dagger recorded More on the third
floor of an abandoned office building, in the dead of winter, presumably to document
their blisteringly explosive energy. Plainspoken shouts and plunking guitars
from lead singer/shredder Nolen Strals, soaring bass lines from Bruce Wilen,
and blitzkrieg drumming from Denny Bowen combine to hearken back to the good
ol’ Minor Threat/Fugazi days, when vitality and intelligence ruled the punk
rock roost.
The Devil Makes Three
Do
Wrong Right
Milan
ESM Rating: 7/10
Punk-tinged, whiskey-fueled, old-timey/bluegrass/ragtime mash-up from The Devil Makes Three, a sorely underappreciated trio from the
jam-band and reggae-infested surf town of Santa Cruz, CA. Similar to Nashville
outfit Old Crow Medicine Show — most notably for their lack of percussion
— The Devil Makes Three add charmingly
ragged vocal harmonies and a knee-slappin’ hoedown vibe to their fourth album, Do Wrong Right. A reputation for
down-home theatrics and legendary live shows only strengthens the need to
discover The Devil Makes Three now.
Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band
Outer
South
Merge
ESM Rating: 6/10
Conor Oberst first made a name for
himself writing painfully intimate and torturous indie rock under the Bright
Eyes banner, but his last two albums released as ConorOberst have found
him stretching out into dusty and vaguely country-and-blues-inspired adult
alternative. Outer South continues Oberst’s journey to the traditional
center of rock ‘n’ roll, alternately resembling early R.E.M., the janglier
moments of The Cure, and even late ‘60s Bob Dylan. But is this really the Conor Oberst we once came to know and
love? Or is he simply taking a much-needed breather after penning no less than
eight masterful records in 10 years?
Pink Mountaintops
Outside
Love
Jagjaguwar
ESM Rating: 8/10
Sultry yet
droning, hazy yet direct, Black Mountain frontman and Canadian rock powerhouse Stephen
McBean returns to his Pink Mountaintops side
project and proceeds to fully exploit the overused songwriting trope of love. And
while McBean’s dark, 21st-century iterations of love come across as equal parts
rapturous and destructive, Outside Love’s
menagerie of honey-voiced female contributors help to maintain the notoriously
randy Pink Mountaintops mood. The
album’s trashy-looking romance novel
cover art also serves as a fair assessment of its contents: inviting, instantly
gratifying, probably a little dirty, but secretly one hell of a good time. After
five critically lauded and widely celebrated albums in five years, can McBean
do no wrong?
Sir Lord Von Raven
Please
Throw Me Back In The Ocean
Happy Parts
ESM Rating: 6/10
Sugary
garage rock courtesy of shadowy Oakland, CA, outfit Sir Lord Von Raven, whose name comes from frontman/rock ‘n’ roll
Don Juan Eric Von Raven. Please Throw Me
Back In The Ocean is an endearingly sloppy, bar band-like romp through
elements of doo-wop, R&B, psychedelia, glam rock, and early punk, combining
it all into an easy-to-consume 42-minute blast from the past. Greg Ashley
provides the noodling guitar chops, Jay Bronzini runs roughshod over his drums,
and Josh Miller’s sneaky bass lines perfectly complement Von Raven’s squawking
California pop vocals. The whole shebang draws a direct yet lurching line
between the 1950s and today.
Tanya Morgan
Brooklynati
Interdependent
ESM Rating: 8/10
It sure is
refreshing to hear loose-limbed, soul-heavy, fun-loving underground hip-hop
— no Auto-Tune, blinged-out chains, or pop-rap egos in sight on Tanya Morgan’s third album, Brooklynati. The title references an
imaginary city dreamed up by Tanya
Morgan members Von Pea (of Brooklyn) and Donwill and Ilyas (of Cincinnati),
and unlike fellow backpack rappers Hi-Tek or MF Doom, Tanya Morgan spits rhymes straight out of Brooklynati’s middle-class reality, relying on recessionary woes,
heartache recollections, and reflections on pursuing a career you love. Plus, the
album’s sparkling samples will conjure up visions of the 1990s
Golden Age in no time.
John Vanderslice
Romanian
Names
Dead Oceans
ESM Rating: 7/10
Sometimes
experimentation is a bad thing; in many cases, we as music fans only want our
expectations to be fulfilled. Indie popster John Vanderslice is the king of consistency, as he demonstrates on
his seventh album, Romanian Names.
The entire affair is full of exquisitely crafted, staggeringly beautiful
pop-rock that will burrow into your brain without forcibly overtaking any
senses. Subtle chamber orchestration, clever lyrical detours, and pitch-perfect
harmonies only add to the splendor. John
Vanderslice is a modern singer/songwriter to be reckoned with — as
long as he doesn’t drastically alter his formula, his understated success
should continue to grow.
The Warlocks
The
Mirror Explodes
Tee Pee
ESM Rating: 7/10
The Warlocks have received a lot of
flak in the past for slavishly operating within a narrow stoner psych-rock
mold, but very few bands can pull off the same sort of rambling, droning
weirdness six albums in a row. In fact, if Marilyn Manson hadn’t
misappropriated the “goth rock” label, The
Warlocks could pretty much claim the genre as their own, considering the
band’s past obsession with skulls, death, and Hell. Yet on The Mirror Explodes, a new lineup behind lead singer Bobby Hecksher
lightens TheWarlocks’ load, resulting in brief moments of zonked-out beauty
amid the drug-addled wash.
Black Moth Super Rainbow
Eating
Us
Graveface
ESM Rating: 8/10
No one
defies stereotypes better than Pennsylvania bubblegum electronica freaks Black Moth Super Rainbow. Their fourth
album, Eating Us, finds BMSR collaborating
with a producer (Dave Fridmann of Flaming Lips fame) and recording in a
legitimate studio for the first time in their career. Yet twisted vocoder
permutations, cosmic noise, and impenetrable bass rumbles remain in place,
along with the syrupy synthesizer glaze that has coated all of BMSR’s confections. Despite the album’s
professional sheen, this is the best kind of experimental music: harmonic,
melodious, listenable, yet so far out in left field it will still fry your
brain.
