The Horrors return with a second album and a bit of an identity crisis. It seems the English goth rockers kept the creepy goth image, but tossed away the sound that was slathered all over the previous release, Strange House.

Cool costumes. Oh, wait...

The new album is ironically entitled Primary Colours. The name evokes the idea of an album that takes a varied, but basic foundation, and manages to mix that creating something bright and kaleidoscopic. Not the case. A more suitable name would have been The Grey Scale, or perhaps Whitewashed. The songs are largely monochromatic and never quite take off. The car is stuck in nuetral. It’s as if they picked the three atmospheric tricks that they liked best and rather than using said devices to build something bigger, they simply applied the same formula to each individual track. Not to say they all sound the same, but when iTunes does it’s thing and seemlessly moves through with no real gaps between songs, it’s hard to determine without looking when one song started and the new began. You know it changed but you’re not exactly sure when. What was once organ heavy and eerily rocking, it’s now traded out to synthed washes sans any dynamics.

About as colorful as they get

It’s not saying the album is bad, more so simply lacks cohesion. There are moments throughout that shine through the mono haze, and make a step toward a full color wheel, unfortunately these moments are few and scattered. The keys in “Sea Within A Sea” show promise…it’s unfortunate that it’s not until the last minute of an 8 min song. By injecting some of their more rocking sensibilities from the first album into their attempt at more dark, Joy Division-era post-punk  from the second, number three could be something you don’t just put on in the background for pleasant noise filler.

Worth It:

“Who Can Say” “Three Decades”

Mmmm... scottish...

Thank you Glasgow. You have given us so much, and while you might not be Manchester, Brooklyn, London, you’re still like a big music scene cities’ almost as cool little brother. Franz Ferdinand, Glasvegas, Snow Patrol, and of course Camera Obscura, all burst forth from your loins. The latter of course just birthing their fourth record, My Maudlin Career.

While there is nothing self pitying their new album, Camera Obscura could be seen as sentimental to their own career. The album celebrates all the best points of their sound that they have delicately crafted over the last decade. They aren’t necessarily breaking the mold, but they also refuse to simply sit back and re-write the old stuff. They know what works, and it ain’t broke, so there is no fixing required.

Now when you think of Glasgow you may not exactly think sunny bright eyed music, well neither does Camera Obscura. They are Scots who clearly are sitting on piles of 60′s pop records. The tracks bounce between slow gorgeous tracks of heartbreak to bubbly girl group poppers. Opening track (and first single) “French Navy” falls in the second category, all snappy drums and a big fat chorus. Meanwhile “James” is a lement on lost love so pretty you can’t imagine why anyone would ever leave this woman. The star of the show is Traceyanne Campbell’s voice. In the heartbreakers, she’s never sounds scourned, just hurt, but strong. In the dancers, she sounds so positively lovely and delighted, you suspect you might be the one she’s in love with. When she’s sad (which she doesn’t want to be again, as stated in “My Maudlin Career”), you wanna punch the guy for hurting her, and when she’s seemingly happy (like in “The Sweetest Thing”), you want to be the guy playing guitar in a canoe while she sings holding a parasol and bobbing her head. There’s even tracks like ”You Told A Lie” which could be snuck onto a She & Him album almost effortlessly.

This album might now be a revolution, but it sure is nice. It’s like if every Stars song was sung by Amy Millan and they had a hardcore fascination with the late fifties and sixties. Beautiful indie pop for kids just as sad as me that the Organ broke up (and always wondered what would happen if they had a mutant lovechild with the Pipettes and Belle & Sebastian).

Don’t Be Caught Without:

“French Navy”, “The Sweetest Thing”, “Other Towns And Cities”

We're Uncomfortably British.

Maybe I have A.D.D. or maybe I’m in too sour a mood, but either way, I’m fairly sure this album would end up putting me to sleep no matter what my frame of mind happened to be. It Hugs Back are a three-piece group hailing from Kent, England putting forth their debut album, Inside Your Guitar. As far as the whole dream pop genre goes, this band definitely sticks to the basics by delivering lighthearted yet melancholy songs that pretty much all sound the same. Picture a less-interesting version of Mike Kinsella’s now defunct project, American Football, substituting the sad trumpets with muted keyboards. With vocals that barely reach beyond a faint whisper and monotonous acoustic guitar parts that drone on for days, this album has little to offer besides a sleep-inducing stupor.

Okay, maybe that was a little harsh… there are a few songs that combine artfully crafted lyrics and pretty melodies, but there’s nothing too groundbreaking to be found within the eleven tracks.

And... now we're cool...

“Q” sets the tone for the album by offering soft, airy vocals backed by a soothing guitar and mid-tempo percussion. “Work Day” is buoyant and upbeat, yet it still makes me thankful I don’t have a nine-to-five job (yet). A few tracks later comes “Soon”, and at this point, I’m starting to get a little frustrated. If these guys could just break into something with a little VOLUME, I’d be satisfied; be it a catchy chorus or raucous guitar solo… really, anything at this point would be a welcome reprieve from the shoegaze-y doldrums. If for some reason every pharmacy in the region runs out of Ni-Quil, pop this track on and you’ll be comatose within a matter of thirty seconds. “Back Down” brings a little life to the album, but not enough to pique any real interest.

In the end, Inside Your Guitar is good background music while you’re studying, reading, writing, what have you; but if you’re trying to find something that will grab your attention (or at least keep you semi-conscious) this might not be your first choice.

Anyone up for a little bump ‘n grind? ‘Cause Project Jenny, Project Jan will have you off your ass in a matter of seconds. This juicy collaboration album is busting at the seams with skilled artists who clearly know their shit. PJPJ give an off-the-wall, ultra-danceable slice of heaven on the new EP, The Colours, which will be released on April 14^th. These guys (and no, they aren’t actually ladies like their name might have you thinking) handpick a crop of diverse artists ranging from Fuiya & Miyagi to Mixel Pixel to spice things up on their newest venture. The Brooklyn duo, Jeremy Haines and Sammy Rubin, provide some pretty tasty ear candy, but only three of the five tracks truly standout as something special. Emerging in 2005, PJPJ released a self-titled EP, and followed up in 2007 with the full-length, XOXOXOXOXO. That same year the pair joined the stage with the likes of Chairlift and Vampire Weekend. If their latest sample of five songs isn’t enough for you, fear not, because a sophmore full-length album is planned to drop later this year.

The Colours is a somewhat inconsistent, genre-bending mix of sassy, poppy, electronic dance grooves that as a whole, make the album hard to sum up in one way or another. Each song brings a different feel, from bubbly pop punk to tracks with elaborate sound effects and a little rapping thrown in. Each song is quite different from the next and even though the tracks don’t exactly mesh, the album manages to bop along with enough gusto to intrigue any dance-hungry listener.

The journey begins with “Pins and Needles” featuring Fuiya & Miyagi, and it is by far the crown jewel: bust this one out at your next party and see if anyone is still sitting down by the time the song is over. My bet is that everyone will be shakin’ their ass off to this impossibly catchy song. The rhythm is simple and upbeat, with funky keyboard undertones and sounds, ranging from glitchy electronic buzzes to the gentle tinkering of chimes.

“You Said” begins with a chorus of vocals that at times resemble an eerie chant, matched with a backdrop of tribal-sounding instruments and handclaps. So Percussion join the boys on this track, and offer up a nice change of pace with a calmer, laid back feel. “Rainbows” featuring Mixel Pixel is dark but at the same time quite danceable, providing some satisfying yet sinister synth pop. “Caller I.D.” (with guest artist Adam Matta) has an appealing enough beat, but the oddly rapped lyrics seem a bit out of place, making this the least memorable track on the album. Dramatic keyboards and beatboxing create some enchanting background noise that make me wish the vocals were altogether omitted.

“Junk” kicks off with some promise as funky beats and jittery electronics meld together and are (once again) accompanied by bizarrely humorous lyrics. But as the downright obnoxious chorus hits, I find myself wanting the song to just end already.

This assorted mish-mosh of songs doesn’t consistently hit the right notes, but the ones that do will have you singing along and shakin’ your ass all over town.

dance...

Bono…suck it. Chris Martin…suck it. That fat kid from Fall Out Boy…suck it. Frontman of the Year award goes to: Ed Macfarlane of Friendly Fires! These lovely little British lads packed more energy into the first 5 min of their set than most bands I’ve seen in the last 3 months pull off in a whole set. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The opening act was a CA band Soft Pack (ex-Muslims members). Solid garage rock.n.roll fuzz & scuzz, most impressive is their powerhouse of a drummer. You rarely see stand up drummers anymore, let alone ones that can pull more thunder from only a 2 drum set, than an 18 yr old punk rock kid who thinks he’s cool. Quick change up (and much to our surprise, since for some reason we thought they were headlining), another creature once thought to be extinct took the stage: a frontman so dynamic, you briefly consider he may be epileptic and stroking out. We live in an age of bands who are too hipster to talk to their fans, so painfully cool and self concious to move on stage, and you end up staring at some cliche goon being “oh-so-intense”. Get over it, I don’t care about your sweet v-neck tee, I’m so glad you have 15 effect pedals, how about using them for something more than god awful white noise? Why do we accept apathy and pretension as cutting edge? Well the Friendly Fires don’t, and they will make you beleive again! The four piece (for touring only, typically 3), throw a party on stage and you’re all invited.

Dance

Not enough can be said about Ed Macfarlane’s stage presence. Has 2 settings: “spastically awesome”, and “i’m pretty sure his body is 90% rubber”. Imagine a greased up chimp and Iggy Pop mating, and that offspring being possessed by the demon spirit of James Brown…that’s how the man dances, stopping only to tweak some knobs and lay the electronics.

DANCE!

Then there is the singing, maniacally dancing, yet maintaining  a spot on record quality vocal. I mean lots of singers sound just as good live, but exactly the same live? For all the little powder keg has to offer (seriously the guy is like 5’6), his bandmates match and raise. The guitarist shares a name (but with an extra D to avoid confusion) and is nearly as wild in dance moves and energy (even shook a maraca in my face), while the rythmn section aims straight for your hips, and locks on like a malfunctioning seat belt. Highlights (aside from start to finish) include Macfarlane jumping into the crowd (while singing “jump onboard”) and starting a dance party in the audience. Not to be underdone, guitar in hand, Edd lept into the crowd tearing around wildly wailing away on the six strings. Other include bass player Jake Savidge holding down a bass line while the other members danced about the stage banging some auxilary percussion, not to mention the blistering opener “Lovesick” which set the tone for what was to come. “Skeleton Boy” and “Paris” forced even those whole only dance when they’re drunk to soberly shake it (photographer John)…even the slowest song “Strobe” got feet akwardly wiggling about. Fellow buds from across the Atlantic, headliner White Lies were equally dynamic, but in a whole other way. Being a little green going into, admitting despite my infinite snobbery that I had never heard of them, by the first few minutes I was an insta-fan. Their tunes were great, subtle light flourishes, and command of your attention.

DANCE! DANCE! DANCE!

Great live, not the dance-o-tronic juggernaut of Friendly Fires, but still loads of fun to look at. The boys from across the pond made me yet again realize why English bands are so much better then us, and despite my new found love of White Lies, I can only ask how on earth Friendly Fires weren’t headlining, and make sacrificial offerings to whatever god you choose that they return soon on the top slot and teach everyone’s hips in a 5 mile radius who’s the boss again.

Photos are of both Friendly fires and White Lies all courtesy of Jon Flounlacker.

River

I decided to check my gmail a few days ago and got a present. It’s a pretty decent present; “River”, the second track from Akron/Family’s album, Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free

Right off, I realized that if this song has two things going for it, its 1) shakers, doubled, panned hard left/right and loud; great when turned up. And 2) throbbing one note/simple bass; nice when coming back to verse sections. It’s like “here come the shakers…here comes the bass”.

1:00. A rollicking guitar roll (lol) that fades into the chorus, which sort of disappointed me. I feel like the song was sort of sweet and earnest, the vocals were nice, simple, building, going somewhere. Then the chorus came on—a little too sweet, sort of cloying. No clue; maybe it’s the almost overlapping vocal lines that are bothering me. I’m not sure how wise it is to have whistling in a song that already sounds a little like Peter, Bjorn & John (lots of bass, percussion, simple singable vocal melody). “Young Ones” was really famous right?

This woodwind section kicks in at 1:38. Makes things a little better. To borrow a term from HRO, 2:22 is where “River” gets all “vulnerable”; the drums drop out, winds and guitar noodle about. Shakers bring us back to business time (those shakers!) This is nice, if only because you get to hear the winds again. But then that chorus comes back, goddammit.

It’s all “triumphant ending” mode after that. Which means that they repeat the last lyric of the chorus (“You and I and a flame (?) make three”) and a brass section comes in. Everyone gets loud; it’s either a good or a bad way to end the thing depending on how you liked the chorus.

Overall, the song disappoints me a bit. I’d like to think of this as a compliment. It’s only disappointing because of the surprising/awesome guitar motif that springs out, almost out of nowhere, and makes me wish for similar moments to happen in the song. That guitar line comes back around, but the surprise is (obviously) gone.

Harriet was sweet as hell ad Neil was very witty... witty indeed.

Art by Sara Hudak

Undeniably adorable seven headed Welsh (they just live there actually) monster known as Los Campesinos! breezed through Philadelphia for their third and most triumphant visit yet. Lead singer Gareth regailed the crowd with the stories of their first 2 disastrous stops (one ended with stolen tires, and the other being largely ignored in a bad neighborhood). Well, third times the charm. Openers Sky Larkin were lovely. Sweet pretty english rock’n'roll that makes you snag a cd at the merch table. Then Ponytail….see my whole other review for that trip.

Him! Him! Just him... dancing...

The seven (4 boys, 3 beautiful girls) took the stage claiming their stakes on instruments from violin to glockenspiel (2 of them actually, but only one A key to share). The first 2 were a slow kickstart, but again, 3′s the magic number and the crowd began to loosen up. Each member intricately weaved their part in and around the other six’s creating even more spirited takes on the studio versions. The boy/girl vocals were just as infectious and coy as the record, perhaps even more so when seeing the dynamic of the two primary singers. On one hand there’s Aleks, absolutely gorgeous, all smiles and cutesy dance moves. A lovely counterpoint to Gareth’s more spastic nature that’s also mirrored lyrically. Just about everything about them onstage can sum up their music, and attitude it exudes. Clever, fun, and dynamic. The stage banter eliciting much laughter (response to an audience member’s plea of “i love the bass player” was dryly “I don’t love you”). The instrumental intro to “You! Me! Dancing!” became a giggly inpromptu take on a Pavement song yelled out by the audience at Gareth’s request. Much dancing about stage (and in the audience) ensues, as they tore through highlights from the 2 album deep (and one song off an early EP) catalog. You can tell these kids are having fun, and the exuberance spills all over the crowd in an infectious outbreak of have a good time. By the end Gareth had leapt into the crowd and shook it down to the cheap seats. Guitarist Neil stayed strong continuing to play as he crowd surfed , and everyone came together for “Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks”. Monitors turned on end and mounted by the singers while the rest of the band linked arms around each other and shouted along with the crowd the title’s mantra. Danceable good time with some talented kids from across the sea, who clearly (despite what they say) love their audience.

clearly at most of the paint

Look, I’m sorry, but this needs to be done. Someone has got to put their foot down. I will gladly take whatever flak you throw at me for this blog/review, because every word about to spurt forth is solidly true. The band Ponytail is effing awful…and that is being generous. Lemme try again: atrocious? unbearable? pointless? an abomination?

All true, but still hardly capturing the true essence of their astonishing disregaurd for people’s ears. The scene of the crime was at the Los Campesinos show at the TLA (see review). The opening band AND Los Campesinos (whom we interviewed) were utterly BEAMING about their joy to have Ponytail on their bill, practically gushing about how they have been looking forward to them for ages.

That simple fact almost hurts more than how much they truly and oh so thoroughly sucked. Two lovely bands, brimming with talent, and solid songwriting, genuinely patting borderline morons on the back for a job well done, seriously impressed with the steaming pile of aural crap they produce. That’s like Sean Penn talking up the acting talents, and spewing adulation for Paris Hilton…damn near offensive.

So while we’re on the subject of offensive, allow me to expand on what this beautiful concoction of a set they played sounded like. They walk out on the stage looking every bit the over the top version of cliche hipster, and I secretly wished down deep that they didn’t sound how they looked. As usual, wishes never come true. The dual guitarists were no doubt talented, even used some really interesting effects…however anytime the riff seemed catchy, or perhaps that the song was going to come together and begin making sense, they would destroy any semblince of sounding even remotely listenable, and eraticate the glimmer in your eye that they were talented with a barrage of pointless white noise and spatterings of out of time thrashes. It’s as if they could sense that the song was about to get good, and in an all out call to arms to be too goddamn hip, and o-so-avant garde, they put a bullet between the eyes of listenability. Now for the cherry atop this delicious sundae: the “vocals”. During their soundcheck (which to be perfectly honest I’m not sure when it ended and a song began), the singer made annoying weird yelps into the mic, in what seemed like a common move to check/test levels. The thing is, unbeknownst to us….this was her singing, the “lyrics” if you will. Dolphin sounds is actually a pretty spot on way to describe it, or you know that akward period when babies start to learn how to talk, but are only kinda mumbling annoying sounds that vaguely resemble words? Like that, but not cute coming from adults getting paid to call it creative, or art. Not a single real word was uttered for 40 min-ish (sans one or 2 silly, or baffling stage banter comments, “we have peace more songs” for example). One guitarist even threwg in some, I want to say background vocals, but birds being tortured is far more accurate. The sounds didn’t even change! The lead singer (sorry, I refuse to learn their names) had an arsenal of roughly 6 noises, that she shuffled around, and used in every damn song. EVERY SONG! SAME SOUNDS!

I wish I could say that maybe their particular musical experience relies more on the energy or stage show, but they are largely uneventful to look at, much like the music, 2 moves in the bag of tricks, and never leave home without it. So I declare Pitchfork, you are clearly waaaaayyyyy too drunk with power if white noise that occasionally sounds like a real song with a mutant toddler-dolphin yelping overtop is what you are passing off as the best new music. Thanks for getting my hopes up jerks, why can’t you just be pretentious with a conscious?