Bright Eyes - Cassadaga

Conor Oberst, the prolific songwriter behind the ephemeral Bright Eyes collective, is growing up, and it's not clear whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

On one hand, his latest work is his tightest and most musically proficient to date. On the other hand, it's his least interesting. Pick up his band's brand new album, Cassadaga, if you want evidence – Oberst's latest collection of songs may be his best-crafted and most capable, but it also lacks the emotional depth and immediacy that made his seminal work so compelling. This means that Cassadaga is simultaneously the best and worst Bright Eyes album ever written.

Let's start with the good stuff. Oberst is one of the best American songwriters alive today, and his talents still shine as bright as ever. Cassadaga is, without a doubt, his band's fullest and most confident effort to date. This is partly due to the album's polished production, which nicely complements Bright Eyes' cleaner, tighter sound. For example, the lush orchestral flourishes in ballads such as "Make a Plan to Love Me" and "No One Would Riot for Less" add a pleasant degree of depth and warmth.

Oberst's lyrics are as strong and evocative as they've ever been, even as he moves on from his iconic self-degradation to harsh criticism of both religion and government. Advance single "Four Winds" is unusually and insidiously catchy for a Bright Eyes song, and thus has the potential to win over a throng of new fans.


Bright Eyes - "Four Winds"
In spite of Oberst's clear maturation as a musical craftsman, however, Cassadaga won't please every Bright Eyes fan. Don't pick up the new album with hopes of hearing any of Oberst's signature off-key pleading or compulsive musical indulgences – he's cleaned up his music quite a bit. While Lifted-era Bright Eyes was best played in the lonely seclusion of your high school bedroom, Cassadaga's sultry inoffensiveness could easily find a home in your mother's stereo.

Around the time of I'm Wide Awake, Conor figured out what his limits were, and Cassadaga works well within those boundaries. Before that point, Oberst pushed and strained with overly ambitious ideas that were just beyond his grasp, leading to the fevered, imperfect masterpieces Fevers and Mirrors and Lifted. To many Bright Eyes fans, the pitched failures on these albums only accentuated the brilliant successes and gave Oberst's music a refreshing degree of humanity. Imperfection is inherent to all of us, and Oberst once embraced this fact more than any other popular musician.

Of course, this is exactly why many people never liked Bright Eyes to begin with. His ambitiousness was frequently written off as overwrought pretension, and many found his cracking adolescent yowl endlessly annoying. Those critics will be pleasantly surprised by Cassadaga, as Oberst has shed those aspects of his music. Cassadaga is less a reflection of Oberst's heart and more a reflection of his musicianship.

The ironic thing is that as Oberst gains more confidence in his musical ability, his work loses the neurotic insecurities that earned him his earliest fans. It's depressing to think that at the tender young age of 27, Oberst is already losing his edge.

Nonetheless, Cassadaga is a solid entry in the Bright Eyes discography and has a good chance of winning Oberst even more fans than he had before. Be sure to recommend this album to your mother, but that kid with the black eyeliner has doubtless moved on to the next underground emo sensation.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2007/apr/19/bright-eyes-cleans-up-his-sound-but-loses-his-edge/

Fall Out Boy - "Thnks fr th Mmrs"

Ostensibly, the music video for Fall Out Boy's "Thnks fr th Mmrs" is about the band's growing disillusionment with the record industry. Music executives, represented by orangutans and chimpanzees, manipulate and compromise the band throughout the entire video. But is Fall Out Boy really worried about losing its image to the corporate world? Blatant product placement for body sprays and cell phones suggests otherwise.

Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWHf_vYZzQ8

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2007/apr/12/the-pulse23936/

Timbaland - Timbaland Presents: Shock Value

Between Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous" and Justin Timberlake's three #1 hits, 2006 was a banner year for Timbaland's slick, futuristic production. In fact, you could hardly turn on the radio without hearing one of his latest hits.

Given this astronomical success, you can imagine the excitement of major-label executives when Timbaland announced his first solo disc in nearly a decade. Not only does the disc feature his incredibly popular beats, but there's also an all-star cast of guest vocalists. Everybody from 50 Cent to M.I.A. to Justin Timberlake to Fall Out Boy to Nelly Furtado to The Hives to Elton John was willing to spit on his tracks. Holy shit! Is Top 40 radio ready for this?!

Indeed, when it comes to popular music, Timbaland Presents: Shock Value delivers on its promise. Almost every last one of Tim's latest tracks could, conceivably, be a hit. Were the album's tracks divided into individual singles and slowly released over the course of the next two years, it's likely that almost all would worm their way into the Billboard 100.

Listening to all these songs at once, however, deadens their individual impact. At first listen, it's difficult to tell one song apart from the next -- Timbaland's consistent musical aesthetic makes each track sound much like the last. This is particularly problematic in the case of Shock Value, which features no fewer than 17 tracks in a row. It may require several listens for one to appreciate each track's individual strengths and weaknesses. Luckily, such efforts are worth it. Shock Value finds Timbaland's production skills to be in top form.

There isn't a weak beat to be found on Shock Value, though some songs will certainly stand out from the pack. "Way I Are," in spite of its atrocious grammar, is easily one of the most danceable songs released so far this year. Advance single "Give It to Me" showcases one of Timbaland's most seductive club beats to date. "Bombay" is an excellent and surprisingly successful fusion of traditional Indian music and slick hip-hop. "Apologize" is an oddly compelling combination of melodramatic Coldplay-pop melody and a catchy R&B rhythm section. "Bounce" is a fuzzy power-bass monster that will doubtless shatter a few dance floors in the future.


Timbaland - "The Way I Are" (feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E.)
Still, Shock Value will never sit quite right if you take the time to listen to the lyrics. Timbaland's slick, well-realized beats do little to mask a dearth of lyrical content. No matter how good a song's production is, there is almost nothing that can mask the worthless nature of lines like "Bounce/ like your ass had the hiccups", or "I piss and take a shit on your beat for fun."

In fact, most every line in Shock Value is cringe-worthy. Timbaland seems to have nothing to talk about except sex and how endlessly awesome he is compared to everybody else. Sure, it's great to hear Justin Timberlake stutter, "If sexy never left/ then why's everybody on my shit?", but that single amusing line hardly compensates for the rest of the schlock that permeates Shock Value. Then again, we live in the era of "Fergalicious." These days, the message behind your music is hardly a factor in your success, and it's not going to hold a power producer like Timbaland back.

When you finish listening to the album and peel your headphones off, it becomes apparent that Shock Value is a bit of a misnomer. Timbaland's latest doesn't really shock at all. Rather, it's the kind of album that you'd come to expect from one of hip-hop's greatest connoisseurs: a collection of catchy, radio-friendly tunes. Somewhere, an Interscope executive is getting a raise.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2007/apr/12/a-slew-of-catchy-hits-but-little-shock-value/

Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha

The word "apocrypha" references a series of religious texts of uncertain origin that are worshipped by a select few but rejected as false by most. Given this fact, we can conclude that the title of Andrew Bird's latest LP, Armchair Apocrypha, doesn't make very much sense at all. Or, if it does, Bird's intended meaning is mysteriously cloaked in his dense, impenetrable vocabulary.

But that's Andrew Bird for you. Whether his hyper-literate witticisms make any sense or not, they are part of the package that comprises his musical career. And, as many fans are hoping, each aspect of the Andrew Bird we know and love makes a triumphant return on his latest record.

It's all here, from his excellent grasp of composition to his delightfully neurotic twists on otherwise straightforward songs. His professional whistling skills are back in full form, and so are his delicately arranged violin melodies. As song titles such as "Imitosis," "The Supine" and "Scythian Empire" might suggest, his erudite, book-wormish lyrics saturate the album's liner notes.

In fact, not much has changed at all – Armchair Apocrypha finds Andrew Bird in much the same form as he was on his previous record, The Mysterious Production of Eggs, albeit with one major distinction.

Somewhere between the creation of Eggs and Armchair Apocrypha, Bird discovered he loves playing electric guitars. Thus, there is somewhat of a superficial distinction between his old material and his new material. Though Bird doesn't explore any new song structures or innovative writing techniques on Armchair Apocrypha, the new electric instrumentation lends a thicker, more layered feel to his traditionally acoustic ballads.

Ultimately, this approach doesn't work in Bird's favor. While his previous work drew great strength from its quiet intimacy, his louder, noisier guitar doesn't pull listeners in quite the same way. Nonetheless, the actual melodies are as strong as ever, and even his simplest songs have interesting flourishes (such as the brisk bongo-rhythm propelling "Heretics," or the intriguing hip-hop flare that opens "Imitosis").


Andrew Bird - "Imitosis"
Furthermore, when it comes to Andrew Bird, the lyrics are almost as exciting as the music itself. Armchair Apocrypha is about as cleverly depressing as one might expect for a record from a man previously obsessed with the economic ruin, the inevitability of death and psychoanalysis.

His wry words (i.e. "What is mistaken for closeness/ is just a case of mitosis") are evocative and intriguing. They address a variety of themes, ranging from the heterogeneous nature of pop culture ("Plasticities") to the history of ancient empires ("Scythian Empire") to the technological clutter that permeates our modern lives ("Imitosis"). Once again, Bird proves himself one of the most thoughtful and eloquent figures in indie music.

Even if Armchair Apocrypha shows Bird falling back on his established sound, he retreads old ground in a distinctive way that no other artist does. It's impressive that, in an industry increasingly saturated by bland singer-songwriters, Andrew Bird continues to release albums that stand out from the crowd.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2007/mar/29/andrew-birds-latest-runs-in-the-same-vein-as-his-p/

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Funeral, Arcade Fire's 2004 debut album, has been adored like few others in the indie rock community. Its lush orchestration, epic presentation and theatrical songwriting directly vaulted the band into the heights of indie stardom (and garnered an unusually rabid fan base to boot).

With this universal acclaim setting the stage, Arcade Fire recently released "Intervention" on iTunes as a charity single for Partners in Health. It was the first preview of what the band's sophomore album, Neon Bible, would sound like. Rabid fans around the world held their breath in a mixture of exhilaration and trepidation as they pressed play and the first few notes of a new Arcade Fire song washed over their speaker set.


Arcade Fire - "Intervention"
"Intervention" is a clear shift from the thematic territory of the brooding, self-reflective Funeral. Here, Arcade Fire lash out with a newfound brand of orchestral muscle and poisonous lyricism. Lyrically, the song sees frontman Win Butler methodically condemns the institutions of war, money and religion – a substantial topical shift for the band. While Funeral showed the band making peace with the world, Neon Bible picks open the wounds all over again. In fact, the rejection of societal norms is a consistent theme for the record. Indeed, it seems that Butler isn't happy with anything at all, be it MTV or the U.S. government or FM radio.

With the notable exceptions of "Black Mirror" and "My Body is a Cage," however, none of the music sounds as apocalyptic as the lyrics might suggest. Even as Butler insists, "Their voices when they scream / they make no sound/ I want to see the cities rust" on "(Antichrist Television Blues)," the instrumentation backing his voice sounds like something straight out of Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA. Fans singing along with the bouncy UK single "Keep the Car Running" might find it easy to forget that the song is actually about a man who is being relentlessly pursued by the government (or some similarly oppressive entity).

This juxtaposition undermines most of the album's lyrical content, and brings into question the sincerity of the band's messages. With their previous material, Arcade Fire's anthems were filled with unquestionable passion and honesty. Neon Bible feels like the band is settling down into its own pre-established formula (with perhaps a few minor advances in song-writing and instrumental technique) and complaining about generic issues. In essence, the album retreads the same musical ground as Funeral with less passion and a bigger production budget.

Which is not to say that Neon Bible is a bad album. In fact, it's an excellent collection of songs. Highlights include the aforementioned "Black Mirror," "Ocean of Noise" and "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations," which are among the band's finest tracks to date. The group's newfound confidence, sleeker production and refined songwriting will doubtless win over new listeners. Neon Bible will be at least a mildly satisfactory follow-up for most hardcore Arcade Fire fans.

But, in the end, Neon Bible is no Funeral. The dramatic tension is less genuine, the build-ups less cathartic, the words less poignant. Neon Bible never achieves the heights of its predecessor. It, however, shows a band with real talent and – perhaps more importantly – staying power. With any luck, Funeral and Neon Bible are just two in a long series of great albums to come.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2007/mar/15/neon-sheds-shallow-light/

Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City

When you load Bloc Party's A Weekend in the City into your CD player, you won't be greeted by dueling guitars or aggressive percussion. Rather, you will hear front man Kele Okereke quietly intoning the problems of idealism and modernity over some gentle guitar strumming. It's an awfully meek inauguration of the band's sophomore effort, considering the group's bombastic singles and frenetic live performances, but Okereke's quiet introduction nicely sets the stage for A Weekend in the City.

Bloc Party's latest is conceptually and emotionally more sprawling than the band's debut, Silent Alarm. Far more ambitious in lyrical scope, the album tackles drug abuse, working-class troubles, immigration, racial conflict and homosexuality in its 50-minute runtime. For all practical purposes, A Weekend in the City is a concept album about the tribulations of city life, and Okereke wants to make his intentions clear from the beginning of the album.

Even if the concept behind the album is nice, however, fans may be worried that Okereke is sacrificing the power of his band's signature rock anthems for lyrical content. Fortunately, the album's ambition doesn't steal from Bloc Party's energetic guitar work. It takes all of 67 seconds for Okereke's timid strumming on "Songs for Clay (Disappear Here)" to evolve into a thumping balls-out rock song. It's a comforting reassurance, proving to listeners that Bloc Party has hardly lost its confidence or strength.

As searingly awesome as "Song for Clay" is, the album's next few songs are even better. One such highlight is "Hunting for Witches." The song stutters to life with a catchy sound collage before thumping percussion and jangled guitars get the song's blood pumping. Listeners will quickly get caught up in the song, and before they know it, Okereke is singing an affecting chorus about an average man living through July's London bombings. This is how the best moments in A Weekend in the City work – the band draws you in with its raw energy, and Okereke seizes the opportunity to get his message across.

"The Prayer," A Weekend in the City's centerpiece, is Bloc Party's other truly brilliant moment. Lyrically, the song is passable but forgettable, simply showcasing Okereke's desire to be the center of attention in a dance club. Fortunately, it is utterly stunning musically. Combining an Afro-stomp beat, synth-strings and Okereke's quirky vocals with more traditional indie rock melodies, "The Prayer" is perhaps Bloc Party's best song to date.


Bloc Party - "The Prayer"
Sadly, these three brilliant songs (along with the decent "Waiting for the 7.18" and "Uniform") comprise the first five tracks of the album. A Weekend in the City may blow you out of the water for its first 20 minutes but then the record begins to become stale. There is a conspicuous lack of energy and experimentation in the latter half of the album. Bloc Party's latest is incredibly front-loaded, almost embarrassingly so. A Weekend in the City is like a runner who sprinted as hard as he could at the start of a race but could hardly cross the finish line.

If only Bloc Party had released its first five songs as an EP, this release would have been legendary. It's a little depressing that Bloc Party didn't have enough ideas to sustain an entire album. At least Okereke's lyrics remain consistent even as the album begins its swift decent from epic to ordinary. Hopefully the band's next album will produce music good enough to buoy Okereke's heartfelt messages. Until then, I'll be listening to the first half of A Weekend in the City on repeat.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2007/feb/15/bloc-party-rages-for-five-songs-but-quickly-dies-o/

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder

Imagine you are a devoted Clap Your Hands Say Yeah fan. You were at the forefront of their internet explosion, you have attended at least five of their concerts, you've heralded the band as the forerunners of DIY ethic and you wear artsy T-shirts of theirs at least twice a month. Now, imagine you have just purchased Some Loud Thunder, Clap Your Hand Say Yeah's sophomore album, and you put it in your CD player with eager anticipation.

What greets your ears is not the sultry sounds of CYHSY's signature Talking Heads-style indie pop. Rather, the first track is a shitty-sounding rock song reminiscent of an early Neutral Milk Hotel recording ripped from a damaged cassette tape. Of course, CYHSY has always had a penchant for alienating listeners from the get-go – see the inane opening track, "Clap Your Hands!," from their last album for evidence. But that song was truly amusing, a carnival-style romp intended to remind the listener that music is not all seriousness, it's also fun.

This time around, the opening track is grating and obnoxious – it never really gets off the ground, and will likely force many to peel off their headphones with a pained grimace. Furthermore, the next two songs do little to clean out these damaged ears. They are little more than mediocre pieces in the general vein of their original style.

The excellent fourth track, "Love Song No. 7," begins a series of redeeming tunes. It showcases a new direction for the band, where noodling guitars are exchanged for a sultry piano line and a haunting string section. The melancholy sound may be unfamiliar to listeners, but it's a highly successful experiment and it signals a welcome shift in the quality of the album.

Following on the heels of "Love Song No. 7" is "Satan Said Dance," CYHSY's foray into indie dance. Another brilliant modification of the band's traditional sound, "Satan Said Dance" showcases a penchant for schizophrenic electronic music and driving bass. "How did I arrive at a place like this?" intones front man Alec Ounsworth, something listeners may be wondering as well by this point.


Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "Satan Said Dance"
From here on out, the record offers a fair share of rewarding moments in between its duller pieces. "Goodbye to the Mother and the Cover" is a pleasantly melancholy composition driven along by both a resigned bass guitar and a hopeful xylophone. Later on, the neurotic vocals and irresistible chorus of "Yankee Go Home" practically force one to learn the lyrics and sing along. The closer, "Five Easy Pieces," offers a satisfyingly exultant end to the record.

There are certainly problems with Some Loud Thunder. It's inconsistent, it stumbles, it strains. But even if it doesn't trump the band's debut, Some Loud Thunder is something of a comfort. It offers listeners several gems, and shows off a band with real talent and an eagerness to experiment with new sounds. Really, that's all we could ask for, right?

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2007/feb/08/still-clap-your-hands-but-no-standing-ovations-thi/

Thom Yorke - The Eraser

When The Eraser first leaked many months ago, most of Radiohead's rabid fan base exploded with praise. It was basically a preconditioned response: there is a small but determined faction of people in the world who believe that every piece of music graced by Thom Yorke's voice is an instant classic. To be fair, he's the cultural icon of one of the most popular and inventive bands in recent memory, and an undeniably talented man. But without the rest of Radiohead there to flesh out and fortify his ideas, Thom Yorke's solo debut stumbles and falters noticeably a few times.

The Eraser felt naked, sketch-like, unfinished. You could imagine Thom Yorke writing it alone in his bedroom late at night, clad in jammies and worrying about the world's impending doom. The album artwork is itself a reflection of the record's sound: simple, two-dimensional, black and white, paranoid, unsettling. The record melds together: each song can sound the same as the last, and there is little experimentation. The middle portion of the album can become almost embarrassingly tedious. Some of Thom Yorke's lyrics are wince-worthy, most notably the lines "I'm a dog for you / I'm a lap dog / I'm your lap dog" in "Skip Divided". Simply put, The Eraser sometimes feels boring and underwhelming.

Given my problems with the record, many of you may be wondering why I placed it so highly on my year-end list. Mostly, it's the fact that, in between the record's moments of confusion and mistakes, Thom Yorke sometimes achieves gorgeousness. For example, the track "Analyse" showcases a soft, resigned piano line driven along by a stuttering drum beat, over which Thom Yorke intones "there's no time to analyse/ to think things through/ to make sense."


Thom Yorke - "Analyse"; live (???)
The dichotomy of Thom Yorke's desire to pause his life and the inevitable progression of time is paralleled by the clash between lethargic piano and insistent rhythm. "And It Rained All Night", a pulsating monster that comes in later on in the album, achieves a sort of ethereal beauty which can only fully appreciated when driving down an empty street at two in the morning. Yorke even manages to showcase some of his best lyrics in "Harrowdown Hill", in spite of his lap-dog clunkers:

Don't walk the plank like I did:
you will be dispensed with
when you've become inconvenient.
In the harrowdown hill,
where you went to school:
that's where I am.
That's where I'm lying down.

To many, The Eraser will serve as little more than an apertif for the full-band effort due sometime later this year. To others, it may be altogether ignored. As a gigantic Radiohead fan, I might be slightly biased, but I found the record's few transcendent moments significant enough to justify its low points. A record filled with these songs would undoubtedly have been nominated as my favorite record of the year. In any case, I know I won't be forgetting The Eraser's better moments any time soon.

Incubus - Light Grenades

Whether you realize it or not, there is at least one kid from your high school class who flips out every time there is a new Incubus release. And, to the band's credit, they have a surprisingly strong catalogue of diverse, non-offensive alternative rock albums. But their reputation takes a hit with their latest offering, Light Grenades. The high-school fan might try to justify the album as an "artistic maturation," but the truth is that it's the band's most disjointed, watered-down and unoriginal collection of songs yet.

In fact, the album's single compelling moment is its opening track, "Quicksand." The track showcases the band playing with electric keyboards and epic song structures. "Okay, now the monster is awake/ it won't rest until there's nothing left" croons frontman Brandon Boyd over a gently undulating synth line before bursting into a heroic chord progression.

It's an excellent song and one of Incubus' most rewarding experiments, but it builds up the listener's hopes far too much. "Quicksand" transitions seamlessly into "A Kiss to Send Us Off," a generic rocker with clumsy lyrics about a goodbye kiss. Following this are the three non-compelling singles – "Dig," "Anna Molly" and "Love Hurts" (an Incubus-style R&B song, a caffeinated Police rip-off and an early Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute, respectively). At this point, all hope for the record has faded entirely.

The second half of the album offers fans little consolation. It's inferior and, even worse, it's boring. Whether it's the two-part "Earth to Bella" (a ham-fisted nod to Radiohead's "Creep") or the title track (just over two minutes of loud, aimless guitar noodling), there are no good tracks to be found here. In fact, one of the first phrases to come to mind when describing Light Grenades is "top-heavy," but such a description would require the first half of the album to have actual merit.

Even worse than the music are Boyd's lyrics. Traditionally, the Incubus frontman has written interesting insights on cultural homogenization, political apathy and troubled relationships. On Light Grenades, however, his words fall flat. For example, the chorus to "Love Hurts" (an inane song title in and of itself) reads, "Love hurts/ but sometimes it's a good hurt/ and it makes me feel alive." For further evidence, check out the bridge for "Dig," which reads, "We all have something that digs at us/ At least we dig each other." And even worse, these are the album's singles, not throwaways. To his credit, Boyd's singing on the record is excellent, but his writing leaves much to be desired.


Incubus - "Dig"; live (???)
When Incubus decided to take an extensive break from the recording studio, they promised their next album would be excellent, one of their best yet. Keeping this in mind, Light Grenades borders on offensive. But perhaps their mediocrity is to be expected. Since the heady days of S.C.I.E.N.C.E., their brilliant jazz/rock/metal/funk debut, Incubus has been stripping away its diversity in exchange for radio airplay.

The truth is, these days they are little more than Red Hot Chili Peppers lite. It's sad to see the band in such a state. Back in the days when they had a funk bassist and a hip-hop deejay, Incubus' sound was truly engaging and compelling. Now, they are little more than a stagnating alternative rock band, even if one of those high-school fans would have you believe otherwise.

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2007/jan/25/grenades-shatters-incubus-legacy-of-brilliant-funk/

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - So Divided

When ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead released its major label debut, Source Tags & Codes, the album was hailed as a masterpiece and named by many critics as the best album of the year. While the excellent reception must have been welcomed by the band, Trail of Dead realized it had a serious problem when its members re-entered the studio – how could it trump its own perfect album?

The result was the underwhelming Worlds Apart, which showed the band mellowing its sound, crafting fewer epic pieces and more radio-ready pop songs. The album was disappointing to the group's indie fans, and it failed to garner much mainstream attention. In fact, the commercial sales of Worlds Apart were so disappointing that the band was on the verge of breaking up.

Yet, as their violent namesake might suggest, Trail of Dead does not give up very easily. Earlier this year, they re-entered the studio and crafted their latest full-length offering, So Divided.

As Trail of Dead's history demonstrates, the group can't seem to decide if they want to pander to their indie-fan base or try and break into the radio mainstream. The aptly named So Divided suffers greatly from this schizophrenic attitude, yielding the band's most disjointed album yet.

Sometimes, Trail of Dead's conflicting desires work in its favor, yielding some accessible material that preserves the group's original sound. Take "Naked Sun," one of the album's highlights. Starting off with a driving drum line and nasty blues riff, the song slowly builds up into a fanfare with a full brass ensemble and string section. It takes six minutes to reach its excellent finale, and not a moment is wasted. "Life" is another excellent song, kicking off with a stuttering piano and a small orchestra in the background. Compared to Trail of Dead's old material, these songs are very catchy, and they are also interesting and non-traditional.


...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - "Naked Sun"
But alongside these gems, Trail of Dead presents us with a seemingly random cover of the Guided by Voices song "Gold Heart Mountaintop Queen Directory," frenetic chamber punk ("Stand in Silence"), a Beach Boys tribute ("Eight Day Hell") and a pseudo-country piece ("Witch's Web"). Trail of Dead is obviously trying to escape from its own sound, and these failed attempts are awkward stumbling blocks in the context of the album.

Does this mean the era of Source Tags & Codes and all its complexities is over? Perhaps not. The closing seven minutes of So Divided recreate the sound that once made the band so epic – "Segue: In the Realms of the Unreal" and "Sunken Dreams" recall quite closely the raw energy and emotion that once earned Trail of Dead so much praise.

Indeed, the best songs on So Divided show that Trail of Dead is every bit as talented and energetic as it once was. True, the album is grossly unfocused, but epics like "Naked Sun," "Life" and "Sunken Dreams" justify the album's weaker moments almost all on their own.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2006/nov/30/trail-of-dead-strays-from-the-beaten-path-with-so-/

Bright Eyes - Noise Floor (Rarities: 1998–2005)

Who knew that Conor Oberst, frontman of the ever-changing Bright Eyes collective, was an amateur sound engineer? The title for his band's newest release, Noise Floor, is a reference to signal theory – a noise floor is the sum of all unwanted noises in an audio recording. This is rather appropriate for Bright Eyes' latest, which is not a traditional studio album but rather a collection of rare and out-of-print songs that never made it to an official LP.

In spite of its technical title, Noise Floor is anything but calculated and structured. It never succeeds in establishing a consistent sound. The tracks stutter along, making poor transitions with one another. There's neither a clear aesthetic nor chronological progression. Themes are not present in the record, lyrically or sonically. In fact, the only things tying Noise Floor together are Oberst's bleeding-heart lyrics and his quivering vocal stylings. Simply put, it feels sloppy.

But this is to be expected. Keep in mind that Noise Floor is not a traditional album. It is a set of sketches, rough songs that never made it to a studio album. They were not written at the same time, with any idea of unity in mind. Besides, even though they provide no sense of coherency when thrown together, the individual songs on Noise Floor are excellent.


Bright Eyes - "Trees Get Wheeled Away"; live (???)
For example, take "I Will Be Grateful for This Day." The song practically explodes in your stereo with a stuttering drum machine before leveling with a numbing synth line and Conor crying out, "Your heartbeat's what I tried to play/ with kick and snares so careless." The electric beat is nasty, and Oberst's straight-from-the-diary lyrics are as quotable as ever. "Blue Angels Air Show," another excellent track, evokes an electro-grunge sound as Oberst recounts the story of a summer crush he once had.

But those are the only two electronic pieces on a 16-song record. The opening track, "Mirrors and Fevers," is nothing more than crowd noise and a few a cappella vocals. "I've Been Eating (for You)" is one of Oberst's signature acoustic ballads, while "Drunk Kid Catholic" compares religion to alcoholism over a gentle piano line. Another excellent piece, "Happy Birthday to Me (Feb. 15)," embraces the orchestrated folk-pop sound that vaulted Bright Eyes to indie stardom on the album Lifted.

On "Motion Sickness," Oberst says "I want to get myself attached to something bolted down/ so these winds of circumstance won't keep blowing around." If Noise Floor is any indication, Oberst has not been bolted down just yet. His music remains ephemeral and mutable as ever, and this disc serves as an excellent reminder of that. The sheer variety can be either highly frustrating or highly interesting, depending on whom you ask.

If you are a Bright Eyes fan dying for more material, Noise Floor will not disappoint. Despite its eccentricity, it showcases all the things we love in Oberst's neurotic tunes – the LiveJournal lyrics, heartfelt acoustic guitar, the occasional drum machine and good solid songwriting. However, if you are looking for an introduction to Bright Eyes, it would probably be better to grab one of the band's more coherent LPs or wait for their upcoming studio album.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2006/nov/02/one-noisy-compilation/

Ima Robot. - Monument to the Masses

In 2003, Ima Robot. released their self-titled debut album – a lovely electro-pop romp which was at times beautiful, at times funny, and for the most part, composed of raw awesomeness. The band's unique brand of caffeinated rock would certainly have been adored in the current era of synth groups like The Killers and Panic! At the Disco. Ima Robot.'s first effort was, unfortunately, ahead of its time.

Three years later, they are back with a follow-up album (Monument to the Masses) and hopes of seizing greater popularity now that keyboards are cool again.

Sadly, the album boasts a collection of shockingly unoriginal music. The opening track, "Disconnect," clearly rips off Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." The closer, "Lovers in Captivity," closely mimics the catchy hook from The Kinks' "Lola." Everything in between is a rough carbon copy of Devo, Tears for Fears, Duran Duran and the DDR soundtrack.

Even worse than being unoriginal, Monument to the Masses is frightfully boring. With the exception of stand-out track "Stick It to the Man" (a nod to Ima Robot.'s former over-excited style), the songs tend to bleed into one another. There isn't a tenth of the musical range that the band demonstrated in their promising debut. Ninety percent of the album sounds like different takes on the same song.


Ima Robot. - "Creeps Me Out
What happened?!

The most apparent answer is that two of Ima Robot.'s crucial band members left the group. Bassist Justin Medal-Johnsen and drummer Joey Waronker (both of whom used to play in Beck's band) wrote rhythms that grounded Ima Robot.'s new-wave tendencies with energetic hip-hop influences. This made for an interesting sound, and the music was more, well, fun. Without these two, the rest of the band went overboard trying to emulate its favorite '80s artists.

Truth be told, the only significant link between Monument to the Masses and Ima Robot. is frontman Alex Ebert, whose distinctive voice sounds much like Eminem might if he decided to sing instead of rap. His voice was oddly appropriate for the band's eclectic first album. In fact, it was one of Ima Robot's most individualizing aspects. Ebert's strange vocals are subdued only slightly on the newest album, but they feel grossly out of place when sung over the mellow keyboard and guitar chords that permeate the record.

Moreover, his lyrics are ridiculous. It's true that Ebert was never a brilliant lyricist, but he refrained from tackling serious topics on Ima Robot. This made his obtuse lyrics bearable and, at times, humorous. On Monument to the Masses, he actually attempts to engage in politics, resulting in lines such as, "Information when we were so young/ That we're the nation that's free and fun.../ Education to keep blind and dumb/ Our generations for years to come." Is that a coherent complaint? Does he really know what he's worried about?

Perhaps Ima Robot. will gain more fans with this album. The hook-laden single "Creeps Me Out" screams for radio play, and that proud minority who misses the 80's will dig the band's new sound. Most of us, however, would be better ignoring this release.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2006/oct/05/ima-robot-offer-a-mechanicaland-sterile-take-on-80/

Pandora & the future of Internet radio.

Take a few moments to consider your favorite music. How did you discover it? Was it through a radio single? Maybe a recommendation from a friend or an impulse purchase at your local record store? Now think about how frighteningly arbitrary this is – there are literally hundreds of obscure artists you might love if only you had a more reliable way to find them.

Two weeks ago, Tim Westergren came to Charlottesville's Gravity Lounge to discuss his answer to this problem – Pandora radio.

"This is the perfect venue for a small concert," said Westergren, a former musician and film composer, as he took the stage in front of about 30 listeners. "I would have loved to have played here."

Pandora is part of the Music Genome Project, a huge database housing detailed characteristics for almost half a million songs. It takes more than 400 musical attributes into consideration, such as melody, harmony, rhythm, vocals and structure, when categorizing a track. In fact, there are so many factors that it can take half an hour to analyze one single piece.

"The genome grows by about 15,000 songs a month," Westergren said, acknowledging the relatively slow pace by which the site's music catalogue expands. However, he stressed quality over quantity – it's better to have a handful of excellent tracks than to dilute the system with a vast collection of mediocre music.

Recommendations on Pandora radio are directly linked to the genome's database. Users input an artist or song that they like, then the genome is searched for similar music. Results are eclectic and purposefully so. Pandora's aim is to refine the perceptions of what we like in music. If Pandora's recommendations are off, users are given the ability to tweak their station to better fit their tastes through a simple "thumbs up / thumbs down" system. If a song gets a thumbs up, the radio station will play more songs that share those genome traits. If a song gets a thumbs down, it will be banned from the station, and its genome's traits will be downplayed in future radio choices. Users can customize up to 100 stations in this manner.

"Of course, Pandora doesn't factor popularity into the music it chooses," Westergren explained, pointing out one of Pandora's key advantages. Songs are selected solely based on their genome properties. Thus, a station serves as an equal platform for all music. This is great news for independent artists. In an industry driven by top-40 radio, unsigned and independent musicians can be like needles in a haystack.

In fact, more than 70 percent of the musicians on Pandora are not signed to a major label. During the meeting, Westergren laughed as he described the albums he receives that are simply CD-R's with Post-It notes.

"But that's what it's all about – getting this music heard when you wouldn't be able to find it otherwise," he said.

Pandora has definitely made waves in the music industry, with both big and indie labels.

"One out of 10 people logging onto the Pandora service end up buying new albums," Westergren said. Smaller artists have also reported significant increases in their iTunes sales after submitting tracks to the genome.

The genome system is not the only thing that might attract you to Pandora. For example, the interface is one of the Web's finest. It is sleek and simple – simply enter your music and start hearing the results.

"Another one of the best things about Pandora is its portability," Westergren said, pointing out that you can log onto any computer and your stations will be waiting for you. With an increase in public hotspots and wireless MP3 players in development, this could be a powerful asset for Web-based radio.

So what's next for Pandora? Charlottesville's staunchest fans brought several suggestions to the meeting. Some of the more interesting ideas included tuning the genome to emotional content or adding forums so users can discuss new music with one another. Westergren, ever devoted to giving exposure to new musicians, offered his own idea – "I'd like Pandora to give little alerts when a recommended artist is playing a gig nearby." The company is also looking into expanding to meet the needs of the international market. At the moment, station content is only licensed for U.S. users.

It's obvious Pandora has a rich future, but can it level the musical playing field? If nothing else, Westergren is confident that those who use his service will find music they love and would not have found otherwise. He also urges us to keep an open mind: "If Céline Dion comes up on your station, then we hope to convince that you actually like Céline Dion."

Ethan

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2006/sep/28/dont-look-just-listen-pandoras-web-radio/

Cursive - Happy Hollow

Ever wondered what would happen if an emo-core band combined forces with a brass ensemble?

How about now?

That's right, folks. Cursive, an Omaha-based indie band, has decided to incorporate a brass ensemble into its latest release, Happy Hollow. Trumpets. Trombones. Saxophones. It's the real deal! No, it's not ska. Yes, it is awesome.

When I heard about this new development, I wasn't sure what to expect. The band's previous studio album, The Ugly Organ, used string bass to create lush – at times beautiful – soundscapes. Thinking that Cursive might hold to this pattern, I looked forward to sprawling arrangements of rock and brass in Happy Hollow.

My expectations were shattered with the first downbeat of the opening track. "Opening the Hymnal/Babies" greets the listener with an ugly flare of trumpets and distorted guitar before resigning to a somewhat calmer Latin-style arrangement. The track boldly announces Cursive's new sound and depth of their experimentation on the record. The creepy instrumentation brilliantly sets the tone for the rest of the album – an elaborate investigation of societal hypocrisy, confusion and disillusionment.

This jarring first track segues nicely into "Dorothy at Forty," the album's first single and perhaps the best Cursive song of all time. It is a perfect fusion of Cursive's skittish guitars, rolling bass lines and shiny new brass section, all buoying Tim Kasher's voice over the mess the instruments create. The song's neurotically infectious beat and unique sound is sure to win most listeners over.


Cursive - "Dorothy at Forty"
While "Dorothy at Forty" presents Happy Hollow's clearest high point, there are many other gems scattered throughout the album. "Dorothy Dreams of Tornadoes" comes the closest to topping "Dorothy at Forty," opening with halting guitars and a driving drum line before building to a soaring brass finale and coming pretty close to my initial expectations for the album's sound. "So-So Gigolo," despite its inane song title, is ridiculously catchy and manages to (appropriately) invoke images of Grand Theft Auto. "Bad Sects," a song about a homosexual priest, showcases front-man Kasher at top lyrical form – "Some nights he'd proclaim his preference/ but only flat-back drunk on a bottle of Jameson."

Some people may find that Happy Hollow's abrasive sound grates on their nerves, and the novelty of brass plus emo quickly wears off. However, I was charmed by the juxtaposition of the two genres and found the album to be another solid entry into Cursive's catalog. My enthusiasm for this album might wane in the coming months; only time will tell. But for now, I'm going to be playing "Dorothy at Forty" in regular rotation for at least a few more weeks.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2006/aug/31/cursives-newest-is-happily-far-from-hollow