[review 2007: favourites]

The long-defunct music webzine Addicted to Noise showered praise on the first, self-titled Elastica record in 1995. By the end of the article, Bud Scoppa briefly speculated on the band’s future: “Elastica has the smarts and chops to be a career band, but the first album is so fully realized, the concept so complete, that they’ll be severely challenged to follow it. Given their predilection for brevity, maybe they won’t even bother. After all, in the quick-cut ’90s, entire careers are being played out within the span of a single album project.” Three years after that review, you’d be forgiven for thinking that ATN review was a sort of curse; a second Elastica album was nowhere in sight, the band was in shambles, and aside from the occasional BBC session or leaked track, it didn’t even seem like the band was interested in recording anything substantial. Only the release of The Menace five years after Elastica’s brief time in the spotlight kept the band from one-album wonder status.

In 2005, I could see Elastica’s moment in the sun being repeated before my very eyes in the form of the Go! Team. In the summer, the British group landed in Canada for the first time and put on a shockingly good show in Toronto—amazing, considering the Go! Team’s origins as a solo project and its relative inexperience as a touring band. When the Go! Team returned to Toronto in October, after the initial euphoria of the Go! Team live experience wore off, things looked a lot worse from my perspective—the show wasn’t nearly as fun, new member Kaori Tsuchida seemed like a bad fit with her hypercaffeinated schoolgirl antics, and Ninja’s live additions to the Thunder, Lightning, Strike material weren’t working as well as I’d thought originally.

The band was beginning to suffer on record as well—b-side “We Just Won’t Be Defeated” was one of the first songs the band had recorded with Ninja’s vocals in mind from day one, but compared to the original album it fell utterly, painfully flat. Same too for the version of “Bottle Rocket” with Ninja’s relatively tepid vocals replacing samples that apparently couldn’t be cleared for worldwide release. A couple of months later, the instrumental “Phantom Broadcast” appeared to revisit some of Thunder, Lightning, Strike’s tropes but failed to bring anything new or exciting to the table. So it seemed like the end of the road was near for the Go! Team, at least for me; nothing I’d heard since the album gave me much confidence for the band’s long-term prospects.

All that changed upon the release of “Grip Like a Vice,” the first single off Proof of Youth. The single biggest worry I had about the new album—the band’s inability to integrate live vocals fully into the songs—faded with every listen. As it turns out, the vocals were neither Ninja’s nor recorded live—the lack of vocal credits on the album as well as Parton’s tendency to keep the vocals relatively low in the mix make identifying any single singer difficult. But one aspect that was undeniable was the fuller, more immediate sound—the result of bringing the band into the studio and recording much of the album using real instruments instead of samples. As a result, Proof of Youth is a Go! Team album that works equally well in the studio and on the road.

Proof of Youth is more sunshine and lollipops than Thunder, Lightning, Strike. This is partially because the improved production lifted the fog of distortion that gave the first Go! Team album its unique character, but it’s also a result of the more collaborative writing and recording process—you can hear the presence of more people getting their hands dirty and having fun this time around, and the lively vocal contributions from Ninja, Chi Fukami Taylor and Kaori Tsuchida really do make a difference, even if at first it’s more a subliminal one—and to be fair, the guest contributions come off the same way, especially on “I Never Needed It Now So Much,” sung by Solex’s Elisabeth Esselink. It doesn’t take long for the album to distinguish itself; some of the new contributions shine brighter than anything off the first album, like “The Wrath of Marcie,” “Titanic Vandalism” and “Fake ID.” It’s not just that they’re better songs, it’s that they sound more alive. And there’s no burying Chuck D in the mix, but even with “Flashlight Fight” it’s obvious that this is a Go! Team track. Amazingly, the song sounds just as good when Ninja completely replaces Chuck D’s bluster with her own raps in concert, a testament both to Ninja’s ability as a rapper and to Ian Parton’s ability to write a backing track.

Sure, Proof of Youth doesn’t make any groundbreaking advances on Thunder, Lightning, Strike’s basic formula, but it’s actually a bit hard for me to go back to that first album now. The differences may be small, but they add up to a fairly stark contrast—where the Go! Team as Ian Parton’s solo project sounds a bit canned, the Go! Team as full band sounds full of life and vigour. They may still be working out all the kinks of operating together—Parton still composes much of the music himself, and it sounds like some members wouldn’t mind larger roles in the conception stage. But Proof of Youth is both a great album on its own and a sign that the band is willing and able to evolve. Right now it’s hard to say if more drastic changes in the formula are in the cards for album number three—for the band’s sake they might almost be necessary—but one thing’s certain: the Go! Team are here to stay.

[review 2007: favourites]

Charlotte Hatherley’s Grey Will Fade and Ash’s Meltdown, both released within months of each other in 2004, marked turning points of sorts for the members of Ash. Meltdown was the first album after Ash’s breakthrough Free All Angels, which made it to the top of the UK charts and gave the band a number of big singles. Having finally figured out how to meld the bigger sound from Nu-Clear Sounds with the pop sensibility they’d developed on their debut, Ash were ready to retry the American market again (Nu-Clear Sounds was the first attempt) and delve back into harder-edged rock material. For Hatherley, who’d been with the band for the better part of a decade at that point, her own album—recorded while Ash was in California for the Meltdown sessions—Grey Will Fade represented the first steps towards independence. Named after a song she originally penned for Ash and released as the b-side to “There’s a Star,” Grey Will Fade owed much to Ash both in sound and in conception: Wheeler was the one who first suggested to Hatherley that she record an album.

Three years on, and from those origins much has changed. Ash is a three-piece band again, and though everyone involved still seems to be on okay terms, there’s also signs that Hatherley’s departure wasn’t completely her idea. Ash decided after this year’s Twilight of the Innocents that albums are so yesterday, so they won’t be recording anything but singles from now on. Combine that with Ash’s new makeup as a trio and the geographical relocation to New York for two-thirds of the band, and you’ve got a band that’s seriously rethinking its place in the world. And as for Hatherley? She’s been doing some thinking as well, obviously. Grey Will Fade had a lot in common with Ash’s material, especially Free All Angels—not a bad place to start. But even though “Summer” and “Bastardo” were the big singles, it was tracks like “Kim Wilde” that really showed promise. Most guitarists pursuing solo albums don’t write crazy rollercoaster songs like “Kim Wilde,” or at least not good ones. Hatherley had something up her sleeve, and it wasn’t necessarily all power-pop stuff, either.

The Deep Blue takes the blueprint of Grey Will Fade and largely throws it away. By her own admission, there are a couple of bridges back to that album, namely “I Want You to Know.” But just like “Summer” before, the throwbacks are the least compelling tracks on The Deep Blue. Furthermore, “I Want You to Know”’s ragged punk-pop sound sticks out like a sore thumb, coming as it does after the sun-kissed duo of “Cousteau” and “Be Thankful.” Those two tracks set the tone for the rest of the album: a gauzier, multilayered sound that avoids the relatively easy pleasures of Grey Will Fade for more complex song structures. The payoffs versus Hatherley’s first album are muted and less immediate; the appeal of a song like “Love’s Young Dream” is less evident alongside the more Ash-like songs. But Hatherley’s thinking longer-term here; a lot of The Deep Blue sounds like foundation work, a way to figure out how best to express her sonic ambitions in the future.

What this all means is the album’s strength lies more in its ability to impress upon you a certain mood and atmosphere. There are plenty of songs that, in lieu of the spiky pop nuggets of old, provide more serene pleasures. “Be Thankful” and “It Isn’t Over” are utterly gorgeous pop songs, and “Wounded Sky” and “Behave” retain some bite while maintaining the overall dreamy vibe of the album. The major exception, the epic and melancholy “Love’s Young Dream,” throws a dissonant wrench into the mix to great effect. And lest you think the album is quiet, there’s still the likes of “Very Young” and “Siberia.” Remember that Hatherley was recruited by Ash when she was 18 on the basis of her guitar chops; she knows where her roots are.

The Deep Blue is a sprawling statement that should put to rest any concerns about Charlotte Hatherley’s long-term prospects as a solo artist. Hatherley clearly has ambitions and talent, and if nothing on the album really points to a future career direction, that’s mainly because the directions she takes on this album are so varied and yet are all equally viable. In the meantime, between the bliss of “It Isn’t Over” and the delightful crunch of “Roll Over (Let it Go)” and “Very Young,” there’s lots to love about this album. Maybe Ash have written off albums, but I hope Hatherley hasn’t, because her next album should knock ‘em all dead.

[review 2007: favourites]

When I heard High Society for the first time, I thought of it as really more like two or three albums. There was the boring, straightforward guitar rock album (though in hindsight it wasn’t as straightforward as I remembered), led largely by John Schmersal; there was the bloopy, slinky electropop album, featuring Toko Yasuda on vocals; then there was the mini-album where the two would combine forces all Wonder Twins-style and fuse the two styles together. This minisuite of “Natural Disasters,” “Carbonation” and “Salty” was the best thing about High Society, and it seemed a bit like the album was so fractured only because Yasuda was still relatively new to the group (having decamped from Blonde Redhead to join Enon). Give them a couple of albums to really figure this thing out and Enon could put out an awesome record, I thought.

That day is here and that record is Grass Geysers…Carbon Clouds. Enon have worked out all the bugs and it’s all systems go, to magnificent effect: they’ve recorded an album full of foot-stompers and hip-shakers, with the traditional Enon whirlygig soundscape surprisingly intact. Schmersal and Yasuda no longer sound as though they’ve been working in their own separate studios, either—it’s one band now, with a single-minded purpose—to rock your socks off. It’s actually a bit scary how well the fusion holds together—there are a couple of songs where it sounds a bit like Yasuda’s even taken on Schmersal’s vocal tics.

Along with Enon’s newfound consistency, there’s the bigger, more aggressive sound. First track “Mirror On You” is the sound of Enon putting you on notice: they’re not fucking around this time. The jittery guitar solo in the middle of the song (less than two minutes in total!) and Yasuda’s feverish vocal contributions batter and bruise you into submission—it’s stuff to get the heart racing and the feet moving. The rest of the album is similarly caffeinated: the competent indie rock songs on High Society, even highlight “Natural Disasters,” is completely outmatched by the scorching V8-powered rock of songs like “Those Who Don’t Blink” and “Piece of Mind.” And the quirky electropop numbers were nice, but Enon gives Yasuda the best song on the album with “Pigeneration,” another rapid-fire stormer full of attitude—and just one of many songs that shows Yasuda can do more than the cute Japanese chanteuse schtick. Grass Geysers is fantastic enough to almost obliterate any memory of Enon’s previous works.

I say almost because you’ve probably figured out the one flaw with the album if you’re a fan. The consistency that happens to be Grass Geysers‘ biggest improvement can also be a problem. When I first listened to the album it sounded fun enough, but the songs all blurred into one another; Grass Geysers is consistent to a fault. This is especially weird considering that Enon albums have always been genrehoppers; here they’ve settled down, and some people might miss the wanderlust of the past.

I might have missed it too, except it didn’t take long for me to figure out which song was which and appreciate them for their individual charms. For a lesser band with a lesser collection of songs that consistency might be a momentum killer, but not here. There may not be room any more for a “Disposable Parts” or “Knock That Door” any more, but if Enon keeps writing songs like “Pigeneration” and “Law of Johnny Doolittle” I really don’t see myself caring very much. Those earlier albums may have been very good, but they seem like unfinished blueprints now next to Grass Geysers…Carbon Clouds. This is the new yardstick by which all future Enon albums should be measured.

[review 2007: favourites]

Like most people, I came to the Fiery Furnaces by way of Blueberry Boat, the duo’s breakthrough album from 2004. That album was both exhilarating and mindboggling, and not always in a good way. To this day I’m still not sure if I like the album or not. I still vividly remember the days I spent listening to the album during the sunny Vancouver summer I spent as a transient student getting used to a new city, so for that Blueberry Boat will always be a bit special. But I can’t say the same for the content, which remains easier to admire than love. Clearly something interesting was at work; I just couldn’t figure out what.

Last year’s Bitter Tea was a step in the right direction. For the first time, I actually recognized songs from previous listens. It still felt like an album that demanded a lot of your time and effort, but at least the payoff was more immediate; you could get to like songs like “Black-Hearted Boy” and “Borneo” pretty quickly, and “Police Sweater Blood Vow” was one of the best songs the Furnaces had recorded to date. Bitter Tea had its problems, sure—it was a bit sluggish at times, and in hindsight there’s an odd cloud hovering over the album (other than the one on the album’s cover), as though the enthusiasm of Blueberry Boat had been somehow suppressed and rerouted through an arsenal of studio electronics. On the one hand it meant Bitter Tea didn’t stagger from genre to hook to coda like a drunken sailor, but it also meant the album didn’t sound alive like its flawed predecessor did.

Amazingly, almost shockingly, the multi-year project to figure out the Fiery Furnaces has reached a new apex. Upon first listen, the epic seven-minute opener “The Philadelphia Grand Jury” returns to noodly schizo Blueberry Boat territory. Except it doesn’t; after the nervous guitar intro we shift gears to… a lazily gorgeous set of guitar chords? And then when Eleanor Friedberger finally arrives a minute and a half into Widow City, she sounds relaxed and easygoing. Imagine Blueberry Boat without the attention deficit disorder and you’re beginning to understand where Widow City’s headed. For some people this will inevitably be a disappointment; part of the Fiery Furnaces’ raison d’etre, after all, was that perpetual nervous twitch in their music. For me, it was the change that finally made the music lovable.

If anything, “The Philadelphia Grand Jury” is actually the weakest song of the opening twenty minutes, because what comes afterwards is utterly brilliant. “Police Sweater Blood Vow” hints at the direction of “Duplexes of the Dead,” which takes the live, immediate sound of the former and adds a more luscious backing track. But that’s just a prelude to “Automatic Husband,” a perfect balance of the Friedberger’s neurotic genreshifting tendencies and the rock pedigree you always knew was lurking in there somewhere but never really found full expression. Same goes for “Clear Signal From Cairo,” six minutes full of twists and turns (and noisy-as-fuck thrashing) but otherwise surprisingly direct and immediate for a Fiery Furnaces song.

The entire first half of the album up to and including “My Egyptian Grammar” is lovingly carved out of a solid chunk of awesome. Had the album stopped after the twenty-five minute mark, Widow City could possibly have been my favourite CD of the year. That it keeps going for another half-hour makes it more difficult for me to recommend the album without reservations, but to be honest the second half isn’t so bad either. It takes another three or four tracks for Widow City to start dissolving back into dissonance—for those of you keeping score, that gets us to the forty-minute point—that’s an entire album for most band. There are still flashes of brilliance (like “This establishment will now serve MY purposes!” in “Cabaret of the Seven Devils”), but they’re harder to make out amidst the more raucous, unfocused meandering of songs like “Wicker Whatnots.” By the time I get to the final title track, my attention span’s been shot to pieces—and while Widow City the album is great, “Widow City” the song is forgettable bordering on annoying.

Despite the flaws of the second half, Widow City leaves a very good impression. It’s the first Fiery Furnaces album I’ve put on just to listen to, not because I’d just bought it and should try it out, or because I felt the need to listen to it over and over again to “get it,” as though I were drinking cough syrup because it was good for me. More than that, it’s the first Fiery Furnaces album that fulfills the potential I saw in them when I first heard some of their songs: “Crystal Clear,” “Single Again,” “Straight Street” and “Evergreen.” A charmed set of songs to be sure, and finally an album that manages to do justice to all of those initial touchstones. For a while I had a hard time deciding if I could say an album where a significant number of tracks didn’t do that much for me was worth calling “the best of the year.” I think almost singlehandedly rehabilitating my opinion of a band is pretty good grounds, though, and no jury in the land would convict me. Well, maybe one…

[review 2006: favourites]

What do you do when you’ve been out of the spotlight for a couple of years? In Imperial Teen’s case, you write an essay on how you spent your summer vacation for the class and set it to music. The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band makes up for its poor punctuation with another trademark dose of Imperial Teen sunshine five years after On, after which the band all but disappeared from the face of the earth. The L.A. band’s new album goes some way towards explaining the hiatus; each element of the title points to what each band member has spent the past five years pursuing.

For a while, it looked like On was going to be Imperial Teen’s last splash, and as final albums go it was a pretty outstanding one—everything from the keyboards to the sassy vocals sounded in top form, and On was rife with memorable moments—the band certainly knows how to write an irresistably catchy tune. In a way, you could be forgiven for asking exactly what it is that brought Roddy Bottum and company back to the table—the album itself is the best evidence that everyone’s got their own projects and businesses to pursue, so it’s not like anyone needed the money, the attention, or the touring schedule. The answer, then, appears to be a variation of part-time L.A. band syndrome: Imperial Teen has become less of an ongoing concern, perhaps, and more of a side outlet for everyone when they’re not wrapped up in running a hair salon or scoring television shows.

Which goes a long way towards explaining the more relaxed vibe on The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band. It takes a while to suss out exactly why the new album doesn’t sound quite like On, but I think it all comes down to polish. Songs like “Ivanka,” “Sugar” and “Teacher’s Pet” are slicker and tighter than anything on The Hair, and the new album is decidedly lacking in crazy electronic antics. This time out the recordings are stripped down to the basics, with guitars and drums dominating and keyboards playing a small supporting role (”Sweet Potato” being a notable exception). It sounds like the album could’ve been recorded on a sunny weekend. But it turns out Imperial Teen can be just as good with their more frenetic tendencies clipped and their keyboards shelved; as a straightforward indie pop album, The Hair is really good, if not necessarily anything particularly new or original.

That lack of novelty is originally what did the album in for me; even the prospect of buying another Imperial Teen album seemed a bit weird, like buying a piece of indie nostalgia. But over time, the album grows on you—the band hasn’t lost its songwriting touch, and when the band kicks it into overdrive like on “Sweet Potato” and “21st Century,” suddenly it’s like they never left the scene at all. It’s not quite the production On was, but if that album was Saturday night at the clubs, this is a Sunday afternoon barbecue with a bunch of friends. The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band is a perfectly charming album, and if Imperial Teen are willing to keep us up to date on their latest trials and tribulations, I’ll keep listening.

[review 2007: favourites]

I saw Marnie Stern during the summer during her full-band tour; previously she’d crisscrossed the States with nothing but a guitar and an iPod in tow, and even played a show at SXSW with the pseudo-karaoke setup. And though the show loses a certain something without Zach Hill behind a real drumkit—not just his furious octopus-arms drumming, but also the spectacle of watching him pour sweat out of his shoes two songs into the set—Stern’s ability to impress was apparently intact. And why not? Marnie Stern is easily the most impressive guitarist I saw this year, and it’s exhausting just to watch her long, unbroken strings of hammer-ons.

In Advance of the Broken Arm is a proof of concept for Stern and her virtuoso math-rock-meets-speed-metal stylings. The 44-minute album was built on a foundation of home demos she recorded before anyone had ever heard of her, after a late blooming where she discovered the likes of Don Caballero and Sleater-Kinney. From there, she sent her tapes in to Kill Rock Stars unsolicited, and found herself the proud owner of a record deal. It’s not hard to see why: Stern’s debut is jam-packed with energy, with every song cramming in the products of three whirling dervishes. Stern’s vocals sound like a seven-year-old girl channelling Corin Tucker, her guitar playing more closely resembles someone playing a thrash keyboard turned up to 12, and Zach Hill’s drumming is more hyperactive and explosive than three normal drummers packed into one body with all their limbs left intact. Any one ingredient would catch your ear; all three at once is like a never-ending tsunami of gloriously raucous noise.

The one issue is that because Stern and Hill only have one speed, the songs tend to blur into each other, and by the end of the album you might experience a certain amount of listener fatigue—especially since at times it feels like you’re listening to the album being played at four times its normal speed. But the one thing that makes it all better is the last track, “Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling,” where Stern builds a psychoacoustic space out of guitar overdubs before bringing it all crashing down in a devastatingly loud outro. The whole concept, complete with arch narration from Stern herself, is deliciously over the top and definitely not to everyone’s taste. You can think of the final track as a litmus test for the album itself—if you made it all the way to the end and you can buy fully into “Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling,” then Marnie Stern owns you completely. It might not be my absolute favourite, and it does get a little repetitive, but In Advance of the Broken Arm was one of the most exciting things I heard all year.