Beach House - Depression Cherry
Well, wouldn't you know it, with Depression Cherry, we get Teen Dream III: Revenge of the Synth (or Bloom II: Attack of the Clones). I didn't think they could do it or would do it, but they have taken the exact same songs with the exact same sounds and made the exact same record. I swear I've heard that electronic hi-hat in "Space Song" in fourteen other Beach House songs. And I'm not exaggerating. That's basically all there is to say about this album. Yes, it's beautiful sounding. Yes, it was interesting the first time. In fact, if you've never listened to Beach House before and are interested, this wouldn't be a bad place to start. But Teen Dream would be better and you'd get everything they give you here (five years later...)
Definitely Check Out: "Sparks"
| OVERALL SCORE: 5.7 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Beach House – Depression Cherry | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Deradoorian - The Expanding Flower Planet
A very surprising and fresh release. Deradoorian is the truncated nome-de-music of singer-songwriter Angel Deradoorian, who is basically exclusively known for her incredible vocal performance in Dirty Projectors' masterpiece Bitte Orca. You know, "Two Doves?" She sang that. This performance landed her rather unlikely spots on recent Flying Lotus and the Roots albums.
You may have, like me, held the assumption that Angel Deradoorian was only a folky, acoustic singer-songwriter type, especially after listening to her first solo album Mind Raft. One of the best qualities of The Expanding Flower Planet is how it absolutely destroys that assumption. There is hardly an acoustic or even folk song in sight.
In a lot of ways, Deradoorian's songwriting here continues the technically complex and often odd compositions of her former Dirty Projectors' bandleader Dave Longstreth. Opener "A Beautiful Woman" certainly shows it, as well as "The Expanding Flower Planet," "Grow" and my personal favorite "Your Creator." The latter sounds to me like it could be the beginning of a Battles song, it's that good.
If the whole album was as good as these four tracks, it would be one of my favorites of the year. Unfortunately, the other tracks on the album, while still technical and ambitious, are really boring and fall flat. "Komodo" and "The Eye" in particular come to mind. All in all, it's an extremely praiseworthy album with some incredible tracks that any Dirty Projectors, tUnE-yArDs, Glasser, The Knife, or Bjork fans will enjoy
Definitely Check Out: "A Beautiful Woman," "Your Creator"
| OVERALL SCORE: 8.1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deradoorian – The Expanding Flower Planet | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Sword - High Country
Unfortunately, on High Country, they shed all of these strengths and deliver an album that is almost entirely made up of entry level, dime-a-dozen blues rock. It's not even metal at this point; it's so watered down, this record could make for a bad Wolfmother or Birds of Avalon B-side collection. Some songs, like "Suffer No Fools," do exhibit their penchant for good riff writing, and the production remains sparkling clean and crisp as a bowl of Rice Crispies. But it's not enough to make this record really stand out in anyway.
BUT, as I said, it's almost entirely made of this bland blues rock, and if it was it wouldn't be that bad. The rest of the album, though? Well, I guess they realized they were writing themselves into a rut like this. So what did they do? Rather than scrapping these and writing actually good songs, they devoted their creative energies to completely awkward meanderings in random genres:
- synth rock on "Seriously Mysterious"
- ska/rock-with-a-brass-section on "Early Snow"
- and... hip hop on opener "Unicorn Farm"???
Please, The Sword. What on earth happened?
Definitely Check Out: "Suffer No Fools," "Unicorn Farm" (just because it's that bad)
| OVERALL SCORE: 4.2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Sword – High Country | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Destroyer - Poison Season
However, that connection won't help you any on Poison Season: the two could hardly sound further apart on the indie spectrum. The New Pornographers are fun, bright, pop-y, and inexplicably tongue-in-cheek, like everything's a joke, including their band name.
Poison Season, though, is serious, heady, adult-ish, and inexplicably sober, even in its energetic and odd moments.
I have hardly heard an album that is as mature musically as this one: Dan Bejar has crafted a rich blend of adult contemporary, jazz, Latin, Springsteen-esque folk rock, and Billy Joel-esque poet rock. The lyrics give credence to calling Bejar a rock poet too: the beginning, middle, and end tracks, the three "Times Square's" feature the lines, "The writing on the wall/ Wasn't writing at all/ Just forces of nature/ In love with a radio station/ You can follow a rose wherever it grows/ Or you could fall in love with Times Square."
I'm still dissecting this beautiful, incredibly dense piece of music. But that density is one of the album's best characteristics. In fact, it's so dense, it took me 3 or 4 listens to feel any connection at all, like listening to Classical music is for me. But now, I'm finding the fun of this album is peeling back more layers with each listen. This is a release that any music lover, especially a lover of the above mentioned genres, should not pass up. Just be patient with it.
Definitely Check Out: "Times Square," "Dream Lover," "Solace's Bride"
| OVERALL SCORE: 8.4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Destroyer – Poison Season | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Panda Bear - Crosswords EP
My honest opinion and review? I don't remember a single part of it. I listened to it four times and I can't tell you how one song goes.
This was essentially the case for me on Panda Bear vs. The Grim Reaper (PBVGR), the mother LP from which this EP comes. The dude's from Animal Collective, and Panda Bear in particular, are sliding into a very sad comfort zone. They blazed musical territory before them for their entire careers until the monumental Merriweather Post Pavilion, and since then, they've halted in the realm of bloopy, blippy psychedelic electronica. The fact that each LP since then (Centipede Hz, Avey Tare's Down There and Slasher Flicks, and Panda Bear's Tomboy and PBVGR) have had standout tracks shows that the guys are certainly talented and have it in them.
On releases like this, though... I can't help but feel Panda Bear's on auto-pilot. I sincerely hope they find their way out of this for the upcoming new Animal Collective album
Definitely Check Out: "No Man's Land" I guess?
| OVERALL SCORE: 5.1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Panda Bear – Poison Season | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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