Tiny Reviews: Beach House, Deradoorian, The Sword, Destroyer, Panda Bear

Beach House - Depression Cherry

Oh man, what a disappointment. You'll remember from my "Get Pumped!" feature from August that this was one of the the albums I was looking forward to in the second half of the year. Beach House had enchanted my heart and ear with their beautiful, retro style of dream pop and Victoria Legrand's gorgeous alto voice. 2010's Teen Dream, my first Beach House record and definitely the zenith of their sound, hooked me in and set the bar high for whatever they would put out next. After 2012's Bloom, which was essentially more of the same, I was ready to see what else the band could do, and I definitely wasn't the only one getting tired of the same sparkly, dreamy keyboards and chord progressions.

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

At their best, The Sword have been a band that draw the best of 60's heavy metal, prog rock, and sludge metal and bring it into one place. Though grounded and often bogged down in very accessible and digestible blues progressions and melodies, what has set them apart from other bands similarly bogged down is their ear for writing good riffs, prog sensibilities, and interesting fantasy-inspired lyrics.

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"??? 

I don't know what is going on with that track but it makes me want to cry. And don't even get me started on these songs' lyrics...

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

You may have heard of Destroyer in the way I did: through frontman Dan Bejar's membership in the New Pornographers

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

Soundtrack of My Year So Far

Well, somehow 2015 is already half over. I could argue it's been the biggest year of my life, what with getting married to the girl of my dreams last month. It's at least certainly been the busiest year of my life. College, road trips, wedding planning, job hunting, growing up, bill paying, insurance, juggling priorities, playing in my (two) bands.

How does a twenty-three year old kid manage to keep sanity with all the daily insanity?

My easy answer is.... (big surprise)... MUSIC!

Every music fan has those songs that just connect, on a deep, essential level. Songs that seem written for you, or for important moments happening right now in your life, or that say things in just the right way to teach you powerful lessons. This is probably why I love music so much, why I spend so much time and attention to finding music: I'm looking for those songs that can bring me those powerful moments. And that, in turn, is why I want to make this blog: to share this with you, my friends.

Well, here's 10 of my favorite songs that have come out this year. Each has meant something special to me during the amazing and crazy events of this special year of my life.

Panda Bear - "Boys Latin"

Let's start this soundtrack with the song that sounds like January 2015 to me. When I hear the skittering drums and oozing synth in the beginning, I can literally hear my footsteps crunching in the snow with it in time. I can feel the whimsical feeling again of starting school again after four years. Maybe that's just the power of Panda Bear's boyish voice?

Young Fathers - "Rain or Shine"

Some quirky, lo-fi, genre-confounding R&B (or hip hop?) from February of this year. A confession: it took me a while after getting back from my mission to get really excited about discovering new music again. This album basically marked a turning point in that for me. Hearing this made me go, "Here's some fresh and risk-taking music I can sink my teeth into."

Father John Misty - "The Ideal Husband"

Transitioning from a mission to life at home is hard. For me, the hardest part was confronting my spiritual and personal weaknesses now that I was on their playing field again. This climactic song from Father John Misty's INCREDIBLE sophomore LP, I Love You, Honeybear, is about that sort of confrontation, showcasing Josh Tillman's incredible talent as a lyricist, "Telling people jokes to shut them up/Resenting people that I love/Sleeping till two then doing crap/Just stay in bed and later lie 'bout it." And to boot, it's in the context of anxiety about being "the ideal husband" or not.

Modest Mouse - "The Ground Walks, With Time In a Box"

Well, in spite of the challenges of balancing relationships with people, I've had amazing help me along every step of this  . Modest Mouse is a binding force between me and some of my best friends, meaning a lot to us. "The Ground Walks, With Time In a Box," while also proving that my high school heroes still have it, always makes me think of my best bros and how much I love them.

Kendrick Lamar - "The Blacker the Berry"

Another huge moment for my year so far musically and personally, here. Kendrick Lamar's masterpiece To Pimp A Butterfly shattered any lingering feelings that maybe music just couldn't do it for me like it used to. It also awoke in me a desire to figure out what I believe socially and politically, because, as Kendrick argues with throat-searing passion and tear-jerking realness, there are things going on in the world that need our attention. Is it okay if this song makes me tear up?

Joywave - "Nice House"

How are these guys not more popular than they are? "Nice House" has one of the best-written choruses of a song I've heard this year. It was my wife who deciphered the lyrics, which, after we figured them out, cemented the song's appeal to me. "There's a strange old man with a creepy coat in the bathroom peering up and down to the floor/I don't know him."

Shamir - "On the Regular"

Could 2015 have found a more representative artist? The 20-year old, gender- and genre-busting Shamir has at least one thing, beyond argument: charisma. It seems like he took a bunch of party balloons, breathed all that charisma into them over several days, and then just let them all go. This song is my summer of 2015 party jam.

Alabama Shakes - "Gimme All Your Love"

This song was my jam on the various road trips I took to California to see my bae. Speaking of whom, Rachel, my wife, is concerned that I have some sort of complex: I truly believe that I should've been born black. Whenever I hear the explosion of jazz organ in the chorus, it awakens something inside me that can only be what they call Soul. With hip hop helping excite me about music again this year.

Lupe Fiasco - "Mural"

Hot dang, Lupe. This dude knows how to spin a verse. Or two. Or nine. I don't remember the last artist to make me WANT to listen to nine verses of a song since Bob Dylan. This song has been with me through a lot of the same places as others on this list: road trips, snowy walks to campus, headphones playing video games for the first time in years. And, analogous to how Kendrick relegated this song and album to the "Underdog" bin in hip hop, this song has quietly stayed in my Spotify playlists, making me nod and scratch my head every time I hear it.

Sufjan Stevens - "Should've Known Better"

Lastly, I'm grateful for the role music plays in me and my wife's relationship. I love her showing me music that is important and fun for her, and I love sharing mine with her in turn. I showed her this song as I drove her to work in April. She woke right up from the drowsy, early morning grog she was taking and had me play it over and over again. Years from now, I know this song will remind us both of 2015