New Music: Michael Addison – Blinding Shadows

Posted on October 2, 2012 by bgibs122

Positivity and rock aren’t an immediate combination to most people, but don’t tell Michael Addison that. His new album Blinding Shadows is surrounded by constant, implicit darkness, but remains eternally hopeful and determined to make things change. Addison believes in it, and with an album with this much energy, you might, too.

Blinding Shadows is a straight ahead rock record. But instead of aping the “old school” hard rock and roll, Addison’s created something distinctly modern with the help of Ryan Hoyle (of Collective Soul), Christine Wu (Usher/Justin Timberlake), and Adam Brooks (The Good Mad): the guitars are pushed up front and distorted, and the dynamic rhythm section guides the songs through what could be cumbersome transitions (“Never Look Back” jumps to mind). Also pulling in the album’s favor is the production, which is just polished enough to sound big without taking any bite out of the music.

And for the most part, Blinding Shadows doesn’t stray from the 90’s and now rock format that it opens with. The uniformity strengthens Addison’s sound, but makes the songs bleed together somewhat. The album’s “default” mode is open with a plucked riff, have the band kick in, keep somewhere around mid-tempo, and play your heart out. After spending the chunk of the album playing out to the cheap seats with big swinging singles “Alone” and “Go”, “All Your Might” is welcomed quieter number featuring acoustic guitar and violin, as well as the electric guitar that breaks into hushed distortion at the chorus (and a bright solo). The song has a solid melody as well. After this moment of quiet, Addison kicks the energy back up with a solid Foo Fighters impression in “Tell Me Lies”.

The acoustic guitar makes more features in the album’s second half, where Addison stays within his own bounds, but explores a few more ideas. “Dream” goes light on the electric guitar and stands out as a breezier, sweeter song than what’s around it. “You Tonight” marks the album’s halfway point, and blends the album’s better qualities (sheer energy, Addison’s heart on the sleeve lyrics) with some more varied instrumentation to great effect. “Until The End”, likely the most minor-key offering on Blinding Shadows, proves to be a penultimate epic, and a counterpoint to closer “Take Me In”, which starts with a quick guitar riff and only builds in urgency from there.

It’s worth noting that Blinding Shadows is a very optimistic album, both in music and lyrics. From the lyrics, it’s easy to get the feeling that the theme of Blinding Shadows is that someone just cleared a dark time in their lives, and finally has someone to take them in. Addison is a very earnest writer, too, on one hand his writing is free of pretension, but on the other, his tales of overcoming, reaching out to a lover, or surviving can get repetitive. This is true of the music as well: it’s dominated by big, bright major chord progressions almost to its detriment  The frantic guitar solos and scattered female backing vocals give the arrangements some heft, but more often than not, what’s missing from Blinding Shadows is tension.

But still, I only pick albums I like for New Music, and I like Blinding Shadows. The interesting points of it are enough for a good first listen, and from there, it’s a grower of an album. Michael Addison’s a sturdy performer in his own, and filled with potential. Few embrace rock this eagerly, and while Blinding Shadows might take a bit to warm up, it’s always inviting.

Like Michael Addison on Facebook, or check his official website here.

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Radio Rant: fun. – Some Nights

Posted on September 26, 2012 by bgibs122

Hello, and welcome to Radio Rants. Well, I didn’t expect to see these guys again.

Yep, fun., the makers of this year’s runaway crossover hit “We Are Young” are back with another single that got way bigger than I ever thought it would. I…still don’t know how I feel about fun.: on one hand, I’m always happy to see a band break big like this, but at the same time, I wish it was a band I liked. I tried to get on board with “We Are Young”, I really did, but after a few listens, it didn’t do anything for me. And while their earlier material is certainly more enjoyable, it still feels overdressed and non-essential (although “Be Calm” has some pretty great moments). I don’t know, maybe I’ll get more out of second single “Some Nights”.

“SOME NIGHTS I STAY UP/CASHING IN MY PADLOCK (ed: BAD LUCK)/SOME NIGHTS, I CALL IT A DRAW” Damn, they opened on a lo–“SOME NIGHTS I WISH MY LIPS COULD BUILD A CASTLE/SOME NIGHTS I WISH THEY’D JUST FALL OFF” I have no idea what that m–“BUT I STILL WAKE UP, I STILL SEE YOUR GHOST/OH LORD I’M STILL NOT SURE WHAT I STAND FOR, OOHHH”

Oh dear Lord, stop!

Let’s get this out of the way: fun. really want to be Queen. Not like, “Oh, they do a nice ‘Killer Queen'”, I mean I think they really want to have made A Night At the Opera and Sheer Heart Attack themselves. That’s the only explanation I can come up for why the song starts with the Million Man (and chipmunk) Multitrack Choir you’ll be hearing all over the song, as well as guitarist Jack Antonoff’s (when your last name sounds like “-in’ it off”, why do you name your son Jack?) Brian May wanna-be solos.

“Some Nights” is a wreck as a whole. But it’s such an impressive wreck that the best way to get your head around it is to look at each part on its own, because each individual bad part of it strengthens the others.

Ok, I’ve sat through a lot of T-Pain. I sat through a Ke$ha record, and will be doing so again sooner than I’d like. And “Some Nights” still has some of the most gratuitous vocoder abuse I’ve ever heard. If it happened once in the song, then that’s…better? But no, Nate Ruess, who has a great voice on his own, decides to wail into the squeaky toy three. Fucking. Times. I get that artists can do whatever they want for style and whimsy, but especially on that last one, it seems like Ruess is just terrified of there being part of the song where he isn’t singing.

That might also explain why the band leans hard on “Whooa-ooooh-whoaa”s. And, to be fair, the last big interlude with the guitar over it is the coolest part of the song, and for once the song sounds as anthemic as it wants to be. But for the most part, these wordless choruses exist to point out how painfully “Some Nights” sounds like “Cecilia”. Aside from that, “Some Nights” is ok musically; the drums do most of the leg work, while piano lays the musical groundwork for a mostly vocal song (again, Queen). The random guitar riffing is obnoxious, save the last minute or so of the song where it actually sounds planned, and Antonoff doesn’t sound like he’s trying to remind everyone that fun.’s actually a band.

Unfortunately, the martial drums, intrusive guitars, piano, and multiple vocals (the “ooh whooa oooh”s are more frequent than you’d think) make “Some Nights” fumble around like a cartoon character trying to keep sticks of dynamite in the air. Check out “Do It Like a Rock Star” from Amanda Palmer’s new album. It sounds like it could fall apart in a second, but every part of the song’s working together, and you don’t get that with “Some Nights”, where everything drowns out everything else.

The final nail in “Some Night”‘s crowded coffin is the lyrics. Instead of being tied to anything concrete (not a bad thing), they’re more about despair, existential crises, what life m–ah, fuck it. They’re about being a mopey teenager.

No, really. When I see lyrics this vaguely arty, erring towards clichés, mentioning mom and dad multiple times, and loaded with bullshit imagery (“I found a martyr in my bed tonight/She stops my bones from wondering who I am”), I can’t help but think of a pretentious, self-important teenager that goes around muttering “phonies” under his breath. The forced earnestness in the song’s two spoken word passages only kicks it higher on the Pretense-O-Meter.

It took me awhile to tire of “We Are Young”, but “Some Nights” was obnoxious from the first full listen. Whenever it would come on around me, I always thought I happened to catch it halfway through, because the song didn’t seem to have a real start or finish. After listening to it end to end, I’ve found that nope, that’s pretty much the case; “Some Nights” opens with a graceless chorus, and fades out in pretty much the same way. This is what truly irritates me about fun.: they’re so concerned with being EPIC that they miss the target by hitting it in the bluntest way possible.

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Amanda Palmer – Theatre Is Evil

Posted on September 23, 2012 by bgibs122

Heading into Theatre Is Evil, former Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer had to face a challenge similar to what Radiohead stared down in 2007: how do you make sure your record doesn’t get lost in the hype of your business model? Sure, initiating an almost unheard of (especially on the major scale) business plan makes headlines, but few artists want how they sold their album to be remembered more than the album itself. For Radiohead, “Pay what you want” could have been In Rainbows‘ legacy, just as Theatre Is Evil is threatened to become “The Kickstarter Album”.

Palmer (and the Grand Theft Orchestra, her many collaborators on Theatre Is Evil) took the way out that Radiohead did: make sure the music more than spoke for itself. After releases bordering on “gimmicky” for the past couple years (her kind-of live album, an EP of ukulele Radiohead covers, writing and recording 6 songs in 6 hours, the Evelyn Evelyn project, etc.), Theatre Is Evil is a fully formed album that swings for the fences and holds damn near nothing back.

Case in point, opening number “Smile (Pictures Or Didn’t Happen) sounds like it was fired out of a glitter cannon: giant, distorted My Bloody Valentine style guitars and huge drums blow out the song to epic proportions, while layered and filtered vocals and stabbing keyboards texture it with technicolor. And it doesn’t build into this; the song arrives more or less fully formed after a few drum beats. As far as openers go, it’s a showstopper. And, with its atypical instrumentation, “Smile” paints the album correctly as an “anything goes” affair.

After “Smile”, Palmer begins a run of rock songs that get damn near manic. “The Killing Type” puts the punk into cabaret punk, built on a lone guitar and drum combo that gets more and more wound up until finally exploding in a break of “DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!” before quietly retreating. “Do It With a Rock Star”, which sounds like it’d gleefully fall apart at any second, calls to mind the dead-eyed  but still chaotic feel of LCD Soundsystem’s “Drunk Girls”. Meanwhile, “Want It Back” is simply one of the album’s standout pop songs loaded with multiple vocals, synths, keyboards, and exuberance.

Yet, despite the hysteria that surrounds (and essentially is) Theatre is Evil, Palmer is what keeps the album…well, grounded isn’t the right word, but focused. It’s not just that she’s a veteran performer, or that her lyrics and perspective are singular, but she also has such a distinct personality and endless energy. She’s an utterly engaging performer, even in the recording booth.

Much like Palmer as a performer, there’s a lot of planning behind Theatre Is Evil, even if it isn’t immediately apparent. The level of craft in “Trout Heart Replica”, a gorgeously orchestrated piano and string ballad that makes the heart of the album, is clear in the song’s heartwrenching rises and falls, as well as in the bleepy, bloopy, gloomy “Grown Man Cry”. In other places, it’s less obvious, but just as present; even in the immediacy of “Do It With a Rock Star” and “Melody Dean”, the songs are never overtaken by their own energy, and evolve and shift with grace too deft to be luck. The only frustrating part of the record’s craft is that most songs don’t end as much as they stop; nearly every song plays out its four to seven minute time in full, and only slams the breaks within seconds of the next one starting. It lacks any falling action.

Like numerous grand scale albums before it and after it, Theatre is Evil suffers most from a lack of breathing space. A case could be made for “A Grand Theft Intermission”, but it’s only two minutes long, and still too chaotic to count as a break. The marathon pacing makes for some second half casualties: “Lost” is another loaded piano and drum based song that frankly doesn’t hold up, and “Bottomfeeder”, despite some great melodic moments, doesn’t justify a six minute runtime. Another epic, “Berlin” holds up slightly better through sheer force of will and direction, but still feels daunting as deep into the album as it is.

The album’s second half is saved by a pair of polar opposite knockouts. “The Bed Song”‘s charm lies in its piano hooks, and how much it focuses on the lyrics, which paint the saddest story on the album. “Melody Dean” is an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink freakout that benefits from brevity (yes, four minutes counts as brevity–Theatre Is Evil is that kind of album) and adventure, not to mention a hell of a synth hook in its final moments.

Theatre is Evil is too interesting to be The Kickstarter Album. The album’s controlled anarchy makes for some of the most distinct songs I’ve heard all year, and even if it isn’t end to end brilliance, the record has something for everyone, and has a high replay value. Palmer’s still a controversial figure, but there’s a lot of substance behind her style. Three and a half out of five stars.

tl;dr: Amanda Fucking Palmer stops fucking around, 3.5/5

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On the Radar #3

Posted on September 19, 2012 by bgibs122

I see a lot of new music here at Ranting About Music!, but it isn’t always in album form. So, if I come across a single I really like, or an artist that I think you should know about, I’ll showcase here on “On the Radar”!

Brock Zanrosso – Drowning
I thought I’d start with something different today. “Drowning” is through and through 2012 club electro-pop (complete with dubstep breakdown), but it’s smooth instead of overbearing, and surprisingly light on its feet. Not hurting matters is the song’s solid melody and Zanrosso’s showman-style vocals. His album Love Kills comes out on Sept. 18, and you can check out his website here.

Gumshen – Jag It Up
“Jag It Up” is one of those rare tracks that distills genres that shouldn’t work–in this case, dance, funk, and a little electronica–and makes them into a cohesive whole. The drums and synth bass give the song a massive rhythm section, while the guitar and synths texture it wonderfully. And the progtronica extended jam is great to just zone in on. Give “Jag It Up” in its eight minute entirety a listen on ReverbNation, then drop by Gumshen’s Facebook page.

Canto – Griseous
An offering from debut album HA HA HA, “Griseous” is a reverb-drenched track from three piece rock band Canto. If anything, the song’s a little underproduced, but the lack of polish adds to the song’s oomph, especially the outro guitar solo. Add in a few tempo changes and a nice chorus, and “Griseous” sounds great in-studio, and probably even better live. Check out Canto’s site here, and give “Griseous” a listen on SoundCloud.

KOPPS – Bastard Baby
Lead single from KOPPS’ upcoming EP Fuck Jams “Bastard Baby” kicks off with stomping drums before introducing droning, distorted synths, interwoven with saxophone. The entire track is unrelenting, constantly awash in textured electronics, and Patricia Petrone’s vocals always come out the top of this sensual track. KOPPS has the song streaming on their SoundCloud, and you can give them some attention on their Facebook page, too.

Candy Hearts – Bad Idea
New Jersey punk popsters Candy Hearts released their first song from upcoming EP The Best Ways to Disappear (out Nov. 6th), “Bad Idea”. The band’s polished pop-punk sound hasn’t lost any energy; “Bad Idea” has a killer catchy “We’ve all been there” chorus and furious drumming that makes the song blow by at two and a half minutes, leaving you wanting more. Listen to it on the band’s official site, or like Candy Hearts on Facebook.

Danny Switchblade – Reform School
NYC group Danny Switchblade blend rock and hip-hop on “Reform School”, a dark, industrial tinged track, and the group’s second released single. The hook consists of slithering effects and wah-wah guitar that calls Tom Morello’s work with Rage Against the Machine to mind, while the drums skitter between hip-hop beats and rockier patterns. Switchblade, for his part, gives a snarling delivery, culminating as the song ends. Give it a listen!

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