Album Review: Best Coast – The Only Place

Posted on May 17, 2012 by bgibs122

There are more than a few poppy, low-fi bands out there, but Best Coast (and boyfriend Nathan Williams’ band Wavves) have been the big names in the niche. Both bands’ first tunes were so layered in reverb, distortion, and fuzz that it was hard to hear them under their own production. Then, both put out tentpole records in 2010 that had actual, listenable songs: Wavves with the sun-bleached King of the Beach and Best Coast with their reverb-drenched, dreamy debut album Crazy For You. Wavves seemed to clear more noise on last year’s EP Life Sux, leaving a lean, muscular band in its place.

Similarly, The Only Place peels away the layers of reverb that has become part of Best Coast’s identity, but allows other traits of the band to shine through stronger. Instead, producer Jon Brion opts for a warm, breezy production that gives new clarity to the band’s instrumentation. It’s a move that might have killed Crazy For You, but completely fits The Only Place; this is easily the stronger record from a musical standpoint. The songs are still centered on fairly basic chord progressions and verse-chorus structure, but there’s actual bass in the mix, and singer/guitarist Bethany Cosentino uses some more slightly more advance rhythm arrangements. Multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno keeps his work simple as well, but his guitar lines sound more thought out and less random, strengthening some songs (the title track in particular).

And out in the very front is Bethany Cosentino’s voice and lyrics. While her voice took up the most space on Best Coast’s debut, it was kept somewhat afar with vocal effects that helped her bleed into the band. But here, she out in the clear with almost no modifications, and much less double-tracking. On the band’s earlier material, it was easy to consider the reverb as a production trick to hide a lack of talent, but Cosentino’s actually a pretty strong vocalist, and she doesn’t lack for enthusiasm.

Additionally, she seems to be trying harder on lyrics. The only “crazy/lazy” rhyme comes on closer “Up All Night”, which originally appeared on a pre-Crazy For You EP, and while the rhymes are still somewhat predictable, they are far more varied on The Only Place. Likewise, the themes changed for this record; in an interview, Cosentino said that this was to be an honest record, inspired by Drake’s Take Care from last year. And while it might not be the stark confessional that record was, The Only Place is a very vulnerable album. There are still songs about boys, but they’re less “I wish he was my boyfriend” and more “You don’t want me to be how they want me to be/I don’t want to be how they want me to be”. Other parts of the album deal with the pressures of being (relatively) famous while having social anxiety: wanting to be home, dealing with vices, extended exhaustion and insecurity, and a spot of depression.

So, then how does all of this tweaking and changing work on a song by song level? Consistently well, actually. The album opens with a two-song spurt of energy from “The Only Place” and “Why I Cry” before settling into a mid-tempo groove with some ballads (“How They Want Me To Be”, “No One Like You”) added in. Things pick up again once you hit “Let’s Go Home”, which works as a solid lead in for string-tinged closer “Up All Night”, a holdover from Best Coast’s demo days. There’s slightly more variety here than on Crazy For You, but, like that album, The Only Place peters out towards the end, this time with “Dreaming My Life Away”. The title track, “Why I Cry”, “My Life”, “No One Like You”, and others make up for it, though.

While not as immediately rewarding or upbeat as Best Coast’s first works, The Only Place is a fine step in the band’s evolution. While part of me misses the reverb, Best Coast works better without it, although this album could use a bit more distortion. I can see it being a great summer record because of its warm sound, but a bit of a comforting downer from the lyrics–while Cosentino might write from a fairly unique perspective, her themes are more universal. The pleasures might not be as quick, but they rarely are growing up, aren’t they? Four out of five stars.

tl;dr: Best Coast lose the fuzz, gain some insight, 4/5.

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Feedback: Oasis – Dig Out Your Soul

Posted on May 14, 2012 by bgibs122

Hey all, welcome to the second entry in the new Ranting About Music series “Feedback”, where I look at a less known album by a big group. I’ve decided there has to be a few qualifiers: “less known” is in comparison to the artist’s other work and how it’s status has held up over the years–doesn’t necessarily have to be in hard numbers. Additionally, the album has to be at least 3 years old. Feel free to Facebook, tweet, email, or comment me with suggestions!

While I’d never call Oasis one of my favorite artists, they’ve stuck with me for a long time. I first got into them back in 2006, just missing Don’t Believe the Truth, a record that, despite being billed as the band’s “comeback” album, I never really dug. Around the same time that I discovered Oasis, I made another, possibly more important discovery: the CD section of Half-Price Books. The section is essentially the Land of Misfit Albums; CDs with scratched, broken, or written on jewel cases end up there, making it prime territory for the hits of the past 5 to 20 years that we don’t think about anymore, the misses of today, obscure stuff, and tons of rightful castoffs.

So being able to find Oasis’ big albums–Definitely Maybe, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, and The MasterPlan at HPB seems pretty fitting. While Britain was still heavily Oasis loyal, the number of their albums you can find for them at HBP implies most of America stopped paying attention long ago (only Aerosmith and R.E.M. had more, if I remember right). In the States, Oasis had limited success during their 90’s run, culminating with “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova”, but even that dwindled to almost nothing by 2008’s Dig Out Your Soul.

More than any other of their albums, Dig Out Your Soul sound worn. Guitarists Noel Gallagher and Gem Archer’s guitars have their usual overdrive, but instead of sounding crisp and fresh, something about them sounds ragged, but still kicking. Zak Starkey’s drums get a similar treatment (as does Andy Bell’s bass), but the grittiest element of the band is Liam Gallagher’s voice. After a decade of cigarettes and alcohol reduced his once famous singing voice to a croak, Gallagher mentioned that he quit smoking and took up running before the recording of DOYS, and it shows; he’s able to snarl his way through opener “Bag It Up”, and makes “I’m Outta Time” even more charming.

The album begins with one hell of a 4 song punch. “Bag It Up” details what could easily be a bad trip with some massive guitar riffs, “The Turning” turns a choir into arena rock, and Noel’s first singing appearance “Waiting For the Rapture” is a pop song cum distortion pedals and huge drums. Lead single “The Shock of The Lightning” shakes the lead out with an unrelenting drum beat and a laughably basic but sharp guitar riff. It encapsulates what makes Dig Out Your Soul stand above just about everything else the band had done since Be Here Now: finally, Oasis wasn’t trying to be Oasis, they knew themselves better than that.

Similarly, the two ballads on DOYS, one from each Gallagher, are the most self-aware songs each has written. For all their talk about this being The Oasis Comeback, the brothers must have known something was at risk (Oasis had always been a volatile unit, the Gallaghers in particular). The vulnerability in Liam’s Lennon-esque “I’m Outta Time” and Noel’s “Falling Down” is only magnified by the very public split the brothers had after the album’s release. Liam sounds more hard on himself, but reaching out on the Lennon-esque “I’m Outta Time”, where he asks someone to stay. Meanwhile, Noel’s “Falling Down”  has desperation wrapped up in the line “I tried to talk with God to no avail”, looking for answers and getting nothing in return. It’s the sort of thinking that leads to, I don’t know, quitting a band.

In promotion, much was made of this being Oasis’s “democratic” album, with Liam writing three songs and Andy Bell and Gem Archer getting a song each. Well, Liam’s songs are quite nice. Besides “I’m Outta Time”, he also contributes the quick, sloppy “Ain’t Got Nothin'” and closer “Soldier On”, which might go down in history as the Most Ironic Closing Song on the Album Before the Band Breaks Up ever. If Bell or Archer are master songcrafters, it doesn’t show here, since they bring up Oasis at their worst: bold faced Beatles imitators and mid-tempo bar band material. Archer’s “To Be Where There’s Life” yearns for Revolver-era Beatles in an uninteresting way, and Bell’s “The Nature of Reality” is a standard blues stomper that gets outclassed by the album’s other 3 or 4 blues stompers.

Those two songs and possibly “Ain’t Got Nothing” and “(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady” are what keeps Dig Out Your Soul from being an end to end success. It got generally good reviews, discounting a few backhanded compliments about being “a high point in a career deficient of high points” and a particularly catty take on the “Why won’t this band die?” review that Pitchfork writes for most 90s bands it thinks should have offed themselves by 2001.

So, bringing it back around, it’s not surprising that I’ve now seen Dig Out Your Soul at HPB as well. While it’s a sturdy album that easily lends itself to relistens, it wasn’t a gamechanger for a band that was, in the eyes of many, already on its way out. As is, it’s easily the band’s strongest since Be Here Now (itself good Feedback material) that sounds different enough from what came before it to be dependably relistenable. It’s the only Oasis album I bought on release day, but Dig Out Your Soul‘s as good a high note as any to go out.

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Radio Rant: Justin Bieber – Boyfriend

Posted on May 13, 2012 by bgibs122

Hello, and welcome to Radio Rants. Oh boy do we have a big name today.

As of 2012, I think most people have entered into this kind of weird relationship with Justin Bieber. His first single came out almost three years ago now, and he hit cultural ubiquity (and hate) within a year. But where it gets weird is that, while yes, he has been successful in a way that other famous people resent–as well as everyone else, his main pitch, his music, has also been incredibly easy to avoid. It’s not like how people hate Nickelback, who get reliable radio time, or where Gaga haters got their justification from her being overplayed; for the most part, Bieber doesn’t get any real radio or tv exposure. There’s no rational way to hate him this much for his music.

But, for better and worse, I think that it’s almost time for Bieber to break out of the teen idol ghetto. More to the point, he kind of has to; he’s past the point where he can hide the fact that he’s aging, especially now that his voice has changed. And One Direction coming up behind him’s only rushing things, so here’s Justin Bieber with his first All Growed Up single, “Boyfriend”.

And nothing says “darker and edgier” than handclaps over a single, frigid synth. And aside from that, all we’re going to get during the verses in “Boyfriend” is an extra beat about halfway through. Bieber’s music has always had kind of a hip-hop lean, but this goes the extra step into hip-hop minimalism. Who produced this track, anyway?

Mike Posner produced “Boyfriend”? And he’s got a writing credit? Fledgling pop star, possible one hit wonder, and a blatant Justin Timberlake wanna-be was able to work  on one of the biggest singles of the year? Who’d he have to bribe to get that one? I guess it makes sense, considering that from what I’ve found, producer was Posner’s hat trick to begin with, and the production on his stuff was the most enjoyable element of it, but as far as I can tell, this is his first high profile production gig.

And I guess once you get over the difference of it, “Boyfriend” doesn’t have terrible production. The acoustic guitar on the chorus doesn’t gel with the chilly beat, but it goes better with Bieber’s voice. And there’s an extra little synth on the chorus that isn’t bad. And, like most Bieber tracks, the production ends up getting a little cluttered towards the end with layered vocals. There’s also something with a throw-back feel to the chorus, like it goes back in pop a few years. It could almost be a Justin Timerlake track.

Speaking of which, “Boyfriend” makes it evident that Bieber wants to be the next Timberlake so badly. He jumps between falsetto and his medium register on the chorus, layers his vocals, and spends the last chorus pushing his voice as high as possible, and–to be fair, does pretty well. Far and away, the chorus is the most enjoyable part of the song; memorable, catchy, easy to sing along to…pretty good. And the bridge feels more like the chorus than the verses, so from the end of the second verse onward, “Boyfriend” isn’t to bad. Actually, let’s rewind back to the verses.

…is Justin Bieber fucking rapping?

And it’s not just that he’s rapping, he’s rapping with this “Look how low my voice can go” grumble that just doesn’t work. Look, Justin, I get that this is your “I’m an adult” single, but being an adult doesn’t mean swinging so hard in the opposite direction you lose all believably. And this is made worse by the lyrics.

“If I was your boyfriend, I’d never let you go” Normally, I’d let this one go, but since he’s saying it in a voice that approximates Trent Reznor’s tone in “Closer”, it sounds like more of a threat than anything else.

“I could be your Buzz Lightyear, fly across the globe” That’s…not what Buzz Lightyear does. Also, Bieber wasn’t even a toddler when the first Toy Story came out, can he reference that?

“I want to make you shine bright, like you’re laying in the snow” Bless your heart, Justin, you’re trying to make hypothermia sound sensual.

So yeah, a lot of the lyrics to “Boyfriend” are bad, but more than that, they’re awkward as a whole. He has a few boast lines during the rap verses (“money in my hands that I’d really like to blow”, “swag on you”, “Voice going crazy on this hook like a whirlwind”, and “Swag, swag, swag” which is straight up trolling), then whips out “Hey girl, let me talk to you”, “If I can be a gentleman”, and “I just wanna love and treat you right“ on the  chorus/bridge. It’s like he’s trying to impress a girl on the verses, and then impress her dad on the chorus.

So, how does Justin Bieber handle his first transition single? Kind of awkwardly. He handles with with far more grace than Miley Cyrus did, but like Miley, he’s trying too hard to look grown up instead of be it. The tamest parts of “Boyfriend” still have more grit than the twerpy “Baby”, and it’s only when the song goes too hard do you see that he’s still just barely 18. Pretty decent chorus, though.

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New Music: Bob Dee with Petro – Up All Night

Posted on May 10, 2012 by bgibs122

Looking at what’s popular now, the only big rock bands that aren’t holdovers from the 90’s are either almost-electronic nu-metal holdouts, or post-post-grungers so monochrome that even Beavis and Butthead would laugh at them. What was the last new group you heard of that you could just call “a rock band”? Not alt rockers with a small stage’s worth of effects pedals, not art rockers that play with drum loops and keyboard samples, not indie rock bands that are utterly terrified at the concept of being rock stars, I mean an actual, big-swinging rock band?

“We got bass/We got drums/We got guitars/we’re strong” answers lead singers Bob Dee through a snarl on the grinding titular track of Up All Night. And that ain’t bad for a thesis statement for the EP: Up All Night and Bob Dee with Petro focus on hard-hitting, muscular rock and roll. Yes, it’s simple. Yes, it embraces every cliché you’d expect from cover art of the band’s lead singer in a black leather jacket. But the band sells all five tracks wholeheartedly, and it’s hard to ignore.

Opener and personal pick for best track is “Tell Me”, with a punishing beat, solid hooks, and an anthemic chorus. The song opens with a sung “Oh whoooooa” hook that sneaks in and out of the verse which gives way to a fist in the air chorus with a shot of romance. “Tell me, tell me what you want, girl/I’ll give you everything/Tell me, tell me what you want, girl/You are my everything” might not be the most original line, but it gives off enough personality and likability to make the song hit home. And the music is light on its feet while still packing a solid punch.

Next song “Stars”, a power pop tune pumped up on steroids and a Killers-y chorus, is the pop song on Up All Night. It’s a little ham-fisted lyrically, but the arrangement and melody to it are interesting enough to keep the song afloat. Up next is “Lips That Heal”, which feels more like an interlude than anything else; even though it uses keyboard synths and a hip-hop drum beat, the production puts it squarely in rock. The drums come in crisp and at the front, as do the vocals, while the keyboards don’t overcrowd. It’s not a bad tune, but I won’t complain with its short run time.

Up All Night‘s final two songs are a seven minute rock band workout. As mentioned, the title song cuts between a grinding riff and some frantic drumming. And final song, “All American Boys” is a sweaty, swaggering tune that begs to be a concert grande finale. These songs have an almost idealistic naivety to them in how unabashedly old school rock they are, and hearing something like this is refreshing.

As a whole, Up All Night‘s an enjoyable listen that goes down easy and lends itself to multiple listens. The musicianship is strong, the production is decent enough, and the EP is traditional without sounding deliberately or clumsily retro. The only drawbacks are Bob Dee’s cigarettes and alcohol rasp might be initially off-putting (but easy enough to warm up to), and sometimes Bob Dee with Petro embrace clichés too eagerly (without an extra shot of something, it’s hard to imagine the band sustaining themselves meaningfully passed an album). But who said that has to be so bad?

Like Bob Dee With Petro on Facebook, and stream Up All Night at their Bandcamp page!

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