Album Review: John Maus - We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves

Its been nearly 4 years since the last John Maus album and incredibly when I heard this album the first time the immediate reaction to listening to this was "Wait is this Ariel Pink?" cause shit sounds very similar. This lo-fi synth pop album has a very similar retro feel to that of last years breakthrough album from Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti Before Today which definitely was a favourite of mine.

While this album has similarities to that of the Ariel Pink album particularly in its lo fi approach to these pop songs, it without a doubt produces its own sound and style. The swagger in which Ariel sings his music isn't in this album, Maus seems far more soft and laid back in his vocals, the music seems a little more subtle and without a miriad of backing vocalists. Another point of note is that this album is far more electronic based which is great the songs have a much greater head bobbing beat to them.

A favourite track of mine on this is Hey Moon, starting with a very simple sound it slowly builds with Maus and backing soothing voice, overal its pretty good BES. Another track that certainly caught my attention was the very short track Crucifix which to me is the closest to an Ariel Pink song the beat is simple and the vocals show off some of that retro pop swagger we heard last year. These songs are just that little bit better than the rest, but the overall retro feel of the album is evident and works really well.

Overall this is a pretty cool album, but certainly not an album for everyone. Someone that appreciates synth pop with sucyh a retro feel will really enjoy this, obviously Ariel Pink fans will like this with its similarities. The simpleness of the album is great, John Maus certainly played around with some cool electronic sounds and didn't take over it with his vocals merely putting it out there at the right time.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Dubstep, Am I Supposed To Move In Slow Motion?

So I went to the clubz on Saturday night (I do that sometimes) and inevitably I ended up somewhere playing the music of bros dubstep. Now I never really enjoy club music anyway as the music usually blows bunch of top 20 video hits remixed poorly that would make any legitimate DJ embarrassed to be given the name. Obviously not all places are like this and the fact I avoided having to hear Party Rock Anthem (worst song this year by far) means at least the music was bearable. Now while I was at the club they were playing some solid drum & bass with a noice beat and the energy in the place was pretty good then the dubstep hit...

ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO SUDDENLY MOVE IN SLOW MOTION!?!?! cause seriously the energy in the music and beat slows everything down so much. I know most will continue to dance at the same rate as they were before this and fair enough but the song slows errthang down I don't get the dance aspect of it. I know I'm basically pointing this more in the brostep direction as not all dubstep is like this but to most brostep is all thats played and loved by in these clubz. To me its just music people use to show off their fancy new soundsystem in their boyracer car to show how much bass they have.

So what makes dubstep so appealing to dance along to? the slowness? the phat bass? the filfynis? either way I don't get it, would rather listen top far more interesting and upbeat forms of electronic music like house or drum & bass or electronica or even...techno. At the end of the day though is that dubstep? guess I should move in slow motion now.

5 Days 5 Songs Stuck In My Head

Just another week on the blog, thank fuck its over I've kind of been in a weird music listening mood this week. Barely being able to finish albums and just listening to a bunch of random tracks some of the time connecting to a video I had seen. I've also had 5 different songs stuck in my head this week one for each day conveniently so I've decided to make a post on each of these songs. Usually when they get stuck in my head I relentlessly listen to the song, sometimes a few times back to back for a while.

Anyway here it goes;

Monday's song: The Black Lips - Bicentennial Man  
(no youtube link)
Anyway I barely got to the end of this album this week, again I was struggling to finish any albums but for some reason I skipped to this track and I had it in my head while at work. I whistled it and sung the chorus a few times while no one was around.

Tuesday song: Foo Fighters - Everlong

"Hey maaan you hate Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters" while some might actually think this its infact not true and this song is one of the songs I really like about them and after watching the garage tour vid on youtube. I was compelled to go back and listen to some of the songs I used to love from these guys and this unsurprisingly got stuck in my head.

Wednesdays song: Jay Reatard - I Know A Place

I posted this on Facebook on Wednesday night because I had this stuck in my head. All because again I watched the trailer to the doco about him and the songs in it. Once I listened I was hooked on pretty quickly and lead to me going through the singles collection as with what happens when I listen to one of Jay's tracks it snowballs into an album or two.

Thursdays song: tUnE-yArDs - Gangsta

I kind of forgot about this album, its nice but not overly great and worth that many repeat listens. However the track Gangsta got plenty of listens yesterday, this thanks to watching her performance from the Jimmy Fallon show which was great.

Fridays song: Cut Your Hands - Fooling No One

Now I reviewed the new album by these guys this week and this was easily my favourite of the album. I'd been listening to most of it fairly regularly but now I've got it on my iPod the listens to this song in particular have risen. Such a cool, fun alt rock song that harks back to The Smiths and even The Cure.

Album Review: ††† (Crosses) - EP†

Now this is pretty fresh in release, its the new Ep from the side project of Deftones singer Chino Moreno and also features Far guitarist Shaun Lopez. I never have cared for Deftones or Far for that matter, I've never been that big on Deftones screams and prefered at times if they just didn't as the clean vocals had more appeal for myself anyway. This is the first release from this project in the form of a 20 minute EP released for free.

To begin this album already you know theres going to be some electronic influence in this all, as the first moments are a pretty decent hip hop sounding beat. The beat as great as it is only disapoints when Chino comes in and doesn't start rapping a true shame indeed. Chino basically only uses the soft vocals which I don't mind, they sound quite powerful and remind me of Anders Friden of In Flames particularly in the most recent albums. You can hear the strains not vocals but in the emotion Chino is putting into this it works.

The greatest thing about this album to me is the experimenting electronically, the beats are quite cool and track twos incorporation of guitar in a much more obvious light brings it to a more alternative sound. The album is smooth as fuck and flows beautifully throughout and everything goes together so well. While this album is really subtle and I do like this, I don't find that they have pushed boundaries in their songs something that we might hear when the promised full album released is dropped, its good not great.

Overall this is a pretty nice start for this side project and definitely moves completely away from Deftones. The potential is fairly high and the sound is clean with Chino's vocals beautiful throughout.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

Album Review: Robedoor - Rock Bottom

I'm not even sure if this is very new, I just found it on my mediaplayer and realised its from 2011 so decided it was worth reviewing. Also being a shorter album meant I didn't have to spend as much time listening to the album as my customary 2 listens before reviewing wasn't to take very long. Anyway this is a psychedelic album (well that's what mediaplayer says anyway) by the band Robedoor a two piece from musicians Britt and Alex Brown. This album Rock Bottom is one from a very prolific discography a group that releases multiple albums a year, I've never heard of them so it was interesting starting so late into the discography.

One thing you notice pretty quickly is this is some experimental shit going on, very drone sounding and not only psychedelic but also a great deal of noise rock influence. The dense walls of distortion, drone and sound in this is what makes it incredibly intriguing, the subtle changes in the sound the overall grittiness of it all shows imperfection. The first track Back On The Ground is slow to give off a lot of these features instead going for a fairly classic sounding psychedelic intro with pieces of lo fi distortion thrown in to show grit. The second track is some atmospheric drone that sounds like it would easily fit into a track by Sunn O))) definitely has an evil tone throughout the track even if the track gets a little boring after a while.

The third track Deep Deep In Mexico incorporates vocals for the first time, they are way in the back of the mix but helps bring out the psychedelic nature of this album. As heard in the first track this definitely has psychedelic sounds and the guitars show this off, as does the slow drumming. The whole track is slow but flows beautifully as you just let the song sink in slowly you can even find small amounts of drone in this.

The final track on this very short album is Wake Of The Mythmaker, which at 14 minutes makes up for nearly half the album. The track starts off very slow allowing a long and slow building intro while this song is long and somewhat repetitive I did find myself being lost in the song I started to appreciate all the little things that were going on, this track is by far the highlight for me, it changes enough with the drum beat at 7 minutes elevating the song after the already soaring sounds before this. My favourite part of the song is definitely the guitar change after 10 minutes the psych rock feel grows as the guitar tones change, making the changes in this song perfect to not allow too much sameness throughout.


Overall this is a really cool album, at only 30 minutes and 4 songs you would think there isn't that much one can do. However the exploring of noise, drone and psych rock sounds without being too much of the boring repetitive nature allows this album to continue being interesting throughout.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10

Album Review: Zombelle & Myrrh Ka Ba - Tropicult

Another day, another blog and another album from a band I've never heard of until this. For once I'm also reviewing an EP, which is kind of nice because now I've got an excuse for having a short and shitty review. There's very little information I can find on this, but what I did find is that this EP is a collaboration between Zombelle and Myrrh Ka Ba (cool names). Zombelle brings the vocals to the table of this album while Myrrh Ka Ba brings some interesting experimental electronic music.

This EP from the start is pretty chill in its electronic beginning and layered over this is the beautiful vocals of Zombelle, with this being my first listen to her voice it is quite nice and mixes well with the music. The first track Bad creation shows off some great variation with the halfway point introducing a nice little beat hat adds to the almost wub like sounds before this.

The next track Beach Blanket starts with Zombelle breathing really heavy, its pretty weird and then the electronics come in. The electronics on this album as a whole are great and really are experimental as fuck, you certainly have no idea where they are going throughout the song and at times are really minimal. I also get the feeling that everything sounds so subtle, nothing is over the top and the layers of electronic sound mix so well and the vocals merely top it off to give it that extra layer. The moment that cements this as a pretty cool EP is the track Street Sharks, its full of really dark sounds, the atmosphere in the sounds are really strong and the fading vocals are only adding to the great sense of dark atmosphere this track protrays.

There isn't a lot wrong with this album, the electronics are really cool and the vocals work well with it all, if anything it just underwhelms me slightly. That might be because there is so much more that could be done, but at only 20 minutes is stopped before it can go anywhere. I feel over all this is just a taster to what can be done by this collaboration but at this stage it looks great and hopefully at some stage they do something more substantial.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Album Review: Cut Off Your Hands - Hollow

I never usually review New Zealand bands on this blog as far as I remember just the album by Beast Wars has thus far been the solitary New Zealand album. So when I found out the new album from indie rock band Cut Off Your Hands had been "released" onto the Internet, I felt compelled to listen to what they had made considering I was an admirer from afar.

Instantly into the album you  get some alternative influence into the album, I first thought The Smiths but as the first couple of songs were finished it definitely felt more The Cure. Either way there's definitely a nice 80-90's alt rock feel to this album and thankfully not in a way that makes it sound really retro. One thing I really like on this album is the vocals, Nick Johnston has done a great job making his vocals sound like they are really dreamy and laid back creating a cool feel to the album.

One of the worries I had as I was listening to this album was would it end up a little samey and thankfully this wasn't the case at all. There's some dreamier slower songs on this album that definitely interest me a lot and then there's moments such as Fooling No One (A stand out track) where the energy lifts, the classic influences are so evident on this song, with the guitars harking back to the great bands of old indie rock/alternative. Another aspect of this album I really enjoyed particularly early on was the minimal nature of the guitars, such subtle sounds that accompanied the flowing vocals allowed those songs to sound extra sweet.

While I did enjoy this album a fair amount, the more I listened and hoped to find something more, the more I couldn't find it. The songs and album have potential to be really great songs, I like them but certainly don't love many (well maybe Down & Out) its a shame cause you can definitely hear the potential in it.

Overall this is a cool solid indie rock album by a New Zealand act that certainly has the potential to become a greater band. The classic indie/alt rock influence on this band is really cool and evident on this album but only enough to show they like those bands and not trying to become a poor rip off. The vocals and guitars are like a dream, so I found this album would be perfect to listen to in the sun on a lazy Sunday.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10