Album of the Week: First Aid Kit hurts so good

First Aid Kit: The Big Black and The Blue

I’ve already gushed about First Aid Kit, the brilliant Swedish sister folk duo that, along with Mumford & Sons, is making songs about fields and shipbuilding hip again. And the comparisons with Mumford & Sons and their pop-friendly approach to old-time sounds don’t stop there; First Aid Kit’s debut long-player shares M&S’s first disc’s superstrong start with a fizzle-out finish. It won’t be a problem at all getting through The Big Black and the Blue’s foot-stomping, smile-inducing first half, with songs like “Waltz for Richard,” “Hard Believer” and sparkling “Sailor Song” showing off the Söderberg sisters’ exquisite harmonies, evocative of the best two-part vocal acts of decades past (Simon and Garfunkel, the Everly and Isley brothers). But I’ll maintain that 11 songs is too much for most debut acts to carry off, and First Aid Kit are no different. But what a start! A-

First Aid Kit: I Met Up With the King
from the CD The Big Black and The Blue
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Album of the Week: Chew Lips’ bewitching Unicorn

Chew Lips: Unicorn

I’ve been tracking London dance-pop trio Chew Lips for a while, including early singles “Slick” and “Solo” on my JeffMix podcast, naming them Best New Thing, and now receiving a pre-North America release promo CD to review. And they’ve yet to disappoint, even if Unicorn doesn’t quite deliver on the breathless promise of “Slick,” clearly the album’s high point. The other highlights, including “Play Together” and the sneak-up-on-you ballad “Too Much Talking,” share “Slick”’s under-produced edge, an excellent contrast to lead singer Tig’s (yes, one word, Tig) warmer vocals. I wish Unicorn finished stronger, as a few tracks at the end get too soft, too pop; but an otherwise excellent, definitely slick debut. A-

Chew Lips: Slick (from NME)
from the CD Unicorn
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Album of the Week: Yeasayer turn up the AC

Yeasayer: Odd Blood

Yeasayer imagine themselves as a funkier Animal Collective, and Odd Blood is undoubtedly influenced by Merriweather Post Pavilion and its mix of Brian-Wilson-style overdubs and tribal rhythms. But the Brooklyn-based three-piece succeeds most when it plays to its strengths: danceable grooves and a terrific, strong-piped lead vocalist – more Miike Snow and less AC. Take second single “O.N.E.,” a track with a wicked mid-song beat that is instantly remixable. Or “Love Me Girl,” which almost, just almost, turns into a house track with its Italo-style piano riff and big beat opening (complete with an 808 State seagull sample). But it doesn’t commit, and falls back into the safer experimental sound that Odd Blood is more packed with. B

Yeasayer: O.N.E. (from RCRD LBL)
from the CD Odd Blood
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Album of the Week: Marina and the Diamonds’ over-the-top Jewels

Marina and the Diamonds: The Family Jewels

I don’t think UK sensation Marina and the Diamonds will achieve the kind of popularity to merit a musical one day, à la ABBA’s Mamma Mia or Queen’s We Will Rock You, but if it happens, The Family Jewels is tailor-made for the stage. Glammy flourishes, vaudevillian piano touches, and then there’s Marina Diamandis’s over-dramatic, high-low voice. It’s no doubt Marina has an excellent pop songwriting touch – it’s why major label Warner snapped her up from indie boutique label Neon Gold – and the Family Jewels is poised for mainstream success somewhere in the range of Florence and Gaga. But it’s the less-Broadway songs, like stripped down “Obsessions” or Enya-ish “Numb,” that impress the most. (For evidence, check out her acoustic rendition of current UK hit “Hollywood” in the video below. Much better.) B+

Marina and the Diamonds: Hollywood (Fenech-Soler Remix) (from RCRD LBL)
from the CD The Family Jewels
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Album of the Week: Hot Chip’s one frustrating band

Hot Chip: One Life Stand

Hot Chip may have helped usher in the electro-pop age, but they still haven’t fully mastered it. And while their third record, One Life Stand, is tighter than its messy predecessor Made In the Dark, it suffers from the same frustrating problems: an over-indulgence in slushy ballads and an under-commitment to the band’s near-peerless envelope-pushing dancefloor-friendly tracks. For every “I Feel Better,” with its that’s-how-you-do-AutoTune shimmer, and the snare-drum-and-piano beat of “Hand Me Down Your Love,” there’s the wilty “Brothers” or “Keep Quiet” or the appropriately named “Slush,” songs that suggest the band knows they’re trying our patience. Even the slower songs that do work, like the slinky “Alley Cats,” lack the edge that Hot Chip doesn’t show often enough. B+

Hot Chip: Take It In (from RCRD LBL)
from the CD One Life Stand
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Album of the Week: Toro Y Moi causes confusion

Toro Y Moi: Causers of This

Part of the first allure of Toro Y Moi, 23-year-old South Carolinian Chaz Bundwick’s nom de musique, was the mystique (the odd Spanish-French name, the photo-filled blog) and the burgeoning go-in-any-direction talent. The few early tracks posted on his MySpace page and elsewhere, while rooted in the new chillwave sound, also showed flashes of funk, surf rock (“109,” which found its way onto the Blessa EP) and pop (including his terrific take on “Human Nature” off a Michael Jackson tribute record). A bunch of those songs have made it to the full-length Causers of This CD, including the hard-to-pin title track and the stop-start treat of “Talamak.” But aside from new song “Low Shoulder,” the rest of Causers of This is less invigorating and more chillwave-y than I expected. Odd. B

Toro Y Moi: Causers of This (from RCRD LBL)
from the CD Causers of This
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Album of the Week: Laura Veirs’ tame Flame

Laura Veirs: July Flame

Laura Veirs’ new CD July Flame was on my shortlist for highly anticipated albums of 2010, based on the strength of two previously available tracks, the delicate “I Can See Your Tracks,” and “July Flame,” an exquisite slice of folk pop (which can be heard on JeffMix2009.10.25). Both songs lead off the CD, but the magic soon stops with “Sun Is King,” the kind of dreary folk song that can make one swear off the genre. Thankfully, July Flame picks up from there, yet doesn’t deliver on the more polished promise of the first two tracks. Veirs’ comfort zone is wordy, unadorned acoustic ballads – like “Where Are You Driving?” and the Jim James (My Morning Jacket) duet “Make Something Good” – solid, yet safe. More flame please. B

Laura Veirs: Sleeper in the Valley (from KEXP)
from the CD July Flame
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Album of the Week: Four Tet’s ambient Love

Four Tet: There Is Love In You

I was lured into Four Tet’s new album by the fantastic slow-boil single, “Love Cry,” coming on the heels of “Moth,” his dark, groovy collaboration with Burial released last spring. But There Is Love In You is mildly disappointing, despite being the sort of smart, well-crafted ambient house record that Four Tet is known for. “Moth” and especially “Love Cry” (which hits a deep, powerful second gear at the 4:25 mark) had me prepped for a more crowd-moving record. Instead, with atmospheric electro songs like “Circling” and “Plastic People,” it’s really more soundtrack-like, especially good for pending documentaries by Gary Hustwit of Helvetica fame, or perhaps as an interesting selection if you worked at a funky clothes store. Yes, it’s Gap-worthy. B-

Four Tet: Love Cry (from KEXP)
from the CD There Is Love In You
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Album of the Week: Vampire Weekend’s Contra kills

Vampire Weekend: Contra

On Contra, their newly minted No. 1 record in the U.S., Vampire Weekend had a tough act to follow: themselves. Their dud-free, self-titled debut record was my favourite of 2008, and possibly one of the best rookie records of all time. But Contra may be an even more impressive record, if not more enjoyable, as the four Ivy League indie Afro-popsters avoid the usual sophomore-record pitfalls (lack of follow-up material, over-production, excessive experimentation) and deliver a finely honed, equally strong set of tracks as their first disc. Plus, on songs like the auto-tuned “California English” and the groovy, complex Joe Strummer tribute “Diplomat’s Son,” they show a musical maturity that bodes extremely well for what’s to come from VW. If you’ve been on the fence about Vampire Weekend and their un-ironic, preppy, Graceland-soaked pose, get off it now – there’s greatness here. A+

Vampire Weekend: Horchata (from Pitchfork)
from the CD Contra
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Album of the Decade: Stars’ fire-starter SYOF

Stars: Set Yourself on Fire

Before I launch into my year-end list of top songs and albums, I thought I’d do what every man, woman and critic has been doing as well, compile a list of my top tracks, CDs and artists of the decade. I begin with the easiest selection, my favourite album of the 2000s: Stars’ immaculate 2004 collection of Rumours-style breakup songs, Set Yourself on Fire. There were other albums I considered, including Kanye West’s celebratory Graduation, Sufjan Stevens’ epic Illinois, The Strokes’ seminal Is This It, Arcade Fire’s trend-setting Funeral, Daft Punk’s ahead-of-its-time Discovery, U2’s uplifting pre-9/11 CD All That You Can’t Leave Behind, the self-titled dud-free debut of Vampire Weekend, and even Craig David’s overlooked pop masterpiece Born to Do It (yes, masterpiece), but none spoke to me as deeply as Stars’ third album, a record rich in raw emotion and five-star songwriting. Sure, I went through a massive breakup at the time this record came out, and it helped get me through it in the way classic art is supposed to help us humans, but I still come back to SYOF almost weekly even after my personal trauma has long since finished. It’s a brilliant record, with fist-pumpers (“What I’m Trying to Say”), protest songs (George W. Bush is the “he” in “He Lied About Death”), nostalgic rockers (“Reunion”), ageless beauties (“Your Ex-Lover Is Dead”) and the best, dewy-eyed album closer ever (“Calendar Girl”). It’s rare when you feel like someone gets exactly where you’re coming from, and hard to believe when five disparate musicians from Montreal put it on record. And always, when there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.

Stars: Your Ex-Lover Is Dead (Final Fantasy Remix) (from InSound)
adapted from the CD Set Yourself On Fire
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Album of the Week: The Horrors’ Primary Colours shocks

The Horrors: Primary Colours

Something’s fishy when NME names an album its best of the year and it hardly shows up on other lists, especially the more prominent ones (Pitchfork, Spin, Paste, etc.). It certainly escaped my radar, and after a belated cram session with Primary Colours, I can see why – it’s not very good. Okay, that’s harsh. Clearly some people (the hipster staffers at NME) think The Horrors’ second album is the embodiment of all that’s cool, warped and Jesus-and-Mary-Chain-ish in UK art-rock right now. But I’d even give that honour to the much better and more listenable A Brief History of Love, The Big Pink’s fuzz-heavy debut CD also from this year. “Sea Within a Sea,” (named one of NME’s top songs of the decade! – okay, that’s rather enough now) is plodding but decent, and “Scarlet Fields” is an almost-great song. But the rest is, well, beyond me. That’s beyond me, not NME... C

The Horrors: Sea Within a Sea (from The Horrors official site – sign up for their mailing list)
from the CD Primary Colours
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Album of the Week: The-Dream rocks that shit

The-Dream: Love Vs Money
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I’ve seen The-Dream’s second album, Love Vs Money, on enough year-end lists – from indie rock critics, no less – that I felt somewhat obliged to give it the attention I didn’t give it when it was first released in March. It’s not because I have anything against singer-songwriter-producer The-Dream, and certainly not R&B (I’m a closet Boyz II Men fan, for cripes sake), but more because mainstream pop music is increasingly falling below my radar. (Just yesterday, my six-year-old sang two Lady GaGa songs, and I had never heard of them. Yup, “Papa, Paparazzi” had completely escaped me.) But I’ve corrected the mistake of not listening to Love Vs Money, and I’m glad I did. It deserves its place on those year-end lists – no tokenism here – on the strength of two spectacular sets of songs at the start and end of the CD. The first, including Usher-ish single “Rockin’ That Shit,” is more radio-friendly, if you can say that about a song with the word shit in it. (The clean version is “Rockin’ That Thang.) But it’s the second set — starting with the ballsy, bare-bones and brilliant “Fancy,” streaming right into soul killer “Right Side of My Brain” and finishing with the R. Kelly-styled “Mr. Yeah” – that pushes this record into classic territory. Yeah! A-

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Album of the Week: Julian Casablancas’ weak Phrazes

Julian Casablancas: Phrazes for the Young
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If Julian Casablancas’ new CD, Phrazes for the Young, was a movie, I might have walked out midway. The once-and-future lead singer of The Strokes’ first solo record starts out well – a trio of up-tempo, surprisingly groovy songs, culminating in the new wave-ish, new-sounding lead single “11th Dimension.” But it goes off the rails from there, a dud-heavy finish with head-shakingly weak (and slow) tracks like “Tourist,” “River of Brakelights” and “Ludlow St.” I don’t mean to hate so much on Mr. Casablancas – hell, I don’t like to hate much at all, which is why you won’t see me mention Ladies Gaga or Spears on this blog – but as part of one of, if not the most influential band of the decade, I can’t help but have lofty expectations. When’s that new Strokes record coming out? C-

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Album of the Week: Mumford & Sons solid folk

Mumford & Sons: Sigh No More

I don’t usually care for bands with banjos, and I come across a lot of groups that have spent too much time watching O Brother Where Art Thou and not enough time writing great songs. UK band Mumford & Sons, despite touting banjos and looking like they’re ready to hop boxcars, don’t fall into that trap, as they’ve come up with one of the more solid set of tracks to be released this year. Sigh No More is chock full of singable, strummable songs that are for more successful than your usual skippable folk rock band due to a penchant for anthemic, Kings-of-Leon-ish hooks and ace, crisp production. And while the latter half of the album gets a bit sleepy, songs 1 through 7, with radio-ready “Little Lion Man,” rollicking “Winter Winds,” and the darker “White Blank Page” are barn-storming strong. O brother! A-

Mumford & Sons: White Blank Page (Live @ WOXY.com) (from WOXY.com)
from the album Sigh No More
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Album of the Week: Tegan and Sara’s Sainthood simmers

Tegan and Sara: Sainthood

Tegan and Sara have a great album in them, but Sainthood isn’t it. It’s close on several fronts, especially when it plays to the Calgary twins’ strengths, their teenage-girl harmonies and affinity for strong pop hooks, like on lead single “Hell” and “On Directing” (with its cutie-pie “go steady with me” chorus). But it’s also a frustrating record, as the Quin sisters seem caught between going deeper and darker with their sound, as on “Paperback Head” or “Night Watch,” or reaching for the mainstream, like the slick, new-wave-y “Alligator.” Producer Chris Walla, of Death Cab for Cutie fame, does them no favours by placing Tegan and Sara too often in the mediocre middle. Title suggestion for next record: Go for it. B

Tegan and Sara: Hell (from Stereogum)
from the album Sainthood
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Album of the Week: Atlas Sound’s intimate Logos

Atlas Sound: Logos

Apparently the cover of Logos is a photo of its creator, the hyper-talented and clearly emaciated Bradford Cox, vocalist for Deerhunter, sometimes drummer for Lotus Plaza, and solo force behind the Animal Collective-inspired lofi bedroom project Atlas Sound. And it’s an apt image for Logos, equal parts entrancing, creepy and mysterious. It’s also an unexpectedly intimate record, from the loveliness of song-of-the-year candidate “Shelia,” to the slow, eight-minute groove of “Quick Canal” (with a surprise vocal take from Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier) and the Bibio-ish “Kid Klimax” (mixed in with a couple of sleepy droners, like “Attic Lights” and “An Orchid.”) In the end, Logos is a delicate record, with probably not enough on its frame, but captivating nonetheless. B+

Atlas Sound: Walkabout ft. Noah Lennox (from RCRD LBL)
from the album Logos
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Album of the Week: The Big Pink’s history lesson

The Big Pink: A Brief History of Love

I liked The Big Pink’s full-length debut record, A Brief History of Love, more than I expected, especially after not being too moved by first-leaked tracks “Velvet” and “Too Young to Love,” which was soon followed up with the hard-to-outplay brilliance of “Dominos.” It’s a strangely evocative record, reminding me of first indie-fuzz bands like My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain. So it’s fitting The Big Pink are signed to 4AD Records, a label that had its heyday back in the late 1980s with darker bands at the edges of the mainstream, one John Hughes movie soundtrack away from stardom. (Their record covers, so far all with photos of naked women, also fit an earlier grungy, David Carson-inspired aesthetic.) It’s not the most groundbreaking record, mostly consisting of slow-burners in the style of “Velvet” (with the exception of “Dominos” and the brighter “At War With the Sun”), but I appreciated taking the trip back through time. B

The Big Pink: Dominos (from Stereogum)
from the album A Brief History of Love
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