New Yuck vid.

Glad to see this new video by PoP faves Yuck. Happily, I got to see the band play 'Milkshake' live earler this year!

PeeP on PoP- The War on Drugs

The War on Drugs- Slave Ambient (Secretly Canadian- 2011)

~by Gabe McBride

91_______________________ 

No disrespect meant to Kurt Vile, but if Adam Granduciel and The War on Drugs get remembered as ‘The Band Kurt Vile Used to Play in’, it would be a shame. Like Vile, The War on Drugs trade in easy-going, breathy psych pop, a natural expansion and easy-to-swallow extension of the late 90’s psychedelphia scene, as both KV and TWoD got started in eastern Pennsylvania. Think Bardo Pond, without the patchouli stank, raised on Bob Dylan and Gram Parsons.

Slave Ambient is The War on Drugs second full length, following 2008’s Wagonwheel Blues (also on Secretly Canadian) and it is the band’s best release so far. My initial worry about there being  two cuts on this most recent full length off of last year’s Future Weather EP, and the highpoints at that, ‘Brothers’ and ‘Baby Missiles’, were completely unfounded, as it turns out. TWoD has added a lightly chugging vitality to both songs on Slave Ambient, and, improbably, improves both. More is more, I guess.

The War on Drugs’ Lee Ranaldo meets the The Boss blueprint is in high gear here, as the band cuts back on the (ironically) ambient guitar interludes and reprises, concentrating on their unabashed pop compositions. The swirling guitars, bass, harmonica, and organ mesmerize with the sweetness of a heady, soothing drunken buzz. Slave Ambient is the sound of one of the great contemporary American bands ambling into its prime.  

For Fans of: Sonic Youth, Kurt Vile

PeeP on PoP- Jacob Faurholt

Jacob Faurholt- Dark Hours (Raw Onion- 2011)

~by Gabe McBride

71_______________________

Jacob Faurholt is a European singer songwriter whose chilly, bittersweet, plodding, southern gothic death ballads are both simultaneously hefty and ethereal all at once.

Dark Hours treads ground fans of Will Oldham and Joe Pernice’s lonelier, acoustic moments will appreciate. Faurholt, born in Denmark and living in Germany, sounds on the album like a man not only out of place but out of time, leaving the listener with a sense that these songs could have been written in the 1920’s just as much as they are contemoporary. The album is stark and raw, and Faurholt’s subdued accent (the album is all sung in English) adds a strange, alien ether to the proceedings. Faurholt’s melancholy county-ish guitar playing is surprisingly heartfelt, and is both warm and sparse, and when he employs female backing vocals as on ‘Creatures in the Sea’ and ‘Untitled’, the songs, despite remaining simple, resonate that much more. If there is any real complaint about Dark Hours, it is that it never really seems to expand on its purposeful reticence. Admittedly, this is not necessarily a deficit, but the album would likely benefit some sonic diversity. Clearly, Dark Hours is meant to evoke an emotional response, most of those emotions being of the somber variety, but there is no denying Faurholt’s talent. Now please excuse me while I call the suicide hotline.  

For Fans of: The Antlers, Red House Painters

PeeP on PoP- Gold-Bears

Gold-Bears- Are You Falling in Love? (Slumberland- 2011)

~by Gabe McBride

60______________________

I want to like this so much more than I do. Early preview listens at Are You.. had me salivating, and that the album was being released on Slumberland made it a no-brainer, that I would be picking it up the day it came out. All the parts are in place to make this an album for me: noisy distorted guitars, bubblegum hooks, and DIY ethos all wrapped up in a ‘twee as fuck’ package. But for some reason, I have not been able to get on board with Gold-Bears, for reasons that STILL are not completely apparent after a solid 20 listens (no lie).

The lyrics are a little too emo, at times, and a certain amount of off putting earnestness and humorlessness comes through at times. But even that is not what completely puts me off Gold-Bears. It can be a fine line between bands taking the torch from their forebears (no pun intended) and another when it comes across as hackneyed and rote. Which is probably too harsh for this obviously talented band, who haven’t gotten the gist of the difference between timeless and timeworn.

For Fans of: Jawbreaker, The Wedding Present