Presence

 

SPECTRES

Presence

(Artoffact)

When I write these little album things, I often struggle to find ways to describe the music involved.  I try to use the tried too much use of comparisons, and it often leaves me uneasy.  First off, though sometimes effective, I often times find comparisons unfair to the artist that I am writing about.  Everyone hears things differently.  I try not to pull out too many obscure references, because those can be meaningless to most potential readers.   As a reader of music reviews myself, I can be turned off by too many unknown references.  I don’t need to know that the writer is so damn hip, plus I often find as an older person that my references are often dated – so much so that the artist I’m writing about may not have been born, while I was bouncing off the walls listening as a teen.

The newest SPECTRES album, Presence, their fifth full length is a refreshing reminder that time is relative and crucial regarding how we all perceive events and how we proceed with decision making for our lives.  The song “Waiting,” which stands as the middle point of this collection, opens with a dramatic musical build up that levels into a melancholic love song.  The beautiful chorus of “Waiting for the sunrise / Waiting for the day / All for your reaction / Your one in a million” can be interpreted as a nice love song, or that “your” instead of “you’re” it feels more like a dissertation about timing.  The juxtaposition of patience versus time.  Can we hold off even knowing that our one n a million chances might be jeopardized?  Time is referenced in almost every song on this album, from the generational struggle inside “The Old Regime,” to the stuck in the past vision of “AM Gold,” to the closing message to take time, take stock and “Start Again.”  Vocalist/lyricist Brian Gustavson provides a lot of thought-provoking words. 

One of the reasons that I say that SPECTRES’ music is refreshing, is because as an old fart, their music makes me feel like a kid again.  Not only do they remind me musically in the most simplistic terms of a remarkable melding of early New Order and Big Country, but they also evoke a wonder at the size of our world, and a belief in possibilities.  They are twenty year veterans who sound like classic 80s post punk, but only discovered recently.  I absolutely adore the variety of Presence.  “Chain Reaction” brings an angry punk energy, while “Real World” sounds like what should be a hugely popular pop song, as well as the yearning quality of the wondrous “One Day.”  The spikey guitars of “AM Gold” sounds like a lost outtake from Big Country’s The Crossing, while “Dominion” evokes early Chameleons with its exciting twin guitar urgency. 

There I went and dragged out a bunch of 40 year old references.  However, SPECTRES are no retro act.  These songs are relevant and current, and really fun to listen to. 

(https://spectresvancouver.bandcamp.com/album/presence)

SPECTRES "AM Gold"

Torrey

 

Torrey

Torrey

(Slumberland) 

I’ve always loved indie pop/rock.  There’s something in its simplicity that I’ve always clung to.  There’s an approachability and vulnerability to the best indie music, as well as that DIY punk rock spirit.  These are songs written and performed by goofballs like me!  Scratch that.  I have no skills, but I sure can appreciate those willing to go for it.  My ears are always drawn to dissonance, when paired with straightforward indie melodies.  At their base, Torrey is an old school indie pop band with over busy drumming, imperfect scratchy/strumming guitars and meandering grinding basslines, but here they’ve added loads of noise – everything from washes of feedback, overloaded retro-sounding keyboards, incredibly upfront and aggressive tambourines.  I think of the cut and paste genius of the Swirlies, the angular bitterness of the Archers of Loaf, or more currently: the most recent Alvvays album and their timeless melodic sensibilities.  There’s a certain ramshackle feeling in this collection that provides an exciting depth and repeated discoveries with additional listens. 

This self-titled second LP from Oakland band Torrey is their first for Slumberland Records and for me.  I have not yet investigated their prior work, but am extremely excited by this release!  To be honest, even though the lyrics are provided for this album, I can’t seem to make sense of them, yet so many of these tracks are incredibly contagious.  The aptly titled “Pop Song,” has a repeated chorus of “A common blue” that has been stuck in my head endlessly for the past several days.  This is not a complaint.  It only makes me want to hear it again, even though I’m not so sure what it all means.

There’s no way that I’ve ever figured out how to describe this, but sometimes certain artists sound more meaningful.  This is incredibly subjective, but I felt these songs upon first listen, even if many of the lyrics have remained elusive to me.  Early favorite, “No Matter How,” is an exception.  I love the repeated bridge refrain of “it will all be okay” landing just before the chorus of “no matter how you wanna spin it.”  I feel like this message hits incredibly well in these days where we are all guilty of spinning our own stories to justify our own means.  I know I’m certainly guilty of this.  I seem to be able to assuage my own bad feelings by spinning my narrative to only positives.  “No, I did nothing wrong!”  It’s a powerful message for a catchy three or so minute song.  The afore-mentioned “Pop Song” is also undeniably addictive, as well as the sweet sounding organ drenched “Bounce” and “Happy You Exist.”  My favorite amongst these highlights though is the haunting “Moving,” which has a similar vibrato vibe as “How Soon is Now?” and a sneaky earworm of a chorus vocalized perfectly by singer Ryann Gonalves that is absolutely breathtaking.

It’s discovering new music like this that I find forever regenerative.  If you’re familiar with pretty much any musical act to ever grace the Slumberland Records label, you will likely love this.  If you’re not familiar, this could be a perfect gateway into a magical world.

(https://torreymusic.bandcamp.com/album/torrey)

Torrey "No Matter How"

The Raven

 

Magnet School

The Raven EP

(Shifting Sounds) 

Has it really been eight years since Magnet School’s last album, 2016's The Art of Telling Truth?  Wow!  Lucky for us, they’re still at it and have graced us with another collection of cranking twin guitar majesty.  They have always reminded me of Swervedriver, with the dual exploratory guitars that aren’t afraid to lock in with the potent rhythm section and crank out some serious rock-n-roll. 

“The Raven” opens with an air raid siren that acts as a clarion call to action. Once the guitars kick in atop a beat full of stuttering nervous energy, “The Raven” jumps out as one of the most rousing songs I’ve heard in eons.  It feels like a call to action like New Model Army’s “Here Comes the War,” but with lyrics full of festering and rotten imagery, it is more of a call for some kind of hex on a betrayer.  The intensity of the instrumentation gives the song an undeniable urgency that feels incredibly vital.  There’s more turmoil ahead in “A Conversation,” which is pushed forward by a bass-line that sounds like the rumbling engine of a hot rod.  It’s another song that feels full of betrayal as the lyrics ruminate on the changing stories (misrepresentations?  lies?) from conversations between the past and the present. 

Magnet School are always reliable with some devastatingly good instrumentals, and here we’re treated to “Dotted Eighth,” which absolutely rips.  The band locks into a tightly wound riff and soon sparks begin to fly.  Once the cool breeze of “Mayor of Greenpoint” comes in, I envision hearing/seeing these songs live as part of an especially hot encore and this is the slow burning set closer that builds to the exciting conclusion, as well as the highlight of the set.  This EP closes with a classy piano and strings “Reprise” brief instrumental of “The Raven” – replacing the original’s harrowing and menacing threats into a quiet and peaceful reflection.    

It was a long wait for these new songs, but well worth it.  Magnet School have showed us that they set a high bar of quality control.  Happy to have them back.  Does this mean there’s more new music on the near horizon?

(https://shiftingsounds.bandcamp.com/album/the-raven)

Magnet School "The Raven"

Top 10 of 2023

 

Top 10 of 2023

 

These choices below are an approximation of what I believe my most listened to albums of 2023 have been. I feel like it’s been a great year for music and that I have missed a lot.  Once again, I am not ranking these.  All of these releases helped bring me great joy throughout this past difficult year.

Bleach Lab In a Rush of Emptiness 

 

Flyying Colours You Never Know 

Fragile Animals Slow Motion Burial 

 

The Julies Always & Always

 

Lanterns on the Lake Versions of Us

 

The Popguns Popism

She’s Green Wisteria

 

Slowdive Everything is Alive

Soft Science Lines

UJU The Sun is in Our Eyes

POPISM

 

The Popguns are such a jewel.  I feel like this EP should be getting worldwide hit buzz, because every song here is exciting, fresh, bright, thought provoking and essential.  Pretty much every year, like so many others, I make a list of my favorite albums – or most listened to albums.  This is a four song EP that clocks in at less than twelve minutes, but it is easily my most listened to release this year.  Every single time I put it on the player, I listen to it at least twice, if not three or four times.  Talk about leaving an audience wanting more. 

“Caesar,” has a yearning chorus that is so goddamn pretty that it sends shivers down my spine.  Wendy Pickles’ mellifluous voice continues to be so charming that it took me several listens before I realized that she’s singing about the irreversible damages of climate change brought on by short-sighted greed.  Of course, this sobering message is delivered inside a brilliant and beautiful package.

Similarly, “Dirty London” takes a glance at monuments marking England’s far reaching history of Imperialism and weighs the pros and cons of the privileges earned from some disturbing history (“Now you see / how the hurt is just a page of history / how the end will justify the means”).  It’s a heavy subject that is delivered with a wicked combination of grinding bass and scratchy guitar stabs. 

“Red Cocoon” comes on as a breezy love song.  Sparks flying between a pair out on an all-night bender?   It’s funny, because this song could easily be the feature song with its bouncy bass and suburb guitar leads, but it’s not! 

This all too brief EP closes with a fun punky anthem named “Indie Rock Goddess.”  Talk about leaving us wanting more!  This song abruptly ends just before it reaches two minutes, yet it’s pounding beat and Wendy’s commanding vocal will definitely imprint itself into your consciousness.

It’s wonderful to have the Popguns as our wonderful little indie pop secret, but I feel like they should be one of those bands that get much higher recognition.  I feel like we’re taking them for granted.  Please check them out. 

(https://thepopguns.bandcamp.com/album/popism)

 

 

The Popguns "Dirty London"

Candidate

 

During my last extended hospital stay for brain surgery, I experienced a lot of disturbing hallucinations.  I think I was mostly unconscious during these times, in my mind, I was convinced that I was being held captive by alternately two separate underground terrorist groups who for various reasons wanted me to pay for my alleged betrayal to their respective causes.  Despite not being able to walk, I managed to avoid capture for long periods of time by riding the rails all over the U.S.  Despite these situations all being imaginary, I found solace in forgoing my fight and flight instincts and giving up.  I allowed the hospital worker terrorist group to capture me for their surgical experiments and the military terrorist group to capture and imprison me for my beliefs.

It was all incredibly scary and I have had a difficult time putting these imaginary battles behind me.  However, the idea of giving up has continued to feel like a great decision – one that gains more and more appeal as time progresses.  In one of those hallucinations, I was trapped, so I simply laid down and tried to sleep.  I was done trying to find ways to allude my potential captors.  In reality, I am also finished with trying to find ways to continue to survive.  My long time fight against VHL (Von Hippel Lindau) has found me at a stalemate, yet it is a very precarious position.  I have lasted longer than I ever thought, and I am tired.

I am fully aware that millions, if not billions of people have much more difficult struggles which they handle with strength and grace.  In addition, I am fully aware that there are some people close to me who are in crisis.  I understand crisis and am absolutely out of energy to deal with it.  This is about me losing the desire to fight anymore.  VHL is a relentless and endless genetic syndrome and I am done with trying to navigate the unforgiving bureaucracy of health coverage in its many forms.  It is not enough that my health continues to decline, but that I constantly have to prove to faceless entities that I am broken.  There is a lot of paperwork necessary to prove that I am "sick," and most of it is insanely repetitive and incredibly inadequate.  I find it all discouraging and exhausting, which is why I am too tired to fight anymore.  I have fought very hard for a long time to live as normally as possible and not allow my medical asides to be anything more than an occasional distraction, which is why trying to convince others that I'm unwell is so awful..  I want to rest.  I want to crumple up all of the forms, pile it up, and climb atop and rest.

 

Lines

 

Soft Science

Lines

(Shelflife)

Ever since I was lucky enough to find Soft Science’s debut album, High and Lows, in 2011, I have been unabashedly in love.  Their fourth album, Lines, has now been out for about a month and it only affirms my continuing passion for their music.  The occasion has also provided me with the unnecessary excuse to go back and listen closely to their previous offerings.  What I’ve learned with this re-discovery tour is that they are actually better than I remembered, and that what I wrote about their second LP, 2014’s Detour: “in a subtle way they have tightened all the unnoticed loose screws and polished the surface,” amazingly holds true!  They continue to refine.

Lines plays like a legendary band’s best of/singles collection.  Their dreamy songs here lean more towards radio ready pop singles (is that a thing anymore?), and personally, I think that’s their biggest strength.  With their urgent and endlessly catchy song “Still,” my favorite song from their 2018 third album, Maps, Soft Science found the key to what sounds like effortless greatness. 

The melodic lead guitar line to “Grip,” along with the insistent bassline and Katie Haley’s perfect vocals, get me wanting to dance and completely lose myself in the amazing sounds.  It continues on from there.  “Deceiver” is like a favorite single I swear I already knew upon first listen (is that a cowbell?).  All three pre-LP singles are here: the buzzing “Sadness,” the rumbling, almost House of Love-like (Butterfly cover) “Kerosene,” and my early favorite “True,” with its words of betrayal.

With each album, Soft Science have included more keyboards which, instead of distracting or compromising their sound, has emphasized and enhanced what they already do well.  Somehow it has made their sound both more spacious and dense at the same time.  Songs like the heavy opener “Low” and its matching bookending closer “Polar,” along with the almost atonal saturation of “Stuck” and the dreamscape of “Zeros,” all remind me a little bit of excellent Spanish indie poppers Linda Guilala and their psychedelic overloads.

It is incredibly satisfying to see Soft Science getting so much attention for their new album!  Sadly, in this day and age, I don’t really know what that means.  We can all create our own little media focus, so I fully realize that I see Soft Science news, and most people likely do not.  I hope this changes.  I wish them great success and encouragement to keep our lives filled with their great music.  If you are not familiar with Soft Science and their lovable music, I strongly urge you to check them out for yourself.  All of their albums are a great place to start. 

 (https://softscienceband.bandcamp.com/)

Soft Science "True"