Short and Absurd Music Reviews

This isn’t a new Blink-182 album. It’s members from +44 and Angels and Airwaves making a super group. Verdict: It’s just as bland as you hoped it wouldn’t be. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpYhGdrknlA

This is ’80s music: Circa 2080, after robots have taken over the world, and it becomes hip among teenage robots to steal human music (just like it “used to” be hip to steal black people’s music). The EP is chock full of: sampled ’90s R&B, mangled vocals, ebbing synth, popping bell sounds and driving drums. So, let the machines take over. Neo, now is your time — to boogie. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FVkjBV3UoI

This is garage rock from a more pure mindset — with little inclination to prove badassery. There is great chemistry between the drummer and guitarist, and surprisingly, it sounds less forced than the later Waylon Thronton and the Heavy Hands reincarnation when the guitarist’s wife took over drumming duties. The songs are varied with nuances of surf rock, folk and soul. They manage to be silly and haunting at the same time — like fucked up kids songs. The track, Fruitbats, will forever be one of the theme songs to everyone’s fake Buddhist spirtutal ascension.  

http://www.myspace.com/caradelgato

Kanye West was never known for his ability to filter thoughts and speech. Yet somehow, even taking in account the Taylor Swift “I’mma let you finish” debacle, this album feels more raw and unfiltered than anything else he’s done. Until the technology from The Cell becomes a reality, this is the closest you’ll ever get to witnessing an ego-maniac’s dreams: complete with the sick fantasies, surreal imagery, absurd leaps in logic and the beautiful scenery that accompany one’s journey into the R.E.M. cycle. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm5iA4Zupek

Their songs are so polished, listening to the album creates a glare that hurts my eyes. The perfectly sculpted vocals sound too artificial, as if they were engineered by a lab coat marketing team to create the perfect blend of Tom Gabel grittiness and Bruno Mars soulless, cheeseball crooning. The overly produced instruments give off a tone that’s like a million Lucky Charms marshmallows crashing into the earth and bursting into glitter and dreams. Damn songs are catchy as hell, though. 

http://www.myspace.com/fakeproblems

This is indie music circa 2006, a time when indie music (whatever indie music is) reigned king alongside the blinking, trashy juggernaut that is MySpace. During and since that time, there’s been a persistent trend of non-southern bands donning funny hats, argyle sweaters and playing butchered southern music with a nod and a wink to the listener. The Sea and the Beast is full of songs with a folk/country/bluegrass twist, with many of the heavier tracks playing like southern-tinged, limp cock rock. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether the listener is in on the joke or part of the punchline for enjoying it. 

http://www.myspace.com/bandmarino

The Descendents just got a little more complicated. Nothing Happens is made up of beautiful ascending and triumphant guitar leads, solid bass lines and superb, fluid drumming. Particulary strong are the lyrics, woven masterfully throughout the riffs. It’s like an outlet for Nelson to shout vague, emotional poetry from his diary. In other reviews, the band’s been compared to Dag Nasty and Sinking Ships (quite accurately), but they still manage to have a unique voice in the melting pot of influences. Now go listen to Goatees Go Home on repeat and obsess over the girl or boy who “was the one you let get away.”

http://thestillmentally.bandcamp.com/

Every song on this album sounds like the victory soundtrack to the soccer goal you made during 4th grade recess. Cue Goldfinger as the ball hits the painted outline on the chain-link fence and the proud juveniles lean back, cross their arms, slam down and rebound off their upper thighs while yelling “suck it” over and over again. Hang-up is a less-than consistent album, but who cares? We’re all just waiting for Superman to play so we can imagine polygon pixels pulling off awesome 360 Shoves Its to Nose Grind Combos. Turns out, Hang-Up is the soundtrack to a lot of 4th grade things. 

Singer/guitarist Sheena Ozzela looks a lot like this person I knew who would come over to my apartment high on oxycotton prescribed by her psychiatrist father, and tell me how she changed her ringtone to “that one Pink Floyd song, you know, the one that goes hello, hello is there anybody in there?” If I assume they are the same person, would it add more depth to the songs in Pebble? At least the person I knew high on oxycotton was overly enthusiastic every time she told me about her ringtone. But the vocals in Pebble are like Pauly Shore with a blank slate for a face: somehow both bland and annoying. That goes for both singers. Blank slate face Pauly Shore, both of you. 

In a metaphor stretched way too far, the vocals are a wild tiger and the keys an invading martian. Both are fighting in a futuristic gladiator arena with the drums feeding the frenzy. They dance the dance of fighters: circling, lunging and in the process creating everything from haunting love songs to tribal party jams. This is the kind of stuff that uncontacted Amazonian tribes and Williamsburg hipsters can both enjoy. It’s that universal. 

http://www.myspace.com/snareandachair