Polyvinyl Record Co., 2012.

It is what it says on the tin, so to speak. On “The  Nights of Wine and Roses” the pair sing, “so we down our drinks in front of our friends and we burn our plans right down to the end, we don’t cry for those nights to arrive, we yell like hell to the heavens.” Simply put: “give me younger us.” The lyrics and melodies shape a hedonistic, drunken spirited mood, with a relentless crashing hurricane of sounds  similar musically to No Age and a spirit and lyrical delirium similar to The Hold Steady. The frantic pace is laden with bellowed vocal cries and continues almost uninterrupted over eight songs, including a boisterous cover of The Gun Club’s, “For The Love of Ivy“, a song which epitomizes the thumping hangover that “Celebration Rock” unleashes when it finally storms to a halt: “My heart is broken so I’m going to hell, bury me way deep down in hell.”

Domino, 2011.

Real Estate are a young group of guys, seemingly affable and well raised. The innocuous quartet’s “Days” is pleasant and charming, ambling along with a sunny disposition (see the excellent, “Kinder Bluman“). All this considered Real Estate should be bland but they have created one of the best pop records since The Shins “Oh, Inverted World”, epitomized by the opening of ‘Wonder Years’: “I’m not trying to be cool/I only want to be kind.”

Captured Tracks, 2012.

On the record’s cover DeMarco applies lipstick to himself. Aptly termed by its creator as “jizz-jazz” the music within readily changes appearances, submerged under a rustling fuzz, the record transitioning like a radio feeding several different stations at once through bad reception. Throughout “Rock and Roll Nightclub” is filled with ambiguities and satire, poking fun at “infallible” gender roles, using the term European Vegas and imitating radio with a shady, deep voiced deejay named “Dojo Daniel”. Altogether it plays out like the confessions of a seedy midnight trucker with cross dressing tendencies.

Hardly Art, 2012.

Vivian Girls bassist, Katy Goodman has crafted an addictive record that evokes 60′s surf/garage pop, the melodies riding under a rapid paced haze of noise. But towards the middle of the record the tone is lighter, the fuzz momentarily cast aside culminating in “Real Boy”, which resembles a cross between Hawaiian hula music and the adorable, puppy eyed pop of Zooey Deschanel, as Goodman sings, “oh boy I’ve got something to give away, and that’s my heart.” The music has a warmth to it, an easy going mood similar to other contemporary bands like The  Dum Dum Girls and Best Coast and it is this radiance that makes it perfect for the warm April days. For more on La Sera see Hardly Art.

1990

Increasingly marginalized creatively from The Pixies, Kim Deal turned to the Breeders. In many ways Pod is reminiscent of Deal’s handy work in The Pixies, clearly so in her vocals and commanding base guitar, and it is “Glorious”, with its plodding baseline, slow pacing and her vocal cries that most resembles “Gigantic”, the Pixies “best song” according to Kurt Cobain. The base guitar is the thread which runs through Pod and like “Gigantic” there is a hollow sound to the record, a spacious framework within which bubbly 90s pop sounds and light punk shift around the core baseline. Ultimately it is hard to pick out a standout song. The feisty Beetles cover, “Happiness is a Warm Gun” is an incredible reimaging that bursts into a rapid call to arms with the cry, “Mother superior jump the gun” before falling quiet again. It is that versatility that makes Pod; from an attitude laden Beetles cover to the melodic, almost bubble gum pop of “Fortunately Gone” (that and an energetic madness).

Listen here + here

From the outset, on the initial twang of the guitar on ‘Up on High’, the Silent Hour/Golden Mile EP carries a classic, vintage folk feel in the mold of a John Lennon or George Harrison solo project (and a similarity to contemporary artists like David Vandervelde and Grizzly Bear, who Rossen is a member of). The music has Grizzly Bear’s organic aesthetic, an imposing quietness and open feel as if recorded in a church or large hall, as well as multiple loops of “fidgety” guitar plucking and busy, dexterous instrumental spats, both of which reside in Grizzly Bears instrumental repertoire. On “Up On High” Rossen sings, “finally feel free/ to sing for me”, a possible response to the artist’s own doubts on whether to continue to make music. On the form of this EP, let us hope those doubts have been well and truly abandoned.

ericharvey.bandcamp.com/