Album Reviews


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Published: Jun 8, 2010

Inner Space

Infinitely minimal: Like a guy who's found the world's tiniest wormhole, hollAnd (aka composer/producer Trevor Kampmann) continues to release albums of incredibly compact (I Blow Up runs 22:35), endlessly catchy miniature pop songs. Synth-pop concentrate: hollAnd distills hooks down to their essences — a line, a riff, a loop — eschewing stories for wisps that speak volumes. In this world: "You Are Ambient Noise" is pure exaltation, "I Can See Bottom" a sweet metaphor for a back tattoo, "Sauvignon Blank" a rumination on a one-night stand. It all feels a bit ephemeral, until you realize it's stuck in your head, all at once.

—Brian Howard

Everything Old Is New Again

With: a Dylanian vocal fadeaway and a whole lot of Americana on his iPod, Eric Earley makes sounding classic sound easy. He and the rest of revered Portland folk-poppers Blitzen Trapper (who play the Troc June 15, thetroc.com) pull a lot of familiar levers on Destroyer of the Void. There's: the trad-ish melodies, the gentle jamming, the antiquated imagery. This stuff: should go down like rot gut, but it's smooth as snake oil. (The Felice Brothers, another new old-timey indie band, should be so lucky.) Take: the harmonica-and-acoustic parable "The Man Who Would Speak True," the lyrics for which reference Devil's rum, a dusty plain, a one-horse town, a midnight train, etc. Oh: and a magistrate! The song has a freaking magistrate. Seriously. If it weren't so damn beautiful it would be embarrassing.

—Patrick Rapa

As the Milk Turns

Like the anglerfish: Athens, Ga.'s Harvey Milk lured us in with some luminescent flickers on 2008's Life ... The Best Game in Town. It's only now that we're deep in the abyss, clamped between their massive jaws, that we can take full stock of the beast. This is: what the band really sounds like. Vicious, heavy, lumbering, harsh. A Melvins record spun too slow. Long notes rumble well past their welcome and the vocals surface only to gurgle out stories of vague torment. It's oppressive, frightening, sometimes hard to sit through. If: you take any track and speed it up to double time, you might, just might, stumble onto some kind of catchy rock tune. Play it backward and you will swear your allegiance to Satan. We're all: going to die down here, aren't we?

—Patrick Rapa

Death March

Let's not: mince words. This is the marching band from hell. They claim Providence, R.I., but whatever. What Cheer? Brigade is an assemblage of 19 men and women who play brass instruments with sick, hard-hitting, punk rock fortitude. Trumpets squeal, sousaphones boom and unholy sound pushes forth in a demented holiday parade. Wait: Did I say pushes? I mean throttles. Their debut, We Blow, You Suck (reissued recently on Anchor Brain), is rich with drumline beatdowns ("Green Eyes"), villainous melodies ("Saiyan re Saiyan") and general antics that make West Philadelphia Orchestra look tame by comparison. No diss on those guys: but holy shit.

—John Vettese