Lil' Indie Round-Up 3

Album: Chandelier by Rachael Sage
What Does The Cover Make Me Expect??: When the whole singer/songwriter thing got really big in the 70s, you could pretty much set your watch to each artist releasing an album at least every two years. And that album would have some obscure, clever object, idea, or word as its title. Also, the cover would typically be said artist posing with the object or making a visual reference to it somehow. So, then, this makes me expect a fairly generic singer/songwriter album. p.s. I don't know why it's showing up all blued out like that. Some quirk of Blogger, I guess.
What Does It Actually Sound Like??: Tori Amos says "hi." Too pleasant to hate, too cutesy, quirky, and immaculate to like, Chandelier is Sage's 8th (!!) album. All in all, it's piano-driven singer/songwriter pop in the Amos-vein, only less challenging and intense. If I had a girlfriend and she was making this music, I would be touched and proud of her, but secretly have no desire to listen to it, ever.

Album: The Discovery EP by The Discovery
What Does The Cover Make Me Expect??: OK, you've seen the cover now. Doesn't it scream 'high school art project from the stoner kid in class'?? I would also accept the answer 'fan made cover for almost any Flaming Lips album.' So, I expect something druggy, psychedelic, or cosmic, maaaaan.
What Does It Actually Sound Like??: This one took me awhile to sum up, despite being only 4 songs, but I think I've nailed it--acoustic 311. Granted, I haven't listened to any 311 in a good 10 years, but that's the vibe I got off this: reggae/Latin influences married to generic alt. rock. The twist here is that The Discovery have added a cup more acoustic guitar. Oh, and the last song 'In The Air Tonight' lamely lifts most of the chorus to that Phil Collins song and is half as good.
Album: The Revisionists by The Revisionists
What Does The Cover Make Me Expect??: The Revisionists is such a vague, wants-to-be-cool-but-is-just-kind-of-forgettable name for a band. And the cover reminds me of the similar monikered Editors, which features a skeletal outline of a building. Here, though, we get a scrawl of newspaper clippings in various languages. All of this leads me to believe the band is one of those millions of "back to basics" punk bands that are on the Warped Tour for a year and then completely forgotten.
What Does It Actually Sound Like??: Well, I don't hate this, so that's already a point in its favor. Also, it's not a "back to basics" punk band. No, it's a "back to basics" post-punk band, only more Clash-y. Literature given with the album reveals that two thirds of the band were in Tonic (they of the mid-90s alt. rock hit "If You Could Only See") and the other third is the guy who directed the Wilco documentary I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. Anyway, this is the sort of music that marries 90s alt. rock with late 70s post-punk via the Clash, music that I wouldn't flee from if it were played in a bar, but music that is supremely boring to sit down and listen to.
Album: Blackmarket EP by Blackmarket
What Does The Cover Make Me Expect??: Somewhere, somebody listened to a lot of Fugazi and decided to make an album cover that reflected this obsession. Given the band's name, a potently political/economic term, alongside the blur of things going on here visually, I expect Fugazi.
What Does It Actually Sound Like??: Let me pose a scenario to you. Imagine if, instead of recording the harder, stranger Pinkerton, Rivers Cuomo led Weezer, post-Blue Album, to head off the subsequent pack of mid-to-late 90s rock bands inspired equally by indie rock and arena rock and start churning out crap right away. Instead of doing what he actually did, and going off to college, then coming back to ruin Weezer's good name by, apparently, challenging himself to make a series of albums that are each worse than the one that came before. But I digress. Since this scenario never happened, we get to listen to bands like Blackmarket instead. Blackmarket are terrible.
Album: Siege Mentality by Digital Primate
What Does The Cover Make Me Expect??: Ever since Gorillaz were unleashed unto the world, England has been inundated with bands that mix rock, electronic music, and hip hop, and have silly names or themes around them. The mock 8-bit NES gorilla mask pictured above leads me to believe this particular release leans toward the electronic music realm, since many electronic artists have a similar kitschy appreciation for that visual aesthetic.
What Does It Actually Sound Like??: I was pretty close with my guess, except that I hadn't factored in the bizarre political slant of the album. Or all the sexual stuff. Frankly, the song titles alone are pretty embarassing, and that it's apparently a white guy behind all this is even worse. Like most British albums of this type, it's overly long, and reminds you of much better bands that you don't even really like (in this case, I'd say a more electro-hop Gorillaz, or simply a worse Basement Jaxx).
Album: Pigs by The Dirty Hearts
What Does The Cover Make Me Expect??: In the late 90s, I remember always going to my local Media Play store and wandering the racks of CDs. Every so often I'd come across some album cover that was really disturbing or gross. Usually it had something violent, provocative, or sexual, and it seemed like it was usually on Trent Reznor's Nothing Records label. It also seemed as though they usually had some vague bestiality angle, too. So, then, this cover, which has a human infant gestating inside a pig. It's vaguely disturbing, but it also is a lazy, lazy visual symbol for human beings as "pigs." I expect passable industrial rock.
What Does It Actually Sound Like??: I like this album, if only because it reminds one of a time in the early 90s when garage rock made a short lived, under covered comeback. Bands like The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion didn't really fit in with the grunge rock or indie rock of that era, and so existed in this weird place that never really made sense. The Dirty Hearts are of this era, too, despite being a decade and change too late. Even the amateurish back cover, a collage of meat products, reminds me of something, say, Pavement would've had on a pre-Slanted & Enchanted single or EP. As for the music itself, it straddles the lines between grunge rock, indie rock, and garage rock, featuring songs that go on a minute too long and sometimes throw in odd elements like a brass section.
Album: Falcon EP by Falcon
What Does The Cover Make Me Expect??: Right now, I work at the deli/meat department in a local grocery store. One of the brands of lunch meat and cheese we carry is called Boar's Head. It's a relatively 'premium' brand, which costs a dollar or two more per pound than the competitors, but I much prefer it. Their havarti is delicious. Huh?? Oh, right; this album cover. It's got a bloody boar's head on it, but the band's name is Falcon. Expectation?? Overly clever indie pop, or painful, room clearing metal/noise.
What Does It Actually Sound Like??: Passable, enjoyable indie rock with an optimistic, anthemic streak. The big deal about this band is that they're slowly recording the songs of a high school classmate who wrote hundreds of tunes over roughly a year's time in the late 80s before being institutionalized. Shades of Daniel Johnston, right?? Unfortunately, this is a band where the concept behind them is more interesting than the music itself. It's not bad by any means, mind you, but I think people are more willing to write genius into a musician because he or she was crazy, and that's unfair. If you hear the songs of Daniel Johnston out of context, they're still amazing because they're so well written, and his voice is so unique. Not so for Falcon. The story is more special than the music, and I'd be more excited to hear the original versions.
Album: The Sound by Mar
What Does The Cover Make Me Expect??: I'm going to be a jerk and say that this cover is terrible, and it's not even ironically terrible. It's got an old timey looking woman with angels exploding out of her head, suggesting that this band's sound is so amazing it caused cherubs to fountain out of her head. Did I just use 'fountain' as a verb?? I did. Anyway, I'm guessing this album sounds like Snow Patrol, one of those bands that tried to combine post-rock and indie rock together and wind up sounding like crap in the process.
What Does It Actually Sound Like??: Wow, I was pretty close. Only the post-rock is more like a string based Sigur Ros, and the indie rock is more like an American guy who likes Radiohead a lot and wishes his voice could go as high and powerful as Thom Yorke. I may sound cynical here, but Mar belong to a raft of bands that try so hard to be unique and interesting but end up sounding like a patchwork of various other bands. I can't hate them for it, because I remember times when I used to ape various writers, but that doesn't mean I like them for it, either.