Cloud Nothings- Attack On Memory

Could it be said that an album can be great for the producer's body of work but not spectacular for the band? This thought had never occurred to me until listening to the new Cloud Nothings record, Attack On Memory. Steve Albini is a notorious, equally hated and loved producer, generally in indie rock and its similar genres. I haven't heard something he produced in awhile that really struck me as great work for him, as if he was killing time and saving up money to fund the next Shellac record.

But I think Attack On Memory works as well as it does because of his production style. He makes what would otherwise be a mediocre post-hardcore indie rock album into something at times akin to Bedhead, and at other times a parallel-future version of Slint that went on to record after Spiderland. The production is so key to my enjoyment of the album that it reminds me a lot of similar otherwise-mediocre albums elevated by their production, Walk It Off by Tapes N' Tapes and Some Loud Thunder by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!

As for Attack On Memory itself, I think it only occasionally rises above the level of especially good workmanlike takes on post-hardcore indie rock (the dynamics, man, the dynamics!). Kind of like Slint sometimes, kind of like Polvo. Kind of not as good as either, with vocals that sometimes sound like screamo bullshit, and other times like Blink 182 style "punk" rock.

Album of the Week: Pixies- Surfer Rosa

One of my fondest memories is a road trip some friends and I took years ago. Being the music nerd that I am, I had a huge leather wallet of CDs in the car with us and after much discussion we put Surfer Rosa on. Grinning in the ecstasy of youth and freedom that is a male road trip, we were singing along and joking around throughout the entire thing, every song met with "god, I love this album" comments and fist pumping. Air guitars may have been employed. I relate this story to you because, when you get beyond all talk of Surfer Rosa being influential and "important", you are left with a damn fine album that is a blast to listen to.

The Pixies were and remain a band for music nerds and critics. Though the grunge/alt rock groups that they inspired would go on to become massive stars and millionaires in the 90s, the Pixies have never been a band like that. Successful, yes. Beloved, yes. But--and this may be presumptuous to say--they belong to music nerds and critics. The subject matter of their songs is simply too odd and creepy, the music too noisy and unhinged to ever appeal to a mass market audience. If you went to high school anytime from the late 80s onward and you were the weird kid in class who wasn't satisfied with the music that was popular amongst your peers, chances are good you found the Pixies. Dropping the needle on (or pressing play) your first Pixies album is a revelation the likes of which you usually only hear about in religious circumstances. Oh, to be able to hear 'Debaser' for the first time again...

But that song comes from Doolittle, and I'm trying to discuss Surfer Rosa. The genius of what the Pixies did, first with Come On Pilgrim and fully realized here, was to play with the dynamics that had always been in place in rock music. What I mean is, loud/soft and noisy/clean. It's a very basic formula--one which Kurt Cobain famously admitted to ripping off wholesale from the Pixies--but one that pays incredible dividends: witness the rush of opener 'Bone Machine', which builds to a peak before the "your bone's got a little machine" lyric kills the sound and then the guitars come slashing back in. Witness 'Something Against You', which opens with a clean rhythm guitar before the distorted lead guitar blasts the door down and Black Francis howls in anger through what sounds like a bullhorn. Witness 'Gigantic', which opens so delicately and showcases the power of loud/quiet and clean/noisy dynamics.

At just a touch over a half hour in length, Surfer Rosa's every moment is excellent and worthwhile. Nothing is carelessly put on the album just to pad out the runtime--even the studio banter is classic amongst a certain friend and I. Hell, even the silly 'Tony's Theme' is great though it is my least favorite song on the album. And that's the crux of the album to me: it's just so enjoyable and so much fun to listen to. I frequently cite Surfer Rosa in reviews as an example of something that I find addictive and compulsively listenable. Due to its brevity and consistency, it's hard not to put it on when I can't decide what I want to listen to or, say, when I'm scrolling through iTunes and trying to come up with a review to write. I'm just sayin'.

I could talk about all those ancillary things about the album--Steve Albini's production, the perverse but catchy lyrics, the way it influenced indie rock bands to have a token girl often as a bassist--but like I said at the beginning, if you push all that aside you'll be left with not just one of the best indie rock albums or one of the best rock albums, but one of the best albums of all time, period. Yes, Surfer Rosa is that good. Go listen to it again; your awkward, strange younger self will thank you.

Album of the Week: Palace Music- Viva Last Blues

Will Oldham is what I would consider the consummate singer/songwriter of the 90s--and thereafter--indie rock scene. He has remained resolutely independent of major labels while building a body of work that is as large as it is consistent. Like similar artists John Darnielle (aka the Mountain Goats) and Jason Molina (aka Songs: Ohia, Magnolia Electric Co. et al), Oldham releases something once a year and has used many names (Palace Brothers, Palace Music, Palace, his own name), though he seems to have settled on the Bonnie 'Prince' Billy moniker around the turn of the millenium. Moreover, though he has some critically acknowledged masterpieces (particularly 1999's I See A Darkness), you can pretty much jump into his discography at any point because it's similar enough and every release is at least above average in quality.

Viva Last Blues was Oldham's third album, and, released in 1995, it feels like one of those touchstones for what true independent/underground musicians were doing during the rise and fall of "alternative" rock. If you were old enough to get sick of the mainstream and he so-called 'alternative' to the mainstream during this era, then albums like this were what you latched unto. While most of the world was turning up their amps and having Butch Vig produce their major label debut, Oldham was going to Alabama to record a country tinged album with Steve Albini. Of the sessions, and the other Oldham releases he worked on, Albini has said that Oldham doesn't rehearse the material with the band beforehand. Viva Last Blues has an atmosphere that captures the inspired spark of the moment, of players feeling their way through a song for the first or second time; the very same "strike while it's hot" vibe that John Darnielle goes for when he writes a song and scraps it unless he records it shortly afterward.

Personally, I've been mystified by Oldham's music often being filed under 'country.' Though a vein of rustic Americana runs throughout his work, nothing on Viva Last Blues sounds like either old fashioned country or newer, slicker country. Certainly the instruments on this album aren't foreign to country (guitar, bass, drums, organ/piano, electric guitar) but there isn't that twang factor that I associate with country or the necessary banjos to make it bluegrass-y. I would guess someone, somewhere, referred to this album as being alt-country during its release, but that doesn't quite seem right, either. The closest descriptor I can come up with is Bob Dylan's mid 60s to mid 70s folk/rock/country hybrid sound. It has the same very American sound with being blues, jazz, funk, or outright rock. So, Viva Last Blues is like that Dylan phase, only different and with a much better singer.

Indeed, Oldham's voice is what truly ties these songs together into the brilliant package that they are. Equally adept at low key ballads like 'We All, Us Three, Will Ride' and the ecstatic, yelped peaks of 'Work Hard/Play Hard', Oldham's versatile voice is both distinctive and easy to love. It also makes for a perfect duet or harmonizing foil, and the times on the album where his brother, Ned, or Sebadoh's Jason Loewenstein sing with him are some of its best: witness the album closer, 'Old Jersualem', which ends with just such a moment. Elsewhere Oldham's penchant for playful and profane shines through. 'The Mountain Low' has him wishing he could...make love to a mountain (OK, so it's a metaphor for loving a woman who lives in the valley, or something like that), while the aforementioned 'Work Hard/Play Hard' sees Oldham intoning that he likes it "once in the morning and once at night." Serious/melancholy and joking/dirty things are not mutually exclusive, and Will Oldham is the first artist I think of when this dichotomy comes up. As Oldham sings on a song from I See A Darkness, "death to everyone is gonna come/and it makes hosing much more fun." I think you can probably figure out what 'hosing' means.

Like all of his albums, it will take you two spins or so to get into Viva Last Blues. I wasn't an immediate convert to I See A Darkness either. However, if you persevere, you will find in any of Oldham's music a rich and rewarding listen that provides future favorite songs of your's, including the flooring majesties 'New Partner' and 'I See A Darkness', the latter of which Johnny Cash covered. Anyway, Viva Last Blues is a classic, if not essential, Oldham release that everyone should hear.

On First Listen: Shellac- Excellent Italian Greyhound

One of my music buying habits is to just jump into a band I've never listened to at any point in their discography. I let fate and the record store decide where I'll begin with Do Make Say Think or, in this case, Shellac.

Shellac is an odd case, because I've technically heard a lot of work that Steve Albini has done as a producer--sorry, I mean, recording engineer--but I've never listened to anything he's personally done. I like the idea of his bands and the descriptions I've read, but never heard them.

Excellent Italian Greyhound is their latest album, and I could find a copy on vinyl, so here I am. Awesomely enough, the band includes a CD copy in the vinyl sleeve, though it's kind of a "fuck you" move because it's just a blank CD. So, then, I'll say "fuck you" back and listen to it on CD first.

The album opens with the spoken word driven and lengthy 'The End of Radio.' This is kind of a weird way to start an album. It reminds me a lot of Slint's Spiderland in terms of the dynamics, loud/quite/loud sections, and the plodding, exacting nature of the repetitive guitar. Obviously Steve Albini worked with Slint on their first album, Tweez and has been quite vocal about his love for Spiderland ever since its release, so the comparison makes sense. The song is, funnily enough, exactly what the title implies--someone broadcasting the last radio broadcast ever.

'Steady As She Goes' is not a cover of that Raconteurs song. Rather it's a pretty basic angry punk-ish song. Steve Albini (I'm assuming he's the singer on this song, anyway) yells the lyrics, but not in a death metal/screamo kind of way, thankfully. One thing I can say about this album thus far: it sounds as good as you'd expect from a notoriously finicky engineer. The instruments all sound clean and seperated and the vocals are mixed a bit lower than everything else. Which is the standard Albini aesthetic, and in Shellac's case, it certainly works.

'Be Prepared' is a math rocky "we have chops" workout. I've been thinking about why I don't know if I like or dislike this song, and I realize it's because this album doesn't make sense to me yet. It's going to take awhile to get into their way of doing things, because so far the songs are untraditional insofar as they don't have typical structures.

'Elephant' makes me think of Fugazi. The vocals remind me a bit of Ian MacKaye, especially the "repeat the lie" bit. So, then, Shellac sound like Slint mixed with Fugazi. Interesting.

'Genuine Lulabelle' is a long one. 9 minutes that trade between formless guitar minimalism, crunchy full band riffing, spoken word, and a strange dialogue between characters that reminds me of something off a Frank Zappa album. It actually reminds me of something off Gastr Del Sol's Crookt, Crackt, or Fly.

'Kittypants' is pretty damn good. Reminds me of what Slint might have released if they stayed together and released an all instrumental pop album. A nice, short instrumental that cleanses the palette.

'Boycott' is another angry, punkish song that reminds me of Fugazi. I love that pretty, upper register guitar line.

'Paco' is another instrumental, though it's longer and more varied than 'Kittypants.' Again, the closest comparison I can come up with is Slint, although faster and with more variety than that implies. One song from the end, I have to say that this album isn't as challenging and noisy as I imagined. Maybe I give too much credit to Albini for being difficult or experimental. But maybe I'm drawing too much of a conclusion from this, my sole listening experience.

'Spoke', the album closer, is an angry, screamed punkish number that doesn't remind me of Fugazi for once. It does, however, remind me of three dudes thinking it would be funny if they wrote a song where they could yell and scream a bunch of shit of no consequence and have mindless, fun backing music to pound out. And that's probably what happened, too.

So, my first Shellac experience. I don't feel especially positive or negative about the band so far. They certainly don't sound like much of anything I've heard before, except Slint and Fugazi, two bands that Shellac are at least familiar with, if not good friends with. I will say that it wasn't quite what I expect--a pleasant surprise.