Tennis- Young & Old

A Few Thoughts (Unedited) Posing As A Review Of The New Tennis Album, Young & Old


1) I found out today at work that I didn't get the assistant manager job I had more or less counted on getting because I've been there the longest and worked the hardest of all the applicants. But this is a cruel, unusual universe that I inhabit, and I've long since adapted to survive as the life-long-loser. For some reason the lyrics "we could be good but we don't live the way that we should" from this album seemed especially apt today. Especially after I spent most of the day playing loud, noisy shit like The Black Angels and Flux Information Sciences with the bass and treble cranked.


2) One of my good friend recently moved to Kansas to pursue further schooling. He and I are fans, if not advocates, for Tennis. In a recent email to me, he summed up how he felt about this record thusly: "I listened to the new Tennis album; it is kind of different from what they did before, but I still think it is a good sophomore album." Pat, I couldn't have said it better myself.


3) I all-too-frequently go through periods of time where I feel an overwhelming apathy and negativity about a lot of things in my life. I end up listening to the first two Velvet Underground albums, when I normally only regularly enjoy their last two (post-Lou Reed VU isn't really VU, man). People try to cheer me up and, while it kind of annoys me because I wish people would commiserate instead of playing the "glass is half full" card so soon, I know, deep down, that they're right. In the same way, then, I know that I was wrong to underrate the first Tennis album when I reviewed it, and I also know that I'm right in declaring Young & Old a good sophomore album.


Oh wait, he just said that.


Um, let's see here.


4) Young & Old is smartly (and perhaps rightly) similar enough to their debut, while making some changes, to succeed mightily. This is especially key since this only follows Cape Dory by about a year, and I'd have been more than pleased if they'd turned in a similar-but-equally-good sophomore effort instead. But no, Young & Old still has a pleasant retro early 60s rock/pop sound with a little less overt surf influence; less sailing/nautical imagery, too, though travel as a concept still features prominently, such as on, you guessed it, 'Traveling.' 


5) Think of a slightly more fleshed out, full-band sounding version of Cape Dory with some new instruments and textures, and you've pretty much nailed Young & Old. It beefs up Tennis's sound in a way similar to The Shins' change from the classicist indie-pop of Oh, Inverted World to the power-pop, more muscular sounding Chutes Too Narrow.


6) I was watching a Beach House video earlier and it once more occurred to me that the reason my (male) friends and I react so strongly to bands like Tennis, She & Him, and Beach House in that we all want women to promise the kind of poetical romance and dedication that normally only men will sing about and/or offer their partners. I know I'm always on the other side of the losing equation, pining after women or wishing they would never leave my side...and then here's a bunch of women in amazing bands singing those same things to me. If that makes me sound pathetic and creepy, I suppose it will have to. I love Young & Old but I've been programmed to, I think.


7) I love that every song on this record is between 3:02 and 3:45 in length. Tennis are a very three minute song kind of band. I respect such inadvertent consistency. Their next release should be a concept album about the number 3, or maybe do it like i by the Magnetic Fields and have every song start with 3. Just a thought.

Re: views On Broken Bells's Broken Bells

Vampire Weekend- Contra

Am I alone in thinking that it's insane that Contra debuted at number 1 on the Billboard charts? Who is rushing out to buy albums in January, anyway? Well, OK, as weird as the situation may be, it's understandable. Vampire Weekend's debut was an addictive indie pop affair that borrowed bits from reggae and world music via Africa. Paul Simon's Graceland was a big touchpoint for most people, though honestly I hear that comparison much more strongly on Contra. Mostly I'm just surprised that a band on an indie label could become so popular and inspire such loyalty after only one release. Even the fairly similar Shins took two albums and prominent placement in a popular movie to get this huge...

The biggest difference from Vampire Weekend to Contra is more about the instruments featured than any kind of stylistic shifts or songwriting approach alteration. Contra maintains the same startlingly high level of memorable and catchy songs as the band's debut, but this time out the band has mostly put down the guitars and picked up keyboards, drum machines, and even what is either a vocoder or auto-tuning on 'California English.' At first this change really turned me off. For various reasons, I don't really like synth-pop, not to mention the kind of 80s production where drums always sound muffled and synthetic and the bass has that rounded-but-flat tone to it. What's more, Contra really does bring the Graceland comparisons into sharp relief: tracks like 'Taxi Cab' and 'White Sky' have the kind of fingertapping, pop and lock rapid fire guitar and bass work that made that album so distinctive.

Once I embraced the change, however, I found Contra to be an excellent release, and a worthy follow-up to Vampire Weekend. Petty and temporary though this may be, my only complaint is that Vampire Weekend once again released such an obvious summer album in the cold grip of January. The effervescent bounce of 'Holiday' doesn't seem quite right when you're sitting in your car in the morning, shivering and sipping coffee from a travel mug. But I digress. The more I've listened to Contra, the more I find myself wondering if it's actually better than their debut. The album closer 'I Think Ur A Contra' alone displays a great deal of growth and maturity in songwriting; with its low piano notes and ominous tone it kind of reminds me of 'Those To Come' by the Shins.

Yes, I may actually like this one more than their debut. I suppose I'll reserve judgment for my usual year end listmaking, but keeping in mind that I'm not the hugest fan of either synth-pop or Graceland, it should be pretty telling that I'm already considering it.

Primer: Part 3: Shins- Wincing The Night Away

In 2007, one of the biggest names in the indie rock world released an album to mixed reviews. A controversial album that divided fans, it suggested for some the beginning of the end or even was the end itself. Those who felt this way argued that the band were trying too hard to be something they were not, and how everything that used to make them great was mostly missing.

That album was Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. However, James Mercer of the Shins appears on it, and his band released an album that same year which drew mixed reviews and divided fans, too.

That album was Wincing The Night Away. And it, dear readers, is what we music critics call a "growing pains" album. This is shorthand for any album in which a band spends most of the run time expanding their palette, their approach to music, or similarly experimenting. Typically this results in music that is interesting and different than what the band had done before but is nevertheless not a completely successful transition.

I have to wonder what it must've been like for all those people who bought this one based on their love of the Shins from Garden State and their first two albums. I say this because most of what originally attracted people to this band is absent or played down: their excellent indie pop sound, intractable hooks, and James Mercer's way with songwriting. In its place is an album full of experimentation, patience, and James Mercer's way with songwriting. Er, wait, not that third one.

In all seriousness, Mercer remarked during the PR blitz for the album that he had been suffering from terrible insomnia. This helps explain Wincing The Night Away's frequently delirious lyrics which take one step past the pleasant psychedelia of Oh, Inverted World into the realm of Brian Eno "if it sounds good, it is good" lyrics and Stephen Malkmus-ian "it doesn't have to make sense to be awesome and memorable." I don't know what "and the necessary balloon lies a corpse on the floor/we're p*ssed on far too many sprites/and they're all standing up for their rights" is supposed to mean but I sure like the sound of it.

But the prosecution's case against this album will come down to how un-catchy most of the music is. Coming off of the power pop masterpieces of Chutes Too Narrow, you will likely listen to this one a few times and wonder where all the great songs went off to. Yeah, it's the same band and their sound isn't radically different, but at the same time things aren't the same and the approach has changed. 'Spilt Needles' is the most guilty party, with its whip crack heavy drums and cavalcade of keyboard atmospherics/wails along with a heavily treated guitar. There's also the percussive drum loops of 'Sea Legs' to pick at, as well as the syrupy synthesizer backing of the percussion-less 'Red Rabbits.' And the ominous 'Black Wave', which picks up where 'Your Algebra' from Oh, Inverted World left off. The total effect is that of an indie pop band who made an album that puts a premium on experimenting and pushing themselves to do things differently, to not rely on easy choruses or hooks. If you're looking for a sequel to the first or second Shins album, you'd be best advised to move along.

However, I still find a lot to enjoy on this album. I like the idea that bands are on a continual journey to new and exciting places, so I silently cheer whenever I think about this album. Frankly I'm surprised the band had the guts to do something like this. Don't misjudge where I'm going with this. This album isn't a huge departure from what they had done before; at the same time, while it's good and has some interesting, satisfying music, it still is, as I mentioned earlier, a "growing pains" album. It's different from their first two albums and it's not as good but it promises a lot for the future. Things like the short interlude 'Pam Berry' (with its huge guitar sound), the way 'Turn On Me' slowly offers its delights over a few minutes instead of cramming it all in quick like they used to, and the surprising keyboard solo outro to 'Sea Legs' make me excited for their next release. I never thought I would be interested to see where the Shins go next. After Chutes Too Narrow they seemed destined to release an excellent pop/rock album that was about a half hour long once every 3 or 4 years. In this scenario, their albums would always be good but they would have a steady, unexciting consistency like The Sea & Cake albums have. After Wincing The Night Away, I'm going to get their next album day one instead of "meh, it's just more pop/rock, I'll get around to it someday..."

While Wincing The Night Away is inevitably always going to be known as the Shins's "growing pains" album, one that some fans will enjoy but most will find weak and too different, it's still worth a listen. It may be more enjoyable as a document of where they might go than it is for where they went, but that's not a bad thing. Anyway, if you just want more of the same no one is stopping you from listening to Chutes Too Narrow and Oh, Inverted World.

Primer: Part 2/Album Of The Week: Shins- Chutes Too Narrow

I'm working on a theory that the beginning of every Shins album announces its intention within the first song. Oh, Inverted World opens with 'Caring Is Creepy', which has astral keyboards and is a chugging mid-tempo jangle-pop gem. Wincing The Night Away's 'Sleeping Lessons' has a dreamy keyboard line and James Mercer sounds like he's singing underwater; it takes almost a full two minutes and 30 seconds before the electric guitars kick in and the songs sounds 'full' finally. What does Chutes Too Narrow begin with?? Some clapping, a "Woo!" and a patient acoustic guitar intro that gets punctured by electric guitars 40 seconds in. Before we hit the minute mark we're already in the midst of one of the most rocking and downright raunchy songs the Shins have put to tape--Mercer even manages a scream on the "be ready to remember" line.

Yeah, it's gunna be that kind of album.

Chutes Too Narrow represents a lot of things for the Shins. As alluded to in my review of their first album, this one sees the band fully plugging into the Northwest music scene, enlisting Built To Spill/Modest Mouse producer Phil Elk to help get the abundance of electric guitars on display to sound just right. It also represents the band not only matching their impressive debut but overcoming it; Oh, Inverted World is nearly flawless indie pop and essential to the zeitgeist of this decade thanks to Garden State, but pound for pound Chutes is better. This is an album bursting with addictive hooks and excellent songwriting--Wincing The Night Away is more challenging and interesting to talk about, but Mercer really perfected his way with arrangements and lyrics on this one. Lastly, Chutes Too Narrow represents the band filtering out some of their 60s pop/psychedelic tendencies for something much more akin to the power pop of contemporaries like The New Pornographers. Funnily enough, it was during this same era when Belle & Sebastian were themselves moving toward power pop from their twee/indie pop beginnings. Once again, comparisons could be drawn between the Shins and those Scottish masters. But I digress.

The thing that strikes me most about this album today is just how energetic it is. We aren't quite to the spastic levels of Architecture In Helsinki but we're pretty close. Even the slower songs like 'Young Pilgrims' have a forward momentum to them (I also dig the pedal steel on this track; see 'Gone For Good' for more of the Shins going country). Most of this energy is due to the way the album was mixed, moving the guitars and vocals up front while burying the keyboards and bass. This is easily the Shins's most guitar centric album yet. Thankfully Phil Elk was on hand to capture the results;I say "thankfully" because he is an old hand at capturing these sort of distinctive guitar tones after working with Built To Spill, who also make use of guitars with a very clean, crisp, and slightly reverb-y sound. 'Saint Simon' has some staccato guitar chording as plucked from reggae (or funk) which somehow works in this context even once the band gets to the second half of the song with the angelic 'la da da da da' chorus. 'Turn A Square', meanwhile, reminds me of excellent group interplay in the beginning to the Beatles's 'Don't Let Me Down' only played faster and continuously.

On a side note, 'Those To Come' is such a great way to end this album. It's so reserved and poetic; something about the atmosphere it creates is utterly perfect and makes me think of whistling tea kettles on foggy weekend mornings. It makes me long for a James Mercer solo album whenever I hear it because--especially after the growth shown on Wincing The Night Away--I think he could make a really excellent album on his own.

I wanted to complain that this album is too short, but I only think that when I look at the runtime. Chutes Too Narrow is short and to the point; all excess and flab has been trimmed away. It is an as-perfect-as-we're-likely-to-get-in-this-world power pop album. While it's unclear where they'll go from their third album, Chutes stands as the band's pinnacle and is my favorite of their's thus far.

Primer: The Shins Part 1- Oh, Inverted World

Oh, Inverted World only took on significance and popular appeal years after it was released, which is an odd thing to happen to an album. It was highly praised on its release and it sold well, yes, but it was hardly a blockbuster success. No one was thinking of the band in the terms they do now. Anyway, in my recollection the trajectory and heart of this decade didn't really start to develop until 2003 or 2004, with the rise of websites like Pitchfork and the blog culture. It was another indie rock revolution as had happened in both the 80s and 90s with fanzines and the like, but this one moved faster and reached more people. The Shins were one of the first beneficiaries of this--particularly after the epochal Garden State film (love it or hate it, it's incredibly important to this decade and the youth coming of age during it). It was as if everyone went out and bought Oh, Inverted World 3 years after its release and subsequently decided that good music was worth seeking out since it was easier than ever to find (via the aforementioned websites and blogs) and to sample before buying (via piracy/torrents or things like MySpace and YouTube). When Wincing The Night Away, the first post-Garden State album by the Shins, was released in 2007 it went to number 2 on the Billboard charts and was, more significantly, the highest charting album that their record label, Sub Pop, ever had. Speaking of which...while this decade has seen the further strengthening of well established indie stalwarts like Matador, Merge, Thrill Jockey, and Touch N Go, it was also the decade when Sub Pop re-invented itself from "that grunge rock label" to "that indie rock label." The Shins were one of the first big indie rock acts that Sub Pop collected, including Iron & Wine, Fleet Foxes, Wolf Parade, and The Postal Service.

That's a lot of heady stuff swirling around this rather unassuming band and even more unassuming album. And even if most people only bought it because it was "the band who had that song from the one scene in Garden State" it doesn't change the fact that Oh, Inverted World is both one of the most fully formed, distinctive debuts of the decade and one of the best indie pop albums ever released. True, The Shins borrow from the pop/rock/psychedelia of the 60s. True, they sounded enough like indie pop torch bearers Belle & Sebastian to make comparisons between the two inevitable. But, at least on this album, The Shins are weirder and more psychedelic than Belle & Sebastian ever got. Revisiting Oh, Inverted World, I'm struck by how, on one hand, it's as catchy and near-perfect as I remember, but on the other hand, how strange it can be.

I'm not just talking about 'Your Algebra', either. The lyrics are memorably surreal at certain points. Behind all that addictive indie pop are some odd visuals and observations. 'New Slang', "that song from the one scene in Garden State", presents us with the following couplet that I think would disturb anyone who bothered to pay attention:

God speed all the bakers at dawn
May they cut all their thumbs
And bleed into their buns
'till they melt away

As the band are from New Mexico, I'd like to point out that the Southwest has a rich tradition of weird bands, like The 13th Floor Elevators and Butthole Surfers. However, their sound and lyrics remind me more of the Northwest during the turn of the Millennium. In the era after grunge died off, the Northwest became a hotbed of indie rock. Inventive, fascinating bands and musicians who drew from obvious influences but made music all of their own came into being: Built To Spill, Modest Mouse, Elliott Smith, Sleater-Kinney, The Microphones, and so on. Modest Mouse were another pre-super fame in the 2001 era when Oh, Inverted World was release. Modest Mouse used to be an indie rock band who wrote a lot of strange, fascinating music, and as they are thanked in the liner notes of Oh, Inverted World, they were probably one inspiration for the Shins. After all, Isaac Brock was not a man adverse to writing some surreal-but-poignant couplets.

Still, I'd be selling the album under false pretenses if I didn't praise the music. The Shins's second album Chutes Too Narrow is a much more straightforward and rocking release in comparison, but this one is perfect, catchy pop/rock. The electric guitars on it are more jangle than rock, more reverb than distortion. There are both more keyboards and more acoustic guitars than you probably remember as well; the bass playing is normally melodic in the Paul McCartney-style. All told, this is an album without much bottom end. But indie pop never does have that, unless you're Beat Happening. And even then it's only because Calvin Johnson likes his baritone vocals just fine. But I digress. Oh, Inverted World also has the most psychedelic touches of any Shins release though they're subtle and to-the-point. For what it's worth, however, when I saw the band live in '04 they played an extended psychedelic jam intro to 'Pressed In A Book' that came out of seemingly nowhere and set my heart a-twitter. Wincing The Night Away has some arty elements to it and it's nowhere near as immediate as their first two albums, but even it isn't as psychedelic as their first one gets. Songs like 'Your Algebra' and 'Pressed In A Book' represent an interesting direction the band could revisit someday.

We can look back now and say with certainty that the first Shins album will stand alongside whatever other albums you might wish to throw against the wall that we will build one day to define this decade. From the present, we can also say with certainty where the band would go from Oh, Inverted World. But if one examines it in a vacuum, pretends one was back in 2001 and feigns ignorance of the other two albums, the Shins's debut stands up as a truly exciting first release from a band who have an impressively complete sound and aesthetic. Oh, Inverted World does what most great debuts do: it suggests that while this is great, the best is yet to come. It presents a band with distinctive music of variety and consistency, but suggests a few pathes they might follow from here. Downright essential indie pop listening.

Album of the Week: Vampire Weekend- Vampire Weekend

A few times each year, a band seems to come out of nowhere and rise to huge critical and popular standing within the space of a few weeks. Vampire Weekend are one such band, who, over the first few months of 2008, went from a blip on the radar to appearing on SNL and having their videos featured on MTV.

A lot of what you'll read about the music on their self titled album has to do with afro-pop and how the band are upper crust, Ivy League college grads. However, this misses the real thrust of their music, because whatever genre it might belong to or be influenced by, Vampire Weekend is addictive indie pop. Significantly, Vampire Weekend toured with the Shins in 2007, perhaps the Father of all "indie pop darlings who come out of nowhere to be really popular."

While the singles 'Mansard Roof' and 'A-Punk' are the obvious treats, the album is 35ish minutes of brilliant, catchy indie pop. 'M79' has a Harpsichord-laden intro and strings that tip the band's hat to Classical music, as well as a charming bridge around the 2:45 mark that rhymes callous with madras. 'One (Blake's Got A New Face)' has plinky 80s keyboards and the album's most surprisingly hook filled chorus, though the singer's voice seems to crack on the high pitched "Blake's" part each time. Maybe that's part of the fun. Finally, album closer 'The Kids Don't Stand A Chance' offers the strongest connection to more standard American indie pop, an almost proto-typical finale that slows the pace, pours on the harpsichord and strings for one last hurrah, and leaves one with the same satisfying ending as on 'The Past and Pending' from Oh, Inverted World by the Shins.

I suspect this album will only become more popular and beloved as the year goes on, particularly once we get into Spring and Summer. It's not often that an album so addictive and instantly accessible comes along, but Vampire Weekend have proven themselves worthy of all the praise and success they've achieved with this one.

Look-A-Likes

Where I work, I get to see a healthy cross section of the population. And one thing people always do in these sorts of situations is they make up names for especially unique or awful customers. However, in my own head, I am always doing a mental check to see if each person looks like someone famous. For instance, there was a guy who used to come in who looked like the spitting image of the guy who played Ash in Alien aka Ian Holm. I've tried to figure out who I resemble, but nobody can seem to figure me out.

Flash back a few years, and my then-girlfriend and I had gotten out of a Shins show near Dayton. She remarked that James Mercer, frontman of sorts for the band, looks like Kevin Spacey. As we walked back to her car, we overheard another couple talking about the show, and when we brought up the look-a-like, they said that they were just discussing the same thing.

Kevin Spacey

James Mercer

So, over the years, I began to also mentally compare various musicians and other famous people, and here's the best ones.

David Byrne (Talking Heads/Solo)

Bill Nye (Science Guy/Bowtie Aficionado)



Tom Waits (One of my personal heroes)
Ron Perlman (Hellboy, narrator from Fallout, Beast from the Beauty and the Beast TV series, all around bad ass and most obvious choice to play Tom Waits in an inevitable future biopic)



Britt Daniel (Spoon--the band, not the utensil or The Tick battle cry)
Gary Busey (terrifying human being)