Weekly Whiskey Episode 33

A whole lot of 2007 talkin' this week, folks and folkesses.

The War On Drugs- Slave Ambient

The War On Drugs, at least on Slave Ambient, are a hard band to describe. Certainly their ironic, post-modern name belies something about their music, but the actual constituent parts don't make sense when described. The singer has a 80s Tom Petty/Bob Dylan thing going on, and many of the songs take on a majestic/anthemic feel which some describe as being like Bruce Springsteen though Arcade Fire is probably a more apt (or at least more modern) comparison. However, this is all filtered through a shimmering, noodle-y, and guitar heavy sound. It's not so much ambient as spacey and not so much stoned as joyful.

Slave Ambient would already be an unqualified success simply because it features one of the most distinctive sounding bands in recent memory pulling off their songs with confidence far beyond their years. That it is also one of the year's best albums further cements the sense that The War On Drugs have achieved something truly great here. This is a record with a sense of expanse and emotional resonance, but in a way opposite to similarly expansive/emotional albums like Modest Mouse's The Moon & Antarctica or The Arcade Fire's The Suburbs. Where those records are exhausting and draining, akin to a therapy session or intense drug experience, Slave Ambient is like a couple hours spent in a coffee shop catching up with an ex-girlfriend and putting the past to rest. You leave this album feeling rejuvenated, and that is something worth celebrating.

It's worth emphasizing, too, that this is indeed an album and not a ramshackle collection of songs. The instrumental interludes, sometimes separated onto distinct tracks like 'The Animator' and 'City Reprise #12', give the album a flow and sprawl that make it feel performed instead of recorded. To be sure, individual songs work well on their own, too. 'Baby Missiles' genuinely sounds like 'Walk Of Life' by the Dire Straits sped up a bit and filtered through some chemicals, while six minute album centerpiece 'Your Love Is Calling My Name' is like a sampler platter of everything this band does and does well.

Still, to paraphrase the old saying, it's the journey that matters and not the stops along the way. Slave Ambient is most impressive when taken in all at once because it manages to sprawl and yet to be consistent; it manages to be spacey and weird yet anthemic and immediate. This is an album's album: Slave Ambient is one of the most complete and satisfying releases of 2011. Like many of the best albums of this year, it's the sound of a band coming into their own, delivering their first great record.

Emphasis on the “first.”

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Woods- Sun and Shade

As by far the most jam oriented and Grateful Dead influenced of their peers, Woods are also notable for being something like leaders of the current retro influenced psychedelic/garage rock/freak folk scene of bands like Real Estate, White Fence, The Black Angels, Thee Oh Sees, Crystal Stilts, and others. Between their singer's high pitched, nasally voice and a penchant for leaving in the weird stuff and loose improvisations on their studio albums, Woods have always struggled with the same problem the Dead used to: how to craft excellent studio records but leave in all the interesting bits and long song lengths from their inspired live shows.

The band's last record, At Echo House, saw Woods deliver a short, focused collection of memorable tunes. It's the band's most accessible and immediately enjoyable yet. Ironically, this also means it's the least interesting. There's a homemade, scattershot brilliance to even the band's debut, At Rear House, which works because of those odd left turns and rambling instrumental parts. The band seem to have felt the same way, since Sun and Shade brings this stuff back with two long tracks though the majority is still in the slightly trippy folk/rock style they perfected on At Echo House. This time out on the pop tunes, however, singer/guitarist Jeremy Earl pushes his voice toward further traditional prettiness, with his eerie, melancholic delivery on 'Wouldn't Waste' making it one of the record's most memorable tracks.

While all of this makes Sun and Shade the most complete demonstration of what makes Woods such a great band, it also makes Sun and Shade jumbled and only partially satisfying. It's jumbled because the stark difference between a short pop song like 'What Faces The Sheet' and the seven minute krautrock jam 'Out of the Eye' is never resolved by any tracks which bridge the gap between the two. Hell, it almost feels like someone slipped a couple live tracks onto a studio album to see if anyone would notice. Sun and Shade is only partially satisfying because you don't get quite enough of either side of the band's sound, and what you do get isn't always top-of-their-game material. No pop tune here bests what they've done before, while 'Sol y Sombra' never justifies its nine minute run time, sounding for all the world like an aimless Animal Collective improvisation circa Sung Tongs or Campfire Songs.

Which is also to say, Sun and Shade may be jumbled and it may be only partially satisfying, but it is at least more interesting than At Echo Lake, which is either a good thing or bad thing depending on what you want from this band.

3 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

The Field- Looping State Of Mind

Like many great musicians, The Field is defined by a series of paradoxes that don't need explanation or resolution in order to enjoy his music. While primarily using digital and synthetic sound sources, the music never feels robotic or unnatural. It is technically electronic music made with computers and the like, yet it has a blissed out atmosphere that genuinely owes more to guitar toting dream pop and (the less noisy) shoegazer bands than it does ambient techno or microhouse.

The final paradox is that, if listened to back to back to back, all three of The Field's albums sound very similar yet all have their own sense of flow and movement which makes each unique. From Here We Go Sublime set the standard and established the sound. It was and remains a very special record for me, and is one of the few situations where I deeply love an album but can't bring myself to write about it for fear of defining what the magic is and thus losing it. Anyway, the second album, Yesterday and Today, is more of the same but goes to greater extremes in both rhythm and texture. Looping State Of Mind, meanwhile, partially tips its hat with its title. These are songs which repeat incessantly like loops and certainly help to alter your state of mind, yet they aren't as repetitive as they initially seem and the blissed out/stoned atmosphere is undercut by a more heavily rhythmic and earthy sound than you'll initially notice. The basslines alone on the opening track will testify to that, and make a surprisingly good foil to the dreamy washes of synthesizer which made Sublime so unique. In fact, Looping argues well for turning The Field into a two or three member live unit, with a drummer and bassist to groove along as The Field does his usual magic.

All of that said, Looping State Of Mind isn't the evolutionary next step you might hope for. The Field is still primarily mining the shimmering, minimalist ambient-techno he patented with From Here We Go Sublime. 'It's Up There' could pass for a remix of 'Silent', though I do mean that in the best way possible. Even in those moments where The Field seems to be directly referencing himself, it's always through a gauzy filter or battery of effects and loops to alter the entire dynamic of a track. It helps that even the lengthy daydreams like 'Arpeggiated Love' have heavier beats than From Here We Go Sublime. This keeps your body tethered securely to the Earth even as your mind floats away, a little trick The Field may have picked up from The Orb, who also knew the value of mixing up persistent, deep rhythms with spacey, stoned textures and loops.

The Field already had legendary status based solely on From Here We Go Sublime alone. With Looping State Of Mind, he has inarguably secured this position. Looping doesn't have the sense of newness and special-ness of Sublime and he really needs to try something new with the next one, but sometimes consistency and modest changes are all you really need to have a fruitful career and to produce top tier work.

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Feist- Metals

It's rare to see an artist draw close to commercial success and mass acceptance after years of relative obscurity and proceed to make the best, most chance-taking album of their career. For all intents and purposes, however, that's precisely what Metals represents. After being known as “the chick who sings in Broken Social Scene” and “the chick who did that 1-2-3-4 song”, Feist has at last arrived, at least in my book, with this new record.

This isn't to say that The Reminder wasn't a work of finesse and ambition, or that reviews for Metals have been overwhelmingly positive. Indeed, The Reminder was one of those indie albums that became massively popular yet backed up its accessible songwriting with genuine artistry. Metals, by contrast, has had no big single to sell it to the public and it sits at a respectable but not overwhelming 80 on Metacritic. All of that said, I think this album's cache will only improve with time. It feels carefully constructed and meticulously arranged such that there's no “ah ha!” song or moment. Love, if it comes at all, comes gradually.

The best way I can think to explain my reaction to this album is to say that Metals is a record which initially promises the moon and eventually delivers it though it still doesn't completely satisfy. Every time I listen to it now, I can think of no obvious flaws or problems. I can, as objectively as is possible in this situation, say that Metals is the best album Feist could have made. So why haven't I completely fallen for it?

Feist, especially on Metals, reminds me of a less distant Tori Amos or a less depressed Cat Power, though the best basis for comparison is PJ Harvey's Is This Desire?, a similarly expansive and experimental record. It's the kind of album where the artist considers it their most personal work and greatest achievement yet it usually ranks low on critic and fan lists. Metals may or may not suffer a similar fate as Is This Desire?, becoming the oblique black sheep of Feist's discography, but I do know I share a similar attitude to both records insofar as I enjoy them but they never became...essential to me. Essential for the artists to make, certainly, but not vital works that I return to again and again as the years go by. Whether or not the artists would agree, to me albums like Is This Desire? and Metals feel insular and complete onto themselves. A listener is not needed, to put it another way.

While Is This Desire? went for non-traditional song structures and electronic flourishes, Metals goes for more of an ambitious orchestral/baroque singer/songwriter sound. There may be some simple delights, such as the understated 'Bittersweet Melodies' and 'Cicadas & Gulls', which is so stripped down compared to the rest of the record it seems like a demo. Yet the main story of Metals is that of reach and ambition. Layered vocal arrangements are everywhere, with 'The Circle Married The Line' sounding downright choral, and the general atmosphere of this album makes me imagine it was recorded in an abandoned cathedral in remotest England on a rare sunny day.

Metals may not end up being her greatest critical or commercial success, but it is undeniably the record where she announces, even if she may have a hit single here or there, she is still an artist first and foremost. Feist has now joined the rank of similar left-of-commercial singer/songwriter types from the past. Metals is not her version of, say, Rain Dogs or Murder Ballads, but it does demonstrate that she is still growing and evolving.

4 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Weekly Whiskey Episode 32

As usual, this is going up later than I planned but...hey, it's nearly Thanksgiving, gimme a break here. After a couple food comas from the meal itself and leftovers for days, you'll forgive me.

Wild Flag- Wild Flag

Oddly enough, I sat down to begin writing this review while (unknowingly) wearing a Sleater-Kinney t-shirt, and I suppose that's all the context you need to understand my anticipation for this album. The Woods left me thinking Sleater-Kinney were heading in a new direction until the announcement of their indefinite hiatus. Nothing short of a true reunion will sate me, so it's best to take this review with all of that in mind.

Wild Flag, while not a full blown reunion, features two ex-members of Sleater-Kinney and thus is as close as you can get without bringing Corin Tucker in. Moreover, the self titled debut from Wild Flag sounds so similar, it might as well be a Sleater-Kinney record in disguise. It's a hell of a lot more like that band than Corin Tucker's solo record, to boot.

Indeed, even if there were no members of Sleater-Kinney in Wild Flag, they are still the most obvious point of comparison, so let's see if we can nail down the exact records Wild Flag sounds like. Well, to be fair, the addition of organ on some tracks gives Wild Flag a novel, yet not outright fresh, sound. Wild Flag really need to make more use of it if they want to distance themselves from the past. Most of these tracks could be taken straight from sessions for either The Woods ( 'Black Tiles' and, in particular, 'Racehorse', with its heavy hitting low end, fuzzy production, and six minute plus runtime) or The Hot Rock (the tense, introspective, dark, and philosophical songs like 'Something Came Over Me' and 'Electric Band' nod to it most of all). This isn't a bad thing, since those are my two favorite Sleater-Kinney albums...

...but it also leaves me wondering why I'm not listening to those albums instead, which is a bad thing. Despite the strength of these songs and the more straightforward, immediate indie rock Wild Flag employs, I can never shake the feeling that it's more appropriate to label Wild Flag a Sleater-Kinney side project than a supergroup or band in its own right. Make no mistake, if the organ solo on 'Future Crimes' were played on a guitar instead, and Corin Tucker was around to provide backing vocals, it would be a Sleater-Kinney song. I don't mean “would sound like one”, I mean literally would be a Sleater-Kinney song. Wild Flag is a side project or different band in the same way Madvillain is a side project or different band for MF DOOM, which is to say, they barely sound different despite having some different people involved.

When Wild Flag are cooking on all cylinders, such as during the jam in the middle of the aforementioned 'Racehorse', there's a weird, new-ish thrill to the band. But I said “new-ish” and not “new” for a reason. To put it another way, Wild Flag is more like a drug you use to help with withdrawal symptoms and not an outright cure for addiction to Sleater-Kinney. If there were a different overall aesthetic or even more organ dueling with the guitar, it would make all the difference. But I digress. The notion “it's almost as good as a proper new Sleater-Kinney album” is all I think you need to know about Wild Flag to determine whether or not it's for you.

4 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5