The Rest: Everyone All At Once

First off, let me get this out of the way: Ontario, Canada’s The Rest and their latest full-length, Everyone All At Once, are not the second coming to The Arcade Fire’s Funeral and frankly, it’s a bit of disservice to call it that based on what The Rest have accomplished with this album. While both bands share a certain desperation found in their music as well as a penchant for being Canadians in a multi-member (i.e., more than four people) group, the similarities kind of end there. You will not find any immediate choruses backed by frantic hooks that urge you to sing and dance in any situation of your choosing, no, but rather a wide array of subtle influences that require absolute attention upon listening.

Financed from making their own beer which in turn was sold at their own self-promoted shows, Everyone All At Once was written and recorded over a period of two-years in various locales of isolation which probably explains the atmosphere the album permeates. While it garnered a North American release last spring on Auteur Recordings, I’m glad I’m hearing this for the first time as we prepare to move into autumn’s twilight.

Like leaves on a tree during this time of the year, Everyone All At Once is a colorful palette of sounds that nod slightly to 60s folk as well as the grandiose pop of Ocean Rain-era Echo & the Bunneymen and the tranquil soundscapes of Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden. You also get hints from the multitude of singles produced by Sarah Records’ artists (i.e., The Harvest Ministers “You Do My World the World of Good”) and dreampop acts that followed while simultaneously treading a path used by more current contemporaries such as Grizzly Bear and Sigur Ros. The gorgeous harmonies flow and crash like waves against a rocky shore situated between sincere bouts of contemplation and sighs over lost loves and missed opportunities.

No doubt these ramblings come off as pretentious but that is usually what comes when describing a great album that sounds immediately familiar yet painfully difficult to articulate with just comparisons. Everyone All At Once will not be for the masses, but rather a small group of devoted fans looking for something that hinges a bit more on introspection. This is a special record that’ll probably reveal something new with each and every listen for years after you first hear it.

The Rest – “Walk On Water (Auspicious Beginnings)” (mp3)

(from the Auteur Recordings download, Everyone All At Once, 2009)

The band are gearing up for a trip to the UK where they've just been signed to Someting In Construction Records who have kindly provided us with a copy of the W.O.W. EP (which can be had HERE) in anticipation of Everyone All At Once's UK release on October 12th.

Make Me Another Boilermaker

Not much can be said by yours-truly in regards to the legacy that The Jesus Lizard left behind that hasn’t already been stated by others not only more eloquently but probably a whole lot better as well. That being said, I did want to add a few words in the form of nostalgia as yesterday finally saw the release of the band’s entire Touch & Go catalog from the early 90s with each album, Pure (1989), Head (1990), Goat (1991), Liar (1992) and Down (1994), getting the remaster treatment as well as an upscale makeover by way of linear notes, recollections, photos, etc.

I got to The Jesus Lizard just a bit too late as the twilight of their career was beginning with the release of their major label debut, Shot (1996); the first step in the band’s ill-fated relationship with Capitol Records. However, I’d previously heard that it was the time associated with Touch & Go Records of which the band were most notoriously known, both musically and as a live act. As part of a stockpile of cassette tapes bought during the summer of 1997 previously related here, both Goat and Down became big staples of my collection only because they, like the rest of the band’s Touch & Go material, continue to reveal new aspects of the music with each and every listen all these years later.

This was a terrific band who, despite incorporating the seeds planted decades earlier by the likes of The Sonics, Led Zeppelin and the Stooges into their style, developed a unique sound that can only be described as their own. They almost seem to have been one of those groups where not only did you know that you were hearing something really special but that you’d probably never hear another group like them ever again. The musicianship on these records is both top-notch and devastatingly original while David Yow still remains one of the pinnacles of all-time greatest front-men ever.

Picking a track is next to impossible, especially since these remastered versions sound so delicious to one’s ears but this one has always been a favorite. I kid you not: any rock fan should do themselves a favor and add these albums to their collection, especially Goat, Liar and Down. These are records that I’ll always adore.

The Jesus Lizard – “Monkey Trick” (mp3)

(from the Touch & Go LP, Goat, 2009 reissue)

Happy Hollows: Spells

This one showed up in my inbox last night and ever since I’ve been playing it to death and subsequently becoming a bit smitten with The Happy Hollows’ infectious brand of pop punk meets art-rock. The Los Angeles Times hit it on the head when they described the group’s sound as a “pugilistic mix of stinging guitars, turbulent rhythms, and shouted vocals.” The obvious names of The Breeders and P.J. Harvey are dropped in many of the reviews but I also hear lots of late 70s UK punk in the music a’la The Adverts or The Slits as well as the howls of anguish that made Marcy Mays of Scrawl so engaging. Overall, there’s just something really genuine about this band and what it is they’re striving to achieve.

Incidentally enough, The Happy Hollows debut full-length, Spells, hit both stores and online vendors today with the obligatory East Coast tour to take place this October; no doubt in the hopes of taking advantage of the CMJ New Music Marathon showcase. The song “High Wire” is the single but out of the three tracks sent to me, the album’s opener, “Faces” with its driving buzz-saw guitar riff gets the slight nod followed in close second by “Monster Room.” Stream the full album or select songs here.

The Happy Hollows – “Faces” (mp3)

(from the TuneCore CD, Spells, 2009)

These Girls Fall Like Dominos

This is a ridiculously big sounding album, big in the same way that a whole lot of records from the mid-90s Britpop era sounded; i.e., slightly pretentious, overflowing with confidence and more often than not catchy as hell. Listening to The Big Pink’s debut, A Brief History of Love, I get the impression that my brain is telling me that perhaps I shouldn’t like this as much as my tapping foot does.

Had this one been released before the summer season, A Brief History of Love probably would have raced up my own personal top summer-albums chart. With densely layered guitars and electronics, many of the ingredients were there from the get go for this one to be a grand slam of summer pop music fun. However, with the pending twilight of the autumn season fast approaching, A Brief History of Love’s flaws become a bit more apparent in that The Big Pink scatter themselves and their influences a bit too thin. Just when you’re settling into one particular groove, the record goes and turns 180 degrees in a different direction, giving the listener little time to catch up and reacquaint themselves with their surroundings.

While the band is completely dedicated to their craft, it inevitably can become a bit too much when dealing with a smorgasbord of waaayyy too many ideas. Seriously, it’s all there: the psychedelic leanings associated with acid house from the late 80s (Frisk), the fuzz-laden guitars of the early 90s (Crystal Visions) as well as the call and response anthems that made Britpop so much fun (Dominos) for a short amount of time. And if one doesn’t think of later-era Verve when listening to Love In Vain then there must be something seriously wrong with my memory. I suppose if anything, A Brief History of Love would have been a stellar 7-song EP

That being said, this is in no way derivative towards the overall entertainment factor derived from many of the songs found on the record as there’s plenty to shake your head and dance to. It’s just that A Brief History Of Love isn’t as consistent as many of us hoped it would be after hearing Dominos for the first time.

The Big Pink – “At War With the Sun” (mp3)

(from the eMusic download, A Brief History Of Love, 2009)

Higher Than The Stars

While they’ve already been the curators of one of this years more talked about albums; jumping from 300 + capacity venues to a prime afternoon slot at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival all within the span of 5 months, its nice to see that The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart aren’t coasting on the runaway success of their debut album by giving us some brand new material.

The Higher than the Stars EP consists of four brand new songs that lean not as heavily on the early 90s showgazer influence that was found a’plenty on their debut. Instead, the band broadens the twee, pop sound earlier explored on the song, "A Teenager In Love" from the debut; giving the EP more of balance between the ultra-fuzz sounds of My Bloody Valentine and the chiming guitars and dance beat of St. Etienne, adequately displayed on the song below. A solid EP that gives a perfect taste of the sound the POBPAH strive continuously to achieve.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – “Falling Over” (mp3)

(from the Slumberland 12”, Higher Than The Stars, 2009)

Monogold: We Animals

One of the more buzzed about bands from the latter half of 2007 was Yeasayer, whose reverence to such Brian Eno produced works Remain In Light from the Talking Heads as well as Eno’s own My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts sounds like a win-win to this writer. However, the reality was that, besides the excellent single “2080,” Yeasayer’s debut All Hours Cymbal didn’t leave much of an impression on me. And while I did manage to warm up a little bit to the band after their performance from earlier this summer at the Pitchfork Music Festival, I still felt an overall sense that I was watching Rick Astley front the Talking Heads.

Monogold, like Yeasayer, also hail from Brooklyn, NY which might make a bit of sense as they seem to have taken a cue from Yeasayer’s “2080” and ran with it. Their new EP, We Animals, is one of the more pleasant surprises I’ve received in my inbox from any band for quite some time. With lots of crisp instrumentation that seems to float along while backed by a slight funk sound, the music almost lulls one into a dreamlike trance or sway. More often that not, music such as this can fall into the trap of becoming unfocused but Monogold manage to keep their eye on the finish line until the conclusion of each and every song. And while I wouldn’t normally go for falsetto vocal-stylings, the effect only adds to the atmospheric like state the band conjure; it’s the type of music that appeals to my dreampop sensibilities (i.e., Cocteau Twins) without actually being dreampop. Overall, We Animals is a wonderful EP that actually manages to keep me grasping for what it actually sounds like. RECOMMENDED.

Check out the band’s website here where We Animals will hopefully by available from sometime in September. Look for the band to hopefully perform live sometime this autumn.

Monogold – “Traps/Offerings” (mp3)

(from the self-released EP, We Animals, 2009)

My Merge Day Five: Overview

Back in May, Ms. DB and I took a two-week long vacation over in Italy. This trip was easily the best vacation that I’ve ever been on and for those of you who have never been, I highly recommend trying it on for size. We kept commenting that if we ever won the Lotto big that the first place we’d look into buying real estate was somewhere in Tuscany. Absolutely beautiful.

In any case, because we knew that we’d be traveling around the Tuscan region via automobile for the better part of a week as well as not being sure of what, exactly, the status of Italian radio stations were, I figured it’d be best to load up on various compilation CDs that we could throw into the player and let run while taking in the sights.

One of those compilations was the 2009 Merge Records Sampler which I received this past April in my bag of goodies from Laurie’s Planet of Sound on Record Store Day. The compilation itself is a pretty nice overview of the Merge Records “sound” and it pretty much became the theme CD of our trip; I know that I lost count as to how many times we actually listened to it but it was a lot. So much that I have many different memories to choose from when hearing any particular song from it and probably always will.

I’m a tad embarrassed to admit that Spoon has been a recent discovery of mine. Despite having bought A Series Of Sneaks upon its release in ’98 as well as seeing the band on the Kill The Moonlight tour, I never really took the time to listen and get in to any of the other material until taking a chance several months ago on the Girls Can Tell record. My goodness it’s terrific and it quickly turned me into a Spoon convert. "The Underdog," from 2007's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, shows up on the Merge Sampler, quickly became Ms. DB’s favorite’s to bop along to while coasting through the countryside.

My two favorites from the trip were from some of Merge’s more recent releases: Telekinesis’ "Coast Of California" from their self-titled debut as well as the Broken West’s "Perfect Games" which came out on last year’s Now Or Heaven album. Both of these records showcase a wonderful collection of roll down the car windows type of summer power pop.

And for those of you completely unfamiliar of the type of records Merge has put out over the years, I recommend going out and picking up their 5th, 10th and 15th Anniversary compilations, Rows Of Teeth, Oh, Merge and Old Enough 2 Know Better as well as the three volumes of their Survive & Advance series. All of these will set you back about $35 and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the money.

Spoon – “The Underdog” (mp3)

Telekinesis – “Coast Of California” (mp3)

Broken West – “Perfect Games” (mp3)

(from the Merge Records CD, 2009 Merge Records Sampler, 2009)

My Merge Day Four: I Stare At Maps All Day, A Charade In The Sunset…

One of the few indulgences that my friends and I like to treat ourselves to every once in awhile is the old boy’s road trip to a nearby city/town in the hopes of taking in some live music and drinking silly amounts of beer. It’s one of those male bonding things; the likes of which don’t happen quite as often as they did, say, 10 years ago yet which we do still manage to find time for here and there. One of our favorite, overnight destinations is Kalamazoo, MI where we’ll hit up the Bells Brewery for beer, dinner and perhaps a bit of tomfoolery before heading across the street to the Kraftbrau Brewery for even more beer and whatever act we’ve driven all those miles to see.

Such is what Joel, Brian, Shane and I were up to when we made the trek over to Kalamazoo on a snowy, Friday night in February 2007 to see Camera Obscura wow the hipster Western Michigan and Kalamazoo College crowd. And while Camera Obscura were the main draw, I imagine more than a few people in the audience walked away equally, if not more, impressed with the Essex Green, whose cute boy-girl harmonies and jangly strummed guitar chords probably wipes them off the “cool” map immediately. However, since I’m old enough to not care about such things, I found them simply charming and thought those harmonies were just as good as anything Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra ever did.

Their 2006 album, Cannibal Sea, is smart and catchy indie-pop, the type Merge Records has effortlessly churned out all these years. It still has a regular home on our CD player. I remember the four of us listening to the album over and over on the way back to Chicago the morning after the show; all the while driving through a blinding snowstorm and simultaneously praying that Brian could make out some semblance of a road. Yes, I can remember all of this yet still have trouble with certain people’s birthdays and other notable dates.

Essex Green – “Penny & Jack” (mp3)

(from the Merge CD, Cannibal Sea, 2006)

P.S. Sadly, it’s been brought to my attention that Kraftbrau is no longer situated right across the street from Bell’s, a bummer as the convenience factor in terms of proximity was a plus.

My Merge Day Three: Then I'll Dig A Tunnel From My Window To Yours...

A bit of hand-wringing occurred on whether or not I’d indulge myself with a post centered around the band that gave Merge their highest Billboard placement; it almost seems redundant after the amount of media coverage the Arcade Fire has garnered since the 2004 pandemonium-spreading release of their debut album, Funeral. But again, it’s all about the memories my friends, and this release has a fair amount of them so here goes.

Spring 2004: We start to hear wide-spread rumors and tales about this mystical band called the Arcade Fire who’ll come and save us from musical purgatory. Being both skeptical and having conflicting Friday night obligations, we pass when given an opportunity to see the band perform at Chicago’s Open End Gallery on June 18, 2004, a decision we’ll come to regret.

September 14, 2004: Merge releases the Arcade Fire’s debut album, Funeral, thinking that perhaps it’ll sell maybe 4,000 – 5,000 copies. At the same time, a review of the album appears on Pitchfork’s website containing terms such as “empowering positivity” and “anthemic momentum.” The album receives a 9.7 out of 10.0 and suddenly 40,000 – 50,000 copies are in demand. We luck out by scoring a copy that day from Evil Clown Records (R.I.P.).

Much excitement is had on the way home as we can’t quite get the CD in the player fast enough. With the disappointing thoughts that were the Star Wars prequels still fresh in our minds, we hold off on the subdued excitement we’re feeling as the album plays; aware of the fact that sometimes the mind tries to convince us that things really are a lot better than the crap that our ears are actually hearing. We’re relieved that Funeral does not fall prey to this although we’re still not sure we’d rate it as a near perfect album. We continue to listen.

November 25, 2004: By this point, Funeral has really kicked in and the album is in complete over-rotation in the CD player. We have tickets to go see the band perform at the Logan Square Auditorium. However, as the day of the show is on Thanksgiving, a day where we normally over-indulge with the spirits and such, the tickets go unused. Another decision we’ll regret as it’ll be almost 8 months later on July 24, 2005 before we finally get a chance to see Arcade Fire with about 15,000 of our closest friends. While the Arcade Fire blow us all away into sweet oblivion, a nasty sunburn is had as payment for indulging the temptation of taking my shirt off on a smoldering 100 + degree afternoon in Chicago’s Grant Park.

Shortly after, a show at the Riviera is announced for September 28, 2005. Due to our slacking nature, tickets are missed out on by a mile. We tell ourselves that another show will be announced. Obviously another show is never announced. Shane procures the services of some schmuck on Craigslist who’ll sell us two tickets for $60 apiece. Like two equally big schmucks, we pay the price after my repeated assurances that the show will be worth it. It is…even though I never was able to identify the other schmuck who threw ice cubes at the back of my head.

That being said, the songs from Funeral are taken to another level; in fact, to this day I can’t listen to Funeral without remembering the overwhelming sense of excitement that pulsated through the crowd in anticipation as well as that 1 + year long personal journey I went through with the band. Within that time frame, I fell out of a 2 year relationship, had a summer of nothing but fun before subsequently going out and falling back in love, which I still am to this day so alls well that ends well. Obviously Funeral wasn’t the cause for any of that but it still was great to have that record along for the ride.

Arcade Fire – “Wake Up” (mp3)

(from the Merge Records CD, Funeral, 2004)

P.S. Has anyone seen the trailer for “Where The Wild Things Are” that has this song playing over it? Freaking adorable…