Category Archives: under review

JDH

Arms Legs Feet (Beatismurder)

Review By Miné Salkin

JDH - Arms Legs Feet

JDH - Arms Legs Feet

Mixed at Buena Vista Audio in Langley, BC, an unlikely locale to spawn such a promising work of indie-tronica, JDH’s debut album is downright excellent. With his delicate voice and superb computer-music skills, this album should be categorized in the same vein as heavies the Postal Service, Frou Frou and Vampire Weekend. Taking four years to record, Arms Legs Feet is a paragon of technical execution, meticulous editing and soulful lyricism.

While the album is a collage of covers ranging from Sufjan Stevens to Fugazi, it’s not a creative cop out in the least. “Quiet Noise,” a stripped-down, almost vintage-sounding track, is hypnotic, and chronicles the musician’s plight since he started the project. During the time it took to make Arms Legs Feet, JDH survived cancer, had a baby and broke both wrists after a 12-foot fall. With the soft crooning and slightly honeyed tragedy in his voice, “Quiet Noise” is a perfect summation of this artist’s life events. Read More »

The Chemical Brothers

Further (Parlophone)

Review By Adam Mannegren

Chemical Brothers - Further

Chemical Brothers - Further

The Chemical Brothers are truly veterans of the electronic music scene. With almost 20 years behind them, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons have transformed both their own sound and the entire dance music landscape. Their seventh studio album Further does not stay close to the big beat sound that made them huge, but instead takes listeners into the psychedelic realm that the Brothers are fond of. The album showcases some electro, a bit of an indie rock vibe, and a whole lot of distorted synthesizers, though hardly any guest appearances. What is especially refreshing about Further is that it really feels like an album instead of just a collection of singles. Tracks blend and weave together for a solid 52 minutes. They’ve used the whole album length as a canvas, which allows for impressive creative control. The first track “Snow” climbs to almost epic heights, in effect a huge intro before the kick-snare combo starts in in “Escape Velocity,” one of the album’s singles. Look out for “Horse Power”, which is a dark Detroit techno romp, with sampled horse neighing. Yup. Rich layers of distorted, classic synthesizer sound fill the album in a bubbling mass. Overall Further is a good showing from the Chemical Brothers, though not what most people will expect from them. Then again, twenty years in the scene surely gives them some creative license and of that, they took advantage.

Bad Fate

Olympic City (Radical Clatter)

Review By Katherine Boothroyd

Vancouver-based Bad Fate have delivered their debut album, Olympic City. It’s a garage rock, off kilter, crunchy, out of tune, indie madness, guitar mash of an album. And all that is packed into just seven songs!

Bad Fate’s sound is really a throwback to the early ‘90s slacker noise bands. Think Pavement with a dose of Dinosaur Jr. and you are on the right track. Great guitars, low key vocals and and a lot of noise.

“Brain Enthusiast” is the best track on the album by far. It’s a tight little tune that should be immediately added to your playlist this summer. “Mongrel MAN” is another standout with a greater sense of urgency than the other tracks. Veering off the indie road, it is a great pop song — but never fear kids, the distorted guitars are still here.

All in all, Olympic City is a great ode to the city that it was created in.

Bad Fate are hurtling across the country until mid-August, so try and catch them live if you can. Stay tuned folks: it will be interesting to see where Bad Fate go from here.

Stars

The Five Ghosts (Vagrant/Soft Revolution Records)

Review By Nathaniel Bryce

Stars - The Five Ghosts

Stars - The Five Ghosts

Prepare to fall in love upon listening to Stars new album, The Five Ghosts. If you enjoy the music this band has produced in the past nine or so years, then there is a good chance this album will stir up a lot of things in your body. It’s okay, let it happen. Awakenings and shakings of the soul never felt so good. Just as a great classic movie is a force unto itself, Stars are simply that. They make string-heavy music about death and the haunted, love, and the un-loved. They spin dour dramatic dance pop odes to heartbreak and getting revenge-drunk on brandy. They sing beautiful songs to the ghosts that haunt us when we sleep, make love, hate, crumble, pray and fade away. These are personal tales laid bare and spun into a kind of maudlin tragic comedy set to music under the strong guise of death and what comes next. Read More »

Shad

TSOL (Black Box Recordings)

Review By Katherine Boothroyd

Shad - TSOL

Shad - TSOL

Shad is back with album number three, TSOL. Straight of of London, Ontario, Shad is a rapper who can effortlessly balance a social conscience with street cred. His beats are slick and his rhymes never trite, he deserves every ounce of praise he gets. Verbose, witty and at times downright hilarious, it really is Shad’s lyrics that set him apart. Read More »

Rae Spoon

Love is a Hunter (Saved by Radio)

Review by Slavko Bucifal

Rae Spoon - Love is a Hunter

Rae Spoon - Love is a Hunter

Metaphorical monsters in your closet, late night dance clubs, complexities of transgendered culture and the desire for love on many levels are themes that permeate Rae Spoon’s Love is a Hunter, which is due to be released mid-August. While there are indie pop gems like “We Can’t Be Lovers with These Guns on Each Other,” which will have you singing and dancing in the wee hours, the album’s foundation continues Rae Spoon’s tradition of honest and reflective music. Love is a Hunter furthers this country musician’s experimentation into electro dance music by blending beats and pops of synth sounds with beautiful folk tunes. The album moves from “danceables“ such as “You Can Dance” and “Danger, Danger Danger” (described in the press release as a “glitter-splashed queer anthem”) to stripped-down country folk songs. Read More »

HEALTH

DISCO2 (Lovepump United)

Review By Mark PaulHus

HEALTH - DISCO2

HEALTH - DISCO2

L.A. harbingers of noise HEALTH decided to subject their 2009 release Get Color to the same treatment as their self-titled debut, distributing the tracks amongst their favourite electronic wizards to be remixed and reinterpreted. DISCO2 completely reinvents the already acclaimed Get Color and opens it up to a wider, if not completely different audience. For good measure, HEALTH starts the collection of remixes off with a brand new single produced by Alan Moulder (who is responsible for My Bloody Valentine, NIN and Depeche Mode to name a few). “USA Boys” is a departure from the quartet’s usual noisy compositions. It is a surprisingly calm track with deep beats and ambient vocals, setting the pace for the remixes to follow. CFCF is first up, taking “Before Tigers” and manipulating the three-and-a-half minutes of resonating noise into a gentle five-minute melody. Javelin manages to turn the erratic “In Heat” into a funked-out dance track while the trashy buzz and quick rolling beats of “Nice Girls” are transformed into a pleasant, mid tempo journey with Little Loud at the wheel. Most notable (and full of super-hipster prestige) is the rematch between HEALTH and Crystal Castles. This time, HEALTH throws “Eat Flesh” into the ring and Crystal Castles chews up the chaotic whirlwind of minimalist noise, spitting out an electronic tsunami born of the same spirit. All in all, 11 tracks are cleverly re-imagined, ultimately offering an interesting and more widely accessible perspective on HEALTH’s original conceptions.

Sleepy Sun

with Sun Wizard, July 3 @ Biltmore Cabaret

Review By Olivia Meek and Frieda-raye Green

Sun Wizard, a local long-haired foursome opened up the night with some charming harmonies and poppy guitar licks that made you want to get your braided pigtails swinging. Sun Wizard caught the ear of the crowd early on in the night, setting the mood for conscious listening.

Then the six members of Sleepy Sun took the stage. Sleepy Sun: an ideal name for the blissed out, sun-dazed heavy metal that this San Francisco/Santa Cruz sextet pumped out at the Biltmore on a cusp-of-summer night in early July. Read More »

Royal Canoe

with Forest City Lovers & Yoncalia Drain, July 13

Review By Andrea Bennett

I’m assuming Yoncalia Drain opened the show, because they were on the bill—though the female vocalist kept referring to them as “the opening band,” so maybe it’s a working title.
Either way, the two-piece, featuring Lyn Heinemann (vocals/guitar) and Gregg Steffensen (drums) fit in perfectly in the low-light, velvet-red room. Heinemann’s lovely, sandy voice was the highlight of their set.

Next up was Forest City Lovers, a band composed partially of members from my hometown of Guelph, Ontario. Kat Burns, Mika Posen (also of Kite Hill), Kyle Donnelly (also of the D’Urbervilles) and Christian Ingelevics were joined by new member Claire Whitehead (of the multimedia Guelph-based project Polydactyl Hearts) on the cross-country tour that they’re documenting for Exclaim! (find it here). Their set was varied and melodic, mixing songs from their recent release Carriage (“If I Were A Tree,” “Constellation”) with older fare I was nostalgic for, like “Country Road.” Burns is one of my favourite contemporary Canadian songwriters, thanks in part to her knack for well-crafted lyrics that are intimate and tender without dipping toes into any earnest Canadian lakes.

Just when I thought the Lovers had sung me the perfect lullaby, Royal Canoe (Matt Peters, Joey Penner, Bucky Driedger, Matt Schellenberg, Jeff Bruce) hit the stage. Oh my holy synthesizers, coupled with falsettos reminiscent of Beck from his Midnight Vultures days – I was awake immediately. And really, really drawn in to their dancy, hopping songs. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know exactly what’s going on with the message of the song “Me Loving Your Money”—it’s tongue-in-cheek, right? The five bouncy, bandana-wearing Royal Canoeists are tongue-in-cheek, right? I think so. Let’s just say they are and keep dancing, yeah?

Telepathic Butterflies

Wow & Flutter (Killbeat Music)

Review By Nathaniel Bryce

Telepathic Butterflies - Wow & Flutter

Telepathic Butterflies - Wow & Flutter

Telepathic Butterflies – Circle Man

Telepathic Butterflies – Elegy

Celebrating the release of their fourth album, Wow & Flutter, the Telepathic Butterflies offer more than an ode to ’60s and ’70s power pop. Their music is a nice mix of psychedelic rock with influences steeped in American new wave and early Brit-pop, producing a sound that is retro yet modern, detailed but loose. This is a formula that has worked nicely for Sloan and By Divine Right and it works nicely here too. Wow & Flutter is chock-full of tasty bits like “Circle Man,” sounding a bit like a hippie’s version of Foo Fighters with an attention grabber if ever there was one. “Elegy” has shades of Teenage Fanclub within its dated walls and “Aloha” is a fun piano driven rocker that is so Bowie it hurts. While it is easy to rehash sounds from the old school it’s not nearly as easy to do so as convincingly, but the Telepathic Butterflies have. Well crafted enough to make even the most staunch music critic sway and pine for days of groove, Wow & Flutter is dressed in quality garments hand sewn with recycled cloth, personally embroidered by the band themselves.

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