Going Full Tramp On Dirty Fences

I do love me a bit of Marc Bolan glam rock. Mix that with some Ramones deadpan passion and I'm sold. That’s where Full Tramp comes in, the new LP from Brooklyn’s Dirty Fences (out now through Slovenly Records, get it here). I love the way how on a song like ‘Give Me A Kiss’ you can have swagger, melody, rockin’ riffs and sweetness underneath the sleaze. ‘Deep In Your Heart’ is still probably my favourite track here for its unadulterated 70s rock drive, but the quality on show (the sing-a-long of ‘Judy (Don’t Go)’, the American rock spasms of ‘These Freaks’, the punch-drunk ballad ‘Rain’) means that going full tramp is an attractive proposition indeed. This is what JEFF The Brotherhood wished they could be – influences brazenly stitched into their sleeves, but with the guttural grit and ballsy braggadocio to pull it off. Bring on the weekend – not that I’ll remember much of it…

Colleen's Green On The Art Of Growing Up

Precocious garage pop queen Colleen Green has a new record coming out on Hardly Art next month. I thought that her last record, Sock It To Me, was good in parts with some killer songs, but also suffered from some middling fare that never really got into gear, or was happy flowing in the slipstream of those greater tracks. The new album, I Want To Grow Up, alludes to a recognition that things need to change; but listening to 'Pay Attention' this really seems to be a misnomer - thankfully. The line actually is "I can't ever pay attention/To anything you ever say to me" - so we are clear that this isn't a reinvention. Because it's Green's domain to be offhand, throwaway with some good riffs, party vibes and good times. Comparisons have been made to Blink 182 which I think is hilarious and pretty silly - but then who's to say my thoughts on Green as a female counterpoint to JEFF The Brotherhood is any less off-point? At any rate, 'Pay Attention' does exactly that - gets you to pay attention for sub-three minutes, an upbeat tune that makes you shirk the tensions of real life for a few moments before reaching for the replay button. Don't grow up, Colleen.

 Pre-order I Want To Grow Up here.

Fear The White Reaper

Another month, another prolonged absence from the blog. What with tours and new releases on the label I have dropped the ball again. Lucky I have so much good music to come back to.

Ill kick off today with Kentucky dropkicks White Reaper. Their Conspirator/The Cut 7” was one of the standout small form releases of 2013 (check out what we thought here) and they are back in action with a slightly longer release, their eponymous debut EP (out through Polyvinyl). There is a raw gnarl about their garage punk stylings that keeps them fresh and surging through the pack of staid wannabes. Listen to the likes of 'Funn' or 'Half Bad' - this is Jeff The Brotherhood forcefed coke and sweat and run over with cement, with their maniacal grins cracking off their faces.  And the trio aren’t silly, bringing back the killer ‘Conspirator’ for a second helping, an octane caterwaul that raises the stakes on Japandroids' gritted garage rows.

Pre-order White Reaper (on clear pink 12") here. The huge news is that White Reaper is supporting the mighty Young Widows on their Stateside tour - awesome work!!

I Am Ovlov

I love it when you throw an album on with 0% knowledge of what is about to assault you - and it ends up being mindblowing. Massachusetts label Exploding In Sound have an uncanny knack of slinging unknown entities my way that have pulled the rug out from under me - Pile, Fat History Month and Speedy Ortiz have all graced their stable at some stage. I have been listening to Am, the debut LP from the Newtown Connecticut upstarts Ovlov, for a few weeks, but missed the boat on writing about them before the album was released last week.  The band can't help but wallow in the holy waters of Dinosaur Jr ('Grapes', the crushing 'Blue Baby') and Archers of Loaf ('Really Bees'), melding molten distortion with insidious melody - preternatural pop tunes for those with chronic tinnitus. Come for the noise; stay for the lack of pretension, the weary warmth, the all-you-can-eat harmonic buffet. Abject 90s predilections never felt so right as they do here.

Am is a killer gift that keeps on giving. Have at it here. Ovlov have been playing some great shows Stateside recently, not least with SM faves PAWS and Speedy Ortiz, and seeing as Speedy Ortiz seems about to explode (more on that soon), let's hope these guys follow suit.

Ovlov - Milk
Ovlov - Where's My Dini

Hits From The Box #60 - Rewriting History, One Phantasm At A Time

 

I watched Don Coscarelli's 1979 horror Phantasm for the first time today. I can't believe it's taken me so long. Sure, it doesn't make all that much sense, and the acting from the guy who plays Jody is one of the worst I've ever seen, but that kind of Italian-style horror, with a fair bit of humour thrown in, is right up my alley. And all for chips! There are lots of cool moments, created by a guy who loves having fun with his craft. I also watched Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained for the first time. Worlds apart in many respects, but also the similarities (violence and gore, lashings of humour, abject love of the artform) really struck me as I left the cinema. And I have come home to write tonight's Hits From The Box, and whilst I really liked both films, it's that sense of adventure, of creativity, of taking a chance, that has really stuck with me. And I enjoy that when I see that in bands too. And tonight, here are six acts that have impressed me for their craft this week...

    

Plant Parenthood is a band from Knoxville Tennessee that delves into the rougher, lower end of riff-heavy guitar rock that duos like JEFF The Brotherhood and Japandroids revel in. Their latest cassette, Sick Summer Vol. 2, is filled with that laconic, flailing, silly rock that makes you want to scull a beer, throw the dregs up in the air, let it hit you like fat drops of rain and not even notice how sticky that shit is, that's how blissfully happy and young (feeling) you are. Then there is 'Transit Town', another track they have put out - and it shits all over what is on this cassette. That warbling racket over the phone-recorded guitar strum - the drawled/shouted vocals - the innate warmth and potential singalong lyrics - it's rife with teenage touchstones. That said, no one around here is still in adolescence, so to tap into those notions without being manipulative or - well, shit - is a rare achievement. I like this, and hope they continue to rise. Get the cassette here, and listen (incessantly) to 'Transit Town' below.

   

 

I received an email about NY duo Trabajo waaaaaay back (like in July last year), yet I let it slip through my fingers - until I stumbled across their self-titled EP last week. Accidents happen, and like the four tracks on offer, they can reap unexpected rewards. Heavy on the experimental sampling and electronics, with vocals that straddle New Age stargazing and noise nonsense, the artificial Eastern beats inherent in tracks like 'Monk' are hypnotic and with a heady pinch of fun added. These tracks are made for headphones too - not like ANYTHING is made for laptop speakers, but Trabajo really grabbed me when I could differentiate all the different elements at play. NB - as I was researching the band I discovered they had released a new EP this month called Gamelan To The Love God - and it's infinitely better. This duo are doing some really creative, immersive and fun experiments with their format - I really wish they were a Brisbane band actually, that's how much I want to see them play this stuff live...

 

Let's head to Fort Wayne, Indiana now, where sonic travellers Heaven's Gateway Drugs call their spiritual plateau. They have released a pretty decent cassette in CPF, five tracks of mostly short slices of scorched, melodic psych meanderings, hovering between 60s bohemia and 70s blacktop swagger. So far, so Black Angels then (especially on something like 'Psychic Firearm'). Well, there's nothing wrong with that in my opinion - especially if it's done well. The selling point? The rabble chorus that hovers in the background of some of the tracks, most notably on 'Highway Hypnosis'. And that their press release claims there are six members of the band - the five musicians, "and you". I'm with you on this one fair wayfarers.

 

 

Now you think July last year was a long time coming? Try May, which is when NZ band Teen Fortress sent me their record Tepid Vapid Callow. The home project of Zach Doney (he of Bang Bang Eche infamy), the Christchurch native has a cross-pollination of emotive Bright Eyes vocals (well, sounds a bit like Conor Oberst) with the grittier, industrial town of angry, angular pop that the UK have always pumped out at regular intervals, all swimming in a petri dish of malaise, anguish, and awkward emotion that teeters on a knife's edge between hilarity and morbidity. I'm a massive fan of the music that is bubbling and boiling on the Island of the Long White Cloud - this is just another example (although Doney is moving to Melbourne soon - so like everything else from NZ that "makes it", Aussies can claim him soon too). Grab the record here.

Teen Fortress - Ace Harlow 

Teen Fortress - Say

 

Brooklyn duo Steel Phantoms actually got in contact with me a while ago too about their Forer EP, but I only officially cottoned on with their current release Curtain Call/Friend To Friend. I can't tell you why - maybe its that guitar sound, and Aaron Harris (of Islands' fame) nasally vocals - but I can't get early Walkmen out of my head when I hear 'Curtain Call', albeit with more urgency when the crunching chorus comes to a head. There are a few tempo changes here, but it all develops into a soaring track that easily beats everything on what stands on their previous release (which is a little slower and "mature" - not a bad thing, but the paring down to a two-piece seems to have made the world of difference). If you want to find out yourself, head over here to get Forer AND the single, make your own assumptions. I'm sure we'll end up on the same page. 

Steel Phantoms - Curtain Call

 

Let's end with (a) Wedding Favor then, shall we? Wedding Favor is Philly artist Robert Perkins, who was planning to have his eleven-track LP Solitaries/Tanglements out by the end of January on Magic Death Records. I'm not sure if this has actually happened or not - I haven't been able to get back to him, nor have I found in available at the label - but if these two tracks are anything to go by, this is quintessential bedroom meanderings that echo the warbled scratchings of early Beach Fossils, but with a heavier focus on country and clear reverbed vocals (almost unheard of in this day and age, amirite?) These two tracks are cold but without being distant; the sonorous guitar echoing like a steel guitar on the side of a deserted highway on dusk, played by a youthful King Dude with Dean Wareham in support. These two tracks alone have me actually very excited to hear the entire album. And when I do, you will be the first to know. Until then - get the Wedding Favor itch... 

Wedding Favor - It'll Be Much Time 

Wedding Favor - What Have You 

Happy Sunday...boooooooooooooy!

Trying Spook Houses

I showed a lot of love for 'American', the first track to come off New Jersey band Spook Houses' new LP called Trying. Well the album is out to the public now, and it is so good, something akin to Jeff The Brotherhood trying to reimagine Modest Mouse's The Lonesome Crowded West, but they are wasted, making way too many mistakes but really don't care either way. It is an incredible slacker record amidst a morass of slacker albums, and deserves to have a golden effigy made to it. Fuck the Rivers Cuomo renaissance, get behind kids who actually know what it feels like to be disenfranchised and not really care.

You can grab Trying here - please do, you deserve it.

Spook Houses - American
Spook Houses - Witching Hour

VIDEO VACUUM - Lower Dens, JEFF The Brotherhood, OFF!, Slug Guts

It's been a while since we had some visual spirituals, but now I have a plethora of tracks that blow the casbah sky high, so let's give work the forks and watch them together like old times, yeah?

First up is another recording from those amazing cats over at They Shoot Music, Don't They? This time the aural offender is Lower Dens, chilling out in Barcelona after some down time from the Primavera Sound Festival back in May, playing some semi-acoustic toons in a square...with a friend in support(I TOLD you there was a Deerhunter connection today!) The two tracks here are 'Candy' and 'Nova Anthem', and it is, as is to be expected, pretty darn amazing.





It's great to hear that garage-trippers Jeff the Brotherhood are winging their way down to Australia in January (even if it is for the Big Day Out - sigh...), and they will be raring to rip into their new material off Hypnotic Nights. I heard someone at Splendour In The Grass on the weekend say that the album sounded like Weezer "or something like that where I'd enjoy it as a teenager but not give a shit when I grew up." Hmmm... Not sure what kind of a comment that is. Anyway, 'Sixpack' is slick and a lot of raucous fun. And yes, this track sounds a LOT like Weezer - even more than usual.



OFF! kicked off a triptych of video clips with the board spinning meltdown of 'Cracked', and now here are the final two-thirds of this "opus". Both starring Dave Foley (Kids In The Hall), the songs are 'Borrow & Bomb' and 'I Got News For You', and the clips encapsulate dodgy community television so well that I cannot believe that Teen Talk isn't the real deal (the look on Foley's face at 2:00 is priceless).



Finally we have the claustrophobic band clip for 'Scum', Brissie degenerates Slug Guts' single from their new Sacred Bones-endorsed LP, Playin' In Time With The Deadbeat. It's a typically Slug Guts song really, which means it is pretty damn fine. They may not reach the heights of the Aussie reprobates that they idolise, namely Venom P Stinger and Feedtime, but they give it a red hot shake, their feverish dirge never sounding more genuine.



NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Jeff Is The Champion

Nashville irreverent psych pop rockers JEFF The Brotherhood have been mining the the predictability of their innate unpredictability for some eight or so years now, and its very likely that most of you haven't amply sampled their wares. Well, this year's We Are The Champions is probably the best chance you will get to understand what this duo - brothers Jamin and Jake Orrall - are all about. And what they are all about is creating imminently catchy psych punk soundbytes with errant speed and mania that invoke the gamut of bands of their ilk, from Ratcat to the Ramones, and then infuse it all with more than a dollop of pop writing acumen. The good Weezer references have been rife, and admittedly fair enough, yet I can't get over how addictive this whole shebang is. The duo are clearly all about the rock out - check out 'Bummer' or 'Shredder' for instance - but then get a load of 'Diamond Way' and you will be happy that if you like your rock, and you like your smart pop, here's a way you can have your cake and eat it too (which is a fucked reference by the way. Why else would you have the cake? Unless you are obliged to give it to a bake sale, or you have inserted a file in it with the sole purpose of breaking your lover out of the pen. In which case, make extra fool!)


We Are The Champions is available on the brothers' own label, Infinity Cat - also home to ace bands Natural Child and HAM1. June also sees them doing some dates Stateside with Fucked Up, and one with iceage - awwwwww yeah!

JEFF The Brotherhood - Shredder
JEFF The Brotherhood - Diamond Way