Time To Move To The Beach House

Wow...has Beach House come a long way from their humble beginnings. This is a band so enraptured, so lost in the haze, so dreamy they may never wake up or find their way out of their apparent catatonic state. Their new album seems to be appropriately titled Bloom in the sense that not only is it beautiful but an blossoming of sound from a band constantly growing. Bloom is the state of dream pop today and it's in a good spot as Beach House proves throughout this record.

With soaring vocals, chiming and crystalline guitars, slowly moving drums and a sense that the sun is perpetually in a state of rising; Bloom is the sound of getting up every morning in a Groundhog Day kind of way. This is ethereal, heavenly, unearthly stuff and might just very well be the sound of angels singing and playing together in heaven. It's stunningly gorgeous stuff that will leave you in awe. While not like dream pop of old, Bloom is a progression of the genre and Beach House see fit to sleepwalk the sound and style forward. This is all very otherworldly and yet despite it's hazy feel the songs still have hooks within them and have bits and bobs that your ears won't soon forget. The guitars tend to chart the songs course and then everything follows them but does so in fine fashion. There's nothing difficult or even bad about this album.

Bloom is so good that somewhere right now the Cocteau Twins are going, "These kids get it." Beach House is fantastic at what they do and they've bloomed into something mightily awesome. If you're into the whole gazing/dreampop revival thing this has got to be one of the best records of the year. Its shimmery songs, gauzy guitar work, and feeling of the angels surrounding you while you listen can't be beat. Beach House is one place you'll want to settle down in and never leave.

King of Prussia Uleashes Transmissions

The King of Prussia is holding court with their new album Transmissions From The Grand Strand and by royal decree you must attend. With a flair for dramatic, arty, chamber pop The King of Prussia strum away in a breezy fashion and the resulting songs they come up with are airy, light on the ears and almost twee. This is winsome and fragile pop music that's just a bit overwrought with emotion.

Transmissions From The Grand Strand is the sort of thing that the Ocean Blue would have recorded back in it's heyday and the kind of record that someone like Slumberland would issue today. This is delicately cool pop that's sweeping and atmospheric without getting too lost in itself. Despite its emotions and sense of artful drama, The King of Prussia never loses site of the fact that each song needs to be memorable and not get lost in it. The fact that you can hum along to each of these songs and remember them despite them being so twee that they might be blown away in a breeze is a tribute to the bands songwriting ability.

The King of Prussia is a gentle king that's dramatic in his decrees but beautiful in his rule. Transmissions From The Grand Strand is indie/chamber pop the way it should be played and it's an absolute joy to listen to. From the strings on, "Arabian Thoroughbred," to the breezy and ethereal, "Transatlantic (the New Frontier)," Transmissions From The Grand Strand is the sort of thing that summer strolls were made for. If you like jangly, ethereal, and nearly twee pop then declare your loyalty to The King of Prussia and Transmissions From The Grand Strand

Warner Drive Rocks

Warner Drive is an interesting band that I know next to nothing about. Sounding like a cross between Epitaph punk, Guns n' Roses, Motley Crue, and LA trashy rock and roll they kind of grind out tunes in a rather lascivious manner that may or may not be legal. Their album K-Go! is an intriguing record because the whole thing is set up to sound like some sort of pirate radio-station. It's a novel idea that makes it seem like these guys took over your radio and plopped themselves down at the Mighty K-Go Radio.

With a loose concept surrounding this radio station and including interesting things like commercial breaks, in-studio interviews and non-stop blocks of music in between, if you weren't paying attention you'd swear it actually was a radio show. It kind of plays tricks with your brain as it turns it all up to eleven, cranks it up and just rock's the heck out. With power chords bouncing off other power chords, whiskey swilling vocals shattering glass, and a driving rhythm section swerving all over the LA Freeway system this is a record of fast driving, hard living rock and roll and it's all pretty good stuff. With the band's collective face down in the gutter, when given the chance the band scrapes itself up and just resumes it's train wrecking rock and roll excursion into chaos.

K-Go! is a hard rocking good time that takes early 90's metal and fuses it with more current trends to create something that sounds even more self-destructive. Complete with band interviews, segues, fake announcers and enough rock and roll to kill a man, K-Go! is a fun ride through the dark side of town. K-Go! is a great hard rock/metal record that's sure to appeal to anyone who ever thought LA was the center of the universe in the 80's.

The Eastern Sea Head Out

The Eastern Sea are actually from nowhere near a sea. In fact these Texans are about as close to the beach as we are to the desert. Anyway, despite their geographic isolation, the band offer up sunshiney, glistening pop gems on their disturbingly titled album Plague. Sounding a bit like Jason Molina if he gave more power to his Magnolia Electric Company or a whole host of Secretly Canadian bands The Eastern Sea are a minimally beautiful group who find the brightness of the light in the smallest and sparsest of spaces.

Plague is not a disease ridden trollop through the dark side of pop but rather a meditative, serene, and pastoral record filled with rays of sun sparked melodies and unusual quirks. While the record has it's roots in folk and post rock it doesn't let them serve as the be all end all influence over the record. While the record is spatial and atmospheric, the songs on it are too song oriented and at one point could be a dead ringer for a Target commercial (see "China Untitled 1"). This is a beautifully constructed and written record whose sparse arrangements allow the melodies to shine through and the atmospherics to carry the songs skyward.

The Eastern Sea may be landlocked but clearly they've spread their wings a few times and escaped to far more expansive landscapes. Plague proves that and it's a fascinatingly great record. While intrigued by transition and change to write songs about them, the band proves that these elements not only make for great lyrics but also a great way to write expansive songs. It might not be a fast paced record but Plague is a great work of atmospheric indie rock. If you’d like to have a quiet weekend to yourself then this is your soundtrack. You can thank me later.

Nick Waterhouse Is Lost In Time

Ok, before I get started with this review let me go check my calendar. I want to make sure it's not 1968...darn it, it isn't. While it might be 2012 in all actuality someone has clearly forgotten to tell Nick Waterhouse and quite honestly they should never, ever, give him the update. Nick Waterhouse is an artist lost in a time warp and we're all the benefits of that warp as his record Time's All Gone apparently was recorded by Holland, Dozier and Dozier in a Motown Studio about 44 years ago. What's crazy about all of that is that Nick Waterhouse isn't even 26 years old yet and here he is lost in the sound of classic rock and roll and soul.

Time's All Gone is amazing. It's timeless , garagey, soulful stuff that grooves and grooves hard. This is R&B the way it was meant to be. No touchy, lovey dovey, ballads just funky soulful grooves that would level a Northern Soul dance floor given half the chance. This is the sound of Memphis soul run through Detroit and then brought bang out of date through the magic of technology or the lack there of it. Asif to prove that point the thing was recorded in joyous mono on to tape using the same Gold Star Studios lathe that Phil Spector and the Beach Boys once used. This is authentic stuff with an attention to detail that is second to none and it’s awesome. The quality and heart sunk into this record is evident on every song on Time's All Gone.

Waterhouse is an incredible artist whose love of the classics is amazing. His astute level of detail, songwriting and authenticity stands out like a sore thumb. Time's All Gone is absolutely stunning stuff that feels old, sounds old, and isn't old but still kicks butt. Waterhouse has outdone just about every other soul revivalist out there with the release of Time's All Gone. If you put him and Sharon Jones on the same stage together...well that could very well be heaven. Time's All Gone is an essential record that any self respecting fans of soul and rock and roll needs to have within their collection.

Difficulty Isn't

Why someone would name their band Difficulty is beyond me, but these Chicagoans have done just that. I can maybe understand it if you're playing spazzcore or free-jazz but not indie rock because truth be told, there’s nothing difficult about listening to Difficulty. Their self titled debut is almost an absolute joy to listen to. In fact, one might perceive their given name as an attempt at irony in that most hipstertastic of ways.

Anyway, Difficulty is a fantastic album of arty pop with enough post punk angularity, disco punk danceability, and 20 something moodiness to keep anyone under the weather happy. You might almost think of Difficulty as a Second City attempt at being Interpol, but I'm not sure that works all the way through this record. While there is an undoubtedly cool, crystalline guitar sound to their songs and the drums are scattershot in a disco like style, the band doesn't have that cloud of Joy Division gothicism hanging over them. Arty yes, depressed no. One listen to, "Blind Our Eyes," will show you what I'm talking about as the song has a degree of melancholy too it, but the hooks and choruses alone uplift the song and make it a thing of beauty. Truth is Difficulty might be a little bit difficult to categorize, which if you think about it, works to their advantage.

Let's just say that Difficulty is an angular romp through art pop territory with enough soaring vocals, skittish beats, and chiming guitars to keep anyone listening moving, attentive and enraptured. This is a record filled with fantastic songs that recovers quickly from an atmospheric stumble at the beginning. It's the sort of thing that lingers with you and makes your feet shuffle at the same time. Difficulty are ornate songwriters and that's reflected throughout the ten songs here...they might be artful and angular to the point of geometry but they never lose sight of the song and it's importance and that's why it's almost too easy to get into Difficulty.

Adestria Writes A Chapter

Adestria are one heck of a band. Brutal to the point of being nearly cruel but still strangely melodic, this is a band that seems to hover in some sort of metallic purgatory that they can't find their way out of. Their latest album, Chapters is among the best combinations of pure death metal, grind, and screamo I've ever heard. To say it's awesome would be a severe understatement.

Recorded in what must have been the ninth layer of hell, Adestria creates absolutely pummeling riffs that are so sharp they've injured themselves on them. These are songs that slice through flesh with alarming efficiency and torture those that manage to hang on from their assault. These guys are relentless and when you add in their multi-genre vocal attack the whole thing is just ridiculous to the point of obscenity. These guys are amazing at what they do and how they manage to sound like they are being drawn through a meat processing plant and then be completely calm and harmonious is beyond my comprehension. It's a site and sound that must be heard.

With grinding riffs, machine gun attack-like drums, and vocals that have no idea what a larynx is Adestria are masters at what they do. This is an entity of sheer terror and Chapters is a story of brutality served ten times over. This isn't classic death metal, but it's good enough to entertain old head bangers like me...so it has to be good.