Eureka California Makes A Giant Crunch

Sometimes being obnoxious can work to your advantage. It certainly does for Eureka California who's album Crunch is an energetic explosion of spazztic indie rock riffage and their second album in less than two years. Seemingly unable to stop making music, Eureka California can't slow down and that inability to control themselves is reflected within the sounds of Crunch. Sounding like a long lost artifact unearthed from 1994, this record is loud, raw, unrefined and about as sloppy as the best Pavement record.

Crunch is a hyper, jumpy, caffeine fueled journey through eleven songs in twenty five minutes. It's such a fantastic mess that the whole thing sounds like it was pieced together with chewing gum and duct tape and recorded on a broken boom box found their parents garage. It's exuberant and simple and almost impossible not to love. Guitars jangle, wrangle, distort and sound like they're tearing themselves apart while drums bash and bang and the vocals strain, scream, and snap vocal chords. Crunch is one giant wall of indie rock noise that should really suck but miraculously doesn't. It's proper indie rawk and it's relentless in the pursuit of the two minute noisy pop song.

Crunch on paper isn't much to write home about, it's an uncomplicated, noisy and brash mess. But listening to the thing makes it all worthwhile. This is what indie rock is supposed to be like; it's honest, raw, and pure and contains zero percent posturing. As their bio notes Eureka California are often torn between rocking out and giving up. How can you not love that? That's the kind of rock and roll I want to listen to...bands with a suicidal lust to just kick butt and rock out or chuck in the towel and go home.

The Young Widows Love Easy Pain

Kentucky’s Young Windows are a mess. This is a chaotic, troubled band that has all sorts of attitudinal problems that make for nearly painful listening. This is a good thing. Having consistently dirtied things up this is a band that has progressively taken their urgent and unclean sound and morphed it into lethal machine of sonic destruction. Their latest album Easy Pain has been cranked up and refined to deadly perfection and the eight buck shots of post grunge Armageddon are the loudest things you'll hear this year.

Easily described as the sound the world will make when it all comes to an end, this is like listening to an old Godflesh record, Bleach era Nirvana, and the Jesus Lizard all at the same time on the same set of headphones. While their previous albums may have sounded chaotic and slightly rough, Easy Pain sounds as rusty, brutal and as deadly as a two handed sword. It's all battered riffs, churning rhythms, tortured screams and the feeling that Apocalypse is one sour note away. This is an epic record of discord, pain and misery, but boy this kind of heaviness has never sounded so good.

Each of the eight songs here are essentially the sound of an eighteen wheeler crushing your puny Toyota Prius. This album is ridiculously heavy and punishing that it will test the pain tolerance of you and your stereo. This is a band that has no problems de-tuning guitars, cranking out slow motion grooves, and letting riffs expand to the size of the galaxy all in an attempt to bring you to your knees and beg for mercy.

While grunge may have been dead and buried for well over a decade, it's nice to see that a few bands still feel like kicking the corpse of it around now and again and taking the sound that sold a million Doc Marten's back to its roots. The Young Widows have done an exceptional job of that on Easy Pain and while people often hate opening old wounds this is one that's certainly worth doing over and over again.

Ingrid Michaelson Turns The Lights Out

It's hard to believe that Ingrid Michaelson is on her fifth album. It's crazy as I remember her as a wee lass (ok maybe not), but this singer songwriter has managed to survive and embrace her unique approach to the genre and make it sustainable. While she's become popular through the "Targetization," of her music, her style and ability to switch between sentimentality and a good pop hook is what she should really be recognized for.

Lights Out, her latest album, is an effort that takes the best bits of Tori Amos and Marina & The Diamonds and smashes them together. The results are a sweeping pop record that bounces from clever uses of electronics to sad, intimate ballads within in a single bound. Whichever style she uses she's exceptionally transparent and personal. You can almost hear the pain in her voice at times or feel the exuberance coming through on her more upbeat moments. I'm not really the biggest fan of the genre, but she definitely has the knack for writing a quirky pop song and when she does her pop sensibility is sharper than a razor blade. Lights Out is a fun listen that grows on you with repeated spins.

Whether it's a minimal use of instrumentation or a layered production of sugary sweet pop hooks, Ingrid Michaelson grabs hold of your ears and refuses to let go. She's quirky, she's cool, and she can write a good song with the best of them. Her album might be called Lights Out but after spending some time with this record it's obvious that her career five albums in is anything but lights out. In fact it's on a trajectory that's hard to keep pace with or turn off.

Numero Heads Way Out For Eccentric Soul

Another day, another stellar compilation from Numero. This time around, we're not in the Capital City but we're still Way Out! For this latest compilation the fine folks at Numero uncovered a ton of blinding soul burners from Cleveland's home of soul: Way Out Recordings. Fueled in part by Jim Brown the label offered rogue soul men, rust belt vocal ensembles and trial by fire producers a home and a place to record. Sure the recordings coming out of the label were rough but they were pure and stunning none the less.

As the liner notes say, all sorts of people and groups were beckoned to the wrong side of the tracks to mint masterpieces for the Sensations, Volcanic Eruption and a handful of others. Spread out over three LP's or two CD's this retrospective once again proves that good soul music can come from anywhere as long as it's honest. Way Out were a special label and it's hard to find fault with any of the 40 tracks on this compilation. This is deep 60's soul that's like a Northern Soul collectors dream come true. So many great tracks are spread throughout this compilation and the rebel spirit that went into making each of these songs make this yet another essential Eccentric collection. Way Out wasn't Motown and didn't want to be, it was it's own unique take on soul music and the treasures Numero have unearthed are priceless.

The musicianship on this set is top notch, the vocals are emotional, the hooks are huge and the ballads are stirring across the board. It's hit after hit here and no matter the group or vocalist you're guaranteed a tune of fantastic quality to rival the big boys. Numero packages all that classicism in gorgeous artwork and includes a 7000 word dissertation on the label. That alone says all you need to know about how good and how important Way Out really was. Essential stuff.

Where Would We Be Without American Football?

Fifteen years ago, Polyvinyl Records released one of the most important and most beloved records in their catalog. American Football was released with an idea that things should be different. Focusing on odd time signatures and sincere lyrics the record developed a deep connection with a very loyal following thanks to Mike Kinsella, Steve Lamos, and Steve Holmes unique approach. Now after all this time, Polyvinyl has reissued the record with a host of bonus tracks, deluxe packaging and a massive helping of nostalgia.

While undoubtedly most of us already know the influence the first edition of this record had, I figured I'd take a look at the bonus tracks that are included with this issue. If you're not familiar with American Football, it basically founded the whole "Polyvinyl Indie," sub genre of melodic angular indie rock that teeters somewhere between post punk, emo, and jazz. The bonus material included in this package consists of ten tracks that give a behind the scenes look at how the album came together. From live tracks, demo's, and unreleased stuff it's all here in raw un-tampered form. While there's nothing really out of the ordinary or life changing for anyone but stalwart and dedicated American Football fans what is particularly interesting is that each of these bonus tracks is an instrumental peek into the construction of the band and album. The tracks are raw, unrefined, and at times loose. It all sounds like a free flowing jam session in which the band is just creating ideas as they go. In and of itself the ten tracks are a pretty cool "post rock" record that just happens to be a bit of inside information about a pretty seminal album.

No one can doubt the vitality and seminal qualities of American Football and the respect Polyvinyl is paying it. But, for those just stumbling across the band for this time this set might be a bit much and it might be better to find a non-special edition. However, for those dedicated loyalists this is a very cool set of tunes piled on top of a very cool set of tunes. It's a well put together package that gives listeners a glimpse into the minds of how the guys put all this pseudo indie jazz together and just why American Football became such a great record.

We All Win With Hot Victory

Remember when TransAm were good, like really good. Remember how cold, calculating, and almost robotic their instrumental tracks were. Remember how they took post rock to the furthest reaches of the galaxy and left it there. Well, Hot Victory never forgot that. In fact, they went into space searching for where TransAm left post rock, found it, and moved it to the moon where they reside.

Hot Victory sound like what would happen if a series of Terminator T-1000's knew, or cared to know, how to play music. The band's self-titled album is as cold as clinical steel and as mechanically harsh as a tank rolling over you. The record is heavy, ominous, brooding, evil, and amazing. It's heaviness and spirit crushing electronic riffage will break you psychologically while samples and odd sounds bore deep into your psyche. This is a twisted, atmospheric slice of hell and it's riveting. Hot Victory is a stupendous example of just how songs without words can be as powerful or even more powerful at conveying a message.

Hot Victory erect a minimal and stark world punctured by these sounds of doom. It's the sound of a black hole swallowing the galaxy and spitting it out on the other side. It's machine driven precision and strangeness will keep you gripped and instill fear in your ears. Hot Victory is the ultimate rock and roll album and it's been brought back from deep space to terrorize all who listen to it.

Dawn Golden's Still Life

Dawn Golden is a Diplo protege, has released his new album on Downtown/Mad Decent and amazingly sounds nothing like anything related to either of those things. Still Life is electronic, but it's potentially the most emotionally draining record you're hear all year and is so full of melancholic brilliance it could make your therapist rich. If you could take chillwave as a genre and sandwich it between an r&b quiet storm you'd have the soundworld that Dawn Golden inhabits.

Still Life is a slow moving journey through an emotional treasure trove that feels like it was recorded in a dream by dreamers for dreamers. It's minimal beats, massive washes, detached vocals, and atmospheric vibe feels like it's not even real. The whole record sounds like the noise you hear when you are somewhere between drifting off into unconsciousness and cracking your eyes open. It's an aural horizon that never seems to end and that's ok. Dawn Golden has come up with something that's tender, fragile and almost too intimate for personal consumption. None the less, Still Life is a lovely effort that's endearing because it's so far gone.

Containing not one summer pop hit Still Life instead wins you over by overwhelming your senses with a veritable blanket of sound. Dawn Golden's ability to create intimate atmospheres that stretch into eternity is remarkable. The whole thing should just put you to sleep or bore you to death but it's so odd, so well done and so riveting that I couldn't help but listen to it four times back to back.