Hard to Find

Why is it so hard to find Roman Candle? Is it google's fault? A quick search in Youtube comes up with a variety of moronic entertainment (I found a video of a guy lighting a bottle rocket in his butt), and Google's search results reveal the band's website and a deconstructed pizza place.

This band is good. They have the glean of Whiskeytown and their new Elizabethan-titled album, Oh Tall Tree in the Ear is seriously fun rock. Tonight, Roman Candle is playing in Pennsylvania with Iron and Wine. So why are they not lighting up the indie music scene (besides Paste Magazine's dedication)? Where is that Pitchfork review with the modest .6 decimal placement indicating it's over half-way to the next good number?

Come Back Unchanged

The best Low Anthem song. Time to fight through heated crowds to Austin City Limits for a show with roots as deep as Barton Springs. Off Oh My God Charlie Darwin, which is so out now it hurts your teeth. I think it's the clarinet...

"To them ghosts in the train yard / All them ghosts in my drink / your money's no good here"

"Please take along all the best of my luck and come back unchanged"

Nice.

Album Review: Time to Die - The Dodos

The Mayans believed the the sun visited the underworld when it set. If that's true, The Dodos are playing until the sun sets. It's beautiful and orange and ready for death (or at least a visit). Bring a thermos.

"Small Death" opens with a foot-stepper of a rhythm, ditching the kali sticks for some serious drums. Something about the Andrew Birdian guitar and the honeyed harmony made me think of fall. I half expected the sounds of papery leaves:

"Tell me glacier where you been / I hear the heat's been coming in / the sun is at your door"

The simplicity of The Beatles has been on my mind lately (maybe because of that ridiculous Guitar Hero commercial). What the Beatles did well they did simply. It's why Eleanor Rigby is brilliant - the harmony is good. When songs return to their rock and stone roots, and ditch the digital auxiliary processes, it's fascinating to hear when it's good. So kudos to The Dodos who use creative applications of a basic set of sounds: an electric guitar, a few snare drums and some liquor ready harmonies.

Longform, the Dodos second track, begs to heard live with its fast drum strokes and heavy beat. "Fables" is an elaboration on 2007's "Fools"; a song poached by the unmagnificent Miller Lite Lime commercial. "I don't want to go in the fires / I just want to stay home."The energy stays high throughout the album: "This is a Business" is a Buddy Holly-esque rock-n-roll piece with that little touch of rockabilly. "Two Medicines" begins like dark Queen riff (who can match Queen's brightness?) and the consensus theme is: The Dodos are ready for death. But it's a celebration, like an old faithful ritual. The sadness of our modern generation is fed into the album: the numbness of a Two Medicine world and the quiet death that follows malaise. I'm happy with the musical exploration on this album. Visiter became tedious and repetitive at times, occasionally exciting but never breaking the ceiling from song-to-song. Time to Die embraces their talents and needle-accuracy at finding a hot as hell rhythm; it's strong on the edges and more original then their previous album.

I Just Saw a Shooting Star

"Last night I dreamt the whole night long / Woke with a head full of songs / I spent the whole day, I wrote them down but it's a shame / Tonight I'll burn the lyrics / Because every chorus was your name"

The Avett Brothers are GOOD country.

Blood - The Middle East

'Blood' The Middle East


While GI Joe is touting it's Eiffel Tower meltings in Hostess wrapped CG, Indie music has been utilizing the old world of animation to make an impact. Recent animation users include Neko Case, Fleet Foxes, and this new beautiful video from The Middle East. They have a self-titled EP out now, and they're touring across Australia right now. Thanks to I Guess I'm Floating for posting the story.

The Middle East- Blood

Division Day in the LA Times

Tonight: Division Day brings 'Visitation' to Spaceland

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Good news! (For Los Angeles first) Division Day is kicking off their new tour, and doing so with a nice, meaty cross-section of their talents in the LA Times courtesy of the always good music journalist, Jeff Weiss.



I've just been introduced to Division Day, as I missed most of 2006's blog hype due to head trauma (just kidding, school). Prescription: Check out their interview, here, (or in that big ol' above link) and then go to Spaceland tonight, if you're in Los Angeles, and then buy their new LP - Visitation. Which you can buy now, as soon as you speed down to your local record store. The one that carries the good stuff.

Album Review: The Antlers Hospice & Brendan Benson

Two polar opposites. Brendan Benson has grace. It's alive and bright. The album opens with "A Whole Lot Better," a illuminated-blue Strokes-esque love song that introduces you (if you're unfamiliar with his waxings) to his Bowie sides, with that acid IV-drip guitar of the Who, and you know, The Killers or something (God, don't you hate Killers comparison's?).

According to Aquarium Drunkard's well-drawn interview, Brendan is keen on writing compulsively, and has no problems referring to his music as retro, power pop. Coming from the Raconteurs, "My Old Familiar Friend" is refreshing. "Garbage Day," one of the better tracks on the album, is succinct, sweet, and humble:

"If she throws her heart away / I'll be there on Garbage Day"

So maybe this is power pop. It definitely has a Jamie Lidell, I-became-a-twenty-something-in the-90's-vibe, but Benson explores more and is more adventurous than say, Filter (God, I hate Filter references). I wasn't a big fan of "Gonowhere"'s unsoaring melodies and the synth heavy "Feel like Take You Home." "You Make A Fool Out of Me" varies between minimalistic ballad and a interlude cut track from Moulin Rouge--which works well. It's pretty. As a whole the album has the confidence of an experienced songwriter and a good musician, but is weighted by tropes of the power pop or retro or rock genre. Benson, however, seems to know this and embraces it. Ten years from now, I envision cars on a southern highway, like Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, slamming their steering wheel in pure song elation to "Poised and Ready," or anything Benson graces us with.


I'm biased - I have a proclivity for bizarre, dark-romance indie rock like The Antlers. It opens with a sound I imagined made to imitate the burst of light when you die (so it is read). "Prologue" is beautiful and scratchy, unlike it's poppy doppelganger: "Two" (which definitely is about death). Since Dark Side of the Moon, it's been easy and lovable to open an album with the sounds of quietly leaving your body. The Antlers love this. "Kettering" dances in ascension; a smoky and quiet tribute to the the thunderstorm -

"When they called you a hurricane thundercloud / When I was checking vitals / I suggested a smile / You didn't talk for a while"

The phrase "slow burn" comes to mind. And images of smoke. Unlike its smoke elements, Hospice has density and heart. "Two" has scintillating imagery and electricity even in it's uncharacteristic (from the rest of the album) emo-ness romanticism. Greatness is abound, Shelley or that curly haired freak Byron might say, and "Hospice" is pretty and dark.

The Antlers - Kettering

Brendan Benson- Garbage Day