sit-and-spin

Artist: Rhiannon Giddens

Album: “Freedom Highway”

Label: Nonesuch Records

Format Reviewed: Digital Advance

Lyrics of Note:
Mama, dear mama, come and stand by me
I feel a lightness in my feet, a longing to be free
My heart it is a-shaking, with an old, old song
I hear the voices sayin’, it’s time for moving on

Sometimes things just come along at the right time. There’s no real explanation for when the stars align and you’re presented with something that ends up defining a moment. It’s fate. It’s serendipity. It’s stupid luck.

Whatever the power in play, Giddens’ “Freedom Highway” appeared in this writer’s life in a fateful, serendipitous and stupid luck way.

14 hours before I clicked on the tiny play button with the rightward facing triangle, I was seated in a 24-hour animal hospital listening to a veterinarian deliver a heart-wrenching diagnosis for my beloved dog who has been my shadow for seven years. It devastated me and anyone with a soft spot for a four-legged friend understands that the emotional impact regarding the inability to help them in their time of need, a toxic mixture of guilt and helplessness, is one that you can’t easily shake.

As I sat down to work the next day, my head was cloudy. Unfocused. Dwelling only causes the mind to digest itself however, so I pushed forward and decided to start with a review. “Freedom Highway” began to stream.

As I listened to the songs filter out of my speakers, I found myself being drawn into them as if they were speaking directly to me, and in doing so, highlighting the various psychological complexities I was experiencing in the wake of the previous night’s bad news. The beautiful piano that opens “Birmingham Sunday” played as a tribute to my longtime companion and I felt myself being caught up in the sheer power that music can have over another human being.

By the time I had finished listening to the entire album, I felt renewed. Giddens voice carried hope and optimism into a space that had temporarily lost sight of any such outlooks. With “Freedom Highway” she pulled me out of the darkness and into the light, eliciting a jump start of the soul that had a direct and instantaneous impact. And when all is said and done, isn’t that what great music is supposed to do?

Artist: Entrance

Album: “Book of Changes”

Label: Thrill Jockey

Format Reviewed: Digital Advance

Recorded at 11 different studios in Los Angles and London, “Book of Changes” by Entrance (the brainchild of Guy Blakeslee) is like the soundtrack to a film about a character seeking self-discovery who actually discovers that it is just out of reach instead. The journey Blakeslee takes the listener on is one of varying seasons, the narrative of a life that is both hoping to spring eternal and yet withering on the branch in the lingering cold when all is said and done. With a haunting vibrato that wills you to follow the path he’s laying out for you, Blakeslee has made a moving record that convinces the listener to remain on the ride until the very end.

“I’d Be A Fool” and “Summer’s Child” are the most riveting chapters in the tome that is “Book of Changes,” but it is the full story, as captivating as any New York Times best seller, that makes it a book worth opening over and over again.

Artist: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Album: “The Tourist”

Label: CYHSY Inc.

Format Reviewed: Digital Advance

Lyrics of Note:
So don’t be alarmed
Don’t be afraid
When it is just a little fire
I’m teaching myself to be safe
Waiting for you to regain your sight
We were in a fire last night
I just lost one too
Turns out I’m fireproof

NPR named Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s 2005 debut album one of “The 50 Most Important Recordings of the Decade.” A lot has changed in the 12 years since then, but the one thing that has remained consistent is the band’s capacity for making important recordings that leave a lasting impression on the listener.

“The Tourist” is packed with darkly tender, thought-provoking songs that melt from the speakers and mingle with the end user’s current emotional state of mind. Alec Ounsworth’s vocals resonate and penetrate, especially when they’re allowed to linger on lyrical melodies as opposed to having to juggle the syllable-heavy wordplay that forces him away from those beautiful moments. “The Pilot” and “Unfolding Above Celibate Moon (Lost Angeles Nursery Rhyme)” are particularly strong songs on an album with many strengths.

Although this album may not land on any lists declaring it one of the most important of the current decade, it is significant nonetheless. After all, a wave doesn’t need to move an entire bed of seashells to prove that the ocean itself is moving. If the wave forces even one to change position then the ocean has proven its power, just as “The Tourist” has proven its power by moving this one listener.

Artist: No Small Children

Song: “I Feel Better”

Label: Self-Released

Format Reviewed: Digital Advance

Lyrics of Note:
All by myself
It’s cold outside
It’s dark outside
To be somewhere else
To taste so good
To feel so good

“I Feel Better,” the latest single by No Small Children, is pop/punk perfection with a chorus that is impossible to ignore. Laced with anthem worthy hooks, it ropes you in, wrapping itself around your brain and forces you to deliver uninvited guest vocals and “whoas” alongside of the band simply because you can’t help yourself. In working with producer Bob Marlette for the first time, the LA-based trio has tapped into a new level of their already-contagious sound. If this is the appetizer that signals the album to come, then strap a bib on us because we’re ready for the full meal.

Check out our interview with the band HERE.

Artist: Tim Darcy

Album: “Saturday Night”

Label: Jagjaguwar

Format Reviewed: Digital Advance

Lyrics of Note:
All the questions are being asked
Like, is it fatal or is it popsicle?
Is it rain or is it toxic fire?
Is it love or is it desire?

Ought frontman Tim Darcy’s first solo album, “Saturday Night,” is stripped down and chiseled from the musical components of a singer/songwriter past, one that many performers have abandoned for the modern flair and slickness of the glossy technical advances of today. The album is a comfortable listen from start to finish, a sort of favorite chair for your mind, and harkens back to the days before the studio process went digital, when the beautiful imperfections of music made them perfect.

Darcy’s writing places you in a vacuum of emotion thanks in large part to his haunting vocals, which at times, feels as if he has become the entirety of The Traveling Wilburys, able to capture the essence of Dylan, Orbison, Harrison, Petty and Lynne all in one incredibly moving range of tone and articulation. As a passenger, you’re riding the duration of the album as if riding inside the log of an amusement park flume, enjoying the peace and tranquility of the quiet moments, and reveling in the excitement of the ascents and drops. “Saturday Night” is not only worth its namesake, but the remainder of your nights as well.

Artist: Party Nails

Album: “Come Again”

Label: killphonic

Format Reviewed: Digital Advance

Lyrics of Note:
You’re waking up but you can’t get up
Nothing going on till the night comes
What was it you said that you said anyway?
Just waiting for the day I come undone

Party Nails’ debut EP “Come Again” is the opposite of fingernails down a chalkboard. (Melted chocolate poured down a strawberry flavored ice luge?) Pleasant, fiercely contagious and relentlessly catchy, the five-song EP is a pop revelation. The brainchild of singer/guitarist Elana Belle Carroll, Party Nails sounds like the end result of heyday Cyndi Lauper being dropped into a blender with an indie-influenced Katy Perry, mixed and then poured into the vocal chords of Madonna, circa 1983. It’s longingly nostalgic without being kitschy and purposefully modern without being pretentious. Plain and simple… it’s melted chocolate poured down a strawberry flavored ice luge. So good!

Artist: Iron Reagan

Album: “Crossover Ministry”

Label: Relapse Records

Format Reviewed: Digital Advance

Lyrics of Note:
Strangers suggesting I keep my voice down
Just because it’s 5 am
Not my problem or fault you picked this place to live

Thrash meets hardcore meets punch-you-in-the-face politics. That’s Iron Reagan’s third album, “Crossover Ministry,” in a nutshell. A very angry, impossible-to-crack nutshell.

Improbably paced (18 songs in 30 minutes… say what?!?!), “Crossover Ministry” tears into your ears out of the gates and never lets up. Singer Tony Foresta viciously delivers his vocals, a relentless lyrical rage that resembles a passionate general going to war, while guitarists Mark Bronzino and Landphil Hall raise a 30-chord-salute that seems too merciless to be catchy, but the revolving riffs defy that logic, particularly on tracks “Grim Business” and “Bleed the Fifth.”

“Crossover Ministry” is fuel for the adrenal glands. If you can listen to the album and not want to go out and accomplish something of great personal importance, then you need to find a better outlet for your anger. Iron Reagan has. Use what they have given you constructively!

Artist: Dave Hause

Album: “Bury Me In Philly”

Label: Rise Records

Format Reviewed: Digital Advance

Lyrics of Note:
I might need your help to sing these songs
I’ve been losing blood and spinning wheels for far too long
You clap in time, I’ll make it rhyme
And we’ll pretend we’re in our prime

With his third solo album “Bury Me In Philly,” Dave Hause suppressed the totality of his punk roots and added some Americana twang-meets-arena rock choruses to his already-impressive musical repertoire. While not a completely familiar sound to fans of The Loved Ones frontman’s catalog of music, the Philadelphia-native delivers what feels to be a successful transition in the career of a lifelong musician without serving as a shock to the system.

“I wanted to write shorter songs and have them be more, you know, power pop oriented,” Hause told TrunkSpace.

Hause achieved his goals tenfold, bringing a sonic flood of melodies and front-and-center guitar riffs to tracks like “Shaky Jesus,” and “My Mistake,” a rock anthem with touches of 80s nostalgia, an influence that makes perfect sense when you consider that the producer of the record is Eric Bazilian, singer of The Hooters. The punk rock vibe is not completely stripped from the songwriting, however. “Dirty Fucker” is the middle finger on an album that is both honest and honest about being vulnerable, two traits that should be considered sub-genres of music itself.

While “Bury Me In Philly” is not 100 percent in line musically with what we have seen from Hause in the past, it is also not out of line. In fact, it doesn’t feel like a departure from his previous work, but instead, an evolution… the next step in what will surely be a songwriting career that will influence countless Hauses to come.

Check out the full TrunkSpace interview with Dave Hause here.

Artist: Alex Clare

Album: “Tail of Lions”

Label: ETC Recordings

Format Reviewed: Vinyl

Lyrics of Note:
I am contemplating, just stating
No procrastinating, time wasting
Doing what I need, revealing the lies
Smashing the darkness and bringing the fire

Prestige Worldwide once shot a video on a boat, but even those trailblazing step brothers can’t stake claim to recording on a boat. British singer/songwriter Alex Clare did just that with his third album “Tail of Lions,” which is a fitting process for a selection of songs that feels, at times, as if they’re riding out a particularly rough patch of sea. Heavy in theme and washed in emotion, Clare tackles complicated subject matter, from mental illness (“Basic”) to the vanishing middle class (“Surviving Ain’t Living”), and does so in a thought-provoking way that enables the listener to ride the ups and downs of the rolling waves with him.

Many times people will say an artist has “matured” when their art takes a serious turn, but the truth is, if art really does imitate life, then maturing is the only way to stay honest. After all, the more we travel this winding and confusing path, the more complicated things get. “Tail of Lions” simply shines a light on a handful of those complications and does so in a way that proves Clare is a songwriter unafraid to show his own vulnerability.

Artist: Jesca Hoop

Album: “Memories Are Now”

Label: Sub Pop

Format Reviewed: Digital Advance

Lyrics of Note:
I can carry this weight
I can stand up tall
Look you in the eye
You haven’t broken me yet
You don’t scare me to death
You don’t scare me at all though you try

Singer/songwriter Jesca Hoop’s latest album, “Memories Are Now,” is a mood-inducing collection with versatile weightiness that attaches to your subconscious and acts as a trigger to past emotions long suppressed. Hoop’s voice, ethereal and intimate, lures you in like a soft lullaby and leads you on a track-by-track audible embrace that is almost comfortingly maternal, particularly on songs “Cut Connection” and “Animal Kingdom Chaotic.”

In listening to “Memories Are Now” you are reminded that music is not only for the now, but instead, something you will long remember in the future.