Alkaline Trio - Maybe I'll Catch Fire

This is probably the least musically relevant thing I've ever utilized as an introduction, but it's something that just now crept out from my periphery: have you noticed that, like, 70% of the female populace between the ages of 16 and 35 are clad in membrane-snug black tights? They're probably the most revealing garment I've ever seen achieve this kind of homogeneity, especially when worn as a pants-substitute. To clarify, I don't intend this as a blue-balled, prudish/misogynist jab at women, as I understand almost everyone, regardless of sex, is caught somewhere in the fashion undertow, but I can't help but raise an eyebrow at how widespread this shit is. It's like a nationwide showcase of ass at the molecular level.

Anyway, to start, the handful of somewhat ambiguous jabs I've penned about Alkaline Trio in the past still stand. They are, and probably always will be, complete cornballs of the "dark" and angst-laden persuasion with lyrics that curdle milk. In fact, I could probably lambaste them in the same light as The Gaslight Anthem, who I dissed several months ago for their similarly laughable (albeit totally different) lyricism. Just like the aforementioned band, though, I've gone through a cycle of acceptance with Alkaline Trio illustrated below:
1.) Infatuation
2.) Light criticism of thematic elements/lyrics
3.) Total disdain and/or embarrassment followed by abandonment
4.) Re-visitation and light criticism
5.) Love of the material with a tongue planted firmly in cheek
And yeah, Maybe I'll Catch Fire is an album I really love, regardless of how fucking silly and un-relateable the lyrics are. Alkaline Trio are one of the most well-known branches of the Slapstick family tree and are a (duh) trio comprised of Dan Adriano of Tuesday, Slapstick, and eventually The Falcon, Matt Skiba (who's also in the unheard-by-me band Heavens), and Derek Grant, previously of The Suicide Machines and a zillion other bands.
This album is their sophomore effort, and the follow-up to 1998's excellent debut (except the two putrid acoustic tracks), Goddamnit. I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure this is the band's most popular album, if not just for the band's staple encore song, "Radio", but it's definitely mine. The songwriting here is really strong, and less raw and bass-y than their first album, with the general pace slowed down to allow the melodies to really develop. I wouldn't call this an indie rock album, exactly, as tracks like "5-3 10-4", "She Took Him To The Lake", and "Madam Me" truck it pretty hard, but there's a distinct adaptation of a more rock-esque format here. Unlike almost every pop-punk band of the past 10 years, the dual vocal approach is considerably reserved, which makes the harmonies stand out a lot, especially in "You Got So Far To Go", which is easily one the album's best tracks next to "5-3 10-4", the dark-warmth of "Sleepyhead", and the refreshingly non-accusatory "She Took Him To The Lake". The latter's got a pretty typical theme of heartbreak, but despite the male described being abandoned, blame never gets heaped on the girl for being a vicious heartstomping witch or whatever bullshit you'd find in virtually every Descendents song.

http://www.mediafire.com/?fmey4i4jyym

In conclusion, I'm tired of sitting at the computer writing this. Also, if you've got a bias against this band due to their cheesy, "gawthic" image or perceived "emo-ness", try to ignore the lyrics. The music itself, vocals included, make for a really great package, and even the imagery's pretty vivid and satisfying once you stop taking it seriously. I guess I should probably mention "Radio", though, since everyone loves that song: it's pretty good. Unfortunately, it also contains the line “shaking like a dog shitting razor blades".
Hm.

P.S. Eliot - Introverted Romance In Our Troubled Minds

Hey guys, I'm back.

I may or may not have mentioned this, but I've been traveling/reinventing/mixing things up, so to speak. Did I have time for maintaining this blog? Yeah, probably, but well, I've never been one to not suck at almost everything... extra emphasis on adhering to a self-imposed schedule for creative expression. I mean, c'mon... who needs to actually express themselves through a selected medium? Isn't it always better to just ignore all impulses to create out of apathy/fear of failure until they've built up into black tumors of stress twisted throughout my psyche?

Of course it is.

This is normally the part where I'd give a brief bio of the band... as far as I remember, at least. It's been a while since I wrote anything here, so my old M.O.'s not so fresh in my mind anymore. Unfortunately, there's either close to no biographical information available online, or I'm just incapable of locating any. Basically, though, lead vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Katie Crutchfield teamed up with her sister Alison and one or two more instrument yielding human specimens and formed P.S. Eliot in '07 or '08. Or maybe it was just the sisters on the demo? I guess it doesn't really matter since we're (RAMBLE RAMBLE RAMBLE) not talking about the demo. Speaking of which, P.S. Eliot has released one fuzz-guitar demo called The Bike Wreck!!!, this here LP, an EP called Living In Squalor, and as of April this year, a 2nd LP called Sadie. Also, apparently Katie and Alison were in a band called The Ackleys I just found out about (and now desperately need material from), and currently operate in the adorable fuzzed-out pop punk band, Bad Banana, as well as Katie's acoustic project, Waxahatchee.

Likely uninteresting information aside, the band plays, in my mind, a perfectly balanced blend of lo-fi 90's indie rock and pop punk brimming with incisive, wordy, and somewhat nostalgic lyrics and that special brand of down-to-earth beauty that permeates throughout every aspect of their sound. In other words, this is one of those albums - the kind that I end up flogging for months on end and bullying it onto any friend of mine who'll listen. For your information, this list also includes The Sidekicks' Weight Of Air, Defiance Ohio's Share What Ya Got, and Common Rider's Last Wave Rockers - all near perfect and completely infectious albums you totally need.
The opening track of their hometown's namesake, "Tennessee", is a gorgeous low-key number that sounds like it was written specifically to be played on a foggy, heavy-hearted drive home at night through a shitty sound system. It's one of those songs that sound like they should go on forever. The rest of the album is more upbeat, but it's somewhat murky quality and the non-laughable English Major angsty-ness keeps it from floating too far into the cheery pop-punk realm. It never becomes a downer, though, and while tracks like "Sore Subject" and the amazing harmonica punctuated "Incoherent Love Songs" feature themes of realistic, dull, pain, they still end up on the "uplifting" end of the spectrum.

buy it here: http://www.salinasrecords.com/
try it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?yyxwn44znrt

Sadly, the band just announced they're throwing in the towel after 4 years of activity and a relocation to Brooklyn. I still haven't had the opportunity to see them yet, so there's no way in hell I'm missing their final show in the city this December. If you end up liking this, definitely check out all the aforementioned projects and releases - every one of them is worth a listen, and for the record, Bad Banana killed it at Plan-It-X Fest this year.

Also: Good to be back. Expect regular updates again from now on.
Tentatively.

Lemuria - The First Collection

I have a friend who's probably a dozen times more qualified to review this collection and talk about this band. I'm probably gonna ask her to do an article on them in the future, but right now the spirit has actually hit me and I need to write something before I return to indifference.

Lemuria is a pop-punk/indie pop 3-piece from upstate New Yawk with dual male and female vocals I discovered right before their full length Get Better dropped in 2008. My mp3 player was in the shitter at the time (since I dropped it in a stream mid-song due to an apparent lack of foresight), and I was forced to download a couple albums onto my trendy phone to keep me company on the obnoxiously loud bus rides to and from campus. Due to the wonder of the internet, I've had a semi-difficult time giving each album I've DOWNLOADED ILLEGALLY the proper amount of time to sink in. Considering how little space was available on my phone, I figured this would be a good opportunity to pile in some stuff I wasn't entirely familiar with to see if sparks would fly upon repeat listens. While it turns out that Tuesday's Freewheelin' is nauseatingly corny, Latterman's Turn Up The Punk We'll Be Singing is almost like injecting distilled boredom into your eardrums, and the pre-Wilhelm Scream band Smackin' Isaiah realized the full extent of their shittiness early on, Lemuria's First Collection somehow didn't wear itself out over the course of two months and actually became a favorite of mine.

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this documents everything the band did from their formation in 2004 up to the last release before their 2008 LP. Usually, I would break this into individual releases to cover here, but therein lies the appeal of this compilation: every EP this is comprised of is relatively short, so I get the feeling that a lot of love and care went into perfecting every song on here; fortunately, though, the production on each effort is similar enough that it doesn't feel like you're listening to a mash of different records in a row, but one cohesive piece with a lot of variation and multiple recording sessions' worth of energy. As I said before, Lemuria's vocal front is XX/XY, with guitarist Sheena typically taking the lead and sounding like a less erratic version of Alison Mosshart circa-Discount; drummer Alex is more along the lines of Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening, pulling a monotone slur that complements the more crisp leads. I've heard the non-term "progressive punk" bandied around this band's camp recently, and it took me a while to even guess what the fuck it's supposed to be in reference to. People know that "progressive rock" was an approximation of classical music using rock instruments, right? "Progressive" isn't a catchall term for bands that happen to use weird time signatures sometimes. That said, Lemuria do have very few songs with the traditional pop structuring (and do utilize some odd timings in most of their riffs) but isn't it easier to call them a pop-punk/indie band that isn't generic? Either way, almost every track on here is great (except "The Origamists". I really don't like that song.), and as I said before, the fact that this is pieced together from a bunch of different studio sessions gives it a lot of diversity, both in mood and sound without ever straying too far away from what makes them sound so appealing (except "The Origamists", again).

I was going to post a video for "Bristles And Whiskers", which is my favorite song of theirs, but unfortunately the only semi-passable video youtube had featured Ben Barnett of Kind Of Like Spitting sharing the vocals for some reason. "In A World Of Ghosts" is probably one of their most accessible songs, so it seems like a good alternative:


Download here
then
Buy here

Their two LPs that preceded this are good, too (one of which *technically* hasn't been released yet), but something about them just doesn't appeal to me as much as this does. I don't even think it's sentiment, for once. Oh, and go see them live if you get the chance. My friend Tess and I got to see them play a gross little acoustically-horrific, capacity-breached basement a month ago, and they still ended up being a lot of fun.

Dinosaur Jr - Dinosaur

I guess this is technically the self-titled, since Dinosaur Jr. didn't add the suffix until late '87 or early '88 after a legal dispute with some other band called Dinosaurs with ex-members of Jefferson Airplane and some band called Country Joe And The Fish. It should also be noted that the last.fm page for the insecure Dinosaurs has under 3,000 listeners. Roughly 402,000 fewer than the band they tried to disband. OH HOW TIME MAKES FOOLS OF US ALL.

Uninteresting factoid aside, this was the first Dinosaur Jr. album I picked up, and one I used to put in my figurative top 10 albums list in high school. I think their third album, Bug, probably reigns as my most listened Dino album at this point, but this one is still great for sentimental and listening values.
If you're familiar with the two following albums, this is pretty dissimilar to the super-loud, pop-inflected, guitar rock featured on those. It also isn't boring, which separates it vastly from the entire remainder of the band's catalog. What we have here is a completely scattershot approach to songwriting, with elements of jangly pop, Neil Young-esque rock, hardcore, metal, and folk (which is almost completely absent in the rest of their albums), all mixed in a really idiosyncratic, absorbingly weird fashion. As such, it's a pretty difficult album to describe considering the only real cohesion here stems from the prevailing sense of disarmament. "Forget The Swan" and "Repulsion" are great guitar driven pop-rock songs, "Quest" and "Severed Lips" are mopey folk-rock, "Mountain Man" is noisy punk-esque rock, and "Pointless" is a weird, indescribable mess of mumbling, strung-out guitar, and dissonance. My favorite track on here is probably "Does It Float", which starts off as a bouncy, catchy folk-punk number that turns into a screaming, stinging, sea of guitar noise for no apparent reason. Good stuff.

I guess if I was being objective, I'd call this album "a ramshackle snapshot merely hinting at the greatness the band would later embody" or something Pitchfork-y and annoying like that, but I just love the songs way too much. It's true, they did get leagues more cohesive and "rockin" on the next two albums (and as such, you may actually wanna check out You're Living All Over Me or Bug before this one) but this is definitely the band at their most esoteric and interesting. Unfortunately, everything after Bug is pretty dull (not terrible), mostly due to J kicking everyone out and turning it into an ego-stroking pop-grunge act with a lot of wanky solos. Whatever though, he gets a free ride for life on those first 3 as far as I'm concerned.

http://www.mediafire.com/?t191m0sm2b5

Oh, actually, their two reunion albums with the original lineup are pretty decent. Check those out, too.