Birds of Tokyo just released their third full-length album, the self-titled Birds of Tokyo. Hailing from Perth, Australia, this is a band that I’m sure you have never heard of (if you’re from the USA, at least). I wouldn’t have ever have heard about them either had I not gone to see Hot Leg perform at the Viper Room in March 2009. Hot Leg featured Justin Hawkins, the lead singer/spandex wearer of the Darkness, that hokey but fun glam rock band from England from years ago…remember them?

Anyway, Birds of Tokyo opened that show, and I was blown away by their set. I guess it would be easy to call them a “rock” band, but they incorporate some interesting orchestrations and darker melodies to their songs, not unlike fellow Aussies Silverchair (another highly underrated band out of the country).

Birds of Tokyo have won several awards in Australia and routinely have big hit singles on the radio and sold-out, successful tours all over the country…yet I have NEVER heard anything about them anywhere here in the States. Ever.

That’s a shame, because they’re really a very talented, multi-faceted band worthy of your time. Their debut album, Day One, had some gems on it, such as Black Sheets (which sounded like what Incubus could have sounded like had they retained any semblance of their early edge) and Wayside. I didn’t think its follow-up Universes wasn’t as good as the debut, but it still had Wild Eyed Boy and Silhouettic, both solid songs that were big hits in their country.

Their new album, though, ups the ante even more. The band sounds more polished and stadium-worthy, which I’m sure they are in Australia. The album’s first single, The Saddest Thing I Know, balances some dark lyrics and an upbeat melody to really well. Vocalist Ian Kenny is the band’s strongest element, in my opinion, as his voice is a bit unique but suits the music excellently. At the Viper Room gig, he also employed some great stage presence, bringing a subtle but powerful element to the live show.

Album opener Plans, currently blowing up on Aussie radio, starts out softly before Kenny starts singing and the music builds to an epic chorus. It’s a great song for the band to bust out as the album opener on their third album, already being big stars. It has that kind of feel to it.

The Dark Side of Love boasts some great melodic guitars during the verses before a radio-friendly chorus kicks in. I don’t mean “radio-friendly” in a bad way here, it just has that bouncy melodic vibe to it. Birds of Tokyo are a great indie rock radio band, I guess I can say it that way, and it works really well.

Adam Spark lays down some slick guitars all over this album, whether they’re in the forefront of the music or if they’re in the back, accentuating Kenny’s vocals (which tends to be the case).

That’s the case with In the Veins of Death Valley, big boomy guitar riffs not really driving the song so much as laying the groundwork for the melodies (think of what Brad does for Linkin Park but with more variations in the chords). This song in particular has some nice keyboard work and orchestration going along with the song, giving it a nice haunting touch. It’s one of my favorite tracks on the record.

Circles slows things down a bit, and almost veers into adult contemporary territory with its piano work and almost falsetto-vocals by Kenny, but these flourishes don’t ruin everything, thankfully.

Wild at Heart starts out in Linkin Park territory (new school LP, with all the melodies and instruments and stuff) before branching out to better territory. It changes tempo abruptly but fluidly. I find this song pops up in my head throughout the day more than any of the others on this record, so be forewarned that it might get stuck in yours as well.

There's no more room on that couch =/

The Gap finds Kenny channeling his inner Matt Bellamy, and the song has crunchier guitars than most of the other tunes thrown into the mix. This song is definite “stadium anthem” material, with majestic crowning riffs and soaring vocals. I’d be surprised if it isn’t another huge hit single for the band.

On The Unspeakable Scene, the band finds itself channeling its inner Silverchair (post-Diorama) with great efficiency. Kenny really sounds like Daniel Johns here, with some eccentric multi-octave vocals and choppy, quirky guitars and melodies all over the place. It’s one of the better tracks on the album, too, really demonstrating the band’s versatility.

Album closer If This Ship Sinks (I Give In) closes things out in grand fashion, starting out quietly and erupting into a wall of guitars and urgency, before wrapping up with a somber outro accompanied by more elaborate strings and piano. It’s quite majestic.

The only problem I can find with this album is that there’s no American distributor. This album, just like the previous two, haven’t been released here, and that’s too bad. I had to track this album down on iTunes, where it’s mislabeled as having been released in 2005. A band like this deserves more attention than it has…sure, they’re huge in their home country, but they should be big here too. They’re apparently taking Silversun Pickups out on tour in Australia in the next couple months, so hopefully the Silverlake golden boys (and girl) put in a good word or two and Birds of Tokyo find themselves more active stateside. I can dream.

I was fortunate enough to randomly notice them at a tiny gig in Los Angeles a year ago. I hope that wasn’t the only time I’ll see them.

Pick up Birds of Tokyo if you want to check out an accomplished, under-the-radar indie band that is well worth your time.

The 90s were certainly at no shortage of quirky rock bands (Faith No More, Brainiac, Ween, etc.) but Soul Coughing unquestionably had a place of their own. While dabbling in jazz and hip-hop was hardly unheard of, very few bands were willing to so fearlessly immerse themselves in each genre, while still remaining identifiable as a rock group.

Shit, I'm out of air... a little help?

Head soul cougher Mike Doughty led the group through their remarkably tasteful mix of blues, electronica, and the aforementioned styles with rock (and even later, combining alternative with elements of drum and bass), but what he most importantly brought to the proverbial table was his experience as a performing poet. Doughty’s surreal, stream-of-consciousness lyrics and offbeat delivery proved to be a defining aspect of Soul Coughing’s sound; he knew just how to simultaneously express his point, baffle listeners with seemingly non-sequitor references, and combine his voice with the song’s beat and mood.

Screenwriter’s Blues is a testament to this, as he builds up praise of moving out west for the menial aims of becoming a… well, screenwriter, as he refers to the greatness of fucking models only to derisively point out near the end that “The radio man laughs, because the radio man fucks a model too.” While he may have come across as overly smarmy, Doughty proved quite willing to show his more sensitive side as well, namely on songs like the closing Janine, or the penultimate track Mr. Bitterness, on which he sounds so resigned that he is actually able to express genuine pain. The mere fact that he was so willing to drop the smart-ass facade which most alternative acts are (and have been) so unwilling to rid themselves of is incredibly refreshing, and the emotion shown pays off wonderfully. On True Dreams of Wichita, Drought muses over a messy breakup as a very busy, lively beat goes on behind him, with simultaneously cheerful and perturbing hints to both blues and jazz. While his talent does take the band quite far, there is even more to the group than one might expect.

This leads me to the other true standout of the band, which was keyboardist and sampler Mark de Gli Antoni. As far as sheer creativity with application of obscure samples in beats is concerned, he has truly gone unrivaled since this album came out – two particular examples are Bus to Beelzebub and Down to This. His brilliantly inspired manipulation of Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse (if you’re not familiar with the title, chances are excellent that should you hear the song, you’d recognize it instantly) constitutes the beat for Beelzebub, while Howlin’ Wolf and the Andrew Sisters are paired to utter perfection for the latter. The song manages to sound like both alternative and hip-hop with a bizarrely accessibility, driven by a sharp funk while retaining a dark, almost disturbing quality in the background samples and Doughty’s unsettling agreement that we take the ankles while he takes the wrists.

No noise implies no bees

Ruby Vroom’s fearless venturing has no doubt influenced a great many bands to run with their own ideas, as they had so admirably done. Soul Coughing’s debut was an intensely original and highly influential piece of work, and while it was certainly well written and catchy, it deserved high marks for its sheer adventurous nature alone. A criminally underrated album, one of the most unique and intelligent debuts of the 90s.

Chris Shiflett never takes a break. When he’s not out touring the globe with the Foo Fighters (heard of ‘em?), he’s spending time with his other band, Jackson United. When he’s not spending time with JU, he’s devoting his efforts to still another band, Chris Shiflett & the Dead Peasants. The man has an absolutely ravenous appetite for creating music, and we’re all really lucky for that hunger.

The Dead Peasants’ debut album was just released this week, and I caught the band’s show at The Hotel Café on Wednesday.

The sound of this band is decidedly different from Jackson United. That band, while still fronted and guitarred by Shiflett, is more punk-rock than the Peasants, whose songs use a pedal steel guitar (played on the album by Greg Leisz), which adds a twangy flavor that thankfully isn’t too country-music ish for my tastes.

My two favorite tracks from the album are Get Along and God Damn, both rock/folk songs led by Shiflett’s guitar work and vocals. I’ve always liked his voice on the Jackson United tracks and now with the Peasants; it’s a bit scruffy and raw sometimes, but it fits the music well.

Each song more or less has a bunch of different instruments being played at the same time, from the pedal steel guitar to the piano/keyboard arrangements by Derek Silverman. God Damn has some of the album’s richest melodies, in particular the lead guitar riff, which plays off the keyboard to create a really pleasant sound.

Overall, the songs on Chris Shiflett and the Dead Peasants have a certain Tom Petty quality to them; the folksy, bluesy chords and rhythms sound like they could have been created decades ago. That new-but-vintage feel is one of the best qualities of the music.

Burning Lights starts out with some pedal steel that adds flavor to the verse and helps the song sound like what I would expect living on a farm to sound like every day (in my dreams).

Live, these songs sounded even more vibrant; Silverman, Marty Rifkin (playing the pedal steel live), Shiflett, Eric Skodis (drums) and Luke Tierney (bass) played with the efficiency of the skilled, battle-tested musicians they are. I’m continually impressed by Shiflett’s versatility, as he spends Foo Fighter downtime touring and recording music with all these other projects. All these years, I’ve always considered Dave Grohl a tireless rock and roll warrior, lending himself out to all kinds of projects during his main band’s occasional breaks, but Shiflett is right up there as well.

Speaking of the Foo Fighters, it’s not as if Taylor Hawkins and Nate Mendel are slouches themselves; Hawkins just released a new record with his other band, Taylor Hawkins & the Coattail Riders , and he plays occasional gigs in the classic rock cover band Chevy Metal (which is also worth checking out). Mendel, himself, is busy lately touring with Sunny Day Real Estate, his pre-Foo band. So it’s obvious that none of the Foos are content to sit back at home and relax, they’d rather keep making music nonstop. More power to them (and us, as we get to absorb all this goodness).

At Hotel Café, the Peasants threw in a Merle Haggard song and an old tune called Lightbulb (or something like that) which was also really cool, but alas isn’t on the record.

An Atheists Prayer is arguably the most soulful track on the album, with Shiflett singing in a more tender register along with the more relaxed, bluesy chords and percussion. It’s a highlight of the record, for sure, partly because of the slick reggae-ish outro at the very end that ties up the song perfectly.

grainy no-flash pic from the show

Baby, Let It Out builds for a few minutes until breaking out into a raucous instrumental break that was great at the show. You can almost sense the jam forming in the verses, with the background guitar packing a bit more of a dark, ominous tone, but it still caught me off guard the first time I heard it.

Overall, the show was fantastic, and I’m probably going back next week for the third week of their residency at Hotel Café.

One of the best things about Foo Fighter-related gigs is the “friends hanging out playing some tunes” vibe. Some members of the crowd are family and close friends, so it almost feels like sitting in on a private gig. Pat Smear was at the show this week, and I’ve seen Nate at previous Shiflett-related gigs, so who knows who will show up next week?

I’d recommend the album to anyone who likes good, soulful rock & roll music that doesn’t sound like those bands who try to copy Bruce Springsteen (which seems to be quite popular these days).

The songs on this album are much more than a prominent guitarists’ “other band”; they stand alone extremely well on their own. In interviews Shiflett has mentioned that this is his main band right now, and it is evident in the passion and precision he used in crafting the songs and channeling that energy into the live show. It’s really great.

These songs also helped me realize that this sound has found its way onto a few Foo Fighters tracks, namely Summer’s End from Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. That song threw me for a loop with its country-inspired, soulful bluesy wail, making it one of my favorite tracks from that record. I’m assuming Chris had something to do with that, as evidenced by the output of The Dead Peasants.

Side note: the band before the Peasants was called Guggenheim Grotto, two musicians out of Ireland who played pristine, hauntingly beautiful acoustic/piano songs that resonated with me deeply. They ended their set with a ukulele rendition of Radiohead’s Creep that was incredible. I highly recommend them as well.

In all, the show at Hotel Café was a great little gig, tucked away at an amazing venue I plan to visit much more frequently from now on.

Chris Shiflett has a great thing here with the Dead Peasants, and I look forward to seeing them again soon.

Oasis doesn’t need an elaborate introduction. The British lads basically had the world by the bollocks since around 1994. You don’t need me to describe Liam and Noel Gallagher, the feisty brothers who made up the core of the band, with Liam on vocals and tambourine duties and Noel as the principal songwriter and occasional singer. They swore, they fought (each other), they drank, and they created some blissful BritPop music that paid more than a casual homage to their heroes in the Beatles and the Stone Roses.

The band, who broke up in 2009 with a climactic backstage brother brawl before a show in Paris, just released a definitive boxed set entitled Time Flies…1994-2009, which contains every one of their UK-released singles, from 1994’s Supersonic all the way up to 2009’s Falling Down.

Missing from this set is Champagne Supernova, arguably one of the band’s best songs, and one of the handful that caused a stir in the United States. It wasn’t technically a UK single, so it isn’t included in this set. I ordered the US version on Amazon, which is supposed to contain the song, but received the normal UK version. Oh well.

The twenty-eight songs on this two-disc set contain some of the best BritPop music to have ever been laid down in a studio.

That sun is hot, innit

The collection starts out with Supersonic, the band’s debut single, off of 1994’s timeless Definitely Maybe, and Roll With It, off of (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, the band’s 1995 album that launched them to super popular stadium band territory.

Everyone knows Liam & Noel are, well, supremely quotable blokes. Noel rose in infamy making outlandish, extremely self-aggrandizing statements about his band’s importance and has tended to come off as a bit of a prick over the years, honestly. Liam is even more antagonistic, with his “I don’t give a toss” personality and a palpable sense of self-importance that is not unlike that of his brother. While their combative personalities turned some people off of the band, it was something that drew me to them, as their outright “Britishness” struck me as magnetizing. That, and Morning Glory was my first-ever CD album that I purchased, so there’s also that.

The fact of the matter is, though, that they’re responsible for the BritPop movement that emerged in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994. It went on for a while in the UK before we paid attention here in the States, but you just can’t deny the impact of songs like the classic Wonderwall, the hopefulness of Live Forever, the moving Don’t Look Back in Anger, the bloated but memorable D’You Know What I Mean?, and the rest of the songs on this set.

Every album the band released is showcased here, of course, from Definitely Maybe through 2008’s underappreciated Dig Out Your Soul, which serves as a fine cap on their prolific career.

Oasis weren’t a band for everyone. While we in the States only seemed to care up through Wonderwall and Champagne Supernova, amused by their adoration for the Beatles and their larger-than-life charisma, I remained a fan for the rest of the band’s career. I’ve been lucky enough to see them two times, at a half-empty Shoreline Ampitheatre in Mountain View, CA in 2005 and then at Oracle Arena in Oakland in late 2008. The fact that they might actually be finished for good is sad to think about, as I’ve enjoyed most of their catalog, even 1997’s Be Here Now, the follow-up to Morning Glory that was, as Noel has put it, the result of “four guys on drugs in the studio, not giving a fuck”. Still, it’s hardly shocking that we’ve reached the end of the band, given the number of times Liam & Noel have had verbal (and physical) spats.

This package is even more impressive considering that Disc 3 is a DVD with ALL of Oasis’s music videos over the years. I love things like that, and it makes this already amazing collection even better. Disc 4 is a live set from the Roundhouse in London in July 2009, weeks before Noel quit the band once and for all.

So to recap, you have two discs of 28 of Oasis’s biggest singles, then a DVD with all the videos, and a live set thrown in for kicks. The booklet is nice too, filled with quotes from fans and Liam & Noel themselves about songs and fans’ attachment to the band. The “box” itself is a really slick clamshell-type thing that, when opened, is a picture of a huge crowd from a densely-populated Oasis gig. This whole collection is extremely satisfying, and it’s a great way to go out as a band.

In closing, I was sad to hear that Oasis was no more. When Noel got in a fight with Liam and called it quits, a big part of my musical upbringing went by the wayside. Thankfully, this collection exists for me and other fans to always remember the band and their legacy.

I don’t care if you always hated Oasis, Liam, Noel, BritPop, England, brothers, buzzy guitars, hype, accents, or anything affiliated with that. BritPop was an important musical movement, and Oasis was a big part of it.

Time Flies…1994-2009 is a fitting au revoir for a band that was bigger than its peers, a band that often encompassed working-class longing in its lyrics while retaining a sense of melody and style that didn’t betray its members’ outright swagger and enthusiasm. Noel, Liam, and the revolving door of bassists and drummers may have closed the book on their musical career, but their songs will live forever.

It’s time for a spotlight article on a local band I’ve seen a few times in the past couple months. It’s always good to see bands do things themselves, without a label, and Los Angeles-based band Harris Grade is one of those bands. They self-released their first full-length album, Lipstick Politics, back in April. I saw them at the Troubadour for the CD release and picked up a copy for myself, as their blistering set caught my interest.

While the live show is arguably the band’s strongest aspect, the songs on Lipstick Politics aren’t too shabby themselves. Front man Robyn August has a strong voice that carries the upbeat songs well, such as Wildfire and Lipstick Politics (Dirty), which contains the album’s most potent guitar riffs, courtesy of axemen Caleb Healey and Alex Von Hollen.

This record sounds like it was taken out of the early 2000’s and transported to the present day. That’s a good thing in my opinion, as I have a special fondness for bands of that era. Harris Grade captures much of the same energy and catchiness as a good percentage of bands back then seemed to have.

After the aggressive opening to the disc, Call Me Crazy slows things down a bit, with Robyn breathily singing over some acoustic strumming. On tracks like this and Angeles he demonstrates his ability to really sing, and does so pretty well. I think they opened the Troubadour set with this song, with Alex & Caleb sitting on stools, VH1 Storytellers-style.

yeah, we got shirts

If there’s a gripe I have with the album is how short many of the songs are; the 1-2-3 punch of Dear Failure, Wildfire, and Lipstick Politics (Dirty) are all under three minutes. I wish they would have been a bit more fleshed out here and there, but that’s not really a big deal.

Sign of the Times is uptempo burner with some nice buzzy guitars, but it’s all over too soon.

Angeles is another acoustic tune, with Robyn lamenting how money and privilege are seen as more important than the things that really matter. A string section kicks in towards the end, and it adds a nice element to the song.

Bassist Jason Friday and drummer Greg Fulleman provide a steady rhythm throughout the album, and live they’re even more powerful. Each band member goes off in concert, running around the stage with an energy and sense of enthusiasm that I used to see bands like Story of the Year employ on various Warped Tour stages.

I can recommend Lipstick Politics to anyone who was a fan of bands of the early 2000’s and beyond, such as the aforementioned Story of the Year, Senses Fail, the Used, Anberlin, and Saosin.

I can also recommend that you check out iTunes for the song Hold On For Your Life, as it was on their previous EP but is not included on this album. It’s a gem.

And if you like anything you hear from Harris Grade, don’t sleep on catching them live, as it’s a lot of fun.

When picking the genre for the album, St. Vincent Décor, I reluctantly chose alternative rock as its home. Not to say that Arizona-based Blackmarket doesn’t involve alternative rock in their arsenal, it’s just that they feel much more like an honest, infectious and unflinching “rock” band. Not only is the group comprised of the all too rare three-piece, but because of it they rely heavily on huge hooks and monster guitar riffs. Oh, and the album checks in with 10 tracks at just over 30 minutes — it really doesn’t get more rock ‘n roll than that.

As is the case with any band that delves into the world of three-minute songs, big choruses and clear-cut rock songs, you will inevitably think to youself at some point, “I feel like I’ve heard this song before.” This is because you have. What Blackmarket is doing isn’t the most innovative in music, nor is it meant to be. The album banks on the fact that good music is simply good music. Whether or not St. Vincent Décor changes your life is hardly the point. The point is to showcase three solid musicians who truly enjoy what they are doing.

I kind of knew I would enjoy this album based on the cover alone. Ask anyone I know.

Mike Emerson, Langdon Chieffo and Daryl Lamont comprise Blackmarket, playing together since they were in junior high. A comfortable chemistry is clear from the opening track, “Tongue Twister Typo.” Almost no time passes before the drum rolls kick in, huge guitar riffs following closely behind, finally coming together with a bass that aggressively grooves towards the introduction of Lamont’s vocals. His voice is everything you might expect from a rock singer; slightly scratchy, slightly agitated and more than slightly willing to belt a line or two.

“Blue Lemon,” finds the band willing to tone it down in regards to the guitar, opting for acoustic over electric. Lamont and company refuses to slow the pace though, using a mellotron (keyboard) to fill in any empty spaces in the music. The song sets a brisk pace from the onset and does not let up. The chorus, like most on the album, is instantly approachable.

Like a lot of rock bands though, Blackmarket suffers from the notion that there just has to be at least one acoustic track on the album. I, personally, never really understood this unwritten rule. “Catch and Release” is by no means a bad song, in fact, it is better than most others attempts. Problem is, when listening to song after song that offers up big sounds and bigger choruses; it just seems unnecessary to slow down the action. Really though, this is just me finding something pretty small to complain about amidst a whole lot to be happy with.

On tour in Germany in 2008.

After listening to St. Vincent Décor,  I came upon a pretty obvious realization that I hadn’t really ever consciously thought of: I really love music, and I really love reviewing music. Because of this, I can tell you that while I enjoyed this album thoroughly, it is in no way groundbreaking, which is sure to send the “serious” music listeners scurrying to find the newest buzz band to blog about. As for the rest of us, we are left with an unassuming album that is infectiously fun to listen to.

I’d say we win.

These days it has grown exceedingly rare to see bands releasing albums within a year of each other (one of the scant exceptions being Portugal. The Man), so to see one of last year’s most popular supergroups, The Dead Weather, furnishing a sophomore effort ten months after their fairly impressive debut is indeed a pleasant surprise. The potential downside to this, of course, is that with such a small amount of time to work with, there’s not much time for a great deal of progression with the music. And it’s true that Sea of Cowards, the group’s latest, isn’t quite as forward-thinking as it might be, but it still finds the quartet toying with their sounds and trying new things.

These guys throw the best Halloween parties

The Dead Weather do try a few new things this time around, and they all work very well; the only problem is that they’re hardly tried often enough. Take The Difference Between Us, which remains faithful to the band’s bluesy rock template but tops it off with a great, almost sinister synth line, or Gasoline‘s organ driven hook, giving it an even more authentic 70s rock feel. Then there’s Dean Fertita’s heavily processed guitar on tracks like Looking at the Invisible Man and Jawbreaker. These are all great moments on the album, but they are the extent of the band’s experimentation, and while the songwriting has definitely improved, it hasn’t really changed, and it gives these songs less chance to really stand out.

Another thing worthy of note is Alison Mosshart’s vocals – she’s grown even more confident with her role as the band’s frontwoman, oozing charisma both cool (I’m Mad) and sexy (I Can’t Hear You). The only thing is that Jack White’s presence is much more apparent on this record, and it takes away from her performance – not in it that it undermines her or even lessens her performance, but simply that this results in less of her to hear, and frankly White’s high pitched register doesn’t work quite as well with the dark, 70s hard rock sound the band is going for this time around. The real issue with Cowards, however, is the sameness to the songs. As mentioned before, there are some tracks that show more interesting ideas than others, and the overall songwriting has grown a good amount, but this results in everything blurring together a bit. Cuts like Hustle and Cuss or No Horse do sound better than most songs off of the first album, but they don’t quite stand up to Horehound’s singles, either. The songs are unquestionably good, but they lack a certain catchiness, and sound better when heard as part of the whole set than by themselves.

The band after a presumably wild night

So is Sea of Cowards better than Horehound? It’s hard to say. While the songs here branch out a bit more and are better composed, it lacks stand out tracks and therefore makes it easier for the songs to blend in with each other. It’s not a huge step forward, but given how quickly it followed its predecessor, they show an eagerness to experiment and a genuine passion for the music they’re making together, and even for a supergroup with this kind of talent, that’s hardly a bad thing.

Those unfamiliar with shoegaze should probably be made aware of some staples of the subgenre. Generally, heavy effects create a drone of distorted guitar, working cohesively with vocals that act as another instrument in order to accentuate the melody lost in the fuzz. The lyrics of such groups tend to border on the side of melodrama, speaking of heartbreak, loss and uncertainty. When measured by these standards, Makaras Pen, the Buffalo, New York-based band fit quite well within the genre on their self-titled debut album.

This is not to be confused though; Makaras Pen are nowhere near as self-deprecating as any number of contemporary emo groups that could be mentioned. There are no cheap, emotional ploys used to grab the listener’s attention. Instead, the band relies on their extensive knowledge of shoegaze and their long-standing friendship to convey true sentiment. Added to the plethora of comfort and familiarity within the group is the twist of including touches of aggressive indie rock to the mix. Lead singer, Emma Willis, offers sensitive and heartfelt vocals to sad yet hopeful lyrics. The spacey ambiance created by the wailing effects of the guitar (provided by Doug White and Jon Nemi), solidifies the forward motion of each song.

Album opener, “Currents,” makes itself immediately accessible by offering upbeat, 80’s style gloom pop to the high register of Willis. Guitars strum, vocals over-dub and drums drive the song ever forward. When the chorus kicks in, the music slows to a head bob-inducing pace, due in large part to the heavy distortion layered on top of everything else that is going on.

“Falling Deeper” opens with a similarly gloomy intro, but finds a lighter note in which to present the chorus. The 80’s feel is heavy, punctuated by the laser-like effects of a somber guitar. Willis contributes to the cheerless tone with lyrics, “Words we shared they seem so faded/What’s said between us dies within us anyway.” Despite this, Willis’ delicate, warm vocals keep the song from reaching full-blown melodramatic levels.

Throughout the listen, the one word that comes to mind most frequently is consistency. While this is generally a positive for most bands, it hurts Makaras Pen a bit. The vocals of Willis, the spacey effects of the guitars and the largely grave nature of the album can feel too measured and predictable to command the listener’s complete attention.

What Makaras Pen has done with the release of their self-titled album is contribute to the recent development that has involved bands beginning to make shoegaze relevant once more. Since fading from the public eye in the early nineties due to the emergence of grunge, groups such as M83, Silversun Pickups and Broken Social Scene have borrowed from the lost genre, dubbing a new movement known as “nu-gaze.” The newest album of this movement is utterly listenable, bound together by Makaras Pen’s mastery of the genre. Of course, the one problem the group faces is keeping the songs from blurring together. As the album moves further along, some listeners may grow weary of the persistently downtrodden mood that accompanies most of the tracks. Overall though, Makaras Pen delivers a well produced, inviting and genuinely interesting album that should have listener’s looking back in the past, as well as to the future, to the far-from-dead genre that is shoegaze.

Back in January, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser said that the new MGMT album, Congratulations, was not going to have any standout single material, and would be more of a complete body of songs. Despite this, Flash Delirium was released three months later as a free download, a “taster” for the new album, they called it. Fans went in groves to give it a listen, and for the most part promptly hated it, flooding internet forums and voicing their disapproval. Much of the discontent came from the simple fact that it didn’t sound like the smash hit singles from their debut as MGMT, Oracular Spectacular, even though the band themselves had said that this was not what to look for. Thankfully, the track, and Congratulations overall, seems to have grown on the fans for the most part, and rather deservedly at that. While the Brooklyn duo’s sophomore effort is a notable shift from their earlier work, resembling the Flaming Lips song they contributed to last year a great deal more than Oracular, it’s still a fantastic record with interesting takes on several sixties-prominent genres.

Whoa! You never know what those crazy cats'll do next!

It’s hard to sympathize with fans who are unhappy with the more sixties informed sound on Congratulations, as they obviously weren’t really listening to the bulk of Oracular Spectacular. Psychedelia has always been a large part of the duo’s sound, and now that it has come to the forefront, it brings a slightly different type of pop approach with it. The hooks are still brilliant, recalling the best of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, and even The Beatles circa 1967 with their echo slathered melodies and contrasting note progressions. It’s even been given a touch of camp as well (the organ on Song for Dan Treacy, for instance), which gives it all the more charm.

Congratulations’ momentum runs strong from its beginning to its peak, with the twelve minute (and amazingly listenable) Siberian Breaks, a jumble of at least six different songs strung along together, each distinctive but morphing into one another seamlessly. The track has an incredible smoothness to it, managing to keep itself immersing all throughout, always quite a feat for such a long song. Breaks is almost a microcosm of the album containing it, with not only the style but fantastic flow mirroring that of Congratulations on the whole. It’s Working and Dan Treacy are paired wonderfully, exhibiting the blends of surf rock and British invasion psychedelia that VanWyngarden and Goldwasser have adopted. Flash Delirium has the most reminiscence of the alternative dance style largely left behind, with fuzzy synths backing the flute solos and organs, which is probably why it was the track released as a preview of the album last month. Delirium is packed with great hooks (which makes the backlash it received all the more baffling), and builds up to an intense climax in which the song crashes into the next track, the lovely and somber I Found a Whistle.

This is where Congratulations stumbles slightly. Brian Eno and the closing title track have considerably weaker melodies, with the latter sounding almost like a watered down B-side from Oracular. Lady Dada’s Nightmare is one of those songs best described as more interesting than actually good, sounding like The Flaming Lips covering an early Pink Floyd instrumental, and taking plenty of artistic liberties. It’s a well crafted instrumental, and certainly fits in with the album’s mood, but just can’t live up to the more tastefully imaginative first six songs. Someone’s Missing, for example – the third cut – has the same issue as these three in that it’s simply not very compelling. The reason it still works is because it’s only two and a half minutes, and doesn’t have a chance for the melody to wear out its appeal. The ending trio each last at least four minutes, which gives ample time to reveal just how shaky they are.

"If we're gonna play sixties music, we gotta look the part too!" "...dude, we look ridiculous."

The sixties psychedelia sound is tackled wonderfully here, and while Congratulations slumps towards the end and gives a somewhat weak finish, the first two thirds are chock full of outstanding moments, with great hooks thrown left and right and masterfully handled momentum. For a band with a widely hailed debut album, a sophomore slump is even more difficult to avoid. And while this isn’t exactly a masterpiece, it’s extremely successful on those grounds alone.

As the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. “We didn’t change anything,” drummer and co-vocalist Steve Ansell modestly said of his band Blood Red Shoes’ latest, Fire Like This, in a recent interview. “There are still just guitars, drums and singing. I think that for us it was about getting better at what we were doing.” Indeed, while his and vocalist/guitarist Laura-Mary Carter’s latest outing feels like a retread in places, the Brighton duo shows definite maturation in the songwriting on their sophomore effort.

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Opener Don’t Ask essentially picks right up where the duo’s debut, Box of Secrets, left off. Initially it’s a bit underwhelming to hear Fire Like This sounding so similar to its predecessor, but like I said, initial. Firstly, hearing more of the terrific, grunge inflected garage rock from Secrets is truly a joy. There’s a distinctly raw, visceral nature that Ansell and Carter give off, whether it’s the fist-pumping chorus of Light It Up or the slow, melancholic build up of When We Wake. Secondly, the musicianship and songwriting really have been upped a notch. The songs are not as straight forward as they were before; they play a bit more with structure, which pays off beautifully on Keeping It Close and the album’s biggest surprise, Colours Fade. Colours is a slow burning, seven minute long track which is loaded with outstanding melodies, and is able to take its time as it progresses without getting repetitive or boring – quite impressive, considering that they’re only two albums in to a genre best suited for three minute blow outs. Ansell’s drumming has become quite a bit more sophisticated, and his and Carter’s vocal patterns (lead and backing alike) have grown more consistently striking. As good as Secrets as, it still had its weaker moments, and Fire definitely has an overall stronger sound.

"I'm sorry, this has never happe-" "Oh shut up."

The higher level of sophistication does not come at the expense of the unbridled energy that was so abundant in the debut, luckily. It Is Happening Again‘s almost Pixie-esque midtempo loud/quiet stomp is simultaneously crushing and lively, while Count Me Out is propelled by Ansell’s alternating fast and slow drumming. Heartsink is another very well structured track; it’s more dependent on the catchy vocal patterns and hooks, and lets its great, aggressive trudge take over at just the right moments. This is ultimately Fire Like This’ biggest strength, the way that all the qualities from the debut come together with a sharper sense of organization. On Secrets, qualities were more assigned to each song rather than divided evenly, and there’s an enormous sense of that here. The latter portion of the album does wind down nicely though, and the instrumental closer Sulphites is, like Colours, much more inventive than one might think, cleverly layering on guitar parts until it abruptly concludes.

Blood Red Shoes’ latest doesn’t sound like much of a step forward at first, but despite its simple and unpolished sound, Fire Like This is an intricate piece of work. It rewards repeated listens with the improvements in the band’s songcraft and offers a good deal more versatility. Ansell and Carter have definitely lived up to the promise their debut made, and if this is any indication, they still have their best work ahead of them.