Kittens Slay Dragons - Big Big Heart (2017)

Written by Mike Saulman, posted by blog admin

OFFICIAL: http://kittensslaydragons.com/
TWITTER:https://twitter.com/meowslaydragons
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/kittensslaydragons/

Love is Surgery Video:  https://youtu.be/uLUjVFRQePk

Big Big Heart from songwriter Sarah Donner’s electronica project Kittens Slay Dragons is one of the best examples of the form released in recent memory. It is, likewise, an intensely personal project that finds this performer bringing layers of heart into her music. Many might deride electronica as too cold, too mechanical, but any dissenting voices offering up such opinions will find themselves completely rebuffed by the warmth and artistry coming from this release. Donner’s pop sensibility makes every song on this release an adventurous experience – she has a vibrant, youthful voice that cuts through the production and infuses each song with unique and highly individual tone. Even during the album’s more serious moments we can hear an effortless playfulness sure to entertain many. Kittens Slay Dragons doesn’t have the feeling of some one-off or a dalliance – instead, the album’s ten songs make an impact and sound like fully realized musical compositions.

The quicksilver synthesizer playing forming the backing track of “Gatekeeper” gives Donner’s voice and clean, uncluttered platform for making a personal statement. Donner’s brand of songwriting allows her to make such personal statements, however, without ever risking obscurity and the visceral edge to her pop vocals brings an added theatricality to the sound that’s never overdone. There’s a lighter, chiming quality to the synths on “Castiel” accompanied by some assertive percussion and a thumping bass beat. It strikes quite a contrast with the pure pop exuberance of Donner’s voice, but the differences work well. “Smile Pretty” varies the approach. Instead of pursuing an urgent line of attack, Donner writes much more emotional effect here instead of physical. Her voice is a constant strength appealing to that side of her music, but the near-ambient textures of this song are a marked change. It, likewise, showcases her voice to fantastic effect.

The title song runs along similar lines. It has a strongly swirling, evocative quality much more concrete than the aforementioned song and its melodic virtues are stronger. Donner combines a more measured take on her style here and mixes it with her customary emotional high points in a memorable way. The relentless pulse of “Queer and Square” is accompanied by taut synthesizer lines and a focused vocal from Donner that hits all the right marks. The uniformity and predictability of the track isn’t disheartening – instead, it gives the song a sense of dogged purpose often lacking in other styles that never lacks the requisite warmth. There’s a deep and simple groove quickly struck by the song “Symbols in the Sky”, but it has a great hook that Donner exploits to its maximum potential. There are some particularly strong synth lines in the song’s second half that adds to its rambunctiousness. The album’s conclusion “Head Down, Heart Up” has all the best qualities we associate with finales – this sounds like an impassioned personal statement designed to give the album a dramatic curtain. The song’s changes are inviting and natural sounding while Donner rises to the challenge of closing things with an exclamation point by serving up a lights-out vocal. Whatever genre it is, few acts today produce albums like Kittens Slay Dragons has with Big Big Heart.

Grade: A

Jerad Finck - "New Kids" (2017)

Photo by Michael Sparks Keegan

OFFICIAL: www.jeradfinck.com

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/jeradfinckmusic

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/jeradfinck

LISTEN NOW: https://soundcloud.com/jeradfinck/new-kids-master/s-266fn

The inexorable rise of Jerad Finck’s musical career is a natural consequence of his songwriting talents reaching one new peak after another, but also the result of a lifetime’s musical experiences finding near perfect avenues for self expression. His latest single “New Kids” finds this Spokane, Washington native offering up a release qualifying as top shelf, finely crafted modern pop but also possesses a sharply honed singer/songwriter edge never risking self indulgence or heavy handedness. His acumen is derived, in no small part, from manifesting a strong interest in jazz as a youth and during his college years. It was during those college years that Finck joined his first rock band and his journey here informs the quality of his latest offering. “New Kids” is a fleshed out and fully evocative example of modern pop songwriting.

Finck, unlike many, doesn’t go in for glossy surface devoid of meaning. “New Kids”, instead, makes fresh use of traditional popular music instruments like the guitar. He employs these elements through the arrangement with pinpoint accuracy, never applying more color than is needed, and wraps his voice around the melody with equal parts emotion and finesse. Many performers, particularly singers, come off as stiff or too formal when attempting a style piece such as this. Finck is cut from a different cloth. He brings the right amount of emotional and musical heft to this performance and plays the lyric just right – his phrasing lands on particularly pleasing stress points, he elongates the right syllables while soft pedaling others, and finishes off the songs most important passages in a highly satisfying way. Despite the fact he is such a young performer, Finck demonstrates total command over the material and a cool, effervescent confidence that lights the song with a lustrous blue glow.

It has just the right length and the instrumentation never sounds cluttered or hurried. Finck is at the center of the mix, but it’s clear that there’s been great care taken to bring the musical and vocal aims in total accord with one another. Each part feeds off the next and it gives the songwriting an impressively coherent, unified quality that many such efforts lack. His songwriting talents extend to lucid and often elegant lyrical turns of phrase. This isn't the typical sputtering, half-clear assortment of clichés we often hear in modern pop music. Instead, Finck comes off as a performer with something intensely personal to say that he believes many others will relate to. This sort of sincerity and blindness to what the world may say are among the hallmarks of our most memorable performing artists. Jerad Finck will continue to sharpen, deepen, and refine his craft on the back of quality material like “New Kids” until he likely takes a place among the brightest talents of his time.

Written by: William Elgin

Grade: A

Humphrey/McKeown - Tapestry of Shadows (2017)

Written by Ed Price, posted by Jason

OFFICIAL: www.hm-music.com

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/HumphreyMcKeown

Great songwriting partnerships are increasingly rare. More and more young artists seem to aim for the recognition that solo success brings and tethering their futures to the talents of another seems like it will only dilute their glory. Heather Humphrey and Tom McKeown, however, are superb individual talents who realize their combined chemistry is much greater. Such instances are rare and require an unique confluence of personalities and skill. Often one is achieved without the other and those instances are near-misses that, invariably, don’t have staying power. Humphrey and McKeown, however, share an all-encompassing musical and emotional sympathy that comes through in each of the twelve songs on Tapestry of Shadows. Their fifth release brings some new musical faces into their fold and results in one of the most seamless “band efforts” yet from this duo, but their customary mix of traditional with the individual makes this a much more memorable effort.

You know you’ve struck something special just based on the opener alone. “Beautiful”, at first glance, might strike some as trite just based on title alone. It would be a hasty judgment. One of the abiding qualities of the duo’s music is how their songwriting continually upends listener’s expectations. “Beautiful” tackles familiar themes in popular song with an unusual poetic sensibility, yet it never overreaches and hits all the right reflective and exploratory notes. “Better Day”, the album’s second track, proves that the duo’s musical explorations have the same flexibility as their lyrical and vocal ones. The deep fried Southern feel they find here requires just the right amount of restraint from the players to pull it off and the duo, ably supported by their collaborators, pull it off with flying colors. They take a different tenor altogether on the third song “You Don’t Know Me”. This isn’t a cover of the longtime pop standard, but rather one of the duo’s best originals defined by a haunting vocal from McKeown that finds the emotional key to this early one and dovetails nicely with the arrangement. The arrangement hinges on the collaboration between piano and other instruments – it has a deeply emotional, melodic grace that many will love.

There’s a slight shuffle quality prevalent on the duo’s performance of “Someday” that peaks nicely on the chorus. It’s one of the album’s songs where the duo sings together with the best effect and they exhibit just the right amount of restraint. The lyrics, as well, are among the finest on the album and the duo finds just the right phrasing even working as duet. They hit another high point with the impressive “Sasha on the Carousel”. This is one of the album’s better lyrics thanks to its evocative imagery that, only occasionally, falls flat. When it works, however, it works so well that listeners are transported into the song’s point of view with little effort. The march tempo and assertive percussion heard in “Passing Shadows” sets it apart from much of the surrounding material but the differences in presentation are never so stark that the track seems incongruous placed against the remainder of the album. Tapestry of Shadows succeeds for many reasons, but artistry is chief among them and that quality has defined Humphrey and McKeown’s work through five albums and counting.

Grade: A-

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Henry's Dream (1992)

I used to write and spend a lot of time in libraries. I had a predilection for getting in trouble later evolving into high art, but I spent more time at seventeen parked at a wooden library cubicle surrounding by weighty tomes of poetry, biographies, and ever present pens and notebooks where I scribbled significant details about long dead heroes I deemed my Gods and blabbering poems where I attempted to find their measure.
   
I read magazines too. Musician, Spin, Goldmine, and Rolling Stone ranked high among those. I wanted to read biographical articles, interviews, reviews. Seventeen years old in the early nineties, pre-Internet in a Midwestern college town, meant Rolling Stone’s review section carried a certain cachet others lacked. The brand held a strong allure. This looking back on those days may not constitute a portrait of an artist as a young man, circa 1992, but I still have notebooks from those days twenty plus years later. Make of that what you will.

I had a long history with Rolling Stone too. I spent most of my time engrossed at the magazine and book rack when my parents went to the grocery store. Lou Reed. David Baerwald. Procol Harum, Chris Whitley, and Neil Young. Rolling Stone, between 1989 and 1992, introduced me to those artists and many more thanks to some well written positive reviews. I think they were, usually, David Fricke reviews. One review leaving a mark on life for years to come proved to be a write-up on Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ Henry’s Dream.

I learned later that David Briggs produced the album. Briggs, sound-meister of Neil Young’s albums with Crazy Horse, is a big reason why the album endures with me as an unheralded young masterpiece. A low hanging darkness and the smoke of conflict hangs over the album’s nine songs and much of the blame for that can likely be laid at the feet of a fiery relationship Briggs shared with Cave and the band. The coarse, jagged edge Briggs’ work lent to the ragged glory of his work with Young and Crazy Horse, cut deep into this collection and left a lasting mark.

The opening one two punch of “Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry” and “I Had a Dream, Joe” are dizzying. The first track rides a wave of propulsive acoustic guitars and Cave’s apocalyptic street corner preacher raving a travelogue of gory horrors. The language is pared down, rhythmic, and solidly concrete. The second song, “I Had a Dream, Joe”, is rousing in spite of itself, but its exhortation submerged with blackly humorous parody. The musical structure follows the same general idea we hear in the opener – the Bad Seeds used as an acoustic orchestra, of sorts, and it comes across with breath-robbing power. “Straight to You”, certainly the closest thing to a commercial moment on this release, is one of Cave’s better love songs to this date and he crouches his devotion in the sort of specific, if not cataclysmic, language defining much of his songwriting. “Brother, My Cup Is Empty” is a blistering masterpiece packing power far beyond the wattage of most songs. Cave’s seething vocal, fatalistic and defiant, inflame great lyrics with the full flush of performed poetry and the band steamrolls any resistance with an unified and energetic workout.

“Christina the Astonishing” is quite unlike anything else on Henry’s Dream. The muted hymn-like arrangement enormously benefits from Cave’s vocals. It quickly takes on an uniquely elegiac quality. The lyrics’ narrative strengths are considerable and the same talent for specificity helping earlier songs stands out and serves this track particularly well. Even a cursory listen to this song doesn’t suggest, initially, that it grows with you over time. You can credibly argue, thanks to personal preference, Henry’s Dream is front loaded with substance and sags during the album’s second half. Smarter listeners will hear diversity. “When I First Came To Town” successfully mimics traditional balladry in a sort of Grand Guginol fashion, akin to a more tempered “Para Won’t Leave You, Henry”, and there are certain decisions along the way reinforcing those musical choices. Cave’s spectral, distorted harmonica in the song’s second half is a superb touch. “John Finn’s Wife” has an enormous capacity for musical drama it doesn’t exploit until late in the track – there’s some lasciviously obvious touches in the songwriting, but Cave’s writing, vocals, and idiosyncratic vision makes this work as an explosively modern take on traditional music. It also hints at future directions with albums like Murder Ballads.

The album’s final two songs, “Loom of the Land” and “Jack the Ripper”, are radically different numbers. The former of the two is the stronger song and its deliberate pace sets a perfect stage for some of Cave’s finest, measured writing on the entire album. There is a certainly a melancholy quality surrounding the song, but it makes for one of the album’s more affecting moments. “Jack the Ripper” is heavy-handed Strum and Drang ultimately signifying nothing, but Cave does an appropriately leering job aping a small basketful of blues clichés. It isn’t an inherently terrible track, but seems lightweight in light of its predecessors. No matter. This gave birth to a lifelong admiration abiding to present day. I found a home. A wife, kids. I write at a desk now instead of a library cubicle but thank Rolling Stone for having the good sense to favorably review this album a long time ago, in a place far away. I am still listening a quarter of a century later.

Grade: A-

Brit Royal - Change (2017)

OFFICIAL PAGE: http://www.britroyalmusic.com/

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/BritRoyalMusic
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/britroyalmusic/

Twin brothers Kais and Mazin Oliver’s 2015 debut EP enlisted a bevy of top shelf music world talent like hit songwriter and producer Mikal Blue as well as JR Richards from the band Dishwalla. The debut led the duo to a successful string of concert appearances throughout continental Europe and the UK, including a well received and sold out live debut in their hometown London, but it’s their first full length album, London, that will further establish them among the most promising talents working today. The thirteen track release features a number of stunning performances and compositions but few are as impactful as the single “Change”. The Dream mix of this song has recently been released and it’s a dizzying example of what these brothers are capable of while retaining all the necessary artistry to inspire their audience and any new converts to their music. Like the remainder of the album’s songs, “Change” is infused with an appealing sound and real individuality.

It is also a spartan track of immense tastefulness. The song is primarily built around piano and vocals, but there are some light keyboard touches in the track providing a discreet amount of color. The vocals, however, are the undisputed star of this particular show. They land in all the right places and play off the backing track with great distinction while veering from artful understatement to resounding emotional high points without ever overwhelming the listener. The unique confluence of emotion, musicality, and a perfectly tailored vocal melody working in concert with the minimal backing is reminiscent, in some respects, of top shelf Brit pop from both the eighties and nineties, but Brit Royal have a completely contemporary sound that never embraces retro principles outright. Instead, they brandish their influences without ever being wholly beholden to them.

The track wraps up at the four minute mark and never feels overextended. The piano playing has a warm, wonderfully lyrical quality that looks to serve the song first rather than indulging in any sort of fake virtuosity. The cascading runs, the space created between the notes, and the elegance created from matching the piano with the vocal establishes a memorable mood from the first. There’s a bit of the ballad form suggested by this song, but the suggestion is never strained and the thoughtfulness of the track’s presentation will please longtime listeners and newcomers alike. The lyrics are rather notable as well. Brit Royal hit up some eternal verities and universal truths that have a strong personal connotation in the song, but will also resonate with a vast swath of the duo’s audience. Brit Royal make it all sound impressively easy, but long standing musical devotees will know and understand their talents are special and emanate from a place deep within. “Change” is intelligent pop the way it should be done – it isn’t aiming to hit the lowest common denominator and, instead, touches listeners in a honest way. The Oliver brothers are the sort of musical act who is built to last.

Written by: William Elgin

SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/britroyalmusic/change-dream-mix/s-33kjH

YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AgE1e-Rbyk&feature=youtu.be

The Obsessed - Sacred (2017)

Iconoclast, legend, pioneer, icon. All code for outlaw.

It’s a long road. It’s always a long road with Scott “Wino” Weinrich. Wino, since his earliest days in the music world, has followed his wayward muse wherever she steers him. The last few years placed Wino, outside of tours with now defunct Spirit Caravan and Saint Vitus, on an acoustic path – perhaps an unlikely avenue to travel for someone with his pedigree. It proved artistically fruitful. During this period, Wino produced two solo acoustic albums, worked with singer/songwriter Conny Ochs, and appeared on a Townes Van Zandt tribute album, among other work. Fans, however, soon clamored for a new studio rock album. The most likely candidate, outside of a new band, appeared to be his seminal power trio Spirit Caravan. The band logged a lot of miles over the last several years with Vitus drummer Henry Vasquez manning the stool for their initial reunion run of dates and Ed Gulli playing drums on the second tour. Following the second round of touring’s end, Spirit Caravan signed on to record their first studio effort since 2002’s 7” single “So Mortal Be”. Lineup changes ensued soon after and Wino announced Spirit Caravan’s rebranding as The Obsessed. The resulting studio album, Sacred, couldn’t have been written and recorded by anyone else.

“Sodden Jackal” opens the album. It’s a revisit of an old Obsessed tune, but there’s no point in comparing the merits of each version. This is a massive performance. The production captures Wino’s warm, muscular guitar and the rhythm section gets equal weight in the mix. Drummer Brian Constantino, in particular, excels. He anchors the song’s crushing tempo transitions and gives each section an irresistible, inexorable pulse. The pace is more amped up on the second track “Punk Crusher” There’s a lot of fierce power harnessed here and the band, once again, shows off their impressive talent handling the song’s demands, but it’s a little more restless than the opener. There’s some fiery transitions, however, between the shifting guitar attack. “Sacred”, the album’s title cut, has a slightly ominous dominant riff and some strong rhythms propelling the verses. Wino’s talent for writing visceral, gripping guitar lines remains undiminished after all these years and he unleashes a couple brief solos capable of peeling paint off the walls in the song’s second half. Some might notice a fatalistic air creeping through on certain lines and it gives the track an added bit of hard rock swagger.

“Haywire” dates back more than a few years and an earlier version appears on a limited edition of Victor Griffin’s 2004 solo album Late for an Early Grave. Wino reclaims the song for himself as only he knows how and belts it out with amped up energy and defiance few rock singers can equal. The rambunctious band performance is one of the album’s hardest hitting and best. The dogged crawl pushing “Perseverance” along is apt for the song’s subject matter and realizes its potential on the backs of Wino’s guitar attack and Constantine’s drumming. The cover of Thin Lizzy’s “It’s Only Money” is quite solid and structuring it as a duet between Wino and then-bassist Dave Sherman is an intelligent touch taking the tune in another direction. The performance, however, does miss the muscle Lizzy’s twin guitar attack and sounds a little thin. “Cold Blood” is a surprising instrumental with a sleek, well-produced sheen keeping it roaring from the first until the last. There’s some more greater riffing sparking “Stranger Things” to life, but the song’s simmering qualities are what makes it must hear. The songwriting does a great job alternating between moments of barely bottled energy and full on hard rock explosions.

“Razor Wire” couples some more guitar swagger with the hard-edged rock and roll fatalism Wino has made his calling card for over three decades. “My Daughter My Son” is, obviously, a very personal song, but Wino’s a good enough songwriting at this point in his life that even the most personal tracks are capable of achieving a larger resonance. The initial plodding pace of the track eventually gives way to a well-handled tempo shift in the second half. The retro punk vibe influencing some of the album’s songs returns on “Be the Night” and it makes for one of the most energetic tunes on Sacred. Wino’s vocal burns bright with attitude throughout.

I think, in the end, people may remember “On So Long” more from this album than anything else. We often read stories about “personal statements” on albums and, more often than not, they have little bearing on reality. This track is different. Wino’s investment in the lyric is evident from the beginning and it’s a fine piece of writing that truly conveys, at least in part, the man’s essence at this point in his life. The album’s final song is an unexpected cover of Mountain’s “Crossroader”, retitled “Crossroader Blues” for this release and this fares much better than the band’s earlier Lizzy cover thanks to the similarities between Obsessed and Mountain’s musical attack. This is the sort of conclusion that lets us know that, even if Wino the songwriter has grown and changed, the man behind those songs remains much the same and rages with much of the same spirit energizing his earlier recordings. Spirit Caravan, The Obsessed, whatever, brand names ultimately don’t matter. The Obsessed’s Sacred still brings us the same Scott “Wino” Weinrich, 100 proof, no chaser.

Grade: A-

Swirl - Ditch Day Soundtrack (2017)

Photography: Neil Zlozower

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Swirltheband/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/Swirltheband

OFFICIAL HOME PAGE: http://www.swirltheband.com/

Southern California based hard rock/metal four piece Swirl has survived tumultuous years only to finally strike on the right sound and membership that explodes the talent present from the beginning. Their self-titled second album ranks as one of the most raucous, energetic offerings in recent memory from this scene and a primary reason for this is how they bring seemingly opposing styles together for a seamless whole. Swirl’s lyrics are a cut above variations on relatively standard themes in the rock and roll landscape, but they are also delivered with tremendous urgency that makes it sound like they are singing and playing for their lives. Three songs from the latest album appear in the recent theatrical release Ditch Day and these numbers are representative of the band’s power, musicality, and intelligence.

“Spell”, the first song, opens with some impressively rhythmic attacking bass from Shane Carlson before the remainder of the band comes in led by guitarist Duane “DT” Jones. The track locks onto an immediate groove, but there’s nothing overtly commercial about this. Swirl rocks with genuine attitude and conviction. This impression is only further reinforced when vocalist Alfred Ramirez comes in. Ramirez has considerable melodic talents as a singer, but the presence and authority he conveys is just as important. Classic front men require at least a dash of the superhuman in order to get over with rock and roll audiences and the effortless swagger Ramirez reflects fits the bill quite nicely. There’s certainly a hard rock aesthetic powering Swirl’s performances, but there’s also a decidedly metallic edge to their musical slant manifesting itself largely in the guitar playing. There’s flash and fundamentals here in equal measure.

“Rise Up” has hard hitting musical virtues that transition nicely into an exhortative, crowd-pleasing chorus. Ramirez is able to make all of these adjustments on the seeming fly and his phrasing is livelier than most hard rock/metal singers ever muster.  There’s much more of a concentration on fundamentals here than flash, but Duane Jones’ personality comes through on guitar and he has a readily identifiable style that never risks imitation. His lead break on this track is particularly memorable and melodic. The final song included on the soundtrack, “We Are Alive”, dispenses with the lightly fatalistic rock and roll trappings of the previous tune in favor of a more socially consciousness approach, but Swirl aren’t ever a specific issues band. Instead, the lyrics for “We Are Alive” are more concerned with us realizing our identity in a world frequently looking to squash such efforts and they strike the right rousing note for their musical efforts. There’s some guitar pyrotechnics coloring this track, but it’s never self-indulgent. The Swirl that comes through in these three songs is a lean, mean rock band with attitude and technique to burn. They write and record passionate songs with an intelligent bite and aren’t afraid to rough up their textures as need demands. These performances make for a great addition to Ditch Day and should provide the band with some added exposure.

Written by: Dale Butcher

WATCH NOW: http://thefilmditch.com/watch-now/