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FOR THE UST OF FINALISTS
AND SHOW INFORMATION
BRASS BED
Midnight Matinee
Independent Release
Uncontained vim and outstanding
live chops have been earning this band
some due regional attention Hailing
from Lafayette. LA. its sound is steeped
in some of the South's best indie
influences. The unconventional way
Brass Bed pursues pop and rock could
even pass for fluency in the musical
language of Athens. In fact, its wildly,
whimsically inclusive sonic approach
is how the Flaming Lips might have
turned out if they were raised on the
Elephant 6 canon Driven by a kitchen-
sink ethos, Midnight Matinee is a
kaleidoscope of orchestral flourishes,
psych-pop contagiousness, fuzzed-out
rock, wilting country winks, and even
the occasional detour into noise It s an
ADHD modus operand! that probably
shouldn t work, but thanks to watertight
songwriting, is miraculously cohesive
Keeping the music refreshing is
the band's brimming spirit and—with
the exception of the charming, banp-
plucked doo-wop of "Make Me Cry"—
Brass Bed is at its besl when the group
just lets i! run headlong Highlights
include "On the Road." a fetching
top-down rocker whose brisk drive is
emblematic of classic American indie
rock and the undeniably blissed-out
"Olivia." Live is where Brass Bed still
delivers most intensely, but this quality
album is the work of a talented outfit
An auspicious up-and-comer, this band
deserves a spot on your radar.
Bao Le-Huu
Brass Bed will play Tasty World on
Monday, June 16.
CRYSTAL CASTLES
Crystal Castles
Last Gang
There's a great scene in The
Ramones documentary Endola
Century where Dee Dee Ramone is
being interviewed at CBGB's and he’s
just... right out there. No pretensions.
For better or for worse, there he is as
he truly is: a kinda dumb guy from
Queens. With the advent of indie rock,
a new, far more self-aware archetype
of musician emerged, but never before
have artists been more image-sawy.
Bands control their audience's per
ception through myriad (oft-gauche)*
choices, right down to how you “pimp
your MySpace." Crystal Castles
have cultivated an intriguing fog of
controversy and commotion around
their music, utilizing methods by turns
arrogant (blowing oft interviews),
sensational (gigs so raucous they get
broken up by police helicopters), and
possibly illegal (allegations of whole-
hog plagiarism) Attempts to remove
oneself from the clamor, however
potentially futile, still yield a mixed
listen.
Context-free. Crystal Castles are a
sort of punk-hyper, Canadian answer
to ADULT —all glum girl-vocals and
harsh, dark synths A two-Canuck
operation of Alice Glass and Ethan
Kath, the whole thing smacks of the
worst sort of hipster cliches dude
makes the jams on his laptop, girl
waxes bored and ineffectual over the
whole thing There is nothing terribly
groundbreaking about the formula, and
that spills into the songwriting: it's a
throwback, complete with 8-bit video
game loogies and keyboard drool
That said, the attitude is nasty with a
satisfying sort of disdain and sleaze,
bul that just might be the hype talking
Let's face it a band that acknowledges
the support of the Canadian govern
ment in its liner notes simply cannot
be that punk
Jeff Tobias
BETTER PEOPLE
Salvia Inside the Broken Home
Thor’s Rubber Hammer
With three tracks coming in under
14 minutes, Salvia Inside the Broken
Home feels like a preface, or a hint, to
a more complete cycle of compositions
rather than a finished entry into the
Better People catalog. The opening
notes of "Moderation"'are like ocean
waves crashing at one's body whereby
one can feel the impact but not be
knocked over. Subsequent waves
weaken the resolve of the standee, and
eventually, a person succumbs. The
whole piece, which moves from these
waves ol electronic washes into oscil
lating throbs resembling, at times, a
lawnmower. begins the record wonder
fully. The in-and-out, drill-like pattern
of noise which begins “Honesty' is
punctuated by what sounds like dis
torted and backwards vocal noises, and
as the backing sounds flow through
tempo changes, these flashes of
upfront noise start to appear as sheets
flapping in a violent wind. The track
ends with over 40 seconds of a single
hum which is sharp at first, but eventu
ally dropped in tone toward something
much lower.
The third track, “Courage,’
crunches through its beginning stages
with static and tonal fluctuations.
These tones drop out at about two
minutes into the piece and return as a
low, screaming thing which becomes
intermittent. It eventually fades into
the same crunchy static from which
it began.
Salvia Inside the Broken Home
offers no resolution by its end. Its
immediacy musically is inextricably
related tc allusion of the record's title.
It hits very quickly, but is over just as
soon As such, no matter how good it
is, the listener is left with a sense of
longing, and that was most likely the
point.
Gordon Lamb
SHAKE SOME
ACTION!
Sunny Days Ahead
Satellite 451
This sophomore release from
Seattle's Shake Some Action' is stylisti
cally across the map of guitar-based
pop music The record stumbles out of
the gate with 'Get It Together," which is
merely a rewriting of Blur's "Song No
2' Progressing quickly past this, the
band bounces through several tracks
of jaunty, extremely well-recorded
garage-pop which is clean-cut rather
than scuzzed out. indeed. I first bristled
at the name of the band and thought it
pretty audacious to name themselves
after what is perhaps the most famous
song by a certain cult band (i.e. San
Franciscos Flamin Groovies) but then,
after going back through the Groovies
catalog, it was obvious that they were
always searching for chart success So.
it seems, is the case with Shake Some
Action' And in a different time, they
might have had it.
The tangle of tracks like “Hurry
Up" and “I Don't Wanna Taik About
It" sees the band swerving between
map chord, summery bliss and minor
chord, droopy sadness Ultimately,
the group most strongly resembles
Australia's Hoodoo Gurus Shake Some
Action! shares a similar deftness for
playing the then-current styles of the
1960s and the back-to-pop reactionism
of the 70s and early '80s However,
whereas bands like the Gurus were
part of that reactive movement. Shake
Some Action! seems nostalgically bent
on reproducing rather than rebelling.
And that's fine, too. because it's as far
removed from today's eight-bit electro
world as possible, but there's still
something lacking in this record. Parts
of it are fine listens, but as an album it
barely holds my interest.
Gordon Lamb
TOKIO HOTa
Scream
Universal
All you'll think of while listening
to Tokio Hotel's new aibum, Scream.
is “Well, yeah, but aren't Germans
supposedly into some pretty weird
stuff?" Unless you re in middle school
and shop at Hot Topic, you'll totally
love it. Hot Topic seems like a cheap
shot, until you learn that is where Tokio
Hotel was exclusively introduced to
the U S Plus this is a band that has
sold nearly three million albums in its
native Germany Toss in another stag
gering fact, that Tokio Hotel has gone
four-times platinum in both Austria
and Switzerland, and you'll wonder to
yourself "So. it's not just Germans 9 Is
Tokio Hotel actually really good and
I've just never neard about it 9 ’
That answer is a resounding “No ’
Tokio Hotel is made up of four emo/
goin German teenagers These guys
are immensely popular in seemingly
every other country in the world, but
naven t quite lived up to the hype here
m the States Scream is the bands first
‘ull-length American release, and it's
a combination of hits from the groups
first two all-German albums I shudder
to think that these are “the good ones “
l really can t find a difference in any of
the 15 tracks, especially the last one,
which is simply the German version of
the song Monsoon.' one of the earlier
songs on the album
What will your favorite part of
Scream be 9 That the opening notes of
Don't Jump" are a total rip frpm the
beginning of “18 and Life" by Skid Row
Noe! Wurst
DUFFY
Rockferry
Mercury
It's easy to compare Aimee Anne
Duffy to Amy Winehouse They're both
from the U K (although Duffy is Welsh,
while Winehouse is English), fhey
both have powerful voices and they
both deal in retro-soul, as in 1960s
stuff, not Curtis Mayfield But Duffy's
style is gentler than Winehouse's, her
vocals a little pinched on top and her
words a little more enunciated, more
Petula Clark lhan Nina Simone. Much
of the appeal of Winehouse's music is
also present in Duffy's, especially the
production, which strongly resembles
mid-1960s British girl-pop (jangly
guitars, swelling strings, tambourine-
heavy percussion), but Rockferry is
a little more ballad-heavy than Back
to Black was The major exception is
“Mercy," one ol the album's strongest
tracks, which rides a simple keyboard
plink-plonk. a thin string section and
warped drums, all of which merely
serve to support Duffyis voice and
create a sound that’s nothing if not
contemporary—despite its debts to
the past. “Warwick Avenue" is much
slower paced but lovelier, the sort of
sad. resigned ballad that builds to
empowerment and is positively made
for a film scene in which our female
protagonist walks, thinks and resolves
on the right action to take, always while
looking fabulous. Rockferrys greatest
strength is another one it borrows from
the past: it's short, leaving one little
time to muse on its flaws and, instead,
a desire to play the record again.
Hillary Brown
28 FLAGPOLE.COM JUNE 11,2008
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