9 Lazer/
Wiilf
with
Sorry No Ferrari
Thirsty
Thursdays
Lingo
with The Mantras
Papadosio
Zoogma
with FLT RSK
Two
Fresh
g)p 2/3 - Emancipator w/ Blockhead
2/4 - Fatality Farms Fantasy Factory
2/10 • Comedian Brian Posehn
2/11 - RJD2 (post WSP)
2/12 - Cosmic Charlie
with Body Language,
Samiyam and Melo-X
" Winter
Heat
with
Rich Rock
Ben Samples
706.543.8283^
227 W Dougherty St.
Downtov.rv Athens
r Open Mon-Set 5pm-2am • All Shows 18* • S2 (of onpet 21
New Earth Box Office Open Every Day'^ 4pm
Advance Ti*,available at 42 Degrees • 706-353-4202
Schoolkids Records - 706-353-1666
t • and online at
■ www.newearthmusichall.com
Check oat oar new blog'
Band would like to sincerely thank all the
owners and their staff, sound men, writers
' fathers
^ V .
WELCOME HACK TO HEOHCIA
THE RATTLERS
Welcome Back to Georgia
Independent Release
The Rattlers have done so many
things right on their debut. Welcome
Back to Georgia, recorded locally at
John Keane Studios. It’s an absolutely
polished Southern rock affair that
seemingly leaves no box unchecked on
the list of album essentials expected
from cocksure rockers.
The stage-tested five-piece deliv
ers strip-joint soundtrack songs about
sexy women (see "Walk Away’) and
arena-ready, if nol unsophisticated,
sing-along anthems that'll be agree
able to crowds in every corne; of the
state (see “Welcome Back to Georgia’).
Humid, road-weary ballad (and album
stand-out track) “Dirtroads* and
“Miami Vice'-intense. piano-driven
boogie-woogie jam “Travelin' Man'
showcase Tracy Carroll’s vocals—a
raspy tenor not unlike a marriage of
country-version Kid Rock and an auto-
tuned Eddie Money.
On most tracks Matt Joiner, with
a warm, clean tone, exchanges tasteful
guitar solos with Michael Moravek's
deft piano and organ work. With obvi
ous skill, their dexterous interplay
carries the album. With the recent
curiously timed announcement that
Joiner is leaving the band, it will be
interesting to see if his blues acumen
can be replaced.,
David Eduardo
The Rattlers are playing (heir
last show with Matt Joiner and Kevin
Christian at the 40 Watt Club on
Saturday. Jan 22.
8ARD0 POND
Bardo Pond
Fire
A term borrowed from the Tibetan
Book of the Dead, “bardo" is the gap
between death and re-birth. Fifteen
years after their f^st release. Lilly's
six-piece pioneers of 'psychuelphia*
have finally recorded their eponymous
album, Bardo Pond, an eternal hour-
long voyage into the void.
The album rises gently like the sun
at dawn and ends with a solemn instru
mental requiem at dusk. “Just Once'
unfurls with Isobel Sollenberger's soft
and stoned wispy drawl washing over
guitar-picking and warbling steel and
launches into ’l Don’t Know About
You,* a densely thick stoner-rock jam
hailing the apocalypse. The nebulous
21-minute-long “Undone' wanders
around the universe within your skull
with torrents of friction and steel wind
bending, all leading to the album’s pin
nacle, the anxiously paced, brooding
“Cracker Wrist,’ with Sollenberger's
howling vove conducting the storm at
the top of a molten black-rocked moun
tain of screeching metal and wire.
Drifting between the lingering
ethereal and cathartic noise and split
into seven lengthy tracks of celestial
sound exploralion that could only
be contained on double vinyl, Bardo
Pond suspends you from your physical
state on Earth, cuts the silver-stringed
umbilical cord and exalts you into the
inexorable light of the next life.
Brian Echon
BEAR HANDS
Burning Bush Supper Club
Cantora
Bursting with astounding freshness
and vim, Bear Hands' sparkling indie-
rock channels the raw. physical snap
ol Les Savy Fav and stretches across
it crisp, taut melodies. The result is a
sinewy dance tjflfween immediacy and
tension, one that pops with natural
ease and preternatural perfection.
With stellar opsner “Crime
Pays," the album grabs instantly with
the perfect stomp and throb. Also
single-worthy are the jaunty “High
Society' and especially the irrepress
ible “Belongings,’ a steady kicker that
pounds the floor as it dizzies the head.
Even in their most meditative, moody
moments like the Pinback-esque “What
a Drag' and the whispery, sonorous
“Tall Trees,' there's still a highly
rhythmic sense of kinesis that ripples
throughout.
Angular but liquid, moody but
active—there are many feats Bear
Hands achieve here. But the best is
making an economical yet dazzling
debut album that positively pumps
with the style, mood and movement
of toaay.
Bao Le-Huu
FLASH TO-BANGTIME .
'waBlKisStlwr...- -MA
FLASH TO
BANG TIME
Lead Balloon
Happy Happy Birthday to Me
Perhaps the best comparison
one can make to the title track
of Lead Balloon, the new 7-inch
single from Flash to Bang Time, is The
Dismemberment Plants classic song
“The Ice of Boston." In “The Ice ol
Boston,’ Travis Morrison delivers a line
that initially seems inconsequential—
“Hey! The ice of Boston is muddy’—in
a way that is goosebump-inducing.
Likewise. Flash to Bang Time's
L>nda Stipe and Ritchie Williams must
strain to hii the high notes in “Lead
Balloon" when they sing, “Helium
doesn't help it/ Pinpricks are even more
ridiculous.’ Yet their delivery makes
an oddball line like this one sound
goddamn triumphant. The members of
Flash to Bang Time have been a band
for around 10 years now, and clearly
even this rough-around-the-edges
sound of their new wave indie-rock is
calculated and intentional.
The second track, 'Lemon
Meringue,' is cleverly split between
sides A and B ol the record. The
psychedelic dissonances and subject
matter of the vocals are akin lo walk
ing tt. *gh the remnants of a party at
dawn with the feeling that something
went horribly wrong the previous
night. The third and final song.
'Shapeshifters,' is livelier in tempo,
yet somehow just as sinister: strings
creep in and out, and the way Stipe
draws out the word “shapeshifters* in
the chorus, you can almost hear her
sneering. The song ends abruptly, ana
so with it the record. Hopefully, Flash
to Bang Time will pick up soon where
it left oft; it this record is only the
“flash,' then you can bet the imminent
“bang' is going to be a blast.
John Granofsky
JAMES BLAXE
James Blake
Atlas Recordings
The first record I listened to in the
New Year turned out to be an (unsur
prising) doozy. After the slow build
release of three fantaslic EPs over the
course of 2010, James Blake, one of
Britain's most unceasingly brilliant
young producers, has graced the world
with a self-titled, lull-lenglh album.
The opening track, “Unluck,"
serves as an initial reminder of where
this artist is coming from, sounding •
like a lost fifth cut from his CMYKEP.
as well as a step through the looking
glass, transporting the listener (rom
the known sounds of Blake's previous
work inlo the transcendent world of his
newest ideas. No other piece on the
album sounds familiar, and no piece
could make this point more strongly
than the second.
"Wilhelm's Scream,* a heartbreak
ing tune in which a repeated, mournful
vreal sample builds into and then is
slowly crushed under a dull electronic
roar, is a dolefully gorgeous reminder
lhat we are entering new territory. In
this piece, and throughout the album,
it's clear that Blake is utilizing fractured
beats, exquisite production and his
own master touch on the fader to
further explicate resonant passages
of R&B and gospel vocals, allowing
electronics to express levels of emotion
that voices alone cannot.
David Fitzgerald
14 FLAGPOLE.COM • JANUARY IS, 2011
