2015 roundup part #2

Today I feel unlike a diaper that has been worn into the kiddy pool and, subsequently, swelled up to the point of exploding, so let's return to the exciting world of 'WAT I THINK ABOT BAND XD'

5.) Poor Form - Same Excuse

So I'm sort of writing this as I listen to it for the first time, so I hope you're prepared for this groundbreaking journey into music journalism we're about to embark upon IN REAL FUCKING TIME. See, when I was writing this post's header, I started to mention how it was kind of disappointing that Poor Form didn't release anything last year, as I've been wanting to blog about them forever. Apparently, though, this EP came out on December 25th,  so its like a Christmas present that got left under the radiator or something and - oh okay now it's over. 

Poor Form is a gritty pop-punk quartet from Vancouver, BC with members of Needles//Pins and Siren Songs, and this EP is apparently only seven minutes long. I'm putting it on again now, but I'm starting to see why this kind of stupid gimmick writing isn't going to be particularly useful to anyone. It sounds great so far, though - same straightforward mid-high paced gritty pop-punk sound, but with a much fuller, more lustrous production style, and a new equilibrium between Legs' and [the other vocalist]'s tradeoffs.

If you've heard their awesome 2014 demo and let it soundtrack a zillion bike rides, too, I'm sure you'll love this too, especially if you don't approach it in the ridiculously jilting, unfair way I currently am. 

6.) Hop Along - Painted Shut

This is definitely my favorite album of the year, which is fortunate, because it was getting embarrassing to own two different Hop Along shirts without even really liking their old shit. I mean, like, there was no Machiavellian scenester gerrymandering going on or anything, I just slowly concluded that Freshman Year is bizarrely back-loaded, and Get Disowned's 'studio project' style sounds more convoluted than expansive to me nowadays.
What we know: Painted Shut is fucking great and I've been dicking around on the BeerAdvocate forums for about an hour. Hence: you know how Hop Along played as a trio up until sometime in 2013, and they couldn't replicate all the overdubs so their sound got really heavy and "rocking" in a live setting? That's the young, underattenuated base beer. So then you add the adjunct of guitarist Joe Reinhardt for complexity and kidnap and age the whole band in the Saddle Creek barrel warehouse for many years to attain the pop songwriting maturity evident here. Then you tap the cask in 2015 and it's all just stale bodily fluids because you murdered a whole bunch of people through entombment. I was going to somehow throw in a bottle conditioning metaphor but this has been horrifyingly embarrassing as it is. You know what they say about taking chances: don't!
Anyway, the band's sound has become much more accessible and consistent on the whole, with tons of hooks firing on all fronts, less overdub carpet bombing, and a warm, full production style. I was going to further elaborate on the comparatively straightforward songwriting style evidenced here, but actually, I wouldn't say the band's esoteric elements are dialed down much, really - they're just re-purposed for easier listening, and largely come through by Reinhardt's nuanced guitarwork and Francis' most acrobatic-yet-melodic vocals to date. Think "Kids On The Boardwalk" and "Tibetan Pop Stars" more than "No Good Al Joad", I guess.
I'm not usually "Mr. Highlights" on stuff I think rules fairly and consistently from atop it's benign throne, but if you want a few to go on, check out "I Saw My Twin", "Waitress", and "the rest of the album". It's like, >40 minutes.

7.) Divers - Hello Hello

Here's a band from Portland with what appears to be a penis on the cover. That's the place I'm catching a plane back to tomorrow at 5 in the fucking morning. To think - I wouldn't be afforded this sort of awesome, fundamental experience if reality wasn't increasingly slipping from my fingers with such velveteen luxury. Some days you get the plane, and other days you don't get the plane because you are apparently losing your grasp on reality and would've sworn you booked your flight two days later than you missed it. Anyway, my ass.
Divers are a band I know nothing about and sound like something I'd hate. They've got that now notorious blend of heartland rock and Midwest pop-punk/alt rock down pat, have dramatic, furrowed brow, bobbing-adam's-apple-passionate vocals, some 'whoa ohs', and lyrics that come from the Springsteen school of Americana. I think. They're kinda hard to understand, tbh, and they're one of those bands that doesn't put their lyrics on their bandcamp.
Weirdly, I actually really fucking like this, and could maybe only pick out one track I don't really care for out of the ten present. If that description puts you off as xhardcorex as it did me, know that this isn't some radio tailored Gaslight Anthem cheesecockery, where you can play bingo with the words "drive", "Maria", "radio" and a slew of allusions that'd practically get you called out on tumblr for 'working class cultural appropriation'. Like, you totally get the lingering odor of dipstick-wiped-on-Levi's and unfiltered Camels, but there's no cherry-picked period stereotypes resting on a pop-rock framework here. These songs all sound organic, loose, and flowing as they bounce around between sweaty anthemic shit to quiet, slinking numbers without really repeating themselves. I've rarely put much of an emphasis on musical talent in my life, but sometimes something like this gets to you and you realize how limited most of the stuff you like is in terms of creative songwriting. I honestly don't know who to recommend this stuff to, but I've been playing this regularly for the past 3 months and I notice new bits everytime I put it on. If you want a few tracks to go on, check out "Listen Teller", "Breathless", and "Stateline". Maybe I'll actually leave my house to go see these guys when they play a zillion times directly in my neighborhood.

2015 roundup part #1

2015 was a fucking toilet. I lived in New Orleans, founded a sweet punk house with some good friends, discovered that living in a shotgun is like operant conditioning for paralyzing anxiety, rekindled a love of suicidal ideation, and learned how to create an ouroboros of sadness by drinking to feel anything which leads to feeling less the next day which leads to drinking etc. Eventually I went back to NY, regained some level of sanity, immediately dashed it on the windshield of traincore life, crossed over to the opposite side of the country, got hella sick, had two friends die within a two month span, and lost a partner of 5 years due to horrifying depression. Also, there's unlisted bonus tracks you can hear irl, but first you have to help shatter my exoskeleton of numbness so the tears can finally escape their cimmerian prison.

In summation: aw shit yeah brah 10/10 would entertain cutting my own head off again

You know what I hate? The internet.
'Kinkshaming is LITERALLY a thing I can't even I'M DONE Y'ALL Y'ALL Y'ALL [bevy of slang terms and phrases lifted shamelessly from black culture by white kids who only derive joy out of criticizing others for cultural appropriation] smh cuckcuckcuckcuckcuck problematic AF Y'ALL'

And so it is 2016. Admittedly, I haven't really kept up on current music like I used to. I pretty much spent the entire first half of the year just endlessly replaying old Guided By Voices and Jason Molina stuff (apropos of my sad, drunk aesthetic at the time), and then the second half being a hobo in my cleanest glad rags and a bindle full of dreams. To make up for this, I've combed through a ton of personal and collective 'best of '15' lists and exposed myself to everything I could, meaning dozens of albums in the past 6 weeks. THE VERDICT: FUCK YOU, I guess

1.) Beach Slang - The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us

This band has magically turned into the Wesley Willis of 'meaningful', young adult-oriented 90's rock revival. I'm not even trying to be a condescending dick here - this seriously bums me out - but how does a band run out of ideas this fast? Almost every single one of these ten tracks sounds like a barely tweaked rewrite of an older song, and this is coming from a band that only had 8 recorded numbers under their belt, prior. In fact, if you cut out "Bad Art And Weirdo Ideas", "Too Late To Die Young", "Porno Love", and "Young And Alive" (to a lesser extent), you're basically getting 6 inferior versions of "Filthy Luck" or "All Fuzzed Out" from their first couple EPs. I'm not sure what happened here, but I'm kinda guessing all the hype pushed these guys to crank out tunes faster than they could recharge their creative juices, because this is sort of a slog to get through, and it's only like 27 minutes long. Maybe I'm being too harsh, because I know a lot of people really love this, but it's just hard to get behind since I'm apparently one of those "I only like the demo" guys now. oh god how do i stop it

2.) Year Of Glad - s/t

When NONA announced they were calling it quits in late 2014, you can bet your bottom dollar that I made sure to inexplicably avoid their final show, especially since it was taking place less than an hour away from where I lived. Luckily, every member instantaneously formed new bands or joined old ones, and thus the roaring emptiness inside is temporarily quelled once more.
Year Of Glad is guitarist/sinus cavity projectionist Mimi's new project, featuring one of the 1994! guys (Chris), plus Mike from Good Luck and another Mike from some basically eponymous band. I never really dug 1994!, so fortunately this sounds more like an even tighter, better version of NONA over anything in the math-y, twinkly whatever subgenre that band occupied. That sentence was poorly structured to deliver the impact intended. An even better NONA is just what this post-9/11 world needs, though. The songwriting here is, like, rotavirus-level infectious with lots of clever arrangements, instantly memorable melodies and leads, and sweet vocal tradeoffs from Mimi, Chris, and one of the Mikes. I don't know why I've been assuming you know what NONA sounded like, but as an extension, this is more of that pop punk/90's alt rock Frankenstein stuff, but luckily, without any of the dull, Veruca Salt-ish trudging that occasionally smushed the fun out of Through The Head. Did you ever try to listen to an entire Veruca Salt album? I did, and now my life is in ruin, as evidenced above.
I'm tired and my partially-skunked-IPA buzz is in decline, so this review is probably as substandard as usual, but also I feel bad about it. Regardless, this EP is fucking great, and I seriously can't wait to hear what these guys do next.

3.) Waxahatchee - Ivy Tripp

I love the shit out of American Weekend. The lo-fi fuzz settles all over my psyche like a warm blanket in a northeast winter, and it's something I've played on a zillion sad days. My love of Katie Crutchfield's songwriting dials back to 2008, when the p.s. eliot demo hit, but 2013's Cerulean Salt was effectively the flighty "I need to find myself" college phase that kills high school relationships. For me, CS was way too cold and bitter sounding to love, the new back up band sounded sterile and rigid, and the scattershot, '90's grab bag' experimentalism made it seem more directionless than expansive.
Ivy Tripp has the same mess of styles going on, but fortunately, A) the songs no longer sound like hastily filled in sketches by a studio band and B) the songs have more energy and warmth. Well, except "Air", which sounds like a CS leftover, but surprisingly, a really good one. There are a few complete throwaways like "Stale By Noon" and "Blue", but "Under A Rock", "Poison", and "The Dirt" are excellent indie rockers, and the rest alternates between slow blocks of synth fuzz and pretty acoustic numbers. "La Loose" is just awful, though. It sounds like a trust fund at a beach party with a bunch of asymmetrical hairstyles or something. And what sucks is that underneath all the cloying "ooh ooh"s and tacky synth shit is a really pretty, sad song. If you see Waxahatchee live (which I totally reccomend), she plays it alone on an acoustic, and it magically turns from 'track I'll never listen to intentionally again' to 'heartwrenching'.
I know this sounds unenthusiastic for being "such a bigh fannn", it's just that little of it has grabbed me anywhere near as hard as any of her pre-2013 material. I can actually understand why people would like this, unlike SOME ALBUMS I KNOW, and I'm sure I'll be listening to this intermittently for a long while to come, it's just not going to be another 'tea and a journal on the front porch in the rain' album for me. I'm super happy she's finally getting the praise she deserves, but I'm just not a fan of this Pitchfork-y musical direction.

4.) Jeff Rosenstock - We Cool?

This album is great, but I seriously can't stomach this shit right now. Admittedly it's been a long while since I listened to anything Rosenstock related, but I really don't remember his lyrics ever being this bleak or hopeless before. I mean, look at some of this:

"I got so tired of discussing my future
I’ve started avoiding the people I love
Evenings of silence and mornings of nausea
Shake and sweat and I can’t throw up.
I got so tired of discussing my future
That I walk through my life like I’m the only one" 

"Were you supposed to not go to college?
Stay in your mom’s house on the computer
googling grief cures, talking to no one
Waiting for life to start feeling better?
Waiting for pain to not be a constant?
Waiting to feel like anyone’s honest?
Waiting for me to stop being sarcastic
Because I can’t accept all the bad things that happen."  

"Getting drunk all alone in a quiet hotel room.
You repeat all the most shameful things that you’ve been through.
It dawns on you, that it’s true, fucking nobody loves you.
They’re waiting for you to fall, and take your place."  

"When your friends are buying starter homes with their accomplishments
Drinking at a house show can feel childish and embarrassing
With people glaring because despite what the advertisements said:
Malt liquor doesn’t make you young."

The thing is, these lyrics don't really resolve themselves through ironic posturing or pep-talk choruses like they might have in the Bomb The Music Industry! halcyon days. They're just... deadening, and if the music wasn't the kind of bombastic carnival shit Jeff's practically trademarked (NOW SKA-FREE), this would probably be unlistenable. I guess it might be me, but all the stuff on here about feeling like a failure, struggling with personal loss, and sinking into numbness through vices isn't cathartic as it is horrifying right now.

But hey! Those hooks!

Okay fuck this I'll make a second installment later.