Tortoise
It's All Around You
(Thrill Jockey)
Once described as post-rock, the niche of usually vocal-less, atmospheric rock occupied by Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Tortoise has also flawlessly incorporated free jazz, glitch and dub into its pastiche of sound.
Tortoise guitarist Jeffrey Parker once described their sound as background music, a soundtrack of our daily lives. The band's fifth full-length album, It's All Around You, is likely a play on Parker's words but also the bands most fluid and artistically ambitious work .
Composed almost entirely in Chicago's Soma Electronic Music Studios, the same studio where Wilco recorded Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, It's All Around You is a masterful showcase of studio-use as an instrument. The fact that Tortoise has always produced their own albums attests to their creativity and skill as musicians.
The album artwork is the most labored on of any in the Tortoise catalog. It's unclear which side is the front and which the back, but both sides have a picture of a waterfall-a gorgeous landscape to accompany the soundscapes contained within the music.
The album opener, \It's All Around You,"" sets the disposition of the entire album. The listener first hears two organ swells followed by Parker's signature sporadic guitar lines. The song, like the album, is full of synthesizer swells, xylophone melody lines and straight-jazz percussion.
""The Lithium Stiffs"" brings back vocals, not present on a Tortoise album since their first release. Kelly Hogan provides the ""ahs"" to Tortoise's piano chords, but then the album's genius shows: ""The Lithium Stiffs"" segues into ""Crest,"" one of Tortoise's most beautiful songs-Godspeed You Black Emperor!, eat your heart out.
On ""Crest,"" a xylophone melody dances over a solid, slightly fuzzy bass line. Parker's guitar finally enters, restrained yet extremely overdriven. ""Stretch (You Are All Right)"" almost begs to be sampled, similar to how ""Seneca"" from 2001's Standards was used by Dan the Automator.
""Five Too Many"" runs xylophones and vibraphones side-by-side until bass, courtesy of Doug McCombs, and Parker's guitar lines get into a sparring match. John McEntire switches things up on percussion to establish the song as quintessentially Tortoise.
The album closes with ""Salt the Skies,"" which picks up tempo from a slow jazz groove to a heavy rock beat a minute in, the guitar gets really dirty and then Tortoise slows it down again, concluding with a delicate vibraphone phrase.
It's All Around You may not be the pinnacle of Tortoise's 10-year history but it certainly comes close and at least serves to reestablish them as the kings of post-rock.
-Jeff Rambert
The Hiss
Panic Movement
(Sanctuary)
Some music seems like it was created from a rock 'n' roll checklist. Attach some big drums, distorted guitars and a singer singing about nothing, and anyone can be a garage-rock revival superstar. The Hiss' debut album Panic Movement came close to checking everything off, but should have added a couple of necessary items to the list: hooks, emotion and originality.
Panic Movement is named after a period in surrealist art, much like the The Hiss' most famous friend, Jack White, who named The White Stripes' De Stijl after a Dutch art movement. If this sounds promising, prepare to be underwhelmed. All the songs sound like a vague approximation of what has come before. There are moments where it seems like The Hiss has mined a vaguely original patch, but it quickly dries up and the fleeting moments of gold turn into long stretches of pyrite. The vocal melodies are obvious and are sung in an unexcited manner with a nasal quality that is weak compared to the guitars and drums, which sound copied and pasted for the middle section of the record.
The Hiss does hit on something interesting with ""Listen to Me"" which is a step up in songwriting, with a much more laid-back vibe. This approach complements the vocals well, with harmonies thickening one of the only catchy choruses on the record. With the listed finale, ""Ghost's Gold"" they continue improving in songwriting and create an atmosphere with a choir of sustained wordless vocals and synthesizers. There is actually decent wordplay and imagery, and the vocals are much stronger. They sustain this mood over six minutes, which is good because it is one of the few times that they have clearly written a new song, and that is a welcomed diversion. But just when they seem to end on a peak they add the monotonous, generic-garage unlisted bonus track ""City People,"" which kills their momentum.
Sometimes wowing an audience in the end is enough to bring them back to give a band another shot, but with an end like ""City People"" they will stay away in droves. When making a checklist for tomorrow, make sure buying The Hiss's Panic Movement is left off.
-Eric Van Vleet
MaeRae
Yes Please
(Killdeer Records)
Admit it, guys. Country girls are hot. And we're not talking about Faith or Shania either. We're talking the girl with an acoustic guitar and a southern drawl playing at the local dive bar. Sure, she may have a front tooth missing, but there's something about her up-front way of doing things that is refreshing for most dudes. She knows what she wants and isn't afraid to tell you. Lisa Mae Rae Hinzman, front woman and primary songwriter of the band Mae Rae, is this type of woman. On the band's new album Yes Please off Killdeer Records, her seductive voice will catch more than just a few dudes' attention. At one point, Hinzman sings to a potential piece of man meat, ""Don't grab my big ol' butt/ unless you're man enough.""
That's not to say she's one dimensional though. The album has both a soft and hard side, with song titles such as ""My Favorite Hell Yes"" followed by a cover of ""Irene Goodnight.""
Right away Hinzman shows her tenderness with the first track ""Hummingbird,"" an ode to an unborn child. The song opens with a baby's heartbeat whooshing and continues through the song behind a sweet Hinzman vocal. The weird Bj??rkish track has a strong indie sound and is an interesting way to begin what really is a country western record.
The band uses minimal percussion and a variety of string instruments to create a sometimes eerie backing to Hinzman's syrupy and sexy voice.
While Hinzman is also credited with playing bass, musical saw and wooden match, she is backed by two multi-instrumentalists who fill out her songs by playing the glockenspiel, violin, mandolin and the Appalachian dulcimer among other more traditional instruments. These are country songs, but the band moves into alt-country and Wilco territory with the weird sounds they put into their work.
But even with all the experimentation and layers of sound on this record, the best songs are stripped down. Oftentimes it seems the band compensates for some of the weaker tracks by adding multiple instruments. Hinzman is a talented vocalist and the band wisely stays out of her way during her best songs. In ""St. Anthony,"" a great track featuring some hot mandolin playing, the music gives the impression of imminent danger on the horizon, such as a tornado approaching a trailer park. But most of the other tunes take a more lighthearted approach, with Hinzman singing of trailer park love and drinkin', always in her slightly out-of-tune vocal. She repeatedly notes on one particular song with the same name that ""Whiskey bad.""
Throughout the record Hinzman maintains a seductive double standard that is best captured on the track ""Intentions."" She sings in her most darling voice, but then drops the contradictory line ""I'm not innocent and my intentions are good."" She enjoys using all the usual female tricks that drive guys crazy, and she is very good at it.
-Peter Cameron
The Rasmus
Dead Letters
(Universal)
Eight years ago, when The Rasmus were just starting out, bands like Gravity Kills, Stabbing Westward and Filter had a real chance to tear up the charts. Heavily produced, pop-industrial bands were playing the role that Nine Inch Nails weren't-they were putting out albums while Trent Reznor sat at home. In Nine Inch Nails' wake, second, even third-rate mimics made sense. But waiting almost a decade to copy one of the rip-offs is just strange.
A top-selling band in their native Europe, the Rasmus have taken their act from Helsinki to the streets of America. With air-raid sirens and Billy Corrrigan-style goth haircuts, The Rasmus try very, very hard to sound like vintage era Stabbing Westward in a time when even Stabbing Westward have given up the fight. They fail. The Rasmus' hooks are less catchy, their songs disturbingly generic.
But the parallels are definitely there. Like Stabbing Westward until they broke up two years ago, The Rasmus rattle off teenaged sensitive dribble throughout each song. When The Rasmus' angsty first single ""In the Shadows"" aspires to wordplay like ""But somehow I know I am haunted to be wanted,"" it's adorable if only for its effort. But when lead singer Lauri Yl??nen points out he'd ""rather kill [himself] then turn into their slave,"" The Rasmus venture into dangerously childish territory.
Where golden-era electro-rock bands succeeded through nifty tempo shifts and danceable beats, the Rasmus come up short. Each shift they make is from two-four time to four-four, more aggravating for its sameness song to song than rewarding for its novelty. Musically, The Rasmus have taken the harmonies from Stabbing Westward without the songwriting behind them, resulting in simple chords masked by jarring sounding synthesizer notes.
Dead letters, as the liner notes explicitly explain, are letters that never reach the people they were meant for, and cannot be returned to whoever wrote them. So ""dead letters"" is a great name for this album. This record should, and will, never be brought in by Stabbing Westward's old fans, and the songs could never be returned to the people who wrote them. They've been broken up since 2002.
-Joe Uchill
