The Moldy Peaches-The Moldy Peaches

The Moldy Peaches album The Moldy Peaches displays interesting use of sophomoric humor, degenerate lyrics, clumsy instrumentation, and even worse recording technique. Most songs are clipped before the sound on the track has finished its decay and are noticeably cut in places. The inept way that Dawson plays the guitar shows just how far a person can go on two guitar lessons. The off-key mumblings of Green combine with Dawson’s inability to hit or sustain a note or tone for very long to make this album, and group, the idiot savant of music.

Maybe I am being too harsh, as there are worse bands to listen to. The lo-fi recording quality doesn’t bother me; I like Pavement. The jangly, rambling nature of the music doesn’t distract me; I like Panda Bear. Maybe it’s the sudden acceptance and success of such an untalented band that makes me cringe and reach for the bullshit button. Just because a couple of tracks are used in a semi-well written movie with an unoriginal plot (Our children are having sex?! Oh noes!!11!!) is what grates on my nerves.

I do like a few songs on the album, not all nineteen. There are in fact, only four listenable tracks on this entire album to me. In my opinion the band should have released an EP and called it a day. But there is a nagging sense of maybe there is some talent here; and then they talk about shaking a turd out of their pants. Great, nevermind.

Stand Out Tracks: “Downloading Porn With Dave”, “Anyone Else But You”, “Who’s Got The Crack?”, “NYC’s Like A Graveyard”

The Raveonettes-Lust Lust Lust

The Raveonettes’ new album Lust Lust Lust is drenched in 60’s psychedelic pop only with feedback and distortion emanating from every track. I hate people that give descriptions that are about to follow, as they give no credit to the band that is being described, but bear with me: Lust Lust Lust sounds like Petula Clark were fronting the Jesus and Mary Chain and Phil Spector tried producing an album in the style of Steve Albini. There, I said it.

In all seriousness, the surf-pop styling of Sunn Rose Wagner and the smoothly sexy vocals of Sharin Foo combine to create a garage-rock, surf-pop, Girl Group-sounding recording. Several tracks have that anthemic build during the choruses, like the Jesus and Mary Chain, most of the tracks have some bastardized technique reminiscent of Dick Dale, William Reid, and Link Wray. Wagner’s own voice sounds at times effeminate and softly inviting, and at times husky and drunk, as if a character from a Bukowski novel, if not Bukowski himself.

I own the duo’s two previous albums and can say with certainty that the band’s sound has definitely developed over the last few years, aging and changing, the only constant being the inclusion of feedback and distortion. A new direction that might be undertaken by the band would most likely include organs or keyboards, though most likely heavily over-driven organ, just based on the amount of sound and sustain can be achieved with relative ease on such an instrument.

Stand Out Tracks: “Lust”, “Black Satin”, “Blush”, “You Want The Candy”, “Blitzed”, “Sad Transmission”, “Honey, I Never Had You”

The Dresden Dolls - No, Virginia

The Dresden Doll’s fourth album, third studio album No, Virginia attempts to collect the studio extras that were cut from Yes, Virginia studio sessions early 2007. Even without this tidbit of information, the album sounds like it: Palmer’s voice sounds ragged and sick on the first two tracks, several tracks have misplaced notes, and some of the songs, quite frankly, suck. Even though the band is known for Amanda Palmer’s huskier, deeper, smoky vocals, the first two tracks, “Dear Jenny” and “Night Reconnaissance”, she sounds like she is getting over a cold and she has been singing for ten hours. Neither situation should be attempted in a studio release, but combined it makes for a poor vocal recording and is quite distracting.

I myself prefer deeper smokier voices, especially from female vocalists, but there is a difference between sounding husky and sounding laryngitic. In a few other tracks Palmer plays obviously misplaced notes, which would be fine if these were part of their first studio album, as the album attempted to sound like a cabaret performance in a studio setting. But the second studio album, of which these are part of, did not. In fact, I would say that Yes, Virginia worked to polish the sound of the Dresden Dolls, which made me not like it until after the first three or four listens. I preferred the first album, but now like both. However, after working to perfect one’s sound, it does no good to tread upon already tread ground, especially as an artistic enterprise. Maybe they could have focused a little bit more on Viglione’s skill at playing drums and guitar/bass at the same time, which was only done once, in “Gardener”. I understand that there has to be the song material for it to be recorded, but the point remains: move in another direction before you dry up what creative juices are there.

If I were to guess, given Amanda’s last solo tour, Brian’s session work with Nine Inch Nails, and this last-ditch effort at releasing tracks cut from the last album, this band will soon “go on hiatus” or break up. It seems that there just isn’t any more song material for the band to take on, which saddens me. I’ve loved this band since I heard their album and have continued to see them live whenever the opportunity arose and buy interesting merchandise, as well as their albums. Hopefully I’m wrong, but probably I’m right.

Stand Out Tracks: “Lonesome Organist Rapes Page Turner”, “Boston”

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

MGMT’s debut album, Oracular Spectacular, is a gurgling electronic-pop masterpiece. The album opens with “Time To Pretend”, a tongue-in-cheek travel through a celebrity’s life, but only the imagined life of a celebrity, existing in tabloid-like interjections of what’s happening: “I’ll move to Paris/ Do some heroin/ and fuck with the stars”, “Move to an island/ With the cocaine/ and the elegant cars”, “This is our decision/ To live fast and die young/ We’ve got the vision/ Now let’s have some fun” and “Yeah it’s overwhelming/ But what else can we do/ Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?”. These sound bites of glamorous debauchery are exactly what a teenager might expect from a celebrity, or at least read about one in a supermarket check out. These mini-headlines continue through the supposed life of a celebrity, through asphyxiation (read as choking on vomit), but also going through the imagined steps of a lifestyle disconnected from everyone and everything that the star might know: missing childhood memories, missing family members, missing money problems.

The album itself speaks to a need for return to the natural state; this in itself is ironic considering the wholly unnatural sound of the album: the vocals are mired in reverb and chorus, the instrumentation is steeped in flange, chorus, and reverb, which include even the drums. The lyrics “I miss the playground/and the animals/ and digging up worms/ I miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world”, “I miss my sister/ miss my father/ miss my dog and my home” all point to a return to a state of being that precedes the current age. “Once I was too lazy to bathe/ or try to make a change/ now I can shoot a gun to kill my lunch/ and I don’t have to love or think too much” also refer to moving from interconnectedness, not necessarily civilization, but from globalization and commercialization, moving back to the wild, and being able to sustain and rely on yourself.

In fact, every track on the album includes some vague reference to “starting over” or “missing better days” (read as a longing for primitivism) except for “Pieces of What”, the only track with a natural sound: voice (heavily reverbed) and an acoustic guitar. Every other track has gurgling organs, reverb laced vocals and flanged instrumentation, but speaks of primitivism, and the one track with basic instrumentation has the vague lines of “Waiting to pick up the pieces that make it all alright/ Pieces of What/ Pieces of What/ Doesn’t matter anymore”. Vagaries in this natural state seem to imply that the band is mocking their own view. It implies that, maybe once they have returned to a natural state, that they may not know what to expect or do when they get there. Or worse yet, that they may actually miss the technological globalization that they longed to leave behind, much as the character did in “Time To Pretend”.

Stand Out Tracks: “Time To Pretend”, “Weekend Wars”, “Electric Feel”, “Future Reflections”