Video: Beat Union - Can't Stop the Radio

Something tells me it's no accident that they got the guys from the "Rock the Casbah" video...

Review: Catfight - In Stereo

Label: self-released

Released: September 30, 2008

While the album art for Catfight's In Stereo is totally 80s (like, totally), their music spends an awful lot of time in the sixties as well. Eschewing all that is delicate, everything about their songs is based on their simple deliberate rhythms. They don't waste time with frivolities like riffs or solos.

The album starts off with two flat out garage rockers, but takes an angular turn into neo-new wave on "Ready Steady Go" (despite the name, intentionally or not, referencing the British pop music program from the 60s). The album finishes up with "Sheila," a dark, slightly more ethereal new wave tune that is easily their broadest song. Despite being a duo with only guitar and drums to accompany their voices, they sound nothing like the White Stripes or Black Keys who share that odd configuration.

Catfight doesn't cover any ground that hasn't already been remade by the likes of the Strokes and Franz Ferdinand earlier in the decade. They are however intimately involved in their music, writing, performing and producing. Plus, the angles they take are interesting and that makes In Stereo more fun than many of the other bands crowding the field.

Ratings
Satriani: 6/10
Zappa: 6/10
Dylan: 6/10
Aretha: 6/10
Overall: 6/10

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Review: M83 - Saturdays = Youth

Label: Mute

Released: April 15, 2008

Saturdays = Youth is promising when it opens with "You, Appearing." The piano is as warm and embracing as a fireplace on a cold winter day, and it seems to be laying the groundwork for an incredibly rich album. When the vocals finally kick in, they're slightly urgent and desperate but pleasant and intriguing; they build on the promise that this is going to be a great listen.

Then the second track, "Kim & Jessie," starts, and it's like hearing an alternate-universe version of the Psychedelic Furs, one where Richard Butler couldn't write memorable songs.

Years ago, when I was an aspiring rock star, I had a fight with one of our producers. She said that every good pop song should still sound compelling if it was played on acoustic guitar. I told her that she was full of crap, and that Nine Inch Nails is a perfect example of a band that would sound awful if some twit picked up a guitar and sang one of their songs.

Johnny Cash proved me wrong on that one.

There's nothing on Saturdays = Youth that Johnny Cash could sing. The lyrics are bad poetry, and the melodies are completely forgettable. The only time the album works is when the band moves away from dull '80s pop, like they do on "Couleurs" and "Midnight Souls Still Remain." The rest of the time, it follows a recipe of 1/3 annoying Kate Bush (without the intelligence), 1/3 smarmy Martin Gore (without the pop sensibility), and 1/3 (enter overwrought '80s never-made-it pop band here, e.g. Dream Academy, All About Eve, Icicle Works). The end result is a stew of everything that was lame about '80s synth pop, without any of the elements that made it so charming the first time around.

Ratings
Satriani: 6/10
Zappa: 3/10
Dylan: 4/10
Aretha: 3/10
Overall: 4/10

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Review: Dartz! - This is My Ship

Label: Deep Elm Records

Released: November 13, 2007

Dartz! mix agitated math rock with a punk edge and British quirkiness (or is it quirky Britishness?). They produce songs whose layers are the many moving parts of an efficient machine. The parts feel loose and rambling when they're really quite tight if you concentrate. But that's not the point. They're meant to be a ride. At some points the music is closer to something that may be sung in a bar and that belies the care that was surely taken in constructing it. Even the angular guitars, bass and drums have a certain pop appeal that adds to their accessibility. The whole thing barrels along, but not at a single breakneck pace. The time changes keep the whole thing slightly off-balance.

While there is a certain post-punk/new wave influence on This Is My Ship, this isn't simply the common hipster new wave revival that flies off the shelves. It has all the pop quality of the big sellers, but mixes it with more challenging fare on another level. Depending on which level you choose, this can be easy or difficult, but either way it's rewarding.

Rating: 8/10

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Review: Shocking Pinks - s/t

Label: Astralwerks

Released: September 25, 2007

The latest project of New Zealand's Nick Harte, Shocking Pinks' self-titled album is actually songs collected from the two previous albums. It's a rhythm-based indie rock affair whose ambling beats support yet don't drive it's layers of ambient noise and dream pop. The album has bits of Joy Division and pieces of My Bloody Valentine, giving it both a dark undercurrent and a good pop sense that grounds it despite its oddness. There are only a few outright dance tracks, yet the whole album is in a sense vaguely danceable. When they succeed, the songs are near perfect snippets of moods. When they fail, they are merely disorganized pop songs. Luckily, there is enough of the former to make this album worth hearing.

Rating: 7/10

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Review: Brian Buta - False Colors

Label: self-released (available through CD Baby and iTunes)

Released: September 2007

The whole idea of rehashing the 80s never quite sat well with me. Now that it's been redone to death by so many hipsters with more fashion-sense than creativity, I'm even less receptive. That being said, Brian Buta must be doing something right, because he is almost completely stuck in the 80s and I still found time to listen to his CD multiple times.

False Colors is a solo effort in every sense of the term. Buta wrote, recorded and mixed the album himself. He even did the artwork. As such however, the album lacks the humanness of an album where at least the performance is a social effort. Buta's overly processed approach often feels synth-laden even when he's using real instruments. Granted, he intends the album to be cold and dark, but it often comes across as synthetic instead.

Still, the album has some very listenable elements. It is rooted in the late 70s/ early 80s, but Buta hasn't bought entirely into borrowing the most common pieces. Sure, there is plenty of U2 and Depeche Mode on the album, but he also dabbles in the likes of PiL and early Elvis Costello. The result is an album that shows Buta as a musician who hasn't entirely grown out of his influences rather than just a genre surfer who jumps on the best wave he sees at the moment. While he's sometimes mopey, sometimes angry, he's always emotive. You just have to pay more attention to gather it from under the effects.

Brian Buta seems to be an artist with a good bit to offer, but working entirely on his own, nothing is pushing him to explore. He also needs a producer to steer him away from the cheap effects and into a more natural sound that will better display both his songwriting and performance. All in all, this isn't a bad effort for a self-released solo album and there are some tracks that bring me back for repeat listens. However, it also feels somehow incomplete and short of his potential.

Rating: 5/10

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Review: Zerobridge - Havre de Grace

Label: self-released

Released: September 18, 2007

Zerobridge was formed by two Kashmiri brothers who grew up near the namesake of the their EP, Havre de Grace, Maryland. While this broader cultural experience may seem like a boon for the band, their music has little to do with the former and everything to do with the latter.

Zerobridge relies on the straightforward rhythms and the simple hooks of neo-new wave as the basis for their music. They suffer perhaps, because the new wave revival is getting played out and because it's hipper than thou musicians/fashion models are getting more annoying by the day. Zerobridge reminds me a bit of Modern English which is a bit on the periphery of what most bands of the genre borrow from. As with just about every pop or rock artist in the last 20 years, they also bear the marks of many hours with U2, so they aren't all that much different from the others in the game. What makes Zerobridge most pleasant though is that they don't seem affected by the hipster leanings of their peers. That alone makes them more palatable.

Havre de Grace would benefit from a bit of influence from their roots in Kashmir, but as it is, it really only draws from mainstream America. It's very listenable though and avoids the style over substance trappings that turn so many similar bands into annoyances.

Rating: 6/10

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