The surf-rock veneer of La Vega's "Key West" eventually gives way to a multi-layered chorus that pays ode to both the Strokes and the lunch-pail rock of bands like the Hold Steady. The refrain which kicks with one of the best pre-choruses of 2013, "It's almost way too late for you say that / it's almost way too late to even try", a languid vocal that recalls bits of Casablancas and a coupling of wailing guitar and an insistent piano backing that hints of Craig Finn. The refrain itself explodes on the back of this invocation with a vigorous defense of alone-ness in the heat and waning days of a summer. A rip-roaring good time, La Vega have given listeners one of the many sounds of the summer.
A meditation on the ephemeral, Dinosaur Bones provide a slow-drive, Strokes-on-opiates jam on latest single, "Spins In Circles". Unfolding in layers, the initial conceit of a languid bass line and Sunday afternoon drums expands into a fully-rendered arrangement, fuzzed-out guitars meandering in figure-eight form before gaining down-stroke intensity. "It won't be long till they're all long gone" mumbles singer Ben Fox. It's a three-minute pop song; what could be more fleeting?
"City Girls" is a tidy rock song from Brooklyn band Napoleon. The arrangement suggests a slow-drive version of the Strokes "Hard To Explain", so much that before the lyrics kick in, you almost imagine Casablancas' signature warble interjecting itself with, "Was an honest man." While a shade more cloudy than the aforementioned titans of New York rock, Napoleon does seem to thrive in this downtown aesthetic, having recorded their entire debut LP in three days. Of course, downtown has moved out of town and is now in Bushwick and beyond. These "City Girls" are of a different breed. The band's release party will be held just blocks off Bushwick avenue at Big Snow Buffalo Lodge on July 25.
Something intentionally borrowed and lifted, but unalterably satisfying, Jmo's latest single, "Don't Let It Get Away" attributes to Phoenix, Richman, and the Strokes. The stuttering rhythms of the drums and guitars mix with a fuzzy, distant vocal that certainly recalls Casablancas circa 2000. As a final act, Jmo, the recording avatar of Brooklynite Jeremy Coleman of Murder Mystery fame, "Don't Let It Get Away" runs to high fret board conclusion, the title lyric cast in repeat as, of course, the song shuffles playfully to its conclusion. While Coleman urges recapture, he is in the process of retreat. Perhaps, this is an appropriate coda for a song with such an excellent list of footnotes, a desire to seize and hold juxtaposed with creation of new, green real estate. Either way, "Don't Let It Get Away" is as fun a rock song to emerge from a denizen of New York since Darwin Deez suggested similar source material on "Radar Detector". In the spirit of possession, Jmo has "Don't Let It Get Away" and its Cars-influenced b-side, "The Strangest Places People's Minds Go" for free download below.
Welcome to our annual countdown of the 50 best songs of the calendar year. Songs must be from an EP, LP or demo released
during 2011, no band may appear twice. Each post title contains a lyric
from one of the ten songs to follow, a hint and a hook that stuck out
clearly in this group. Today, we count down 10-6.
10. Florence and the Machine - "Shake It Out"
Florence Welch went for broke in 2011, and by this I mean she was as willing to use cliche, simile and bad metaphor as I was in the first clause of this sentence. On "Shake It Out", her bombastic and soaring single, she featured turns of phrase like, "regrets collect like old friends", "pound of flesh", "it's always darkest before the dawn", "dragging that horse around", "damned if I do and damned if I don't", "shot in the dark" and, again, "it's always darkest before the dawn". The song was a veritable Mad Libs of familiar figures of speech; it almost read like an athlete's press conference. But, it was specifically Welch's ability to traffic in such common tropes, updating them with her stunning vocals and top-of-the-room melodies, that made her so instantly relational on her second album. Some 27 months ago she was a bizarre woodland sprite playing the Bowery Ballroom, but in 2011, Florence blew away the concept of a sophomore slump with a common touch. If it was her mild weirdness, a Kate Bushness, a nearly garish individualism, that initially attracted label executives, it was her ability to speak to everyone in applicable generalities that made "Shake It Out" and Ceremonials so brilliant. Always fiercely internal, Florence previously kept the world away with a once-in-a-generation voice and by being almost religiously different. In 2011 she spoke to all of us at once, keeping us out by letting everyone in.
9. The Strokes - "Under Cover Of Darkness"
Angles was the album The Strokes had to make, and it sounded like it. Far from being a traditional "comeback" record, whole portions of the album felt workman-like, as if the very weight of the five album deal from RCA hung over every note. This wasn't exactly the Phoenix rising from the ashes. Casablancas checked out of the studio, or maybe the band turned on him; it didn't necessarily matter. Like a punch-drunk prize fighter, The Strokes got it together, not for an album, but for a song. "Under Cover Of Darkness" possessed an uncommon urgency in its opening angular riffs and its half pleading, half promising pre-chorus lyric, "I'll wait for you", a hook that most bands would take as the refrain to their first radio single. The Strokes, finding some of their old magic, pushed the "Good Enough" to be "Great", and the chorus itself was an explosion of ratatat drums and Casablancas' only passionate moment on the record as he bid goodbye to his "adversary and friend". The psychology was rich. Was this the band's goodbye to itself? Was it an admission of how hard Angles was to make? This doesn't even address the lyric about "everybody singing the same song for 10 years." Just how burdened the band was with an acute self-awareness, we'll never know. It was a tired album after a five year layoff, a strange contradiction, but for "Under Cover Of Darkness" it didn't matter. It was the song they had to have and did.
8. The Smith Westerns - "All Die Young"
Seeing The Smith Westerns at Pitchfork two summers ago would never have lead anyone to believe the band was capable of the awesome, funeral pop of "All Die Young". They were young and entirely unimpressive then. By 2011 their status as distinctly "youthful" remained unchanged though the qualitative distinctions about their sound had shifted. "All Die Young" was a throwback single on a throwback record, the opening organ chords and wistful guitars calling some blurry nostalgia of the type that is so easily projected by the listener. It was a slow-dance, at least at first, a languid Box Step through the end of a lazy summer. But the arrangement altered for the final third, an upbeat syrupy sing-a-long rooted in the title lyric. It wasn't a recommendation that we, or they for that matter, die, but it was that kind of blissful fatalism that can only happen in your late teens and early twenties. In days of increasing weight and seriousness, it was a carefree melody and a sense that we would all be alive or dead together. Youthful sentiment mixing easily with an uncommon musical sophistication, the latter free from any trappings of age.
7. The Vaccines - "Wetsuit"
London's The Vaccines were one of those rare rock acts that created backlash before their debut LP ever arrived in stores. Perhaps a product of an increasingly reactionary and fast-moving music journalism climate, the Vaccines emerged from nowhere with "If You Wanna", a sketchy mediafire download sent in the fall of 2010, and were roundly criticized by that very winter. Still, the band's debut LP, What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? was one of the best rock debuts in recent memory and certainly one of the best rock records of 2011. The final single from the record, "Wetsuit" was the destillation of all that made The Vaccines so relevant this year. Singer Justin Young warbled platitudes about youth, introduced for the first time as suggestions and later appropriated as louder, anthemic orders. The song finishes with fist-raising aplomb and lyrics about salvation and purity, the kind of patriarchal generalities that so many rock songs begin and end with. Of course, even reading this, if you are determined to hate The Vaccines there is little anyone can do about it. In all probability, you hate their path to the seven spot on this list, to their record deal, to their festival gigs, as much as you hate their music. You also hate their music. Your vengeance is swift, we get it. But, The Vaccines charmed us in 2011 because they seemed in on the joke. Yes, their rise was mercurial. Yes, their record possessed obvious influences. But, if you hated them, the backlash was their creation. They made you do it, like them or not.
It takes a special band and a special song to have you yelping along on the first listen. It was an aesthetic reaction, done without thought or consideration, a visceral slice of sensibilities you did not know or did not remember you had. Perhaps the War On Drugs had you at the menacing, rolling drums that begin "Come To The City", seeming to move and spread like a cloud bank rising in the distance. Maybe they had you when you thought, "Shit, this reminds me of a U2 song that I used to love." Or maybe it was just a hymn of urbanization that hooked you, like so many, to follow their directions and end up in the city. The arrangement built a wall of sound that allowed the lyrics and melody bounce off it, sing from the top of it, hide behind it. The thrashing guitars and relentless drums were the story as singer Adam Granduciel wailed and yelped lyrics about "rambling" and "moving", one of those American stories about trying to find home between where you're from, where you've been and where you might belong. It ended in series of unintelligible moans from behind the guitars, the final edict being the first one: You will find yourself in the city, young man. You knew it the first time you heard it because it was a sense you always had; move forward, move on. Go forth and go now.
I can't say much for Delta Maid other than to regurgitate some press blurbs about how she is small in stature, from Liverpool and generally writes country music. Her cover of most recent Strokes' single, "Under Cover Of Darkness" proves a crushing reimagination of the original. Reducing the arrangement down to acoustic guitar and a few, well-placed harmonies, the melody of the original emerges as a long goodbye, the notations more playful and the lyrics more fully heartbroken. Casablancas' 1000-yard stare sings through the lips of this girl from England, her voice shifting gears easily as they sing "So long my friend and adversary, I'll wait for you." It sucks the air out of the room. Maybe this proves the power of melody, or the malleability of the form and function of rock music, like this emotional Swiss Army knife equally useful for cutting bark or filing your nails. Or maybe it proves that a girl in Liverpool can deliver and relieve so much pain through words of a sad, lanky guy on the Lower East Side.
In a show that featured a guest spot by Elvis Costello on up-coming second single from Angles, "Taken For A Fool", the Strokes still elected to close their encore with a staple from their first record, "Take It Or Leave It". Casablancas was his usual bizarre self, punctuating sentences with unnecessary swear words and wearing high tops the color of a highlighter. But, for a band that has taken a seemingly unending stream of criticism about their internal relations, they successfully united around their MSG show, sounding tight and furious throughout, managing to fill an arena with the sounds of the best club rock band of the past 10 years. On "Take It Or Leave It", Casablancas drove into the crowd for the second time, finding himself at the bottom of one of the 100-level sections, screaming into the darkness. 13,000 people joined him. In a tender moment, Casablancas awkwardly nudged Albert Hammond Jr. upon his return to the stage. For two guys that clearly aren't totally fond of each other, it was a declaration of a momentary, "Hey, remember this used to be fun?" The audience agreed. It didn't matter that almost none of us were there at the Mercury Lounge in 2001-2002. After all, as Casablancas reminded us, "everyone has been playing the same song for ten years." They played it again, we took it, and they left.
Could New York's most darling band have combined their front man's solo record and their most recent LP and started saving their legacy? The band plays a sold-out Madison Square Garden this evening.
The collective anticipation for the latest Strokes LP Angles was followed by a group exhale riddled with the disappointing notes of a sigh. This wasn't what we wanted, especially the latter half of the album. These emotions were quickly ratified by a series of editorial pieces about the record, most of which refused to even address its musical content, choosing to focus on the methodology of the album making. All criticism distilled down to the functional reality that the Strokes tried to make a more equitable song writing process and had essentially failed. Barbs were traded. Casablancas is a dictator. These other guys are schlubs. Hammond was on drugs and then in rehab. Casablancas finally copped to the need to make a fifth Strokes LP as quickly as possible, either an ode to how comparatively mediocre Angles was or a need to finally escape the grip of the totalitarian five record deal the band has with RCA. But it didn't have to go this way did it? Or, at the very least, we can envision a different path for the band.
So for a moment, let us ride the counterfactual train into 2008 when the band could have taken some of Casablancas' ideas (and their reluctance to do drove him to make Phrazes), added a few of their own and made a record truly worth the wait. In essence, drop the filler off Angles and fill it with the most reasonable matches from Phrazes For The Young. After the jump, we give you, Angles For The Young, the Strokes album that never happened but maybe should have.
The Strokes returned to the stage in London on Wednesday night for their first performance in four years. The band's fourth LP nearly or very nearly finished, they took the stage under the name Venison to play 18 songs of old material. They opened with maybe the band's finest work, "New York City Cops," a track memorably buried off the American release of their debut, Is This It, in the wake of September 11. The footage trades sea-sick camera steadiness for proximity, but even in grainy darkness, the moment is undeniably weighty. Perhaps, this is the perfect moment, for a band that defined the nihilistic return of credible rock in 2000, to come back ten years later, one more time with feeling.
Julian Casablancashas officially gone the way of his band mates and will be releasing a solo album in the coming months. It will be called Phrazes For The Young. The video preview gets moving at the halfway point. Connections are drawn between organic form and human creation (it's like the record industry, people!). Finally, we enter a prism and a vaguely Aztec design, as messages like "try not to give advice you can't follow" and "drunkness is cowardice, sobriety is loneliness" flash in time.
