In Which We Prepare For Pitchfork

Grand Lake - "Spark"

Grand Lake drive at the roots of folk-rock with the effort, if not the angularity of Foreign Born. With some of the soaking reverb of Grand Archives and some homegrown giddy-up, the band hits its stride in the final movement of lead single, "Spark." With the lyrical couplet, "you are the spark/the light in the dark" on flat repeat and the arrangement growing to a full stomp behind them, Grand Lake find a battle cry in something wistful, a long forgotten axiom for people much in need of a lift.

Listen :: Grand Lake - "Spark"

Jaill :: "The Stroller"

There is more than a hint of menace in Jaill's debut, That's How We Burn. On "The Stroller", shabby, whip-smart, sawing guitars back an arrangement that is equal parts Thermals and Death From Above 1979, with a little of personal favorite The Mess Hall thrown in for good measure. The pre-chorus asks tense, rhetorical questions, "When you're panicked, do you count to ten? When you're surrounded, do you hold your breath?" The band's second LP and Sub Pop debut is due on the 27th. See if you can survive until then, unless you plan on holding your breath.

Listen :: Jaill - "The Stroller"
Listen :: Jaill - "Everyone's Hip"

Soft Reeds :: "This Affair"

Soft Reeds released their debut record, Soft Reeds Are Bastards this morning and offer the expansive, "This Affair" for your preview pleasure. In one of the most candid and devastating lyrics of the year, singer, Ben Grimes notes, "I'm getting tired of this affair/and now you've gone and done that to your hair." Like the roots of most failed relationships, it is simple, crushing and detail heavy. The arrangement is a stomping bit of 4/4 rock, replete with buzzing keys and enough guttural, "heys" to ball your fists and squint your eyes. Put another way, this might be the most frustrated thing to come out of Kansas City since George Brett was told about the pine tar on his bat.

Listen :: Soft Reeds - "This Affair"

Murder Mystery :: "I Am (If You Are)"

A popular and not unsophisticated insult in the 5th grade was the seminal, "So's your face." As a rough off-shoot of the even more juvenile and existentially-minded "I know you are but what am I?", the comeback evolved to be both ultimate retort and facially specific, a total triumph of linguistic and rhetorical evolution. Brooklyn's Murder Mystery, an equally playful name in tow, take this archetype for a comeback and make it about a relationship; they take this rhetoric and make it hopeful. The central twist being, "I'm willing to try, if you are/If you are, I am." The shimmering electro-pop lifts around the band, lilting female vocals gaining strength. It's not as elementary school as it seems.

Listen :: Murder Mystery - "I Am (If You Are)"
Listen :: Murder Mystery - "Change My Mind"

On The List :: Stornoway @ Mercury Lounge [7.8.10]

This review runs on Bowery's Houselist Blog.

There was a fire on the top floor of a building catty-corner to Mercury Lounge last night. Stornoway singer Brian Briggs said the structure began burning during their sound check, so they ran outside to watch. The audience chuckled at such relevant stage banter, but the truth was larger than they knew. As Stornoway had gathered just hours earlier on the streets of the East Village for a bit of combustible rubber-necking, this crowd too gathered at Mercury Lounge to gawk and stare and be silenced by something stunning.

Playing only their second US show, Stornoway opened with the standout “I Saw You Blink.” It rode the inside edge of endearing, earnest for its own sake. Briggs looked toward the ceiling, asking, “I need to know, are you the one?” with vocal clarity so stunning and pure, it brought legitimate and spontaneous tears to the eyes of a woman in the third row. This was only the first chorus of their first song. Rolling through “The Coldharbour Road,” “Fuel Up” and “Here Comes the Blackout” (minus the carrot chopping you hear on the album, they were sure to tell us), the band proved that such beauty would come in bunches not bursts.



For the last two songs of their set, Briggs and his mates stepped in front of their microphones, unplugged their guitars and played with no amplification. The need for mutual trust in this moment couldn’t be missed: It is playing without a net, a performer’s voice no more powerful than any single audience member. The audience stood stock still and hush quiet as intensely human voices sailed out in blended three-part harmony. As they closed the set with “We Are the Battery Human,” Stornoway urged us out with the lyric “We were born to be free range, free range.” This was, of course, true. These people could do as they pleased. But for the moment, they stood and watched and clapped.

Dominant Legs :: "Clawing Out At The Walls"

Back in November we wrote one of those generational apologias through the lens of Dominant Legs' one-off "Young At Love And Life." Now, the downcast San Francisco pop duo are ready to release their first proper EP on Lefse, the band are previewing "Clawing Out At The Walls," a pebbled bit of shambling reflection. Centered on a bongo-beat and a lazy guitar line out of the Camera Obscura school, the song soars and dips under its own power, like a halfway broken ceiling fan in a room too hot for its own good. Singers Ryan Lynch and Hannah Hunt revel in this bit of claustrophobia in the chorus, "Don't you see we're clawing out at the walls?" We do see it, it just doesn't sound as troubling as we thought it might.

Listen :: Dominant Legs - "Clawing Out At The Walls"