Barefoot and Stargazing: Pooma's Persuader and Kingsbury's Lie to Me

Shoegaze, or as it's also known, dreampop, is one of those genres that when done not so well, is pretty tedious and self-indulgent, but when done really well, can sound more like star gazing than shoegazing. Having said this, I will now introduce two bands who are doing more of the latter than the former: Finnish band Pooma and their debut album, Persuader, and Florida band Kingsbury and their new EP, Lie to Me. While both pieces are captivating, they come at the shoegaze genre from different ends of the spectrum and at different angles of the prism, so to speak.

Pooma's debut was produced and partly mixed by Gunnar Örn Tynes of the fantastic band Múm, and released in Finland last year. Unfortunately the band's Finnish record label was closed down very shortly after the release of the album, but you can still buy the entire album from iTunes if you visit their MySpace (link is provided at the end of the post). Persuader unfolds slowly to an intense beat by beginning with If May Starts Tomorrow, a song punctuated by fingers sliding against guitars strings and hypnotic female vocals. The song then crashes into a torrent of sound, thudding and misting around you like a waterfall. This is followed by Snow, which hums with crystalline strings and cymbals until you are buried in the cool aura of its epicentre. With faster rhythms and a more menancing tone, They Won't Come Back slinks along to a trip-hoppy beat before stripping down halfway through the song into a murmuring, static-filled wormhole; you come out into a fresh second half of the song with tribal rhythms and ethereal vocals. For the next track, Would You, vocals chant "You find it hard to breathe" until you are literally holding your breath in expectation of what happens next in the song; incidentally, it soars into twinkly dreamscapes and builds into an all-encompassing whorl of cloud.

January is a briefer track with subtle cracks of popping vinyl and otherworldly buzzing over simple piano chords; its simplicity is beautiful, and without any vocals, it takes on a brilliant enigmatic quality. Complex layers of sound come back for Through the Calm, which utilizes strings and glockenspiel-like accents to create a dark, undulating atmosphere that takes various unexpected twists and turns between dreamy and threatening; it is like a classical piece heard through an aural kaleidoscope. This blurs right into the title track of the record, a song which builds on the cacophony before disintegrating into a gentle, blissful rivulet of a tune; it takes yet another turn with a build to grandiose proportions with faster drums and dramatic brass. The mood shifts into a more placid one for The Shore, a track that slowly infuses your body like an incense, plying your brain with enchanting vocals. Two minutes before the conclusion of the song, you are woken with scattershot drums and an almost conquistador-like tone. Cool Inside comes down for a heartbeat of a rhythm and shimmers of reverb, an oasis for those sunburned by more abrasive music. The album ends with All Worked Out, the longest song on the record. It takes musicbox-like sounds and layers them over a rich backdrop of cello, creating a magnetic world of small wind storms and aurora borealis.



Kingsbury approaches shoegaze from a different side than Pooma; rather than create textures from shrouded vocals and dramatic symphonic shifts, Kingsbury anchors everything to a plaintive, graceful melodic line and creates a multi-faceted narrative with a rockier edge in the process. You can download the entire EP for free, along with two previous EPs and an album, at their Web site listed below.

EP instrumental opener, Ocarina Mountaintop, is majestic in its slow build of sonic layers with a foundation of piano; it emulates the mystical wistfulness and ancient flavour of the ocarina itself. Vocals come in for Back in the Orange Grove, a track that mimicks mournful wind in laden treetops; metallic knocks and echoes punctuate the ballad like distant thunder, or fists against the walls of a dream. The following track, As I See It, is a delicate tune of guitar arpeggios and hazy, breathy vocals, drifting along like parachutes of dandelion seed.

Bell tones open the next song, Armada, before abrupt pulses and scratches, along with what sounds like thousands of people running moistened fingers around the rims of wine glasses, consume it. The EP's title track moves into a more ominous tone as the narrator works through conflicting emotions about a lover; electric guitars slide and wail through the piece like pleading hands and eyes. It is a moody track that swings to a pendulum of self-induced hypnosis, trying to convince the self that everything will be okay if only the second person will say so. The EP concludes with Holy War a mesmerizing guitar-based track that weaves a mesmerizing spell as tightly-woven as a crusader's tapestry; the tension threatens to break every string until it unravels into a sea of feedback at the end.


Pooma's MySpace: www.myspace.com/poomamusic
Pooma's Web site: http://www.pooma.net/

Kingsbury's MySpace: www.myspace.com/kingsbury
Kingsbury Web site: http://kingsburymusic.net/

If May Starts Tomorrow - Pooma

Through the Calm - Pooma

Ocarina Mountaintop - Kingsbury

Holy War - Kingsbury

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #47

After a small break, here's both the first post of 2009 and the first weekly mix of 2009. Because the last mix was a New Year's firecracker, this week's compilation is more about catching up on sleep after the holidays and the partying (okay, maybe I didn't exactly fill my holidays with partying, but I definitely stayed up late watching my A Bit of Fry and Laurie box set for several nights). This mix can be the antidote for your credit hangover headaches, or hangover headaches of the more conventional kind. Or this mix can act as a cure for those of you out there who are insomniacs. Although, when the temperature dips to -34 Celsius (which it is at the time of writing this), sometimes all you want to do is slow your heart rate to that of one comatose and hibernate until spring.

This mix takes in several mellow, dream-inducing genres like shoegaze, twee and ambient, and it encompasses the tinkling music box sounds that begin this compilation, including M83, Emilie Simon and soundtrack work from both Yann Tiersen and Trevor Jones; the light acoustics from Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Brett Anderson and Lanterns on the Lake; the soothing, twee pop of The Brunettes, The Bridal Shop and Camera Obscura; and the semi-aquatic murmurs of The Daysleepers, Japan, and Mazzy Star. This one is called Lullaby. Sweet dreams.

Violet Tree - M83

Chanson de Toile - Emilie Simon

La Valse d'Amelie (Orchestra Version) - Yann Tiersen

Sarah - Trevor Jones

Stay Awake - Asobi Seksu

Somewhere Around Here - Chairlift

Hope, You Know - Celestial

Chinese Whispers - Brett Anderson

Leave My Dreaming - Gorky's Zygotic Mynci

I Love You, Sleepyhead - Lanterns on the Lake

Wall Poster Star - The Brunettes

Marine Thing - The Bridal Shop

A Sister's Social Agony - Camera Obscura

Twilight At Carbon Lake - Deerhunter

Pink Shadow - Mary Goes Round

Falling Sky - Autumn's Grey Solace

Space Whale Migration - The Daysleepers

The Experience of Swimming - Japan

Nothing Ever Dies - The Starlets

Andvari - Sigur Ros

Coast is Clear - Windermere

Not a Number - Apparat

Umbilical - Mazzy Star

You Will Not Be Spared From Thinking: Stroszek's Manufacturing Consent EP

I first fell in love with The Clash, which led to a passion for political, intelligent lyrics, and eventually to bands like the Manic Street Preachers, Gang of Four and McCarthy. Then I fell for Joy Division, which led to an intense admiration for lyrics and music that documented a fraught inner life and the turmoil and starkness of reality in a minimalist monochrome never heard before. The Clash tore down what music was the first time with punk. And Joy Division did it again with post-punk. Now the Glasgow-based band Stroszek, having fused the power of both bands into an ambitious, inspiring art and aesthetic, have a chance to bring music to its knees once more. It's been well over a year since Stroszek released their first EP aptly entitled Demonstration, an unapologetically political piece with funereal undercurrents pulsing beneath all four tracks (for more information about Demonstration, see my earlier post about it). This month sees the release of their second EP entitled Manufacturing Consent, a nod to Chomsky and Herman's seminal work on propaganda and the not-so-free press in "democratic" nations.

Featuring photography from Miron Zownir, an artist who has managed to expose the beauty in nihilism and deviance and to champion those on the periphery of society, this self-produced EP is more about personal politics and inner struggles against a world deafened by entertainment and simulacra. These tracks also reveal a keener desperation and energy than those on Demonstration; this time round it's a bit like Stroszek have turned into Nietzsche's madman, frenzied with knowledge they need to communicate to people who have never realized nor cared that their lives are governed by rhetorical forces. Stroszek simply know and feel too much and it's burning up inside of them. I'm glad that the four tracks on Manufacturing Consent finally made it to a proper release - these songs have been a fixture of Stroszek's live sets for quite some time (I, myself, witnessed Burning Libraries and Dancing on the Motorway firsthand over a year ago). They break down those borders between passion and reason that make us stubbornly human - their music makes you feel the thought behind the lyrics, words become palpable on a level beyond language.

The EP opens with the aforementioned Burning Libraries, a song built on a brilliant metaphor for destroying your own history and purging memories. It is Stroszek's most frenetic song with its unrelenting drums, disorienting reverb and tiny twitches of electronic clicks, and it truly feels like you're in an inferno of information overload before a collapse into feedback. The reprieve comes with the gentle, spine-tingling line "We'll be hand in hand/Ruining ourselves with fear," a lucid, yet no more comforting, moment amongst the anxiety and chaos. Burning Libraries is followed by live favourite Dancing on the Motorway, which features a viral bass line that grooves beneath the sonic bliss of guitar and relatively militant vocals: "Will you argue that it's fascist/If I want to kill the fascists?/I don't want your cold shoulder/I want you on the hard shoulder...Oh, whose side are you on?!/Are there any more souls to save?/While we are all just dancing on the motorway." This juxtaposition of danceability with accusatory, intelligent lyrics emphasizes the disconnect that you feel when you step outside of the masses and view them amusing themselves to death. Richey J. Robertson's straining, breathless vocals try to overcome the catchy oblivion of the beat in this Huxleyean generation, grasping for any of those he can pull to safety even as they sway to his own song. Knowing that the headlights are coming as a fatal dose of enlightenment arrives too late.

The sound of torrential rain signals the transition to This Town Revisited, which springs to life with cascades of Cocteau Twinsesque synths and another fantastic bass line. This song beautifully encapsulates the expression "you can never go home again" as the narrator comes to terms with the reality of his/her past against a backdrop gorgeously reminiscent of The Cure's A Forest. The song concludes with the plaintive line "Potential is never good enough/In this town, revisited." The final song on the track listing is the truly epic Sound the Last Post, one of the most poignant songs I've ever heard about war. The haunting guitar soars and chimes over the solemn bass, working once again in perfect tandem as the song marches through a forsaken sonic landscape of withered poppies as red as the carpet Agamemnon follows homeward. Referencing the Last Post Ceremony at Menin Gate in Ypres and the chief of police, Pierre Vandenbraambussche, who spearheaded the daily ceremony, this song scatters the noble image of soliders and the patriotism of fighting for your country like ashes to the wind. The second verse, which declares "Falling for your soil is NOT the question/But whether, for this dirt/You could ever kill someone" also reminds me of the quote from Bertrand Russell which stated, "Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country." It ends with lines from the film adaptation of Orwell's 1984 to drive home the point that we are still living in a world framed by propaganda and by terms cock-eyed and loaded and poised to subdue us all. There is also a hidden track attached to the end of Sound the Last Post called A Vision of the Future. I won't lie; I'm not a fan of hidden tracks because there never seems to be a point to having them. I will forgive this one, though, because with its use of more of the script from 1984, it definitely coalesces with the track it is following; however, it reveals a sharper electronic feel rather than the atmospheric electronics of Stroszek's established sound. In effect, Stroszek intrigue me until the very last second of this EP.

Manufacturing Consent is already available for download from several places - you can access those links when you go to Stroszek's MySpace. The physical copies of the EP will release soon as well. You can also download two previously unreleased tracks (Sleepwalkers and Maybe Find a Stranger) in their live versions at Threads of Sound. I fervently hope that a full-length album and new material will be forthcoming. We all need a thought-provoking, stylistically-challenging band like this. I think it's rather criminal that Stroszek doesn't have a higher profile when bands like Glasvegas get accolades for hackneyed stabs at played-out, comfortable themes and styles. I reckon that Stroszek are yet another one of those bands out of their time precisely because they see their time all too clearly. And those bands will always matter.

Stroszek's Web site: http://www.stroszek.co.uk/

Dancing on the Motorway - Stroszek

This Town Revisited - Stroszek

Babbling Beauty: Allegories' Surreal Auteur

Though the Hamilton band Allegories has apparently been popping up on various blogs and on CBC Radio 3 many months ago, I only just discovered them and their debut album Surreal Auteur, and I'm thoroughly impressed. The band, which consists of Adam Bentley and Jordan Mitchell, have created a sonic epic that is naturally human in its myriad unnatural sounds. Like their name, Allegories can be so many things at once, whole yet apart. Surreal Auteur's twelve tracks are split into three movements: Grand Ascension (Curtains), Marvellous Man & Mouse and Worthy Conclusion for Zanglust Our Hero. According to Allegories' MySpace, the narrative of the album begins thusly:

The story of Zanglust has persevered through the ages to become a legend of downy softness proportions. His life became an inspiration to over a million ants. Our story begins at the Crustacean Circus, with the most renowned antcrobats of the time. The tragedy opens with Zip and Zap Lust letting their obsession with public fornication accidentally destroy their lives.

How could that not grab my attention? The story continues with equal measures absurdity and whimsy, a mixture that reminds me a bit of The Mighty Boosh. You can read the entire story here. In regards to the music: while there is definite homage paid to the prominent shoegazers and dreampoppers, including My Bloody Valentine, Sigur Ros and Cocteau Twins, the way this album flows seamlessly into itself and its sense of sonic storytelling reminds me of Mew's And the Glass Handed Kites. Because of this seamlessness, I'm not going to discuss each track individually; rather, I will go by each major section.

The album's first section, including Acro(bat)/When I Hold My Breath, Like This; Shaking Like a Leaf; Surf's Out/The Tumult; and Stage Fright, begins with a swell of violins and liquified noise, soon to be joined by gentle, cooing vocals that reverberate like whale communication in the placid depths. The mood gradually shifts into sunny piano and cymbal flourishes like someone pushing and propelling him/herself to the surface. The atmosphere becomes darker as small clicks of feedback occur over a backdrop of low tones and surges before expanding into clarity and majesty once more. About fourteen minutes into the album, a militant dirge starts up, which is intermittently disturbed by dissonant guitar chords and draped with haunting voices before descending into a void.

The second section, which includes Summer Market, Winter Racket; Aww, Ooo, and Others/The Orchid and The Epiphyte/The Burying of the Hatchet (Mike Love's Back); Killed a Carrot; and Peaches, begins with another surge, frosted with bells and laced with dreamy vocals, and the airiness is supported by the earthiness of strummed guitar. The music eddies and swirls until it feels like you're being drawn into whirlpool of otherwise dark, brackish water. And the chorus of voices sound like they are celebrating before distilling themselves into an acapella bridge. Then the music slows down and a low, knocking rhythm pulses beneath the surface like violet veins. As the music comes down again, buzzes and clicks step to the foreground only to be superceded by the serene plinking of strings - this particular portion makes me think of a verdant rainforest, pregnant with moisture and the subtle movement of fauna. The sonic landscape then collapses in on itself in chaotic gasps and unsettling, garbled noise until flatlining into a faint buzz.

The final section, which consists of Grass Toboggan; Zanglust/Tom's a Ladder; Fish Water Desert Trapeze; and Acro(nym), vibrates to life with frenzied hums and calming vocal tones. As the impatient, tapping of snares pushes the rhythm along, the music bursts into bloom in flashes of sonic watercolour. Then, like the tuning in of a radio dial, snatches of voices and squeals of different songs, stitched together by static, converge into a postmodern symphony of sorts. While vocals murmur to themselves, beeps and whizzes creep in over top of broader, cavernous echoes - scrambled signals across a universe as black as a dilated pupil. Just as metal clanks of what sounds like tools edges in, the music abruptly changes tack into a gliding lullaby. Breathy vocals careen about the stratosphere, unfurling themselves like feathery wings. Entering into the final phase of the album, the music hovers low like mist in a valley. Voices of different tones compete with each other in a euphoric cacophony before drifting into pulses and white-hot feedback.

You can stream the entire album here and then buy it here. Many of those who have already reviewed this album have compared it to being in the womb, and I can definitely see their point; there is something distinctly alive about this album. It seethes with natural sounds that are run through a prism that simultaneously divides and conjoins in an imperfect symmetry. There's a method and harmony to the nonsense. Surreal Auteur speaks a primordial language as beautiful as the first strains of people finding their tongues at the Tower of Babel.

Summer Market, Winter Racket - Allegories

Shaking Like a Leaf - Allegories

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix # 35

This weekly mix was inspired by a comment left by PlasticSmile on my post about Bella Koshka. He mentioned the fact the album cover art reminded him of classic 4AD stuff, and while I'm definitely no expert on the label (which was pretty obvious in the way I made no reference to the similarity myself), I was prompted to do a little more research on 4AD and discovered that I already had quite of few of the 4AD artists in my collection. I also managed to discover other artists that I wasn't so familiar with, including His Name is Alive, which PlasticSmile mentioned. 4AD has produced a tight body of work from a rather incestuous scene, or perhaps a network of satellite scenes (many of the bands on the roster had their side or solo projects released on the label as well). Supposedly, the "classic" period of 4AD ended with the final 4AD Cocteau Twins album in 1990 (debate amongst yourselves), and while 4AD was originally an independent record label funded by Beggars Banquet, it is now part of the larger group that includes Matador Records, Rough Trade and XL Recordings.

Besides the distinct graphic style of 4AD album covers, which was pioneered by 23 Envelope, 4AD has been traditionally associated with acts that can be called ethereal, gothic, post-punk, shoegaze or experimental - of course over the years, 4AD continually moved farther into the American underground, and with more recently signed bands, there have been some shifts to artists that wouldn't be as immediately identified with the "classic" 4AD sound, including folkier artists. Nonetheless, they have still produced a pretty formidable roster past and present, and their artists are consistently critically acclaimed.

Hopefully, this mix is varied enough between more obscure tracks and popular ones and between the "classic" period of 4AD and the present period of the label. From the old school you have Tones on Tail, Pale Saints, Cocteau Twins, The Birthday Party, The Wolfgang Press, The The, Xmal Deutschland, His Name is Alive, Dead Can Dance, Modern English, This Mortal Coil, Pixies, and Bauhaus (in cases like The The and Modern English, you get their debut sounds, which are considerably different from later incarnations - no I Melt With You here); from the newer school, you have Stereolab (more in terms of being recently signed to 4AD rather than new as a band), Blonde Redhead, Beirut, Department of Eagles, TV on the Radio, The Mountain Goats, It Hugs Back and Minotaur Shock. Because I love Cocteau Twins so much, I included two tracks by them, one from their debut album, Garlands, and one that appeared several years later on a 4AD showcase compilation called Lonely Is An Eyesore, and what's beautiful is you can hear the progression from moody and brooding to angelic and dreamy. I'll call this one Forward March.

4AD Web site: http://www.4ad.com/


Go! - Tones on Tail

Small Bones, Small Bodies - Future of the Left

Babymaker - Pale Saints

Working Day - It Hugs Back

The Plague - The Mountain Goats

Muesli - Minotaur Shock

Neon Beanbag - Stereolab

Nantes - Beirut

En Particulier - Blonde Redhead

Crushed - Cocteau Twins

Hours - TV on the Radio

Noam Chomsky Spring Break 2002 - Department of Eagles

Nick the Stripper - The Birthday Party

Controversial Subject - The The

Black Houses - Modern English

Nachtschatten - Xmal Deutschland

Crowds - Bauhaus

Ruddy and Wretched - This Mortal Coil

Ecstasy - The Wolfgang Press

Fond Affections - Rema Rema

Where is My Mind - Pixies

Wax and Wane - Cocteau Twins

How Ghosts Affect Relationships - His Name is Alive

The Song of the Sibyl - Dead Can Dance

Please Make Way and Pull to the Side of the Road: The Slow Return of Ambulance Ltd.

Unfortunately, more often than not, opening acts are forgettable for me. They were either very obviously chosen as tourmates because of their affiliation with the main act's record label without any consideration for compatible music styles, or they lacked the confidence and stage presence to hold their own against the main act to follow. Of course there have been some exceptions where I actually attended the gig for the support act rather than the main act, but in these cases, I obviously already knew and liked the support before going. Having said this, there has only been one time that I went to a show not knowing anything about the opening act and was then convinced by the end of their set that I wanted to buy their album and then actually followed through by buying the album within the week. This opening act was Ambulance Ltd, a shoegaze-indie-rock band out of New York and they were supporting The Killers gig in Winnipeg four years ago.

The gig was at the rather small (and precariously constructed) West End Cultural Centre because this was September 2004, the eye before the Killers media storm that would soon follow, ensuring that The Killers will never play a small stage in Winnipeg again. My friends and I were waiting impatiently for The Killers, not expecting much by way of an opening act. Ambulance Ltd., then came onstage in their unassuming indie attire and proceeded to blow us away. I still remember to this day the sound of Yoga Means Union flooding the small venue, the five-minute instrumental seemingly stretching to infinity in a refreshing wash of guitar arpeggios, that kept building and retreating and building and retreating like a tidal wave. Using an instrumental in an opening set can be dangerous in terms of losing the audience's attention, but it mesmerized me and I was riveted to the stage. Stay Where You Are was equally as memorable with its gentle riff and soaring melody. I can also clearly recall the catchy hook and sinister sound of Primitive (The Way I Treat You), which tipped the balance, convincing me to purchase Ambulance Ltd.'s debut album LP. Frontman, Marcus Congleton, has a hypnotic quality to his voice akin to Mew or The Radio Dept. with shades of Marc Bolan, and my oldest friend (not oldest as in age, but in how long we've been friends), Crista, still claims to this day that Congleton was the most beautiful man she's ever seen in real life. See my photo from the gig above and decide for yourself.

Needless to say, both Crista and I purchased copies of LP, and then waited for new releases. And waited. And finally lost track of Ambulance Ltd. Aside from a rumor of Congleton in talks with Sophia Coppolla about being in one of her films, I didn't really pick much up about them. Then, two years after I first purchased LP, Ambulance Ltd. released an EP entitled New English EP, which I found out about a fair time after the actual release. I liked what I heard, but it wasn't enough. Then I lost track of them again only to find out that everyone but Congleton has now left the band, that others have replaced them, and that their record label is currently in legal trouble, preventing any official new releases. For information about why the record label is in legal trouble read the NME story about it. Thankfully, all of this turmoil hasn't stopped the fans from being able to hear new material as Ambulance Ltd. continues to post the latest demos on their MySpace. And I've become a fan all over again. And once again, I wait.

Apparently, Congleton has worked on eighteen new tracks with the magnificent John Cale, and there are three new demos up on the Ambulance Ltd. MySpace. New demo Ivy reveals a funkier influence, but still mesmerizes me with vestiges of their earlier psychedelic melodies. In many ways, it feels like an interstellar journey in Parliament's spaceship. Upsetter shambles along to a lazier melody in a country-western vein, but with a an airier delivery, which makes me like it even without really have a predilection for the genre. And two thirds into the song, it also starts to sway and swagger in a funkier way. Ladyfingers slinks along to a subtle horn line and has a greater effect on me than anything Mark Ronson has done so far. Congleton's vocals slip and slide along in a fantastically soulful way while still preserving their signature dreamy quality.

Ambulance Ltd. Mk II did a short tour earlier this year in April and now have a show set up for the end of July at The Bowery Ballroom in New York. I really hope they get to release a new album soon and that they do a larger tour. Hopefully, they will still be willing to play Winnipeg after all these years. This time as a headliner.

Ambulance Ltd.'s MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/ambulanceltd

Ivy (Demo) - Ambulance Ltd.

Upsetter (Demo) - Ambulance Ltd.

Primitive (The Way I Treat You) - Ambulance Ltd.

"This Isn't Shoegaze - This Is Suicide": Titus Andronicus' The Airing of Grievances

Though Titus Andronicus' The Airing of Grievances came out last month, I only just discovered it last week, and I felt it merited mentioning. With their combination of a raspy, Conor Oberst-like howl, unwieldy shoegaze distortion and jubilant guitars, this New Jersey band, who are named after one of Shakespeare's most ignored plays, embody existential angst in a way that is diffcult to ignore or dismiss. The Airing of Grievances is the sound of growing up and realizing that the world owes you no favours and that leaving the womb was probably one of life's biggest mistakes. Titus Andronicus hit all the reference points for hopeless youth, including Camus, A Clockwork Orange, and Bruegel's Landscape With the Fall of Icarus, which features the drowned Icarus's legs sticking poignantly out of the water.

While singer, Patrick Stickles' vocals are often so distorted with breathless anguish, it's worth looking up their songs' lyrics. They reveal an openly personal story, including references to Stickles himself and the band's hometown of Glen Rock. Opening track, Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ, includes the fabulous line "People will tell you that if you don't love your neighbor, then you don't love God, but no god of mine would put light in such unrighteous eyes" - vicious poetry - and the first minute of the song drags along like a dirge only to burst into a full heliotrope of rage, reaching for a sun that it can unwillingly follow but never touch. Songs like My Time Outside the Womb and Arms Against Atrophy explore variations on the theme of wishing you had never been born. The latter includes the line "Even though things lately may have been real horrorshow, I'm wishing I was back in utero," which, deliberately or not, namechecks both Burgess's phenomenal A Clockwork Orange and Nirvana's swansong album. Titus Andronicus, an eponymous song, includes a spirit and melodic sensibility that reminds me of British Sea Power's latest efforts but with a spitting and snarling Johnny Rotten over top, and its constant chant of "Your life is over" is like a re-working of the Pistols' "No future."

And of course the next two tracks on the album are entitled No Future and No Future Part Two: The Day After No Future. The former is one of those songs that perfectly describes the helplessness of depression. To slower, meandering guitars, Stickles rasps his way through words like "There's still one shoe that hasn't dropped yet. It's hanging on by an aglete. This world seems like a nice place to visit, but I don't want to live in it." This track, with its companion song, forms a fifteen-minute nihilist opus that stretches from a mournful ballad to banging bass drums and chiming guitars. Closing track, Albert Camus, sums up the alienation of the whole album with a reverby darkness that feels like being held under a rockpool while your brains starts exploding into stars from lack of oxygen. Too self-actualized to live in blissful ignorance, Titus Andronicus puts up a screaming front, exorcising bitter disappointment.

Titus Andronicus aren't gazing at their shoes behind bashful fringes. They're looking the world full in the face and going down fighting.

Titus Andronicus MySpace: http://myspace.com/titusandronicus

Titus Andronicus Blog: http://titusandronicustheband.blogspot.com/

Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ - Titus Andronicus

Albert Camus - Titus Andronicus

More Than They Appear En Papier: These New Puritans' Beat Pyramid

Although These New Puritans have been getting attention for over a year in the blogosphere, I figured I would weigh in on their debut album Beat Pyramid, which will release in North America on March 18 on Domino (the Brits have already had the album for a month via Angular Records, which brought us the likes of Bloc Party, Art Brut and The Long Blondes - an impressive roster). On paper, These New Puritans seem inevitably like a post-punk band. Named after a song by The Fall and having their debut album produced by Gareth Jones of Wire, this band from Southend-on-Sea has been aptly compared to both bands. After listening to them, I will even add Gang of Four to this list of post-punk influences. However, TNP - who are twin brothers, Jack and George Barnett, Thomas Hein and Sophie Sleigh-Johnson - don't quite fold up neatly into a post-punk paper crane either.

TNP released a self-distributed EP in 2006 called Now Pluvial, which featured three tracks - Elvis, C 16th, and En Papier - that are now included in a modified form on Beat Pyramid. They were also involved in making a soundtrack for Hedi Slimane and the 2007 Dior Homme Show (as every music magazine has made particular mention of, attempting to link the band with some sort of fashion aesthetic). The hypnotic fifteen-minute track for this particular fashion show, Navigate, Navigate, along with a DFA remix b-side, has been released as a single in North America, preceding Beat Pyramid.

Beat Pyramid features a stunning total of sixteen tracks - of course in Pink Flag fashion, most of the tracks are less than three minutes long. In fact, several tracks clock in at less than a minute and serve more as transitions between tracks. No matter - there's always room for pretentious arty 30-second tracks of background noise. Not to mention the first and final tracks, ..ce I Will Say This Twice and I Will Say This Twi.., respectively, cleverly tie the whole album into a giant loop. While TNP have terrific minimalist/primal drumbeats, angular guitars, ticking-away hi-hats, and barking, often repetitive vocals reminiscent of Gang of Four, The Fall, and Wire, they also have synthesizer distortion filling in gaps and a more dance-punk feel than their post-punk predecessors. The frenetic track Elvis actually leans so far into this dance-punk direction, it could be a track by The Rapture. Other tracks like Doppelganger, a purely instrumental track, and Costume, which alternately plods and hovers behind a wall of sound, are slower and more shoegaze than jerky post-punk. En Papier, which begins in a jagged, minimalist manner but ultimately trails off into a spacey, distortion-filled jam, fuses both extremes of the TNP sound. To add further to TNP's eclectic sound, Infinity ytinifnI reminds me of TV on the Radio with its echoey drums and its surging, buzzing washes of sound.

As far as lyrics go, well...varied lyrics aren't exactly part of the TNP formula for me - they tend to stick to one main phrase and repeat it until it has firmly drilled through your forehead and taken up lodgings in the folds of your brain matter (example: "What's your favourite number and what does it mean?" from Numerology (AKA Numbers) and "Four of your pounds, cha, cha, cha, cha" from £4). I read somewhere that their lyrics are abstract and literary, but I think they're abstract like a calculus textbook. Not necessarily a bad thing - calculus can be crazy.

Are they worthy of all the buzz? I think they're worthy of at least two thirds of it. I look forward to hear how they develop over time (they're young yet) because they obviously don't fit into a neat trendy category like New Rave, nor have they taken the path of zero resistance (AKA the post-Libertines path). Their music is a cacophony of genres and more experimental than many of their peers. At the very least, you have to give them credit for having the credible influences they do. They are spawned from the same scene as The Horrors, but while The Horrors are a string of goth paper dolls, These New Puritans are like one of those paper fortune tellers you make as a child - you never quite know what you're going to get.

Elvis - These New Puritans

En Papier - These New Puritans

Costume - These New Puritans