Power Pop

A short while back I was lucky enough to host the @thelostrecord Twitter account for a week and  had the complete pleasure of  assembling a selection of Power Pop, the genre that fuses guitars, melodies and attitude into, usually, around three minutes of compressed sunshine. From The Barracudas via Dwight Twilley and Matthew Sweet to Cheap Trick, I could (and do) live off this stuff.

                                               

                                 
                                           

                                             
                                       

                                               

                                          
                                       
                                       

         
                                                           

                   
                                             

                               
                                         

                                         


                                   

                                         

                                               

                                         

                                       

                                                                    

         

The Voltaires

Libertarian, free-thinker, scourge of intolerance -  Voltaire embodies many of the values deemed in short supply these days. He wasn't quite the 18th Century subversive many think he was, or should have been, but  there is a spunky anti-establishment feel to Leeds band The Voltaires which can only add to his reputation as one - I may edit his Wiki page and see what happens.

As well as citing the influences that leapt out when I played the debut album 'The Voltaires' for the first of many times over the Easter weekend (Dead Kennedys, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Damned), The Ramones-like cacophony of the drumming, the snotty riffs that could have been lifted from any 1960s US garage or Gareth Williams's high-tensile vocals -  what REALLY impresses me about this album is the cohesive whole. It gels in a way that mere collections of songs don't - a high octane sugar rush without a spare calorie - you won't get fat listening to it, the isotonic melodies emerge from the leanness and the filthy fuzzy guitars give it heft and hoof - deceptively intelligent stuff.

The album can be bought as a limited edition CD or download from here

http://thevoltaires.bandcamp.com/

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Caitlin Rose

Leeds Brudenell Social Club - 28 February 2013

The person who takes to the stage is not the same person who walked to the same microphone on 8 September 2011. This is true of anyone, of course, as time waits for no man and all that but there is a confidence in the gait and a sparkle in the eye of Caitlin Rose not visible on that date. The body language short circuits the connection with the audience, the smile of confidence says "WE are about to enjoy ourselves" - and we do - EVERYONE. Anyone who doesn't has something wrong with them, that is all.

Touted as the next Patsy Cline, Rose has shrugged off the weight of expectation, surrounded herself with top notch Nashville musicians and producers, exercised a canny instinct for song selection but, most important of all, remained herself. The full house tonight causes her to visibly inhale and exhale - in the States, she informs us - "no one knows who I am" - a small fish in a big pond. But the UK's thirst for Americana remains unquenched and from the opening bars of 'No One To Call' we're with her all the way on a trip through her new album 'The Stand-In' - a record she has referred to as her 'high kick'. More radio friendly, it's a natural stab at success, a set of songs aimed at taking her to that next level.

This is country rock at its purest. A maligned genre associated with the coke-addled excesses of The Eagles, Rose strips it down to its roots with songs of personal headonism and then, regret ('Waitin'). Let's just forget for one moment she is 25 years old, there is a ring of authenticity that originates from her multi-textured voice, a thing of power then of fragility, very often separated by mere seconds ('Sinful Wishing Well').   Although her band is rehearsed to the hilt and tightly regimented within the confines of the lean arrangements there is thrilling interplay between electric and pedal steel guitars ('Old Numbers').

A belligerent closing 'Shanghai Cigarettes' allows Rose to make that leap from Patsy Cline to Stevie Nicks - she makes it seem natural and easy and her between-song banter is modest and spontaneous. Her stage craft, like her voice, seems to stem from a place of genuine authenticity. 

A couple of acoustic numbers (including " Too Stoned To Cry" taken by guitarist and songwriter Andrew Combs), a rabbler-rousing encore and she's done. I'd had a depressing experience the previous night from an artist who seemingly thought it was our privilege to be there. Caitlin Rose is the real deal who understands that her privilege is to share her gift with as many people as possible. For the 500 or so in Leeds, it may have been her privilege but it was OUR pleasure.

The Loud Residents

Layers of fuzz, feedback-drenched echo, drums that BOOM like a sledgehammer at the bottom of a grain silo, these kids (#hephephep) from Malaga sound like they've been told to go make a noise all their lives. Maybe they'll mellow, hopefully they won't - either way 'Savagexplosive Girl' sounds like The Ramones produced by Phil Spector (oh, wait) and 'Mafia' starts like vintage Alice Cooper before giving way to a railroad riff of foundation-shaking dimensions. The drums on 'Fuck The System!' appear to be at the point of detonation. All six tracks have a momentum that sweeps away any over-thinking. With music as raw as this, life seems simpler - The Loud Residents - don't go changing!

2012 - Top 25 Tracks

25

H Hawkline - Black Domino Box 

A bleak, darkly comic video brings this austere, wry song to deathly life. A compelling live performer Hawkline is also a member of Cate Le Bon's travelling band, cosmic folkists who trade Hawkwind guitars with Goth bucolic Welsh traditions. Solo, Hawkline takes on all comers, so talented it's frightening.

EP : Black Domino Box

24

Craig Finn - Rented Room

Away from the compressed full tilt bustle of The Hold Steady, Craig Finn's solo album allowed him to stretch out and let his insightful lyricism breathe. This is just the wrong (good) side of seedy, a neon lit reflection of an outsiders look at love.

Album : Clear Heart Full Eyes

23

Lightships - Sunlight To The Dawn

In a Teenage Fanclub-less year I had to console myself with Gerard Love's side project. He delivered an album capable of going head to head with some of the Fannies' best. His delicacy and finesse, the ear for a shard-like melody that lingers on the rim of the brain like a waking dream - serendipity brought to the senses - is encapsulated in this song which is beyond beautiful.
Album : Electric Cables

22

Plank! - La Luna

A track that pre-dates this year but now found on Plank!'s debut LP in a new version. A surging instrumental that gets into the bones, it has a propulsion seldom heard this side of CAN - clearly an influence but who cares when the motorik groove is this addictive.
Album : Animalism

21

Jason Lytle - Get Up And Go

A live highlight this year was the (temporarily) re-formed Grandaddy. A few weeks later came Jason Lytle's solo album, parts of which compete with some of his former band's best work, including this sublime 2.16 of glitchy chamber pop.
Album : Dept Of Disappearance

20

Pond - Leisure Pony

I was gripped by Pond's album over the summer. They sound like Headonists on the verge of spontaneous combustion. Psych has taken over this year, with a slew of daring, multi-coloured stabs at capturing that chemical rush. Pond's instinct for a good song sets them apart.

19

Nat Lyon - The Gardener Waits For Winter

I wrote about this album here :-
http://swiftysteve.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/nat-lyon.html

since when it has continued to unfold and reveal its layers in a way that promises true longevity. This is no disposable piece of work but a finely-wrought suite of songs from the gut and the heart of an artist who deserves a much wider audience.

The song is available for free download here:-
http://natlyon.bandcamp.com/track/the-gardener-waits-for-winter
Album : LCRV

18

Elephant Micah  - If I Were A Surfer

Joseph O'Connell is Elephant Micah and a more understated yet pregnant with below the radar profundity piece of music I haven't heard all year. The yearning gives way momentarily (more than once) to fragile beauty that departs as soon as it arrives. It's intriguing, beguiling and stunning.
Album : Louder Than Thou

17

Zachary Cale - Mourning Glory Kid

Complicated things presented effortlessly always have me scratching my head, bemused and baffled at the instinctive knack some people have for displaying unadorned, natural talent. It's easier to embellish and gloss, braver just to be live or die on what you have - not a bad motto for life itself but put a guitar in this young man's hands and the depth of simplicity is just breathtaking.

In September I wrote a bit more about him here:-
http://swiftysteve.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/zachary-cale.html
Album : Noise Of Welcome

16

Sun Kil Moon - Sunshine In Chicago

(One of) the alter egos of Mark Kozelek, a virtual airbrush of a song that slips by on the outer reaches of the consciousness until the intensity of the lyrics, and a sudden expletive, focus the breezy refrain as something else - the ruminations of a man not sure about fame, or the lack of it. Kozelek has a devoted following - he refuses to compromise and his delicate guitar picking and fragile voice disguise a real-time punch that sets him above and beyond the ambitions of the vast majority of other songer songwriters.
Album : Among The Leaves

15

Dark Dark Dark - Tell Me

Occasionally a song will emerge that seems greater than the sum of its parts, that has been carefully crafted and which is sincere and the very best statement that the artist can make of themselves at the time. These lyrics appear to me to be universal yet deeply personal - a genre defying, possibly timeless piece. The drums are heavy yet gentle, the voice dreamy yet seemingly rooted in uncertainty. There is no question mark after the title, presumably because the questioner already knows the answer.
Album : Who Needs Who

14

Thee Oh Sees - The Dream

Just the two albums this year, then. Occupying that place between CAN and the Banana Splits belies the intelligence and nous of these almost veterans. As a live outfit they are as good as music gets and this near seven minute mangum opus is a sustained adrenalin rush of trademark false-setto yelping and drum skitter.
Album: Carrion Crawler/The Dream

13

Calexico - Splitter

A more intelligent, self-aware, ego-less band anywhere? Probably not. Yet Calexico continue to challenge and ask questions. Their album of this year  - Algiers - is named after the neighbourhood in New Orleans in which it was recorded although their message goes out across the deep south or North Africa and beyond.
Album : Algiers

12

Go-Kart Mozart - Retro-Glancing

Lawrence from Creation's 1980s babies Felt, basically. Tesco Express rap, the melody is in the amazing bass line and the clue is in the title, a nostalgic yearning for a bygone era - which wasn't really much fun anyway. If there's a more infectious pop song this year, please show me it.
Album : On The Hot Dog Streets

11

Dirty Projectors - Gun Has No Trigger

Of all the brainy Brooklyn popsters Dirty Projectors are the only outfit that tug at the non-cerebral bits of my music sensibilities. They invoke the intellectualism of Talking Heads in their precision-led beats but when the choruses ascend - as they do on this amazing record - it's a bit like Handel's Messiah. Controlled passion, and music so intricately constructed that there's little point in working out HOW they do it, just rejoice that they DO.
Album : Swing Lo Magellan

10

John Murry - California

Murry's album is hewn from granite, shot through with biographical newsreel that tells his tale, the point of which is that he's glad to be even alive to open his voice to let the demons out. It's also a very optimistic LP (although this track isn't) that will resonate with survivors everywhere.
Album : The Graceless Age

9

Dan Deacon - Lots

Like nothing else this year, Dan Deacon raged against the state of his country. Like nothing else insofar as his rage was set to beats so brutal, with interludes so tender, that it could either have been read as a state of the address, or just the opportunity to have a good time
Album : America

8

Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Arrived At Upside Down

English and brainy with feet in plenty of eclectic camps, this album continues to floor me with its pained incredulity, music that tries to make sense of the grey areas meaning it can mean as much to you as your open mind will allow. Banjo as well.
Album : Crown And Treaty

7

Guided By Voices - Waves

Three albums in a comeback year, each steadily more addictive than the last  - 61 power pop nuggets from Robert Pollard's conveyor belt pen and at 3.23 the third longest, a relative wig-out that thankfully grinds out the propulsive groove towards a major chord denouement. Guitars never sounded this good.
Album : Let's Go Eat The Factory

6

Bruce Springsteen - Jack Of All Trades
Album : Wrecking Ball

http://swiftysteve.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/jack-of-all-trades-bruce-springsteen.html

5

Chuck Prophet  - Castro Halloween
Album : Temple Beautiful

http://swiftysteve.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/chuck-prophet-castro-halloween.html

4

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Ramada Inn

Where to start with this? Well, it's too short. It's a spun-out tale of a couple lost towards the end of their lives - like the record their lives are going in one direction. For a man not personally blighted by the illness of addiction Young shows incredible insight into the minds of his characters. As importantly, he wages heavy war with the guitars, making this the most memorable track of his best album for many years.
Album : Psychedelic Pill

3

Bill Fay - Cosmic Concerto (Life Is People)

A fascinating back story of redemption and a first record for 40+ years was enough to grab the attention. What had been doing all that time? Finding peace and making sense of the world is what - big things that are communicated with sincerity and a fracturing voice that tugs at the senses. The most uplifting, joyous and life-affirming set of songs - this being its spiritual zenith.
Album : Life Is People

2

Jonah Tolchin - Godforsaken World

I wrote about Jonah's album in April :-
http://swiftysteve.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/jonah-tolchin.html
since when he's toured the US relentlessly and recorded a fantastic session for the Daytrotter people. For one so young it's silly to jump to conclusions but as you can see from this performance of 'Godforsaken World' he not only means it (man) but his instinctive confidence and belief in himself means that pencilling him into the lineage of boundary-pushing American singer songwriters might not just be an act of premature wishful thinking.
Album : Criminal Man

1

Dexys - It's OK John Joe

From the opening Moonlight Sonata-style bars to the Sinatra-style croon Kevin Rowland deploys vintage vehicles to put across this inner dialogue, a confessional conversation with an alter ego - maybe his soul - to climax this perfect album. He's learnt to be kind to himself, to get that elusive perspective which finally sets his spirit free. To call this track honest is to belittle the addictive granite he's chipped away at for so long, finally revealing a human being he's happy to live with.
Album : One Day I'm Going To Soar

Nada Surf

So when did I first hear Nada Surf? Must have been the early 00s, a guitar rush around the time of the album 'Let Go'. I recall the lyric to 'The Way You Wear Your Head' making my eyebrows arch and thinking 'I have one here'. If ever a band is made to blow away the blurry thinking with a pure melody surge then it is Nada Surf - an uncomplicated yet frighteningly proficient package of compressed indie pop.

Getting to see them live had proved to be frustrating. These New Yorkers are relentless tourists but the UK seemed to be off their radar, unlike mainland Europe and the US. So I was on it like a shot when they announced a date in Manchester on the back of their latest album, the wordy (for them) 'The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy'. On record, they are like a blood transfusion - an intravenous shot of aural anti-coagulant. Listen to 'Hi Speed Soul' or 'Whose Authority' and I defy you not to be swept away by their warm wind of optimism.

The smaller top room at the Manchester Academy was full-ish but demonstrated the fact that Nada Surf are still under most people's radar. The lack of a big hit or movie/ advert soundtrack has kept the band nicely niche. I was surprised to learn how old they are - all easily into their 40s. Matthew Caws, the frontman and main songwriter, seems disarmingly ordinary as he fumbles with his guitar strap. This is their first date for a good while - the start of a world tour - but instead of it being shambolic and disorganised, the between-song delays help build the audience rapport (most are confirmed fans anyway)-  this appears to be a band without ego. As each song quickly discovers its relentless groove it's as though a switch has been tripped and a seamless energy flows, the telepathy developed over the years shifts into gear and they're off.

Daniel Lorca on bass is a revelation. Low slung, almost scraping the floor, he adds the propulsion and the urgency - they play so fast that I'm reminded of the early punk bands and the frenetic race to reach the end of the song as quickly as possible. Caws is no Dylan but at times - such as the sophisticated reflections on mortality in 'See These Bones' -  he pauses the band for thought and depth emerges. The new LP deals with big issues, it just so happens that they are cloaked in choruses and major key chord modulations that invoke euphoria, palpably the best of both worlds.

The gig flies past. Doug Gillard (Guided By Voices) on extra guitar adds a heft to the trio's ferocious muscularity  - it's great to see this understated icon of 90s American indie peeling off the scatter-gun solos.

There is an effortless connection with the audience. Caws continually beams at the front rows going mental.

The wistful 'Paper Boats' is the cue for a pleasingly in tune accompaniment from, it seems, every female in the room. A looming curfew causes a frenetic dash for the end, they cram in the 'hits' - 'Happy Kid', 'Killian's Red', 'Blankest Year.'

It puzzles me how such a radio friendly, open-hearted power pop band can remain so relatively obscure. Far more will be familiar with Death Cab For Cutie and Fountains Of Wayne - literate, indie, Pixies-inspired groups who made their names on the same US college radio circuit. Nada Surf seem happy and secure about it. On this showing they have nothing to prove - a band that doesn't need to re-invent itself. Keep it high energy, keep it simple and just take everyone along for the ride.

Zachary Cale

When a rare recommendation arrived from a respected source (eminent musician Hans Chew) I sat up straight. The recommendation was Zachary Cale from Enon, Louisiana and he was playing in nearby York within days. Hearing his album 'Noise Of Welcome' made me instantly change plans to see another band the same night in Sheffield. I was taken by the fragile voice, the confident arrangements and the intriguing juxtaposition of disparate words in his lyrics.

To stand out in the overcrowded singer songwriter genre these days an artist has to find an angle or, more impressively (Josh T Pearson, John Murry), deliver their music from such a position of brutal conviction that the listener identifies and engages with the person before finding a way in to the music itself. So this was a feeling I had. My sixth sense (located in the gut) positively screamed at me.

True enough, the album continued to revealed its layers over the next couple of days and we found our way to the Fulford Arms in York where he was playing solo on a mid-week night.

He is a very disarming individual and we managed a quick chat during which he revealed his love of British/ Irish music (Waterboys, The Fall, The Kinks ) before delivering a set of songs (including Mourning Glory Kid, above) that invited those watching into his interior world. His guitar playing is deceptively complex, featuring runs and chord sequences that turned the instrument into an orchestra. I was reminded mostly of English folk legend Michael Chapman, who I saw in February.

http://swiftysteve.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/michael-chapman.html

Live, his voice comes and goes, dropping and then rising on lyrics themed around the trials of being human. I sensed that, deeper than this, he is pre-occupied by forgiveness and, who knows, loss. Cale's version of lyrical folk balladry intertwines the urban and the pastoral - his songs are rooted in real life - this is no daydreamer's charter or means of escape. He contemplates to find answers, only for those answers to slip away in the cold light of day. But this is OK -  he has his music to re-discover those solutions and to begin to make those choices.

Zachary Cale is different. He has the searing honesty which will see him through and the work ethic to make it happen.

http://allhandselectric.com/zacharycale.html