‘Tis the season – to be stumped while shopping! If you’re looking for music that’s off the beaten path, alternative in approach, and popular in appeal, consider the following recent releases.
Steel Train
Trampoline
At their best, New Jersey’s Steel Train shares several of the qualities of fellow Garden State ensembles. Songs such as “I Feel Weird” and “Diamonds in the Sky” capture the buoyant grooves and high-octane performance energy of the E Street Band. “Kill Monsters in the Rain” and “Dakota” examine a similarly quirky indie rock approach to that of Fountains of Wayne.
Occasionally, the band goes overboard; for instance, “Alone on the Sea” takes the group’s penchant for stadium-sized riffs over the line into bombast. That said, Steel Train demonstrates considerable potential here.
Thao Nguyen
We Brave Bee Stings and All
DC indie pop songstress Thao Nguyen’s sophomore album We Brave Bee Stings and All features both polished production values and persuasive songs. Her usual backing band, the Get Down Stay Down, is supported by cameos from such stalwarts Laura Veirs and organist Wayne Horvitz. Nguyen allows an air of mystery in her lyrics; but songs such as “Fear and Convenience” and the breezily quirky “Bag of Hammers,” with their funk-inflected rhythms and artful horn charts, provide her enigmatic compositions lush adornment. “Big Kid Table” and “Geography” identify with childhood anxieties while never seeming overly sentimental. We Brave Bee Stings and All is simultaneously sensitive, accessible, and musically engaging – a rare treat.
Coheed and Cambria
No World for Tomorrow
The final portion of a multi-album storyline, No World for Tomorrow is the most ambitious effort yet by prog metal band Coheed and Cambria. Make no mistake; this is a band that’s not shy about demonstrating its influences. Claudio Sanchez channels Geddy Lee in his ebullient vocal histrionics and the rest of the band references everything from hair metal to Marillion. In today’s pop marketplace, many bands avoid assaying anything “epic” – never mind prog or metal – but there’s no denying C&C’s earnest intentions and impressive musicality.
“Feathers” is an excellent power ballad, while the title track pits machine gun riffs against dramatic vocals and mathy syncopations. What could serve as a more fitting climax to the CD than a five-movement suite, “The End Complete,” which features leitmotifs from the entire recorded saga. The listener doesn’t need to be aware of the complex of musical relationships, but they should be ready to revel in head-banging done up right.
Labradford
Prazision LP
Kranky’s inaugural 1993 release, Labradford’s Prazision LP, has just been reissued with bonus tracks. Labradford, the duo of Carter Brown and Mark Nelson, remained a force to be reckoned with on the avant electronica scene until just after the turn of the century, and it’s fascinating to hear their first collaborations.
Most often, Labradford’s works evolve slowly, with a tip of the hat to minimal and drone-based music. Unlike some avant-garde artists, their sound world has often tended towards the lush and lovely, with sepulchral bass textures and luxuriant, slowcore influenced structures. Prazision shows these tendencies in full flowering even at the group’s inception; but it also balances aural loveliness with a bit of bite on tracks such as “Sliding Glass” and “Experience the Gated Oscillator.” Other artifacts such as vocoder harmonies and blats of noise muddy the waters, creating an ominous yet compelling atmosphere far too complex to be considered merely ambient listening.
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