Squairheads, A webcomic of Puns and Wordplay

I guess I feel a special connection with the Oxford (England) band Foals. Probably because I live very nearby to Oxford. But that definitely isn’t the only reason I chose to review their debut album, Antidotes. Released in 2008 in both the UK and the USA, the latter under the famous Sub Pop record label, it is a definitive portrayal of the ‘Oxford Sound’ – twitchy, guitar based math-rock coupled with synth-punk influenced beats and chants.

The album opens with the track The French Open, which seems like it’s purpose for being there is to get you into the almost mechanical, disjointed groove – and it succeeds. The listener will find him or herself subconsciously jerking their head to the offbeat guitar pumps, before being thrown headfirst into the rockiest track on the album, Cassius. ‘Cassius it’s over! Cassius away!’ the vocals shout as the guitar follows in the seemingly constricted fashion that features heavily throughout the album.

A non-single track of note on Antidotes is the song Two Steps, Twice. You’ll hear that distinctive guitar sound again, but as more and more guitar parts are added to the mix, they start to meld together before becoming barely separable from each other. Because of this, the intro to Two Steps, Twice feels like it has some sort of deep logic to it, and does in fact sound like math. In sound form. As the track moves on, you get some more chanting – ‘That’s one step, one step, two step! That’s two steps, two steps, speed bikes!’ – This album really does have its own distinctive style.

And it’s a good style.

Because Antidotes has its own unique sound, it’s particularly liable to burrow itself into your head, making you want to tense up your arm and wrist muscles and mime that off-beat guitar in The French Open, or that tight, twitchy riff in Cassius. And more often than not, you’ll find yourself chanting the lyrics to any number of the songs, doing your best to imitate that Oxford accent that just screams out ‘We are students of sound, and this is our music’.

8/10

If you’re a fan of The Flaming Lips, or early Radiohead, then you’ll definitely enjoy Warning Bells by Glaswegian psych-indie rockers mitchell museum. Being an actively performing band since early 2008, they released their debut album The Peters Port Memorial Service in July 2010 under the Electra French record label.

Warning Bells, the first single from the album, is a cataclysmic bundle of sweeping distortion, eerie vocal harmonies and lyrics that you won’t be able to get out of your head for days. The pure depth of the track is simply astonishing – you’ll find yourself listening to it again and again, picking out things you didn’t hear the first time around. It’s the barely noticeable, subtle guitar lines in the background that really gives this track the power it conveys.

Or is it?

Perhaps what really makes this track is the melancholic backing vocals that envelope the listener’s head like a big fluffy feather pillow, or maybe it’s the chorus you find yourself singing at work the next day. It might even be that glorious last chord on each verse, the one that sends the song plummeting into its own audio hallucination, and sends shivers down your spine you haven’t felt since you first heard ‘that riff’ in Radiohead’s My Iron Lung.

Whatever ultimately makes this song the magical genius it is, it’s essentially unimportant. What we have here is a debut single that shows great promise for this British four-piece, and makes me very, very excited about mitchell museum’s future. Now, please excuse me while I go and buy the album.

10/10

There’s something a little special about the emotion Poe puts into her second album, Haunted. Written as a tribute to her late father, it uses samples of audio messages he left to her and her brother. Because there is this link, the whole album acts as a back-and-forth between her and her father, and the feeling she put into the making of the album really shines through.

Poe (AKA Annie Danielewski) is a singer/songwriter hailing from New York City. Releasing Haunted in 2000 as a counterpart to her brother’s book (House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski), she unleashed an album stocked full of easily ‘groove-to-able’ beats, rock anthems and pop hits in the making. The album starts with Poe singing a pretty little song into a voicemail machine – before crashing into the first real song of the album, the title track- where the steady groove of the bass leads you slowly into the chorus, where Poe’s ethereal vocals give off an incredible sense of climax.

In contrast to the steady groove of ‘Haunted’, the track ‘Walk The Walk’ is a full bodied, no holds barred rock plea for the listener to ‘Walk to the beat of their own drum’. With crashing cymbals, a booming kick drum and funk-rock guitar, this particular track is certain to get the listener singing along by the second chorus- it’s just one of those tracks that, if it doesn’t completely immerse you in the rebellious attitude it conveys, it’ll make a damn good go of it.

Ultimately, ‘Haunted’ is the best way to describe this album. Each track is put together in such a way that the sheer depth creates the sensation that each instrument is wandering around an empty space, coming together with Poe’s ghostly harmonies to create wonderfully chilled rhythms and intensely emotional choruses. If I had to criticise, however, I’d have to say that the audio of Poe’s father present between many of the songs break up the groove that otherwise pulls this entire album together.

7/10

This is a dubstep track I made a few weeks ago, thought I’d share it with you guys. The samples are from the flash animation ‘The Child That Smelt Funny’ by David Firth, creator of Burnt Face Man and Salad Fingers. You can find all his work at www.fat-pie.com

When someone says ‘I like indie music’, I generally find that I still have no idea as to what music they enjoy.  Indie, as a term, can mean many things in the music industry. For a start, we have the die-hard indie fans (or indie snobs) who believe that for music to be good, it cannot be released on a major label. Then there is the indie of the naughties. Bands like the Kooks and Snow Patrol releasing their generic factory produced tracks to the masses. Yes, I would accept them as indie, but for me, not good indie.

↓ Read the rest of this entry…