“Amends” - Braids

It’s been nearly a year to the day since SPIN had an article about Braids making a follow-up to their 2011 debut Native Speaker. In that article, members of the band discussed the direction they were headed in. The article itself talked about how there was a shift from the lightness and pep featured on Native Speaker to a much darker space. Drummer Austin Tufts confirmed another shift that came with the different mood: “Our interest has been a lot more electronic-based.”

Cut to today, and while the article stated that a new album could’ve come out as soon as early this year, the new material is welcome nonetheless. Braids have made good on what they said to SPIN a year ago and are now releasing the 12” In Kind // Amends as the fruit of their efforts. “Amends” shows just how great the shift in style and operation has been for Braids, an act that certainly warrants the amount of time it has taken for new material to surface. In Kind // Amends will be released on June 11 via Arbutus with both expected to be on the band’s upcoming sophomore release, now expected sometime this fall.

- Kevin Tappin

“Shut Up” - Savages

I was so hesitant at first. Savages sound just like every other nostalgia post-punk band, until you realize their music promotes thought instead of feeling. Picking up where WU LYF left off, their noir punk anthems are so current, so of the moment, it’s impossible to listen to their music and feel anything but alive. Jehnny Beth pierces like Beth Gibbons, Gemma Thompson rips notes out of yesterday’s post-punk movement, while Ayse Hassan late-80’s bass pulses forward. It’s cringe-worthy music, in the fresh way new music makes you reevaluate the past. It’s nice to have a political band again, a band that rejects those easy base emotions The National needs to survive.

A post about Savages was long overdue. I’ll withhold my surprise if a new movement starts next year, a crop of newly awakened bands questioning our culture’s post 9/11 slumber. As we all should. Savages are a call to arms and you don’t even know the sides.

-Eric Kossina

“Party At Dead Man’s” - Drug Church

Because what he said is better than any pretentious, Mobius strip nonsense I could come up with, I’m quoting what Drug Church (and Self Defense Family) vocalist Patrick Kindlon wrote about the new Drug Church single. Because the Secret Voice website’s description of Patrick Kindlon is better than any jokes I would make (although “online therapist” isn’t quite as accurate as “opinionated curmudgeon who incidentally doubles as a life guide” - I say this in a positive manner), I’m quoting their quote of him. Then I’ll comment on everything but the song itself.

Instead of doing a write up of my own that explains how much this band rules, I asked band vocalist and online therapist Patrick Kindlon (of Self Defense Family) to present one

“Two songs of primal fury informed by truly petty thoughts. A direct line to the brain of men without motivation, direction, or meaningful
employment. Seaweed and Tolkien swirling in a barf-stew thrown against a wall of indifference. Like dogs dancing to E-Town.”

That was fun. Now, this rambunctious little song itself is the raspy A-side shout to the gnarly B-side riff of “Selling Drugs From Your Mom’s Condo,” a pairing that doubles as both the life story I pass off as my own to the internet and also the dynamic song duo featured on Drug Church’s upcoming Secret Voice 7”. Now, let’s all retroactively shape our lives so we fit the description of the directionless dudes in Kindlon’s description.

- Tyler Hanan

“Q.U.E.E.N.” ft. Erykah Badu - Janelle Monáe

I had been waiting for this all day yesterday, and was caught unawares when it finally came out. In my defense, I was heeding Monáe’s own words and making a cake. Anyways, the highly anticipated single has finally hit, funky as hell and appended with an extra helping of slick rap verse. Soon the follow up the incredible diverse The Archandroid with a new full length, The Electric Lady, here’s hoping for a repeat performance in terms of quality and a new hit single to supplant her backing work on “We Are Young” as her biggest credit.

- Tyler Hanan

“Shadow of a Shadow” - The Casket Girls

“Are you afraid of the dark? Turn around and there’s nothing there.”

I had forgotten how many musical projects Ryan Graveface was involved in - Dreamend, where he’s recently gone NBC Hannibal and gotten in a serial killers’ head; Black Moth Super Rainbow, the well-named, unique pop enigma; The Marshmallow Ghosts, which I’m less familiar with but seem to fit the same vein, if more delightfully Halloween appropriate; and The Casket Girls, where he shifts a haunted house into an alternate dimension, and more besides.

The Casket Girls is a band aptly named, and quite recognizably backed by Graveface’s work. Even leaving subject matter and band name aside, his work has always been amply imbued with jarring, otherworldly elements that skew towards more upbeat and sinister registers. Very Halloween chic I was going to say, but the first thing to come up when I googled that was a Pinterest board. Moving on.

Goth pop is hip right now (says a man shamelessly shackled to that bandwagon). There are numerous wonderful artists (Zola Jesus being a favorite) and a neverending plethora of… less noteworthy recent entries (apologies, Esben - I tried) in a field becoming increasingly crowded yet ever more diverse. Graveface gives The Casket Girls a subversive, legitimately spooky bent that gives the group an diaphonous leg up.

The Record Store Day-released Self-Titled mini-LP is streaming on Filter [link] and, if it’s opened the - casket, grave, pick your pun - of that id you thought you’d buried deep, the digital/cassette release is available from Graveface’s own self-titled record label [link].

The final of the five tracks is especially delicious, with direct-from-DVD organ and a monstrous, twisted swell that devours the release’s sweetest melody. 

This is what happens when one writes after watching two hours of disturbing, visually arresting horror crime television.

- Tyler Hanan

Album of the Week: Tyler Hanan [4/20/13]

Elvis Depressedly, still somehow out-lofi-ing and out-sadding Mat Cothran’s bigger headliner Coma Cinema, returns as triumphantly as these downers can get. The stay is brief, as is tradition, as the Birdtapes-released holo pleasures clocks in at just over twelve minutes.

Revisiting the past few Elvis Depressedly releases in preparation for this (yes, actually preparation) left me feeling pretty down. Have you heard the end of hotter sadness? That’s some pretty cynical stuff. Here are the names of the last three tracks alone: “i bought a gun,” “hurt everything,” and “i can’t wait for you to die.” That’s a lot for a simple, impressionable young mind (mine) to process.

Starting into holo pleasures, it’s immediately recognizable as Elvis Depressedly, or, perhaps more accurately, Mat Cothran. holo pleasures isn’t as unnerving as the end of hotter sadness, and the more consistent, mid-tempo nature sounds a bit more like a Coma Cinema release. The production may be upped just a tic, but that wonderful lofi sound and simple-yet-effective arrangements are all there (as opposed to the excellent new, hifi-minded Coma Cinema track “Satan Made A Mansion”). Cothran’s low, fuck-all voice fits the tunes like a glove, as ever. I can’t say it’s any more upbeat than before, but it seems a bit less cynical - despite the song title “pepsi/coke suicide.”

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