The Review Process: Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007)

We'll take a "break" from the earth-shattering speed that I am documenting my road-tunes experience to honor a request, as I have significantly underestimated the time it would take to go through all of those damn albums again. Clearly.

One of the six of you who read this has asked me to detail what my CD review process consists of. Normally I would just ignore any type of "request," but it turns out that a 17% drop in readership would be pretty significant. So, despite my strict anti-social and overtly antagonistic tendencies, I am forced to comply with this AND the request to enable comments. I've officially lost control.

Our subject for this exercise will be the new Arctic Monkeys album, Favourite Worst Nightmare. (For the record, I decided on this album to document the review process before giving it a single spin.)

Not every album gets this rigorous of a listening regimen, but at least 1 or 2 of these steps are always included. The general idea is that not all albums are going to "open up" to a listener in every format -- some play better on the lower-fi end of the spectrum, others need as high a fidelity as can be found. And different listening devices actually shape the sound differently -- you'll potentially hear a "different" album on your iPod headphone than you might in your car.

So my "method" attempts to cover as many of these options as possible. The order doesn't matter and varies from review to review. I'll generally got through all for highly recommended albums I can't seem to appreciate.

For this album, I started with the Boom Box listen. This generally occurs while I'm reading, doing the dishes, or showering. (Ha ha! That mental image should cure any thoughts you had of lunch, gentle reader.) The boom box is a solid listening start -- the pro and the con here is that it tends to "flatten" the music. In other words, you get the melody, the vocals, and the beat, but any subtlety gets mashed together. The Sloan track "Another Way I Could Do It," for example, sounds much better in this format (i.e., when it's more "2D" than "3D").

Also, this is a good "attention grabber" listen -- if you're doing dishes and daydream away tracks 1-6 without even noticing the album, that's not a good sign. If you start to notice the music and not the silverware, you've probably got a good album and grimy forks.

In the case of the Arctic Monkeys, what I hear is a band trying to follow an impressive debut by trying too hard. My initial thought is that 2 tracks really grab me, but this is "Sell-Back Pile 1" material. Hopefully there is a lot going on here that I am not hearing on this listen -- I had high hopes here.

Next, we move to the Car Stereo. This listen can be misleading, as there are plenty of "driving CD's" that are "great" in the car but only "good" elsewhere, and some are terrible in the car but still great albums -- it's just the wrong format. (This is the same with some Video Game albums.) But this does step up the fidelity chain, and, for an uptempo album like this one, it's a great way to listen to the album uninterrupted. Except, of course, for the occasional obscenity and/or brush with death thrown my way by the moronic drivers in the state. (Here's a hint, drivers: you don't always have the right of way.)

In this case, after the first 3 songs I was convinced this album was a Car Stereo all-star. But it didn't hold up all the way through -- the middle of the album is still murky. Top few and last few songs are really solid, but I need more time with it. On the plus side, I'm now thinking I was a bit harsh initially and this is probably going into the CD Rack.

Our next step is the Headphones listen. Certain albums (Built to Spill's Keep It Like a Secret is a perfect example of this) are a completely different listen through headphones -- I can't precisely articulate this, but I'll try. For music that is very layered and dense, you can hear everything that is going on; sonically, it tends to separate the musical spectrum into components (bass vs guitar vs guitar vs guitar vs keyboard vs vocal, in the case of Built to Spill) that can be appreciated, rather than sounding like a muddy mismash of sounds when heard in other formats. I listened to Keep It Like a Secret 5 times, thinking it was a piece a trash; my friend Jim gave me his pair of headphones and insisted I listen to it one more time. It's now one of my favorite all-time albums.

For the AM's, this listen revealed a little more depth, although the fact that I am tuning out tracks 6-9 and that the last track is terrible musically AND lyrically is a bit disheartening. The first 5 tracks and 10-11, however, are worth the price of admission.

Lastly, we need to put this bad boy through the Big-Ass Stereo listen. Since I've been writing this blog, I've made this my last stop -- it's a great way to listen to the album one more time in high fidelity with good space to confirm or refute my previous opinions. This is really the "truest" test, so many times I'll run an album exclusively here.

On this listen, the first two tracks ("Brianstorm" and "Teddy Picker") still hammer like nobody's business. A song like the fourth track ("Balaclava") really gets helped by the high fidelity treatment for sure. And those first five tracks still hold up.

I am seeing why tracks 6-9 have been tough for me to remember. I am really forced to pay attention to them now and unlike smoked meat, they're just not getting it done: "The House is a Circus" isn't terrible, it's just not that great either. This should be an EP -- take out tracks 6-9 and 12 ("505", which I will never listen to again) and move on. IMHO, of course.

Then we get to "The Bad Thing." Wow. I put the stereo up to 11 and thank the Lord that Mrs. Snilch is not here to witness the smackdown I am giving to both our future neighbor relations and our house's foundation. I start to see cracks in my windows midway through the song, but realistically they needed to be replaced anyways. If you ever actually listen to this track, you will undoubtedly wonder why I am so into it (which admittedly is not the be-all, end-all rock anthem by any means), but I am a sucker for this kind of generic guitar-rawk song. You have to know your weaknesses.

The final verdict?

CD Placement rating: At the end of the day, this album just makes it into the Portable CD Case. It's too good to go lower and not good enough to go much higher. So there you have it.

iTunes suggestions: A new feature for all of you who want to see Newbury Comics go out of business, or just want to sample the wares. My suggestions: "Brianstorm," "Teddy Picker," "Balaclava," "The Bad Thing."

- Snilch

Quick Hits - The Losers List

There's nothing like 25+ hours in a car over a long weekend to help separate the wheat from the chaff in your CD collection. While there were a bunch of nice surprises to pass the time, the following made the trip seem even longer -- avoid them. In alphabetical order:

• Bad Religion - New Maps of Hell (2007). It's not bad, it's just not good either. It's exactly like all of their other albums since The Grey Race. They are still angry, which helps, but they're also old.
  Verdict: Pile of death.
  
• The Dresden Dolls - Yes, Virginia... (2006). Their 2nd album falls into the category of "you have a lifetime to write your first album, and one year to write your second." The vocals sound great. The drums sound great. The piano sounds great. They just don't seem like they belong in the same song most of the time. The lyrics feel like they're an attempt to top the quirkiness of the first album. I still love these guys despite this.
  Verdict: Pile of death.

• Enuff Z'Nuff - Live (1998). You may be surprised that I own 3 albums by this group, and that I believe they are quite good as a band. Not so much in this live recording, however.
  Verdict: Pile of death.

• The Happy Accidents Soundtrack (2001). I had thought this was a "Dusty Trails exclusive" soundtrack, but they actually only are responsible for 3 of the 14 tracks. There are only 3 tracks worth keeping (wanna guess which ones?). Dusty Trails is/was Josephine Wiggs (bassist for The Breeders) and Vivian Trimble (keyboardist for Luscious Jackson). They only released 1 full album, which they called a "soundtrack album without a film." These are the last 3 songs released commercially from a very promising band that just faded away.
  Verdict: Sell-back pile 1.

• Grant-Lee Phillips - nineteeneighties (2006). I love the era. I love cover albums. And Phillips is enigmatic but occasionally brilliant, which seems like the recipe for at least limited success. Surprisingly, he takes 11 songs and covers every one the exact same way. It's terrible. I figured there'd be at least 1 song worth keeping, but that must have been my unbridled optimism.
  Verdict: Pile of death.

• The Rogers Sisters - The Invisible Deck (2006). I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was certainly something better than this. Once I heard "The Clock," I was filled with a homicidal rage, which I was forced to quell with the soothing sounds of Motorhead. Seriously, one of the worst songs I've ever heard. That was it for this album, although there were a couple of songs worth keeping.
  Verdict: Sell-back pile 1.

• Van Gogh's Daughter - Shove (1995). It's always a bad sign when the one song you know from the album turns out to be a mix of a bad album track. The album is generic and pretty bland. The video was cool back in the day...
  Verdict: Pile of death.

We'll have news from some of the better albums in the coming days.

- Snilch

Baby Ray - Low Rises (2005)

All right, all right. This album is dated 2005 and the band is no longer together. And I've actually been listening to mixes of the thing for three years.

As you may have figured out, I have no qualms about any of this. Low Rises is an excellent album by one of my all-time favorite local (Boston) bands.

If you don't know Baby Ray, think an XTC/Guided by Voices 2-guitar attack with a great rhythm section. Primary songwriters and guitarists Eric Groat and Ken Lafler switch off on vocals as well.

It's a shame that the band broke up after Low Rises -- as much as I loved Monkeypuzzle, Do I Love America and Demonstration, I think this album is their best. The whole album is a nice combination of their pop melodic sense with complex arrangements. My personal highlights include "Superbitch," "The Idiots are Out," "Red Flags," "Rocket-O," "I Look, There You Are," "You Could Go to College" -- who am I kidding, except for one song, the whole album is absolutely great.

I'd encourage you to check them out: here is where you should buy the album. This band is not going gold from sales anytime soon, so just suck it up and get the damn thing. It'll make Ken happy and help put his kid through college.

Merch rating: My commemorative T-shirt and mug combination is apparently on back-order, although the action figures just came in yesterday. I'd obviously go see them if they ever played again. And of course if I didn't already own the album, I'd be buying it here.

CD Placement rating: This goes into the Portable CD Case, but it has spent time in the past in the Car CD changer. So go buy it already!

Quick Hits - Hardcore Part 2

To remind everyone: back in February, I posted Part 1 of the hardcore music I got into after reading American Hardcore: A Tribal History by Steven Blush. You can read the rest of the preamble and excuses there, the second half of the review here. In alphabetical order:

• Bad Brains - I Against I. Now here is an album where I can get behind the Bad Brains. "I Against I" is a great opening track, and you can hear how great these guys are musically on tracks like "She's Calling You." A very nice album all around.
  Verdict: Recommended. CD rack.
  
  
• Black Market Baby - Coulda... Shoulda... Woulda. Remastered compilation. Another DC hardcore outfit, this band had only one proper album release. Pro: sounds like a truly "in the moment" experience, reflecting the energy of the scene and the state of music at the time. Con: sounds like a truly "in the moment" experience that I wasn't part of. So it remains stuck in the early 80's for me.
  Verdict: Not recommended. Sell-back 1.

• Dag Nasty - Field Day. The first song ("Trouble Is") instantly alerts you that this is going to be something really special. This album doesn't really qualify as hardcore, more as heavy power pop, which is probably why it's as good as it is -- it's even bluesy at times. And it has excellent, smart lyrics too. The song "Dear Mrs. Touma," says allmusic.com, "might be the band's high-water mark, and one for punk in general" -- what can you say to that? I was going to criticize "Never Green Lane" for being a completely wimpy effort, but with a refrain like "I remember your mouth/You never kept it shut," I found there was more than enough vitriol to... well, to keep my mouth shut. It was almost impossible to find, but I'm really glad I did.
  Verdict: Highly recommended (if you can find it). Portable CD case.
  

• Duh - Blowhard. I had high hopes for this one. The best songs are "Solo Hanneman", which lasts for 9 seconds, and "Solo King", which lasts for 5 seconds. The other 34:50 last interminably.
  Verdict: Not recommended. Pile of Death/"The Peaches File".

• JFA - We Know You Suck. Compilation. JFA (a.k.a. "Jodie Foster's Army") put a hardcore twist onto what was known as "skatepunk." Too bad I don't skateboard. They actually have a song called "JFA" -- IMHO, you can really only only do a song with your band name in it if your band is called "Damn Yankees." The surf guitar songs resonate with me, but otherwise -- not bad, just not my cup of tea.
  Verdict: Not recommended. Sell-back 1.
  

• Nomads - Showdown! (1981-1993). 2-disc Remastered Compilation. This album was very difficult to track down and thus the main reason that Part 2 took so long to come about -- and here I had always heard Swedish hardcore was easy to find. Who knew?
  
  The opening track, "The Way (You Touch My Hand)" I instantly recognized, although I'm not sure from where. This was 1981? Sounds like Nick Cave if he picked up the pace a bit and picked up a surf guitar sound. They're really a garage band -- most of their materials are either covers or "originals" the take bits straight from other songs -- and Disc 1 is a lot of fun and very listenable. Disc 2 is more "demos and rarities for the real fans" but still has nice nuggets throughout. In any case, this album is not really hardcore (at least my perception of the genre), but a great listen for fun, familiar sounds.
  Verdict: Recommended. Portable CD case.
  

• J Church - The Horror of Life (2007). No, this band (essentially Lance Hahn and a cast of rotating characters) was not in the book. No, they did not even exist during the hardcore era. No, this is not even listed in alphabetical order. But as I listened to this album, I realized that it belonged in this list as the contemporary embodiment of the values espoused by hardcore back in the day.
  
  I have yo-yo'd back and forth on this review. The best songs here have the best names: tops is "If I Have to Dance Then I Don't Want Your Revolution", followed by "Vampire Girl Prefers Me Alive"(which I'd like even more if it were a bitter, rather than happy, song), and "We Play Secular Music." So it's good. However, I would pick up J Church's 2000 classic One Mississippi (a power pop album) or 2004's Society is a Carnivorous Flower (harder, punkier power pop) before this one. So it's not that good. However, this is better than 95% of the stuff out there. So it's better than most and definitely worth checking out, especially of you like the more frenetic stuff.
  
  Lance Hahn is amazing -- he's currently on dialysis (and may need a kidney transplant), yet he still is putting out albums and running his own label. (In case that isn't enough, he has been hospitalized because of an enlarged heart and high blood pressure, and has seen his business and apartment both burn to the ground in the last 5 years. Not sure where the bitterness comes from.) Go out and support him, people!
  
  Verdict: Recommended. Portable CD case.
  

Snilch

The Loomers - Today Tomorrow (2006)

Albums given to you by friends are a tricky thing. Half the time they are gold, but half the time... well, you can form your own mental picture.

So when my friend Andrew gave me The Loomers Tomorrow Today, I was doubly concerned, as he has racked up somewhere between 10,000 and 11,000 hits on this site (seriously -- he's lost his mind) and thus I might be dooming my blog readership if this album turned out like the "other" half of the time. And it's not in my nature to not rail against something if it's not up to par... so you see my dilemma.

Fortunately for me, Andrew may have poor taste in blogs to obsess over, but he does have an excellent ear. The Loomers are a very good listen and definitely recommended. They fall somewhere in the folk-rock genre, tending more towards the fun and whimsy side. I'd almost call it a "children's album," but that would be denigrating the musical chops here -- this is a very pleasant, light, fun (there's that word again) romp with some very nice highlights ("Have a Ball," "Hard to Believe," and my favorite, "Pocketful of Change"). Sometimes the lyrics are slightly cliché (to be fair, sometimes this is clearly on purpose, like on "Love Right Now"), but at this point I'm trying to find something to criticize so you all don't think I've gone completely soft. A very nice listen and one that I'll enjoy again in the near future.

Merch rating: I definitely will go see these guys when they play in Davis Square again. I'll buy the next album but probably not any other merch.

CD Placement rating: This goes into the CD Rack.

Peaches - Impeach My Bush (2006)

I want to thank whoever screwed up when I was ordering The Nomad's Showdown album and mistakenly sent this masterpiece in its place. I've heard varying things about Peaches and her music, and this golden opportunity just planted itself (as if by fate) in my lap for a musical journey. And what a short, strange trip it was.

This is my second listen, which at least doubles the amount of time this album deserves -- and it proves that this is truly as god-awful as I thought it was the first time. The tough part is deciding whether the music is more insipid than the lyrics or vice versa. I'd reprint some of the words, but there may be kids reading. Here's the PG-13 version: "Love me" or "I will love you" or "You and your friend will love me" or "I will love you, your friend, and another friend to be named later," etc. There not a lot of subtlety, thought, or originality here. The music is equal -- trite, thin, and repetitive. But if you are vapid, soulless, and dumb enough to still think that Hussein was behind 9/11 (don't laugh, 41% of the country still believes this), this may be the ticket for you.

Merch rating: I got this album for free, and that was way too expensive.

CD Placement rating: I may be re-naming the "Pile of Death" the "Peaches File." I probably won't sell this, because I believe karma would find a way to repay me shortly thereafter, like by running me over with a bus. On the flip side, this would be a great album for someone trying to stretch an hour into seeming like a whole day. Maybe even a week.

Quick Hits

Here's the latest on a few albums I've checked out recently. In alphabetical order.

• Menomena - Friend and Foe. 2007. Like Of Montreal's piss-poor offering detailed in an earlier post, this was recommended by Pitchfork. Much like that album, it's got great packaging. At least here there are a couple of tracks that are interesting ("Muscle 'N Flow," "Wet & Nasty"), and it's well-produced. But it's by no stretch a "great" or even "very good" album. I'm starting to work up an opinion on what it is that Pitchfork likes these days, which has changed from where they were at a couple of years ago (and where I am still at, apparently). Maybe I'll even write about that soon.
  Verdict: Not recommended. Sell-Back Pile 1.


• On - Make Believe. 2002. The full extent of my musical man-crush on Ken Andrews (frontman for Failure and Year of the Rabbit) will become readily apparent over the next number of posts. This is the second album of what was essentially a solo project of his, On. Ken is a great producer as well as an excellent musician, and thus at the very least his stuff all sounds great. Ken also understands what type of music best suits his voice and plays to that dirty guitar sound, all the while keeping his indie pop sensibilities about him. This is a bit more electronica than his other offerings, and not what I'd consider his best stuff, but still better than most music out there. Check out the very nice cover of "When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around."
  Verdict: Recommended. Portable CD Case.
  
  
• Scanners - Violence is Golden. 2006. Yet another winner from the "Under the Radar in '06" column. When I first heard the opening track ("Joy"), I was sure I had found a complete classic. While the rest of the album does not hit that high point, and repeated listens have not taken this album to a new level, this is still a very good album. Think The Yeah Yeah Yeah's with more traditional rock/pop structures. I will be buying their next album (whenever they release it) when it hits the stands -- this has lots of potential.
  Verdict: Recommended. CD Rack.

• Shapes of Race Cars - Apocalypse Hurts EP. 2004. I ended up with this album in some "3 albums for $10" offer from CD Baby. This is the best of that lot. The first track, "Angry Books," is great -- nice 2-guitar interplay and oddly sung vocals that work very well. The rest? Extremely formulaic and generic, but what can you really expect for 3 bucks? It's not great when the cover of "Tainted Love" isn't worth keeping.
  Verdict: Not recommended. Sell-back pile 1.

• Ultravox - Systems of Romance. 1978, remastered in 2006. Think of this as the electronica cousin of Killing Joke's debut -- I think KJ fans will like this one as well. It really was ahead of its time. It's not as strong front-to-back as Killing Joke, but this is an excellent album in its own right.
  Verdict: Recommended. Portable CD Case.

- Snilch