School Of Seven Bells - Disconnect from desire (7/10)
My fingers are freezing slightly while I'm typing this, but I'm sure you'll forgive for keeping this entry non-verbose.
School Of Seven Bells hardly needs any more introduction, having been featured on this blog twice before with some excellent singles. I got a hold of their latest effort by this New York based poppy shoegaze-style band, and I can say I like most of it. It is a slight hit or miss record, the lesser tracks don't really annoy, they just drag on and nothing really happens. The good tracks however make up for it, and they'll all seem to draw inspiration from a different source. The echo in "Bye bye bye" has a slight Souvlaki Space Station -vibe, the elektronic sample in "Cammarilla" is Kraftwerk-esque, the vocals in "Babelonia" remind me of Cocteau Twins, and "I L U" draws heavily on the inescapable My Bloody Valentine influence. I was however disappointed by their performance at De Nachten (they played as a threesome, as twin sister and backing vocalist Claudia left/got kicked out of the band a couple weeks before); they started out real good, then the vocalist completely lost her voice, struggled through the rest of the set - that was subsequently cut short - and left the stage without anymore acknowledgement of the crowd. Plus, letting a drummer play along with a programmed drum track is always a little silly/unnecessary. Shame, because the setting was perfectly suited for them to make an impression. But I have a suspicion we'll hear from these guys in the future. Wasn't really non-verbose, now was it? I'll have to try harder.
The New Pornographers - Together (6.5/10)
I was a fan of Canadian ultrapoppy supergroup (a supergroup in Canada, apart from Neko Case maybe, none of the members is known in Europe except for the most diligent music fans) for three albums, as with many fans, they lost me a little on their slow and kind of boring "Challengers"-album, but luckily, fifth album "Together" again packs some punch. The band's weak spot is still the lyrics; both of the songwriters (A.C. Newman and Dan Bejar) both never seem to write personal stuff, but lose themselves in absurd writings (what about "Valkyrie at the roller disco") that never seem to go anywhere, which really decreases the recognisability and the singalong factor. Luckily, on about half of the tracks, the song structures and arrangements are that good that the lyrics don't even matter; this is true for the first five tracks and "Up in the dark". The rest of the material doesn't really cut it. Do hope to see these guys live again someday, especially now that Neko Case seem to tour along more often.
Random radio stuff
Laserkraft 3D is the maker of one of this moment's smash hits. "Nein, mann" is simply irrestible, a good advocate for the german language, and I especially like it because it's hard to believe that only in 2010 someone came up with the idea of using this theme for a song. The clicking beats kind of remind me of the classic "Answering machine" track by Green Velvet.
Another dance song I really like right now is Martin Solveig's new track. Sounds a little different (more dance, less groove) than his previous work, but still, good stuff. Dragonette seems to be a hip singer, she's also featured on a couple of other tracks right now.
Can't say the new Lykki Li track has completely won me over yet. Something in the drum rhythm reminds me of The Bangles.
Saying White Lies are into bombast is an understatement. They were the only band on the Pukkelpop festival that appeared in black and white on the stage-side screens, and their new video features a hospitalized boy singing the lyrics. Their previous album just nearly missed my skip-pile and I strongly fear the new album is going to be a miss. In this track, the chorus just does nothing and the vocals are way too overproduced for my taste.
Apart from the "Chasing pavement" single which I found decent at most, I never enjoyed any of Adele's work. Sure, voice is good, so what, if the songs are not. And I'm definitely not into her advocating/championing smoking every chance she gets. On this new single, she tries to do something bluesy/county, disregarding the fact that KT Tunstall did the same thing a lot better a couple years back.
This is my jam right now. Apparently, this is the first Asian American number one track in the US ever. Apart from the jumpy beats, the chorus really is what makes this track. It's actually a sample from the "Booty Bounce" track by Dev, who also features in the video. I've checked out some snippets of some other tracks by this band, looks like they're trying to be the Asian Black Eyed Peas (Will.I.Am, a "Time of my life"-cover? really?) or something.
The new Robyn track is pretty alright too. The melody/tempo in the verse really reminds me of another song, but I can't quite put the finger on it (yet).
Finishing off with some tracks by some compatriots, Sherman is the singer-songwriter project of Steven Bossuyt. He now resides in London and seems to be doing well, seeing that he got invited to do a session at the BBC. His new single "On your side" is pretty good, I prefer the more dynamic radio version to this acoustic performance however. A really well structured track, although I hope not all his writing is so dependent on lyrical clichés.
The new Goose album gets miscellaneous reviews. Not really into the new "Can't stop me now" -single, however, the title track of their new album is pretty cool. You could validly state this is their "Housewife".
Random nineties video
And closing off with another nineties video, Scott Weiland is such a mess right now, you could overlook the fact that Stone Temple Pilots used to be pretty cool. This is one of their first singles ever, the lyrics are somewhat controversial, it seems.
