The Datsuns
The Datsuns
V2
Aussie rockers, The Vines, might have taken both the UK and US by storm last year, but the antipodean combo didn't have it all its own way. Also kicking-up a guitar and music-press fuelled racket in the Northern Hemisphere was a little-known New Zealand act by the name of The Datsuns. Hitting the headlines in the UK late last year thanks to a series of high-octane sellout gigs following the release of their eponymous album, The Datsuns look set to repeat this success in the US this month, where their fiery debut has just been released.
While music press-led categorization has meant the band has found itself lumped with alternative and indie bands such as The Hives, The Strokes and The Vines, The Datsuns' retro-1970s white noise is a far cry from the fashion statements, fluidity and art school ties of any of the aforementioned acts. As if sent to exorcise New Zealand from the ghosts of ma and pa pleasing Crowded House and Split Enz, The Datsuns go straight for the non-pop, non-pap jugular, producing a debut album that incorporates the sounds of Radio Birdman, Deep Purple and Thin Lizzy in one harrowing tune after another. This is not an album for those who suffer from a nervous disposition. It is an album for those for whom plastic pint glasses and the noxious odors of stale urine, beer, sweat and vomit sound like a fantastic recipe for a great night out.
Filled with simple, yet effective no-nonsense heavy rock guitar hooks, rampant vocals and a genuine feel for the beer and weed-loaded sound of yesteryear, The Datsuns go all out to impress with tunes such as Sittin' Pretty, MF From Hell, In Love and the oddball and comic, Harmonic Generator.
The album's highlight is Freeze Suckers, a six minute heavy rock feast that sees a tune not that far removed from Radio Birdman's early 70s classic, Aloha Steve and Danno, revamped and with the addition of some Jonah Lomu-sized Kiwi attitude.
The Sea and the Cake
One Bedroom Thrill
Thrill Jockey
Based out of Chicago, singer/guitarist Sam Prekop and bassist, Eric Claridge, initially expected The Sea and the Cake to be a one-off project. Eight years and five albums later, however, the band have become a permanent fixture on the US indie-pop circuit. Released last month, One Bedroom, is the four-piece band's latest studio venture and one that proves that stylized pop riffs and happy-go-lucky dance melodies are alive and well and living in the Windy City.
Picking up from where the band's 2000 Oui left off, One Bedroom sees the band making full use of the popularity of jazzy-pop, mild electronica and general breezy up-beat licks. Ambling rather than kicking in with the spacey pop riff-driven, Four Corners, The Sea and the Cake's One Bedroom makes for a pleasing listen from start to finish with the only annoyance being a rather lame cover version of David Bowie's Sound and Vision.
A first for the band is the ambient Hotel Tell -- a tune that verges on the very edges of being labeled a dance track. Whether or not this is the musical direction The Sea and the Cake will take for its next release listeners will have to wait and see.
Pavement
Slanted and Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe
Matador
Accidentally inventing the lo-fi sound thanks to the combination of dodgy amplifiers and squalid recording studios with bad acoustics, Pavement dominated the US indie charts of the early 1990s with its off-beat lyrics, prolonged bouts of feedback as well as its anti-pop and heroin chic.
Led by Steven Malkmus, Pavement's early days were, while in hindsight the most ground breaking, more often than not over-shadowed by the on and off stage antics of drummer, Gary Young. Performing handstands, selling salads at the door and collapsing in a drunken stupor were only a few of Young's many capers. And while his departure in 1993 was no doubt responsible for the band being taken a lot more seriously by the critics, post-Young Pavement were sorely lacking in spontaneity, chaos and anti-hero smarts. Repackaged, re-enhanced and with the addition of a whopping 34 bonus tracks, Slanted and Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe revisits the band at the height of its non-conformity and feedback addled best.
It's hard to know where to start with this CD as there is so much material on the album that even the most hardcore of Pavement fans will have trouble listening to it from start to finish the first time it gets plopped on the CD player. Including the 14 tracks from the original 1992 Slanted and Enchanted and with the addition of previously unreleased studio sessions plus a couple of BBC Radio sessions, the double CD is a living audio history of one the US's most influential, yet underrated acts caught in its heyday. While the sessions, especially those recorded for BBC Radio's John Peel show, make for great listening, it is the inclusion of a recording of an entire gig at London's Brixton Academy in 1992 that really stands out and makes this a lo-fi album worthy of being played on any hi-fi.
Groove Armada
Love Box
Jive
When London-based dance duo, Tom Findlay and Andy Cato, aka Groove Armada, released the dance/lounge crossover album Vertigo in 1999, great things were expected of the pair.
Spending several weeks in the UK album charts' top twenty and going Silver, the album also spawned the hit single, I See You Baby -- a tune later re-mixed by Norman "Fatboy Slim" Cook. Following this early success, Findley and Cato wound up supporting Elton John during his US tour.
Touring with the grand old man of the British music scene might well have proven to be the pair's first and last crowning moment, however. Since 1999 none of the duo's releases have hit the mark, with both 2001's Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub) and the pair's odd selection of tunes that appeared when they were invited to compile a CD for the Back to Mine series both proving hugely disappointing.
The pair's latest offering, Love Box, is similarly below par with much of the material being nearly as crude as the title itself. From tunes such as Remember, a flat and watered-down version of many a Portishead number, to the fluff of Be Careful What You Say, a tune which makes elevator music appear almost hip, the album is full of bloopers. There are signs of Groove Armada funkiness, but all too brief ones, with The Final Shakedown providing listeners with the album's only reason for being.
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