Bon Iver, Bon Iver

Yep, its a Christmas update. Just a short review of an album that came out earlier this year because, honestly, there's fuck all coming out now. So here ya go...

Early this year, I'd never heard of the whole heartbreak followed by cabin story that so inspired Justin Vernon to write For Emma, Years Ago, I just knew of a simple yet catchy song called Skinny Love. One voice, one guitar. Then my girlfriend at the time lent me his second album and upon playing the first song "Perth", I was shocked at the number of new elements that were present throughout the song. An electric guitar, marching band style drumming, a backing choir, a chorus of trumpets. All slowly building together to form a powerful and triumphant song. While his EP Blood Bank hinted at a progression from one man one guitar, the leap made was great enough to create one of the most breathtaking albums of 2011.

As Perth finishes on a delayed guitar, it flows into "Minnesota, WI", offering its jaunty guitar and Vernon ranging from a deep voice to his trademark high falsetto, with both a banjo and a horn section accompaning him, all combine to form an excellent track. "Holocene", possibly the most emotionally charged song on the album, has Vernon crooning about his inferiority to the world around him, knowing that he "was not magnificent", all while accompanied by delicate guitar and piano. He uses an organ, a sombre sax and guitar on "Michican't" to enhance the magical feeling of young love he once felt. On "Calgary", a singular organ evolves into a great wall of instruments all accompaning a single melody being sung by Vernon before dying out by the end of the song. On the final song "Beth/Rest", a wandering guitar solo and strong background xylophone and synth accentuate Vernon's lyrics of finally being happy with someone else.

The differences between Bon Iver's two albums could not be more profound. While For Emma, Years Ago achieved its emotional power from its lack of instruments, only one voice, one guitar, all the new instrumentation and techniques Vernon has applied on this album make it extremely passionate and overwrought. But while limiting himself to his sole voice and his acoustic guitar restricted the breadth of his music, on his sophomore he was able to go deeper than we could have imagined.

Rating-Very Good
Best Songs-Perth/Holocene

Cook

The Jellybeans

Okay so today I'm doing something way different.  I'm sure that you have never ever ever heard of this band unless you're Deborah.  *HiDeborah* Or Katherine.  So these two ladies have joined forces to give to you the wonderful song "What I thought I Had".  And yeah I know these two so Deborah asked me to take a look at her on triple J's Unearthed and so you can find her and Katherine HERE.  GO THERE AND BE COOL.

SOSOSO.  This one song that they did.  It is very different from anything you have heard.  Thankfully they sound very unique which is a nice change from constantly hearing new bands trying to recreate Paramore or Silverchair.  So most of the instruments are played by either Deborah or Katherine.  The only computer made thingy are the drums (I apologize for bad sentence structure).  BUT TO THE ACTUAL MUSIC.

The song itself has a very nice floaty feel to it which I really like and so should you.  Why?  Because I said so.  ANYWAY.  I can't really say much else except that they should make more.  More is always good.  There was however ONLY ONE THING that pissed me off.  It's that they damn well 'broke up' as a band if that's even possible to do after making only one song.  I MEAN SERIOUSLY.  WHAT THE CHICKEN.  I do think that if only one of them sung for the start it could have been a lot better than going straight into it but what am I going to do.  I just shout into the distance hoping people will hear.

So go listen to it and then YOU TO could be as cool as me.  Really.  I am extremely cool.  GOODNIGHT.

Sparkadia

G'day, Cook here. So I noticed that all our album reviews so far haven't exactly been topical (Metallica? Pretty sure they haven't been relevant since the Black album ,just sayin), and have gone for a newer choice. Unfortunately, I can't just rant nostalgically and pretend to be a critic, I have to listen to the album, so here goes.

Sparkadia are an Australian band formed in 2004 and have just this year released their second album, entitled "The Great Impression"; whether that has any relavance to the music I don't care and unless you're a Pitchfork staff member, neither should you. The album is quite a depature from their first, changing style from a frenetic hard rock band to a slower indie rock sound. They even bring in the strings and weird percussion instruments, as all good bands should. Both singles, "Talking Like I'm Fallin Down Stairs" and "China" are some of the best tracks on the album, Talking going for a sweeping song with guitar taking a back seat behind all the piano and violins, and China, one of the more lively songs, caused me to sing the line "She breaks line China" for the rest of the day, which is always a good sign. The other songs are all consistently good and also original, with props to the cheery sounding song "Hurt Me", thrown in there probably just to confuse emo people. However as with alot of albums the later the track, the worse they seem to get, which is a shame. Go for Talkin first; if it gels then give this album a shot.

I shouldn't make fun of Pitchfork and their staff, 'cause good reviews is hard. I'll try to stay current with my reviews from now on, but we'll see.

-Cook

Change of name

NOTICE- this blog has now changed its name. Deal with it

At first you might think "eewwwwwww Gorillaz not THAT trashy shit." But if you actually take the time to listen to their songs in full you come to appreciate just how much effort they put into their music. And they're British. That immediately makes them 50% more awesome (but minus 40% for adding a "z" onto the end of their name).

Now I'd like to talk about one of their older albums called Demon Days. I bought this album a few years back when it first came up and didn't really listen to it properly until quite recently. You can listen to this and pass over most of the album and not really be impressed but there are a few little awesome things in there if you listen far enough into the song. For example: in Kids with Guns, the opening vocals are so boring an elephant seal would be motivated to press skip so as to not be bored into submission. But when you get to about 40 seconds this fantastic groove starts up (much like at 1:05 as well). Eventually you WILL get addicted to this song. Well.. I did...

NEXT GOOD SONG: "O green World" Again this is a bit of a weird start and the whole thing is a bit eeeeehhhhh if you don't actually LISTEN to it. So at around 40 seconds (AGAIN... seriously whats up with that) the good stuff kicks in and you can get your shake on. As with Kids with Guns, this song has a very boring voice. I'm guessing it's a satirical tone? Kind of if the singer really really doesn't give an ass as to if he sounds good or not. I ADMIRE THIS.

So really I'm not going to push you to buy this. I would actually expect you to know this album already as it has Feel Good Inc on it (NO. I refuse to review that song. It's already awesome enough). Just listen to the album on youtube or some other stuff at the Gorillaz website which is riiiiight HERE. SHWWEEEEET

-Alex (not cook)

ALSO I posted a draft that I did a while ago so scroll on down and check it out. Or if you're that lazy it's HERE

Lifeline - Imogen Heap

I for one find it’s appropriate to speak of this incredibly driven songstress in the wake of her fast coming concert this month in Melbourne. So Imogen or Immi as she’s affectionately known has begun an inspired fourth solo album. What’s the fuss? After the crowd sourced footage for her Love the Earth orchestral film we were pretty impressed but see, she has taken interaction with her audience to a whole new dimension. For this album she will release a new song every 3 months over the time frame of about 3 years. #heapsong1 (later taking the title Lifeline) is a crowd inspired song completed on a deadline of 2 weeks. Here’s a brief overview of how it went:

Day 1 – Crowd samples uploaded, later selected and incorporated into the song

Day 2 – Wordcloud: trigger words are uploaded by the public and added to the lyrics (ie. teaspoon)

Day 3 – Images as inspiration submitted

Day 4 – Video submissions uploaded by public for the coming music video

Day 5 – Middle section revealed

Day 6 - The public encouraged to upload solos over the top of the middle section

Day 8 – Virtual evolving artwork online that will change over the course of the last week

Day 13 – Feedback session, a chat with viewers

Day 14 – Last bits of work done

Day 15 – Release of the single

The finished product, though perhaps a bit unpolished both instrumentally and lyrically is a true reflection of her intentions. Starting with the lighting of a match, it just morphs again and again with layer upon layer waiting to be discovered. Kinda leaves you going whoah, I can literally hear the passion. Add some sexy syncopation and the quintessential kooky instrumentals and it’s really getting there. What really hooked me was the beautiful, angst-ridden harmony that sweeps through the verses, driving the piece. A good pair of speakers makes nifty work of this. For two weeks work, Imogen has more than delivered and who knows; next time around YOU could get involved.

Wait. 10 points for whoever can tell me what the word is for where the music mirrors the lyrics cos there’s a hell-ova-lot of that in Lifeline.

Congrats or not for killer instincts on who I am (ie. not Cook or Alex)

Signing out for the first time,

-timeliner.

Imogen Heap bandpage

WELL

It would seem that cook shall be bringing on a newcomer. No it's not Luigi. WHO? WE SHALL SEE. Also the next album review should be coming shortly just hang in there whoever sees this. Could you guys like post comments just so I can see whether there actually are people or whether this is just an illusion due to friends clicking multiple times THANKS

Crap...

Due to school and other menaces in my life at the moment, I won't be able to keep this blog going so check back during school holidays and there should be something there! ALSO 2000 views! :D:D:D

Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire is one of those bands that you expect to crumble under their own success. Fortunately that hasn't happened... yet. They've managed to stay together long enough for them to put out this brilliant new album: "The Suburbs".

The Suburbs is an album that you actually need to listen to to actually like it. You can't just pick up the album, find a few songs that you like and then put them on shuffle while you cook some delicious pancakes for me. No this album needs to be appreciated like Jimi Hendrix needs to be close to a guitar.

The whole album kind of runs into one another. Each song exists with the other and it's quite easy to pick out different aspects from one song in another. But to start at the start (and not at the beginning) THE SUBURBS! (tha- that's the first song). IT IS INCREDIBLE. This is not my favorite song of the whole album but it is definitely a gem that fits the album's opening.
I'm going to keep this short as there are a few other reviews on the way. So basically the best song according to me is Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains). It is a bit of an odd song out as it features a female voice instead of the usual male voice that heads the band. The general style of the song is a bit more electronic than the other songs featuring a bit of an interesting synthesizer lead that I am yet to find in any other song.
Okay so basically I cannot find anything else to say on this album other than JESUS CHRIST BUY IT. THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU. Or maybe it's Satan... I can never remember. GOODNIGHT/GOOD MORNING

-Alex (not cook)

Hey, Cook here, so I was planning to do a unique and interesting article like best non-guitar/bass riffs, or less famous Australian alt-rock bands, or why Guitar Hero 1 contains the best music soundtrack of all time. Then I thought, FUCK IT (literally throwing my hands up in the air in contempt for work), I'll do something easy. So this, in no particular order, my top 5 favourite songs of all time.

Soothsayer-Buckethead: Buckethead has barely any time to wipe off the saliva after all the toungebaths I've been giving him but I can't help it. Buckethead is the sexiest guitar player I've ever heard. Sure he may have some weird fetishes (mechanical noises) and some plain annoying ones (Releasing too many albums too often. 29 of them? Fuck off I'm not that rich) but this is enough to bring anyone to orgasm. 4 minutes of buildup followed by 5 minutes of shredfull bliss, it's the perfect instrumental.

No One Knows-Queens of the Stone Age: Would've reviewed this album but Walker's got it (that was subtle). Right off the bat, it feeds you a chord 4 times followed by a killer riff which makes the song feel bouncy and alive. The chorus has really heavy guitar chords, which I love, and the solo has a weird distortion filter I'm guessing on it and it's awesome. Some bass is heard and then back to the killer riff. The song ends with the same 4 strong chords on which it started. A great song to get you pumped up for anything.

YYZ-Rush: You ever have a song that everytime you listened to it on your ipod or heard it on the radio you had to sing along or even just mouth the words to feel like you were a part of the song? Yeah, YYZ is my song, except there are no lyrics so I air guitar/drum along. This song is pretty old, being from the 80's but it stood the test of time. The guitar is one of my favourites and the drumming is superb. This is best listened to in the privacy of your own home if you're as neurotic as me (and you are, don't deny it).

Chop Suey!-System of a Down: If like your music cheerful and wholesome, avoid this song then just hide under your protective blanket and listen to Hi-5 all day. However, to dismiss this because of its solemn lyrics would be biased and stupid. Some songs need depressing lyrics; would Hurt have been as good if Trent Reznor had sung about finding love and happiness while on the edge of suicide? Fuck no, that would be stupid. Chop Suey! is my favourite kind of song, it builds up to a crescendo in its final chorus and when it finishes, you feel emotionally drained and satisfied. Hell, even my mum likes this song, so give it a try.

Heart's a Mess-Gotye: Another depressing song, I'm afraid. This song's is a lament to a lost lover and the song gives the impression of the man having nothing to live for anymore. All this is wailed over strings, percussion, and synth. Its so complex but simple all at once. The creator, Wally De Backer, collected all the sounds for this song and every song from the album in bedrooms around Melbourne, making just that much cooler. I recommend this to everyone.