Growing Pains

Artist: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

Album: Higher Than The Stars EP

Year: 2009

Grade: 3 pretzels

Animal Collective aren’t the only band topping off a very successful year with an EP full of new material. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart were arguable the strongest “rookie band” this year and are already appearing on critics’ end-of-the-year lists. Their self-titled debut was a remarkably upbeat and enjoyable album, reminding cynical listeners (such as, say, myself) that blissful, youthful and joyous music can still be pretty damn awesome.

The sad part about the Higher Than The Stars EP is that it doesn’t maintain the sunny, rolling momentum of the debut album. The opening title track sounds like a slightly stale reimagining of the Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979”, with its dreamy keyboards and wistful melody. The fuzz-soaked guitar roar is sadly absent, rendering the song somewhat toothless and dull. It’s certainly quite pretty, but it doesn’t stick in your mind once it’s over.

The EP’s best songs are tracks two and three, “103” and “Falling Over”. The former finally brings the guitars back, with chords crashing all around and Kip Berman vocals picking up some nice power and confidence. “Falling Over” recalls the Scottish Postcard Records sound, from its Orange-Juice-baiting title on down. The guitars jangle and Berman sings a suitably fey chorus of “don’t you, don’t you touch me, just be cool.” “Falling Over” is particularly encouraging, since there’s nothing like it on the Pains’ debut. My persistent fears that this band would turn out to be a one-trick pony may have been unfounded…

Ah, but then “Twins” shows up and the Pains go back to sounding unmemorable. The chorus’ sentiment of “everything good is gone” is sadly way too close to what I, as the listener, was thinking. Despite having all the expect elements of a good Pains song in place, the end result just sounds hastily thrown together and half-hearted. Higher Than The Stars also ends on a very odd note, with a radical remix of the title track, subtitled the “Saint Etienne Visits Lord Spank Mix”. Upending the band’s usual exuberant guitars and propulsive energy, this mix stretches the song out to almost seven minutes and builds around a hypnotic set of keyboard lines and a club-ready dance beat. The end result it something that really accentuates the ground’s boy/girl harmonies and wistful yearnings. It’s an unusual, unrepresentative, but not unenjoyable end to an EP that repeatedly has the listener wondering just where this band can and will go next.

Bookends

Artist: Animal Collective

Album: Fall Be Kind EP

Year: 2009

Grade: 4.5 pretzels

It feels appropriate that Animal Collective, who turned the world on end at the beginning of the year with their masterful Merriweather Post Pavilion, are closing this year out for us music listeners with the Fall Be Kind EP. In many ways, this has been the Year of Animal Collective. Their music has been great and their expansive, lush sound has been creeping into many of the other major indie releases of the year (Atlas Sound’s Logos is just the tip of the iceburg). I started this year as one of their biggest skeptics, but (almost) twelve months later, I’ve been converted into a believer. Fall Be Kind is just the cherry on the top of a banner year for the Baltimore band.

Fall Be Kind is definitely an outgrowth of Merriweather’s soupy, organic sound. The opening track, “Graze”, is all cinematic, widescreen electronic textures, with Avey Tare’s voice languidly stretching all over the music. The song itself “wakes up” over the course of its five-and-a-half minutes, eventually morphing into a flute-led energetic romp. However, this bright, upbeat song is somewhat unrepresentative of the rest of the music on the EP.

The most audible change in Animal Collective’s music is an emerging sense of darkness, seeping into the frame behind all the squelches and harmonized vocals. “On A Highway” is flag-bearer for this new sound and, in keeping with that role, has already begun polarizing AC fans. Personally, I wholeheartedly support the band following these moodier inclinations even further. “On A Highway” pairs a distant, eerie keyboard riff with a miasma of atmospheric sounds, abstractly conjuring up the noise blur of actual highway driving. The lyrics never quite synch up with the song’s rhythm, resulting in a disorienting and slightly uncomfortable song. Coming from a band that has built its reputation on hyper-colorful, whimsical electronics, I can see why older fans might be thrown for a bit of a loop.

The best intersection of these converging styles is the closing “I Think I Can”, with its insidiously catchy main riff and echoing percussion. Spread across seven minutes, “I Think I Can” really showcases the new ways the band members are using space. While Merriweather felt comfortingly dense, Fall Be Kind sounds like it was recorded in a cathedral. These songs have lots of air and room to breathe, but with that space comes a certain ominous feeling. This EP is clearly the next step in Animal Collective’s continuing evolution, retaining enough of the past to keep fans from going crazy, but determinedly looking forward. It’s becoming almost unthinkable that I basically hated this band a year ago. Their body of work over the past twelve months is virtually peerless.

Sign Of Things To Come

Artist: Massive Attack

Album: Splitting The Atom EP

Year: 2009

Grade: 3 pretzels

Six years have elapsed since Massive Attack’s last album and the world is suffering in their absence. Few things are as frustrating as a band disappearing from sight at the peak of their powers. Between the grinding blackness of Mezzanine and the icy starkness of 100th Window, Massive Attack had established themselves as purveyors of dark, electronic soundscapes, oozing and flowing out of your speakers. Then, suddenly…silence. Beyond a solitary new single to promote a compilation album in 2006, no new material has appeared from Camp Massive Attack…until now. This new Splitting The Atom EP features four songs, supposedly heralding a new album in February.

The first of these tracks, “Splitting The Atom”, is the most traditionally-Massive-Attack-sounding song this EP has to offer. The vocals are split between band members Robert “3D” Del Naja and Grant “Daddy G” Marshall, along with long-time collaborator Horace Andy. Sadly, despite these trusted voices, the song never really gets off the ground. It lacks the internal tension that’s driven so much of Massive Attack’s music over the past decade. Its atmospheric gloom seems only surface deep and 3D’s voice lacks its usual smoky, eerie edge. The song just rides along on repeat, accomplishing little.

The second song, “Pray For Rain”, has much more promise musically. With a shuddering drum loop and an ominous piano line forming the song’s backbone, it has a stately creepiness to it. It conjures up cities and storms and danger. However, it too gets dragged down, this time by guest vocals from Tunde Adebimpe from TV On The Radio. While Adebimpe is usually a breathtaking vocalist, his attempts here to emulate Massive Attack’s understated vibe rob his voice of all its power and drive. His voice is too clear and clean for music this glowering. It’s not a good match at all.

Thankfully, the EP picks up some slack with its final two songs. “Bulletproof Love” (credited as a “Van Rivers & The Subliminal Kid Remix”) features a stellar vocal turn from Elbow’s Guy Garvey. His worn, breathy tenor meshes much better with the thudding, minimal music behind it, especially when wrapped around unsettling lyrics like “I’m not good in a crowd, I got skills I can’t speak of.” By the same token, “Psyche (Flash Treatment)”, featuring longtime trip-hop vocalist Martina Topley-Bird, is a compelling mix of mysterious vocals and building musical tension. “Psyche” is also the EP’s most upbeat track, although it still retains Massive Attack’s trademark icy patina. All in all, Splitting The Atom is, indeed, split, showing two different qualities of song that may appear on their upcoming album.

The Times Have A-Changed

Artist: Thom Yorke

Single: "Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses"/"The Hollow Earth"

Year: 2009

Grade: 2.5 pretzels

(The way the music industry functions is in flux right now. Bands have been experimenting with online distribution since the early 90s, some artists feel the idea of long-playing albums is outdated and then there’s that whole “illegal downloading” thing you’ve heard so much about. It’s undeniable that the way music is distributed to the public is changing, especially after Radiohead threw themselves into the headlines with their wacky In Rainbows release system. As a self-proclaimed music critic, I feel the need to change with the times, however scary that may be. As such, I’m creating a new type of review, the “Single/EP Review,” to cover some of the new ways music is being sent out into the world these days.)

Thom Yorke’s new double A-side single is a sign that his solo career, launched in 2006 with his The Eraser album, might be more than just a glitchy side project. The glitches are still there, but these two songs feel like very logical continuations of the aesthetic Thom layed out on The Eraser. Suddenly, we’re starting to get a solid, auditory idea of what differentiates “Radiohead songs” from “Thom Yorke songs.”

The first song, “Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses”, should be well-known to rabid Radiohead fans. Several live versions of the song have been floating around the Internet for years, often under the name “Reckoner”. While that title was salvaged for a completely different track on In Rainbows, “Feeling Pulled” has finally seen the light of day through Thom’s solo output. The track still retains the tense, grinding bass beat it’s always had, but the structure of the song has shifted away from guitar-driven chaos towards a deeply unsettling, electronic groove. Yorke has also scrapped the song’s original chorus, instead opting for one steady, unrelenting slap of rhythm. The song still can’t shake it’s slightly underwritten-sounding quality, but it seems like Thom can finally live with this song in its current state.

The other side of the single features a previously unheard song, “The Hollow Earth”. Featuring a bizarrely upbeat vocal performance from Thom, it will surely stick out a bit to Radiohead fans expecting the usual slow-burning atmosphere. Launching itself with Yorke’s acappela falsetto, the song hits the ground running and never really stops. After a while, a variety of squiggly electronic lines and some reverb-drenched percussion drags the song towards some of Radiohead’s more experimental tracks. The sad truth is that “The Hollow Earth”, despite all its forward motion, never really goes anywhere. It feels like a twitchy sketch that never got completely fleshed out.