Saturday, September 5, 2009

One-minute reviews - 3: Daniel Johnston, Scarce, Soulsavers, Wavves

Wavves - Wavves

Well, no one's slapped a cease-and-desist order on me yet. Indeed, quite the opposite. One fellow was kind enough to remark, "I'll take the one-minute reviews of a man who loves music (i.e. you) over a lot of critics who love, frankly, themselves. : )" and another, "most accurate Mint Chicks review yet/ever". I asked him if he was being droll, and he denied it vociferously. So, whatever. Obviously people appreciate sloppy music criticism. I don't know why this should come as any shock to me.


Daniel Johnston - Is And Always Was
Caspar makes rudimentary postmodern record about how he's still Caspar and sees movies in his mind, dogs who love him and record store shoppers who don't understand the importance of record store shopping. More polished than previous: so The Beatles influence is to the fore. Ironic, really. Not the music. The caboodle.

Scarce - Stupid In A Cup EP
Singer who nearly died still rockin', still throbbin' - blood on the plectrum, skewed rhythms and the odd blister of acoustic combine to make series of crescendos, each mightier than the first. Rock'n'roll as life-force.

Soulsavers - Broken
Serious crackly grown-up music for serious crackly grown-ups to listen to, and secretly wail. Late nights mandatory. Bluesy, but of course. Mark Lanegan guests, among many others - should give an indication. These men see no shame in a full-on wah-wah guitar solo, softened piano and throwing in graveyard angels for lyrical colour. One for Pearl Jam fans embarrassed to be caught as same.

Wavves - Wavves
WAH WAH WAH. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! turn that fucking guitar up. turn that fucking vocal up. max that percussion to the max. no, to the fucking max. turn it up more. drop some surf rhythms in. some Californian cruising. some more distortion. more noise. now, let's RAAAAAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWOCK. My favourite album of this kind since the last.

4 comments:

  1. Definitely the most accurate review of the Wavves album I've read, maybe you should take this up for good?

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  2. [...] if they really want to blow our tiny minds why don’t they have Kurt sing Daniel Johnston or ABBA or Shonen Knife or something? Ultimately, I’m just surprised at how little video game [...]

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  3. [...] iTunes has been flickering between Pissed Jeans and Wavves, Crocodiles, recs of the flesh, Melbourne’s Witch Hats (who are Australia’s greatest [...]

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  4. We saw Soulsavers perform in Portland and purchased the CD. We are definitely crackly (if not truly grown-up) and "Broken" didn't leave our CD player for weeks. We listen to it at night, though my 14 year old calls it "creepy." I love the switching between male & female vocals. It is a long album, dark, winding, smoky, and beautiful. Tiny white flowers in a dark forest. An 8-minute song seems like a 3-minute song. The piano sounds like it's fallen into the water, or over a cliff. But it never stops, until it's time. We relate to the sense of a struggle to find love, life, peace, happiness after long periods of darkness. I've seen some crappy reviews of the album, even pulling out some of my favorite lines in some of my favorite songs for special ridicule... so I don't care what anyone says. This shit is real.

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