Los Campesinos! - Hold on Now, Youngsters...

This band was introduced to me by a friend cautiously claiming, "these guys are like pitchfork's favorite band right now but they're actually pretty good." my brain ran through the good list (arcade fire, lcd soundsystem) and the bad list (wolf parade, their commentary on Travis Morrison and Asian man records) and eventually mulled over the sad fact that critics from high profile publications immediately skew your perspective on a band before you listen to them. Well shit.

My one complaint about Los campesinos is that the songs have a tough time standing apart from each other.

Everything else about this record was a very welcome pleasant surprise. It kicks off with a full force assault of bells, violins, Pavement-esque guitar leads and really ridiculous British accents. The new punk underground would love this record if they ever give it a chance: it sounds a bit faster than they can play and sing, and the volumes range from loud to explosive to obnoxious and the catchy hooks are words like "we have to take the car because the bike is on fire" and "its you, its me, and there's dancing."

While this band owes a tad of debt to the first rentals record, they've taken those ideas (and for the most part, the instrumentation) made them twice as fast and quite a bit more complicated. What I mean by this is that they have clearly taken specific steps to make even the quiet moments of this record so much fun that it is hard to listen to without smiling. Even the slower song, "Knee Deep at ATP" builds up with the ridiculous "Every photo that you took that festival got lost in your camera in an insurance scam / And though underexposed, i could see from the quality, his K Records t-shirt and you holding his hand"

Its that fun that they pull off so flawlessly that make the goofy emo-style lyrics endearing, the overbearing accents charming and the songs breathe life that bands who have gone for this instrumental arrangement don't ever achieve. I mean, shit, they sound like they really enjoyed making this record and they are always letting you know in every song. Upon hearing this record I was super excited that a band was finally doin this overarranged punk thing very well and pretty jealous that I didn't make this record, as they've kinds articulated my schizophrenic tastes better than I've ever known how.

So I guess this is the best record of the year right now. If your friend with the handlebar moustache and beruit t shirt recommends this, you'll finally have a common bond.

--
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Stereo Total - Do the Bambi (2005)

A few years ago I played a punk rock show with a grindcore band at a
sushi restaurant in a hippie influenced city and north Carolina. It
was a pretty strange experience accompanied appropriately by strange
synthetic bleeps and bloops and a french woman smoothly crooning over
the pa. The music continued while we were eating, foraying into surf
music, garage rock and rapping. Once I heard the theremin I knew I had
to figure out what the fuck this was.

The bartender told me it was Stereo Total and naturally that this new
record wasn't as good as the old stuff. He told me it wasn't noisy
enough... Too poppy. I told him I loved it, I love pop music and he
was kind enough to burn me a copy.

Since then I have been trying to wrap my brain around stereo total. I
have LOVED this record at times, I've HATED it at times and upon
listening to it today I'm still not sure where I stand. Most of my
problems come back to the fact that at nineteen tracks, this record is
too damn long yo.

Aside from trailing off quite significantly after "Cannibale", every
track on this record could stand alone on a seven inch (if the one-two
punch of "Hungry!" and "Ne M'appelle Pas Te Liche" was the only thing
this band ever released I think they would be my favorite band ever.)
There is a LOT going on here that differentiates this french
male/female duo from other beat/synth driven dance pop, making them
pretty damn special because this could be pretty damn awful.

While this record goes to a million places, those places never seem to
come back together and aside from the build up of the first few
tracks, it really lacks congruity. I guess that's alright because a
lot of these songs are so good and inventive. But I have a hard time
thinking of any context where I would want to listen to all these
songs in a row. Still worth checking out though.

Green Day - American Idiot (2004)

IN DEFENSE OF GREEN DAY'S AMERICAN IDIOT

Point of order #1: Forget the eyeliner. I have no idea what happened there, what is happening there, so let's just try and remember that these dudes are old and this choice is one of the very few wrong aesthetic choices they've made. We all make mistakes n shit.

Point of order #2: Forget the overdramatic music videos. SHIT. What were those about? I mean, I guess music videos aren't created to relate to people in their twenties. They're supposed to be visual tools for the younger set to get interested in things; politics, music, punk subculture, driving down dusty roads? I don't know. Fuck that Samuel Bayer guy. I watched him speak about these videos... JEEEEEEZ.

And I guess that's how this album is remembered amongst my generation, who first heard this album and resoundingly acclaimed it - critically and personally, I heard this blasting out of cars at punk shows on tour across the country for a month after it came out - and now remember it as the record that turned Green Day into a behemoth of a rock band. They were almost punk again! After they put out a tamely mixed record of pretty decent songs, we were JUST READY TO LET THEM BACK INTO THE UNDERGROUND! BUT THEN THEY GOT FAMOUS AGAIN! OH NO!!!

It seems that Green Day walks this unfair line where they are allowed to break new ground and everyone will praise them for it, but once this style which is new to the scene starts to get imitated (blue hair in the 90's, glockenspiels, timpanis and anti-bush sentiments in the aughts) the old fans turn their backs and make way for younger fans to come in in droves, and take over til it's time to turn their backs. Old fans like to blame Green Day for the onslaught of bombastic punk-operetta that has been unearthed since American Idiot was successful (My Chemmy Ro Ro and the bunch), but SHIT do you remember where mainstream punk was heading before that? Does anyone remember Good Charlotte, Avril Lavigne and the tons of other shitty shitty fashion-pop bands that Green Day put in their place by doing what a punk band is supposed to, take chances? Remember Ashlee Simpson's record?

What American Idiot did in 2004 is the same thing as what the Clash did in the 1980's - they killed commercial punk rock forever. By stepping so far outside of the box that they started to seem less and less categorizable, they signaled the Fallout Boys of the world to drop the tag of "punk" to sell their music and most of these underground bands never fail to point out that they are NOT punk bands. When the Clash released politically charged dance jams on Combat Rock they showed the world that punk equated to your whole presentation and definitely not the standard three chords played fast fast fast. While Green Day stick to very few chords, there is a ton of next level shit that hadn't been heard from a punk band in the mainstream on this record, mostly heard in the two nine-minute bookends, but also by bringing influence of bands like Dillinger Four and Husker Du to people and places who would have never heard it. They kinda made a new generation start caring about politics and researching what's going on in the world, and even if it didn't resonate in that election it seems like it's becoming more and more clear to people.

OH AND ALL THE SONGS ARE FUCKING CATCHY AS HELL. From each mini-melody in "Jesus of Suburbia" to the simple but mind-blowing guitar lead in "Whatshername" even to the shitty but still hummable "Extraordinary Girl." THAT IS NOT AN EASY THING TO DO.

So let's re-cap. It made a lot of young kids start thinking about politics, their government and the future of the earth. It made faux-punk bands stop pretending they were punk bands and start acting like the arena rock bands that were in their hearts, leaving the underground aesthetic to the outcasts. It brought relatively new thoughts and ideas (concept rock! mini-operas!) to the world via punk-rock's most visible band. It had thirteen very very good songs. And funny enough, they were all pretty much about not knowing what the hell is going on, which I think is a sentiment anyone can agree with a lot of the time.

Just listen to the record again - it still holds up pretty well. When they were aping Screeching Weasel and Crimpshrine with a little more pop flair, Green Day were retroactively claimed as a great band but whenever they start breaking new ground on the radar people start to give them shit. Well, maybe it's all that eyeliner and shitty music videos.

Ringers - Detention Halls (2007)

Without fear of sounding melodramtic I can confidently say that listening to this Ringers record a lot like the first time I heard Rancid. There has been such an avalanche of "real" punk rock bands that for me all of these bands have started to blend together as Dillinger Four without the good songs. Yikes. To be honest, I haven't liked a new-ish punk band (not pop-punk, not indie-punk, not lo-fi punk but puuuuunk punk) in quite some time.

Remember how the first time you listened to Rancid, you understood why people put them above the rest of the pack during the hey day of Epitaph bands? Well, I have no idea why people have not given Ringers more credit than they have. While it isn't reinventing the wheel, this record takes all the best elements of street punk, beard-rock punk and pop-punk, throw in really good hooks and catchy melodies in every song and it just comes out on top. Although they aren't treading new ground, this record is far from boring. There is an energy here that grabs ya from the speakers and beckons you to turn it louder and louder and louder and louder. Then all of a sudden your girlfriend comes in and says "hey, you know this is really loud, right?"

Yup.

The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride (2008)

Since listening to this record for the first time ever at 11 AM, I have been listening to it all morning. For me, it is a very welcome change from the softly introspective Get Lonely which at many moments was just too tiringly moody for its own good. The powerful opener "Sax Rohmer #1" welcomes the listener with a jagged poppy stomp and the catchiest song Darnielle has written since "This Year."

After three mostly autobiographical records, Darnielle has gone back to writing stories about other folks and after such an emotionally harrowing record, the life that is bursting from all seams of Heretic Pride feels quite vindicating. This record lacks a singular concept for the first time since Tallahassee which takes some getting used to, mostly because instead of the lo-fi folk of old Goats records, the production on this record is as clear as a bell.

Hearing songs that could belong on All Hail West Texas played by pizzicato strings instead of an tape-overdrive-soaked acoustic guitar and vocals puts a new perspective on the Mountain Goats. The production makes the reserved moments in album closer "Michael Myers Resplendent" as powerful as the opening track and everything in between.

I guess what I find strangest about this record is that the Mountain Goats have really treaded new ground constantly since they've been putting out records with 4AD. It's nearly impossible to match an effort as impressive as Tallahassee and this record still doesn't do it, but for the first time it doesn't seem like Darnielle is trying to match it. Instead, Heretic Pride just has great song after great song after great song. Although there is not much element of danger or surprise, that appears to leave Darnielle comfortable enough to have written thirteen songs that will stick with ya for a long long time.

Blood Brothers - Young Machetes (2006)

The Blood Brothers have had a really really weird career. They have been on the unfortunate end of many label bankruptcies (first Artist Direct and later V2) and they have also been fortunate enough to be one of the most abrasive bands to ever have mass success (this record even debuted in the Billboard Top 100) They forced the homophobic hardcore scene to embrace a little femininity which sassiness and fashion.

So it is a bummer this band broke up, and it is a little bit more of a bummer that their last record Young Machetes didn't have the singular visions of their previous records, however, this may be indicative of why the band broke up. The much revered Burn, Piano Island, Burn was a constant blasts of all members playing all notes all the time and the better selling but fan repellent Crimes was a more focused, simpler and at times poppy execution of the strange and terrifying caterwauls about fucked-up shit. After the introduction of more keyboard oriented songs with beats you could dance to, the exact opposite, it was exciting to think of where the Blood Brothers could go from there.

"Set Fire to the Face on Fire" starts the album off brilliantly with a chant of "Fire! Fire! Fire!" before giving way to an awkward pogo drum beat and single-note shredding on the guitar. This makes for one of the best songs on the record, which often goes down similar paths as this song but often times so disjointedly that the songs lose their personality. There are a lot of songs on this record, and the Blood Brothers have gone back to displaying all of their technical powers full force on a lot of them, so by track fourteen they blend together a little bit.

There are a handful of Crimes-esque bizarre pop-gems on this record and for the most part they are pretty good but they aren't treading any new ground. "Spit Shine Your Black Lungs" is the clear stand out of these songs, with its stomping drum beat and both vocalists letting their respective catty and snotty voices do everything accomplish what bands with normal sounding singers never could. Young Machetes also brings a lot more quiet and atmospheric elements than we're used to hearing from the Blood Brothers which may be the new sound that they were planning to focus this record around. While there are hits and misses, it is amazing to hear a band actually bring true dynamic to such abrasive music; the slow build-up to the My-Bloody-Valentine-meets-a-million-bulldozers drone at the end of "Lift the Veil, Kiss the Tank" shines as one of the best moments in this band's career.

Unfortunately, the schizophrenia of this album causes it to be ultimately a bit too long. It seems as if singers Jordan and Johnny's side projects (the ferocious Head Wound City and the grooving swaggering Neon Blonde) have lead this album to be divided between the intense and the accessible. The problem is that people loved this band because they were intense and accessible, and dividing the two 'causes a lot of these songs not to match up with ones on previous records. One has to wonder if the plan was to unite to make a quiet moody record, but fears of more fan backlash invited the elements of their previous work.

But probably not. The Blood Brothers never seemed like a band that could give a flying fuck. Another reason people loved this band, probably the main reason, is that they didn't sound a thing like anything that ever came before it, and many imitators have failed at continuing the bands legacy. While this record being TOO much might make a little lower on the totem pole than the last two records, it is light years ahead of what anyone of this genre was ever thinking. It is a shame that two labels going bankrupt may have ruptured what was probably the brightest hope of the hardcore scene. I just hope someday someone can grab the torch from these guys, but by the end they had really run so far past their competition that it's gonna be tough.

Self - Breakfast With Girls (1999)

It really makes the world seem Godless, soulless and completely fucking stupid when flaky pop groups like Len, Smash Mouth and Citizen King can pull of huge singles (even if they are only one-hit wonders) but once you add a little bit of depth to something equally as poppy and snappy and catchy, you lose that appeal. I might as well say right now that I knew nothing about Self when first hearing this record. I eventually learned that Matt Mahaffey plays most of the instruments and does most of the production and that Self started out his home recordings.

This record is their major label debut, and it sounds like it. The guitars are huge, the bass is deeeep and you can hear the crack of every drum hit. The layers and layers of keyboards, horns, strings, etc. can easily dismantle into clearly audible instruments which is not very common in such arrangement-intensive music. What I like most about Breakfast With Girls is that it's pretty tough to put this into a genre. There is so much going on in all of these songs, and what generally shines is that dichotomy of crisp electronic instruments and warm deep analog instruments recorded and played perfectly. My only real trouble with this record is that Mahaffey's voice is a bit of a hurdle to get over... at times the throaty rasp can sound better placed in a Color Me Badd song. The initial shininess of his voice is CRAZY overshadowed by the brilliant production choices on this record... the two-second hip-hop breakdown in "Kill the Barflies", the nintendo-esque keyboard riff in the chorus of the single "Meg Ryan", the horn samples in "What Are You Thinking?!" are all moments where you just wanna throw up your hands and shout "OH SHIT!" and rewind it a few times 'cause ya can't believe someone could think of shit that perfect.

There are a handful of bad decisions made on this record, but it was pointed out to me that those all had to do with Dreamworks who kept trying to bleed this record for a single, holding it for two years (which probably made it sound dated once released) and constantly sending Mahaffey back into the studio to record a "single" for the record. "Uno Girls" is so poppy it almost hurts to listen to, but in the context of "FUCK YOU RECORD LABEL, HERE'S A FUCKING POP SONG. FUCK YOU." it's a bit easier to swallow. There are also a few others that sound a little overwroughtly poppy for this record, and according to my friend Joel the Brunch EP has a bunch of songs that would have filled these spots way more appropriately, but those are now pretty out of print and hard to find. Oh well. Who would have thought a major label could fuck up an album!

--Jeff