Music, musings and miscellanea

Cartography, the sixth record from Vancouver-based The Buttless Chaps,
balances the sounds developed by the band over its decade-long
existence. Producer Jesse Gander (Ghost House, ex-Operation Makeout)
weaves Ida Nilsen’s vocal and keyboard flourishes into the band’s
alt.country core, though the results are mixed. “Broken Transit, Broken
Soil” and “Coal Grey Sky” are superb songs, and lead singer Dave
Gowans’ deep tenor is reminiscent of Matt Berninger from The National.
But where that band fill out their sonic experiments with hooks that
are infectious without being obvious, several of Cartography‘s tracks
take too long to get anywhere, making what could have been a great
record just pretty good.

This review originally appeared in Eye Weekly.

Okay, so the record just came out today, but already I’m convinced this is the best Sloan record since “Between the Bridges.” The band feels reinvigorated and as they rip through a relatively economical 13 tracks (economical if you consider their last album “Never Hear the End of It” had 30), none of which break the 4-minute mark. Gone are the sluggish clunkers that dragged down “Action Pact” and the kitchen sink individualism that made “Never Hear the End of It” so intriguing and frustrating. This is the return of Sloan as a band. There’s not a bad song in the bunch, with the “Highway 61″ era-Bob Dylan influenced track “Down in the Basement,” one of four songs written by drummer Andrew Scott, being a standout. I mentioned “Between the Bridges” off the top not only because of the quality of the song writing, but “Parallel Play’s” tracks sit elbow to elbow with each other the way that album’s tunes did. Unforunately for the band, upon the first couple listens, like “Between the Bridges,” there doesn’t seem to be any immediate singles that would relaunch the group to the top of Canadian radio. But then again, who the hell listens to the radio anymore any way? If you’ve ever dug Sloan, buy this album.

Sloan play the Mod Club with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists Thursday, June 12 in Toronto as part of NXNE.

Featuring ex-members of Helmet and Don Caballero, skull crushing grooves could be expected to make up a large portion of Battles debut LP. But unexpected were the number of hooks that would ride those grooves and propel Mirrored from just a pretty cool instrumental record to one of the best albums of the year. Unlike their two EPs issued in 2004, vocals are included on many tracks, but they’re consistently manipulated to the point where they effectively become an instrument themselves, a feet best heard on lead single “Atlas.” The words are indistinguishable, but who cares – they’re not the point. This is Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music meets the Beatles.

Robyn’s first official North American release in about a decade isn’t actually that new. For those not in the know (re: people with better things to do with their life than read about 90s pop stars on the Internet) Robyn was a contemporary of Britney Spears back in ’98. In fact Max Martin, who penned hits for Britney, Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, co-wrote her two big US hits “Show Me Love” and “Do You Know (What It Takes).”  Most of these tracks were on the Swedish version of this record when it was released over there in 2005. This North American release does a bit of juggling with the tracks adding “Cobra Style” and the excellent UK hit single “With Every Heartbeat.”

At this point, what more can anyone say about Robyn. This was one of the top reviewed albums of 2005 and rightly so. The record stands up three years later which says a lot for a pop album (albeit an incredibly sophisticated one). Half the album is single worthy while the remaining tracks are far from clunkers. I have no idea why it took Robyn three years to get this damn thing a domestic release, but now that it’s here, I just hope everybody (re: people outside the blogosphere) will stand up and take notice so that next time I won’t have to wait.