Reign of Terror - Sleigh Bells

Sleigh Bells won me over. When my hipster-er-than-thou friends recommended their debut Treats to me, I was cautious – so cautious, in fact, that I ignored them, passed them off as Pitchfork shit and moved on. However, upon my first listen of the album a few months after its release, I was proven wrong within five seconds: the glorious, deafening opening to Tell ‘Em set the tone for the loudest, brashest and frankly best album of 2010. Vocalist Alison Krauss and guitarist Derek E. Miller’s latest effort is Reign of Terror, seemingly a departure from the devastating noise-pop of their debut – Miller’s father was killed in a motorcycle accident during the recording of Treats, while his mother’s (successful) battle with cancer throughout the album’s subsequent tour meant the writing and recording of Reign of Terror has acted as a catharsis for the band’s founding member. This hints at a different tone and style to their full-throttle debut, and when combined with Krauss’s first input into the song-writing element of Sleigh Bells (Treats was written before she joined the band), makes Reign of Terror the most hotly-anticipated release of 2012.

Launching into True Shred Guitar, we get pretty much exactly what the tin offers: guitars from another planet. As a whole, the record is a lot more guitar-driven than Treats, but True Shred Guitar takes that to another level – and it is wonderful. This power shift away from samples and towards guitars means the album takes on a less party-ready feel than their debut, something that was to be expected given its more serious undertones. Far from being sombre, however, the themes of suicide in Born to Lose, references to motorcycles in Leader of the Pack, and morbid song titling (D.O.A, Road to Hell, End of the Line) are contrasted with the positivity of Comeback Kid and the upbeat Demons to provide a brilliantly balanced record. The majority of Krauss’ vocal work on the album acts as a rallying cry, inspiring fight in her bandmate through his difficulties, adding to the cathartic feel of Reign of Terror: the dynamic of Krauss and Miller appears incapable of doing wrong, seemingly producing an album of unerring quality as a mere by-product of their friendship during a tough period.

If there were any area of the album to come in for criticism, it would be the ending: Never Say Die and D.O.A just don’t hit as hard as the earlier tracks. Without a Rill Rill to provide a breather, Reign of Terror can feel a little like a relentless assault, and these two tracks can feel like the tailing off of the record's energy. It’s the most minor of faults, however, and the only blemish in an otherwise flawless copybook. The shimmering, crushing guitars, the loud-quiet dynamic of the vocals, and a more refined use of samples and pedals have resulted in a pulsating, soaring ride of a record with more depth than their first offering – a devastating combination.

As far as notoriously tricky sophomore records go, Reign of Terror is up there with the best. The charm of early Sleigh Bells was that their sound was totally new and completely fresh, and the fact they have kept hold of that originality whilst making huge leaps forward in terms of song-writing, production and lyrics show real artistic merit. Reign of Terror will surely mark the band’s surge to the popular acclaim of Crystal Castles and the like. But, with their second top-class release under their belts and the most captivating live show on the circuit, the sky isn’t even close to Sleigh Bells’ limit.

I Am Gemini - Cursive

It’s been a long three years since Saddle Creek favourites Cursive released Mama, I’m Swollen, and despite a couple of decent solo albums from front man Tim Kasher, it seems like the time is just about right for another effort from his most successful venture. Step forward I Am Gemini, Cursive’s sixth album, complete with an intriguing press release detailing, in gratuitously wordy detail, the album’s story: evil twins, a struggle for the soul, and most interestingly, ‘the first time Kasher wrote album lyrics in a linear fashion’. Intriguing.

Almost a decade on from The Ugly Organ, the band’s finest achievement to date and one of the greatest rock records ever, Cursive appear to be channelling the spirit of their opus through I Am Gemini. It's not as successful as you might think. Sure, all the trademarks are there – the discussion of carving knives in the haunting ending of Warmer Warmer is instantly evocative of The Butcher’s Knife, and Kasher just can’t keep away from the organ imagery used so prominently throughout the band’s back catalogue – but something seems to be lacking. The recycled imagery and a return to a heavy, crashing musical style means the record harks back to the roaring glory of Domestica, but the band can’t seem to shake the dip in form that has epitomised their more recent efforts.

Aside from the baffling inclusion of The Cat and Mouse, one of the weakest tracks on any Cursive release I’ve heard, it’s difficult to place exactly where the record is going wrong. Lyrically the album is strong, but Kasher’s radical writing technique isn’t convincing – it provides a cohesive narrative across the record, undoubtedly, but this detracts from the storytelling within each individual song that characterised Cursive so distinctly in the past. The story itself is also lacking: where Cursive records usually plant you right in the middle of a scene that could easily be happening next door, I Am Gemini fails to portray a convincing, personal scene. The most poignant lyric on the record, Hello Skeleton’s “History can be so strangling,” appears to say more about the lack of progression in the band itself than it does about Kasher’s metaphorical twins. Musically, however, the album is excellent: it encompasses the whole range of the band’s talents, resulting in a mixture of jagged, stop-start rock like Wowowow and swelling, sedate tracks like Eulogy for No Name. Perhaps an over-arching musical theme is what I Am Gemini is missing.

As easy as it is to criticise I Am Gemini as unoriginal, lacklustre, or missing that certain spark that made Cursive so brilliant in the era of Domestica and The Ugly Organ, the fact remains that this is a solid album. Discount the band’s triumphant past and this is a strong album with a wealth of musical variety and a truckload of lyrical imagery: unfortunately, we’ve seen the whole range of styles from Cursive before, and this is what drags the record down. When Kasher mutters “I’ve done deeds I can never repeat” in Twin Dragon/Hello Skeleton, it feels like an damning (but accurate) self-assessment of a band aware they are struggling to hit the heights of their illustrious back catalogue. 

Howler at the Bowery, 29/01/2012

Thanks to the sterling work of local promoters Uneven Blonde, the Bowery in Sheffield has recently played host to some magnificent, mostly free gigs (Tubelord being the best of the bunch so far), and on a blustery Sunday night, Minneapolis hype band Howler took to the stage for the second time in their short lifespan. With a sterling reputation across the Atlantic, anticipation snowballed in Sheffield: not so in myself, with the press release describing them as “this year’s Vaccines, this year’s Drums, this year’s Strokes” – hardly benchmarks of quality as far as I’ve ever been concerned. But still, it’s free right?

Main support act Man Made was Nile Marr – son of Johnny, no less. Sadly, he failed to really get to grips with the audience, and a lack of real crowd interaction resulted in a timid, awkward set. A shame, because musically he seemed excellent, but his efforts were mostly ignored, his set lit up only by his splendidly unnecessary gold sequinned jacket: a bigger mismatch between personality and clothing has never been found. Hopefully a full tour with Howler will cure him of those jitters.

Breezing onstage after some help from the now-decloaked Man Made, Howler set about their business. The comparison with the Strokes is an easy one to make: lead singer Jordan Gatesmith is so Casablancas-esque that were it not for the distinct lack of pretentious silence and sneering at the crowd from beneath a pair of sunglasses, you’d probably need a double-take. It’s easy to see the influence the New Yorkers had on Howler musically, too: Wailing (Making Out) has much more than a hint of The Modern Age about it, and Beach Sluts is laced with Strokes trademarks, but to boil them down to paint-by-numbers indie rock would be incredibly lazy critique. The band’s surf-rock roots are less apparent on record than in a live setting, where Howler sound less like the Strokes and more like if Best Coast were five drunk lads singing about girls, rather than one stoned girl singing about cats. Hazy guitars underpin every track; songs like America invoke the spirit of the Beach Boys. It's by no means unique, but it's a foot-tappingly infectious fusion. Best of all, these characteristics feel almost completely tongue-in-cheek when you look to the right of the stage and realise they’re playing hazy LA surf rock in front of the Bowery's 1920s patterned wallpaper and an electric fireplace; it feels as though there’s five American kids partying in your Nan’s front room, which is a brilliant (if not batshit crazy surreal) vibe to have at a free gig, an environment notorious for its oft-sterile atmosphere.

The band rattle through an exuberant set, peppered with hilariously awkward interludes: the dedication of pensioner's favourite Beach Sluts to Gatesmith’s grandfather on his '70th or something' birthday; the guitarist’s heartfelt ode to the barman who ‘made sprite!’ out of lemonade and tonic water; and a touch of seemingly-friendly Wales/England banter which rapidly turned into a rape joke. It’s difficult to not be won over by them, and with the set ending on Back Of Your Neck – a track genetically modified to soundtrack the BBC’s festival coverage this summer – their infectious energy seems to have swelled into the now-packed room: scores of people have filed up the stairs, crouching to catch a glimpse of what all the fuss is about, and even the almighty Johnny Marr nods along, his untarnishable indie-cool negated only by his mid-gig tweeting. Playing to a room packed with initially disinterested people, most of whom were only there because it was either that or cringing through an hour of Top Gear, is a daunting task, but Howler didn’t shy away – and they’ll need those surprisingly broad shoulders when the BBC ensure they soundtrack your summer, whether you like it or not. Remember how much you liked that Two Door Cinema Club song?

Make sure you catch Howler live before you’ve heard Back Of Your Neck so many times you want to rip your ears off – because mark my words, it’s going to happen. Say hello to your band of the summer, and your dad's new favourite advert song to whistle along to (however wrongly he does it).

Johnny Foreigner at the Flapper, 13/11/11

For a band so proud of their Midlands roots, the ominous sounding show title of JOHNNY FOREIGNER VS BIRMINGHAM felt out of the ordinary for Digbeth-based trio Johnny Foreigner. This was no ordinary show though, with six bands and 200 sweaty kids crammed into the cavernous gig room at the Flapper (the most difficult venue to find ever… we had to walk across a plank of wood over a canal to get there) for a six-hour love-in of optimism and nostalgia in celebration of Johnny Foreigner vs Everything, the band’s epic third album.

According to the billing, kicking things off was Richard Burke. What actually happened was the long-awaited reunion of the Starries, turn of the century indie rock legends *adoring applause*. They roared through a rapid set of dodgy tuning, missed notes and, most importantly, some absolute classics, interspersed with Burke’s constant bantering with a heckler, later found to be his paraletic best mate in the front row. It was a triumphant set, one which sated the gathering of yesteryear's indie kids in the audience and hopefully converted a fresh batch of fans to a genuinely excellent band who influenced more of their current favourites than they’d ever believe.

Next up were locals Ace Bushy Striptease, who gave a likely first taste of their unique brand of cutesy indie pop infused with some crushing breakdowns and occasional screaming. For a fresh, young band, the set was tight (albeit a little rushed) and showed great promise. Their albums are available for free here.

Calories were up next and, frankly, were a disappointment – their debut album is fantastic, but as they drawled mid-set, “we just don’t play old songs”, apologising with all the sincerity of Silvio Berlusconi apologising about cocaine-fueled prostitute parties, before rushing through a similarly insincere set.

After that, Screaming Maldini really couldn’t start soon enough, but their set was a strange one: broken instruments and a missing drummer resulted in a largely acoustic performance. Far from ruining their hour in the limelight, their set felt intimate, a welcome departure from the unrelenting indie rock enjoyed up to this point, and such a performance really added to the mounting sense of occasion that was permeating the increasingly-plastered audience. Another splendid new band that is going places, Maldini’s increasingly-tight live shows are a glowing testament to their talents.

Stepping up to their role as sub-headliners of this epic lineup, Stagecoach roared into action, and as ever were tremendous: as with every Stagecoach show, a feel-good blend of mandolins, high-fives, shout-alongs and lyrics about Buffy combine to decorate the venue with smiles and obscene levels of fun. With most of the crowd having seen Stagecoach support Johnny Foreigner on their You Thought You Saw… tour of 2010, this was an audience hungry for more, and their enthusiasm for the nearest thing a band without a full LP can get to a Greatest Hits set resulted in a spectacular performance, and an outrageously high benchmark for the stars of the show to swing for.

Skulking onstage to a robotic recording of the worst review ever written in an act as disrespectful as the review itself, Alexei, Kelly and Junior looked more than a little apprehensive. Their hometown isn’t normally too kind to them – rarely do their shows sell out, and when they do, they aren’t met with the same cult following that they find around the world. Today, however, was a different matter: gathered from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Brighton and London (and they were just the ones I talked to) were some of the band’s biggest fans, here to bask in the glory of their spectacular third album. Slipping a couple of new songs into a typically well-balanced set of classics (Yes! You Talk Too Fast), live favourites (Every Cloakroom Ever), and even a cover of the Dismemberment Plan’s You Are Invited, the band tore through an hour and a half of everything you’d expect from a Johnny Foreigner show – buckets of sweat, Kelly fucking up her tuning and a room full of people screaming every single word. Ending on live rarity Absolute Balance, this felt like a moment of absolute triumph: a gathering of the band’s biggest fans in their hometown to toast an album that is comfortably their best (so far). Johnny Foreigner are a criminally underrated band who produce music of unerring brilliance on a shoestring with the help of their truly special label Alcopop!, and it has to be hoped that this is the beginning of the path to bigger things they so thoroughly deserve.

Tough Love - Pulled Apart By Horses

Recently, I bought a new pair of headphones. A treat to myself, I thought. Little did I know that less than I week later I’d be reviewing the Pulled Apart By Horses record, and that this would result in my new Most Cherished Possession almost blowing my brains out. Tough Love is the follow-up to the Leeds four-piece’s eponymous 2010 debut, and there is a real, tangible excitement from the band about their latest effort: having bumped into guitarist James Brown at a Les Savy Fav gig, he told me they’ve been really excited about the release for a long time, and bassist Rob Lee recently told the NME “every song on the album has its own personality and really stands on its own”. Exciting, then. But has sharing a stage with Muse and a waning Biffy Clyro added a touch of star quality or detracted from the frenetic energy and raw power the band are known for?

Lead single and album opener V.E.N.O.M is everything you’d expect a PABH track to be: loud, riff-heavy and revolving around a chorus that’s catchy enough to have you screaming along by the end of the first listen. The band described it as a bridging track, and it’s as quintessentially them as Tough Love gets. Sure, there are PABH hallmarks stamped all over the place: technically brilliant but deliciously heavy riffs, amusing song titles (I mean, Bromance Ain’t Dead isn’t exactly Meat Balloon, but maybe that’s for the best), gratuitous discussion of balls (see V.E.N.O.M) and the uncanny knack of harnessing the raw, primal energy of their live shows and focusing it into eleven frantic, eardrum-smashing tracks; but this is a more rounded, mature record than their debut, with better song-writing and more replay value than their first effort. It will undoubtedly be suggested that the album can slip into an enjoyable but ultimately jumbled mash of jagged riffs, crashing drums and screams and that not every track is as entirely individual as the band had hoped, but that would be doing a disservice to a record that marks the balance of youthful energy with a more assured approach that has come with the band’s maturity.

Tough Love is a balls-out 30 minute shot of earth-shattering power and testosterone, a lung-busting war cry against the increasingly bland UK indie rock scene, a vaccine against the Vaccines. Pulled Apart By Horses are on top of their game, and Tough Love is testament to that – even if it tries to give you an aneurysm.

Paralytic Stalks - of Montreal

"How can I bury this rebellion whilst proving that I'm still your rock'n'roll ally?"

Pitchfork favourites of Montreal have never been a band frightened to buck their own trend, and have spent the last fifteen years using their eleven album-strong back catalogue proving this, turning their collective back on the tried and tested from album to album and trying the patience of even the most hardcore hipster. Paralytic Stalks is their latest attempt, and, on first look, appears to be a hipster’s wet dream: bizzaro artwork, obscenely gratuitous vocabulary – Gelid Ascent, Malefic Dowery, Authentic Pyrrhic Remission, wowzers – and an outlook as existentially gloomy as you could possibly wish for.

Gelid Ascent sets the tone for the next 57 minutes with an almost ludicrous layering of sound drifting over Barnes’ vocals: “You are what parasites evolved from”, he spits. It’s confrontational, it’s direct, and it leads perfectly into Spiteful Intervention. Here, the lyrics take centre stage, and an intertwining of rapped expletives and sweetly-sung backing vocals conveys a confliction of emotion which is touched upon in the funk-driven Dour Intervention: “It’s just the way we combine”, Barnes reassures, before backtracking to “collide”. Delightfully cheery music is juxtaposed with ominous lyrics – “I don’t resent you / But I can’t settle the debt of our serrated history” – in that trademark of Montreal way, and We Will Commit Wolf Murder follows this pattern, with Barnes’ muttering of “I’m considered ugly from every angle / Yours is the only beauty I don’t want to strangle” soundtracked by angelic backing vocals and an entirely danceable beat.

Malefic Dowery signals the end of the light stuff – things are about to get heavy. The track ends with the Barnes proclaiming himself to “Still be your rock n roll ally,” clearly entirely aware that this record is only going to conscript scores of new oM fan, before slipping effortlessly into the weighty second half of the album and nine minute monster Ye, Renew the Plaintiff. The realisation of just how brilliantly Paralytic Stalks knits together is something which doesn’t dawn until the third or fourth listen – this is by no means a short record, yet it flows like one song: it feels operatic, and the realisation that you’ve listened to nine lengthy songs dawns at around the same time as you understand that you’re listening to something really quite special. Plaintiff itself appears to be a direct address to Barnes’ wife Nina, but serves only to expose his fluctuating emotions further - “What I feel is corrupted, broken, impotent, insane” is hardly a glowing testimony to a happy marriage. Such lyrical gloom makes the joyful music on the record feel like an even greater achievement: how such joy can be derived from what is conveyed as such a miserable muse is almost incomprehensible.

Wintered Debts starts out like an Elliott Smith tearjerker before slipping into the familiar bubble of warmth that layer upon layer of instrumentation has become up to this point. Transforming what should be a dense muddle of sound into a multi-layered musical tour de force is something we’ve come to associate with of Montreal throughout their history, and Paralytic Stalks is no exception. What should feel overly indulgent and disorientating feels light and captivating: even in the final four songs, which themselves span over 37 minutes, not a second of music feels superfluous to the record as a whole.

After the electronic mindfuck that is Exorcismic Breeding Knife comes epic closer Authentic Pyrrhic Remission. Almost eleven sweeping, soaring minutes pass before the album signs off with a piano ballad, Barnes serenading us with what could almost pass off as a happy ending: “Til this afternoon I was in exile / Now that word is obsolete”. It gives the album an almost therapeutic quality – layer upon layer of emotion has been expended through a deluge of sound and oft unpleasant imagery, and this is what we are left with: it is the simplistic beauty of the piano that prevails.

Paralytic Stalks is not the startling departure we’ve perhaps come to expect from of Montreal – it isn’t as revolutionary or as divisive as past records, but it has, perhaps for the first time, provided a truly unique sound, one which can be attributed solely to Barnes and co. It is a brilliant album with ideas both sonic and lyric that could, and probably will, be discussed ad infinitum. Your record collection will be left with a gaping hole without it.

9/10

The Lion's Roar - First Aid Kit

"I was born to endure this kind of weather"

As if Radio One airplay and an onstage appearance with Bright Eyes in 2011 weren't enough, there’s no doubting that the apple of the hipsterverse’s eye in 2012 will be Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit. Sisters Johanna and Klara Sodeberg have come a long way since their youtube cover of Tiger Mountain Peasant Song inconceivably led to another jaunt onstage, this time with Fleet Foxes – an experience which will only translate to hipster bucks in the bank as they continue their rise towards an 8.5+ on Pitchfork.

The Lion’s Roar is the pair’s Mike Mogis-produced second effort, and there is an undeniably heavy dose of Cassadaga to the sound; in particular, the old trick of combining the twang of a pedal-steel guitar with a hick name (Emmylou) feels tried, tested and perfected. It’s a wonderfully soothing record, an exceptional sum of exceptional parts; the vocal dynamic and the traditional, simple melodies fit seamlessly, demonstrating a maturity beyond their tender years. The Lion’s Roar is 2012’s strongest release to date – just remember to namedrop their first album and not Edith Bowman when your Drowned In Sound message board buddies ask where you first heard them.

8/10