Early Review: Monsters of Folk’s debut dabbles in eclectic sound

Monsters of Folk, a supergroup of indie folk luminaries, are a lot gentler than their paradox of a name implies. Its debut album, streaming on MySpace this past week, is due out September 22.

MoF comprises Jim James of My Morning Jacket, M. Ward of She & Him and Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis, the least hairy of the clan.

Unlike a lot of other supergroups that sprung up in the past few years, Monsters of Folk is a natural gathering of similarly talented artists. Tinted Windows amalgamated members of Smashing Pumpkins, Hanson, Cheap Trick and Fountains of Wayne. Them Crooked Vultures fused Dave Grohl with John Paul Jones and the Queens of the Stone Age guitarist. These were unnecessary albeit ambitious attempts at creating an all-star music crew to rival those of the past. Monsters of Folk, on the other hand, actually makes sense.

Though in a few general ways the band members are homogenous, together they traipse into all kinds of sounds and styles. For an album compiled in the name of folk and Americana, the eclectic production quality is apparent throughout, via drum machines, synth and fuzz guitar.



The opener and single, “Dear God (sincerely M.O.F.)” welcomes you with trip-hop synths and drum breaks courtesy of Jim James and his soaring voice.

Without a doubt, there’s a Traveling Wilburys unity that precludes this chill session, which also indicates that this is neither of the participants’ finest work. “Say Please” is the most characteristic of this symptom. Repeated lyrics like “Hold out your hand” share the artistic simplicity of a post-Beatles pop tune. Yim Yames would approve of the comparison.

The individuality of each performer is respected and represented fairly yet their attempts to sing in unison don’t make a huge impression. If you’re a fan of only one of the singers, you won’t be disappointed. But, for the most part, each of the artists has overlapping fanbases due to the fact they’re in the same music scene and are all at the top of such a food chain.

At times on “Say Please” and “Baby Boomer,” singers Ward, Oberst and James switch off nearly every line as they ostensibly play Hot Tamales with the microphone. “Say Please” features strong solo work from Oberst with accompanying guitar.

“Whole Lotta Losin’,” a fast tempo alt-country rocker, and “Losing Yo Head,” a buoyant Southern jaunt, capture the band’s vitality and spirit. Meanwhile, folk tunes, “The Map of the World” and “Man Named Truth” harness the soul. The group harmonies in “The Map of the World” are so Fleet Foxes, haunting and woodsy.

“Slow Down Jo,” evoking imagery of cigarette smoke and coffee steam, takes it easy and slow. “His Master’s Voice,” the album closer, has passionate and moving piano and displays some of James’ best vocals on the record.

Based on this debut, Monsters of Folk are an altogether successful star-studded quartet. Through soulful harmonies, inventive instrumentation and sharp songwriting of which they’re known for, the collective of musicians demonstrate their versatility in choreographing a melodic, flavorful assortment of indie folk rock.

Download: "His Master's Voice," “Whole Lotta Losin’"

Hipness rating: 9 out of 10
Actual rating: 7 out of 10

Early Review: Brand New’s Daisy feels stale

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Daisy, the fourth album from Long Island-based post-punk quintet Brand New, makes its way to stores on September 22.

This time around, the angst and the plaintiveness are not particularly engaging. At least when compared to the expanding scope of the band’s inventiveness, Brand New’s transition from the self-aware genre-flouting Deja Entendu to the remorseful, weightier The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me rewarded fans and left them unsure of what to expect next. It’s rare for a band to improve creatively after joining up with a major label, but Brand New held its own. Daisy, however, reverses the growth spurt, sporting a rawer, less polished sound and indistinguishable lyrics.



“Vice” begins with an old church hymn for a minute and a half, then brusquely segues to vocalist Jesse Lacey screaming. The opener escalates into post-hardcore noise rock that wraps up quick.

The album’s single, “At the Bottom,” has a very catchy chorus and as good a bridge as any song on The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. “I'd serve you drugs on a silver plate/ If I thought it would help you get away/ I hope that you would do this for me.” This is the case where the single is better than the album, so expectations for Daisy, which were already high, augmented even more.

“You Stole,” the slow burn exhibit, loiters about and drags in the middle to the point of inducing ennui.

“Sink”’s vocals alternate between screaming and restrained quiet singing and sounds a bit more like Dave Grohl than Lacey. “Be Gone” is unusual but too short to make an impact.

Lead guitarist Vincent Accard took the forefront in writing many of the album’s songs in place of frontman/songwriter Lacey. Unfortunately, the most passionately sung lyrics are essentially inaudible. Perhaps Lacey chose screeching to articulate lyrics that were not his own.

Lacey revealingly told the U.K. music mag Kerrang!: “I think a lot of the record is about us trying to make decisions about how long the band should go on. When I listened back to it, I realized how many songs are about something coming to a close, or knowing when it's time to put something away and move on.”

The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me communicated the band’s desire to be a great seminal act above the slew of its subgenre’s inhabitants. Therefore, to what do we attribute this album’s singularity and hollowness?

Brand New traversed into a more aggressive direction that doesn’t necessarily benefit its long-term growth. Lacey & co. must be holding back the best rabbit in the bag of tricks for the next outing. They have more to give us – their fans are sure of it.

Hipness Rating: 6 out of 10
Actual Rating: 4 out of 10

Early Review: Yo La Tengo's Popular Songs LP impressive

Like the Sonic Youth gang, its deadpan colleague Yo La Tengo looks pretty old. It's not easy to decide who's the sprightlier power couple: Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan or Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore. Yo La Tengo has been around longer than some of their fans have been alive, and they’re still putting out some of their best music.

Popular Songs, the Hoboken band’s 14th album, makes it into stores via Matador Records on September 8. The indie rock heavyweights follow up to 2006 LP I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass with a new genre-stretching collection of meek, dissonant dream tracks.

The album’s closing tracks indulge in full-on psychadelia although there’s a taste of it early on in the out-there opener “Here to Fall.” “By Two’s” evokes an electronica calm likened to if you were to fall asleep wearing headphones playing Fever Ray, inching toward a much needed REM sleep in the early A.M.

The next track “Nothing to Hide” is quite the opposite. The chorus ironically spouts the truism, “We’ve all got something to hide.” The R&B single “Periodically Double or Triple” is low-tempo coffeehouse Spoon territory.

The spirited and joyous Motown-infused “If It’s True” is the closest the album comes to a bonafide pop song at a slim three minutes. The male-female vocal alternations are pretty consistent.

Don’t get excited about short tracks though because the final three tracks equal about 60 percent of the total 75-minute running time. It’s an ambitious tail end to be sure. Though the mass escalation in track length thematically widens the gap of beginning to end, Popular Songs is a very strong showing in their already accomplished senior catalogue.

Download: "If It’s True," "Periodically Double or Triple"

Hipster Rating: 9/10
Actual Rating: 8/10

Early Review: Hot Leg - Red Light Fever

Justin Hawkins is back with a vengeance.

He’s perhaps better known as the flamboyant and catsuit-clad frontman for defunct arena rock group The Darkness, and he’s got a new band: Hot Leg.

Hot Leg is Hawkins, guitarist Pete Rinaldi, bassist Samuel “SJ” Stokes, and drummer Darby Todd. The group released its debut album earlier this year, with the appropriately over-the-top title Red Light Fever, and is now touring to promote it.

Too bad it’s only available in northern Europe.

Hot Leg hasn’t secured distribution for the album outside the U.K. and Scandinavia, which means Hawkins’ remaining fans in the U.S. are still waiting.

Some Darkness backstory: the group was a Spinal Tap-esque mixture of massive hard rock hooks and rockstar-cliché silliness. The group recorded its debut album for a British indie record company before Atlantic Records picked it up. Permission to Land, shoddily mixed and recorded on a tight budget, went on to sell 3.5 million copies.



However, an expensively produced second album (One Way Ticket to Hell... And Back) failed to perform to expectations. The Darkness had achieved popularity in the United States and superstardom in the U.K., but it was all for naught.

Meanwhile, Hawkins embraced the hard rock excess that his band appeared to be parodying, consuming massive amounts of cocaine and alcohol. Indications are that he snorted most of his Darkness earnings. Supposedly, he and his bandmates are sleeping on floors while touring.

Why is all this worth mentioning? Because it helps explain the way Red Light Fever sounds. Hawkins’ larger-than-life persona only serves to make his music more fun.

Sue Whitehouse, Hawkins’ ex-girlfriend and The Darkness’ former manager (the Spinal Tap similarities are almost infinite) told SPIN magazine that Hawkins wrote many of these songs during the glory days of The Darkness.

And Red Light Fever could easily be a new Darkness album. Not to diminish the roles of his past and current bandmates, but the axe-slinging and larynx-shredding Hawkins owns every song.

Hot Leg stuffs every track with hair metal guitar riffs, thunderous drums and vocal harmonies that bounce off the very top of the human hearing range. There's one obvious standout, and it's the album's first single. “I’ve Met Jesus” is a blistering sumbitch of a jam. The chorus doesn’t even rhyme, but it’s a hook that drills straight into the pleasure center of your brain. Good luck shaking it.

“Trojan Guitar” is a holdover from the pompous bloat of One Way Ticket to Hell… And Back. It clocks in at over five minutes, and with loud-soft dynamics and heroic multiple-voiced dialogue, it’s essentially an update of “’39” from Queen’s classic A Night at the Opera.

Hawkins takes the cheese a little too far with “Gay in the 80s,” which could be an Electric Six song if Dick Valentine’s vocal dexterity suddenly quadrupled. He makes chicken noises on “Chickens” and emphasizes the “cock” in the chorus of “Cocktails.” All in all, it’s par for the course.

Only the sourest, most steadfastly serious Nickelback fan could manage to hold back a smile for Red Light Fever’s entire 35 minutes. What’s wrong with having giddy fun while listening to an album?

The Darkness is no more, but Hot Leg is definitely its spiritual successor. If the band’s debut is a mission statement, the newly sober Hawkins only intends to push the limits of musical absurdity to towering new heights. The world is better for it.

HIPNESS RATING: 3 out of 10
ACTUAL RATING: 8 out of 10

Early Review: Modest Mouse EP, No One’s First and You’re Next

The eight-track EP due out August 4 comes as an agglomeration of the B-sides and unreleased outtakes from the band’s last two full-length albums, We Were Dead Before the Ship Sank and Good News for People Who Love Bad News.
The EP’s substantive 33 minutes isn’t merely composed of filler tracks that spilled over from the last two LP efforts but instead tracks that hold their own without overreliance on radio-friendly hooks. Vocalist Isaac Brock’s spilling of the beans about the mini-album nearly two years early in a Rolling Stone interview did not quell the anticipation built up by its tight-knit contingent of fans.
“Autumn Beds” is a relatively softer, gentler track. “Perpetual Motion Machine” and “Satellite Skin” are pretty standard stuff.
The ethereal video for “Satellite Skin” reminded me of the Where the Wild Things Are trailer crossed with a crazy-ass dream Guillermo Del Toro had last night.

Promises have been made that the music video for “King Rat,” a We Were Dead Before the Ship Sank bonus track, directed by the late Heath Ledger in 2007 – with possible animation by Terry Gilliam – will sometime soon see the light of day. Modest Mouse hinted to its release in the near future.

Track listing:
1. Satellite Skin
2. Guilty Cocker Spaniels
3. Autumn Beds
4. The Whale Song
5. Perpetual Motion Machine
6. History Sticks To Your Feet
7. King Rat
8. I've Got It All (Most)

The late summer tour, kicking off in Halifax, Nova Scotia August 17, will head over to Ohio, California and Oregon, among other states, for the following month. Guitarist Johnny Marr’s a new member of the English indie rock band The Cribs, which has an album due out in September. Ergo, Jim Fairchild of Grandaddy is subbing in on Modest Mouse tour in the interim.
Tour info here: http://www.modestmouse.com/photoblog/tours/

No One's First and You're Next
HIPNESS RATING: 7 out of 10
ACTUAL RATING: 6 out of 10