Category: Album Review

These 2018 indie albums you should hear include exciting and original releases from artists on opposite coasts of the continential United States. They are:

EllaHarp – Half Moon Bay, California
Roam Like Ghosts – Virginia/North Carolina
The Iron Sailor Project – Compton, California

EllaHarp – Who Asked You Back

San Francisco Bay Area musician EllaHarp‘s remarkable debut album, Who Asked You Back, reveals a genuine and talented young artist with her own unique style and brand.

When it comes to one-of-a-kind musicians, Harp – whose actual name is Ella Jenkins – makes that list, even in the famously creative, multicultural, and individualistic culture of the Bay Area.

After listening to this album again and again over the course of many weeks (the only way to truly become familiar with a piece of art), we are convinced indie music lovers, or anyone who enjoys music, will appreciate Jenkins’ music as much as we do.

She says of the album: “Got your ‘screw you’ songs, your creepy stolen baby songs, and sometimes, I play an unremarkable banjo.”

As far as we can remember, there has never been an artist who has taken the harp and re-imagined it in such a refreshing and dynamic way.

Not only does the Royal Academy-educated and trained Jenkins master the harp, but she also has written and recorded a collection of exceptional songs on her not-to-miss debut release.

And yet just as compelling is Jenkins’ voice. She can sing almost angelically at times; take songs like her latest single, “Who Asked You Back,” with its terrific hook, and then flip and sing straight blues, with the harp front and center on other tracks like the mysterious, “Dirty Money.”

The bluesy, even folksy, riff-driven track features “a hint of creepy, stolen baby mythology,” Jenkins writes. Plus, she had electric guitar contributions from alt. rock band Smash Mouth’s Sam Eigen.

The common theme that runs throughout Who Asked You Back album is the pain and heartache of love, relationships, and break-ups.

Take the angst-ridden, bluesy song, “It Ain’t Working,” where the lyrics combined with Jenkins’ convincing and stern vocals, not to mention her amazing instrumentation, make it a standout song on the album.

There is also the whimsical, but sad, “The Widow of Glasgow Green,” the story of a woman living in Glasgow whose had a life of hard times. Jenkins beautifully expresses and channels this pain in her vocal arrangement in particular.

Many folks will relate. But that’s not even necessary because the music, fueled by Jenkins’ unique talents, emotes the pain effectively. And still, it sounds so right. Don’t miss songs like the descending notes of “Time” and the introspective, “Changeling.”

A key reason for the success of Jenkins’ release is her amazing harp. A significant person in her life helped her craft an aluminum custom-made harp (she also built her own tiny house) in order to achieve the exact sound she wanted.

But of course, the main reason for Jenkins’ success is her all-around talents and skills as a songwriter and musician. We can only expect her to keep getting better.

Jenkins regular performs as EllaHarp in the Bay Area and the west coast. Check her official EllaHarp website for more information.

Roam Like Ghosts – Yesterday and the Day Before

After a two-decade hiatus, the indie rock acoustic duo, Roam Like Ghosts, has returned with its debut album, Yesterday and the Day Before.

Time has a way of coming back around. The acoustic duo is made up of Virginian songwriter and vocalist Mathew Daugherty and North Carolina guitarist Bucky Fairfax.

The pair decided to complete a number of songs they’ve been working on for many years, as well as some newly-written songs, mixing genres like rock and folk to create an alternative sound that they like to say is “post-grunge acoustic ballads with a progressive, swampy flair.” That’s actually an apt description.

The album, which one could surmise is something of an anthology, includes standout songs like the opening track, “When The Wind Blew,” plus “The Quiet”; “If Walls Could Talk,” and “Smile.”

The latter track, “Smile,” is a single waiting in the wings thanks to its beautifully layered harmonies and musical instruments creating magnificent melodies.

One listener of the album wrote: “Great album. It just so happened I was on a road trip for my first listen and this was an excellent soundtrack. Heartfelt; great harmonies; very pleasant listen [that is] reminiscent of major label acoustic acts such as Alice In Chains [with] hints of [the] lighter side of Led Zeppelin.”

Last year, the duo developed a new sound and writing style that they say has more “subtle intensity and reflection…delicate guitar playing and restraint coupled with vocal strength, ghostly melodies, and sober thoughtfulness forms songs of love and loss, life and death, hope and fear.”

RLGs is a reincarnation of the duo’s former Richmond, Virginia band, SEDAH, active during the 1990’s.

While the pair continued as members of other bands, Daugherty (Drivelink, 3STARKARMA) and Fairfax (Radio Silent Auction, Something for Now) continued to collaborate on a half dozen or so songs over the years.

The album, which has a wonderfully crisp acoustic and finely calibrated percussive element throughout, was recorded at Osceola Recording Studios in Raleigh, North Carolina with producer Dick Hodgin (Lynyrd Skynyrd, Cravin’ Melon, Corrosion Of Conformity, Johnny Quest) at the helm.

Iron Sailor Project – Get Your Feet Wet

It’s not a mistake that Compton, California indie rock band Iron Sailor Project, sound a lot like Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys.

Bandleader Tony Michael Ellis is an enthusiastic Brian Wilson fan.  So much so that he purposely emulates his music via his band’s intricately recordings.

The 1966-68 genius period of recording style by Wilson comes shining through on ISP’s wonderful album, Get Your Feet Wet.

Further, Ellis points out, despite the amazing technology and tools available today, it would be impossible and wholly unlikely for a DIY artist to re-create – or to be so presumptuous as to even think one could re-create – a musical undertaking like Pet Sounds without the budget; the number of professional musicians; the top-notch studio; the industry’s best engineers, and the full backing of a giant record label.

And it as also the late 1960s, when vinyl sales were through the roof and labels were making out like gangbusters, to use an old phrase.

So, that is a good starting point, and perhaps even more fair to Ellis and his bandmates, when listening to the band’s track.

Interestingly, on the intricately recorded Beach Boys-emulating track, “It Soothes My Soul,” Ellis, and his back up band, manage to complement Wilson’s musical brilliance with a bit of his own.

The studio band included an actual member – Scott Bennett – of Wilson’s former band. Bennett helped Ellis record his own interpretation of Wilson’s Pet Sounds era pop-rock breakthrough.

And the results are quite impressive. Even the hard-core Wilson fans have to admit the guy and his band has something here worth a good listen. If you love ‘beach music’ of the late 1960s, this is your type of sound.

Ellis is fully aware of the criticism people – most especially Wilson’s and Beach Boys’ fans – will throw at him for “copying” Wilson’s style, format, techniques and re-arranging them into his own. Others will scold him for daring to even slightly compare himself to Wilson.

We don’t think either is a legitimate argument; every musician borrows – knowingly or not – from their favorite musicians. There’s not a musician who would – or could – deny that, unless they lived underground in a cave and never heard any music before.

The difference is that Ellis freely admits his cause. He is not in any way trying to compare himself to Wilson nor are the bandmates attempting to pose as The Beach Boys group.

Instead, they are exemplifying Wilson’s (the ‘Beach Boys’ had little input since Wilson already knew what he wanted to do before he hit the studio)  legendary Pet Sounds.

It’s very hard to find the band’s music online in one comprehensive platform or anything about the band of import online which is strange in 2018.

Other contributors to the recording included Adam Marsland (Adam Marsland Chaos Band); Barbara Harris (The Toys); Sharon Jordan (Sound Explosion); Peter Green and Ellis.

From the first grungy chords and raspy vocals of the opening track, “Carnival,” from Rhode Island lo-fi alt. rock band Raven King’s debut album, it’s clear right from the start they don’t plan on being just another cookie-cutter rock band.

On “Carnival,” the music has a circular and bustling chord progression, and “feels like you’re amidst the whirling energy of a traveling carnival,” says guitarist and vocalist Gerrit Curti.

The vocals are sung falsetto by drummer and vocalist, Will Boisseau and the obvious Nirvana/grunge influence, with its familiar-sounding, chunky intro, is unmistakable.

But Raven King doesn’t just incorporate grunge riffs; they mark their own territory with a style that isn’t the same old canned alternative rock that plays on college radio stations around the country.

“Our music walks a fine line between being intense and mellow,” Curti contends. “No song sounds the same; each one offers an experience unique from the others.”

The band switches gears – as promised – on their lead single, “Drool,” delivering a sunny California folk/psych rock vibe, complete with cheery and harmonic choruses and instrumentation. This song demonstrates again the band’s diverse sound.

This is true again on the hard-driving rock track, “Lost Token” – a song reflective of the “nostalgia for the halcyon days of youth,” Curti says.

“It’s really our most muscle-headed song – from the Will’s growled vocals and the grungy pumped-up riffs, to the shredding guitar solo.” It’s definitely one of the standout tracks on the album.

The final track on the album, the anti-music, “Armilla,” is hard to miss. The composition, which is probably what it is more correctly referred to, is dreamy, experimental and strange, almost like a Salvador Dali painting set to sound, and unlike anything else on the album. And yet at the same time it is one of the most captivating recordings from the album.

According to Curti, the song is based on the short story of the same name, by Italo Calvino, which is about a magical forest of pipes.

“This is another odd track,” Curti asserts. “It’s a song about plumbing, so we used actual plumling – recordings of clanking copper pipes and running water.”

It’s not the only song on the album with interesting recording techniques. The intro to “Skins,” was recorded using an “odd handmade mechanical rainstick. ”

The track, “Within Reach,” features the vocals of bassist and vocalist, AJ Bucci. As he describes it, the song is “about the futility of one’s efforts; how sometimes we want something, and while pursuing it realize it’s harder than initially perceived, and therefore, we pursue something else instead.. it’s meant to be amusing. ”

The band says that the music for the song was originally written with a “nautical theme in mind,” with the rolling rhythm of the verse reminiscent of ocean waves against the hull of a boat until a spooky and psychedelic chorus.

Raven King was mixed with the award-winning Boston producer and multi-instrumentalist Benny Grotto in his Boston area studio.

Raven King on Facebook

by Devin William Daniels

Robert Pollard is a busy man. Two solo albums a year from 2006 to 2012. Three post-reunion Guided by Voices‘ albums in 2012. A fourth, possibly the band’s last, earlier this year. And now another solo record, Honey Locust Honky Tonk. I’m not sure anyone holds a candle to Pollard in terms of sheer productivity. Regardless of what you think of his music, you have the respect the fact that he is not resting on his laurels. It helps that the music is good and at times fantastic, though.

Honey Locust Honky Tonk gets off to a bit of a slow start, though the opener, “He Requested Things,” is a pretty good song. It is slightly more indulgent than we’ve come to expect from Pollard, and is one of the longer tracks on the album at 2:38, but that length helps to establish the mood before we’re thrown into the chaotic tiltawhirl of bite-sized pop perfection that is a Pollard-penned record. The production of “He Requested Things” is of a higher fidelity than the classic Guided By Voices’ albums, but in terms of songwriting, we’re dealing with essentially the same approach: songs that are capsules – not fully developed, but full of potential. Ideally, the songs are buried deep in the listener’s brain where they slowly grow, while still remaining provocative and elusive because that which is suggested is never realized in the physical world.

“Circus Green Machine,” includes lines of acoustic guitar that emerge from nowhere in the midst of a fuzzy rock song, reminiscent of the techniques you’ll hear on Bee Thousand. Pollard understands that the acoustic guitar (or any other instrument) can pop in and out of a song at will, a concept lost on a lot of rock records (especially those being produced within the band concept) that operate under the logic that the second guitar has to have something to do the whole time. It doesn’t. Pollard might be making simple, short indie rock pieces, but he does it on a craft level. He’s less a songwriter, to me, and more a composer.

“Circus Green Machine” – Robert Pollard from Honey Locust Honky Tonk

Thus, he employs precisely varied instrumentation, with an incredible care over the tones of each instrument (including his voice, which is processed differently throughout the album). He has a great ear for tone and, while he rarely engages in lush arrangements (choosing instead to imply), his arrangements are deceptively complex due to the exactness of each part and how it is played and sounds. “Strange and Pretty Day” is a very simple song, but the distinct keyboard sound Pollard has chosen to pair with his voice shows his extreme attention to how these songs are constructed. A “fast and easy” musician would have just played the song on whatever guitar was lying around, but while Pollard is fast, he’s not easy. He clearly searches for specific timbres for each song that realizes the sounds in his head. It’s a reminder that music can be meticulously constructed without being ostentatious and stripped-down without being lazy.

Of course, with 17 songs (some as short as 43 seconds) there’s some forgettable material. I’m not sure if the album really gets going until eight tracks in. It seems absurd to call a good album’s first seven tracks a slow start, but this is Robert Pollard we’re talking about, so that’s really only 13 minutes. And while the album meanders a bit during those 13 minutes, there’s plenty of good material and nothing I’d call bad. A song like “Who Buries the Undertaker” is very listenable but a little stale, which is how I feel about several of the songs in this first section of the album. A certain sameness in feel is forgivable for such an established figure, but sometimes it’s simply that the melodies aren’t that good. Pollard can clearly churn out an insane amount of songs per year, but should he? Perhaps less than two-plus releases per year would be okay if he condensed the best songs onto one release.

However, almost everything from “She Hides in Black” to the end of the record is very good. “Her Eyes Play Tricks on the Camera” is one of the most developed songs on the album, and possibly its best. It doesn’t feel overwrought at all, in spite of going beyond Pollard’s normal structure, even including an awesome and intense organ intro. “Real Fun Is No One’s Monopoly” sounds downright epic, which seems weird to say about a two and a half minute number. The riff and hook are anthemic, the arrangement is chaotic, and with Pollard’s disinterest in turning his ideas into six-minute packages, there’s never a disappointing breakdown or verse – the build just keeps going until it stops. We’re left wanting more.

In spite of a somewhat weak start, this superior middle and end remind us that part of the enjoyment and the shtick of Pollard/GBV records is the almost hilarious amount of songs, the absurdity that a single mind could be pumping out this many tracks, all of which are listenable at worst and brilliant at best. Whereas the fourth track, the 50-second “Suit Minus the Middle” doesn’t really capture the wonder and allure of other supershort Pollard songs (“Pimple Zoo” was always my personal favorite), the 43-second “I Have to Drink” is a pretty great blast of rock music, which is ultimately what makes this album (and Pollard in general) a great listen. It’s an unrelenting rush of ideas. There’s no dwelling or brooding. It’s hit after hit, and even if one of the punches is weak you don’t have much time to think about it before four-more have clocked you – and Robert Pollard very rarely goes that long without nailing you right between the eyes.

Good stuff.

Score: 9.0/10

Devin William Daniels is a writer and musician from Allentown, Pennsylvania. He lives and teaches in Seoul, South Korea. See his other work via his Negative Sound Tumblr blog.

Edgy might be a word that some people equate with aging hipsters on the fringe of becoming old enough to be considered cool. However, it also happens to be the most appropriate way to describe the all-girl Brooklyn-based fuzz rock quartet Heliotropes. In a modern indie format largely dominated by harmonies and excessive electronic effects, Heliotropes is a throwback to 1990’s sludge/psychadelia that manages to express a unique style and refuses to stagnate.

On Tuesday, the band dropped the debut LP, A Constant Sea, an album that is anything but constant. Throughout the 16-track presentation is a varied collection of heavily distorted, bluesy rock instrumentals backed by a raw, teeth-gnashing vocal styling. Reminiscent of female-dominated psych-rockers Dum Dum Girls, and indie rocker legends, Sleater-Kinney, Heliotropes provides a generous mix of droning, crooning, fuzz, power chord progression, and visceral lyrical content throughout the album.

Opening with an assault of distorted vamping guitar, the tracks “Early in the Morning” and “Psalms” is just a taste of the variety and range of A Constant Sea. A testament to its ability to beckon emotions of all types, the following track titled Everyone Else is an honest, heartfelt reprieve from the indie/blues bombardment. Middle tracks such as “Good and Evil” and “Ribbons and The Dove” provide the meat of the heavy blues presence in A Constant Sea. Fluctuating from a groove to a wail and back again, the progression of the album is one that builds mood and leads listeners into the darkness and back into the light.

“Psalms” – Heliotropes from A Constant Sea

In appropriate fashion, the latter tracks of the album are pure serenity. Beautiful chord progressions and airy vocals provide a peaceful send off, and are essential in creating the balance that makes A Constant Sea such a well-rounded release. All three tracks that bring the album to a close (“Unadorned,” “Awake,” and “Christine”) have their own style of beauty and rhetoric that drive at separate areas of pain and triumph.

“Early In The Morning” – Heliotropes from A Constant Sea

Although it’s a psychedelic blues album at heart, A Constant Sea provides enough musical divergence to encompass a variety of genres. The album stands out as a collection of tracks, both ugly and pretty, in perfect cohesion. You’ve heard bands like Heliotropes, but in no way is their style copied, contrived, or antiquated. A Constant Sea is the essential album for any listener that longs for the heavy distortion and bittersweet joy found in of indie rock of yesteryear.

Rating: 8

Aaron Rajala is a full-time indie music blogger from Portland. His blog is IndieWireTap.com

by J. Hubner

From the opening horns of “Gemini” to the fading strands of the album’s closer, “Semena Mertvykh,” there isn’t a moment on Boards of Canada’s Tomorrow’s Harvest where you wonder who the artist is. There has been a veritable silence from the direction of Scottish brothers Marcus Eoin and Mike Sandison since the 2006 EP, Trans Canada Highway. The silence has ended and we are all the better for it.

Tomorrow’s Harvest isn’t a rebuild from the ground up; nor is it a retread of past glories. This is an album showing artists being true to themselves and not being anything but what they’ve always been. What’s that? Purveyors of the past and sound tweakers of the future. For a lot of folks the feeling you get listening to a Boards of Canada album is nostalgia. It’s the sound of Juno Synths, Yamaha DX-7s, distorted breakbeats, and a childhood set to repeat play on a Quasar Hi-Fi VCR.

With masterpieces like Music Has The Right To Children, Geogaddi, and The Campfire Headphase, Boards of Canada had a main line into childhood – not a Disney childhood, or an ABC Afterschool Special childhood. Rather, a ‘latch key kid’ childhood. A darkened living room with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a can of New Coke, watching something you shouldn’t on The Movie Channel because your Mom forgot to lock the channel. It’s a childhood of wonder, but with dark spots that could lead to something darker. Tomorrow’s Harvest is the soundtrack to a Choose Your Own Adventures book, a walk home from the city park late at night, or a car ride to the roller skating rink.

“Telepath” is a perfect example of what Boards of Canada do so well. The sound of a man talking and counting would be harmless enough, but it’s what they do to it: they process it, taint it, make it into almost something Orwellian and create something dark out of it. Synths float in the background as the counting becomes more drawn out and more unintelligible. Next, they lead us right into “Cold Earth” with a swath of warm keys and a big beat that brings to mind some sort of futuristic scene. The soundtrack to a new installment of Ice Age, perhaps.

Lead single, “Reach For The Dead,” permeates with a menace via an analog hiss as if a record needs to be flipped. Then a theme emerges through the noise – something resembling a past life soaking in through the present one. It took a few listens, but this song is nearly transcendent in how it works its magic on you. “New Seeds” brings a pep in Boards of Canada’s step not heard in earlier tracks. There seems to be less of the media clips from earlier albums and more of Marcus and Mike’s own magic used to create those lonely days of childhood where you were left to fend for yourself. Another track, “Come To Dust,” is a sci-fi dream, floating in the ether.

“Reach For The Dead” – Boards of Canada from Tomorrow’s Harvest on Warp Records

I’ve had to sit with this album for a week before I could attempt to put my feelings about it into words. Even now, I’m not sure I can do this album justice. Tomorrow’s Harvest doesn’t change up or replicate Boards of Canada’s past. What it does is refine their sound to its essence. They make the synthetic seem organic. That’s been their gift since the beginning. Tomorrow’s Harvest ranks as one of their finest achievements, and one of the best albums of the year so far. Good to be back in Boards of Canada’s head space; or head phase.

Rating: 9.5

J. Hubner is a freelance writer and a regular contributor to Indie Rock Cafe.

by J. Hubner

Deafheaven‘s Sunbather is one of those anomalies that happens every so often in metal music where you’re moved to your core listening to the aural violence. Singer George Clark sounds like Deftones’ Chino Moreno having some sort of attack as songwriter/guitarist Kerry McCoy creates transcendent -albeit bludgeoning- music that sweeps you up in the drama of life and existence. Sunbather sounds like what would happen if Explosions In The Sky dabbled in black metal. It’s a record that comes around every so often, and when it does all you can do is let it wash over you.

“Dream House” is a wall of guitars, and ebb and flow of dramatic sweeps and moods. This is what happens when post-rock goes through primal scream therapy. I imagine Mogwai was brought up once or twice in the studio while recording this epic opening track. A barrage of guitars bash against each other as if waves pummeling the lone schooner in a black ocean. Clark screams orders till the storm calms as the piano and echoed guitar of “Irresistible” steps in during a moment of solace, quietly taking us into the ten minute title track. Deftones haunt the sound of this song, not only in the shredded vocal cords but McCoy’s exquisite guitar. His guitar is a sound filled with both guttural pain and heavenly scope; you feel as you listen to Deafheaven that you’re listening to a great epic tale – much like Homer’s Odyssey- put to music. This is a journey record (and not that “Don’t Stop Believin’ junk). “Please Remember” starts as noise and increases in intensity climaxing to a buzzsaw screech before dissipating into a quietly strummed guitar. Ebb and flow.

“Dream House” – Deafheaven from Sunbather

This album isn’t for the weak of heart or ear. It’s a trip filled with good and bad. It’s a journey filled with as much pain as pleasure. What makes this record a journey worth taking over and over again is songwriter/guitarist Kerry McCoy. He takes metal and hardcore music and gives it something that too often is missing in both: depth. At times there’s a downright shimmering quality to his playing that sounds like Johnny Marr filling in for Porl Thompson on Disintegration. “Vertigo” has a shoegaze swirl about it before going into an almost Euro-metal guitar lead that opens the gates for George Clark‘s banshee howl. “Window” is a swirl of dread. A voice speaks in the background as piano plays and ambient noise comes in and out of focus before “The Pecan Tree” closes the dizzying journey called Sunbather.

Listen to the entire album via Spotify.

Bands like Explosions In The Sky, Mogwai, and even My Bloody Valentine are woven into Deafheaven’s DNA. I’m sure there’s some black metal and hardcore bands that were a basis for these guys wanting to make music as well, but I haven’t the ear or listening experience to throw those names around. All I can say is Sunbather is Deafheaven taking all of those influences and creating something unique and moving all their own. It’s not an easy journey, but one you should take. One you must take.

8.7 out of 10

J. Hubner is a freelance writer and music lover who occasionally contributes his own unique style of album reviews to IRC.

by Devin William Daniels

Camera Obscura‘s new album, Desire Lines, is a dreamy and pristine offering, a reverse time capsule of pop music from a past that never existed. The high and heartbroken denizens of Rick Deckard‘s Los Angeles would probably find it nostalgic; in 2013, it’s just a blur. The record is covered in the musical equivalent of the new car smell. It’s undeniably new – the leather’s unworn, the windshield will never be more clear – yet also evokes the spirit of the ‘classic.’

Camera Obscura possesses a pop sensibility that clashes with the modern idea of pop. The songs are clean and appealing, lacking in the cynical devotion to familiarity that dominates the radio waves. Camera Obscura’s pop sound is not exactly old school, though. The melancholic, oneiric overtones and the trip-hop guitar lines do not neatly fit into past traditions and would unlikely top the pop charts. However, one could imagine a record like Desire Lines in regular rotation if the musical dominoes had fallen a little differently. It’s like the retro-can of Dr. Pepper made with real sugar and without Iron Man 3 promo labels – nostalgia in the form of a modern commodity – and that strange sense of temporality is the dominant experience of the album.

An attentive listener of the album may call it “boring,” and perhaps “great background music” – which are not the most flattering of epithets; and yet, so effective is its hypnotic atmosphere that whatever mundane activity occupies the listeners’ “foreground” becomes undeniably colored by the “background.”

Of course, some would argue that the point of a record is to supply great songs, and Desire Lines does not necessarily succeed in that regard. Individual tracks rarely come out and grab you, which separates it from the hook-and-hit focus of much of indie pop, for both good and bad. When there are songs that do stand out, it’s usually due to an incongruous break of the mood rather than a moment of pop transcendence. “Do It Again” – around the album’s midpoint – is the most guilty of this offense; but, it didn’t take long for the following song, the wonderfully arranged, “Cri du Ceour,” to bring me back under the spell.

In the final analysis, Desire Lines is high on atmosphere and low on substance. Upon inspection, the individual elements of the record are lacking in much positive content. Hooks are largely missing, and when they are, they’re quite weak. Tracyanne Campbell’s vocals are technically strong but end up sounding like buttered toast; you can get these vocals anywhere, and there’s little reason to make a special trip.

Campbell sacrifices individuality and affect for dreaminess, without capturing the unique haunting vocalizations of an artist like Victoria Legrand. Campbell’s voice is paired with well-arranged instruments that are at worst, precise, and at best, brilliant. But she never really makes the songs her own amongst all the technical wizardry of the production. We’re left with a well-executed, consistent dream pop album that never really breaks out into a run, but it’s a fairly enjoyable sleepwalk.

“Fifth In Line to the Throne” – Camera Obscrua from Desire Lines

Get CD or MP3 album download from Amazon in just a couple of clicks

Rating: 6.5 of 10

Devin William Daniels is a freelance writer and musician from Allentown, Pennsylvania. He teaches English in South Korea and records music as the Negative Sound

by J. Hubner

I’ve only recently began listening to The Besnard Lakes, and I can say without a doubt that they create some of the most beautifully dense, imaginative music that’s being written today. Much like their album titles, such as The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse, The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, and now Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO, their music can be long, labyrinthine, and open to interpretation.

As with the common long album titles, The Besnard Lakes’ album covers are also very telling of their music. Rich and dark oil paintings – often of gloomy landscapes – depict what appears to be another time and place. History trapped in dark, thick colors. Maybe not a literal history, but one that encompasses the grandiose music that is part of The Besnard Lakes’ experience. Jace Lasek and his wife Olga Goreas create worlds of expansive sound, soaring harmonies, and melancholy melodies that bring to mind what Brian Wilson might have written and recorded had he been born 20 years later. There’s been a lot of talk that The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night is the definitive Besnard Lakes’ album, and had I cut my teeth on that album, I might be obliged to agree with that statement. But as it stands, I didn’t.

My first foray into the world of The Besnard Lakes’ music was Lasek’s side band The Soft Province. That album primed me for The Besnard Lakes. Where The Soft Province was in terms of Besnard Lakes grandiosity a ‘small’ record, it still encapsulated all the wonderful and magical things that Lasek creates with his main gig. The Roaring Night was the next record I fell into, and I was completely hooked. But not more than a month later, Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO was released and cemented my love and adoration for the Canadian rockers – and they do rock. Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO is an outright masterpiece. Put it on, turn off the lights, and listen. You will see.

“And Her Eyes Were Painted Gold” – The Besnard Lakes from Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO

This album is decidedly more tempered than previous records; let’s get that out in the open right now. There’s nothing quite as raucous and rocking as “Like The Ocean, Like The Innocence Part 1: The Ocean” or “Chicago Train” on this new record. But what it may lack in bombast, it gains ten fold in dreamy textures, and miles and miles of harmony. I brought up Brian Wilson before and not out of laziness. The joy he exuded in albums like Pet Sounds and Smile is running over through the eight songs on Besnard Lakes’ masterpiece. “And Her Eyes Were Painted Gold” floats along on an unbreakable melody, as if hidden behind the very painted clouds on the album’s artwork.

“People of the Sticks” is pop music of the highest order; album opener “46 Satires” sounds like Cocteau Twins, with Goreas sounding like a reserved Elizabeth Fraser. “The Specter” opens with electric piano and has a very somber tone to it, like a funeral tome. A 21st century “Surfs Up”. There isn’t a spot on this album that needs changing or removing. Each is a piece that helps to build something beautiful. “Colour Yr Lights In” once again perfects pop music and brings it to a new level. This happens a lot on this record. “Alamogordo” ends this album on yet another masterful note. Epic and timeless.

You won’t find a better way to spend fifty minutes this year than on Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO.

J. Hubner is a music lover and blogger who frequently contributes album reviews to Indie Rock Cafe and via his blog.

by J. Hubner

As soon as those tribal drums start in, and that psycho-esque dissonance pipes up, you pretty much know what you’re in for throughout the next 45 minutes or so. Indigo Meadow isn’t any great leap for The Black Angels. Did you like Phosphene Dream? Well you’re probably going to like Indigo Meadow just fine. All the hallmarks of a Black Angels album are here; BRMC posturing, Nuggets borrowing, cult-ish vibe and dark psychedelia. Add just a touch of pop seasoning and you have yourself a plate full of goodies that aren’t good for you, but they taste pretty decent going down.

“Indigo Meadow” starts things off like a Black Angels’ album should start; complete with big drums, “evil”-sounding guitars, and Alex Maas singing “Lay your hands, on my chest girl, you’ve been a problem since the moment I met ya”. It’s a sound that’s permeated every album The Black Angels have put out since 2006. Nothing more, nothing less. A noticeable difference is the production. It’s much cleaner and polished than previous albums. This may be good or bad, depending on how you like your psychedelic rock delivered to your ears. “Evil Things” goes a little more metal with an almost Black Sabbath feel until the bridge when it stops momentarily for a quick ‘flower power’ moment. Pretty soon the organ comes in and it sounds like Tony Iommi jamming with The Doors. “Don’t Play With Guns” is the biggest change in their sound, with an almost pop feel to it and Maas sounding as if the spirit of Black Francis took over his body for the recording. This song at times has a Pixies sound to it, though I don’t think that was a conscious decision on The Black Angels part. Just happenstance I suppose.

A band that never seems to get mentioned as an influence on so many of these stoner/space/psych rock outfits is The Doors. Maybe it’s just not cool to mention the ‘Lizard King’ anymore, I don’t know, but listening to quite a few of these songs on Indigo Meadow I’m reminded so much The Doors that I feel I must mention them. “Holland” would’ve fit just fine on Waiting For The Sun, for example. And “Always Maybe”? There’s an empty spot on Strange Days where it could’ve sat. But The Doors aren’t the only band I hear in the distant and gloomy echo of the Fulltone Tape Echo and the Electro Harmonix Holy Grail Reverb.

“Holland” – The Black Angels from Indigo Meadow

“Love Me Forever” sounds like a Byrds and The Animals collaboration until the fuzzed-out riff comes in to remind us that these guys like things loud, too. And there’s still plenty of Strawberry Alarm Clock and 13th Floor Elevators acid-tinged tracers, err, I mean traces. Closing track “Black Isn’t Black” is the best of the lot. A doom and gloom dark blues psych monster of a track that -to my ears- sounds like a band not wearing their influences on their sleeves, but a band taking their influences and making something completely their own. Here’s hoping “Black Isn’t Black” is the jumping off point next time around.

The Black Angels have taken their sound not a step up, but a good few steps forward at least. The sound is brighter, but the haze lingers.

6 out of 10