REVIEW: Tennis - Young and Old

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Grade: 80% (B-)

If you came upon Tennis' second album looking for cute indie-pop, then you will get exactly what you came for. This album, much like last year's Cape Dory, is carefully constructed indie-pop that will surely catch your ear and make you want to tap your foot. The couple turned trio does a good job maintaining many of the elements from their debut while also expanding their sound in slight ways. 

The components of Cape Dory are all still present on Young and Old, however, it is a little sharper and jarring. Alaina Moore sings with more authority and sturdiness, and assists this with her lyrics. While her voice is just as youthful and lovable, her lyrics are more thoughtful and though-provoking than the debut. On the opener, "It All Feels the Same," she sings, almost with pain in her heart, "tired of waiting around for you to intervene. tired of wishing that you even knew what i mean." There are bits of emotional flares like this, but no single moment which sticks out as a defining moment on the record.

The rhythms take you seemingly back to the 50s and 60s with Patrick Riley's (husband of Moore) guitar work moving up and down the fretboard seamlessly and in a charming fashion. While his guitar maintains the pop-feel of the record, the bass on songs like "Petition," the brass on "Origins," and underlaying synths on "Traveling," are what make this effort a little different from their first. All the while, Moore stands firm in front of her keyboard, pushing the songs along with her steady piano chords. 

Recorded and produced by the Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney, the album shows strong mixing. Most notable is their ability to layer the background vocals in with the lead vocals. On "Petition," there is a dueling aspect to three different kinds of vocals that Carney swerves about each other and affects with different tools in order to give the listener the idea that they are hearing three different women singing. 

At the same time however, most of the songs sound very similar. While certain choruses and riffs stand out, the album sways very little from it's intended genre on a track-by-track basis. In that sense, the track listing is seemingly unimportant. No single track really stands out on its own as a "key track," and this seems to fault the trio and does not help gaining more respect for their sound. 

The album is neither excellent nor poor. Instead, like many others from it's genre, it is a vigilantly written and recorded record which contains many songs that can be added to your casual playlist, but none that can be added to your favorite playlist. These are easy listening tracks, and with a little help, a track or two might touch you with their lyrics and become a favorite. In all likelihood however, a few of these tracks will get mixed into your dinner party background music rather than a friends new mix tape. 

REVIEW: The Temper Trap - Conditions

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Grade: 82% (B-)

Conditions (2009) is the first studio album from the Australian indie-rock group, The Temper Trap, coming three years after their self titled EP.  The first track, “Love Lost”, breaks in the album slowly but surely as it gains momentum throughout the song.  Repeating chords with Mandagi’s voice dominating the song can be used to describe almost every track, “Love Lost” being no exception.  The synth work plays nicely against the guitar work but it is clear that the album was based around Mandagi’s voice. 

If you find the third track on the album, “Sweet Disposition”, somewhat familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen the indie film (500) Days of Summer.  It’s in there.  Twice. While this may be an attempt to get every sixteen year-girl requesting the track on their local hit radio station, it is still a good song.  The lyrics seem fitting for the aforementioned high school girls: “A moment, a love, a dream, aloud, a kiss, a cry, our rights, our wrongs.”    

This is not a light and poppy record by any means.  Track names such as “Love Lost”, “Fools”, and “Science of Fear” convey this perfectly.  Besides perhaps “Sweet Disposition”, there are no songs that make you want to sing along.  Which is probably a good thing considering the dark lyrics.   

“Soldier On”, the fifth track on the album is perhaps the best representation of the album as a whole, and definitely the standout track.  It starts out slowly with guitar and Mandagi’s piercing voice.  Soon after comes the deep underlying base that continues throughout.  Far from cheerful, Mandagi sings about the downsides of relationships, warning “keep your heart close to the ground”.  With two minutes to go, the song completely transforms into an epic power ballad including a guitar slaying solo by Lorenzo Sillitto.    

Conditions is a pretty good debut album, although the band definitely showed signs of where they can improve. It would be nice to see a track or two with a different style to it as most of the songs on the record are very similar.  Some acoustic work would definitely do them some good, as it would add some desperately needed diversity to the record. 

The final song on the album, appropriately titled “Drum Song”, is a daring conclusion.  It is an instrumental that starts out with pounding drums leading into echoing guitar.  Although the absence of Mandagi’s piercing voice is felt from the start, it does not make the song any worse.  Like the entire album, the final track is the obvious of subtle.  The track gave the rest of the band a chance to show that they aren’t completely dependent on Mandagi’s voice. 

The Temper Trap’s second album is due out early to mid 2012. 

REVIEW: The Black Keys - "Run Right Back"

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Grade: 82% (B-)

The Black Keys aren't going for the pop scene with their first two releases from their upcoming LP El Camino (out December 6th). While their 2010 release Brothers garnished large pop-success, the first release from El Camino, "Lonely Boy," is a straightforward punch you in the mouth track. Meanwhile, on the second release, "Run Right Back," Dan Auerbach layers guitars on top of each other while Patrick Carney maintains a steady rhythm with his rather simplistic drum beats. Auerbach covers basic chords with a high and childish lead riff that only he could get away with. However, he even adds on another, darker and more affected guitar riff which acts as the song's bassline of some sorts… Even though it already has one. The album's producer, Danger Mouse, does a great job of synching these four guitar sounds into one cohesive unit running through the song. The vocals are worked just as they are in any other Black Keys song and Auerbach continues to sing about his love life in a biker-bar kind of way. Carney takes a simple take on this track, although he does get a chance to break out when the song slows down about three-fourths of the way through. There is no giant hook to draw in the casual listener; rather, this song is enjoyed by someone with a keen ear for what the duo is trying to do with both their music and their attitude towards making it. 

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REVIEW: Bombay Bicycle Club - A Different Kind of Fix

Bombay Bicycle Club

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Grade: 82% (B-)

Tokyo Police Club recently released their 10x10x10 album, covering ten songs over ten years in ten days. These songs vary over genres, from the long piano infused "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem to the mainstream pop hit "Party in the USA" by Smiley Miley Cyrus. It's difficult to combine these genres on a whole album and still have the record have a "feel" to it. Somewhat similar on their newest effort, Bombay Bicycle Club, with the names ironically alike, bring about a comparable kind of effort but with their very own music. On A Different Kind of Fix, the band's musical influences range from genre to genre, decade to decade. This isn't just a British-folk take on some established musical stylings; instead, the album is the band's personal injection of their own theories into the basic algorithms of the genres. Somehow they manage to make it work too, with each song moving to the next with only minor, "where did this come from?" moments. The jump from the touchy-feely first track to the grungy second is smooth enough to handle and still helps you sort through the mess. The record even has a "feeling" to it, giving off the impression that the four members gathered and decided to take it to the very precipice of indie-pop, but fall just short to maintain their folk status. 

Who do these musical stylings evoke though? With it's poppy piano riff , "Shuffle" sounds like a synth-less Passion Pit while the groovy 80's bassline on "Lights Out, Words Gone" sounds like a Phil Collins track from way back when. The poppy "Take the Right One" has the dreamy feel of Coldplay minus the questionable lyrics and the acoustic led "Beggars" saves face with their folk status and jumps the broom with it's smooth bassline and electric accompaniment. "Your Eyes" reaches pop-status and then impresses with it's strong bridge with vocals moving alongside the instrumentation and is surely going to be a concert staple. Most notable however, is the album's closer "Still." Vocalist Jack Steadman seems to be channeling his inner, dare I say, Thom Yorke. With the beautiful piano rhythms and strong vocals, the song sounds like it could've been taken right off of Amnesiac and needs to be added to whatever "Sleep Playlist" you have on your iPod. The genre splitting album is strong, and it would be very interesting to inspect the North London band's iPods themselves to figure out what exactly the fix was that helped them make this album. 

ALBUM REVIEW: Young Man - Ideas of Distance

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Grade: 82% (B-)

Chicago native Colin Caulfield, working under the alias of Young Man, somehow complicates the simplicity of his music… if that makes any sense at all. Guiding us through his newest album Ideas of Distance, Caulfield leads with quiet acoustic guitar plucking and riffs, and then mixes in unorthodox sounds to the background. Recorded entirely in his bedroom, the record has the grittiness and feel of Animal Collective’s early Campfire Songs. With lyrical effects leaning your mind to declare it neo-psychedelia, Ideas of Distance’s ability to grab your attention with it’s aura of calm and nothingness will also cause you to compare it to the likes of The Antlers and a toned down version of Bon Iver (the album). Or simply think of it as M83 with a guitar driven mindset. Running with eight songs over forty minutes, the record will certainly beckon you to give it listen after listen, leaving each session having no idea what to do next.