Take the Press Quotes and Run #2
Lars Gotrich

I got ridiculously busy come the end of 2003. Thus, didn't get around to the "to review" stacks piling up around my room, which has turned into more of a music storage facility than an actual place to live. To clear off the clutter and make way for the inevitable 2004 swarm (I've got a good feeling about this year in music), here's a "cleaning house," so to speak, of 2003.

Ryan Adams- Rock n Roll (I refuse to spell it backwards)
Lost Highway Records
Release Date: November 4, 2003

Dear Ryan Adams,

It's not funny, man. The garage-rock revival is over. The Interpol hype is gone. You stole "Burning Photographs" from Jeff Tweedy. Listing Billie Joe Armstrong in your liner notes for BGV's does not give you any street cred.

Shut up.

Yours,

Annoyed.

Ambitious Career Woman- ...To Avoid a Lawsuit
Lujo Records
Release Date: September 2, 2003

Star Crunch would be proud. (And if you didn't get the reference, you really need to do your homework.) Ambitious Career Woman rocks menacing surf guitar lines over a raucous punk/hardcore background somewhere between Fugazi (I'm thinking In On the Kill Taker) and Drive Like Jehu. The band knows how to control their chaos, and channels it through angular riffs (both guitar and bass), and frenzied, yet jazzy, drumming. The melodic moments sprinkled here and there relieve the coming aural aneurysm, but I'm always ready for more.

Bubba Sparxxx- Deliverance
Interscope Records
Release Date: September 16, 2003

Mr. Sparxxx claims to be from Athens, yet the town didn't know much about him until "Ugly" hit MTV. A friend of mine joked, "He's probably from Winder-- that hick." Hometown claims aside, Mr. Sparxxx certainly proves he's not a one-hit wonder. Teaming up once again with Timbaland, you have to wonder about the producer's angle. It's difficult to tell whether the musical emphasis on typically southern music (country, Appalacian) is kitsch in providing the background for Sparxxx's laid-back MC skills. The Yonder Mountain String Band sample on "Comin' Round" is nearly hokey, yet the rap over the fiddle is catchy and brings new meaning to "Dirty South." The rap-rock on "New South" is just embarrasing. Today's MCs just cannot get away with rapping over distorted guitars. It just bring back to many bad memories. Thankfully, it's followed by the title track. Though the chorus sound too much like rappers trying to sing, Sparxxx saves the song MC-ing over an acoustic guitar and a strings sample. All in all, a decent follow-up, but perhaps a bit too reliant on Timbaland's beats.

The Desert Fathers- The Spirituality
Three Spheres
Release Date: October 7, 2003

The Spirituality an otherworldly piece of work grasping at oddity and pulling back dog-shaped fruit. The music collapses on itself destroying/creating an existence where Shellac, the Pixies, and Sonic Youth frolic in fields of dead daisies. The ancient monastic order from which the band derives its name at least gives some kind of explanation for the odd pop music and creation/evolution concept that prevails over the album. Or maybe it doesn't. I can't explain the literal growling on "Pitbulls" nor the man that sounds like my old, crazed mythology professor at the end of "Peace in That." I suppose some thing are better left untouched.

The Dirty Projectors- The Glad Fact
Western Vinyl
Release Date: November 4, 2003

The Glad Fact seemed to slide right beneath the radar last year. Dave Longstreth writes extremely smart pop music, one could even say "genius," with the howl of a estranged poet. He seems to be disconnected to the world around him in his melancholy songs influenced by the lo-fi generation as well as the bossanova. He has the fantastic ability to make the most ridiculous lyrics become remarkably sad: "We drank a two-liter of Orange Crush." Sometimes it's like an alternate universe to the '60s where folkies sang, "'Can they break my spirit?' Spiro Agnew said that, but I am also saying it."

Eisley- Marvelous Things
Reprise Records
Release Date: November 18, 2003

[Actual IM conversation between Tangzine contributor Joel and me.]
ME: Have you heard the new Eisley EP?
JOEL: Nope.
ME: It is awesome.
ME: I mean... awful.
ME: Why did I just write, "awesome"?
JOEL: Maybe because they're hot.
ME: Yeah, that's true.
ME: It's like Avril fans realized Avril's a complete tool, and found their new favorite band.
JOEL: Ouch, dude.
ME: I used to like them a whole lot. "Telescope Eyes"? Damn. Great song. Great potential. Oh well.

Paula Kelley- The Trouble With Success or How You Fit Into the World
Kimchee Records
Release Date: September 16, 2003

I heartily approve of this sophmore effort by the former Drop Nineteens vocalist. Kelley's darling voice fits somewhere between '60s Motown and Carole King making lovely pop music in a similar vein with a nod to Burt Bacharach. The PK Orchestra, an assemblance of 40 musicians, provides lush arrangements on select songs to gracefully recreate an era where such background was standard fare. The trumpet's entrance on "The Girlfriend" is perfect and takes me back to when I would endlessly play my dad's Blood, Sweat, & Tears LPs. By far the best thing to come out on Massachusetts' Kimchee Records.

Lucero- That Much Further West
Tiger Style Records
Release Date: September 23, 2003

For two or three weeks, I listened to the first two tracks incessantly. Ben Nichols's raspy punk-gone-country vocals struck a resonating chord with me being such a fan of Uncle Tupelo, which, apparently, the band wasn't familiar with until a year or two ago after Tenessee came out. Eventually, I got around to the other songs and even saw them live (first band I've ever seen to actually let the audience pick the setlist). But I have to admit, it doesn't stick with me as strongly as it did at first. The bonus disc I received is a lovely addition, though. Some of the demos are even better than the proper album versions (i.e., "The Only One," and "Hate & Jealousy"). (Funny sidenote: At the concert, there were two trailer-park-chic girls that could've passed as Paris and what's-her-face clones. Hi-larious.)

The Meeting Places- Find Yourself Along the Way
Words on Music
Release Date: December 2, 2003

Not much to report on this debut. Shimmering/soaring guitars via Soulvaki (Slowdive) and Loveless (My Bloody Valentine) plus the vocal moaning of Morrissey or Ian Curtis; however, the drumming's interesting to note in its creative subtlety.

Mercury Radio Theater- The Death and Life of the Undead Boy
Angryson Records
Release Date: fall 2003

Here's a fine surf-rock concept album about an outcast vampire boy narrated by none other than Dead Milkmen's Joe Genaro. Songs like "No Me Gusta," and "In My Room" blast through heavy-hitting riffs and the latter features frenetic keyboard line worthy of a no-wave band. Mercury Radio Theater's attempts at slower tunes are spotty like "Hypno-Eye" with the two-tone polka and "You Are My Destiny" as a slow-core ballad to the vampire boy's affection, Lydia. However, the closing number, "The Invisible Who Casts No Reflection Among Us," is a rip-your-heart-out-spit-in-your-face rocker with a gothic choir seeping in so subtlely. It's the vampire boy flying away as the story comes to an end and the radio's switched off.

Pacific UV- s/t
WARM Records
Release Date: September 16, 2003

Eight blissed-out songs perfect for those times when you just can't take your eyes off the Christmas lights chasing around your room (which I am known to do for hours at a time). I don't really get the Sigur Ros comparisons, but Spiritualized and Slowdive would be good points of reference (even Neil Halstead's Mojave 3 seems to have an influenced on the country-tinged "Out In the Blue"). Azure Ray's Maria Taylor contributes her usual hushed, druggy vocals work well on the song of the same name, though I still can't bring myself to like Azure Ray. Members of other Athens bands Maserati, and Japancakes also provide instrumental work.

The Roman Candles- Bang! Bang! Bang!
Indepedent
Release Date: late summer 2003

[The following phone conversation more or less actually happened as I was DJ-ing with a couple of embellishments for the purposes of this review.]
[RING]
ME: W-U-O-G.
CALLER: Hey, what's this playing right now?
ME: The Roman Candles "Working the Kinks Out."
CALLER: How old are these kids?
ME: I dunno. I guess mid-20s? Something like that.
CALLER: Really? With those lyrics? Don't get me wrong, the song is solid. This is the stuff Weezer should be doing now and what The Anniversary wishes they could've been. But "Won't you come to the bathroom? I wanna show you my new tattoo"?
ME: Yeah, I know. Not much for lyrics The Roman Candles are, but they whip out some unforgettable pop hooks. It's not on this CD, but "Stick It To Your Man" has got to be one of my favorite pop songs of the past few years.
CALLER: Cool. Where are they from?
ME: Alaska. They once played a rock show at a ski resort... outside... in the snow.
CALLER: Rock n roll, man.
ME: Rock n roll, indeed.

posted 02.29.04

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Lars is a viking. He is also the music editor for Tangzine. E-mail him kisses at lars59@uga.edu

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