Review: Stars, The Five Ghosts

Stars
The Five Ghosts
6/10

For anyone who has listened to Stars’ previous records, their latest album The Five Ghosts, is a comfort. Easygoing melodies lain over catchy keyboards and guitars are welcome touches to the Canadian duo’s indie pop repertoire.

Despite attempts to update their sound with electro eighties’ style beats and punchy drums, Stars cannot evade their signature smooth effervescence. Normally a continuation of such a successful style would be happily received; however, with all members belonging to another popular band, Broken Social Scene, is it unfair to consider this consistency a bit…redundant?

Strangely enough, I must also add that the Stars format of duet is not as successful in The Five Ghosts as it has been in previous albums. In their earlier work, the combination of male and female voices felt natural and sincere. The dialogue gave depth to themes that are often overused in recorded music. However, in the recent songs, the male vocals of Torquil Campbell feel cliché, insincere, and trite. His vocals resonate with too much effort and at first listen, make the likable album sound like the a combination of Michael Bublé mixed over the soundtrack to West Side Story—the musical! And with all the death imagery, this comparison feels even more appropriate.

Speaking of all the death imagery: why is this a summer album release? Not to be picky, but this is an album to enjoy in the depths of a sad winter’s day, not during the glorious summer 2010 heat wave. Maybe up north, Canadians don’t understand the seasonal aspect of seasonal depression.

If you like Stars : you would like Asobi Seksu

Highlight Tracks : 2, 4, 10

--Charlotte Japp, Roanoke

Review: Crystal Castles, Crystal Castles (II)

Crystal Castles
Crystal Castles (II)
7/10

After a self-titled debut album with an array of juxtapositions like dark-yet-catchy and disjointed-yet melodic electronic synths, Crystal Castles has arrived with a sophomore album that flaunts the band’s lo-fi skills but with an added veil of grit, haziness, and further obscurity. This new layer is immediately apparent from the opening track, “Fainting Spells” where a consistent, almost horror film-like rhythm resonates in the background while a cacophony of lo-fi sound clips, messy keyboards, and Alice Glass’s screaming vocals play over it. At first listen, it can give the impression that the listener is not as hip and young as he/she thought, but more like an angry parent protecting his or her ears from an emo teenager’s music. But wait! The second track and single, “Celestica” comes to the rescue and reminds the listener why Crystal Castles is (strangely) so…likeable!

Songs seem to redeem themselves from one track to the next, and even within the tracks themselves--as seen in “Doe Deer” where percussion beats that were once unique to the hip hop genre seem to supervise an ironic harmony between the apparent record scratching and the dance-y hip hop beat.

Parallel to the concept of “white noise” which is recognizable as a soothing and consistent wall of sound, Crystal Castles could well have discovered an aspect of sound that could be called, “black noise.” In a way, it is the musical embodiment of a strobe light. Their second album boasts loud, busy, and dark music that one could get lost in—almost terrifyingly so—but the music simultaneously lends a comfort of consistency and progression. It accommodates chillin' with the homies as well as raging at a rave. Call it a classic teenage attraction to all that is loud and rebellious, but Crystal Castles provides a powerful fortress of sound that their name alludes to from the television series She Ra: Princess of Power: “The fate of the world is safe in Crystal Castles…Crystal Castles, the source of all power.” 

P.S: If you dig Crystal Castles’ second album, Crystal Castles (II) then head over to this website to download some remixes and secret tracks (for free!)

--Charlotte Japp

Review: Radio Dept., Clinging to a Scheme

The Radio Dept.
Clinging to a Scheme
A

To say one enjoys The Radio Dept.’s music pre-April 20^th 2010 would have said more about one’s taste in movies than music. Let’s be real: the The Radio Dept. was discovered by Sofia Coppola and featured on the Marie Antoinette soundtrack back in 2006. The reality, however, is that The Radio Dept. has been producing synthesized beats, breathy vocals, and ethereal melodies since the band’s conception in 1995—a whopping eleven years before they received any significant recognition!

The Radio Dept.’s third album, Clinging to a Scheme, takes the shoegaze-y band from one that relies on the popularity from various singles: “Pulling Our Weight,” “Keen on Boys,” and “I Don’t Like it Like This,” to a band that can be independent form its past success. Clinging to a Scheme is a musical success from start to finish. The record begins with a strong opening, “Domestic Scene,” which creates an atmosphere of catchy rhythms that sets the tone for the rest of the record and leads seamlessly into the second and strongest track. “Heaven’s On Fire” begins with a monologue sample from the 1992 documentary, 1991: The Year Punk Broke which expresses the group’s frustration with trying to break free from corporations’ chase on all that is creative and new among the youth culture. This frustration resonates throughout the rest of the album’s lyrics. While this clichéd hipster cry for help is as overplayed as a Miley Cyrus song, the band manages to bring sincerity and depth to this overarching, anti-mainstream phenomenon. “Heaven’s On Fire” is a breath of fresh air among its neighboring tracks as it is the most fast-paced and complex in terms of the dynamic differences between instruments.

If there is any room for improvement on The Radio Dept.’s best album yet, it is their potential for a more bold and daring edge to their finely tuned soft and synthesized signature. Now that they have mastered their catchy-yet-whimsical ambiance, I dare the Swedish trio to venture into a dance-y tune. It is evident that the band understands its style with three albums and several EP’s as practice, but a little challenge to progress is always welcome in music. All in all, Sofia Coppola will not be needed for listeners to realize they are “Keen on” these “Boys.”

--Charlotte Japp

Review: MGMT, Congratulations

MGMT

Congratulations

B+

Before I begin to elaborate on MGMT’s new and long awaited album, Congratulations, allow me to first explain that this is the band’s second album. The first album, of course, was the unofficial anthem of summer 2008. It was catchy, electro-rock, trippy, youthful, and wait for it, from Brooklyn! In short, listening to Oracular Spectacular was an invincible way to ingest LSD by way of one’s ears. In fact, the keyboard intro to “Time to Pretend” was iconic enough to trigger flashbacks to sunny car rides and summer gambols. 

As former Wesleyan students, Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden understand the difference between Freshman and Sophomore years, it is important for fans to come to terms with this as well. Freshman year is intimidating as one must adapt to a new environment and blindly feel around for better ways to navigate the obstacles ahead. This inevitably leads to a compromise between acting the way one perceives others expect of him/her to and the way one would like to express oneself. In MGMT’s case, they were two young guys based in Brooklyn who went to Wesleyan, and dressed in the most randomly assembled rainbow rags of vintage clothing. What did the public (the record company) want from them? Music that will accompany similar kids as they go on road trips, camp out at music festivals, smoke cigarettes, bum around Brooklyn, tribal dance on beaches, surf the galaxies, ride cats…you know, MGMT activities. Thus, Oracular Spectacular was MGMT’s debut and they were successful in delivering an immediate crowd pleaser.

Review: The Morning Benders, Big Echo

The Morning Benders

Big Echo

A-

Once upon a summer time, two years ago, yours truly attended a life changing concert at Terminal 5 in a notably derelict area of Midtown New York City. The headlining band was the Kooks, soon to become a favorite band of mine. While the event was significant in regards to a blossoming infatuation with the Kooks’ frontman, Luke Pritchard, the gig was also special for its surprisingly decent opening band, the Morning Benders. The band hailing from the far coast of Berkeley, California shores appeared awkward at first. Dressed in Sunday-best polos, dirty sneakers, and thick-rimmed glasses, the newbie boys looked every bit the part of the opening band experiencing their big break while accompanying the well-toured British Kooks. The Morning Benders serenaded the crowd with pleasant and refreshing tunes, reminding the New York concert-goers of all those laid back, naïve, and innocent teenage years they never had. As reviews of the show later revealed to agree, I found the opening band impressive and genuinely delightful. After a few songs to get themselves comfortable, the scrawny lads seemed to be enjoying themselves on stage, despite the audience’s hesitation to support the neophytes…typical. (cont'd after the jump)