Musicurious

I’m super jazzed to have the ignominy/honor of getting an early listen to Everything, All at Once by My First Castle (formerly Sinatra). While the only two original members from the Lost in Hyrule lineup are guitarists Zach and Chris, I’m most interested to hear how their new vocalist Eddie Rorls stacks up. And what kind of sound the band has settled into these days. I thought I’d put down my initial responses and reactions to a single listen tonight before I cozy up to this album and get nice and intimate when I do the review proper. So let’s kick this shit off with “I’d Like a Peking Duck on the Rocks.”

Immediate mid-career Dance Gavin Dance vibes. Both in song structure and in the rich guitar tone. Eddie sounds pretty fantastic, has a nice scream and pretty solid cleans. Seems to be able to switch between them and blend them nicely. Suddenly a breakdown. A noodly math rock breakdown. I didn’t know those existed.

Next up is “Repellers Pelican,” which I’ve heard. Guitar tones are just fantastic. I keep getting these little spikes of bass, too. Michael Feldmann is no slouch on his fills. The gangs chorus is a nice touch. I like how the band manages to walk the line between slick and messy.

“Hive Fives Through Walls of Tigers” is a fantastic title for a track. And living up to that title, the song is immediately batshit insane, exploding out the gate at like double tempo. But then we get a chill, groovy breakout from there. Shrieky, chaotic, a little technical. Very different feel here, which is good.

Following that track title we’ve got “The Elusive South Penguin of King Georgia.” Man we are getting to Chiodos territory with these track titles now. Delay-riffic opening, but with such little instrument noise, Eddie’s vocals are out on their own and are a little pitchy. Nothing irredeemable. This song is viciously Dance Gavin Dance and groovy as fuck. Pretty sweet I Kill Giants bridge going on in the second half, though. Vocals are emotive enough to shred your throat by just hearing them.

Oooh. “New Fragments” is all purty and powerballady. Eddie’s gotta lean on his cleans again, but is pretty flawless here. Wondering if the other shoe is going to drop soon and this song is going to explode, or if it’s gonna smolder like this the whole time. Woah Eddie huge voice out of nowhere. Mad props. But does a slow song like this in the middle of a decidedly not-slow album kill the energy? Personally, I think Eddie’s performance was enough.

Onto “Two Graves, One Body,” because suddenly we’re naming our shit like My Chemical Romance. Abrasive as hell opening. Quick Invalids guitar section around :45 is so good. Staccato guitar spikes here really highlight how solid Feldmann is on the bass. Guitar line around 1:40 is delicious. And it’s carrying on through the song. I am in love. I want the D. Aw yeah dual screams/cleans section. Huge tremolo to carry the song home. That song felt good.

“Mantis Toboggan” opens with an instrument that isn’t a guitar and I’m immediately confused. Now there are electric drums and I am afraid. (Actually this sounds awesome and I am 100% okay with it.) This is another time when I’d ask how much this song fits amongst these other tracks, and what kind of impact it has on the overall energy. It’s awesome, but it’s also an idiosyncrasy.

And now, “Matt and Phil the Werewolf” closes the album. The guitar around :40 is fantastically weird and perfectly restrained, and Eddie’s vocals bridge the instrumentation gaps perfectly. Really fucking digging how this song is working. Very different. Suddenly a breakdown with some sweet Tera Melos noise. Fucking fantastic. A total surprise. No, wait, it’s a repeating breakdown composed of progressively slower sections, The Fall of Troy style. It sounds like my headphones are just outputting chunky static and earthquake. All I can hear is cymbals and destruction and pain. Well fuck. That’s how you end a fucking album.

So let me fucking immediately put track 1 back on again while I close this out. I’m impressed with Everything, All at Once. While the band leans on a couple genre conventions (never not allowed), the musicianship is downright daring. I know I kept tapping DGD, but over the past eight tracks, I heard some shit I’ve never encountered before. Good show, dudes. Proud of ya.

Released on 5 November 2012
They’re from Brooklyn
Sounds like bright, happy sunshine playing garage rock.
Hear it at bandcamp.

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Another great band pops up as a submission! Automotive High School definitely aren’t a band I would have sought out on my own. Keep sending me stuff, dudes and dudettes.

This 3-song demo has a lot of promise. I’m hearing The Strokes, a little Indian School, and some Beatles, of course. It’s effortless, unadorned, optimistic indie rock, plain and simple. The big guitar line toward the end of the opener “Look. It’s Gone.” gave me a moment of pause— another band flashed in my mind for a moment.

Then “Wonder Sings” started. Fang Island! I shouted to nobody in particular. From one sunny, riffy indie rock band to another, Automotive High School are developing an easygoing, infectious, summer-album sort of sound.

This gets my stamp of approval, and I can’t wait to hear what they do next.

I dug PFI’s full-length, but I’m enough of a Coheed fanboy to look past the flaws. “Elm Street Lover Boy” is a crazy-good song though.

My review for Just Like Vinyl was surprisingly positive. I’ve been hard of Thomas Erak and his voice for years, but he’s in a good place with it now.

They’ll both be up over at Decoymusic sometime this week, I think.

Released on: 30 August 2011
They’re from: San Marcos, Texas
Sounds like: putting your ear to a banjo and hearing the ocean.
Hear it: Bandcamp

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I must have a musical guardian angel who drops all these great bands in my lap like this. Allow me to introduce Equals, whose debut self-titled EP is blowing my mind. Part Always the Runner, part Toe, Equals play eclectic, electrics-infused post-rock packaged into tidy 4-5 minute tracks. And when I say eclectic, I mean glitchy samples breaking out into a surge of tremolo, followed up by some banjo, capped off with a sick Wurlitzer line.

Equals construct songs with Irepress levels of energy, working in grooves and smashing together chunks of song from entirely different sonic geographies into cohesive tracks that really stick. Some instrumental music laps at your toes or billows placidly; some of it is best suited as background music, but Equals keeps you engaged.

The opening of “Salvo” reminds me a lot of Boyfrndz, who I wrote about yesterday. It’s probably the most electric-tinged bunch of bars on the EP, but the electrics give way to acoustic guitar, of all things, and then both sounds combine into a neat marriage of acoustic and electric, which is then layered with a gorgeous wash of treated vocals. Standout tracks for me, though, are “Table Monster” and “Electric Blanket,” thanks to their diversity of sound.

“Table Monster” brings the groove right quick — definitely gives me Irepress vibes — then lumps on tremolo, which dithers into staticy ambience. “Electric Blanket” lives up to its title, opening with an electric drumbeat and a lone guitar line. The song rouses slow like sleeping in. It’s classic post-rock, but the electric drums lend the build up an unusual sort of energy. The crescendo is like flicking a light switch between sunny ambience and short, driving bursts of darker melody. And the bridge? Groovy, stuffed with great drum work, some Wurlitzer, nimble guitars. What’s not to love?

If you’re in need of some fresh blood in your instrumental folder— hell, even if you’re not, even if your hard drive is overflowing with music and porn, you gotta eke out some room for this EP, or y’know, just stream it first. Either way, Equals are excellent, excellent post-rock.

Keep these recommendations coming!

Released on: 24 April 2012
They’re from: Boston, MA
Sounds like: what American Football would sound like if the band members were angsty instead of sad.
Hear it: Bandcamp

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I’ll admit, I only checked out You Blew It!’s new album Grow Up, Dude because the band/album names were so odd. I’m hoping that by writing some words about it that you will listen for entirely different reasons.

You Blew It! play a quintessentially-early 00s brand of emo. Think lightly mathy instrumentation, pedestrian vocals with an emotional rasp, lax but completely listenable production, and tons of heart. Basically, the definition of today’s “twinkly” genre. I use this description a lot, but these guys are a sonic time machine. I think early Saddle Creek acts when I listen, like Gabardine or Park Ave., I think the old roster of Deep Elm Records.

Is there merit beyond the nostalgia trip, though? That I don’t know. If you’re a fan of sleepy, lo-fi indie rock, You Blew It! definitely don’t blow it. But you also won’t be blown away? Okay, okay I’m making shitty puns time to wrap this up.

“Good for Bond, Bad for You” is a pretty choice cut. So is “I’m Bill Paxton.” If you’re on the fence, skip there and see how the music hits you.