Captain Wilberforce - Everybody Loves A Villain (Blue Tuxedo 2008)

This isn’t a band. It’s an outlet for british singer/songwriter Simon Bristoll to get his Jeff Lynne on. His new album, Everybody Loves A Villain is a slick and smart pop record. Tightly compressed electric and acoustic guitars bounce off of mutli-layered harmonies ripped straight from McCartney’s best solo years. The guy has a real knack for melodies, even if the songs themselves can be a bit predictable. And speaking of this cat’s McCartney-isms, when the album gets sappy, it gets really fucking sappy. I’m not turned off to that sort of thing, but tracks like “The Girl Who Broke Her Own Heart” are seriously treading on a darkly mutated version of the Goo Goo Dolls ballad territory. But that’s par for the course in pop artistry nowadays, especially for the folks like Bristoll that buff, shine and compress every single instrument to a sparkling and mistake-free polish. But those are the only gripes I’ve got with Everybody Loves A Villain. When it’s good, it’s really good… and it’s a damned sight better than whatever you’re hearing on your local “modern rock for people with kids” radio station. Simon Bristoll has the chops to knock one out of the park one day, and the title track proves it. Check it out:

Captain Wilberforce - Everybody Loves A Villain.mp3
The official Captain Wilberforce website should be helpful if you’d like to buy Everyone Loves A Villain

The Night Marchers - See You In Magic (Vagrant/Swami 2008)

John Reis = the guy from Rocket From The Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, The Hot Snakes, and The Sultans. Now he’s in a band called The Night Marchers, and he’s already got a built-in fanbase. Besides being an utter demigod in southern California, he’s such a well-respected indie rocker that mere mention of his name around a hipster will only result in hours of stories revolving around the time they got laid to Yank Crime. And those people will buy this album no matter what I say about it, positive or negative. I could tell you that it’s the best straight-up garage rock record I’ve heard in years - which See You In Magic is - or that’s almost disappointing in Reis’s newfound mastery of melody and dynamics compared to his noisier earlier projects - which the album isn’t… for me at least. What’s important to know is that Reis and his current band have been around the block a few times, and they don’t just crap out material, no matter how ragged the exterior might seem at times. This is damned good rock record.

Night Marchers - I Wanna Deadbeat You.mp3
Buy See You In Magic from Vagrant!

Forever The Sickest Kids - Underdog Alma Mater (Universal 2008)

I’m simply at a loss to explain why Universal keeps sending us this Warped Tour stuff. I’d like to think that we aren’t snobs at RetroLowFi, but that even a cursory glance around our website would clue you in to the fact that exactly none of our writers are gonna be into emo-pop. So maybe Universal knows we’ll hate it and is taking the “bad press is still good press” route, hoping we’ll tear the album apart and then get attacked by kids in mascara. Too bad. You lose, Universal. Epic fail on your part. We simply aren’t gonna give an opinion on it. Same goes for that Between The Trees album you sent us last month. Unless you wanna buy our blog. We’ll be in touch soon…