From Bubblegum To Sky - A Soft Kill (Eenie Meenie 2008)

Okay. You’ve seen the billboards, the blog posts, the random people coming up to you on the street all but begging you to listen to the new album by From Bubblegum To Sky. I’ve seen them too, and thankfully I received a copy in the mail to review. No money spent here. However, if I had waited until July 3rd to buy my copy of this wildly anticipated album from Mario Hernandez’s one-man band? I wouldn’t have been upset at all. It’s a really solid retro-pop album. On A Soft Kill you’ll get tons of punctuated fuzz guitars, lots of high pitched bubblegum vocals, and hard tambourine-laden choruses. I enjoyed listening to it, and thought that the most exciting track was the closing one: “Downtown Or Up?”. With it’s constant tempo changes and final singalong fade-out, it only hints that the best is yet to come from Mr. Hernandez. More billboards, please!

From Bubblegum To Sky - Downtown Or Up.mp3
But A Soft Kill from Eenie Meenie!

La Scala - The Harlequin EP (Highwheel 2008)

Easily one of the most exciting EP’s I’ve heard in recent memory, this Chicago quartet has laid down one of the most get-out-of-the-way-and-duck releases that have passed through RetroLowFi HQ so far this year. You may know lead vocalist/guitarist Balthazer De Ley from his stint in Hum, as well as Menthol, a band that should have been poised to take over the world for about, oh…. ten years or so? Never you mind, because De Ley’s still churing out his angular and hyper-literary brand of rock and roll with this new project. Highlights on this 7″ are the oughta-be-a-single “Parallel Lives” and a track called “Bon Vivant”, the latter of which teeters between klezmer influence, minor-key sea shantys, and one of the most danceable choruses this side of whatever you’re listening to and enjoying right now. I can’t recommend this EP enough, but I also can’t help touring that these guys will throw in a few Menthol songs when they hit the road…

La Scala - Parallel Lives.mp3
You need to buy the La Scala EP from Highwheel like… now.

Baskervilles - Twilight (Secret Crush 2008)

Twinkly pop? Check. Shimmering production courtesy of the Mitch Easter/rob Keith team? Double check. Groovy pop choruses? Oh, you don’t even know the half of it. Now based in New York, Baskervilles started up over ten years ago in Florida and having slowly doled out their pop goods to patient fans over the years. Having not heard the previous Midnight EP, I can’t tell you if this is a direct follow-up like the title suggests, but I can say that these guys know their way around bombastic and underhanded pop that sneaks up on you when you least expect it. For example, the biggest hook of the track “Smash” is a swelling bar of strings that sounds like it was lifted directly from Love’s Forever Changes, and “Caught In a Crosswalk” has a guitar line in the chorus that immediately brings “White Wedding” to mind while sustaining a brass section. Baskervilles don’t make much sense on paper, but if you want some sickly saccharine pop chops to get you through your day, then Twilight is the album for you.

Baskervilles - Caught In A Crosswalk.mp3
You can get the Baskervilles album from CD Baby by clicking here!

Fleet Foxes - S/T (Sub Pop 2008)

And here we are, wrapping up this edition of Short Takes with the newest Sub Pop signing, Fleet Foxes. Now, this particular fleet of foxes seemingly travels in a covered wagon made out of preset reverb. They aren’t particularly energetic foxes, either. Nope. They like to harmonize and play their low-kew brand of indie-folk, but on much of the album tend to use oodles of gating to cover up… something. I don’t know what. There’s nothing to cover up. Everything sounds fine here, really. As a matter of fact, that’s my only complaint about Fleet Foxes. They are a really good band, and if I’d seen them randomly at a club, I’d probably wet myself over the new discovery I just stumbled on. However, this mellow bunch chose for their debut album to be good, but not phenomenal… thanks to the studio trickery. WHICH IT DOES NOT NEED. I can’t stress this enough. If this were just a dryly recorded, honest portrayal of what the band sounded like playing in a room together? I think these foxes could do infinitely more damage than the Wolf and Horses on Sub Pop’s current roster.

Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal.mp3
Purchase the Fleet Foxes album from Sub Pop!