Even shorter takes.
We have a pile of CD’s at RetroLowFi HQ that have been submitted for review. It laughs at me. It taunts me. It begs me to tell the world about each mediocre release that gets sent to us in the mail. Today, I’m going to tell you about a few of them, a couple that are notable for one reason or another. We’ve got more than a few reviews to get through before… well, you’ll see.
Wolf Parade “At Mount Zoomer” (Sub Pop 2008)
If you spin Wolf Parade’s last album, Apologies To the Queen Mary, you’ll hear an album that sounds like pretty much everything else released on an indie label in 2005. But more importantly, you’ll notice that there are two vastly different songwriters that are seemingly taking turns at the helm. Worked fine for Sebadoh, because those cats all wrote incredibly different songs from each other. Wolf Parade’s issue was worse: one guy sounded like Modest Mouse, and the other songwriter was way into indie-folk. Wolf Parade was a two-speed band, and those speeds weren’t all that interesting. The 2008 model of said Parade seems to be working as a much more focused unit with more than just a few songs showing off some real dynamics: the build-up in the ten-minute “Kissing The Beehive”, accentuated synths that steal the show on “Soldier’s Grin” and the classic Rhodes piano sound that smothers the insistent “California Dreamer”. What does this new version of Wolf Parade lack? Interesting and memorable melodies. Instead of sounding like two totally different bands at different intervals… now these cats just sound like every local indie rock band opening up for another flavor of the week. Bleh.
Wolf Parade - Language City.mp3
Order this and all Wolf Parade products from Sub Pop!
The Morning Paper “It’s Getting Clearer” (Skipping Stones 2008)
Okay, there are limited-edition releases, and then there’s this new EP by The Morning Paper. It’s limited to a cool 75 copies. Now, that’s just amazing. And that CD-R version? Yeah, you’re only getting four songs on it. If you want the whole thitry-two minute shebang, you’ll have to buy the digital download. We’ve had a chance to preview it for you, and if you like your Swedish dream-pop covered in Cocteau Twins reverb, coated in just the teensiest bit of Psychocandy background noise, but floaty enough to play while on a date/taking a bath/popping pills… this is the band for you. And frankly, it’s about damned time we heard from Skipping Stones again anyways. Where have you guys been?
Morning Paper - Making You Up.mp3
C’mon, get this Morning Paper EP from Skipping Stones!
The Simple Carnival “Me And My Arrow” EP (Sundrift 2008)
Now THIS is what I’m talking about. Jeff Boller is a one-man pop machine known as The Simple Carnival… and where the hell have his pop stylings been all of my life? There’s sort of a slick late-seventies AM radio vibe meshing with Boller’s knack for attacking all of the melodies that Brian Wilson and Harry Nilsson never got around to attacking. You’re not gonna find a more perfect falsetto chorus this year than the one shown off in “Caitlin’s On The Beach”, and it’d take a heart of stone to not flip out over the bossa nova stylings of “Over Coffee And Tea”. Of course, this EP is only a teaser for Boller’s first full-length album, Girls Aliens Food, due out on his own Sundrift label in October of this year. And seriously, if we don’t get a copy of that Simple Carnival album in the mail, I’m gonna cry and scream like a little bitch.