Pulled Apart By Horses: Pulled Apart By Horses [2010]

As you might be able to make out from the album art (I can’t), this band’s called Pulled Apart By Horses. They’re very similar to the last album I did, ‘Call Me Dragon’. However, they’re not as experimental and have a better sense of humour musically. It probably comes from the apparent fact that they don’t seem to take themselves or their audience very seriously. Good thing they’re talented, really.

‘Back To The Fuck Yeah’ is a good opener, and it tells you pretty much all you need to know about the band. Heavy riffs, shouty (rather than screamy) lyrics. Oh and breakdowns, awesome awesome breakdowns. ‘The Crapsons’ follows this blueprint too, but it’s in ‘High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive’ that one can get a true sense of the band’s agenda. All the song is is someone screaming ‘High five, swan dive, nose dive’ and then asking ‘don’t you know that my balls on fire?’. All this over a crunchy, powerful riff. But it’s at the end of the song that you begin to get these guys. There’s a repeated riff with accompanying accelerating drum beat that is a brilliant buildup to a drop. When it comes, it’s like being hit by a truck. EXCEPT AWESOME.

There’s a bit more of the same in ‘Yeah Buddy’, but this is a more radio-friendly kind of music somehow. The band pull out all the stops in ‘I Punched A Lion In The Throat’. Not only is the title everything that appeals to me as a man, but it actually carries over into the music. The shouted ‘I punched a lion in the throat, punched a lion in the throat, punched a lion in the throat, punched a lion in theeeeee’ makes me feel like I can punch my way through a housing estate. The random insertions of the phrase ‘ultimate pow-eeeerr, maximum bite’ is funny too. I’m just gonna put the lyrics here. This should be compulsory listening for every man during the Great Festival of Manuary.

One man’s adventure ends
Where another man’s adventure begins
With the wind in his hair and the strength of ten bears
He bites whatever the future brings
The mountain range beckoned his pride
A kingdom with mysteries inside
The beasts paved the way for the victor day
As our hero began one last fight
I punched a lion in the throat
Ultimate power!
Maximum life!

I love this band. The next one, ‘I’ve Got A Guest Pass To Rory O’Hara’s Suicide’, makes me chuckle too. There’s something life-affirming about having a man scream ‘DON’T PAY TAX’ repeatedly at you for almost all of a song. ‘Get Off My Ghost Train’ is the same. There’s brilliant, anarchic attitude that really comes out in this band’s music. The next two, ‘Meat Balloon’ and ‘Moonlit Talon’ are very much more of the same, with the notably anthemic chorus of the latter:

Everybody said the fall will break your leeeeeegs
What’s left now is another man’s dreeeeeeeegs
‘Cause everybody’s telling you you’ve gone insane!
No-one ever thought you’d end up this waaaaaay

Perfect. A great breakdown at the end of the song seals the deal. ‘The Lighthouse’ has a great foundation riff that makes me want to get in a moshpit somewhere and break something. ‘Den Horn’ has a great, chugging bassline that drives the song forwards well, which is good considering the song is over seven minutes long.

The last one, ‘E = MC Hammer’ is a fittingly testosterone-fuelled closing song. It’s hyperactive, powerful (in terms of voltage rather than emotion) and anthemic. This is just such a great band, I’m thrilled I found them. Although the next band I listen to is going to to have to be something that pushes my boundaries a little more – this is the exact kind of music I love, and I knew it before listening. Nice for a break though

These Monsters: Call Me Dragon [2010]

So… Basically I typed "You have to call me dragon" into Google because I was looking for something to do with a Stepbrothers quote. This album came up at the bottom and I thought I simply had to give them a listen.

This is an incredibly varied sound. I’ve tagged it as Rock, Metal, and Hardcore, but it doesn’t feel as if it is exclusively any of them. It’s incredibly listenable – quite dark, trippy at times, but with some amazing hooks and riffs. These guys are great guitar players, and they all jam together brilliantly.

The first song, ‘Call Me Dragon’, is an incredibly varied, vaulting number that goes through several phases. There’s no singing other than some screaming. By this I mean genuine shrieks and wails over the music – not some bender screamo-ing about his feelings, but a visceral howl that is deployed at fitting moments. Brilliant. The music is very riff-driven, and is quite a heavy sound given that the bassist knows how to make the guitarist’s sound stand out by going ‘bwaam’ at appropriate times. It’s a good, textured song, this, and somewhere along the twists and turns of the connected-up riffs I think I might have decided I love this band.

I love the lack of regard for having a vocalist. It’s quite an independent thing to do in their line of music, and I’m sure it’s held them back, but to be honest I don’t think they mind. Stubborn bastards. The second track, ‘Dirty Messages’ is a bit more of a private detective-style sound due to the addition, crazily, of a saxophone. It works fantastically as an idea – I’ve never heard the saxophone deployed in such a way before and it’s a pretty unique sound. Slightly reminiscent of some of the ska-punk that we all heard in the nineties, but heavier. Much heavier. And with no singer other than the hint of a scream occasionally – the man’s practically been mixed out. An argument with the band, perhaps? There’s a great ‘chorus’ in this song – any kid with a guitar would want to write something like this. It’s not overly showy, though, and doesn’t rely on a singer, but still manages to be a brilliant demonstration of how far good writing can get you. It reminds me, kinda, of a song performed by The Desert Sessions (you know, Josh Homme of QOTSA et al + drugs + desert. Result: album). In the song, entitled ‘Shepherd’s Pie’, they create an incredibly complex song through the singing of the phrase ‘shepherd’s pie’. There’s no instruments in it apart from a gently strummed guitar, but it works pretty well as a song – one person singing the ‘guitar’ part, one the ‘bass’ etc. It’s sort of the opposite to this music, where the guitars, and in this case, sax, eliminate the need for a singer.

The following song, ‘Who Is This Tall Sick Man’, starts with a scream and the wham of bassy guitars. Much darker, this one, but with a ferocious energy that I really like. There’s a great bit where all the instruments hold a note while the drums speed up further and further, injecting yet more energy. God this is a cool song. Actually, I’ve stumbled across a good way of describing the sound of this band. ‘Cool’. You hear it and, if you have roughly the same taste in music as me, you raise your eyebrows after being slapped in the face with a riff, and you say ‘…cool’.

‘Biggie and Tupac’ comes next, and is, predictably, no more concerning them than the last one was about a tall sick man. There’s an impressive, creepy use of samples – a TV documentary, a girl talking and a strange sort of echo all drift in and out over an apocalyptic drum beat. Good song, wish it was longer than 1:04 though! ‘Harry Patton’ is next, with a really distinctive sound. They’ve really made excellent use of the sax here, it adds a kind of smoky jazz-club vibe to their balls-out metal riffs. Could be a soundtrack to a spoof film about an East End of London gangster. Sort of like violent Pink Panther. The suspicious, ponderous basslines add to this effect.

The next one opens with some screeching static that is, somehow, harnessed by the band to create different tunes. There’s more violent Pink Panther in this one, ‘Space Ritual’ too, with quite a chaotic vibe coming from the sax and guitars. I like this one, but it could feel a little claustrophobic if not listened to without having got the vibe of the band by listening to all the tracks leading up to it – it might feel a little cluttered, out of context. Luckily this isn’t a problem for me! The sax really comes into its own on this song, even being allowed a semi-solo that adds heaps od atmosphere to the song before a suitably metal-tinged refrain that could be the sound of Satan’s blacksmith. A bit of screaming rounds it off nicely. Not a phrase I’ll often use.

‘Deaf Machine’ is a total corker. This is a totally new sound to me. The sax and guitars are integrated in such a brilliant way – this might be the future. It’s old and contemporary at the same time, and total genius. I don’t know whose idea it was to incorporate a saxophone into a hardcore/metal/rock band, but they deserve a clap on the back. It’s important to note, as well, that the sax never feels overdone – partly due to the fact that it’s not playing constantly. It’s this restraint that I think I like best about the band’s style.

Love, love, love.

Rob Dougan: Furious Angels [2001]

Apologies for the lack of reviews for a few day – I’ve been sweating my way through final essays and the prospect of writing an album review at the end of a frantic, terrified day has been a pretty upsetting concept for me. This is an album recommended to me by my friend Roz, same one that recommended I do Syriana’s Road To Damascus. We were discussing the Matrix Soundtrack and I mentioned I like ‘Clubbed To Death’ on it, when she said to give the source album a listen.

If you’ve heard ‘Clubbed To Death’, then much of this album will be pretty familiar-sounding to you – classical-tinged, dramatic, bassy techno that is a good deal more intelligent than others in the genre. The first song on the album, other than the introduction, is ‘Furious Angels’. It’s really interesting, it has lots of different phases and layers that all kind of melt into one another to form a rich, textured sound that sounds a little dramatic, a little melodramatic. The next song, ‘Will You Follow Me’, bears out this description, although there is far less techno in this one, leaving me to wonder if the Mr. Dougan isn’t just a classical artist in disguise. I don’t like the music, to be honest, when there’s not real evidence of him doing something with the classical side of his sound.

‘Left Me For Dead’ is a cool song though. A simple bassline, some soaring strings and some growled vocals all get involved and create a really moody, introspective sound that, while being quite gloomy, is raised by the passion that Dougan inserts into his singing, as well as the echoes that he occasionally chucks in. There’s some thing about the way he sings ‘You left me for dead’ and the echo goes ‘for dead, for dead, left me for dead’. The song simmers along for a few verse, and then really catches fire with the addition of a piano and some slightly more intense mixing. It’s really cool, I can imagine it in a film – anything other than The Matrix would be a bit of a push though. ‘I’m Not Driving Anymore’ is really similar to the previous one, with the addition of some ‘Clubbed To Death’-style staccato strings that add a kind of frantic hopelessness to the sound which I liked very much. It looks like, at this point, that ‘Will You Follow Me’ is a bit of a blip in Dougan’s music – he seems to like the combination of techno and classical more than just classical, which means he can be counted as me-friendly.

‘Clubbed To Death (Kuyaramino Version)’ is next, and although Spotify in their infinite wisdom made the track unavailable, I managed to track it down on my computer, so all is well. The addition of a woman singing ‘wo-eh-o-wah-a-ee’ in a high voice at the chorus brings some class to the already classy song. This song is ameliorated significantly by the frequent breakdowns and introduction of other instruments and sounds. The bassline and the drums act as a very useful anchor to this kind of experimentation. That said, the song is rigidly structured and feels incredibly tight.

The next one, ‘There’s Only Me’ returns to the introspective feel of the earlier songs, being a really rather melodramatic and moody version of ‘Will You Follow Me’, whereas the one after that, ‘Instrumental’, predictably irritates me. It’s not that the music isn’t well-written, it’s more that I’d just like this guy to pick a fucking side. Don’t give me music I really enjoy in the form of ‘Clubbed To Death’ and then follow it up with two pieces that are completely and utterly removed from the tone, style, origin, emotion etc of that song. They just feel like they’ve been surgically inserted like a pair of silicon knockers. I mean why create a hybrid classical-techno vibe only to spoil it by cramming the album full of classical which, frankly, makes me think of the film ‘Bambi’.

Thankfully, Mr Dougan finally starts singing again in ‘Nothing At All’. This is good, because I was about to lose patience with him completely. You may have noticed. I really liked ‘Nothing At All’. It’s got nothing much in common with anything I’ve heard before, although it feels faintly contemporary. A gently cascading piano instils a great sense of calm. ‘Adult contemporary’ is probably how some unimaginative record-label manager has labelled the song. This, and the song after, ‘Born Yesterday’ are my two favourites on the album.

‘Speed Towards Death’ is, in my mind, the best example of what Dougan is going for. Racy violins, dramatic use of lyrics and bassline and a good bit of classical singing at the end. They could have used this one in The Matrix, it would have fitted perfectly. The penultimate ‘full’ song, ‘Drinking Song’ evokes some Tom Waits-esque melancholy that is rich in a kind of, believe it or not, ‘sing-when-drunk-ability’. It would really be something to hear a whole football stadium sing this song – not so much because it’s anthemic, it’s just got a great, almost Irish sense of what is good in a drinking song. Sadness and hope. Nice.

There then comes a sort of musical break/intro to the last song, ‘Pause’. It’s pretty much just a sort of classical warm-up to ‘The One and the Same’, which is the final track on what’s been an interesting album. It’s pretty much like most of the others, to be honest, but it merits a listen because it absolutely oozes class that borders on the artificial. I mean, it’s so tight and polished, it sort of feels like a sad boyband song. I know, it’s a bit of a headfuck to be honest.

Cat’s Eyes/Nao: Picture This If You Will… [2009]

Continuing my current trend with diving into beepy, strange music, I thought I’d go for this one. Never heard of them/him/her before, just bumped into it on spotify.

The first couple of tracks are quite difficult to describe. This is going to be another boring review I’m afraid – I find it hard to write about music with no lyrics. Call me shallow, but there you go. What I liked about the first one, ‘Hieno’ is a kind of wind-chimy, stuttering melodrama that sounds pretty cool if I’m honest. The second song, ‘Labial’ has a kind of cheeky grin to it. Although, as with a lot of this music, I can imagine it on a patronising documentary about tribal customs and rich tapestry-making skills. I just struggle to see why anyone would buy this, much less why someone would tape a xylophone falling over in slow motion and call it a CD.

‘Ana Kata Part One’ is more of the same. Ding ding ding ping ping *token record-scratching* ding ding ding. I’ve just rendered the song into a more acceptable format, so now you won’t have to listen to the mind-numbing pretention of it. The people that recorded this must be total dicks. I’m serious. This music is beyond shit. The second part of ‘Ana Kata’ is at least more of a musical accomplishment. There’s a piano. The song’s still shit though, with some tragically brief flashes of something that vaguely arouses emotion. The song gets better at the end, darker and more moody, like a black cloud over the last twenty seconds or so.

The next one is ‘Eau Douce’, another fucking wind-chime retard-fest. SKIP. I know I’m supposed to be impartial here, but I’ve had enough of this stuff. That someone could allow this to be published, no doubt labelled ‘haunting’ and ‘original’, but in reality it’s ‘lazy’ and ‘repetitive’. The addition of some Eastern/pan pipes into the next one, ‘Artikelli’, adds something, but feels more like a token addition, meant only to flaunt he credentials of the ‘genius’ who could dare to incorporate it into a song. Wow, what a fucking visionary. I mean seriously, have these guys learnt nothing from prog rock? It doesn’t work, no matter how contemporary you think you’re being.

The names of the tracks are pretentious as hell, too. I’m getting sick of it. ‘Somme’ is the next one, and boy, it’s pretty insulting. All it consists of is beeps and record scratching over a vaguely evocative other beep. It’s like something Jeremy from bloody Peep Show would write. "Yeah man, we’re doing a song about WW1. The war to end all wars. It was just about beeps, really. That’s what I’ve tried to convey." Wanker. ‘Off-kikkoa’ is the next song, and it’s indistinguishable from the rest.

I’m ending this waste of time here. To accord this dross the same amount of my time as some talented people is to imply they have as much merit. Sorry, Nao and Cat’s Eyes, but you’re cunts. If I ever see you play live I will throw shit at you. It’s hard to respect music that sounds like it’s been made by toddlers and folk musicians.

P.S. The next to last song is called ‘(2x+1)^4′ Point. Proved. I’ve enclosed a cartoon picture of a vagina to demonstrate my contempt.

Caribou: Swim [2010]

Further to my aims of rubbing my nose in music I’d previously have turned the appendage up at, I thought I’d go for Caribou. Not something I’d like. It can be described as a sort of dance-indie-sample-thing, complete with strange beeps and gratuitous synth.

‘Odessa’ kicks things off, with a kind or repetitive Primal Scream-y kind of sound that is quite nice, but a little irritating after a while. It’s a good opener though, giving me a rough idea of what to expect. The next one, ‘Sun’ is, predictably, a summer-flavoured Ibiza tune that would be at home in a messy festival tent, a vomit-covered club, or a glowstick festival. It’s good though, and the fact that the only lyric – ‘sun’ – is constantly played with through effects and delays and echoes adds a lot to though sound. Although when they really start piling the effects onto the word, i does occasionally sound like a high-voiced child saying ‘bum, bum, bum, bum’. Immature, but there you go.

I’m getting to the point in the album (after about two songs!) where I’m starting to realise that maybe I’m not supposed to just listen to this song. Perhaps I should be with more people. At a party. Yes, this music makes me feel like a loser for listening to it alone. The next song plunges me deeper into my mate-less ennui  by thoroughly confusing me. ‘Kaili’ is an absolute mess of a song with so many musical ingredients vying for dominance that I feel a little disturbed. There’s a sort of falsetto singing, the sound of tyre-smoke, some synth, some squeaking, a hectic drumbeat and not discernible tune. I can’t really say much more about the song.

‘Found Out’ is slightly more promising though. A little more traditionally arranged – by which I mean there’s some normal singing with some structured music – it’s still rather bewildering. The band have mixed the album so that it comes out of different speakers at different times, after a while this makes me feel a little seasick. The constant swaying of the song from one speaker to another is further testament to the fact that it should be played over a large wall-mounted speaker system, not my crappy laptop speakers. ‘Bowls’ comes next, offering a kind of bell sound that is mixed with a harp and some irregular clanging. The effect is that of a Tibetan monastery or a wind chime made of pots and pans. There’s a great, soaring energy to the piece though that slowly reveals itself through some rushing synth and the steady ordering of the chime sounds into a discernible beat. Very clever, almost a Radiohead-like song, this one.

The next one is played on a flute, or a pan pipe or something, but is actually really catchy. It’s speeding up my typing as I listen to it – perhaps something to be played deafeningly loudly on repeat if I’m to finish my final university essays then! The song’s called ‘Leave House’, and it’s a kind of throwback to the 90s acid house scene. The indie element pokes it’s nose in however through the strange high-pitched lyrics. This is the one I can picture as the single that they’d release – if they did any others from the album they’d be crazy!

The speaker-switching continues in the next one, ‘Hannibal’. It works brilliantly in it though, I can practically see the sound move from right, to the front of my keyboard, to the left. Really odd, but quite intriguing. After this dose of head-fuckery there comes some good snappy electronic drums that give another flavour of the 90s to the song. The song eventually explodes into a large-scale, anthemic kind of bastard one could picture used in a beer advert.

‘Lalibela’ is a sort of wispy, dreaming one that moves all over the place. It goes from sounding like a 90s videogame song cunningly remixed so as to be smuggled into a major DJ’s set to being an undeniably beautiful arrangement of I don’t know what. Synth probably. The final one is called ‘Jamelia’ and it seems that the last one was a kind of intro for this one. Again, it’s a kind of deconstructed or remixed ‘normal’ song. There’s very little in the song other than the occasional beep over the top of a drumbeat, and of course the now-ubiquitous synth gets involved at every opportunity.

An interesting album, not one I’ll be listening to again though. I’m just not sure what it is. Well, I’ll settle for ‘interesting’.

Boards of Canada: The Campfire Headphase [2005]

Opening with a beepy, echoey bit of of fluff doesn’t traditionally get me going, but this album was actually quite nice, in a way that’s hard to describe. Floaty, ethereal and highly technical, it’s an interesting sound. ‘Chromaky Dreamcoat’ the second song, though the first real song on the album in terms of length, is a dreamy number, with the refrain coming in the form of a simple guitar riff that separates a more drifting, electronic soundscape. Very nice, ambient music, the kind of thing you can imagine some kind of sped-up video of a busy street set to.

‘Satellite Anthem Icarus’ comes next, with a slightly more natural sound beginning with the rush of some waves and a distinctly ‘campfire’ feel. This is another relatively gentle song, the only concession to the electric element being a sort of strange ‘wip wip wip’ sound that is put on top of what is otherwise a pretty traditionally ambient song. This all changes after a minute or so, though, and the song moves into phase 2. The ‘wip wip’ sound comes back sporadically over the top of a new construction of sustain-soaked sound that seeps and swishes rather than syncopates. Fascinating music – you wouldn’t have to listen to it too intently to enjoy it, either. The song ends back at its beginning, where the rush of a wave and the strum of a slightly out-of-tune/de-tuned guitar set each other off brilliantly. A beautifully shifting song, the musical equivalent of quicksand. The next one, ‘Peacock Tail’ starts with some pensive piano that, without being electronically enhanced, seems to echo in your head. Some computer-drums then come in and give the tune a bit of structure and drive, occasionally giving way to the gentle strum of a guitar. Some floating synth fleshes out the song to great effect. ‘Dayvan Cowboy’ continues on with this sound, but more akin to the rushing sound of a waterfall.

There’s a definitely distinct sound emerging from this album, as ’84 Pontiac Dream’ demonstrates. Snappy drums are mixed into a floaty, dreamy sound that shifts and moves in a really organic-sounding way, despite being pretty electronic in and of themselves. This one sounds like putting your ear to a seashell but hearing the sound of a chillout room. Abstract and unexpected, but pretty cool I guess.

‘Sherbet Head’ is a crackly, static-suffused one that doesn’t really jump out at me as a great song. There’s just not much to it, although it works very well in a ‘filler’ song capacity, meaning that it serves nicely as a little break between ’84 Pontiac Dream’ and the next one, ‘Oscar See Through Red Eye’. The song names are beginning to bug me. Normally I don’t give much of a shit about this, but the titles on this are a little too self-consciously random – something that I hate. The song’s pretty good though, although the phrase ‘self-consciously random’, although used to describe the song titles, is starting to inch its way towards describing the songs themselves. I probably just don’t get the context of the song – I don’t know whether I’m supposed to listen to these while off my nuts off ketamine being sick on strangers, or sit around at home having it gently lift my mood. ‘Ataronchronon’ is better, though, as are ‘Hey Saturday Sun’, ‘Constants Are Changing’ and ‘Slow This Bird Down’. What they all have in common is a brilliantly subconscious kind of sound – it can wash over you or seep in, your choice.

The next-to-last song on this album is, to me, the most interesting. ‘Tears From The Compound Eye’ is really thoughtful, really intense in places, and seems to compile everything I like about the album into one song with none of the flaws that I’ve highlighted in my niggly way. This is the one I’d recommend to listen to – the last one, ‘Farewell Fire’ is excellent too, but a little long for most at nearly nine minutes.

In all, I was surprised by how touching this music can be – a lot of thought has clearly gone into it, and it’s completely shattered my perception of this kind of music. Far from being a load of mindless beeps and random notes, this can actually be a superior form of expression.

MC Solaar: Cinquieme As [2006]

So this is actually really good. Solaar is originally from Chad, and ended up in France, where he does hip-hop. In French. Which I suppose I’m ok with, just this once!

This has, thank god, more in common with genuine (i.e. US) hip-hop/rap than it does with *spits* UK hip-hop. It’s a really chilled out sound, and Solaar’s rapping acts, in a way, like another percussion instrument in some songs.

Although the language barrier is pretty intense, especially at speed, Solaar has a way with making words flow that I’ve not heard yet from any English-speaking artists on this project so far. Obviously I have limited things to say, not being able to access the songs in the same way as a native French speaker, but I heartily recommend giving this a listen.

Some of my favourite songs on this were, in no particular order: ‘La Belle Et Le Bad Boy’, ‘Leve-Toi Et Rap’, ‘Hasta La Vista’ and ‘Degats Collatereaux’ (I have no idea how to do acute accents, so go ahead and sprinkle a few on pretty much all the song titles…)