Anastasia: Water and Warmth (the good kind)

            This is a review of the album Anastasia (2013) by Spirits of Leo, and the sixth review here on Track-By-Track.

            I found Spirits of Leo during a frantic and nearly-depressing search for shoegaze through the annals of the badly-keyworded and morbidly under-produced Internet.  Fortunately, I found the Spirits of Leo release, Anastasia, and was lifted out of the near-depression by its very watery and melodic shoegaze/chillwave tones.
            I was surprised by Spirits of Leo being a solo-project, though I did think the band was in surprisingly good synch, both melodically and conceptually.  California-based Ryan Santos Phillips wrote, produced, and performed the entire album.  Despite a few blips, the mastering is of an extremely high quality; and blips are barely noticeable even at the levels I poured the album into my ears.
            With that mental image in mind, here’s my TBT:

            “Woodland” is an instrumental introduction track, reminiscent of early Pumpkins, which continues to grow into a shoegaze track (Slowdive-style), with soft layered vocals and guitars.  The pitch-treated guitar is a bit like old metal intros that were too-quickly interrupted by the main parts of the songs.  I’m happy to say this one doesn’t get kicked out by drums before it’s had its chance to create ripples of emotion.  It leads into the next track.

            “The Pendant You Wear” has some deeply melodic vocals, and starts with drums like “Tonight, Tonight”, but quickly changes into a more modern-sounding, .  It’s an atmosphere with a strong hair-metal-esque beat, and abundant vocal, guitar, and bass beauty.  Vocals and the overall tone are like M83 meeting U2 and Love and Rockets.  Guitars lift, and bass glues in place, with some low-in-the-mix but equally uniform synths at the end.  Every listen enhances the enjoyment of the track to surprising heights.

            “Dead Limbs of Winter”, an instrumental track, comes next, and thankfully, the gapless format of the first few tracks doesn’t end here.  It’s plaintive and pensive, and almost an ambient track.  Winter definitely comes to mind while listening to it.  Soft chorus-effected guitars, and an ambient synth landscape below, bring out and lead up to other layers.  Bass comes next, with a certain warm strength, and vocalizations and drums finish the track’s progressive etherial structure.

            “Ghost Story” is faster, with a slight chillwave influence.  It’s like an 80s track, but put through a reverb chamber.  The vocals are extremely low in the mix, but the lyrics, fortunately, are provided.  There’s a ghostly atmosphere, though the drums at times are a little loud.  It’s about atmosphere, like the rest of the album.  There’s a heart to it unseen in most songs on the modern hit channels.

            “Raccoon” is the next track, and it breaks up the gaplessness from before.  It only has four short lines of lyrics, but the upbeat atmosphere and sparse vocals make them stretch to the fullest.  Bass and guitar combine well, and the central riff is well-worthy of a Brit pop band like Trash Can Sinatras.  It’s catchy and happy, without forgetting the overall watery and warm tone.   It very slightly leads into the next track.

            “The Fog (Angels)”, the 6th track, is a slower one, with a longer intro, and clearer vocals.  I’d liken it to Slowdive, because the guitar, bass, and drum tracks have that watery, softly complimentary quality.  Short but great lyrics sung expertly through modulation give the track a sound like returning home (or a comforting place like it).  The lyrics, and the way they’re sung, have an unusual and otherworldly, yet ancient-sounding structure.

            “Idle Talk” is the hit song, despite how good the rest of the album is.  The bassline and guitars are catchy and the lyrics fit the track perfectly.  It sounds like a song to walk outside in the fog to, surrounded by neon and streetlights.  A great positive return after an emphatic lull in the track, and harmonies to the extreme bring out a kind of loving yet cold warmth.  The drums are old-school, but not simple 808s.  And the ending is classic.  Brief strange sounds lead into the next track.

            “Elysian Fields” is definitely like big ‘80s/early ‘90s pop, with some retro industrial drums forming the beat, and the fast guitar-lines often heard back then.  It transcends with vocals and synths, and later guitar, all chillwavey and Summer-style.  Santos Phillips has somehow structured every one of the songs on Anastasia to a perfect length.  It’s unusual for me to find that all the songs on an album feel just right ending where they end, and in this case, I’m surprised.

            “Anastasia”, the penultimate track, is fast and upbeat, with a nice ambient/dream pop/chillwave genre-blend.  This song lives up to its own lyrics: “You are always in your prime” is a nice description of how this track just builds and creates.  It’s like it’s in a constant state of beginning, even in the ending.  Great basslines, melodic guitar combos, sweet synths, catchy drums, and succulent processed vocal harmonies make this certain competition for “Idle Talk” in the single-field.  The music seems to flow from it, without predictability, even though it could easily see airplay on any hit radio that has the intelligence to see its potential.

            “Spirits of Leo” is the last track, a mainly acoustic track, with great vocals, lyrics, and a melody a bit like The Smashing Pumpkins hit, “Perfect”, but only enough to sound like a slight nod.  The occasional harpsichord-like notes panned far to the right give it a certain ageless quality, and it’s a perfect ending to a near-perfect album.

            Overall, it’s summed up by the first word I said after listening to the album: “Wow”.  A soft strength resounds throughout the slower tracks, and some of the faster ones are dangerously catchy, without being too simple or standard to destroy the alternativeness that makes them unique.  You can stream and download Anastasia for pay-what-you-want, and more Spirits of Leo releases at: http://spiritsofleo.bandcamp.com (Bandcamp is my preferred music-download and finding site).  I can’t imagine the people Anastasia is dedicated to being anything short of proud.

Desert Love for Lonely Graves: A Shoegaze Sandstorm

            This is a review of the album Desert Love for Lonely Graves (2013) by the Italian band Weird. (period after name intentional), and the fifth review on this blog.

            This is yet another band I stumbled across during my random shoegaze searches.  Upon my first listen, I thought the instruments were all played by different people, and it came as a surprise that one person -- Marco Barzetti -- played and wrote almost everything on Desert Love for Lonely Graves.  This album makes me think of an extra-wide shot of a distant fight between two cowboys in the desert somewhere in Nevada, or in Mexico.  The soft yet overpowering reverb is something that takes a little while to get used to, but the opening track is your portal to understanding the rest of the album, if you aren’t used to alt-rock songs.
            It has a substantially dry sound: There aren’t any prevalent watery sounds like Slowdive or Ride, and the vocals are sometimes used like psych-rock drones.  This doesn’t qualify just as shoegaze, but I can’t think of a better description of its sound.  If Western-Shoegaze were a genre, this would be it -- or perhaps, considering the speed of the internet, this is it.  I found listening to the album in track-order an enjoyably immersive experience.
            Here’s my TBT:

            “Dark Was The Sky, Cold Was The Rain” opens the album with a track perfectly suited to introducing the rest of the album, filled to the brim with sounds of sand and maize.  Definitely listen to this one first, because it sets up the rest of the album perfectly.  It’s surrounded in storm-clouds of reverb, and has a thick atmosphere of an all-expansive yet concentrated energy.  Huge bass, long guitar and vocal trails, and slow yet powerful drums.  It’s like all the base-tracks are being fed a constant energy, that somehow translates without that horrid damp power-line hiss.

            “Echo & The Lullaby” follows, with psychedelic harmonies fed through a slightly spring-style reverb, and though the lyrics (or what little of them I can discern) are minimal, the real treat is the dancing vocals playing well with the instruments.  It’s downbeat, with hints of that post-rock HDR-like quality.  There are a few mastering blips in the track, but those won’t be too noticeable amidst the power feeding your ears.  The feedback at the end is to die for.

            “A New Beginning” is a Radiohead-reminiscent track, and begins the somewhat upbeat tracks in the album.  It’s the only track that was not fully written by Barzetti; Matteo D'Argenio co-writes the lyrics, though it’s almost impossible to discern any lyrics in this and all the other songs. The drums are slow and lamenting, the guitar and bass like a driving sea, and I’m always a glutton for falsetto.  The different melodic structures in the song perfectly compliment each other.  This might be my favourite track on the album.

            The 4th track, “Desert Love”, doesn’t have the same atmosphere as the rest of the album, and it’s the only track that breaks its considered mood.  It’s a little indie for my liking, and the vocals don’t have the same quality as the other songs, though there are some great violin-like sounds in this one.  It’s the quickest on the album, too.

            “The Moan” follows, with its beach-party-esque sound, which is abruptly broken (or perhaps complimented) by a metal-influenced drive.  Drums are amazing, especially the first time they really make themselves known.  Some heavily driven bass is underneath a cleaner track, and the loud parts of this song bring back memories of my metalhead phase.  The softer parts are very moody, and nighttime-ish.  Get ready for more psych-rock drones, lifts, and falls.

            “Sundive” is the second-last track, and the shoegaze influence is strongly audible.  The frequencies compliment each other very well, and it makes me think of the second half of the album’s title.  It feels a little long, but this album doesn’t really seem to be about individual tracks; it creates an overall parched-ness that quenches as it desiccates.

            “Druggirl” finishes the album at an astonishing 9:36.  It starts off with some finality-sounding driving power, which is present in a lot of the track, thankfully, and continues towards its total western-shoegaze destination.  The bass leads this one for sure.  It pretty much sums up the experience of the album, but with a tinge of a goodbye.  If the rest of the album were a movie, this would be the the walking into the sunset, and the big-letter credits.  I won’t spoil what comes after the fake-out endings.

            Overall, a great album, in quite possibly a new sub-genre.  By far, Weird. already has an iconic, shoegaze sandstorm of a sound, and you can check out http://weird1.bandcamp.com, for free streaming and downloading.  And get corn-chips and salsa.  You’re gonna want those with your sonic meal.

(is it): It Is

            This is a review of Dead Mellotron’s newest (and possibly last) EP, (Is It) (2012), and the fourth review (and first bonus review) here on Track-By-Track.

            I first heard Dead Mellotron when I was searching for shoegaze and dream pop bands on Bandcamp.  I’ve found quite a few great bands that way, which is likely a main reason why the huge labels are scared of the digital era.  I was still really forming my ideas about what shoegaze and dream pop are when I found Dead Mellotron’s 2009 release, Ghost Light Constellation.  This EP just about confuses the two sub-genres further, but in a good way.
            (is it) is a great gapless EP, after which you won’t know what hit you.  Even though there are just four tracks, its emotionally powerful effect is enough to merit loads more poetry than I could write into this review.  I’ll save it for the next Eliot, or Whitman, or a different blog of my own (egotism intended).
            In the meantime, here’s my TBT:

            The EP starts with “Fade In/Out”.  The first thing I wrote about this track was: It sounds like the sun, if it could speak in music.  This is dream-pop heaven, with warbling synth pads, dreamy vocals, and hard yet loving drums.  Dead Mellotron has done it again.  The harmonies bring the song up, but the synths drive you straight above the clouds.  Even though there have been some great tracks from Dead Mellotron before, this stands out as an amazing musical achievement for Dead Mellotron, like R.E.M.’s “The Great Beyond”, but solidly in the dream-pop sub-genre.

            “Weird Dreams” is the second track, which has some great shoegaze guitars, within the scope and breadth of its total dream-pop.  It’s like there’s a string section, without the strings, with the way the guitars and synths compliment each other.  The lyrics are sparse, and almost lo-fi-style.  The vocals sound pitch-corrected, but I couldn’t care less with the atmosphere this track brings.  The deep bass drives it home, and the drums, though obviously samples, remind of My Bloody Valentine.

            The third track, “Vacation”, is a vacation from lyrics and vocals.  It’s heavily compressed and modulated to the extreme, yet without the stonewalling that most songs and remasters have now.  It’s like a coda by Kevin Shields himself, with synths and guitars, even though I don’t know whether there are any synths, or if this is a track in which there really was a labyrinth of pedals near the guitarist's shoes.  It leads gently into the last track.

            “Vacation II” is a continuation of the previous track, but by no means instrumental.  The vocals return, as feint whispers of a mood, without form to really give shape to recognizable words.  Great choral-style samples, and just enough echo, mixed with a strong drumbeat and ocean of guitar; and the deep bass is more noticeable when they cut out.

            Overall, it's like a great tape of music was left out in the sun, and was warped, and that somehow made it better.  It’s instantly replayable, and each listen brings some new part of it to light.  This whole EP solidifies Dead Mellotron’s place in the shoegaze/dream pop crossover that few artists exemplify as well.  Sadly, this might be the last we hear from Dead Mellotron (they've announced through Facebook that their last gig is in July), so this might be a kind of Abbey Road.  You can download this EP for pay-what-you-want, and more from Dead Mellotron, at http://deadmellotron.bandcamp.com.  Like a room filled with sunlight and warmth, outside a snowy mountain (like the one on the cover), it’s a secretive and warm EP, with qualities that defy explanation.  This is why I love dream pop.

Day Lag

Since I was unable to post yesterday, I've decided to make up for the day lag with two reviews.  One is a review of Wierd.'s LP Desert Love for Lonely Graves, and the other, bonus review, is of Dead Mellotron's EP (is it).

   Enjoy,

     -Daniel Trainor-Mckinnon, Track-By-Track

Haunted: Far Beyond Dreams

            This is a review of the album Haunted (2013), by Another Green World, and the third review here on Track-By-Track.

            I don’t remember exactly how I found Another Green World’s music.  It might have been that I was searching for Brian Eno's album of the same name, or I might have been just randomly searching for glo-fi bands.  Whatever the case, I found the album In Dreams by Another Green World, which turned out to be the first album by Memphis-based solo-artist Alec West.
            Haunted marks a slight yet significant change in style for West’s project; a glo-fi/dream pop release, with some acoustic guitars, a more sparse sound, and a lighter equalization.  Though at times I miss the old pleasantly-muddled and nearly-stonewalled sound of Another Green World, this solidifies West’s progression towards a kind of high-end production that is at once addictive and more accessible to listeners.  Though not every track is catchy, the ones that are, are extremely repeatable. It goes beyond In Dreams, if not as a concept, as a more etherial and genre-defying album.
            Here’s my TBT:

            “Glowing” is an instrumental intro track.  Dream pop synths, and some lo-fi drums make it sound like a portable video-game’s title screen music.

            “Moment” is a slight break in style for Another Green World.  This time, some acoustic guitars, and surf-style riffs, along with the classic analogue noises and reverb-cushioned vocals that West developed his sound with.  It’s upbeat, and placed perfectly as a second track.  The lyrics (what I can hear of them) are sweet and dreamy.  It’s a chillwave/dream pop combo that’s upbeat from the start. The drums are light, and in that just right addictive equalization, and the ending is filled with a kind of nostalgic analogue atmosphere, only describable if you’ve heard old-school synth modulation, like West’s previous work.

            “Mosiac” comes next, with a darker tone more like In Dreams.  It feels a little long, but it’s in a very dreamy lo-fi/chillwave genre-rift, and the arcade-game noises are pleasing to the ear.  I still prefer the original heavily-compressed version on West’s Vision Quest EP, but it’s great as a sparser alternate version.  Synths abounds.

            The 4th track, “Blood”, starts with a sound like leftover brostep, and then pleasantly surprises with a totally surf/chillwave pastiche of upbeat acoustic guitars, catchy drums, and insanely catchy digital tones, all in mono (though the streaming version seems to be slightly stereo).  The vocals, as we of the shoegaze ilk are used to, are obscured; loads of reverb and delays make the track suitably and lovingly alternative.  It’s very Summery, and reminds me of Observer Drift’s Fjords (the first album reviewed here on Track-By-Track).  Oddly, what I think is the refrain: “Take my blood”, is in sharp contrast to the happy and optimistic tone of the music.  This is the hit on the album, despite the good quality of the whole album.

            “Memory” is a short instrumental.  It’s something I’ve found mainly with smaller and independent bands, that they still value (and rightly so) the instrumental and experimental songs, as well as the more-traditional ones with words.  This song is short enough to remember, and long enough to define somewhere in dream pop or glo-fi (which is what I regard as a slightly less upbeat and muddier chillwave, despite the standard definition which has them as the same sub-genre).

            “When” is the 6th track; gladly another Summery dream pop one.  The beat is very catchy, and it ends way too soon for my liking.  It’s addictive, and sounds like a Spring day, erupting with loads of atmosphere; loads of good ‘80s sounds, and a great ending.  The guitars are very slightly shoegazey, and the bass is definite dream pop.  It’s that song you hear on the radio in the old days, that you never knew the name of, and never did catch who did it.  Extremely etherial.

            “Scientific” is a chorus-pedal-driven song, and the beat, as usual with West’s work, draws the listener in immediately.  This one could do better with slightly less reverb on the verses’ vocals, but only from a lyrical point of view.  They create an atmosphere of uncertainty, within an otherwise grounding, certain, track.  It’s unusual for most bands to have reverb almost exclusively on the vocals, which is definitely a plus for anyone (like me) looking for originality.

            “Passion” starts off with old-school toms, and the vocals are at the forefront of this one.  It, like the rest of the album, is refreshingly non-pitch-corrected.  The lyrics are great, especially for a kind of love song, and really work with this style.  The chorus could have more elaboration, but it’s definitely a hook.  Classic new-wave guitars and synths make it a little nostalgic.

            “Forest”, the 9th track, is another instrumental, with more of that chillwave sound.  Loads of pitch modulation covered by reverb, or perhaps vice-versa.

            “Skyscraper” is slower, and a bit like Nexus Nooka from Another Green World’s earlier Nexus Nooka/Game Genie release.  This one has the clearest vocals, and more great textured drums.  The guitars make a great shoegaze-ish backing to the track, and when they are at the forefront, it’s like listening to a pool of guitar.

            As the penultimate track, “Geologist” is a return to that super-reverb sound.  This one sounds a bit like Yung Life (the second album reviewed on this blog).  It’s very 80s, and the synths are complimented by more surf-guitar.  It’s always refreshing to hear surf done right, and this fast-paced song is in that crossover between old and faux-old, in a good way.

            “Spectre” is the final track, oddly a darker instrumental in the glo-fi subgenre.  Imagine The Killers, with a dark-ambient producer.  It doesn’t quite feel like an end to the album, though it lives up the album’s name, unlike the album’s general optimistic yet otherworldly tone.

            Overall, this album has some pretty sweet chillwave/dream pop sounds, and some tracks pleasantly defy categorization in either of these sub-genres.  This is an experience in both sparse and textured sounds, and West is well on his way to amassing a new audience, at the same time as keeping older fans satisfied.  You can stream this album for free at http://synthrecords.bandcamp.com, and buy it in CD quality at that link; and for older Another Green World releases, you can check out http://anothergreenworld.bandcamp.com.  And for the full experience, play some old VHS tapes in the background, on a heavily magnetized tv.

Yung Life: '80s for the '10s

            This is a review of the eponymous LP Yung Life (2012), and the second review here on Track-By-Track.

            I first found out about this band from a Said Deep mixtape on Bandcamp.  I heard the first track off the album, and immediately wanted more.  This album was just the fix of upbeat new wave that I needed.
            This album (surprisingly, Yung Life's first LP) leaps immeasurably far ahead of the previous albums on their Bandcamp page, and is insanely repeatable.  The melodic construction of every song is heavily influenced by good 80s and early 90s pop, and is well done in pretty much every respect.  And most of the songs have great hooks.
            Yung Life's reliance on synths isn't to the point where there's nothing but generators on the album; great vocals, guitars, bass, and drums, make this an album based in the techniques of yesteryear, without being bogged down by old clichés.   I’m used to giving glowing reviews because there’s so much good music out there, and this album is no exception: It surpassed all of my expectations.
            Here’s my TBT:

            “Isn’t This” has some great lyrics, and the styles of the synths and guitars do each other justice.  Drums are good and grounding, and the vocal harmonies make this worthy of radio play in the 80s (the New Wave 80s stations, that is).  It’s about the dissolution of childhood into a more (or less) observant adulthood, and makes me think of memories that might not have existed.

            “Breaker” brings me right back to everything I used to love about rock on the radio, and the bass is an excellent floor to the track.  Hi-freq synths are magical, and the occasional stabs are perfectly in-keeping with the 80s vibe of the album.  I’m surprised that anything this well-produced is being offered for free.

            “Back For You” is addictive, and I’ve found myself wanting to sing along with the chorus when I’m walking down the street.  The touch of what sounds like a car horn has psyched me out a few times, and somehow enhances the track.  This is definitely one of the best tracks on the album, even though I’m tempted to say that of many others.

            “Pathfinder” has a great catchy opening, and the non-lyrical vocalizations remind me of M83’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.  The classic drum toms are perfect to bring back memories of those classic 80s songs, yet the song is not too nostalgic to resemble any specific song.  The solo is similarly classic.

            The 5th track, “Find Me”, is ultra-80s-pop.  It sounds like the opening of some movie not half-worth the song’s inclusion.  The lyrics aren’t complex, but the chorus is undeniably addictive, and the harmonies help make up for the lack of complexity.  The occasional guitar chord lead-offs give the track the atmosphere of the days when radio-music was still good (again, good radio-stations).

            “I’m Burning” is also not lyrically complex.  I find myself wanting more words, but the track is still good despite lyrical simplicity.  The synths drive this, though the guitar makes them even better.  Vocal reverbs are great, though I am a reverb glutton.

            “Hiding Girl” is a weaker song on the album.  The M83 vocal-snippets return, but the chorus’s lyrics detract from the song, because they sound too pop-standard.  As usual, the instruments and singing are done like pros, but there is one little sample that neatly pans left at around 3 minutes in, that distracts me from the rest of the song.

            The aptly-named “90s Dreams” is a return to the album’s overall quality.  Though some parts of the song are cut-in by other parts a little abruptly, it sounds somewhat fitting, because the album is mainly in a retro-style; it brings back memories of analogue editing.  Not much lyrical complexity, but the hook is great, and the classic shift in key near the end brings me to more nostalgia for songs I forgot I listened to.

            “Holy” is a watery track (chorus-pedals and other pitch modulation), and the lyrics are finally more complex.  The part where most of the instruments cut out is done expertly, and the bass and guitar sound like something off of Lauper’s greatest hits.  It’s refreshing that so many tracks have great natural-sounding harmonies, instead of that annoyingly pitch-corrected cack we hear in most so-called modern pop.

            The final track, “Over Time in Time”, surprises with its transcendence.  It’s a definite ending to this strong album.  Despite a brief blip that likely only audiophiles (like I) will notice, the laser-style and hi-freq synths give it a great feeling, and the lyrics harken back to “Isn’t This”.  The drums have just the right energy to give the other instruments a perfect place in the whole thing.

            Considering all that this album has: Its surprisingly great vocals, its classic guitar and drums, the ground-level yet prominent bass, the synths that make you want to rent out a Moog just for the experience, and its pay-what-you-want price-tag (as of writing this review); you should give a listen before you have to tell your friends you haven't heard of that band.  You can get this shockingly good album at: http://yunglife.bandcamp.com, and links to their most recent single is on their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/#!/yunglifeband).  And then you should rent out a surprisingly good old-school movie like Quick Change, and make a night of it.