Velviter - The Swimming Song I love banjos. Sufjan and Le Loup both make fantastic use of them. Good cadences on it, I like it. The bass just sorta does nothing once it comes in, but the banjo creates all continuity that's needed. Acoustic rounds things out nicely, voice just floats (lol) along. There's something...Eastern, in the way the guitars pivot around that bass note. I like the way he occasionally repeats a line, just to emphasize and cadence on it. It's not like your other stuff, at all. It hops along nicely, good fiddle solo. Hopping, that's the word. I can't say the drummer does a good job, but I like the cadence of it all. Nice tune.
The Futureheads - Worry About It Later Guitar chords, loose, go over the piano and drums, creating something...exciting...random harmonies, and now building kit. It's a loose sort of way to start a groove on a song, and even when the drums switch, it messes around on the toms. But the voice really helps create a rhythm, creating rhythms where other notes are held. Guitar work is strange but exciting. I like the use of the intro in a chorus fashion, it's exciting. The whole thing has an energy, which is so exciting since it gets pretty sparse. They're pretty exact, they have to be. It creats a precision, and like I said, an excitement. That guitar right before the chorus plays some damn strange intervals. With tambourine adds a nice touch. Um, that guitar breakdown after the chorus is just weird. They don't play there instruments in a normal...tonal sense. It's always somewhat dissonant, and the bass creates that feeling too. The drums are echoey and in the back, as in the guitar, so we follow the voices and get pushed along by the bass.The voice work is fantastic, but the actual notes that each instrument is playing are strange. It's not bad, it'll just take some getting used to. I think I like them.
The Futureheads - Favours for Favours Again, high strange guitar. Nice bassline, creates great percussive rhythm. Great drums to work with it. I like the held note by the guitar once things start escalating, compliments everything well. Part of why this group seems so floaty to me is that the recording is pretty echoey, and the songwriting is...random. It shifts interestingly, and fun...and there are great complimenting parts and strange lines, but it seems to just flop down like some sort of groovy whale on the beaches of my ears. I mean, it's groovy and all, but it's a fucking whale. Vocals in chorus section, including backup, really do it well. Bands rarely use vocals this well, I think. Great bass work, rhythm guitar too. Drums are still just sort of there, however apt they are in parts (i.e., verse/intro). Nice short songs. I like them, but they'll take a while to get used to.
Caesars - Fun and Games That's really beautiful, great use of acoustics, one melodic and one rhythmic. Stupid lyrics, and stupid bongo. Nice harmonies. Not the smoothest transition to the drum heavy part. It's...unexciting, man. Nice synth solo, but this groove does nothing for me. It's...one-dimensional. It has some good parts, I'll admit.
Kasabian - Secret Alphabets Cool, more Kasabian. Lovely dones, tonal and then just rhythmic, switching between the two to create an uncoiling feeling helped by the cymbol, and acoustic twills. That's a bass, wow! That's some great bass work. Sonically, it's a bit strange, but it's like...red dusty room. Nice vocal line, very nice; descends over the progression really elegantly. Great rhythm. Guitar bits are nice, that one sitar was nice. Later in the verse, guitar plays for a little bit on 8th notes, and fades out. They just throw wonderful things in and take them out and put other songs in, while the song goes on like a train. I like that about them. That's the same guitar part in the breakdown, then synth goes on top of it. Now electric things. They have a fantastic sense of rhythm, how to make it memorable, and the notes and lines support each other well, like that wailing synth over the unison descending synth line, with vocals and backups under that too. That's just elegant. Beautiful, orchestrated, well-though, well-executed. I really love this band!
Del tha Funkee Homosapian / Dinosaur Jr. - Missing Link Good groove, nice bassline. Screaming guitar works with the spoken word line. Ok solo...man, it's just sitting there. The two guitars are having a cool conversation, trading of lines, which I like, but it's nowhere near the front. Eh, not varied / exciting enough for me, and the production isn't great.
Caesars - Strawberry Weed That's a brilliant baseline, great use of acoustic guitar, and finally you're using the drums right. It all flows brilliantly. Nice melody over everything, it gives a similar call which we can come back to. Vocals somewhat reference it. Love the cycling strawberry weed line. Cute clapping, but they're doing a few subtle things to keep the line going: guitar bits, bits of backup vocals, and yes, clapping. It hasn't gotten boring yet. Nice harmonies, subtle but creating cool new tones on the verse. Like the synth introduced for strawberry weed part. Great bassline, still, man. Hehe, chromatic bubbly synth line there, in and out. Just cool bits. Drums get better to support the guitar + drums part, and bass and claps move it up. Great, great sense of growth there. We're back home in this riff that, unlike a lot of electropop, doesn't get repetitively irritating. A lot of the stuff you have in here borders on irritating electropop. Fun, man.
The Clientele - Bookshop Casanova Cool percussion, really tight, using both bass, guitar, and drums. There's a sense of tension, which the violins then release, in that rising and falling line. Great sense of flow, in that decision. Bassline supports everything well, violins play an atmospheric role. Vocals could do more than ride a few convenient eighth notes. Part after chorus is nice, going back to the first versish part, and now the second versish part with swelling synth. I hope they use it to create more anticipation for the chorus...which they do. Violins and bass, and drums, rise to the chorus, but then...it's just more material. It's not fundamentally different, I don't feel like I've arrived anywhere until the descending part. It's not bad, but I'd prefer something at the top of the mountain I was just carried to the top of. Nice solo. Very tight though, very beautiful and well-thought. I like it a lot, I do!
Caesars - Soul Chaser EXCITING SYNTHY STUFF WOO it's so poppy and wonderful. Vocal line creates continuity, when it goes to the minor in the verse, that's a good thing to do. Bassline does...jackshit. But the genius lies in the synth and guitar use, as well as some vocality. A million leaves are falling into vocal harmonies. Seems to get more serious the second time around for the verse. Great vocals, wow. Vocals and guitar do a great, but subtle, job on the million leaves part. It's another one of those songs that just goes to the top of a hill and goes to the bottom just to do it again, and there's a steep breakdown on the other side that you then travel up to get back to the top of the mountain and it's awesome because you've achieved something. Classy vocals + drums. I'd prefer if things were more clearly stated, as the sound and form is a bit mushy, if you know what I mean. But it's still great and fine. Now I get it, so NO MORE CAESARS.
Beck - Burro Cute unison between trumpet and...strings? Acoustic sets a great rhythm, as good as any drum. Hits by strings, and a bit of trumpet, add a lot to an otherwise silent verse. There's a symmetry in the unison line: held notes to rhythmic notes to held notes, low to high to low. His voice is fine, I guess. The echo is a good effect. He varies the acoustic nicely. It hops along. Simple and nice. Well executed, subtle in parts. Just a nice groove, in all.
East Side Boyz/OutKast/Lil Jon/Mello/Slimm Calhoun - Last Call Oh man that's a great groove just from the voice. Just...great rhythm and syllables. That's a pretty awful beat...but they play with percussion a bit, which makes it better. But the horns...ugh ugh ugh! It's made up by the voice itself. It's just...a few different artists using their techniques to make a series of very different, but each really exciting, voice lines. That's saying nothing of the rhymes themselves, which are great, if sort of meaningless. It's a fun ride, and there are moments of real genius. And end it with a guitar on that horn line. Pretty nice.
Yeasayer - 2080 oooh, nice noise. Cycling guitar line, added percussion and voices and overarching noise movements. It's exciting, it's pregnant. The drums give it a direction, and the guitar lines give it a rhythmic purpose, but this all chugs under the soaring noise. It's a great effect. Voice line is pretty good. Great basslines and guitarlines, if a bit overcomplex. Cello is classy, man. That bit of percussion on the e and a of the beat fade in and out, like a bit of the noise which has come down from the sky to play. They're great musicians, definitely. Chorus is a bit muddy, and a tad abrupt. Breakdown...where have I heard this before? Anyway, that's exciting, really exciting. Lines of...a clarinet? under that yeah! yeah! dadadadadadad etc. vocal line (nice symmetry and flow in that, like a waterfall). Did someone I know cover this? The chorus is unremarkable, which is sad. I just don't get anything out of it, but it's mostly genius in other parts. Really cool.
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