Myracle Brah
Bleeder

(Not Lame)

notlame.com

Andy Bopp seems to have recharged his batteries and the fourth Myracle Brah album finds the band diving back into experimenting with sonic texture to recast Bopp's classic song structures in intriguing new forms. Since the band's 20 song classic power pop debut, which was originally a side project for the leader of Baltimore's Love Nut, Bopp has struggled somewhat with deciding what Myracle Brah is supposed to be. On the second album, Platespinner, he made things heavier and tried on different production styles and a general darker feel to the music. This generated a mixed reaction; I didn't think that there were nearly as many strong songs, but found the change in direction to be exciting. Album # 3, The Myracle Brah burrowed a niche between the first two albums and suffered accordingly – while there was some fine stuff on the disc, there were no outstanding tunes and the indecision as to whether to churn out the pure pop or move into the murkier territory of the preceding record made the disc a frustrating affair.

Here, Bopp shows no such hesitation. And he has the best batch of songs at his disposal since the debut. Using the studio as an instrument, Myracle Brah has come up with one of the finest blends of psychedelia and power pop – and by psychedelia, I don't mean recreations of Tomorrow and Pretty Things, et. al. Instead, I mean providing different textures and atmospheres to songs written in classic pop form. Though the production looms large, it never overwhelms the delights within.

The album opens with "Song 37", which sets the tone. After a sustained feedback squall, the percussion kicks in – the drums are looped, kind of similar to the way Flaming Lips have been using loops, and eerie keyboard noises lurk in the background. Bopp's vocals have a slight echo. Guitars peek through the murk. The song then spontaneously fades into the more familiar pop territory of "Independence Day". Bopp sing-songs the lyrics under big pillows of acoustic guitars, before hitting the simple chorus tagline, "Doesn't it feel the same for you". The song features not one, but two memorable bridges, one comprised of a brief litany of background harmony vocals and the other a lead guitar interlude. The song brings together a large sound with an intimate feeling.

"They Hear" disembodies Bopp's voice and starts with a frenzy akin to first album Cheap Trick. The use of dynamics here is fantastic, as the smash it up mini-verses are contrasted by a pretty guitar filigree with Bopp's voice gliding on top. The Joe Parsons (drums)/Dennis Schocket (bass) rhythm team really drives this song forward. The band rocks in happier fashion on "Orange Shirt", a chugging charmer that is a compositional cousin of The Posies' "Grant Hart" -- equally as rocking, but with more pop smarts.

Fans of Love Nut will have to grapple with the remake of that band's "Misfortune", titled here "Misfortune #1". The song is slowed down and given an acoustic treatment, with guest Steve Sandkuhler tapping on his congas. This is a very successful reinvention. The song "Kane Wasn't Able" has a similar instrumental bed – this song, however, is as relentlessly downbeat as any in the Brah catalog. The lyrics are a pithy take on a bad romance ("I thought I'd wear you out/you wore me down"), the skeletal melody integrated with Sandkuhler's conga playing. This is song definitively captures the feeling of ‘what went wrong here?".

Not all of the songs depart so much from the original Brah game plan. Fans of the first and third albums should easily embrace typical Myracle Brah pleasures like "Superwannabe" and the megahook on the ballad "Wasted". The fact that these songs are not so heavily cast in the studio tricks that are apparent on other songs is telling. The production gloss (or echo, or muck, or fuzz, depending on the song) was not random, but thought out. This just adds to the quality of this effort, as every song is rendered for maximum effect. A terrific album that pulls together all of Andy Bopp's talents into one package.

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Queens Of The Stone Age
Songs For The Deaf

(Interscope)

interscope.com

Their debut was an introduction – a taste of a new direction for hard rock or heavy metal or stoner rock or whatever you want to call it. The follow up was an exploration, trying to see what the boundaries were for the style they were establishing. On their third album, Queens Of The Stone Age know who they are, know what they can do, and feel no need to play by anyone's rules. Whether this platter represents any artistic leap forward matters not a whit – on this disc, they are on a mission to rock like fuck. They succeed like few rock bands have succeeded in years.

Not since Blue Oyster Cult, perhaps, has there been a band that has managed to balance intelligence and kick ass ability like the Queens do. Moreover, the band continues to give props to both modern sleek rock riffing with bits that show they've done their homework – not just Zep and Sabbath inspiration, there's some good ol' fashioned late-‘60s heavy blooz on here.

Then there are songs that just mix up everything. "Another Love Song" is a heavily tarted up garage rock tune (check out the brief drum breaks before the chorus – so mid-‘60s) that gains added dimension thanks to the pretty ornate embellishments. First and foremost, haunting backing vocals enrobe the entire track. The lead vocals are pushed way up in the mix (perhaps the only track where guitars spend a lot of time in the background). By so doing, the melodic thrust of the tune becomes primary, emphasizing the poppiest qualities of the song. Which isn't to say there is no guitar work – the guitar lead counters and enhances the melody. This song would have sounded swell if they just bashed it out, but the treatment here makes it an otherworldly classic.

Indeed, this album is stuffed with big hooky rockers. Josh Homme's vocals are the sweetness on top of the rocking maelstrom that is "Gonna Leave You". This just works variations on the same riff into a melodic chorus. Listen to how crisply Grohl drums on this track – more Bun E. than Bonzo, which gives this number the right snap. Lanegan and Homme dual away on guitar, like Thin Lizzy at their most violent, on "First it Giveth". Homme sings in a falsetto as the song builds on the dual lead guitar buzzing, building the tension leading into the mantra-like refrain that reminds me slightly of Free. On a different buzzing tip, "Go With the Flow" rockets in the verses like the more mature side of Buzzcocks or Jets To Brazil, a repeating keyboard part ratcheting up the intensity while guitars swoop in from all angles.

One of the joys of Queens since their debut is that they always manage to swing a little. On "No One Knows", the band bounces in a crisp blues-rock fashion (this would sound cool next to late-‘70s Zeppelin or Z. Z. Top) -- the twist comes with a throughly modern hard rock chorus, which rises above the hard guitars. And when push comes to shove, the band can break out the hammer and tongs. The opening cut, "You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, but I Feel Like a Millionaire" is simple screaming hard rock frenzy, and "Song for the Dead", with Mark Lanegan taking the lead vocal, is heavy without any plodding, careening out of the gate before settling into a mid-tempo head bang with ominous backing vocals and tiny bits of guitar and bass wank every time the music stops.

In essence, Queens Of The Stone Age distill heavy metal, sifting out the laughable and pretentious elements that have plagued it for years, hold on to the good stuff and then add their superior songwriting, singing and instrumental talents to make music that redefines the genre by transcending it. Moreover, the initial pressings of the disc come with a bonus DVD showing the band, sans Lanegan, ripping it up at the Troubador in Los Angeles. It's even more bang for your buck from the ultimate bangers.

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Fuzzbubble
Demos, Outtakes And Rarities

(Not Lame)

notlame.com

Sometimes comparisons are just a generalization, thrown out to give you an idea of what terrain an artist is exploring. The names Jellyfish, Redd Kross and Cheap Trick are often used in reviews of power pop bands, and we all know from experience that the reviews are frequently off the mark. That is not the case with Fuzzbubble – those three bands form the trinity of their aesthetic. They combine the slick ornate approach of Jellyfish with the Cali rocking energy of Redd Kross and then mix in the turbocharged updating of classic Beatles/Move/Who pop-rock in a manner reminiscent of the Trick.

Though the title might imply this is a scattershot affair, in actuality, this seemingly presumptuous collection (the band has only released one prior album) trumps the debut in all areas. While Fuzzbubble's premier effort had a few gems, it seemed too fussed over. Not that this disc is full of raw recordings, but the balance between sweet and crunchy is much better here.

There is a three song sequence on the second half of the disc that is just pop nirvana. Chiming in with spirited lead guitar, "Bummin' Around" totally captures the Redd Kross vibe that the band, in the swell liner notes, says they were going for. (NOTE: The Fuzzsters were pals with the late Eddie Kurziel, the superb guitarist and once-in-a-while vocalist in the ‘90s incarnation of Redd Kross). This song is a celebration of doing nothing that fails on one level -- it is nearly impossible to avoid at least shaking your head in time with it, and that counts as doing something, doesn't it? "Happy Now" is so 1966 Beatles good, another number with a verse/chorus combo that smacks you in the chops and doesn't let go. The vocals have a raw quality that give this song just a bit of a sting - it's not just a fun pop song, they really want to know if you're happy now. After these bursts, "Bittersweet Tragedy" is a more stretched out number, a slightly sunkissed take on the moody mid-tempo tunes Superdrag does so well. The chorus really weaves in the type of melody that would fit either an R & B chestnut or a rock and roll classic.

The Jellyfish vibe comes out strongest on "Allison Gray". Sparkling harmonies throughout and a retro-but-not-that-retro sound and clever lyrics. The song is a catalog on how to work little variations on a central musical idea, so that you have three minutes of utter freshness. Speaking of Jellyfish, former ‘fisherman Roger Manning contributes his Moog magic to "Roboteen", which compares favorably to sci-fi power pop classics of the past like 20/20's "Alien" and the king of this sub-sub-sub-genre, "L5" by Fools Face.

The real kicker with this collection is that these tunes were recorded between late 1994 and 1997. Which means that this is merely emptying out the Fuzzbubble closet. And it portends well for whatever new things they are creating in their garage/laboratory/studio, hopefully as you are reading this very sentence.

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Spoon
Kill The Moonlight

(Merge)

mergerecords.com

On last year's Girls Can't Tell, Spoon made a large leap from their promising but inconsistent first two albums. Their normally nervous fragmented approach that was at turns compelling and frustrating gave way to slower tempos, more attention to layered arrangements and an effort to make full songs, not just throwing out any idea that came to mind. Adding to the complete wonderfulness was how the more mature take on the tunes benefitted leader Britt Daniel's words – the songs were no longer exercises in empty wordplay and the record was not just catchy, it had feeling.

Daniel and crew don't rest on their laurels, which would be laudable, except for the fact that a lot of the bad habits of their earlier records are revisited. The band verges on dilletanteism, trying a variety of stylistic and instrumental techniques. In the process, a lot of songs sound incomplete – a nifty trick or two, stretched out to two or three minutes in length, waiting for a bridge, a chorus, something.

This is best exemplified on "Paper Tiger", on which a nubbin of a melody is married to an electronic music bed that may have been taken from a Brian Eno or Kraftwerk reject pile. The song goes nowhere – same tempo, same effects, and minimal embellishments. Basically, Daniel composed a great intro and got stuck. The opening track "Small Stakes" is cut from similar cloth, using a repetitive keyboard line and minimal percussion to no end. This song exemplifies the difficulty of using repetition as a musical motif without a strong rhythmic presence. Bands like Wire and The Fall always rely on more than repeating the same chords over and over – they make sure that their songs have a strong bass and drums thrust, which avoids the stagnate feel that traps some of these tunes in a cage.

Wire comes to mind on a few tracks, but other styles are tried on for size. The piano part on "Someone Something" hearkens back to the early days of Roxy Music. However, the song never takes on a full life due to the restrained rhythm section, who play as if they fear they'll overwhelm the solitary musical idea that has to support the whole song. Of course, if they cut loose, it might have been a better song. One of the better tracks on the disc, "All the Pretty Girls Go to the City" uses edgy guitar and a circular piano part and sounds like a cousin of Chris Isaak's "Dancin". This song actually moves into different places, and the slight variations on the dramatic chords are so effective. This is closer to what Daniel accomplished on the last album. It also features his best guitar work.

Another tune that meets the standards of the last album is "The Way We Get By". Here, the simple instrumental lines flow seamlessly, the piano dominating, augmented by handclaps and great bass lines. The lyrics are pretty meaningless, but they sound great, in the tradition of guys like Marc Bolan and Ric Ocasek: "We go out in stormy weather/we rarely practice discern/we make love to some weird sin/we seek out taciturn". And fans of the more rocking Spoon of the late-‘90s will dig tracks like "Jonathon Fisk".

For years Spoon had so much potential. What was amazing was not that the band realized the potential, but they did so by taking an unexpected turn in musical direction, without losing their fundamental nature. Over the course of repeated spins, I'm finding more virtues here, but it is a lot of effort to make for an album that is pretty superficial. Though it's not the disaster it initially sounded like, it's really a step backwards.

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