Song, by Toad

Navigator – Bad Children

When I first started playing this album around the house Mrs. Toad’s series of reactions were instructive.  ‘What the fuck is this discordant shite?’ was the first.  By the third time around she was asking ‘Who are these guys?’  Then where they were from.  Then she was looking them up on the internet.  The Mrs. Toad Seal of Approval is a rare and elusive thing but Braden J. McKenna, from Bone Valley, Utah, has it.

To be fair to her initial, somewhat horrified reaction, the production values on this record are, deliberately or otherwise, as rough as a bear’s arse.  There are even times when all the crackling of amps and peaking of microphone channels threaten to overwhelm even my own somewhat obsessive taste for this kind of low-fi style.  It was, as a matter of fact, all recorded in bedrooms and living rooms, so the phrase ‘bedroom production’ is quite literal in this case.  Ten songs, half an hour, a simple but excellent album.  McKenna has recorded pretty much all of it himself, bar a very little cello and trumpet, occasional guitar help, and a couple of different drummers helping out.

Good tunes are good tunes, however, and as low-fi indie rock goes, this is really good.  What leads the album, for the most part, is the following: firstly, a fairly constant rhythm, which comes from the guitar playing as well as how the songs themselves are written, not just the drums; secondly, a wailed, emotive vocal rendered somewhat distant and smothered by the production values; and thirdly, a constantly growling electric guitar.

The guitar has just a little country in it at times, especially when picked, but that frequently gives way to impassioned, distorted solos in tandem with crashing drums and mewling keyboards.  The lyrics can be difficult to make out most of the time, but when those crescendos build there is a wounded anger to the noise, albeit muffled and disguised by the recording style.  It gives the strong feeling of an album recorded in the grip of confused, retaliatory hostility born of misunderstandings, miscommunications and relationships that threated click, but never quite did.  That may be nonsense, but that’s the impression I get from the music, and I honestly can’t understand enough of the lyrics to contradict it.

It doesn’t come across entirely as an album of alientation though, despite that impression being very strong in a couple of the tracks.  There are comfortable, happy places to be found, providing a reassuring balance to the less harmonious moments.  As its centrepiece, the truly gorgeous, acoustic Work is Done breaks the wall of fuzz at the perfect time, and with the final two tracks, Jesus Christ and Found a Fox, it winds down with a lovely sigh of acceptance.  A job well done indeed, and an album perfectly executed.

Navigator – Danger Dragon

Navigator – Work is Done

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My Latest Novel – Deaths & Entrances

I’ve been wrong about My Latest Novel in the past, and consequently I am a little wary of pronouncing any sort of definitive judgment on this album, but there’s only so long you can dodge a review, so I might as well inscribe my line in the sand here as anywhere.  The way it worked for me with Wolves was that for all I found the overall record a little unremarkable at first, there were one or two tracks I fell for immediately.  It took months, but I came to genuinely love the whole album.

In the case of their new effort Deaths and Entrances I have certainly found a good fistful of truly excellent songs; the two I’ve linked to below, I Declare a Ceasefire and A Dear Green Place, are truly gorgeous, and the first half contains some stuff I really do think is fantastic.  I am still no more than half there with the rest of the album though, I must confess.

It sounds, in all honestly, an awful lot like the last one in many respects.  Given I love the last one this is no criticism per se, and there has been incremental evolution.  It is not, however, as musically adventurous from one song to the next as Wolves was, and this is not necessarily a good thing.  The Broken Records album has been crticised – and it’s a criticism I agree with to an extent – for bulding to a grand crescendo in every song on the record, and although this doesn’t quite do so in the same style, exactly, the trajectory of each song is nevertheless very similar.

What this does to an album is rob it slightly of an emotional path of its own.  It somehow seems to have the result, despite it all having a very consistent sound, of making this sound more like an accumulation of songs than a single, coherent album, which works well as a collection.  It’s like an anthill – there may be lots of different ants within, all amazing little creatures in their own right, but the anthill itself can be something orders of magnitude more impressive in its own way, which each doing its own job within.  Unfortunately, because these ants all have the same basic design, the album ends up coming across as simply a bunch of ants rather than as an interdependent, unified colony.

I’ll wait though, and give this a few more listens, because as I said right at the beginning, I’ve been wrong about these guys in the past.

My Latest Novel – I Declare a Ceasefire

My Latest Novel – A Dear Green Place

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Lord Cut Glass – Lord Cut Glass

It’s funny, you really can hear so much of the Delgados in this.  Given that, after Emma Pollock’s solo album last year, this is the product of the other half of that split, that’s no surprise of course, but as a fan of the Delgados it is quite strange to hear so much of their sound in something that is in many ways rather different.

Looking at the respective solo work and then back at the Delgados themselves it seems mean to say, but the removal of Pollock’s earnest piano balladry has done this music no harm at all.  I quite like her solo stuff, but the playfulness spilling out of this record is an absolute fucking joy.  It’s pop, for sure, for those of you who consider that label a slight insult (I can be the same myself, not that I’m all that proud of it), it has some jaunty circus licks, a touch of broadway in a sense, it sprawls about all over the shop, and is generally really rather splendid.

Lyrically it actually reminds me somewhat of Aidan Moffat’s recent album How to Get to Heaven From Scotland.  It’s not quite so up front about its verbal virtuosity, but the combination of dish towel navel-gazing and sly humour is definitely quite similar.  I can’t imagine Moffatt referencing Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree though, although in all honesty it’s far from impossible.

The rhythm drifts from the borderline military thrum, as illustrated on the cover, to the more orchestral pace we know from the Delgados, in particular from their later material.  That’s a broad generalisation though, because in general the overall variety of this album is one of its great strengths.  Orchestral waves do wash across it from time to time, but it’s not unusual for the accordion to be left to get on with things alone.  I like albums which can do this, particularly, as this one does so well, when the lyrical material is able to confidently make you laugh without detracting from the sincerity of the next song.  Songs like Picasso, for example, are musically quite basic despite the swelling arrangements towards the end, whereas other songs have absolutely everything thrown at them, including the kitchen sink.

It doesn’t do me much credit to admit that I had no idea this was coming, honestly, despite its appearing on a label only based about an hour away.  I actually had to be introduced to an album made in Glasgow by a publicity company based in the States, of all things, in the form of Team Clermont.  Still, no matter how I finally got here I’m glad I did, because Lord Cut Glass is an inventive joy of an album.  One of the surprise hits of the year so far, as far as I’m concerned.

Lord Cut Glass – Look After Your Wife

Lord Cut Glass – You Know

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Auld Lang Syne – Midnight Folly

I’ve been humming and hawing about actually penning this review for some time and the reason is basically this: I thought the single Where My Fortune Lies was a stunning piece of work – beautiful artwork and, most importantly of course, a truly great song.  Midnight Folly, on the other hand, I am finding a less than arresting album, and I thought it would be a bit mean to laud the band in one post, and then insult them in the next.  Still, that’s the nature of reviews I guess, and as a certain Mr. Brown has recently discovered, you can never entirely escape your honest personal opinions of a record, no matter how much you might have wanted to like it to begin with.

Actually, despite my whingeing, Midnight Folly starts very well, with the thumping Long Ago a stirring addition to the very noble tradition of Western-tinged murder ballad with its narrative roots in uncompromisingly merciless storylines of frontier legend, which are themselves coloured by murderous tales common in old folk music.  It’s the kind of song which would sit very well in the generally territory mapped out loosely by the likes of Smog, Calexico,  the Willard Grant Conspiracy and Richmond Fontaine.

This is also pretty much the territory inhabited by the rest of the album in terms of musical style.  Slide guitar, baritone delivery, harmonica, and a little bit of brass backing make this album pretty firmly ‘of a type’ with a great deal of other music released in the last five to ten years.  For the most part this is hardly a problem of course, because it’s a style I absolutely love, so provided the songwriting delivers it with some elan then this isn’t an issue.  What I struggle with, unfortunately, is that for the most part the melodies of the album don’t grab my attention, no matter how many dozens of times I have now listened to this record.

Bob Dylan often doesn’t really deal in ‘choruses’, so to speak, but he has a rolling musical signature in his delivery most of the time, even when singing long, verbose, narrative songs.  Long Ago barely has a chorus, but it too is punctuated by a repeated musical signature.  When Smog were at their most hushed and plain, say in the likes of A River Ain’t Too Much to Love, there may not have been much obvious structure to the songs but there was a always a rolling, repeated refrain, even when its cycle was unusually long for a pop song.

What there seems to be lacking in these songs, for all their excellent style and lyrical strength, is something as seemingly superficial as a hook.  So far, and this is of course an entirely subjective thing, I have failed to find anything in most of these tracks to stick in my head; the music often seems to lack a distinctively individual personality from one track to the next.  I often find myself wondering if I was listening to the crescendo of the previous song, or if this was a new one with a bit more guitar.  Consequently, even after dozens of listens, large parts of the middle of this album simply failed to separate themselves out to me, and I still couldn’t identify the specific song I was listening to a lot of the time.

The genius of things like Where My Fortune Lies is that as well as everything else, it works as a joyous pop song, pure and simple.  For me, a lot of this album does not actually achieve that, rendering all the other good things about it somewhat redundant.  I find myself loving songs like Long Ago, My First Soul, Where My Fortune… and to an extent Four Rivers and that is just about it, sadly, because I really wanted to love this album.

Auld Lang Syne – Where My Fortune Lies

Auld Lang Syne – My First Soul

MySpace | More mp3s | Buy the album from Viper Bite Records

Gobble Gobble – Neon Graveyard

Gobble Gobble come out of Edmonton in Canada, part of a small but apparently quite determined experimental music community down there under the Hydeaway umbrealla who seem to be doing some very good things.  I was sent a CD sampler by this group a while ago, and it was interesting – it certainly showed that there seems to be a good bit of collective energy forming in that part of the world.

Cecil Frena, who sent me this, has assembled an eclectic and fascinating album of scratchy electronica which casts its blanket of crackling subversion over a few different genres.  This makes Neon Graveyard, for me, rather more than just another collection of indie pop songs smothered in electronic clicks and whizzes and a constant hiss of artificially created background noise.  Yes, admittedly, there is a lot of that particular technique to be found on this album, but it is never treated as the raison d’etre of the whole piece, as can happen in this particular part of the musical landscape.

What defines Neon Graveyard in my eyes is actually more the undercurrents than the surface eddies.  Songs like O Sacred Dandruff and Piles of Salt seem to actually take a lot of cues from contemporary R’n'B, particularly in the style of the vocal delivery.  They sound almost like R’n'B songs which have been put through a rather severe cycle in your dishwasher and this, you will probably not be surprised to hear, I like.  At other times a form of Gameboy pop swirls into focus, then this same approach fixes itself to an interlude of piano (Ash Fountain, for example) which sounds superfically far more like classical than anything you’d happen across in an indie pop landscape.

This flitting from one underpinning genre to another, all held together by a more uniform style at the surface, gives the album both a really solid coherence and a happy variety. The style, in fact, fits the title very well indeed. I like.

Gobble Gobble – Meteor Eschat

Gobble Gobble – Eggs in Carrion

MySpace | More mp3s |I have no idea where you can buy this, incidentally, but try getting in touch via MySpace

Jocky Venkataraman – Can’t Go There, An Introduction to Jocky Venkataraman

Jocky Venkataraman is an intriguing proposition.  I have been informed that he is one of Frightened Rabbit’s favourite artists, having recently appeared as a support act at their sold out acoustic show at the Captain’s Rest.  Well, having digested this album a couple of times, which you can download for free here, it’s safe to say that he’s found a pretty fond spot with me as well.  I’ve never seen him live, though I am now eager to do so, and this is indeed my first exposure to his music but there’s something of the Daniel Johnston’s about his music and that really can never be a bad thing.  Perhaps it’s the genius lyrical content which makes him stand out from the crowd?  Perhaps it’s the almost child like delivery of the vocals?  Or perhaps it that there are a lot of really catchy tunes on this record, which make it instantly appealing.  This record is quirky and diverse to say the least.  It’s challenging for sure.  ButI think it’s a gem.  He releases his second LP ‘Motorways Died Young/This is Not Food, This Isn’t Even Food’ through Glasgow label Wiseblood Industries this year. You’re either going to love this or hate it.  Either way,  enjoy.

Parcel People (Xmas Eve)

Airport Marches – Jocky Venkataraman

Never Gets Dark In June – Jocky Venkataraman

Finn – The Best Low-Priced Heartbreakers You Can Own

Well now, I’ve already written about this album over at The Steinberg Principle but my readership is not anywhere near that of Mr Toad and I love this record, so I want to share it with you all.  This has been an interesting 2 weeks for me because I don’t really feel that the music I am writing about will necessarily appeal to the wider readership of songbytoad.  When Matthew first asked me to do this, I must admit that I was a little apprehensive.  This site doesn’t really cater for the majority of music that I love.  Nothing highlights this more than Matthew’s lack of knowledge of Elliott Smith.  So yes, I was apprehensive but I decided that perhaps I was being silly.  I love all sorts of music, so why wouldn’t the wider readership of songbytoad?  So it was with this mindset that I decided to proceed and hopefully the music I’ve been posting isn’t all miserable crap that nobody likes!

Anyways,  Finn is a German singer songwriter, please stay with me despite this, called Patrick Zimmer and is signed to Erased Tapes – home of the sublime Olafur Arnalds.   ‘The Best Low-Priced Heartbreakers You Can Own’ is his third album but is the first thing by him that I came across, mostly thanks to him being support to Olafur Arnalds on his last tour of the UK, and it’s a gem of an album.  There are 16 tracks on this album, which is a lot.  Or it seems a lot, but many of the tracks are short interludes and many of the songs themselves register under 3 and a half minutes in length.  The delicate beauty of this record is hard to describe.   But what really makes the record come to life are the lovely arrangements and intelligent intrumentation.  The handclaps at the end of ‘Julius Caesar’ are just the perfect end to a wonderful song though completely unexpected – perhaps why they make such an impact.  Finn’s voice is also something special and his use of 2 vocals on many songs, one an octave higher than the other, is a lovely touch which adds beautifully to the dynamics.  The name of this record could not be more prefect.  Go out and buy it and let Finn touch your heart.

Dew – Finn

Julius Caesar – Finn

The Wind Whistles – Animals Are People Too

The Wind Whistles are a band from Vancouver, Canada, who make rather sunny folk pop, with more than a little tinge of americana. This is the follow up the their debut album ‘Windowsills‘.

That album was one of my favorites of last year, and so it’s hard not to judge this in relation to the previous release. And whilst the first album is perhaps more immediate, with more obvious hooks and sing-along choruses, ‘Animals Are People Too’ is definitely a development. It’s still very accessible, but there’s a little more depth – a more prominent guitar and keyboard sound to the near acoustic recording of the debut. There’s some really nice subtle touches, like when the slide guitar and drums kick into ‘Bats in Flight’, or the chorus refrain of ‘The Fish and the Worm’ – which only appears once during the track, and so becomes more rewarding on each listen. It manages to create what so many bands fail to do – catchy songs, but with enough depth to them to keep you coming back for more.

The writing is really economical too – by that I mean each track does what it needs to do, and then moves on. Nothing ever outstays it’s welcome – only one going over the four minute mark. The whole thing bounces along with rolling drums and jaunty bass lines. Chutters described them as a more gentle Woodenbox, and I think that’s a pretty good reference point.

For me, what’s most interesting about the band is their approach to making music. Both this and the previous release are on Aaahh Records – the CD can be bought at full price from the website or at gigs, or the digital version can be downloaded on a pay what you want basis. (As an added incentive, a secret third album is made available for a minimum donation of $8).  Last time they played Edinburgh they were half way through a mammoth six month tour. They play again at the start of July (cough), and looking at the tour schedule they don’t seem to be cutting back any. From what I can tell they spend half a year working ‘proper’ jobs, saving money and recording an album, then once it’s ready they packs their bags again and spend the rest of the year touring to support the release. Aaahh records is by no means a major operation, this being only the sixth release. And so it really seems to be the band themselves organising the tours, financing it all themselves.

Really inspiring stuff.

The Wind Whistles – Bats In Flight

Cancel The Astronauts – I Am The President Of Your Fanclub (And Last Night I Followed You Home)

Ok, so after the tom foolery of Friday night (yes I do know Hasta La Vista is not Italian for goodbye) and the exceptional Live in Edinburgh by Bart (may I say Bart that that was the most comprehensive Live in Edinburgh ever sir) it’s time to get a little serious and write about some proper music. Normally I’d be reviewing this over at my own blog The Steinberg Principle, but Matthew’s crazy decision to let me, Bart and Dylan loose on his page is CTA’s lucky day as I have 2 weeks of mainstream blogging to enjoy. Hopefully this will get the guys, and others I write about out to a much wider audience.

For those of you who do not know Cancel The Astronauts they are such a nice bunch of lads. Possibly the nicest lads in the Edinburgh music scene, possibly the whole of Scotland, probably the world. They are quirky dressers, funky dancers and range from average height to unnaturally tall. And you know what, to top it all off they are also an absolutely cracking band. They were one of the first bands that Graeme and I put on at Trampoline having found them locked away in a practice space we both shared. Since that fateful day they have grown in stature and reputation in the past 2 years culminating with the release of this lovely little debut EP. Jake our old bass player and I tried to get them to call their first release ‘Fuck The Moon’ but the guys have gone for the much safer and more sensible title of ‘I Am The President Of Your Fanclub (And Last Night I Followed You Home)’ As well as being the EP title it’s also the title of the opening track of the EP and is an extremely catchy number indeed. Thats the thing about Cancel The Astronauts, all their songs are catchy and memorable and singalongtastic. Stand out tracks for me are without a doubt ‘Late In The City’ and ‘Lets Go Expo’ but the title track itself with it’s sinister and slightly creepy lyrics is a strong opener indeed. There’s a Talking Heads vibe about their music, perhaps a touch of Pulp in there too. I don’t know, but what I do know is that this EP makes me smile, a lot. I hope that it makes you all smile too. Enjoy.

Cancel The Astronauts – I Am The President Of Your Fanclub (And Last Night I Followed You Home)

Cancel The Astronauts – Let’s Go Expo

Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Songs in the Night

I received a leaked copy of this album ages ago, and I was so intent on not leaking it any further that I’ve ended up completely missing the release date, and consequently only now writing a review I should have penned weeks ago – sorry!

It’s fair to say that I’ve been waiting for some time for this.  One of my readers, Campfires & Battlefields, introduced us all to Samantha Crain over a year ago and since then she has become one of my favourite emerging artists on one of my favourite record labels – Ramseur in North Carolina.  We interviewed her and guitarist Jacob at last year’s Pickathon Festival in Portland, and they were genuinely lovely people, so I’ve been looking forward to this album for ages now.

Miss Crain sings with a remarkable amount of world-weary pathos for someone only twenty-two years old, and that sense of tristesse permeates this album.  It gives it a degree of gravitas and also, crucially, makes it incredibly emotionally engaging. The combination of beautifully penned lyrics and her lovely voice – rich yet vulnerable – convey an integrity and a sincerity few have matched, to my ears, for some years now.

In terms of the arrangements and how the music is actually assembled, I do have a couple of minor quibbles though.  Apart from the vaguely punk-tinged Bullfight, this whole album is a basic guitar/bass/drums setup with pretty consistent fundamental rhythms throughout – slightly folky, slightly country.  There is definitely a uniformity of sound from start to finish which I think could perhaps have done with some breaking up here and there.  Something a bit rockier perhaps, a little fiddle or banjo maybe, or perhaps a fiercer number where they rock out a little – just something a little different.  There are also a couple of tracks I would accuse of being a little stodgy, not least the title track which is just about my least favourite.

Not withstanding that small criticism, this album contains some of the best songs I’ve heard in fucking ages.  Rising Sun, Let the Fever Out, Long Division, Devils in Boston… the list goes on. They have just the right pace to them, mix sadness with a kind of silent optimism, and a gentle base with a more biting instinct which producesa kind of defiance which is genuinely uplifting.

So whilst I don’t quite hear an album that I would call a Great Record, I definitely do hear a lot of truly great songs written by a genuinely talented performer and songwriter who I firmly believe has a talent which is really quite special.  Very good work indeed.

Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Rising Sun

Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Devils In Boston

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