Rage Against The Machine for Christmas Number One

The Facebook group that has launched a campaign to get Rage Against The Machine to Christmas number one in the UK has sparked much debate. Some see it as a bit of fun, others as offensive, futile rubbish. Here's my two penneth.

Rage Against The Machine

It's not an attempt to topple consumerism or a massive political statement, it's just a bit of fun in the name of futile teenage rebellion. Why? Because we're fed up of pointless nobodies spewing out some bile with no humour every Christmas.

The argument that the Christmas number has always been a bit of a joke, holds some, but little, water. A quick look on Wikipedia will show that since 1952 the majority of Christmas number ones in the UK have been genuine offerings from respectable recording artists. Of course there are the Rolf Harris songs, the Renne and Renatos, the Boney M's and other novelty singles but at least the majority of those, like Mr Blobby and Bob The Builder in recent times, knew it was a bit of fun and released songs with tongues in cheeks and a sense of playful, festive joy.

With the exception of Gary Jules and the charitable Band Aid 20, the last seven years have been dominated by Cowell sponsored acts. Acts that have, in my view, ruined part of the fun of Christmas. Their cold, calculated, grating and often instantly forgettable moanings (Shane Ward, Leon Jackson, Joe McElderry - yes, he will win - anyone?) are inevitably installed as favourites for the number one slot before the audition stages are even over. Just another step along the way in the complete bastardisation of Christmas.

There is no doubt in my mind that shows like Fame Academy, Pop Idol and X-Factor have encouraged the public to reveal our cruel sides in laughing at those unsuccessful auditions and resulted in countless thoroughly average singers being lauded as potential megastars only to find that after one single and an album many of them are never remembered. And like all those who slate it, I watch it most weeks.

Anyway, that is starting to wander off topic slightly. There are many criticisms that can be levelled at the Rage for Christmas campaign. The NME blog that I previously linked rightly mentions some of them,

"After all, there's no better way to stick it to The Man than by swelling the coffers of a major label rock act who've sold over 20 million albums worldwide...Plus, if you really want to rage against the Simon Cowell machine, 'Killing In The Name' is a bizarre song to pick, since it's a Sony BMG catalogue track – just like 'Hallelujah', 'Don't Stop Believin', and all those other tunes which mysteriously crop up on The X Factor time and again...politically, the campaign is at best misguided, at worst vaguely offensive. Rage Against The Machine wrote the song about the racism deeply embedded in American society – the police officers who "burn crosses" are closet members of the Ku Klux Klan. Lynch mob scum."

but I can't help feeling that it's missing the point slightly. Yes, the song was written about something infinitely more important and applying it to X-Factor is trivial at best, but in all honesty I struggle to believe that the majority of those, myself included, who have grown up listening to RATM in their teenage years ever really knew what it was written about and instead appropriated the lyrics to situations in their own life. Situations as trivial as doing homework, or chores, or being asked to stop skateboarding on their school playground. This is not about some grand political or social gesture. It's about the spirit of the song. The simple concept of rebellion.

Yes, it probably will mean Cowell gets more money through his business ties with RATM's mother label, but it's not about that either. It's about voicing a distain for the concept of his TV shows which have become tiresome at best, derivative and uninspiring at worst. Whether the vehicle for that will line his pockets any more is of no concern to me, the message is what is important.

Rage are an inspirational band and if it encourages people to challenge things, be they as ultimately inconsequential as X-Factor or as important as political activism, then that is surely a good thing.

On a personal note, with "Reality" TV on the wane after Big Brother announced it was wrapping up proceedings on Channel 4 earlier this year, I feel this is an opportunity to hurry the demise of one of the worst things to happen to television and music in my lifetime.

More importantly, I just think it'll be brilliant to have RATM at #1 this Christmas because Killing In The Name is a damn good song and I'd rather hear that than some awful, sickly-sweet rendition of Journey sung by a boy with a face that looks like it's copyright of Disney and makes me feel genuine, violent anger. The campaign is immature, it's slightly misguided, hypocritical and it's probably 100% pointless considering it'll take over half a million people to buy it if it's to top the charts, but it's going to put a mischievous smile on the face of hundreds of thousands of people this Christmas even if it proves unsuccessful and in the end, that's what it's all about isn't it?

Don't over analyse it.

Send a message this Christmas.

Youth

My first film on my MA has just been completed. You can watch it on vimeo here.

"Youth" is a short documentary introducing Craig Paul, a twenty-two year old man from Cambridgeshire. Craig is a young man with some unconventional interests and hobbies. I hope to have portrayed him in a positive light. The aim of the film was to help combat the ideas often seen in the tabloid press that youths and young adults are disruptive, aggressive people. It was submitted as my first piece of coursework in response to a brief tasking us to create of portrait of a character or person, fictional or non-fiction.

There are many things I am unhappy with in the final cut and will be re-editing the film in the coming months. However, for a first attempt at filming and editing anything I feel it is adequate.

Alexander Wolfe - Morning Brings A Flood

Alexander Wolfe
Morning Brings A Flood
12^th October 2009
Redemption Records

Sometimes it’s just hard to work out what to make of an album. When it’s gunning along similar rails as one of the greatest albums of the modern era, if not all time, (in this case Jeff Buckley’s Grace) it can be tough to decide if it’s simply ripping off what has gone before, or the artist is using elements of it as an influence and trying something new.

Alexander Wolfe’s debut, Morning Brings A Flood is one such record. Full of accomplished musicianship (he plays all but the drums, horns and strings on the album) and delivers his moving lyrics, particularly evident in sumptuously autumnal Empty Morning and True Love Lies, in a soothing, croaky drawl akin to that of Doves and Elbow.

There are hints of Coldplay (‘Till Your Ship Comes In, The Submarine), the aforementioned Jeff Buckley (Prague Song, Movement) and even the basslines of the Beatles (Breakdown) throughout the album and at times it’s hard to distance Wolfe from those similarities. There are moments, such as the proggy solo in Lazybones, where he comes into his own and provides glimpses of exciting possibility, but then corny pub rock like Song For The Dead materialises and that hope recedes slightly.

This is a strong album with some impressive tracks on there. The solemn album closer Stuck Under September leaps out from the songs that precede it and heads straight for the heart, but there’s ultimately a disappointing sense throughout Morning Brings A Flood that this is all very familiar stuff. It’s all very nice, a well structured conglomeration of much loved sounds, but all very familiar.

Sometimes it’s just hard to work out what to make of an album.

Dirty Projectors
Temecula Sunrise
7/10
EP
28th September 2009
Domino
www.myspace.com/dirtyprojectors

By Stephen Milnes

The most recent release from Brooklyn’s experimental outfit extraordinaire, Dirty Projectors, sees two of the stand out tracks from previous album, Bitte Orca, in Temecula Sunrise and Cannibal Resource appear alongside two previously unreleased numbers.

The EP begins with the psychedelic sitar-like guitar plucking that has become synonymous with Dave Longstreth and co in the title track. In fact, it wouldn’t sound out of place on some lovingly crafted Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin stop motion children’s TV show. That’s not to say it’d be suitable though. The irresistibly uplifting vocal harmonies and “spaced-out” guitars over the splashing of cymbals combine to make a cheery noise that distracts from the slightly less bright lyrics, “I know the horizon is bright and motionless, Like an EKG of a dying woman”, that’d probably not get the nod from a channel commissioner.

As for the as yet unheard material, it’s more of the same from Dirty Projectors and something only a superfan will really feel the need to possess. The daydream inspiring Ascending Melody is filled with the angelic voices of Amber Coffman and the aptly named Angel Deradoorian and is a snake charmer of a song. EP closer Emblem of the World is much the same but includes drums beaten with the sudden thunderous energy of the Baywatch theme.

Temecula Sunrise does everything that is to be expected of a Dirty Projectors release. It’s interesting, it’s pleasant and it’s unpredictable, but it’s nothing the average Dirty Projectors fan will miss from their collection.

Originally written for Noise Makes Enemies but is as yet unavailable on their website.

The Brute Chorus - The Brute Chorus

The Brute Chorus
The Brute Chorus
4/10
Album
19th October 2009
Unsigned
www.myspace.com/thebrutechorus

By Stephen Milnes

Recorded in one take in front of 300 fans, the bravery and proficiency of The Brute Chorus’ self titled debut calls for respect. It’s a shame then that the songs let them down.

They are by no means poorly arranged or played, in fact quite the opposite, it’s just almost the half the dozen songs sound all too similar with a frantically strummed acoustic guitar and a thumping bass drum.

There’s touch of the Flogging Molly about them in their folk-rockish flourishes and Talking Heads, The Zutons, Jamie T, The Kooks and The Hoosiers at various points in their very slightly off-kilter guitar pop while the singer, James Steel, sounds like a little The Cure’s Robert Smith, which could go some way to explaining why The Brute Chorus sound quite so indistinguishable. With such a wide range of sounds hinted at, there’s a distinct lack discernable identity of their own.

Album opener Hercules offers quirky guitars, Grow Fins throws up some mildly exciting exuberance a la Guillemots and there’s a cluster of songs around two thirds of the way into the album that show all is not lost.

However, many songs are missing a kick of emotive power, there’s very little to raise the heartbeat or pull on the heartstrings. Eighth track The Cuckoo & The Stolen Heart is the one that stands up and make itself heard over the homogenous folk inflected pop rock that surrounds it but even then it’s simply the addition of female vocals that adds anything different.

What lets this debut album down is its pace. It feels much, much longer than the 48 minutes or so that it actually lasts. Songs, despite being a reasonably speedy tempo, drag on. The musicianship is good, the lyrics are pretty inventive, it just struggles to do anything of any real note. There’s no spark.

Originally written for Noise Makes Enemies but is as yet unavailable on their website.

Them:Youth - Halo

Them:Youth
Halo
2/10
Single
21th September 2009
Dirty Boots Records
www.myspace.com/themyouth

By Stephen Milnes

London five-some Them:Youth release their second single, Halo, with the PR spiel stating it will breath “new life into the word anthem”. Well, three and a half minutes of annoying synth, somebody half shouting the word halo a lot and that all too familiar rolling hi-hat and snare drum beat doesn’t sound anything like resuscitation. If anything it’s the dying gasps of formulaic dullardry.

It’s not even irritatingly catchy. As soon as the track ends it is forgotten. There are no memorable hooks, just bland, pseudo-anthemic posturing. Avoid.

Originally written for Noise Makes Enemies but is as yet unavailable on their website.

Fanfarlo @ The Bodega Social Club, Nottingham, 5th October 2009

Originally written for TMM. Read it here.

After the frustration of a below-par performance from my beloved Leicester Tigers, having to queue outside in the rain for 25 minutes to pay for a car park in Leicester, getting lost on Nottingham’s nightmarish one-way system for 20 minutes, having to eat a Big Mac for tea (which, for the record, tasted like I was eating the boiled down soul of some bran) and finally getting to the venue to discover there had been a breakdown in communication somewhere and that my name was not on the guest list, it was fair to say I needed my spirits lifting and my stress levels lowering.

Just as well then that tonight’s headliners deal almost exclusively in songs that do just that. Fanfarlo take to the stage with barely enough room to wiggle an elbow, the six of them and their myriad instruments filling the Bodega’s small stage with ease. There’s everything from the standard, guitars and drums, to mandolins, trumpets, keyboards, glockenspiels, wood saws and those keyboard things with hosepipes in. Imagine the majesty of Arcade Fire meeting the euphoria of the Polyphonic Spree after the Appleseed Cast and Anathallo set them up at a party, in your front room, which is crowded with friends. That’s what tonight’s gig is like, probably.

Fanfarlo’s 45 minute set is filled with songs from their sumptuous debut album, Reservoir. Old favourite Drowning Men makes an appearance as does album opener I’m A Pilot and current single The Walls Are Coming Down, which has seemingly been on loop at BBC 6Music for the last few weeks. The airplay seems to have done some good. The Bodega is close to capacity and most are singing, dancing and smiling along to the aforementioned single, and for that matter, for the duration of the set.

Things were brought to a close all too soon with Fanfarlo modestly accepting the adoring gratitude of this small upstairs room in central Nottingham. Swedish support act, First Aid Kit (who were equally delightful), soon beckon them back on stage to do an impromptu cover of a Devendra Banhart song. The applause and cheers that meet both acts come the end are rapturous to say the least.

Judging by that reaction, the crowd seemed to enjoy it, this particular onlooker leaving with a big grin on his face, calm restored and an overwhelming feeling that despite the irritating events of the preceding hours, everything is going to be all right. Things are more than all right. They’re positively joyful when bands like Fanfarlo are around.

Destruction - The Curse of the Antichrist - Live In Agony

Originally written for Thrash Hits. Read the full article, complete with fancy videos, tacklisting and stuff, here.

Destruction
The Curse of the Antichrist - Live In Agony
AFM Records
25 September 2009

The live album is a curious beast. Many can feel rather soulless and synthetic, a poor imitation of actually being at a gig. Hearing the crowd over the top can be irritating, the tracks - often taken from across a plethora of albums - don’t always run together like a coherent album should, and the sets are often too long to be palatable outside the context of the performance, taking up multiple CDs. Put simply, they’re nerdy and usually the preserve of the super-fan.

Destruction The Curse Of The AntiChrist Live In Agony cover artwork packshot Thrash Hits

German Thrash titans Destruction’s latest, The Curse of the Antichrist - Live in Agony, recorded at Wacken 2007 and on a recent Asian tour, doesn’t seem like it’s going to be any exception to those generalisations.

Two discs worth of some of the most punishing thrash you’re likely to hear this side of San Francisco’s Bay Area sounds like an exciting prospect, but when listening alone - rather than in a venue, surrounded by thousands of equally excited metalheads playing air guitars - it has a somewhat underwhelming, hollow effect and becomes slightly tiresome after the first fifty or so minutes.

However, the performances are otherwise such sturdy ones that it becomes compelling in its heaviness. Tracks like ‘Unconscious Ruins’, ‘Metal Discharge’ and ‘Thrash Till Death’ stand out in particular. These German veterans of Thrash know how to put on one hell of a show - the crowd sounds pumped, and the band is tighter than a camel’s arse in a sandstorm.

Sadly, the changing between the Wacken and Asian sets feels clunky and that detracts from what is otherwise a nigh-on seamless live album. Any bits of benign blabbering between songs have largely been edited out, but there are a few distracting moments. It’s very hard not to laugh at a German man trying to assert his masculinity by shouting at thousands of people in Japanese and declaring that, “It’s fucking great to be back in TTTTTOOOOOOOOOKKKKKKKYYYYYYYYYYYYOOOOOOOOO!” and suchlike.

Despite these accidently comic exchanges between band and fans, Live In Agony does manage to capture Destruction in full flow, cementing their reputation as one of the key acts in European Thrash with their audible enthusiasm, precision playing and crushing riffage. Some fans may be a little disappointed by the comparative lack of new music in recent years but this live album is a beast well worth taming.

5/6

Top Tracks: The Butcher Strikes Back, Thrash Till Death, Metal Discharge, Cracked Brain, unconscious Ruins, Bestial Invasion
Sounds Like: Testament, Death Angel, Exodus

Claustrofobia - I See Red

Originally written for Thrash Hits. Read the full article, complete with fancy videos, tacklisting and stuff, here.

Claustrofobia
I See Red
Candlelight Records
05 October 2009

When an album has a tracks with titles such as ‘Evil University’ and ‘Raining Shit’ on it, it’s a pretty good bet that it’s going to be fun. Maybe even to the point of a cartoonish caricature of metal itself.

Claustrofobia I See Red cover packshot artwork Thrash Hits

Claustrofobia’s I See Red sounds like Max Cavalera garrotting Dez Fafara with rope made from the hair of Cannibal Corpse. From the very first moments of album opener Discharge, the Brazilian thrash/death metal outfit deliver a breed of metal that can only be really be described as violent and energising.

Each track as uncompromising as the last; guttural, demonic screams overlay rapid fire drums and brooding, bruising, aggressive guitars. ‘Minefield’, ‘Alarm’ and ‘Our Blood’ are all prime examples of the ferocity inherent in this album while ‘Don’t Kill The Future’ is reminiscent of Machine Head’s ‘The Rage To Overcome’ with artillery-like drums opening up proceedings.

Just when it seems like a bloodied, bludgeoning assault is all that I See Red will deliver, along comes ‘Noia’. An unexpected, disorientating King Crimson-esque guitar noodling, with more hammers-ons and pull-offs than you’ll hear on a Tim Kinsella record. It’s a welcome break from the relentless, aural beating that has been dished out in the previous 40 minutes or so.

Normal service is quickly resumed however with the imaginatively monikered, Untitled, which punches you through the face and comes out of the back of the skull like a high speed drill. You remember the Some Kind Of Monster artwork? Probably not if you’ve got any sense; ’cause you didn’t buy it. Well anyway, this song makes you pull the face of the angel on there. That exact face.

For those that like their metal fast, unrelenting and strong, I See Red is a hugely enjoyable listen, but it does get somewhat repetitive. Clocking in at over an hour, it starts to drag towards the end and many of the songs are almost indistinguishable from the last. If it’s possible for an album to suffer from being too metal, this may be it.

3/6

Sounds like: Soulfly/Sepultura, Devildriver, Cannibal Corpse
Top Tracks: Discharge, Noia, Untitled

Stardeath and White Dwarfs Interview

Following my recent review of Stardeath and White Dwarfs debut album (complete with contentious fan comments and an inexplicable error on my part) I wrote a few questions for an interview with the band. It was recorded by their label for The Music Magazine.

Read the full article and watch the video with TMM, here.

Thrice - Beggars

Originally written for The Music Magazine, read it here.

Available on iTunes from August but getting one of them hold-it-in-your-hands-and-actually-own-it-releases this September, Beggars is the latest offering from American post-hardcore-outfit-turned-vaguely-proggy-metal-shebang, Thrice (yeah, pigeon-holed the shit out of that).

As the newly monikered sub-genre up there suggests, frontman Dustin Kensrue used to shout and scream, a lot. He did it quite well to be honest but now he has toned it down a touch.

Like their contemporaries Brand New, the members of Thrice have spent the last four years evolving their band into something far more adventurous and complex. The material on the last offerings, The Alchemy Index and Vheissu, possessed a maturity that melodramatic earlier work had lacked. Despite this it retained the aggression and power of the first three albums, releasing it in a more considered manner. Measured, rather than raw, emotion is now cajoled and enticed from Kensrue’s voice. His recent solo jaunts seem to have made him more aware of his vocal talent and he is now capable of manipulating those cords much more acutely.

Beggars is a record that extends that rebuilding. The opening three tracks display Thrice at their broad-ranging best. Powerful tracks like All The World Is Mad and The Weight stand strong alongside the delicacies of the mournful, post-rockish Circles.

The album follows a similar path for its remainder. Tracks like Talking Through Glass should be played loud and used to test the aerodynamics of aeroplanes in wind tunnels while The Great Exchange and Wood & Fire used to settle insomniacs.

However, there are one or two low points. Doublespeak, through its keys and swaggering drum beat, sounds a bit like Starsailor to begin with and Kensrue does have a touch of the Cornell about his vocals at times.

Minute lapses into middle of the roadary aside, Beggars is an accomplished album that shows Thrice are capable of becoming a dominant force in the world of the headbanging muso and even hints at relative mainstream exposure.

Surely they won’t be Beggars for much longer.

Recent Reviews for NoizeMakesEnemies.com: Simian Mobile Disco - Temporary Pleasure

Read the full review here.

Rating: 3/10
Format: Album
Release Date: 17/08/09
Label: Wichita
www.myspace.com/simianmobiledisco

This new album from everyone’s favourite mediocre 90’s band turned club favourites is, to be quite honest, a bit underwhelming.
Where 2007’s Attack Decay Sustain Release was filled with floor filling, slightly continental sounding electro house type noises like Sleep Deprivation, Tits & Acid, Hustler and It’s The Beat – the British Butlins holiday to the romantic Paris honeymoon of Daft Punk, Justice, Sebastian, Mr. Oizo, Kavinsky et al - Temporary Pleasure kicks off at a sedate pace with the thoroughly drab Cream Dream: A track with an 80’s motif running through it as if it were beige wallpaper in La Roux’s downstairs toilet. Even vocals from the Super Furry Animal himself, Gruff Rhys, don’t manage to brighten it up.

The intro sounds like it’s about to burst into Kim Wilde’s Kids In America. Unfortunately it doesn’t. You’ve heard Chemical Brothers and Flaming Lips’ single, The Golden Path, right? Well if you haven’t, go and find it now. Then imagine it slowed down a tiny bit and not quite as uplifting. That’s basically Cream Dream.

The album then moves on to Audacity Of Huge. It begins like some sub-Timberland/Timberlake/Furtado tag team annoying bleeping and continues in a similar vein. Vocals from Yeasayer’s Chris Keating, much like the previous track, fail to add anything of real interest. Utterly forgettable.

It’s a pattern that follows throughout the rest of the album. There’s a just over half a dozen guest appearances on this record and many of them - Griff Rhys, Chris Keating, Beth Ditto, Jamie Lidell, Alexis Taylor - seem to take an age to reach their end.

Few of them ever seem to get going and while a down tempo electronic album is often a welcome thing to these ears, the guest appearances seem to take away from the compositions. It seems the main attraction of this album isn’t SMD’s ability to build up a great dance-floor crescendo but the name tagged onto the end of the track title.

The album seems to lack direction or purpose. It’s not quite chilled out enough to pass as a quality bit of relaxing electronica but neither is it lively enough to compel listeners to dance.

Things finally get interesting with one of SMD’s lyricless offerings, 10000 Horses Can't Be Wrong. It’s an infectious, mutating, body mover and surprisingly there’s another one on the album too!

Turn Up The Dial is an album highlight. Teaming up with Young Fathers it’s one of the few tracks on the album that really gets the blood pumping. Along with Ambulance they offer the more familiar, invigorating tunes and the album closer Pinball, featuring Telepathe, is a mesmeric masterpiece.

Regrettably this album’s lack of, to use a technical term, ‘umph’, and inability to find an identity (is it chill out, is it minimalistic or is it upbeat floor-filling material?) leaves almost every track failing to deliver in one way or another.

If it isn’t the sense of warmth that soothing and challenging electronic albums from Plaid or Chris Clark will offer, or the sensual joy to be found in albums such as Daft Punk’s Discovery or Justice’s Cross, it’s the outright anthemic house-party material on Basement Jaxx’s albums.

A mixed bag that picks up a little after the mid point with short-lived excitement but an album that ultimately fails to deliver for the duration of the record. Temporary Pleasure indeed.

Recent Reviews for NoizeMakesEnemies.com: Echaskech - Shatterproof

Read the full review here.

Rating: 7/10
Type: Album
Release Date: Out Now
Label: Just Music
www.myspace.com/echaskech

The album begins with its namesake, Shatterproof. This is a spine-chilling, eerie number with ethereal, drawn-out notes, flicks and whips of sound that flit in and out of consciousness, leaving trails like a shooting star across the night sky.

It finds the centre point between Boards of Canada’s Beware The Friendly Stranger and Pendulum’s Hold Your Colour, always threatening to kick in with out and out breakbeat grunt but refraining and eventually morphing into second track, On Your Mind. And so continues the astronomical chill-out, with down tempo and muffled thuds driving along disorientating blips and fuzzed bass which are later added to by sliced female vocals.

After such a promising start we are presented with Future Sex. A song that appears to have been voiced by that floating face bloke off of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers who, it seems, has since moved to 60 fags a day since they killed him off sometime in the 90’s. The lyrics, one or two word snippets of generic technological and futuristic sounding things, are borderline comic and it’s almost impossible to take the song seriously. Lines like, “Future sex. Carbon based. Silicon. Interface. Robot lover. Bionic seed. Server controlled. Electro breed. Virtual baby. Digital teen. Cyber punk. On a plasma screen. Computer music. In the galactic jaw (it might not be jaw, couldn’t quite make it out on the CD). YouTube killed, the video star”, while a personal favourite line is, “Interstellar. Pleasure cruise. Teleportation. Rocket Shoes.”

There’s nothing about it in the credits but it wouldn’t be surprising to find that Jermaine Clement and Joel Tolbeck had some input on this one. It sounds like a 1980’s Dr. Who robot gargling its dreams after eating too much cheese before bedtime.

That tune aside, Shatterproof is a real high quality record. The arrangements and sequences are often teasing, deliciously so, always restful and occasionally, delightfully surprising. The ambient electronics conjure imaginations of outer space, the deepest seas and all the fantastical objects and creatures to be found there.

It could be said, fairly enough, that a lot of the tracks on Shatterproof are too similar too one and other. If they were heard as stand alone singles then the material probably wouldn’t stand up to much after three or four radio plays but, as an album, the tracks come together to create one deeply layered and dexterous work, featuring flush joins and gentle waves of electronic bliss.

Shatterproof by name, cheerily fragile by nature.

Recent Reviews for TMM: Stardeath and White Dwarfs - The Birth

Artist: Stardeath And White Dwarfs
Date: 14 September 2009
Label: Warner Bros

Dennis Coyne, Casey Joseph, Matt Duckworth and James Young are Stardeath And White Dwarfs and this, The Birth, is their debut album. Yet it already offers something familiar.

That ‘thing’ is the sound of Dennis’ uncle’s band, The Flaming Lips (frontman Wayne Coyne being the uncle in question). Stardeath have been road crew for Oklahoma’s most triumphant export for many years, and more recently, tourmates. In fact, you’ll be able to see them supporting the Lips during their November UK tour.

Anyway, the album…

This is far from a bad record – in truth, it’s a very good record: well written, performed and mixed, with a track listing that rolls along smoothly – it’s just almost impossible to remove that family Coyne connection from the mind and in turn, from what is coming through the speakers. The two bands are intrinsically linked, genetically and musically.

Stardeath’s bass and guitar fuzz is almost identical to that of the Lips’ and their drum sound isn’t far different either. Even down to the drumming style, it’s very Drozd-esque at times – which is no bad thing but those aspects combined mean there’s very little sign of Stardeath having any distinguishable characteristics. The only noticeable difference is Dennis’ voice, which is smoother than Wayne’s, but even that’s eerily similar at points in almost all of the ten songs.

Any Flaming Lips fan (your scribe included) will more than likely really enjoy most of the songs on The Birth. Album opener The Sea On Fire is a side-winding groove-laden monolith while Keep Score is a great display of what Stardeath can do, mixing aspects of Flaming Lips, Grandaddy and Band of Horses to create something moving towards their own sound. However, Age of the Freaks simply gives the impression Dennis Coyne and friends are shouting, “listen to the Flaming Lips! They’re mint!”, as they manage to mention Superman (song from The Soft Bulletin) and Freaks (documentary DVD of the band called Fearless Freaks, among many other references by the Lips themselves) in the opening verse. It doesn’t help that it sounds like a cut-price version of It’s Summertime from the Lips’ Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots album too.

Stardeath are clearly very talented musicians (the rhythm section solos of Those Who Are From The Sun Return To The Sun make this plain enough, even if it is all a touch cheesy) and there is potential here for a band to do something truly great, but this album is not it.

They need to be given time to develop, to find their own voice. It’s all well and good taking influence from your uncle’s hugely successful band but Stardeath must take that influence and work their own sound from it, combining it with other aspects of wider inspirations. It’s too dominating currently.

The Birth is exactly that. These young men are new to the musical world. They must be allowed to grow and learn their craft or risk a career making albums that sound like Flaming Lips’ b-side compilations.

A promising, respectable start that’s well worth a listen but the band must attain an identity of their own in the near future.

Recent Reviews for TMM: Freeze Puppy - Animation

Artist: Freeze Puppy
Date: 3 August 2009
Label: Pickled Egg Records

From the moment Animation begins to rotate in the record player it becomes very clear that this is no ordinary pop album. It is little short of an off kilter pop roundabout. Spinning with all the quirky nature of Jeremy Warmsley and Of Montreal chopped up and stuck in a blender.

The fluctuating speeds of delivery are addictively disorientating, gloriously confuddling the listener into submission.

All the tracks are incredibly short with only three songs – Everything Fades, June On TV and album closer The Bluebird Song – that clock in at over two minutes in length, but almost all of these clipped numbers seem to float and bleed in and out of each other in the most flush of fashions. This serves the listener with sharp bursts of jazzy pop spiking in the ears and travelling in from all directions interspersed with gentler waves relaxation that allow the twenty-odd minutes to melt into as little or as long a time as your mood decides to take.

Tom Wilson, the brains behind it all, creates a world brimming with delightfully flawed characters through whom he tells his stories. It’s easy to imagine these songs, particularly Birth Of A Legend and Among The Rushes, soundtracking some classic freeze-frame children’s animation (as the album title may suggest) akin to Bagpuss or the Magic Roundabout: Something altogether strange, yet beautiful, warm and friendly.

Each time it plays there is something new and unexpected to be heard, be it the bizarre guitar solo in Pass Me By or the sudden start of Would Like To Meet, the schizophrenic piano of the prophetic Everything Fades or the ethereal qualities of Hey Mr.

Freeze Puppy’s Animation isn’t something likely to be heard on Radio 1 any time soon and that’s just as well as it will very possibly liquidise the minds of those that like music to be linear, clear and simple, resulting in brains dribbling out of mouths nationwide. However, for those that like a bit of oddness and unpredictability in life, Animation’s mix of sounds won’t be far off the mark.