ALTER.NATION #49
Sleater-Kinney, Big Thief, The Hold Steady, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Thee Oh Sees, Here Lies Man, Bobby Rush, Robbie Robertson, Ikebe Shakedown, Madison Cunningham, Field Mouse, Jenny Hval
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"The Center Won't Hold"
ALTER.NATION #49 on DEEZER
Sleater-Kinney - The Center Won't Hold from The Center Won't Hold
Weeks before the release of The Center Won't Hold, Janet Weiss left Sleater-Kinney -- a departure that clouded the record's reception, suggesting that the drummer perhaps wasn't happy with the trio's decision to collaborate with producer St. Vincent on the 2019 LP. Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker countered this perception by insisting it was Weiss' idea to work with St. Vincent, and the fact that the drummer is hardly buried in the mix suggests there may be no animosity among the various camps. Still, with Weiss' absence, the very title The Center Won't Hold seems prescient for the future of Sleater-Kinney, but it's also true the album is designed to suggest that the world is unmoored. In the age of Trump and Brexit, such a notion isn't far-fetched, and Brownstein and Tucker frequently allude to the roiling political tensions of the late 2010s, but they spend just as much of the record lamenting personal dissociation -- the alienation that arrives when too much time is spent time staring into tiny screens...
Big Thief - Not
Big Thief are really not fucking around. Instead of riding the wave of having released one of the most acclaimed albums of the year, they’re returning with another new collection just months later.... “Not” is a hell of a way to introduce that new album. After U.F.O.F.‘s intricate, meditative beauty enraptured critics and fans alike, “Not” is a roiling, fraying rock song, a totally different side of the band’s personality. Adrianne Lenker’s raw performance pushes her typically elusive vocals to their most ragged extremes; the band’s delivery is something like art school Crazyhorse; the whole thing is as desperate and cathartic as the bulk of U.F.O.F. was pristine and enigmatic. Big Thief have long been elemental. This time around, they’ve leaned deep into the fire.
The Hold Steady - Star 18 from Thrashing thru the Passion
Reconvening for a full album for the first time in a half-decade, the Hold Steady do sound a bit older on Thrashing Thru the Passion -- an evolution they do not attempt to hide at all, which is to their benefit. It's not so much that the group no longer crank their amplifiers until they bleed and push the tempo to the point that Craig Finn has to rush to spit out his words, although those are developments that are hard to ignore. It's that the Hold Steady seem so comfortable in their skin on Thrashing Thru the Passion that they allow themselves to fiddle with details in the margins. They let the pace slow just enough to allow themselves to deepen the colors and textures of their arrangements...
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Perihelion from Infest the Rats Nest
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have dabbled in heavy metal before; their masterpiece Nonagon Infinity was metal adjacent, and other bits here and there across the group's expansive and ever-growing catalog have hinted at their love for pummeling rhythms, massed guitar riffing, and fantastical lyrical conceits. On 2019's Infest the Rat's Nest, the band go full metal. Often working in a small version of the band under the direction of vocalist/guitarist Stu Mackenzie, they've made a heavy-as-molten-lead song cycle about the death of Earth and the colonization of nearby planets by those who can afford it. It's fast, loud, and gnarly with traces of Metallica, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and a number of second-tier British and American bands from the late '70s and early '80s who fused the energy of punk with the dual-track guitar solos, dystopian words, and riffage of early metal... King Gizzard aren't sugarcoating anything, either musically or thematically, and that makes for their most timely and political album yet. It's also one of their most musically compelling and impressive, too, and that's saying a lot.
Thee Oh Sees - Scutum & Scorpius from Face Stabber
Oh Sees' 2017 album Smote Reverser seemed at the time of its release to be just about as far as the band could push their combination psychedelic-metal-prog-jazz-garage sound before it might split into a million pieces. It was hard to imagine that John Dwyer and company could twist, fold, or mangle things any more than they were or that they could add more elements without capsizing the rollicking ship entirely. Face Stabber puts a lie to those preconceptions -- not only does the band take another step further out into space, they tumble through the abyss with an energetic fury that most bands can never conjure, much less one on their 300th album... Any band looking to play psychedelic music should look to this album (and Smote Reverser) to fully understand the possibilities that exist within (and far outside of) the style, and just how far a band with limitless imagination can go if they don't settle for clichés and easy answers, and push hard to make something unique and beautiful like the Oh Sees do here (and almost always).
Here Lies Man - Iron Rattles from No Ground to Walk Upon
A product of the feverish creative minds of Antibalas affiliates Marcos Garcia and Geoff Mann, Here Lies Man began in 2017 as a hybrid of West African rhythms and '70s stoner metal riffing... The introduction of "Iron Rattles" further expands the group's sonic palette, setting the pace with an electric kalimba rather than a blown-out guitar riff. The colorful compositions, analog production, and foreboding synth interludes make the mini-album some of Here Lies Man's most captivating material.
Bobby Rush - Slow Motion from Sitting on Top of the Blues
Bobby Rush cut his first single in 1964, when he was already 31 years old, and 55 years later, the man is not only still making music, but he still sounds like a credibly raunchy love man at a time when most folks his age can hardly be bothered to get up off the couch. The swampy funk that was a major part of Rush's musical personality in his salad days is in short supply on 2019's Sitting on Top of the Blues, but his gift for grafting together deep soul and barroom-ready blues is as strong as ever, and the rough insistence of his vocals connects when he wraps his voice around his various tales of women trying to get the better of him (at least when he's not busy trying to get the better of them). The vibe of Sitting on Top of the Blues is laid-back but not lazy...
Robbie Robertson - Let Love Reign
...He’s shared “I Hear You Paint Houses” from it already, which was directly influenced by the story that The Irishman is based off of, and today he’s sharing “Let Love Reign,” a track that was inspired by the Beatles.
In a statement (via Rolling Stone), Robertson said: “Some people think John Lennon’s dream about love and togetherness went up in flames. I think that’s wrong. It’s everlasting. There was something a little naive about John Lennon going around singing about peace, but in that period young people celebrating love and peace helped end a war.”
Ikebe Shakedown - Not Another Drop from Kings Left Behind
New York septet Ikebe Shakedown play what they refer to as "cinematic instrumental soul," which amounts to a thick, steamy brew of retro funk, psychedelic rock, and soundtracks ranging from Spaghetti Westerns to blaxploitation flicks. The group's compositions almost always include galloping drums and hand percussion, hot horns, and simmering organ, along with additional touches such as surf guitar licks and string arrangements. Kings Left Behind is their fourth full-length, and the first taped at Hive Mind Recording, a Brooklyn-based studio built and operated by two of the band's members, bassist Vince Chiarito and saxophonist Michael Buckley. Compared to the group's past efforts, Kings Left Behind doesn't seem to utilize quite as much echo or other trippy effects, and it seems a bit classier and more sophisticated...
Madison Cunningham - Pin It Down from Who Are You Now
In the two years between debuting her jazzy, nuanced folk-rock songs on the self-released Love, Lose, Remember EP and presenting her full-length Verve debut, Madison Cunningham was invited to tour with the Punch Brothers and Andrew Bird, perform on Chris Thile's public radio show, and guest on albums by the likes of Bird, Matt Redman, and J.S. Ondara. For the unacquainted, the allure of her textured voice and sophisticated guitar playing is evident on said debut, 2019's Who Are You Now. Also apparent are songwriting inspirations that range from Joni Mitchell and Jeff Buckley to Fiona Apple...
Field Mouse - Skygazing from Meaning
Over the course of their first half-dozen years together, Field Mouse shifted away from early shoegaze influences toward a more streamlined guitar pop that still echoed with some of the shadowy quality of dreams. Any momentum was interrupted, however, following the release of 2016's Episodic and, more importantly, the outcome of that year's presidential election. The band essentially went on an unofficial hiatus, partly to focus on their personal lives but largely due to bandleader Rachel Browne being too demoralized -- and self-conscious about the place of art in the circumstances -- to write. After two years away from music, Browne was inspired by looking through some of her old poems and reached out to band co-founder Andrew Futral. The resulting Meaning makes an effort to find perspective and support structures in uncertain times...
Jenny Hval - High Alice
Jenny Hval songs tend to get stuck on a phrase. With a more conventional songwriter, you might call this a chorus, but she has always made these recurrences sound like incantatory thought loops. On “High Alice,” the second single from The Practice Of Love, that phrase is “must be drawn to something.” Hval switches between points of view, so that they, we, I are all tied together in their collective search for definition.
She frames this search through Alice In Wonderland fabulism; we follow Hval through the looking-glass as she is drawn to these familiar childhood peculiarities: the queen, the clock, the ocean. Hval says this High Alice is “sketching out her rabbit hole,” drawing in shades of her own being. “We all want something better,” she sings, her music floating deeper and deeper into the subconscious.
Sleater-Kinney, Big Thief, The Hold Steady, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Thee Oh Sees, Here Lies Man, Bobby Rush, Robbie Robertson, Ikebe Shakedown, Madison Cunningham, Field Mouse, Jenny Hval
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