ALTER.NATION #65
Upset, Beck, Coma, Jaakko Eino Kalevi, Mr. Ben & the Bens, Coldplay, Lindemann, Health&Beauty, Big Band of Brothers, Scott H. Biram, Leonard Cohen, Neuland
ALTER.NATION #65 on DEEZER
Sounding like a lost band from the grunge pop '90s, Upset were formed by the duo of Ali Koehler, ex-Vivian Girls and Best Coast drummer, and Patty Schemel, who famously drummed for Hole. They concocted a sound that had all the muscle of grunge with a less aggressive vocal style and a thoughtfully playful lyrical stance. Their promising debut album, She's Gone, was issued in 2013; six years later, the fully formed and powerfully hooky Upset album cemented their place as a band doing the '90s revival thing correctly.
Upset -
No Exit from Upset
Upset's take on '90s pop-punk and grunge is more refined and powerful on their second album, 2019's Upset. Since their promising 2013 debut album and follow-up EP in 2015, the band has solidified into a quartet while spreading out the songwriting and singing duties. Original singer/songwriter Ali Koehler shares the mike this time with guitarist Lauren Freeman, who provides an alternate vision that's a little rougher -- both sonically and emotionally -- around the edges. For the most part, Koehler comes at her songs from a poppier, more melodic angle, while Freeman has a more angular and punk-derived style... On the record's best songs, the group transcend their influences and make music that would have stood out even in the overcrowded early '90s. Freeman's gut-ripping "Lucky Strikes Out" and Koehler's sweetly sad "No Exit" are two shining examples, while the rest of the album is full of similar rockers and ballads that showcase their pop smarts, tender emotions, and muscular playing to great effect. Adding Freeman to the mix was a great idea that made an already good band even better and Upset is a strong step forward from their debut and some of the best retro grunge-punk going in 2019.
One of the most inventive, eclectic figures of the alternative era, the epitome of post-modern chic in an era obsessed with junk culture.
Beck -
Saw Lightning from Hyperspace
Hyperspace is one of those Beck projects that came together quickly. At the conclusion of the supporting tour for 2017's Colors, Beck headed into the studio with Pharrell Williams with the intention of contributing to a new N.E.R.D album, but they wound up hitting it off. The collaboration ballooned from a single into an EP and, ultimately, the core of Beck's 14th album. Beck worked with a few other collaborators on the record... To that end, Hyperspace exists on the same astral plane as Morning Phase and Sea Change, but it never feels as fussy or formal as those sad opuses. Chalk that up not to the electronic instrumentation but rather a light touch. Beck never lingers upon either his melancholy or his celestial flights of fantasy: they exist simultaneously, resulting in a tremulous and pretty soundtrack for moments of fleeting introspection.
Cologne-based techno-pop duo who made waves in their native city with a 2007 live performance; released well-regarded material on Kompakt and Firm.
Coma -
(...) from Voyage Voyage
Coma's first release for City Slang after a run on Kompakt that lasted the better part of a decade, Voyage Voyage is the Cologne duo's most pop-minded, indie-friendly work yet, placing a greater emphasis on vocal hooks and rock instrumentation. While there are plenty of vibrant synth sequences and shuffling tech-house rhythms, the electronic elements are generally stripped down to the basics and combined with bass guitars and live drums, with plenty of space for the duo's introspective lyrics... The album concludes with the taut new wave of "..," which manages to briskly convey feelings of apprehension and uncertainty ("I can't explain what's on my mind"). Retaining the dancefloor energy of their previous releases while delving deeper into personal reflections, Voyage Voyage marks Coma's evolution into a more focused dance-pop group.
Combining folk, funk, and psych-rock into trippy experimental pop, multi-instrumentalist Jaako Eino Kalevi wove his own breed of weird, textural synth pop. Finnish multi-instrumentalist crafts experimental pop that borrows from funk, disco, soft rock, and more.
Just a year after that friendly, slightly introspective set of tunes, Kalevi took a sharp, abrupt turn with the spaced-out funk of the seven-song mini-album Dissolution. While not completely losing his touch for synth-pop melodicism or wild production, the material here is edgier and colder, more minimal and less friendly. Hard dance rhythms move the tunes and where drippy, lackadaisical basslines once helped the songs find their groove, they're replaced on Dissolution with belching synths and hypnotic drum patterns... Hard dance rhythms move the tunes and where drippy, lackadaisical basslines once helped the songs find their groove, they're replaced on Dissolution with belching synths and hypnotic drum patterns. The spare funk of the title track... come across like futuristic disco, with Kalevi delivering walls of tight vocal harmonies with a neurotic touch and just a hint of melodrama... Guest vocalist Yu-Ching Huang adds icy vocals to a few songs...
British D.I.Y. indie pop project led by Lancaster singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, Ben Hall.
Prior to leading the band of his namesake, British singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Ben Hall spent a number of years self-releasing an array of whimsical lo-fi indie pop cassettes, EPs, singles, and albums which were credited simply to Mr. Ben. Over the years, the Lancaster native's pleasantly ramshackle output gained more structure and detail, and by 2017, a touring band, the Bens, surrounded him and began to occasionally appear on releases. Although he plays every instrument on 2019's Who Knows Jenny Jones?, the spirit of the Bens persists amid Hall's jangling conceptual yarn...
Passionate, heart-rending British pop group whose sweet melodies and swooning lyrics made them one of the biggest bands of the new millennium.
Coldplay -
Cry Cry Cry from Everyday Life
Capping their record-breaking A Head Full of Dreams era in 2018, Coldplay cemented themselves as one of the biggest international acts of the decade. Traversing the globe and selling out stadiums, they absorbed plenty of sounds and stories from fans around the world, which helped inform their experimental Global Citizen EP. That spirit continued to course through the studio, yielding their ambitious 2019 double album, Everyday Life. As traveling troubadours hopping across continents and seas, Coldplay captured some of that sonically revolutionary spirit found on Viva La Vida while pushing the pop-sense positivity à la A Head Full of Dreams. However, Everyday Life exists in its own strange, unpolished world, which frontman Chris Martin described as "totally raw" and pure...
A German/Swedish industrial metal outfit featuring Rammstein vocalist Till Lindemann and Hypocrisy/PAIN multi-instrumentalist Peter Tagtren.
Lindemann -
Mathematik from F & M (Deluxe)
The end of the 2010s was a bountiful time for Rammstein fans. In addition to another set from guitarist Richard Z. Kruspe's Emigrate side project, the industrial metal titans returned with their first album in a decade. All the while, frontman Till Lindemann was busy working on his own artistic endeavors, teaming with Lindemann co-conspirator Peter Tagtgren on 2018's modern stage adaptation of Hansel und Gretel. Songs from the appropriately dark and perverse retelling later found new life on Lindemann's sophomore effort, F&M ("Frau & Mann," German for woman and man)...
Experimental rock outfit Health&Beauty is led by Chicago-based guitarist/songwriter Brian J. Sulpizio, also known as longtime guitarist for Ryley Walker. The project's melodic, exploratory songs take influence from pop music, free jazz, and meditative folk-rock.
Health&Beauty -
Saturday Night from Shame Engine / Blood Pleasure
Seven albums into the shape-shifting, lineup-shuffling, improvisational project of guitarist/singer Brian J. Sulpizio (Ryley Walker), Health&Beauty submits a sprawling group of songs that negotiates dark, rambling blues ("Saturday Night")... With a live version of the band at the album's core, much of Shame Engine/Blood Pleasure was recorded with the lineup of Sulpizio, guitarist Jake Acosta, bass player Bill Satek, and drummer Seth Vanek following a three-week tour in late 2017. A number of other familiar and first-time collaborators also contributed performances to Shame Engine/Blood Pleasure before it was deemed complete. Clocking in at over an hour, the album adjusts expectations with the trudging blues-rock of the nearly 11-minute "Saturday Night," which features Acosta's howling lead guitar alongside Sulpizio's minimalist vocals...
Big Band of Brothers is a sophisticated, modern big band featuring a collective of pro studio and session players. Genre-bending Nashville big band who debuted with a 2019 Allman Brothers tribute.
Big Band of Brothers feat.
Marc Broussard -
Whipping Post from A Jazz Celebration of the Allman Brothers Band
A big band tribute to pioneering Southern rock band the Allman Brothers, 2019's A Jazz Celebration of the Allman Brothers Band balances brightly swinging jazz with earthy, electric-guitar twang. The brainchild of executive producer John Harvey, the album features a bevy of Nashville studio pros known collectively here as the Big Band of Brothers. Included among them is guitarist (and director of the Jazz Studies Program at the University of Alabama School of Music) Tom Wolfe, who solos throughout and supplies several arrangements. Also showcased are a handful of guest artists including trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, slide guitarist Jack Pearson, and singers Marc Broussard and Ruthie Foster...
Texas-based one-man band whose rough and relentless music is the place where country, blues, and punk cross paths.
Scott H. Biram -
Been Down Too Long from Sold Out to the Devil: A Collection of Gospel Cuts by the Rev. Scott H. Biram
One of the great truisms of the shared traditions of blues and country music is you can't have Saturday night without Sunday morning, and vice versa. Sin and redemption play a constant game of tug of war in the human heart, and just as the wretched dream of salvation, the righteous wrestle with the insistent call of the pleasures of the flesh. Given his appreciation of roots music at its most raw and feral, it comes as no surprise that Texas-born Scott H. Biram is fascinated with spirituals, though in his world getting right with the Lord isn't a clean or simple experience... Sold Out to the Devil certainly seems like a good idea for a thematic collection, and most of the tracks presented are genuinely effective; however, this delivers less in the way of emotional range than one might hope, and with only one new selection, most fans will have this stuff already...
One of the most fascinating and enigmatic -- if not the most successful -- singer/songwriters of the late '60s, Leonard Cohen retained an audience across six decades of music-making, interrupted by various digressions into personal and creative exploration, all of which have only added to the mystique surrounding him.
Leonard Cohen -
The Hills from Thanks for the Dance
...Several notable artists contributed their talents to this project -- among them Jennifer Warnes, Beck, and Leslie Feist -- yet it's Leonard Cohen's vocals and lyrics that dominate the spotlight, and with his voice reduced to a dry, throaty whisper, he manages to make some of the most compelling music of his life. In his frailty, Cohen finds a strength that's little short of miraculous, suggesting the musings of a prophet as he speak-sings these messages of darkness and light in the spaces between love and the ultimate finality. Adam Cohen has done a superb job with this material; the arrangements created after the fact sound like they were always meant to serve these songs, and they add a weight and dynamics that never distract from his father's words...
The creative collaboration of two former Tangerine Dream members, the immersive electronic duo Neuland retained some of the core elements of their legendary band's synth-heavy sound, but expanded into more modernized territory as well.
Neuland -
Dream 9 from Neuland
As former members of legendary synth soundtrackers Tangerine Dream, Peter Baumann and Paul Haslinger were well acquainted with instrumental electronic music that built cinematic tension as it slowly burned. After years of friendship and individual exploration, Baumann and Haslinger came together as Neuland, diving deep into moody electronic meditations that held threads of Tangerine Dream's core sound but also wandered into new territory... The massively ambitious album stays engaging and mysterious for its duration, making it a must for Tangerine Dream enthusiasts or anyone interested in the less beat-oriented side of synthesizer music.
Upset, Beck, Coma, Jaakko Eino Kalevi, Mr. Ben & the Bens, Coldplay, Lindemann, Health&Beauty, Big Band of Brothers, Scott H. Biram, Leonard Cohen, Neuland
