SOUND BITES

Two of my fondest memories from 1994 involve Mellow Gold . The first takes place in January, as I'm on my couch watching music videos on TV (which, I swear kids, is something you could do any time of day in 1994); the nonsensical lyrics, the scuzzy cheerleaders, the stop-motion coffin journey and the accumulated weirdness of the Loser video caught me unawares. Struck dumb by the effortless awesomeness of it all, I decided to seek his album out. The second happens in June, specifically prom night of my senior year. To save much of the detail and cut to the important part, my date thought it would be a good idea to drop acid; my recollections of that night, so special for so many, are mostly rooted in disappointment, but I do have one moment of sheer bliss. After leaving prom, we left for a bite to eat en route to the after party. During the commute, I was listening to Mellow Gold . Suffice to say, Soul Suckin' Jerk made her trip balls SO HARD. The terror in her voice as ...

Say what you will about Drive-By Truckers, but they're one of the best bands out there when it comes to balancing quality songwriting consistency and maintaining a level of prolificness. Part of this can be attributed to quantity; over the years, DBT has been blessed with a stellar lineup of songwriters. On some albums, they've shared that load among three incredibly talented guys in Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell. After parting ways with Isbell after 2006's A Blessing And A Curse , songwriting duties were taken up by bassist Shonna Tucker, who contributed seven tracks over their next three albums. Now, Tucker's been replaced by Matt Patton, who isn't writing any songs for DBT (yet), leaving the bulk of the work to Hood and Cooley. They've clearly been the two best songwriters in the band since Isbell left, so it's somewhat refreshing to have them split the work evenly on English Oceans ; trimming the third songwriter lends more cohesiveness...

Of all the varied and eclectic of Beck's albums, perhaps none was more of a left turn than 2002's Sea Change . When it was released, critics stood agape at its rawness and emotion. Go figure: after almost a decade of pushing limits with slacker folk, warped hip-hop and gonzo disco groove, his serious singer/songwriter turn was the one that they didn't see coming. Still, Sea Change is arguably Beck's most well-received album; a heartbroken and haunted set of tunes, it (perhaps more than any other Beck album) demands a specific mood. It won't have any of your good times, optimism or foot tapping, as there's nary an upbeat number to be found. The songs are pulled off wonderfully, but they're almost alienating in their relentless sullenness. As someone who prefers bold, genre-defying Beck to moody, despaired Beck, it's not one of my favourites even though I respect its vision. So, when Morning Phase was heavily compared in advance press to Sea Change ,...

I'll be completely and totally honest heading into this: Pavement didn't catch my attention in their active years. I'd read a couple of articles about them in the back pages of rock magazines, and I remember them giving Pavement's previous album (1992's Slanted And Enchanted ) loads of praise, extolling the virtues of this thing I'd never really looked into called "noise rock". However, being a mere teenager in Atlantic Canada in the early 90s, I didn't get the same exposure to the same bands as the kids in the bigger cities did (kids, I know it's hard to believe, but there was a time long, long ago before the internet when we had to find out about bands mostly from mainstream media). So no, I never actually heard any Pavement records in the 90s. Years later, when Matador started reissuing Pavement's records with a metric shit-tonne of bonus material, the magazines (and, by then, blogs) started bringing them up again. Eventually, I'd ...

Since breaking onto the scene with independently-released early hit Brother Down and subsequently utterly smashing with full-length debut We Were Born In A Flame about a decade ago, Sam Roberts has been fighting against the wishes of fairweather fans of the time who dearly wished he'd be an ongoing source for the workman-like, earnest rock that The Tragically Hip had long abandoned in favour of artistic expression. Ever the experimentalist, his very next album (2006's Chemical City ) veered off the beaten path into psychedelia and ragged soul. He'd later incorporate other influences, such as Motown and new wave, but remained very much a rocker at his core. Lo-Fantasy retains some of Roberts' rock sensibility, but it's by and large a synth-and-sheen affair, infusing a late-80's energy into an otherwise straightforward collection of songs. It's interesting that this album sees release in mid-February considering just how sunny it is. That cover is no coi...

Chino Moreno has been busy as of late. In addition to releasing career highlight albums with Deftones (his main gig for 20+ years), he's found himself broadening his horizons with side projects. In 2011, he formed Palms with former members of Isis and released their debut album last year; it's a good listen, albeit far moodier and more atmospheric than Deftones fans were used to. That same year, Moreno formed ††† with Far guitarist Shaun Lopez and Chuck Doom. Two EPs followed, one in 2011 and one in 2012. This, the debut full-length album, collects the EPs together with a third that the group recorded last year. That would presumably make for an uneven album, but the fifteen tracks here flow together surprisingly well, especially considering they're not in the same order as they were in EP form. It's fair enough to draw comparisons to one of Moreno's former side projects; Team Sleep, which released their only album in 2005, surrounded Moreno's vocals with el...

It's getting harder and harder to pinpoint John Butler's intentions. Originally presented as a Bonnaroo-friendly outback jam band, his Trio swapped out its rhythm section before dropping 2010's April Uprising . That album seemed like the proverbial swing for the fences, a concise and straightforward affair with its mind on its fans and its heart fixed on the airwaves. Not a problematic attitude, but it made for an uneven record; for every moment of artistic brilliance (i.e. Revolution, I'd Do Anything ) there was an equal or greater measure of fluffed up pop-leaning perplexity ( C'Mon Now, Close To You ). The move gained Butler some attention, but didn't do much service to existing fans eager to hear him do what he does best, which is play a mean guitar. Flesh & Blood , then, feels like a big win at first; its A-side does away with most of the blatant mainstream reaching tunes, yielding to good, simple songs that sometimes stretch out just enough for a ...