Low Cut Connie - Call Me Sylvia
I was unaware of this band before yesterday, but I have to say that today I am an enormous fan. Everyone should support this band: they're just a no-frills, raucous, throw-back rock and roll bar band, the perfect kind of music to play from a (ideally coin-operated) jukebox when you're having a bourbon in a seedy dive bar at one in the morning. The music is suitably retro without relying too heavily on any one source; there's some dirty garage rock, doo-wop, more than a little honky tonk piano, and some R&B from the time when those letters actually stood for rhythm and blues. Over this the lead singer exudes old-school swagger, singing about such diverse topics as drinking, fucking, and longing for more drinks to drink and girls to fuck. If there's any act that they recall more than others, it's the Faces. What I'm saying is that this band has probably cracked my top ten of most wanted-to-see live acts.
Call Me Sylvia is actually the band's second album - their first was self-financed and came out in 2011 - and I also recommend checking out that album, entitled Get Out the Lotion. This second album is actually more contemplative than the relentless party of the first album (at least in that cry in my beer contemplative way drunks can get). Either way, this is definitely definitely definitely a band to keep an eye on.
Selections
From Call Me Sylvia (which is unfortunately not yet on YouTube):
Low Cut Connie – Boozophilia
Low Cut Connie – Pity Party
Low Cut Connie – Call Me Sylvia
Low Cut Connie – Sister Mary
Low Cut Connie – (No More) Wet T-Shirt Contests
From Get Out the Lotion:
Rio
Johnny Cool Man
The Vaccines - Come of Age
I didn't find all that much exciting about the Vaccines' much-hyped debut album What Did You Expect from the Vaccines? that came out last year. It wasn't that it was bad, but rather that it didn't really do anything to distinguish the band from the myriad of retro English punk bands that have arrived in America in the past five years.
Come of Age, at least to me, rectifies this problem. They still play spiky punk-based garage rock, but on this album they manage to craft some catchy hooks, and the band manages to differentiate itself by its lead singer, who practically croons a few of the songs. It's hard for me to hear a song like "I Always Knew" and not think of a band like Chicago's Smoking Popes, who similarly managed to meld punk guitars with crooning vocals back in the 90's (and yes, I am aware of the inherent irony of claiming the Vaccines are able to differentiate themselves by sounding like another band, but at least it's a semi-obscure band). Anyway, I like the album.
Selections
I Always Knew
Muse - The 2nd Law
Apparently, Muse and the Darkness are not as far apart as I had previously thought.
This is a bit of a weird album. I have no particularly strong feelings for Muse, being only a just-the-hits-er, and that probably helps with my reaction to the album: were I an ardent Muse supporter, or even just someone who sees them as one of the last bastions of populist guitar rock, I would likely feel an intense hatred towards this album, as it is not unfairly being described in the media as the album where Muse goes dubstep.
But what I realized in listening to this album is that there may be times when Muse is not good, but they are often interesting, due to their complete surrender to excess, which is what prompted my Darkness comment. The dubstep is just one more branch in the band's anything goes recording philosophy. For Muse, the goal is bombast, and they're quite democratic about how to get there: there's the dubstep, traditional rock solos, soaring vocals, space-y synthesizers, bouncy pianos, and traditional pop hooks, often all in the same song: the song "Follow Me" starts off sounding like "I Will Survive," shoves in some dubstep, brings back the electric guitars, and ends with Joshua Tree-era soaring vocals. None of this is in anyway coherent, but it certainly kept my attention.
Selections
Madness
Muse – Follow Me
Murder by Death - Bitter Drink, Bitter Pill
The lead singer of this band sounds eerily like Johnny Cash. Like not influenced by Johnny Cash, but in full-on impersonation mode. I feel the Cash estate should get some royalties or something.
Selections
Ramblin
Matt & Kim - Lightning
This album feels like a bit of a disappointment to me. It seems to me that a large portion of the appeal of Matt & Kim are their singalong choruses, which makes me confused why they seemed to skimp on choruses on this album. Still, album opener and lead single "Let's Go" is pretty darn catchy, and there are occasional other moments. I just would have liked something with a little less filler.
Selections
Let's Go
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