post-punk – 7th Level Music

WALL – Untitled

One of the best albums of 2017 is a full-length debut by a band that broke up before it was released.

No one seems to know, or is telling, why New York post-punks WALL (Vanessa Gomez – drums, Vince McClelland – guitar, Elizabeth Skadden – bass, Samantha York – lead vocals, guitar) broke up after releasing one critically acclaimed EP (WALL), wowing crowds at the 2016 South by Southwest festival, and recording what appears will be their only full-length record – Untitled. Perhaps they felt they’d said all they wanted to say. Perhaps they found out the music businesses wasn’t what they wanted after all. Perhaps it was the classic “artistic differences.” I’m not sure we’ll ever know, but there are hints on Untitled – a scorching post-punk testament to desperate times and desperate measures.

The first lyrics on Untitled are “Everyone looking ‘round, looking to get high. I was looking ‘round, looking to get high.” on “High Ratings.” The band drills out the jagged punk angles they had mastered so early around a song about people looking for validation in a world in which others are easily obscured by our narcissism.

“Shimmer of Fact” unveils WALL’s love for Joy Division. The reverbed vocals about a relationship gone wrong after moving from the friend zone to the lover zone include “Something went wrong.” and “We crossed those lines.” The song “Save Me” has shared male and female vocals (“You wanna walk away, now that’s it over?” / “Save me from myself.”) and powerful riffs that underline the frantic lyrics about danger and the thrills it can bring.

“(Sacred) Circus” continues the Joy Divison-like bass, but the guitars float into shoegaze glory, and then crash into punk rock, as they sing about love, lust, and jealousy. Part of the chorus is “Nothing in this life is sacred.” That includes, by the way, our expectations of WALL and what they had planned for their musical career. “Wounded at War,” with its guitars that sound like they’re melting in the sun, is both a salute to homeless veterans and a punch in the gut to the institutions that trained them. “Go home, soldier. Back to the war that bred you, soldier,” they sing.

“Everything In Between” sounds like it belongs in a rare 1980’s VHS vampire movie. Trust me, you’ll understand when you hear the heavy bass, racing pulse beat, and distorted guitars. “Charmed Life” (a Half Japanese cover) has a great saxophone riff throughout it. “Watch everything you do and everything you say,” they sing as they mix surf rock, post-punk, no wave, and 50’s love songs. The song ends with an abrupt stop by the band and York saying, “I guess I’m leavin’.”

On “Weekend,” she sings, “The weekend, the weaker I am.” Partying has become too much of a chore. “I can’t live this way,” she sings while the band (who sizzle for the whole track) agrees to go with her and “skip town.” “Turn Around” has York telling an admirer to “pull yourself together” and forget about even trying to chat her up or risk death.

The album ends with “River Mansion,” a gorgeous piece of post-punk shoegaze that has the band wishing for good things ahead but knowing they might end up not getting them. “We built this dream on a hill…A storm is brewing. I’m safe in the house, locked in a dream.” Perhaps WALL realized they’d already achieved the dream of expressing their art (and getting critical success for it) and knew it was time to leave the mansion they’d created before success flooded and drowned them (“I’m laying in the river and the rain is getting thicker,” York sings). Maybe WALL sensed that success wasn’t going to be good for them. Maybe there was infighting (“When our eyes meet, and you’re lying through your teeth. When our eyes meet, and I’m lying through my teeth.”). Maybe they knew going out on top was going to be the best, safest option.

Or maybe it’s all a lark. We won’t know until they or their label decide to tell us, if they ever do. Until then, we have Untitled to give us clues and questions without answers. Sometimes the mystery is more exciting than the solution, and perhaps that was WALL’s message the whole time.

Keep your mind open.

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Boss Hog set to release first album in 17 years this March.

Boss Hog in New York City on June 5, 2016.

Noise punks Boss Hog are set to release their first album in 17 years, Brood X, next month. Fronted by Jon Spencer and his wife Christina Martinez, the band’s original lineup is back together and just wrapped up a European tour. They only have five U.S. dates slated through spring, so don’t miss them if they’re in your town.

You can hear “17” off the upcoming album at the band’s website. It’s a welcome return of rock and roll.

Keep your mind open.

My top 25 albums of 2015 – #’s 5-1

Here we are at the top 5!

WALL‘s self-titled debut EP was a brash bit of post-punk that floored me the first time I heard it. It’s one of those debuts that instantly makes you hungry for more, and they can’t release a full-length soon enough for me.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are unstoppable. They released the best-engineered record of the year, Nonagon Infinity (which can be played on endless loop, starting from any track, with no discernible bumps or pauses along the way), and have announced five more albums this year.

Night Beats are one of those bands that gets better with each record. Who Sold My Generation was recorded mostly with first and second-takes in just a couple days, and the raw energy and R&B grooves shine through your speakers. They are at the top of their game right now.

The lushest record of 2016 was the Besnard Lakes‘ A Coliseum Complex Museum. It’s full of gorgeous arrangements, psychedelic dreams, and haunting sounds. It’s a record that takes you out of your current state of mind and shifts your thinking.

If you’re gonna go out, go out like David Bowie did with Blackstar. He put everything he had into his final album, and it’s a masterpiece. Wild jazz arrangements, frank lyrics about death, sex, regret, acceptance, love, and hope, and hidden treasures (lyrically and in the album artwork itself) are layered throughout it. The legend left us by setting the bar even higher.

There you have it, folks. Thanks for sticking with me throughout 2016. I hope you’ll keep reading this year.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: The Kills – Blood Pressures (2011)

I’m hard pressed to remember an album I’ve recently heard that starts off as well as The Kills’ (Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart) Blood Pressures.

“Future Starts Slow” is one of their biggest hits, and it’s for good reason. Hince’s guitar is like a haunting alarm and Mosshart’s pleading vocals (“…don’t ever give me up. I could never get back up when the future starts so slow.”) have both rock swagger and blues desperation. “Satellite” is another song pleading for more time to love as the Kills’ phone calls to respective lovers are cut off by bad satellite transmissions beyond their control.

“The Heart Is a Beating Drum” is a reminder to keep passion burning in a relationship. Mosshart sums up a hundred thousand sex life columns as she sings, “And you feel like you been here so many times before. It’s not the door you’re using, but the way you’re walking through it.” Hince’s guitar has this cool low fuzz to it well-suited for late night dalliances. There also this cool percussion that sounds like a sped-up Ping-Pong game throughout it that I love.

For having such sad lyrics (i.e., “I’ve made mistakes I can’t take back home. I love you just not the way you want.”), “Nail in My Coffin” has one of the best grooves and some of the heaviest guitar on the record. “Wild Charms,” with Hince on lead vocals, is a nice introduction to “DNA,” in which Mosshart references them (“True, I had those wild charms for you, but oh how my fire burnt them out.”) as she oozes sexual power and attitude.

“Baby Says” has a slick bass line throughout it and sounds like an early Blondie track. “The Last Goodbye” is a heartbreaking break-up song as Mosshart swears this will be the last time she returns to “half hearted love.” “Damned If She Do” has hints of heavy fuzz rock but the lyrics are pure blues. “You Don’t Own the Road” has Mosshart telling her ex that he doesn’t have a monopoly on loneliness and misery, but she’s willing to make him feel better (“Come on over if that’s the way you feel when you’re lonesome. Steal it back when you’re lonely.”). I love the way her vocals get slightly distorted in the chorus. They match the great crunch of Hince’s guitar work. The closer is “Pots and Pans,” in which Mosshart tells her lover that she’s done caring (“Ain’t enough salt in the ocean that care enough to keep you floating.”), and Hince’s fuzzy acoustic guitar draws a line in the sand.

Blood Pressures is solid rock about heartbreak and passion. Both subjects are easy to make sappy or over the top, but the Kills make it look easy. It’s not, because the road you have to walk to write songs like these isn’t easy. Most can’t handle it. The Kills did.

Keep your mind open.

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Gary Numan’s new PledgeMusic campaign chronicles his next album from beginning to end.

Rock / industrial / new wave / no wave / electro legend Gary Numan is putting together his 21st record. He’s chronicling the entire writing and recording process through a PledgeMusic campaign, and he’s asking for fans to help him through the creative process.

Numan plans to keep contributors updated through videos, music clips, and campaign updates. He admits he has no preconceptions for the record, according to the campaign’s page: “I have no idea how I want it to sound, or who will work on it with me, if anyone. It doesn’t even have a working title as yet. It’s as blank a canvas as I’ve ever had and everything that happens will happen with you as part of it.”

Most of the perks are already sold out, and there are still over 200 days until the album’s scheduled release date. It will be worth the price of the download alone to watch his creative process…or pitch in a grand for a private listening party!

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: Gang of Four – What Happens Next (2015)

Guitarist and vocalist Andy Gill could’ve closed shop when vocalist Jon King left Gang of Four, but he instead reached out to many friends and collaborators and crafted What Happens Next – a fine post-punk record of dark themes with new vocalist John “Gaoler” Sterry.

The album starts with a sample of Robert Johnson from 1937 and then drifts into “Where the Nightingale Sings,” – a song encouraging Londoners to embrace new friends and neighbors instead of trying to live in a past that really wasn’t as glorious as they remember (“False memories, fake history, next you’ll talk of racial purity.”). Alison Mosshart of the Kills delivers vocals on “Broken Talk” (a song about a man seeking solace in prescription meds). “Isle of Dogs” is another track about living in a metaphorical London fog as Sterry sings, “Every day we invent the economy.” and “I buy in, to everything I see.”

Mosshart returns for vocal duties on “England’s in My Bones,” which is almost an electro dance track, but Thomas McNeice’s bass and Gill’s guitar keep it from straying out of post-punk territory. German musician and actor Herbert Gronemeyer contributes lead vocals on “The Dying Rays,” which is almost an epitaph for the British Empire (“Control and power, empires will build in our minds, but it will all go up in a blaze. Only dust in the dying rays.”).

“I Obey the Ghost” is a chainsaw attack on the Internet, social media, and how technology is making us lonelier than ever. Gill and McNeice bring dark guitars over electric beats as Sterry sings, “Online gods speak personally to me. They hold my hand in the community.”

The theme flows well into “First World Citizen,” with its lyrics of “Big appetites, those American guys. Chew up whatever the dollar buys.” That’s some truth right here, and there’s even more truth when you realize it’s a song about immigrants who would take any job any place to get where most of us are, even though most of us hate where we are. “I have lost everything, didn’t ask for anything. I would take anything, anything at all to be a first world citizen.”

“Stranded” is about first world rich cats who are secretly miserable. Robbie Furze of the Big Pink puts down lead vocals on “Graven Image,” and it’s a perfect track for him. Big Pink is a band that makes stadium-level electro, and this track has plenty of synth bass, programmed drums, and guitar fuzz, so it fits him like a tailored jacket. The closer, “Dead Souls,” is about the rat race that can ensnare all of us. “The world is rushing by. Everyone is on a roll, and I pass the time in the line of dead souls.” It’s not as dark as the Joy Division song of the same name, but it’s close in terms of the lyrics (“I’m not cut out for this role, and in the end I’ll join the line of dead souls.”).

What Happens Next doesn’t have a question mark in the title. Gang of Four isn’t asking us, they’re telling us. What happens next is a life caught in materialism, expensive medications we can’t afford or need, and trying to reclaim a past that never existed unless we snap out of it.

Keep your mind open.

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Gang of Four – Live…in the Moment

Recorded live on November 06, 2015 at London’s Islington Assembly Hall, Gang of Four’s (Jonny Finnegan – drums, Andy Gill – guitar and vocals, Thomas McNeice – bass, John “Gaoler” Sterry – vocals) Live…in the Moment is a fine documentation of the edgy, post-punk legends’ raw power.

It begins with the fuzzy, almost frightening “Where the Nightingale Sings.” Gill’s guitar seems to double back on itself at points, and McNeice’s bass pounds out a killer beat. One of their biggest (and still truest) hits, “History’s Not Made by Great Men,” follows. McNeice and Gill get it off to a great start, and Finnegan puts down that slick groove that makes the song so good. Sterry sings to the back of the hall, urging the attendees and the rest of us to step up and move things forward instead of letting political opportunists get the best of us.

The squeaky and sultry sound of “I Parade Myself” is like something you’d hear as a bunch of strippers decided to beat up a rude customer outside the back of the club. The great beat on “Paralysed” is dub-like, but Gill’s guitar and vocals are almost shoegaze style. Sterry’s vocals on “What We All Want” are sharp and Finnegan’s groove is so good that he sounds like a human drum machine.

It wouldn’t be a Gang of Four show without “Love Like Anthrax,” one of the greatest post-punk songs of all time. Gill begins with guitar chaos that threatens to dissolve into madness before the rhythm section moves in to keep us and the song grounded. “Do As I Say” has Gill on lead vocals and he soon has the crowd chanting the chorus. “Stranded” is a modern post-punk gem, and “Damaged Goods” is another classic. Finnegan’s beats are dance floor-ready, and the rest of the band cooks like an Iron Chef right behind him. “Isle of Dogs” is a favorite with the London crowd, and you can’t go wrong with “At Home He’s a Tourist,” a classic song about man teetering on madness. Gill’s guitar is as bonkers as the song’s main character, and Finnegan beats his snare like it cut him off in traffic.

Gang of Four’s “To Hell with Poverty” is still one of the best post-punk songs ever written. McNeice’s bass work is especially good on it. Gill claims “Why Theory?” is his “feminist masterpiece” and “totally stolen from other people,” but that squelching, distorted guitar belongs to no one else but him. The album finishes with the solid rocker “I Found that Essence Rare.”

Live…in the Moment also comes with a DVD of the band’s performance in New York City in March of 2015. It’s a great bargain and a fine addition to Gang of Four’s discography.

Keep your mind open.

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