Reviews – Page 95 – 7th Level Music

Vapors of Morphine – A New Low

Consisting of two members of Morphine (one of my top 5 bands of all time) – Dana Colley (saxophones, vocals) and Jerome Deupree (drums) – and their pal Jeremy Lyons (vocals, guitar, bass, banjo, and more), Vapors of Morphine are reclaiming low rock and bringing it back when we need it most in this time of 24-hour news cycle cacophony.

A New Low opens with a short instrumental and then a traditional Tuareg song, “Renoveau / Daman N’Diaye” (and a second version of it near the end of the record). The inclusion of Tuareg music on this (with vocals by Boubacar Diabate) is a great choice and shows the band’s love for low-fi world music as well.

Their new version of Morphine’s “Shiela” is great, and slightly darker than the original. “Baby’s on Fire” has some of Colley’s best electric saxophone work. I still don’t know how he gets those sounds out of those things. Their take on Morphine’s “The Other Side” turns it from a song of lament and regret to one of paranoia.

Dana Colley often plays two saxophones (one tenor, one baritone) at once, but it sounds like he’s playing four on “Sombre Reptiles.” “If” is a great example of low rock as Lyons sings, “If the ocean was whiskey or full of gin, would you lead me away or push me in?” and Deupree drums are cooly reverbed and Colley’s saxophones do a creepy crawl through your stereo.

“Red Apple Juice” is an old Appalachian standard, and the band does a great job with it, turning it into a near goth-country song with Lyons’ banjo leading the way.

Colley sings leads on “Souvenir,” another great Morphine track. He also goes blissfully bonkers with his saxophone work on it by the end. “Rowdy Blues” reminds me of Treat Her Right tracks, which is always a good thing (and a natural progression since THR’s Mark Sandman went on to form Morphine with Colley and Deupree).

The album ends with the instrumental “Interstellar Overdrive,” in which Dana Colley plays a spaceship. The track is proof that the band could go full-blown psychedelic if they wanted.

A New Low is proof that low rock has returned and is just as good as it’s always been.

Keep your mind open.

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Dizzybird Records Summer Sampler 2016

Dizzybird Records has put out a fine mix album of seven of their artists to get us through the last weeks of summer.

The Harlequins have three good, weird surf-psych tracks – “Fair Shake” opens the sampler on a good note with plenty of loud twisting sounds and trippy vocals, “Hear Me Out” is Mersey Beat garage rock with fuzzed-out vocals, and “Over a Hill” is a Kaiser Chiefs track if the Kaiser Chiefs decided to record a song after they’d just realized they’d accidentally eaten peyote jam on their morning toast.

Heaven’s Gateway Drugs, who seem to be playing everywhere all the time, also give us two tracks – the sharp “Copper Hill” with its angular guitars and echoed vocal harmonies, and “War with June” from their upcoming album Rubber Nun, which should be a fine record judging from this tune. It oozes from your sound system’s speakers. Ooooozes.

Coffin Problem reminds me of Bauhaus when they still had a punk edge to them. Their two contributions are the creepy “Child of the Sun” (dig those relentless guitars!) and the sampler’s closer – “Empty” – is so heavy that it almost becomes sludge / doom rock.

Cool Ghouls‘ offering is “Creature that I Am,” a fun classic-sounding psychedelic track with slight Americana and garage touches. They sound like a band that might’ve opened for Jefferson Airplane back in the day.

Gringo Star‘s “Long Time Gone” is full of peppy piano, what sounds like a mandolin, and reverbed, crunchy guitar. It’s an interesting mix that’s hard to describe, but please know I mean that in a good way.

Las Rosas give us an appropriately titled song as far as their name is concerned – “Sensitive Flower.” The song’s no shrinking violet, however. It’s a slightly dark track about a somewhat dysfunctional relationship.

Heaters‘ two tracks, “Lowlife” and “Solstice,” are lush and bold. “Lowlife” has room-filling guitars and a great entry by their drummer into the song. “Solstice” has great cosmic-psych guitar work throughout it that trips along a surf edge.

It’s a good compilation, and Dizzybird offers free listens on the Soundcloud page for it. Give it a spin.

Keep your mind open.

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Live: Seal – August 27, 2016 – New Buffalo, MI

I’ve been meaning to make it up to my wife for dragging her to see Japanese acid rockers Bo Ningen (a band she just doesn’t understand) at Levitation Austin a couple years ago, so I thought taking her to see Seal might do the trick.

He played at the Four Winds Casino Silver Creek Event Center in New Buffalo, Michigan. The “Silver Creek Event Center,” mind you, is just a big carpeted room the casino can use for everything from a Seal concert to a wedding reception. It is much smaller than the venue map on Ticketmaster’s website makes it appear. I’m happy to say that the acoustics in the place are quite good, however. The whole show sounded great.

Part of that is because Seal is a great performer. It was him, a DJ / synthesizer player, and a guitarist on stage. No drummer. No horn section. No bass player. They didn’t need any of them. Seal opened the set with “Crazy,” his biggest hit here in the U.S., and the crowd was instantly on its feet. His voice hasn’t lost any power since the song was released in 1991, and I loved the way his band turned it into a bit of a dark wave tune with the synth work. “Killer,” another early hit, followed it with even more of a dark wave feel to it with heavy synth bass.

The first track they played from Seal’s new album, 7, was “Daylight Saving,” a gorgeous love song that preceded another from the same album, “Do You Ever.” “Prayer for the Dying” was another heartbreaking cut (to the point it made my wife cry) that led into “Love’s Divine.”

A surprise was his cover of Hall & Oates‘ “Sara Smile” (with Seal on back-up guitar). “Love,” the last song on 7, led into the first verse of David Bowie‘s “Space Oddity,” and I thought my wife was going to slide off her chair.

“Deep Water” was another beautiful track, and then came another surprise – Seal’s cover of Tears for Fears‘ “Mad World,” which he dedicated to the victims of the recent earthquake in Italy. “My Vision” and “Right Life” got everyone up and moving again, and he even threw in a little bit of Chic‘s “Le Freak.” The fourth cover of the night was Prince‘s “Hot Thing,” which was one of the funkiest tunes of the night and closed out the main set to a standing ovation.

The encore consisted of “Kiss from a Rose” and then another track from 7, “Life on the Dancefloor,” which had everyone dancing and grooving and leaving on a good buzz. I saw two ladies a few rows behind us when the houselights came up, and they were dumbfounded in their chairs. They didn’t move for several minutes.

I asked my wife if the show made up for Bo Ningen.

“Almost,” she said. “Probably the Bo, but not the Ningen.”

I took that as a win. Thanks, Seal.

Keep your mind open.

Rewind Review: Baby Jesus – self-titled (2014)

Hailing from Sweden and claiming to have formed after “an intense trip to India,” Baby Jesus’ self-titled album is a wild mix of psych, garage, and surf.

“Nothing’s for Me” opens the record with a swirl of cymbals and blaring guitar before the horror movie organ kicks everything into high gear. The vocals are frantic, almost “Wooly Bully” ramblings. That means they’re a blast, by the way. “Trembling Away” continues the madness and the organ blares through everything, which is a feat considering how damn loud and bonkers the song is. “Havn’t Seen the Light” is, despite the typo in the title, sharp as a tack. The guitar is like a buzzsaw, the drums are punk, the bass is a jackhammer, and the organ is an alarm klaxon.

“Don’t Want You” could be a Stooges song if the Stooges had a keyboardist as crazy as Baby Jesus. Imagine Animal from The Muppets on a Hammond B-3 instead of a drum kit and you’ll get the idea. “Nice Walk” is a surf instrumental. Yes, after four songs of psychedelic madness, Baby Jesus drops a surf number on you that sounds like they reached through a wormhole in space-time and grabbed it from a record store in 1965.

“Cry, Cry, Cry” isn’t a cover of the Johnny Cash song (although that would be great), but it is a wild breakup song with enough cymbal crashes for an entire record. The title of “Deep Blue Delay” might refer to the delay effects pedals used on the guitars in the song, but it’s probably about something trippy that happened to the band in India. Regardless, the guitar work on it is crazy with plenty of distortion and reverb. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a Theremin mixed with it. “You Make Me Fry” is another lambasting of a bad relationship, and “Vansinne” is a swanky psychedelic lounge tune with fantastic saxophone work.

“Time’s All Gone” is a fitting title for the last song on any record, and Baby Jesus makes the most of their last track by, believe it or not, scaling back the cacophony. It’s the mellowest track on the album, with echoing vocals, groovy synths, and that surf sound they do so well.

I hope these guys are working on some new material, because this full-length debut is a good omen of what’s in store for them and us. I hope they tour with Goat. That would be a mind-melting double bill.

Keep your mind open.

Big Grunt – In Session

Recorded on March 16, 1970 for the BBC’s legendary John Peel Show on Radio 1, Big Grunt (Dennis Cowan – bass, Roger Ruskin Spear – saxophone, Vivian Stanshall – vocals & euphonium, Ian Wallace – drums, Bubs White – guitar) emerged from the break-up of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Stanshall was a wild performance artist and psychedelic rocker, and Big Grunt combined excellent rock chops with wild costumes, robots, and enough trippy lyrics to make your head spin.

The Peel Session was only four tracks, but they’re all a neat slice of early 1970’s British psych-rock. “Blind Date” is a quirky, weird track full of Stanshall’s goofy humor about meeting a woman from a dating service. “11 Mustachioed Daughters” is probably the band’s biggest hit, and it’s easy to hear why with Wallace’s big drums, Cowan’s killer bass line, White’s near-stoner rock guitar, and Stanshall raving like a mad druid.

“The Strain” is about trying to poop as Stanshall sings from the perspective of whatever’s inside him and needs to get out and then about his grief as the phone rings and people knock on the door. White’s surf guitar is outstanding on the track. “Cyborg Signal” is a cool instrumental that shows the band weren’t just a one-trick pony that made songs about sitting on the crapper.

Mega Dodo Records has unearthed this rare recording, so don’t miss it if you’re a fan of early British psychedelia.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: Nine Inch Nails – March of the Pigs (1994)

This five-song EP / single (depending on how you think of it, I guess) from Nine Inch Nails contains the Downward Spiral album cut of the title track, which is one of Trent Reznor’s best cuts in terms of showcasing how he can go from industrial madness to quiet goth and back again in the blink of an eye.

“Reptilian” (a remix of “Reptile” by Dave Ogilvie) might refer to the deep part of our brains, or perhaps the way the song crawls around the room like a komodo dragon with its hisses, clanks, and snarls from Reznor’s guitars and synths. “All the Pigs, All Lined Up” is a remix of “March of the Pigs” that swirls techno, drum and bass, and industrial chaos around you with Reznor belting out the lyrics as sampled screaming masses cheer behind him.

“A Violent Fluid” is a quick (barely over a minute) instrumental that’s more or less an introduction to the longer instrumental of “Underneath the Skin,” which has similar themes to other NIN songs, including the gothic synthesizers, drums that sound like garbage cans, and creepy bass.

It’s a dark, brooding EP, but that shouldn’t surprise you considering the state of mind (drugged and otherwise) Reznor was in at the time it was made. The Downward Spiral is one of the best albums of the 1990’s, and this EP is a visceral slice of it.

Keep your mind open.

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Rewind Review: L7 – Smell the Magic (1991)

I’m a big fan of L7, so you’d think I’d already owned their second album, Smell the Magic, for years. It turns out I didn’t, but I thought I did because I own so many of the songs on it in other forms. It’s an early 1990’s classic, and needs to be in your collection if you’re any fan of any kind of rock.

Opener “Shove” (which I already owned on the Tank Girl soundtrack) is a fist-pumping anthem as Suzi Gardner (guitar, vocals) rants about bill collectors, the mailman, the neighbors, smog, and the political landscape of 1991. Dee Plakas’ (drums) beginning to “Fast and Frightening” (which I have on at least one other recording somewhere) are like a Gatling gun and Donita Sparks’ (guitar, vocals) vocals are as rabid as the song’s title. It also has one of the most punk rock lyrics of all time, “Got so much clit she don’t need no balls.” Play this if you ever need to start a mosh pit.

“(Right on) Thru” has some of the best guitar work from Gardner and Sparks, and I love how Plakas’ drums keep you guessing if the song’s going to take off or stop short. “Deathwish” (which I had as a live cut on another record) is a personal favorite. Jennifer Finch (bass, vocals) puts down one of her heaviest riffs that drives the song like a Sherman tank across a battlefield. The song isn’t particularly fast, but it grinds along with unrelenting power.

“’Till the Wheels Fall Off” is appropriately titled, because it tears through at breakneck speed. “Broomstick” is a Blondie tune if Blondie decided to be a punk band instead of a post-punk band. “Packin’ a Rod” is more angry punk. Hell, the first line is “All fucked up and I’m mad as hell, violate your daughter and your son as well.” Sparks is carrying a gun just for you, so you might want to steer clear of her. I love the crunchy, yet shredding guitar solo on “Just Like Me.”

The record closes with “American Society,” a cover of the song by the great underground band Eddie and the Subtitles that’s all about being sick of television, the rat race, the homogenization of radio airwaves, and the lure of materialism and quick riches. It was a perfect song to start the 1990’s, because everyone was sick of this stuff…and we still are.

Smell the Magic still shreds and is still relevant. Give it a whiff.

Keep your mind open.

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Live: Heaven’s Gateway Drugs, Pleasures, Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor, & Slug Love – August 14, 2016 – Ft. Wayne, IN

There was a nice psychedelic rock show at Fort Wayne’s Brass Rail last week. First up was Slug Love – a local act who played a good set of punk-psych. They have some stuff on Soundcloud right now and hope to have more material out soon. I look forward to it.

Detroit’s Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor were up next and they played only one previously released song (“Desert Brain”). Everything else was entirely new material, and all of it sounded great. The new material has a bit of a cosmic vibe. Guitarist and singer Sean Morrow mentioned Hawkwind to me when discussing the new stuff, so I’m hoping their upcoming album will be a spacey trip.

Pleasures came all the way from Florida to play their wild electro-psych full of distorted robot vocals, throbbing synths, and even a weird collection of film clips projected on their kick drum head (a genius idea, by the way).

Ft. Wayne’s Heaven’s Gateway Drugs closed the night with a lot of material I hadn’t heard before either. I’d learned earlier from SOYSV that this was a challenge they’d made to HGD to play new material (The two bands are all pals, by the way.). HGD played their usual sharp psych layered with almost meditative beats.

It was a fun show for a cheap price. Don’t miss the next one.

Keep your mind open.

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Fea – self-titled

“Fea” is Latino slang for an ugly girl, but Fea the band (Letty – vocals, Aaron – guitar, Jenn – drums, Phanie – bass) means riot grrl post-punk (or “Fuck ‘Em All,” according to the video below).

Opening with “Mujer Moderna,” the band comes out with chugging guitars and vocals that sound like a Be Your Own Pet B-side. The song is a slug across the jaw to those who blame sexual assault victims for the crime. “Feminazi” is a fast, fun, and fierce call for both sexes to “meet in the middle” and for everyone to know that feminism isn’t fascism.

“You Can’t Change Me” has some of Phanie’s hardest bass as Letty sings about being out and proud and not giving a damn what you think. “Tragedias” will get you moving, because Jenn’s beats will boot your booty out of your chair. Be careful if you’re listening to this while driving. Don’t blame Fea (or me) for any speeding tickets you might get as a result. “Dead End” reminds me of Lunachicks, and that’s a good thing.

“No Hablo Español” might be the loudest cut on the record, because every lyric seems shouted to the streets. “Beat It Out” warns us against succumbing to the pressures of mainstream culture, white noise TV, and crummy relationships. Aaron’s guitar work cooks on it. “Sister K” is a funny story and middle finger to a mean nun Letty had to deal with in school.

“Stuck Like You” changes up the pace a bit with a softer chorus than most of the other tracks, and it works quite well. The riffs on “Poor Little Rich Girl” are outstanding, as are Letty’s Spanglish vocals. It’s some of her best work on the record. “Veins” is a little over three minutes long, but it only seems like half that because the track is so fast. “La Llorona” (“The Crying Woman” – a legendary ghost in Latin American culture) is suitably haunting. Aaron’s guitar sounds like he dipped it in a swamp before playing it and Jenn’s drums are like a funeral dirge at first.

It’s a sharp debut and I hope it leads to more records. Punk rock needed Fea. They’re like a shot of adrenaline to the genre. I didn’t know I needed Spanglish angry Latina punk until I heard this record, and now I want more of it.

Keep your mind open.

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Bleached – Welcome the Worms

Does the current political landscape have you bummed? Has work turned into rote activity you’d rather turn over to a highly intelligent simian? Are you sick of TV and big budget blockbuster flops at the box office? Are you in need of a jolt to break you out of a summer funk? Why not save the money you’d spend on a couple fancy schmancy frozen coffee drinks and pick up Welcome the Worms by Bleached instead? This pop-punk album will make you far happier than any overpriced, super sweet, high fat drink you’ll regret when the sugar coma it provides makes you fall asleep at the wheel.

Bleached are sisters Jennifer and Jessica Clavin (lead vocals and guitar, respectively), Micayla Grace (bass), and Nick Pilot (drums). Welcome the Worms is a middle finger to living in L.A. when you’re not a movie star, bad relationships, and those who turn their backs on people who live on the fringe.

“Keep On Keepin’ On” bursts off the line with a cool psychedelic sound mixed with Sleater-Kinney anger. Jennifer Clavin throws down fierce vocals while Grace seems to be playing slap bass on a bass guitar. Jessica Clavin’s guitar sounds a bit like a warning siren at times, and Pilot kills it on the first song.

“Trying to Lose Myself Again” is about wanting to disappear in the chaos that is Los Angeles. “I’ve been hanging around this ugly town trying to find myself again…I’ve been getting high every night trying to lose myself again,” Jennifer Clavin sings. The glamour of L.A. hides misery for many, but Jessica Clavin’s guitar work is anything but miserable. It’s scorching.

“Sleepwalking” is a perfect metaphor for most of us shuffling around big cities in the daily grind. Jessica Clavin again shreds while Grace and Pilot seem to be racing each other throughout the track. “Wednesday Night Melody” is a great power-pop track that Weezer and Metric wish they could still produce.

“Wasted on You” is about the perils of dating musicians and has some of the snappiest beats from Pilot. “Chemical Air” reminds me of early New Pornographers with its bold vocals and big sound (especially Jessica Clavin’s cosmic guitar work). “Sour Candy” is reminiscent of early “bad girl” rock from the 1950’s in Jennifer Clavin’s vocals.

“Desolate Town” has appropriately desolate bass from Grace and slightly distorted vocals as Jennifer Clavin sings about the wasteland L.A. can be for those working in the non-glamorous jobs there. “I’m All Over the Place (Mystic Mama)” is part-trippy psych and part-post punk as Jennifer Clavin mourns a break-up (“I’m all over the place without you…”). It sounds like a rare Fuzzbox single.

“Hollywood, We Did It All Wrong” is the closer, and I’m not sure if Bleached thinks they screwed up living in Hollywood, or if they mean the whole town screwed up what could’ve been a cool thing. It’s a fun track either way.

It’s a fun record, too, even with some of the dark subject matter. The title comes from a weird religious pamphlet the band picked up in L.A. The title might refer to impending death, but at least Bleached is exorcising demons and having fun before they check out of here.

Keep your mind open.

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