David J, former bass player of Bauhaus and co-founder of Love & Rockets, is bring his band, the Gentlemen Thieves, to Levitation Austin on April 30th. I’m a big fan of Love & Rockets, and this might be the closest I get to any kind of reunion. David J’s dub-style bass playing was an influence on my brief career as a bass player in high school, and he’s a harmonica player to boot (like yours truly). I’m stoked to see him live.
Keep your mind open.
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I first heard The Duke Spirit (Liela Moss – vocals, keys, percussion, Toby Butler – bass, Luke Ford – guitars, Daniel Higgins – guitars, organ, Olly Betts – drums) on BBC 6 Music (the greatest radio station in the world) somewhere around 2010 when they played the title track from the Duke Spirit’s 2005 debut album Cuts Across the Land. I nearly wept and thought, “Where has this band been my whole life?”
I found their 2008 release, Neptune, in a bargain CD bin at a Bloomington, Indiana wrecka stow. It opens with a brief hymn that repeats the lines “I do believe in something you know.” You can take that a couple different ways: Either Moss is telling us she has faith in something we know as truth; or she’s defiantly telling someone, perhaps us, that she has faith despite what we might believe.
The first full track, “Send a Little Love Token,” sums up everything I love about the band: Powerful vocals that evoke Patti Smith, hammering piano, big drums, and shoegaze guitar. “The Step and the Whale” is about Moss realizing too late that she’s sabotaged a relationship. It’s a sharp song for her voice, Butler’s bass sounds like something from an old Cure record, and the rest of the band puts down stuff the Jesus and Mary Chain would envy.
“Dog Roses” might be Moss remembering why she sabotaged the relationship and remembering that it was a good idea after all: “I hope you stay in charge of your mouth…When nothing’s fluid you drink yourself through it. Outside you chalk-draw yourself.” “Into the Fold,” a good rocker, is about rebuilding a relationship (“This heart could heal, if you had courage just to say what you feel.”).
“This Ship Was Built to Last” is a combination sea shanty and shoegaze track. Trust me, it works. The combination of the distorted, echoing guitar (especially after the epic bridge), Moss’ chanting vocals, and coxswain drumming is excellent.
Someone must’ve pissed off Moss when she wrote “Wooden Heart,” because it’s a searing diatribe against a former lover, but delivered with a torch song blues feel. “I would understand your heart if I could feel it,” she sings as guitars reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine riffs snake around her.
She’s not angry in “You Really Wake Up the Love in Me.” Quite the opposite, actually. “You taste so good today you’d get love from anyone,” she sings as Betts puts down some of his best licks on the record and the guitars go into full psychedelic madness by the end. “My Sunken Treasure” is borderline power pop. “Lassoo,” with its nice horn section, is the excellent power rock the Duke Spirit does so well, combining fierce vocals with raw rock instrumentation. It continues with “Neptune’s Call,” in which Moss is feeling frisky again (“I tasted the salt on you. Now I have a tongue tattoo.”). The closer, “Sovereign,” is almost a lullaby.
The Duke Spirit have a new album, Kin, due out later this year. I look forward to it. The first three released tracks are a nice blend of their styles: shoegaze, soul, rock. Neptune picks up where Cuts Across the Land left off, and the band is still moving forward.
Keep your mind open.
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In the liner notes for Kaiser Chiefs’ (Ricky Wilson – vocals, Andrew White – guitar, Nick Baines – keyboards, Simon Rix – bass, Vijay Mistry – drums) Education, Education, Education & War, each track is listed with a year, staring with 1921 and ending with 2014 (when the album was released).
The band comes out swinging with “The Factory Gates” (Year – 1921) – a song about the plight of British factory workers trapped in their clock-in, clock-out lives. “They tell you day after day to walk through the factory gates. What you make on the factory floor, you take straight to the company store…’Til they can’t break your will anymore. You are contractually tied to death’s door,” Wilson sings with the gusto of a man ready to smash his cubicle and walk away from his job.
“Coming Home” (Year – 1951) is a fine example of Kaiser Chiefs’ power ballads, with big instrumentation and clever lyrics about a relationship that might be toxic to both people involved but might also be the best thing they’ve had. “Misery Company” (Year – 1939) is about a young officer wanting to stay off the front lines and going mad at the thought of spilling human blood (as noted by the chorus of hysterical laughter). White’s guitar sizzles on this track.
Mistry’s drums hit hard on “Ruffians on Parade” (Year – 1947). It’s easy to hear this as a song about the high the UK was on after World War II ended, but it’s actually a song about how a lot of us have turned into jerks in a world affected by terrorism. We’ve given up privacy and some of our freedom for the illusion of safety and consumerism (“At the last stand of the day, we lost more than we saved. In the dark of the arcades, we spend more than we made.”). “Meanwhile Up in Heaven” (Year – 1970) challenges us to free ourselves from this trap (“And your mind is the key. It is the key that sets you free.”). It’s another big ballad that casually strolls into power pop, although Rix’s bass is particularly fat on it.
“One More Last Song” (Year – 1991) is about post-1980’s greed, and it has a nice, nearly psychedelic keyboard breakdown in it by Baines at one point before the guitar, bass, and drums roll back in to make it a nice rocker. “My Life” (Year – 2000) is a sharp tune about someone moving on after the end of a relationship that had run its course (much like the 1990’s had and everyone looked forward to a new millennium and new opportunities). The band cooks on it and Wilson’s lyrics are Zen-like in their portrayal of someone waking up from their illusions (“I walk along the sand with my shoes in my hand to the daylight, and I realize the fishermen are heading out to ocean. The café owner turns on the urn, flips the sign round to open, and it goes on.”).
“Bows & Arrows” (Year – 1962) could be about a couple who rely on each other to get through everyday life or about two buddies in Viet Nam who rely on each other to stay alive – or both. It has one of the standards of any Kaiser Chiefs record – the chant-along chorus (“We the people created equal, and if that’s true then we’re not the only ones.”).
“Cannons” (Year – 2014) is a damning tirade against Big Government, Big Brother, The Man, the 1%, or whatever you want to call them. Kaiser Chiefs again remind us that we have compromised much for the feeling of security (“They’re making all the difficult decisions, politicians and children first, followed by their personal physicians who say you will be happy if you expect the worst.”). The song ends with a poem, “The Occupation,” read by actor bill Nighy, and speaks of people letting things fall apart around them while the rich get richer.
“Roses” (Year – 1980) is a low key (at least in the beginning) ending to the record, as Wilson sings about the failure of his generation, most of whom didn’t live up to their claims they were going to change the world or not fall into the rat race (“The bottles in the drug store were all just piss and ink. The flags you wore are rags under the sink.”). It’s not all gloom and doom, however. The song turns into a lovely song about hope (“It’s dark where the roses grow.”) with lush keyboards by the time it’s finished.
Education, Education, Education & War is one of the angriest albums I’ve heard in a while, but also one of the cleverest. Kaiser Chiefs have always been able to hide scathing lyrics in near-pop songs, and this album has some of their best deceptive work.
Keep your mind open.
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The Kills‘ fifth full-length album, Ash & Ice, is due for release on June 03, 2016. The first single, “Doing It to Death,” is already available for download and purchase and puts electro beats with their usual smoky, crunchy guitar riffs and sultry vocals.
They’ll start a tour on April 07, 2016 in Nashville, Tennessee and play shows all the way through mid-August. Catch them if you can.
Keep your mind open.
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