Wednesday, March 27, 2013

it’s been a decade since the Strokes released their 2nd (and best) album Room On Fire. at that point in time the Strokes backlash was so fierce that almost no one wanted to admit thatRoom On Firewas a great record. mostly everyone just tore it apart for sounding exactly like theIs This Itand for rehashing the same late 70s New York City sound…like that is supposed to a bad thing. in the 10 years sinceRoom On Fire, The Strokes have been doing everything they could to expand their sound which has resulted in some truly boring music. if you were holding out any hope that The Strokes still had the ability to write perfect little slices of sunshine-y New Wave inspired guitar pop….well you are shit out of luck. withComedown Machinewe don’t get a return to form, it’s just more of the same all over the place clash of styles and lack of energy. so this now makes 2 great albums and 3 shitty ones. when your bad outweighs your good then it’s time to call it quits.

Monday, March 4, 2013

The Men have followed up last year's breakout Open Your Heart (one of my personal favorite records of 2012) with New Moon.

The Men are now a 100 million miles from their early droney noise records Immaculada and Leave Home ....BUT even compared to a record they just released less than a year ago, they sound like almost an entirely different band. on Open Your Heart they were still worshipping at the alter of 90s shoegaze and noise rock creating something to make all of our J. Mascis loving hearts proud. with New Moon it seems like the dudes in The Men have tossed out their Loop and Dinosaur Jr records and gotten really really really into early Wilco and Uncle Tupelo. Hey man, it happens. one day you just get burnt out on Shellac.

Not to say all is lost, some of the heavy spaced out Krautrock jams and layers of feedback still exist (especially on the psych-rock closer "Supermoon") but largely they have been phased out in favor of a more roots rockin' Americana sound. there's some obvious Neil Young & Crazy horse aping going on too, but if you are gonna steal then you might as well steal from the best. i'd almost call this album a let down if i was a whiny asshole who didn't allow bands to do different things but the songs are still so damn good that I ain't got too much worth complaining about.

if Open Your Heart was an A- 21st century rock n roll album, then New Moon is a solid B+. just don't be surprised when your Neil Young loving dad starts listening to these guys or they end up being the frat boy that goes to Bonnaroo every year's favorite new band. all in all it's another solid album from one of better current bands going.