My Vitriol and Me

My small contribution to the forthcoming DiS is 10 celebrations, a piece about an overlooked record from DiS' lifetime which has been of particular significance to me:

I’m pretty sure that the DiS’ tenth birthday celebrations will feature accounts of user/website relationships which are far more interesting than mine. It’s been a pretty commonplace journey for me, you see, one where boy meets website, boy falls in love with lots of bands, boy writes a few words for website in the hope of discovering more bands and (just maybe) helping others to do the same. While I’ve been plodding away mundanely on the boards, posting barely 4000 times in six years, there are those who have made friends, found and lost love, got married, had babies (probably) and, in one or two select cases, found national tabloid infamy. How could I compete with that? So, instead of even trying to, I wanted my little contribution to the festivities to be about a record which has been massively important to the development of my tastes, one which was released before I was even aware of the existence of drownedinsound.com, but which is probably just as much to blame as DiS for my unslakeable thirst for new music.

Around the start of the century’s maiden decade, I wouldn’t have said music was particularly important to me, something reflected by the fact that at the age of 17 the entirety of my ‘collection’ will have consisted of about 12 fairly standard samples of radio-friendly indie (of which probably only the Manics have endured to this day). As time progressed though, I gradually grew bored of the stodgy dad-rock, started borrowing a mate’s copies of the death-throe issues of Melody Maker (well, thieved really, sorry about that Richard), and began to spend time in the company of MTV2. As a direct result of the latter, My Vitriol appeared on my radar around the time they released the Pieces and Always: Your Way singles. They were the perfect band for me to discover at that particular time, accessible enough not to repulse my unsophisticated palate (and indeed to actually discover in the first place), but alternative enough for me to satisfy my urge to rebel against my own tastes.

On the surface (which is about as deep as the younger me would tend to delve), Finelines was a pretty uncomplicated proposition, a nice heavy rock record, bristling with venom, and sprinkled with the occasional catchy chorus. But if its appeal were merely superficial, it would have been chucked to one side with my Feeder, JJ72 and Kinesis records long ago. Instead, while I have experienced dozens of infatuations with songs, albums and genres, both brief and longer term, and discarded far more bands than I have loved, Finelines has grown with me, and become one of the few constants in my musical landscape, to the point where my Digipak copy is now just about ready to fall to bits once and for all.

A huge part of its appeal lies in its dextrous melding of pop rock and shoegaze. The likes of Cemented Shoes, Grounded and Losing Touch are instantly exhilarating (and, unsurprisingly, all singles), and their immediacy acts as a necessary breather from the endless surging waves of effects-heavy guitars, a handhold to cling to in the storm of noise. Even now, it’s hugely satisfying, and quite refreshing, to hear how unrestrained the album is. I mean, just look at Tongue Tied. On the face of it, a mainstream rock record could probably do without a meandering, overblown five and half minute instrumental peppered with false endings slap bang in the middle of it, but thanks largely to its joyous bloody-mindedness, it turns out to be a perfect distillation of the entire My Vitriol philosophy, and one of the highlights of the whole album. And then there are the other instrumental snippets, the shorter pieces like Alpha Waves and Taprobane, which in clumsier hands could jar or slow things down unnecessarily, but instead prove to be vital threads in the tapestry of the album as a whole.

So if you never discovered Finelines (and I wouldn’t were it not for opportune timing), if you dismissed My Vitriol out of hand, or even if you own the album and simply haven’t listened to it for ages, then it is without question a worthwhile way to spend forty-eight minutes. It’s a shame that its lack of a successor has overshadowed the record’s sheer strength, but it also means that it gives My Vitriol that rarefied air of mystique which shrouds bands whose only record is a stone-cold classic. For me though, while Finelines is a special record for its own qualities, what is arguably more important is the gateway it provided me to the likes of Seafood, The Cooper Temple Clause and Idlewild, who in turn each gave me a few more outlets, which then led me to a few more other threads to follow, and so on and so on and so on to a point where my hard drive and bookshelves creak under the strain of music they carry.

Bear in Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth: Remixed (Album)

Beast Rest Forth Mouth is likely to end up one of 2010’s great overlooked records, destined to be overshadowed by Yeasayer’s similar, inferior effort. Entering the minefield of the remix album seems at first a curious decision, especially given the near-perfection of the source material but the result, by and large, vindicates Bear in Heaven. Undoubtedly, the album’s shimmering pop charm is lost, but in its place comes a subtler new appeal, particularly on The Field’s remix of Ultimate Satisfaction, or Deru’s Deafening Love, which experience two of the most radical deconstructions here, both taking on an unnerving, ghostly air. The BRAHMS remix of Fake Out, meanwhile, is a less drastic tweak, enhancing the song’s essence with a skittering little beat, the result of which is probably better than the original. As with practically every remix album ever made, not every reworking is a success, with Pink Skull’s version of Wholehearted Mess turning the song into a shapeless mush. On the whole though, the band have presided over a real success, adding an interesting new dimension to their album, which will hopefully bring it back on the radar to those who missed it first time round.

4/5

Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest Preview (Album)

These days, it feels strange to bemoan a period of less than twelve months as too long to have gone without recorded output from any artist. But such is the outrageously prolific nature of Bradford Cox, a man usually good for at least two records a year, that it seems like an age since his last release, October’s Atlas Sound album Logos. He even stopped spewing out the formerly frequent Virtual 7” recordings which litter the archives of the Deerhunter blog (most of which are well worth exploring if you find yourself with a spare afternoon and a fuckload of hard drive space). His quiet spell is due to end on September 28^th, as he and his Deerhunter cohorts knuckle back down to the day job with the release of their fifth full-lengther Halcyon Digest. Lead single Revival (quite fittingly, given the name), picks up the thread left by last Deerhunter EP Rainwater Cassette Exchange, taking on the same lazy, mildly shoegazey ambience of its predecessor. That’s not to say you should expect any kind of rehash of past glories, mind you, because Deerhunter are most definitely not that kind of band. There may be some vague sense of narrative logic running through their back catalogue, but a huge part of their overall appeal lies in their unpredictability and their sublime meandering tangents. In fact the only thing about Halcyon Digest that isn’t likely to surprise is its inevitable prominent spot in the end of end of year love-ins.

Salli Lunn - Heresy and Rite (Album)

I’ve often wondered what compels a band for whom English isn’t their mother tongue to sing in English. Clearly it is an artistic decision which is entirely theirs to make, and there are certainly a host of wonderful bands, including Phoenix, Mew and M83 to name a mere few, who choose to do it, but the motive behind it has never been entirely clear to me. Is it for commercial appeal? Is English particularly easier on the ear than other languages? Do foreign musicians just like to show off how expert their English is? Answers on a postcard (or that little comments box at the bottom) please.

Danes Salli Lunn are another example of a band recording in English as opposed to their native language. Now, short of hearing a recording of Heresy and Rite in Danish for comparison purposes, we are limited in our ability to assess the relevance of their linguistic choices, but what is all too apparent is that there are times when some frankly atrocious lyrics take the shine off what could have been one of this year’s most shining examples of noise-drenched indie. The most obvious and most squirm-inducing example of this can be found on Mirror Girl. You could take your pick from the song’s whole lyric-sheet, but the line which makes me recoil most is probably ‘She can not be a single girl with those pretty cheekbones’. One aberration of a song does not entirely ruin a record, but the unfortunate effect it has is to make it difficult to totally lose yourself the first half of the album because you know this is lurking portentously round the corner.

This is a real shame too, because at its best Heresy and Rite is a record which, either intentionally or otherwise, takes a number of reference points (I spotted, among others, very early Sonic Youth, Interpol, and Engineers) and blends them into a fairly agreeable melange. What Salli Lunn do really well (and it’s tragic the album doesn’t explore it more) are the huge assaults of squealing, crashing noise which punctuate the album, never more so than about five and a half minutes into Fast Cars, Clean Bodies, or the latter stages of Frame of Reference. When they pull this off, they are visceral, vital and exhilarating, and it’s a pleasure to slip the headphones on, turn the volume up, and immerse yourself in the shower of noise. Although the album’s more tumultuous sections represent its greatest successes, they are backed up by one or two strong lower key moments too. Parachutes Forever, for instance, shares a similar wide-eyed innocence to Jeniferever’s best work, while Belongings is a skilfully delivered slice of paranoid brooding.

On the whole, then, Heresy and Rite is an album which produces hugely inconsistent results. To call it a mixed bag would be the most enormous of understatements. It undoubtedly contains a lot of the right ingredients for Salli Lunn to be major noise-rock players, and the more experimental elements of the album are beautifully-realised, but what will ultimately stay with you after listening to Heresy and Rite are its slips into formulaic territory, as well as the horror of Mirror Girl.

Mystery Jets - Serotonin (Album)

It's probably something of an understatement to describe Mystery Jets as unpredictable. Having meandered from their initial messy prog jams all the way through to pastel-hued pop, few could have guessed with any kind of accuracy which direction their third record would take. So then, probably the most surprising thing the band could have done is make a direct follow-on from its predecessor, taking the 80s-flecked pop blueprint and running even further with it. And while part of Twenty One’s appeal was the huge contrast to the sound of Making Dens, Serotonin’s perverse logicalness is equally thrilling.

Twenty One covered youthful romance pretty extensively, focusing on both the joy of being young in love, and also the pain of things not going completely to plan. This time out though, the spotlight is squarely on the latter, because Serotonin is undoubtedly a lovelorn record. However, the way the downbeat lyrical content is handled is further proof of Mystery Jets’ sheer contrariness, because the giddy headrush of pop which accompanies it makes the whole thing feel like a celebration of having the shit kicked out of your heart.

Take these snapshots from Alice Springs for instance – “Freedom is an illusion generated by your brain... Better to have loved and lost than to have lived and never loved anyone”. The maudlin gives way to the hopeful, and the blast of powerful pop energy blows away any sense of resentment which might have still been lingering when the lyrics were written. The result of this is that you get the impression that Mystery Jets would be great people to have around you if you were ever ditched by a loved one. (Who knows, perhaps supporting the recently dumped might be a handy sideline for them to explore if this fickle industry ever leaves them strapped for cash)

Serotonin is one of those records which feels like more than the sum of its parts, because it contains some of the simplest pieces of music Mystery Jets have put to record, yet it is probably more invigorating than anything they have ever done too. There is a lot on here which would make fantastic singles, songs which are radio-friendly in the most positive sense of the expression. Dreaming of Another World is the ultimate lead single, because it is difficult to imagine a more perfect three minutes of pop being released this year. It’s a beautifully buoyant hymn to escape and feels unimaginably fresh and youthful, the sort of song which can soothe aching limbs and iron out the dents in your psyche.

In a record built almost exclusively of highlights and gigantic choruses (the most ecstatic of which, by the way, can be found on Lady Grey), it is difficult to single out individual moments. The songs all hang together nicely, complementing each other and making for a record which is a million times more coherent than you would have expected from the band they were when they first started out. One song which stands apart from the rest, however, is Melt, primarily because it feels Christmassy where the rest of the record feels unmistakably summery. It’s a gorgeous, waltzing piece of music, which calls to mind Flakes from the last album, mainly because it shares the same wide-eyed sense of wonder, something which characterises a lot of the songs on which Blaine takes lead vocals.

The release of Serotonin will hopefully strengthen Mystery Jets’ reputation as our premier purveyors of eccentric pop music. In a year when two of their most prominent contemporaries Foals and Los Campsinos! have returned with records far darker in their execution than their previous efforts, Mystery Jets have, typically, gone against the grain with this boisterous surge of pop. Having shown their aptitude for surprising us with both change and then the lack of it, I guess it makes most sense for us to expect even more finely honed pop next time out, but knowing Mystery Jets, it’s probably more likely that album number four will be a nine hour suite of jazz-drone.

5/5

Delays - Star Tiger, Star Ariel (Album)

I have never been in a band. No obvious journo/failed musician clichés here then, more journo/never even tried to be a musician. Therefore, it is quite difficult for me to accurately assess at which point it becomes clear to a band that their creative and commercial peak (which are sometimes concurrent, but more often than not come at completely different times) are gone. More to the point, when that realisation does dawn on you, what do you do? Do you give up the ghost, or do you continue to plug away gamely, making music entirely for yourself and the die-hards? There’s an argument for both really. There are few things more depressing than seeing a once-wonderful band knocking out by-numbers tripe to an increasingly uninterested public (Weezer, anyone?). But then surely your first aim as a musician is to make songs that satisfy you, regardless of whether or not the public take them to heart?

The reason for this meandering train of thought is that to me, it is fairly apparent that Southampton four piece Delays probably enjoyed their zenith in their early years, with debut record Faded Seaside Glamour quite rightly garnering plaudits aplenty for its blend of Cocteau-esque beauty and jangly indie-pop. Mildly electro-infused follow-up You See Colours, perhaps harshly, didn’t take off in the way it was expected to, and Everything’s The Rush seemed to pretty much pass most people by entirely. So for the release of fourth album Star Tiger, Star Ariel, I guess you could say at least there is little to no pressure on the band.

And, for the most part, this freedom seems to show, because Star Tiger very definitely sounds like a band who, perhaps for the first time, have been liberated from the demands of having to follow up a successful debut record, or from the burden of having to regain lost momentum. It also gives us the impression that Delays are entirely comfortable in their own skin, old enough and mature enough to know who they are, and capable enough to convey that in the songs.

Where Everything’s the Rush was largely an exuberant blast of straight-up pop, Star Tiger tends to be a slightly more diverse affair. Its greatest successes are undoubtedly the moments where the band retreat into their shell with opening song Find a Home the most gorgeous example of this. Along with Hold Fire, it is also probably the most direct excursion the band has ever taken into dream pop yet. Few British bands can do woozy as well as Delays, which has a lot to do with Greg Gilbert’s falsetto, something which has always accounted for a sizeable chunk of the band’s column inches.

While the sleepier moments are the high points of the record, there is still plenty to cling on to for those who enjoy Delays doing straight up pop. In Brilliant Sunshine is an invigoratingly boisterous piece which has Aaron Gilbert’s fingerprints all over it, and would have fit quite nicely on You See Colours. Shanghaied is similarly urgent and also serves as a timely reminder that there’s another element to Greg’s voice, though, because as affecting as it is when he’s being all ghostly, it’s also pretty exhilarating when he lets rip with those throat-tearing howls. It’s like Mark Greaney probably thought he sounded on those JJ72 records all those years ago.

The album comes to a close with its title track, which is about as grand and majestic as we have ever seen the band. It reinforces the feeling that Delays have probably found their niche, a slot below the surface of mainstream success which allows them to quietly plug away safe in the knowledge that history will be kind to them. Granted, they might never produce such pure and perfect pop as Long Time Coming again, may never serve up another glorious dancefloor shredding curveball like Lost in a Melody or Valentine, and chances are they may never inspire in me that same feeling I did upon first encountering the band some seven years when a solo rendition of There’s Water Here by Greg pinned me spellbound to the floor. However, with Star Tiger, Star Ariel comes the realisation that Delays will also never produce a half-arsed record, nor is the quality of their songwriting ever likely to dip. Sometimes, you know, that’s enough.

4/5

Perfume Genius - Learning (Album)

There are rare occasions when you just know. When you put on a record for the first time, and you are encompassed by the vague and indefinable sense of warmth that comes with the knowledge that what you are listening to is, in a word, special. It has nothing to do with epoch, genre, or geographical origin, but stems from an intangible kind of magic that elevates the music above the confines of being merely ‘good’, into something wondrous. Learning by Perfume Genius (aka Seattle native Mike Hadreas) is such an album.

It’s difficult to know where to even begin picking Learning apart, really. The first thing which will strike you about Hadreas is his voice. Floating above the bobbing piano intro of the title track which opens the album is this tragic, pain-laced voice which sounds almost childlike, but which also seems worn out by years of sorrow. This is far from the only contradiction which adorns the album, because really, one of the most intriguing things about Learning is that it is sheathed in paradox. It is resolutely dark in tone, yet it emits a gentle warm glow. It is utterly minimal in its components, but it still comes across as a hugely complex piece of work. And while the songs are shot through with the starkest kind of fragility, it is difficult to escape the feeling that from the catharsis of putting this pain on record, there emerges a kind of defiance.

Perhaps wisely for a record of such emotional heft, Learning is short in length. The ten songs clock in at less than half an hour, and each is in itself an ephemeral snapshot of raw humanity. The album seems to drift away on the breeze before it has even begun, and while you are left drained from the experience, ultimately it leaves you pining for more. Hadreas, clearly, is a believer in the old maxim that less is more, something which is abundantly plain from the sparse instrumentation he employs throughout.

In spite of the fact that the shelves of our record stores are clogged up by a million and one albums constructed, like Learning, almost entirely from piano and voice, you can’t really accurately compare Perfume Genius to any other artist. There may be a hint of turn of the decade Radiohead (think Motion Picture Soundtrack) in the ghostly murmur of Gay Angels, and very occasionally the vocal delivery calls to mind Jason Lytle and Grandaddy’s more tender moments, but aside from these all-too fleeting reference points, Hadreas is an artist whose sheer uniqueness is extraordinary. Just take this coda from ‘Mr Petersen’ as an example: “He let me smoke weed in his truck / If I could convince him I loved him enough...When I was sixteen, he jumped off a building / Mr Petersen, I know you were ready to go / I hope there’s room for you up above or down below”. It’s difficult to imagine any other artist who could take what is essentially the tale of (at best) a questionable relationship between an older and a younger man, and imbue it with such heartbreaking compassion. This is the real power of Perfume Genius, his ability to inspire feelings that can not be drawn from the work of any other musician.

By now, it probably goes without saying that Learning is not the easiest album that 2010 will give us. But at the moment it is almost impossible to imagine anything being released that will even come close to being as enriching as this. It is the sort of record which can completely engulf you with its beauty, and leaves you wondering just what other marvels Perfume Genius will be able to sculpt in years to come because, lest we forget, this is his first release. Mike Hadreas is a rare and wonderful artist. Savour him.