Iron and Wine - Gateshead Sage 16/03/11 (Gig)

I’m just going to say it. There are far too many singer-songwriter types. The main consequence of this surfeit is that we’re completely and utterly inundated with bland fuckwits who seem to think that the purchase of an acoustic guitar comes with carte blanche to bleat dully about girls’n’shit to any unsuspecting suckers who happen to be in earshot. Step forward opening act Daniel Martin Moore, then, a man so stereotypically boring I don’t intend to waste any more of my word count on him. Based on the recorded evidence, Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam could certainly teach him a few lessons about how to maintain a balance between good ole-fashioned songcraft and actually being interesting. Things start off promisingly tonight, with Beam appearing relaxed and chatty,and his seven accompanists injecting songs from both ends of the discography with real gusto. But gradually, and almost imperceptibly, a change begins to permeate the set. What started off initially as satisfyingly full arrangements of the songs descend into interminable free-jazz wank-outs during which all eight musicians appear blissfully unaware of the presence of the crowd. It’s a fucking massive shame that the night takes this turn, because it takes more than a little bit of the shine off the wonderful songs and Beam’s impossibly warm vocal which is even more affecting when teamed up with the Sage’s space-age acoustics. An enormously frustrating night then, but hey, even a flawed Iron and Wine performance is preferable to what preceded it.

Those Dancing Days - Daydreams and Nightmares (Album)

The subject of pop for pop’s sake has inspired some reasonably heated debate on these pages in recent weeks, igniting a slightly indier incarnation of the decades old beef between pop lovers and ‘serious’ music fans. Well, if you’ll indulge me my soap box for just a moment, I’ve always believed pretty fucking strongly that there is no purer musical thrill than a song which inspires in one the uncontrollable urge to dance and sing. And at a time when insipid, lifeless pop bands are tiresomely numerous, genuinely good ones deserve to be cherished just as much as the most creative of avant-garde pioneers

Slink forward Those Dancing Days, then. Having captured the twee zeitgeist in 2008 with their debut record In Our Space Hero Suits, its follow-up Daydreams and Nightmares sees them in an altogether more insistent frame of mind. It’s a bit of a stretch to say they have found a harder edge, but they’ve certainly developed an unmistakable fresh sense of urgency. As well as having attained a new level of vitality, the band also appear to have well and truly nailed the art of the chorus too, as evidenced by the almost instantly memorable mid-sections of ‘Dream About Me’ and ‘Reaching Forwards’

The strongest overall examples of the admirable pop nous of Daydreams and Nightmares can be found in its central one-two of ‘Can’t Find Entrance’ and ‘Fuckarias’, which are without doubt two of 2011’s catchiest singles so far. The breakneck pace of both songs and the snotty attitude of the latter are characteristic of the evolution of the band’s sound. Mind, you, I’m not sure the subject of ‘Fuckarias’ will feel too threatened by the barbs which are being levelled at them: “You’re an uninvited clown... You’re in my space, get out of my face”. Those Dancing Days might be able to convincingly beef up their sound, but, endearingly, their cuddlier core is still pretty plain for all to see.

Throughout Daydreams and Nightmares, in fact, there are numerous reminders that the band haven’t entirely ditched discarded the unfettered tweeness that characterised their first record, and there’s still plenty here for sensitive souls to fall for here. ‘I’ll Be Yours’ and ‘Help Me Close My Eyes’, for instance, are appropriately big-hearted, as is the closing track ‘One Day Forever’ (once you get over the bizarre resemblance between its opening few seconds and those of Grizzly Bear’s ‘Two Weeks’, that is). There’s plenty more evidence of the saccharine in the lyrical content too, or even from a cursory glance at the song titles, illustrating that Daydreams and Nightmares is still, at heart, a collection of sweet pop songs. You’ll just have to circumnavigate the extra layers of polish and synths to find it. Presumably the influence of Patrik Berger, latterly Robyn’s producer, has had a big part to play in all this. Hell, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine one or two of these songs being recorded by Robyn, most notably ‘Help Me Close My Eyes’.

All in all, the progression Those Dancing Days have shown here is pretty damn impressive by anybody’s standards. Whether this will be acknowledged by either our little world, or the wider public, I wouldn’t like to say. What I can say with some safety, though, is that Daydreams and Nightmares is a better record than In Our Space Hero Suits. A fellow DiS scribe at that time may have decried the band’s lack of anything memorable, but that is no longer an accusation which may be levelled at them with any kind of fairness.

7/10

Singles Round-Up - W/C 28/2/11 (Single)

And so, it is that time of the week again. The time when we realise to our massive chagrin that the fleeting ecstasy of the weekend is once again fizzling out and in a matter of hours we will be back out into the grey misery of Monday morning for another week of toil and drudge. But fear not! Because although God might take our weekend every Monday with his left hand, at the same time he gives us new singles with his right hand! And butter my arse, there’s some real crackers this week.

Manic Street Preachers
Postcards From a Young Man

I expend on average about a thousand words a year telling Muso’s Guide readers exactly why Manic Street Preachers are the most important band ever, so let me warn you, you shouldn’t expect balance from me on this subject. Postcards is one of the highlights of the album of the same name, and it’s a glorious throwback to the late 1990s when the band shifted records by the shitload. It’s a swaying, swooning slice of enormous guitar pop, on which James Dean Bradfield sounds more energised than he has in years, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the slightly bitter nostalgic bent of the Wire’s lyrics. It’s quite obviously single of the week, but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Elbow
Neat Little Rows

Everyone likes Elbow these days don’t they? They’re like a band of Dave Grohls, a bunch of proper decent pub blokes, who also happen to make brilliant records. Neat Little Rows sounds pretty much exactly how you would expect an Elbow lead single to sound. It doesn’t start off like that, though, because for the first minute you’re a bit concerned that they couldn’t come up with their own song and instead have decided to completely plagiarise Zebra by Beach House, but then the piano starts twinkling and Garvey’s whiskied howl cranks up a gear and you’re back in the safe and comforting heartland of classic Elbow. Neat Little Rows may not be in any way surprising, but its predictability takes nothing away from how nice it is to have Elbow back.

Crocodiles
Mirrors

Sleep Forever was, for me, one of 2010’s finest albums but it never quite seemed to get the universal adulation that it deserved. Exactly why Crocodiles feel the need to release opening track Mirrors now eludes me, but screw it, it’s a brilliant song which calls to mind the best moments of The Secret Machines’ early career. It’s about the pinnacle of Crocodiles’ noise-gaze endeavours, easing its way in gently with a hypnotic, snaking melody ushering in the crunching chords which carry off the rest of the song into a sea of beautiful echoey confusion. Massively enjoyable stuff.

Belle and Sebastian
I Want the World to Stop

In exactly the same way that you know exactly what to expect from an Elbow single, B&S have long since ceased to surprise us when they knock out a lovely single. They are are one of indieland’s great comforting constants, and unless you’re made of granite, their deftness with an upbeat melody should be sufficient to lift you out of a miserable Monday mood. Typically, I Want the World to Stop is a beautifully crafted sliver of chirpy pop, which sees Stuart pondering “sheets of milky winter disorder” and a “grey adorable city by the docks”, and still making the whole thing sound utterly idyllic.

Dutch Uncles
Face In

I’ll be honest, this is my first experience of Dutch Uncles. It’s pretty nice, all told. I won’t pretend not to be a smidge disturbed by the chap in the wedding dress in the video, but hey, his guests seem to be enjoying themselves by the end. The song is another bit of sugary indie pop fun, and although this particular week there’s a danger of it being overshadowed by the titans of the genre, the nagging catchiness of the chorus sees it alright. Face In is a great example the type of pop music that is one of the few things we Englishers do better than anybody else in the world.

Those Dancing Days
Can’t Find Entrance

Well, we might as well finish off with more twee pop since that’s the route the singles schedulers seem to be taking us this week. Those Dancing Days have become consummate pros in the field, and I can give you a sneaky exclusive that their new album is excellent. Can’t Find Entrance is pretty representative of the breakneck speed at which the whole thing proceeds, rattling by in a blur of guitar, organ and little-girl lost vocals. In another week, this might have been single of the week, but, well, I’d already given that to the Manics before I’d even seen what other singles were out.

Efterklang - The Sage - 26/2/11 (Gig)

Sometimes a gig is more than just a band standing on a stage playing songs to a room full of people who like their records. Very occasionally, there are instances where band, venue and crowd come together in a beautiful and poetic unison and it’s suddenly about more than mere music, it’s about an experience in the fullest sense of the word. Tonight, (unexpectedly to me, I must concede), Efterklang provide one of those magical gigs.

Having never previously been inducted into the Efterklang live experience, for all I know this could represent a fairly standard show for them, in which case that would make them they greatest live band in the entire world. I have to admit that I wasn’t the biggest fan of Magic Chairs, which felt a little flat compared to the lunatic majesty of Parades, but the sheer unadulterated enthusiasm of the band’s performance tonight levels the playing field, and the songs from Magic Chairs stand with their heads held high, fit to share a setlist with their forebears. It seems such an obvious point, but for me the key difference between a genuinely enjoyable performance and just a decent gig is the amount of joy the band show in delivering their songs, and with Efterklang their constant grins make it abundantly plain; they are fucking loving being here tonight.

Aside from the enthusiasm with which the band ply their trade, it also helps matters that they can play a bit too. The extended seven-piece version of Efterklang are able to instill a massive orchestral grace to songs which already sounded pretty full to start with. From the understated elegaic groove of Rasmus Stolberg’s bass to Peter Broderick’s furious violin wig-outs, the musicality of the band is extraordinary. The lines between the duties of each individual musician become blurred throughout, with drummer Thomas Husmer also playing the trumpet, keyboardist Heather Woods Broderick moonlighting on the flute, and singer Casper Clausen constantly banging something with a drumstick, whether it is a drum, a cymbal or the Sage’s conveniently placed (and surprisingly tuneful) pipes.

One of the key things which makes tonight’s show so wonderful is the way Efterklang are able to bring into such sharp relief that magical little niche they have created between the pure and unsullied beauty of Sigur Rós and the unfettered joyousness of Arcade Fire. More than once, the show descends into a collective singalong where the divide between band and audience ceases to exist (particularly when one enthusiastic couple hug Casper near the end, and it feels completely and utterly acceptable.) By the time the band reach the culmination of final song ‘The Modern Drift’, all seven of them find themselves stood on the edge of the sage leading us into a cathartic acapella clapping session (the impact of which is no doubt aided by the Sage’s expensive space-age acoustics).

When Efterklang depart the stage for the final time, I don’t think I am the only person left standing on the floor bemused by what I have just witnessed. It genuinely takes me a few minutes to get my breath and my bearings back. Fortunately, the band seem to like the Sage, which bodes well for our prospects of getting them back here in the near future. I have just one littler pointer for Casper to remember for the band’s next visit though: Try and remember you’re in Gateshead, not Newcastle. A lesser band would have been lynched for such a heinous crime...

Vessels - Helioscope (Album)

It’s lovely to have Vessels back. It feels like way too long since they unleashed the post-mathrock colossus of their debut album White Fields and Open Devices upon the British public. Sadly, as it turns out, the ungrateful bastards who inhabit these shores were paying no attention whatsoever, abandoning White Fields to a horribly undeserved fate as an overlooked classic. Alas, providence has given us the chance to right that wrong with the release of Helioscope, because Vessels have, very magnanimously, delivered another stunning record. Much of what characterised White Fields is still present; the lunatic creativity, the staggering musical proficiency, the sudden and delightful swells of volume and swerves of tempo. Hell, parts of Helioscope (‘Recur’ and ‘Art/Choke’ in particular) could have been lifted right off White Fields. But Helioscope also shows that Vessels have developed a new brand of subtlety, something neatly illustrated by the moody beauty of ‘Meatman, Piano Tuner, Prostitute’ or the paranoid brilliance of ‘The Trap’. I’ve always had difficulty imagining a record more ambitious than White Fields and Devices, but if such a thing could be said to exist, then Helioscope is it. Vessels are a fucking marvel, and hopefully they haven’t finished surprising me yet.

5/5

Radiohead - The King of Limbs

The King of Limbs definitely represents new ground for Radiohead in its cohesiveness and its unnerving, stifling mood. For these reasons alone, it is a good album. Problem is, though, all has gone before means that something merely ‘good’ represents failure for Radiohead. I’m six listens in and it’s yet to fully reveal the intangible wonders of a Radiohead record, but fingers crossed it’s just a matter of time.

7/10

Bright Eyes - The People's Key (Album)

The four years since the release of the last Bright Eyes album Cassadaga have found Conor Oberst in a curious sort of critical limbo. For a number of reasons (the most frequently cited one being its propensity to the overblown), Cassadaga proved to be one of the most poorly-received albums of Oberst’s career. For what it’s worth, the criticisms weren’t entirely fair, because, firstly, it contained some of Conor’s best songs in ‘Hot Knives’, ‘Lime Tree’ and ‘Cleanse Song’, and, secondly, it’s hardly as if Digital Ash in a Digital Urn and I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning were particularly low-fi recordings, and history seems to have been kind enough to them.

Ever since Cassadaga, though, every release to which Oberst’s name has been tagged has been greeted warily, almost to the point of apprehension. Sure, there were the odd isolated pockets of praise for the two Mystic Valley Band records and Monsters of Folk album, but utimately neither set critics a-quivering with anything even approaching the fervour inspired by Fevers and Mirrors or Lifted. Again, the less than enthusiastic reception of these records felt harsh, but that’s a debate which we will have to set aside for another day lest we find ourselves two thousand words deep without even broaching the subject at hand. One fact has become plain from all this prevaricating though, and it is that since 2007, any album recorded by Conor Oberst is more likely to inspire trepidation than unequivocal excitement.

Well, there’s a very strong chance that The People’s Key will be remembered as the point when the wind changed again, and suspicion ceased to be a feature of a Conor Oberst pre-release campaign. To put it succinctly, it is a brilliant album. And, crucially, a large part of its brilliance stems from the fact that it is completely unlike any previous Bright Eyes album. There’s no cynical attempt to rehash past glories and there is no experimenting aimlessly for experimenting aimlessly’s sake. All we have here is the sound of Oberst, Mogis, Walcott and co sounding completely fresh, pushing Bright Eyes forward into a new space, with inspired results.

Conor has recently spoken about how he went into the studio to record The People’s Key armed only with the lyrics, preferring to allow the instrumentation develop organically during the recording process with Mike and Nate. This spontaneity has resulted in an album which is bristling with vitality, and which, in an entirely different way to Cassadaga, boasts a luxuriously full-sounding cast of instrumentation. The songs are adorned with any number of new and unexpected little flourishes, like the rattle and clamour that heralds the beginning of ‘Jejune Stars’, the strange chugging guitar sound which carries ‘Haile Selassie’ along or the stuttering halt which concludes ‘A Machine Spiritual’, all of which combine to make The People’s Key a living, breathing thing. Oberst has been at pains to suggest that it is a ‘rocking’ album, and there’s no denying that it is, but it’s also utterly beyond the constraints that are implied by that description; it is forward-thinking and progressive too.

There are some things about The People’s Key, though, that are comfortingly familiar. For starters, it wouldn’t feel like a proper Bright Eyes album without a meandering spoken word intro, supplied this time by Refried Ice Cream’s Denny Brewer, who reappears on a few more occasions throughout the record to provide a dignified gravitas akin to the last Gil Scott-Heron album. At first it’s difficult to reconcile his grizzled, vaguely existential monologues to a Bright Eyes recording, but the more the album sinks in, the more integral they begin to feel to the whole tapestry. When you detach yourself from the engulfing embrace of the record (easier said than done, by the way), the resigned philosophy of Brewer’s contributions is actually a perfectly logical counterpart to Oberst’s ruminations on humanity and the universe at large, which are becoming increasingly outward-looking as he gets older.

As the album reaches it’s conclusion, we see two more flashes of ‘old’ Bright Eyes, the first being the aching piano-led ‘The Ladder Song’, which is as beautiful as any of Oberst’s greatest ballads. Aside from showing that he can still gently crush you with the sadness of his voice, ‘The Ladder Song’ also provides encouragement that even in the midst of the swollen sea of instrumentation, he still knows when to keep things minimal. The other glimpse of the Bright Eyes of bygone years comes in the form of the meditative closing song ‘One For You, One For Me’, which bobs along gently, in the process discreetly creating the same sense of low-key stateliness which made Lifted such a stunning album.

The final word on The People’s Key is left to Brewer, allowing him to sign off what he started with a neat symmetry, as he leaves us with a sermon on the importance of forgiveness, mercy and the importance of moving on. Whether the finality of his words will prove to a prophetic final chapter in the Bright Eyes story is, for now unclear, because Conor is about as reliable as James Murphy when it comes to giving definitive answers on the future of his band (and long may he keep us guessing). Either way, The People’s Key is fit to stand toe to toe with any record that will be released in 2011, and serves as a timely reminder of the distinction between form and class.