[review] Guided By Voices // Let’s Go Eat the Factory

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[review] Guided By Voices // Let’s Go Eat the Factory

Written on February 9, 2012 by Brendan in Music, New Releases, Review

[review] Guided By Voices // Lets Go Eat the Factory

Tympanogram Grade: C+

Let’s Go Eat the Factory is the new release by Dayton, OH’s recently reunited Guided by Voices, and we all know what that means. GBV and Robert Pollard release massive quantities of music. Small songs and snippets dominate an uneven album.

The material is sketchy. There are some great moments, but too many songs bog the album down with tired mediocrity. GBV made some great albums: Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes, King Shit and the Golden Boys, Mag Earwhig and Isolation Drills. Unfortunately, Let’s Go Eat the Factory is not one of them.

The problem isn’t that it is a bad record. It’s a very listenable record, actually, especially if you like GBV and recognize how nice it is to have the (once fired) Bee Thousand-era line-up back in Pollard’s good graces again. And obviously, Let’s Go Eat the Factory is a massive upswing from Pollard’s 13 individual solo releases of recent years which became a perpetual cruel joke.

The problem is that there comes a point when you need to expect more. “Hang Mr. Kite,” “Waves,” “Chocolate Boy,” “My Europa,” “The Unsinkable Fats Domino,” “How I Met My Mother,” “Doughnut for a Snowman,” “Spiderfighter,” “Imperial Racehorsing,” “We Won’t Apologize for the Human Race,” “God Loves Us,” and “Laundry & Lasers” are perfectly great songs. There’s always the promise of greatness in GBV, though, and that greatness is rarely attained outside of concert.

It’s been a damned long time since we’ve had a great GBV release. We’re long overdue. The good news is that Let’s Go Eat the Factory shows us that there is still the promise of greatness, but come on… the promise of greatness is there in every GBV record! I am getting tired of waiting for Pollard to deliver an all-around satisfying record; after all, it’s been about a decade since Earthquake Glue. All I want to see is a solid 40-minutes of music on one release, which shouldn’t be hard for a band that produces their level of material. The punchline – of course – is that Pollard has a solo album coming out in March.

Guided By Voices // The Unsinkable Fats Domino

Guided By Voices // Doughnut for a Snowman

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[album review] Dr. Dog / Be The Void

Written on February 8, 2012 by Eli in Music

Tympanogram Grade: B-

Some bands opt to redefine their music on each release. There’s the acoustic and sparse album followed by the electric and grandiose album. Or the “prog album” followed by the “folk album.” Not Dr. Dog. The Philly rockers have been content to evolve their sound slowly and subtly, each consecutive album adding a bit of extra scenery to the musical view. Similarly, their fan base has grown slowly but surely. Like the tortoise, they’re winning the race at their own pace.

Their latest album, Be The Void, bucks that trend just a bit, but in a sporadic and undefined way. They were a little less subtle in the changes they’ve made and perhaps a bit too adventurous in making them. The album’s opening track, “Lonesome,” brings a bluesy folk layer to their oeuvre. It’s a decent sized leap for them and it works wonderfully. As the next track, “That Old Black Hole,” starts up with its funky beat, spacy backdrop, and bongo highlights, it is quickly apparent that the refreshing new sound found in “Lonesome” is not a harbinger for things to come. The album continues to fluctuate between different influences throughout the rest of the album, whether it be the late 70′s hair-rockers “Big Girl” and “Warrior Man,” the Eastern-infused “Get Away,” or the almost mirrored return to folk on album closer “Turning the Century.”

I am certainly not knocking variety as a whole, but in this case it seems that Dr. Dog may have added a bit too much too fast. The album ends up lacking cohesiveness and becomes rather a collection of songs. Some of the songs are great, and will be welcome additions to Dr. Dog’s excellent live show. It just doesn’t particularly work well in the album setting. The songs heard individually become more enjoyable then when they are played in the context of the whole album. This may not necessarily be a bad thing. I get the feeling that indie giants Wilco and My Morning Jacket have both progressed past their “great album” stage as they have suffered similar cohesiveness issues on their past couple of albums. Yet they are known to be two of the best live acts going in the indie-rock world and the albums still served well in adding new highlights to their concert experiences. Dr. Dog hasn’t gotten quite as much credit or popularity for their live show, but anyone who has seen them knows they’re among the best as well.

So perhaps they too have matured to the point where their best albums are in the rear view mirror and now we’re all humming along at Dr. Dog speed, enjoying the view. Or maybe it’s just a bump in the road. Regardless, I think Dr. Dog’s most ardent fans will find a lot to like here, just not sure how many new ones will be made.

Connect with Dr. Dog // web | twitter | facebook

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[video] The Maccabees // Feel To Follow

Written on February 8, 2012 by Andy in Music, Video

For as much as I enjoyed The Maccabees’ first album, 2007′s Colour It In, I never found time to listen to their follow up, and I haven’t done any better with their newest release, Given To The Wild, which was put out less than a month ago. This video is for their track “Feel To Follow,” which is on that third album. And because I haven’t been paying attention to what the band’s been up to, this seems like a totally new direction for them, although they could have been at it for a while now. Whichever it is, I like it.

Connect with The Maccabees // Facebook | Twitter | web

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[mp3] Manna (ft. Mark Lanegan) // Wishing Well

Written on February 8, 2012 by Rhys in Music

I’ll admit, it’s been a slow start to 2012 for me. Not a great deal in January really got me excited. Maybe it’s the prospect of a new Meat Loaf album in February that’s set my expectation bar pretty high for the year, but none of the year’s early releases really got me going.

So when I started listening to the new single “Wishing Well” by Finnish songstress Manna, it was with a slightly hopeless sigh of scepticism. I made my way through the first verse, minding my own business, enjoying her dulcet Nordic tones and then BAM!, the chorus hits and Mark Lanegan kicks through my speakers with snarls of electric guitar and shrill electronic whirls like Optimus Prime trashing a Kiss themed wedding party in Valhalla.

Lanegan doesn’t duet with just anyone, but it’s easy to see why he’s deigned to take part on this Manna track. Her sultry, slightly creepy verses play perfectly against a massive, industrial sounding chorus taken by Lanegan and his trademark growl. There’s superb interplay between the slow burning verses, adorned with lonely plinks of acoustic guitar, and the behemoth guitar thuds of the chorus. It’s a massive track, and has helped to add Manna’s upcoming sophomore album Shackles to my list of anticipated 2012 releases. And let’s hope Mark Lanegan spreads himself around a bit more too.

Connect with Manna // Facebook | Twitter | web

Manna (ft. Mark Lanegan) // Wishing Well [mp3] from Shackles

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[video] Miike Snow // Paddling Out

Written on February 7, 2012 by Andy in Music, Video

Miike Snow’s new album, Happy To You, isn’t due out for another six weeks or so, but that hasn’t stopped them from releasing a trio of tracks from it already. They put together this completely nonsensical video for “Paddling Out,” in which a guy is having a hell of a hangover hallucination and imagines himself dancing, being blasted by extraterrestrial ray guns, flying in outer space, etc. If that’s what Banana Juice does to a person, consider me not interested.

Happy To You is out on March 27th.

Connect with Miike Snow // Facebook | Twitter | web

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