Category Archives: Album Review

10.01.10
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Album Review: Mickey Mickey Rourke – Inner Gazing

I made two mistakes when I first set ears on Mickey Mickey Rourke‘s Inner Gazing.  Number one: I judged a band by its name.  And number two: I listened to the album at work.  Miller Rodriguez’s deceiving moniker evokes the thought of action-packed songs and loud, upbeat headbangers.  But instead, my ears were filled with meditative sound-art that soothed me into a hypnotic coma.  Euphoric lethargy ensued.  Levels of productivity promptly declined. 

Inner Gazing, however, is appropriately named.  You can’t help closing your eyes and sinking into seclusion.  Yet during this self-meditation, you might find yourself somewhere else.  It’s inner gazing for an out of body experience.  The album begins with the airy “Candy Cults” (featuring Top Girls)–a perfect introduction to the spiritual journey that lies ahead.  It starts you off in a natural setting (could be the chirping birds) and slowly eases you into meditation, inducing a sense of purity and tranquillity.  “Doozie,” explores a bit more as an etheral waterfall of notes pours over darker echoing sounds in the distance.  “Glitter Blood” (featuring Raw Moans) is possibly the most “spiritual” track on the album.  It’s very slow and gradual with subdued and serene voices blurring together with the other sounds.  Listening to this song is like seeing something for the first time and being strangely amazed by its beauty.

“Gloomy Guts” (featuring Craft Spells) is the one song that stands out as an actual song.  There are real lyrics, a good beat and melody, and the same sense of mellow self-reflection.  For the rest of the album you can expect various forms of audio-inspired meditation–sounds of underwater floating in “Koopa” and carefree, voiceless floating in, well, “Voiceless and Floating.”

Inner Gazing is meant to be listened to in isolation and with closed eyes.  It’s 49 refreshing minutes of tranquil meditation.  And it’s completely free to anyone who wants it.  So visit Mickey Mickey Rourke’s bandcamp site to download your very own, and sit back, relax, and watch the soothing soundscapes.

09.30.10
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Frankie Rose and the Outs – ‘Frankie Rose and the Outs’


Frankie Rose and the Outs’ self-titled debut album is at one point an artful, nearly abstract collection of sketches and at another point a nearly arch exploration of the modern synthesis of girl group sounds and gossamer strands of various ‘gaze’ and art rock entities. The band leader of the all girl group, Frankie Rose, has been in various Brooklyn bands such as Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts and the Dum Dum Girls and, while the album is closer to those faux-beach blanket bingo bands, there is enough of the aforementioned abstractions that Frankie Rose and the Outs operate less in songs and more in emotions and tones captured.

It feels easy to throw together touch points like Phil Spector, shoe-gaze, shit-gaze, beach bands, and the faux-surf sound that was popular last year, but there is a modulation and tonality added to the songs as pads dampen the sounds of aggressive-if-not-wholly-formed guitar lines snaking in and out of the foreground of the tracks as chimes, organs and keys accent back beats to create a near dizzying slumbering piece of near-occult Americana.

The words aren’t important as most songs have only snatches of lines stolen and presented for mood as they’re artfully blended beneath the expansive wide-screen production. However, there is the question of how much of this record can be presented live, where the artful techniques are more difficult to replicate.

Tucked between these explorations are some damn fine songs though. “Memo”, which begins with the barest of guitars before rhythm and chants of “bum ba da bum”; all of it fading back to the guitar before coming back for a strong noisy climax that carries a strong ‘rum-a-tum’ militant edge. It’s the barest of songs; there’s barely enough there to even call it a sketch. It’s like a pair of curved lines bending to intersect before they casually move apart. However, there is some depth to this, the strongest “song” on the album.

These plain pop songs may be less interesting, but they are no less strong. They’re upbeat and catchy despite the lyrics often being indeterminate, so it’s like listening to foreign language pop songs filtered through the past three years of Brooklyn music.

This is actually as good a descriptor as any for this first album. Frankie Rose has managed to capture a moment in time, frozen in amber whose sharp edges have been rounded off by time, distance, and liberally-applied, soft-focused, hazy nostalgia. This is a strange beast, but a beautiful one.

09.24.10
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Remix Fridays! OK Go “This Too Shall Pass” (Passion Pit Remix)

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Friday is here and we’re kicking off the weekend with a killer remix. We’re throwing back into the mix an oldie but super goodie….Passion Pit’s remix of OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass,” off Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. Enjoy it, dance your ass off to it, whatever. It’s a must listen especially if you are fan of either band. This is one remix that will NOT disappoint you. Ah if only they could all be as good as this.

OK Go – “This Too Shall Pass” (Passion Pit Remix) by ModernMystery3

09.24.10
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Album Review: Les Savy Fav – Root for Ruin

After nearly 15 years of bona fide rock and various on-stage debauchery, Les Savy Fav are still together and making loud and jaunty music for sweaty crowds to jam out to. For their fifth studio album, Root for Ruin (Frenchkiss Records), the Brooklyn band has returned three years after the release of their last album with as much energy and animation that you might expect from their first. For a band that has been together longer than some of their fans have been breathing, that is something to be proud of. And from their repetitive chanting of ‘we’ve still got our appetite’ in the album’s opener, “Appetite,” I think it’s safe to say that they are.

For their last album, Let’s Stay Friends, Les Savy Fav expanded their musical sound by including other artists and even vocals from fans.  But for Root for Ruin, it seems they played it safe and kept it within the Fav group.  And while one would think this contrast might result in a less exciting and heard-before sound, one would be wrong. The band’s evident-as-ever raw energy and excitement will explode from your speakers/headphones. Most tracks on the album are what you would expect from Les Savy Fav–in-your-face, edgy rockers. Tracks like opener “Appetites” or the guitar-frenzied “Dirty Knails” burst with the energy of their live show. The only thing missing is Tim Harrington–in front of you and dressed like a yeti, making out with a stranger.

But there are a few subdued tracks, like the graceful, grooveful “Sleepless in Silverlake,” that provide a fitting contrast to the usual sweat-fueled jams. One thing, however, remains the same throughout the entire album: it is upfront and direct the whole way through. “Let’s Get Out of Here” isn’t structurally or lyrically complex, but it gets the point across, and it’s catchy. The simple “I want you yo want me now” is overly cliché, but, among the rest of the lyrics, fitting and refreshingly straight forward. In “Excess Energies” Harrington is a 17-year-old loser reflecting on his possibly worthless life and in “Lips ‘n Stuff” Harrington wants a friend with benefits (and who doesn’t?).

It’s no secret. Les Savy Fav has never been fancy or stylistic. They don’t dress up their music (only Tim Harrington’s body) and they don’t confuse you with lyrics. They are real with you. And Root for Ruin is the real deal.

09.23.10
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Album Review: Weezer – Hurley


For those over thirty, read this section of the review:

Weezer’s new album, their first for Epitaph records, is like two sweet middle-aged people getting married in the final chapter of a Nicholas Sparks album. Epitaph, the snot nosed obnoxo-core record label that made it’s name in the early 1990s with bands like Offspring, NOFX and Rancid has found the perfect match in this album from Weezer, a return to everything you love about them pre-The Green Album.

For those of you under thirty, please read this section:

Weezer, that band with that “Island in the Sun” song has made an album talking about what it’s like to be old when the only thing you have to look forward to is nostalgia. Oh, but there’s an anthem here for nerdy girls called “Smart Girls” which is basically Buck Cherry’s “Crazy Bitch” for the Tumblr set.

Though a return to the earlier Pinkerton type emotive, poppy, jump around punk, Hurley is not without its own production decision missteps. For every strong song like the first single, “Memories”, a paean to the earlier years of the band which features some clever lyrics such as “When Audioslave was still Rage”, there is an odd track such as “Hang On” filled with all of the strange “wide screen” production flourishes like those that made Against Me!’s New Wave such a disappointment.

These extraneous elements find their way to “Unspoken” in the form of a flute backing the acoustic guitar phrases, and “Trainwrecks” in a Pet Shop Boys-like synth pad intro. Though there are times when these embellishments do add to the songs such as “Time Flies” and “Run Away” yet even there it sounds like they had extra money so why not continue to tinker with tracks to show “Hey we used the production budget!”

A lot has been made about the “grown up” sound of this album, but you’d be better off examining this as more of a mid-life crisis; an album designed to be wistful and bank on the previous experiences the audience had with Weezer than on trying to push forward. Though if Hurley prevents another Raditude, I’m all for it.