Category: Rock

TRACK | Shannon and the Clams – King of the Sea

5/5 golden merles

Pretty sure King of the Sea is rock and/or roll, though it’s seen in the wild so rarely that sometimes it is hard to recognize.

There are plenty of bands in possession of guitars and drums, and they even play them, if pressed. But not quite like this.

All the pretense is stripped, and under the guts of the track are exposed a bit. And still it staggers forward with a rawness and intensity, the energy (probably eternal, huh?) is unleashed.

Captivatingly and kindly, they’re playing to the pit.

Sleep Talk is not on bandcamp, unfortunately, and spotify only lets you embed a 20-second clip (?) but here’s their other stuff.

TRACK | The Coromandelles – The Project

5/5 golden merles

The Project is a golden and somewhat bloody haze of chamber surf. The tune is outfitted with much to admire: bells, whistles, but structurally it is also sound underneath.

Proudly pop, lest the textures fool you, the build into the chorus will convey and confirm your suspicions: all of this is meant to go together, and is precise with intention.

Artisans have built it and now it is to be admired. It’s a great structure of a beast.

TRACK | Naomi Punk – Gentle Movement Toward Sensual Liberation

5/5 golden merles

In somewhat keeping with the aside, this is an instrumental track on an album that otherwise features exceptional vocal production and performances.

And within that context, after the also superb track Burned Body, Gentle Movement toward Sensual Liberation lands with the most wobbled grace and poise.

An enclave of singing synths deliver a kind of orchestral chamber pop, built around two well textured, extra-strength melodies.

TRACK | Gorgeous Bully – Stamp

5/5 golden merles

Stamp is one of them joyous garage rock lamentations, end to end.

Everything down to the outro refrain and terminal exclamation are so well balanced and calibrated, it almost defies belief. The fuzz and fade are most agreeably punctuated by the lead guitars tremolo.

Disgust and disillusionment never sounded so kindly, even merry. Tom Waits enjoys “Beautiful melodies telling (him) terrible things,” and so do I.

It is Good.

TRACK | Noun Verb Adjective – Goodbye to Summer (Rock & Roll Pt. 3)

5/5 golden merles

Noun Verb Adjective has some wonderfully crafted lo-fi bedroom pop rock.

If you would believe it, Boys in the Sand does have some Beach Boys stylistic parallels. The hooks and layers of vocals carom over one another and the tambourine/snare provides a warm and welcoming hive to orbit.

A superb owl on the cover guides you home. It’s a good, small marvel.

TRACK | Honey Radar – Medium Mary Todd

5/5 golden merles

Sickly strummed guitars and cooing, warbled vocals are good. This song has both. It also has the most minimalistic drum track you may have ever heard in which one remains technically present.

The sum of it’s parts are quietly a spectacle that is worth taking in.

It has all the energy and promise of that first demo draft of a melody and rough lyric, a stab taken on tape, to play back later to build upon, before the verses are nailed down and the chorus repeats, burdensomely, to warrant having taught it to the band in the first place.

At 74 seconds, It’s a non-invasive surgery. What do you have to lose.

TRACK | Frankie Traandruppel – The Darkness (comes to town)

5/5 golden merles

A great, soundly built garage rock track, strumming and bashing about over the tapes sturdy hiss. When the organ arrives to accompany the chorus you know you’re in good hands for the remainder.

The vocal and audio peaking is skillfully used for intensity, never overstepping into painful or distracting but instead gracefully bracing itself off of this ceiling.

If I had five golden merles to give I would give it five golden merles.

ALBUM | Cathedrale – Houses are Built the Same

5/5 golden merles

Toulouse-based Cathedrale have made one hell of an album in Houses are Built the Same.

The selected track here, Hidden Museum, begins with the tube amp warmed tones of some lackadaisical dueling guitars, just a bit of bass lurking underneath. The direct payoff of the well-controlled and appropriately contorted vocals arrive shortly thereafter, agreeably raving about secrets and understanding.

There is a controlled chaos that is admirably achieved here, and the vision is clear and well realized throughout. Consistently catchy and permeating vitality, this is a kind of treasure.

The instrumentation and hooks are given space to breath, the attention-trap detailing is superb, and the metered and mastering is an assemblage of worthy influences. For some larger touchstones, it is the spiritual cousins of Ought, Metric, and Protomartyr; warped but well wrapped.

TRACK | Amy Annelle – Miss it more than you know how

5/5 golden merles

Amy Annelle is a national treasure, albeit a Texas-based one so it’s a bit of a gray area.

In the alternate timeline in which Bernard Sanders has become the president, I imagine she is universally well regarded and heaped+drowning in praise.

But here we are in this rendition. The good still draws to it the good, but with slightly less gravity.

Regardless, The Cimarron Banks is a great album. The opening title track, the hellhound’s address, wounded man, forever in-between, and Miss it more than you know how, here featured, are all noteworthy achievements in songwriting and performance.

Annelle offers first-rate lyrical content interwoven with enduring melodies and an extremely technically accomplished delivery that is not stripped of character and nuance but rather plastered in them. It is difficult to ask for more than this.

TRACK | Black Bug – Well Well

Black Bug - S/T
5/5 golden merles

Well, well is a stunning track and, good news, the whole album is built like this. Maybe a full, proper review to come when things settle down a bit.

But Black Bug’s s/t is a well contained rampage of burning saw patterns, choral uproar and properly clobbered digi drums.

15 tracks and no song is longer than 2:08.

Female/Male tradeoff the purging, vocal utterances and I don’t know if any album is as much fun as this is fun.

Name your price.