Puzzle Quest – Remnants of the Orb, HYAH! – Vol. 1

Despite the fact that I have less and less time to review albums these days, I seem to be getting more and more sent to me.  Much of what I hear is not bad, even good, but doesn’t inspire me to set aside time to write a review.   In some cases, it just might be a genre I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to weigh in on.  In others, I was just way to busy with real life (see missed opportunities to write about the excellent semi-recent releases from Lonnie Walker and Jenny Besetzt).  Okay, maybe I’ve had a little writer’s block lately, too. :)

But recently, I’ve gotten a couple of releases that are pretty close to my musical sweet spots.  And they both just happen to come from within my own family.  The first is Remnants from the Orb by PuzzleQuest, from Champaign-Urbana, IL.  Look, whether or not my nephew was their drummer, any band that comes from the same town as Poster Children would have made my ears perk up. 

Remnants opens with a Minutemen-esque spiel (The New Flesh), a Pavement-slacker lament (Rick’s Gone), and a mellow stoner groove (Sequential Friends).   It hits on these styles throughout.  Fun pop-punk ditties are interspersed with jazzy jams, and Dale is just a pure pop gem. 

I read another review that said Puzzle Quest couldn’t decide on what they wanted to sound like on Remnants.  There’s some truth to that in that there’s a diversity of styles.  But to me, that’s part of the appeal.  I like not knowing what to expect next.  Wowee Zowee and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain jumped around so much – from wide-open twanginess to punk grinders to nightclub jitters – they gave you whiplash.  But those Pavement classics still worked as a cohesive units.  Likewise, Remnants of the Orb still “sounds” like Puzzle Quest throughout, and that sounds pretty good.

The second release is Vol. 1 from College Station, Texas band HYAH!  Another nephew (Eliot, keys), another college band.  Vol. 1 jumps around between funky grooves and indie-punk (their fb page appropriately describes their genre as “punkfunk”).  Annie is a little of both, with crunchy guitars merging with jazzy vocals and pop melodies.  Alaska is a really cool ‘60s party vibe (think more Peter Sellars The Party than Woodstock).  Dimples and Teeth’s fun punk reminds me of Wilmington’s late-great Free Clinic.  Angry Fish takes you on a 2-minute noise-weirdness-fest, before Vol. 1 closes with a couple of almost pure funk jams.  These guys might even be more schizophrenic than Puzzle Quest!  Did I already say that's a good thing?

Were it not for the family connections, I probably would never have heard of Puzzle Quest or HYAH!  But I gotta say, relatives or not, if they were locals, I’d definitely be hitting up their shows. 

Oh, did I say my niece is in a band, too?  Rally Owls.  Keep an ear out.  (I think musical talent must skip generations in my family)

Jenny Besetzt, Wing Dam, Secret Anderson (Kings, Raleigh, 8/5/17)

Jenny Besetzt has consistently been one of the best bands in North Carolina since I first caught them at a Hopscotch day party a few years ago.  Their new album, Tender Madness, should be on everyone's heavy rotation.  Driving bass, spine-tingling guitars, and what's becoming clear to be one of the most badass drummers in the Triangle, come together musically for an angular, retro-futuristic sound.  Bright light, dark energy.  But Jon Wollaber's unfathomably deep baritone is the cherry on the top (or deep down in the abyss).  Speaking of Hopscotch Music Festival, they're about to play with Future Islands on the big stage there, before embarking on a tour across wide swaths of the US and Canada with the Islands.

They played another powerful set at Kings last weekend, with two comparably great openers.  Baltimore's Wing Dam were full of crunchy indie-punk, and brought a grinding fun energy to the stage as usual.  South Carolina's Secret Guest and ET Anderson joined forces as Secret Anderson to celebrate the launch of the new label/platform/collective APT by the bands' respective frontmen Brett Churchill Nash and Wilson W. Wilson... or is it Tyler T. Tyler? :)

Photos and a couple of videos below.

Secret Anderson...

Wing Dam...

Jenny Besetzt...

Secret...!

... Anderson!

Just Another Raleigh Friday Night: Part II - Ghostt Bllonde/Seabreeze Diner/the Dead Bedrooms, Gudiya (7/14/17)

Continuing my chronicle of just an average Friday night in downtown Raleigh, after Granite In Reverse outside (see earlier post), I head indoors for what promised to be a fun 3-band bill at Kings Barcade.  All three acts share an affinity for mid-century pop, something I like to hear in new music after it percolates through the brains of today's kids.  I hadn't yet seen opening act the Dead Bedrooms.  They had perhaps the most straight-ahead-pop take... a little surfy and maybe a little '80s too.  They show real promise for a new band.

The Dead Bedrooms...

This was my second time seeing Seabreeze Diner.  They bounce crunchy dual guitars off smooth crooning, and filled the bigger room nicely (I'd seen them at the quaint, excellent but more quaint Carrboro venue the Station).  I'm not sure, but they might just like the Everly Brothers even more than Ghostt Bllonde's Marc Kuzio.

Seabreeze Diner...

(when the action is perfect but your auto-focus can't keep up)

What can I say about Ghostt Bllonde that I haven't already?  (after several years, I think I finally have the "LL"s and the "TT"s right?  Oh yeah, I know... GET THAT DAMN ALBUM OUT GUYS!!!  I know they're close; judging from the updates crossing my feed, praising the work of the great Missy Thangs finishing it up at Mitch Easter's Fidelitorium studio.  

Ghostt Bllonde...

GB having some fun with SD...

As I said, there was plenty going on this night.  Being a longtime fan of Indian music, Bollywood or otherwise, I had to check out a unique offering at Slim's called Garam Masala.  Advertised as "an experimental night of spicy selections", it featured a DJ, Gudiya, mixing South Asian sounds with electronic.  Altered the usual Slim's atmosphere into a more experimental, easy-going vibe... great for a post-show beer.  I even recognized a couple from the movies I used to watch much more often... think I heard Chaiyya Chaiyya, and maybe some Jazzy B.  Check out Gudiya's Sister Mix on her Soundcloud page.

Gudiya & incense...

Here's a couple of videos from the King's show...

North Elementary - And Every Color You Have Ever Seen (Potluck)

North Elementary’s new LP, And Every Color You Have Ever Seen, opens with staccato guitar lines and words of encouragement and optimism:  “I know you’re dreaming of something / well I don’t care what it is / as long as you’re dreaming of something.”  I’m not great at interpreting (even hearing, really) lyrics, but I'd translate that as:  DO something, MAKE art, MAKE the world a better place.  It’s up to you!

…Color has lotsa psych-y vibes and straight-ahead power pop, and even swerves into southern rock territory at times.  As in earlier albums, North Elementary’s music is laced with ‘80s Brit & ‘90s American indie (I hear Versus and Built to Spill this time ‘round, especially the latter in Dems Da Breaks).  They pull all this diversity together into what is really a cohesive and non-derivative sound.

This collection makes for a really great (if a bit early) summer album, especially cuts like the jumpy Slippin’ Into the Sun and the stoner haze of Waste a Day.  What the hell, start your summer early.  

North Elementary celebrate this release with a great line-up at the Cat's Cradle Backroom, tonight, 4/7/14.  The Wyrms, S.E. Ward, and Reflex Arc open.  

Here Comes the Summer, Darlin’: Free Clinic – Wait It Out

I don’t know what it is.  Being from a beach town (Wilmington, NC), maybe it’s in their blood.  Maybe they absorb the salt from the air, osmotically.  But when I hear FreeClinic, I instantly think waves and sun and sand.  I, too, have saltwater in my veins, so I have a nose for these things.  Oh, maybe it’s also the “ooohs” and “aaahs” that bubble up from underneath Diggin’ My Own Grave and Hide Around, two cuts from their new release, Wait It Out.  Or the beautiful reverb, as on Young.  Or that singer Benjamin Rose outright sings “Here comes the summer, Darlin’” on Better. 

But the WAY he sings it, the WAY it’s played, you feel it.  It becomes summer right in your ears, all around you, in your personal space.  Regardless of that late-season cold snap, or that it’s still not quite warm enough for a day out the waves in a kayak.  But you want it to be.  Wait It Out makes you really want it to be.  But summer’s coming soon enough, and with this album, no worries… they’ve already got yer soundtrack picked out for you. 

Free Clinic definitely has that beachy/retro feel, albeit mixed with a raggedy, slightly garage-y edge.   But unlike many others worshipping at the altar of Brian Wilson, they don’t sound derivative.  Probably because they practice as much or more in the churches of the Descendents and the Strokes (but hey, I thought the Descendents made some damn fine beach tuneage!). 

But back to derivation… or lack thereof.  Free Clinic just has a real way with a hook, a melody.  Generally, they’re making pop music that’s pretty simple – nothing revolutionary.  Not to downplay that.  It’s mu’fuggin’ CATCHY simple pop music.  You have to walk a mighty fine line to create melodies that are austere and unfussy, yet don’t sound like something you’ve already heard.  There are at least 3 or 4 genuine pop gems on this album.  I mean songs that you could see getting picked up and played anywhere -- in that movie, on that commercial – and enjoyed everywhere, by everyone.

Rose’s voice is a highlight.  He’ll switch from a punk-room wail to a bedroom warble, or back, at the right time.  Even when he's revving it up, there’s a sadness about it.  Maybe that’s where the bittersweetness in the band’s overall sound comes from.  This music is drenched in a wonderful heartsickness.  As poppy as it sounds, it’s also a little wounded. 

Part of that is the lyrics of lovesickness and yearning running throughout.  “I’ll be right there if you want me to”, “With you is always better / just want you to remain”.  But I’m not much of a lyrics guy, and I’m a decade or two and a divorce past my ability to wallow in lovesickness.  Part of it is maybe also the descending melodies and off-kilter keys.  Even when happy sounding, these songs have a wonderful sting.  And it’s great that you can feel that in music.

It starts with the upbeat All Over, which definitely has that sting.  It soars, reveling in a flood of feelings, before crashing in desperation with “please tell me when it’s all over.”  After a couple of more down-tempo charmers, one of the afore-mentioned pop gems, Better, grabs you.  It’s a really great song.  Simple strumming and dejected-but-hopeful opening lines climb to a more optimistic tone, backed by chiming double guitars.  And for the life of me, Rose sounds like a young Billie Joe Armstrong here (not usually, though).    

Off My Rocker and No More Problems are two more carat-laden cuts.  They bounce all over the place (as you probably will when you listen).  Both of those were on earlier demo releases by the band.  I have to admit I still like the demo versions of these two songs better (more atmospheric backing vocals and a “softer” feel).  But this album is great on its own merits.  If the worst thing you can say about a band is you like their demos better, they’re doing pretty well.  On these versions, I hear more layered guitar melodies.  That’s where their sound appears headed for now… especially live, with the recent addition of a second guitarist.  Tight, energy-laden rhythms from drummer Wesley Hewett and bassist Morgan Roberts keep pushing those geetars.  On the whole, I’d say Wait It Out is a little more stripped down and cleaner sounding than the band’s earlier releases.

I just got feelz for this album.  Deep feelz.  I don’t know about you, but my summer has begun.

P.S.:  As for those demo versions, I highly recommend getting any of the MixGrotto compilations on the MixGrotto Bandcamp page (the band had a full B-side Demos album up on their page, but it’s unfortunately no longer there).  MixGrotto, also out of Wilmington, makes sort of millenial “mixtapes” with an NC bent; they’ve put out 18(!) so far.   The last couple have those two Free Clinic demos, as well as tunes from other great coastal NC bands such as Astro Cowboy and Zack Mexico, and piedmont bands T0W3RS, Less Western, Echo Courts, Silent Lunch, Daddy Issues… etc. etc.  If you want a good sampler of current NC music, MixGrotto is a great place to start.

The Kneads – Letting You Let Me Down (PotLuck Foundation/Records)

Greensboro’s The Kneads are a band haunted by ghosts of the past… specifically early to mid ‘90s indie ghosts.  And that’s fine by me, because for all that era’s resurgence in popularity, I’ve heard few new bands actually continuing to mine the vein. 

Which is not to say they’re derivative.  It might sound like they wear their influences on their sleeves.  People (even their press kit) cite influences like local heroes Superchunk, as well as DC post-hardcore band Fugazi.  I also hear Midwestern acts like Poster Children and Braid, and another great DC band, Jawbox.   But these can’t rightfully be called influences.  Members of The Kneads were playing in indie bands of some note back then (going back to The Raymond Brake), so they were really more contemporaries.  Now, with The Kneads, they’re just continuing to do what they’ve always done. 

The thing about “indie guitar rock” is, it’s a vein with plenty more left to tap.  When done well (and The Kneads do it well), it’s not just thrashing of guitars with a melody buried in the din.  Within the simple guitar-bass-drums dynamic (here, sometimes guitar-guitar-drums), there’s ample opportunity for the unexpected:  complex instrumental and vocal interplay, surprising chord and tempo changes, etc.  And the unexpected, for me, is what makes music worth listening to. 

Their debut CD, Letting You Let Me Down (great title, btw), on Durham’s PotLuck, is full of dense, dissonant guitars, with unanticipated little twists and turns embedded throughout.  The first cut, North and South of Temperament, is a perfect example.  The bridge slows and slips you into a completely different melody -- almost a different song entirely -- before resuming the driving hook that opened the song.  Call-and-response lyrics here, and in other tunes like Persistence Changes Everything, add yet another layer.  I do hear Fugazi in Persistence and a few other places, but the similarity is more vocal (courtesy bassist/guitarist Michael Joncas) than musical.   No, check that.  Maybe also in the jazz-ish complexity of the instrumentation.  While there are more straightforward head-bobbers like Jaded and Rejuvenated and Toto Recall (and more great titles), they always have a more-than-par-for-the-course intricacy, often via syncopated rhythms from drummer Joe Garrigan.  

Toto Recall and Microcelebrity visit the music scenes of yesterday and today, respectively.  The former flashes back to the summer of ’95, post-adolescence, and self-doubt, twisting Tom Petty’s discontented lyric into the more open-ended, even optimistic (?), “start draggin’ my heart around”.  It then pleasantly ventures into a little psychedelic spacey-ness near the end.  Microcelebrity bemoans the current crop of “pseudo-indierock” bands trying to claim the overused mantle.  With indie having long-since become a buzz-word, guitarist Joel Darden laments singers that have “no virtues to extoll / just cheap-ass hood-rat dime-store rock’n’roll” and have “read the Pitchfork poll”.  Or… is he one of them?  Self-doubt, it seems, is always there. 

At the end of Microcelebrity, Interpol-esque guitars devolve into still more spacey sounds, before the space theme becomes lyrically overt in I Miss Your Underdog Days.  I must say this one had me flashing back to Poster Children’s Junior Citizen, with all the mission control terminology, though it’s more relationship than music metaphor (“Did you wake up in the thermosphere?  It don’t matter, get your ass back here!”).  Fistful of Contradictions brings it way down with an almost experimental number, answering-machine “vocals” struggling from underneath acoustic strumming and chiming electric.  Then the album returns to the rawk with its driving closer, the Fugazi-meets-Smashing Pumpkins Frames.   

Of course, there’s yet another surprise at the end… and not just because it’s a hidden track (and, due to the chorus of “Not gonna let you let me down”, I assume the title track).  It veers WAY left into a twangy, reverb-laden, light-pop vibe, and it’s a wonderful way to (actually) close the album.  Don’t touch your dial until it ends! 

Overall, Letting You Let Me Down is a nice bridge between hardcore & indie-rock, from a band clearly schooled in these genres, but smart enough to mix it up throughout to keep it interesting.